Emergent, Po Mo, Organic, Vintage, Revolution, and Relevant

I am sick to death of the vernacular of my culture. By my culture, I mean those of us who are out on the front lines trying to do church as well as all of those who want to be a part of my culture, those who are thinking about my culture, those who are conversing about my culture, and even those who are rejecting my culture. There is an entire lexicon of new language and terms that have risen up to define and describe church in this day and age. It is very common for me to hear statements like: "I have been a contributor to the emergent dialogue and a strong proponent of de-constructing the systemic paradigms that resist the revolutionary, organic movement to reclaim a vintage, epic understanding of how to traverse the postmodern landscape and be intentional in bringing our ancient-future faith to all people in a way that is counter-cultural and relevant."

Praise the Lord, Brother. I have no idea what you are talking about, and neither do you, but Praise the Lord, anyhow. You Generation X'ers are pretty cool!

Look, I am in no way slamming the movement of people called "Emergent". We are working to change church and make it a true expression of our faith to which people can connect. I am completely in favor of these efforts. I just struggle with the language stuff. I believe in making sure people really grow in their faith and relationship with God and one another. I believe in educating people and giving them a language for dealing with all of this complicated faith stuff. When I teach and dialogue with my community on Sunday mornings, I do not dumb things down. I want people to have a healthy approach to Scripture, faith, community, and God. I avoid "Christianese" and trite Evangelical sayings that only alienate people. This does not mean that I avoid theology or theological terms with which people of faith should grow to be familiar. I do believe, however, that "cutting-edge" terms that really have no basis in reality and were made up simply to be "cutting-edge" and to make their users look "cutting-edge" have no value and should be discarded. Much of this language has been developed to supposedly replace Christianese and to be more accessible to the average seeker of truth. As anyone can see by the statement I wrote above, this language is even less accessible than the "Praise the Lord, Brother" stuff I wrote right after it. It's a sham and another example of the kind of consumer Christianity that the Emergent culture is trying to reject.

Language is a tricky thing, because it is difficult to talk about God. God is so far beyond our language and so mysterious, that our arbitrary sets of phonetic arrangements don't begin to touch the Absolute. This does not mean, however, that we should stop talking. We are limited, but we have to keep trying, as long as we can live in the mystery. Our language can never contain God, but that's a good thing. If we could define or explain God linguistically, He would cease to be God. What I propose is that we stop trying to be cool and start trying to connect to God and each other.

Is my church an emergent church? Yes, if that term is defined as: "different from the traditional Evangelical model of church". Did I set out to build an emergent church for the purpose of being able to call it "Emergent"? No. I suck at following God by myself. I started a church to surround myself with people who are on a similar journey of faith and discovery. They walk this out with me. We are simply trying to build the church we like. A church where we connect to each other and collectively touch the Sacred. So, join us sometime for some foot-stompin', snake-handlin, Praise the Lord fun! Bring your shofar and your Holy Spirit tambourine as we wave flags, flop on the floor, and attempt to organically reconstruct our gatherings for relevant interfacing with this postmodern culture. Hallelujah, my emergent brother/sister!

A Small Conversion of My Heart

I was having a hard day today. First of all, I screwed up royally at work. I turned my phone off while I was having lunch with my wife at the hospital. (Don't go praying for my wife for some illness. She works at a hospital as a chaplain. If you are going to pray for her for anything, pray that she will be able to survive marriage to me.) I turned it off, because you are not supposed to use cell phones ever in a hospital. EVER!! I never really understood that. I mean, I can see it on a flight during take off and landing, because it could interfere with traffic control, and suddenly, instead of talking to your buddy about how much fun you had on your trip to Holland, and how into clogging you now are, and how you met a midget ostrich wrangler named Eustance who collects stamps, but only Elvis ones, you are now in charge of bringing a 747 in at a normal rate of speed and with the correct side up. WOW. Sorry. At any rate, I could never figure out why it was so wrong in a hospital. I am not sure if it is like a helium balloon thing. Every time you release a helium balloon a dolphin dies somewhere in the world, and when you fire up your cell phone in a hospital the guy on the vent on floor three suddenly loses his life support. I never turned it back on. Of course, I am back at the office and all afternoon my boss is trying to get in touch with me. I got a small lecture about keeping my phone on. I work hard and aim to please, and this was a stupid mistake.

One thing I cannot tolerate in myself is a stupid mistake. I make them all the time, and I am far from perfect, but I still struggle with letting myself off the hook for them. I will punish and berate myself repeatedly for the smallest stuff. It was just so boneheaded, and I could not let it go. I am really unfair to myself in that way. Then, later in the evening, I go to get a simple rope chew toy for my gigantic dog, so she will stop eating the full grown maple in the back yard. Yes, she is actually chewing the tree. Anyway, my card gets declined. Then my next card gets declined. I was far too embarrassed at that point to leave the rope there. I now owe the church $10 for this stupid chew toy, just because I felt so stupid. It was a humbling day. On my way home from the store, I started crying out to God, yelling about how sick I am of being poor. I have done everything he asked me to do, without hesitation. Why, in his name, could I not just have a taste of my inheritance?

Then, we went to the home of a couple who live up the street from us. We had an incredible, deep, and powerful conversation about God, faith, and the Church. It was awesome! This is not a couple we are trying to get into the church. In fact, we don't approach anyone that way. We are looking for friendships. God has made us dissatisfied with church relationships we have formed in the past. We look for friendships. We love our friends, and we want to seek God with those friends and worship with them. You share those important parts of your life with friends. These people up the street are becoming friends, but we don't use them to fill our church. We love them already, and we love just hanging out with them. This way of living is so refreshing.

On my walk home from their house, God spoke to me very clearly. He told me that in relationships like the ones Teresa and I formed with that couple, I would find my inheritance. I won't need to be perfect. I won't need to be all shiny and cleaned up. It's okay if I'm too po to buy chew toys right now. I just have to be real and transparent. Through friendships like that, I will taste and see the goodness of the Lord. He fulfills his promises and is faithful to complete his work in us. I don't want to be shortsighted and miss him doing exactly that through the people I love.

Fall From Grace

Ted Haggard, now former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, or as I am fond of calling them, "NAkEd", was outed by a man claiming to have had a number of drug-filled, sexual encounters with Haggard. Haggard is an outspoken radical conservative moralist who has condemned some people as hell-bound sinners, especially homosexuals. C'mon! Can you look at the man's hair and fake tan and not realize that he is as straight as an arrow? Ted, gay? No way! (That's good! "Ted gay? No Way!" is going to be the new bumper sticker and picket sign campaign that I will launch in his defense!)

Actually, and quite seriously, this whole thing makes me sad. When news first came out, and the Haggard camp started to deny, deny, deny, I wanted to believe they were telling the truth. I mean, the timing of the release of this thing was no accident, considering that there are tight and important gubernatorial and congressional races going on all over the country right now. I also wanted to believe that Democrats, the side of the aisle I identify with most closely right now, would not stoop so low as to destroy a man's life, family, and reputation to win some seats. Yes, I am a naive and innocent blossom who wants his world to be a place where the good guys always win, the truth always shines in the darkness and is never painful, and all the children of the world join hands and sing a song. Yes, it's hokey and dumb, but there is a part of me that still wants it like that.

But, as always, the inevitable admissions started to come out. First, he was resigning so as to let the board and the people involved do their jobs, but he did nothing wrong. His accuser was an obvious madman with an agenda. Then came: ok, so I had a massage from him. That's no crime. There was no sex and no drug use.......Ok, so we did buy some drugs, but I didn't inhale. Next will be the admission that he brought the drugs with him, then will come the admission of an extended affair, then a whole life of wanton deviance, pornography, prostitution, and debauchery will open before our wondering eyes.

I am embarrassed to be a Christian. I am not judging the man. He has to answer to God. I don't envy him that. He was a religious leader and a moral dictator. People associated his moralistic fundamentalism with his faith. When the curtain gets pulled back to reveal the true Oz, however, we vacillate between feelings of shock and disappointment. That's how I feel as a believer on this journey of faith. I can't imagine what this does to people who have not discovered the work of God in their lives yet, many of whom have been judged and torn apart by this man and preachers like him in the past. It makes me want to vomit.

Look, I am a realist. As soon as I say I do not envy him in his future appearance before the judgment seat of God, I know that he would neither envy me mine. I fall from grace daily. My own struggles with the daily myriad of pride, lust, rage, sloth, greed, envy, and gluttony are more than I can bear myself much of the time. I commit most of that list before getting out of bed in the morning!

There is a difference, however, and there is no getting past this truth. What is expected of us? We are to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. I am not the beacon of light in the world; God is! I weep for people who are completely lost. I weep for Ted Haggard. I weep for myself. My lament is that, though I long for the stuff of God, I never quite get there. I get glimpses as the Kingdom of God breaks into life around me, but the beauty of that vision and the pain in its lack of fulfillment are beyond description. Yet, that is my reality as I work out my salvation with fear and trembling, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I walk constantly on the edge of sin, but I am not afraid, because he will transform my sin and my pride. Does that mean I should sin more to receive more grace? By no means! Rather, because I am justified, I look to the cross and lay my sins there. Then I go and walk this out with the other poor sinners around me just seeking the stuff of God. We're a sorry lot, and we don't have the wavy, feathered hair, but we belong to the King.

I am not making any statement about homosexuality being right or wrong. I am not making any statement about Christians and politics. I am not even condemning Ted Haggard. I can't imagine the tortured life of lies that man has had to live. All I know is that moral condemnation does not bring life, but death. We are called to be real and true about sin, repenting to God, ouselves, and those around us. Living a life like that is what marks me as a child of God, and I receive his daily grace. That's enough for me.