The Green-Eyed Monster: A Confession

I did something I should not have done this evening.  I checked out the website of a church that is by all accounts wildly successful.  This wouldn't normally be so bad, but it happens to be a church only four years old that was founded by one of my fellow students as Asbury.  We graduated together.  As a result, I cannot help but begin to compare myself to him.  Comparison always destroys.

My classmate’s church is totally, completely, and entirely cool.  Graphic designers create images in perfect minimalist style tailor-fitted to suit the tastes of people my own age.  He preaches in a t-church and blue jeans while sipping coffee from (where else?) Starbucks.  They meet in a warehouse featuring just the perfect dose of postmodern unfinished decor.  They boast a staff of a dozen or so and regularly host nationally known guest speakers and musicians.  You get the picture.  In short, that church is everything mine is not.  And that pastor is everything I am not.

And the green-eyed monster rears his ugly head once again in my heart.

I just returned from leading yet another administration meeting in which we discussed our very urgent need for $5000 to purchase a new AC unit for our century-old sanctuary.  No idea where that money's gonna come from.  We dealt with issues like how messy the steward's closet is and who's going to clean it up, how we're falling behind each week in our budget, how the student we've invested in down at Oakdale is on the verge of being expelled for good.

Sometimes I want the spotlights, the sexy intro videos, the hip Rob Bell-style glasses, and the vodcasts.  I want people to pay their tithe via PayPal on our sleek website.  But instead I'm frantically trying to find toilet paper for the women's restroom before I can start teaching bible study on Wednesday night. 

I want to do something spectacular, but instead I'm biting my tongue while I listen to yet one more jumbled, rambling, self-centred rant during what is supposed to be prayer request time.

Why can't my world be clean and sexy and cool and relevant?  Why can't my church have a logo that puts us on the same plain as Apple? 

(... hold on a sec... the copy machine just jammed again.  Time for me to fix it with some of my scotch tape magic.)

There now.  Deep down inside I know that all of those questions are rooted in sin, envy, anger, and pride.  I know those are questions I must reject.  The much tougher question -- the one that really keeps me up at night -- is this:  Why is my friend so successful and I'm so terribly unsuccessful?  How has he made an empire for himself in the same time that I've managed to tick off a few old ladies and grow a church from 60 to 70?  Why does God seem to smile on him and enjoy watching me nearly drown day after day?  Is it some sort of divine punishment for my sins? 

I realize even while I write this that what I'm saying isn't very rational.  But it is how I feel.  I feel like an old shoe that's been tossed in the back of the closet.  I'm a cheap, thrift store suit coming apart at the seams hanging next to a brand new Versace. 

I guess it's a good thing Jesus is for losers.

Embrace Irrelevance

GC Chapel Address

February 10, 2012





I live three miles from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.  And, of course, as many of you will know, this was the location of last Sunday’s Superbowl.  Our city had been preparing for this event for two years with fresh construction projects and attempts to clean up the streets (although thanks to the efforts of many, Indy did not push away the homeless as most host cities do around Superbowl time).  We were eager to put on our best face not only for football stars like Tom Brady and Eli Manning, but also for the other celebrities.  The local new stations reported on Madonna and Kim Kardashian sightings.  I joked with one of my female friends (who happens also to be single) that she needed to find Ryan Gosling.  She smiled sheepishly.  For a few days, the city of Indy drew the attention of the nation as we gathered around our TV sets to pay homage to the true god of our age.  And in the two plus years of our preparations as a city, we operated under the assumption (as all cities do) that bigger is always better.
·         As Americans, we are a people utterly addicted to the grandiose.  That which has sex appeal, that which sparkles and shines, that which is earth-shaking grabs our attention and is plastered in the headlines.  Unfortunately, the church in America has too often been infected by this mentality to its core.  Everyone, it seems, wants to be the next Willow Creek or Mars Hill Bible Church or Saddleback or whatever is in fad at the time.  But today, I want to encourage you to reject the impulse to seek that which is cool.  A fellow graduate of ATS, Rachel Held Evans, recently wrote a post on her blog called “Blessed are the Uncool.”  She wrote it so well that I’d like to read you a part of her entry:

·         People sometimes assume that because I’m a progressive 30-year-old who enjoys Mumford and Sons and has no children, I must want a super-hip church—you know, the kind that’s called “Thrive” or “Be” and which boasts “an awesome worship experience,” a  fair-trade coffee bar, its own iPhone app, and a pastor who looks like a Jonas Brother. While none of these features are inherently wrong, (and can of course be used by good people to do good things), these days I find myself longing for a church with a cool factor of about 0.  That’s right. I want a church that includes fussy kids, old liturgy, bad sound, weird congregants, and…brace yourself…painfully amateur “special music” now and then. Why?Well, for one thing, when the gospel story is accompanied by a fog machine and light show, I always get this creeped-out feeling like someone’s trying to sell me something. It’s as though we’re all compensating for the fact that Christianity’s not good enough to stand on its own so we’re adding snacks. But more importantly, I want to be part of an un-cool church because I want to be part of a community that shares the reputation of Jesus, and like it or not, Jesus’ favorite people in the world were not cool. They were mostly sinners, misfits, outcasts, weirdos, poor people, sick people, and crazy people.

·         Ministry among the urban poor has been infected in just the same way.  We who minister in the inner cities of America are attracted to the magnificent success stories such as the work of Geoffrey Canada in Harlem whose innovative school is transforming the community and lifting hundreds of children out of the cycle of poverty.  Of course, I rejoice in stories like this; they provide hope and inspiration.  But sometimes the question comes up, "But why am I not so successful?  What are they doing that we're not doing?  How can we do something truly great so that 60 Minutes will come and interview us?"

·         But God usually does not choose to work through the grandiose.  In fact, just the opposite.  God more often chooses to work through the slow, the small, the simple, and the subtle.  The kingdom, Jesus says, is like a mustard seed -- a seed which cannot be rushed in its growth.  The growth from seed to magnificent tree with spreading branches does not happen overnight no matter how much we might want it to and no matter how much Miracle Grow we might spray on it.

·         One of the projects we’ve undertaken in the last few years is to create an urban community garden.  I really shouldn’t say “we” because all of the work behind this has been done by my wife Courtney.  We see this simple plot of land which we call the Friendship Community Garden as a very small glimmer of hope, a peek at the kingdom of God in the midst of a world where Cheetos and Pepsi are considered part of the four basic food groups.  But for those of you who are gardeners, you know that there is no such thing as instant results.  You plant, you water, and you water, and you water, and you pull weeds and eventually after months and months you get to pick that ripe tomato or spinach, take it inside, wash it off, and make a salad.  This is a radically different experience than popping a TV dinner in the microwave.

·         I don’t believe it was an accident that when searching for a metaphor to describe the nature of God’s kingdom, Jesus turned to agriculture:  the farmer spreading seeds in different types of soil, weeds mixed in with wheat, and the mustard seed.  The growth of a tree takes incredibly long, especially when we contrast it with the fast pace and instant results our modern world offers to us.  As Gandhi once said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”  Our pragmatic, results-oriented culture must heed those prophetic words.

·         Now why am I talking about this when our theme for this semester is “crossing boundaries, overcoming barriers”?  Because the work of overcoming barriers – especially the barriers that divide us from one another, be it ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, language, religion, sexual orientation, and so on – requires extreme patience.  It is slow going.  As an energetic graduate from seminary four years ago, I wish someone would have told me this:  “The work of crossing boundaries is slow going.  It is a long, gruelling march through deep mud.”

·         Our God wants his followers to learn to embrace the long, hard march that is discipleship.  We run in a marathon, not a sprint.

·         I admit that part of my sense of calling to pastor an inner city church came through moments of inspiration at seeing marvellous, almost cataclysmic inbreakings of the kingdom.  Seeing a movie like "Born into Brothels" which tells the story of how photography was used to rescue children from postitution in the slums of India brought tears to my eyes and made me want to stand up and scream, "Sign me up!  I want to dedicate my life to this work for social justice!"  But, of course, I didn't know that years later when we were starting our own photography class in the inner city at the LYN House the main problems would simply be driving the kids to the program, getting them out of bed in the middle of the afternoon so that they would come, and seeking grants so that we can get enough cameras.  And this is what 99.9% of urban ministry (and probably all ministry) is... it is mundane.  It is unsexy.  It goes unnoticed.  It rarely seems to produce fruit.  For every story of someone radically delivered from drug addiction, there are forty to fifty stories of people who we invest in (sometimes for years) who pick up and leave and decide they really do love Vicodin more than Jesus.  It's the family of five across the street that we spend a year investing in, building up in the faith, training for leadership... all to find out one day that they are moving without notice and barely even bother to say goodbye.  (This perpetual transience and utter lack of geographical stability is a rarely noted problem in urban America.)

·         Today in my final moments of speaking to you I stand here offering an invitation.  As college students, you have your lives ahead of you.  The possibilities for what you choose to do with your lives are limitless.  Sitting in chapel roughly ten years ago, my wife and I heard an elderly couple ask us to consider spending a year in China as English teachers.  Courtney and I were very moved and, as a result, we decided to move to China and live there for one year following Courtney’s graduation.  Today I’m here to plead with you to consider devoting your life (or part of your life) to seeking Jesus among those on the margins.  Now that could take many forms – it could be pastoring and living in the inner city like my family does, but it could also be working with refugees, fighting racist immigration laws like those passed recently in Alabama, volunteering to tutor a child once a week, going down to that prison on the south side of town and hanging out with the inmates, providing legal services to those who cannot afford it, speaking out against the mountain top removal taking place right now in Appalachia, or simply befriending someone who seems to have no friends.

·         Some of you are education majors.  Consider using your skills in under-resourced communities that are desperate to attract good teachers.  Some of you are studying business.  Good!  We need businessmen and women who will prioritize revitalizing poor communities by creating jobs and infusing capital into economic deserts.  I challenge you to think about how you could use business to not only generate a profit, but to provide stable employment for the least of these.  Others of you are becoming scientists, musicians, historians, writers, and doctors.  Will you use the jobs you find to provide yourself with comfort and ease?  Or will you take the risk of following Jesus to his beloved ones on the margins, using your skills to provide hope among those who have no hope?  Will you seek first the kingdom of God and his justice and trust that all of these other silly things like money and clothes and food will be provided to you by the Father who provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field?

·         In order to persuade you, I could tell you grand, inspiring stories.  I could pull out from the last four years of my life examples of mountain-top experiences to convince you (at least on an emotional level) to sign-up for radical incarnational ministry among the poor.  But I refuse to do that today because it would be misleading.  Yes, there are mountaintops on occasion, but the valleys are far more familiar.  No, my call today is not for you to do something cool (as cool as liberal urban social justice hippies like Shane Claiborne can be), but a call to do something irrelevant, unattractive, unappealing, and usually unnoticed.  I am calling you to mop floors, to serve cheap meals to ungrateful kids, to scrub toilets, to hug people who haven’t bathed in weeks, to genuinely listen to people who are illiterate or mentally handicapped… get the picture?

·         Personal hero:  Henri Nouwen who gave up a career of teaching at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard in order to live among the mentally and physically handicapped in a community called L’Arche.  Once when wiping up vomit from the floor, Nouwen sensed God speak to him and say, “This is your finest hour in the ministry.”

·         If you do choose to use your abilities to build the kingdom among the marginalized, you are embarking on a long, slow, and oftentimes painful endeavour.  You will not always see the results of your work and, if you do, it will not be instant.  You will question if what you are doing is actually making any difference.  Nevertheless you will know that this work will serve in a miniscule way to further the work of God in the world.

·         Story of Lydah helping me to build a snowman.  “Here go, Daddy.”  That’s all we can offer God (at the most) – a few measly snowflakes in his giant project.  The kingdom of radical inclusion and shalom that God is building doesn’t belong to us; it belongs to him.  And it is coming.  Make no mistake.  You could even devote yourself to thwarting God’s kingdom, but it will come anyway.  The only question that remains is:  Do you want to work to build the kingdom of God as God’s co-laborer or not?

·         I’ve walked on the Great Wall of China.  There’s nothing quite like it.  It stretches 5,500 miles in all.  New York to Los Angeles is roughly 2,800 miles.  It was a project that began around 200 B. C. and construction continued off and on until the Ming Dynasty which ended in the 17th century.  Imagine being a construction worker building that wall and knowing that it was there before you were born, you will work on it our entire life, and it won’t be finished for generations to come.  There must have been a feeling that “I’m part of something much bigger than myself.”  The kingdom of God is the great construction project of human history.  It has been being built for millennia and may continue to be built for millennia to come.  Would you like to invest in the slow, simple, and subtle work of God?  Would you like to give yourself to something bigger than yourself?  There is no greater project on earth than to tear down those boundaries and walls that divide us so that God’s peaceable kingdom will reign on earth as it is in heaven.

The Situation as it Currently Stands...

She came into my office crying.  She had been beaten by her boyfriend the night before and was scared to go back.  After he threatened to kill her and set her friend’s house on fire, she ran away.  Her two-year-old daughter is with him and she wants to get her back, but is afraid of confronting her boyfriend again.  He has hit her before with a baseball bat and last night punched her in the face twice causing her to fall and cut her leg badly.  Now she needs a shelter, but no shelter will take her because she has lice, she is supposed to be on bipolar medication and isn’t taking it (because she cannot afford it since she’s uninsured), and because she has a contagious cold.  Also, she’s heavily addicted to crack.  She’s afraid of reporting her boyfriend for physical abuse because he has custody of her daughter.  If she reports him, he will go to jail for a long time (since he has a warrant out for him as a habitual felon) and the girl will be handed over to the state.  It is after 8 p.m. and the only shelter that will possibly take her tonight is in Martinsville, IN but that is not for certain.  She has no transportation and cannot drive due to a neck injury that happened 12 years ago.  Tonight she stumbled into the church after relapsing with crack yesterday.  She did have a “friend” who had taken her in, but he kept demanding sexual favors in exchange for rent.  She’s tired of that and refuses to go back.  She’s been turning tricks for a long time to fund her drug habit and has had enough.  At 28 years old she has mothered four children currently spread all over the state of Indiana.  She sits now in my office using my phone to talk to one homeless shelter after another while I sit and pray and type this.  How long, Oh Lord?

I've Mellowed

I'm entering my 4th year now as a pastor and have been reflecting on how my time in the ministry has changed me.  I came out of seminary with lots of really strong opinions and impassioned ideals.  I wasn't shy about expressing them.  In fact, I saw it as a sort of prophetic duty to declare loudly what I really believed what was wrong with the world and how it ought to be fixed.  But somewhere along the line I have mellowed.

And I think it is love and concern for others that has done it.  I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back, but I found out very quickly that as a pastor if you want to try to maintain good relationships with a wide variety of very different people, then you simply have to be more mellow about some things.  For example, I have the organizer for the Obama campaign on the near Eastside in my congregation.  I also have folks who are lifelong Republicans and probably would situate themselves in the Tea Party.  Now I have political opinions.  Anyone who knows me knows that.  But I have had to shelve those opinions quite often in order to build relationships with a very wide variety of incredibly different people.

In some ways this annoys me.  I don't want to become a cookie-cutter pastor who always speaks in empty, inoffensive banalities like the words you find on the inside of a Hallmark card.  Changing my speech patterns and modes of self-expression hasn't come easily.  It often makes me feel like I've had to sacrifice a part of who I am.  Before pastoring I'd always been rather extreme and idealistic -- anything but moderate.  I was the one to ask the questions in class that got everyone's blood boiling and I enjoyed it immensely.  (It kept me awake.  There's nothing as terrifying as boredom.)  But now I play a very different role.  My role is that of the unifier, the bridge between radically different groups of people.  I am the friend to them all although they are not always friends with one another.

All in all, I think it's probably good that I've mellowed a bit.  I'm not the one to poke the fire and stir up the flames any longer (or at least not nearly as much as I once was).  But I have come to love people.  I have learned what it is to shepherd a flock.  Educated and uneducated, black and white, rich and poor, friendly and mean, believers and unbelievers, straight and gay, the selfless and the selfish... I've learned to love them all and do my best not to judge them.  And that has made me a better, more mellow person.  Or maybe not better... just different.

There's a fine line between mellowed and jaded.  Perhaps some days I am more jaded.  My ideals have faded like a t-shirt that's been through the wash too many times. I've been confronted with the harsh realities of urban life and ministry.  But this too is probably all part of the journey.  Maybe someday I will once again be a loud-mouthed zealot who polarizes people.  But for now I'm Greg the Compromiser.  And I can live with that.

Laughter Heals

Last night we sat down in a room together as different from one another as possible.  True, we both speak English, but you can hardly call it the same language.  We are about as different as two people can be in America.  I a thirty year-old white male and she a sixty year-old black female.  I grew up in a gentle, loving home with two parents.  She grew up in a broken home where she was regularly beaten with an extension cord.  I was taught to value hard work, study, self-discipline, and inherited the rigors of the Protestant work ethic.  She was born into a culture of oppression which was forced to utilize lying, cheating, and stealing simply to survive.  I prefer quiet, meditative conversations. She prefers loud, demonstrative ones.  I use words she does not understand and she uses words that I do not understand.

When we first met years ago, we were in the "honeymoon" stage.  We enjoyed each other's differences and laughed over them.  We picked on each other in fun ways.  She made fun of how white I am and I laughed at the same thing about myself.  But as time went on and the relationship grew deeper, things got tough.  We couldn't see eye to eye.  She felt disrespected and so did I.  She undoubtedly had memories of white male power from her past crop up to mind which made me take the shape of an enemy in her mind.  My blood boiled at times as I couldn't understand her lack of respect for civility and "the way things are supposed to be."  The honeymoon ended and gave way to tension, hurt, and mistrust.

So we sat down last night in the presence of witnesses to try to work things out.  Much was said.  She spoke loudly.  I spoke softly (most of the time).  Sometimes she deliberately diverted our attention to win the argument while I tried to bring it back into focus.  But in the midst of it all we were able to laugh.  We laughed about how different we are.  We laughed about how silly some matters are that frustrate us.  I laughed when I realized that only in a church -- and an oddball church at that -- would a woman like her and a guy like me sit down to try to forge some sort of peace agreement.  We are night and day, she and I.  We are yin and yang.  But there is something truly beautiful in it too.  Frustrating, yes.  Sometimes so frustrating that I want to call it quits.  But in moments of laughter I realize that we are winning a small battle in a very large war.

Exhausting Goodness

"For most of my adult life, what I have wanted most to win is nearness

to God. This led me to choose a vocation that marked me as God's

person both in my eyes and in the eyes of others. I gave myself to

the work the best way I knew how, which sometimes exhausted my

parishioners as much as it exhausted me. I thought that being

faithful meant always trying harder to live a holier life and calling

them to do the same. I thought that it meant knowing everything I

could about Scripture and theology, showing up every time the church

doors were open, and never saying no to anyone in need. I thought

that it meant ignoring my own needs and those of my family until they

went away altogether, leaving me free to serve God without any selfish

desires to drag me down.

I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than

who I was, in other words, and it was not until this project failed

that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to

God than my exhausting goodness."

- Barbara Brown Taylor in "Leaving Church"

I'm not to the place where I feel like I can give up on the striving and effort, but I wish I was. I think there is a deep spiritual truth in these words from someone far more experienced and wise than myself.

The Activist Mystic

I'm hoping to get back to blogging more frequently now that I'm finished with the first draft of my project for Wesleyan Publishing House. Also, I made a conscious decision to stop blogging when I feel really depressed. I don't want my blog to be a downer for everyone who reads and so part of the reason for the infrequency of my entries is because I have been wrestling with depression quite a bit lately.

I write a lot about ministry in the inner city. I don't do it to impress anyone. I just do it because it's my life right now and because I hope I will offer something that might cause someone else to pause and reflect for a moment about the mission of God in the world, about the Christ among the least of these, and about the kingdom coming down. If nothing else, perhaps I provide a voice that someone else in similar circumstances can relate to.

Last night I read a wonderful chapter from Henri Nouwen's book Here and Now: Living in the Spirit. Here is a short excerpt:

"The more I think about the human suffering in our world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of impotence and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace that they bring me. I must resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into despair and make me one more of their many victims. I have to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus and on those who followed him and trust that I will know how to live out my mission to be a sign of hope in this world" (46-47).

I can relate perfectly with what Nouwen has written here. Sometimes the level of need around me is so great that I literally begin to feel a weight around my shoulders -- an intangible oppressiveness and heaviness that I cannot shake off. The lack of beauty, the desperation and despair, the violence -- it all has a cumulative effect of making me lose sight of hope at times. What can I do in the face of such overwhelming problems? Am I really so naive as to think I can make a difference here? And if I'm not making a difference, then why not just get out and live a more comfortable life? When these questions enter my mind (and they do almost daily), I must sit and just breathe and realize that I cannot allow myself to become "paralyzed by feelings of impotence and guilt."

This is why I am more convinced than ever that an activist (by which I mean a Christian who lives out his or her spirituality by trying to make an impact on the political, social, economic, and spiritual struggles of mankind) must first and foremost be a mystic (by which I mean someone who regularly practices contemplation, meditation, silence, solitude, prayer, study, and an inner craving for the heart for God). Often the two seem divided: the former are the do-gooder community organizers or social workers and the ladder are those monks hidden away in their cloisters. Yet I am convinced that to remain an activist (and I consider myself to at least be an aspiring one), I must first be a mystic. Otherwise, I run out of gas and have nothing to offer. To rest in the infinite love of God -- that is the source for all outward action and all social justice. The second that I forget that, I become no more than an ant struggling to free himself from a gallon of syrup.

Make me a mystic, O God. And from that inner life with You, help me to flow outwardly as one of Your agents in the world. Amen.

Inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr.

I've recently picked up a book by Philip Yancey that my father bought for me a couple months ago for my birthday. It's called "Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church." I have to admit that I feared Yancey would be too "evangelical" for my liking, but I have been pleasantly surprised at what I've found. Here is a man who is genuine, who has been hurt deeply by dysfunctional religion in ways I've never come close to, and who is earnestly willing to follow the truth wherever it may lead.

For those of you who know me, you might be aware that I'm going through some tough times. I'm struggling with my daily walk with the Lord and feel under attack each day. Ministry has been grueling; the inner city has been overwhelming; my spiritual disciplines have been eroding. But today as I read in Yancey's book about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. (one of the thirteen), I was moved to tears. In fact, if I hadn't been sitting in a public place, I would have been weeping. So today for my blog entry, I just offer an except from Soul Survivor:

"[One night after being released from the Montgomery City Jail at the age of 26] King, shaken by his first jail experience, sat up in his kitchen wondering if he could take it any more. Should he resign? It was around midnight. He felt agitated, and full of fear. A few minutes before the phone had rung. "Nigger, we are tired of you and your mess now. And if you aren't out of this town in three days, we're going to blow your brains out, and blow up your house."

King sat staring at an untouched cup of coffee and tried to think of a way out, a way to quietly surrender leadership and resume the serene life of scholarship he had planned. In the next room lay his wife Coretta, already asleep, along with their newborn daughter Yolanda. Here is how King remembers it in a sermon he preached:

'And I sat at that table thinking about that little girl and thinking about the fact that she could be taken away from me any minute. And I started thinking about a dedicated, devoted and loyal wife, who was over there asleep... And I got to the point that I couldn't take it anymore. I was weak...

And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me, and I had to know God for myself. And I bowed down over that cup of coffee. I will never forget it... I prayed a prayer, and I prayed out loud that night. I said, "Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage."

.... And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, "Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world." ... I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. No never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.'

Three nights later, as promised, a bomb exploded on the front porch of King's home, filling the house with smoke and broken glass but injuring no one. King took it calmly: 'My religious experience a few nights before had given me the strength to face it'" (20-21).

I don't dare compare myself to the great Martin Luther King Jr. He was a prophet of the first order. But as I read his story... that he was only in his twenties (as I still am for another 10 months), about his fears for his little girl and wife, his weakness and loss of courage, and his desire to retreat to a "serene life of scholarship" (all of which I can relate to perfectly), I was deeply impacted by the simple message given to him by God: "I am with you."

That's really all anyone ever needs. We don't need a home or clothing or a car to drive. We don't need food or water or air. But we do need God with us. Today I realize that that is the one thing I need. And I have it.

The Job of a Pastor

Having been a pastor for almost two years now, I have a newfound respect for those women and men of the cloth. Here is the role of the pastor:

Resident scholar of theology and Bible, orator, self-help guide, counselor, administrator, motivator of unpaid volunteers, prayer warrior, living example of how Christ lived, counselor, close confidante, friend, the one who kisses all babies and asks how everyone's grandmothers are doing requiring a very good memory -- and one who is NEVER allowed to forget a name, one who must smile even when hurting inside, worship leader, Scripture reader, musician and/or connected to musical friends to prod into the position, sometimes janitor, computer tech guru, Mr. Fix-it, work-day organizer, perfect husband and father (no outbursts of anger allowed), one who keeps regular office hours, one who is always interruptable, one who changes the batteries in the wireless microphones, back-up sound booth worker, power-point creator, absorber of insults and anger, peacemaker among those who have no desire for peace, reconciler between enemies, solitary monk and the one who knows everyone, host for new members who eat lunch after church, political activist, community leader, one who serves on multiple conference boards, paper-work filler-outer, contact for insurance companies and phone bill companies and banks and disgruntled neighborhood dwellers, voracious reader of new Christian books, keenly aware of the vast body of classical literature (for sermons), youth worker and mentor, one who takes out the recycling bins, mopper, sweeper, and duster, charismatic leader, one who is funny, one who is serious, visionary, prophet, mild and timid listener, and the list goes on...

I'm not complaining. I love my job. But most people seem to think the pastor works one day each week. Think again.

I found this and it is even better than what I've written:

WANTED: SENIOR PASTOR
Handsome pastor needed to preach 10 minutes each Sunday. You will be
working daily from 8 a.m. until midnight. The perfect candidate will have a
burning desire to work with teenagers, and he will spend most of this time with
the senior citizens. He will smile all the time with a straight face because he has
a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his church. He will
condemn sin but never hurt anyone’s feelings. Attendance at all church
meetings is required. The perfect candidate will make at least fifteen home visits
per day and will always be in his office to be available should an emergency
arise. Preference will be given to a young pastor with 15-20 years of experience.
Some light janitorial duties required.

Dorothy

Dorothy, when I first met you, you scared me. You were so rough, so ghetto, so very, very black. Your heavy African-American dialect was almost a foreign language to me. And the anger behind your eyes betrayed a deep hurt; a past I feared to even peek into (only much later did I learn about the father who would beat your senseless with an extension cord). When you got in my face and yelled at me after being in the inner city for only a week, I thought, "Well, Greg, you're not in Kansas anymore." You awakened me to a world of darkness and hatred and bitter animosity. I must say that your words were hurtful. The gruff, calloused tone you used with me made me feel belittled and childish and I wanted to retreat to suburbia where people are decent to each other. Sometimes you were downright out of control like when you stood up in church on a Sunday morning and berated your pastors for not visiting you often enough. We stood there -- shocked like deer in the headlights -- and took it. And licked our wounds later when the sanctuary emptied.

But then something or rather Someone did something to you. I don't know how. I confess I nearly stopped praying for you altogether. I had signed you off to darkness and thought God's grace too weak to permeate your thick hide.

I remember when you smiled at me for the first time -- those ivory teeth shining through your beautiful black face. Soon you began to joke with me and I learned to joke back. And when I dished it in return, you would rear your head back and roar with laughter. Somehow deep down a Healer was at work in you. I knew it wasn't me. But the walls were coming down.

Today, Dorothy, you're a new woman. Sure, you're still pretty rough around the edges and you still need to learn to keep your big mouth shut sometimes. But, darn it, you're fun to be around. Now when you gripe about how rotten your day has been I can see a twinkle in your eye and a smirk on your face. You've met Jesus and He's changed you. Now when you speak your rapid fire ghetto talk at me I can understand you better and I hear it loud and clear when you declare, "I love you, pastor." The first time you said it, it brought me to my knees in gratitude to God.

And then you called me last week. You were gushing. You sounded as giddy as a school girl on the first day of summer break. "Pastar, I just caint bu-lieve how GOOD God is to me! My grandbaby's gettin baptized and my whole family's gonna be there. We aint been togetha for twenty years! God's so GOOD. My grandbaby --she's sayin shes gonna start readin the bible and praying and going ta church and e'rythin. My own mama wanna come down from Chicaga's southside, but I tell her she caint do it since shes 72. Pastar, I aint never been so happy! God's done saved my whole family! I haven't been so thankful since before my son got shot in '87. I luv dis church and all the lovin people in it. And I love Jesus... He's so GOOD, so GOOD!"

Dorothy, pardon my saying so, but if God can save you, he can save anyone. And He's "done saved you." You keep telling me (with the force of a hurricane) every week that you want to become a full member of this church. Well, I'm going to make you one! Your not the alcoholic, swearing, demon-possessed, crack-mama you used to me. In fact, I think the technical term for what you're becoming is a "saint." And watching God do this in your life brings me to my knees and makes me weep with joy.

So tomorrow I'll baptize that granddaughter of yours and we'll sing and eat and celebrate the goodness of God! If this isn't the kingdom come down, I don't know what is.

Snow

A fresh blanket of snow is falling in my neighborhood today. I'm seeing something I rarely seen in the inner city: beauty. I am convinced that humans were made for beauty. It gives us reason to live and enjoy life. Fine music, quality artwork, innovative architecture, an exquisite cup of coffee, a well manicured garden -- these can be sources of great inner peace and contentment.

A part of me wonders if one of the causes of systemic poverty in America is simply the lack of beauty in the poor man's world. Seeing half of the houses boarded up and abandoned with yards untouched in years, noticing the piles of litter -- rusted beer cans, smashed glass bottles that once held cheap vodka, cigarette butts, even ammunition shells -- scattered in ever conceivable place. This is a world of concrete where everything is grey. Life does not thrive here. Green is a rarity. We in the city have paved paradise and put up a parking lot, as the songwriter says. I have friends who have never seen a lake or a farm or a mountain. And it makes me wonder what kind of person I would be had spent ever waking moment of my life trapped within the concrete jungle.

But today the ugliness is covered by pure white. Mounds of trash have become pristine and untouched knolls of soft clouds. Even the ugly abandoned houses next door have a sort of romantic, mysterious aura to them as they hide beneath a white blanket. It is almost as if the near Eastside has been made new -- even if only for a few hours. For a moment our cracked and weed-ridden sidewalks are as smooth as those of the suburbs. Our potholes disappear. And our collective poverty subsides for a moment as people gather around their cracked windows to catch a rare glimpse of beauty coming down from the sky.

Thank you, God, for snow. Thank you for beauty. And thank you for saying, "Behold, I make all things new." Come, Lord Jesus, come.

What does it mean to be human?

I began reading an excellent new book by Joel B. Green (my former Asbury prof) entitled Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. It occured to me as I read this that many of the theological and even political disputes I have with my fellow Christian brothers and sisters are rooted in a vastly different anthropology, or understanding of what it means to be human. Green points out the practical questions that are rooted in our how we define humanity:

- Given contemporary experimentation and innovation in the area of Artificial Intelligence, can we imagine anything about humans that our mechanical creations will be unable to duplicate?

- If, like sheep and pigs, humans can be cloned, will the resulting form be a "person"?

- On what basis might we attribute sacred worth to humans, so that we have what is necessary for discourse concerning morality and for ethical purposes?

- What view of the human person is capable of funding what we want to know about ourselves theologically -- about sin, for example, as well as moral responsibility, repentance, and growth in grace?

- Am I free to do what I want, or is my sense of decision-making a ruse?

- How should we understand "salvation"? Does salvation entail a denial of the world and embodied life, focusing instead on my "inner person" and on the life to come? How ought the church to be extending itself in mission? Mission to what? The spiritual or soulish needs of a person? Society-at-large? The cosmos?

- What happens when we die? What view of the human person is consistent with Christian belief in life-after-death? (Taken from pg. 20).

Obviously, these are HUGE questions and the answers to such questions are not agreed upon by all theologians. But there are two main schools of thought which will determine how we answer almost all of these.

The first is called the "dualist" mentality and this is certainly the most predominant view in popular evangelical theology. Dualism dates back to Plato who drew a sharp distinction between the body and the soul as two separate entities. Plato's legacy and influence lived on and strongly impacted early Christian thinkers like Tertullian, Augustine, and Justin Martyr. In modern circles it emerges in devotional literature that exhorts us to deny this world and focus solely on the next. I pick up on it strongly in Thomas A Kempis, Oswalt Chambers, John Piper, and so on. In fact, this dualism of body and soul so permeates our thinking that to question it is viewed by many as completely unorthodox and contrary to biblical anthropology.

The alternative to this view is called by many names, but more often referred to as "monism." In monism the body and soul distinction is a fiction. "We do not have a soul; we are a soul" as C. S. Lewis stated. Thus, the physical and spiritual aspects of our lives are intimately connected with one another. Monism generally values the here-and-now more than the then-and-there. I've come across holistic spirituality in the writings of Matthew Fox, C. S. Lewis, and even Rob Bell.

Above I highlighted one question because I think it is so critical to the many disputes I've had in person and online with fellow evangelicals about the nature of what God wants us to do here on earth. Does God want us to focus simply on "saving souls" or is it bigger than that? Is doing social justice among the poor an essential element of our mission or is it a distraction from what is really important (i.e. the work of the heart, the inner person)? What will heaven look like and are humans in any way responsible for the bringing of it? Is heaven far off or will it be here on earth? The answer to all of these questions will determine how we judge the importance of various Christian activities.

Furthermore, a question of human identity emerges. Most of my politically conservative friends assume a post-Enlightenment, modernist, western view of the self. Philosopher and theologian Robert Di Vito summarizes this view: Many understand the modern sense of the human in terms of "the location of dignity in self-sufficiency and self-containment, sharply defined personal boundaries, the highly developed idea of my 'inner person,' and the conviction that my full personhood rests on my exercise of autonomous and self-legislative action" (12). Wow! How often have I heard arguments from the right that swallows such a presupposition without even being aware of it!?

Di Vito offers an alternative he finds far more biblical: the person "1) is deeply embedded or engaged, in his or her social identity, 2) is comparatively decentered and undefined with respect to personal boundaries, 3) is relatively transparent, socialized, and embodied (in other words, is altogether lacking in a sense of 'inner depths'), and 4) is 'authentic' precisely in his or her heteronomy, in his or her obedience to another and dependence upon another." (Di Vito, "OT Anthropology," 221).

If this alternative anthropology truly is more biblical, then this has radical implications about the mission of the church, the goal of the nation-state, our ecclesiology, and our spirituality -- just to name a few.

I will post more on this later, but suffice it to say that we need to be better informed about the presuppositions we bring to the table as we debate theological and political matters. I embrace the monist position and, as a result, and holistic missiology. I am aware the my holistic missiology is unpopular and even offensive to those who have been raised in the church to believe that the soul and only the soul matters in light of eternity. Such people are well-meaning, but I believe ultimately misinformed about the nature of man as it is outlined for us in the scriptures. To name just a FEW implications of this anthropology: 1) it is ever bit as important to care for a person's physical needs as it is to care for his spiritual needs, 2) the mission of the church ought to involve the redemption of creation (i.e. "creation care") rather than treating it as though it's all going to burn soon, 3) among the various roles of the state is the obligation to care for the common good (even at the expense of the modernistic ideals of "autonomy and self-determination"), 4) "salvation" can no longer be viewed through purely individualistic and postmortem lenses; it must involve radical social change on the family, city, state, national, and global levels because the gospel is much, much bigger than "Jesus gets your butt into heaven."

Enough for now...

Russ

He struck me as unusually clean-shaven and well-kept to be sitting week after week in our Monday food pantry. Upon introducing myself, I met a friendly, educated, and articulate young man probably in his late thirties or early forties. Not only does he speak well and appear to be responsible, Russ* is also white -- which made me all the more curious as to why he sat in this food pantry which typically attracts the uneducated and the disenfranchised minority peoples who are unable to thrive in our racist society.

Russ, it turns out, has a story. As we all do. He was abandoned as a baby and brought up in a state institution for most of his childhood. In his early teens, he found some foster parents who took him in and cared for him, but "we didn't always see eye to eye," Russ adds. Immediately after finishing high school, Russ found a decent job and eventually became the co-manager of his organization. But then Russ found Vicodin.

Vicodin was for Russ more appealing and addictive than any substance he'd ever come across before (and he had tried many). He told me, "I don't know why, but Vicodin just makes me feel happy. Alcohol never really did that for me like it does for some people, but Vicodin does. When I started to get sad and depressed, I would just take some and then I'd be okay. It became my best friend." Perhaps because of his feelings of abandonment having grown up as an orphan or perhaps because he just wanted to escape his depression, Russ started buying Vicodin off of the street for $3-a-pop. Eventually his habit grew completely out of control and he was taking up to 25 or more each day.

At first, it wasn't a problem. Russ could balance his work with his addiction and could manage well in both worlds. "It isn't like alcohol," he said, "you can smell it on the breath of someone who is drunk, but the one who's high on pills appears completely normal." But then the economy went south and his business folded. His one and only friend -- the other co-manager of his business -- became very depressed and blew off his head with a shotgun one night after they'd had a pleasant dinner together.

Russ turned to his old friend again for comfort. Without an income, soon he had to take out a second mortgage on his house, sell his big screen TV and his new car, and cut back on groceries in order to maintain his pill habit. But a year after this, Russ found himself evicted from his home and penniless. Desperate to find shelter, he came upon a group of Latinos who took him in and let him stay in one of their closets. Russ doesn't know Spanish and none of his housemates know English, but they've managed to work out a suitable arrangement: the Latinos let Russ sleep in their closet and, in return, Russ gives them all of his food stamps every month.

Which is why Russ comes to our food pantry. Without us, he would have nothing to eat.

I asked him, "So what do you do all day?" and he laughed, "I dunno. Watch TV. I give plasma twice a week and get 25 bucks each time. But I don't really do anything else." "And you're satisfied with that?" "I guess so. There ain't any jobs in this neighborhood and I ain't got a car. Besides, even if I got a job, I'd just spend all my money on Vicodin."

"So once you lost your job and your house, you had to cut back on your drug habit, right? What was that like?"

"Oh it was awful. I don't even want to talk about it. I just curled up on the floor for days all by myself, sweating from head to toe, passing out and going into seizures. I can't believe I'm still alive."

"Why didn't you call an ambulance and go to the hospital?"

"Well, I don't have any insurance and I don't have any money. I didn't want to go into debt for a trip to the ER."

"Do you still take Vicodin?"

"Yes. Whenever I get the money to, I buy some. Somedays I don't get to get any... like today (which is why I'm fidgety and scratching myself all the time). But usually I like to try to get at least three Vicodin a day to make myself feel better."

"Why do you take these things? I mean, they have ruined your life."

"Yep. They are my worst enemy, but they're also my best friend. When I have them, they make me happy and they are my best friend. When I run out, they turn on me and make me miserable. I guess they are a demon dressed up like a friend."

"So if you realize that, don't you want to get off of them?"

"No. Not really. I like them. I don't want to quit. They're the only things that make me happy and make me want to keep living."

"Have you ever thought of going into rehab?"

"My adoptive parents want me to do that, but I don't want to. You can't force someone to do rehab that doesn't want to go."

"Right. But are you happy living in a closet and giving away your food stamps and living like this?"

"No, but I can't get out of it. I'm stuck. So I guess I should just make the best of it and deal with it. I mean, I know I can't quit the Vicodin so why try, ya know?"

I sat there in silence for a long time, not sure what to say. I wanted to tell him that I could help him to get well, but here was a man who didn't want to get well. I thought of Jesus words in John chapter 5 to the invalid at the pool: "Do you want to be made well?" Here's a man who would look Jesus in the eye and say, "No. Go away." So what does Jesus do in that case?

I don't judge Russ. I mean, if I had no family and no friends and was raised as an orphan in an institution, I might be just the same. I might be willing to trade in my life for a few moments of happiness... a few hours of feeling like there's nothing wrong with the world. Like Russ told me: "For about 5 or 6 hours after popping some Vicodin nothing bothers you anymore. People can say mean things to you that would normally hurt, but they don't hurt. You just don't feel anything bad at all. You're just happy for a little while. Then it all crashes down later."

So I'll see Russ next Monday. Nothing will have changed. He'll still be sleeping in a closet and paying his rent with his food stamps. I'll still be a pastor trying to help people out of hell. And I'll sit down and ask Russ how his week was and he'll say the same thing he says every time I see him: "It's a tough world out there."

You're right, Russ. It is a tough world out there.

*Russ is not his real name, but I'm ashamed to admit that for a long time I thought his name was Russ until he corrected me a few weeks ago. God forgive me.

Trading Resentment for Gratitude

Which blade in a pair of scissors is more important? C. S. Lewis compares this question with one often posed in churches today: "Is salvation an act of faith or works?" He writes: "Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you."

How quickly I forget this simple, straightforward truth! Too often I find this cycle at work in my life:

1) I encounter divine goodness and desire to please God because I love Him and what He has done for me.

2) As an expression of this gratitude, I begin to do good works such as caring for the poor, spending time in prayer, visiting the hurting, etc.

3) Gradually I begin to focus on the works themselves and forget my original reason for doing them (i.e. the love of God).

4) I become unable to do enough good works and begin to feel guilty for my many failures.

5) I worry that I'm not doing enough to be loved by God.

6) I become resentful of a God who demands so much obedience from me.

I must confess that there have been days that I resented God's calling on my life. I start to think thoughts like, "Why did God have to call me to this difficult place and difficult job? Why couldn't he have called someone else? Why can't I just live a normal, comfortable life and why can't that be enough? This is unfair of you, God! Take back this calling!" Then something even worse happens. I start to resent other Christians who have not had the same calling and who do not make the same sacrifices that I make. I begin to look down on them, judge them, and think of them as inferior Christians. What a demonic thought!

But such thoughts creep into my mind because somewhere along the way, I start to think that my salvation is contingent upon my striving and effort. But I've got it all backwards. In my better moments, I don't do good deeds in order to be saved, but because I already am saved. In those moments, my worry, striving, and resentment are replaced with gratitude, joy, and adoration of God.

I must learn to accept the fact that God loves me. Period. End of story. And once I fully "get it," only then am I in a place to serve Him. Only then will I be able to look a fellow Christians who live differently than myself without a hint of judgment. Only then will I wake up in the morning and praise God for the wonderful privilege it is to serve Him in the inner city. Only when I realize that God would love me just as much if I were a parking lot attendant can I truly embrace my vocation of ministry.

A Troubled Glance

I know it's not the title of this blog, God, but I have to give you a troubled glance right now. I cry to you from the pit of despair and I ask for You. I need a Friend -- someone who can watch the kids for me or clean the house or write my sermon for me or go and visit all the needy people who depend on me. I need You, God, but I don't know where you are. If I did know, I'd spend my last penny to buy a plane ticket to get there. My girls are sick... again. More coughing, runny noses, and crying at night. My wife is burned out. Too much work, too little appreciation, not enough time off. She never gets a day off, ever. I'm overwhelmed too. I have people all around me who need me to counsel them because they're are so screwed up, but who's gonna counsel me? (I'm just as screwed up as any of them). I have sermons to write and practice, books to read and theological thoughts to think, board meetings to prepare for, vision to cast, staff members to keep happy, enemies who need to be reconciled, sour old ladies who need a word of rebuke spoken to them, a charity house across the street that is on the verge of going under for lack of finances. At home I have dishes to do, babies to bathe and change and discipline and wake up with early and make lunch for and clean up after and put to bed. When am I supposed to take time for my wife? When do we get to spend time just loving each other? Not this year, I guess. Maybe next. Most of all I need you, God, because when you are far off I am filled with emptiness and despair in my gut. Normally I can function and deal with all of the stuff as I run around a million miles per hour, but not when things aren't right with You. So where are you? Can you give me a call? I need someone just to tell me that it's gonna be okay and that I'm not a failure and that all my striving is not in vain. Well, I gotta go. Looks like I can't pray right now. My daughter is eating chalk. Have your people talk to my people and we'll get together sometime.

Greg Coates is not an evangelical any more.

Tonight I went to a good ol' fashioned evangelical camp meeting. It's not quite the same as it once was when the holiness people would congregate in tents for a week and walk “the sawdust trial.” Today we've exchanged tents for miniature houses complete with cable TV and Wi-Fi, sawdust trails for carpet, four-part harmony for modern generic praise choruses played by a slick college band, and open-air worship for A/C. But one thing has not changed: the altar.

The preacher this evening spoke about the need to give all to God, stop living an ordinary life and start living an extraordinary one, and replacing our comfort zones with radical, dangerous obedience to Christ. Although the man spoke with a far too polished preacher voice, his message was decent and one that I agree with: stop your mundane existence and be a radical for God. In fact, I've become so convinced of the the necessity that a Christ-follower ought to leave comfort, that my family and I have rejected a middle-class neighborhood, a middle-class house, and a middle-class income in order to do just that.

But I was waiting for the preacher to put teeth on his sermon, to unpack for us a bit what it means to live an extraordinary life. And instead of him suggesting that we sell our possessions and give the money to the poor, or go to Africa and try to stop the violence in Darfur, or reject the upward mobility of American culture and embrace solidarity with the marginalized, or enter the world of the drug addict, or stand up against the military-industrial complex of our nation -- instead of saying anything like that he basically said, “So come to the altar tonight and give your heart to Jesus.”

But what does “giving your heart to Jesus” mean? You see, I am convinced that when conservative evangelicals speak of “giving yourself to God,” they are speaking of a very inward, personal, “spiritual,” change of attitude. They are talking about saying a few words between an individual human and God in heaven. In other words, they are offering a hyper-spiritualized message which might have implications for our inner thoughts, but certainly will not involve something like rejecting middle class American values and ways of life.

I don't mean to downplay the significance of inner spiritual experiences. I've had many and they make me who I am. But at what point do these inner experiences cross the line and enter in to how we really live. At what point does my spirituality start to impact my budget, or the car I drive, or the way I eat, or the people I choose to spend my time with?

It is this hyper-spiritualized gospel which has now led me to officially reject the name “evangelical.” Before this night, I had never shed that descriptor. But I am convinced that I am a different animal than the evangelical. When they use terms like “being born again” or “asking Jesus into your heart” or “making Jesus your personal Lord and Savior,” I think that they are almost always talking purely about an inner, mental/psychological, hyper-spiritualized shift in attitude. Well, I want more than that. I want a religion that reshapes societies, that redeems all of creation, that works tirelessly to bring justice into this world on a social and political level. I want a religion that goes beyond the inner heart of Greg Coates and instead offers an alternative way of living which is a foreshadowing of the Ultimate Reality to be revealed in the last day. Yes, I do want the inner transformation of my own heart, but only because I too am part of a creation needing to be redeemed, and not because the main plot of it all it to get me out of hell and into heaven.

I'm sick of associating with a group that claims to “surrender all” to Christ and yet lives almost completely and entirely like the culture around it. It seems to me that today the ONLY defining characteristics of most evangelicals are that they attend church once a week and are perhaps a bit more judgmental than the average person. I've had enough of being part of that group. I hereby renounce the name evangelical and prefer to instead be called a follower of The Way – something much more radical and exciting than the diluted, neutered message I've heard from evangelicals for so many years.

Letter Concerning Evangelism

Recently on a Facebook thread I made the accusation that many evangelicals have an "ulterior motive" in many of their friendships. By relating to others simply for the reason of converting them, I believe we cheapen the gospel, salvation, and the mission of Christ. A good friend of mine has challenged me on this view recently and I would like to share an e-mail that I sent to him which attempts to explain more completely my position on evangelism. The conversation has become somewhat heated in the past, but I've tried to keep myself calm as I respond. Here is the letter:

----

Thank you, {Friend}. Your letter helps clear up some things. I never mind being questioned and challenged pointedly. That is all part of being called to lead the church in pastoral ministry. I want to be perfectly clear:

1) I still believe in proclaiming the gospel with words and in trying to "convert" non-believers. I preach the gospel each week and make no apology for doing so. Just last weekend I spent my entire time with the Greenville FMY in Potosi, MO. You can ask Greg Groves if he thinks I have misrepresented the gospel after my four sermons to their group. I think I declared it loudly and clearly (an unapologetically).

2) I react negatively to Christians who seem incapable of loving people simply for the sake of loving them. Much of the evangelism I was brought up in reduced people to "projects." Salvation is diluted into a formula which says, at it's heart, "If you want to get your butt into heaven, then you need to pray this prayer" (aka "say the magic words"). My soteriology leads me to conclude that this is a far cry from the call to discipleship that Jesus gave.

3) I agree with St. Francis: "Preach the gospel at all times and, if necessary, use words." I think our post-Enlightenment, modernistic culture has overvalued propositional statements and the verbal communication of those statements almost to the point that "evangelism," when boiled down to its basic essence, is merely the insemination of knowledge. This is the ancient gnostic heresy. Instead, I believe the gospel is mysteriously communicated sometimes simply through a helping hand, a warm meal, or a smile. I am sick and tired of the church telling me to damage my relationships with other human beings by guiltily jamming doctrines down their throat when they are not yet ready for it.

4) Evangelism must always answer the question people are asking. If I were to simply tell my alcoholic friends that they must accept a list of orthodox doctrines, pray a prayer, etc., then I would not be answering the question that they are asking. They desire to know how to be free of their addiction and, according to Luke, a physical healing is also a spiritual one. It is the hyper-spiritualized gospel of modern evangelicalism which bifurcates the body from the soul -- a dichotomy that would have been foreign to the authors of the Bible.

5) I do not intend my comments to be mean-spirited, but to simply stir up a conversation about the following questions: "What is the gospel? What is salvation? Is it merely getting into heaven or does it involve individual/societal transformation in the here and now? And by what means do we spread this good news?" {Friend}, I have spent the last three years of my life trying to answer these questions. I have taken graduate courses in missiology and soteriology. I'm not making a flippant, thoughtless accusation. Instead I believe I should call the truth as I see it and I see many modern evangelistic methods as doing more harm than good.

6) I think the main question for you and I to answer is this: "What is salvation?" The answer to that question will largely determine our methods of spreading it.

7) I have never desired to be an apologist for the Democratic party and I would hate to think I could ever alienate someone from Christ because of my political views. I do, however, think that the gospel holds political implications just as John Wesley, B. T. Roberts, and many others from our tradition have maintained.

I could write so much more, but this will serve as a starter for this conversation. In short, I accuse some evangelicals of having an ulterior motive in relationship because that is what I once had in many of my relationships during high school. I think this resulted in damage to the cause of Christ. Do I want my friends to come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior? Of course I do! But I do not think that is accomplished by reducing people into projects. Perhaps this clears some things up.

With Love and Respect,
Greg

Danny

Twice in the last two weeks Danny has been found sprawled out on the steps of our church. The first time I found him, I walked up and asked if I could help him with anything. It was immediately obvious to me that he was very, very intoxicated. I tried to help him to his feet, but had to catch him in my arms when he nearly fell over.

How can I describe Danny? He has a face thick with grime. He only has a few teeth remaining. When Danny speaks, he sounds almost inhuman -- more like a machine; it is deep, raspy, and broken. The only part of his body which does not display the ravages of his alcoholism are his eyes -- which remain childish and innocent. In his drunken stupor, Danny showed me his many scars and broken bones. His lower legs have the thickness of a T-ball bat.

After about 15 minutes of conversation, I finally pieced together where Danny lives. As I helped him into my car, I must admit I was concerned about the filth of his clothes and the stench of his body infecting my passenger's seat. What a stupid thing to be worried about!

In a few minutes, we were in his measly little apartment. It was a dark, musty single room with a mattress in one corner and a toilet in the other. Fast food wrappers where interspersed on the floor with empty liquor bottles. Danny instructed me to never take a bath while being drunk 'cause you could drown yourself. "Always take a shower!" he warned me through his intoxication. He constantly repeated nonsensical things like "I'm your best friend, not your worst enemy" and "I went through the windshield when I hit that man on the street... it's ironic, man, ironic!"

I don't know quite what to think about this encounter. I'm still processing what I ought to learn from Danny. For now I offer these initial thoughts:

1) I hate alcohol and what it does to people. I understand the impulse of our forefathers to advocate for prohibition (even though it failed miserably).

2) I don't really know what salvation would look like for Danny or how to get him there. I don't know how I can even start to help him in a lasting way.

3) I'm temped to judge him, but remember that but for the grace of God, I would be in the very same situation. When I look into Danny's eyes, I see myself without Christ.

4) Danny, for all of his failures, has still been created in the image of God. There is a mystical connection between Danny and Jesus Christ. I meet Jesus in Danny.

5) I'm convinced that Danny is exactly the sort of person that the Free Methodists were created to reach. We have abandoned the Dannys of this world; they need us and we need them.

I'm sure other lessons are yet to be learned from my friend. In the meantime, I pray for him and for his liberation.

Where Do I Even Start?

I've been sitting on my front porch this evening because it is the first day of the year to hit over 70 degrees. As I sat in silence, I could overhear my neighbors screaming at one another at the top of their lungs. One woman's voice was so hoarse, it was obvious to me that she has spent her entire life screaming. Between the three or four uses of "motherf***in'" every sentence, I could make out that she was very angry at someone and was threatening to kill her. At one point she grew extra hostile and screamed, "Can you f***in' pray for me? I need someone to f***in' pray for me cause God told me I was gonna f***in' kill some motherf***er someday and that I was going to spend the rest of my f***in' life in jail." She screamed this with greater violence and vitriol than she had screamed her threats.

I immediately went into prayer. But I must confess I hardly even know how to pray. This situation seems so hopeless and so lost. Here I've moved my family into this neighborhood so that we could make a difference in the lives of people like this, but I just don't know the first thing to do with such chaos and hatred. I don't even know where to start. How does a church reach such a person? How could God possibly use this white boy from Illinois to help her? It's like I've entered a huge board game and been told that I need to win, but I don't even know the rules. Sure, I'll pray for her, but I don't know where to start in building a relationship.

All I know tonight is that I now believe in demons. I believe in them because I hear them screaming outside of my window every night. All I can do is cry out to God and hope that He knows what to do 'cause this young pastor doesn't know how to save his parish.

Cords of Death

David cried out to God:

"The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help." - Psalm 18:4-6

I just need to get it out. I feel as though I am drowning. These are my cords of death:

1) Family members who reject Christ and his ways.
2) A teenage girl in my church who gets hit by her drunken father.
3) Fellow pastors in my city who seem to care nothing for the poor.
4) Daughters who are ill and cry out all through the night.
5) Long hours, no recognition, and low pay.
6) The inability to afford a membership to the YMCA.
7) Imprisonment to sin and powerlessness to live a life of holiness before God.
8) The poor whom I try to serve offering no thanks and instead pronouncing insults.
9) Exchanging the comfort and safety of Wilmore, Kentucky for the near eastside.
10) Gunshots at night.
11) Two women in my church who hate one another and refuse to be reconciled.
12) Pharisees who prevent hungry people from finding the bread of life.
13) Underfunded and understaffed programs.
14) The need for marital counseling but no time or money for it.
15) The desire to just "get away" but no place to go.
16) A chaotic and messy house.
17) An unhealthy dependence upon soda, candy, and fatty foods to medicate my depression.
18) Sermons, board meetings, networking with community organizations, balancing budgets, fundraising, exegeting, visiting, casting vision, planning events, counseling, recruiting, managing staff, quizmastering, lesson planning, updating websites, delegating, peacemaking...
19) Darkness inside, emptiness, weariness, silence from God.
20) Mice in my food pantry.

"In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help."

I cry to you now, God.