Advent Conspiracy

Thanks to Brad Brisco at missionalchurchnetwork.com for letting us know about adventconspiracy.com.

My head is a mess

I've been a little nostalgic over the past few days with a swirl of thoughts tumbling in my head. I'm not being overly wishful for "the good ole days" - just watching more than a few things coming to an end. I'm realizing more and more each day that my kids are not kids anymore. How did this happen? My son is driving, for goodness sake! And, he's driving really well! My daughter continues to "mature" physically, even though she's not emotionally ready for all that comes with that. And I just grounded her for the rest of the school year and took her cell phone away indefinitely because of a very serious lie she told her mother today. I remember when a 10-minute timeout in the corner was punishment enough. Not anymore...

Last Friday night about 10:00pm, I sat in the car in our church parking lot waiting for my son to come back from a wild night of dodgeball at another church. As I sat there in the dark with John Mayer singing in the background, I was overcome with memories and flashbacks from the past 10 years in that church.

I remembered many of the friends we've made, and many of the people who have left. I remembered when we built our worship center - debt free. I remembered when cars would drive in on Sunday mornings and then drive out because they couldn't find a parking place. I remembered when we had enough students where we could have hosted our own wild dodgeball party. I remembered the first Sunday we went, and the first couple we met. I remembered when Robert was baptized there. And then Carolyn. I remembered my first Sunday teaching. And I remembered my last Sunday teaching.

Now, there are weeds growing up between the cracks in both parking lots. Now, we're lucky if the front lot fills up on Sunday morning. Now, we're lucky if Robert and Carolyn aren't the only students on a Sunday morning. We keep saying that we're a "new community." But I'm not really sure who we are anymore.

I've certainly changed a lot over these years, too. I no longer believe that big worship centers and overflowing parking lots necessarily make a great church. I think a great church is made of people who are completely devoted to loving God and loving their neighbors. I think a church can be any size and shape, as long as there are devoted followers of Christ living out their faith together in their everyday lives and working toward the mission that God has put before them.

Last night, eight of us in our small group sat around a patio table in a backyard and ate a great meal together. We laughed, we disagreed, and we shared struggles with real issues in our families and faith. Our kids played together. We shared communion together. We prayed together. It was good. Some of us have been together for years. We've watched couples become families with little ones who aren't so little anymore. Now we babysit for each other. Some of us work together. Some of us play together. I love those people. That's my community. And you know what? That's "church" for me.

Day 29

I've been thinking a lot lately about the relevancy of the church in our culture today. Our ever dwindling Sunday morning attendance (not only in my community, but in most others I know of) continues to gnaw at my "relevant" nerve. At our small group meeting last night, we talked about the newest Oprah book club best seller, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. Oprah and Tolle are doing a weekly webcast on Monday nights as well, and last week there was something like 500,000 people online for the webcast. Is this just good marketing? Is it that Oprah has her name associated with it?

I think it's interesting (coincidental, maybe??) that the latest best-selling "Christian" book was Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life. Are both of these huge sellers satisfying some craving in our society for purpose? Are there that many people struggling to find a deeper meaning to life, wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves, wanting to be happy? And how has the church so badly missed this mark? Do people even consider seeking God for an answer to their cravings? If so, are they doing it on their own, with no "need" to find a church.

Have we really missed the point that badly of what it means to be the church? I read an interesting blog post on this subject earlier today, appropriately titled "So What?" I think Mark is onto something there. As the church, we must find ways to help people right where they are with the problems and issues they face right now. That doesn't mean designing a ministry "program" with five key points that lead to a happier marriage. I think it means sitting with people, listening to people, helping each one individually walk through their valleys and come out on the other side. This is how Jesus interacted with people. He didn't offer a generalized, "one-size-fits-all" approach. His approach was relational and compassionate. "What do you want me to do for you?" was his common question. Not, "Have we got a fantastic new opportunity for you!" People don't need something else to do or some other event to attend or some other activity to put their kids in. People need compassion. People need relationships. People need hope. Isn't this what the church should be doing?

This Momentous Day

The story below was shared by one of our small group members last night. It is from a Dean Koontz book (I can't remember which one she said), and she has carried it with her for years:

Not one day in anyone's life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down's syndrome child.

Because in every day of ur life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconcscious example.

Each smallest act of kindness - even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile - reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it's passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.

Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.

All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined - those dead, those living, those generations yet to come - that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.

Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength - the very survival - of the human tapestry.

Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!

Authentic Community

It has been a while since I have been involved in a small community group. I have led and been in several groups over the years, but have been living outside of a small community for over a year now. Well, through a series of recent conversations and readings, it has become clear that I need to reengage in this aspect of life. Speaking to several people yesterday only confirmed what I have been feeling, summed up well in these words from Shawchuck and Heuser:

Authentic community is a place where we can be our real selves with God in the presence of another. Only superstar saints can make the Christian journey alone. The rest of us weaklings, whose promises to God always far exceed our practices, whose spirits are emaciated from lack of bread for the journey, and whose trail is marked with the scars of our many failings and fallings, we know that we cannot make this journey alone. Nonetheless, we keep trying, because we know of no other way. But there is another way, and it is the way of covenant communities, small groups of spiritual pilgrims journeying together, each sharing the others’ burdens, and each holding the other up in the most intimate and private affairs of life and journey. An essential ingredient for being formed in the image of Christ is the movement between being alone and being together, sustaining solitude and community.

Shawchuck and Heuser, Leading the Congregation, 132-134.