The Gate

How does one create the most gracious and effective threshold for entrance into a community?

The adult ed class in my little church is reading our way through CALLED TO COMMUNITY, a thematically sorted collection of essays that explore what it means for Christians to journey in the faith together.  It's produced by PLOUGH, the publishing wing of the Bruderhof.  

The Bruderhof, if you don't know 'em, are radical Mennonite communists, and if you're a radical Mennonite communist, doing life together well isn't a tangential concern.  When you share everything in common, and expect every member to freely and wholly embrace that ethic, doing community badly means things get real bad real fast.  

The book presents a rich array of perspectives from across the theological gamut of Christian faith, but the focus remains consistent throughout: how do we do this Jesus thing together?  It's designed for a year long study, but I've condensed it into twelve weeks, which means that our conversations are both rich and dense.  We don't touch on every essay, or every concept within every essay.

This last Sunday, the discussion cracked along energetically, but as has been the case in all of my class preparation, there were things I'd prepared to discuss that we didn't get to.

One of those things came in an essay by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, an advocate for/participant in intentional communities and the new-monastic life.  I'd read him a few years back as part of my doctoral work, and enjoyed encountering his voice again.  What struck me were his reflections on how an individual enters a monastic or intentional community.  

Such communities aren't unwelcoming, and frequently have robust ministries of hospitality.  They're open to strangers.  They're friendly and kind and active in the world.

But they are also, by design, hard to join.  There's no hard sell, no effort at bait-and-switch to suck the curious into their common life.  Entering into membership requires significant work.  In order to join, there are substantial expectations of the seeker.

“Only if these seekers are persistent should they be invited into the community..." as Wilson-Hartgrove puts it.

Which, if one is interested in "growing an organization," can seem a little counterintuitive. "All are Welcome," or so the mantra goes in my dying oldline denomination, and you'd think that'd bring 'em in.

On its own, it does not.  Low thresholds for entry produce low levels of commitment.  Low levels of commitment produce a weak shared culture, and a weak shared culture lacks collective resilience.  Monastic communities being the fiercely focused things that they are, demands on the curious are frequently placed early.  

Some Zen Buddhist orders, in particular instance, often make a very pointy point about not being welcoming, in a Fight Club sort of way.  You've got to prove you are worthy, prove you're not a dilletante, prove that you're willing to sit out in the cold and endure being yelled at to go away.

Which, as I consider it in the context of my genuinely friendly little church, isn't at all how we roll.  Nor would we want to.  Visitors are genuinely welcome.  All of them.  We like talking with new folks.  I mean, really.  I hear some pastors lament that their congregations are a circle of backs, and visitors drift alone and ignored through fellowship hours.  My little church is not that way.  At all.

People are welcome to worship, and to join us in fellowship.  They can get their hands dirty in our gardens.  They can help us feed the hungry.  They are, in that place, genuinely our friends, and beloved.  They can stay in that place as long as they like.

When it comes to joining...which isn't that hard, truth be told...I find myself increasingly not pressing the matter.  Just welcome, include, accept, and befriend.  Show interest.  Visit. 

But don't rush it.  Don't grasp, or be anxious.  Let God give the growth.

Witnessing Witnessing

After some emails and some writing last night, I went on another long contemplative walk, meandering along a bustling bike path through the beautiful cool of a spring evening.   Dusk settled, slowly, the air full of the riot of springtime.  

As it grew darker, the flow of cyclists and walkers dwindled.  I moved quietly, mindfully silencing my steps, so that my own footfalls would not impede my ability to hear the world.  The whir of bat wings overhead.  The jogger, approaching from behind, whose breathing told me from ten yards that he was a man and tired.  The Tie-Fighter engine howl of bike tires on pavement, dopplering subtly as they passed in the twilight.

I timed my walking so that I would return to where my son would need to be picked up from his drum rehearsal about fifteen minutes before pickup time.

I arrived at the studio and sat, feeling quiet.   Two other souls were in the room, one, the pleasant  young woman who manages the office.   The other, a rangy, long-haired guitar instructor.   They talked, and I sat, noodling at my smartphone but mostly still in a place of listening.

He was deep into a shaggy dog story about some guy who robbed his house and escaped on rollerblades after crashing through a plate glass window.  "I mean, dude.  Seriously!  Rollerblades!  I was like, dude!"  He laughed through his wild tale, as did she. He was clearly happy to be having the conversation.

Then she told a story, one that involved mistaken identity and her boyfriend.  Listening to the spring air filled with text and subtext, I think this may have been how how he heard it:  "Something something something, I have a boyfriend, something something, I have a boyfriend."

And then it changed.  It became a conversation about church, and Jesus, him leading.   Churchy people suck, but Christianity is great.  He got an amen from her on that, and a story about how a small-town Baptist church they'd attended had driven her family out because her mom...taught ballet.

Lord have mercy.

So the conversation went on, as he talked about how much he'd liked a particular church.   He talked about how he couldn't stand judgmental churches, like especially ones that thought sex was bad.  But his church didn't!  "It's an awesome thing, man."   And then talk about how his church did this talking about faith event in a bar, and people had beer, and it was awesome, like totally real, not fake, just like, totally accepting.

You have to accept people, he said, because we're all sinners.   We need to forgive each other.  She agreed.

To illustrate this, he told another story.  This one was about how the single guy who fronted for the praise band at his church had been caught in a homosexual relationship.  "But, like, he repented, so it was, like, cool.  We totally forgave him.  Not like those judgmental Christians.  'Cause, you know, we're all sinners."

And though he kept going with his spiel, all the way through to pitching her the link to a pastor podcast, it felt as if the conversation cooled just a bit.

Funny, how hard it is for us to see our own biases.

Motorcycle Evangelism

Motorcycle evangelism is easy.

On Sunday, as spring pushed its way into the world, I fulfilled an easy fundraising obligation.   As part of a church auction back in February, I'd offered up motorcycle rides through the Agricultural Reserve around Poolesville.

It's almost 90,000 acres of low density farmland and gorgeous winding country roads, just a stone's throw away from the sprawling DC Megalopolis.  On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in spring, there's not a nicer place to ride for a hundred miles.

My little 'Zook is perfect for two-up riding.  The DL650 is light, tall, and nimble.  Passenger accommodations are excellent, with a nice flat passenger seat, decent sight lines, copious grab rails, and a Givi topbox that acts as a backrest.   You're not sitting on a hard flat four inch by five inch "pad" that is only intended to evoke the concept of "seat."  You're not crunched into that butt-out sport bike-passenger crouch like a female baboon on the prowl for a mate.  It's designed for two human beings who want to enjoy motorcycling.

And power?  It's a 650, but power is adequate, providing two up acceleration that matches a Mustang GT.

Given the hoots and laughter as I opened 'er up on Sunday, I'd say more than adequate.  As one of my sons put it, it's like having a roller coaster you can ride any time you want.

So for 20 minutes, we rode.

After the ride, the reaction was familiar.   My passenger wanted a bike.  Any sane person would.  It's  just too excellent.  When you experience it, you realize that it is inherently and self-evidently awesome. It is joyous, exuberant, and well worth doing.  Not without risk, of course, and something you need to approach mindfully.  But on a Spring day, motorcycling requires only to be experienced.  It is a Good Thing.

Which got me to thinking.  Good things, inherently joyful experiences, they speak for themselves.  Why is it that we have such trouble expressing Jesus that way?  Here's this way of encountering our world that calls us to radical compassion, to heartfelt service, and to joyous celebration.  It makes life better.   I enjoy living and sharing the Gospel just as much as I enjoy bucketing down a beautiful country road on a perfect spring day.  More, even.

It's just good, plain and simple.

Why we complicate and obscure that is simply beyond me.

A Taste of the Kingdom Meal

Two or three times a month, I go to the nearby Baptist church.  I walk into the basement, nodding politely to the stressed-out-looking Korean ladies who bustle in and out, heels clacking, eternally late for their mid-day services.   In a small office in the basement is a delightful little octogenarian, a fiercely gracious former airline stewardess.  I talk with her for a bit, and then receive my instructions for the day.

I'm a delivery boy for Meals on Wheels.  I bring a day's worth of food to a half-dozen elderly shut-ins and the indigent disabled who are struggling to live on their own.   I do it because it's my duty as a disciple, and because I love doing it.  Honestly, I can't tell where the duty starts and the love leaves off.  

Serving those in need is a vital, vital thing.  It feeds and sustains me spiritually.

But it's not evangelism.

Some folks recoil at that word, associating it with judgmental shouty bible thumpers, weepy televangelists and predatory prosperity preachers.   "What right do I have to tell people what to believe," we say, tolerantly.  "I'm not willing to stand in judgement over another's beliefs."

We say this, and do nothing.  Though the meal we have is delightful, we don't invite others to the table.  And the light of grace in the world grows dim.  All the while, the darkness has no such compunction.  It spreads eagerly, whispering and gibbering and pouring itself into soul after soul.

I was driving back from my last dropoff of the day last week.  I'd delivered to house where an abandoned van sits in the driveway, where a gently confused woman about my age comes to the door and takes the food from my hands.  I smile, and wish her a good day.  She offers thanks, but her voice trembles with the uncertainty that comes from not speaking to others often.

As I drove away, I suddenly felt what it would be if we human beings all approached our world as Jesus would have us approach it.   What it would be if the vulnerable did not have to fear.

I mean, really.  I felt it.

It was not quite a theophany, mind you.  Just a sudden absence of darkness, as if the world were suddenly emptied of hatred.  A sudden absence of weight, as if there was no cause for anxiety.  In every car, in every home, I felt what it would mean if the compassion that is the greatest gift of the Spirit lived in every one of us.

It was as if, for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the Reign.   Those souls who are isolated and alone?  They wouldn't be.  Our stress, our anger, our discord, and our hatred?  Gone.   There'd be no reason for it.  It was as if I was in a world without war or poverty or fear, without the snarling, grasping pursuit of power.  

That blessed reverie lingered for a moment, and then I was back in traffic.

But it left a taste in my mind, a taste of the Kingdom meal.  This is what it could be like, if we made a point of inviting people to grace, and replacing fear.  This is what it would feel like, if we really did both live and speak Good News.

And Good things are worth sharing.

Door To Door

I've never been comfortable with door-to-door sales.   Years and years ago, back when my hair was long and my belly was concave, I spent a couple of days doing the door-knockin' thing as a canvasser for Greenpeace.  It was one in a series of attempts to get a job that summer, and it was profoundly disappointing.  Instead of rallying interest in environmentalism, or stirring the passions of a movement, we were taught a sales pitch.  The goal: money for the organization, from which we could take a wee percentage.   That lasted not long at all.  Nothing sucks idealism out of the young like working on commission.

Perhaps even lower on the karmic totem pole are the folks who show up at your door seeking to convert you.  Despite what Ray Comfort pitches out there, fewer things are less welcome than someone coming at you with a prepackaged conversion script.

I've never minded, of course.  Most days, I'm perfectly happy to chat with the pairs of earnest fresh-faced young Mormons who arrive with books and name tags.  I don't mind the Jehovah's Witnesses either, though if they push too hard, they'll get themselves a theological whuppin'.  Nothing like referencing the Cappadocian Fathers to make a Witness flee in terror.  Then again, referencing the Cappadocian Fathers has the same effect on most people.

So it was with some surprise that I found myself yesterday walking about the neighborhoods of the little town in which my little church is located, church-literature in hand.  This is, quite frankly, not something that Presbyterians tend to do.  The arrival of Presbyterians at your doorstep bearing tracts is, some scholars argue, one of the sure signs of the end times.

That's the key to the Sixth Seal, I think, the one right before the Final Seal, the one that can only be unlocked by the words:  "I, Newt Gingrich, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States..."

What surprised me even more was how pleasant it was.  That the afternoon was clear and crisp and gorgeous was a plus.  I and the congregation's evangelism elder spent most of the time walking and chatting about anything and everything, which was actually kind of fun.  I'm not sure how many Jehovah's Witnesses get into sub-conversations about whether or not droids are connected to the Force as they walk.

As for the door-to-door part, well, it was fine.  Surprisingly fine.  This is, in part, because we rolled it Presbyterian style.

Our entire "pitch," such as it was, was to tell people that we were from the little historic country church up the road.  We then shared our names, handed over a postcard telling folks where we were and what's up for our Advent Season, and welcomed them to join us if they'd like...and that was that.  Oh, and we'd wish them a good afternoon.

For most, that was as far as it went.  Sunday afternoon is loaf-around-in-comfypants time for most Americans, and we don't want to mess with that.

At about a half-dozen houses, conversation went a bit further.   Like, say, at the house where the resident opened the door quickly, a wad of bills in her hand, thinking we were the pizza guy.  This, we all found amusing.   Or the houses where we knew someone, or where the person clearly wanted to have a conversation.  There, we chatted, for as long as the other person felt like it.  In at least one instance, we were invited in, and things did get theological, which was cool.  I'm always up for that.

As we walked, there were a few things we made a point of doing.  Governing principle number one of our reaching out was to respect the integrity of the person we were speaking with, while letting them know that we were there.  Getting all up into folks bidness?   That's actively counterproductive.  Way I figure it, this isn't the first century.  Ain't nobody in the You Ess of Ay not heard tell of this guy named Jesus.  As the Apostle Paul put it, you got to be cool, bro.

Governing principle number two was related.  For the folks we encountered who let us know they already had an affiliation with a faith community, our response was, "Well, great!  Good for you!   Say hi to [insert name of pastor/spiritual leader here] for me."  This seemed somewhat surprising to folks, but again, our task is not to wrest Catholics and Methodists from their congregations so that they can be Presbyterian just the way the Good Lord wants them to be.  We're just letting y'all know we're here.

The other governing principle was, of course, that communities of Jesus folk are and will always be responsible for letting people know they exist.  We can't be hunkered down, hidden away behind the walls of our buildings and meetings and polity and the tightly-knit circles of the Us.  A healthy church exists outwardly, connected to and engaged with the community full of human beings around it.  That needs to be particularly and especially true for congregations that are open-minded and open-hearted.

So, amazement of amazement, I actually find myself looking forward to the next time I get to go door to door.  Particularly if it's a sweet spring day.

Mailing It In

We were all at home when they came by. I'd seen 'em wandering the neighborhood, a pair of moderately well-dressed Asian ladies with a handful of literature. I was, unlike most of humanity, actually kinda looking forward to them coming by the house. Being a Jesus-mutant already, I actually enjoy those chats with door-to-door prosthelytizers. Pleasantly subversive conversations about faith with bright-eyed young Mormons and pointed exegetical repartee with Jehovah's Witnessbots make for a lovely afternoon.

But though we were all around, they never knocked. They never registered their presence. They just slid a tract into the door, and disappeared. Snif.

The tract, entitled "Where are the Dead," was left abandoned at my doorstep. It's an old one, written perhaps 50 years ago by a Baptist evangelist. The theme is, of course, the Day of Judgment. It's a random buffet of scripture, a smattered mishmosh of verses telling the reader of 1) their sin and the bad, bad stuff that will happen and 2) Christ's redeeming sacrifice. On the back, there was a little form to fill out and mail in professing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

The tract is about the Day of Judgment, and so it focuses, natch-rally, on quotations from the Book of Revelation for all the scrumdiddlyumptious details on the unpleasantness that will befall those who haven't filled in the form on the back of the tract.

What I found particularly interesting, though, was what was missing. Though the tract was almost entirely scripture quotes about eternal damnation and eternal life, it somehow neglected to use Matthew 25. You know. That part of Matthew's Gospel where Jesus talks specifically and at length about the standard by which all humanity will be judged? Where he lays out what the Son of Man will ask each of us? The "did you get off your sorry behind and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoner" part?

Funny how they always seem to forget about that one. Perhaps it seems like too much work.

My Jesus is Bigger than Your Jesus

Is there a place for the competitive spirit in the church?

I find myself wondering that as I enjoy my latest PS3 game, the slightly dated but still highly entertaining multiplayer online game WarHawk. In it, teams of semi-cartoonish warrior-avatars battle it out across an array of expansive maps, playing games of capture the flag, fighting to seize territory, or just doing some good ol' fashioned virtual killin'.

Behind very single one of your opponents is an actual human being located somewhere around the world. It is, truth be told, not necessarily the most pastorly of pastimes. Dropping your Nemesis fighter into hover mode and lobbing missiles at a footsoldier attempting to seize your flag is hardly turning the other cheek. As I get better at the game, and more folks fall at my hands, I imagine that I've probably been responsible for more folks calling out the name of the Lord in game than I do in church.

As much as I enjoy a well earned victory, the intensity of competition makes me wonder if such a thing has any place among Jesus people. Are we permitted to strive with and against one another as we seek to strengthen our churches and our proclamation of Christ's grace?

I particularly wonder this in the context of my own congregation. Much of the growth we have seen in the last several years has come from our partnership with a Korean church that is now in the throes of a deep church conflict. As the two church camps battle it out, I'm amazed to see their worship numbers growing. Members have left, sure. But as the conflict continues, more and more people are being encouraged to come show their support for one team or another. It has the feeling of two small armies marshaling for a battle. I've heard some suggest that this battle is unquestionably the Lord's work, as they work to build a real church and cast out those who stood in their way for so many years. What better than the crucible of conflict to draw people to church?

This is not God at work, of course. Not if either Jesus or Paul knew what they were talking about. This is just human beings having at one another, which we can do just fine without the Lord's help.

But are there good ways to fight within the church? I think, for instance, that the progressive wing of the church is a little too passive when it comes to striving against repressive and idolatrous fundamentalism. We sit back and are "nice," and do nothing. It'd be better to fight...not by shouting or being obnoxious to ultraconservatives...but by making a concerted effort to make our witness to Christ's grace more intensely viral than theirs.