Brian Swimme teaches cosmology to graduate students at the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco. Swimme often reiterates that the underlying reason that people abuse the earth is that they donât think that itâs sacred. Swimmeâs emphasis is the marriage of Religion and Science.
Swimme says when we look deeply into our 13.7 billion year âcosmogenesisâ that we cannot help but be filled with awe. The fact that the Big Bang happened is in itself a profound improbability. No known laws of probability can account for it. It is both a sacred and a scientific miracle.
Swimme has produced a twelve part DVD series called âCanticle of the Cosmos,â which has been distributed worldwide. His work is most influenced by the French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who believed that everything in existence has a physical as well as a spiritual dimension⌠The Universe is in a deep process of transfiguration. Love, truth, compassion and zestâall of these divine qualities are embodied in the universe.
Swimme seeks to place scientific technology in its context of the infancy of the earth community as it struggles for reconnection to its sacred source. For Chardin and Swimme the human being is the current culmination of a still-evolving universe.
For Swimme the ecological disasters that happen on our planet take place because the cosmos is not understood as sacred. A way out of this difficulty is a journey into the universe as sacred. Swimme is a mathematician by training, who seeks a larger, warmer, nobler science story. The story of the Universe should not just be a collection of facts. It should sweep us into a grand world view, including meaning, purpose, and value addressed by world religions.
Swimme thinks that the popular view is that the earth is like a gravel pit or a hardware store, that the earth is just stuff to be usedâthat consumerism has become the dominant faith, which exploits the riches of the earth. His fundamental aim is to present a new cosmology that is grounded in contemporary scientific understanding of the universe but nourished by ancient spiritual convictions that the earth is sacred. âIndeed God saw everything that God had made and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)â
I like Swimme because he offers a sacred understanding of the Universal Big Bang, which is the larger context of the Christian Big Bang. The Universal Big Bang is a miracle of science. The incarnation, which is the Big Bang of Christian tradition for me, is the miracle of faith. That through Christ, God is with us!
Would you look at that? An old 50âs style Formica kitchen table with matching chairs squeezed into a one-car garage–set aside, deemed useless, reduced to nothing more than a plant stand.
That table has a story. It used to be someoneâs dinette set. I can see it sitting in any number of kitchens waiting for the family to gather around it and have a meal. I can see a little boy with his schoolbooks spread out on it, doing homework until late at night. Mom probably used it at times to hold her sewing machine so she could make a costume for Halloween. I see cats and dogs begging from underneath it and friends drinking coffee and sharing stories around it.
The kitchen table is an American icon representing our belief in familial love and fellowship. It is so iconic it has been preserved in Norman Rockwell paintings, honored in films like Soul Food and Babetteâs Feast, and regularly serves as a set for family based situation comedies on television (think of black-ish, Modern Family, or The Middle). For Christians, the ultimate family table is the site of the Eucharistic banquet — the divine fellowship of Godâs children.
Oh, the blessed table. And here this one sits, jammed up and set aside like so much of yesterdayâs news. Just taking up precious space.
Why does this image grab me so as I take my daily walk? It must remind me of something in myself that is jammed up, junked up and set out to rust and gather dust.
Maybe itâs a symbol of my own complicity in a culture that collects so much stuff that we become victims of our own affluence. We start to feel like that garage. Or, rather, our lives start to feel like that table and the world like that garage. We are squeezed into jobs that donât necessarily fit but they pay the bills so we can buy more stuff. We are packed so tightly because weâve been sold this update and that upgrade and now we donât have room for it all.
That garage is also how my mind feels after binge-watching television. Story after story after story. Then I fall asleep and dream these cluttered dream-stories based on stories I collected all day long. Where is my story in the midst of all this? My story. Did I inadvertently put it out to the garage to gather dust?
Now is a good time to free that symbolic table. Perhaps loosen up the space between the table and chairs, letting the table breathe in the confines of the garage or move it somewhere less crowded. Give it away to someone whose family needs a table. We can remember the sacramental nature of the table. Gather friends around to laugh and enjoy one another. Tell our stories.
Since finishing seminary 15 years ago, my vocation has been that of a spiritual director–helping people recapture and appreciate their stories and then spotting Godâs handiwork in them. Some of these stories are of their life. Some are stories they have heard from popular culture and find illustrative of their life. Some are dreams and visions. But they all say something real about spiritualityâthat is, our faith lived out in everyday life.
I may never know the facts about that cluttered table I noticed in someoneâs garage. But what it evokes in me is eternally true. I need to make space so that my own story will emerge. Unclutter to see how God is living out Godâs story in the world.
I’ve got nothing. Am I the only one who has experienced that? Inspiration seems like a fickle energy some days.  The funny or meaningful story, sermon, art work, class plan just doesn’t come. Just showing up becomes challenging work. Yet here I am showing up and I’ve got nothing. One of my favorite definitions of contemplation is “a long loving look at the real.”  Developing one’s spirituality is rooted in being real. And somedays real is just nothing.
Once the truth is stated there is a freedom to dwell in the loving part of that definition. Maybe the nothing is a something. Maybe the nothing helps point to the Something without expectations, duty or shoulds.  I do know when life is like this I listen, wonder, and notice life a bit differently. For instance, I have been creating a lot lately so when nothing is there I look around at my life. What have I let go during a very fruitful and inspired time? Nothing times allow space to take care of home,  relationships and one’s soul. Maybe having nothing isn’t so bad after all. Maybe the nothing is a call to Something.
Practice:
Are nothing times a call to “take care”? What in your life needs your care right now?
I just returned from the Parliament of World Religions in Salt Lake City. My wife and I agree it was the greatest show on earth. From Friday through Monday 10,000 people gathered from 70 nations to share lives and faith. There were plenary sessions packed with great speakers like Marianne Williamson, Karen Armstrong, Jane Goodall, Alan Boesak, Brian McLaren, Katherine Hayhoe, Jim Wallis and speakers that readers of this blog might not know by name, but who are leading figures overseas and in their respective faith communities. There were hundreds of workshops, of every imaginable sort. I got to experience Matthew Foxâs Earth Spirituality rave service, a Jain discussion of countering violence, a talk on how to convince religious skeptics on climate change, and an improvisational and interactive theater piece on how ISIS twists the Quran. I also saw our own Southwest Conference pastor Teresa Cowan Jones share how Sacred Space works to fulfill the goals of the Compassion Charter, and my friend Professor Elizabeth Ursic led a very moving service of worship to God in her feminine nature. Every day, Sikhs from around the world worked hard to feed 5,000 people âfor free—in a very dignifying way, with delicious Indian vegetarian food. The grand finaleâ service was in the Mormon Tabernacle, filled with saffron-robed monks and turbaned Sikhs mingling with LDS members in their ties and suits. The presentation was a 3 hour extravaganza with everything from a bagpipe band to Chan Buddhist drumming to Indian Sitar and Thai dancing and the Bahai and Mormon choirs. I posted on Facebook, âThis is what Heaven is going to be like.â
So what was the takeaway from all this (besides being totally overwhelmed)? This extended weekend renewed my sense of hope, truly. For some time previous, the violence, prejudice and arrogant tone of our countryâs troubles had been chafing at me. In truth, I was becoming desperate—and therefore rather shrill about things myself. What I saw was community —formed of the unlikeliest allies. I realized there are enormous numbers of good-willed people from all the worldâs religions, all working for similar positive goalsâto end discrimination against women, to reduce violence, to save the earth. I know weâve been doing our part in the UCC, but weâre really rather small at under a million members. Itâs wonderful to see that weâre just part of an amazing puzzle, that can interconnect and work shoulder-to-shoulder with a huge variety of sects around the planet (Iâm all for good sects).
I also picked up a new word thatâs going to stick in my vocabulary (and hopefully my heart). That is Anekantavad. Itâs one of the three major tenents of the Jain religion. The Jains, founded by Mahavira at approximately the same time as his near neighbor Guatama Buddha became enlightended, have not killed animal or human for 2,500 years. This is possible because of adherence to the âthree Aâs:â
Ahimsa = Non-violence
Aparigraha = Non-attachment
AndâŚ
Anekantavad = Non-Absolutism.
I noticed in their workshop that the Jains shorten their non-absolutism to Anekan. Iâm a bit relieved, because there is something in the tongue that dislikes spewing out five-syllable words. Three I can handle, and I can remember the shortened version by thinking of Anikan Skywalker (perhaps a name chose by George Lucas because Anikan starts out understanding the Jedi way of Anekan, then abandons it for the absolutism of the Dark Side?
At the workshop Anekan was defined as âRealizing that you are never 100% totally right in anything that you believe, and those who oppose you are never 100% totally wrong.â Now believe me, this is not how I was disciple into my faith. Coming from a Calvinist Evangelical background I heard over and over that non-absolutism was the worst possible thing that anyone could embrace. âGod said it and that settles it.â âOpen your mind too far and your brains will fall out.â âIf you donât believe it all youâll end up with nothing.â âDoubt one word in the Bible and youâll slide all the way down the slippery slope until you reach hell at the bottom.â But nowâŚitâs happened. I realized this past week how vital Anekan/ non-absolutism is, if weâre to make any progress in the world.
As long as two people are absolutely convinced they are entirely right on a topic, there is no room for peace between our positions. Embracing Anekan gives me a tool to flex and move toward the other, and might enable an opening for them to walk through and meet me. The first step is to critique my belief: does my position have to be utterly rigid? Then I can mirror the otherâs thoughts—even if they present themselves as enemy. I can begin to see how I might look unreasonable, dangerous even, to them. And I can see why they hold to the things they adhere to so strongly. Yes, perhaps they are bound by greed, fear, lust, the need to controlâŚ.but all these are simply mal-adaptations (or over- compensations) of basic human needs for safety and agency.
So I see a person wearing a confederate flag on their t-shirt. My normal reaction is to immediately think judgmental thoughts. âTheyâre a racistâ and theyâre probably also (fill in a series of negative and judgmental blanks at this point). Â But by Applying Anekan, I can try to perceive where there may be elements of good in that personâs choice of apparel. They might not associate that symbol with slavery (though I know historically that was its genesis). They may take pride in their southern state community, may have seen their neighbors pull together against odds. That flag has always been associated with their civic life, and they feel comfort and attachment with that association. For that matter, maybe theyâre just straight males of a certain age with pleasant memories of watching Daisy Duke ride along in the General Lee—with that flag on top. Who knows?
If I label that person âracistâ out the gate, then I am unlikely to have any good effect conversing with them—if I come in knowing âtheyâre just bad, or crazyâ Iâm not likely to win them over on any point, and why should they respond well to me? But what if I try to seek a common humanity between us? I might say, âYou look like a person with some strong connection to your community —where do you hail from?â I might just say âItâs a nice day, isnât it?â This would not be in any way an endorsement of the awful dark history connected to that symbol, nor would it overlook the fact that he may indeed be wearing that symbol to denote hatred. But even with the worst sorts, Anekan opens up the possibility (even if it is slim) of a transforming relationship. What if more people had chatted with Hitler and encouraged his pursuit of art when he sat on the streets of Berlin with paintings that no one would buy and slid over the fulcrum point into hatred and fanaticism? What if someone looked past the brown shirt and saw the eyes of an artistic soul that was turning to stone inside?
And hereâs the funny part. My Jain brothers and sisters have given me something thatârather than destroying my faith as a Christian—enables me to live out my faith in a much better way. When asked the greatest commandment in the Torah Jesus didnât go off talking about the slippery slope or the inerrancy of Moses or the danger of brains falling out of heads. He simply pointed to love—of God and of others. And the fact is, if I assume Iâm totally correct and unmovable in all my beliefs, then Iâll never be able to move onto the ground where I can see my enemies as people of value. I cannot love them. Despite everything Iâve been told, non-absolutism is the way to love like Jesus.
I absolutely believe in non-absolutism.
Oh, wait. Thatâs a contradiction. âYou canât absolutely believe in non-absolutismâ I got them from an apologist years ago. Well, Iâm learning that âboth-andâ thinking is on a higher plane than âeither-or.â Both-and allows things in the universe to move more freely. And many Christians believe a number of things that non-Christians find contradictory: like the Trinity, or death-that-leads-to-resurrection.
In the Star Wars Cycle, Anakin loses his faith in Anekan and goes over to the absolutism of the Dark Side—the Sith pursuit of ruthless greed and power. He loses his ability to see through his natural eyes, seeing the world only through a life-sustaining helmet. But at the very end of life, he chooses to remove that mask, deciding instead to embrace commonality with his estranged son. He ends his life redeemed. I hope I can remember to keep taking off the mask and seek the common humanity of everyone I face. Anekan / non-absolutism rocks.
Almost twelve years ago, I moved from the Midwest to the Southwest. I had just finished a Master of Arts in Religion, and was starting a new adventure in a new place with my spouse of three years. I knew I would need a companion on the journey, who could help me discern my next steps. So I sought out a Spiritual Director.
Little did I know I was beginning a relationship that would last years. My Spiritual Director, Teresa Blythe, walked with me in those first few months in New Mexico as I found myself floundering in what I had thought was a vocational calling to full-time writing. (It turns out that’s a bad fit for an extrovert.) A few years later, she helped me listen for God’s voice when I began to feel a call to ordained ministry, and was with me throughout my Master of Divinity. She followed me into a long dark night of the soul, when a horrific church split rocked my theological foundations, and she helped me piece together a new theology that worked for me. Now, she’s walking with me as I move from the desert I love to a (yet unknown) calling in another part of the world.
In each of these steps on my journey, I found myself in need of some clarity. Having someone there who was trained to listen with me to the Spirit of Wisdom helped me find the path I should follow. It was as if I were walking in the desert, on a road marked only by cairns. When I lost the path, and needed to find the next cairn, I had someone there to help me in the search. I probably could have found the cairns on my own, but having a Spiritual Director helped me find them more-quickly.
Having an ongoing, years-long, relationship with a Spiritual Director also held other benefits I hadn’t expected. I remember one particularly hard December, when I was feeling quite “agnosticy” (my word for those times when I find myself bereft of God, and wandering in unbelief). Teresa, who had been meeting with me for several years by that point, gently pointed out that this was my third agnosticy December in a row. “Let’s explore why December might be a dry spiritual time for you,” she said. In the conversation that followed, I discovered that the busy-ness of the Holiday Season often leads me to set aside spiritual practices that feed me. So, it makes sense that I feel spiritually lost when I’m “too busy” for spiritual things. Now, I’m more careful in November and December — and I’m easier on myself when I’m feeling agnosticy.
If you’re a lay leader, an ordained minister, or any person who cares about your spiritual journey, I’d recommend finding a Spiritual Director who can walk with you. This relationship is so important that I schedule the next year’s worth of sessions every December, putting them on the calendar so I know they’ll be there when I need them. You can find a Spiritual Director who suits your personality and beliefs at Spiritual Directors International.
Whatever your journey, may you always have companions to help you find the next cairn pointing the way to the future.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.
Some folks in my faith community donât like âwretch.â And I see their point. For too long, the church used shame as a weapon, particularly against women, to encourage compliance with moral norms. But are we, in fact, wretched whether we like it or not?
Iâm a big fan of Disneyâs The Lion King. With its wonderful music and animation, Shakespearean themes, and redemption narrative, thereâs a lot to love. At one point in Simbaâs journey, he experiences a vision of his dead father. The message of Mufasa is short: “Remember who you are.” The strength of this vision compels young Simba to return to his family and assume his rightful place. Cue âThe Circle of Lifeâ.
The message Simba needed to hear, “remember”, is a common refrain in the Bible. Remember, you were once slaves and sojourners. Remember, you are the people of God. Remember, you are part of the body of Christ.
One of the best expressions of this remembrance is in the Psalms:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
On the one hand, what are these puny humans that our Creator is mindful of our existence? And yet, we are just a little less than divine, crowned with glory and honor. In other words, âwretchâ and daughter of God!
So the problem (to circle back around) is not that slave trader and clergyman John Newton thinks that we are all wretches. Simultaneously, the problem is not that we in our human arrogance think of ourselves as the pinnacle of creation. The problem is that we have such difficulty holding both ideas in the proper tension.
Wretch, yes!
Crowned with glory and honor, yes!
On good days, on days of amazing grace, we remember. Thanks be to God!
I remember reading a Christmas article by Dorothy Day back in the early 1950s. In her inimitable style she paraphrased Luke 2:1. Her version was:
ââŚa decree went out from Macyâs, and Walmart, and Sears, that the whole world should do their Christmas shopping.â
I substituted Walmart and Sears because the other department stores she mentioned are no longer in business.
I believe Dorothy Day was a prophet of excessive consumerism that has become more contagious in our society in recent years. According to Peter Stearns in his book Consumerism in World History, consumption has been around for centuries in different societies, but excessive consumerism is more current. To go way back in history, the Sacred Book of China, Tao Te Ching, which literally means the way, was written in China around the 6th century BCE by Lao Tsu. Verse 46 seems to be a forewarning of what we are experiencing today. Here are several lines from that verse.
âThere is no greater loss than losing the Way, no greater curse than covetousness, no greater tragedy than discontentment; the worst of faults is to always want moreâalways. Contentment alone is enough. Indeed the bliss of eternity can be found in contentment.â
We all know that many of us buy things we donât need; that advertisers exploit consumers through promoting campaigns that encourage us to buy stuff we can do without, because they know that we believe that more stuff will make us happier, smarter or more loved as we pursue the American Dream thatâs built on the mentality that more stuff is better. The American Dream has become the American Nightmare.
I suspect that the philosopher/comedian, and later day Lao Tzu, George Carlin was way ahead of his time when he chose âstuffâ to characterize consumerism in the early 1980s in a routine that he named A Place for my Stuff. Since then the word âstuffâ has become the symbol for all those things that we buy, but could do without.
As you might know, there are 12-Step programs for shopaholics. Compulsive shopping can be as debilitating as gambling or alcohol addiction. Psychologists believe that the person who is a compulsive shopper uses shopping to soothe him/herself rather than dealing with lifeâs challenges head on. Obsessive shopping ultimately can lead to worse problems than the one from which the person is seeking relief. In many incidents the compulsive shopperâs behavior puts his/her familyâs welfare in grave jeopardy, which often leads to divorce.
In the words of Lao Tsu,
âShe/he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.â
Hereâs another quote, this one from I Wish You Enough by Bob Perks,
âWhen having more leaves you empty, youâll discover true happiness lies in enough!â
Or how about one from Gandhi,
âEarth provides enough to satisfy every manâs needs, but not every manâs greed.â
or as we used to say in the Bronx,
âEnough already!â
Although all these quotations might be thought-provoking, they donât provide a black and white answer for our problems with stuff, or the answer to the question, âWhatâs enough under every situation?â We need to determine whether weâre concerned about how much stuff we need versus how much stuff we want. For example, do I need to buy a car because my car doesnât have all the bells and whistles that the new models have? I donât believe we need a bureaucrat to figure it out for us, but sometimes we need help to motivate us to make the right choice in answering the questionâwhat is enough for me?
Here are two YouTube videos and a book that you might find to be helpful:
This one is by Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff:
She also wrote a book with Annie Conrad titled The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Healthand a Vision of Change. The title says a lot.
This video is a TED TALK, A Rich Life with Less Stuff: The Minimalists:
In future blogs I will continue with the theme of happiness and point out how the pursuit of stuff produces more destruction than just what it does to us as individuals, but is also is connected with the damage it creates for Mother Earth.
When people find out I practice a contemplative life sometimes I get a dismissive look as if my practice is about keeping my eyes closed with no concern for what is happening in life. Â Yet living a contemplative life is truly about connecting in a very real way. Â I find is it like running barefoot.
Early one morning, as my radio turned on and I was half asleep listening to the news, a story come on about a runner who runs barefoot and how it is better for your body than running in shoes. Â I was pretty sleepy, but the gist of the story was that the bare foot moves and balances better than the foot in a shoe. Â The bare foot reacts to dangers in the path and helps the runner avoid them. Shoes can cause more damage to the foot and give the runner a false sense of security. And now there has been the creation of âbarefoot shoes.â
This brought back thoughts of childhood and the process of toughening up our feet as summer began. We started each day by walking a few minutes barefoot on the hot cement. Â Just a bit every day and before we knew it we were running around the entire neighborhood barefoot even at 100 degrees. There was freedom and connectedness as we felt the grass under our feet and the sound of our feet pounding on the cement. Even to this day I prefer being barefoot no matter where I live, hot or cold climate. I love the feel of the ground under my feet, the sounds they make. There is a sacred feeling in that connection.
Going barefoot also means there is the danger of getting hurt. As kids, we really had to pay attention to where we were going. Â It took stepping on a nail to for me to learn that lesson. Â Isnât that like life? Â We start out with abandon and then we get hurt causing us to rightly protect ourselves. Â Yet the danger is not to create so much padding we lose our connection to life. Â Life isnât safe; at least that what I have come to understand. Â I have a choice: hole up safe and protected or go out into the adventure paying attention, being aware, not expecting safety, but trusting God. That is the contemplative life.
Moses at the burning bush was asked to take off his shoes. Â No insulation allowed on holy ground even if it seems like dangerous ground. God is saying, âTrust me, feel me from the very sole of your feet. I want you connected fully.â Â Often in hospice situations I’ve wanted to take my shoes off at the door. Â The level of grief, pain, joy and honoring in that room was truly holy and I instinctively wanted to be fully present. Â No safety allowed.
In the walk with God there are times when the call is to take off our shoes  and really be vulnerable, trusting and aware.  The contemplative practice is one in which we look for the holy ground everywhere and are willing to be barefoot.  Even if it’s for a few moments.
Exercise
When was the last time you took off your shoes and enjoyed the feeling and potential danger of going barefoot? Where in your life is God calling you to become more connected to the Holy? Â Â Look at your shoes. Â What do they say about your journey? Â Spend some time walking barefoot, indoors or out, and pray as though you are on holy ground.
First, gentle readers, a confession: I’ve got a lot at stake in this whole church thing working out.  I suspect that most of you do too.  I begin by letting you know that this might be way off-base as I definitely have a pro-church bias. You’ve been warned.  I also begin with a bit of clarification; in the title I mean âall churches doing ministry in the 21st century, in this time of movement out of Modernity and toward whatever is next.â  To state the obvious:  some churches are already postmodern and some are not.  The clarification wouldnât make a very good permalink. Â
So what is church? What’s the purpose? What are we doing and why do we do it?
In my own answer I’m indebted to teachers in the tradition of the Ecumenical Order and its contemporary offspring:  Realistic Living  and Profound Journey Dialog. This is a whole rabbit-hole, but I tell you this just to make clear that these ideas aren’t my own.
Church is people who are watching, waiting, and acting.
by Peter on Flickr
In the words of H. Richard Neibuhr, church are those sensitive and responsive people who are first to perceive God’s work in the world and first to respond. To me, this is beautiful imagery. I imagine millions of sensitive and responsive people, those who care, looking around, finding God at work, and joining in. Church folks are the “what’s next?” people.  In my mind, all of us sensitive and responsive ones are pausing every once in a while, looking toward the horizon, testing the winds⌠to see if God is moving in a new way in our world. Â
Despite this lovely calling to pioneer God’s work in the world, the church isn’t doing so well. You donât have to look very far to find various bloggers, authors, ministers, and public personae having a big conversation about how close to death the institutional church is in our time. I’m not interested in having that debate. It’s clear that church has changed, is changing, can anticipate additional changes. Because I believe in celebrating and being thankful for what is, I’m looking for the gifts in all this change.
Gift #1: Smallitude One of the biggest challenges facing the church is the commoditization of worship and community life. A couple of examples will give you a feel for what I’m getting at. I work at a church with an unabashedly progressive theology. Every summer, some of our families attend Vacation Bible School programs at other churches with very different dogma and cosmology. It’s something wholesome for the kids to do in the summer. A couple of years ago, I got an email right before Christmas from a family explaining that they would be attending Christmas eve services at a church closer to their home. Every church has candles and Silent Night, right?  I’m not criticizing these families’ decisions, but I am pointing toward an idea that, for many people, church is something that fits or doesn’t fit the family’s needs and schedule, much like sports teams and music lessons. Folks shop around, and churches put their best foot forward to get in on the action.  Itâs consumerism and it seems so natural, so much âjust the way things work,â that we canât see it.
We’re better when we’re smaller.
Last year, I got a birthday card with a cartoon of Jesus on the front, captioned ‘Jesus on Twitter.’Â His little thought balloon said, “Twelve followers… Sweet!”
Smaller means more intimate, less pretentious. Smaller means more consensus and fewer committees. Sometimes smaller means more REAL.
Gift #2 Permission to put Vision in the driver’s seat⌠and stop using the R-word! Big churches have lots of programs. There’s not a thing wrong with programs. But programming (lots of Bible studies, small groups, family activities, fitness plans, travel) can be a distraction from a congregation’s shared vision.
When a faith community puts an emphasis on programs, they run the risk of people leaving when the church down the street offers a program they like better. So program planning becomes a vicious circle: offer more, fancier, more polished programs in brand new buildings or via shiny fast technology. Church leadership becomes focused on numbers and fear. A church focused on numbers and fear – no matter how nice their brochures or how hip their website it – is dying.  We are tempted to measure success with spreadsheets and numbers rather than with transformation.
The alternative is to let vision run the show. A shared, energizing, hopeful vision for the future – not just the future of an individual church, but the future of a movement, the future of the earth community. It’s risky, occasionally chaotic. But it’s exciting.
When vision drives the church and becomes the center of decision-making and resource allocation, the church no longer needs to worry about being relevant. (Side Rant:  I HATE talk about getting relevant.  Bleh.) We get behind the vision, do the work we are called to do, and leave the judgments for history to decide.  In other words, when we are busy working, we donât have time for hand-wringing conversations about being relevant. Â
Gift #3 Relationship gets more than just talk All churches talk about relationship. It’s a buzzword. The hype around relationships is crazy-making. A friend of mine had an interesting experience with a large Phoenix church. The relationships this church seemed ready to build were with her husband (with a manly, trade show vibe) and with her children (with contemporary music and lots of technology). When they stopped attending, no one noticed.
Everyone’s a pastor. Everyone is a caregiver. I struggled with this in my first year as a church staffer. I had this idea that I would swoop in, fix the education programming (meaning, that I would fill a calendar grid with classes and speakers), and things would just get magically better. Caregiving was just not in the picture. Then I helped lead a retreat (more programming! LOL) in which there were two people in a lot of pain. One was grieving; the other was working through some painful experiences in her past. This second participant had an obvious ‘tell:’ when she would talk about her family life and the difficulties they had experienced, she would grin largely and nervously. The grin masked, just barely, the struggle. I did a lot of caregiving that weekend and since. It’s changed the way I listen, the way I show up, the way I measure my accomplishments in any given week.  Iâm still growing in this area and feel so grateful for the grace my community shows me as I learn.
Everyone is a caregiver.
Gift #4 Getting Creative… because it’s required In the 1950s when everyone went to church, I imagine that creativity was a luxury. When everything was going well and the church was ahead on budget items, the staff would get creative.
These days, creativity is an everyday thing. Newly minted M.Div. graduates get creative when putting together their call to ministry in order to become ordained. Children’s ministry teams get creative when they don’t have a budget for the off-the-shelf pageant or VBS curriculum. Churches discover that they have gifts sitting RIGHT THERE IN THE PEWS! Chefs, teachers, organizers, plumbers, drivers, engineers pitch in to do the work we are called to do.
Gift #5 Lay Leadership Gets Real Again, I imagine that in days gone by, lay leadership was something a little extra. Churches set aside a day in the fall to recognize the church board chair and the Sunday School teachers. Isn’t that nice?  The niceness was propped up by a culture of single income nuclear families and at-home caregivers.
Now, there is less of a division between authorized ministry and lay leadership. More ministers have day jobs to pay the bills. We are getting rid of the idea that being called to ministry requires a Rev in front of your name.  These are âfighting wordsâ for some of my friends and colleagues, and this warrants much more digital ink, but this is what I see.
Additionally, despite the necessity of intensive volunteer work and expertise and involvement, there are fewer June Cleavers in our pews.  Thereâs a squeeze of time that we are all living with.  AND YET⌠I see busy and passionate people at board and team meetings every week, prioritizing Godâs work over the millions of distractions technology and culture afford us. Â
UN Photo/Logan Abassi
Church is people who are watching and waiting – looking toward the margins to see the next place where God is at work. Church is people who are acting – serving peace and justice on behalf of all. These pioneering actions continue to happen despite the naysayers who are ready to write the church’s obituary. A smaller church for postmodernity can be MUST BE a visioning church, a caring church, a countercultural church, a serving church.
I hope I’m at least a little bit right. I’m leaning in with this church thing. Peace to all.
âMy gay sisters and brothers have given me a tremendous gift—they are the witnesses that enable my own faith to withstand its most severe challenges.â
I begin this article with a confession. I should probably have used the #IWASKIMDAVIS hashtag for my Twitter and Facebook posts last month, because Iâm one of those older ministers whose views have changed, and Iâm chagrined to think of some of my past sermons and comments. My Christian life began in the Evangelical camp and I remained there for more than a decade. âYou can only know what you knowâ and for years the only theological writings that I came across were of the typical and unfortunate category labeling âhomosexualityâ as a choice and a sin. Given that background, when I came across GLBT Christ followers, I could only see them as a challenge—challenging the presuppositions that I held.
My sister proved to be my salvation in this regard; without her I might still cling to a very limited view of Godâs mercy, along with a hyper-literalist approach to the Bible. She has always been a model Christ-follower in our family (although Iâm the one with the formal degree in theology). Simply by being herself, Joyce witnessed to me that my spiritual siblings who loved their partners of the same sex are as faithful to Christ and as transformed by the Spirit as I (nay, they are more so). And Iâve come to realize that my gay sisters and brothers have given me a tremendous gift—they are the witnesses that enable my own faith to withstand its most severe challenges.
As the culture wars heat up Iâve become intensely aware of how Christians get painted with a broad brush stroke. That came to a head a few weeks ago when a long-time friend told me âYouâre not a Christian. If you choose that word to self-identify thatâs your right, but I know Christians and youâre not that.â Now, she meant that as a complimentâher way of acknowledging that Iâve become a more inclusive and broad-minded person. But it also stung, because that accusation divides me within myself. Bombarded by the statements of right-wing politicians, preachers and ordinary believers, I struggle with doubts. Have I hit upon a truer faith now, or am I deluding myself to remain in a religion that has so long been characterized by oppression? Why couldnât I have chosen a religion like Buddhism or Jainism that isnât regarded as evil? Yes, Iâm part of a big UCC family, with many inclusive fellow believers, but our numbers (around a million) are pretty small compared to more conservative groups like the Southern Baptists (15 times as many). And then I keep hearing old friends tell how theyâve left the faith and are so much more congruent embracing atheism (they do a good job evangelizing for their non-faith).
So am I crazy to keep believing? Thank God for the example of gay believersâthey give me hope to keep on. If any group has reason to feel the sting of Christian guilt-by-association, itâs them. Theyâve been told for centuries that their faith is illegitimate, that they are shameful and unloved by God. Yet their experience belies those lies and they continue to proclaim love for Jesus.
I read John Fortunatoâs book Embracing the Exile: Healing Journeys of Gay Christians. He recounts the long and difficult struggle of growing up being both Catholic (sincerely devout) and gay. At one point he complains to God about his fellow believers saying âThey call my light darkness! They call my love perverted! They call my gifts corruptions. What the hell are you asking me to do?â And then John Fortunato hears Godâs voice, clear and unmistakable. âLove them anyway,â God said. âLove them anyway.â
I think of a trusted colleague in ministry, a gay man who reminds me that our calling is to assist all UCC churches to prosperânot just the Open and Affirming churches, not just the Progressive Churches—but all the churches in our conference.
I think of the young woman with a spikey hairdo in my church who wears a âGay Christianâ t-shirt and engages people in dialogue when they comment on that, taking on the role of an educator for the misinformed.
And if my gay companions can wear the label âChristianâ despite the toxicity thatâs been pinned onto that, then surely I can. Jesus is indeed fortunate to have such faithful followersâand I am blessed to be surrounded on earth by such witnesses.
