:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

I used to spend a lot of time in the church. I served with the set up crew, the clean up crew, the small group team, the worship team, and number of seasonal ministries that ranged from Christmas events to inner city missions trips. The majority of my service was to other Christians, especially the Christians in my church.

Sometimes it was great. Other times it was immensely frustrating, especially worship leading. At the time of my Christianity crash around 2002, I couldn’t quite figure out the reasons for my problems.

Was I burned out from serving too much?

Did I need to rethink the church system that bottles up the majority of Christians inside the church building?

Did I feel unappreciated and on a never-ending track of expending myself to make a huge worship event happen every week?

Was I sick of those who complained and demanded something different for their Sunday morning experiences without lifting a finger to help?

I was in the midst of a “service shift” in my Christian walk, and there were many friends struggling in the exact same place.

What is Wrong?

Those listed above are all reasons I could have shared at one time or another for my crash, but the bigger rumble that sent my conception of Christian service—service that is bottled up in the church—tumbling down was this notion of the church as a sent people who go out into their communities and world. In other words, our primary reason for being here isn’t necessarily to hold worship services, though they have an important place.

Our mandate is to spread the worship and glory of God throughout our communities, making for what some have termed a “missional” understanding of church (I’m borrowing from Lesslie Newbigin here). However, some would argue that even this term has become trendy and exploited by those who are either naive or self-serving, hungry for larger attendance numbers.

All the same, there is a renewed search among Christians to figure out what service looks like, how we can follow teachings such as John the Baptist’s plea in Luke 3 to give clothes and food to those who have none. I don’t see this as the abandonment of sharing the words of the Gospel with others, but rather a really dramatic rethinking of how service can actively proclaim the present reality of the Gospel.

There is a world of a difference between saying that God’s Kingdom has come and praying for someone’s healing or clothing someone because God’s Kingdom has come. One is academic, while the latter is literally living in the reality of God’s message.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of reading about Christianity in books.

What Should We Do Now?

While we can dig up news stories about mega-churches building huge facilities that only serve their own needs and all kinds of campaigns that Christians are putting together to achieve goals that have nothing to do with the goals of God’s Kingdom, I am actually quite hopeful.

I have been challenged by pastors who are focusing on ways they can serve in their communities. There are rank and file Christians who are serving locally and globally in small and large ways. We are reading books such as James and figuring out that Jesus has quite a lot to say about how live day to day.

If we aren’t actively serving in our communities, there is at the very least a hunger to extend our service beyond the local church. And if you aren’t sure where to begin, here are a few thoughts:

Love Those You Already Know

While Jesus talked about clothing, feeding, and visiting the poor, start with those you know around you. Who has God put in your life right now that you can serve and show the love of God? Are there colleagues at work who need the radical love of God? Is there a family on your block who needs a prayer warrior? Is there someone struggling financially that you can support.

We don’t have to travel to third world countries or seek out the poor necessarily. Sometimes there are very real needs that we can meet among people we already know.

Ask God to Change Your Heart and Open Your Eyes

It’s been hard for me to figure out the next step after my service crash in the local church. While I still serve in my church, I’m much more aware of how I use my volunteer time, saving some of it for service to those in my community. I don’t want to burn up my service time in my church.

Getting to the place where I served in my community has been an ongoing process in which I’ve had to ask God to change my heart so that I’m not consumed with what I want. I also need God to open my eyes to the needs around me and the ways that I can meet them. I don’t want to rush into a service project only to find that it’s a dead end.

Don’t Forget Your Local Church

The challenge among Christians, especially evangelicals, is that we swing from one extreme to another. So while we can try to correct our service deficiencies outside of the church, we still need to invest in the corporate worship of God. It just doesn’t need to consume all of our volunteer time.

It’s my hope that we’ll one day see many churches from a variety of backgrounds who sincerely worship God together on Sundays, while remaining actively engaged in serving their local communities as well as elsewhere in the world.

Instead of fighting over the number of programs to offer or the style of our worship music, we’ll be committed to serving others as part of God’s mission. This just may pull us out of our own world enough to reveal that we not only have much in common, but we all need one another so badly that it’s not worth arguing over trivial matters.

Next Week’s Series

Following Jesus: Am I All In?

The coming out of Jennifer Knapp has sparked a tipping point for Christians and homosexuality—at least from my perspective. So many of us loved her previous work, and now most Christians feel like they sort of know someone who is a homosexual AND a Christian.

Instead of homosexuals being “out there,” we’ve found they’re also among us.

When same sex marriage passed in Vermont a group of advocates chanted outside the tiny capital building in Montpelier: “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re married, get used to it!”

OK, so it was probably more of a taunt to their opponents, but I got a kick out of it. Blunt though it may be, it laid the cards on the table. With a law legitimizing same sex unions, those in opposition were faced with a choice of how to respond. Will they continue to fight it, or will they figure out a way to disagree and still move on with their lives?

The homosexuality debate among Christians is in a deadlock. I don’t think there’s anything new we can say. If you read enough comments and blog posts, you’ll find roughly three views. Christians who find homosexuality morally permissible, those who aren’t sure, and those who don’t.

The comment threads go on and on, but I don’t see an end to the debate in sight. I’ve written extensively on this topic both in the Coffeehouse Theology Contemporary Issues Guide and on this blog. As an exercise, I wrote up one post explaining the reasoning behind all three views on this topic. I feel like I understand where they’re all coming from, even if I have my own opinion on the matter.

I think we need to reframe this discussion. All three sides are just getting frustrated. It’s time to accept the fact that there will always be Christians who permit homosexuality, there will always be Chrisitians who aren’t sure, and there will always be Christians who do not permit it.

We’re here, we’re queer/unsure/straight, we’re Christians, get used to it.

That isn’t to say that we need to agree. No, that isn’t going to happen. We just need to ask the “Now what"?” question. If we can’t resolve this debate, are there some levels where we can at least have civil dialogue while holding to our different convictions?

And if some folks can’t imagine fraternizing with the other side in a dialogue that seeks to understand where that perspective is coming from, then perhaps the best move is disengagement. I’m all for dialoguing with perspectives different from my own—I benefit greatly from it. However, any debate on this topic has been played out, so why even bother to keep lobbing broad sides at one another?

There are consequences to pressing on with the debate. If we continue in this debate, I fear opponents of homosexuality will feel smug and self-righteous for their biblical purity, while those who support it will feel smug and self-righteous for their biblical progressiveness.

This is new, uncertain ground for many of us. So I advise caution as we move forward. However, it’s time to start asking the “now what?” question because the old debates aren’t moving us forward. Too much harm has been done in the name of “what’s right,” and people called to love God and to love others above all else cannot afford to let things continue in their present state.

Christians, especially evangelicals, should be concerned about Sarah Palin’s book that releases on November 17th. It’s not quite on par with the coming of the apocalypse or government-sponsored death panels, but I think we have real problem on our hands.

It doesn’t have to do with Sarah Palin the author.

I don’t begrudge Sarah Palin writing a best-selling book. Good for her. I hope it pays the college bills for her kids and helps her grandkid. I know I was really excited about the release of my book, and I’m sure Sarah Palin is too.

It doesn’t have to do with Sarah Palin the politician.

Folks who drink up politics will certainly find it an interesting read, and I have no issue with the book as a political work. Does Palin want to lambaste the McCain campaign staff? Go for it. Does she want to raise her profile before running for President in 2012? Huckabee may not be happy about that, but don’t worry about me.

Go for it Sarah. I have no qualms with that. It’s a free country made up of mavericky, real Americans who will love her book. Some don’t think she should run for public office, but I’m not going to debate that because I know as little about politics as she knows about the Sunnis and Shiites.

We should be concerned because Sarah Palin knows her only shot in an election is mobilizing the conservative evangelical base. If we think Christianity has been overly-politicized now, we should shudder at the thought of what Palin can do.

In addition, as Palin stakes her claim as a “Christian” politician, Christianity and evangelicals in particular will continue to be painted as right-wing political affinity groups. Lost in the mix is the Gospel, Jesus, and the Great Commission. Will those on the left, who need to hear the Gospel, believe that Jesus comes with a Palin 2012 bumper sticker?

Read Palin’s book. Campaign for her. Vote for her. That’s fine with me.

But we should be concerned that the effectiveness of the Gospel message will be blunted because it is being associated with the Republican party, and Palin may need to do that all the more to solidify her place. Christians may play right into this by holding her up as a model Christian, a standard bearer for evangelicals.

Let’s remember that some could hold up President Obama up as an ideal Christian as well. For those on the right, such a notion should help communicate the polarizing effect of upholding Palin as an evangelical leader.

A Suggested Way Forward

Whatever we think of Palin, Obama, and their Christian beliefs, let’s resolve to carefully select spokesmen and spokeswomen who aren’t politically polarizing and who are best known for their faithfulness to Jesus, the Messiah and Prince of Peace. We could pick those who have passed from this world or we could pick those still among us.

We could talk about Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wendell Berry, C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham, or any other model Christian who has a solid record of preaching the Gospel, serving others, and gracefully representing the cause of Christ. Christians cannot afford to let a politician represent us because politicians have to take sides. For those called to reach the whole world with the Gospel, that is a mistake we cannot afford to make.

While the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America was debating the ordination of homosexual clergy last week in Minneapolis, a tornado touched down right where the meetings were taking place. Pastor John Piper said, “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin.”

The response from many Evangelicals and many other Christian groups has been a swift rebuttal of Piper’s remarks, though I’m sure plenty of folks agree with this beloved pastor. Jennell Williams Paris took a humorous approach, while writer Greg Boyd adopted a point-by-point approach in dismantling Piper’s logic and theology.

I think that Boyd hit the nail on the head in picking apart Piper’s points. There are lots of other sins lurking about in America that receive way more attention in scripture and that God could be very concerned about based on biblical precedent. Why would he pick on this one particular issue? In addition, we should be very careful when we claim to know the will of God, particularly when it comes to judgment.

I think enough rebuttals have been written that I won’t need to weigh in here on the particulars. Suffice to say, there are many, many Christians who take the Bible very seriously and disagree with John Piper on this one.

As someone who has benefited from some, but not all, that Piper has written, I’ve been wondering how I would like to be treated if I made the same mistake. I like John, even if I disagree with some points of his theology, and so I don’t want to throw him under the bus here.

What we have here is a good pastor slipping into some bad theology. And if I slipped into some bad theology, how would I like others to reply?

Well, I suppose I would most appreciate personal notes and e-mails that avoided personal attacks, but directly addressed where I was in error. The nature of Piper’s remark in the public forum of the internet means that most replies will be in the form of public statements opposing his initial public remark. While I think it’s important to set the record straight for the media that may have a field day on this one, I think Christian leaders who disagree with Piper and have access to him should write to him personally.

If I slipped into bad theology I would hope that my friends and acquaintances first step would be to write me personally, asking me to change my statement. Depending on the forum of my statement, a more public reply may be necessary. However, I would hope that Christian brothers and sisters would opt for the more personal and direct route of correction if I made a similar mistake as Piper.

Perhaps such an approach will have no effect on Piper on this issue, but if I was in his shoes, I would deeply appreciate personal notes so that I would have a chance to retract my statement/blog post. Public replies are necessary, but I hope that even in this case of bad theology that we’ll focus on restoration beyond the rebuttals.

Here are some thoughts I’m currently processing. I’ll paste below my rough draft:

We don’t have any measure for the effects of poor evangelism, to say nothing of Christianity’s terrible reputation as a religion for the judgmental, hypocritical, and homophobic. These matters need to be viewed through the lens of evangelism, much like our actual efforts to share the Good News. Evangelism isn’t concerned only with what we say, but also with what we do because what we do can easily undermine whatever we say.

That really should be a no-brainer.

Evangelicals are so entrenched in our Gnostic bubble that keeps salvation by faith separated from the Lordship of Jesus and the resulting good works that must flow from truly saving faith (see the epistle of James) that such critiques don’t appear on our radar. If what we’re saying is true, then we assume we’ve done our part: communicated the truth.

We now know that is not enough. The majority of the younger generation and countless others think evangelicals are the problem in the world, not the solution. Can we expect to argue and reason our way out of this mess?