Important Lesson Week: Evangelism Disciplines You, Not Your Neighbor

The second installment of Important Lesson Week will be old hat to some of you, but it bears repeating.  It deals with Evangelism, hands down the most misunderstood word in the theological lexicon.

As I talk to people hither and yon I bump up against this definition again and again:

1.  Evangelism is about changing other people's behavior.

2.  Specifically, it's about getting them to change their Sunday morning behavior by coming to your church.

Every time I encounter this (and it's often enough that it feels like I'm beating my head against a brick wall) my reaction is the same:   ARRRRGGGGHHHH!

Oh, sorry.  That's wasn't theologically correct.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!

There.  That's much more accurate.

This all-too-common definition of evangelism carries several assumptions:

1. Your behavior is fine, holy, the standard for God Stuff (or at least as close to the standard as one can get).

2.  Other people's behavior is less fine.

3.  If other people just behaved and thought more like you they'd not only be better, but more God-like.

4.  Church functions as the endpoint for Evangelism.

5.  Attendance is the measure of a church's success.

6.  As long as we can get people to come to church, by whatever means, we've done our job.

Here's the problem with all that.

1.  Your behavior isn't fine, especially if you frame it selfishly as in, "I need to get more people to come to my church so I can be happier and feel validated!"  That's as self-centered as it gets.  You're using both the church and your neighbors to feed your own sense of well-being instead of giving up your sense of well-being for the sake of God and your neighbor.

2.  How do you know if other people's behavior is less fine than yours?  You don't even know them.  How do you know that your church is speaking to them if you haven't bothered to build a relationship with them first? As a matter of fact, you're operating under the assumption that your church is good for everybody just like it is.  Even if these people came to church you probably wouldn't let them affect much.  They're objects to you and your church.  They're the "less enlightened" people in your little drama, folks who are "walking in darkness" who need the guiding light of your congregation.  But again, how do you know they're in darkness?  What if you and your church are walking in darkness as well but are blind to it?

Even if you assume other people's behavior is less fine than yours, is that how the Christian church defines folks?  Is that how God sees you?  Does he judge you by your faults or did he send his Son to die for you so that he could forgive you and uplift you despite your faults?  Isn't it odd that you depend on God to forgive and view you this way but you insist upon viewing your neighbors by their faults?

3.  Point 3 above, about other people being more God-like if they'd just believe and behave more like you, is idolatry pure and simple.

4.  The church isn't supposed to be the ENDPOINT of ANYTHING.  It's supposed to be a beginning, and inspiration, to propel people along a holy journey that happens for the most part outside its walls.  Assuming that whatever we do here is both right and the ultimate destination for our faith journey is the beginning step to abandoning that faith journey in favor of slowly dying in place.

5.  Attendance doesn't matter if the whole church is approaching thing backwards.  Getting more people to do the wrong thing is bad, not good.

6.  Defining your job as getting people to come to church--calling the most effective means of doing so "good" by definition--has nothing to do with Christ's definition of goodness or the faith community.

Evangelism assumes that our behavior isn't fine, but that it's forgiven and that our calling is ultimately more important than our doubts or mistakes.

Evangelism assumes that our neighbors are also beloved Children of God, bearers of God's Spirit, and are forgiven as well.  We don't ask our neighbors to follow us, we follow them by listening, caring, embracing, and reaching out in time of need.

Evangelism doesn't tell people they should become more like us.  It shows people our struggle to become more like God as we love the world the way he does.

Church reminds us of our calling, helps us translates that calling into our daily lives, renews our spirit, blesses us through God's Spirit, provides strength for the daily journey, brings help, companionship, and compassion for each other.  It does not exist for itself.  It's not an endpoint unto itself.  It exists for the sake of the world, to propel us into the Godly life of service.

Attendance means nothing in itself.  What people do and experience in church matters more.

The goal here isn't getting other people to come into our church, it's getting our church people to go out and share.  Evangelism happens when your church and its members turn inside out, give themselves up for the sake of God and neighbor, and devote their lives to sharing the Good News of Christ's salvation and forgiveness in whatever way their neighbors most need.

Almost every icky impulse and experience you've had in, around, or through a church has come from people defining the church's purpose backwards.

Almost every great experience you've had in church has come from people overcoming that backwards purpose through love and living out God's gospel.

And yet every time I speak the world "Evangelism" in public I can see the bad, old wheels turning.  "How does this benefit our church?  How can we get our church more popular?  Our particular worship in our particular place is the most important and truest reflection of God ever!  If it doesn't make my (institutional) church 'successful' then why should I even bother?"

We have got to change our definitions.  The only way I know to do that is to live in a different way and then explain (over and over again if necessary) why we're doing so.  That may be the most important theological step our church will ever take.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Pastor Dave is Back!

Hey folks!  I'm back from my long journey now.  It's good to be home!

"But Pastor Dave, wherever did you go???" comes the chorus of voices.

I'm glad you asked!  Let me tell you...

My trip started on Tuesday with a drive to Portland.  It was for business but it was actually my "other" business.  Each year our Portland Trail Blazers blog takes donations to send underprivileged kids from the Portland area to a Blazers game.  We work with dozens of organizations who serve kids who otherwise wouldn't get to go because of economics or family situations.  These organizations range from low-income schools, foster care programs, programs that work with disabled children, churches, counseling services, youth programs, after-school programs, you name it.  This year we sent 750 kids and chaperons to last Wednesday's game where the Blazers faced the Golden State Warriors.  Portland lost--one of the few times that's happened on our special night--but it was fun anyway.  I've already got letters and e-mails from people describing how much the night impacted their children.

It just goes to show you how easy evangelism and service are if you have your eyes open.  This whole thing started six years ago when we were holding a regular old get-together at a Blazers game.  One of my readers purchased tickets but wasn't able to use them.  He e-mailed me and asked if I could give them away to someone in need.  I posted on the website that we had 3 tickets available if anyone could use them, priority given to anyone in need.  A guy wrote and said he worked with a dozen kids from impoverished families.  He asked if he could get tickets to send 3 of them to a game.  I told him to hold on for a day or two and put the word out on the site that we needed 12 tickets.  Within a couple days we had 45.  I wrote the guy back and said we had enough tickets for ALL his kids to go, and by the way did he know other people in similar circumstances?  That's how Dan, a youth worker in Portland, became our official ticket coordinator...a post he's held ever since.  It's quite a job now that we're up to 750 kids instead of just a dozen!  But people are looking for a chance to do something wonderful and the need is always there.  Ministry doesn't always mean doing everything yourself.  Sometimes it's just having your eyes open and being able to connect people who need to be connected.

After the game and a couple stints on the radio in Oregon explaining why the Blazers stunk so bad at the end  of the season and how they'll try to fix that this summer, it was off to Boise for the annual Synod Assembly.

The assembly was a mixed bag.  Some parts were great.  I attended a couple workshops on stewardship and got some traction on some materials that should be inspirational for all of us.  I'm glad other people have gifts in areas that I don't!  We also heard plenty of inspirational stories of ministry from around the synod.  Unfortunately the assembly seems to be locked into a system where all of the less important parts get most of the time and attention while all of the vital, living parts get shunted to the side.  It was ironic that in a gathering with the theme "The Spirit Gives Us Power" many of the presentations were tone-deaf reports that inspired...well, let's just say "few".

However even the down parts were an instructional eye-opener of sorts.  It's easy to get locked into a range of vision that extends no farther than our own world.  Our own ups and downs seem like the only thing in the universe sometimes.  Being at the assembly showed several things:

1. We are way ahead of the program in terms of our priorities and the way we conduct our own meetings now, annual and council.  We made the right decision in making those changes and those decisions will now have to prove instructive to the larger synod body.
2. We are also way ahead--and very blessed--in the quality and variety of musical expression in our church.  We should give plenty of credit to Louise, Phyllis, Patrick, Jennifer, John, Rob, and other musicians for leading us to bold yet wonderful horizons.  Being at the assembly was like eating Saltine crackers musically when you're used to gourmet meals at home.  Nothing wrong with the Saltines...they tasted fine.  But after a while you go, "Is this all there is?"  We are downright spoiled here.
3. Most of the really inspirational success stories that people shared came from the same cloth as our best stories:  acts of service without thought of reward or growing "membership".  People are starting to catch on to the really holy ways of doing ministry.
4. I'm not trying to brag, but I think I need to give you perspective.  We heard multiple stories of churches that were ecstatic to get 40 people in worship and/or to get those people active in ministry.  We also heard stories of people lost and confused about the way forward, even some who are facing the idea of their parish closing soon because they don't have a single child among them.  Sometimes we take our church for granted.  Other times we're encouraged to look at things it isn't (or isn't yet) instead of celebrating what it is.  If nothing else this assembly was a huge referendum that we're not only on the right path, but may well be at the very tippy-top of small-town/rural churches in a vast geographical area.  That's not to say we're better than anyone else...especially not if some of those "anyone elses" are reading.  Very rarely do I find comparing churches helpful no matter what the measure.  Each congregation walks its own journey and there's goodness in each path.  I just know that sometimes we're tempted to view our church negatively by criteria in which we're actually doing comparatively well...VERY well, in fact.  That's not to my credit, but to yours.  The church you're helping to create is a serious and bright beacon on the hill...or in the Valley in the summer I guess.

Thanks to John, Patrick, Rosanna, Bertle, and Linda for helping lead worship while I was gone.  Lay leadership of worship is another wonderful feature to our church that I think could catch on with others eventually!  And thanks to all of you for helping make this church so special...far ahead of the curve in so many ways.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Almost Done!

I'm a fairly happy pastor this week because I'm almost done with a project I've been working on since November.  It's a rundown for the synod, describing our youth ministry success.  I thought this would be a fairly simple project but it turns out that the roots of our youth ministry run deep into evangelism and our foundation theology.  Describing what we do doesn't cover it.  You have to understand the whys and hows in order to see the Spirit.  The kids themselves have let me know that.  More than one has come up and said, "I didn't think I'd like to do [insert name of youth event here] but it was totally fun and now I come all the time!"  As it turns out, what we do almost doesn't matter.  The events are just different ways of expressing the same love.

The problem is that churches haven't always been in the business of seeing or conveying that love.  We should have been.  We lost something when we drifted away from that purpose. In forcing us to re-learn how to be people of faith our youth have, in a sense, restored us.  That's one of the reasons it's important not to view youth ministry as a bag of handy tricks.  Another reason:  the same principles used in good youth ministry transfer to all of our other ministries.  The endpoints look different because youth are different than other community members.  But really, what is Theology on Tap but youth ministry for adults, plus a few beverages and minus the board games?  It's the same Spirit, the same process.  In opening one small door in what was an isolated, marginalized corner of our faith world we actually flooded the whole place.  Who would have known?

Nobody would have if the goal was to do "youth ministry".  When we began to do real ministry, evangelical, "Good News" ministry with youth...that made all the difference.  Once the Good News gets loose there's no stopping it.

It's been my task to try to explain this.  It's not easy building the layers of understanding you need to operate evangelically in your everyday life.  It's taken plenty of work to put it understandable form.  I hope I've been able to do so adequately.  I'm down to the last few pages and editing.  It should be done by this time next week.  Let's see how it goes.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Baskets

I'm still catching up with post-vacation work so I'm going to put off the sermon recap for a couple days, but I thought you might like to see our finished and assembled Good Neighbor baskets for yourself.  Behold!

They were stuffed with goodies ranging from cucumbers to caramels, cookies to candles, cozies to carrots.  (Yes, apparently we had a "C" theme going.)  And they were marvelous.

Those of you who have been through our evangelism workshop, this is a prime example of what evangelism should be.  Everybody gave a little of themselves, hand-making their unique contribution.  Nobody had to do too much, nor anything foreign to them.  When we collected everybody's contributions the whole was far more than the sum of its parts.  When we left the church it was to give, not to demand or take.  We made the world better, sharing the good news of who we are, who God is, the gifts he has bestowed upon us, and how much we value our neighbors.

It was natural and it was fun.  Who would NOT want to do this (or receive something like this)?  That's evangelism!  Congratulations!

In any case, we're still waiting for the neighborhood response, but I'm sure it'll be appreciation.  Thanks to everyone who helped out.  And fair warning...we may have one more go-around with this in a few weeks, as we've found another nearby neighbor.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Baskets, Baskets, Baskets!!!

This Sunday we're going to do something special.  We have new neighbors literally on either side of St. John's, one in the lot just to the east of the church, one just to the west of the parsonage.  Careen and I have already met both, of course, but the church itself hasn't said hello.  This is an important step.  I imagine moving in right next to a church makes people wonder a little.  What's it going to be like?  Will weird people forever be knocking on our door and peering over our fence?  We're going to turn that expectation on its head.  Yes, we're knocking on your door one time, but it's to deliver a welcome basket.

In keeping with our new focus on evangelism (showing people the goodness of God through our words and actions) we're stocking these welcome baskets with homemade things...reflections of who we are.  The point isn't just the goodies, it's to make a connection.  You never know what item might touch our neighbors, sparking familiarity.

We're accepting all kinds of things:  food (baked goods, garden produce, condiments, etc.), drink, dishcloths, flowers...whatever you do, if it fits in a basket we'll put it in there!  We're set to distribute these this Sunday.  You could bring your item to church on Sunday or drop it by the parsonage before, either way.  Help us fill these baskets for our neighbors!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Small Things

On the topic of evangelism (as we have been for the last couple of months)...

Don't make the mistake of thinking that your acts of faith have to be huge and dramatic.  Usually small things make the difference.  Today I got the privilege of going to see the movie "Brave" with three of our youth and one of our youth-at-heart people.  The movie was good, its messages were interesting, we had a good time munching candy and discussing the film.  It wasn't anything out of the ordinary but it didn't have to be.  Faith doesn't get grown in huge leaps.  It gets built block by block, experience by experience, thought by thought.  Today wasn't a life-transforming day for any of the folks in that theater.  It didn't have to be.  Sometimes doing something fun together is enough.  Do enough of those things and you start to get the idea that God is good, life is worth something, sharing makes everything nicer.  That's a great start to understanding the world through the eyes of faith.

Don't miss the opportunity to do something small and good today if it comes before you.  Enjoy it!  You'll be rewarded a hundredfold.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Speaking God

One of the simple lessons we learned in our recent Evangelism Workshops is that in order to speak God to people, you first have to listen to them and get to know them.

God can't be spoken without first being shown.  Our actions speak a hundred times louder than our words when conveying the divine.  Talking about love, joy, compassion, forgiveness, and grace leaves us with abstract definitions.  Only when we're shown these things do we truly understand them.

But love, joy, compassion, togetherness, and the like look far different to the 84-year-old farmer, the 16-year-old school kid, and the 42-year-old mother of three.  The language that makes sense to one of these three people would not translate to the other two.  Spending an afternoon talking about combines would seem boring to most 16-year-olds and a stressful distraction to the mom.  Children running willy-nilly would grate on the ears of the student and farmer both but would be a life-affirming blessing to the mother.  Playing the latest computer game would be a total waste of time for anyone but the teenager.

If you want to show God to any of these people you have to understand their language and translate.  If you haven't taken the time to get to know them, how do you know if you're speaking God to them or just being an annoyance?

Take some time this week to listen to someone in your family, at work, in your circle of friends, or even a stranger.  Learn a little more about them and their language.  Then ask yourself how that language and the enduring gifts of God intersect.  At that intersection you will find the time, place, and means to speak about what the Lord is doing today.

Try it!  You'll be surprised!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Interesting People

A brief but cheery thought for your Wednesday.  A couple days ago blog guru Patrick Adams and I got together with one of his friends and played music in the church basement, kind of spur-of-the-moment.  Then Patrick and his friend installed the new thermostat in the St. John's fellowship hall.  (Yay!  Controlled heat!)  As I was pondering this I remembered how lucky we are to have such interesting people surrounding us in God's family.  I mean, you can just call up somebody and say, "Hey, want to play some music today?" and in just a little while there you are!  We have people helping each other crochet or paint rocks.  We have gardeners.  We have game players.  We have people who watch movies, write poetry, sample wines, craft beers, cook, draw, run, play sports, or just sit around and discuss things.  Just about any time you can find somebody to do these things with, and many more!  People just show up with Irish food or penny whistles or playing cards or whatever the theme of the day is.  That's amazing!  It's a beautiful, surprising, and quite open and welcoming way of doing church...of being God's people.  And it's available to any of us just by saying, "Hey, let's do something!"

If you haven't given thanks for our church family recently, make sure you do!  Notice what's going on here and celebrate it!

Also if you'd like to hear how to make our church, and your personal life, more reflective of this kind of love--more chocked full of these kind of uplifting moments and activities--make sure you come to our Evangelism Workshop after worship this Sunday.  You'll find out what we're sharing, why it matters, and how your life can overflow with it too...to the benefit of everyone you meet.

See you there!  And all these other places too!  Anybody up for a good game of Balderdash?

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Everyday Evangelism

Every once in a while Dan Carter comes to mess around in our yard.  Sometimes he's checking up on the church. Sometimes he's repairing the church lawn mower.  But mostly when he comes, it's to mow the lawn.  It's a great service to our congregation and we're lucky to have Dan do it.

Every time Dan Carter comes over to mow the lawn, I know about it within 30 seconds of him starting.  No, we don't have security cameras screening the yard.  We have a four-year-old boy.  Derek loves lawn mowing.  Along with race cars and girls named Mattie, it's one of his passions in life.  As soon as he hears a lawn mower start anywhere within three blocks his ears perk up.  "Somebody's mowing the lawn!" he'll say.  Then he'll run to the window to see if it's anybody he knows, what kind of mower they're using, etc.

When Dan Carter comes to mow the lawn, Derek is priceless.  I'll hear, "Somebody's mowing the lawn!"  Then he'll run to the window and look out.  All of a sudden his body goes rigid as if you shot a few hundred volts of electricity through him and set off a firecracker in his feet.  "It's DAAAAYANNN!  It's DAAAAAYAANNN!  He's mowing OUR LAWN!!!"

(If you imagine Forrest Gump as a four-year-old sounding really happy to see Lieutenant Dan you'll get the pronunciation of that name about right.)

At that point Derek makes like Wile E. Coyote in one of the old Road Runner cartoons.  His feet start running way before the rest of his body catches up.  He scrambles for his socks and shoes...the MOWING shoes, the ones that he can get grassy and dirty.  Then he dashes for his ear protecting headphones.  He slaps them on his head, looking for all the world like one of those guys on an airport tarmac directing planes.  These things look huge on him, but he doesn't care.  He darts to the door and outside.  I stay at the window, watching him run across the lawn.  Usually Dan hasn't even had time to make one pass before Derek is there.

My son runs across the lawn, body still arcing with excitement.  Then he gets a little ways away from Dan and stops.  I can only see him from the back, but you can see the hope and expectation in his posture.  Only Christmas and his birthday do it for him like this.  He stands a few feet away from where Dan's riding, partially because he knows not to get too close to a running lawn mower and partially because...well...it's not dad on that mower.  When dad's mowing the lawn he just jogs out there confidently, knowing that I'm going to pick him up.  But this is Dan.  He's hoping so hard that Dan will stop for him, but he knows it's still a question, not a certainty.

There's always this moment, an in-between time when he's fully ready but still waiting for a "Yes".  He realizes now that Dan sees him.  He freezes. The world freezes, really.  You can see time stop for him.  He's still unsure.  The question isn't answered yet.  He might have to turn around and go back in if Dan doesn't want him.  Tick...tick...tick...

Then Dan smiles and waves him over, scooping him up onto his lap.  Derek grabs the wheel alongside Dan's hands and off they go.  Derek's posture is so straight, like he's working now, but his smile is so giddy, like he just got on the best roller coaster ride in the world.  He leans back into Dan and they mow...a dream come true, every time.

Now tell me, is Dan just mowing the lawn or is something greater going on here?

On the surface it's just a task.  Lawn needs mowing, Dan's being a good guy, now grass is short.  It happens dozens of times around town every weekend.

But through the eyes of faith, what a marvelous moment this is, and what evangelism.  Look at all Dan is doing!  By giving his time and effort in the first place he's showing he cares about the church and its people.  That's the part everybody understands and is grateful for.  But my gosh, what is he doing for Derek with just a wave and a smile?  Every time Dan turns the key on that mower it's like announcing the best news ever to my son.  It transforms Derek's day.  He gets all prepared in an instant.  He runs out hoping, expecting that he might find joy and acceptance and someone to share both.  With that simple gesture saying, "Come on up!" Dan confirms all of it.  The world is a good place.  Wonderful things can be found right outside your window.  People are glad to see you.  People want to share things with you.  You are welcomed.  You are loved.  Today really is the best day ever!!!

Can you think of better ideals to teach a kid?  Can you think of a more potent message to counter all the world's ills that Derek is eventually going to experience?  And can you think of a simpler or more natural way to teach it?

Plus, you know, Dan is now a legend around our house.  Like practically a saint.  I think Derek is commissioning a statue of him next Tuesday.

Don't mistake the importance of seemingly ordinary events and small gestures in life.  The greatest lessons are taught through them.  Open your eyes of faith to see the miracles in every moment.  Both you and the people around you will be richly rewarded.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

What It's All About

Here's a quick but important reminder that is becoming more and more prominent as we work together and plan our way into the future.  I've found myself saying this in multiple venues in conversation with individuals and groups.

Church is about the relationship between God and his people.  Whenever you say or do anything in relation to your church faith consider that first, last, and always.

It's awfully easy to reduce church to a building or lot, rituals and traditions, a list of tasks to be done, a code of morality, or a series of judgments to get right.  Those things all play a part in church life, but they're just a part...subservient to the claim above.  The relationship between God and people--and through him the relationship between people and their neighbors--is the first concern of a faithful church.  If you get that wrong, none of the rest matters.

Jesus himself showed this through his life.  He never had a building to call his own.  He actually told people to leave their homes to follow him.  He prophesied that their grand temple would be torn down, not one stone left upon another.  Jesus chastised the empowered religious people of his age, warning them that their rituals and riches meant nothing because they used them to cement their own power instead of demonstrating God's love.  Dying on the cross wasn't a just act.  Had justice and rightness prevailed Jesus would have been the only guy living in that scenario.  He would have jumped down off the cross to smite everyone around him who had condemned, abandoned, or mocked him (which was everybody there).  Instead he forsook right judgment in favor of mercy and grace.

That's our pattern for "doing church".  It starts with that same mercy and grace as its highest values and patterns everything else accordingly.  Things don't have to get done perfectly.  Relationships have to be lived out lovingly, with charity and forgiveness.  That's walking in the Spirit.  Every other attempt at perfection is just idolatry in pretty clothes.

I hope our church tends to the relationship between God and people, between people and people, well.  Keep that highest priority in mind the next time you think about, talk about, plan or do anything in a church setting.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

A Revolution

In preparation for last night's very first Evangelism Workshop, I ended up researching a ton of material.  The Bible, evangelism programs, old stuff that I'd written on the subject...plenty of thought went into this.  As I was writing up the final draft of the workshop I realized something semi-startling:  there's no way we can do the kind of evangelism we're called to do--the kind scripture talks about and our neighbors need/can accept--while holding on to the way we've done church in the modern era.

The more I pondered and drafted, the more it became clear to me that this call to evangelism would require serious changes in the way we think about church, God, the world, our neighbors, and the interaction between them all.  A set of nifty tips and nice ideas won't do it.  That's like pouring new wine into old wineskins.  The Spirit that we need will burst them.  What we need is, in effect, a revolution.  It's not something new, exactly.  God has always meant it to be this way.  But we've buried what we're supposed to be doing under a host of assumptions about church and life that have chained our faith instead of letting it free to be shared.  We talked about all of that last night.  We'll talk more in the weeks to come.

In the end, this is why it's SO CRITICAL that everyone from church be a part of these meetings.  We cannot change our mindset or vision with 1/3 of the congregation motivated and 2/3 clinging on to the same old assumptions without examining them explicitly.  The Spirit of true evangelism (which is quite different than what we think of as evangelism nowadays, as we are learning) needs to breathe in all of us.

This first session is already underway and will conclude next week.  It's too late to join at this point.  The next session happens after worship on June 3rd and June 24th.  That's your next opportunity to experience the revolution.  It's going to pick up momentum.  It'll provide us a positive, wonderful way forward as a congregation.  Don't get left behind.  Mark those dates on your calendar so you can hear and understand what we're talking about.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Evangelism Workshop Ahead!

It's almost time!  Our first Evangelism Workshop starts tomorrow night (Thursday the 3rd) at 7:00 at St. John's.  There will be two sessions, Thursday the 3rd and Thursday the 10th.  These are going to be wonderful, warm, amazing, and hopefully enlightening evenings.  It'll be a mixture of sharing stories, thinking deeply, laughing a little, and looking for God together.  Everyone from confirmation age on up is invited!  You won't regret it, nor will you ever look at evangelism the same way again.  Our church will be much richer for everyone having gone through this experience too.  We're about to change what most people have considered a burden into a complete joy!

If for some reason you can't make these next two Thursday nights, we will also offer these sessions after worship on Sunday June 3rd and 24th at the Valley.

We'll see you there!

--Dave

The Biggest Difference

A very nice person not associated with our church, familiar with us only through these posts, wrote in and asked me to summarize the biggest difference I see between the way we do church and "church as usual".  He intimated that he's familiar with the church scene and it wasn't satisfying to him, but he was intrigued by some of the things we'd been talking about and doing.  So here you go.

I'd say the biggest single difference between our ministry and the (stereo-)typical church experience is the direction of our focus.  If we're not doing something that changes or informs your daily life, makes your everyday experience more Spirit-filled and closer to God, then we've failed in our mission.  That's why we go to great length to keep church activities special, but not isolated.  They represent the best of what we can give, naturally, but we also try to make them connect to ordinary life.  We don't sit people down and make them go into another world, or even another mode of thinking, in order to experience our teaching of God.  With the kids we teach through everyday activities like games and movies.  Even with adults in more formalized studies we try and bring the words of scripture back around to our daily lives and tasks.  We invite "ordinary" people to ask "ordinary" questions and state their "ordinary" opinions and by gum, we find God is plenty active in the ordinary! Our job isn't to bring God to you.  We assume he's already there.  Our job is to help you see him in all the moments of your life.

Many churches give lip service to this kind of thing, but in the end most spend the bulk of their time and energy trying to get you farther inside the church, more focused on the institution, investing in church for church's sake.  You can see it in the hoops you have to jump in order to belong or participate.  You can feel it in the emphasis on attendance and giving as litmus tests for the success of the church...or failing that having a grand building and breathtaking decorations.  We talk about all of those things too, to be sure, but they're in service to the people and the community, not trying to get people and the community in service to us!  We don't try to get the outside into church in order to make the church bigger.  We try to get the inside out of church in order to spread God's goodness farther.

This change in direction makes all the difference.  I believe it's the same distinction that separated Jesus from the religious leaders of his time.  One wandered hither and yon, gracing people with healing and the news about God's goodness, bringing the Kingdom alive before them.  The others stayed in their temple-castle, protecting what they had and encouraging everyone to come and bow, calling them great and securing their place in the community.  The first is the ultimate self-giving, the second ultimately self-serving.  We prefer the former to the latter.

Hope that answers the question!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

The Lives of Others

I got a chance to watch an interesting movie last night.  It was called "The Lives of Others". It's a German film with English subtitles.  It dealt with a member of the East German Secret Police during the Cold War.  Our officer was assigned to 'round the clock surveillance on a playwright who seemed loyal to the Communist Party but aroused suspicious.  Through the use of "bugs" the police could hear every word he said in his East Berlin apartment.  Since high-ranking party officials were out to get him for various reasons, his future didn't look bright.

The theme of the story was how listening to true art and true goodness through those wiretaps changed the life of the secret police enforcer.  The movie was quite well-written and well-acted.  I enjoyed it.

The part that struck me for our purposes is how different the plot and pace of the film turned out to be from the usual Hollywood stuff we see.  This was a film about spying, oppression by the state, using your talent to stand up for what's right, and defending your friends.  The first part of the movie probably wasn't much different than it would have been had it been produced in America.  But with all of those heroics leaking through the characters, the Berlin Wall providing a tangible and near-unbreakable barrier between the East Germans and freedom, and a secret police force involved, had this story been filmed in the U.S. it would have climaxed with a thrilling escape, gunfire, tunneling under the Wall while bad guys dogged your heels.  American film producers would have felt the story needed more punch at the end, more overt tension, more reasons to spend a special effects budget.

"The Lives of Others" contained none of that.  Its ending was both good and tense, but the story stayed solidly framed on the characters and the relationships between them, not on some huge manufactured thrill-moment.

Isn't life like that though?  Seldom do our greatest joys come in whiz-bang events.  They happen through the patient unrolling of threads between us as we're knit together.  We spend far too much time looking for happiness or excitement in events and circumstances.  We tend to underrate the happiness and excitement that comes through discovering each other.

Our youth ministry follows this pattern.  If you came to a single event you'd probably think it was nice, but not out of the ordinary.  But over time a hundred ordinary moments weave us together into something extraordinary.  I sometimes tell the kids, "It's not what you do that makes life fun, but who you do it with."  Waxing the kitchen floor with people you enjoy is a great afternoon.  Going to Disneyland with people you hate is a pain.

We can also learn a lesson about worship here.  Some people base their opinion of church on what kind of services that church conducts on a Sunday morning.  If they like the music and the liturgy it's a good church.  If not it's lousy.  Heaven forbid anyone should change anything once it's set!

Any kind of worship can be better or worse, really.  The style of worship doesn't matter as much as the people participating in it.  People with less faith and less room in their heart for their neighbors must insist upon one kind of worship--the kind they like--or their church experience is ruined.  People with more faith and room in their heart for their neighbors can find goodness in just about any kind of liturgy or song.  The latter group knows that it's not about the notes on the page, it's about the people that they're together with and the God in whose name they gather.

Like our German film-making friends did here, we need to spend more time concentrating on people and relationships and maybe a little less time basing our lives, our judgment, and our contentment on events or circumstances.  The beauty in people is more subtle but also much more profound and enduring once discovered.

I'm not sure I would have remembered this movie had they gone for the typical ending.  They kept me focused on the people instead of the action and now it'll stick with me much longer.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Another Example of Everyday Evangelism

It must be Evangelism Week around here because today I got the chance to consider yet another example of everyday evangelism, this one from my own family.

Click through to read all about it!

Responses to Yesterday's Post

Today I want to share some of the responses I got from yesterday's blog post on my basketball website.  You can find the text of that post just below.  These are responses from readers of the Blazers site, not from readers of this one...in other words non-church people. Normally I don't post any kind of correspondence but I think they'll be illustrative.  I'm keeping names off of them and, really, not many people outside our local area read here.  It's not like I'm broadcasting this to the world at this point.  So I'm making an exception.

Read them by clicking through...

Cross-Posting

Today marks a first!  On my basketball blog I was asked a question about athletes expressing their faith during sporting events.  The NFL's Tim Tebow is one example but one of the Portland Trail Blazers' young forwards just came out with a bunch of comments about his faith and has started to debut a skyward point after each three-pointer he makes during the game.  I was asked to offer my thoughts on such things after a semi-substantial argument broke out among fans of faith and fans of not-so-much faith on the site.  I figured I'd give you a peek at the other work I do by re-printing my response here.  Click through to see it and let me know if I did OK.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Monday Morning Sermon: Evangelism

Palm/Passion Sunday married two gospel texts.  The first, read at the beginning of the service, told the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as recounted in Mark 11: 1-11.  The second told the story of Jesus before Pontius Pilate.  Pilate offered to free Jesus because he knew the charges against him were false but the crowd screamed "Give us Barabbas" instead and, "Crucify him!"  So Pilate bowed to public pressure and did exactly that.  This story can be found in Mark 15: 1-15.

What do the two stories have in common, besides Jesus himself?  Both contain crowds.  The Palm Sunday crowd is perfectly happy to shout, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" while things are going well.  But when things get tough that same crowd turns into the Passion bunch, screaming, "Give us something else and crucify that guy!"  It seems impossible that a group of people celebrating and acclaiming Jesus as king one day can turn on him so quickly soon after but it happened.  And not only did it happen, it happens to all of us.

Our church is wonderful, especially right now.  Any of the faithful reading this blog right now know that this is so, as you're probably the deepest inside it.  It takes at least two hands' worth of fingers, maybe some toes besides, to count off all of the ministries that have been given life in the last couple of years.  People are more excited, bonded, and involved than ever before no matter which level of the church you're operating at.  It's truly "Hosanna!" time around here.

But that phenomenon is also contained in some ways to the church itself.  Outside our walls the perception of Jesus and God's Spirit remains what it always was.  Outside our walls I'm not sure anybody knows that we're doing church any differently in here.  Outside our walls there are still plenty of churches doing things backwards, as we once did in many ways.  We have something special here, unique and vibrant.  I believe you've felt it.  In many ways we've spent the last two years showing that not only is this possible, it's real and true.  But now that you know it, now that we have it, what are we going to do with it?

If nothings else these two gospel stories make clear that whatever you believe in your heart doesn't make a difference unless and until you share it with the world.  People share in different ways, true, but until it's shared and shown it doesn't have the effect it's supposed to.  For all we know that crowd shouting "Crucify him!" was full of otherwise good people!  The text says that the Pharisees and priests incited them to yell.  Many of them had seen the Palm Sunday parade.  Maybe they had misgivings about what they were yelling.  But that didn't matter.  Whatever went on internally had no effect when they were shouting "Crucify!" and "We don't want him!" externally.

In the same way whatever Spirit we have alive in our church won't matter unless it's shared.  You can know it's wonderful and godly.  I can know it too.  If we're out there in the world embracing and espousing something else all of that knowledge and experience we get here won't matter.  It won't be any more lasting than the Palm Sunday parade.

And make no mistake, we're set up to fail here.  Most of the world thinks there's "real life" and then there's "church".  Church is somewhere you go for an hour a week, not a constant way of living out your faith.  No matter what we do inside our walls the gravity of the world pulls us elsewhere as soon as we exit the building.  Even when we talk about evangelism most people get the picture of getting more people INTO the church instead of getting God's Spirit OUT into the world.  People get images of manipulation, recruitment, changing the behavior of other people instead of changing one's own life to show God's grace more.  Every stab at fixing this problem embroils us worse.  Meaning to grab at Christ we find ourselves with two handfuls of Barabbas.  Meaning to shout praise we drive away our neighbors and the Lord.  And no matter what we do in church this never gets solved, because all of that falls into the "particular time, particular place, not real life" trap that snares us in the first place.

We can't find our full expression of faith by changing what we do in here.  We have to find it by changing how the world works out there.  That includes changing how we talk about and show God to the world and how the world understands God and faith.  If we do not do this, if we do not put ourselves to this task, then nothing we've done here will have any lasting importance beyond the few people who have experienced it...and even with them the effect will only last for a while.

The only way to change the world's vision of God, faith, and church is to first clarify our own and then to learn how to share it...how to shout real Hosannas and make them last.  That is our mission in the coming year:  to take what we've learned here, what we've come to believe and trust in, and share it with the world.  This is not something I can do.  This is not something only a few of us can do.  This is something our whole church needs to do TOGETHER.  If it doesn't happen that way, it won't work.  Our Hosannas will be drown out by the world's "crucify him" and the (mostly unintentional) cries of our fellow Christians for Barabbas when they thought they were calling for Christ.  Every day the wrong messages are being preached and heard about God, about faith, and about our church.  We need to set this right...or at least as right as we can get.

The first step in this process, as we detailed on Sunday, is asking yourself if you believe.  Do you believe in God really...not just as a nice part of your life or a good thing to think about on Sunday morning but do you believe in God and the grace, gifts, talents, relationships, and salvation he's shown you?  Have you seen his Spirit at work here in music or preaching or meetings or council or fellowship or any of the dozens of ways in which he works among us?  Do...you...believe?  If not, I'm not sure what we're doing here.  I'm sure we can go no farther unless most of us answer in the affirmative.  Otherwise we're spinning our wheels.  That's the first question to ask yourself:  do you see God here, do you believe it?

Assuming you have even the smallest sliver of a "Yes" to that, we can help transform that faith into something that, in turn, transforms the world in a good way.  If you believe, we want you to help us do that.  It starts with the Evangelism Workshops that we're going to hold soon.  A couple will be held in April and May, at different times so they'll be convenient.  We'll do it again in the fall.  We're talking maybe three sessions, once a week for three weeks.  That's it.  It's not a huge time commitment but this is something we desperately need from every person in this community to get us on the same page with a common goal.  This small step will open up a huge world of potential for each of us.  It's important...the most important thing we'll do this year by far.  Without it, our belief will remain internal while our shouts communicate something else.  With it, we start making our world into a place where faith, talk, and walk are one...where they can be seen and accepted by our neighbors.

Lest anybody is nervous at this point, these workshops are NOT about recruiting people to come to church, making people into cookie-cutter evangelists, forcing them to do things that are uncomfortable, making you into a nuisance to the world.  Instead we want to help open all of our gifts to the world!  It's the opposite of everything we fear when we hear "evangelism".  We want to help YOU become an intentional evangelist in YOUR OWN way.  We're not going to tell you how to do it, we're going to help you explore how to figure that out for yourself, your life, your family and environment.  It's not a hard thing.  It's an important thing though.

Some are shouting Hosannas.  The world is still shouting for crucifixions and criminals.  We follow along with the world sometimes without even knowing it.  It's time to figure out all of this, what we're going to do with our faith and church in this environment.  That conversation starts later this month.  We need every man, woman, and child of confirmation age and above in this church to be a part of this process.  You will all tackle this issue in different ways.  Every way we miss is a way the Spirit of God is missed in this community.  We don't want to miss any.

Do you believe?  Are you ready to help this ministry, this faith, and the work of God?  Are you sure what your life is shouting to the world?  Would you know how to find out and how to change it if you chose?  Come explore the answers to these questions with us.  It will make a difference to all of us and our church.  We'll see you there.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Evangelism Meeting

We had a small but focused meeting on evangelism on Sunday night.  In the course of discussion we identified two paths forward in community evangelism, which I'd like to share with you today.

Before we start, though, a definition.  "Evangelism" means, in essence, "Good News Sharing".  Whenever you share something, especially news, the direction is outward.  It's ironic that the traditional definition of evangelism involves an inward motion:  getting other people to come to church.  That's not the definition we're choosing.  It's the opposite, in fact.  Our goal is to get the Good News of Christ out there to a community that needs it and a world for whom that Good News--and definitions like "church" and "evangelism"--have been sorely mis-defined.  From the start we went away from the goal of trying to get more members for the church.  It seemed self-serving and uncomfortable.  Instead we focused on that outward flow of love, grace, and news.  We want to send our members out to do wonderful things, not send them out to bring more people back in.  We believe that in due course this outward flow of evangelism will bring more people into the church, but that's a side-effect, not the main purpose.

We identified two broad categories of action in order to make great evangelism a reality in our community:  internal and external.

Internally the first step is simple to admit that we believe.  We need to affirm that we believe in God.  We need to know that we believe in our church and in each other.  We need to commit to both, telling ourselves and each other that this really matters, that it's really important.  If we don't feel this, we're probably fooling ourselves getting together like we do.  If we do feel it, we need to put that forward and back it up with our words and actions.  Personally I believe that our church is blessed right now.  I've searched years to find Spirit, momentum, and creative gifts like we're showing.  I don't think there's a church in the world I'd rather be at.  I know plenty of other churches that are struggling like mad to do the things that are now coming naturally to us.  We need to recognize that, realize the unique opportunity before us, and act to support, sustain, and grow it.

Once we've admitted that we believe the next step is to find common focus.  This will probably take the form of a workshop offered a couple times in the coming year.  We really, really need people to attend this.  In the course of the workshop we will un-learn some of the definitions that hold us back from evangelism and re-learn the wonderful things that propel us outward in Christ's ministry.  Without this step, even with the best of intentions, our efforts are going to fall into the deep ditch dug by previous (less helpful) definitions of evangelism.

Out of that workshop will come our way forward.  The final internal step will be to see evangelism in everything we do.  Evangelism isn't supposed to be something you do on a Tuesday for two hours with a friend.  We need to make all of our gatherings, events, worship services, and moments outside of church more evangelical (in the best sense of that word).  We need to look at everything we do through the lens of spreading the Good News so that people will know what we're about without having to be told in so many words.  When this final internal step happens the external will begin to bloom.

We've already taken some steps externally.  Our Angels on Call ministry delivers the message that help is always near.  This blog allows people daily access to our church and some of the theology that drives it.  We've done a few other things in the community as a group and many things as individuals.  We need to celebrate and expand those efforts.  Through words and actions we need to let people know the amazing Spirit that's alive in our midst.

I think we can do this fairly easily, but not until we've done some of the intentional internal work first.  The exact shape of our external efforts will flow from the internal discussions.  Without the common direction and definitions provided by the internal step, though, all we'll be doing is a series of disparate events.  We need the glue of our common confession and time spent together to make this work.

Listen for the evangelical message in worship over the next few weeks.  Watch for the Evangelism Workshop and participate when it comes.  This is the Next Huge Step in our growth together as a church and one of the most obvious ways God will work among us this year.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Languages of Love

One of the things we're talking about in our Thursday Night Marriage Care Group is how we communicate love to each other...a particularly important topic when the "other" in question is your spouse and you get to (notice I said "GET to") spend the rest of your life with them.  As I type this we haven't had our explicit discussion about it.  That happens in a few hours from now.  But frankly I wouldn't be sharing individual couples' descriptions of their love language anyway, nor would it do you much good if I did.  It's different for every pair.  Even when our languages overlap the distinctions inherent in our particular relationships make them unique to us.  Me giving flowers to my spouse is quite different than me giving flowers to someone else's spouse!

Though the expression of our language of love is peculiar to each couple, the process by which we discover and speak each other's languages is universal.  We're not born knowing a language of love.  We learn it first from our parents, usually...through the touches and gestures they use when fulfilling our needs and their parental duties.  As we grow these become ritualized:  a particular way of baking cookies or celebrating Christmas or discussing important events which we equate with comfort and goodness and home.

Great fun ensues when we move out of our homes and embark on our lives and their attendant relationships, including and especially marriage.  Into marriage you carry with you a bundle of assumptions about love and how to communicate it, learned from your earlier days and relationships.  You quickly find out that your spouse carries their own bundle and that the two bundles aren't the same!  Many married couples who just committed themselves to a life of eternal bliss find themselves arguing with each other with surprising vehemence about the importance of creamy peanut butter versus crunchy not long after the ink has dried on their certificate.  How in the world could anyone like Extra-Crunchy Jif when any fool knows that Creamy Skippy really means home and love and safety?  What ever possessed me to marry such a stubborn, ignorant, Crunchy guy?

Just as much fun are the subtle moments wherein each partner feels something lacking.  She doesn't make meatloaf quite like mom did.  He doesn't remember to thank her for the meal like her dad did with her mom.  He hasn't brought flowers in six months.  She doesn't appreciate how hard he works.  Would it kill him to remember the garbage without being told?  Would it kill her to change out of those sweats every once in a while?

The problem with these scenarios lies not in the differences between two people, nor in the divisions between them.  Those are going to happen with any two people in a sustained relationship.  How many differences did you have with your siblings or parents, for instance?  And all of you had the benefit of growing up in the same household and family culture!  Small wonder you have differences with someone from outside that culture.

No, the problem comes when each party forgets that their language of love is just that...a language.  It's relational, a means of communication, a way to unite people and give them common purpose.  When we have these struggles in our relationships it's usually because both sides are viewing their outlook as absolute.  This isn't a way of showing love, this is the way of showing love. ( Or this is love itself, or there is no love without this and why can't that blockhead understand that like a reasonable, normal human being???)  Where language unites, absolutes divide.  But it doesn't take much stepping back to realize that there's nothing absolute about peanut butter or a flower-bringing schedule or division of household chores.

If we're able to step back--a skill which most married people soon acquire if they're to be successful in their marriage--we realize that there's no universal rule saying that one person's way is right and another's wrong in these matters.  We also realize, though, that if we want to have a happy and fulfilled spouse it would behoove us to learn a little bit about their assumptions about love, the way they desire to be loved, and to begin to speak their language every now and again instead of just insisting on our own.

This is the beauty of the language metaphor.  It requires all the things that make a relationship strong:  setting aside yourself and your claims to being absolutely right, taking time to getting to know another person, taking time to understand their background and culture, showing them that you hear them, communicating your appreciation of them by speaking in the ways they find most familiar and dear whether or not those ways are instinctively your own.  What an amazing process!  And what an amazing moment when he realizes that taking out the garbage without being reminded isn't just a chore, it's a way of making her feel happy and secure that he cares...a way of saying, "I love you."  What an amazing moment when she realizes that taking out the garbage isn't just an absolute "way things should be" but him doing something that isn't in his instinctive nature just to make her feel loved.  All of a sudden the trash changes from a Big Fight to a huge affirmation, from something that divides two people to something that brings them together.

This lesson doesn't just apply to married people either.  If our focus in the coming year is going to be evangelism we first have to admit that evangelism takes time, patience, listening, understanding cultures and backgrounds--especially religious--other than our own.  It requires the same kind of love, effort, and sometimes sacrifice that a good marriage requires.  We have to stop thinking of our way of doing church, practicing religion, and defining God as absolutes.  We have to understand that all of these things are part of a bigger relationship--first with God, then with each other--and that this relationship has room for more people than just us and those who think like us.  This is a big step for most of us, especially when we've learned/been taught that Creamy Peanut Butter is the only Holy Peanut Butter.  We might have to get used to a little Crunchy now and then for the sake of our neighbors for whom that is holy and good.

Pray this week, first for the married couples among us and those contemplating or searching for marriage, but also for all of us in all relationships wherein the language of love needs to be spoken and heard more than it is.  Pray that we might be willing to not only communicate our own language and needs, but to hear the language and needs of our friends and neighbors especially as those relate to God and faith.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)