Reaching Millenials: First Article on the Internet on this Topic!

"They're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone." - Billy Joel

I recently read an excellent interview with author Naomi Schaefer Riley in the July/August issue of Christianity Today about what millenials are looking for in a church. If you read the interwebs much, you've probably come across one or two hundred articles on this topic. People everywhere are frantically writing and talking about how to reach the millenial generation.

Based on this excellent interview and my own expert opinion as an actual millenial, I would like to add my voice to this conversation. Here are a few suggestions.

1. Stop talking so much! Here's an idea for all the church leaders frantically making plans, starting programs, reading viral articles, and generally running around like chickens with their heads cut off: find a millenial and ask him or her why he or she doesn't go to church. Or better yet, just introduce yourself and then stop there. Just listen. Listen to that person (you don't have to start creating categories are generalizing about all millenials). Find out what he or she is passionate about, what that person hates, what that person has been through, where that person hurts and why. If you have the great fortune to actually have millenials in your church, it's even easier. Invite them over for dinner and listen!

2. Redefine "ministry." Some good friends of mine feel like they are called to offer foster care to children in need. So far, they have provided a home for twenty-five kids from the ages of a few months to five. Their story looks really good to an outsider, but they have struggled to participate in church. Their foster kids, who sometimes have behavioral issues or are just not quite so acclimated to church culture, tend to get kicked out of Sunday School. They spend most services watching the service on tv in a separate room. The church has a really great children's department for all the churchy kids, but no one has quite figured out what to do with the kids who don't fit in. Their participation in church is severely limited. Our church defines "serving" in a few very specific ways that doesn't include parents who have to care for complicated kids. We need to broaden our definition of "ministry" to ask how we can love not only the nice people who walk through our doors but the complicated people, the misfits, the socially awkward. And maybe the "ministry" to those people isn't always going to happen between 10:30 and 11:30 am on Sunday morning. How can the church support ministry that never shows up in church attendance counts or dollars in the offering plate?

3. Stop this "family first" nonsense. In the Christianity Today interview, Naomi Schaefer Riley says:

"[Members of the millenial generation] long for intimacy, having a close group of friends. I heard 25-year-olds reminiscing about their college years, a time when they were able to live in community and meet spontaneously."

Churches cancel services for holidays so people can spend time with their families. They emphasize the role of parents in Christian formation in the lives of children. They make a point of scheduling services and events at convenient times that won't conflict with family activities. This is fine if every member of the church is part of a large family that provides plenty of support and encouragement for all the members. However, if the church includes other demographics (unmarried young adults with no children, older people with no close family, people who are the only Christian in their family and strongly rely on the support of the church, children or teenagers from non-Christian homes), then putting families first might not be the best idea. I know, I know. Every church loves young families and wants to do everything they can to accommodate them, but just be aware that you may be making choices that alienate millenials. Don't be surprised when you look around and realize that all your young adults are gone.

4. Don't be afraid to let young people lead. Also in the interview:

"There's a complaint that millenials are selfish. But it's a two-way street. If you don't give people responsibility, they will act like children. When they act like children, then you're less likely to give them responsibilities."

I read a conversation in an online forum between one of my fellow seminary graduates and some older church members. He was lamenting his difficulties finding a job post-graduation. One woman responded and said that in her day, people had to pay their dues. They couldn't just walk into a position of leadership right out of school. She suggested he get a job at McDonald's for a few years to gain some life experience. First, I don't actually believe her. Laura Ingalls Wilder became a schoolteacher when she was sixteen (yes, Mom, Laura Ingalls Wilder is relevant to every conversation). In other eras, jobs for young people have been plentiful, and not just the jobs that nobody else wanted. A few years ago, churches were more plentiful and more financially stable. Ministry jobs were just more available. Beyond that, however, many senior pastors started preaching on Sunday nights or in other settings as teenagers. A fifty-year-old pastor could have thirty-five years of preaching experience under his belt. Telling a twenty-five-year-old seminary graduate to work at McDonald's so that he won't be taking a job away from a fifty-year-old pastor means that when that pastor retires in fifteen years, the student will be forty. How can he get his thirty-five years of preaching experience if he doesn't start preaching until he's forty? Many churches have moved to meeting only on Sunday morning, so opportunities for inexperienced pastors are in short supply. Older pastors may need to share their pulpit and other leadership positions both to help young people learn to be leaders and to insure that the church of the future will have competent leaders.

5. Don't sell yourself short. All of these things are aspects of a healthy community. Friends listen to one another. They support each other in their pursuing their passions. They hang out together because they want to; it's not an inconvenience to be carefully scheduled between more important things. Friends recognize each other's strengths and weaknesses; one person is the party-planner, another is the one you go to when you just need to talk to someone. As a millenial (and therefore an expert on this topic), I want to say this to the church: Stop selling yourself short! The message of the Gospel has the power to change lives! The Holy Spirit has the power to heal both physical and emotional wounds! The culture of the church should be one that is unique and distinct because of it's love. Stop expecting all your members to secretly hate church and really wish they were someplace else. We millenials pick up on that! Why would we want to participate in a community everyone secretly hates? Here's the sad thing: if you watch tv, every single beer commercial tries to tell you that if you're drinking you're having an awesome time. People pick up on that narrative and like to talk about their awesome drinking experiences. But the reality is that most people regret some or all of their party days. You know what people don't regret? Being part of a community that loves and supports them, seeing broken relationships healed, learning how to love and be loved. Being needed. Why does the church think it has to compete with popular culture? We offer way more! Let go of your insecurity and just welcome wholeheartedly every person who comes into your life, whether through the doors of the church or in any other setting.

6. Take some responsibility. There seems to be a perception that the millenial generation just sprung up overnight. Where did these young people come from? Why don't they go to church? How can we ever know? Well, they're your kids and grandkids! They're the kids you taught in Sunday School and hung out with in Youth Group. As a millenial, I want to ask the church: what's the deal? Why did you fail my generation? Who dropped the ball? I don't think it does any good to play the blame game, but before you start reading books and articles about millenials, maybe you need to look at your own life, your own church, your own family. Why don't your kids go to church? What happened to that generation? Do you need to do something different to prevent the same thing from happening to the next generation? Does the church need to change? Do you need to change? Kids don't grow up in a vacuum. Sure, there are lots of cultural forces influencing kids, but the church needs to take some ownership of their inability to speak a more powerful message than the cultural forces that lead away from the church. Condemning millenials for their entitlement or their self-focus or their lack of commitment is not going to make us want to come back to church. Honesty about your own selfishness, your own failure to pass on the power of the Gospel, your own insecurities--these are the honest confessions that it would be nice to hear every now and then.

Well, that's a start. Seriously, the interview in Christianity Today says even more great stuff (in fewer words). If you are interested in this topic, you should check it out.

If you agree or don't agree or want to add another thought to the conversation, feel free to leave a comment. I don't consider my blog to be the final word on any topic. It's just a space for me to think out loud a little bit.

Will this kid find a place in the church?

Dear Diary...

A few weeks ago, I was preparing for a sermon and was having a difficult time really getting into the world of the Scripture. I wrote these diary entries from the perspective of a maidservant to get started. See how quickly you can figure out which biblical characters are represented in this story!

Image source: michaelfairchild.com

Dear diary,

We left home so quickly! My mistress didn’t waste any time getting away from her greedy, conniving brother (not that I blame her!) As her servant, I traveled with her to meet her new husband. When we saw him walking in the field, she knew right away that he was the one. He walked with a great heaviness, as though his heart was already broken. Yet, as I have gotten to know him, I’ve discovered that his eyes betray a laugh that hovers around the edges. It’s as though he sees the world as a strangely ironic place—full of both harsh realities and unexpected joys. And any given situation, no matter how predictable, can always surprise you. I have never seen my mistress so happy! These are good days…of love and laughter and hope for the future. I can’t wait to see the children that will come from this marriage!

Dear diary,

It’s been ten years now. The future once looked so bright, but now no children have come. She is barren, the worst of all curses that can befall a woman. This strange family doesn’t have any gods, either. We should have taken some of the idols when we left. How is a woman supposed to conceive without praying to the idols?! Sure, their god may make the rains come and the crops grow, but everyone knows that one god can’t do everything! I fear for my mistress and for our future. Surely she will send me to her husband’s bed soon. Otherwise, all of our lives will surely end in poverty and misfortune with no children to carry us into the future.

Dear diary,

Twenty years! Twenty years these foolish people have been praying to an invisible god who never answers. All of us servants know they’re crazy. When the gods don’t respond, sometimes you have to help them out a bit! I guess we’ll all die in this barren land together.

Dear diary,

I cannot believe my ears! My mistress is pregnant. So many seasons have come and gone, plantings and harvests, generation after generation of new herds—all with no change. And now—I don’t know how—she’s pregnant! Their god has answered their prayers after all these years. I may still prefer the quick response of the idols, but they have never been known to open a barren womb after twenty years!

Dear diary,

Oh, the cruelty of the god these people serve! My mistress is in so much pain. We fear she may lose the baby after all. Every day, she lays in the tent on her mat, her quiet moans interspersed with pain-filled screams. There is nothing we can do to relieve either her pain or her fear. Oh, if only we had the idols now!

Dear diary,

I accompanied my mistress on a strange journey today. It was dangerous at this late stage in her pregnancy, but in the end, it proved to be worth the risk. She went into a tent I had never seen before, and when she came out, her whole countenance had changed. The lines of pain and worry that had become etched in her face these last few months were gone. I don’t know what happened in there, but she seems peaceful now. We can all still see her occasionally stand still and gasp in pain, but her fear is gone.

Dear diary,

Twins! She delivered twins! No wonder she has had so much pain! Even as they were born, they were struggling—fighting over which would come out first. Oh, the gods be praised! Now this family will grow in strength and prosperity and our future is secure!

Dear diary,

I fear, yet again, for the future of our new family. Red, the older boy, who will lead us, sickens me. He comes in from the hunt, covered in blood, and rips the raw meat off the bones of his prey with his teeth right in front of us. His father eats it up. He loves seeing that disgusting display of raw strength. He thinks Red is just the man to father a whole horde of children. Heel, the younger boy, is so quiet. I can’t imagine him leading us either. My mistress adores him, but it really doesn’t matter what she thinks. Red is our future. Oh, how I dread that day, when he will take charge!

Dear diary,

I hear rumors that Red has given up his birthright! Praise be to the gods, but how can this be? Heel is so weak. He could not possibly have threatened Red or beat him in a contest of strength. I don’t know, but the invisible god of these people seems to be mysteriously at work in this family. The future always belongs to the oldest and the strongest, though. Even with the birthright, it will be a day I will never forget if Heel yet becomes the head of this family.

Read Genesis 25 to see this story told in its original  context and then the rest of Genesis to see how it all turns out!

Why Small Churches Can't Find Pastors: A Hypothesis

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." - Jesus

According to a recent article by Keith Schwanz, sixteen percent of Nazarene pastors in USA/Canada received no compensation for their services in 2013. 42 percent reported an annual income from their congregation of less than $25,000.

While the question of appropriate compensation for pastors, especially in struggling congregations, is an important one, I want to consider a bigger question: what is the church teaching her young people about wealth? Furthermore, how is this affecting the willingness of young people to accept ministerial positions in the many small churches throughout the United States?

In a viral blogpost, Dave Ramsey quoted Tim Corley's list of 20 Things the Rich Do Everyday. While the post received both positive and negative feedback, Dave Ramsey remains one of the most influential voices in the realm of evangelical economics. I think it is safe to say that his perspective is shared by a good number of the people sitting in the pews on any given Sunday.

At the risk of oversimplification, I would like to sum up that perspective in one sentence: your income is your choice.

Why would someone choose poverty? In my experience, the general answer to that question in evangelical circles is simple: laziness. Ronald Reagan popularized the term "welfare queen," referring to a woman in Chicago whose yearly income from government "handouts" totaled over $150,000. Why work for a living when you can just get free stuff from the government?

In the words of one article on the topic: "The 'welfare queen' became a convenient villain, a woman everyone could hate. She was a lazy black con artist, unashamed of cadging the money that honest folks worked so hard to earn."

I heard from the pulpit of my own church just a few weeks ago about the injustice of the welfare system and those who take advantage of it. In other words, those con artists who unashamedly live off the taxes levied on the money that honest folks work so hard to earn.

So poor people are too lazy to work and also have no qualms about milking the system to get every penny they can out of the hands of honest, hard-working folk.

This topic is weighing heavily on my mind because last week a little five-year-old boy was accidentally shot through the wall of the apartment where he lived with his family just a few blocks from my house. It wasn't intentional violence. A gun was misfired in the apartment next door and suddenly his family found themselves in the emergency room praying for the life of their little boy.

But he deserved it, right? His family deserved it, right? They deserved it for choosing to be poor and living in low-income, unsafe housing. They were probably stealing money from us hardworking folks anyway, so if he doesn't make it, that's one less mouth for the government to feed.

Back to the pastors who receive little to no compensation for their work. Huffington Post published a list of 20 Things the Poor Really Do Every Day. This list includes things like search for affordable housing, subsist on poor quality food, work longer and harder than most of us, and live with chronic pain. These are not easy obstacles to overcome for sure, but in the case of poorly-paid pastors, they also receive the indirect condemnation of their congregation for not being industrious enough to avoid these difficulties.

The message goes something like this: Pastors shouldn't rely on food stamps; they should trust God to provide for their daily needs. Pastors shouldn't need decent housing; they should trust God to protect them in unsafe situations. Pastors shouldn't fight for affordable healthcare; they should trust God to heal their physical ailments.

While many older pastors were raised with a different mindset about poverty that did not equate lack of income with lack of character, what choices will the coming generation make?

Here are some examples of choices they might make:
1. I want to instill good values in my children. I want to take time to read to them and play with them. Therefore, I don't want to work more than one job, and I don't want to work more than 40 hours each week.

2. I want to live in safe housing in a safe neighborhood. Therefore, I cannot accept a position that does not pay me enough that I can afford a mortgage payment on a good house.

3. I will never accept "government handouts." I also want my family to eat a nutritionally-sound diet. Therefore, I cannot accept a position that does not pay enough for me to buy higher-priced, high-quality fresh food. I should not have to choose between food that is good for my family and other necessary expenses.

4. I want my kids to be involved in sports, the arts, and other extracurricular programs. Therefore, I cannot accept a job that demands unreasonable hours from me and also does not pay enough to afford the programs I want my kids to experience.

Whether you agree with these specific values or not, the bigger message is, "your income is your choice." If a church offers an aspiring pastor less than $25,000 per year, it's easy to say, "No, thank you. That's not the income I choose." And to say, furthermore, "If I accept that income, I will be perceived as lazy and dishonest (whether I am or not) for the lifestyle that income forces on me."

As long as church-goers are among those who equate lack of income with lack of character, I expect to see the list of small churches who can't find pastors increasing more and more every year. I also expect to see young people pursuing higher-paying jobs in other industries where they can afford the lifestyle that Dave Ramsey and so many other evangelical Christians consider not only normal, but ethical.

After all, why can't we store up treasure on earth and in heaven, right?

We all need time to read!

Help! I need somebody!

"Why are you striving these days?
Why are you trying to earn grace?
Why are you crying?
Let me lift up your face.
Just don't turn away."
- By Your Side, Tenth Avenue North

All right. I admit it. I'm not very good at the whole consistency thing. In my defense, I took a class during the spring semester, and that took up a lot of my limited computer time. But now it's summer and my class is long over,so...enough excuses. Time for a new blog post!

This is going to be a confessional blog. If you're not into that sort of thing, just stop reading right now.

I just finished listening to an excellent sermon my mom sent me. (Here's the link if you're interested.) The speaker made two points: I need help and I can help. We all need help and we all can help.

Being a stay-at-home-mom is a tricky thing. Nobody makes you get up in the morning and go some place. Nobody pays you if you do your job. And nobody threatens to stop paying you if you don't do anything at all. The punishment/reward system of school and jobs that most of us have spent a good portion of our lives learning is suddenly gone. What's left is an endless string of days full of both tedium and unpredictability--the tedium of repetitive tasks like laundry and dishes and the unpredictability of the many moods of a child.

On a side note: who thought it was a good idea that gums should have feeling in them? (I'm looking at you here, God.) It seems unnecessarily cruel that kids should have the skin inside their mouth sliced open by each sharp, pointy tooth that comes through! I would be grumpy about that too!

Anyway, one of the unfortunate aspects of our culture is our isolation. We all live in our single-family homes and drive our single-family cars on our single-family outings. This was fine when I went to work and had roommates and generally lived out in the world. But now that I live most of my days in my home, I feel the reality of our isolated lives full force.

What I want to say is this: I need help.

But I'm not even sure how.

Here are another few lines from a song:

"Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in.
Are you aware the shape I'm in?
My hands, they shake; my head, it spins.
Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in.

Three words that became hard to say:
I and Love and You."
- I and Love and You, The Avett Brothers

I find that the more isolated I am, the more isolated I become. The more I withdraw, the more I want to withdraw. When I don't talk to anyone all day, I don't want to talk to anyone. I skip out on opportunities to interact with people. The more cleanly I draw the boundaries in my own life, the more the messiness of other people's lives becomes overwhelming.

So, like the Avett Brothers, I'm saying, "Please take me in, but are you aware the shape I'm in?"

And I'm trying to follow the advice of Tenth Avenue North: Stop trying to earn grace, and whatever you do, don't turn away.

I need help!

On the other side of the coin, I've had some wonderful opportunities to preach this summer, and I find that as I honestly wrestle with my isolation and loneliness, with my weaknesses and struggle, I can help. I can preach sermons that are real, that enter into the brokenness, that ask hard questions. I can recognize grief and loss in the biblical narrative.

And having a kid whose face lights up every single time he sees me, helps me recognize joy and the miracles of God's good creation.

I think that is a part of God's gracious direction in our lives. Not only does he call us where we are gifted, but in responding to that calling, he redeems both our suffering and our joy. He takes all the things that make up our lives and enfolds it into the work he gives us.

So, that's where I'm at right now. I need help and I can help.

All About Eve

"I would have given her [the church] my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet in my mother's drawing room." - Florence Nightingale

St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Westhampton Beach first Ladies Auxiliary, c. 1930

This morning I had the privilege of attending a book release for Carla Sunberg's new book, Reclaiming Eve: The Identity & Calling of Women in the Kingdom of God (co-written by Suzanne Burden and Jamie Wright).  Carla shared the above quotation from Florence Nightingale. What a powerful statement! I have felt the same way at times, and this post comes from my own struggle with reaching a theological understanding of my place in the church.

The Barna Group released a controversial book a few years ago entitled The Resignation of Eve: What if Adam's Rib Is No Longer Willing to be the Church's Backbone? Christianity Today's review of the book reported that some of the statistics have been questioned by other researchers and some of the writing about the various positions held by women is unbalanced. However, the title alone is thought-provoking and worth repeating here. Has "Adam's rib" become the "church's backbone"? Are women leaving the church en masse? What does this mean for the future of the church?

My Own Experience
When I decided to come to seminary, I had no definite plans for my post-graduation life. I harbored a somewhat secret desire to be a pastor, but I was hesitant to state such a bold ambition. In preparation for my future, I started testing my thoughts on different groups of people. The responses were telling.

I worked as a high school secretary. When asked in the public school context why I was going to seminary, I usually responded with something like, "I would like to be a pastor someday, but I know a lot of churches support the idea of women in ministry, but aren't so excited about having their own female pastor." I expected dismissal of such a religious endeavor in a stereotypically godless environment. On the contrary, my co-workers responded emphatically with, "Good for you! Don't let anyone hold you back because you're a woman! You can do whatever you want!" The gruff football coach even said he would be on the front row cheering when I preached my first sermon!

When I said something similar in my Sunday School class at church, however, the response was different. The class responded with knowing nods and "mmhmmm's." I meekly accepted their implicit opinion: they would not want a female pastor anymore than the next church. It was time to leave behind the idealism of educators and accept the reality of the church.

Women's Roles
"Note that you as a female are not given a role, but a responsibility, together with Adam. You (and every male and female in this world) are given broad, sweeping instructions to represent God by using and caring for and creatively overseeing his good world." -  Reclaiming Eve

It seems like every few days I come across a reference to Sheryl Sandberg's widely talked about book, Lean In. Sandberg is the COO of Facebook and a champion of female leaders in the corporate world. How would her journey have been different had she pursued leadership in the church? She is obviously a gifted leader, speaker, author and businesswoman. Would her gifts have been recognized and valued so highly in the church?

I like the idea of abandoning the language of "roles." I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having conversations in the church about gender identity in the midst of a culture deluged with mixed messages about macho men and metro men, militant feminists and submissive wives. However, rather than telling men and women who they should be, categorizing them according to their roles, I believe the church should be the place where men and women can discern their God-given gifts and accept their responsibility as bearers of the image of God.

In past years when many women worked at home, the church offered a venue for women to exercise their gifts of leadership, organization, and industry. Women organized fundraisers for missionaries. They coordinated support for families in crisis. They oversaw the spiritual education of children. Women even preached, although many women chose the less complicated route of traveling evangelist which conflicted less with established power structures.

As more doors have opened in the corporate world and more women have entered the workforce, the restrictive roles within the church have held less and less appeal for women. In a recent conversation with members of the pastoral staff at my own church, I asked if women were allowed to serve on the board of elders. The response was a joking, "Yes, in theory..." Apparently, there is recognition on the part of the pastoral staff that for all their interest in acknowledging that God calls men and women alike, the congregation is still a bit backwards and ignorant. (I wonder if the situation would be quite as funny if rather than a question of gender, the excluded group was a particular ethnicity that made up half the congregation.)

One author describes this phenomenon as insider/outsider status. She writes, "Accustomed to hearing the preacher speak to them and about them, women traditionally have not been encouraged to discover that they have voices of their own and distinctive experiences to contribute to their communities." As women have found their voices outside the church, they have taken their considerable leadership and organization skills elsewhere where they are welcomed unambiguously as insiders. Statistically women still receive lower pay than men for doing equivalent jobs, but at least that distinction is not upheld as fulfillment of a biblical mandate.

Moving Forward
As the church in America hemorrhages members at an alarming rate (the exact rate depends on the source of your data), how can the church specifically address women struggling to find their place? I would like to offer some suggestions.

1. Unambiguously embrace women in all levels of church leadership. In her essay on lay leadership, Janet Fishburn writes, "If lay leadership roles are seen as stepping stones in a power structure this is a sure sign that 'church work' is not being experienced as the service of persons gifted by God for particular ministries." If the best man for the job is a woman, then let's give her the job! And let's stop worrying so much about who is over whom.

2. Work to right gender inequalities. Sometimes the biggest hurdle for doing something new is simply that it's never been done. If no woman has ever been elected to the elder board, then it might be time for the nominating committee to offer a female-only ballot to the congregation. Often, in the space of a few years, people can't imagine a time when women were excluded from formerly male-only roles, but it may take intentional action to get the ball rolling.

3. Give women a voice. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire believed that "for human beings the essential decision is between speaking or remaining embedded in a culture of silence, between naming ourselves or being named by others, between remaining an object or becoming a subject." Use sermon and teaching illustrations written by women. Cite female theologians and scholars. Listen to the concerns of women. And share the pulpit with women. As women in the pews hear other women's voices, they will find their own voices and be more empowered than ever to serve the church.

4. Pay attention to your language. I recently heard an illustration in a sermon about fad diets. The pastor referenced the "diet guru who is followed quickly by another guru as soon as he fades from popularity." I was somewhat taken aback because I was imagining a female nutritionist. If every story you tell, every verse you cite, and every person you reference is a man, women become disengaged and disconnected from the life of the church. The implicit message is that salvation isn't for me.

5. Follow the "crowds, praise, and power." Which ministries are given the most visible space in the church? Which ministries are talked about from the pulpit? Which ministries have the most well-known leaders? Are any of these ministries led by women? Do they involve women? Are women allowed to speak on behalf of the ministries in which they participate? People tend to move towards the crowds, praise and power. If women are excluded from this movement, their sense of belonging diminishes.

6. Consider the theological rationale for traditional "women's ministries." Janet Fishburn writes this: "Where the pastor gives opportunities to laity to discover and use their gifts through mutual ministry to each other, they are more likely to see that the whole world is in need of their ministry. A congregation in mission is first of all a caring community where persons can grow through relationships." Love is learned, experienced, and discovered through a caring community. The ministries traditionally assigned to women--caring for children, providing meals, gathering financial support for ministries--are too often overlooked as theologically insignificant in the overall mission of the church, but these ministries are actually central components of Christian formation in the lives of congregants.

7. Listen. When women complain of being overlooked, don't dismiss their concerns. When women feel that they are without a place or a voice, take their concerns seriously. When women ask questions, think carefully before answering. When we ask questions, we are often trying to understand a past experience that left us confused, hurt, excluded, and even ready to walk away from the church. Don't take these experiences lightly.

Like Florence Nightingale and countless other women, I would give the church my head, my hand and my heart. But I don't want to fight. If giving my life to the church requires a fight, then I don't want to do it (although I suspect that the Holy Spirit may have other ideas). I want to be part of a community where everyone is welcomed, valued and encouraged to discover their unique gifts--regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, position, or gender. I want to be able to say to a young woman who feels a call to ministry with the same passion and enthusiasm of my co-workers, "Great! Go for it! You can do whatever God calls you to do in this church!"

A Tribute to My Grandma

My 89-year-old grandma passed away last week. As we talked about her life and began the process of cleaning out her house, I was amazed by the disciplines that she cultivated in her life and filled with the desire to emulate those disciplines.

She had an amazing work ethic. Of course, I never knew my grandma when she was young. She was the second of ten kids. She was born in 1925, which means that most of her childhood was in the midst of the Great Depression. Her father was confined to a wheelchair, so she grew up in poverty. I really don't know how they made money or how their standard of living compared to those around them, but I can't imagine that my grandma ever knew much besides hard work.What I did see firsthand was the Christmas dinner my grandma prepared for us in December just a few weeks before she died in February. She was planning her dishes carefully so she could do as much ahead of time as possible. She knew her limits and knew that any activity would exhaust her. That exhaustion, though, did not stop her from working in the days leading up to Christmas to prepare a wonderful meal for us. She told me over and over to exercise everyday, and her good health throughout her long life was certainly a testimony to the power of exercise.

As we went through closets, we found all her things very well-cared for. Her clothes were hung carefully with cedar rings on the hangers. She had potpourri in her drawers. Her shoes were stowed in labeled boxes. Her sewing supplies were all organized in her sewing desk. Her crochet magazines were in wire racks on the inside of a closet drawer. She had a few small junk drawers, but for the most part, she took great care in preserving her possessions. It was evident that she did not take all that she had accumulated for granted but rather cherished all that she had worked so hard to acquire.

One of my current interests is learning how to manage a house. In Cheryl Mendelson's book, Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, she opens her tome on housekeeping with her philosophy on keeping a home. She writes that housekeeping "makes your home alive, ... turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself than you can be anywhere else." My grandma's care of her home went beyond simply preserving possessions. As I went from room to room, I could feel my grandma's "ways and rhythms." They were in everything from the beautiful copper print of the Last Supper hanging above the refrigerator to the clippings of encouraging verses and poetry taped above the phone book to the boxes and boxes of cards she had received throughout the years. Her home reflected her values. Her home was her haven and also a welcoming place to anyone who visited. When I got back home, I immediately started cleaning out closets, organizing, and planning ways to rearrange the furniture so that my home could more effectively reflect my "ways and rhythms."

Both of my parents are engineers, and I definitely inherited their analytical, logical approach to the world. My grandma, for the most part, lived at the other end of the spectrum. She had "feelings" about things that the rest of my family mostly dismissed as unfounded and irrational. You never knew if her conversations would include rants about Catholics, Asians, or some other archaic prejudice or insight into profound spiritual truths. More than once, she managed to cut right to the heart of a situation that the rest of my family seemed blind to. I wish she would have found a church home that would have helped her to listen to her intuition and use it in service to God's work, rather than too often dismissing her as a crazy, old woman. Regardless, I don't know what I will do without her wisdom and insight that she shared both in conversation when we visited and in her frequent cards and letters. I do know that I want to follow her example and cultivate whatever abilities I have to listen to my intuition.

Even more than her intuition, though, I want to follow her example of faith. I know she struggled with her fear of death. I often think about her experience with loss. She lost a younger brother at age 7 and a younger sister a few years later (age 11, I think) to scarlet fever. Her fiance was killed in World War II. Her younger son (my dad's brother) died at the age of 19 in a car accident. I can't imagine how deeply each of those losses must have affected her life. When I was in college, though, I was visiting, and we stayed up late one night talking and she told me how afraid she was of death. That surprised me because I thought that old people were all prepared to die, especially someone like my grandma who had come face to face with death so many times. But she was terrified! When my grandpa died, though, she was with him and saw his whole demeanor transformed in a moment from the agony of the last stages of cancer to a look of deep peace. Every time that I visited after that, she always wanted to talk about how real and deep is the love of God. Instead of growing bitter or withdrawn, she seemed so at peace and blessed. I will miss the richness of her faith.

The week of the funeral was a whirlwind of activity, and we had to come back sooner than expected because of the weather, so I don't feel like I have really had the time to process the loss of my grandma. These few thoughts are some of the things that struck me immediately. I expect that I will continue to miss her and grieve her loss in the days to come, but I look forward to the Lord's Day when all will be well.

What About Mentors? More Thoughts on the Book of Judges

"Then Micah said to him, 'Live with me and be my father and priest, and I'll give you ten shekels of silver a year, your clothes and your food.'" - Judges 17:10

My pastor (and associate pastor) are continuing their ongoing Judges sermon series. I have no idea what week they are on ("year 29", as the pastor said on Sunday). This week's sermon was part 2 of the story of Micah and his idol in Judges 17. Micah not only hired a silversmith to make an idol for him; he made his own ephod and hired a priest. Talk about DIY religion!

Reading Micah's story got me thinking. The role of the priest in OT times was to serve as a mediator between God and humanity. For us living in post-NT times, Jesus is our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14). Here's where things get sticky for me. Maybe I don't have any idols in my house or a priest on retainer, but I can understand the appeal of such a thing. How awesome would it be to have a representative of God in your guest room whenever you need him?

Person: "Marissa, what are you going to do about this really difficult, complex situation you are in?"
Me: "I'm not sure. Let me go ask my priest what God wants me to do."

Person: "Marissa, what are you going to do with the degree you have worked so hard to earn after you graduate?"
Me: "I'll just go ask my priest what God's will is for my life."

Person: "That goal that you are trying to achieve looks really difficult. Are you sure you can make it?"
Me: "Let me ask the priest to inquire of God if my efforts will be successful."

Seriously. Awesome, right? Ten shekels of silver a year, clothes, and food is a small price to pay to have someone like that around all the time!

Here's my question, though. Do we put too many people on the same level as Micah's priest? Do we expect pastors to tell us what God wants us to do with our lives? Do we expect our mentors to tell us if we will be successful in our endeavors? Do we expect our Christian friends to respond with profound wisdom when we present our complex problems to them? And even more importantly, do we treat these people like they are on a retainer? Do we expect them to drop everything and come running when we need some advice or encouragement?

I started thinking about times when I have been blessed to receive profound wisdom from a friend or mentor, and as I reflected on my post-college life (lots of people want to mentor students...I feel like I did have people who were more or less on a retainer in my life when I was growing up), I realized that most of the people who have spoken profoundly into my life have been chance encounters. I was blessed to work for some really good bosses, but I didn't take the jobs because I thought the boss would make a good mentor. I've been blessed to find some really good friends. But I often befriended them because they were funny and we had shared interests. And sometimes I was surprised by who stepped up to support me in times of difficulty.

I would especially like to share this crazy story.

A few years ago, one of my best friends went through a devastating crisis. She lost not only her job and a good number of friends, but also her sense of justice and understanding of how the world should and does work. Her world came crashing down around her. I had no idea how to support her in such a crisis.

Another friend had recently divorced his wife and wanted to sell the house he and his wife had bought together. Before he could sell, though, he needed to do some work on the house. He put out an all-call for help, and I agreed to spend an afternoon painting.

I showed up to paint along with two other girls I had never met. We talked as we painted, and somehow we got to talking about what happens when you experience a crisis. One of the girls had gone with her husband to serve as missionaries in another country. They researched various mission organizations, raised money, and took a step out on faith to serve God in a new place. As soon as they arrived, they were kidnapped and held hostage by the mission organization. They were kept in a small room and fed nothing but Snickers bars for almost two weeks before they were released. Fortunately they returned safely home, but her experience affected her in crazy ways that she was still dealing with even at the time we were painting.

The other girl had recently been hiking on a mountain and fallen nearly twenty feet. She was only saved by a ledge that jutted out from the side of a sheer rock wall. She was barely injured but was shaken by how close she had come to death. A few weeks later, she was driving when a moose suddenly appeared in front of her car. She hit the moose and her car was totaled, but again she only incurred minor injuries. However, those two brushes with death shook her to her core and she subsequently battled depression and anxiety.

I will never forget those stories. And I will never forget the generosity of those two strangers to share their stories with me. They talked about how trauma changes you fundamentally. They talked about the importance of relatively minor things like eating right and sleeping regularly. They talked about composing an answer for all the people who ask you questions. Then, when someone unexpectedly asks why you aren't serving as a missionary or what happened to your old car, you can answer without reliving the whole scenario all over again. They helped me understand how deeply trauma can affect you, and gave me a greater sense of compassion and willingness to be present for my friend. I was there because I wanted to help my friend paint his house, and I listened because I wanted to know how to help my other friend. As I followed God's leading, he was faithful to give me what I needed.

When we serve the living and active God, we don't have to install priests to always be present in case we need to ask God a question. We serve a God whose name is, mysteriously, "I am who I am, I will be who I will be." But we also serve a God who came to live among us as a man, Jesus. He is our great high priest who understands our weaknesses and our struggles. We can trust this God to send people our way when we find ourselves desperate for advice or encouragement. We can trust this God to understand just how worried or lost or discouraged we are because he's been there. We can trust him to show up in unexpected ways in our time of need.

I don't think mentors are a bad thing. I don't think pastors are a bad thing. I don't think Christian friends are a bad thing. But I do think that we can easily begin to think that we own these people, that they are there to serve us, to encourage and advise us when we ask it of them. When we think that way, we are just like Micah, building our own idol, hiring our own priest, and creating our own religion in opposition to service of the one, true God.

Hidden Holiness

Image source: http://www.adventure-journal.com/

"'Spiritual path' is the hilarious popular term for those night-blind mesas and flayed hills in which people grope, for decades on end, with the goal of knowing the absolute. They discover others spread under the stars and encamped here and there by watch fires, in groups or alone, in the open landscape; they stop for a sleep, or for several years, and move along without knowing toward what or why.
...
The planet turns under their steps like a water wheel rolling; constellations shift without anyone's gaining ground. They are presenting themselves to the unseen gaze of emptiness. Why do they want to do this? They hope to learn how to be useful." - Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard has such a way of saying things. If you haven't ever read any of her writing, stop reading my blog right now and go to the store (or other places on the internet) and get one of her books. I highly recommend For the Time Being, from which the above quote comes, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which won her a Pulitzer Prize and is another great book, or An American Childhood, a memoir of Annie's childhood in Pittsburgh.

Anyway.

Last Sunday our church celebrated Compassion Sunday. (I just Googled "Compassion Sunday" and the internet says the official date is May 4th, but I guess we celebrated it yesterday.) I'm not sure if Compassion Sunday was started by Compassion International or if it's a real thing in the church calendar. Regardless, our pastor preached a stirring message asking the question, "Where is love leading you?" and urged the congregation to consider sponsoring a child through Compassion International.

Mike and I do sponsor a child through Nazarene Compassionate Ministries. (Incidentally Nazarene children are cheaper than Compassion children.) And according to a June 2013 article in Christianity Today, child sponsorship really does make a difference in the lives of the children and their families who are sponsored.

But, I left church not quite sure what to do with myself. "Where is love leading you?" Well, love led me to marry my wonderful husband. Love leads me to feed and clothe the baby. Love led to the baby in the first place. Love led me to spend three hours shoveling snow over the weekend so my poor, sick husband could stay home and rest.

But I want to do more. I want to be, as Annie wrote, "useful." I want to not kill time or spend my time willy-nilly joining and quitting clubs and activities. And I want to do things that I'm actually good at. Or get good at something that matters. I want to do something that requires more skill than is possessed by the average teenager. But what? Where is love leading me?

I was encouraged when Annie went on in For the Time Being with these words:

"But what distinguishes living 'completely in the world' (Bonhoeffer) or throwing oneself 'into the thick of human endeavor' (Teilhard), as these two prayerful men did, from any other life lived in the thick of things? A secular broker's life, a shoe salesman's life, a mechanic's a writer's, a farmer's? Where else is there? The world and human endeavor catch and hold everyone alive but a handful of hoboes, nuns, and monks.
...
We live in all we seek. The hidden shows up in too-plain sight. It lives captive on the face of the obvious--the people, events, and things of the day--to which we as sophisticated children have long since become oblivious. What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like color."

Maybe that's part of the answer. It's not about pursuing holiness; it's about seeing how holiness is pursuing me. It's not about chasing down love and tackling it; it's about following love wherever it goes.

I was told once that the reason there are no straight roads in Indiana is because they follow wagon trails, which followed walking paths, which followed animal trails. Maybe I should stop trying to build straight roads and just follow the meandering path before me.

He Giveth More Grace: An Illustration

Did you know that there are lots of free books on Kindle? The secret to finding them is to look for books written or translated into English before copyright laws in their modern form came into effect. Some great authors include Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, and--the author I am currently reading--John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress.

All of Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory for the Christian life. I have enjoyed reading it and taken much encouragement therein. (Also, my internal monologue is starting to sound like the King James Bible.) Below is one of my favorite illustrations:

"Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.

Then said Christian, 'What means this?'

The Interpreter answered, 'This fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that thou seest the fire nowithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that.' So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire.

Then said Christian, 'What means this?'

The Interpreter answered, 'This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart: by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, that is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.'"

I have thought of this illustration often while I've slowly made my way through the book. Yesterday I was laid up with the flu, and although I feel much better today, I still am not quite back to normal. Despite my weakness, though, it is wonderful to think that Christ is working in my life, behind the scenes, adding the "oil of his grace" to the fire.

Little House on the (Urban) Prairie

"A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her women servants." - Psalm 31:10, 15

I've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's books in the hope that I will learn both to appreciate domestic life and pick up some tips along the way about how to run a house. I was surprised to discover that even Laura got discouraged about housekeeping. Writing about when she was pregnant with her second child, she lamented, "There was so much to be done and only [Laura] to do it. She hated the farm and the stock and the smelly lambs, the cooking of food and the dirty dishes. Oh, she hated it all, and especially the debts that must be paid whether she could work or not." I was surprised by the break in Laura's consistently positive attitude through all the ups and downs of she and Manly's first years of marriage. I found her brief complaint reassuring, though. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder had some bad days!

Source: modernpioneermom.com

Ma's tireless work to maintain a home first in The Big Woods and then on The Prairie, though, have really inspired me. She started the day by making breakfast before daylight, worked all day, and then sat and stitched or mended by firelight while Pa played his fiddle. This was a woman who knew how to work! Her are some things I've picked up from Ma:

1. Seasons matter. It seems that the Ingalls always knew what the changing weather meant for their lives. During a late snow one year, Pa said, "It's sugar snow!" Laura had never heard of sugar snow. It turned out that Laura's grandpa had tapped the maple trees for their sap, which would be made into syrup and brown sugar. A late snow meant that the trees would bud late and thus the sap would run longer. Laura's whole family came together to process the extra syrup and divide it up among themselves. The day's work ended with a dance with all the neighbors to celebrate and share the bounty. What a different perspective on late snowfall!

Another time, Pa harvested the oats. He cut the heads off some of the stems and gave the long straws to Ma. She carefully sorted the straw and wove the thinnest straw into hats for Laura and Mary, the thicker straw into hats for herself and Pa, and the thickest, roughest straw into work hats for Pa.

I really like the idea of ordering life by the seasons--by planting and harvest time and even by unexpected snows. How much stress to we put on ourselves by fighting the weather? When snow comes, we get up before daylight and go out with our salt and our shovels to take on the snowy obstacles keeping us from the things we "have" to do. We eat fresh produce all year round, paying no attention to when plants produce their fruit. If we want a straw hat, we go buy one. We establish routines that don't change for the weather, for the seasons, or for the unexpected.

2. Beauty matters. Ma always wanted everything to be pretty. She had a china doll that she carried wherever they traveled and set carefully on a shelf or mantel. She shredded carrots to use carrot juice to make her butter a nice, soft yellow. Although Laura may not have been as enthusiastic about housework as her mother was, she always wrote very lovingly of all the details that made both her childhood home and her married home beautiful. That careful attention to detail and to beauty is what makes a house a home, what makes a space welcoming and inviting.

3. There's a reason it's called "homemaking," not "home-doing." Both Ma and Pa were always making things. Pa built Ma a beautiful rocking chair. Ma made Pa, Mary, and Laura nice clothes and quilts. Pa plowed and planted fields. Ma tended the garden.

In our consumer-driven society, I am beginning to understand Pinterest's unending pages of DIY projects. People were meant to create things, not merely consume them. Managing a house is not just about cleaning dirty dishes and clothes day after day. It's about creating--creating welcoming spaces, creating order out of chaos, creating nutritious food, creating routines, creating unique items for family members. I've been thinking a lot about what I might be able to create, and so many things--like clothes, food, household items, furniture--are so much easier to buy now than they were in Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood days. Creating things I don't know how to make when I can buy them in the store seems like an exercise in futility, especially when I'm not very crafty or decorative. However, I can write. Creating a record of thoughts and memories that I can share with others and revisit in the future is an act of creation that I can engage in now. And I am slowly learning to create other things and will continue to learn in the future.


I've only finished Laura Ingalls Wilder's first two books (and skipped ahead to read the last one which was published much later). I am looking forward to continuing to learn about life in the Ingalls household. I am especially interested in Ma's character. She seems very steady and hardworking, both traits that I could use more of in my own life. She has inspired me over the past few weeks to work harder and more intentionally to run our household.

Source: Nazarene Theological Seminary

I was thinking of Ma this morning when I got up at four o'clock (while it was still night) to put soup in the crockpot for a community lunch at the seminary today!

On Faith, Judges, Coffee, and Short-Term Missions

"The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith." - 1 John 5:4, MSG

For the past eighty-five weeks (approximately), my pastor has been preaching on Judges. Right now we're on Samson.

Here's what intrigues me about Samson: His name is on a list with Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, the prophets, and so many other mighty examples of faith in Hebrews 11.

Sure, Samson was really strong. He did have some problems with the ladies and his temper, but he was, after all, one of the judges. But does that warrant a place on this list of impressive men and women of faith? Ever since we've been studying Samson, I've been wondering exactly which part of his life might be worthy of imitation. Here's what I've decided.

Let me back up.

I was talking to my friend Liz the other day about a blog post by one of our favorite bloggers, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary. Jamie suggested that maybe the way we do short-term missions isn't quite what Jesus had in mind. But here's the thing. Jesus' method is pretty scary. Don't stay in a compound or "safe" place. Go to people's houses. Eat their food, share their space, serve them. Go out in pairs, not in a big comfortable group. Don't take a long list of all that you're going to accomplish by working twelve hour days the entire time you're there. Go and be with people.

Well, I like to check items off a list. A list of "sitting, talking, eating, sleeping, repeat" makes me a little uncomfortable. Especially if we're talking about strangers. Who don't speak my language. And come from a completely different culture. Let's do activities, people!

What do short-term missions have to do with Samson? After much consideration, I would like to suggest that the one quality in Samson worthy of emulation is his impulsiveness. Sure it led to a lot of trouble with the ladies, but it also led to fulfillment of God's purposes for his life. God was "seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines" (Judges 14:4). Samson provided such occasions in spades (see: killing a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a dead donkey).

I like to be prepared. I like to think ahead and anticipate difficulties. In fact, at this exact moment, I have hanging on my refrigerator a precisely laid out schedule for the stew I plan to make for supper tonight. It begins at 12:30 with cutting up the meat and ends with finishing the last 20 minutes of simmering and then eating at 5:30.

But maybe that isn't quite the sort of faith God has in mind for us. Maybe faith does not mean anticipating all the difficulties and bypassing them. Maybe faith means heading somewhat rashly, headlong into the difficulties.

This is the kind of faith I'm trying to exercise this year. On a big scale, I want God to move powerfully in my life. I want to step out into an unknown future following the God who goes before. My first step: stop drinking coffee. Because coffee is one of the ways that I try to anticipate and bypass difficulties. If I don't get enough sleep, I drink coffee because I want my day to be productive. But then, inevitably, I can't sleep at night. So I stay up too late, waste time playing iPhone games, and make generally unhealthy decisions. And then, guess what...I'm tired the next day and drink coffee!

Yesterday was a test of my resolve. I didn't sleep very well the night before, so I was already off to a bad start. I had a busy morning of getting the house ready for visitors, practicing for chapel music, and doing the regular morning baby routine. Then, around noon, my neighbor brought over his son, who is three weeks older than my son, for me to babysit all afternoon. I hoped that one or both of them would sleep for a good portion of our time together, but they were both very excited to be in each other's presence and refused to be separated. We watched some Daniel Tiger. We threw leaves in the yard. (I threw leaves while they looked on, captivated.) We read books. We all three suffered some sort of very nearly serious injury. (Don't worry if you're reading this, Sabrina. We were all fine!) It was a LONG afternoon.

At the end of our time together, I took both boys over to the seminary to prepare for chapel. This is when I really wanted the coffee. I was playing piano. Normally I would have practiced a bit in the afternoon, but sitting at the piano with my back to the boys didn't seem like a good plan. So I walked in feeling exhausted and unprepared. I handed both boys off to people in the congregation and, after a brief sound check, waited for chapel to begin.

I couldn't remember the introduction to the first song, so I just kind of fumbled along until Mike started singing. The music was not perfect, but after the terrible introduction, I miraculously found my notes. I kept losing my place in the music, but my hands always seemed to know where to go. We didn't have time to adjust the monitor levels, so I couldn't hear the other musicians very well, and we weren't always as tight as I like, but we stayed together and made it through both songs without incident.

Maybe I didn't go to a foreign country without an itinerary or take on the enemies of God with nothing but a donkey jawbone, but I stepped out on faith. I said yes to babysitting and to playing piano and then trusted God to give me what I needed to take care of two very active boys all afternoon, immediately followed by playing piano in the first chapel service of the semester--all without coffee or enough sleep.

Hopefully that is one small step towards bringing the world to its knees.

Here's the two boys when they were much younger. Surprisingly, I did not think of taking a picture of them yesterday.

What Happens in December Stays in December.

"A man reaps what he sows." -Galatians 6:7

Mike and I were not incredibly committed to our no-sweets/bread-during-Advent fast, but we both did pretty well until just a few days before Christmas. And let me tell you--bypassing the nonstop eating from Thanksgiving to Christmas was such a relief! This post is about one of the things our fast made me think about: the illusion that our lives are compartmentalized, that certain parts don't touch any of the other parts. Let me explain.

What happens in December stays in December.
January is the season for diets, exercise, New Years' resolutions, and major life changes. December is the season for giving into the darkness of winter. Just sit on the couch and eat cookies. Whatever weight you gain in December can be lost in January.

Sorry, no. Maintaining weight is much easier than losing weight. So from the diet perspective, eating for a month straight is not a good plan.

But there's more. Giving way to the invitation to indulge oneself, to embrace the unceasing message of consume, consume, consume that comes at us more in the weeks leading up to Christmas than even the rest of the year is not something you can do for a month and then walk away from. I say this from experience. Living one out of every twelve months in service of the god of consumerism gets you nowhere.

Maybe this is a blog of repentance. For the people I ignored because I didn't feel like going out or making a phone call, for the gifts I didn't buy because I wanted more for myself, for the impatience I exhibited because I couldn't be bothered with the self-restraint required by choosing patience, for the memories I didn't make with my kid because I wanted to relax, I repent.

What happens in December does not stay in December. It hangs on into January just like that extra ten pounds. The self-indulgence, the impulsive buying, the laziness. You can't just wake up on January 1st a different person.

Thinking about how easy it is to believe that led me to think of some other compartments.

What happens in childhood stays in childhood.
At a party recently, I was talking to a schoolteacher who was telling me that many of the kids at his school move there because of family crises: divorce, job loss, illness or death in the family. The location of his town makes it kind of the last stop out of the city/suburbs when money is gone and families are forced to relocate to a cheaper area. However, this being a party after all, he dismissed my concern for his students saying, "But they're kids. Kids are tough. They get over things."

I had just watched Ender's Game the night before, so my brain couldn't let that comment pass. Ender's Game is an incredible science fiction fantasy about a war between humanity and an enemy alien species. But it is also about a boy trying to find his way--in his family, in his school, in a global crisis. His actions ultimately result in the destruction of an entire species, and he is doomed to wander the universe carrying the last surviving member in search of a world in which they can rebuild their species and he can let go of the weight of his actions.

Kids have been reading Orson Scott Card's novel for a long time. Because kids know--what happens in childhood can haunt you for the rest of your life. It is too easy for adults to toss out those words: "Kids are tough," which lets them off the hook from taking responsibility for their actions towards their own kids or their neglect of the hurting kids around them.

I think that (we) adults also like to draw a line between kids and grown-ups, claiming that we've left the past behind. Then we don't ever have to deal with the heartache of childhood events. Unfortunately, though, that stuff that we don't deal with can weigh on us as heavily as Ender's burden, taking over not only our childhood but also our adulthood.

What happens in childhood matters. So let's be compassionate to the kids we meet, and let's also be a little more compassionate to the adults we meet who carry invisible burdens. And maybe while we're at it, we can be a little more compassionate to ourselves.

What happens in college stays in college.
Ok. So this is what happens when I go to long between blog posts. I have way too much to say. But this one is important too.

In Christian Smith's book, Lost in Transition, drawing on thousands of interviews with young adults, Smith laments the narrative our society has woven about "the college experience." It involves drinking and partying as much as possible, one night stands, and casting aside your parents' values. For many, college is viewed as a four-year recess from responsibility and consequences.

Since I attended a Christian college, my own experience as well as most of the people around me wasn't so extreme. But here's what really got to me. Smith said that maybe we shouldn't uproot kids from their support systems at such a formative and vulnerable time in their lives. Maybe we shouldn't send kids away from our communities when they are first trying their hands at being adults.

Because what happens in college doesn't stay in college. For a few that means tragedy such as death or severe injury as a result of bad decisions. For others that means heartbreak from relationships that became a lot more serious than anyone ever intended. But for a much greater number it means that they learn to be adults from their peers who don't know any more than they do. It means they learn how to participate in politics, how to choose a spouse, how to develop a philosophy of life that will shape their career plans and their family lives, how to talk and think about God as an educated person--all from the few older people who cross their path and from their peers.

We reap what we sow.
I've always been told, "Don't date someone who is mean to the waiter." It's for just this reason. You can't be mean to one person and consistently kind to someone else. You can't be self-indulgent for one month and be selfless the other eleven.You can't be reckless for a season and resume responsibility like nothing happened.

So, how do you compartmentalize? Are there parts of your life that you've convinced yourself don't affect the others? Are there other seasons of life that our culture says are "throwaways"?

In A Land of Excess

"This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God." - Jesus

My friend Liz (suddenlyfive.blogspot.com) came with her family to visit over Thanksgiving. She told me that they almost never have leftovers at their house because the two Nicaraguan teenagers who live with them eat everything in front of them. Habits developed throughout a life of feast or famine (more famine than feast), have led them to feast whenever they have a chance.

My first thought was that self-control is a learned skill and the ability to save things for later is a sign of maturity.

But then I remembered Jesus' story about the man who had such a great harvest that he had to build bigger barns to store all his extra grain.

"You fool!" God said. "This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have stored up for yourself?"

Saving is one of the highest virtues of American Christians. Get rid of your credit card debt. Live within your means. Put something away for a rainy day. Practice self-control in the face of consumerism that tells you to "buy, buy, buy."

Hearing about my Nicaraguan friends suddenly flipped that value on its head. John Wesley famously said, "Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can." We are quick to criticize the people who only practice the first part of that aphorism, people who constantly pursue better jobs and more money without regard for anything else. However, American Christianity is a lot more complimentary towards people who only make it to the second point, people who work hard and live frugally, putting away a nest egg for the future.

But what about the third part, "Give all you can"?

According to an article I read recently, Americans fail at dieting because of a phenomenon called "decision fatigue." We are faced with so many decisions every day that we just get tired of choosing not to eat bad food and to exercise. We are both psychologically and biologically programmed to hoard--to eat as much as we can and rest as much as we can--in preparation for an unknown future time of famine. In a land where that famine never comes, we get fat.

According to another excellent article from The New York Times about a Greek island full of people who regularly live into their 90s or even 100s, individual change is nearly impossible. After listing a number of factors that contribute to the overall health of the islanders, the author writes this:

"Every one of these factors can be tied to longevity. That's what the $70 billion diet industry and $20 billion health-club industry do in their efforts to persuade us that if we eat the right food or do the right workout, we'll be healthier, lose weight and live longer. But these strategies rarely work. Not because they're wrong-minded: it's a good idea for people to do any of these healthful activities. The problem is, it's difficult to change individual behaviors when community behaviors stay the same. In the United States, you can't go to a movie, walk through an airport or buy cough medicine without being routed through a gantlet of candy bars, salty snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages. The processed-food industry spends more than $4 billion a year tempting us to eat. How do you combat that? Discipline is a good thing, but discipline is a muscle that fatigues. Sooner or later, most people cave in to relentless temptation."

In a land of feasting, is saving really a virtue? What is the difference between saving and hoarding? My initial judgment of my Nicaraguan friends and their lack of self-control could easily be mirrored back to my own life. Is learning to live surrounding by plenty really a virtue?

Mike and I have decided to do an Advent fast this year. We've given up sweets and bread for the next few weeks. Partly, we are both tired of being overweight. But after spending Thanksgiving with my Nicaraguan friends, I found myself appalled by the insatiable appetite of Americans between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everything from peppermint mochas to a hundred different kinds of truffles and cookies is everywhere--on tv commercials, on billboards, on posters and pictures throughout stores, on the sidebars of Facebook and Google. Work parties, friend parties, work dinners, friend coffee dates. Eating while you shop. Eating on the run in the midst of the craziness. It's all madness!

How do we make it stop? I think our Advent fast is a step in the right direction, but I wonder if our whole perspective on saving needs to change. I wonder if we need to stop being okay with being surrounded by such plenty, if we need to stop being so proud of our self-control and start wondering why we got so good at turning down temptation in the first place.

Maybe I need to stop listening to Dave Ramsey and start listening to Jesus.

A Song in the Night

"He did not spend his life for the people because he was a parson, but he was a parson because the church of England gave him facilities for spending his life for the people." - George MacDonald

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

This is the question every kid is asked numerous times throughout their childhood. The question has a little bit more of an edge when asked of a senior about to graduate with a degree in "liberal arts" or of a 26-year-old using his master's degree to work at Starbucks.

My husband and I have asked ourselves this question over and over as we have encountered the various forks in the road that came with marriage, having children, job changes, church changes, etc.

What do we want to be when we grow up?

When I decided to attend seminary, I felt completely confident that I was on the right path. I wanted to be a "marrying, burying" pastor. I wanted to oversee a church that would welcome people in for both the major milestones in their lives as well as the day in and day out stuff of living. I wanted to pick a place and live there for the next forty years until I retired. And then, presumably, I would retire there. I wanted to spend my life for people.

As Anne Lamott says, "If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans."

I think I thought that spending my life for people would somehow be whimsical, evoking tears at times, laughter at others. I thought it would have some kind of soundtrack in the background--something like Lord of the Rings, a combination of dramatic runs and peaceful melodies.

I think the composer of my soundtrack is temporarily on hiatus.

What I am hearing instead is the gentle breeze of beautiful red, orange, and yellow trees on a fall day. The peaceful stillness of a sleeping baby. The echoes of laughter and music from the evenings spent listening to Southern Gospel and dancing with the baby.

It's possible that when I wanted to spend my life for others, I really wanted to spend it for me. I wanted it to look and feel a certain way. I wanted to decide what I would "be" instead of just allowing God to decide who I am becoming.

I pray this day for grace to spend my life for the people standing in front of me and for grace when I fail in those efforts. I pray for attention to the opportunities I have and the fulfillment that comes with seizing those opportunities--whether it is accomplishing a task while the baby is sleeping or being okay with accomplishing nothing. I pray that I would hear the notes of the soundtrack around me and recognize that the future day of being "grown up" is here and now, and this is, in fact, who I am.

"A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree,
Sang in the moonshine, merrily,
Three little songs, one, two, and three,
A song for his wife, for himself, and me.

He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high,
Filling the moonlight that filled the sky,
'Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive!
Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five!'

He sang to himself, 'What shall I do
With this life that thrills me through and through?
Glad is so glad that it turns to ache!
Out with it, song, or my heart will break!'

He sang to me, 'Man, do not fear
Though the moon goes down, and the dark is near;
Listen my song, and rest thine eyes;
Let the moon go down that the sun may rise!'

I folded me up in the heart of his tune,
And fell asleep in the sinking moon;
I woke with the day's first golden gleam,
And lo, I had dreamed a precious dream!"
 - George MacDonald

A Modest Goal

"You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say...'I now see that I spent most my life doing in neither what I ought nor what I liked.'" - C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

Last summer, Mike and I decided to listen to a dramatized version of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. When I heard the last line of the above quote, it stopped me in my tracks. How often do I find myself doing "neither what I ought nor what I liked"?

As a stay at home mom, I have a lot of unstructured time on my hands. A great deal of it, of course, is spent in caring for the baby, one way or another. But what about the rest of it?

Mike and I recently visited New Harmony, Indiana. The town was built by the Harmonizers. They were a sort of cult who believed in separatism and the imminent return of Jesus. In the first year of settling the town, they cleared 2,000 acres and built 160 homes. That's a lot of hard work! Especially if they thought Jesus was going to return any day...

I imagine that the Harmonizers must have worked hard, harder than I can imagine, from morning to evening every day. My life does not require that kind of hard work. And to be honest, I'm not sure I could hack it if it did.

But what am I doing instead? If I don't have so many "oughts" as settlers clearing land to survive in the 1800s, I might as well pursue some "likes."

So, that's my goal. It may not be a very lofty goal, but I'm trying to use my time doing what I like if not what I ought. 

Going Green

So I joined Twitter.

I don't really like new technology. I don't like investing time in learning something that is only going to ultimately take more time than I want to give anyway.

But Twitter surprised me. Did you know that the Internet is full of interesting, useful, well-written articles about everything? I've read about what kinds of food professional cyclists eat, how people are responding to the government shutdown, a theological understanding of power, what it feels like to always be the worst athlete at the gym, mowing crews in Detroit, a guy who is 5'5" and can dunk, and so forth.

In the past week, I have read an incredible number of words. Every day, I think the next day things might slow down a little...because how much high quality content can really be added to the internet everyday?

The answer is: A LOT. Every day, I have new tweets in my feed, new links to articles and videos that I find myself compelled to follow.

I have written previously about my thoughts on sustainable eating (here). But until I joined Twitter, I was unaware of the massive consumption of information happening in our world. I would like to suggest some ideas for "going green" on the Internet:

1. Reduce. At a recent trip to the Kansas City Museum of Art, I wandered through the contemporary art exhibits and was surprised to see a television. The accompanying sign informed me that in the early days of television, there were only three channels. Something like 55% of households owned a television, and they all watched the same three channels. Shows like Gilligan's Island and The Ed Sullivan Show were a shared experience. Now, news and entertainment are so specialized, no two people have the same experience. There are of course many advantages in this (respecting the variety of values held by people, giving voice to marginalized sources, presenting multiple perspectives on an issue), but I think we've gone overboard. How about we divide things up? Maybe we can all get our news from the BBC on Monday, CNN on Tuesday, MSNBC on Wednesday, Fox on Thursday, and The New Yorker on Friday. Saturdays will be devoted to recreation--I like the Outsider magazine. And Christianity Today can have Sundays.

2. Reuse. Instead of constantly updating content, how about reposting the highest quality articles, stories, poems, and even books from the past from time to time? It is sad for me to see so many good articles that are here today and gone tomorrow. A really good article might last a few days as it gets shared and re-shared on Facebook. But we seldom give it enough time to change our lives.

3. Conserve. Read an article and then think about it. Talk to someone else about it. Retweet it. Act on it. Don't just read it and then toss it aside like litter. Get some mileage out of it. Recently our dishwasher broke, and the dishwasher repairman who pronounced it dead told us that the average life of a dishwasher is between 18 months and 3 years. I don't know the average life of online content, but I imagine that it is at most a matter of weeks. Try to stretch out the life of the really good articles and ideas, rather than tossing them aside.

This post is meant to be a little sarcastic. My husband once had a co-worker who printed out every single email she received and filed it. Thank goodness for electronic searches! I hate filing!

Seriously, though, I am overwhelmed and a little saddened by how many good things are happening in our world that come across my Twitter feed so fast I can hardly give them more than a few seconds thought.

So, here is a poem I read this morning that is worth slowing down for.

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


Just give it a minute...

Telling the Truth

"Good writing is about telling the truth." - Anne Lamott

Well, here goes.

Life is hard. There. That is the truth. Any questions?

I was talking to my mom this morning about a friend of hers who is having a really tough time at church. Her friend said that she was ready to quit the church, to just give up and move on. My mom suggested to her that there may be some good reasons not to quit, and I think her friend decided to give it another go, but that's not always the way that conversation plays out.

We compared notes and discovered that we both know people who expect church people to behave better than non-church people. Unfortunately, just like anyone else, church people can be awkward or inconsiderate. Or even just plain mean.

My pastor is fond of saying that too many people expect the Christian life to be like a cruise. They want to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Those people are offended when God has the audacity to interrupt their cruise with things like calls to difficult assignments or suggestions about being kind to one's enemies.

They signed on to escape life, not to be thrown in headfirst.

In a recent sermon, one of my favorite pastors shared this story, written by Barbara Brown Taylor:

“Several summers ago I spent three days on a barrier island where loggerhead turtles were laying their eggs. One night while the tide was out, I watched a huge female heave herself up on the beach and dig her nest and empty her eggs into it. Afraid of disturbing her, I left before she was finished. The next morning I returned to see if I could find the spot where her eggs lay hidden in the sand. What I found were her tracks leading in the wrong direction. Instead of heading back out to sea, she had wandered into the dunes, which were already as hot as asphalt in the morning sun.
          A little ways inland I found her: Exhausted, all but baked, her head and flippers caked with dried sand. After pouring water on her and covering her with sea oats, I fetched a park ranger who returned with a jeep to rescue her. He flipped her on her back, strapped tire chains around her front legs, and hooked the chains to a trailer hitch on his jeep. Then I watched horrified as he took off, yanking her body forward so that her mouth filled with sand and her neck bent so far back I thought it would break.
          The ranger hauled her over the dunes and down onto the beach. At the ocean’s edge, he unhooked her and turned her right side up. She lay motionless in the surf as the water lapped at her body, washing the sand from her eyes and making her skin shine again. A wave broke over her; she lifted her head slightly, moving her back legs. Other waves brought her further back to life until one of them made her light enough to find a foothold and push off, back into the ocean. Watching her swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I reflected that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.” (Barbara Brown Taylor in The Other Side Magazine March & April 2000)

Ultimately, the real life that we are called to as Christians might be more fulfilling than a cruise and it might even save us in the end. But in the thick of things, sometimes it's hard to tell whether we're being saved or killed.

And that's the truth.