Monthly Archive for December, 2007

Going and Being

Published
by
Nate Hulfish
on December 31, 2007
in Action, Community and Dialogue
. 2 Comments

Over the past thirty years of so, one of America’s largest “mega-churches”, Willow Creek, (based outside of Chicago) pioneered ways of giving a high priority to reaching people for Christ, based on high quality musical and dramatic productions. With tens of thousands of people associated with their church and its satellites, they have put in place a dazzling program of activities for those who become Christians. Recently they published a very telling report that contained a very telling admission. Their research shows that their program and meeting-based approach to discipling people in the way of Jesus hasn’t worked. Putting people through church activities and programs hasn’t made them more Christ-like.

I think most ordinary churches operate similar to Willow Creek. You are supposed to develop a life of personal prayer and Bible study for yourself, you are supposed to join a fellowship group of some sort, you are supposed to attend a mid-week meeting, and you are supposed to come to a worship service on Sunday. That’s what being a disciple is all about. Well, you know what? It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for Willow Creek and it doesn’t work for an ordinary church.

I’m pretty glad that Circle of Hope is anything but ordinary.

Jesus did his discipling largely out there in the world. John 1 tells us that he “lived among us”. His disciples apprenticed under him. They watched him live. They watched him do Kingdom things. They watched him be practical and draw lessons from their everyday life that was lived in community with each other.

Discipleship must be practical. It has to be out there, on the road with Jesus – not in a classroom or a sanctuary. Simply learning something in our heads is not transformational – knowledge has to travel from our heads to our hands and our feet.

That’s what I love about cells. They are not Bible studies. They are not classroom exercises.

They are life lived in community with each other – that’s discipleship that works. Sure, my cell wants to know about Jesus, they want to get a feel for the Bible, they want to wrestle with theology, but the most important question we deal with is, “what should be our active response to this?” We want to work out our faith with concrete action.

It’s a culture shift for many people (it was for me). We aren’t really a “come to us” type of church. We’re a “going and being” church (the word you might hear batted around is “missional”). Living out the Kingdom in and “going and being” sort of way is pretty difficult. It’s not ordinary, but it’s the way of Jesus – it discipleship – it’s taking up your cross and following. I will say, I sure am thankful that my cell is right there by my side living it with me.

I Used to Hate Christmas

Published
by
Eric Smelser
on December 25, 2007
in Community, Dialogue and Family
. 5 Comments

I used to hate Christmas. Of course when I was a kid I liked it, but I don’t think as much as the other kids. My mom struggled with Christmas, she didn’t want to spoil us, she didn’t want us to believe in Santa, and she wanted us to know what we were celebrating. But I just remember feeling like I got less stuff then all my friends. And I never really got the giving thing, it’s just so impractical. Why would I write a list of stuff I want, hand it out to people and then get their list and buy them what they want? Why not just buy this crap for myself and save everyone the trouble. My dad really loved Christmas. He would make me help him put up lights outside, up on the roof and all that. We would decorate the tree and he would hand out the ornaments one at a time, then hand out those tinsel foil icicles one at a time, it took forever. Then he would make us open presents one at atime so we could all enjoy watching each other open their presents. He loved it.

My dad died about 14 years ago. That’s when I really started hating Christmas. It was hard to be with my family for the first few years, but it felt important to be together. I didn’t enjoy the giving, the practicality thing. It all seemed pointless.

Then I met Shelley and we got married. Shelley loves Christmas (at least compared to me). She would buy presents for all her friends, co-workers, family, pets, and neighbors. She makes Christmas cookies with her cousins, her extended family all gets together. Our biggest fights of our first couple years of marriage were around Christmas. I thought it was all a waste of time and money.

In the last few years, I have really come to appreciate advent. I love the discipline of waiting; I want to instill that in myself and my kids. I am still not really sure exactly what I am waiting for though, that part of Christmas isn’t completely worked out for me yet. It seems like advent is this great solemn time that falls apart in the hustle and bustle of Christmas. How do I keep that right until Christmas day with the demands of shopping, work and travel? It’s hard for me to not just shut down and go back to my scrooge outlook and miss out. It was easier to be like that before I had kids, Shelley would forgive me for being a jerk and I could just hold out for January. But I’m getting tired of that and it’s not fair to Shelley, Chloe or Maya.

I want to find out why my dad loved Christmas so much, find out where he got his joy.

I Still Believe

Published
by
Deb Valentine
on December 19, 2007
in Community and Dialogue
. 9 Comments

I was really glad the first week of advent when, at the BW public meeting, Rod started out with the darkness of advent. That’s all I really remember is that he said it was a dark time and I thought “Thank God,” because I cannot be present with all the frantic happiness of the Christmas season this year. I can’t usually, but especially this year. It has been a comfort to me to have permission to be in the darkness.

It’s been a dark season in my life and even darker, perhaps, because it doesn’t look dark from the outside. I started a PhD program in the September which I’ve been wanted to do for about 12 years. Turned 40 (that may not seem good to some of you, but I’d been looking forward to it.) My youngest son started kindergarten and for those of you who have kids you know there’s some welcome relief in moving out of the “childcare” phase of life. My husband and children and I are all basically healthy. We have good jobs, a house, more “stuff” than I feel comfortable with. My life looks pretty light from the outside, but it doesn’t feel light.

But a dear friend and mentor of mine died in September, then the mother of one of my cell members, then my colleague’s mom - suddenly in a car accident. Soon after that my son got in trouble at school and we found out just how unhappy he has been which we hadn’t really known; then good friends found they would birth yet another child who would not live. There were big family tensions with parents and siblings too. Then I got a call that my closest friend from college has leukemia – just in time for her 40th birthday. As I sought to hold these griefs that were all mine, but not primarily mine, I struggled to figure out how to be a student again and how to keep up with modern life as every week I read a new book about suffering children – kids in Northern Ireland, in the slums of Brazil, in reform schools in Vietnam, child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Dave and I faced the challenges of managing my new school schedule and his new job – which seemed like ridiculously unimportant difficulties in light of the life of a four year old in Zambia who pounds limestone all day. The contrast added to my grief. I’m 40 – at 20 I thought I would have made more of a difference in the world by now. I didn’t think my life would look so status quo. And yet I think, basically, I am where God had led me to be, but it doesn’t look right. And it doesn’t feel right. And it doesn’t make sense. And then there were hard conversations with people at Circle, the kind that left me feeling exposed and vulnerable, unsafe and uncertain of my place in the community. (But, I should note, they are hard conversations that were HAD, not ignored or avoided. I am grateful for and honored by those who are struggling through them with me.)

It has felt like grief has swirled around me for the past few months, like that bitter winter wind that was swirling around Philadelphia a few days ago. It has swirled around me and through me and in the midst of it I haven’t been able to hold onto God in the ways that I used to. The deep times of silence that I was drawn to for the past few years don’t feel full anymore. They feel empty – (or else I sleep through them!) I don’t feel God’s presence in all the places where I used to. I feel unmoored, unattached, unsatisfied and unacceptable. But don’t stop reading because that’s not the end of my story – not that I know the end, yet, but here’s the bit I do know.

My faith in this phase is mostly just about still showing up. It is a faith of “putting one foot in front of the other.” I guess I could even say that has been an active prayer for me these past few months. A still small voice says, “Just show up. Just put one foot in front of the other” and I do. I pray one foot in front of the other. “Put one foot in front of the other. Put one foot in front of the other.” I walk my prayer. And I notice when I am still standing. I notice when I stand on the other side of a day, a paper, a decision, a conversation. I notice that I am still standing in the midst of a community of faith. I notice that my shy son shared his story in front of lots of people at the PM. I notice that I have eaten today. I notice that I am still married. I notice that I still believe.

working with Jesus during Advent

Published
by
Joshua Grace
on December 14, 2007
in Action, Community, Dialogue, Family and Planning
. 2 Comments

I can’t believe that we’re half way through the season of Advent-it’s gone by quickly for me.  There are a lot of themes going on, surprises (see earlier post), as well as Jesus looking to make a home in us/looking to make a home in Christ.  I hope you haven’t been missing out, and it’s not too late for something meaningful to transpire by any stretch.
I have been talking to a lot of people this week about how they are preparing for Jesus to come or where Jesus needs to come.   I’m really interested in how we’re helping this child get birthed, kinda like like Mary & Joseph all those years ago.

Some people are new to having a season that means more than their family traditions (some meaningful, some not so much).  For others it’s the highlight of the year.  This year I started off kinda rough, with some sick extended family and other reminders of how broken I am.  After those first couple days, I am deciding to let the hurting places, the broken relationships, and my hope for restoration be the landing pad that I pray for Christ to come.

Everything might not get put back together the way that I want, but me changing me-going from hopelessly sitting with my hurts to being where I’m broken and giving it to God is transformative.  Wherever and however he comes will be miraculous, and I hope to do my part to help with the birthing process.

Where is the baby coming this year in us?  Where in you does the baby need to come and bring healing, hope, and new life?

Dec 24, at 10:45pm we’ll get together at 1125 s. Broad to welcome in midnight, to welcome in the Savior (see earlier post) .

Christian Love and Justice

Published
by
Andrew Brown
on December 11, 2007
in Action, Peace and Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

Over the past few months I have engrossed myself with the writings of Flannery O’Connor, a southern, female, Catholic author during the 1950’s. Her work frequently visits themes of Christian love and justice. These stories engage what has frequently been considered the absurdity of Jesus’ explicit command in the Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:43-44, NIV).

The debate surrounding this command reaches as far back, believe it or not, as Aristotle’s account of friendship in books viii and ix of the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle argues that the virtuous person must love good, wise, and virtuous people and must hate those who are evil. If one shows love, mercy, and compassion to one’s enemies then they will harm you and your friends. To allow such harm to come to good, wise, and virtuous people is unjust. Therefore, love extends only to good and virtuous people while violence and retribution is the proper response to evil. Justice requires these dispositions.

Historically, Christianity has responded to Aristotle’s monumental claim in two ways. One line of thought, lead primarily by Thomas Aquinas, seeks to make Jesus’ scandalous claim less scandalous. The latter view, championed by Soren Kierkegaard , argues that the absurdity of Jesus’ command must be embraced. For Kierkegaard, pure love disregards the ‘object of love’, concerning itself only with the intention of the lover. This means that true love looks beyond individual distinctiveness within particular objects of love. In other words, love does not recognize the good or evil in any person as a precondition to love; it loves all equally and unconditionally.

So what says Flannery O’Connor? In her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find (warning: spoiler), a traveling family wrecks their car in a ditch on their way to Florida. When a group of individuals approach to ‘lend a hand’ they recognize one as a wanted criminal. This criminal, The Misfit, systematically kills everyone in the family except the grandmother. Precisely at this moment, the grandmother looks at the Misfit’s “twisted” face and thinks she recognizes him, “Why you’re one of my own children!” She reaches out a hand to touch him and the Misfit springs back “as if a snake had bitten him” and shoots the grandmother “three times in the chest.”

O’Connor offers a representation of Christian love in the Kierkegaardian fashion. The grandmother extends her love to the Misfit in hopes that he might also recognize the good blood that flows through his veins. He responds by murdering her. This extension of love results in the grandmother’s death, her sacrifice if you will. Kierkegaard argues that this is exactly what true love requires; it is, after all, the way of the cross. How, though, with this view shall we speak of justice at all? How can we protect our own lives and the lives of our loved ones if we embrace this form of sacrificial love? Should this be a concern for the body of Christ? Shall we embrace this absurdity, which the world calls foolishness, and love our enemies to our own detriment? Is there some truth in the cry from justice in the world, that we must defend what we love (freedom, equality, our children, etc.) from evil? In a Post-Holocaust world, is this kind of love possible?

I have no answers to these questions, and I suspect that Christians will continue to debate them for years and years to come. Yet I do continue to stand in awe of the immensity and pervasiveness of Jesus’ controversial claim. No longer may we love only what is good and beautiful, but, as God’s children, each one of us is called to respond to Jesus’ words: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

all around me

Published
by
Trevor Day
on December 6, 2007
in Community, Dialogue and Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

One of the things I like when I get together with people from my cell is getting to know a little more about their past and who they are as people. At our weekly cell meeting we always have great “ice-breaker” questions. This past week someone suggested, “What is the most beautiful place you have seen?” This question really resonated with me. I think it was a combination of how I had been feeling in recent weeks, along with how people responded to the question. Recently, I have been having a tough time seeing beyond the present. I have felt surrounded by a deep fog that keeps getting more and more dense. The fog is representative of all the responsibilities in my life (making sure the computer network at work doesn’t crash, ensuring the people who work for me are getting their jobs done, raking the leaves at my house, fixing the leak in my garage, stopping my sink from dripping, getting draft budgets done, paying the bills at home and Circle, emailing all the people I need to email, mediating fights within my family, etc.) and the little time I feel I have to get everything done.

In some ways this question was really asking me, “Are you too busy to see God in creation?” I was really glad to have this gathering just to be able to take a pause and reflect where I have I seen God’s creation. In some ways I really want to tell you about my answer to the question but I won’t (I will tell you that it involved the Himalayan plateau, turquoise, and brilliant blue lakes. If you want to know more just look me up and ask). The thing that really got to me about the evening was that, after listening to several people talk about rural or remote places of nature, one person said that some of the most beautiful places he had seen were in the city. He spent time talking a little about how cities often have great architecture, history and a vibe that increases their beauty. He shared about the cities he visited in Europe and the Middle East, as well as Philadelphia. It was great to hear about beauty in the city as contrasted to the nature other people (including me) had talked about.

Back a month or two ago, we had a St. Francis Day retreat at Broad & Washington. One of the activities during the retreat was to go out during lunch and find a piece of nature (Francis was, as you may know, all about nature). We were instructed to bring this item back and create an altar from the pieces that people picked up within a couple of blocks of Broad and Washington. I can safely say that this is definitely not an area known for its natural beauty. As my cell mate spoke, I was picturing the small piece of nature I discovered that day. It was a perfect little acorn. It was petite, perfectly smooth on one side and slightly rough on the cap. There were no blemishes. It was simple but very beautiful! Since listening to my friend last week, I am trying to be less focused on the fog and more on the reflections of our creator that surround me everyday. I realized that I often get distracted by the weeds and broken glass that might surround this perfect acorn, but if I take time to look, God’s beauty is all around me.

meditations at a PM

Published
by
Howard Pinder
on December 3, 2007
in Creative Arts and Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

I know your face well.
I know the features,
the silhouettes.
I know the parts that
look well under dim light,
the bags that form
after a short nights sleep.

I know its crinkled lines,
the wear it has taken.
I know the spot
your lips form,
and your cheek, where
your hair touches.

I know these things, and
though we have never
met, you live. Your
face reassures me
that I am loved, even
when I lose my way.

At times I sense
your face beginning to
come into focus,
somewhere on outer edges
a flickering light of truth,
of the full me who
I do not know.

Piece by piece I
make way for you.
I am building a place
for you to reside.
I know your face, Jesus,
because you know mine.