Category Archives: church

Are you IN love with Jesus? Awkward…

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Lets get this out of the way right up front: I love Jesus. I do. I love worshiping Jesus. I think its good to tell him that I love him. I think its good to remind myself that he loves me too. I do.

But can we be honest for a second and admit that the last ten years of worship music are kind of…awkward. Southpark might be right in saying that all we do is sing love songs to Jesus. I love the moment in that Southpark episode when record label executives try to ask Cartman whether he is actually in love with Jesus.

Music is powerful. It speaks to our soul, it captures our heart, and it captures moments in time and imortalizes them in our collective memories. With regard to worship, however, I think we’ve lost some of its potency. Rarely does it capture us up into a grand narrative, a story bigger than ourselves. Rarely does it inculcate us with the truth of Scripture, rarelycalling us into community or propelling us toward loving our neighbors more fully…what our worship music does is remind us how much we love Jesus.

Too much of a good thing is not good. Maybe we should stop just talking about how much we love Jesus and capture some of our story in song, capture some of our ancient historical story in song, capture truths about God in song, sing songs that invite us to live differently and more graciously in our world…instead…we just tell Jesus that we love him…a lot…

Too much of a good thing? I say yes, and awkwardly so!

My Apologies to the Fam

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As far as I am beginning to see it I have two real options. One is to embrace my faith tradition and move forward as a part of a story and the other is to reject it and move forward as an orphan. I did not used to see things with this dichotomy, nor did I care much. More recently I’ve come to a place where I desired to embrace my immediate church history as long as it carried an asterisk that allowed an explanation of how my current expression was different in this way, that way, or another. In other words, even in my semi-embrace of my tradition I have been ashamed of it–embarrassed that people might get the wrong idea, that I might get lumped in with baggage that I have rejected. In reality, however, I question whether or not its even possible to reject your baggage and move forward without it. Even in the act of rejecting it, the baggage that you’ve rejected has caused you to make a specific choice in the present and therefore is a part of both your present and your future.

As I wrote in my previous post, an embrace requires a sense of vulnerability, and it is this exact vulnerability that I desire to avoid with regard to my church background. I am a part of the churches of Christ. I might disagree with some of their general principles and practices but they are my family. I might look different than many of their more common expressions…but not as wholly different than I might have previously thought.

We were not made to be orphans, we were made to inhabit a story, to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. This is where community comes into play. Community and family are never pretty, but they provide a sense of belonging. Our stories provide us a compass for the future, a larger narrative that will help to direct our dreams for tomorrow. Choosing to be an orphan, a lone wolf, or an island is a dangerous game and one that I’m coming to believe leads to loneliness, resentment, and aimlessness.

With that all said I would like to make a formal apology to Campbell, Stone, Raccoon, Lipscomb, Garfield, and even David Robinson. See you next Christmas.

The Anatomy of an Embrace*

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Speaking to the church–to those following Jesus who gather as the church, we have often had a tainted posture toward others. To those on the insides of the mechanism we have an posture of arrival–because of this we’re able to put on our smiley faces regardless of the potentially destructive choices we’ve made or have been made around us. When the assumption is one of arrival it means that we’ve got to look the part of one who has arrived. If you haven’t arrived then you’ve either got to be saved or you need to repent…neither of which are appealing to someone on the inside (anyone for that matter). Toward those on “the outside” our posture is one of superiority and urgency. First off we honestly believe that we have the monopoly on truth, right living, and the virtues of goodness, generosity, and kindness. We dole out our wares to the savages outside our doors whom are in need of our product. If, however, they do not think that they need our product or are not as excited about our product as they should be we then introduce urgency and demand a quick and right choice. Arrival, superiority, and urgency. I’m sure much more could be said about all this and I’m certain that these are generalizations that carry a mixture of accuracy and inaccuracy all throughout. The point being, however, that our posture toward others is oftentimes off. My posture toward others is oftentimes off.

What if we allowed the act of embrace to better define our posture toward others (both those that we’ve awkwardly deemed “insiders” and “outsiders”)? An embrace creates vulnerability, it is relational but not intimate. An embrace demands a blend of space and proximity, it requires activity and stillness, it can be both awkward and affirming. An embrace can be broken down to four stages that have massive implications to how we relate with the otherness around us.

  1. Open Arms— An embrace always begins with arms wide open (please, no, that was not a Creed reference!) you have to want the other before an embrace happens. By opening yourself you both communicate care and desire for the other but you also open yourself to the awkwardness of vulnerability. As we approach others in life there needs to be a level of of awkward desire know and be known. There also must be space for others. Generally churches have open arms that are symbolic of an embrace but they lack the vulnerability that truly defines what it means to open your arms. What kind of space is there in our personal lives, in our church activities, in our church structures that allows space for others? There has got to be space for an embrace before it will ever happen.
  2. Waiting— It would be easy to fall out of the boat on either side of the “arms open wide” position. Either in the manner of a creepster we pursue others with our arms open saying “if you don’t hug me I’ll hug you” and we chase people down and hug them to death or we draw a line in the sand and say “I can’t cross this line, but I’m willing to hug you if you cross it and come over here. Look at me, my arms are wide open”. The reality is that there is a level of patience necessary, a willingness to open yourself up, make space, be vulnerable, and then wait. Wait for response, wait for desire and awkwardness to emerge from the other. “Waiting is a sign that, although embrace may have a one-sidedness in its origin, it can never reach its goal without reciprocity.” Are we willing to give space to people to respond in their own time? Is it OK for people to be angry and not in the mood to embrace? Are we willing to act out of the reality that we need others?
  3. Closing the arms–It finally happens! This is the goal of the embrace…the actual hug. “In an embrace a host is a guest and a guest is a host” In an embrace two people become one, four arms become one embrace. Reciprocity, relationship, unity, sharing…all these things sum up what happens as the arms close around each other. I think that we often want to rush this part. We want to skip the waiting period and just make the embrace happen. When we don’t wait, however, what happens is is two armed embrace. One person hugs while the other flails or awkwardly stands motionless. There is no reciprocity, sharing, or unity.
  4. Letting go— you’ve got to let go. While the embrace unites two bodies into one, the whole equation is negated if the parties do not let go. The purpose of an embrace is to let go and move forward, to anticipate future embraces with each other and with other partners. We’re always letting go with purpose or holding on with regret. While the goal is the embrace itself, an embrace is ruined without letting go. I feel blessed to be a part of a church (for another week!) that knows how to let go well. Renovatus is a sending church, they do not wait for right moments to let go, but rather believe that letting go is a part of a healthy embrace.

We have found this framework to be very true in our work in downtown Vancouver and with Renovatus. People need to know that you genuinely like them, you’ve got to be willing to be vulnerable, people need space to respond, you’ve got to believe that their authentic response is crucial, “success” is measured through shared commitment, and letting go is a necessary part of joining together: we are gathered to be scattered.

*without shame I am adapting and borrowing much of this from Miroslav Volf’s amazing book Exclusion and Embrace

Thankful for this Thanksgiving Video

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We played this video at Renovatus’ Thanksgiving celebration. It is deliciously wonderful and you should watch it twice.


Thanksgiving History Lesson

pb {Fire Xscape} | Myspace Video

Can God Hate Visionary Dreaming?

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He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. the man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, he sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the  circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In just a few weeks my family will be living in a new context. We will be living in the same home as another couple and a single person. Together the seven of us learn how to do life together , we will learn how to respect the others eating preferences, sleeping preferences, and parenting preferences. At the same time we will be learning how to give up our preferences in deference to each other. Not only, however, will we be exploring how to live for each other but part of our experiment is how to live for each other while dying to ourselves for the sake of our neighbor(hood). All at the same time I am nervous and excited. We are on the verge of something–a transformational experience for certain whether it be through disaster or through success.

Success? What in the world is success anyway?

The quote from Bonhoeffer above questions our preconceived notions of success. He even goes on to say that if our pursuit in community is of my definition of success then I have already missed the mark. When we’re in pursuit of my ideals then inevitably I take a position of power over and above everyone else in order to make my dream become a reality OR I take the position of accuser if/when my dream does not become a reality–an accuser of you, of me, and of God for failing to do His part.

For those of us who are a part of a church community we should take Bonhoeffer’s words soberly. How many of us are invested in church for what it could become rather than for the “simple” idea of love? Love for our brothers, love of self, and love of God. There must always be a sense of anticipation for what might happen, for what could happen, for what might become–but if this sense of anticipation ever supersedes love, then we have missed not only the means of becoming but also the exact reason we might ever become anything.

In church planting we’re trained to craft and care for our vision. If this is indeed the case, we had better add a lot of padding around that statement. Because if my vision for a church (that consists

of me, other human beings, and the Spirit of God) simply emerges from my brain, my heart, and my passions I will inevitably become either accuser or controller. In community–both as a church and as neighbors–we must learn to listen to each other, to care for the others voice, and to hear God in one another. In community we must also make space for listening to God, to value his voice, and to joyfully submit to his desires for our future. Together we can make beautiful music.