Goodbye Blogger

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Down on "religion" & up with "faith"?

I've noticed in a number of places the trend of opposing "religion" with "faith." Setting up these two concepts as foils--as in "religion does x badly, while faith is perfectly y"--might be catchy, but is terribly false.

The underlying concept seems to be something like religion, religiosity, etc. all have an institutional component which squeezes out the main point of belief. So I know many Christians who refuse to describe or understand their belief as "religion," in either a descriptive or normative sense. However, to speak about Christian belief as non-religious ("we're a faith") is disingenuous. It masks the institutional qualities which the Christian faith not only posseses now, but has since apostolic times. In every form/time/place, there is leadership, doctrine, and ministries--all of which are institutional, supposedly "religious" characteristics.

Furthermore, describing Christian belief as only a "faith" panders to those who believe that you can be "spiritual," whatever that means, without being "religious." Christian faith is a robust expression that encompasses heart, head, and hands, which cannot be lived out without a vital connection to others in a community of faith. To portray a "me & Jesus faith" (which admittedly many are hawking on street corners and in Starbucks) is a vapid and shallow expression of what is intended to be dynamic and engaging. If we want to talk about institutionalism or fossilization, about what our call and mission is...well, that would be great. But to disparage religion as if it is ossified by virtue of what it is is just smoke and mirrors.

If we would speak of religion, let's begin with etymology. Our English word is derived from the Latin religio, which means "to bind." Think about what religion does for believers. What does "religion" actually describe?

When I talk at the university about religious belief (to a diverse and usually skeptical audience), I generally ask these questions:

What binds us to nature/the created order?
What binds us to one another?
What binds us to God/ultimate reality?

Answering these questions move us away from the false dichotomy of religion/faith, and toward a deeper appreciation of what religion attempts to accomplish.

Moreover, it exposes the fact that human beings naturally ask these big questions. In this sense, we are homo religious. This is why the academic study of religion has an important role to play at universities and colleges. Unfortunately, many state schools--including the institution I serve--have an anemic department at best.

This approach to "religion" reminds us that you don't have to be an adherent of a religion to possess religious beliefs. Not a fervent believer in God? You can still hold religious beliefs deeply. In fact, the most secular scientist will have a strong grasp on humanity's place in the universe. That's a religious belief.

To make religion and faith into polar opposites is just plain silly. Let's start thinking about what we believe about who were are and where we are, and see how that might actually draw us closer together. It might turn out that we're bound together in ways that would surprise us!

"Let no place in me hold itself closed..."

For some reason, reading poetry seems the perfect way to end the day. Rainer Maria Rilke's The Book of Hours is especially appropriate in the last, dark hours. Written at the turn of the last century, it is as powerful in the first decade of this one. I am quite taken with this particular poem, and I hope you are as mesmerized by it as I am this evening.

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing--
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones--
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let not place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. I, 13. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy, trans. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996, 2005.

Twitter and Mission Fields

In "The Goal of Twitter's New Homepage?" the social media gurus at Mashable suggest that Twitter is expanding their horizons: rather than being a network all about you, what you're doing, what your friends are doing, and what

BTW, my standard defense of Twitter is that it is a place to engage real people and their ideas. Twitter puts a human face on events like The Episcopal Church's General Convention, on corporate behemoths like Southwest Airlines and Starbucks, and engages in inventive pastoral care and liturgical expression: look at @TheUrbanAbbey @butterflybeacon @twiturgies and others. I read people's blogs, laugh at their pictures, read news stories and commentary they find interesting or challenging, and often enter into a conversation that responds to John Wesley's question: "How is it with your soul?"

I have a longer thought developing about why Twitter is really useful, but Mashable's take on Twitter's new homepage reflects good ecclesiological practice as well. We ought to be moving away from an exclusively individual-centered church towards one which is attentive to a broader mssion field:

Emphasizing that Twitter is the world’s platform for realtime information, for being connected to the entire world, is a savvy move on the part of Twitter....Branding Twitter as the one place where you are plugged in to the collective world makes it tougher to ignore. You can say “I don’t feel like updating people on my life,” but it’s far tougher to say “I don’t care about what’s happening in the world.”

What would it take for the church to say, "I don't feel like catering to the worries in my own life...I care about mending the world!" ? This shift in emphasis means not just a re-branding move, like changing from the SciFi channel to SyFy, but making an enormous culture shift. It means moving past the toddler "me me me" stage to the point where we mature into the body of Christ building one another up so that we may all come to the fullness of faith and full stature of Christ (cf Ephesians 4).

What kind of faith do we inculcate? Are we just asking, "How are you doing?" Or are we caring about what's happening in God's world?

Where Does God Happen?

At the top of the list of things Josh wrestles with in his own life is my uneasiness within myself as I relate to other people. Whether it's because I was raised in a loving-yet-high-expectation environment, mocked throughout my school years for my nerdiness (evidence of which has always been in abundance!), or my own conviction within myself that I have a major role to play in this world...I can't help but be anxious about how I relate to others.

My own knowledge of myself is remarkably limited...self-awareness is not one of my strong suits, and I've never been good socially. And, of course, this is intimately related to how well I can relate to and understand another human being. How this relates to our salvation, witness, and life in the Spirit is the concern of Rowan Williams' excellent Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another.

This litle book is actually a reflection upon the contemporary state of society and the church through the lens of the Desert Fathers & Mothers, and he relies heavily upon Benedicta Ward's excellent translation of the Sayings, for it is liberally sprinkled with statements and anecdotes illuminating a monastic vocation both dramatically different from our common life and remarkably desirable. Williams begins with the father of desert monasticism, St Anthony, and his interlinked concern with salvation and communal relationships:

Our life and death is with our neighbor. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have sinned against Christ. (13)

And this theme of life & death & the neighbor doesn't just frame the opening chapter but the entire book. Self-examination, righting our broken relationships with God & neighbor, the balance between justice and mercy, and sitting in judgement (or accountability!) are all radically re-framed by Williams' exegesis of Scripture and the exemplary desert monastics. He then describes becoming a person (rather than individual or mindless automaton) before taking on the central tension between flight and stability in the last two chapters. An appendix contains some relevant selections from the sayings themselves.

The question that Where God Happens raised for me throughout has to do with the relationship between the type of faith encouraged by Williams and his monastic forbears and the current communities of faith most of us find ourselves in. To say that this type of reflection, action, and comprehension would be alien to the churches I'm associated with is an understatement. I'm forced to wonder: "Does this presume a more rigorous community that is throughly familiar with and committed to a Biblical/gospel faith?"

Or is this putting the cart before the horse? Perhaps all it takes is a St Anthony figure who is willing to live life with others, yet in isolation, to begin the transformative work in a local church or community. Williams proposes that we consider not a casuistic approach to ethics (in which you have a certain scenario, and then a set of responses) but a virtue-ethics approach which focuses on shaping character rather than outcomes. This is why Williams understands the church's blessing on life-long commitments such as marriage and ordination vows (and monastic vows): those who take them "are bound to the patient, long-term discovery of what grace will do with them" (67).

So I am not surprised that Williams, despite his position as Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, observes that "the church is always renewed from the edges rather than from the center. There is a limit to what the institutional church can do" (111). The priorities of being church as Jesus calls his disciples to be church are always at least in danger of being displaced (if it's not already happening) by the values of being a self-perserving, continuing institution. If anyone understands this better than Williams, their address must have Vatican City in it. So we return to the need for Church (whether local or global) to have renewal elements which call us back to the dirty here-and-now, the unpolished enfleshed existence which is but our raw material--not the end product.

Where God Happens is a difficult and challenging read, despite its lack of theological insider-language and brevity. It is precisely the kind of book which will haunt me for a long time after its reading, for its incisive description of human nature (my nature) as well as its insistence on the basic shape of the Kingdom of God and salvation. Williams reminds us that in the Christian life, "the goal is reconcilation with God by way of this combination of truth and mercy...to heal by solidarity, not condemnation" (19, 20).

Living Theologians!

"Ten living practical theologians who have changed my own faith and life and why you should read them too" would be the subtitle of this post, if Blogger would let me do that...

A few caveats on this list: I have read more than one thing by each of these authors. There are some great things out there that I would love to put on this list (Elaine Heath's life-changing The Mystic Way of Evangelism, for example) but this list reflects a consistently transformative oeuvre for these authors. Also, this is a list of people alive when I wrote this piece. I am sorely tempted to add Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr., but to be fair, then I'd have to extend it back 2,000 years, and that's too much trouble right now!

Final note, the list is in alphabetical order merely because it would be a nightmare trying to rank them all. So without further ado, here are my picks for "Living Theologians!"

Rob Bell
He betrays an enthusiastic evangelical heart that is evident both in his media efforts like the NOOMA videos and the "Everything is Spiritual" tour as well as in his book-length offerings Velvet Elvis and SexGod. He rarely settles for the easy answers yet makes it look effortless as he exegetes a troublesome or over-familiar Biblical passage with a timely and fresh approach.

Frederick Buechner
Both his witty miscellanies of faith (Peculiar Treasures etc.) and his extended literary meditations on the ordinary holiness (Godric is perhaps the best-known) are full of God's laughter and laced with human finitude. I particularly recommend Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale as one of the most formative things I've read on preaching and ministry.

Richard Foster
I first met Foster's classic work in college, browsing through my nearby Cokesbury store for things I had heard other people talk about but hadn't yet read. In the 10 years since then, I probably have read Celebration of Discipline a half-dozen times, and taught it on multiple continents. His commitment to the development of the interior life (and its outward effects) brings me back to the living heart of the Christian faith time and again. Streams of Living Water, Prayer, and other Renovare' resources are excellent reads as well.

Gordon Lathrop
Perhaps not well known outside of Lutheran or liturgical-theology circles, Lathrop is an extremely conventional theologian in the sense that he tackles a particular area of theology and seizes it with the determination of a small dog. Yet he manages to do so with outdoorsy, ecumenical insights that yield unconventional thoughts. Lathrop's excellent reflection on the clerical vocation The Pastor and his trilogy of liturgical explorations (Holy Things, Holy People, Holy Ground) are some of the best things I was introduced to while in seminary.

Eugene Peterson
Perhaps best known for his paraphrase of the Bible known as The Message, Peterson writes with a prophetic, graceful word for pastors, lay leaders, and the whole flock of the faithful. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (reflections on the Psalms of Ascent which began The Message project) and Under the Unpredictable Plant display his fervor for the ministry of the local church and the conviction that is to be done under the influence of God alone.

Marilynne Robinson
With the partial exception of Buechner, Robinson is the only fiction author on my list. Her Gilead was nothing short of a masterpiece, and I'm beginning the follow-up, Home, which takes up the story of an Iowa town a generation or two later. Her study of theology and the life of "middle America" is harnassed by a soaring, piercing beauty which punctuates ever page.

Don Saliers
I had the delight of studying with Don at Candler, and he more than any other person I've met cultivated the sense of beauty and wonder that is present in liturgy, theology, and The Soul in Paraphrase is an excellent study of prayer and heart-language via Jonathan Edwards; Worship and Spirituality is the most delightful exposition of those two pieces of the life of faith that I've ever read; and A Song to Sing, A Life to Live is a conversation with his daughter Emily (of the Indigo Girls) on the deep relationships Saturday night concerts have with Sunday morning worship.

Barbara Brown Taylor
She is better known for her preaching, but her reflections on the intersection of Christian vocation and ordinary life such as The Preaching Life and Leaving Church are poetry in prose. I really can't describe them justly: go read for yourself!

Miroslav Volf

Exclusion and Embrace is a book that many of us read while in seminary, but it was his 2006 Lent book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace that really made an impact on my own life, highlighting the ways in which we fail to give as God gives as well as forgive as Jesus does. (It's also an excellent commentary on Luther on Paul). It is a must-read for pastors and church members who want to understand what is at the heart of God's character.

Rowan Williams
The Archbishop of Canterbury is not just the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, but he is also an engaging and thoughtful author. He isn't afraid to let his scholarly credentials shine (he was highly regarded as a theology professor before his episcopal career began), but it always does so in service to the church. I particularly enjoyed Where God Happens (reviewed on The Expatriate Minister here) and Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, which began life as a series of Holy Week talks on the Nicene Creed.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these authors (and corrections to the list!)....

Asking the Right Questions (6 of them)

As a pastor, I often get asked the question: "So how do I know what God wants me to do?" And the answer I give is pretty much the standard issue one: pray + read your Bible + listen to the wisdom of the people God gave you + use your own common sense. But there's another step in there which has to happen before you can even begin the hard work of discernment.

You have to ask the right questions.

Let's think about it this way: if you are thinking about transportation, and you want to know the answer to the question "Does God want me to buy this Lexus or that Hummer?" then chances are you aren't going to be hearing God speak clearly because you haven't asked the right question. You've already narrowed the parameters so much that the Holy Spirit got marginalized. You haven't asked "Does God want me to get a car," or "Do I need to consider alternative transportation," you haven't asked the hard questions about how to spend the money you may or may not have, and you haven't asked any justice or righteousness questions (environment, workers' issues, etc.). Too often, the task of discernment is either too frustrating or too easy because we don't ask the right kinds of questions.

We've been engaged in a prayer journey over the past 38 1/2 days, and that will end this week. To immediately assume that because we spent 40 days praying, reading our Bibles, talking amongst ourselves, and using our common sense we are ready to fix the broken things in our churches would be presumptuous. These are the kinds of conversations I had with my best friends in seminary, and are still somewhat amusing, but don't take into account the real world in which we must do our ministry.

"40 Days of Prayer for the United Methodist Church" has been a convicting, heartening, difficult, joyous time. But before we begin the hard work of semper reformanda, we must ensure our premises and our questions are sound, and that they rest upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ, else the building will--sooner or later--come crashing down around our heads.

So, you're invited to help discern what the right questions might be. Join us in asking "6 Questions for the United Methodist Church"--or 6qUMC--today. You can find more information at http://www.umcyoungclergy.com/6qumc and we hope that you will help renew the church from the margins.

Invite two friends to join you as you listen and converse. We're ready to begin asking the right questions.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Matthew 18:20

"No Simple Language"

I stumbled across an old favorite album as I made my way home on Saturday after a week at church camp. I probably haven't listened to the first Jars of Clay effort in its entirety in about 10 years, but I think it still holds its age about as well as any Christian album I've ever heard (with only "Jesus Freak" by dc Talk as a peer). The eclectic instrumentation, piercing poetry for the lyrics, and sheer joy that shines through it differentiated it from both the mainstream alternative of the '90s and from its contemporaries in the Christian Music camp.

"Flood" may have been the most popular song on the album, with its heavy alternative feel--and it's probably one of the biggest reasons for Jars' crossover appeal--but the one that remains my favorite is "Love Song for a Savior." Towards the beginning of the song, it tells us that "she loves the daisies and the roses/no simple language/someday she'll understand/the meaning of it all..."

I don't just love this song because of my history with it in the formative years of my faith, nor for the fact that I can see my two-year-old daughter with this kind of delight and potential and hope. I also love it for the sheer poetry that opens up the whole of my interior world for reflection.

Doesn't good poetry do that for us? Far from the simplistic rhymed couplets which most amateur poets inflict upon us, a good Shakespearean sonnet (or his blank verse, for that matter) or the horribly-absent-all-punctuation e e cummings delight and dumbfound us. Rabindranath Tagore, Constanstine Cavafy, Rilke, R S Thomas, T S Eliot, Emily Dickenson, Keats, Lewis Carroll, and many more have been my guides through life since I was read to as a little child.

There are poets, too, whose songs are matched with music...as Augustine says, "The one who sings prays twice." Amongst these are James Taylor, U2, Jim Croce, Simon & Garfunkel, Sting, the Beatles, Stephen Foster, our aforementioned friends Jars of Clay...well, add your own to the list.

The Bible gives us a great deal of poetry, even in its prose. And I've discovered that poetry makes the quest for understanding slippery and difficult, for every meaning has its mirror and shadow. A poetic faith as related in the Revelation to John means something entirely more difficult, more beautiful, more timely than a prosaic reading of it would lead you to believe. An attempt to flatten the raw beauty and sexual power of the Song of Songs into only an allegorical or literal reading constrains the text and Spirit in a way that the lovers in the verse refuse to allow. And when Jesus speaks poetically of the need to be born "from above," the flat and simple faith of Nicodemus begins to take on a texture and richness both true and terrifying.

As I spent time at camp this week, we thought together with teenagers and grown-ups about being connected in faith to God and each other, and many of us reflected on how that informs our interpreting the Bible. Are we reading it just for the head-knowledge of concrete doctrine...or do we allow it to grab hold of us and plunge us into a new world where we become "lost in wonder, love, and praise" ?

Another one of my favorites, Welsh priest & poet R S Thomas commented, “Poetry is that which arrives at the intellect by way of the heart.” May the poetry of life and faith so shape the thoughts of our hearts into no simple language!

What the Church can learn from Star Trek

I admit it...I'm a nerd. I've loved Star Trek since before the "cool" reboot of this summer. It's in my blood: my father was hooked as a star-gazing teenager.

I thoroughly enjoyed the summer movie, though, and I began thinking about what made it an excellent movie, and what promises it made for revitalizing the franchise. (Caution: spoilers ahead!) Here's a few ways in which I believe the Church can learn from Star Trek:

Re-connecting at a deep level with people
Take the opening scene, with the famous James T Kirk's parents aboard the ill-fated USS Kelvin. The build of interest, engagement, and emotional connection to everything that was about to happen in the movie was kicked off with a vengeance in the first few minutes. George and Winona Kirk are believably real as they are separated, Winona gives birth, and George spends the last 2 minutes of his life listening to his son and picking a name, before he says a final "I love you" to his wife, defending her and the rest of the escaping crew to the death. At the end, as you watch the Kelvin annihilated in a self-sacrificial burst of light as the Kirk family continues in the new baby, you cannot help but be drawn into the narrative.

We rarely narrate our own "origin story" with the same emotive content. Our preaching is either irrelevant to the gospel and/or people's lives, or it gives no reason to actually touch the lives of the hearers. The same with Bible study and evangelism efforts. Recapturing the emotive heart of faith and coupling it with a robust re-telling of the Story of God that is in the Bible and Christian history must be at the center of any church renewal.

Fresh faces
What a great cast! A few seasoned veterans like Karl Urban (Bones) and Bruce Greenwood (Pike)...and of course Leonard Nimoy's extended cameo as Spock Prime...but a number of new faces from TV or obscurity. And they acted superbly--which is the most important thing. No wooden Anakin Skywalker-like portrayals in this universe. If you were a huge fan and could remember Kirk and Co. as they were originated by Shatner et al., you could really believe that these folks were just their younger version. If you were new, then the acting stacked up favorably against Wolverine, Angels & Demons, and other new releases in May/June.

Passion and youth have a great deal to contribute to the revival of the church. Things may not be done in the same way, but the intensity, homage to tradition, and skill brought to bear by the new actors of Star Trek '09 cannot be denied. Young Christians, young clergy would do well to bring the same balance of respect, excellence, and freshness to the faith today. (And many of them are doing so: check out UMCYoungClergy as a great example of this!)

Culture-making
The Star Trek that burst onto the scene in 1966 was a rabid counter-cultural force, in some ways not unlike the early church as recorded in Acts. Building a loyal community centered around a different vision, a different way of doing things didn't ensure the original TV series a traditional version of success. It did create an out-of-the-mainstream cultural phenomenon that is more than 40 years old and has been a significant influence upon American society, the vision of space exploration, peaceful international relationships, and more. It is now poised with the promise to reach new people, tell engaging and timely stories (that are really about who WE are), and spark the imaginations of 21st century Terrans.

The church has the same promise. We may have made many mistakes over the past few years (centuries?) but we have an even bigger potential. We aren't in the business of creating consumers for tie-ins or fans to line up for conventions, but in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. True inspiration comes from the movement of the Holy Spirit, and it is my hope that we will watch for the "reboot" opportunites afforded us in the church. Can we harness our passionate youth, our traditional elders, our emotions and our stories, our counter-cultural power so that the Spirit will truly "renew the face of the earth"? It's a challenge worth spending your life for, much as James T. discovers when he takes an old friend of his father's up on the offer to make something of himself in Starfleet.

I don't want to stretch the analogy to its breaking point, but if you haven't gone and seen the movie, go while it's still in the theaters! (JJ Abrams has not paid me off to push ticket sales...) It's the most fun I've had in a long time. I wonder: can those who encounter Christians and the Church say the same thing about us?

Saying More Than One Thing

I was a senior at Rice University, and as I loved my Religious Studies major and had shown a bit of aptitude for it, I and a few other undergrads were invited to participate in a graduate survey/seminar on Biblical Studies with Matthias Henze and Werner Kelber. So with less than 10 students in the room, I and the other undergrads were pretty intimidated. I had thought I was doing pretty well just keeping up with the reading and discussion and engaging occasionally.

So I was terrified, mortified, and strangely flattered when Dr Henze stopped us all in our tracks one day with this statement: "This is a graduate-level seminar and you are all excellent students. You need to be prepared to say more than one thing each class."

I learned many valuable things about what it meant to take Biblical scholarship seriously, about asking tough questions and living with ambiguity and tension, and much more. But the lesson that served me the most was the one taught in that moment: "Say more than one thing."

Today, we live in a digital culture. I just don't mean my laptop, iPhone, electrical outlets, Dish Network TV, GPS...I also mean that we employ an "on/off" approach to many issues affecting us at a deeply human, philosophical, religious level. Someone's either right or not. This issue is either the most important in the history of the world...or irrelevant. If there is one minor flaw with an argument, then the whole thing is wrong.

Contrast this approach with that of St Augustine's:

Augustine is a really stylish professional: he rarely relies on the knock-out; he is out to win the fight on points. It is a fight carried on in twenty-two books [The City of God] against nothing less than the whole pagan literary culture available to him.

--P R L Brown,
as quoted in R W Dyson's introduction to The City of God

This is an approach which can live with ambiguity: Augustine draws upon "pagan" historians, philosophers, rhetoricians and more to make his arguments. Yet he does not loose his grasp on the issue that needs addressing or heresy requiring confrontation. In short, Augustine was a master at saying more than one thing.

The Bible, too, I believe is polyvocal and multivalent. If we tried to eradicate all context or become reductionist, then we might believe that the Bible contradicted itself, or we would give as much priority to obscure and minor passages available for misinterpretation as we do to the premier themes. These "minority reports" are often valuable correctives, or complement the main thrust of the Biblical authors. The various perspectives of Scripture engage our imaginations, catch us up in the economy of God, and enrich our faith and life.

But we flatten the message and meaning of the Bible at our own risk. Take the current conversation about gay marriage in our country. As I read the Bible, I do not seethat it contemplates in any way marriage as something other than between a man and a woman. Yet it also speaks eloquently and persuasively to our time on behalf of those who are marginalized, oppressed, are different or are strangers...and of the availability of divine grace and love to all.

So when it comes to the volatile conversation about gay marriage, I believe the Bible says more than one thing. Does a so-called Biblical perspective on marriage (which presumes, again, there is only one) contemplate marriage between two men or two women? No. Yet neither does it envision limiting basic rights, slandering and libeling those outside the mainstream, or rejecting people from the community of faith or common society.

Now this just happens to the be the thought on my mind at the time: the question of "who is saved and how does that happen?"--one of the central themes of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament--could also stand for scrutiny of this nature (and more time than I have this afternoon!). And many others. The narrative and poetic nature of the Bible resists conflation and reductionist tendencies.

Better to ask: How do these stories shape our own life's story...both individually and communally? Do we have more than one thing to say about the infinite, finally-beyond-all-words God?

Why "Expatriate Minister?"

It seems like an odd handle or moniker to choose for my blog, now 4ish years after I started...and it's trickled out to other places on the web, notably Twitter. Yet I still think it's worthwhile to consider myself an emigre clergyperson. Here's why.

As I graduated from Candler School of Theology (Emory U., Atlanta) in May 2005, a lot of things were changing. I was about to not be a student for the first time in 20 years. I was only 18 months married, with my first child about to arrive. I headed to Texas for commissioning to ministry, yet I wouldn't be serving in my home state...I was headed across the pond to the British Methodist Church for a year. So when I created my blog as I began serving in the UK, "expatriate minister" was a pretty good summary for how I felt, with the bonus that it provided a unique perspective in the blogosphere.

Well, a year later, I was headed back to the United States, the United Methodist Church, and a new appointment to campus ministry. Did "Expatriate Minister" still apply? After reflecting on my experience whilst being stationed on the Scunthorpe Circuit and about what I might be called to do in campus ministry, the answer was: yes!

Campus ministry involved stepping out of my own cultural setting and entering a new one. If it was less visible a transition than moving across the Atlantic, it was that much harder to make precisely because of the invisible lines that separated me from the college students that inhabit Lamar.

All ministry, I have come to realize, requires becoming an expatriate. It involves leaving your assumptions, your culture-of-origin, your customs, even your identity to some extent behind. You have to adopt the attributes and identity of the people you are sent to--otherwise, being from another culture or country will truly make you an "alien."

This is what United Methodists call "itinerancy." It's being open to the leading of the Holy Spirit to move to a new place, minister in a new way, live out the love of God incarnationally among new people. Even if you are in the same place from year to year, you and I still have to itinerate out from behind the desk, out from the walls of the church, out from the "good church people" to bring the gospel message to those who need it most.

Finally, it means having the assurance of your true home in God's kingdom and not in any earthly habitat. Whether you have only known one home, or there are too many to count, our true home is not constructed by us amongst our expectations and self-made security. Our safety, our comfort, our home is with God...and wherever we find God's people at work building God's kingdom, we are no longer expatriates, but at home.

"But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." (Philippians 3:20, NRSV)

2009 Annual Conferences

Here are the dates for the 2009 Annual Conferences in the US, arranged by starting date:

Red Bird Missionary, May 1-2, Big Creek, Ky.

Detroit, May 14-17, Adrian, Mich.

Kansas West, May 20-22, Salina, Kan.

Texas, May 24-27, The Woodlands, Texas

Oklahoma, May 25-28, Oklahoma City, Okla.

Minnesota, May 27-29, Saint Cloud, Minn.

Greater New Jersey, May 28-30, King of Prussia, Pa.
North Central New York, May 28-30, Liverpool, N.Y.

Memphis, May 31-June 2, Jackson, Tenn.
South Carolina, May 31-June 3, Florence, S.C.

Dakotas, June 3-6, Rapid City, S.D.
Illinois Great Rivers, June 3-6, Peoria, Ill.
Kansas East, June 3-6, Baldwin City, Kan.
Kentucky, June 3-6, Covington, Ky.
New Mexico, June 3-6, Odessa, Texas
Southwest Texas, June 3-6, Corpus Christi, Texas

Baltimore-Washington, June 4-6, Baltimore Md.
Central Pennsylvania, June 4-6, Grantham, Penn.
Iowa, June 4-7, Ames, Iowa
Oklahoma Indian Missionary, June 4-7, Anadarko, Okla.
North Alabama, June 4-6, Trussville, Ala.
West Michigan, June 4-7, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Wyoming, June 4-6 Scranton, Pa.

Alaska Missionary, June 5-7, Anchorage, Alaska
Missouri, June 5-8 Springfield, Mo.

Alabama-West Florida, June 7-10, Montgomery, Ala.
Central Texas, June 7-10, Southlake, Texas
Louisiana, June 7-10, Kenner, La.
North Texas, June 7-9, Plano, Texas
Northern Illinois, June 7-9, Saint Charles, Ill.
South Georgia, June 7-10, Columbus, Ga.

West Ohio, June 8-11, Lakeside, Ohio

Nebraska, June 10-13, Lincoln, Neb.
North Carolina, June 10-13, Greenville, N.C.
Troy, June 10-13, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
New York, June 10-13, Hempstead, N.Y.
Northwest Texas, June 10-13, Midland, Texas

Florida, June 11-13, Daytona Beach, Fla.
Mississippi, June 11-14, Jackson, Miss.
Oregon-Idaho, June 11-14, Salem, Ore.
Peninsula-Delaware, June 11-13, Princess Anne, Md.
Rio Grande, June 11-13, San Antonio, Texas
West Virginia, June 11-14, Buckhannon, W.Va.
Western North Carolina, June 11-14, Lake Junaluska, N.C.

Western Pennsylvania, June 11-14, Grove City, Pa.
Yellowstone, June 11-13, Billings, Mont.

Arkansas, June 14-17, Rogers, Ark.
Holston, June 14-17, Lake Junaluska, N.C.
Tennessee, June 14-16, Brentwood, Tenn.
Virginia, June 14-17, Norfolk, Va.
Wisconsin, June 14-17, Appleton, Wis.

East Ohio, June 15-18, Lakeside, Ohio
Eastern Pennsylvania, June 16-18, Oaks, Pa.

North Georgia, June 16-18, Athens, Ga.

California-Nevada, June 17-20, Sacramento, Calif.
California-Pacific, June 17-20, Redlands, Calif.
Rocky Mountain, June 17-20, Grand Junction, Colo.

New England, June 18-20, Wenham, Mass.
Pacific Northwest, June 18-21, Tacoma, Wash.

Western New York, June 19-21, Buffalo, N.Y.

Desert Southwest, June 25-28, Glendale, Ariz.
Indiana, June 25-28, Muncie, Ind.

Music for Pentecost

So one of the fun things I'm working on is having a decent playlist for all the liturgical seasons. Since Pentecost Sunday was yesterday, I've been digging through my music to find something that might relate to the Holy Spirit...and not having a lot of luck. Here's what I've got so far:

Oyaheya (Ricky Byars)
Spirit in the Sky (Norman Greenbaum, though I also have a dc Talk version)
Veni Sancte Spiritus & Within Our Darkest Night (Taize)

...and that's it. I also have some songs which might well fit into a theme if we merged this with Kingdomtide:

Be Thou My Vision (Van Morrison)
Love and Peace or Else (U2)
Prayer of St Francis (Sarah McLachlan)

But still not a great start. Anyone have suggestions? Please?

(I'll post other liturgical playlists when I get some time.)

Texas Conference Constitutional Amendment Balloting

Here are the numbers given this morning at Annual Conference for constitutional amendments

# + -
1 398 704
2 373 716
3 166 932
4 148 944
5 164 927
6 309 785
7 175 930
8 852 238
9 812 256
10 150 908
11 220 876
12 162 934
13 149 942
14 173 919
15 613 451
16 168 937
17 827 258
18 176 923
19 888 187
20 160 924
21 177 909
22 662 404
23 153 929
24 165 931
25 162 919
26 149 944
27 164 933
28 161 939
29 163 936
30 160 938
31 159 941
32 160 939

Numbers came from the screen displays put up at TAC on 5/28/09. Hopefully got all these transcribed well from the notes taken by a colleague. Very interesting numbers.

Memorials & Remembering

Each year, the first action of the Annual Conference as it is called to order, is to participate in a worship service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance...or, in common parlance, the memorial service. Until we shortened conference, it was always after lunch on Memorial Day; now, it's the night before.

As the rest of the society celebrates the sacrifice of soldiers for their country, our conference remembers those who have spent their lives for the Kingdom of God. It's a profoundly counter-cultural statement for the church to make. Our national heritage will ultimately fade away, even with the sacrifice given willingly by our veterans and their families. But we understand that the Kingdom of God will not pass away, and the gift of a life in its service is one which will be everlasting.

So while others might be headed to the beach or firing up the grill, we were doing something completely different. Music as diverse as a new choral setting of "God of Grace and God of Glory" and "Seasons of Love" from Rent gently encouraged us to consider the motivation of these pastors and spouses. The sermon, from Dr. Elijah Stansell, reminded us of our mandate and delight to bear witness to the immense love of God. And we sang our way through the liturgy for Holy Communion, which gave us a tangible, visceral experience of the sustaining grace of God.

One of the pastors I've known the longest in the conference was remembered at the service--Rusty Watkins died while getting ready for Sunrise Service on Easter. The funeral packed the sanctuary and overflow areas of one of our larger churches, and I know that many of the folks who came to last night's worship remember his wacky sense of humor, his capacity to listen, and his deep, deep love for God and God's people. As his name was read, I realized that there was so much else I could be remembering at this time, or the hundreds (1ooo+?) of folks present for the service could be remembering. And yet, the choice we made on a humid Saturday night near Houston was to remember the One who hosts the Communion of Saints.

What is it that you remember? What is it the you memorialize? For what do you spend your time, your life? And how long will it last after you've gone? I hope that we will be intentional in seeking after the things that have true reality, true worth...truly eternal things.

How Shall We Pray?

It isn't as if we have a choice. Prayer is like breathing, or communicating with our fellow human beings. We do it, whether we want to or not. I doubt it will even cease after we take our last breath.

The question, then, is "How shall we pray?"

What will our prayers be like?

For what do we pray?

Far too often, the prayers uttered on our lips throughout our week (and even spoken by pastors on a Sunday) are selfish. They focus on what we think we want, how we want it, when it would be best for us. They are prayers focused inwardly on our community, and rarely take into account where the Spirit is at work outside of the 4 walls of our congregation.

I think these 40 days of prayer for the United Methodist Church are different from such self-serving prayers. Yes, it's prayer for who we are as a people; but it is with the knowledge that we need God's wisdom, not our own. It's not prayer for a specific thing so much as for a way of looking at things, at ourselves, at our world. Of course, they aren't perfect prayers. But they are rooted deeply in our experience and (poor) practice at being the people of God.

Over these next 40 days, let's work together as a people--not to advance a particular political agenda, nor to put certain people in power, nor to marginalize a group--but to bend all of our collective will towards the discernment of where God is calling us. Invite your congregation to join in--I wrote about it in my church newsletter for this week. Share it with folks in your Annual Conference. Invite Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and blog readers. Spread the word that God is not finished with us yet!

40 Days of Prayer

I've been involved with conversations about what it means to be a young person called to ministry in the United Methodist Church for quite a while now...it's become something of a career in and of itself! But I got hooked into the conversation that's going on across our globe about a year ago at the Church's quadrennial General Conference.

That discussion has become something much larger--not just what the place of young adults in ministry and church, but what kind of church are we becoming. Who are we called to be, as Methodists, as Christians? And the quick answer is...we're not sure. We know that what has worked in the past doesn't work now; yet the gospel remains the same. We don't all agree, operate from the same perspectives, or have set starting points.

We do have something that is bigger than all of our differences and individual viewpoints: the One in whom we live and move and have our being. So a grassroots, social-media-enabled movement began to root whatever it is that we are in the process of becoming in prayer. Ben Simpson got the ball rolling, and it's being supported by UMCyoungclergy. You're welcome to read more about it today from these sources and the other folks who are blogging about it today. I'm writing one of the 40 days, and there are many more who have committed to the hard work of praying what we're setting down. This pilgrimage of prayer occurs during the yearly season in which Annual Conference sessions are held.

So I invite you: Pray with us. Pray that in the "dark night of the soul" which we often find ourselves in that our faith will be strengthened. Pray for God to continue to illuminate the path we are on. Pray for the renewal of the church. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen +

Top 10 Ways for Pastors to Observe Holy Saturday

Stop working feverishly on your Easter sermon...don't plan the Easter Egg hunt for the kids. Take a day for you--yourself, not you-as-pastor--to observe something of the events of Holy Week. I don't know a lot of places that hold a worship service on Holy Saturday (at least, before an Easter Vigil)...so with your free time, try one of the things on this list:

10) Launder or dry-clean your robes and/or stoles so they will be fresh and clean for Easter.

9) Listen to some appropriate music: classical Requiems, Taize choruses, traditional hymns, Gregorian chant, Latin motets, contemporary songs...take your pick. But wait until Sunday for peppy Easter music!

8) Put away the leftover Christmas decorations that never got into a box.

7) Reflect on the places where you've failed in the past year. Ask for forgiveness and "time for the amendment of life," as the old prayer says. Remember that Jesus knows the shame of failure in the cross, and that he died for that as well.

6) Garden. There's a reason that God put Adam and Eve in a garden, the lovers of the Song of Songs in a garden, and a garden at the heart of the city of God in Revelation...not to mention Jesus' resurrection. Go pull some weeds or plant some bulbs.

5) Volunteer at a social ministry on your own time. Spend some time in the abandoned places of empire, with people that society has discarded. It's what Jesus would do.

4) Observe the old English tradition of "beating the bounds." Walk (or drive) around your parish--not your church, but the community you're appointed to. Go to the places you never make it to or that make you uncomfortable. Remember why you got into this ministry gig in the first place.

3) Pray. It's hard to find time for your own relationship with God as a pastor. Get with a friend, your family (gasp!), or just find some time for yourself to be honest and open with God, and to hear what hope the Spirit has for your future.

2) Read something you want to read...not to prep for a sermon or a study group. Even if it's just the funny papers.

1) Rest. “On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” (Luke 23:56b) Take some sabbath time, for yourself to rest in what God has accomplished for you, your family, your ministry, your community.

May waiting in the desperate faith of Holy Saturday lead you to the joy of resurrection on Easter Sunday!

Preschooler Theology, Part I

Sitting with Ben this morning, who isn't feeling well. So we were reading out of the Psalms, 118:19-24, and talking about the events of Holy Week. In trying to explain about the imagery of the "gates of justice" and "God's own gates," I asked, "Sometimes we go to visit God--where do we go to visit God? At church?" and he says, "Yes." Then he paused. "And sometimes if we are sick or not feeling well, God comes to visit us!"

For an almost-4-year-old, Ben has a pretty good grip on the Biblical story and character of God, I think.

A Good Day

They don't come as often as I would like, but I want to celebrate when they do: it was a good day today!

I'm not saying it was perfect (or that I was!), but it was one of those days where you feel like you are doing the right thing. I was a pastor, priest, preacher, and teacher today. I saw new life begin to unfold. I saw new possibilities. I saw people I've known for a while in a deeper and truer way. I saw the Spirit of God move.

I have been working on a sermon about expectations, so the question of what do I expect of myself, of God, of others has been on my mind. I wasn't expecting today to be anything other than routine, catch-up, administrative work. And I was surprised by grace and joy and peace. I hope you are ambushed by your vocation--by a Christ-experience--as well.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word;
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
which thou hast prepared before the face of all people,
to be a light to lighten the Gentiles,
and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

New Year, Old Problems

Today wasn't supposed to be this way.

Actually, neither was yesterday. But here I am, 3 in the afternoon, with nary a thing done at work. You know, the work of God. That stuff I'm totally and completely responsible for.

I'm fooling myself if I think what I call work is really opus Dei. Churning out emails, program creation, and the like. Administration, but not the heart of ministry. And so when I don't get to do that in the way and on the schedule upon which I've decided things should get done, then I'm not a happy camper. I need to make sure these things happen, I need to be in this place by this time, I need to...well, you get the picture. In the pressure-cooker of accountable ministry, I turn into Alexander in the middle of his terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

In short, I hate letting other people down. I want to be, with Paul, all things to all people. I've come to discover Paul either had no life, or he was fudging the truth a bit. Probably some of both. I struggle to find the right balance between church, campus ministry, connectional responsibilities, and--oh yeah--family. Not to mention time for myself to read, think, create, and simply be.

So, I grab drive-thru for lunch and conveniently forget the banquet feast prepared for me. I run around like a chicken with my head cut off...and still sign all my emails with "grace and peace." Is this an area of life where we believe, "Yes, we can"? Or is this an area where human initiative and bootstrap-pulling-up is fundamentally flawed?

So I'm realizing a few things (and have been for some time now): it's not my ministry to make work, it's God's; and trusting in God means letting some things go or giving them away. It's not hard for me to be chief technician manipulating the religious machinery. It is hard to trust in a transcendent God who is willing to share ministry with me, though not on my terms.

Christie and I were talking last night about something else entirely when I made the point that the work of mending our own deep brokenness is work that takes a lifetime (and that's when God's doing the mending). Talk about preaching the sermon you need to hear the most!

The lectionary this week is an invitation to the vocation of disciple. May the living, life-giving God grant me, and you, and the entire church the grace and peace to be shaped by the Spirit into true disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen.