Rituals in a Throwaway Society: Disposable Relationships

Perhaps no institution has suffered more at the hands of a disposable society like marriage. This is what fascinates me in this theme—is there a more ritualistic event in our lives than a wedding? Graduations & proms come close, but follow trends. Weddings do too, I guess, but the elements that make a wedding unique are timeless. Giving away the bride, the vows, the pinchably cute kids stumbling down the aisle hardly ever doing what they’re supposed to and of course "you may now kiss the bride." Those things never change.

Sadly, this topic hit home recently when I received an email from a college friend. Just last fall, Jen and I attended his wedding. He was one of the last remaining bachelors among my circle of friends and we were all happy for him. He and his bride seemed to go well together and both seemed genuinely happy. She laughed at his jokes. He looked after her sweetly. The email stated that they were getting a divorce—that they were better off as a dating couple than a married couple. It took the wind out of me. Even though they hadn’t known each other for long before they got married, they seemed to be a good match. I was so sad for him, even hearing his assurances that he was doing alright, that his professional life is going well and that he is surrounding himself with friends and family. A short marriage still has profound effects on one’s life.

I also think of so many people who have skipped the ceremony and chosen to live as a couple without the ritual of a wedding. It seems like they are hedging their bets somehow. If it doesn’t work out, at least it doesn’t mean a divorce, as if the pain of that relationship being lost would be lessened by virtue of that fact.

I heard someone on the radio the other day advocating that marriages should be considered 5-year renewable contracts. He'd been married 3 times for decent lengths of time: 9 years, 15 years and 10 years and claimed that instead of having 3 failed marriages, he'd had 3 very successful marriages that didn't last a lifetime.

How do weddings survive in the era of 50/50 marriage survival rates? I'm not asking the question "why does anyone bother to get married anymore?" I'm not questioning the instution of marriage. I firmly believe in int. It just seems amazing that the dream and the ideal seem to have changed so little while the reality has fallen apart. Clearly, it's not just a quaint tip of the cap to some nearly forgotten past. It's not just a way to collect expensive presents from longtime family friends. The question I guess I'm posing is: how has the ritual remained so substantially intact when the attitudes toward marriage have shifted so much? Is it false hope? Is it peer pressure? Is it good enough for one day but people aren't willing to do the heavy lifting to stick it out? What gives?

Stuck in your Head

Taking a short break from the Rituals series to bring you this song that will stick in your head until explodes. Enjoy Tay Zonday's Chocolate Rain!

Rituals in a Throwaway Society

A theme keeps emerging in a couple of recent experiences and it has me thinking, enough to have me blogging, a modern day miracle. It’s this thing about the disposable society in which we live—not that exciting frankly and lots can be said about the way technology and poor workmanship on products and our obsession with having something new have collaborated to create this lack of appreciation for things that last. However, it’s not just the throwaway nature of our world that has me thinking, it is the enduring nature of certain rituals and traditions that I’ve seen lately and I’m fascinated by how they survive this powerful trend.

So here’s where it all started. Perhaps, no single item has pushed the disposable trend more than cell phones. What other product since the industrial revolution has come with an expected lifespan of 2 years? I’ve had shoes that lasted twice that long. And I wore them every day thanks to Dr. Martin, but I digress. My phone that I’ve had for just about 2 years started to bug out on me. It’s a smart phone and all of the smart characteristics still worked. My calendar was working fine. My contacts were intact. I could search the web in my hand with ease. Only problem was that I couldn’t talk to people on the phone when they called me. I would press talk and they the caller and I could not hear each other at all. I tend to put up with problems like this longer than anyone should, primarily due to my fear that fixing the problem will cost me money. At long last, though, after more than a week of not being able to pick up my phone, except with my headset, I took it to Sprint.

If 2 years is the lifespan of a phone, than 30 minutes is the magic time limit in which any problem can be diagnosed and fixed or so they told me. In the end it took me 90 minutes, a total of 3 trips to Sprint and I had me a brand reconditioned phone. In other words, somebody else gave this one back to Sprint and they cleaned it up so it looked new and then sent it back out to some customer who was already having problems with his phone…me. The phone actually picked up and it looked new. Happily I synched it with my computer so all my data was back. I was good to go. Called Jen to tell her and she asked me why I was in a tunnel. Called another friend later on and he asked why I was banging pots and pans or constantly dropping my phone. It didn’t work any better. In the end, what I got was the latest version of my phone with new features for free. It is reconditioned of course.

All that to say that I was amazed that this gadget that some tech heads waited months for, that some engineers spent a long time creating, that software engineers spent countless sleepless nights developing is commonly regarded as disposable after 2 years. I know I’ll annoy Phil and the other appleseeds by mentioning the iPhone and all of its glitches so I won’t.

Here’s the thing. All of this happened in the same week that I went to Old Orchard Beach, the ultimate ritual of my childhood and countless others. My parents own a cottage there, which is where we stayed. My daughters slept in the room my brother and I had shared for 3 weeks every August until we were 14. I refer to Old Orchard as the land that time forgot quite a bit. The ocean and the beach never seem to change. Institutions at the Pier like Pier Fries and Lisa’s Pizza have been around for decades. Beachwear stores come and go by different names always peddling the same low quality gaudy clothing. It’s timeless in its tackiness, but it’s endearing that way too. Hard to explain to people who didn’t know this beach as the one anchor in their lives while they moved around the country every 3 or 4 years growing up. While there, I took this picture of Sydney riding the same motorcycles my brother and I rode 30 years ago. And I don’t mean the same type of motorcycle kiddie ride. I don’t mean they had something like this. These are the very ones we rode and I would guess they sit within 20 yards of where they were when I was growing up.

Summer is undoubtedly a time when these rituals hold sway, perhaps like no other season. People drive new cars to old places with the same goal in mind—relaxation, togetherness, marking time in safe and comfortable ways—the way life should be as Maine’s license plates once proclaimed. But it feels a bit random. There is no system other than marketing machines and peer pressure that say I should need a new phone in 2 years. Nor is there a system that says that a children’s ride with cartoonishly wide motorcycles spinning in the same circle should endure year after year. But they do. I find myself asking what saves Hogan’s and Dy-No-Mite from being discarded in our brave new world. And what happens to town like this when Rite Aid rolls in? What is lost when the new paves over the old? And how long can it last? This year on the beach, a guy built 4 story luxury condos next to the Pier. But he can’t sell them. I must admit I find some justice in that.

More to come.

Vote Ron Burton

Ron Burton was the 1st Round draft pick of the Boston Patriots in the American Football League. He was the first running back to run for 100 yards for the Pats and had a successful, if short career. Ron was a wonderful man of faith and a Salvation Army board member. He was incredibly generous, putting on a Christmas party with the Patriots through The Salvation Army for kids in need and donating land to establish the Ron Burton Training Village, which enables at-risk youth to get opportunities to excel in football and in education through college scholarships.

Ron is up for the Patriots Hall of Fame. His wife, Joanne, still serves on the Army Advisory Board in addition to running the camp. She has asked for support as the nomination process consists of a public vote for the first time. It's simple and easy to vote at the Patriots website. Voting for Ron is a vote for a man who made his most significant contribution after his football career ended. It's important to Joanne that Ron be inducted into the Hall of Fame to prove to the young men at their camp that personal character and learning are more important than performance on the gridiron. If you have a moment, please stop by and vote for this great man.

Daisuke's Dominance

A friend of mine has a clergy pass to the Red Sox and I had the pleasure of going to the ol' bandbox with him last night. It's a pretty good deal. You show up 2 hours before game time, pay $7 each and get a standing room ticket. We ended up behind home plate in very nice (read expensive) seats for the first 3 full innings. Beautiful night and a great performance from the Sox' big free agent signing this year.

But recent events in Boston, including our trip to Fenway, stir an age old question in me. On Sunday, the Sox were being shut out into the 9th inning down 5 runs with one out and no one one. By that point in the game, many of the Fenway faithful had left. The sox then proceeded to put up 6 runs and win the game on an error at 1st base. Many people missed it. Last night, Rick and I decided to leave the game during the bottom of the 8th because Matsusaka had pitched well, Papelbon was warming up and the Sox scored 4 insurance runs in that inning. We figured they wouldn't send Daisuke back out. But they did and we were on a Green Line train while he was finishing off the first (perhaps only) complete game by a Sox pitcher this season.

When I was a kid, our trips to Fenway usually included 55 of our closest friends. They were most often Sunday School or Vacation Bible School trips from Manchester, NH to reward those who came every Sunday or who attended every session of a VBS. With that big of a crowd and our vans parked at the ARC (Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center) which was near Fenway but on the exact opposite side from the bleachers where we always sat, we would ALWAYS leave before the game was over. I would agonize about that as a kid and resent my father for being so cruel as if those aluminum bleachers with no backs weren't cruel enough in the hot summer sun. Anyway, now as an adult, I have long ago forgiven my father (and understand his reasoning), but I still get a pit in my st0mach somewhere between the 7th inning stretch and Sweet Caroline thinking "oh no, I might have to leave this game early. I don't want to miss anything." So I hardly ever leave early now. Last night I did and I missed something special.

So here's the question all this brings up. Do you leave games early? How do you decide whether or not to leave early? Have you ever missed a big comeback or something special by leaving a game early? Just wondering if anyone out there shares my sports-related issues.

Portrait of the Artist as a Kindergartner

Riley had 3 pieces in the Cottage Street Elementary Spring Art Show last week. She was very proud of her work and it was fun to have her walk us through how she did each of the pieces. Wait until you see her self-portrait. "My what big eyes you have" could have been the caption underneath.

Does He promise and not fufill?

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?

So I was listening to Numbers this morning in my devotions. Yes, I said, listening. I find the Pentateuch hard to read sometimes, but I gain a lot from listening to it on CD, particularly Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. A couple of years ago, my big Christmas present was the entire Bible on CD. As much as I enjoy quiet time on the couch, with my cup of coffee in the morning, I'm finding that in order to get through Numbers, I have to listen to it on my morning commute.

This morning I was listening to the oracles of Balaam. This verse stuck out to me, particularly as it was uttered by this guy who usually followed the money instead of following God's leading. It was also much needed as we are in some difficult days on the Kroc project and God knows to reassure us of exactly who He is in such moments. As I look back over the last 18-24 months as the Army has contemplated Kroc and my own involvement with it, we have come through many tough times. There have been "impossible" city bureaucracies, "untenable" real estate timing, "insurmountable" fundraising obstacles. I put all those words in quotations because God has erased those words and affirmed His promise of enlarging His Kingdom in Boston through this project time and time again.

God is on the move in some amazing ways in this city. Any time I might be tempted to doubt His plan for the center or for Uphams Dudley, I have to look at the path we've traveled to get to today. He is teaching me trust, patience, instructing us about His sovereignty, reminding us of the need for humility and that He is ultimately in control of it all. Our God is a good God and worthy to be praised. He will not promise and not fulfill. He may not fulfill on our exact schedule or to our exact specifications, but so long as we're obedient, He will fulfill to the perfection of His plans in His time. Good enough for me.

Crass or Capitalist?

I know it sounds like one of Larry's post titles, but I was struck by this article about news outlets buying ad space on google and yahoo for searches about the Virginia Tech shooting. I was going to post about the number of flagpoles I saw this week at full mast, but this takes it one step further.

Read the whole article here, but here are the last 2 paragraphs:

One potential problem for news organizations is that keyword ads "can also leave you looking crass -- that you're tapping in for a business purpose on a tragedy," said Danny Sullivan, editor of the SearchEngineLand.com newsletter. "It could make some people's eyebrows go up ... 'Did you have to go after that particular term?"'

But Sullivan added that if news sites have "substantial information" to share about a search term -- even if that information is, after all, a commercial product -- "I would err on their side of that -- that it's not so bad."

Is it really not so bad? Is this any different than what news stations or even newspapers have done for years, putting together flashy logos to depict human tragedy? Is it more sinister because it involves considering what search terms people will use in order to sell your advertising? And who is making the decisions to do this? Is it the NY Times or CNN or is it Proctor & Gamble and IBM who are buying ad space both in TV land and in cyberspace? How cold have we become as a nation that we're willing to sell human tragedy and call it "not so bad?"

PLEASE NOTE: The Gunshot Google image at the top of this post is not actually from Google. I created it to drive home the point.

Old Army Sunday

So we were in Manchester, CT last weekend. They were having an Old Army Sunday. I may or may not blog on the first half of the meeting. I'm a bit ambivalent about it and don't want to speak out of turn as I'm sure there were good intentions.

The second half of the service, the sermon by Lt. Colonel Joe Bassett (R) was excellent. A couple of nuggets from this God-given word.

His opener led the way: "We don't worship The Salvation Army or William or Catherine Booth. We worship Jesus Christ our Risen Savior."
He shared a longer quote from DA Carson about the Church, but this portion stuck out to me: "we're better at organizing than agonizing." He's talking about agonizing over the lost, a world dying in sin. If there's any indictment on the church that hits close to home for me right now, it's this one. If we don't agonize enough and organize too much, we're lost.
Colonel went on to talk about judgment and how people should be treated when they come into a Salvation Army worship service--whether it's a holiness meeting or a salvation meeting or any meeting. "People come into our meetings & they know the problems that they have in their lives. They don't need those problems to be pointed out to them. They don't need to be reminded of the burdens they bear. We need to be prepared to bear the burden with them without being judgmental."
He also talked about full surrender. "When God called me to officership, I siad, 'God, this is stupid.' There are times even now, all these years later, when I say, 'G what u r asking me 2 do is ridiculous.'" I thought that was one of the most honest and true statements I've ever heard about Christian service. What God calls us to do is ridiculous, that's why the cross is foolishness to the world. God's call doesn't come with a stupid-free guarantee. His grace is outrageous and sometimes he asks us to do outrageous things for Him.
I suppose I should tell you what the scripture was on which he spoke. It was Nehemiah chapter 2. Here's the quick 3 points. In Neh 2:4 God asks Nehemiah, "what is it u want?" Nehemiah has 3 answers:
2:5 to be sent
2:7 to be safe
2:8 to be supplied
God gave Nehemiah what he asked for, but that didn't mean he had it easy. Sanballat and friends didn't want Nehemiah to do this good work. God does the same for all who are called, but not necessarily in the way that we might envision sent, safe or supplied.
Here was a real stinger from Colonel Bassett. He was discussing the fact that Nehemiah stood up and fulfilled the calling God had placed on his life. That didn't mean sitting on the sidelines or hoping the wall could be rebuilt or being politically correct. This is the encouragement he gave to the congregation: "There are battles to be caused. Nehemiah, sent, safe, supplied declared war on life as it is." I think we are too small in our thinking sometimes, too safe. Notice the verb that was used--battles to be caused. We sometimes talk of battles to be fought as if we'll stumbled upon them and then do what we ought to. Are we looking for the battles we need to cause in God's name?
He followed it up with this. "There is no concern in the mind of satan about an Army that only goes through the motions. Do you cause satan much worry? How much overtime did the enemy have to do last week because of me?"

Old Army Sunday ended with people at the mercy seat (including me) and a call to prayer as we sang (not O Boundless Salvation -- they started with that one) but this:

In the Army of Jesus we've taken our stand
To fight 'gainst the forces of sin.
The rescue we go, Satan's power to o'ertrhow
And his captives to Jesus we'll win.

I'll stand for Christ, for Christ alone
Amid the tempest and the storm.
Where Jesus leads I'll follow on;
I'll stand, I'll stand for Christ alone.

We go forth not to fight 'gainst the sinner, but sin;
The lost and the outcast we love;
And the claims of our King we before them will bring
As we urge them His mercy to prove.

Jesus pitied our case and He died for our race,
To save a lost world He was slain;
But He rose and now lives, and His pardon He gives
Unto all who will call on His name.

Though our trials be great and God's enemies strong,
To battle undaunted we go,
For our warfare's the Lord's and to Him we belong,
In His strength we shall conquer the foe.

Frederick William Fry (SASB 687)

Easter 2007

I can' blog, but I can take a good photo every now and again. The Easter shot for this year.

A legend pumping gas

So Jen and I were out shopping on Saturday night. We needed to stop for gas, so we pulled into a station in Braintree, MA, just south of Boston. (the Mobil across for South Shore Plaza for the Bostonians reading. Is anyone reading this?) At the pump in front of us was a silver Toyota RAV4. A guy gets out wearing a non-descript winter jacket and a winter hat that was quite silly. It was red, white and blue with a long tassel hanging from the top. I was just about to hop out and pump my gas when Jen, ever the celebrity spotter says, "Drew, that's Bill Belichick." I looked more closely and it certainly seemed to be him. I got out of the car to pump my gas just in time to hear him say "cash" to the attendant over the intercom system. As soon as I heard his voice, I knew it was the legendary coach of the New England Patriots.

I pumped my gas, trying to figure out why he was driving a RAV4, contemplating the fact that he must have to pay cash everywhere he goes so as not to be called out by the person ringing up his purchases with a credit card and trying to figure out what to do in light of the situation. When I finished pumping the gas, we decided Jen would say hi and ask to get a picture with him. She half-chickened out twice and then simply walked up to him and said "Hi, Coach Belichick." He said "hi" nicely enough, but in that way that clearly communicated, "I'm not really looking to be bothered." He wasn't rude at all, but it was clear the picture request was not something he was going to respond to favorably, so we just got back in the car and left the station. Oh and called all of the Patriot fans we could think of who would pick up the phone at 9:45 at night.

I love living in this town.

Duty v. Devotion, Action v. Adoration

There's been a lot of discussion lately somehow related to this topic. I recently heard an excellent sermon on it from Major Linda Jones in Quincy, MA pertaining to the exchange between Martha and Mary in Luke 10 when Jesus was visiting.

Here are some of her thoughts:

We should be careful to live within this tension. The left column represents cultural assumptions or tendencies. The column on the right is what we are expected to do as believers.
Martha Mary
Work v Worship
Duty v. Devotion
Urgent v. Essential
Focus on self & others v. Focus on Jesus - If Jesus needed food, Mary would have gotten it.
Standing & working v. sitting right in front of Jesus

A couple of quotes
"People expect us to be busy." Stephen Covey

"Tension & frustration mount when we are doing the wrong task or trying to cram too many right tasks into one time period" Major Linda Jones

"If we forget God while serving God, we will probably quit God." Mark Collinsworth

I was struck by many of the thoughts she shared and realized that it's a tricky thing. I work hard sometimes to make sure other people know how hard I'm working, how busy I am, how important a given task is that I'm doing. I guess there can be this equal tendency to make our worship something that we want to get credit for. I've been in situations where the Martha-Mary responses are reversed. One person is quietly and faithfully working away at a task wholeheartedly offering it as a sacrifice for the Kingdom, while someone else wants to make a show of their devotion and make it seem like it's more important than the task their peer is doing. But it's a false self-serving kind of devotion.

This is the exception, of course. For the most part, we'd rather be known as hard workers than hard worshipers to coin a phrase. Our culture, even our Christian culture looks down on those who are "So heavenly-minded they're of no earthly good." We have slipped into the trap of glorifying hard work sometimes at the peril of glorifying God. Because our work gives a quick fix of affirmation, we are willing to trade our glory for His.

Apparently, former General Albert Orsborn was living in this tension and had become a bit of a Martha when he suffered an accident and had to recooperate in a nursing home. He realized how far his priorities had shifted and wrote these immortal words to "All My Work is for the Master." Oh that I would live these words every day. When it's all over and I'm welcomed home, I want to be known as a hard worshiper, someone who did everything for God's honor and glory, not a hard worker who was working for my own legacy.

All My Work is For the Master
Albert Orsborn
Saviour, if my feet have faltered
On the pathway of the cross,
If my purposes have altered
Or my gold be mixed with dross,
O forbid me not thy service,
Keep me yet in thy employ.
Pass me through a sterner cleansing
If I may but give thee joy!
Chorus
All my work is for the Master,
He is all my heart's desire;
O that he may count me faithful
In the day that tries by fire!
2.
Have I worked for hireling wages,
Or as one with vows to keep,
With a heart whose love engages
Life or death, to save the sheep?
All is known to thee, my Master,
All is known, and that is why
I can work and wait the verdict
Of thy kind but searching eye.
3.
I must love thee, love must rule me,
Springing up and flowing forth
From a childlike heart within me,
Or my work is nothing worth.
Love with passion and with patience,
Love with principle and fire,
Love with heart and mind and utterance,
Serving Christ my one desire.

Urban Forum III: a Past Idea

So I know it's now been almost a month since I was at the 614 Network Urban Forum in Atlanta. I am still processing a couple of things I heard there. Thanks to Delta, I arrived exactly 3 hours after I was supposed to. I missed the beginning of a talk given by Bob Lupton who runs FCS Urban Ministries in Atlanta. He also serves on the board of Christian Community Development of America. I walked in just in time to hear him say, " the idea of building a big building in a poor neighborhood is a past idea. We shouldn't be doing that anymore."

This statement shook me as I am occupied entirely right now with a project that is set to build the largest center The Salvation Army has ever built in the Northeast. His point was that gentrification is sweeping the urban landscape in North America. Once blighted neighborhoods are being revitalized largely due to an influx of wealthy professionals returning from their exile in the suburbs. I say that because many of those people returning to cities are actually the children or grandchildren of a generation of wealthy professionals who fled the cities to populate and perfect the suburban landscape following WWII. White flight and the resultant abuse brought on by insurance fraud, municipal negligence and life conditions of the urban poor have destroyed these neighborhoods and now gentrification threatens to reinvent them by vacating the poor, pricing up real estate and "starting over." Lupton's point is that we can not stop this continental trend and so we ought to be careful not to tie ourselves to a new building in a poor neighborhood as it might not be that way for long. We need to be nimble enough as urban ministries to keep up with the geography of the people we're trying to serve.

I should tell you a bit about the 614 crowd if you're unfamiliar with them. The network is made up of a number of courageous people (mostly Salvationists and some Mennonites) who have moved into poor urban neighborhoods to live, work, go to school with the longtime residents of these communities. They are doing incarnational ministry, experiencing a good deal of injustice themselves--cramped grocery stores, no good plumbers, negligent response from city agencies--and a lot of the richness--the cultural mosaic, the interconnected support structures formed by residents, the hope of a brighter day--that is experienced in places like Regent Park in Toronto and downtown Birmingham, Alabama. As a rule, they mistrust bureaucratic authoritarian structures, preferring a streamlined God-inspired ministry model without all of the red tape and politics.

As I spent time there, I found that some people had assumed that we were just going to plop a huge corps (church) community center in the midst of this landscape and not ask anyone's advice about it. One guy even went so far as to tell me that the people in the community don't want the center. As far as I know, he's never been to Dudley. The assumption was that we were going to pump millions of dollars into a changing neighborhood only to end up with egg on our faces when gentrification rolls through and transforms the neighborhood. They were also bothered by what better work could be done with the funds. When I described the process we'd been through to gain trust in the community, listen to the concerns and partner with agencies and residents, very few were hopeful, most were cynical. That same guy wanted to throw out academic terms around community process to make me look foolish for being such a neophyte.

Here's the thing, though. Everything Lupton said was true. Unchecked, gentrification will develop urban neighborhoods by displacing those that stayed when everyone left, leaving them without a place to live and most without any economic advantage for having been displaced. It's true if a community has not stepped up to prevent it from happening. All of that will take place if the residents have not organized to plan a way through this new wave. In Dudley, they are committed to development without displacement. This means they want to preserve it as a mixed-income community, where those with means are living side by side with those living with less. They have strategized around it and done groundbreaking work to ensure permanently affordable housing and to protect the values of the neighborhood they committed not to leave decades ago. And, oh by the way, part of the strategy has included a community center on Dudley Street next to the tracks for 20 years. We have listened to, learned from and engaged that planning process.

Unfortunately, not every neighborhood has this united force to mitigate the coming changes. I fear some of the Kroc Centers will end up being exactly what Lupton and the 614 folks fear most--a monumental waste of resources as wealthy people move into a poor neighborhood and force out the current residents. So isn't it important that the Bob Luptons and Geoff Ryans of the world engage those of us planning Kroc Centers and the communities in which they'll be built?

I guess I'd prefer that to being kicked in the shin and being told that my current calling is a fool's errand.

No, seriously, I'm back

Gotten a couple of notes from people decrying my declaration of being back on the blog scene. They say things like "well, guess your resolution to blog again didn't work out" or "it was a nice try, maybe next time."

Let me 'splain. I had a 3rd blog post from the Urban Forum all done. It was ready to post, and I made the mistake of previewing it and then in the process of trying to make an edit, I lost it. No number of back button pushes would bring it back to me, so I've been waiting for the opportunity to post it. Let me give you a preview.

It all starts with a quote from Bob Lupton. I walked into the room to hear him say, "The idea of building a big building in a poor neighborhood is a past idea. We should no longer be doing that." You can understand how that threw me since I'm spending roughly 30 hours a day trying to figure out how we are going to get a 90,000 square foot community center erected in the poorest neighborhood in Boston. Anyway, there's more on that topic and it will be coming in a post before Valentine's Day.

Urban Forum II - Shane Claiborne

Shane Claiborne, founder of The Simple Way and author of The Irresistible Revolution is here. His talks were more or less summaries of his writing, so I'll just share some of his writing. Hits me quite a bit when we brag so much about the largest charitable gift to a non-profit in history, largest social service project in Boston, etc.

Shane says this:

Layers of insulation separate the rich and the poor from truly encountering one another. There are the obvious ones like picket fences and SUVs, and there are the more subtle ones like charity. Tithes, tax-exempt donations, and short-term mission trips, while they accomplish some good, can also function as outlets that allow us to appease our consciences adn still retain a safe distance from the poor. Take this poignant example I stumbled across. Kathy Lee garments, which earn over $300 million in sals annually, are being produced by teenage girls in abysmal conditions in Honduran sweatshops. These girls as young as 13 work fifteen-hour hsifts under armed guards receiving 31 cents an hour to produce clothing sold under a label which promises that "a portion of proceeds from the sale of this garment will be donated to various Children's Charities."

Charity can be a dangerous insulator

Urban Forum

A long awaited new look for the new year. And a commitment to process more of my life here than I have been lately. I miss the blogging community and the interaction we've shared here. I feel pretty disconnected and look forward to changing that.

I'm at the Urban Forum in Atlanta put on by the 614 Network. Ray Aldred spoke on Tuesday and I took down some of his thoughts. He is of Cree descent from Northern Alberta, Canada. He works with a group called "My People International" doing family ministry programs with in Canadian Aboriginal communities.

Here are some thoughts he gave:

When we reduce the gospel to anything less than the story that it is, we weaken it. The gospel story is the canon of scripture, the whole thing, the whole process--Old and New Testament.

I thought that the mission of God was something that you enacted on someone. In trying to convey the gospel to aboriginal people, we became utilitarian in our understanding of what it meant to be aboriginal. We had to ask ourselves: "Are we using feathers and drums only to draw an audience?" When we checked that understanding, we discovered that there was in indian life, an expression of the gospel. We discovered that if we tried only to express or convey the gospel to aboriginal people, we had failed. We had to find the gospel that was in aboriginal people.

If you are trying to express the gospel to poor people, you need to understand the gospel that is in poor people.

Anybody who does mission to any marginalized group has 2 roles to fulfill: to proclaim the incarnation to people and to proclaim the incarnation in people.
"Coming of Christ into the world describes how he loves all of creation. For God so loved the Cosmos that he sent his only son into the world."

"Canada and the United States have struggled to acknowledge the humanity of aboriginal people. You can't spread civilization unless there are people who are uncivilized. Aboriginal people did not appear as Westerners expected them to be or portrayed them, because they had some type of civilization. Because of this native people couldn't simply be killed. They had to be saved first than conquered."

"The desire of colonialism was to spread the sovreignty of their nation in a way that undermined God's sovreignty."

The Bible is holy and yet, the views held in the West have made this sacredness a way to keep the gospel from ordinary people.

If we do not love the one sitting before us, how can we say we love God? If we can not love the person who is very different from us, how can we say we love God?

The Church has gotten really good at being spiritual. Now we need to remember how to be human again.

Pride & Glory, Truth & Beauty

Phil's new album is out TODAY! It's great and it's free! As usual, he can speak about it better than anyone. He sent this note about the ep:

I'm writing to let you know that my new album, Pride & Glory, Truth &
Beauty, is now available online @ any of the following websites:

www.phillaeger.com
www.saytunes.com/bands/phillaeger
www.myspace.com/laeger
www.purevolume.com/phillaeger

Recently, I was at a prayer and fasting retreat where the speaker
pointed out that one of the constant themes of the New Testament is
the Apostle Paul's prayer for more light, both for himself and for
those he had led to Christ.

This album is a prayer for light. The songs on it were written as
far back as almost 10 years, and as recently as just a few months
ago. They're held together by the theme of sight. It is a prayer
that I am still praying, a prayer that all of us are called to pray
as Christians. It is a prayer put in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
It is the prayer for more light from the Lord.

Light for our pride. Because God resists the proud but gives grace
to the humble.
Light to see His glory. Because the glory of God is all around us
and yet our sin hides Him from us.
Light to know His truth. Because even our best reasoning cannot
bring us to the revelation of God.
Light to see His beauty. Because even the faintest glimpse will
awaken our senses and set us in our right minds.

I hope you enjoy the album. I hope that you are blessed as you
listen and that it encourages you to press in even further in your
quest to know Him.

"May God give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation" so that you
can see His glory, know His truth and experience His beauty.

Grace and more grace to you,

Phil

Get out the Vote!

Be sure you get out and vote today! And don't give any lame excuses like, "I'm only only 4 years old!" Check out this YouTube feature.

Sally Morganthaler

Several months back, my brother told me that his church was going to have Sally Morganthaler as their guest for their parrish retreat. I was very impressed and told him so. A couple of weeks later, he told me he had a crazy idea and wondered if we would want to join them at the retreat. The timing was good as the retreat was at the end of September and our new nephew was due in late August. We took them up on the invitation to hear Sally and to see our new nephew, Teddy.

For those who don't know, Sally Morganthaler is one of the leaders in the Emergent movement, an author, a worship leader and speaker. I have read some of her stuff, but had never heard her speak. There's a lot to share from the visit to Pittsburgh, which I will do, but wanted to start with some of the thoughts I scratched down from Sally's talks.

I should start with the church. Jeff and Paige attend Church of the Ascension, an Episcopal Parrish in Pittsburgh. About 400 people attend and it's an urban church. About 85% of those who attend don't live in the immediate neighborhood, but travel anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes to get there.

Sally's primary point in her talks was that top down systems don't get the job done, particularly in emergency situations. She encouraged us to think of the huge numbers of lost people that we know personally as an emergency, an urgent situation. I guess I should say right here, that I don't think I heard anything earth shattering this weekend. It wasn't necessarily anything new, but she does a good job of telling the story, saying known things in interesting ways. What she wanted most for the congregation to grab hold of is the fact that they shouldn't wait until there's a program or a set direction from the Priest or the church leaders to go out and do something about the emergency situation that the lost all around us find themselves in. Salt and light in the area where you are, not even worrying particularly about how close that is to the church building. She encouraged people not to get hung up on the fact that they might live in one section of the city or the suburbs and commute to church. So what. Wherever you live, work or play, make an impact there.

Here are some quotes from her talks:

Worship (in the near future) will look more like a hand reaching out to touch another hand (than a hand raised or a given type of music)

The default in the Church is so much organization that you can't get anything done.

A lot of churches are like JC Penny. It's all inside. Congregations are consumers of ministry products, with a very centralized ministry.

Jesus didn't spend a whole lot of time in the Temple.

She referred several times to this quote from William James: "I am done with big things and great things, and I am for those tiny, invisible, molecular forces that creep from individual to individual like so many rootlets, or like the capillary action of water, yet which, if you give them time, will rend the hardest monument of man's pride."

Dirt calls us.

It's hard to be a leader and it's hard to be led.

A lot of leaders have a problem with people having dreams. They're hard to control.

"No problem can be solved wit hteh same level of thinking that created it." Albert Einstein

So it was a good time. I'll post on the family part of the trip some other time. Just wanted to get some of these thoughts down before they were destined to sit forever on paper in my Bible.

Leadership

Don't worry, I'm not going to go all Joe Noland on you.

I get a regular email from Christianity Today's Building Church Leaders. I get it because I bought something once or signed up for something or was randomly selected by The Committee to Send Emails. Anyway, I like to read them sometimes to remind myself that I'm in church leadership, not simply in property management, architectural design, community politics, traffic engineering or any of the other aspects of my current iteration of church leadership.

I got this one recently which contains a reprint of a Bill Hybels article on leadership. The whole thing is good and I have some thoughts on my personal style below, but I think reposting the whole article here would be plagiarism or might get me kicked off the email list. If you want to read the whole thing and I recommend it, go here. Here's an excert:

Leadership Journal, Winter 1998
Finding Your Leadership StyleTen different ways to lead God's people. by Bill Hybels

"A few years ago, I began to notice major differences in the ways gifted leaders led their teams. They all had the spiritual gift of leadership referred to in Romans 12:8, but they approached the challenges of leadership differently.
1. Visionary leader
2. Directional leader
3. Strategic leader
4. Managing leader
5. Motivational leader
6. Shepherding leader
9. Re-engineering leader"

So there are 9 of them. The other 3 are the ones I'm thinking about these days in conjunction with what I'm doing. I think I see myself possessing and using numbers 7 and 8, Team-building and Entrepeneurial leadership. I think I need to possess and use number 10 Bridge-building leadership. I'd appreciate any insights those of you who know me well might be able to share about whether you agree with my self-assessment and how to get there on the areas in which I need to grow.

I should be careful as Hybels ends the article with this encouragement:

"It concerns me that there is a certain amount of "gift envy" among church leaders these days. God gave each of us our gift mix for a reason. When leaders adopt someone else's style, they miss the unique opportunities God has given them.I celebrate when I look around the world and see flourishing churches of all kinds, with many different types of leaders, because it's going to take a variety of churches led by a variety of leaders to reach our world with the love of Christ.Whatever your style, recognize it, celebrate it, and step up to the plate and lead."

7. Team-building leader
Team-building leaders have supernatural insight into people. They find or develop leaders with the right abilities, character, and chemistry with other team members. They place people in the right positions for the right reasons who will then produce the right results.
When the team-building leader gets everyone in place, he or she then says to the team, "You know what we're trying to do. You know what part of the mission you're responsible for. You know what part of the vision the rest of us are responsible for. So head out. Work hard. Achieve your objectives. Communicate with your co-laborers, but lead."
The team-building leader might not nurture or manage people well. He or she reasons that shouldn't be necessary. If the right people are in the right slots doing the right things for the right reasons, they'll get the work done without the leader looking over their shoulder. Few things are as exciting to me as drawing together the right people, putting them in the right positions, then letting that team play hard and have fun.

8. Entrepreneurial leader
These leaders possess vision, boundless energy, and a risk-taking spirit. Their distinguishing characteristic is they function best in a start-up operation. They love being told it cannot be done.
But once the effort requires steady, ongoing leadership—once things get complex and there are endless discussions about policies, systems, controls, and databases—the entrepreneurial leader loses energy and may even lose focus and confidence. He or she starts to peek over the fence and wonder if there's another start-up project out there.
Entrepreneurs often feel guilty at the thought of leaving something they gave birth to. But if they think, I can't give birth to something every few years, something inside them starts to die. That's their style. It's important in the kingdom.
The apostle Paul was an entrepreneurial leader. He wanted to build churches where Christ had not been named. He wanted to pioneer them, then let someone else run them so he could move on. He made no apologies for his leadership style.

10. Bridge-building leader
This leader brings a wide variety of constituencies together under a single umbrella of leadership so that a complex organization can achieve its mission.
This feat requires enormous flexibility in a leader—the ability to compromise and negotiate, to listen, understand, and think outside of the box. It requires not only the ability to be diplomatic; it requires also the gift of being able to relate to diverse people.
In a start-up venture, a leader is surrounded by those who share his or her vision. Contrast that with a church or parachurch organization made up of scores of well-defined constituencies, many of whom care little about the overall vision of the ministry anymore. They just want to make sure their interests are served.
I talked to a pastor who said, "I'm dying. The choir wants new designer robes. The youth want a new gymnasium. The missions department wants to give more money away. The Sunday school department wants more classrooms. The production people want more equipment. The seniors want large-print hymnals, and the Gen Xers want to turn the board room into a cappuccino bar."
The variety and velocity of those requests had him imagining each of those subministries as the enemy. But that situation fires up a bridge-building leader. A bridge builder becomes the best friend and advocate of all the constituent groups. He or she seeks to unite them and focus their efforts.

Bill Hybels is pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.