Intertwined With the Poor: What the Missional Movement Lacks

by Lyndsey Graves

“I read the Bible, but I forgot the verses

The liquor store is open later than the church is”

- Macklemore, "Neon Cathedral"

 

“Our doors are locked all but four hours a week. If our neighbors think about our church at all, it must be as a place where dressed-up people gather to do... who knows what?”

- removed from my report to University Church regarding Outreach ministries

“We don’t want to offend anyone. Let’s take it out.”

I tried to argue for a bit. I mentioned that some others who read the draft had specifically mentioned that they found the sentence powerful. “More to the point,” I said, “this is not even an insulting statement; I’m just trying to be frank here.” And that is where I shut myself up.

As I spoke those words, I realized: to some of the powerful members of an upper-middle-class, white church situated in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood, the truth, frankly-stated, is itself offensive.

I don’t want to characterize my church unfairly. I believe the Holy Spirit is moving there: they are highly committed to social justice (and more so every day), and their hospitality to me has gone far beyond ordinary politeness. If I thought they were committing a heinous or unique sin, I wouldn’t bother to blog about it. Frankly, though, this “institutional blind spot”, represented in thousands of churches, contributes to the alienation of huge groups of people and, for some of these churches, their own demise.

To be clear, the blind spot I’m referring to is not necessarily the fact that people dress up on Sunday morning. I have no feelings about that one way or the other; every group of people follows norms that newcomers don’t expect or understand. What I take issue with is the fact that churches evaluate themselves on all sorts of scales, statistics, surveys, and checklists, but they rarely evaluate themselves from the perspective of the poor.

More importantly, churches sometimes evaluate their institutions from the perspective of the poor. Or they’ll demonstrate “Point #5 of our Strategic Mission: Commitment to Social Justice” by doing a Service Project once a month. But the people? They are afraid to look in the mirror, loath to ask themselves, “How do I welcome the poor into my church and my life?”

Once, a woman asked me with wide eyes, “Why don’t the young families come to church anymore? How come church is no longer their place to connect with other people?” A few weeks later she said to me, “I like to entertain people, but I can’t just throw open my home to the whole church any more. Some people - like [one of the poor single mothers in our congregation] - I’m just not comfortable around.” I still wonder if I should have confronted her about it.

Last week, I helped another coffee-shop-church in our neighborhood distribute flyers about a block party. Kind as they are to sponsor a neighborhood event, I wonder which of these poor people they expect to join a church that meets in a place of business where everyone else around the table cradles coffee at $2 a pop. They eschew sermons in favor of conversations, vaguely referring to God once in a while, in an effort to attract millenials and postmoderns. I wonder how many of these conversations revolve around matters with any connection to life in Syracuse’s Near East Side.

The thing about all this is, I care about the old people who love dressing up and listening to organ music. I care about millenials and postmoderns. And I care about the people of the Near East Side. Am I supposed to choose one group to belong to or minister to? If being “missional” means reinventing “church” and tailoring it to the tastes of any particular segment of society, it seems impossible to ever bring the college students together with the lifelong welfare recipients in this neighborhood.

I admire the missional movement and the coffee-shop-church, the desire to go out instead of holing up and daring others to come in. My church needs more of that. My church needs to at least unlock the doors more often. But sometimes, we get so caught up in movements that reimagine how we do ministry, we can lose sight of what we’re doing and whom we’re here for.

I do not know the answers to all this, but I do know one thing that law students and welfare recipients have in common: they are human, and we humans are desperate to be loved. We need to belong. We just want someone to take an interest in us and our well-being.

We know when someone only wants to collect our tithe, or add us to their Sunday school tally, or give us food so we’ll go away; but we also know when someone genuinely cares for us. And when we meet that person to whom we finally matter, it turns out we don’t really care how they’re dressed or what they look like or whether their organization implements a cool graphic design strategy.

I hope we learn to just love people, even if we’re afraid that they’re too dirty for us or that we’re not cool enough for them. May we ask God to reveal God’s love for every person to our own hearts, that we might reveal it all over again to them.

May we emerge from our self-imposed loneliness and open the doors even to those who might mistake us for a liquor store, that we may encounter new facets of that love every terrifying new day.

Lyndsey lives and works in Syracuse, NY. She majored in theology at Lee University, which is like eating cake or listening to thunderstorms - too enjoyable to be called work. Also, no one will pay you to do it. You can follow her on Twitter @lyndseygraves and you can find more of her writing at her blog To Be Honest.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.
 
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How is God With Us?

by Rebekah Mays

I was about nineteen. There were blue and purple lights flashing around us, and chimes twinkled from the stage. People raised their hands in victorious surrender as we sang, “He loves us,” again and again. There was not a dry eye, as they say.

And then I had some sort of vision. I felt a warm hand on the back of my neck. A man’s chest was in front of me, his arm pulling me into an embrace. But no one was there.

A month later I stupidly tried recounting the experience to a friend of mine who had recently departed from her faith. “I’m not making this up,” I insisted. She looked at me sadly.

I’ve found myself at a few places along the Christian spectrum—Presbyterian, non-denominational, and now Catholic—and as such I’ve encountered a wide range of answers to the question: how do you know God? Once I thought I understood. I thought I could just reach out and grab God like some low-hanging fruit, or that I could sit with him at a bistro and chat over a latte, but now I’m not so sure.

I heard a story from one of my acquaintances that a voice told him to get off a train and, without any college education, simply ask for a job at the New York Times. He got it and worked there for twenty years. I’ve known someone who said she healed a stranger’s knee; she said the decayed cartilage suddenly reappeared and the man could walk again. I have many more friends with less extreme accounts who nonetheless swear by a voice, maybe audible, maybe not, that directs their paths.

Naturally, most people outside this evangelical bubble think these more dramatic stories are bogus or delusional, as my friend understandably did when I tried to tell her what I’d seen.

Others, even ones who believe in God and his enduring care for us, are hesitant to label something as “the voice of God.” They see “God-sightings” as an easy way out of responsibility—that waiting for a divine green light before taking action is simply cowardice or immaturity.

I suppose I see both sides.

 

Just a month or so after my strange “vision,” I spent some time at English L’Abri, a religious center started by the late reformed theologian Francis Schaeffer. At lunch one day we spoke about these kinds of dramatic voices and spectacles, and wondered what to make of them. Does God really speak to us this way?

One woman gave what I consider to be a thoughtful response. God can and does communicate to us however he wants, but just as how she wouldn’t go gossiping about some intimate moment with her husband, it’s indiscreet for us to broadcast our deepest and most tender spiritual moments to others.

I’m still learning myself, and I’m not about to prescribe one way of communing with the Almighty, but there’s something to be said for not waiting around for the Will of God to magically grace our heads while we sleep when we could be acting on what we already know he wishes us to do. Sometimes our religious fanfare keeps us from doing these things; loving one another, serving our communities, and doing our work ethically and faithfully. At the end of the day I don’t know how much God cares that I chose Barnard College over St. John’s. He would be with me either way.

At the same time, it’s all too easy to live as if what we see is all there is. There’s something very powerful about stopping, listening, and looking for the moments of wonder and mystery when so many of us board the train with our ear buds in, when we're the first ones out the door when it enters the station. And we do know from scripture that the Holy Spirit is with us, interceding for us and guiding us, even when we don’t ask for it. In the words of Francis Schaeffer, God is there, and He is not silent.

That’s one reason why regularly partaking in the sacraments is so important: the joining of the mundane with the magnificent. It lifts our eyes to the heavens, but reminds us that what’s around us—the kneeling people, the wooden benches, the flowers on the altar—they are good. When we spend our days anxious over whether that image was a heavenly vision or hallucination, our broken foot a plot of the devil or an unfortunate coincidence, we lose valuable time which we could be using to actually live.

So we should listen, marvel, and pause. We should move and pray and praise. We should sing when we can’t keep it in anymore and we should take responsibility for our choices. We need to live our sometimes painfully boring lives, taking joy in the fact that following the way of God is so much more wonderful than straining to hear a thin voice through a tin can.

Rebekah Mays is a Barnard College graduate originally from Austin, Texas. She currently works and writes in New York City. You can find more of her writing on her blog Iced Spiced Chai or follow her on Twitter @smallbeks.

You can also follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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On Holy Accidents

by Ben Howard

A good portion of my life is filled with accidents. From happy accidents to fun accidents to painful accidents where I stub my toe, my life is full of the accidental. Sometimes I even describe myself as an accidental iconoclast. I didn’t mean to dissect your long-held traditional belief system. Sorry!

I’m not a suave man, but the single suavest (suaviest? Suavful?) thing I’ve ever done was entirely accidental. I went to see a local band perform a few years ago and there was a $5 cover at the door. By accident I gave the guy a $10. He, in his infinite money handling wisdom, assumed I was paying for the girl standing in line behind me. A girl, I should mention, that I did not know in any way.

He stamped my hand and I proceeded on. Then he went to stamp the girls hand, and she stared, confused about why she did not have to pay. Realizing what was going on, I awkwardly turned, winked (yeah, I winked, what of it?) and said, “I got you,” before strolling off into the dimly lit bar.

Now, you might ask, “Did you get her number?” or “Did you dance with her?” or a number of other perfectly reasonable follow-up questions. The answer to all of those is no. I simply reveled in my accidental (and illusory) coolness. I’m not a suave man and my accidental awesomeness was overwhelming in the moment.

Not every accident is such a ridiculous example of my insane interpersonal skillz (z’s are cool, like bowties). There are other accidents too; accidents of beauty and meaning, accidents of time and space that bring us closer to something bigger, something more important, something else. And these accidents can be so small; tiny stories that hang on to us for years.

When I was a freshman in college I would go to this weekly devotional that our school sponsored. It was held in this kind of strange abandoned building on campus, in a room full of floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the city. It was beautiful and there were candles. It was the Platonic ideal for a suburban evangelical worship space.

One night, while everyone was singing and losing themselves in the music, I slipped out the back. I’m not sure why I left, maybe I needed to go to the bathroom, maybe I needed a drink of water, or maybe I just wanted to be alone. I can’t recall.

When I walked out of the room, I turned left down a long hallway that lead downstairs and I noticed a figure huddled in an alcove off to the right. As I walked closer I could hear the figure, a girl, crying in the shadows, her face buried in her arms.

I knelt down across from her and asked her what was wrong. She told me. She cried. I hugged her. We prayed. And it was beautiful.

I don’t remember what she was crying about. I don’t remember what I said. I don’t remember what we prayed. I don’t even know her name, or what her face looks like.

But I know we shared that moment. That moment of fleeting beauty, that accident where heaven and earth collided, where the Spirit, whatever it may be, moved and danced and sang and spun around us and through us and was with us.

So often I fall under the delusion that it’s the grand things, the big things, that are supposed to be awe inspiring, but maybe it’s actually those small moments, those seemingly random accidents of time and space, the one’s where the beauty and the simplicity combine to absolutely shatter your preconceived notions of God, maybe those are the moments that truly inspire awe.

Those moments are holy, fleeting glimpses of eternity in the present; holy visions of beauty, power, pain, joy and everything in between.

My life is full of accidents. Some are happy, some funny. And some, some are holy.

Peace,

Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast (see!) and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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Who We Are Instead: Revolution and Redemption

by Ben Howard

A few weeks ago NBC premiered a new show called Revolution. You may have seen the previews during the Olympics. If you're trying to jog your memory, it's the one with the sword-fight scene, not the one with Matthew Perry or a monkey doctor. It's one of those shows that trying to catch the zeitgeist with elements reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Lost.

The show is set fifteen years into the future in the aftermath of a cataclysmic event that renders electronic devices unusable and electricity itself unattainable. No cars, no lights, no communication other than letters and word of mouth.

In the fifteen years since this blackout, the national government has fallen and bands of militias have taken over different sections of the country. Revolution is set in the post-event Midwest, near Chicago, an area under the jurisdiction of General Sebastian Monroe. Monroe has outlawed guns and the United States flag, now considered a sign of the underground rebellion.

Like any serialized show, the problems confronting the characters change on a week to week basis, but the central questions stay the same. The tension at the center of the show concerns the difference between who these characters were in the pre-event world and who they are now in an entirely different environment for which they were not trained.

Essentially, the characters are forced to deal with a disjointed narrative concerning who they were and who they are. If, like one character, you worked for Google, who are you now when the internet no longer exists? How does your past shape you when it no longer feels like its relevant to the essential qualities that make you who you are?

This problem of identity finds itself deeply embedded in both the American and the Christian narrative. Both communities are forced to struggle with a past, full of both highs and lows, that read more like myth than actual history. It is a past that exists, but for many in the community no longer bears a relation to present-day reality. How does this past affect us and how does it shape who we are?

The American narrative finds itself with two conflicting meta-narratives. The first is that of America as upstart, innovator and champion. This is the story we like to tell ourselves. The story of the United States winning independence over the British and establishing herself as the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” In this story, the United States grows and evolves emerging as the hero of World War I and World War II and the world's only superpower. This is the story of greatness, but it is not the only story.

There is also the story of oppression. A story that includes the genocide and repression of an indigenous people as well as the oppression, importation and slavery of a race different from that of the nations founders. It includes institutional racism and sexism that have existed long after the legal abolition of such things. It includes the blood of numerous wars and “military actions”.

Both are stories. Both are true. Both define part of what our nation is today and how we have been shaped as citizens of that nation.

It is unlikely that anyone reading this participated in either the good or the bad parts of this story. We did not write this story, but is still the story of us. In the same way that the characters from Revolution must deal with both who they were before the blackout because it has essentially shaped who they are now, so we must deal with the story that shaped us even if we are no longer active participants in that story.

A more acute example of this comes from one of the main characters in the show, Miles Matheson. Miles is the uncle of the ostensible protagonist, a teenage girl named Charlie Matheson, who seeks him out when her father is murdered and her brother is kidnapped. Since the show has only aired four episodes as of this writing, Miles back story is understandably vague, however we do know that he is a former Marine and was one of the founders of the now dominant and dangerous militia headed by Sebastian Monroe, his former friend and colleague.

Much like the American story, Miles' story is one of good and bad. He is a good Marine and tries to restore some semblance of order after the blackout, but in trying to assert his power his good intentions become warped and he creates a violent machine of destruction and oppression. This is often the story of power.

Now Miles, without the authority of his previous life, but with the knowledge and wisdom of what that power can do, can begin a journey to redeem his identity and find salvation for his past acts by helping his young niece.

This is the place where I feel the American story diverges from the Christian story.

The Christian story has a lot of commonalities with the American story. An underground, revolutionary movement with new ideas about how to organize society breaks free of its oppressive chains and rises to power and prominence. In this new position of prominence it has been able to wield nearly unmatched political authority, but this authority has also led to darker moments which taint the narrative.

In the Christian story we must deal with a past that includes the violence of the Crusades, the violent oppression of dissent during the Reformation, and the bloody conflicts between Catholics and Protestants all over Europe, but especially the British Isles. In addition, the church has stood idly by while numerous other atrocities occurred including the genocide of indigenous people on multiple continents, the oppression of minorities around the globe, and corruption within its own community.

With this in mind, the Christian story must sound alarmingly like the American story. However, the Christian story promises the hope that Miles searches for in Revolution, it promises the hope of redemption. A redeemed story embraces both the positive and the negative, the story we want to tell and the story we want to hide. In order to be redeemed, Miles must embrace both the person he was and the person he is in order to become the person he will be.

This is the Christian hope. It is not a story of abandonment and starting over, it is a story about recovering and embracing the old story and all its flaws in order to help write a new, redeemed story. This is the revolutionary message of the Gospel, not that the old will be rejected in favor of the new, but that the old will be redeemed as part of the new creation.

It is a hope that looks forward instead of back because much like the characters in the show, we will never be able to re-create the world that was. Like them, we must work alongside God and his Spirit to create something new out of something old and we must embrace the freedom and redemption that this brings.

Peace,
Ben

You can follow Ben on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email him at benjamin.howard87 [at] gmail.com.

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