Tag Archives: development

Slow resurrection breeds deeply rooted hope

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , , ,

My God, my God, this scene is long

Remember Game of Thrones? About 6 years ago Jon Snow got resurrected.

I can’t make sense of the well-blended pastiche of Western Culture that is GOT. But I can tell you John Snow’s resurrection was quite a media event. It was such a common topic SNL made fun of it (in an unfunny skit). The point of the skit is that the scene was incredibly slow.

The resurrection scene was so laborious and long that it was kind of boring, especially since you knew if they started it they were going to finish it. “Just get on with it and let’s do dragons!”

Resurrection is so much the essential Christian event, having it rendered on TV made me queasy. But I think many church people could relate to a laborious drama leading to resurrection: “Lent then Holy Week?!” Most people decided a long time ago that processs is just too much. “Just get on with it and get to the resurrection!”

One of my favorite quotes from Paul Tournier’s book, Creative Suffering, is “All liberating growth takes time.” I think it makes sense that Lent is long. We are not instantly ready for resurrection. It has to grow on us — and in us.

But I can feel it when people say, “It seems like my whole life is Lent and there are only random moments of resurrection!” The whole Christian year, even, feels like that — we have an incarnation day and a resurrection day, then a whole lot of trouble in between. It just does not seem right.

Slow resurrection

Hearing that kind of complaint in myself and others, I tried to listen to it hard. I came to another question: What if the suffering is not long, it is the resurrection that is slow? What if we just need to reframe the issue? Are we really bored? Or are we just resistant to the creative suffering we need to endure to develop. Like Tournier implies, it takes time. What if our slow resurrection is a good journey after all?

It did take a couple of days for Jesus to get to resurrection himself, after all.

The church doesn’t teach this much any more, but the “harrowing of hell” was an exciting topic for centuries during the early days of the church. The story goes like this. Between his death on the cross and his resurrection, Jesus used the “keys of death and Hades” he holds (Revelation 1:18) to free righteous people from the past who were waiting for the Messiah. The Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus “descended into the lower parts of the earth” (Ephesians 4:9) – the lower parts were understood to be the “abode of the dead,” a place Greeks called “Hades.” The Apostle Peter tells us that Jesus “preached to the dead” (1 Peter 4:6) and “to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:18). Their “Lent” was long!

On Holy Saturday – the day before Jesus’ resurrection, the scene of Jesus descending into Hades (or Hell) was often vividly described in the old days. Jesus unlocks the door to Hades to announce his victory over death, Satan, and all the powers of Hell. He then releases Adam and Eve and all the “just” who were waiting for their redemption. A number of paintings and icons, especially from the Eastern churches, depict the scene. Christus Victor!

Descent to Hell, by Duccio in 1308-11

If you feel like your resurrection is taking too long, welcome to humanity. But I hope you can see that Jesus came to find you and walk with you on your long jounrey a long time ago. He is with you in the time between your death by sin and your entrance into the fullness of your resurrection life. He has descended to your level, too.

We’d prefer it to be instant, like everything else.

When I was in the Baptist church as a child, we highly anticipated the song we would sing every Easter: Up From the Grave He Arose, we called it. The tune for that line felt very dramatic and everyone sang it loud, which was exciting.

It is an instant song, “Well then, up from the grave he arose. Just like that!” As if Mary ran and told the disciples, “I was just weeping by the tomb and up from the grave he arose!” It kind of implies we ought to be rising up just like that too. I think some of us have. But for the rest of us, our partner doesn’t look at us and say, “Well, will you look at that, you rose!” We may, in fact, be more resurrected than we were last year, but sometimes it feels like the same damned things keep happening. That’s slow.

We may think, “Why is this scene so slow! Let’s pep this up. Make something happen; I am at the end of my attention span!” At least quit talking and sing a song! Singing Up From the Grave He Arose can still revive my interest. I’m glad Easter comes to keep me engaged in my own process of getting a life.

By the way, my childhood song has a worldwide following. I wish the Indians below did not look like they had been recently colonized, but I still find their sincerity irresistible.

I have to say these regular Americans singing it are much more my wavelength. This is how you should sing the old song, IMO.

Development takes time

All liberating growth takes time. My psychotherapy and spiritual direction clients are experiencing slow resurrection. It is always amazing to watch a loved one dip their toes into their mental and spiritual health and then be drawn into deep currents of love and hope. The writer of Ted Lasso and Shrinking recently had an interview on NPR in which he talked about his own slow resurrection of sorts. It is happening everywhere, right now, and is happening in many of you reading this.

Resurrection is more a relentless growing. Hope is not instantly accrued. I think the Apostle Paul is sharing his own experience when he says:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5

Hope takes time. Sharing the glory of God develops. But when that grace has taken root and been nurtured, it has a way of sinking in. Resurrection is like the roots of the best kind of weed trees growing through our concrete defenses, finding a path to dirt and water through stones, harrowing parts of us that just need more light and air.

When we think of “harrowing,” we often think of some traumatic experience: “Saw III was harrowing!” But the word comes from a herding practice. Harrowing is removing dead thatch, which lifts vegetation up and levels mole hills. So we’re saying, Saw III really stirred me up and flattened me!” The process allows the turf to breathe and water to penetrate. It reduces disease by exposing fungi and bacteria to sunlight which is essential for the health of the pasture. Like Jesus was stirring up hell, his Spirit is harrowing us and bringing light to our darkness.

In the quote above, Paul is encouraging people in a young church in very uncertain times to stick with it. Turn toward sureness, not certainty. Turn toward being assured — saying, “Sure,” not being right. Be watched over. Stand in the grace and turn into the hope of the fulness of glory that is already here and yet to come. Learn to trust it.

If we go into every day turning toward hope, I think each day can surprise us with resurrection: “Thank you God. Up from the grave I arose. Up from the grave she arose. My God! There is hope for everyone!” I have spent a couple of hard years learning that lesson, again. I keep talking about Mahalia Jackson singing about how God sent the angel and said, “Touch her.” And she sang, “I rose up this morning and I want to thank God!”

Each day may seem like it is long: arguing with a mate, being abused or discriminated against, failing, feeling ashamed or disappointing, fearful. It can all feel SO long! But each morning we rise up! Hope can be reborn and strengthened! Jesus is risen!

Will people grow up before the church gets wrecked?: Eliza’s question and Janet’s answer

A life in the Spirit, The Mission, , , , ,
Eliza wins the Pulitzer

A few days ago I was talking to Eliza Griswold. She is writing a book about Circle of Hope — along with other churches on our wavelength and the future of the Church in general. She was recording me.

When we got to the part about turmoil in our church (there is a little), which makes for a better book, after all,  and turmoil in the larger Church (there is quite a bit), I looked at the phone for a second. “Am I going to say something dumb?”

I took a deep breath. Our turmoil is all for the best. Most of the controversies we face are about causes that should cause turmoil. Some of them are either over the tipping point or about to go over the tipping point into full scale change, which would be worth a lot of trouble. For instance, a school in Virginia just got a name change from Robert E. Lee to John Lewis last week – so things could be looking up (and I mean looking “as God sees things” in the case of that school, not IMO).

Eliza lamented in her inquisitive way about some of the strident discourse she was hearing in our church. It scared her, since she is well acquainted with church controversy. She tagged the young ones as responsible for most of it, I think (I didn’t record her). And the phrase “social justice warriors” seems like it was used, although I’m not sure either of us said it. The angry-sounding, division-threatening dialogue made her wonder if we would even survive! So she wanted to hear what an old head like me would say about it.

I told her (I guess she could check the tape about this) I thought old people should be the last to judge the young. My job is to help everyone get into a sustainable stage in their faith so they are not run over by the deceitful world – otherwise, what is the point of walking with Jesus for 50 years — so young people can look dumb in comparison? People don’t start where they end up, even if they think where they are now is a fine achievement. I want to affirm their achievements and help them get into what is next, since none of us is going to stop developing, in one way or another. It was something like that.

Janet Hagberg and her inspiring books

Janet Hagberg

Janet Hagberg is all about development and she has been influencing me again, lately.

When I was in my twenties I heard Janet Hagberg speak. As I recall, she was testing out some material she was collecting for how to implement James Fowler’s seminal work on the Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. Later on I read Hagberg’s book Real Power and it made so much difference to me, I basically installed it in Circle of Hope. I was so impressed with Real Power, I went back and read James Fowler, the basis, which was tough but productive sledding. After that, I laced the “stages of faith” into most of my thinking about growing in faith: I put it in workshops, I blogged about it, and I engineered a version of it, with the pastors, that became the outline for the  Way of Jesus site – when you go to it you’ll see me ready to talk about the stages of faith right there on the intro page.

Just lately, I found a book that had been languishing on my selves for a long time, undiscovered, until I took it out of a packing box to reshelve it. It was Hagberg’s book The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith. God drew her into a deeper rendition of Real Power later on in life. Real Power was for the corporate world; and though spirituality is present, it isn’t focused on Jesus, per se. The Critical Journey is for Jesus followers (and anyone who wants to follow along with them). I think she might say this book “ruined her life” – at least it “ruined” the previous life that was headed for success in the corporate world.

Instead, Hagberg became a spiritual director and a mentor to many disciples. Last week I wrote to her with a question about the spiritual stages inventory in her book and she wrote back! That was unexpected, as it always is for me when a hero notices me. (That desire to be seen might be why I always get so choked up when cast members in the Disney parade break ranks to come over and wish my grandchild a “magical birthday”). I am pondering whether to accept her invitation to travel with a small group she is forming for next year as a means for spiritual development.

 

Time to grow and time for social action

I was fresh from reading The Critical Journey when I sat in the heat with Eliza (who has a Wikipedia page BTW). And she was wondering about what twentysomethings would do to the church. I started formulating my feelings into a theory in their defense.

I think young people should get involved with the power struggles of the world to express their undeserved powerlessness (stage one) and fully explore the energizing experiences of exercising power in stage two. Many derisively-labeled “social justice warriors” are criticized for being one-way know-it-alls who will cancel someone who does not agree with them. People do dumb stuff at every stage of life. I think stage two people often act like they know it all because they just learned a huge amount of meaningful material that is forming their future. Unlike a lot of burned out old people, they think life is important and they are going to make something out of it. Any twenty-something who is not on some bandwagon in the name of great causes should catch up. Their cohort is fueling some wonderful development in themselves and the world, whether they know what they are doing or not!

The observations of the stages of faith usually place most twentysomethings in stage two of their adult development, as humans, but also as people of faith.

  • One of the main characteristics of people in stage two (whenever they get there) is finding meaning in belonging. They may like a denominational way of being the church, but they are more likely to attach to a local church, and even within that church they are most likely to find a small group of people to whom they belong. Pastors may not like this, but that’s how people are. The group shapes our identity, we find power in association with others.
  • No one comes out fully formed, so in stage two people connect to a leader, a system or a cause, sometimes many before they zero in. The sense of enlightenment from sharing the leader’s/author’s/system’s wisdom is intoxicating. The same experience can be found by having a cause be the leader and not a person. A sense of being right, now that they have found the right stuff, often breeds a feeling of security –- which can sometimes come off as too secure, and exclusive of others who aren’t at the same place, or stage.

Calling something a stage implies that we are moving through it. Thus Hagberg calls our development a critical “journey.” People can get stuck in stage two for a number of reasons. The major reasons are

  • They get rigid: legalistic and moralistic. When someone complains about getting taken out by a “my way or the highway” SJW I can acknowledge the danger of people acting that way, but I am just so happy they have gotten far enough in life to find something outside themselves to care about! Audacity is underrated.
  • A sense of belonging can end up with being part of a closed, paranoid, “us against them” group. America, in general seems to have regressed into this trap,
  • A group can end up not being as attractive as expected so people can keep switching groups and doing the same thing over and over. They don’t move forward, just move around.
  • People who have been injured in groups, especially in churches, can spend a lifetime searching for a group that won’t hurt them. They need to move inward — that was the invitation when the leader, group or theory proved faulty, instead they blame the group and move on to have a similar experience, quite often, in the next one.

How does one avoid getting stuck in stage 2 or get unstuck? Moving on usually means becoming a producer instead of a product. When it comes to life in Christ, that movement is sort of inevitable. People joke that if you have a good idea in Circle of Hope, you’ll probably end up in charge of it. That’s not necessarily so, but maybe it should be. We formed cells and teams so people could be in charge of something and grow up in faith. Jesus wants friends, not slaves who only do what they’re told. In Ephesians 4 Paul tells us not to be infants, but grow up into Christ!

A lot of us find this need for development satisfied at work and in our own family. That’s where we take on responsibility and produce something – like offspring, a mortgage and profits for the company. The movement from Stage 2 to 3 in the Spirit is deeper. Women risk to be valuable. So-called minorities insist they matter and deserve a voice in  the dialogue. Young people seek responsibility the old guard thinks they don’t deserve. We discover our gifts and are moved to enact them. We rejoice in the fact that we can develop and become all we are called to be.

I rejoice. I vividly remember being in stage two. At that time in my life, a 70something elder in the church I was serving took me aside one day and said, “Rod, you have great ideas, but you have terrible PR.” He went on. I listened to him. But I essentially thought, “The hell with PR! I don’t see Jesus taking cues from his media advisors!” I was right, but I later realized that I wanted to build something, not spend my life rebelling against what someone else built. I got some new skills, eventually. I’m still grateful for people like Janet Hagberg and that fed-up elder who cared enough to open up the possibility of development in critical ways — in both the positive and negative senses of that word.

The Development Pastor at One Year

Building community,

I wrote about Rachel at one month. I got excited about Julie and Jerome at one month. But I have not said too much about myself as I have been moving through this interesting transition year. Someone wondered why. So here I am. I’m almost a year into being the “Development Pastor.” I’m telling some of my own story.

My new role feels a bit like my village was raided and we needed to move — it is more of a transition than I expected! It is life-changing, but it is also life-affirming, in the sense that a lot of what God gave me along the way is like a tool chest for this new territory.

No, I did not retire

I went to the General Conference of the Brethren in Christ in July (like I have every other year for decades) and must have been asked twenty times, “How is retirement?” I’m shaking my head as I write. Retirement?!

I might have said, “I wish retirement!” (since 60somethings supposedly thirst for it), but I don’t wish.

My new role in the church is less hands on and supposedly less time (not yet, really), but it is no less an occupation to which I feel called and fully deployed. I actually started another part-time profession when I began to apply my new doctorate to psychotherapy in Circle Counseling’s new digs at 1226 S. Broad St. So I won’t be retiring any time soon.

That is odd.

It is odd for the founding pastor of a church to step away and let his descendants take over. Usually, they wheel him out in a coffin or wheel him into a fancy office where he can keep looking like he presides over everything. Or, if that doesn’t work out, he just disappears and leaves the future of the church to “whatever.” I think many people think disappearing is more normal than transitioning to another role in the body—fired, tired or expired, you are supposed to go.

But last week Gwen and I sat in our usual spot at the South Broad Sunday meeting — we still like it right up front. But that is as close to “up front” as I got. I have been asked several times if taking a back seat feels sad for me. I must miss giving speeches. Or worse, I must feel disappeared, since, in the past, people came to see me like I was an episode of The Big Bang Theory and now there is a crime drama at that time so they are into crime drama and forgot The Big Bang. A lot of pastors do disappear when they are not in front every week. It is actually sort of pastor protocol for them to not infect the career of their successors. Instead, I was sitting next to Rachel last week.

I don’t miss it that much.  I never really thought being “up front” was the heart of my leadership, anyway —  I never found myself in the footlights, I guess. And Circle of Hope is more of a tribe than a production company, anyway, so I grew into another role. That feels right to me. I am still a member of the tribe; I’m just doing something else that fits where I am and where we are now. I suppose it does seem odd that our employees are not mere interchangeable parts we could order out of a catalog, but that’s how we are.

What do you do now?

One of the Coordinators asked this question the other day even though I report to them every week. I think I have been predictable so long it is unnerving to let me change, “If you are not that, what could you possibly be?” Sometimes I feel like that too. We’re all getting a handle on it. I think of what I do now as all about the future.  Circle of Hope has an amazing identity and a wonderful community. I am all about developing us to take who we are and move it into the future God is laying out for us as a whole church. We are a much bigger deal than we used to be and we have a bigger responsibility to develop and use what we have been given. I think the world and the church needs us to be deep, conscientious and strong.

The three big titles in the description of what I do are Formation, Teaching, and Development.

  • Formation is about spiritual and psychological health – I try to give the church tools (like Daily Prayer and the Way of Jesus), but mostly this is about personal counseling, mentoring and spiritual direction.
  • Teaching is more obvious – sometimes I am back up front, but all over the church in the Sunday meetings and training times. I invent and organize Gifts for Growing (like the 30something Retreat and Doing Theology coming up). I write like this.
  • Development is the largest area right now – we have new systems to use to build our institution and we have new needs to face as we grow. I’m into developing all the systems and facing the needs. I help the Leadership Team grow (that’s my main team). I often deal with conflict and goal setting. I help with the practical matters of moving over the edge into new territory. Somebody noticed that it was nice to have “your very own older person” around — things happen when you are out on the edge.

What is our edge?

What the church has done with me and how we are multiplying a congregation right now is so remarkable people have a hard time understanding it. I love how we can take risks and let the Spirit empower us and save us. If you are not excited about that, I think you ought to be. You are edgy. But there are further places to move.

I think we are going to go against the grain of the Northeast’s spiritual devolution and keep church planting. Plus, like our Map says this year, I think we are going to create a mutuality web that is the antidote to the soul-crushing individualism being written into law in the United States. What’s more, I think our new ideas for “good business” are going to start a very practical expression of our creativity. Those are the first things that come to mind.

What about teens? What about urban parenting? What about school care? What about finding a voice for alternativity? What about art? Climate change? There is a lot going on, and there should be. It is a challenging era to be a Jesus follower and we have been given a lot to contribute to the Lord’s cause.

What gives you strength?

I’ve had several conversations that pointed this out to me this week. I realized that my capacity is all learned. I have some native ability to do what I do, of course. But most of what I need has been an acquisition, a gift received, not an inner discovery.

  • Simplicity – My money is a tool. My success does not define me. Life is what I am living. I stick with my calling.
  • Centered prayer – Silence and contemplation are essential. Being with Jesus all day is a joy.
  • Teaming – I don’t do anything alone. Relationships of love are how the best things get done. I am a covenant member of the body of Christ.
  • Focus on goals – I like getting things done and I will risk failure to do them. I try to keep it simple and determine to do what I can actually accomplish. I am not a perfectionist. Thinking and acting ahead is important.
  • Reading widely (and yes FB and Twitter) – Nothing much is new under the sun, I may just not know it yet. I think the art of repurposing is more important than invention most of the time. Humility and foolishness lead to good things; I listen from that vantage point.

What will be new?

I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable after writing all this about myself. Presuming that someone is interested in me is not in my inner script. But I got to the end of it so the curious would feel more secure about what is happening in their church. It is odd. The new me is kind of odd, I guess. But I hope the change is very good. I am not sure what will happen, but a few things are coming into focus:

  • I hope my next ten years are full of children: spiritual children, grandchildren, and other people’s children.
  • I am going to enjoy letting go of our “2nd act” structures, once they can all walk —many of our innovations are still babies.
  • I intend to do more psychotherapy and spiritual direction.
  • I already write more.
  • I expect to teach more in the Hallowood Institute Gwen is founding, as well as throughout Circle of Hope.
  • I will apply myself to whatever I am given by God as I have always tried to do.
  • And, of course, Circle of Hope will be new. It is changing right now before our very eyes. Like I said, I actually feel a bit uprooted from the pleasant valley we used to live in. But I look forward to what will become of this much larger place into which we have entered. Much of it is unexplored, but what I have seen is beautiful! I look forward to what it becomes in much the same way I wonder if the baby’s eyes will stay blue — it is yet to be revealed but a sweet anticipation.

New development: The practical beginning of the “second act”

Mostly the arts, The Mission, , , ,

Development is hard. For instance: The crew and I, led by the devoted foreman Ben Blei, are in the last throes of finishing the project down the street at 1226 S. Broad. All the details we missed are becoming evident. All the last-minute demands to meet the deadlines are irritating us. Relationships that need to work, but don’t work that well, are becoming obvious. Our limitations are also becoming obvious. There are a lot of problems associated with developing an old abandoned building. There are good reasons people don’t take on big projects like that.

As I was writing that line, someone emailed and told me they were as good as an abandoned building and God started developing them! But they had some good reasons why they did not want to get with that program: details, demands, relationship issues, limitations, etc, etc. It is exciting whenever I hear about someone who is in the throes of developing faith! Because the main development project people resist taking on is themselves.

That kinds of sums up the focus of my new job. I’m now the “development pastor.” It is a big idea for a job description, in that I am going to get practical about how we get from here to there as the whole church, Circle of Hope. But it is also a very small idea, in that I am going to have more time to be devoted to individuals, especially the leaders, as they move into their future in Christ.

I am excited. I even renamed this blog to make that clear!

I need to develop and I want to help others develop

That’s probably the same as you – we’re on the same team after all. I just get to lead in it. We all need to develop — we’re doing it one way of another. I want to follow Christ into my fullness.

To develop in Christ means one has some kind of experiential knowledge of spiritual things that moves them to action — not just book knowledge, or secondhand knowledge or even Circle of Hope knowledge. You know God and that relationship is developing. I first learned this when I finally read the Bible and saw in Romans 8 that people who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. In all our talk about our “second act” we have been devoted to risking that the people of our church will be led by the Spirit: we’re trusting Christ to be at work in all of us; we’re trusting each other to keep developing as people in Christ and to resist settling into some placeholder life.

The last time I spoke in a Sunday meeting I offered three basic things we all need to hold on to if we are going to keep developing as individuals in Christ and keep developing as the Lord’s church. Let me briefly list them again.

  • Take incarnation seriously

The finite manifests the infinite, the physical is the doorway to the spiritual — like Jesus the incarnate Son of God is our way to eternity. This is the way to that. There are not sacred and profane places or moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places and moments. Christ in YOU is the hope of glory. Christ in US makes us the incarnation of the Lord in the here and now. To develop, take that honor seriously. You and we are important, no matter what voice inside or big power from outside tells us.

love will always be key to our development

  • Practice remaining in Love

Only love “in here” can enjoy love “out there.” Fear, constriction and resentment make us blind and need to be overcome. People cooperating with their development let their inner darkness and fear rest in Christ. God’s gift of love in Jesus makes that possible. There is no law or moral code that makes you better than remaining in Love. Stay there no matter how many times someone wants you to prove the validity of what you know in your heart by the data, or they try to make you love the empty container of the law without the content of the Creator. “Remain in my love,” the Lord says – then you will develop.

  • Stay close to the cracks in everything

Jesus says, “The last will be first and the first last.” Paul says, “When I am weak I am strong.” It feels upside down. But when we stay close to this seemingly irrational crack in normality, we begin to see Jesus — out there on the edge of what looks like an abyss to us. He is always about to fall over the cliff into what people think is nuts or impossible. We need to stay close to that. This is the hardest for me and most of us because it means we need to stay close to our own suffering. We need to be one of “the poor in spirit” who are blessed. We need to notice our own cracks and not cosmetically alter them. Living with Jesus on the edge, where things are cracked and paying attention to our own cracks in health and relationships is the mother of spiritual development.

development area

We need to develop as a church in mission and I want to help

Our ambitious map for 2015 is full of what’s next. It is so packed, we will probably need to extend it beyond a year! It is a very practical doc but very focused on heaven. We are redesigning ourselves to match what God is telling us and changing to meet people where they are at now. I hope you share my estimation of us: we have what the world needs; we are the next church finding its way in a changing world. As believers with a beachhead in the megalopolis, we are incredibly well-positioned to be used by God — and we are being used.

I have already been at work helping us to refine who we are so we can move into who we are called to be now. We planted new admin at the Hub. We redeployed our pastors to “get out there” and not be a four-headed unit with too much responsibility. We deepened our reformed Leadership Team and turned the Imaginarium into a rolling Council meeting. We are retooling how we use our two corporations: Circle of Hope Inc and Circle Venture to let us relate to the powers in useful ways. We installed Rachel as a new pastor and released me to think bigger and act smaller. We are getting together the masterminds (and we have them) to imagine how we can be large and personal, prophetic and empathetic, active and contemplative, dispersed and focused, attentive and inclusive, communitarian and missional.

All my experience leads me to this moment of development, I think. While it is hard for me to change from being the day-to-day pastor of a congregation, I am excited for this new moment of opportunity. I have some good years of service ahead of me! Even more exciting, I think, is to be a part of Circle of Hope, now — when devoted, reconciling, ambitious brothers and sisters in Christ are moving into their second act and trusting God to do something even greater.

What if I don’t feel God anymore?: Ewan McGregor on spiritual development

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, , , ,

The film, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, is parable about gaining faith. It helps us answer a question people sometimes surreptitiously ask: “What if I don’t feel God anymore?” What if I feel like a mundane Christian destined for mediocrity? What if what excited me doesn’t anymore? What if I am trying to feel God and it is not working?

Ewan McGregor’s development parable

In the film, Ewan McGregor plays a surly bureaucrat from the fish and game department who is unsatisfied with his life and his wife, and emotionally cut off from relationships with his colleagues. When his life is invaded by a charismatic, visionary sheik and the sheik’s wealth-managing, sexy assistant, things begin to transform. For one thing, Ewan’s love of salmon fishing ends up being a metaphor for his own change.

The movie is a somewhat odd story about getting salmon to thrive and reproduce in the Yemeni desert. At one crucial point, they have created a lake and a fish ladder and they have stocked the lake with farm-bred salmon (because the wild fish were too precious for enthusiasts to part with). The farm-bred fish are like Ewan McGregor: staid and stuck in a holding tank. Ewan has sat in his cubicle for a long time not really doing anything; he has sat in his depressing marriage not having children and not really making love. The question about these farm-bred salmon is: will they swim upstream, as salmon instinctively must do to reproduce?

As with all good parables, you are already asking the question: “Will I?” What about my development?

will they develop?They tensely watch from the dam and are sure their whole, huge experiment is a bust. But right when they are ready to give up, one salmon leaps out of the water and soon all of them are turning around and getting up the ladder and up the stream. Excitement ensues.

But then something horrible happens. Just like Ewan experienced in the middle of his new project when his wife decided to leave him, some person who thinks the sheik is a liberal threat to Yemeni culture blows up the dam and most of the fish are left high and dry. Just a little creek is left of the water project. They are sure all is lost. Ewan does not know what to do. But as he despondently looks over the project, one lone, surviving fish leaps in the air. They were not all killed! A lot died, but something new hung on. Their previous idea for the water project was still in pieces, but a new and better result sprang up from ruins of their work.

Ewan felt like a dried up scientist destined for the mundane. He tried something new and it didn’t work just right and he did not know what to do. Something unexpected took place as a result of him taking some initiative. He endured the loss of what was and entered into what is next.

If you don’t feel God, that is probably what is happening to you.

First of all, no one can really answer the questions, “What if I don’t feel God anymore?” because you are precious you. One size does not fit all when it comes to faith.

Second of all, I have some ideas about what might be going on. Don’t give up!

1)  Your childhood faith might be wearing out. It usually needs to move from head to heart.

I use the running the bases chart to talk about how we know God. It implies that we are always developing. That is a good thing, even though it includes feeling the uncertainty of moving further and the loss of standing safely on a base. The “game” is ongoing.

A lot of Christians only get to first base when it comes to understanding God. They have kind of a teenager faith. Many people come to faith when they are teenagers and they never get much farther than their original understanding. If you don’t experience the presence of God, maybe God moved on and you stopped following!

Old feelings pass away, but deeper feelings are in store. Spiritual “feelings” that are deeper than the reactions we learned in childhood are being developed in our much larger and deeper new eternal family.

2) You are going through a change of season and you need some new disciplines.

Just think about what is the center of having a “first base” faith in Jesus: knowing the Bible. It is quite a feat to achieve a basic understanding of what Jesus is talking about, much more to feel secure about the way you are going to do the word.  It takes a lot of concentration to just get started. It might be tempting to stay on the first base of faith, or second, or wherever you are, even though that season of development is over.

In the case of reading the Bible, spiritual development can’t stay at the level of merely understanding concepts. For instance, the Bible leads us to the basic disciplines of meditation and prayer. From reading the Bible we gain a collection of basic approaches to laying a personal, spiritual foundation that must accompany our reading. Meditating on the Bible saturates us with the truth and love that is revealed. We’re not just reading the words, we are responding to God and forming our relationship.

If that relationship does not keep changing and growing, something is stuck. In a new season we are called to run the bases at a deeper level. Our original idea of what they meant, as good as it might have been, turns out to have something deeper behind it.

3) You are experiencing psychological development

In our relationships with God we are always working on basic trust. We develop in the Spirit a lot like children develop in their families. Rather than milk we need solid food. Eventually, we need to develop agency. We have to endure losses and become adult. What doesn’t kill us helps us grow, it is said, and that is mostly true.

If you are wondering why you don’t feel God, it could be depression or anxiety talking. These symptoms are “friends” that alert us to deeper things happening in our souls. They may not feel like friends, but they are signposts of change. The uncomfortable feelings we often prefer to avoid are actually important to our spiritual development. The destruction of dams we thought should never be blown up often results in something better we never could have predicted.

Close relationships and young marriages often go through a lot of anger and hurt as the partners push one another to develop. When children are added to a family they push people farther. Losing one’s job or losing a loved one calls us to become deeper, to trust God. We need to listen to our anger, listen to the sadness and other feelings behind it and find out what it developing. Let’s not merely fight, flee or freeze in a self-defeating way, our typical way, the old way. Jesus is a new way.

Thinking over a parable, reading this blog post, relating to what is said, trying to stay open to God (even if you think your relationship is in a holding tank that feels less than fresh), are all ways to start moving in a new direction. You have spiritual instincts that are always ready to kick in. Let them leap.

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Exodus 15: God’s changeless love, intervention and development

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We had a couple of perennial questions arise at our cell last week. We were reading Exodus 15, which is a great paean to victory. God intervenes on behalf of the escaping Israelites and drowns Pharaoh’s army in the sea — the women dance and sing.

When certain Old Testament tales are considered, three questions regularly arise:

1) You are always talking about love. The God of the Old Testament hardly looks universally loving. What’s with that?
2) A big change seems to have taken place between the Old and New Testaments, what am I to think about God and the Bible?
3) I’ve been taught that God never changes. If God has actually developed a new kind of love, isn’t that wrong?

Lately, it seems like I have become audacious enough to attempt answers to giant questions in a blog post. This is another of those attempts. I won’t get too far, but I want to stay in the dialogue.

Let’s talk about God’s love

What people call love these days is often social tolerance (“Love me, love Slovenia”) or consumer preference (“I love Cheetos. I am part of the Frito Lay community”). People think God loves like they do  and then get mad at him for being out of line. Given the way a lot of people think about “love” these days, when God intervenes in anyone’s life with any kind of judgment or strategy that seems WAY out of line.  So Exodus causes problems.

Intervention looks like intolerance. People might ask: “Why would God be on Israel’s side?  If the Pharaoh’s soldiers were just doing their jobs, why would God kill them for it?” Their questions are based on a “democratic” idea that love is protecting someone’s right to be themselves.

Intervention looks like a denial of choice.  People might ask, “Why would God get in the middle of people making their choices and be so domineering?”  Their questions are asked assuming everyone is a consumer following the invisible hand of the marketplace, not the personal hand of God.

We’re all about expertise and politcs, these days, but God’s passion for the redemption and health of creation is more complex than social and economic theories. His love is not subject to such theories. But that doesn’t mean we can’t understand him; God’s purposes are hardly secret. God is well known and her plans for humanity have even been written down for about 3000 years. His invitation to love has been consistent. Should she violate the most recent philosophy that has arisen to oppose him or debunk her, that would not be unusual.

If your issue is, specifically, how God’s love and Old Testament violence goes together, a nice piece on what God is doing in relation to all the violence in the Bible can be found here. 

God in the Old and New Testament

Merely comparing and contrasting pieces of the Bible, is not listening very carefully to the Holy Spirit; it is more like Sesame St. characters trying to teach us that “one of these things is not like the other.” I think it is much better to think of the scripture in more relational terms. We should think of God as a parent, like Jesus does, not as an abstraction, like modern science might  (or like Greek philosophy, for that matter).  Then it is easier to understand how the scripture relates to us.

God is not a static thing, and human understanding of how to relate to God is a growing experience. Creation was designed to grow and change, and God is responding accordingly. The scripture notes all that movement and variation. Talking to different eras of the world, as scripture does, is like talking to different cultures today — Nigeria is not Thailand, but believers are having a fine time with God in both places. What’s more, you are probably reading this paragraph with a different emphasis than someone else. If we wrote down all the different emphases, that wouldn’t mean that I, the writer, were accordingly different.  What is consistent, among many things,  from the beginning to the end in the Bible, is the theme of being freed from slavery to people, to sin and to death. That goal is fulfilled in Jesus — there is not a difference, but there is a development.

God is love. But God’s goals are not necessarily for everyone to feel loved. The creation is tested by sin and is facing death.  The goal is salvation. The need is redemption. We may often be like toddlers who need basic convincing we are safe; I think the Lord is all for that. But we are designed to grow up into our fullness as embodied spirits, which includes seeing history as God sees it and finding our place in it. Seeing the Testaments as a flat study in character development rather than a testament of God’s work over thousands of years of history is too tiny. Testing the material to see whether God can be trusted, rather than seeing how God has shown his passion for us again and again, is too small.

Does God change?

Clark Pinnock wrote a controversial book not long ago that I liked. He debunked the Greekified notion that God is Aristotle’s “unmoved mover.” Instead he posited that God’s covenant with us made him the most-moved mover.  Relating to God as if he were an element on the periodic table is strange.

God’s character and goals are consistent. He actively, personally holds the universe together. He can and will create and end time as we know it. She has developed in relationship with us as a species as we have developed. He changed the universe when we were created, which changed his experience, as well. Reducing God to a predictable, changeless definition, rather than a living, generative Spirit, may be comforting in some small way, but it is not true enough.

These thoughts probably don’t go far enough, but I am convinced the Holy Spirit of God will enlighten us if we keep in dialogue with God and his people. In our Men’s meeting last night, we were talking about what wisdom we might have to offer to the next generation. We had a lot to think about. But one thing was for sure — this generation is passionately engaged with principles that are not revealed as God’s way; they are fairly ignorant about God’s cross-bound love. No matter how inadequate we feel to speak back to the onslaught of antichrist thinking, we need to stay in the dialogue, and pray. God will amplify what little wisdom we have. I hope this little bit helps with the development.

Development: Will we help or hurt the Philly region?

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Development happens. Sometimes it is for the good. Much of the time it is the same old injustice in new clothes. Regardless, the church needs to develop along with it.

All weekend I talked about development — and I am not just talking about the in-town retreat the Leadership Team held with the discerning group to map out 2011 for Circle of Hope! No, I live in the Philadelphia region and we talk about development all the time: what’s happening in the casino district in Fishtown — the amazing speculation going on from Washington to Wharton in Point Breeze — the big ideas happening in southwest Germantown exemplified by the Kroc Center and the eviction notices given  to the people in the tower at Queen Lane — the changes on 52nd St. with the influx of new home owners pushing out from University City. What’s more: south of Temple is not what it used to be! — the Riverfront Prison site in Camden might get used well! — the South St. bridge reopened! It is exciting.

Church development

I was talking to a new friend in the Kimball St. Garden this weekend who said visiting St. Peter’s in Rome was the straw that broke the camel’s back of his faith. He gave it up when he saw that piece of church “development.” I understood. When I was there a few years ago I asked God for an earthquake to take care of what must be the worst piece of advertising for Jesus in history. God becomes a baby to meet us person to person and the church advertises him with an overwhelming building designed to make you feel small and powerless in the presence of God (and the pope)!

In most of Philly’s neighborhoods there are further shrines to the church’s pride and power housing congregations who are trying to figure out how to stay afloat and become useful in their developing neighborhoods. I told the man I was getting to know that he could come see us in our room over a check-cashing store if he ever felt like experiencing an alternative. He said he might show up. But I am not too heartened that Circle of Hope’s big contribution might be to provide a corrective for something done in 1626! We have our own development to consider!

This weekend we were considering our development in our developing region, and it wasn’t that easy. The pastors put out some ideas that seemed to come from the best parts of our discernment process including slight changes to our basic identity statements. We needed a lot of dialogue! Change is not easy! There were two ideas aired, in particular, that must feel like tearing down the Queen Lane public housing tower feels for some people. They want it gone, but they aren’t sure it doesn’t mean something important is going to be lost.

Being a developer

I guess I am like a “developer,” God help me. I don’t need change for change’s sake, but I think things can improve. When it comes to developing Circle of Hope, for instance, I think we should admit that we are diverse in race, class, background and location and stop talking about ourselves as if we are trying to become that. We became that. We can always become more, but we became that. Now let’s keep the heart of who we are and move on to what is next. Personally, I am not going to give up on any aspect of the work of reconciliation until I die. I want to keep overcoming the racist divides of our country (as were easily seen in the last election when Obama got his white backlash, even if no one will admit that), and I will keep being a proactive peacemaker (the need for such was also evident after the election when not one candidate on election eve mentioned the war in Afghanistan as a big deal to them). I think reconciliation is basic Christianity and I am not aspiring to it, I am it. I think we worked reconciliation into our DNA; we have it in our proverbs and mission teams. Let’s not talk about doing it as if it is still in question. Lets be it.

For another less tangible thing, I think we, as Circle of Hope, should admit that we met all our goals for development as an institution and now we should act like we are developed. We are four congregations, nearly 50 cells, four pastors, lead by  20-person leadership team, served by three staff people. We have two profitable thrift stores and a counseling center. We have compassion teams that many people consider radical. We need to get our minds around that and imagine what is next as that new entity. Let’s express ourselves as who we are now and stop dragging ourselves back into some nostalgic small thing. For anyone who just tuned in, we are just about what we were dreaming about becoming when we were a small thing. Let’s have the dreams of what a Circle of Hope that exists now would dream! This requires some maturity, of course. It is easier to just keep doing whatever was happening before. The people getting pushed out of North Philly into the lower Northeast and out of West Philly and South Philly into Southwest are just moving with the flow. They don’t create much flow. A lot of churches in town (like some churches on the street with BW) seem to be holding on as long as they can to what used to be great as the world changes around them. We were not created for that.

I am not up for not developing. Jesus is the source of a renewed imagination. Jesus continually renews our strength so we can face what is, now. I think he finds it exciting to work for redemption in the latest thing that has developed with the latest church he has developed. Let’s keep up.