Tag Archives: Joshua Grace

The beginning of Joshua

Building community, Leadership,

A lot of us among the Circle of Hope are listing all the ways Joshua Grace has been a great servant to us as our pastor. His resignation marks a brand new day, in many ways, since he has been a fixture for twenty years and our pastor for nearly fifteen years. No one could replace him. We’re glad we won’t have to do that, since we expect him back after four months of personal reconstruction starting in October.

The old beginning

I have a lot to say about Joshua’s gifts and contributions: musician, maverick, imagineer, innovator, justice-seeker and jock. I have been there for the whole journey and am glad for the honor.

But I don’t want to seem like I’m summing up a subject many are working on. So let me start with the beginning and stay there.

I don’t have a great memory, but I do remember some of my first days relating to Joshua. He resembled this picture above much of the time. A bike messenger, and musician ready to give worship the Nine Digit Number influence, and a man who was very young to have the amount of insight he had about how to plant a church. By the time we were doing our second attempt at congregation multiplication, the leaders passed over a number of good candidates to appoint Joshua as one of the youngest pastors ever. Here he is being launched one time:

I suppose you are noting Martha, too.

Why this responsibility did not kill him remains to be seen (one of his fans will probably write an article). But instead of killing him, it motivated him to pick up a sledge and make a meeting spot for Circle of Hope “East.”  I had fun being something of an odd couple with him at times and had loads of relating as the pastor team for years as we lost and added mates. I think he had fun too.

Facebook was started the same month Frankford Ave started in 2004. One of the reasons I still look at it is happy pictures of loved ones like this.

The new beginning

I won’t go through the whole history and prove to you how I admire Joshua Grace. Let me stick with the beginning, namely: the beginning that he is experiencing now.

Cell leaders lead and then they don’t for a while. Same with the other leaders of our movement. We’re flexible like that and really try to understand that our leaders are part of an organic/spiritual process, not merely on a career path. So in the last few years, we have been strangely flexible with our pastors. We transferred Nate to Director of Operations and Ben stepped in for Marlton Pike. I soon followed with a transitional role as Development Pastor and Rachel stepped up for South Broad. Julie was called out of an apprentice pastor process and became the pastor for Ridge Ave. Now we have consolidated North Broad and Frankford Ave. to form a healthier congregation we can afford, led by Jonny. We’re flexible.

We’re flexible enough to let Joshua change and grow and remain our loved one in covenant for as long as the Lord desires. Joshua is brave to decide to do this, since no one knows how such a shift might work for him. We’re brave to allow it, because we all have to change because he is changing. But we’re connected and we have the strength to work these things out.

At the bon voyage party there will probably be more stories and pictures. I hope he can take in all the good will. It is not easy to change. I plan to be around to do what I can for my good friend, my long-term partner in alternativity, and one of God’s favorite Drexel students ever, no doubt. I think good things are about to begin. God bless you in them, brother.

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Iraq Aftermath: Six things Christian peacemakers can practice right now.

The Mission, , , , ,

Gulf War — began on August 2, 1990 and ended on February 28, 1991. “The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated the cost of the Gulf War at $61 billion. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States covered $36 billion.” (CNN)

Iraq War — began on March 20, 2003 and officially ended in December 2011 (troops were recently added to fight ISIS). ”The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades. “ (Reuters).

I start with a few facts (although true financial facts are hard to get from the U.S. government) because many people who attended our event: Iraq Aftermath, did not have too many facts at hand for themselves. We were blessed with four people who had been to Iraq personally, spanning the 25 years of U.S. warmaking: Gwen White before the first Gulf War, Joshua Grace at the beginning of the Iraq War, Shane Claiborne during the Iraq War and Scott Krueger once during the Iraq War and twice after. They were full of facts and memories that astounded many of us who listened.

There is a lot I could report. But for today, I want to offer some of the thoughts I remember that highlight the insight that was shared. You may want to add some of your own reflections in the comments section. Here are six things Christian peacemakers can practice right now in relation to the aftermath of the U.S. wars in Iraq.

1. When someone asks you, “What are you going to do but bomb ISIS and saved lives?” what do you say?

How about stepping back, looking at a bigger picture and asking, “How about dismantling structures of violence that caused the conflicts and fuel the violence?” Remind people that violence does not save, Jesus saves. Stand up to other narratives as well, such as the “brotherhood of soldiers” story that gets soldiers to do things their hearts would resist if they were not “protecting” people in their squad from “savages.”

2. We need to pray. Peacemaking is a work of the Holy Spirit or it is just rolling a rock up a hill.

It is going to take a long time to heal from the wounds of Iraq – certainly in Iraq, which continues to be devastated by the war the U.S. started. Perhaps a demon was removed (in Saddam Hussein) but seven other demons have moved in, as Jesus warned might happen. Drone warfare continues to recruit terrorists. The rapidly advancing technology of death and domination has results we can’t foresee, but can dread. We need to pray.

3. How do we get off the merry go round of endless war?

  • We can stand against the evil we can stand against and let the ripples we create, large or small, bring us joy rather than disappointment.
  • We can keep getting arrested – something happens inside when you have taken a scary stand.
  • We can say, “Don’t preserve my ‘way of life‘ if it costs this.”
  • We can keep on proactively making peace for the safety of our hearts – then when a colleague does something asinine, we are trained to keep on making peace.
  • Many of us deeply feel the temptation to quit – we need to be held accountable to love.

4. No one is upset about war. Why bother?

Many people watch American Sniper and consider it a reasoned explanation of the Iraq War. One person brought up the movie to her employer and she basically said, “You are cute to love peace.” Peacemaking might mean taking the risk to be demeaned. For people of means peacemaking might be taking the risk to feel unsafe. Dialogue transforms – our family business may not seem profitable in the moment, but it has eternal rewards.

We need to consider how the powers learned after Vietnam – news and warfare are very different, with the volunteer army and technological advances which have even resulted in drone warfare. People do not know these things and need to be told.

One person shared how the U.S. has been at war in the Middle East since he was eight years old. The people there have been dehumanized. When they immigrate to the U.S. people are upset when they don’t assimilate. We Jesus followers need to not assimilate as well (as our panel demonstrated lifetimes of perfecting). We need to keep learning, even though one main way many people cope is to avoid and to stay distracted – many are theologically convinced but still apathetic.

5. How can we know what is really going on?

  • We created the Peace List to give us space to share. Sign up at the Circle of Peacemakers site. http://www.circleofpeacemakers.com/,  FB page is https://www.facebook.com/circleofpeacemakers
  • We should keep going where there is no peace so we can know things first hand. Make friends in war-torn places. Almost always our brothers and sisters in Christ are in the middle of things; they can tell us if we are listening.
  • Through Twitter, people are eager to share first-hand reporting. @rodofcircle has many connections in his list of people he follows from the Middle East (Palestine in particular).
  • Shane suggested Friends without Borders. http://www.friendswithoutborders.net/about/ and Global Days of Listening. http://globaldaysoflistening.org/
  • A new friend from Kurdistan told us his story and suggested his own institute, the Dialogue Institute   http://institute.jesdialogue.org/
  • Gwen recommended MCC Peace work http://mcc.org/learn/what/peace

6. It is easy to tell someone to be pacifist when we speak for peace from safety.

The choices of a person in Iraq are terrifying and immediate. They have been constantly threatened for years. People from the U.S. do not present easy solutions, even when they think they are doing so. Binary choices are rarely true choices (like to kill or to save lives). As believers, we need to remember that Jesus frees us from sin and death eternally, not just for love and justice now – love and justice will not save us; Jesus has.

A recording of the evening is in the works. Here is the first part:

Catch more segments at the Circle of Peacemakers blogsite.

Paean to partners

Building community, , , , , , , , ,

Someone sabotaged our computer. We discovered what they did right before we wanted to do a few things for the meeting last night. Three of us were huddled in front of it lamenting, offering ineffectual suggestions and generally having some mutual anxiety — and that just before we were to lead an evening centered on “not worrying!”

Now that everything worked out fine-if-not-perfectly, I look back fondly on the scene – back on how our strange little partnership in the gospel was revealed in that moment. We were anxious about something only Jesus could get us together to be anxious about. Each of us had travelled a long distance geographically and culturally to become important in a new kingdom and tribe. I like it when I notice that blessing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about being partners lately and feeling thankful. I think my feeling is a lot like what Paul felt about the Philippians when he started a letter to them with: “I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:4). From the first day of Circle of Hope until now, I have had such amazing partners, beginning with my wife and family and then one person after another who Jesus drew together to form our incendiary community of faith: partners in building community, making disciples, showing compassion, doing business, inventing administration, weathering crises, sharing money and standing together in problems a lot worse than a sabotaged computer! What a blessing!

I have been especially thankful for the partnership of my fellow pastors along the way. Gerry Davis, Joe Snell, Mike Major, Tim Bathurst, and Bryan Robinson added their gifts and moved on.  Then there are the seven who serve as Pastor right now who rose up from among us and have given their love and service for years. You might not know that the average tenure of a pastor in the United States is about four years. Most of our pastors get started in the ranks as cell leaders. By the time they become a pastor in one of our congregations, they’ve probably already served for four years! A secret to our survival and remarkable success in building the body of Christ in a relatively-hostile territory is our long-lived pastor partnership.

ben rachelBen White and Rachel Sensenig are good examples of emerging pastors. They both have experimental roles in the church that we wanted pastors to fill. Ben is the Development Pastor attached to Broad and Washington. He has been inventing ways to connect with new people groups and develop the congregation’s capacity to grow. In the process, he is developing himself! Rachel is the Administrative Pastor who works for the whole church: our network of congregations, cells and teams. Her role has grown dramatically as we have figured out how to be who we are. She has helped us figure that out, often doing things administratively and learning new sides of leadership that don’t fit naturally with her gifts in the process. They are important, much-loved partners.

I am on a team of four pastors who lead the four congregations. I think next year we will be even more of a team as we lean into being one church in four or more locations rather than four congregations networked as a church. Our partnership is crucial to the health of our community. It is not so much that everyone needs to be led around a lot, but the gravity of our love and unity, as well as our diversity in age, experience and background is a great engine for what we hope the whole church will be.

jonny kristinLast week Jonny Rashid of Broad and Dauphin was lobbying to get an Egyptian flag on the rack that displays the countries where our covenant members were born. He thinks citizenship should count as well as birthplace. He has opinions. He has energy. He has a young family and a young congregation. He is forthright, dogged and faithful: a great partner.

nate jenNate Hulfish of Marlton and Crescent reluctantly stayed home from the intentional retreat last weekend because he was also recovering from his wife’s epic wisdom teeth extraction. I also think he kind of wanted to be at the Collingswood Book Fair because he has been meeting as many people as possible – even acting contrary to his introversion to do so! He is an articulate teacher, a determined learner, malleable and ambitious: a great partner.

joshu and banjoJoshua Grace of Frankford and Norris is one-of-a-kind. He has grown up in Circle of Hope and channels our way of life in an always-on-the-edge kind of way. He is an interesting mix of being hidden away with off-the-grid musicians and being popular with famous people across the country. He’s a force. He has passions. He is loyal, imaginative and longsuffering: a great partner.

gwen 12-25-07Gwen White is the most random pastor. We finally named her a “teaching pastor” and gave her a token sum to honor what she had been giving for free for years. This past weekend she showed her stuff well when she led our retreat. I am not sure she even had to prepare too much to be that helpful.  She is self-giving, insightful, a determined builder and wonderfully rebellious against what should not be messing up her “dear one,” Jesus.

A paean is a song of praise or triumph. It implies, to me, enthusiastic Greeks dancing around in a celebration and then settling down as one of their great orators offers a poem that sums up what everyone is excited about so we could remember it twenty-five hundred years later. Nobody on this list cares much about getting summed up for history – they’re hardly done yet, for one thing! But they are such great partners, (as you probably are if you got to the end of this), they deserve a paean.

Lowest Common Denominator Assumptions

A life in the Spirit, , , , , ,

I still remember the time, a few years ago, when fifty people came to our meeting about making a covenant.

Joshua Grace and I led most of it. Nate Hulfish got in there, too, even though he came with a fever and could barely talk! It was January, and everyone had to venture out over treacherously icy roads to a church basement in Camden. One intrepid person even found a way to get there by public transpo from Philly — he apologized for being late because he had to wait twenty minutes for one tardy bus in 28 degree weather!

It was heartening. It was encouraging to find out that we were still meeting people who would do unusual things as if they were usual. Ten of our cell leaders were there, bringing cell mates with them – they’d been to the meeting before and they were going to lead other meetings that week, so you might have thought it was “beyond the call of duty” to show up.  One of them said, “The church is not in the meetings, it is a 24/7 reality.” One of them was upstairs caring for her cell mates’ children so they could enjoy the meeting! Like I said, it was pretty amazing.

Lowest Common Denominator -- Jaako Mattila
Lowest Common Denominator — Jaako Mattila

Peacemakers should be normal Christians

The meeting was even more amazing to me because I compared what my friends were actually like to what some denomination leaders thought they were probably like.  I had just come back from a conference in which I discerned some attitudes in “higher up” church leaders about what people could tolerate when it came to living out a commitment to Jesus. They didn’t expect much. I probably shot my mouth off a bit too much (as I am wont to do), but they were talking about the BIC doctrine about peacemaking, which is so close to my heart. They didn’t expect people to make peace much.

The Brethren in Christ list peacemaking among their collection of ten “core values.” We say we are all about:

Pursuing Peace: We value all human life and promote forgiveness, understanding, reconciliation, and non-violent resolution of conflict.

 That is not a radical statement. But it is right there among our top ten values!

In the Articles of Faith and Doctrine we say:

Christ loved His enemies and He calls us as His disciples to love our enemies. We follow our Lord in being people of peace and reconciliation, called to suffer and not to fight. While respecting those who hold other interpretations, we believe that preparation for or participation in war is inconsistent with the teachings of Christ. Similarly, we reject all other acts of violence which devalue human life. Rather, we affirm active peacemaking, sacrificial service to others, as well as the pursuit of justice for the poor and the oppressed in the name of Christ.

That is a straightforward statement.  It is worthy of people who will get out in 28 degree weather to investigate how to form an authentic church! Yet when I called on my leader to promote a “prophetic” expression of our stated doctrine, he publicly worried that others would not take too kindly to such aggressive behavior (whoever these “others” are, I don’t know). It seemed to me that he was managing for the lowest common denominator, or working on a non-violent resolution to conflict by avoiding conflict altogether!

Put me in coach!

So it was encouraging to meet up with the next set of Circle of Hope (BIC) covenant-makers who are, basically, brave enough to do something that other people might assume is just too much to ask. I will always wonder, I guess, about what the big deal is about following Jesus. If you’re going to do it, do it! Why doctor up his clear teachings and example to fit into the lowest common denominator that can pass for Christianity?

It is such an honor to be sought and called by Jesus! It is not like he is “asking too much of me” when he gives me life and assumes I’d like to live it! I have rarely been disappointed when I was “presumptuous” enough to assume that Jesus has impressed others in exactly the same way. We’re glad to follow Jesus! Put me in coach!

I expect to keep finding those kind of people and doing what I can to form a covenant community with them. After all, thirty more people than one might expect could pile into the basement at any moment.