knowing God and doing church

I am confounded by the contrasts I find of doing church stuff from local church to denominational activities with that of knowing God. I am reading Your's Jack which is letters from C. S. Lewis. As I read Thomas Merton, Madeleine L'Engle, Will Campbell, Lesslie Newbigin, Lewis and others, I find myself separated from the spiritual reality of God, the incarnation in Jesus Christ, and the power of being crucified with and risen with Christ.

It isn't that we don't touch on the center of the mission given us in Christ, its that we are pre-occupied with so much "otherness" of our own lives. And we have laid upon or imposed upon the "church" much of our life, rather than our growing into the life of Christ. We seek to be "good" so that God will give us brownie points for the future rather than accepting we cannot accomplish the good, but only can be forgiven by this amazing love of God that redeems us both now and "then."

I am told to at times to just accept whatever small bits of progress that may happen in the name of "church", and be happy with that. To accept as inevitable that we humans cannot really become the true church, body of Christ. Its only an illusion. A false reality. That is probably true. BUT when we accept Christ fully as our life, it is no longer a future promise or an illusion. Its the reality of heaven breaking in here on earth! I am convinced of that by faith.

I continue to seek those who seek to be in that deeply entrenched faith community. Nothing else matters. I know that from scripture...and from revelations of that message from many I have known and been with over the years. As I go back and re-read notes I took over 30 years ago in seminary, I realize that I was being prepared to lead in the church in faith by that reality. For years I have been tried to be convinced by others, often in the "church", to give it up and just accept things the way they are. "Give it your best shot, but don't take it to heart that much!"

I have greatly reinforced in this faith by conversation with John Gossett from my congregation who is reading at my suggestion Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity by Eugene Peterson. John continue to comment to me how much he is realizing what ministry is from reading this book, and how demanding it is to be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a culture that has done a bait and switch by convincing folks that the gospel is really not that demanding and that it is more about us than it is about Jesus Christ.

I am presently in a denomination that advertises itself rather than simply proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not that they intend to, but they come close to sounding like the Church of Christ or the Mormons as though the reality of Jesus is mainly known in our nation through the United Church of Christ. The reality of Jesus Christ is known where God wills it. In humility we seek to be ready for God to use us as God wills. But it is never about us. We are to be the light of God to the world. The UCC as well as Fairlawn West UCC will die with Christ, so that we may proclaim that we will all be raised with him. But these days many in the UCC stop short of saying that...because they think it is "aniquated" thinking. We spend more time promoting social issues and our own right thinking in the present, and we cherry pick our own historical strands to present how we were on the right side of history. Conveniently ignoring much of our own history that promoted the values and actions that today we condemn in others. We distinguish ourselves by our ideology, but our methodology is similar to that of those we condemn.

May Christ save us all!

gossips and rumors of gossip

There's been a lot of hoop-la about Jeremiah Wright the recently retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the church where Barack Obama is a member.

It brought some recent memories for us at Fairlawn West United Church of Christ in Akron. About 10 years ago we set out to be a church that is consumed by the mission of Jesus Christ and that we would be sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world around us rather than focused on ourselves and keeping the church more for ourselves, our convenience and comfort rather than being servants of God. That led to some major accusations towards me, animosity by some folks within the church, and a major blow up in the life of the church with some folks leaving to go to other churches. Along the way we took the pews out of our sanctuary and put in chairs and round tables. We gave the pews to a number of churches from Missouri to Pennsylvania that were white and African-American, and pentecostal to fundamentalist.

That latter move on top of the stories floating around these parts of Akron for some years before, led to wild stories about us in other churches and just out on the "street" among folks. It sounded like we had almost become devil worshipers who had sold our mothers into slavery! What we heard is that we were no longer a church...because we got rid of the pews. That we had misappropriated upwards of $800,000. That I had been emotionally abusive of older women in the church. That we had removed our large pipe organ (which apparently grew out of the horror that we had removed the pews.) The stories were legion, and the antipathy toward us by a variety of "church folks" was deep. But we found in the 4 years since that a number of other folks who were looking for a deeply spiritual, outward reaching, not self consumed church found out about us and have become part of our life. Some even heard about us through those wild stories.

Like Rev. Wright and Trinity UCC, people heard blips and decided from that about the whole. Like Jesus said in Luke 6:

22-23"Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don't like it, I do . . . and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this.

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?