To God, though we have lost our way in life, we are never forgotten. God has a way of nudging back on life’s pathway. God utilizes people, providential situations, and circumstances to get our attention. There can always be a “welcome home” party for us in God’s eyes.
Author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien, once wrote,
Recently my Facebook feed was full of expressions of grief, support, and lament over two very public deaths. Both people were active in bringing a focus on mental health issues in communities. One was a professor of counseling, and the other was a well-known West Coast pastor, Jarrid Wilson. Both deaths were suicides. These two people join the list of very public suicides in recent years, including fashion designer Kate Spade, chef Anthony Bourdain, and comedian Robin Williams.
The above names and their stories are anecdotal evidence of statistics that are shocking. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States alone in 2017… Read the rest at The Christian Citizen
This article originally appeared with the Christian Citizen
When I was a pastor in a small town, there was a great sense of community. There were Memorial Day remembrances, firehouse breakfasts, ham dinners, the Holiday Parade, the annual Day of Prayer, Rotary meetings and community trash pick-up days. Many participated in community events regularly. However, a segment of the community was absent from those events. They were people from the emerging community.
What is an emerging community?
As a pastor, it was easy to see and meet the visible people in the community: the mayor, fire chief, bank manager, restaurant owner, school administrators and business association representative. Those visible people in the community were easy to identify and were regularly a part of community events.
As the years went by, I began to learn about people in the emerging community — people who were not easily seen but growing in numbers and presence. Individuals and people in the emerging community did not look or act like people in the visible community.
A pastor’s calling requires a pastor to be at a community’s connection points. Pastors ought to place themselves in places and spaces in town meetings, community groups, nonprofits and schools — the visible community. There are also times a pastor looks for the edges of the community, or places of growth. The new local moms’ group, the new restaurant that attracts people in their 20s, the growing food pantry or the recently moved assistance office — the emerging community.
Aspects of the emerging community that have a visible and immediate impact often are a welcomed presence. The new coffee shop that fosters connection points for people to meet and talk. The new workout studio that encourages people to be physically healthy, while joining others on the same journey. The new comic book shop that brings additional foot traffic to the streets. The community garden club that beautifies the town. The new neighborhood that is built.
The growth in the emerging community is not always welcomed by members of the visible community. Cries of protest ensued when a nonprofit sought to move into town to aid low- to mid-income families. Some members of the visible community expressed fear and anxiety about tax-revenue loss, zoning violations, decreased parking availability and increased car traffic. It took lawyers hundreds of hours and a state judge to decide that the nonprofit was allowed to plant itself in the community. It was a painful process.
Emerging communities often have different ethnicities, economic makeup, religions, cultural values or family status than that of the visual community. It is uncomfortable and risky to place yourself into an emerging community that looks or acts nothing like your own. Pastors and church leaders are called to such places, as Christ was called to such places. Jesus entered into emerging communities that had Gentiles, Roman officials, soldiers, sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes. His religious contemporaries and members of the visual community did not approve. However, Jesus often came into the emerging community with no agenda. He sat, ate and listened. Only when a challenge or injustice arose did Jesus bring in teaching or a guiding moral principle, usually with story. He sought to make relationships, rather than fulfill a goal of setting priorities.
Churches, pastors and church leaders must understand that the way forward for a church is to be in touch with the visual community and the emerging community. The missional nature of the New Testament calls all who claim Christ to be in those times and places of discomfort to bridge relationships and connections that yield spiritual fruit down the road.
Amazon announced a new product and service to their line-up: Amazon Key. Amazon describes their new product as the way to, “get your Amazon packages securely delivered just inside your front door. Plus, grant access to the people you trust, like your family, friends, dog walker, or house cleaner.” This is one of many products that have taken over our lives by Amazon or also known as the Amazonification of retail… and life.
Amazon has started putting large retailers out of business. With their free two-day delivery with Amazon Prime, tablets that push notifications of sales, Echo devices that can order Amazon products, and other devices that can order via their website, Amazon has put their delivery method in the hands and heads of people around the world. Amazon has created a virtual e-commerce ecosystem that we can’t escape. Now, Amazon is testing drones to deliver products faster. Amazon not only sells products but now services of professional cleaning, installation, plumbing and more on their website.
This is a takeover of Amazon’s brand force. It’s the Amazonification of life: a total and complete delivery system of goods, services, and information. Amazon has disrupted the way people get their “stuff”.
Amazon’s virtual staying power taps into something that is happening in every facet of our lives: virtual delivery and engagement of life… including our faith. Amazon shows us how Christianity has been disrupted by factors and forces of our technological and mobile connected world.
Traditionally, John the Gospel writer was the disciple whom Jesus loved. However, upon closer study, there is another follower of Jesus that is a stronger candidate that you have likely not considered: Lazarus.
The identity of the “beloved disciple” or the one John calls “disciple whom Jesus loved” is unnamed and has remained a mystery. Irenaeus and Eusebius both identified the beloved disciple as John as early as the second and fourth century respectively. Scholars, such as Raymond Brown, have written heavily upon John as the one whom Jesus loved. Despite the fact John does not self-identify nor names himself as the writer of the Gospel of John or the beloved disciple, we have relied on tradition and church history.
If we are to rely on the tradition of the identification of the beloved disciple, what about the internal evidence of scripture? Surprisingly, scripture does offer dramatic clues to the mystery of the beloved disciple.
As a non-Catholic, going to confession is not within my religious framework. Richard Foster reminds us that confession has spiritual and cathartic value. This weekend I stumbled on a confession note that just didn’t seem right. Instead of commenting on the note, I did the most ecumenical thing possible: I shared the note with the monks of Unvirtuous Abbey. The results were… well, expected:
If you have been to church in some point in your lifetime during Advent or Christmas, you’ve most likely seen an adorable Christmas play or pageant. Poor Joseph and Mary, often in bathrobes, are portrayed by children who are turned away by an “innkeeper” who lacks compassion. “No room!” is the line. The problem is, when you read the Gospel of Luke or Matthew, there’s no innkeeper or an inn. Such things are a Christmas myth.
Putting aside the adorable nature of children’s Christmas plays, the account of Jesus’ birth must be placed into context of where the birth of Christ took place: Bethlehem. The town of Bethlehem, thought to contain around 1,000 people at the time, was David’s hometown. Since it was David’s hometown, there was sure to be family present because of Joseph, along with other family, had to return to be counted for the census. We read from the King James Version of Luke 2:
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) 5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
From the passage, we learn two things. First, Mary gave birth while in Bethlehem. Apparently, Mary and Joseph were there for some length of time. Second, Jesus was laid in a manger because there was no room in the “inn”. The trouble here is that the King James Version translates the Greek word katalumati as “inn”, but the translation of “guest room” is more accurate – as the New International Version renders the word. The interpretation of katalumati is more of a product of 16th and 17th-century European understandings of a guest room when the KJV was first published. Generally, “inns” in the time of Jesus were found in larger cities, not small towns, and inns were no place for a woman in childbirth.
We read later in Luke when Jesus eats his last supper the disciples gather in a katalumati – guest room, also translated, “upper room”:
As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher asks, “Where is the katalumati where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” (Luke 22:11)
In all reality, Jesus was most likely born in a house. Many assume that Jesus was born in some sort of stable, where animals were kept. However, in the time of Jesus, humble folks lived with their animals. According to ancient Near East culture expert, E. F .F. Bishop notes the the arrangement of people and animals:
“One of the Bethlehem houses with the lower section provided for the animals, with manger ‘hollowed in stone,’ the dais [or raised area] being reserved for the family. Such a manger being immovable, filled with crushed straw, would do duty for a cradle. An infant might even be left in safety, especially if swaddled, when the mother was absent on temporary business” (“Jesus of Palestine“, p. 42)
When I visited Israel in 2012, I went to Bethlehem to a site that recreated, based on historical evidence and archeology, a house that included a lower section for animals and an upper section for living quarters. At the lower portion of the house was a manager or feeding trough for the animals. After seeing such a home, the birth story of Jesus made sense – sans the inn and innkeeper.
Perhaps the strongest evidence for the myth of an “inn” in the Christmas story is that Luke uses another word for a rental inn. Luke used the Greek word, pandocheion, to describe a place one could stay for a price. In the story of the Good Samaritan we read in Luke 10:34: “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an pandocheion (inn) and took care of him.” If there was truly no room in the “inn”, Luke would have used pandocheion in the Christmas story.
Imagine for a minute, every one of Joseph’s family is in town for the census, the house is full with guests and relatives, and Mary has to go through the very painful and messy delivery of a baby. With the guest room and main living areas full, Jesus was placed in a manager to sleep – as Luke describes. Ancient Jewish customs and cultural behaviors were not have allowed Mary to stay in an ancient version of a Motel 8. Mary was most likely cared for and surrounded by people in a time of great expectation of Jesus’ birth.
With this perspective, your Christmas nativity scene in your home or church is still accurate, but imagine it as a home – not a stable. It should give us comfort and relief knowing that after everything Mary and Joseph had been through, they were among family, and well cared for with all the extended family around to hold the newborn Christ child.
South Park’s 20th season featured the appearance of a cluster of unusual characters: Member berries. These little edible high-pitched grape-like fruits reclaim such nostalgic remembrances as “Member Chewbacca again?” “Aw yeah I love to member Chewbacca!”, “Member Ghostbusters?”, “Oh yeah, Ghostbusters!”, “Member Bionic Man?”, “Oh, I love Bionic Man!”, and so on. When one consumes a Member berry euphoric vibes and pleasant nostalgia are enjoyed.
The pleasurable memories of days of yore come to an end when Randy Marsh notices the Member berries begin to remember things with a racial context. The storyline runs its course and people become addicted to Member berries and Randy forms a support group. The citizens of South Park become drunk with nostalgia and long for the past. The allusion to Donald Trump’s campaign promises are clear, which is summarized by his call to “Make America Great Again.”
According to South Park’s wiki page, Member berries are, “the physical manifestation of the idiom “sour grapes”, used to refer to a negative attitude to something because they cannot have it themselves.” A true irony.
Not long after the episode, Carol Howard Merritt wrote a Christian Century piece, “The great power of nostalgia”. As I read it, the only thing I could think about was Member berries. So on Facebook I left a comment on her post referring to the South Park episode: “Member Chewbacca”. A humorous thread ensued.
In many ways, Christianity suffers from Member berries. Carol sums up the Member berry nicely:
In our churches, people long for the time when going to church was the center of a town’s social life. Mothers got to dress up after a week of housecleaning, fathers made professional connections, and teens met the people they would soon marry. The sanctuary was full, and everyone understood the importance of Sunday school.
In my 10 years of full-time ordained ministry, I’ve seen and heard a lot of Member berries in the church. “Remember when Pastor _________ was here, we were full.”, “More people used to come to this church meeting.”, “Years ago, we didn’t have problems filling volunteer spots.”, and “If just get back to the good old days, we’d be okay.” The sad thing is that there were challenges then, as we have new challenges now, but that’s what nostalgia does to us.
While churches are picking their Member berries and remembering a once full church the folks in their neighborhood are yearning for spirituality, connection, community, and real relationships. Churches often lament their problems through a lens that sees the past as the only way to a better future. This cannot be more wrong. The past was great for a lot of churches. People showed up to church, volunteered, tithed, things were closed on Sundays, and “everyone” was a Christian. However, as Robert Schnase reminds us in his book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations :
No church that is vibrant, fruitful, and growing performs its ministry exactly as it did in the 1950’s, and no pastor leading such a congregation is practicing ministry as she or he did in the 1970’s or 1980’s. Effective congregations change, improve, learn, and adapt to fulfill their mission…
Any renewal movement, congregational or otherwise, that is worth its salt does not find success in repeating the technical successes of the past, but finds renewal in envisioning their adaptive future. (There’s a reason Macintosh stop making the Apple II and starting making other stuff to became one of the most successful companies, ever.)
I’ve found that when a new vision takes shape and changes take place in church, Christians feel that the old was bad and the new is good. This is also wrong. When we begin to make changes in churches it is not because the past is bad, but what is being done is not effective. It does not connect with people today. It does not meant what was done in the past loses value. We celebrate honor the past by building on it as we move into a new future. As I used to tell a congregation in the middle of a vision process, “We are not changing the Gospel. We are changing how we share the Gospel.” Unfortunately, long term church people often get hung up on the “how”.
Member berries are great for a passing moment, but when Christians gorge themselves on Member berries they rob themselves of the ability to envision a new future. We cannot go back in time (if you can time travel, I want a ride in your Delorean). We can only create a new future in which God will do a new thing. Don’t we believe in a faith of resurrection and new life?
Do not let nostalgic Christianity think that the past was better and the future can never be as bright – those are the Member berries talking.
Several weeks ago, I published “10 most painful comments as a pastor” and said I would follow up with “10 most helpful comments as a pastor.” After 10 years of full-time ordained ministry, I can say that I’ve been encouraged by some incredible people.
With pastor appreciation month coming up here in October, it’s important to realize that clergy need lifting up. As people who work serving others, the calling pastoral ministry requires long hours, late nights, and weekends. It can be exhausting work. As I wrote in my book, The Work of the Associate Pastor, clergy need to be affirmed and thanked for their service. Helpful comments or information on behalf of lay people are found from a source of love and not from frustration:
The gun violence this week is unbelievable. Unnecessary killings. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. Many more unreported shootings. And now, 5 Dallas law enforcement officers are dead and 7 more injured. As Black Lives Matter protesters and others were peacefully gathering in Dallas and other cities around the country, an individual (or individuals) decided to take wrongful action with gun violence. The main target? White police officers.
Our police officers need our prayers. Victims of this violent crime need our prayers. However, not everyone shares such thoughtful compassion.
In time of violence, trauma, racial tension, and death, I’m shocked and appalled at some of the responses – the insensitive responses. One such response comes from radio host and former U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh who tweeted: Continue Reading…
I was recently surprised when leaders in my current church told me that they wanted to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my ordination. 10 years? Has it been 10 years of full-time ordained ministry as a pastor? I am very thankful that my congregation that I serve took the time to mark the occasion. As I mentioned in my book, The Work of the Associate Pastor, churches help the longevity of their pastor with recognition such as of years of service or ordination anniversaries. Before I was ordained, I spent an additional 8 years in part-time ministry throughout college and seminary. A total of 18 years of ministry in congregations (including a stint in college campus ministry). Where has the time gone?
In the midst of helping and caring for hundreds or thousands of people, you can’t please everyone. Especially when pastors work within change and renewal, we sometimes are at the blunt end of verbal contempt. In addition, we make mistakes. We are just as human as anyone else. We try our best to reconcile. When people are misinformed, we pastors try be sensitive to those who do not have all the information.
As I look in 10 years of ministry at my previous churches, here are the most painful comments directed to me (not in any order):
When I was a pastor in a small town, there were a great sense of community. There were Memorial Day remembrances, firehouse breakfasts, ham dinners, the Holiday parade, the annual Day of Prayer, Rotary meetings, and community trash pick-up days. Many participated in community events regularly. However, there were also a segment of the community not at those events. They were people from the emerging community.
What is an emerging community? Continue Reading…
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