time away

I've been "away" obviously for a few weeks. Been doing some vacation. Some reading. Some reflecting.

We are starting to consider a primary mission of our church to be an urban sabbath/retreat center. We are in the midst of a very hectic portion of the city of Akron. We are on the major east/west thoroughfare beyond the expressway. The lives of many of the "partners in ministry" of Fairlawn West Church are hectic. I am reading the book "Urban Iona". We had been talking about this for a few years, but reading this book is helping me to feel clear about this mission. I think of so many people who are urban poor who have no places for, and probably no sense of "going on retreat", let alone the vacations so many of us desparately yearn for. (yet, when we come back from them we crash back into the hetic world we so desparately wanted a respite from...see below*)

It is vital that we not see ourselves simply as a place "to get away from." Because we are also a place "to go out from." We as a community of faith and our bldg in particular are not a destination, but a staging area for the next movements of the spirit in going out to the world around us.

The line that is important for all of our church leaders to answer (at least), "What is it about your experience of Jesus Christ that the world around you needs to know?" is part of this. So is the mission statement I have shared for the past three weeks "Reaching up and Reaching Out." Reaching up to God and Reaching out to Others.

We at Fairlawn West are at another time/point of having to look inward to see if we are losing our call outward. It feels that way to me. We have found our comfort zone/our nest, and we are now starting to focus more on arranging the nest rather than in getting out of the nest to soar among those others who are looking for a home/nest. The role of Jesus' disciples to get out of the nest to help others find their home...in God's kingdom.

*When I served the small village, northwoods of Wisconsin, resort area community of St. Germain as a pastor in the early '90's, every May the church folks would get anxious. Now, we were dependent on the summer tourists for the center piece of our economic life, but we also dreaded them when they would come up north with all their craziness in driving and demands that we provide "service" for them...and right now!!! I would preach an annual sermon the last three of my four years there about how those folks were coming up to our place to try to catch some of the way of life and peace and serenity that we knew year round in the northwoods. They couldn't help themselves. They brought with them the craziness even as they came up to get away from it or to get rid of it. We didn't need to mistrust the serenity of our way of life that God had provided in the natural world around us, not just for us, but for all to share in. We needed to "let go and let God" and not catch the "anxious virus" that those folks from "down below" (we also called them "flatlanders") brought with them.

I am at my in-laws' home on the Cumberland Plateau (2000 ft up with mountains around) in east Tennessee on a lake with beautiful trees, and a wonderful gazebo in which to relax and read and chat and watch sunsets and just be. I have done this for 18 years. And my in-laws share their great gift of hospitality with us. The last few days I have been reminded of those years in the northwoods as I have read about the urban Iona, thought about Fairlawn West as a sabbath retreat in the city, and about the crazy hectiness that I am part of "down below." Yes, I see in myself the crazy anxiousness that those tourists would bring up north with them each year to Wisconsin. Can we at Fairlawn West be a setting and a staging point in the city as St. Germain was as a village and my in-laws place is? I think we will need to change our culture and our sense of mission, use of bldg and self-governance to do this. Are we willing to face that? Is God calling us to this now?