Church could use a little Revolution

Non-violent, in completely non-condemning love, of course. "I'm not trying to be a nuisance, I just think we can do better than this." This is following off of Don's thoughts here:

http://donmilleris.com/2011/04/05/unlike-todays-church-leaders-none-of-the-early-disciples-were-professional-educators

I saw a similar model in action at Norman Community Church, to what Don's talking about. A church led by musicians. :P If church is about meeting God, ministering to one another in community, and living the kingdom, why do we sit and listen most of the time? Norman Community is the only church I've been in where relationship was more important than the service, where service and living the Kingdom was more important than intellectual theology. Where training was about learning to live out our faith and making people do it. Honestly, for all my 'ministry,' I felt completely inadequate at Norm Comm, because I was so afraid that the church might ask something of me. And I want that so much, to be challenged and told I'm wrong and asked where my heart is at.

I've been in churches that have their heart all in the right place, where I had great relationships with almost the whole congregation, but our service and our expectations of the service didn't leave us the space to really ask how one another was doing, or to pray over people. Since we don't Sabbath on Sundays anyway, I think our liturgy needs to go and I think house churches are the way to go. Most healthy churches actually do "church" in small groups, but I think this sends the wrong message to the world...how is attending seminars the first step in following Jesus? Jesus did dinner with people.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in the church. I need to worship, I need Church. I believe in preaching, I get something almost every week. I believe in having people study the scriptures, and having well-thought out, Biblically-based theologies. But if I'm just at church to hear a sermon and sing, I might as well watch it on TV. And I think that's the opposite direction of where the church should be going.

I think this is at the core of why many Men have given up on the church. We don't value things like barn-raising and tentmaking or cooking as possible forms of ministry leadership. It's an intellectual/emotional game, and let's be honest, if it's not backed up by actions, it is a game. Or it's a social club where you have to mind your Ps and Qs all the time, and boy that's exhausting. Faith without works is dead.

I'm gonna take it one step further and say the same thing that is wrong with our churches is also wrong with our schools. Kids hate school because the stuff they're doing is pointless...because it is! Sixth-graders have the intellectual capacity to change the world, do research, lead community projects. It happens all the time!!! But our expectations of kids is to "practice" learn for 16 years before they ever do anything, and it's incredibly patronizing and a shame that our romantic idea of "childhood" and "teenage freedom" keeps kids from becoming engaged citizens and real adults until around 23-28. What if instead of paying an economics teacher we loaned kids $50 and told them to invest it for a semester, grade will be based on your rate of return. The Kingdom of Heaven is like that. ;) That's the real world. (well, in the real world most kids would get 50c and a couple would get a couple hundred thousand, but...)

Why don't we change? It costs more of us. We suck at sharing life and being vulnerable. A Sunday school lesson and games are easier for me to plan than a night of outreach or a night of waiting on God. And what if my youth freak out? What if they get robbed? What if demons show up? I know that youth like games and music. And those are valid things to do together. But as a pastor, (I sincerely believe in the priesthood of all believers) I want my fellow sheepies to be ministry-leaders and pastors themselves in their circles, not church attendees.

I have faith that if I try to do something and fail, it's okay. But walking with God is messy, and I'm afraid if I'm honest about that, the church will reject me. Also I'm poor, I don't know how to ask other people to do missions with me, because missions with me might end up getting you stuck in a foreign country if you miss a bus or lose a wallet or something (strictly theoretically-speaking, of course, it's only happened to me once). I know how to let myself down, but I don't know how to let others down. I almost only talk to strangers when I'm alone because most of my friends get annoyed or nervous. (Greg Wilson, you are an amazing exception to this.) Wow...I'm insecure and I need to change, because I'm becoming the things I don't want to be.

Zach

I was walking around downtown Indianapolis, I came up to this street corner and there was this kid there with a sign asking for food and help, "God bless." He was young and white and didn't look homeless. I started a conversation. I gave what I could, I don't give money to homeless people ever, but I gave him my food. Tried to help. Prayed over him. 19 years old. He was white, young, thoughtful, used to being rich.

I saw myself in this kid. But I didn't see myself in the old black man I passed by a minute before I stopped to talk to Zach. God ordained that I would meet Zach. I was supposed to be on a bus, but that didn't work out. But was I supposed to meet that black man? He had a story too. He had something to teach me and give me. But I didn't see myself in him, and that troubles me deeply. Ironically, working in an inner-city African-American community has probably created stereotypes, racism, and fears that I didn't have before.

Can you see yourself in the person across from you? Are their dreams as important as yours? Their insights as valid? Are you even willing to listen? I went to this conference on orphans last week, and it was very sad to me that most couples place the greatest value on infants. They are cuter, less problematic, less broken than Fatherless teens or even schoolchildren. A director of an Eastern European orphanage remarked that the "baby room" is the nicest room in the place, because once they leave it, they probably won't find a family.

I realize that despite experience to the contrary, I don't value kids with special needs. Even though this 12 year old girl who taught me a song in Mexico, and the girls at that shelter taught me to sing, I don't see myself in them. I don't see how I could relate. I am guilty of the same thing when it comes to older church members. I wish they would reach out to me, because I don't see how to bridge the gap. But all of these, even the least of these, is made in the image of God. God, help my unbelief.

Twenty-Seven+ Ways to Die in 2011

First, if you jump into the cold North Atlantic at dawn on no sleep and then don't eat and go to sleep,
you could get sick.

Second, a few weeks later, you could try to catch Walking Pneumonia at work, which is harder to catch than most diseases, because it keeps walking away, but then once you get it it's really hard to get rid of so I wouldn't recommend it. Lucky for me, I'm a runner.

Third, you could mess up the company rental car, or not have the money to pay for the parking garage, or coming back to pay the fifth dollar, you could startle the cashier while she's counting her money and that could just be the end of you.

Fourthly, there are always arguments with youth at the Cov.

Fifthly, you could have a heart attack trying to catch up with Jr. High youth playing freeze tag.

Or sixthly, you could get killed by the elders for playing with the tennis ball inside the church building.

Seventhly, you could get trampled by a cow at the PA farm show, or die fat and happy of a ice-cream induced food coma.

Eighthly, you could die of cold in Toronto, or die happy because the Curator of the Model Ships section of the AGO tells you amazing stories of ships that were snuck, carried, and sunk. Or you could die because Toronto is liberal and there are cannabis shops. Or because there are statues to Redcoats in prominent squares, and the locals might mistake you for an invading Fenian.

Ninthly, you could eat bad salmon. Or put craisins in your spaghetti (yum!).

Tenthly, you could get attacked by rioting youth on your way to work. Luckily the stones thrown were before I passed by. You could also die by driving the wrong way on a one way to avoid police barricades. They tell me you can die for being a white person in Back Maryland, but I haven't gotten shot at so far.

Eleventhly, you could make sexist comments to your housemates. Or take the car without asking. Or finish off the leftovers. Or leave a dish in the sink.

Twelthly, you could die spazzing over the possibilities of the future and your desire to be in eight places at once and do everything. Or there's the pressure of being a terrible friend and not responding to messages on time.

Thirteenthly, you could stumble across an illegal operation while looking for homeless people under a bridge.

Fourteenthly, you could break your face on the floor when you pass out because you are sick.

Fifthteenthly, you could die of awe over the awesomeness of the movie 12, or die because your roommate is trying to warn you, but you hear Russian coming out of his mouth, even though he is speaking English.

Sixteenthly, you could upset an ex with a youtube video.

Seventeenthly, you could stick with protocol and refuse to tell a parent whether or not their child is currently in the building.

Eighteenthly, you could talk to strangers in elevators.

Nineteenthly, you could try to slide/drive to Philly in the 6am snow and ice. (If you have a good housemate, he'll talk you out of this one.)

Twentiethly, you could write unprofessional messages to your boss.

Twenty-firstly, one could undertake pains to wrongly split infinitives.

Twenty-secondly, one could put your hands in your jacket while being searched by an overzealous policeman on your way to the library. Cops don't like hippies with purses.

Twenty-thirdly, you could walk to work in a blizzard and...I still haven't figured out what could have happened.

Twenty-fourthly, by pool stick.

Twenty-fifthly, you could die because you run out of money. This is what my brain tells me. However, I think it's actually food and air and water that you need. Still though, money is annoying, and it feels like it could kill you.

Twenty-sixthly, unrequited love?

Twenty-seventhly, and lastly, a poet-aster must always be wary of the grammar police, pun haters, rabid fans, and his own dramatic hubris. Alas, it's a dangerous business entering the blogosphere...especially when you don't continue your previous to be continued. Oh wells. Don't hate the player, hate the game??

La Familia

Firefly, Joss Whedon's unfinished (or half-finished, since Serenity came out) epic deep-space series, resonates very deeply with outsiders, with our crazy culture. It's a story of finding family in the most unlikely of places, of making family with the people around you in a fragmented society. Each character has an opinion on each of the others, a mix of respect and annoyance. Each individual finds a fragile but beautiful family brought together by chance, difficult pasts, and a little love.

I think one of the reasons that the poor are blessed is that they have to depend on one another. Because they realize they couldn't do what they're doing on their own. And perhaps one of the most destructive beliefs, no, it goes deeper than that, roots of American culture is the idea that in order to succeed, you have to leave it all behind and go it alone. You have to be able to make it on your own to be a real man, a truly independent woman. That in order to succeed, you have to go it alone.

Gangs are a reality of inner-city life in this hemisphere. You see the tags and tats in almost every major city: New York, Guate, LA, DF. On a local level, you could think of them as grassroots labour organizations or pyramid schemes, but I think the essential allure of gang life is family. Of knowing that when you walk out into the streets, you're not alone.

We're a homeless culture, the United States the vanguard in a global society where place is becoming less and less particular. In such a global society, flows of capital and labour mean that while a "living" might not be sustainable in an overcrowded refugee camp, the flexible and willing to compromise can rise to great heights thousands of miles from "home." But orphans of divorce, emotionally abandoned children, wealthy and poor line the halls of every school in every country. Those without family are manipulated to kill, prostitute, and suffer by evil and desperate individuals in places like Oklahoma City, San Diego, Pensacola, and Atlantic City. Out at 18, foster children in the United States, impovershed youth in Guatemala's slums, and orphans in the Ukraine all fall prey to gangs, suicide, and drug addiction. They medicate their helplessness with violence, their lonliness and lack of self-worth with sex and "under the table" medications. Many college students aren't that different. Grad schools and jobs lead us further and further away from family and often dehumanize us altogether. Those of us who are "good" often medicate these same afflictions that street kids face with much smoother veneers: we work for houses, cars, to "provide" for our family, and for the accolades of teachers and bosses, we volunteer and give, and these things make us feel accepted and good and a part of something.

But it's not family, it's not true community. I've seen family in Mexico: when churches and friends come together and truly focus on serving one another. When a family takes in abused, neglected, and previously unwanted children and makes them their own. I've seen family in Oklahoma, when a family invites me to share Thanksgiving with them, in worship nights, or when my friends and I would stay up til all hours of the night reading, eating, talking, and listening to music together. I've seen churches and schools in Lithuania adopt orphanages as their own. I've seen family in Russia as well: a couple of the church families I met there were truly extended, in that you couldn't really tell where blood ends, but you knew that family spread beyond just being related. I see family in California and Pensacola, when I'm welcomed back no questions asked, and welcomed home. Family can be brief, when one person takes on the burdens of another person for a conversation, a moment, or some support between paychecks. But true family is unconditional, and as such, although life is change, unchanging. It's a lifelong commitment to another, a marriage of individuals. Family can be united around a common idea or task, but it knows no religion and doesn't even need common interests. My most profound experience of community was in Scotland, where our shared experience wasn't much more than that we shared meals together, did laundry with each other, walked to the grocery store together, and had a "community night" once a week where we shared dinner and sometimes we'd have music nights. It was as simple as us deciding to be together and treat each others as equals, and to open up what was really going on in our lives a bit. Frisbee and movies are also something that have brought me closer to my roommates, past and present. But I think true community happens when we pray, and when we do dishes or run errands together, not as a favor, but as a part of family.

So I would encourage you to be a person that invites family wherever you are. Invite people over, bring people in. Talk to strangers on the bus and in elevators and lines at the grocery store. Ask lots of questions. Listen a lot. Don't settle for status quo with the people you live with. Love the people around you more than you love yourself and your grand story. Get involved in theirs. And when you do that, and really commit to it, you'll create community.

To be continued...

A Poet-astic New Year (No dice)

So...359 days to the end of the world. Not that anyone's counting.

I'm kinda bummed about not being able to see a much sooner end of the world in high definition. Communication is just really important in a relationship. And if you're gonna no longer stream your episodes of V at the same time you did last year, ABC is just gonna have to face the fact that fans are gonna watch elsewhere, or just not watch ABC at all. I think the worst was they tried to get me to sign up for a facebook application with a ridiculous amount of intrusion by vaguely dangling the carrot of "exclusive video." I used my myspace, because the only TRUE personally identifiable information on there is my e-mail address, but no dice, and no video either.

No dice is a strange phrase. Did they used to give out dice in Cracker Jack boxes or something? You're like "FREE TOY INSIDE, FREE TOY INSIDE" and then you look, and dang, no dice. I feel like dice in cereal boxes, like Hannah Montana, are probably a good way for the Illuminati to corrupt and control the minds of the masses. Or maybe the phrase comes from Monopoly: your opponent is clearly winning, it's just a matter of painful elimination at this point, and "oh whoops, no dice, where could they have gone?" Or maybe it's why they drew straws in the bible: no dice.

I feel like straws are an important cultural phenomenon; I wonder if Andy Warhol ever drew straws. Purple Straw, red straw, green straw, Marilyn Monroe straw. Picasso straws would be amusing, but you probably couldn't drink out of them.

WELCOME TO THE NEW DECADE!!! 2011. Twenty eleven. The 20-00s are gone. Eminem will probably not be the musician of the next decade, I just hope it's not Nicky Minaj, no offense to the very spastic and intelligent Lady Gaga of Gangster Rap. Emo is gone, punk is dead. Soon they'll be playing All American Rejects and Linkin Park on the 00s station on the radio. I feel like 2011, and just this holes zeros and teens thing, are just bad marketing ideas. Everybody wants to spin and sell the new decade, new things, the last decade, the past, the nostalgia...but who wants a book about the 00s...I mean, we could call it the 2000s...but I feel like those will last for a millennia. Welcome to the 10s?

I dove into the Atlantic on sunrise at New Year’s Day...the bay was covered in ice at the time, (the ocean wasn't) it was exhilarating and the sunrise was beautiful. I has video, but I think I’ll save it for the fam, cuz it gets a little risqué. Unfortunately, my zest for life got me sick. Not because I jumped in...but because I jumped in and ran home, burning thousands of calories, and then I didn’t eat, and went to sleep. When I woke up I’d probably lost at least five pounds. I’m not sure what that means for the new year. Perhaps this is the year of overzealousness leading to overload? I hope not, and I thought that was last year.

Some new year's resolutions:
1)Stop complaining. I mean, I pretty much think the world's about me most of the time, but I feel like I should probably think about myself 1/6 billionth of the time or less, and not double-time brain overload think.
2)Post more things online, finish some projects, get some poems published. (My manuscript was rejected, which means they're all fair game.)
3)Stay at least three months behind on messages. (As in, don't fall further behind. I'm in October currently.)
4)Be present. Even if my best friends are in four different countries and I don't like here. Even if here changes 6 times in the next 12 months (Which might be the plan). I can't be everything everywhere all at once all the time.
5)Put God first. My head's learned this one a couple times...pretty much every year for the last five or six. My life is a mess sometimes. Ay. Whatever you've got for me this year God, I pray that my spazziness and obsessive planning doesn't get in the way. I’m excited. Lead on Lord. Walk with us.