Isaiah 59

There’s nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in me.

My wrongheaded life caused the split between me and God.

Which means that I’m a far cry from fair dealing, and I’m not even close to right living.

I long for light but sink into darkness, long for brightness but stumble through the night.

Like the blind, I inch along a wall, groping eyeless in the dark.

I shuffle my way in broad daylight, like the dead, but somehow walking.

I’m no better off than bears, groaning, and no worse off than doves, moaning.

I look for justice- not a sign of it; for salvation- not so much as a hint.

My wrongdoings pile up before you, God, my sins stand up to accuse me.

My wrongdoings stare me down; I know in detail what I’ve done:

    Mocking and denying God, not following my God,

    Spreading false rumors, inciting sedition,

    Pregnant with lies, muttering malice.

    Justic is beaten back, Rightenousness is banished to the sidelines,

    Truth staggers down the street, Honesty is nowhere to be found,

    Good is missing in action.

Anyone renouncing evil is beaten and robbed.

Here, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye…

A little less than a year ago Californian’s voted against gay marriage. As we all probably remember this caused quite an uproar among the gay population. Before I continue I need to be clear about something- I am not suggesting I support a homosexual lifestyle, however, I also cannot condemn homosexuality. That said, I stumbled across this video on youtube.

It’s rather deprecating to be sure. I mean, in essence it mocks the very idea of marriage by presenting these outrageous ideas and suggestions. But I believe that in addition to the negative there is a very honest idea. A genuine question that I think we in the church need to answer.

If we truly hold marriage as being sacred, why are we so accepting of divorce?

There are many passages in the Bible about divorce. In Malachai as part of his condemning of wickedness God says “I hate divorce”. That’s pretty straightforward. Jesus comes and says,  ”Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God”. So it’s justified to say that we do not believe homosexuals will go to heaven, but it’s also fair to say that pretty much all of us fall into one of the categories listed here. As sad as it is, most Christians today are still not free of these traps. Most of us, myself included still idolize, still fall prey to adultery (remember, Jesus says that anyone who thinks it does it).

My question then is this: as a Christian, is it correct for me to oppose the legalization of gay marriage?

I think of Jesus’ admonishment that we need to remove the plank from our own eye before we can attempt to remove the speck from the other person’s eye. As long as we are accepting of divorce, as long as we turn the other way when we see people having sex outside of marriage, as long as we condone the over-sexualized culture we are a part of, we cannot tell these people that they have no right to get married.

Am I missing something here? Is there a reason the church at large seems ignorant of this seemingly obvious idea? Why is it we can get all worked up about homosexual marriage and not even blink when we go to watch a movie where the woman cheats on her husband? Why do we mourn the disintegration of a marriage instead of being angry about it (I’m not referring to being angry at the people so much as being angry about another divorce)?

I don’t disagree with the people who are standing on the street corner claiming marriage is sacred. They are absolutely right. But the downfall of marriage does not lie with allowing same-sex marriages. It lies with us being willing to trivialize it from the start. Until we make marriage truly sacred once again we have absolutely no place telling two men in love that they cannot marry. Until we do our job as the church to return the sacredness of marriage to where it was created to be by fighting against cultural norms of sexuality, by fighting against divorce, by fighting against extra-marital sex, by changing our cultural norm we absolutely cannot say no to homosexual marriage. Unless you really want to try to take that speck out while working around the plank in your own eye. Good luck with that.

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?

Unimportant Numbers

I’ve been struggling with “numbers” this year. Just read a great post about how we can have great youth ministry no matter how many (or few) youth we have. Check it out here.

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.

Trials

I was 16 and at a prime age to be greatly affected by little things (if you know any teenagers or remember your teenage days you know this is true). But the things that happened were not little. It started fairly small- a classmate of mine died. We had a couple classes together, talked when it related to school and that was about it. A month later another classmate/friend of mine was in a major car accident on Valentine’s Day. She was paralyzed from the chest down. Two months later a woman in my church, who happened to be a sort of mentor to me, committed suicide. In April I was at work when a guy I worked with followed me into the bathroom for less than honorable reasons. In June a woman whose children I baby sat and who cooked food for our youth group died after years of battling breast cancer- she was only in her 30’s. My church decided it was best to sweep things under the rug. We were not allowed to talk about the suicide at any church events. This included youth group. It was a taboo subject. Which for me then meant that since it played so directly into my struggles that I could not turn to my church for help with these things. So I wrote. A lot.

I didn’t know how to deal with the unexplainable things happening around me and to me. I didn’t know what happened to someone who commits suicide, and knowing mattered to me a lot. I didn’t know what I had done to make him follow me into the bathroom that day. I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that everyone at work looked at me like I was a traitor when he got fired. I didn’t know what role I had to play in the lives of the little girls who I took care of and loved who had just lost their mother. I didn’t know how to deal with her loss myself.

As I worked through these things alone I wrote a lot about death and escape. It seemed like escaping from it all was a good option. I truly don’t believe I was suicidal, but my mom found my journals and brought me to the doctor. He prescribed an anti-depressant. That was it. I won’t get into the fact that by doing that he was actually increasing the chance of me committing suicide, because in teenagers anti-depressants alone can actually have more of a negative impact than nothing. But that’s not the point. I went to a friend for help. I told her my mom was making me take anti-depressants and that I didn’t think I really needed them. She referred me to a counselor. My church family found out and offered their support, but by that point I felt like the church had failed me and while I loved the people I also needed someone else to talk to. Stacie was (and still is) amazing. She forced me to do what no one else was in a position to do, over coffee and not in a stuffy office.

Now I work in the church, and it is one of my goals that if a teenager, or anyone, in the church is struggling they feel the church is a place they can go for help. I feel like I got lucky, but I think a lot of people aren’t as lucky. The church doesn’t help them so they leave and never return. If I had been 5 years older I would have left and probably not returned for a while.

To this day Stacie is who I call when I need to talk. When I need someone who isn’t afraid to push me to see what I am choosing to ignore, who isn’t afraid to call it like it is, and who isn’t afraid to just listen when needed too. I wish I had someone like that who I could talk to face to face, but until that time comes, I am thankful for God’s providence. He brought a Christian woman into my life when the church failed to be what I needed.

I’m not sure the purpose of this post. But I’ll leave it as a shout out to God and to Stacie for listening to his call.

Boys to Men

It seems that the question of women in leadership roles in the church has died down. Individual denominations and/or churches have figured out where they stand on the issue and it’s rarely brought up. For example, in my church a woman can certainly be a deacon, but not an elder. This isn’t the actual rule, it’s just what the church is comfortable with. Last night I was reminded how far we are from being on the same page on this issue.

We are trying to start a small group for unmarried young adults. A couple with kids in that age range is heading it up. They were discussing who would “lead” the group, and the woman deferred to her husband saying she didn’t feel women should lead men. I respect that, you know what you are comfortable with, you know what you believe, and you act accordingly. But what got me and what continues to confuse me is this notion that women can lead boys/teenagers but not young adult men, or old adult men.  I firmly disagree with this idea the church has adapted.

First, other than referencing parents teaching children I find no support for the idea that a woman is allowed to teach children and not adults. Second, it just doesn’t make sense. What’s the magic number when a male is no longer considered a “boy” and is considered a “man”. Why does it make a difference if a woman is teaching other women but not men?

1 Corinthians 14:34 is often used as an example of Paul writing about women not teaching. It states women are to be silent in church. Not that women are to be silent when men are present but not when it’s only women. Not that women are allowed to be heard when it is only other women and boys present. It states women are to be silent in church. Period. 1 Timothy 2 is also commonly used and states that women are to learn in silence and to not have authority over a man. It doesn’t say that a woman is allowed to teach children, nor do I find it to be implied as children have nothing to do with this passage. Ephesians 5 is popularly cited as why a woman is to submit to her husband in all things. Good, great. That doesn’t really have anything to do with women teaching in the church, and even if we say that it is more evidence why women should not teach men it also does not in anyway seem to suggest that women can’t teach men but can teach children.

Now, I am firmly in the camp that says women can be leaders in the church. I believe it is biblical for a woman to be a senior pastor, a youth director, a sunday School teacher, a small group leader, an elder, a deacon, whatever. This may color my ability to truly understand this child/adult split. But what is your biblical basis? Do you think women can teach boys because this is not expressly forbidden? Do you think women can teach boys because they give birth to them? Do you think women can teach boys because it doesn’t really matter because when they grow up the men will correct all the wrong teachings? WHAT is the biblical basis for this view?

Before I became a youth director I decided I needed to know exactly what I believe about women in the church. One of the things I realized right away is that it is impossible for me to reconcile this idea that a woman can teach a teenage boy but not a 30 year old man (or 60 year old man). Indeed, if women are such faulty, untrustworthy teachers, I certainly don’t think we should be allowed to teach the impressionable young boys in the church.

I’m no expert. I know what I believe, I know why I believe it, I feel I have pretty solid biblical and theological support for my position, and I have strong theological support from people much, much smarter than myself. Of course, this is true of people who don’t believe as I do. What I want to know is where did this idea that women can teach boys but not men come from? What is the biblical basis for it? Because nothing irritates me more than when I hear someone say that a woman can teach boys but not men. Not because I think I am infailably right in my position, but because from everything I have studied I don’t see where the idea that there are certain people women can teach and certain people we cannot. Either we can teach, or we can’t. But please, tell me where the biblical support is for your position. I’m tired of not understanding this position.

And if you read all that, sorry for my rantings. I’m just venting, but I really would like to know.

Black, White, and shades of Gray

I’ve been watching “Smallville” and as one would expect the premise is essentially good verses evil. Toward the end of season 8 there is a transition- from black and white to shades of gray. From obvious good and obvious evil to what is good and what is evil exactly?

The entire world is based on this dichotomy, good and evil. But especially Christianity. The show raises an excellent question- when, if ever, is it okay to compromise our standards of what is good in order to destroy that which is evil? When is it okay for us as Christians to give a little in order to gain more? Is it ever okay? Why are we so quick to judge and so slow to love? Did Jesus ever allow sin to be ignored or overlooked it if meant that the sinner was able to be part of the community? Are we justified in following in the steps of the general culture in order to reach more people? In the end are we actually making a difference by compromising the truth?

I think good and evil are black and white. Unfortunately in our fallen state we cannot clearly see what is good and what is evil. But the more gray we allow in the more room we give evil to spread. If the whole world becomes gray then good becomes evil and evil becomes good. In a slightly less extreme wording- the more we give in to what the world wants from us, the more we blur the line between what it means to be the church and what it means to be the world. The church, Christians, are called to be in the world but not of it. The more we follow the ways of the world the more we lose what it means to be the church. Sooner or later, we end up just being the world. Because as we have learned from the superhero stories, eventually the gray turns black. If good starts to compromise it eventually becomes evil.

Isaiah 43:1-4 (The Message)

Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
   I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
   When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
   it won’t be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God,
   The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:
   all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That’s how much you mean to me!
   That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back,
   trade the creation just for you.