Tag Archives: Jesus

Learning Empathy: A simple beginning

Don’t you wish we all had more empathy these days? This old speech from 2002 seems even more important now, since it seems the lesson is hard to learn.

People suffer. One of the places they suffer most is in the relationships they need the most. And that is why we need to learn empathy, so we can love one another in all our suffering.

John Gottman is a research psychologist who studied married couples over many years. He documented their lack of relationship-building skills. One way he measured this lack was by hooking them up to devices which measured all their vital signs while they were chatting and fighting. He discovered that those couples who had more than one “discounting” or “demeaning” action for every five validating, appreciating or approving actions created a neutral zone in their relationship which led to distancing. More often than not, people who consistently went over the 1-5 ratio ended up divorced within several years.

His research gave birth to Gottman’s law of one-to-five. You need five positive actions for every negative to keep things healthy. He called the main negative actions which led to trouble the “Four Horsemen of Marriage Apocalypse” (as in the book of Revelation where the horsemen are war, death, disease and famine). In marriage relationships (but probably all relationships) Gottman says the horsemen are criticism, contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness. Women do more criticizing, men do more stonewalling. But everyone does everything and that’s why we keep making one another suffer.

Empathy is an antidote to apocalypse

Empathy is a trait we can develop, a positive action we can practice. It is a basic building block of a good relating. It is an alternative to suffering and making someone else suffer. If we take strength from Jesus and so find the strength to follow him in humility, we can learn it.

I want to show you a short film clip from The Hurricane that demonstrates the kind of empathy we would all like to exercise. You may have seen Denzel Washington in the true story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. At the height of his career as a boxer, Rubin Carter was falsely accused of murder by a racist police force and ended up sentenced to life in prison.

A young boy, named Lesra, read Carter’s autobiography and ended up visiting him in prison and becoming his friend. Lesra’s adult friends became convinced that Carter was innocent and committed themselves to making the truth known. After 20 years in jail he was granted a new trial. In this clip we are awaiting the verdict in Rubin’s prison cell, where he let’s Lesra know he has been freed by the boy’s empathy, regardless of the outcome:

Lesra’s great empathy busted Carter out of his true prison. It penetrated the defenses with which he had surrounded his suffering. That’s what love does. The author of love, Jesus Christ, is our strength and our guide in how to put this building block into the basis of our relationships. So let’s think about it.

Empathy is communicating accurate understanding and acceptance.

All the words in the definition above are important. We are talking about someone we love. We are talking about someone like us, who has an overturned heart, someone coming to feel like they can be understood. In that process we want to

  • communicate  — which means they received it, not just that we said it,
  • accurate understanding —  something rational, head to head, mind to mind, and
  • acceptance  — something emotional, heart to heart, feeling to feeling.

My loved one offers a self-revelation. I communicate I understand and accept it in love.

The dictionary often uses two words to get at the full meaning of of empathy. It says empathy is the capacity for experiencing, as one’s own, the feelings of another. This is very similar to the definition for sympathy, which is: the act or capacity for entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another. Pathos is the Greek word for “feeling.” Em-pathos would be in-feeling. Sym-pathos would be with-feeling. Perhaps one is more heart to heart – in it with some one, and one is more mind to mind – next to it with someone. The words are different aspects of how I communicate I understand and accept what you are going through.

English translations of the Bible never use the word empathy, but the writers see it as standard operating procedure

In Ephesians 4 (one of our favorite scripture passages around here) Paul sees us as receiving a new life from Christ in which we can “Speak the truth in love.” Paraphrasing him just a bit, he says,

I insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as you used to live, in the futility of your thinking. We were darkened in our understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that was in us due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, we had given ourselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Instead, we are called to a new way to express our new selves in Christ. Basic to that new living in love is empathy. James says: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen.” (1:19) And Paul adds, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5:6).

This listen-in-love life requires a new way of seeing. This often becomes very obvious when we get married to someone or live in community or even get close to people in the church – we see some people have no empathy. When you are talking to them it becomes clear they are mainly thinking and feeling about themselves. They not only don’t understand, they aren’t even listening. You can’t get understood even for the words you are saying, much less the feelings behind them! Many of us are darkened in our understanding and have hard hearts.

This is a main reason I am so delighted Gwen founded Circle Counseling. They don’t have nearly the capacity to help as many people as she would like (maybe one day we won’t have to refer any one to other higher-priced counselors). But for now, I am happy that people are experiencing empathy with our therapists and learning to have some through the process.

One of our friends was telling me about her step-sister who was being verbally abused by her step-father. She’d come downstairs for a drink and the unemployed step-dad would be sitting in the kitchen and say, “Get back up the stairs. I didn’t say you could come out of your room.” Later my friend found out the parents had been calling her sister retarded. The label wounded the girl so much she was shriveling up into a ball of despair and acting even more violent in school.

She had little chance to talk and be heard, too small experience of having her feelings validated. Such a person grows up with a hollow heart where feeling for others should be. They come into relationships or into the church, where people expect love, and they are like a black hole, an impossible situation, and sometimes an object of judgment. But so often they don’t even know they are doing anything wrong. No empathy seems normal to them. They don’t really know what they feel like. They need some time with the counselor and a lot of time with people who speak the truth in love and are quick to listen.

The ultimate example of empathy is Jesus. He doesn’t talk about it, because it isn’t about talking as much it is about giving and receiving.

When the writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as the High Priest who can enter the very center of the Temple where normal, unclean people can’t go, he says,

He had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (2:17-18)

God comes into our condition as the person of Jesus and communicates how deeply he understands our condition. This is the ultimate empathy: entering into what it feels like to be us.

The great example of Jesus entering in is when he gets baptized. People have often had a little problem with Jesus wanting to be baptized. If you don’t sin, what is the point of entering into an activity designed to express that you are repenting of sin, going down into the water to be cleansed and coming out to live a new life? In Matthew 3, where the event is recounted, even John the Baptist is having a problem, and he was a prophet.

John told people, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. “ He was talking about Jesus. Then it says, “Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”

Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus was identifying with the new kingdom John was prophesying about — this new right relationship with God, this fire relationship. And he was showing how people get there. God comes and involves himself with your sinful life and the presence of his love makes you a brand new person. When we have empathy, we are doing the same thing kind of loving. It is the basis for good relationships.

Some people , like even John the Baptist, just want Jesus to be all about fire, all about new and pure and good. But that is only half the scene here. The new, good stuff only gets there by love going to the dark, hardened places in us and listening, receiving all that sin, taking it on until it is all out in the open and changing. Isn’t it a wonderful thing that Jesus would become like us, even entering into our sin, then rise above it transformed and leading the way out for us. That is great love. And great empathy.

How can we do empathy? How can we learn it? Listen to God and follow the example of Jesus. You’ve got the strength if you imitate him. But let me be more specific in just one very little way.

Be quick to listen

Remember when James said that a few minutes ago? What if we want to do that? What does he mean?

  • Some people think he means feeling someone’s feelings for them – even in spite of their own. (Lots of wives seem to get into this with stonewalling husbands – they have all the feelings in the marriage).
  • Some people think he means listening for a couple of moments and then launching into a description of how the person can solve their problem. (Lots of husbands like to do this so they can tidy up the relationship and move on to sex).

I think empathy is a little more artful and balanced than than either of those ideas of what listening is for.

Very simple empathy, and everyone needs this, is communicating accurate understanding and acceptance. So let’s say your loved one (that means anyone) says something like this dialogue:

Seeker statement: It really burns me up to have to pay so much in taxes.”

(Pause and consider what you would normally say)

There are three parts to an empathic reply:        

Identify the thought content:                           paying to much tax

Identify the feelings content:                          frustration, anger, aggravation

Paraphrase or summarize the thoughts and feelings into a tentative reply:

“It sounds like having so much money go to taxes really aggravates you.”

Now you try with this statement: “I was shocked by his rude behavior!”

(Pause and consider what you would normally say)

  1. Identify thought content: rudeness, the behavior problems of humankind, this guy the way he is.
  2. Identify feeling content: shocked? offended? embarrassed?
  3. Paraphrase or summarize the thought and feeling together into a tentative statement:

Possible tentative beginnings: It sounds like…I think I hear you saying…You seem to be saying…It sounded like you were just wondering if…So is it that you’re thinking…I hope I’m following. you’re feeling…?…Am I hearing you say…?

One more, a little harder: “I can’t believe you would hurt me like this. I don’t know if I ever want to see you again.”

(Pause and consider what you would normally say)

In the middle difficult relationships, which are the cause of so much pain, but so much hope that our neediness might be met with love, it encourages me to remember Jesus knows my suffering. And like no one else can, he entered into my experience and continues to do that beyond mind to mind, and feeling to feeling. His love is Spirit to spirit, which strengthens me to love, too.

Now try to listen and respond with empathy.

As we ponder the basic building blocks of good relationships this week, let’s celebrate the hope we have in Jesus. Even if we feel extremely damaged and inadequate to love, we are loved, and Jesus understands. I hope you will listen to him communicating understanding and acceptance to you as you bravely enter into love person after person.

Why Five Congregations?: It is more than a strategy

Becoming part of any organization, from a corporation to a little league can be very confusing for a while — a church, especially Circle of Hope,  is not that different. You can walk into all our meeting places, except Ridge Ave, when no one is there and any number of people who come in will ask, “This is a church?” Quite a few have looked at me about the same time and said, “You are a pastor?” If I explain, they say, “Most of you meetings are on Sunday night?” Once the high school kids from Pequea BIC in Lancaster Co. stopped by for a little visit. They predictably said, “You have other sites and pastors?” It can be very confusing.

Here is the main reason we are one church in five congregations: Jesus said “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me” (John 14:6). People need a lot of Jesus doorways in different forms.

  • We are wandering in the dark; we need the light of the world to guide us.
  • We are slaves to our own understanding; we need reconnected to what is beyond us.
  • We are sinful and broken; it is only by the work of Jesus and his merit that we can be forgiven, and restored.

We want to make Jesus accessible like he has made God accessible to us. That’s why we are five congregations in one church.

More directly, we have a great purpose and we are doing the best we can to live up to it. The Bible gives us a mission statement for our family business. It guides us. People call it “the great commission.” It is Jesus’ last words to his disciples.

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).

The essence of the Lords’ plan for redeeming and recreating the world is to draw together disciples who make disciples who make further disciples. We have planned our life together to do what we have been given to do, making the most of what we have to make an impact in our time and place.

More practically and specifically we are five congregations because it is an practical, radical, attractive strategy. Some people reading this might bristle as soon as the word “strategy” is used, but it is what it is. Strategy is just about getting from here to there in the best way we can imagine. We’re trying “to get to” making disciples who thrive, who make it to fifty with a vibrant, world-changing faith. It is at least possible that Jesus uses billboards, TV, airplane advertisements flying down the coast, charismatic talking heads on big screens and all that to call together disciples. But his main strategy is you and me and anyone else we can get to follow him telling someone else that he is our way, truth and life, now — and showing that in a way that can touch our hearts and minds, face to face. We might not be as desirous or patient as God, but the Lord has decided to need us, even if we have not decided to need Jesus, yet.

So our strategy is to go with Jesus on this, he is the way. His way is our way. He is the truth and the life; we want people to get to God and their true selves through his work. We also presume that you will hear and feel the great commission and be a follower who connects with others who will eventually follow the Lord you follow. You love God and you love them so you find ways to makes a connection just like God found a way to connect to you. If you don’t care about that, we are mostly out of business, because that is what our family business is.

Here is how we do it.

We make a cell. That is how Circle of Hope started, with the nucleus of one cell. And if you look at Jesus and the twelve disciples, that’s basically what he did, too. So we had one, then we had two and quickly three, and on we have gone over the years, multiplying cells and watching them live or them die on their own spiritual strength. That’s the basic body-life way we operate. The cells get together and form a congregation.

South Broad was the first congregation that formed (at 10th and Locust, then Broad and Washington). It drew from the entire region. We have always had a wide region in which we operate, and we still do. Marlton Pike also has a very wide region — all of South Jersey. North Broad also see themselves as having a wide pull, but mostly they are North Philly. Frankford and Norris draws from all over, but they are mostly Kensington and Fishtown. Our newest congregation on Ridge Ave tries to attend to all the Northwest. We used to have congregations in G’town and Frankford, but they dispersed.

Multiplying congregations is part of our strategy: When the congregations get over the 200 adult mark we start looking to see if they are going to have enough expansiveness to multiply. We think of it as bees in a hive — when the hive gets too big, it “hives off” into another hive. Right now, South Broad has about 130 adults after sending people off to the Northwest last year. If we had 230, we might think about sending off 50 or so to begin a new congregation. Better to have 270 and send 70, but that would be a judgment call we would have to make.

There are a lot of practical reasons for having multiple congregations instead of one big one, but our best reasons are about making disciples. We have a strategy for making authentic disciples of Jesus in the megalopolis. See if you think we are making the right decision.

Being one church in four congregations allows us to be big and small

We are as small as a cell, and as big as the whole church; as face-to-face as a congregation and as unknown as what the Spirit is doing next on the frontier of the constituency.

In terms of congregations, since that is theme of this post, we like the congregations to be relatively small. I say relatively because most churches in the United States are smaller than our typical size. Even though you see all those megachurches on TV, most churches are between 70-100 people. They are a big cell group with a very energetic leader, the pastor. It takes multiple leaders and multiple cells not to be a 100 person church; we think having multiple cells is more expansive. So for us, small means about 200, which is about the number social scientists say an interested member of a social group can hope to connect with in some meaningful way, like remembering names. We like to be face to face. Jesus had twelve, then the 70 and then there were 150 in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. It was personal.

But there are also advantages of scale, being five congregations in one church. In larger groups, one person or one clique has a tough time dominating, so there can be multiple centers of leadership and accountability. That’s why we like to have two Sunday meetings, so it is built into us that there are more people than just the ones who are in the room. One of the biggest advantages of scale is sharing resources. Circle of Hope has a common fund, so if one congregation has less money than they need, the others can help. We have one mutuality fund, so we can distribute it where there is most need. We have a common set of compassion teams that we all share. We have the covenant list and share list that are fruitful places to contact a lot of people. We draw from the whole network for our Leadership Team. Our pastors are not singular, but are a team, so they have less psychological issues with isolation and get a lot of stimulation.

Jonny Rashid sent over another image after this was published.

Being five congregations as one church allows us to be complex and simple, old and new

We are as complex as a network of cells, teams, businesses and events that have grown over time and as simple as the next new relationship we make.

On the complex side, it might be quite daunting to think that one congregation could come up with Circle Thrift and other good businesses. I am sure we would still have big ideas, but more complexity takes more time and staff and organization.

At the same time, we are quite simple. Our pastors do not run the one big church all day; they are mainly local pastors. We hope you feel like you can call up and talk to your pastor. I have a new friend with a 2000 person church in Delaware. People are on a three-month waiting list to get on his schedule, and he is their pastor. We want to know and be known, and that includes our leaders.

Being big and small also allows us to be old and new. At a Love Feast several years ago Gwen overheard someone saying, “Welcome to the covenant. I joined in three months ago.” So she chimed in, “Yes, welcome. I joined in 16 years ago.” Hiving off new congregations helps us stay new and attentive. Being a long-lasting network helps us have continuity and stabilizing lore.

Being five congregations as one church allows us to be in a neighborhood and also city/region-wide

We are fully part of our neighborhood and fully part of our whole city and region.

A few years ago we started naming our congregations after their addresses. We’re all identified with neighborhoods; our region likes things local. You may not do this, but quite a few people over the years have signed in on the welcome list as “Tony from 12th and Mifflin,” or some such address. We want to actually live, as congregations, in our neighborhoods. It is true we have cells in all sorts of neighborhoods, but the congregation has a home, too, in its neighborhood, and we like to think we are a vital part of it.

On the other hand, we don’t want to be just our neighborhood, because our region’s neighborhoods see themselves as so distinct they don’t even talk to each other sometimes. Broad St., right outside my door, was a demarcation line for 50-60 years until that began to break down lately. We thought it would be a good representation of Jesus to be in different neighborhoods, but actually be one church. We did not want to give in to the arbitrary dividing lines that keep people apart.  We even decided to cross the river, and that was no small deal. Tons of people work every day in Philly and cross the bridge, but when they think about doing that to be one church and it seems like a big deal. We like to push the boundaries of what seems possible.

It does not make any difference how we are structured if no one cares about the family business. It would break a lot of hearts if we actually did it, but I and the leaders are pretty much content to let the whole thing die if no one applies themselves to working the strategy. I think I should trust your passion to run the business, just like Jesus trusted his first disciples. You have to want the Lord, have the purpose, and do the strategy, or it is all just a lot of talk.

People do not move into eternity with mere talk. They need to make a relationship with God in the person of Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. For many people, each of us is the only Jesus-is-my-way kind of Christian they have ever met. It is not an easy business to be in, but it is our family business. I am doing my best to tend it with you.

Quacks in the White House and egg hunts: Why I am reduced to prayer

Some days it becomes obvious that I don’t get out much – at least out in “church world.” You’d think I would remember that I’ve been part of a boutique denomination connected to a minority movement within Christianity who helped me plant a radical expression of the church in a blue-state city. You’d think I’d remember, but I don’t. I regularly, maybe daily, forget where Jesus has led me. I somehow think most people, much more most Christians, are basically like me. They are and they aren’t, but mostly aren’t, at least when it comes to faith.

Millionaires and egg hunts

For instance, we were mutually amazed last night when we were talking in a small group of our Leadership Team and one of us mentioned how she had just had a conversation with some of the “girls back home” about the megachurch she used to attend. She noted that all the elders were millionaire men. She noted to us that if we had “elders” she would be one of them and she is a broke, brown woman. I honestly did not think we were that odd. I guess we are.

Then one of our pastors was considering whether to have an Easter egg hunt in order to meet some of the neighbors and stir up some fun. This would be unusual for us. We are much more likely to advertise the discussion on the antiracist book we’ve been passing around, than think of having an egg hunt. Come to find out, another church in town has had egg hunts that attract 1000’s of people. I never even heard about it and 1000’s of people were involved — an egg hunt! I remembered Gwen standing in front of our youth group with our meat tenderizer, setting a chocolate bunny up on the table and smashing pagan fertility symbols as a visual aid. I guess not everyone does that. I forget.

These could go together, not sure.

Success would be nice

Some days it also becomes obvious that I don’t want to get out much. One day last week I recalled for my journal that I felt very unsuccessful. My initiatives were resisted; my appointments were cancelled; I felt tired. So I asked the Lord what was going on. Most of my feelings seemed to focus on the challenges. I did not really want to face any. What I really wanted (and expected) was everything to work out, at least not have everything go wrong. I felt like I should be honored, my value appreciated, my work received with thanks, my love understood and received (without any need to prove it), my enthusiasm and hope matched, my personality twinned, my time unwasted; it went on. I realized how demanding I am. But don’t you want all that? I did not fully realize how much I wanted it all until I did not succeed at getting it and was reduced to prayer.

Now this week I find out that millionaire elders put their resources into egg hunts and it works. Churches are full of egg hunters. No wonder  I am not nearly as successful as I’d like. (I know, I am more successful than I deserve). But it would be really great to succeed. I suppose I will have to face some challenges: all those unnecessary, unwarranted, unwelcome challenges, again (and again).

Image result for trump cabinet march 2017
Cabinet meeting

Lack of success reduces me to prayer

Today I was drawn back to my old favorite, Luke 8:1-8.  Jesus reminded me again to pray and not lose heart, not faint. At the end of the day, Jesus is not looking for my success, he is looking for faith that trusts him for life no matter what the circumstances seem to be saying. Hopefully, I will not just be looking for success while He is looking for me! His justice will arrive like an unexpected storm, “and yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

In 1904 Alexander McClaren wrote about these verses as the era of the “robber barons” was coming to a close (so this may sound familiar):

“An epoch of materialism in philosophic thought has always been followed by violent reaction, in which quacks and fanatics have reaped rich harvests. If the dark is not peopled with one loved Face, our busy imagination will fill it with a crowd of horrible ones.

Just as a sailor, looking out into the night over a solitary, islandless sea, sees shapes; intolerant of the islandless expanse, makes land out of fogbanks; and, sick of silence, hears ‘airy tongues’ in the moanings of the wind and the slow roll of the waves, so [people] shudderingly look into the dark unknown, and if they see not their Father there, will either shut their eyes or strain them in gazing it into shape.”

I did not need to spend much time peering into my fog this morning before I saw the loved Face. But we are still sailing through an islandless sea in an era full of quacks and fanatics. Easter egg hunts work. “Black lives matter” seems like a radical statement rather than a moot point. I lament my relative lack of success.  Maybe we should have an egg hunt. Maybe we should keep saying black lives matter. Maybe I should get over myself.

And maybe we should remember Jesus lamenting his relative lack of success. He taught his followers to keep “bothering” God with their demands for a response to their just requests, like: save me from quacks, Trumps, heartless millionaires, mega-whatever and my own impatience and self-criticism! But Jesus had to wonder whether when he returned,  he would still find anyone faithful, still praying, still hanging in there to receive just what they longed for, or not.

How do YOU think people see your church?

The first question we asked our cells in order to gather some discernment about where God is leading us was this:

When a newcomer or unbeliever gets to know us, whether in a cell or Sunday Meeting, through one of our events or teams, or through an individual, what are the things they will most immediately notice about us and what gifts will they find easiest to access?” 

What do you think?

Examine yourselvesWe dared to take Paul seriously when he tells the Corinthian church: Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? (2 Cor. 13:5). If we can be honest about what others see in us, we will not just follow the scripture, we will probably follow our humility right into spiritual growth! We are who we are, but who knows what we might become if we listen?.

Our cells had a LOT to say about this question (and all the other questions!). When I set my mind to sort all their responses, I came up with eighteen different headings for this first one! I was encouraged by what the cell members thought people see in us when they first get to know us. I thought you might be encouraged too. I am not going to list all eighteen things! But I thought I would give you ten. I’ll give you my heading and then one of the answers I culled out which intrigued or moved me. So you get my heading and one answer verbatim.

Whether you are part of our church or not, these things might give you something to think about. What’s more, I don’t doubt someone who is in our church will think the person I quote does not completely know what they are talking about. So we all might have more to think about, too. Regardless, I think we’d all like to be a church moving in the direction these thoughts signal.

Whether you think your church is seen in these ways or you think it just ought to be, let’s pray that we get there. Yesterday was Pentecost, and the Spirit of God is moving to take us into our fullness.

Here are ten ways the cell members think newcomers see us:

We are welcoming/hospitable/friendly/open.

  • You can be who you are.  You are relevant.  You have an opportunity to an actual path where God is leading you.  Walk with us – not your fear or a stereotype.

We create a distinct atmosphere.

  • We create an atmosphere where we try to attract those who are timid with things like the bible through our vulnerability showing it is OK to have doubts and disbelief.

We are a connected community.

  • We are not an obligation – this community is real and authentic and people are here out of choice.  We are not a thing to do.  We want to know you.  

Leadership is respected and varied.

  • Leaders don’t have to be older, mature people who have all their stuff together. Anyone can potentially be a leader and should see their gifts and insight valued and nurtured (not just for white male extroverts).

We have an open seeking spirit.

  • Vulnerability in sharing by both women and men. It’s good modeling by those in leadership because it sets a space to be real and to address deep set needs – we are a deep people because of this.

We are devoted to compassion.

  • Our good works are a natural progression from our togetherness

We share.

  • It is not hard to get resources of spiritual direction (informal), counseling, financial help, job connections.

We take action, are ambitious, intentional.

  • We are doers of the word. While other may talk about examples of how you may get involved the overwhelming expectation is that we are people who live through action and action particularly for both one another and those with need.

We expect people to participate.

  • They can get connected to anything (cell, team’s, leadership, etc.), the church is their oyster.

We are committed to dialogue.

  • It is the judge-free zone.  We all pretty openly discuss a lot of topics, personal and otherwise with widely varying opinions sometimes, and no one is upset.  

When you answer the question about your church, what are the answers YOU get? Let’s keep praying for the Holy Spirit to move us into the place the Lord would like us to be.

[Originally published on Circle of Hope’s blog]

Why Four Congregations?

Becoming a part of Circle of Hope can be very confusing. I suppose that is true of any church or organization – it is also true of us. I have had any number of people come into our room at Broad and Washington when the people aren’t there and ask, “This is a church?” Quite a few have looked at me and said, “You are a pastor?” If I explain, they say, “Your meetings are on Sunday night?” Actually all this happened when the high school kids from Pequea BIC in Lancaster Co. stopped by for a little visit last summer. They said, “You have other sites and pastors?” It can be very confusing.

Here is the main reason we are one church in four congregations: Jesus said “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except through me” (John 14:6). We are wandering in the dark; we need the light of the world to guide us. We are slaves to our own understanding and we need a reconnection to what is beyond us. We are sinful and broken, and it is only by the work of Jesus and his merit that we can be forgiven, and restored. We want to make Jesus accessible like he has made God accessible to us. That’s why we are four congregations in one church.

More directly, we have the purpose statement for the family business that guides us. They call it “the great commission.” It is Jesus’ last words to his disciples. “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).  The essence of the Lords’ strategy for redeeming and recreating the world is to draw together disciples who make disciples who make further disciples. Our structure is a strategy for doing what we have been given to do, making the most of what we have to make an impact in our time and place.

More practically and specifically we are four congregations for the purposes of strategy. Some people reading this might bristle as soon as the word “strategy” is used, but it is what it is. Strategy is just about getting from here to there in the best way. We’re trying to get to making disciples who thrive, who make it to fifty with a vibrant, world-changing faith. I think Jesus might use billboards, TV, airplane advertisements flying down the coast, and all that to call together disciples. But his main means is you and me and anyone else we can get to follow him telling someone else that he is our way, truth and life, now. We might not be as desirous or patient as God, but the Lord has decided to need us, even if we have not decided to need Jesus, yet.

So our strategy is to go with Jesus on this, he is the way. His way is our way. He is the truth and the life; we want people to get to God and their true selves through his work. We also presume that you will hear and feel the great commission and be a follower who connects with others who will eventually follow the Lord you follow. You love God and you love them so you find ways to makes a connection just like God found a way to connect to you. If you don’t care about that, we are mostly out of business, because that is what our family business is.

Here is how we do it.

We make a cell. That is how Circle of Hope started, with the nucleus of one cell. Then we had two and quickly three, and on we have gone over the years, multiplying cells and having them die. That’s the basic body-life way we operate. The cells get together and form a congregation.

Broad and Washington was the first congregation that formed, so we have always had a wide region in which we operate, and we still do. Marlton and Crescent has a very wide, region, too, all of South Jersey. Broad and Dauphin also see themselves as having a wide pull, but mostly they are North Philly. Frankford and Norris draws from all over, but they are mostly Kensington and Fishtown. We used to have congregations in the Northwest and Northeast, but they dispersed.

Multiplying congregations is part of our strategy: When the congregations get over the 200 adult mark we start looking to see if they are going to have enough expansiveness to multiply. We think of it as bees in a hive — when the hive gets too big, it “hives off” into another hive. Right now, Broad and Washington has about 180 adults, in the congregation. If we had 230, we might think about sending off 40 or so to begin a new congregation. Better to have 270 and send 70, but that would be a judgment call we would have to make.

There are a lot of practical reasons for having multiple congregations instead of one big one, but our best reasons are about making disciples. We have a strategy for making authentic disciples of Jesus in the megalopolis. See if you think we are making the right decision.

Being one church in four congregations allows us to be big and small

We are as small as a cell, and as big as the network; as face-to-face as a congregation and as unknown as what the Spirit is doing next on the frontier of the church.

In terms of congregations, since that is the question, we like the congregations to be relatively small. I say relatively because most churches in the United States are smaller than our typical size. Even though you see all those megachurches on TV, most churches are between 70-100 people. They are a big cell group with a very energetic leader, the pastor. It takes multiple leaders and multiple cells not to be a 100 person church; we think having multiple cells is more expansive. So for us, small means about 200, which is about the number social scientists say an interested member of a social group can hope to connect with in some meaningful way, like remembering names. We like to be face to face. Jesus had twelve, then the 70 and then there were 150 in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. It was personal.

But there are advantages of scale, being four congregations in one church. In larger groups, one person or one clique has a tough time dominating, so there can be multiple centers of leadership and accountability. That’s why we like to have two PMs, so it is built into us that there are more people than just the ones who are in the room. One of the biggest advantages of scale is sharing resources. Circle of Hope has a common fund, so if one congregation has less money than they need the others can help. We have one compassion fund, so we can distribute it where there is most need. We have a common set of compassion teams that we all share. We have the dialogue list that is a fruitful place to contact a lot of people. We draw from the whole network for our Leadership Team. Our pastors are not singular, but are a team, so they have less psychological issues with isolation and get a lot of stimulation.

Jonny Rashid sent over another image after this was published.

Being four congregations as one church allows us to be complex and simple, old and new

We are as complex as a network of cells, teams, businesses and events that have grown over time and as simple as the next new relationship we make.

On the complex side, it might be quite daunting to think that one congregation could come up with the Thrift Stores and the Good Business consortium. I am sure we would still have big ideas, but more complexity takes more time and staff and organization.

At the same time, we are quite simple. I am not running the one big church all day, so I am a local pastor. We hope you feel like you can call up and talk to your pastor. I have a new friend with a 2000 person church in Delaware. People are on a three-month waiting list to get on his schedule, and he is their pastor. We want to know and be known, and that includes me.

It also allows us to be old and new. At the Love Feast in July Gwen overheard someone saying “Welcome to the covenant. I joined in three months ago.” So she chimed in, “Yes, welcome. I joined in 16 years ago.” Hiving off new congregations helps us stay new and attentive. Being a long-lasting network helps us have continuity and stabilizing lore.

Being four congregations as one church allows us to be neighborhood and city-wide, region-wide

We are fully part of our neighborhood and fully part of our whole city and region.

A few years ago we started naming our congregations after their corners, Philly style. Philly is a city of neighborhoods; our region likes things local. You may not do this, but quite a few people over the years have signed in on the welcome list as “Tony from 12th and Mifflin,” or some such address. We want to actually live, as congregations, in our neighborhoods. It is true we have cells in all sorts of neighborhoods, but the congregation has a home, too, in its neighborhood, and we like to think we are a vital part of it.

But, on the other hand, we don’t want to be just our neighborhood, especially in Philly. Because Philly neighborhoods see themselves as so distinct; they don’t even talk to each other sometimes. Broad St., right outside out door, was a demarcation line for 50-60 years until that began to break down lately. We thought it would be a good representation of Jesus to be in different neighborhoods, but actually be one church. We did not want to give in to the arbitrary dividing lines that keep people apart.  We even decided to cross the river, and that was no small deal. Tons of people work every day in Philly and cross the bridge, but do that for something like being the church and it seems big. We like to push the boundaries of what seems possible.

It does not make any difference how we are structured if no one cares about the family business. It would break a lot of hearts if we actually did it, but I and the leaders are pretty much content to let the whole thing die if no one applies themselves to working the strategy. I think I should trust your passion to run the business, just like Jesus trusted his first disciples. You have to want the Lord, want the church, want the strategy, or it is all just a lot of talk.

People do not move into eternity with mere talk. They need to make a relationship with God in the person of Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. For many people, each of us is the only Jesus-is-my-way kind of Christian they have ever met. It is not an easy business to be in, but it is our family business. I am doing my best to tend it with you.

Good Questions about Jesus

One of my friends put up the picture at the left on Facebook, so here I am forwarding it and expanding its pernicious reach. Go figure. If it brings you down, I apologize. No matter how painful the dialogue, it is better to have it than to hide, I think.

I couldn’t resist responding to my friend, so I almost got in to one of those email exchanges in which young men, usually, can argue a point for a few weeks and feel hurt when they don’t feel heard but act righteously self-reliant when confronted. I am not very adept at those, but I don’t mind blogging.

I have been suffering a little about this poster. It is painfully accurate. I wish it had shown a picture of Christians and not Jesus, but then it would not have been nearly as effective. I think most people leave faith in Jesus behind because of the Christians, not Jesus. They end up thinking that Christians are just as self-interested as unbelievers, only they have an overlay of religion in the way of being as real as unbelievers. I think a lot of former believers might admit they first thought Christians might be “full of shit” when their relationship with a believer could not fulfill their needs any better than the others who didn’t. Jesus, prayer, the Christians – everything was so disappointing!

My rather small response to the poster was, “Yes, people do pray like that. BUT — if Jesus’ prayer was doing jack shit, people would not STILL be tying to take him down.” That’s more of a confession than a recommendation. I got kind of personal with whoever made that pernicious and effective poster. I had to admit that my fellow-believers often use prayer as a retreat from living and an excuse for inaction. But I had to state the obvious, as well, that when Jesus prays, “Not my will but yours be done” in the garden, there are world-changing results that changed me, too!

I won’t repeat my whole reply, since friends need space to work with all the relational issues and understandings that probably need to get on the table along with the arguments. But there were two questions brought up in the exchange that I think I run into quite often. So I want to take a shot at speaking to everyone about them.

If Jesus is God, why is it that he struggles with humans taking him down? Why is God in a struggle with things he has all power over?

Are all cultures preoccupied with power, or is it mainly the empire-building Americans? The Christians seem to be zoomed in on God being “in control.” The more disempowered they are socially, the more dramatic the lust for power seems to be.

God is in a struggle with things he has power over because of his great love. He wants the relationship, not just the fruit of his power. God created beings with whom there could be a struggle in order to expand love in the universe. I think that is the usual and best response to the age-old question. God, in the person of Jesus (and alive in His Spirit, stumbling around in the body of Christ, the church) is the ultimate expression of this struggle. Jesus is so identified with humans, he is tempted to “take God down” by not fulfilling his destiny when he is praying in the garden. God has the same internal struggle we do – to not merely be “in control.”

Hasn’t humankind created God and all other gods, and that’s why ascendant cultures replace them over time?

My friend is “post-Christian” right now. I haven’t asked him if that’s his way of looking at it. But he is insightful, intelligent and can see that the culturally-subsumed Christianity of his childhood is breaking down and being replaced by a multicultural religion of tolerance and general unbelief in all “gods.” A new culture appears to be ascendant; it is certainly taught by all our schools and is the main propaganda of our media! If twentysomethings are not skeptical when someone thinks an old picture of a white Jesus antiseptically praying in the garden might mean something, I don’t know why they aren’t. I am skeptical, too!

My answer (for now): Humankind has created gods. Cultures often march into battle with the god-emblem of their society at the front of the troops. Supposedly-Christian Americans are in Afghanistan and Iraq to protect “our way of life,” often symbolized by the constitution which enshrines individual rights. So the point is well-taken. Jesus is God right in the middle of that mess offering a true way out of the redundant cycle of ascendancy and fall. Jesus is restoring our true image, lest we create another monster-god in our own.

People answer these questions much better, of course. They often take whole books to do it well. N.T. Wright is making a whole prophetic career on trying to speak to our era about all these things – and quite successfully. I am writing a blog-entry in my PJs. I just wanted to speak back to the poster. I have a lot of affection for the friend who posted it. I wish I could talk to the person who made it originally. I’d like to know if he’s making the implications about my friend, Jesus, that he or she appears to be making.

Get off your ass and ask: Othniel and Acsah

The Bible

And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.” Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to him in marriage.

One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What can I do for you?”

She replied, “Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.” So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. Joshua 15:16-19

I ask you.
No selfies in Acsah’s day, but this might be a good snap.

I have a special fondness for young couples starting out together; so this little bit of history in the book of Joshua is kind of irresistible to me. Othniel went on to be the first judge of the judges of Israel. But at this point, he and Acsah (name your daughter that!) are just setting up their own household. They seem to have been a visionary, ambitious pair. That is what I think, at least, when I envision Acsah and Othniel going back to Caleb’s house to get a better deal on her inheritance. All she had was desert and no water — but she had irrigation plans! It appears that she was pushing Othniel, “Go ask my dad for more!” But as soon as they got there, she jumped off her donkey and asked herself! Caleb undoubtedly knew he had a special daughter; he may have seen “that look” in her eye as soon as she rode up and immediately asked, “What?”

She got her water.

The Prayer

You may think it is too much to make a lot out of these little snippets of the Bible. That’s OK. But see if this moment doesn’t make a good prayer for you, anyway. Here is how it works.

We go to our Father and he sees us just as we are. He says, “What can I do for you?”

We say, “Do me a favor, since you know I’ve been given desert. I need springs of water. Give me also springs of water.”

He gives them.

It is something like that. Try praying it. Should I say, “Get off your ass and ask?” Probably not.

But we need to ask because we have some desert! Should we just take what we appear to have been given and make the most of the desert?

  • I’m talking about the spiritual desert — not feeling it personally, no faith, hope, joy, love, just a gnawing sense of need.
  • I’m talking about the relational desert – the friendship circle or marriage feels dry, makes me want to try a new city or a new mate.
  • I’m talking about the political desert – Philly has lots of water but it has lots of trouble: too much violence, too little money in its coffers, too much injustice and corruption.

Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” John 7:37-8

The vision

Being one woman, going to her father for what she needs and ending up with living water flowing from her in the middle of desert places – that seems to me like the best result of all. Taking her husband with her and irrigating as much territory as she can touch seems to be a life worth living. Acsah couldn’t help but ask. Do you do that anymore?

Maybe you think coming to Jesus and asking for living water is entirely too easy. Snippety. You are into much more complicated things. That’s OK. I have nothing for you. I think I get tinier all the time — just a child going to my Father in the place I know to find him and trusting him to give me what he has for me.