Not Their Prophet

A couple of weeks ago I shared a little bit of my own struggles with a desire to serve the last and the least (I cannot say that phrase without Relient K in my head, by the way. They have a song for everything I'm thinking.) that is always balanced by my recognition that I come from a position of power and  don't want to just make things worse.

Then, last Wednesday and Thursday, I had an idea.

Which I promptly forgot to write about. To be fair, it was because I got to spend all weekend in Austin!

I was there for the MFSA board meeting but I also got to go to some of my favorite restaurants and see some of my favorite people.

I actually did write a blog post while I was there, it just wasn't for my blog. If you're interested, you can read it here.

But back to the point.

Wednesday night was the weekly chapel service that I help to plan and Thursday morning was my class called Postcolonial Voices, which is both difficult and amazing. Postcolonial studies is a bit much to explain here, but one of the main ideas is that you can't ignore any point of view or restrain any voice. That's part of what makes it hard to define.

Wednesday night I was one of the readers, and the passage was Deuteronomy 18:15-20.

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: ‘If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.’ Then the Lord replied to me: ‘They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.’"

This has always been one of my favorite passages (yes, even before I admitted to myself that just maaaaaaybe I was feeling a call to ministry) because, in some small way, I do see myself as a prophet. There are times when I do feel like there's a message that I've been called to share, and I guess that's part of what this blog has become.

But did you catch the end, about speaking words that haven't been commanded to you? Harsh. I've gotta say that this is one part of the Bible that makes me uncomfortable, that makes me wonder about who wrote it and when and why, though that isn't what I've been thinking about this week.

This week I've been thinking about how the end of that passage actually brings me back to the beginning of the passage, which brings me to the "Aha!" moment I had in class Thursday morning as we talked about listening to each voice.

The passage starts with "God will raise up for you a prophet...from among your own people."

Well we've already established that, in most ways, the people I am afraid of doing harm to with my desire to help are not really my people. I can't claim that history. I am a white, Christian, educated American with more or less enough to get by, even if I am a poor grad student.

I am not the prophet called out from the wounded and oppressed people of the world. I cannot speak on their behalf. I cannot share their stories- the stories are theirs to share or not. Those words have not been commanded to me to speak.

What I can be is the prophet called out of my own privileged, powerful people, and call them to better lives.

I can call my own people to share their power, to use it wisely, to honor the value of those that we have made outsiders.

To borrow some of God's words from Micah's mouth, I can call us- because Lord knows there are days when I need reminding- to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. To love God and love neighbor.

That is a message I can share.

That, if nothing else, is what I can do to make the world a little bit better, a little bit brighter, a little bit more like the kin-dom of God.

Exercise and Exercises

First, a quick rundown:

-I survived finals without a single meltdown. Progress!
-I've gotten four of my five grades back so far and am pretty happy with them. The fifth won't come in for another month at least because that's just how my professor works, and my perfectionist, OCD self is slowly coming to terms with that.
-We went to Texas for 10 days over Christmas and it was wonderful. We saw almost all of our family and our closest friends. We even saw Les Mis with my college roommates and saw one of Jeff's friends one last time before she leaves for Argentina for 3 months (buena suerte, Kendall!). Oh, and my nephew is adorable and quite possibly the happiest baby ever. Basically, good times all around.

Now, my actual thought for today:

New Years has come and gone, and resolutions have been made (and broken, I'm sure). One of the most popular resolutions is to get in shape, right? And, at least within the Church, another of the most popular is to be more dedicated with spiritual practices. We go out and buy our gym pass or that perfect new devotional, or we decide that this year we'll try yoga or lectio divina, and we go merrily on our way. For about a week.

Then we miss a day. But it's cool, it was just one day, and we rally.

Then we miss a couple more.

Then a few more.

Then the guilt sets in.

Then we think, ahhh, forget it. I'll try again next year.

And then I remember one of the best pieces of advice about spiritual exercises that I've gotten in 23 years: God doesn't care if you miss a day or if you miss a week. God just cares that you're trying.

Now, that's pretty simplified and (as most advice can) can be used to write off an awful lot of slacking, but the sentiment holds true. We're not perfect, and very few of us have the discipline to hold to a regimen of anything for the rest of our lives, whether it's physical or spiritual. But what matters is that we keep trying. We keep going back. The thing about strict workout plans or read-your-Bible-in-a-year plans is that while they can be really useful they can also make us feel so guilty when we miss a day that we quit entirely.

No, several weeks of inactivity followed by one day of exercise isn't a very good pattern for losing weight, but that doesn't mean that getting on the treadmill today without a clearly defined workout plan is a bad idea. You'll still get that benefit today, and having done it today will make it easier to do tomorrow. Reading your Bible or journaling or praying today won't make you an automatic saint, but it'll make you think about your faith a little more in your day-to-day life, and- who knows!- maybe you'll think about how your faith ought to affect your actions when you get put in a stressful situation tomorrow. 

In both our physical exercises and our spiritual exercises, we shouldn't let long periods of idleness prevent us from taking a small step today. That small, unguided step might be the beginning of a habit that we can keep up, one built on grace rather than guilt.

And maybe that applies to blogging, too.

Justice Looks Like...

This morning I've been thinking a lot about why it sometimes seems like conversations between self-proclaimed liberal Christians and conservative Christians hardly ever seem to get anywhere. If I'm honest I fall into the former camp, even if I may not like the stigmas associated with those kinds of labels. So as a liberal Christian, generally spending my time with other liberal Christians, the verse I hear quoted most often is Micah 6:8- "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"

It seems so simple.

Do justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly.

Now I'm not sure that anyone is really very good at humility, but at least it's easily agreed upon, and people try. At least, I am able to make it through my day claiming the name of Christian by hoping that humility is one of the things we strive for.

Mercy is the same way. I don't think anyone would disagree that mercy is something we are called to. We may not live it out all the time, but we're working on it.

Really, it's justice where we hit a snag. Do justice. Do what is fair. Do what is right. Do what is deserved- that's what justice means. Administer the response that is deserved.

The disagreement , it seems, is over what is deserved. What does this person or that group deserve?

If you think that they deserve judgement and punishment for the choices they make- or worse, for who they are- and I think that they deserve love no matter who they are or what they've done, then yeah, we're going to have an issue. So what does justice look like?

What I keep coming back to is the fact that I am called, first and foremost, to love. Love God, love everyone else. And loving means being patient and kind, not rude or boastful or selfish or irritable, and keeping no record of wrongs but rejoicing in truth. It means wanting what is best for the other person even if it makes me uncomfortable to do so. If God loves me despite everything I've done and calls me to do the same- and even moreso if I believe that God does the same for everyone- then who can I possibly judge?  How can I do anything, or think that anyone deserves anything, but love? What could justice possibly look like besides extending my hand in peace and mercy to everyone I see?

So we come back to loving mercy and walking humbly. Doing justice means both of those things. Being a Christian and being just means loving to be kind, loving to extend mercy. It means being humble enough to recognize that the decision about what anyone truly deserves is beyond me.

I don't know if this kind of thinking will be enough to move anyone's conversations forward, but I keep going because I believe that love changes hearts. Love changes the world. And that's what justice looks like.


(Crossposted on OnFire)

The Church in One Service

This might not be my best post ever, but I just need to take a minute to acknowledge how beautiful my congregation's service was yesterday. It felt like just about everything that the Church does all wrapped up into one service.

First, yesterday was All Saints Sunday- the first Sunday after All Saints Day (November 1) when we remember the saints who have gone before us. This year was particularly difficult for me. November 4 was the anniversary of my grandfather's funeral and today is one month since the death of my good friend's father. In place of a sermon there was a microphone for people to come up and share the names of those they were remembering, especially those who've died in the last year, and then each person lit a candle for every name that they shared. The candles were in the windowsills all around the sanctuary, representing the "great cloud of witnesses" that surrounds us. It was a beautiful image, and I thought I could be strong, share my names, and enjoy the beauty of the moment. Nope. I'm not sure that anyone even heard the second name, and I could barely see the candles as I lit them. It was a good kind of cry, though, the kind that really does make you feel better when you're done, and the just bask in the peace of so many remembered loved ones. The strength of generations of ancestors and examples was tangible.

From remembering our past we shifted to looking to the future as we celebrated the baptism of a good friend of mine who moved here from Iran several months ago. She is a dear, beautiful person, and her joy and excitement was absolutely catching. Her desire to learn and keep asking hard questions is inspiring. After she'd been baptized, she and another friend joined our congregation. Watching two young adults join a "dying" Church was truly beautiful. It made me wonder what exactly would draw them to a congregation- what people my age are looking for. If I had to narrow it down, I'd say that it's three things: the presence of honest, deep relationships, the space to ask deep questions and have deep conversations, and the opportunity to serve together in a way that makes a difference in the world.

That brings me to the last part of the service. Not only was it All Saints Sunday and a baptism Sunday, but it was also a Communion Sunday. I already wrote an entire post about how important I think Communion is so I won't go into that again, but I just want to say how perfect it was as the end of this service. We had remembered, we had welcomed and celebrated, and in Communion we were made one and sent out to be the Church in the world. The only thing that could have made this service a more perfect picture of the life of the Church is if we had gone out and actually served together in some way that afternoon. Nonetheless, it was beautiful.

So. That might not be the most typical service at my congregation, but it's a decent description of what we do as the Church. Remember. Welcome. Celebrate. Give thanks. Share. Send. Serve.

The Images of God

Because so many people left early this morning, yesterday's services and closing banquet were the last parts of the conference that many people were a part of, which meant that we've already had the "sending out into the world" feeling. Yesterday's words of encouragement were to remind us that each of us bears the image of God.

What was really awesome, though, was extending that to think of ourselves as bearing the many images of God.

We are who we are.
We will be who we will be.
We are the cloud.
We are the fire.
We are the gentle whisper.
We are the voice crying in the night, "awake!"

God is active in the world, and God is active through us- we work it out in our lives, in the church, in the world.

We have the power of God behind us, and we will shake the earth.

Unity, Not Uniformity

I would sum up yesterday’s many wonderful speakers with this: our goal is to seek unity without losing identity.

The day was bookended with affirmations of who we are as Reconciling Methodists and what it is that we hope for in the future. Reverend Amy DeLong spoke in the morning about hypocrisy and bullying in the church. She encouraged all of us there to resist the temptation to deny who we are, who we have been made to be. In the evening Bishop Joseph Sprague outlined his vision for the “new song” that we are singing; we work for safe jobs and living wages, for education and organization, for peace, and for the recognition and equality of all human beings.

Yet sandwiched there in the middle was the reminder from UCC Bishop Yvette Flunder that, just as we claim our identity as the church despite outcry from those who would claim otherwise, we likewise cannot exclude those who disagree with us from the body of Christ. We are all unique organs performing specific functions and all held together by the skin of the love of Christ, to borrow Bishop Flunder’s (and Paul’s) analogy. We are all the church together, yet that does not mean we lose sight of who we were created to be.

We may have our disagreements. They may seem enough to rip the church apart. In the past, they certainly have. But even disagreement over the very nature of God did not stop the biblical authors: we have in the two creation stories two very different representations of God. We have a God who is distant, who creates with words and stands back from it all to observe; on the other hand, we have a God who gets down in the dirt and works with divine hands to create and participate. But what truly matters is that we are given both! The authors might have disagreed about what kind of God they worshiped, but they could still stand together as God’s people.

We are called to unity in the body of Christ, but unity is not the same as uniformity.

Hope

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been in Huron, Ohio, since Tuesday. I’m here for a conference called Sing A New Song- it’s a partnership between the Reconciling Ministries Network and the Methodist Federation for Social Action (where I’ll be interning for the next two years), and it’s basically a chance for United Methodists who care about justice issues ranging from LGBT rights to stewardship of the environment and everywhere in between to get together, encourage one another, and dream about and work toward a better future.

So if I had to choose one word to describe yesterday’s kickoff events, it would be hope. Hope for this weekend. Hope for the future. Hope for the church. Hope for the world.

That was definitely the theme of the young adult forum I got the chance to be a part of for a little while yesterday morning. What gives you hope? What do you hope for in the future of the church? What stories (biblical and non-biblical) give you hope and encouragement as you continue to work for peace and justice?

You know what gives me hope?

We do.

For many people (especially in local congregations!), the first thing that comes to mind when they think of young adults is, “Where are they?” But at this conference, 1 in 7 participants are under 35. And that’s after all of the people who were unable to come because school starts this week. That’s awesome.

The message of last night’s kickoff service was that we are the church, too. We—young adults, LGBT, people of color, the poor, anyone who has ever felt hated by or left out of “the church”—we are the church, too. And we can change it. We can choose to live in a better way because that’s what we are called to. That’s why we are here. That’s why we work—because we believe that the church, the world can be better.

We have hope. And we carry hope out into the world.

A State of Mind

This has been stewing in my brain since I was in Texas a month ago. And by stewing since, I mean it’s come up from time to time but I’ve been ridiculously busy and just now wrote it down.

At the end of June I was so very blessed to be able to spend two weeks in Texas seeing dear friends and family, hanging out in my favorite places, listening to country music and southern drawls, and of course eating the most wonderful food on the planet. Seriously, two absolutely amazing weeks.

Then this past week two of my best friends, my roommates from college, came to visit! We spent three days walking all over the city, hitting all the major highlights (and some of my favorite places that aren’t quite so thronged with tourists). We ended every day so tired and sore (and hot and cranky) that we could hardly move, but it was so good to be with them. Plus, watching our favorite movies and having sleepovers every night because we kicked Jeff out for the weekend was lovely :)

So Texas has been on my mind, and I finally just jotted down what I was thinking. It hasn’t had much revision and I don’t even know how to qualify it (poetry, I suppose?), so no guarantees. But here it is.

Texas is not Bible thumpers, raging conservatives, and unbearable heat.

Texas is green trees,

red earth,

and wide, blue sky.

Texas is the dust of a rodeo

and the sound of the state fair;

it’s the roar of a city,

the bustle of people,

junebugs on an otherwise silent summer night.

Texas is smiling speech,

shootin’ the breeze

in that slow drawl,

that musical twang.

Texas is big family dinners

blessed by a deep family grace.

It’s comfort food and

comfortable conversation.

Texas is southern hospitality.

A smile, a wave,

wide arms and an open door,

friends and strangers alike.

Texas is,

it has been said,

an obsession approaching a religion.

It is home.

“A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner.”- John Steinbeck

Humility and Love

I recently finished the book Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism) by Frank Schaeffer. While I felt like he was sometimes harsh and bitter- somewhat like the people he was writing against- I really enjoyed most of what he had to say, and the whole time I was reminded of the last thing that Brian McLaren said that I had wanted to talk about.

Brian said that, “Sometimes rejecting God is itself an act of spirituality because it says, ‘Whatever’s out there, it has to be better than that.’” If God is real, God has to be better than this small-minded, bigoted God that I’ve been peddled all these years.

Schaeffer takes on both the fundamentalist atheists—who militantly and arrogantly claim that God cannot exist because it goes against reason and that reason will eventually unravel all of the questions of the universe—and the fundamentalist Christians—who have put God in a box of their own beliefs and condensed salvation into a single prayer confirming “right” doctrine. Both reject mystery in favor of their own arrogance and certainty.

His response is that, “with all due respect to Dawkins, mystery trumps everything,” and that “according to traditional Christianity…the process of salvation was lived out in a community. Salvation was a path toward God, not a you’re-in-or-out event, as in ‘At two thirty last Wednesday I accepted Jesus.’”

God is so much bigger, so much better than that. So don’t mind me if I do reject your God. If your God demands that I hate or even kill my GLBTQ friends, if your God condones the pollution of the earth and the oppression of its peoples because they don’t look and sound and believe like me, if your God wants me to vote straight Republican because they’re God’s chosen people, then no, I don’t want your God. And if your not-God means that we’re all there is, that human reason is the best thing to come out of this galaxy, well, I don’t want that either.

“Some of the earliest Christians,” as Schaeffer notes, “wrote that God is not to be defined or hedged in by theology.”

I may know a person very well, but that person is still a distinct entity from me and therefore still foreign and, in a sense, incomprehensible. If I can’t even know another person entirely, how can I claim to know God entirely? How can I be so arrogant as to claim that I speak for God? For that matter, how can I claim to know the workings of the universe so entirely that I can say with confidence that there is no God at all?

What I can do is say that, “whatever is out there, it has to be better than that.” God has to be better than even my best, most hopeful imaginations. What I can do is share what I believe about God, what I believe about salvation, what I believe about my own responsibilities as a Christian. But I share with humility and love. Maybe God revealed something differently to you than to me. Maybe I’ve gotten something wrong. I’m human, so I probably have. But I can’t force anything on you. I can’t tell you with 100% certainty that you’re wrong.

So if you think that whatever’s out there is better than my God, go for it. Ask questions. Tell me about it. We can work toward God together. But if you share, share with humility and love. They’re the best we’ve got.

Bandaids and Antibiotics

I know I said that there were several things that Brian said last week that I wanted to process, and then I stopped for a few days after just one. So today is a two for one! One post but two related things- charity and justice.

For me this topic actually goes back to a guest speaker we had in one of our classes in the fall. A woman from the General Board of Church and Society came to speak to us about doing charity work versus working for justice. She compared charity to putting a band-aid on a patient with systemic failure; working for justice, on the other hand, is like looking for and treating the source of that failure. Sometimes the work that we do- though it is good work- is really just treating the symptoms, putting on a bandage that staunches the flow a bit, rather than actually healing the disease. That's what injustice is- the disease of our world.

To that end, Brian made two points about injustice. One of the people at the discussion brought up the verse in James: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." They actually only quoted the first half of that verse, the bit about orphans and widows. The second half, keeping oneself unstained by the world, has been used for a long time to support total abstinence in all of its forms- abstaining from sex, from alcohol, from certain kinds of music or movies, even from spending time with non-Christians.

I'm not saying that any of those aren't good for certain people in certain places of life (except that last one- I'm pretty sure that it's completely counter to the life and ministry of Jesus to avoid anyone who doesn't fit the goody-two-shoes bill). What Brian suggested, though, is that keeping oneself unstained by the world might perhaps mean something bigger. Rather than living a cloistered and antiseptic life for fear of being stained by the world, he suggested that it meant refusing to participate in the injustices of the world. That seems to me to be more in line with the message of the verse and of James as a whole.  Religion is living out your faith by the things that you choose to do and the things you choose not to participate in. We choose to give aid; we choose not to harm. We choose to work for justice; we choose not to support injustice.

That brings us to the second thing Brian said- that "charity always moves toward issues of justice." Feeding the homeless, working in food pantries, sponsoring children for school or medicine or even just Christmas presents- these are all good things. But who hasn't felt the sting of doubt? How can I keep doing this when the need never seems to end? There are always more homeless, more poor, more oppressed. It gets so overwhelming. No matter how many sandwiches I hand out there is always another hand reaching for the next one. Eventually we realize that all the good we are doing just isn't enough.

Technically, you have two choices once you reach that point. The first is to simply give up. Throw your hands in the air and say "I'll never succeed, so I just quit!" This is simply unacceptable to me. Quitting when the journey gets rough makes me question the sincerity of the commitment in the first place. Were you doing this because you believe in it or because it made you feel good?

For me, the only real choice is to take the energy you've been putting into charity and to throw it into work for justice. That's what Brian meant. Eventually you realize that despite all of your pretty band-aids, the patient is still sick. The world is still diseased. Injustice permeates it, sickening everything it touches. Then you start looking for what's causing the sickness in the first place. You start trying to root out the injustice wherever it is found. It's like running a long and intensive course of antibiotics- it turns out to take a lot more effort than just putting on a bandage, but it's a lot more effective. It takes a long time but it's so worth it in the long run.

That's what religion is about. It's not about being some cultish, cloistered movement living by some obscenely long list of rules; it's about caring for the world. Working for peace and justice, not participating in systems and tools of oppression. We participate in the world, for good or for ill. Personally, I want that to be for good. And not just good that offers a quick fix to a long term problem, but a real work of healing in a world plagued with hatred and injustice.

An Imperfect World of Joy and Sorrow Mingled

It's been a while since I was able to free myself from finals work to write an entry here, but I'm doing it today.

Last night I just so happened to be taking a quick break from writing when the news broke on Twitter, Facebook, and finally the major news sources (thanks, social media!) that Osama bin Laden had been killed. It started with just two statuses on my newsfeed, but two turned almost immediately into ten and soon my newsfeed was a living thing, updating itself without me refreshing it because there were simply so many new statuses, articles, videos, and comments being posted all at one time.

These statuses fell into three main categories: joy/triumph, bitterness, and sorrow/hope. I'm not even going to touch on the statuses of bitterness about the President. I thought about it. I had clever things to say all laid out in my head. But really, that's not the issue today.

The statuses of joy were by far the most plentiful, and I get that. We've spent ten years looking for this man who was, directly or indirectly, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people; it's no surprise that some people felt that celebration was in order when he died. Justice has been done, or so they say.

It was relieving to me, though, that these statuses of bitterness and joy were almost balanced by statuses of sorrow and hope. People who chose not to celebrate the death of a man, but the lives of those remembered. People who expressed gratitude to those who live and die so that we can feel safe. And, most importantly, people who pushed to keep this in perspective. A man died. A life was lost. A child of God- yes, a child of God- was killed. He committed terrible crimes against humanity. He was responsible for the death of thousands of innocents. But his rebellion against the healing, reconciling power of God makes him no less a child of God than your rebellion or my own does.

The issue at stake with the death of Osama and indeed with the whole War on Terror is just that- we are at war with an idea, the idea that a specific position gives the right to kill the opposition, that one life is of more value than another. The problem is that we don't get to decide which lives are valuable. The problem is that you can't kill an idea with guns and missiles. You can't kill it by taking the life that holds it. To kill an idea requires nothing short of a stronger idea.

My friend Amanda offered this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. last night:

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already 

devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate 

cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies

violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction."  

We live in "an imperfect world of joy and sorrow mingled." That quote came not from an illustrious speaker but from a 1914 book on cycling, "Three Men on the Bummel," yet its truth is still powerful. Our world remains an imperfect place of pain and love. We rejoice in peace. We grieve life lost. But hatred and violence cannot overpower hatred and violence; only a stronger idea than hatred can do that. This idea is the core of Christianity- love, peace, and reconciliation. These are the ideas that can change the world.

  

Another friend quoted a few lines from a poem, Recommendation, by Thich Nhat Hanh. It was written for youth who were going out into the dark places of the Vietnam War, trying to bring comfort and aid to the Vietnamese people. I want to share it with you in full:

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.

The only thing worthy of you is compassion –
invincible, limitless, unconditional.
Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.

One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.

Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine. 

 

Man is not our enemy. The only thing worthy of you is compassion- invincible, limitless, unconditional.

 

In that, the idea of declaring war on terror makes sense. It is not our fellow human being that we seek to destroy, but the ideas of hatred and violence that have so wounded and distorted his or her humanity.

 

We rejoice at the prospect of hope, of peace. But we grieve the loss of human life, even life so blinded by hatred that it tested our strength to love (to quote MLK again). We grieve that such hatred exists, that it so cripples us. 

 

The idea that can defeat hatred, that can change the world, is the same idea I talked about back in March. Everyone deserves to be loved. Everyone is of sacred worth.

 

Love is stronger than hate. Love wins, if you will.  

One Step At A Time

Between Lent and Holy Week and planning the church retreat and just being in seminary in general, I feel like people have been talking about journey a lot lately.

"Where have you been, and how has that affected you?"

"Where do you find yourself, and is it where you want to be?"

"Where do you want to go, and will the path you are on get you there?"

This "journey" picture is from the hardest journey I ever took. It's one of the parts of my past

that's still affecting me in ways I can't imagine.

Well, I do know where I've been but I probably can't guess yet at all the ways that has affected and will continue to affect me. And I know where I am, most of the time. I love where I am. Not sure that I'm a fan of DC in general, but I love my school and my church and all of the amazing people here. But as for where I'm going? I have no clue. I think I'm slowly getting used to that, and I'm definitely starting to realize that it's probably for a reason.

See, sometimes I have control issues. Maybe it's because we didn't always have a lot of money growing up, or because my dad has been sick since I was in middle school, or because I was an only child--maybe I just wanted to be able to control something. Or maybe it's just that I'm precocious and stubborn. In any case, I'm not always very good at taking advice. Or letting other people make decisions for me. Even when that other is God and that other knows way more than me.

For example, I still look at myself and see this random assortment of semi-developed skills and wonder, "How am I supposed to cobble together a career out of those?!" Whereas I'm pretty sure God looks at me and says, "Heather! I gave you the perfect set of skills for this thing, or this thing, or even this other thing if you really want to. You'd be amazing at any of them and do great things. Why won't you get with the program already?!" And all the while I sit there, whining and worrying because I don't know what to do with my life.

But the conclusion I've come to this year is that perhaps the reason I don't have a clue what to do anymore is because, if I could see my life laid out, my control issues would come out and I'd say, "But this isn't right!" Or, "But I can't do that!" And I'd screw it up or just run away.

It started with just thinking about how very long it took me to acknowledge the possibility of even doing ministry. The thought that maybe I was called to ministry first occurred to me when I was seven, for goodness’ sake, and it took me over ten years to admit that maybe God really was calling me to ministry despite growing up Southern Baptist, despite being a woman. Even then, though, I’ve realized that I didn’t step out into what that call to ministry could mean. I stuck to what was safe, to what I’d already done: youth ministry. Working with youth in Sunday School, in youth group, and in camp settings all came naturally and I’d been allowed to do it, even as a girl in the Baptist church. I’ve started to feel, then, that what I did was assume that this ministry was what God was calling me to. It was easy. It was safe and familiar. Plus, I liked the idea. Clearly, all of this added up to youth ministry being my call from God. That’s what I decided that I would do. The thought that occurs to me, then, is that maybe youth ministry has just been my first step. Youth ministry was the first thing that I could finally admit to myself as a possibility, the first part of a plan that I can’t see yet.

So in the meantime I blunder along, sometimes listening to God and mostly just doing my own thing. For example, if you remember when I got here I had a minor crisis, way back in my very first entry. Am I here for the right reasons? And if I'm totally honest with myself, the answer is probably no. I came to DC because it was where Jeff was coming, and to Wesley because it was a good seminary here and they offered me a scholarship, and to my church because they offered me a job and seemed like they were doing really great things. But those were my reasons for coming.

That is not to say, though, that there were not other reasons for me being here that I could not see. That little piece of wisdom from a friend still rings true--the awesome thing is that no matter why you go, God can use you anyway. And looking back on this year, with just two more weeks to go, I can definitely see the ways that God has used my place here. Not used me, necessarily. Not in ways that I've seen, anyway. But where I am has affected me in powerful ways. Being in DC and at my amazing church here has rekindled the passion I once had for justice and peace. Being at Wesley has introduced me to truly wonderful people who challenge me every day and has given me the opportunity to explore not only youth ministry but also emerging ministry, which has given me the language to express what I was really yearning for all of those years that I struggled with being called to ministry. Wherever I end up, my ministry is to bring about the kingdom of God begun by Jesus and entrusted to us as Christians, where all people are loved and cared for, where hatred and violence and discrimination have no place. Wherever I go, whatever path I'm on, that is my compass and my goal. That is what I work toward.

Service of Word and Table

My church here takes Communion twice a month, on the first and third Sundays. This is less often than my church in Austin, which took Communion every week, but much, much more often than I ever took it growing up.

I have to admit, it was a little weird at first, back when I became United Methodist. Coming from a background where Communion wasn't really talked about, much less emphasized, taking it so often was interesting at first simply because it was novel. I'll be honest, I don't think I got it. The words were pretty. After all, that's what I'd grown up focusing on- the words spoken. The sermon had been the center and the high point of the service. I'm also a huge word nerd anyway, so it made sense to me. But the actual taking of the bread and juice (Methodist- we're not big on wine for the most part) was just kind of a tasty mouthful while I thought about Jesus...and what I was going to have for lunch, because now I was hungry.

It may sound weird to some of you to imagine a 20-year-old taking Communion with the basic mindset of a 5-year-old (snack time!). Or maybe that's kind of how you think about it too, and maybe that's ok for where you are.

In any case, the people I've met, the books I've read, and the classes I've taken since I've been here have all been gradually but drastically changing the way I look at Communion. Also, I just wrote a paper on it. So yeah. It's on my mind and I thought I'd share a bit. I'm not going to touch on who blesses or serves communion or even to whom they serve it. I'm just not. Not today. Today is just about what happens.

One quick thing I will say before I go into that, though, is that the Service of Word and Table- a service where the Gospel is proclaimed not only through preaching but also through Holy Communion- has become my favorite kind of service. Part of it is because the Emergent Christian in me loves the physical, interactive nature of taking Communion, but mostly it's because I've come to see Communion, rather than the sermon, as the high point and culmination of a worship gathering.

Why? Because I see four main things happening in taking Communion. We receive and see God's grace; we remember and give thanks for the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit; we affirm our place in the Church Universal; and we rededicate ourselves to our call to continue Christ's work in bringing about the already-present but not-yet-fulfilled kingdom of God (for more on that one, see my last post).

First, Communion is a matter of grace. Nothing we do makes us worthy of Communion with God- it is who we are, and who we are is the beloved people of God, being ever transformed into God's likeness. Grace has called us into the Church; grace makes us aware of God’s presence and power; grace gives the first inkling of understanding of our redemption; grace welcomes us to communion with God despite our failures. Grace invites us to the table despite all of our shortcomings, and at the table we find ourselves changed by nothing short of the most awesome grace of God.

Second, Communion lays before us in the most basic of elements the culmination of Christ's work in the world, defeating sin and death so that the work of God's kingdom could continue undeterred. It is by Christ’s sacrifice that we are saved and by the power of the Holy Spirit that we live, a community of the called. In the story that is told, in the blessings that are given, in the nourishment we receive, we see both of these lived out.

Third, Communion connects us to the entirety of the Church Universal, around the world and across the ages. We each take bread and juice, reminding us of the distinctly personal aspect of our relationship with God, but we take it from a communal loaf and a communal cup, reminding us that that relationship is for all of us. I mean that in both ways- God is in relationship with each of us, and each relationship is for the purpose of all of us. When we take Communion we stand in a line that stretches not simply down the aisles of our church but down the halls of time as we receive the gifts of God’s grace and love.

Finally, Communion reminds us of our part in bringing about reconciliation between God and the world. It is through simple bread and juice that we encounter God and it is through simple human beings that God works in the world. As we remember our union with God’s creation and God’s people, we are reminded of the ways in which we have failed to care for them. God has demonstrated God’s love for us in this good earth and in the gifts of food and drink, yet the earth is raped and polluted and God’s people go hungry and thirsty. The earth that produced the bread and juice is savaged and neglected; God’s children go without even the most basic elements of the table. God's kingdom has not been fulfilled. Our work remains.

Communion is the culmination of the work of the worship gathering- to draw together and to send out. As I've talked about before, I think we often get caught up in the drawing together and forget that the Church's purpose was to be sent out. Maybe that's why my favorite line from the words of institution said before Communion are these: "Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood." Amen.

The Mission of Ultimate Importance

*dun, dun, dun dun, dun, dun,  dun dun, dun, dun, dun dun duuunnnn*


Alright, if that didn't make any sense to you go back and read it again while singing to yourself the Mission: Impossible theme song. 

Theeeere you go. Alright. Cultural hook completed.

As you may have noticed, this is actually my second post for the day. The first one was basically for all of my loved ones who really just want to keep tabs on me and see what life is like for me here in DC, which I'm more than happy to do. I love to keep in touch this way.

This post, however, is for the people who are also interested in what I'm thinking about because I'm in seminary and that's a big part of what I do with my time. I think about faith and truth and the church and the world and what we're all supposed to be doing with our lives, and then I try to go out and do it and bring some people along with me. Also, I just need a space to work out all of what gets thrown at me in a week. So here we go.

The cheesy M:I hook is one I got in class today when we talked about this subject. It worked, though, and I'm also just kind of a big fan of cheesy things, so here it is again. Of course, he could actually play the song for us, but I do what I can.

The reason I used it, though, and the reason my professor used it, is to start off thinking about the word mission. What's the difference between a "mission-minded" church and a "missional" church?

A mission-minded church is a great thing. It's a group of people who dedicate their time, their money, and their efforts do doing missions. They do great things.

Yet, "mission" in a "mission-minded" church is still just that: something they do. The idea of a "missional" church is that mission is recognized as something they are; it's an inextricable part of their identity.

And what identity, what mission is that? Christ's, of course. Our identity as Christians is tied up with the identity of Christ. Christ's mission is our mission. So, as I asked before: what mission is that?

If you look at the gospel of Luke, there's a lot of buildup to Jesus' ministry. We get a lot about his birth and his childhood and the proclamations of his coming from John the Baptist. Then Jesus gets baptized, the Holy Spirit descends on him, and he goes off for forty days into the wilderness. When he comes back, he's ready to roll. He starts preaching and teaching. But it's not until he gets back to his hometown in chapter 4 that he really gets going, revealing who he is and why he's come.

He stands up to read in the temple, as usual. Someone hands him a scroll. He opens it and reads from Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour."

And then he sits down. Everyone's staring at him. And he says "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

It has been fulfilled. This is who I am. This is what I'm doing.

And then he does it.

Jesus' self-proclaimed mission has two main parts, and we know that it's legitimate because it's from the Spirit of the Lord. This is what God wants. His mission is to proclaim the good news and to bring about the good news, the good news of God's present and coming kingdom, of God's reconciliation with the world. And that's what he goes out and does. Along the way, he makes disciples; he creates a community of people who are charged with this same mission. And to seal the deal, to finish the beginning of the bringing about of this kingdom, Christ sacrifices himself. I could (and might) write a whole other blog post about how maybe in holding up Christ's death and resurrection as the be-all, end-all of Christianity we've lost an important part of who Christ was and therefore who we are. In the meantime, you can check out my good friend Andy's blog post about it here.

So that's it. That's our mission. To proclaim the kingdom of God and to bring it about. To bring in more people who are working side by side with us, who believe in this with us. And this is not just what we do; it's who we are. We live in the already-present but not-yet-fulfilled kingdom of God, and we are called by virtue of our identity as Christians to continue to bring about this vision for the world.

I didn't say the Lord's Prayer much growing up. I was Southern Baptist and they're more about praying as the Spirit leads, which is great. We miss out, though, on the skin-tinglingly communal aspect of praying a prayer that is prayed around the world by millions of people and has been prayed by billions more for 2,000 years. I loved being a part of a church that said the Lord's Prayer often when I left the SBC. I always kind of shivered at the one line, though: "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Maybe it's my past, maybe it's something else, but that always conjured images of scurrying servants for me. It brought back the giant, angry, old God.

I don't think that's it, though. Thinking about God's kingdom as a vision for a healthy, whole, reconciled creation, as something that I am intrinsically a part of because I am Christian but even simply (or wondrously) because I am human--that changes it. When I say the Lord's Prayer now, that's one of my favorite lines. Thy kingdom come! And I want to be a part of it! That's my mission, and I have chosen to accept it.

EDIT: I meant to include this video in my original post. Here you go:

The Art and Architecture of the Library of Congress

Yesterday Jeff and I went on a date... to the Library of Congress. Well, to see the beginning of the cherry blossoms and to read for a while in a coffee shop, but mainly to go to the Library of Congress. Yeah, we're big ol' nerds. And we love it.

Jeff's been wanting to go to the Library since the day we decided we were moving to DC. Not only is it known for having some of the most beautiful art and architecture of any building in the District (and that's saying quite a lot) but it is also home to the largest collection of books in the world. Just think about that. I mean, the internet almost makes that seem laughable because of the sheer volume of knowledge it holds, but it comforts me to know that even if (when?) our digital kingdom collapses, that much knowledge will still be available, barring any major anarchical book-burnings between now and then.

In any case, I was pretty excited to go. I wasn't prepared, though, for just how jaw-droppingly beautiful this building is. After security you enter through a hall of poets, beautiful on its own, but then you get to the great hall. I literally just stood with my mouth open, turning in circles, for about five minutes. The whole room is carved marble, statues, paintings and mosaics, with names of writers and famous quotes everywhere.

Bah. My four year old, dropped-a-thousand-times point and shoot doesn't do it justice. It's truly amazing.

At the same time, it's not books. Eventually, you get start to get over how beautiful the building is and start wondering where they're keeping all of the books. That's what you came for, right? To see the largest library in the world. But if you read the pamphlets closely and ask a docent or two, you find out that not only can everyday visitors not get in to see the books without researcher cards, but regular citizens also can't even check them out.

Now, maybe I eventually would've arrived at this on my own or maybe it had something to do with reading Kenda Creasy Dean's Almost Christian immediately afterward, but it occurred to me later that afternoon that sometimes the faith that we offer youth--the faith that we ourselves have, that we have taught them--is like the Thomas Jefferson building of the Library of Congress. It looks pretty. It looks very pretty. It's even awe-inspiring for a few minutes. But it's not what they came for. It's not what we really wanted. It's not the life-changing encounter with knowledge bigger than ourselves that we thought we were walking into. There's beauty and awe, important to be sure, but there's no depth.

So what would it look like if we offered, if we lived a faith that tapped into that depth? I don't think I have enough room here to write that.

But at least as far as the Library is concerned, I'm getting a researcher card and going back. Because really, what kind of library doesn't let you see the books?

Of Sacred Worth

As some of you may know, today was Reconciling Sunday at Dumbarton. If you don't know what Reconciling Sunday is, it's an annual event "to celebrate your communities welcome of persons, to recall God's promise to love ALL people, to learn more about ending discrimination based on sexuality and gender, and to remember LGBT persons around the world in our church who are not in welcoming places" (that's from the Reconciling Ministries Network website, which you should check out if you're not familiar with it).

In addition to just being a great Sunday in general, I went from crying tears of joy to tears of pain in the course of the service. Today we celebrated the baptism and membership of one of my youth and his newborn daughter, which was absolutely beautiful. Then on the other end of the spectrum was the prayer request that another one of my youth shared during our time of praying joys and concerns; her grandfather died a few weeks ago but as this was her first week back since it happened she asked the congregation to pray for her and her family, and she started sobbing as she spoke. If you know anything about me you've probably guessed that not ten seconds after she started crying I was crying. It was just so painful to see her in pain. It made my heart happy, though, to see so many people comfort her then and after the service. That's part of what I love about my church-if nothing else, it is a community of people who truly love God and love each other. That's what today was about. Reconciling Sunday is a joyful affirmation of our commitment to love one another and to celebrate love wherever it is found.

Not everyone, though, celebrates or even believes in the value of Reconciling Sunday. The United Methodist Book of Discipline states that "all persons are of sacred worth" (2008 BOD, Constitution, Section 1, Article IV). But that is not how all people are treated, even (and sometimes especially) in the church.

A friend of mine told me a story a while back that I've been saving for this week. She took a January Term course at a different seminary through the consortium that Wesley is a part of and the topic of the sacred worth of human beings came up. The professor asked the class if they thought that everyone was of sacred worth. In a class of twelve, four people said no. Four people! Maybe this isn't mind-blowing or earth-shattering to you, but I just about had a heart attack. It made me sick to think that four seminary students would say that there are some people who just don't matter to us or to God. Some people aren't worth our time or efforts or love.

The theme of today's service was Tell Out, and one part of the service involved writing on a paper heart a message about God or Dumbarton or love that you want to share with the world and pinning your heart on your chest for the day. But since I'll only see a few people today and I think this is just about the most important thing, here's what I wrote.

EVERYBODY deserves to be loved.

Everybody. Not just people who look like me or act like me or believe like me. I don't get to decide who to love and who to ignore. Ignoring people isn't an option I even have. Let me say that again.

EVERYBODY deserves to be loved.

Everybody. Even the ones who annoy you. Even the ones who hate you. Even the ones who hurt you. Because that person matters to God. You may not like everything that person does. God may not like everything that person does. Then again, God probably doesn't like everything you do, either (God certainly doesn't like everything I do). And that person is of sacred worth. Everyone is of sacred worth.

Blessed are who?

One of my favorite parts of every week is Wednesday night. Every week here at Wesley the students who live on campus have what we call Open Room. It's a student-led discussion of any topic the leader for the week feels like discussing, usually with some sort of faith-related bent. We've talked about epic movies, economics, and the Wizard of Oz. We've talked about prisons and church buildings. While we discuss, we share bread and wine; it's not consecrated Communion, but it's communion for us. Afterward we head to McDonald's for fries or shakes or, every once in a while, the 20 piece chicken nugget deal.

This week the topic was the Beatitudes (listed below) and instead of discussing we spent the majority of the hour cutting out words and pictures and pasting them to the poster boards for each blessing. Totally my kind of night.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely^* on my account. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:3-12, NRSV)


It was interesting to see the words and pictures people chose for each one. Personally, I spent most of my time at "Blessed are the peacemakers." But the most thought-provoking Beatitude interpretation of the night was, by far, a picture someone pasted on "Blessed are you when people revile you on my account." It wasn't a church or a cross or a middle-class white person praying and looking sad. It wasn't even a missionary in some deep, dark jungle. It was a Muslim.

A Muslim?

Yep. On purpose. At first it was jarring. Confusing. And then it hit you, looking at the words and the picture together.

What if God blesses the people that we as Christians persecute--in the name of God, no less--because they are not Christians? Or the other people who call themselves Christians that we disparage because they don't fit into our little mold (that happens to look quite a bit like us) of what a "good Christian" should be? What if it isn't just about us and our petty little troubles and trials? What if God really cares for every person? (I think it says that somewhere. Can't think where...)

Maybe you think I'm being blasphemous here, but... oh well. Hang out in Luke 15 for a while and get back to me, if that's the case. Here's what I know: I'm not responsible for deciding who's a Christian and who's not. I'm responsible for deciding how I will treat other people. With love.

Living as the church, not at the church

For one of my classes we got to choose from a list which book we wanted to review for our midterm. I chose Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. I didn't agree with everything the author (Michael Frost) said but, wonder of wonders, it did make me think. I could rewrite most of my review for you, but I don't think you really need all of it to think about what I want to talk about.

I've been hearing for a couple of years now about needing to rethink the way that we do church. I guess I've been hearing about it for a long time in terms of adding praise and worship bands or screens and projectors or any of the other things so many churches are trying out to make themselves more progressive. But I mean a serious rethinking of how we do church. I've heard several people say that we should go back to the early New Testament way of doing things, with house churches and all that. Or that, rather than a song-sermon-song paradigm we need to include all different kinds of sensory worship experiences. But that's always what we mean when we talk about rethinking church. Changing the service, maybe the building.

One thing that Frost talked about that I found really interesting was our persistent identification of church  with worship and of worship with singing. He talked about how a big part of that mindset is a carryover from the Middle Ages, when everyone was a Christian because everyone was baptized at birth. This removed the evangelistic function of the church, and besides doing some support work in their communities, all the churches had to offer was worship services. We forgot all the things that church can mean. Variegated worship services and forming small group churches start to address that.

But I think that the bigger issue with our obsession with the way we do church right now is another that he addresses: we live at church, not in our communities. Or, differently put, our churches are our communities. And they're often our only communities because we devote all of our time to them. Personally I think this is another hold-over, this time from when the church (read: church building) was seen as a literal refuge from all of the darkness in the world. I think a lot of people still think of church that way. And that's not to say that the church isn't a refuge; I just don't think it should be our home away from home.

Why not? Many churches today ofter after school programs and camps during the summer. That's great! They offer Bible studies for almost every possible self-identification. Awesome, you can meet people like you! And then, of course, there's the service projects and the meetings and the potlucks and the retreats and the picnics and church choir... on, and on, and on. Again, I'm not saying that these are bad things in and of themselves, or that church communities are not legitimate communities. Lots of programs that the church offers are really good (especially the after school programs and summer camps, I can say after many years of camp counseling).

I'm just saying think about this:
You spend approximately 1/3 of your time sleeping.
You spend approximately 1/3 of your time at work.
And if you're even moderately involved in a church, I'd be willing to bet that a good chunk of that last 1/3 is spent at church or doing something with your church community.

So how much time is spent out, talking to people? Getting to know the people in the community where you live? Being involved in life outside of the church? Offering hospitality to your neighbors? Living in the world?

Jesus didn't spend all of his time in the temple. He didn't do most of his ministry there. He spent his time and did his work out among people, living where they lived. Frost talks about the idea of third places. Third places are the places outside of work and sleep where most of the life in people's lives is lived. Places like coffee shops, book clubs, and bars. This is where real interaction happens, where you really get to know a person and see just a piece of their life. So if the church is our third place, if it's where we spend all of our time and have all of our relationships, who are we meeting? Not many people.

Hiding ourselves away is not what Christianity is about. We can't be the church out in the world if we're always in the church and out of the world.

Truth and Jello

This post is actually part of a class assignment, and I've been putting it off for a while because I can't quite get things nailed down in my head.

The problem is that truth is like Jello.

Yes, Jello. This is an awesome metaphor that we talked about during our last class meeting. Truth is, in general, pretty solid. When you poke it hard enough, though, it wobbles and falls apart and makes a mess.

While I was in college I went through a really hard time of trying to figure out what I actually believed about God and my relationship to God as a human being and a Christian. I basically stripped everything I believed growing up and started over, carrying over some things, adapting others, and rejecting a few things completely. One of the things I have loved about seminary is having the opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about my faith and organizing what I believe into some sort of coherence again.

Actually, it doesn't look too terribly coherent because the model I used is a web, but it's honest and I like it. Once I get pictures from my computer to be able to post to the blog again, I might put it up (the jello picture is from the internet so apparently that's ok). So when we come back to truth, the things that I hold as most true are the things at the center of my web, the things that are strongly connected to almost every other part. Those three main things are the existence of God, the person and divinity of Jesus, and love. Love is actually the most central to my faith- it's connected to every other piece of my web. And I like that, too.

The problem is that even that idea gets messy when you poke it too hard. Then you come up against the unfairness and pain of reality. The events this morning at my alma mater are a perfect example: a kid walks onto campus with a gun, fires a few shots, is chased into the library, fires a few more shots and kills himself. How do you explain things like that? Or worse, incidents where even more innocent people die? My devotional time this morning, hours before I heard the news, was actually on suffering and how we fit that into our faith. It was eerie, really. And the answer I came up with this morning is the same answer I have after spending most of the day worried and/or crying from sheer shock: I just don't know.

"I don't know," has become my answer to a lot of things lately. Hopefully I'll get some of those figured out by the time I leave seminary; some maybe I'll figure out before I die; some I'll just let God explain to me when we get there. It's kind of messy. But I think maybe I like that, too.

"Your sons and daughters shall prophesy..."

It has been my belief since I was in high school that it is in fact the youth of the church who have the best handle on what the church needs and what it needs to be doing in order to best live out its mission. Teenagers have those two lovely qualities- which their parents and teachers may find frustrating, but which I think the church ought to acknowledge as useful- of believing that they know best and being willing to challenge you on it. Now, having been a teenager myself when I came up with this idea, I recognize that my word might not be precisely reliable. But  this is a belief that I have seen lived out in countless youth since then, and, now finding myself part of the young adult cohort, I gladly include them in the group of potential movers and shakers.

Each generation has to rethink how the church works and how it can be effective. The last generation gave us the return of the small group. Not the sterile Sunday School class, but the messy, walking with each other and living as a part of each others' lives small group. The effect on the church as a community has been enormous.

This generation, at least in part, has been lucky enough to grow up in churches where community is emphasized, where people are encouraged to be open and live life with one another. Now, as we begin to step up and share in the leadership and direction of the church, we have to build on that foundation.

This past week I attended my first-ever church council meeting. As I am still new at the church and to my position, most of my time was spent trying to catch up as each group presented its recent activities and its plans for the upcoming months, but I was struck by one in particular. A friend of mine gave the report on the young adult group that meets every Tuesday, which I have been unable to attend thus far. As he talked about the plans the group was making, he quoted another group member as saying that while the discussions that have been happening have been insightful, she felt that the group was becoming "too cerebral;" and therein lies the key not only to this generation but also to our insight on the church's relationship with the world.

I want to share here a quote from an incredible book on the church's relationship with this generation. It's called Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation, by Sarah Cunningham, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is, knows, or cares about a young adult. Sarah writes:

"Don't get us wrong, Church. We value these theological questions. We really do... Frankly, we admire thinkers within the church for wrestling their own generation's questions to the ground. However, we must note: their hang-ups are not our hang-ups. We twenty-something Christians can't focus too much energy on analyzing intricate church doctrines because, quite honestly, our peers aren't even close enough to the church to know what the doctrines in question are. Unlike some previous generations, our peers are not delaying their salvation based on unresolved questions about Creationism. More times than not, they are delaying their salvation based on unresolved questions, anger, or misperceptions about the church itself."

That, my friends, is the charge of this generation to the church at large. We have spent a long time working within ourselves to try to create a space where we can encourage and admonish one another. This is fantastic. And yes, we acknowledge that the church has done incredible work in sending the Gospel out into the nations (I grew up giving to the Lottie Moon offering every year, too!). But we are asking the church to remember that mission is not something you go on; mission is something you live. We are asking you to get your hands dirty right where you are. Serve somewhere. Stand up for something. And at the end of the day, be glad that you have a community to come back to, to commiserate and rejoice with, and to send you back out again.