Blinded

Sunday was World Hunger Sunday, and like I would imagine many churches did our sermon focused on that very subject. Before the service I was talking with our pastor’s wife and she was sharing with me a struggle she had from the day before. They had gone downtown and had noticed that on every corner and every place they went there were people begging. She said at first she was overwhelmed by the amount of need, but by the end of the day she wasn’t even noticing them anymore.  Our pastor shared about seeing all the need and being overwhelmed by it as well, although from the pulpit he didn’t share having gotten to the point of no longer noticing the beggers, so I don’t know if his experience was the same as hers.

This all happened during the day when I was sitting by a table with a tent set up trying to get donations, pledges actually, for our youth and other church members to spend Saturday night sleeping outside, getting a taste of what it means to be homeless, and hopefully raising some money and awareness at the same time. So Sunday morning I sat with a couple kids trying to raise awareness of what we’re doing, and hopefully get some people who didn’t want to sleep out with us to give us money. A lot of people stopped and talked with me about what we are doing and they seemed genuinely interested and thought it was a great idea. 12:45 P.M. Sunday I’m packing up the tent and looking at a list of pledges with exactly 0 names. After all our promotion, after all the conversations I had had we didn’t get a single person pledging financial support. And this after these people sat in church listening to a sermon about giving.

In preperation for our Saturday sleeping out I have been doing a lot of studying and researching about homelessness. I’m trying to make it personal. A little while ago someone commented that I should read “Under the Overpass” and so I picked up a copy of the book. It’s very easy to read, as it seems to be written for an audience as young as junior high possibly? Two guys volunarily experience homelessness in several different U.S. cities over the course of about 5 months. Some of the book didn’t resonate with me, but two things in particular did. First is what seems a pretty obvious thing, the journey they describe puts a human face to homelessness. It allows someone who has never experienced what it’s like to be homeless to better understand what it means to be homeless. I think I got a glimpse of this during mission trips I’ve been on too. I’m always amazed at what seems to make the biggest impact on people. The second thing that struck me was reading how various churches and/or so called Christians responded to these “homeless” guys. It was a slap in the face to read about how some of these churches and people treated homeless people, because I more often than not have responded similarly. It’s easy to ignore need and think to yourself that if you gave them money they’d just go buy drugs or alcohol (which may be true, but there are other things we can do instead that are at least as meaningful).

I can sit in church and write all the blogs I want about being the hands and feet of Christ, but if I don’t step out and start acting like it it’s all meaningless. I’m not sure what I think about our planned event to raise awareness. I think it’s great to become more aware of what homeless families and individuals are dealing with, but I think it’s far more important to go and show those people Christ’s love, even though we cannot possibly understand what they endure every day. And I don’t think this necessarily means giving them money. I think we can start simply by acknowledging that they are human beings. And hopefully from there I can become more willing and able to show them the love of God in a true and helpful way.

Long-Term Planning

Money. It’s front and center in our lives more now than before I think. We have less, or think we have less of it, and so giving it away becomes a bigger issue. Like pretty much every organization in the country right now our church is dealing with not having as much money coming in as we used to. I was liking how we addressed this. It was via personal contact from deacons and a Q & A time between services where people could find out what exactly is going on in the church. It was healthy and it didn’t “preach” that we needed to be giving more in order to become better Christians.

Until yesterday. Yesterday the sermon was on giving. I don’t think I would have had a problem with the sermon ordinarily. Our pastor did not really even focus a lot on giving more because our church is struggling or that sort of thing. But in the wake of these other attempts at getting people to give as they were before (it’s funny how we have only a handful of unemployed people but nearly everyone is giving less these days) the sermons seems to come off as another attempt to get people to open their pocketbooks and give more money to the church.

One redeeming thing about this sermon and the timing was that much of the focus on giving to the church talked about how we are unable to do what we need/should be doing for the community because we don’t have the money in the budget to do these things. While I think we could do a lot with no money, I did appreciate that it wasn’t as much about helping our church to help our church. I know this was a legitimate thing because it has been our pastor’s focus since he arrived, connecting with our community.

All of this is really just to say that we are in the midst of a pretty major decision. There is very limited land and the house directly next to our church, between a house we own and the church building, is for sale. The house is 100k less than it was the last time it was for sale, so it’s a great price. But money is tight, and if we already cannot do what we should be doing in and for the community then buying a house isn’t a good idea. There’s a committee meeting trying to figure out how we can afford to buy the house, so that in case we decide the church needs to build an addition or something we have the land and can do it. Not that long-range planning is unimportant, but I think this is absolutely ridiculous.

The church isn’t going to grow. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that the way we do church is evolving. Small communities are what work, and they are going to become more and more popular. Sure, in 10 years we may have enough people to make it reasonable to add an addition. But I do not believe that in 10 years we will NEED to build an addition. We could triple in size and have no need for structural changes (well, probably new paint and carpet and things, but that’s not the point). Our sanctuary sits more than half empty every morning. We have a good size room that can/could be used as a gym for almost all activities. We already have land that would allow us to grow. And we are currently unable to afford to do what we are called to do. Because of money we are not being the church right now. What good does adding another house do? What good is planning for the future if we cannot live as the church in the present?

I was asked what I thought about the purchase of the house because they are thinking largely in terms of youth and young adult needs in terms of building in the future. And I told them this, basically. But they are still moving forward, and I respect that they are seeing the long term needs and doing what they can in the present to make possible future needs possible. But isn’t there something seriously wrong when we are so worried about what we, the people in the church, will need in 10 years that we cannot provide for what the people all around us need right now?

The church of the New Testament didn’t acquire property in order to plan for the future. They collected money and split it among everyone so that everyone was cared for. Perhaps with their excess they then purchased property or other types of things. But first they cared for the community. We need to re-evaluate what the church is doing before we begin deciding that the future demands the sacrifice of the present.

Living in the World

I am one of the first to recognize that I live in a bubble. A very limited bubble. The people I know are from church. The people I interact with are all people who if they don’t go to the same church as me, at least go to church, regularly. And so I wonder what I can do to make a difference? How can I reach outside of my bubble when all the “usual” ways don’t really apply.

A lot of people who are faithful Christians actively involved in church and not really doing much socially outside of their church circle still have work. They still have the people they interact with daily, usually people who are not from church backgrounds. At least some of them. But the people I work with are all active Christians involved in the church. Even the youth I work with are church kids.

I’m not one to go to the gym and work out, another great place for interacting with people who aren’t part of your social circle. I’m not musical or involved in theater, although I enjoy attending these sorts of things it’s not the same as being part of it. I don’t have kids. I don’t have “social” hobbies. But now our church is starting something. Well, actually, the staff is supposed to be starting something that will hopefully in the long run turn into a church thing. We’re supposed to get involved in the community. In fact, we’re supposed to spend 10% of our “work” time in community activities. My pastor isn’t sure what this looks like either, he suggested finding something I enjoy doing and joining a community group. But I don’t know what that would be.

I thought about volunteering at a food pantry or something like that. But that’s not what he wants us to do. He wants us involved IN the community, not so much the whole helping the community thing. He wants us to be present in a non- “church” role in the community. And I love the idea. But I don’t know how to do it.

What community activities are there for a 25 year old single woman with no real hobbies to speak of? Where do I even begin to get involved?

Church Space

Relevant magazine posted an article online about the use of church buildings and it got me thinking. I work in a church and much of the time that I am here the building is not really being used, which at first lead me to fully agree with the article in saying our churches are empty too much of the time. But as I thought about it I realized we are a pretty active church Sunday-Saturday.

Monday mornings we have a Bible study group meeting and a children’s playgroup that meets. Monday nights BSF uses our church.

Tuesday morning a men’s Bible study meeets and twice a month on Tuesday night the council meets. There is also a fishing club that meets at the church on Tuesday nights.

Wednesday morning is Coffee Break, Wednesday night is either Cadets (boys) or GEMS (girls).

Thursday night is our juinor high youth program, depression support group, men’s cooking club, women’s Bible study, and choir.

Friday’s the church is basically empty, except on rare occassions. We use a corner house for a young adult cafe once a month.

Saturday morning the BSF ladies use the church. And many weeks Saturday afternoons have someone using the church for one activity or another.

Sunday is church and small group meetings, as well as our senior high program.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday one of our extra offices is used by a counseling center.

I share this because I think all these programs show that our church building is not a waste of space. It is being used a lot. But I don’t know if it is being used as it should. All of these different activities are good and I don’t think that we should stop doing any of them. But they are all activities for members. Sure, some things are geared to be more outreach oriented (the fishing club is very much that way), but they are member oriented none the less.

Since reading the article I’ve gone back and forth on what I feel about this. I think we should have more open church buildings, provide more community based opportunities, such as an after school care program or a food pantry or allow groups to meet in the church for various things. The issue is, we don’t have space available really. During the day time hours, specifically the afternoons, the church is mostly empty. But at night when people are not working, the church is active and although not usually full, too full to add anything significant to what is already happening. So my question is, should we eliminate some of the “member” activities at the church to free up space for more “community” activities? Will it make a difference or does the issue go much deeper than just how the church building is used?

A Bonfire Community

I had a dream last night. My dream was a mix between a real memory and a fictional dream. I was sitting on the beach around a bonfire with a group of about 20 other people. The sun was setting over the lake and it was beautiful. Different people would pick up a guitar and start playing a song, or just start singing a song and others would join in. Some people were just talking. And everyone was connected by the overwhelming presence of God. This all actually happened, I just don’t remember the overwhelming presence of God being as powerful as it was in the dream, but I know he was present in the real time too.

It was with this group of people that I have known the truest sense of the word community. We were a group that had come together to serve God and we were a group that together had faced challenge upon challenge, and tragedies none of us had expected. It wasn’t a forced community, we were connected to each other through God. It sounds cheesy when I write it, but I don’t know how else to explain it. When we gathered together God was real and tangible not just a distant thought. We could have theological debates that were more spiritual than intellectual (which I think is rare). We could accept each other’s differences and struggles because we recognized our commonalities. We were a family.

I think this is what we (my generation and those younger than me) are most looking for today. A community that is real. A community where we don’t have to be someone or something we are not- a community where it’s okay to question the status quo, where it’s okay to question “what’s always been”. We aren’t necessarily looking for a community of people who are the same as us, but for a community where we can be ourselves without being judged for being different.

But we have also been raised in a culture of “instant” and so often we expect instant results. Instant community. The community in my dream came to be after we spent nearly 24 hours a day 7 days a week together over the course of two summers, about 6 months of near constant interaction. If we took the same amount of time to build community with the church with our current level of interaction (about 3 hours a week) it would take 6.5 years to reach the level of community we had sitting together on the beach that night. And that’s being generous. I think realistically it would require 10 years of facing challenges and tragedies together. As well as experiencing miracles and celebrations with one another. But we don’t stick around long enough to see this happen. Or we close off our lives to the people we are wanting community with, waiting for community to happen before we will be part of making a community.

I’m guilty of this too, but I think we all need to be more patient. We all need to be willing to step out a little bit more. We all need to make the people who we are seeking to be “church” with more of a priority. Whether these people are the people in our physical church building or the people we connect with through another way. Instant community doesn’t exist. Instant community cannot exist. Building relationships takes time and until we are willing to spend time building relationships and opening ourselves up we will never find the community we are seeking.

Acceptance

This past March our pastor came. He’s middle age with a wife and three kids. Two of his kids are in college/trade school. But his daughter is a junior in high school. They moved here from Canada where he had been a pastor for 17 years- that means before his daughter was born they were already in the community she grew up in. In July his family joined him here (because of immigration issues they couldn’t come with him right away). This girl is in a completely new situation- a new school, new culture, new area. Everything is unfamiliar for her and in addition to the unfamiliar she is having to deal with being away from her friends- friends she has spent the last 15 years making and growing with. I tried to provide some opportunities for her to hang out with the high schoolers over the summer and so twice she was able to spend time with them getting to know people a bit. And then school started. It’s been a hard two and a half weeks for her. Friday night we had a lock-in. She didn’t know if she wanted to go, but she did. As the kids arrived at church she and her cousin were standing there and talking with a couple kids until those kids’ friends showed up. Then they were left alone. I wanted to do something- I wanted to get them included in the group. But I knew I couldn’t force it. So I did what I could to include them, I did what I could to make them feel welcome and part of the whole. And then around 1 A.M. I noticed they were part of a group- they were being asked to join in games, they weren’t alone, and I wasn’t doing anything to encourage their inclusion but they were included.

I can’t make groups of kids hang out together if they don’t want to. It wouldn’t serve any purpose. But part of being in youth ministry is giving those different groups of people chances to spend time together and find their common ground on their own. Part of what makes ministry in the church so exciting is that we have one of the few opportunities to take all sorts of different people from all different social groups and bring them together as we seek to find our common ground and build on that. But part of what can be so challenging is that this doesn’t happen right away. This takes time, sometimes longer than we would like. But the church needs to make sure we are not encouraging segregation. We need to make sure we encourage interaction, even as we have to sit back and let happen what will.

I hope that at the end of the night those two girls felt like they were at least somewhat a part of the group. School starts again today and our pastor’s daughter probably will have to start over, but my hope is that some of those connections from Friday will carry over and work to help her feel more connected every day. After all, that’s the purpose of the church. To take what we do seperate from the world and bring it to the world to transform it.

Segregation

I’m 25 and single and expect to be that way for a while still. Unfortunately for me most people in the church are married by their mid-20’s. For the past two years I haven’t really worried about this- just because someone is married doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. However this year my church is changing things up- instead of all young adults attempting to do Bible study as a whole group (attempting because it fell apart before Christmas last year) there is going to be a group for young marrieds and a group for singles. I understand the need for this- I realize that a married person is going to be in a different place than I am spiritually just because they are married. But the problem for me is that the “singles” at my church are almost all college age and a large majority that are in the area are kids who I had in youth group. I don’t know how I feel about having Bible study with them- maybe it makes me sound like an arrogant person but I don’t think we are anywhere near the same place spiritually or emotionally or anything.

Some churches are blessed to have huge numbers of people so when there is one group that is clearly in the minority there are still enough people to have a Bible study or other type of group for them. But most churches are probably faced with a situation far more like mine- a post-college single young adult demographic of a handful (of which 2 are active in the church maybe).

There are oodles and oodles of books about why young adults are leaving the church and/or why young adults aren’t coming to church. One of the recurring themes is community- young adults don’t want the fake community, we seek genuine relationships. When a single post-college young adult enters the church and is faced with a choice- join with the college age group or the married young adults group it’s not going to be welcoming. How do we make the church less divided? I don’t mean just the young adults, I mean everyone. Why do small groups need to be based on similarities? Why does a small group of single young adults, married young adults, parents of young children, parents of elementary children, parents of middle schoolers, parents of high schoolers, parents of college students, empty nesters, grandparents, etc make sense? Isn’t the church about a bunch of different people coming together and uniting in Christ? Isn’t there some other way to meet needs than by having this amazingly diverse group of people- a diversity found almost no where else in culture- split back into groups with people like themselves? Am I just seeing this as a problem because of my personal situation or is this something that others are wondering about too?

Forsaken

I have heard many heart breaking stories recently but two struck particularly close to home and have me asking “What can we do better?”

The cook at my dad’s work had a serious liver disease, I don’t really know what was wrong, it wasn’t from alcohol but other than that all I know is that he needed a liver transplant but for a long time he wasn’t “sick” enough to get on the list. Finally he got sick enough and a shortly after that he got a liver. The transplant went perfect- the doctors said he was the poster boy for transplants it went so well. He was home 6 days later. Less than 24 hours after that he died. He had a blood clot. The doctors said it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been in the hospital still either way they wouldn’t have been able to save him. He and his family hadn’t been to church in years and his wife made a comment like “I don’t think I want anything to do with a God that lets this happen”.

My church growing up didn’t have very “youth”. But for the first two years of high school we had a lot of kids in youth group- they were mostly kids who spent all their free time at the skating rink. They were disruptive and said things that made the few of us who had grown up in church a bit uncomfortable. But there were some who were truly seeking a relationship with God. Katie was one of them. She was a senior when I was a freshmen so the only time we talked to each other was at youth group. When she graduated she slowly fell away from the church, but not so much from God- at least not from the few times I talked to her. Amy had a baby boy about a year ago. He was born really sick and spent the first 6 months of his life in the hospital. Even when they finally got to take him home he was often in and out of the hospital and needed a lot of special care. About 2 months ago, 3 months before his first birthday he died. I heard from a mutual friend that Amy basically has turned her back on God.

Neither of these people was connected with a church community when they dealt with these things, and I doubt that a connection to a church community would change their feelings about God right now. But I want to know what we as the church can do to connect with these people before it gets to the extreme.

I wonder if we reached out to them instead of waiting for them to reach out to us if we could be a support network as they struggle with this cruel loss.

I wonder if we would be supportive as they turned away from God for a time.

I wonder if we could be a lifeline that could keep them in some way connected to God even as they struggle with these feelings of hurt and anger.

I wonder if it’s too late for the church to reach these people.

I wonder what Jesus would do.

Breaking News

I have now lived in three very different areas: Holland, Orange City, and Chicago. As I was watching the news the other night I was once again reminded of how depressing our news is these days- it is no longer a surprise when I hear about more than one murder in a day. But there once was a time when an attempted robbery would have surprised me.

When I lived in Holland I didn’t pay much attention to the news, but from what I remember most of it focused on happenings around the state, a few local things about a robbery or gang violence or something, and world news during the local news time.

When I lived in Orange City during the year we first went to war against Iraq the majority of the news coverage was on two things- the war and local sports. Seriously they could talk about the football team, the basketball team, the cheerleaders, whatever for hours on end, but any real news beyond the way the weather was affecting crops was rare.

Now I am just outside Chicago and it almost doesn’t seem worth it to watch the news because it’s either about the corrupt politicians or the death of yet another person caused by uncontrolled violence.

The TV depressed me, but it also didn’t surprise me. I want to be surprised by violence, by corruption, by evil. Initially I thought I was desensitized to these things because of how abundant they seem to be now compared to before. But I realized something later on- I may be a bit desensitized by the violence, but I would rather be overwhelmed with all this wickedness thrown in my face than live in the bubble that suggests the only bad things happening are too far removed from my world to actually affect me. This is a more accurate picture of what we as Christians need to be seeking to change. The world we are called to be in but not of is not an idyllic town where sports and weather and wars in other countries are what make our news. We are called to be in a world that is totally corrupted by evil, a world that is currently ruled by prince of darkness. We need to be throwing light into the darkest of places. I think it’s too easy to forget what we are up against when we aren’t exposed to the reality of it in our backyard. It’s not pretty, it’s not safe, and it certainly will not be easy. Let’s get started already.

Constructing Criticism

I have a rule for volunteers that they cannot speak poorly of the youth group, church, or specific people. The church also has this expectation of staff and leaders in the church. I think this is critical. I know that for the most part we wouldn’t go spouting off about every little thing that gets to us when we are in leadership roles in the church, but I also see how easy it would be for us to get caught up in our frustrations and complain to others about them. But I have a question about my policy and the church’s policy: What’s the line?

I want to be able to discuss areas for improvement in the church with more than just staff and my youth volunteers. I don’t really feel like I can’t do this, but at the same time I am aware that the church has said the staff is to show 100% support. So what is it okay for me to struggle with and criticize and what isn’t it? Is it going too far to say that I don’t feel the church is welcoming to young adults or that I think we could do better engaging with our surrounding community? Are these things okay when in discussion seeking genuine improvement and not just being thrown out there in broad conversation?

I’m not sure what the church’s answer would be. I think that they would support constructive criticism in appropriate situations. But I have decided to look at it from the perspective of me and the volunteers under me. What would I be okay with them doing? What is the line I would draw for them?

It’s fairly simple from my perspective really. But it’s also kind of hard to execute I think. In my opinion honest criticism for positive reasons (seeking improvement/resolution) is good. But let me know about it after words. If you have a discussion and things come up, I want to know what they are and what conclusions you have come to. Don’t pick on the little things- so you don’t like the music being so loud, talk to me about it, not a third person. You wish we would spend more time in prayer, tell me not someone else. If you are wondering why we don’t have more new people coming, go ahead and discuss it with someone else, but let me know what you talked about. I think that’s really what it boils down to.

I want to be in the loop. I want to know what’s going on in the minds of my leaders. I want us to all be on the same page.

That’s my new rule for myself as well. When I have a conversation about church I’m going to share it with my pastor. Maybe not all the details, but the relevant points. Because that’s what I would want.