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Welcomed

So, I was welcomed into the presbytery.

Anywho. Everyone who passes examination comes back to the room or hall – this time a sanctuary – to applause. It’s a nice gesture, a welcoming act by those who hold gate-keeping power and have just heard you share your heart, and a wonderful way to enter the next phase of ministry.

I was actually thrown a little off guard at the beginning of the examination. I knew I would be asked to share a favorite scripture from the Bible and it’s importance to me. As the first of 4 people to be examined however, I assumed this meant the question would be offered to me after I read my Statement of Faith, which typically is the norm (you can find my SoF on  yesterday’s blogpost). No, answering the scripture question was the starting point of the examination, not just a kick off to the formal opportunity for Q&A. Three folks asked me questions, based on their reading prior my Statement, and although that time is now a blur to me, they were really softball questions. Like tell us about how your prior church relationships have influenced you as an Evangelist (that one I remember. See: slow pitch, down the plate). As I told someone afterwards, I hardly hit them out of the infield.

Still, however, kind of a big deal.

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Kind of a Big Deal

No, not me. Well at least not anymore than anyone else.

This evening one section of my spiritual and vocational journey meets a signpost. After several years preparing for ministry in my chosen (or has it chosen me?) church – Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) – and after many meetings, conversations, tests, classes, internships, and an unexpected end around with missional community and The WordHouse instead of a traditional pastor job, I am being called to be an Evangelist for the Sacramento Presbytery. And tonight I read my Statement of Faith and enter one last “examination” to be welcomed into the local governing body as a member, and subsequently, be free and clear – and so ordered – to be ordained.

I will be sharing an important scripture verse and its importance to me (Phil 2:5 – one of the most challenging and comforting passages) after I read my current faith statement:

I believe God is three-in-one: a community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is unified; God is one. God has specifically and sufficiently revealed God’s self in the Old and New Testaments. These Scriptures bear witness to God’s truth in the life and person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ, the self-revealing Word of God, is still breaking into our world through the Holy Spirit and therefore his Church, inviting people to find themselves in God’s story, as witnessed by the Reformed Confessions and Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
I believe in God the Father. God is creator, ruler, and sustainer of all, even me. God’s love is all around; I am created, as well as all of humanity, in God’s image. In God there is wholeness, completeness. All of creation is good. The earth and everything in it bears witness to God. However, there is still a deep fissure inside of all humanity. This crack is often described as sin. Sin does not rightly acknowledge God’s sovereignty, warping and misconstruing God’s good and wonderful creation. Yet, like the woman who searches after lost treasure and finds it, God seeks, finds, and proclaims we have value. God is the heavenly parent who providentially leads us beside still waters, who renews and guides us in righteousness for God’s namesake. God is greater than everything in and beyond the earth; God is too great for words. And yet, God can be known.
I believe in God the Son, Jesus the Christ. Jesus was sent by God and as the Son of Man is one of us, and yet as the Son of God is not like us. Through God’s gracious initiative, baptism, in Christ we have new life. His life becomes ours. The waters at baptism represent Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan in which God said, “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.” We hear the same voice proclaim over us that we are God’s child, that God is also well pleased with us. Through the Lord’s Supper, God’s covenantal meal, we are reminded of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection for us all. When we eat the bread and drink the cup we can experience his forgiveness and the grace displayed on the cross. Through Jesus’ death we die; and through his resurrection we are raised to new life. Jesus saves us from harm and saves us to the good work of God’s kingdom. Through his love – through Jesus himself – we are reconciled to God and have a way to be reconciled with one another. At the table of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, we are nourished and have a foretaste of what is to come – life everlasting. We pray for his return to finally bring everything to complete fruition through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I believe in God the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is in all and through all. The Spirit is everywhere and meets us in the darkest places. The Spirit prays for us. In prayer the Spirit enables us to know God’s word and move our hearts and renew our minds. The Spirit empowers us to live the way Jesus did, to be Christ-like. We are enabled then to honor God, to do what is required: to be just, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God—to follow the law of Christ. This law reveals our shortcomings and shows us how to live, even gratefully, as a community. The Spirit gives God’s gifts to God’s people, the Church, to further God’s reign in this needy world. Jesus is the head of the Church, the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit leads the Church in its mission: to do the will of God. The Spirit desires for all to enter into God’s abundant life and freedom, now and forever and ever. Amen.

With a nudge to Adam Walker Cleaveland, I end with this: #welcomejeff

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#DCFW13: A Free-Range Camping Retreat

DCFW13 Free-Range Worship

What began as a silly “protest committee” over dinner about an Internationally known spiritual festival withdrawing from the West Coast turned into an equally light-heartededly named spiritual camping retreat organized and run by those gathered that night – Domesticated Chicken Fest West 2013. As in, “Why the hell not?”

Too many times it seems, our churches and organized spiritual communities are structured in ways that empower a few to run the religious life of many. Pastors preach (more like a speech), governing boards maintain sole leadership, churches (i.e. a gathering of a spiritual community) meet in set-apart buildings with face-forward theater-style seating for the main once-a-week worship service. 

So, naturally, we did things a little differently.

To make our structure more “of the people,” we only allowed folks to lead, play and in any form facilitate an activity or discussion to those who would participate in the whole event. As we sought people to join and share at DCFW13, we could only say “yes” to their leadership if they planned to be with us for the duration.

Here’s a list of several folks who shared at Domesticated Chicken Fest West, held at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, north of Santa Cruz, CA, July 21-23:

Jer Swigart of The Open Door Community and The Global Immersion Project shared on the topic of Everyday Peacemaking. He described his family history and involvement in social justice and went on to speak of ways some current friends and colleagues in Palestine have extended themselves to others, blurring hardened ethnic/religious lines and simplistically, but poignantly, erasing unnecessary division.

Laura Kirk, co-organizer, gave an overview of the Enneagram personality (and dare I say spiritual) system and provided individual contemplative exercises as well as small group prayer practices based on type and similarity. Participants were given opportunities to take online tests and read materials to prepare beforehand if they so wished, while others brought material to assist in personality-type assessment during DCFW13.  

Martin Reed, a fish monger, discussed his experience and expertise on Ethical Eating. Owner of a sustainable fishery in San Francisco himself connecting fisherman and customers online, Martin shared the troubling waters of certain kinds of fish and their industry branding. Take away? Eat lower on the fish food chain and generally make sure whatever fish you eat is wild caught in the USA, which has tougher standards compared to most of the world. 

Elizabeth Hunnicutt, musician and singer-songwriter, accompanied by her acoustic guitar provided music and song during a worship service and communion on Monday evening. Later that night she performed several of her own songs as we lingered around the campfire, enraptured by her voice. Tripp Hudgins also perfectly joined her on a song with one of his skiffle-making stringed instruments he brought along (maybe he’ll comment with what it’s called?).   

Debra Avery and the aforementioned Tripp Hudgins curated and facilitated prayer and worship services throughout DCFW13. Using a blend of scripture reading, Benedictine Daily Prayer book, other selected readings, Taize and Taize-like songs, even a Mumford & Son tune or two (I assisted here), and their own words, the content of these communal prayer times was supplemented by the growing and shifting hands-on art prayer stations above and around the campfire.

Everyone was encouraged and enabled to add to our worship space throughout our 2 night and 3 day stay. 

Everyone could chime in during the presentations. Many conversations were started during the lecture/discussion periods and continued throughout DCFW13.

Everyone joined in a cooking or “food group” for eating and cleaning during meal times, even sharing home-brewed beer and tasty specialty coffee morning, noon and night.

Now, granted, many who were part of DCFW13 are pastors and professional theologians, but many were not… and that’s not counting children either.

There’s some wind of thought about doing this again next year. Perhaps we’ll change the name to something a bit more obviously spiritual, like Mother Hen Festival (my vote), but perhaps not. We’ll see what those involved think.

    

 

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Faith & Emergence

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(Photo by Adele Sakler)

Last Thursday Doug Pagitt and I hosted an event called Spirituality Pub: Faith & Emergence.

Well, he did most of the talking during the presentation part. But I did open up the event (among other things organize and take care of location logistics) and a couple wonderful parts of the evening came from a couple other folks, including those who stayed for the “conversation” piece during the 2nd half. Michael Toy read a couple poignant original poems and Adele Sakler shared some of her struggles with Christianity and yet why she still hangs around progressive Christians.

Doug spent most of his talk discussing faith and spirituality from “the ground up” and as something pulling us together, regardless of how one labels it. For a Christian, one would call it the Holy Spirit at work or God being greater and yet also smaller as the undeniable fabric we all live in, from atoms in our bodies to the atoms in the stars and a pulse transmitted through high tech scientific devices around the world.

What also is coming to the surface in the West, even among people of other religions or spiritual claims, is a humility and community of care for one another, of engaging someone on their terms, by drawing them in to
relationship and even perhaps one’s understanding of God as opposed to being forced to relationship and one way of thinking, believing, behaving or even being.

I had a wonderful evening connecting with people from all over Northern California interested in a friendly and yet throughly rich approach to being people of Spirit. We at The WordHouse are already thinking of hosting similar events in the future on faith and its intersection with societal concerns. Maybe Doug will be running another 50 miler soon in Nor Cal and will need another necessary distraction?

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Awful Death & Subversive New Life

The Empty Tomb

(The Empty Tomb by George C. Gray http://www.zianet.com/fpc/gray/page_01.htm)

I recently saw a video that awhile ago I might have really liked. Like pump my fist and exclaim “yes” kind of like. The message was a call to put away whatever differences we might have with others and just worship Jesus in song together.

As someone who typically thinks ambiguity is beautiful and honest, believes a moderate is someone often honest with complex contexts and is fine with opposing viewpoints and understands their validity, I was left short. This sentiment seemed contrived. It smacked of insincerity and embracing irresponsibility.

As this video sincerely invited people to worship Jesus in song by getting them to forget their differences, I realized he wasn’t really saying much of anything at all, or perhaps even worse. Unbeknownst to him, he could be endorsing some to take evil lightly. That sounds weird, how could a call to worship Jesus, the Prince of Peace, lead to not taking evil seriously? But if our worship of Jesus doesn’t lead us to stand up to or willingly take the heat of oppression here and right now, it is both worthless and harmful. Of course it’s a video with a specific message, so it can only say so much. Perhaps it’s part of the deal when listening and allowing for different voices to be heard and respecting their contexts, attempting to understand and grow from their insights and even getting lost in the shuffle. But if something greases the wheels towards complacency in dealing with oppression and evil in our world, we better get off those tracks quickly.

Some of us will be celebrating Jesus’ few days leading up to his execution, his death and then rising again to new life. I am struck by how we may lose meaning, if not all meaning, if we don’t acknowledge the severity of what may have been happening here in this three-part harmony. If Jesus’ innocent public killing is not some sort of indictment on humanity’s atrocities, ugliness and evil ways, and implicate people in his death, I’m not sure it’s worth claiming to call oneself a follower of Jesus.

I guess what I’m saying is this. We can’t fully enjoy the resurrection and whatever grace and freedom we might receive if we don’t ourselves know in some way that we are either a part of the crowds yelling “Crucify him! Crucify him!” and humbly break down and beat our chests in anguish OR that Jesus is actually like me in suffering at the hands of oppression and evil structures that rob dignity and mar the image of God in each of us and love him and thank him for providing hope. And maybe we realize that we embody both.

When we recognize how we’re intertwined with the cross of Jesus in either of those scenarios, we then might experience the power of his new life and in grace and truth respond in kind to Jesus – in song or life.

So if you ask me to join you in worship without taking the world’s and my unjust suffering or complicity in it seriously, it’s impossible for us to truly worship Jesus.
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#rethinkchurch: evil

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Everyday huge amounts of people go hungry. Not just in drought afflicted areas across the earth, but here in the United States. If all was right in the world and with humanity, this wouldn’t happen. For some to go hungry while others are well fed is evil. In God’s kingdom and in the future desired reality of God, hunger will be no more. All who are hungry will be filled; all will have a place at the heavenly banquet.

Certainly there are folks who take advantage, in a selfishly cruel sense, of the goodness of others like this food closet at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Midtown. But an offer of a hand up, or at least some groceries, remains. There’s too much evil in the world not to try and do good.

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#rethinkchurch: wonder

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What a beautiful day, what a wonder. The warming sun reflects God’s goodness on all. The chilly air is not the only experience this morning. No, there is warmth, there is hope.

The sun this morning hit me like a shock. I wasn’t expecting to feel its warmth as I stepped out from the coolness of our apartment leftover from the night before. Lent is a reminder of the sudden goodness that can come to the world’s darkness – the coming alongside suffering and overcoming evil done by Jesus the Christ.