Iowa is beautiful September 29, 2007
Posted by Zack in Iowa | 1 comment
Eternity in the heart September 27, 2007
Posted by Zack in Iowa | 1 commentI’ve been mulling on something someone said to me in a Heartland Innovators interview last week.
Elizabeth and I are traveling slowly all over the country gathering stories of and making connections with leaders who are serving their communities directly—and who are succeeding in unusual ways.
We started this blog about the Christian movement partly because so many of the leaders we’re meeting are Christians who seem to draw incredible power from their faith. They have nearly all explained their successes with three simple words: “It’s all God.”
One of those leaders was describing a particularly impressive, all-volunteer program that operates annually in more than 100 American cities. As he was breaking down how it worked for us, he flipped through an enormous binder full of brilliant training and support materials from the programs’ national headquarters as well as other Christian leadership resource centers.
It was just one more glimpse into the vast Christian infrastructure of leadership development for us in recent weeks.
“This program is just so big. But you’re acting like it’s nothing,” I said.
And he said, “No, I see this as being so, so small. Because I know how many people are not being served.”
I asked, “Why is it that the Christians we’re meeting are so humble about the programs they run, even though some of them are incredibly impressive? In the [secular lefty] movement I come out of, we’d be bragging and sending out press releases and winning awards and all kinds of stuff for these kinds of achievements.”
And he said, “Well, I have seen that among many non-believers—and many Christians who’ve lost their way too. And I have a theory about it.”
“Tell me!” I said.
He explained—and I’m paraphrasing, unfortunately—”God made humans in his image. An so we’re walking around with this huge, God-sized sense of meaning and purpose and importance in us—and a feeling of being entitled to that sense importance.
“In addition, we walk around with all these amazing God-given abilities. It’s amazing what I’ve seen people do. Just amazing. And you’ve seen that too.
“Now, if you know God, then you know where that power comes from. And you know where that feeling of importance and purpose comes from: you know you’re here to do God’s purpose.”
(Earlier he had explained in no uncertain terms that “God’s purpose” is for people to take care of each other.)
“If you think all that power comes from you, then you’re going to get pretty cocky about your successes. And if you think that your purpose belongs only to you, then you’re going to get pretty vicious any time anyone gets in the way of you and the exact way in which you think you’re supposed to be doing good in the world.”
It’s so interesting, because, of course, many Christians throughout history—including very powerful ones—have been incredibly arrogant and have even killed for what they believed was God’s purpose. (So have non-believers.) But this rising movement among Christian born agains and evangelicals today is obsessed with humility—and “giving it all to God” is the way they seem to pull it off and maintain it, even when their heads should be swelling according to their successes.
I grew up thinking that Christians believed that people didn’t matter. I thought that was the basis of their opposition to “secular humanism.” What I never guessed was that Christians may have a greater sense of the importance of humanity because they attach divine importance to it.
Something rings true about what that leader said about non-believers getting carried away with their egos. Once upon a time, the secular left used to see itself in the context of a larger movement and purpose. Back then, individuals could locate themselves as the upholders of an ancient tradition, with a great world-historical purpose that each revolutionary had a duty to complete. They dreamed a collective dream. They knew their successes belonged to past generations, not themselves. And they knew that their sacrifices meant something much bigger than electing someone, passing some law or even temporarily improving the lives of millions of people.
The secular left has lost that sense of having its own “great commission.” It doesn’t even know it ever had one.
That leader quoted a lot of scripture in his conversation with us. I think (but I might be remembering wrong) that he quoted from Ecclesiastes 3:9-13
What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.
Building leaders September 25, 2007
Posted by Elizabeth in Iowa | 1 commentOne of the things we’ll be doing with this blog is discussing key concepts, trends and fads that are important in evangelical Christianity today. Today’s topic, and one we’ll be returning to frequently: leadership.
Evangelical Christians value few things more than grassroots leadership. Leadership development opportunities within churches and Christian communities that I’ve been involved in have always been open to everyone (literally—I once saw a homeless man who attended a small church encouraged to lead a Bible study of middle- and upper-class churchgoers because of his extensive knowledge of the Bible). And usually these opportunities are designed to draw on and build upon the different strengths of each person.
As a college student, for example, I went to Mexico as a missionary in the colonias along the border, building houses and relationships. To prepare me to be a student leader, before I even left my dorm room, I was provided with a huge list of tasks that I needed to do to mentally prepare myself. And then, before I was allowed to go out into the field, I had to take a lengthy battery of tests to identify strengths and weaknesses. The findings from those tests were used to place us in appropriate leadership positions. Once we began our work in the communities, we had a huge amount of intensive on the job training, with constant re-evaluation of how we were doing with our day-to-day tasks.
That’s just one example. To take a deeper look at evangelical Christian leadership development concepts, check out this article which landed in my inbox today. The deliberate, methodical and deeply intellectual approach that the article suggests is typical of many Christian efforts at leadership development and organization building.
ALSO, today Zack and I signed up for two Christian leadership-training conferences: the Mission American Coalition’s and the Christian Community Development Association’s annual conferences. These are just a few out of countless leadership-development conferences—for pastors, lay-leaders, women, men, college students, teens and others—that take place each year designed to support and develop Christian leaders.
Infectious stupidity September 21, 2007
Posted by Zack in Iowa | 2 commentsToday I posted an article at The Huffington Post about an evangelical Christian Obama supporter we interviewed in South Carolina. I’ve written several articles about about Christian “revolutionaries” at HuffPo and other secular progressive spots. Usually, a heated discussion in the comments follows. Each time, it underscores why a blog like this is necessary.
For example:
Christians can have all the “revolutions” they want. Doesn’t change the fact that organized religion is a form of infectious stupidity that endangers us all.
I’m sorry - perhaps I missed something in the interpretations here, but how can an evangelical be “progressive”? An evangelical, by their own definition, believe in the absolute accuracy of the bible….An evangelical, by their own statements, say that the only way to salvation is through a man called Jesus Christ. That is Christian, not progressive. Now, can you please explain that oxymoron again of a “progressive evangelical”?
But so many believers speak up too, who are out there dying to get out from under the stereotypes:
Thank you. Of course, you’ve probably put the “Believers, go home” crowd in a state of shock. Not only do they insist on stereotyping evangelicals in the manner you describe, but they love to paint ALL believers as conservative and intolerant. Maybe the bigots will learn something from this. Or, more likely, not.
Tags: barack obama, South CarolinaYes! Hallelujah!! My point is that the religious left exists, we are just clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting those in prison, welcoming the stranger; not talking non-stop about how great we are. In fact, I posit the religious left is way, way bigger than the religious right. We are quietly following our Lord and Master as he instructed us, while the modern day Pharisees are clamouring on the street corner… Same old, Same old.
Evangelical, and for Obama September 21, 2007
Posted by Zack in South Carolina | write a comment[Cross posted from The Huffington Post.]
Speculation that disgust with the GOP could cause many evangelical Christians to stay home in 2008 has raised the possibility of Democrats “hunting for evangelical votes.” Unfortunately, the discussion about this potential in the media and especially the progressive blogosphere has pigeon-holed evangelicals as people who only care about two things: banning abortion and opposing civil rights for gays. Many candidates are following suit by attempting to pander on those issues, although at least a few candidates show some awareness that a deeper connection could be forged with evangelicals by promising action on domestic and global poverty, health care, compassion for immigrants and other justice issues.
A couple weeks ago, when I was filing my last Obama story from a coffee shop, I noticed a college-aged, clean-cut man reading Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope. A little later, I looked up saw him and a friend with their heads down and hands joined in prayer. When I later broke in to their conversation to find out more about them, I learned they they had been praying to kick off a planning session for an anti-poverty program for their church.
I asked about the Obama book, and both said they supported Obama more than any other candidate and had been looking for ways to get involved in the race. One of them agreed to an audio interview and has eventually agreed that I post it, but only anonymously, explaining that he doesn’t want to get involved publicly in politics (I’ll call him Matthew). You can listen to selections from the interview here:
For a while now, I’ve been trying to convince many of my progressive friends that there’s a huge and vibrant social justice movement rising now among evangelical Christians–but it’s just too far outside of their picture of evangelicals for them to believe. Therefore, I got out my recorder to collect some hard evidence.
Before I began recording, Matthew and his friend explained that they were ardently anti-abortion but they both believed that criminalizing abortion would likely only lead to more abortions and more dangerous ones. They agreed with each other that education was one of the best ways to prevent abortion and that it seemed to them that Republicans were against that. Matthew’s friend also asked, rhetorically, “Have the Republicans done anything at all that’s actually prevented abortions?”
This “progressive evangelical” movement is based, above all, in the Bible. Millions of evangelicals are either recent converts to Christianity or grew up the children of recent converts. One consequence of that is they’re reading the Bible with fresh eyes. Matthew said he’s been a Christian only for a few years. That means that over these past few years he’s almost certainly spent countless hours in Bible study groups, reading what Jesus actually said, not what Christian right leaders say he said.
He’s closely aware of the debates that Jesus had with the religious right of his own day — “The hypocrites,” the Pharisees (the Rabbis who represented the religious establishment in Jesus’ day) “who prayed out in public on the streets so that people could see them” — and he’s not afraid to apply that Biblical awareness to the politics of our own time. He says that candidates who pander in this day and age will gain nothing with him, but rather that, if they’re Christians, they should just “hold true to being a Christ follower.” According to Matthew’s reading of the Bible that’s about, “love…loving God and loving other people…loving yourself and loving your neighbor.”
Among the current all-Christian slate of candidates, only a few are genuinely attempting to connect with Matthew’s definition of Christ follower as someone who “loves the poor and the people who don’t have a voice.” Just going by his rhetoric, Mike Huckabee may be doing the best job of it. But neither Matthew nor his friend knew anything about him. Obama has said enough to convince them that he believes in the same Jesus they do. Hillary Clinton has also invoked Jesus as the God of the poor and the oppressed in the immigration debate as well as joining Matthew in equating today’s religious right with the self-righteous Pharisees of Jesus’ day.
However, while the votes of millions of these “progressive” evangelicals are theoretically up for grabs, there will almost certainly not be any organized effort to channel their votes as a block, the way there was among evangelicals in general in 2000 and 2004.
The above piece was produced through OffTheBus, a citizen journalism project hosted at the Huffington Post and launched in partnership with NewAssignment.Net. For more information, read Arianna Huffington’s project introduction. If you’d like to join the Off the Bus blogging team, sign up here. If you’re interested in other opportunities, you can see the list here.
American politics upside down September 21, 2007
Posted by Elizabeth in Iowa | write a comment
Today, Christian magazine Relevant (required reading for secular progressives who want to get to know their Christian counterparts) republished online a story from their Nov/Dec 2006 print issue called “The New Face of Politics: How young Evangelicals are turning America upside down.”
Some religious voters are second-guessing their political commitments. In particular, twentysomething evangelicals are tuning in to issues related to social justice, fighting poverty and protecting the environment. And it’s starting to affect how they think about politics.
Don’t misunderstand. This isn’t about Christians switching political parties. The author says, “…our generation is hungry for something fuller and deeper. We are tired of the status quo. We want a better conversation,” and quotes Jim Wallis,
Tags: Jim Wallis, party politics, Relevant[Twentysomething evangelicals] are certainly turning away from the politics of conservative religion and the Religious Right,” Wallis says. “But they’re not necessarily becoming Political Left. They actually want a deeper kind of moral politics that doesn’t conform to left or right, but that challenges the selective moralities of both.
Interview with Brian Walsh September 19, 2007
Posted by Zack in Toronto | 3 comments
While we were in Toronto, we took the opportunity to contact Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, who we knew only from their book, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire.
The book, on the Apostle Paul’s New Testament letter to an early Christian community at Colossae, has been something of an intellectual rallying point for progressive evangelicals as well as the growing ranks of young conservatives who are rebelling against the theology they grew up with. (Check out, for example, this post by a Kentucky evangelical blogger and Baptist preacher who describes himself as a “libertarian-leaning conservative politically and an adventurous pilgrim theologically.”)
Part of Colossians Remixed is about Brian and Sylvia’s down-shifted life in Toronto, but it turns out they now live on a farm a couple hours outside of the city. Brian still comes to the University of Toronto every week, where he serves in campus ministry and teaches classes at the seminary. After we made contact, he invited us to dinner and to his community’s “Wine Before Breakfast” regular Tuesday morning service.
After searching through the basements of Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto School of Theology, we finally found Brian’s office. Walking into the enormous room, we could feel right away that it was the home of a community, not just a professor’s office. Half the room is taken up by well worn chairs and sofas arranged in a circle; the other half by some long tables with coffee urns, breadbaskets and cutting boards.
Let me back up and tell you how we first discovered Brian and Sylvia’s book. Colossians Remixed is an explicitly anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist work, and yet I found it through a conservative evangelical Church that Elizabeth and I attended occasionally in North Carolina. This was during the first year of our marriage, when I was still getting used to going to church. When I realized that church was a non-negotiable part of the deal, I decided that at least I would like to learn something about the real heart of American Christianity: we would go to evangelical churches, conservative churches, Baptist churches, charismatic churches, etc…. Besides, the liberal mainline services that Elizabeth was trying to ease me in through were just so boring and empty.
It was the third or fourth time we had attended Chapel Hill Bible Church. I liked it because the regular preacher was very historical and usually made a real class out of his sermons. One of my first big surprises in attending evangelical churches was how scholarly and open minded their reading of the Bible was—even while reading it as the “inspired and inerrant word of God.” Most of their preachers have studied the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew, and their sermons are all about putting scripture in its ancient historical context. For me, it was kind of unbelievable the first few times I saw these giant halls full of suburbanites–soccer moms, Nascar dads, teenagers, and all–delving enthusiastically into deep study of everything from Roman imperial social relations to subtle nuances of ancient Hebrew poetry.
So, church had surprised me many times already, but never as much as on this particular Sunday. After sitting down inside the sea of preppy, polo-shirted businessmen and their perfectly made-up wives, I looked down and read the title of that Sunday’s sermon in the program: “Two fists in the face of Empire,” a sermon on Colossians.
And, yes, the preacher was explicit that, while the empire of Jesus’s day was Rome, ours is America.
I was shocked, and excited. Was this an aberration? When we got home, I read all the bits of the Bible referenced in the sermon and then got on the web and did some Googling: “Colossians Empire Evangelicals”. There were thousands of pages, mostly Christian blog posts wrestling with conflict between the Bible and the modern American imperial mindset. The top ten or so hits were discussions of Brian and Sylvia’s Colossians Remixed. My next stop was Amazon.com, and when the book came, I was amazed to find the same basic argument and ideas from the sermon.
I say that I was amazed because it meant that either the Southern, conservative, evangelical preacher–in a church that, for example, doesn’t allow women hold leadership positions–was preaching from a Canadian anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist tract…or, he was getting it from somewhere else (a broader movement?). Either way, I was made dizzy by how vastly different the world of Christianity was turning out to be–at least very large pockets within it–than I expected.
OK, so, back to our time with Brian in Toronto. We had a very enjoyable dinner at which we got him to tell us stories about his family’s new agrarian life on an organic farm in the country. It was inspiring to hear about how bravely they’ve embraced this enormous change, and about the sacrificial community they’ve formed there with a few other families. We learned about the arduous learning curve involved in beginning to raise, and slaughter, cattle and other animals–in graphic detail. In the interview posted above, Brian talks a bit about some of the compromises involved in moving to the country–not an angle I was expecting to hear.
The next morning we went to the “Wine Before Breakfast” service at the Wycliffe College chapel that the community has been holding every school year Tuesday since Sept 18, 2001. The service was a beautiful mix of singing, litanies, readings from the Bible and a poetic sermon by Brian. It was September 11th, and it was fascinating to learn that this community was started the week after the 9/11/2001 attacks.
The service was largely a lament, a cry of grief out to God, around the event of 9/11 and all the violence that has exploded out of that day. The first reading was from Psalm 13:
How long O Lord, will You forget me?
How long O lord, will you look the other way?
How long O lord, must I bear pain in my soul
And everyday, have such sorrow in my heart?…But I trust, in Your unfailing love
Yes my heart will rejoice
Still I sing, of Your unfailing love
You have been good
You will be good to me
As a kid, growing up in an atheist household, this was the main thing I could never understand about Christianity: how can Christians believe that God is omnipotent, and that He lets all this bad stuff happen, and yet still love and trust Him? The answer, which I’m only starting to be able to grasp, is that what Christians are doing is surrendering to the mystery of God. They don’t claim to know what God is up to with us (well, some do), they are just taking it on faith that whatever it is, it’s good, beautiful and infinitely important and meaningful.
The Wine Before Breakfast service definitely helped deepened my understanding of all this.
After breakfast, Brian sat down for an audio interview with me in his office. I tried to get him to discuss his book and Colossians with a secular audience in mind. You can listen to the excerpts by clicking on the track titles above, or download the whole interview for your iPod to take with you.
Tags: Brian Walsh, capitalism, Colossians Remixed, imperialism, Sylvia Keesmaat, TorontoA tale of two movements September 17, 2007
Posted by Zack in Michigan | 8 comments
We’re in Grand Rapids, Michigan (driving to Iowa from a training in Toronto). On Saturday, we ran into an anti-war rally organized by local lefties. There were about 100 people, and it was a pretty awkward, low-energy and demoralizing event.
Then, on Sunday, along with about 10,000 other people, we attended the regular weekly services at a church, called Mars Hill, where they teach that Jesus calls Christians to be peacemakers—and that even 9-11 called for a non-violent response. You know: “Turn the other cheek,” “Love your enemies”—these folks don’t skim past those parts of the Bible.
The lefty rally could not have had less energy. At least while we were there, no one even tried to chant one of the ten tired, old anti-war chants.
At church, on the other hand, a chorus of thousands sang beautiful songs of peace, love, hope and lament—drawn from a vast, 5,000-year-old body of poetry. A loud, fun band (with an accordion and harp!) lead the singing.
At the lefty rally, many of the young people looked miserable and lost. Afterwards, they walked off just as isolated as they were before (I remember the feeling very well). The organizers made no attempt to connect people to each other or build any kind of community among the group that showed up.
At Church, the preacher and other leaders repeatedly called attendees to get involved with others, a call that took many different forms throughout the morning: requests for volunteers to help with service projects among the poor and oppressed of Grand Rapids, invitations to join small “fellowship” groups that meet in church members’ homes, and announcements of dozens of classes, workshops and retreats. The sermon itself culminated in a flat out raw call for anyone who needed help or who was hurting to come down and talk to one of dozens of trained staff and volunteers.
At the lefty rally, the main speaker talked about a campaign to get Pacifica radio picked up by a local station. On the ride home, we scanned the channels and found at least four Christian radio stations. On one, a Christian psychologist was teaching a lesson on “absolutely unconditional love” in child rearing, saying that parents should affirm children equally when they succeed or fail, behave well or sin. On another, this Christian pop song was playing:
It’s crowded in worship today
A traveler is far away from home
He sheds his coat and quietly sinks into the back row
The weight of their judgmental glances
Tells him that his chances are better out on the roadJesus paid much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the body of ChristIf we are the body
Why aren’t His arms reaching?
Why aren’t His hands healing?
Why aren’t His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren’t His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way.
And that song brings me to the last thing I’ll suggest the left could learn from this massive “progressive” Christian movement: it’s capacity for constructive self-criticism. No matter how big their churches, their conferences, or their book sales, no matter how radically they manage to undo the influence of the Christian right or rejuvenate their religion, they never seem to be satisfied. Many of them look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about how impressed I am with the scale and energy of their efforts.
Just the other day, a minister we were interviewing for HeartlandInnovators.org, speaking about a huge national, multi-city workshop he was involved in, told me, “This all seems so small to me, because I know there are so many people who need this who we’re still not reaching.”
On the left, that kind of self-critique is rare, and when it comes, it’s often met with anger and excuses.
Missional living September 10, 2007
Posted by Zack in North Carolina | write a comment
This morning, on our flight from Charlotte to Toronto, we sat next to Donna Sheets, who is the Missions Coordinator at Covenant Church in Winterville, NC. She heard us talking about this blog and struck up a conversation with us. In fact, she is part of the reason we have finally gone ahead and decided to make this blog public.
We were sitting there on the plane talking about whether it would be crazy to try to hold a conversation with secular folks about what radical Christians are up to—and whether maybe this “Christian revolution” is just a figment of our own imaginations and in reality is limited to just a few over-hyped churches like Mars Hill. Right then Donna pipped up and introduced herself from the seat next to me. Donna is completing her PdD at Regent University, which is the Christian University founded by none other than Pat Robertson. It was originally called “CBN University,” an outgrowth of Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network.
Donna started her job at Covenant fairly recently. We got her talking about it and she gave us an overview of all of the organizations they work with on local, national and international levels and explained to us their framework for community involvement (while drawing a diagram for us, above).
Her missions team sees Church mission work in terms of four levels: She called the first the “Cadillac” level—as in driving through a poor community in a Cadillac, throwing money out the window. The next is the “Popcorn” level, where church members pop in and pop out of oppressed communities, e.g., going to a soup kitchen for a few hours, dropping off a Thanksgiving turkey to a family, etc…. The third level is the “Relational” level, where church members actually get into life relationships with those in need.
But their church, like many others these days, is attempting to move towards a fourth level, “Missional living“, which means totally altering your life and lifestyle in order to live completely and totally in the service of others—”sacrificially,” in their language.
We’ve heard this same kind of talk from the folks at Christian Community Development Association, Mars Hill and elsewhere. But to hear it from a Regent University student…it was enough to push us over the edge and convince us that this blog is definitely called for. This movement is HUGE and its story needs to be told to secular folks.
____
Update: Donna emailed a chart with the complete “Four Mission Styles and Characteristics”…
4 Mission Styles and Characteristics
Mark Lykin 03-19-2007
Based on: Matthew chapters 25 and 28
June 1, 2007
| Mission Style Characteristics |
Cadillac Mission Style |
Popcorn Mission Style |
Relational Mission Style |
Living a Missional Style |
| Self directed | Event directed | Connecting directed | Self directed by a deep calling | |
| Can be local / seasonally based |
Can be local / seasonal / national based |
Can be local /seasonal / national based |
Across all bases | |
| One shot deal | 2-3 times a year | 2-3 times a year or ongoing | Daily
Short or long |
|
| Who is called to do this and who does it? |
Individual | Individual/ group/ family
Church wide |
Individual/ groups/ teams
Church wide |
Individual/ group/ family |
| How to measure success |
Easy to measure by numbers and short term |
Easy to measure by numbers and short term |
Need to measure by relationships over long term |
Need to measure by relationships over long term |
| What is it driven by? |
Usually guilt driven | Task or Event driven | Relationship driven | Relationship and lifestyle
Driven and Transformation |
| Where does the call to do this come from? |
General call to experience a step or the next step into missions |
General call to experience a step or the next step into missions |
More of a specific call to mission |
Specific call to change lifestyle or to live in a new culture to live a missional lifestyle |
| Entry Points |
As individual groups or families are moved by interest or by the Spirit |
Serve’s Up
Enter Mission |
Specific training for Local/international mission Comission training DR Reunions |
No specific way at present, mostly by individual or family call |
Toronto September 8, 2007
Posted by Elizabeth in Toronto | write a commentWe’ve come to Toronto for some training at The Real News, where Tim Knight will be teaching us interviewing skills and camera techniques for the road. We’re very grateful to Tim and to Paul Jay at The Real News for offering up this help to our project.
Now all we need is a video camera. Zack bought a good one on eBay, but it came broken. Hopefully, before too long we’ll be telling stories on here in video as well as audio and text.
