Why Emergent?

I wrote the following for an online Episcopal Magazine.  Enjoy.

Reflections on the journey: From a Post-Evangelical, Emergent, Episcopalian

The conversation usually goes something like this:

Inquisitive Person: “So, what is the emergent church?”

Me: “Well, technically there is no emergent church.”

Inquisitive Person: (Blank stare)

Me: “It’s more of a conversation than a church.”

Inquisitive Person: (Continued blank stare)

The conversation started for me during college while I was on a mission trip in East Africa.  I was on the island of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania living with a Christian pastor, preaching in the local church, and participating in door-to-door evangelism throughout the island.  More than a million people populate Zanzibar and at least ninety nine percent of the population is Muslim. It seems an obvious statement when looking at the situation from a certain perspective to say that Zanzibar had not yet been reached by the gospel.  This opportunity was rather significant for me.  I had grown up in the Christian & Missionary Alliance, an evangelical church, where my Christian formation involved sharing the gospel with all people.  I remember a youth rally I attended where a guest speaker told us that 166,000 people die everyday without knowing who Jesus is, and that it was up to us to go into the entire world in order to share the good news of Jesus.  I took that challenge to heart and I committed my life to sharing the gospel with the world.  Three years later there I was doing just that: sharing the gospel with people who had never heard it before. The mission was not going very well.  People were not receptive to our message and as far as I could tell, I could not foresee their minds changing anytime soon.

Why Episcopal? Part V – Ash Wednesday Edition

The first Ash Wednesday service I attended was actually in an Evangelical Church a few years ago.  To this day I can still remember the feeling of the ash cross on my forehead and the words of the pastor that came with it: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  As I drove away from the service that night with the weight of the cross bearing upon my skin I was forced into introspection about my life, my mortality, and how it is in my humanity that I know God.  Out of all the worship services that I participated in at that church for a year and half, the Ash Wednesday service stands out to me most clearly.  

I remember it because the worship service engaged not just my intellect, but my senses.  The sanctuary was darkened, the mood was solemn, and then by going forward and feeling the touch of the pastor on my forehead, the harshness of the ash, and then continuing to feel the weight of the cross: all of me was caught up in an experience of God, worship, and contemplation.  

I participate in a liturgical church because my whole self is engaged in worship.  And tonight as my priest marks my head with the sign of the cross I hope that once again I am brought to a place of experience of God, worship and contemplation.

Why Episcopal? Part IV – Word and Sacrament

In an Episcopal worship service the Word and the Sacrament are of equal importance.  This is acted out liturgically in numerous ways depending upon the parish.  At St. Paul’s the service of the Word ends with the Gospel text being processed to the middle of the sanctuary and held high for everyone to see, while it processes we all chant “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”  The text is then announced by the reader of the gospel (either an ordained deacon or priest): “The Holy Gospel according to…”  As this is announced we in the congregation cross our forehead, our lips, and our hearts, so that we receive the words of Christ in our minds and in our hearts and we respond with our wills (mouth).  The congregation then responds in unison “Glory to you Lord Christ.”  The gospel text is then read by the ordained clergy with hands lifted high in blessing.  Following the reading, the deacon or priest says the “The Gospel of our Lord.”  The congregation responds with “Praise to you Lord Christ.”  Following the reading of the Gospel a homily is offered; typically lasting about 12 minutes.  

COTA Reverb 2/14/09

I gave the reverb at Church of the Apostles this past Saturday. A reverb is what we call a sermon at COTA, its short for reverberation, which means that the reverb is one person’s reflection upon how a passage of scripture has impacted them.  We use the Lectionary at COTA so I did not choose this passage of scripture myself.  

For those of you hold to more conservative theological views, there will be content in my sermon that I’m quite positive you will disagree with.  I encourage you to try and listen to what I have to say, not so you can agree with me, but that you might develop the ability to listen to the “other”.  

 

 

Mark 1:40-45  

40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”  41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!”  42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.  43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,  44 saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”  45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. 

The Story of the Unlikely Evangelist 

Our country recently went through a very long and intense political process.  The men and women who were running for our nation’s highest political office where all put under the severest inspection.  And we as a society can’t get enough of it.  We want to know everything from their attendance records as third graders to what kind of underwear they put on.  Now many of the things that are revealed through this vetting process are not game changers, if they smoked a little pot in college, it probably isn’t going to disqualify them from the race.  However, there are somethings that can pose a big threat to a candidate’s victory: associations.  Who is this person friends with?  What circles did they run in?  And who is endorsing this candidate?  This of course was a big issue for our current president Barack Obama, wither it was Reverend Wright or Bill Ayers.  The strategy for some was to disqualify Obama because he has associating with these “extreme” people.  These anti-American people.  Now sadly, with our consumer driven media, our country failed to have an intelligent conversation about these associations.  It was far too easy to stereo-type people and evoke fear, then it was to listen and try and understand who people are.  

I think Jesus found himself in a similar predicament in today’s gospel story.  Jesus had just begun his ministry on earth, he was God enfleshed, sent to earth to be the Messiah to the Jews and salvation to the Gentiles.  Now considering how prophets have often fared in the past, Jesus must have known that this was not going to be an easy nor a safe task.  He was going to have to confront the religious and political establishments of his day.  Neither of whom had a good track record of paying attention to the will of God: which is to practice radical love and justice.  Nonetheless Jesus begins his mission, and in Mark’s account of it, it has only just begun when Jesus is confronted with a dilemma: a leprous man begging for cleansing.  

A new leg of the journey

On November 1st I started a new job. I am now the Community Architect at Church of the Apostles, a sacramental/liturgical/emerging church in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.  My main purpose as the Community Architect will be working to create systems of communication and connection that allow for the fostering of community within the church.  

This new leg of the journey has caused me to reflect upon the path that I have been traveling for the past few years (though it goes back even farther).  Back in 2005 and 2006 I completed a year of study at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.  During my time there I had the privilege of taking classes from the late Robert Webber.  In his classes on worship and spirituality Bob introduced me to ancient and liturgical forms of worship as well as integrating them into the postmodern world that we live in today.  He taught me that to worship is to participate in the enactment of the story of God (See Why Episcopal I, II, III).  Under Bob’s teaching I was soon an Evangelical on the Cantebury Trail.  

During this time I was also becoming more and more disillusioned (if you are at all familiar with my theological musings the reasons for this are quite obvious) with the church tradition that I found myself in.  This disillusionment and other circumstances that Kate and I were going through brought us to the realization that we needed to go West.  In the summer of 2006 Kate and I packed up our stuff and headed to Seattle to attend Mars Hill Graduate School.  We went to MHGS with the hope of re-imagining our Christian faith with the help of others.  Little did I know that my journey towards Anglicanism would pick up here in Seattle.  Some friends of ours were attending St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lower Queen Anne (the neighborhood that Kate and I moved into).  Upon their invitation we started attending, and it was pretty soon that Kate and I knew that we were home  (Again, see Why Episcopal?).   

However, this new found home also caused me a vocational dilemma.  I am now part of a mainline protestant denomination where most of the paid jobs belong to ordained priests and I just graduated from a little known evangelical/emergent seminary that has no ties to this church.  Where in the $&^% am I going to find a job?!  And then right as I am graduating I am presented with a unique opportunity to work at a church here in Seattle, that is both Episcopal and emerging.

I resist using language of “God ordained this” or “it was God’s hand leading me the whole way”, etc…  That language is difficult for me because one, I used that language to describe choices in my life before that turned out to not be the healthiest choices, and then I am left with the dilemma of “Did God want to cause me harm?  Or did I mess up God’s plan, etc…”.   And two, I believe that God wants me to make choices, wise choices, that reflect upon a whole range of things, only one of which is “What is God leading me to do?”.  

In this situation though, I can’t help but smile a little bit with the sense that God is walking with me as both God and I make our way into this next leg of the journey.

Vocation

 I delivered a homily this morning at St. Paul’s midweek mass.  It has been a couple of years since I have done something like that.  It was an enjoyable experience, and something that I am going to do more of this year.

 My homily was based on Philippians 2:5-11, since today was Holy Cross Day.  I talked about how Jesus and Paul’s vocations caused them to experience a cross and a prison cell.  I then made the link to my own experience of vocation, and how it has often been a cross and a prison.  But it has also been a place where Christ has met me, and worked redemption into my life.  

 If you have talked to me about vocation over the past couple of years I have probably expressed to you my desire to work in the realm of academia and not the church.  There is a lot of story around that desire, but ultimately I think that I have desired to be a professor because it would allow me to be theologically creative, more so than if I worked in the church.

However, after participating at St. Paul’s for the past two years I have begun to open myself up to the idea of working within the church again.  There is a lot of story behind this openness, but one aspect of it is that my theological creativity is seen as a gift and not a threat within my ecclesial community.  I experienced this phenomenon this past Sunday night at Theology on Tap, a monthly gathering at a pub for drinks and theological discussion that I have organized.  It was a real treat to gather with others from my community for the purpose of theological exploration and creativity.  Although I still think it would be fun to do that in a classroom as a teacher, there was something very satisfying doing it on the ground level, where the process and the relationships are often more important than the ideas.

I would not say that I have come to a place of vocational clarity, but I can say that I find myself in a place of openness towards to the future.  Which for me is a big step.

It’s Official

Yesterday Kate and I were confirmed in the Episcopal Church.  In order to participate in the confirmation service we actually had to travel to Blaine, WA (last stop before Canada).  We were out of town the last time the Bishop came to St. Paul’s.  The service took place at Christ Church. 

When Kate and I left Chicago two years ago, it felt like a “running away” and a “searching for”.  The church tradition we grew up in no longer felt like home, this was a painful and freeing realization.  Painful because we felt hurt and unsupported by the womb that had birthed us (please recognize my gratitude to my heritage in that statement), and freeing because we were now at place where could exercise choice in deciding who would identify our selves with.  Fortunately (Providentially?) we found a new home in a church right next door to us in Seattle.  At St. Paul’s we have found a place where Kate’s leadership abilities are celebrated and encouraged.  A place where we have experienced the transformative power of weekly Eucharist.  And a place where we have been given space to grieve and heal from the past and imagine incredible possibilities for the future.

Now it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses.  And St. Paul’s and the Episcopal Church are not “all good” and other traditions are “all bad”.  I hope that is not what I am presenting.  But rather I am taking this moment to celebrate our identification with the Episcopal Church.  It feels like a homecoming, it feels grounding, it feels purposeful. 

Why Episcopal? Part III: Episcopal and Emergent

                  

Last night Kate and I attended the first class of a three part series at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on exploring our Anglo-Catholic identity (more on Anglo-Catholicism in a later post).  Part of the material that we covered last night was looking broadly at the characteristics that describe Episcopal spirituality and temperament.  As we discussed these characteristics what stood out to me was that these characteristics could just as easily describe the Emerging Church.  Also, it is because of these characteristics that I find myself at home in the Episcopal Church. 

Here are the characteristics, I’m I right?  This list is taken from St. Paul’s Websitewhich used the work of John Westerhoff.

Episcopal Spirituality:

Liturgical/Biblical: Book of Common Prayer.

Communal: Communal prayer comes before and shapes personal prayer.

Sacramental: The material world is capable of mediating the grace of God.  Baptism and Eucharist are highly emphasized.

Incarnational: God became flesh; the created world and all of its creatures are good, the extraordinary is found in the ordinary.

Mystical: Union with God is the telos of a long, progressive journey. 

Episcopal Temperament:

Comprehensive: Truth is found in the tension between counter-opposites: sacred/secular, material/non-material, mind/heart, God’s transcendence/immanence.

Ambiguous: Not “black and white”; life is ambiguous and complex.

Open-minded: A questioning faith; wisdom is found in listening to others and being honest with our doubts.

Intuitive: Episcopal theology is best represented by writers, poets, pastors and musicians with images, symbols, myths, rituals and the arts.

Aesthetic: Beauty is the doorway to truth and goodness and that beauty is a doorway to God.

Moderate: Godly life is one that is disciplined, balanced and temperate.

Naturalistic: Reverence for nature and its rhythms; care for the natural world.

Political: Christian life has political implications that encourages participation in civic life.

So this leads me to wonder: “How could the Episcopal Church and the Emergent Church work together?”  The Episcopal Church has wisdom, tried and true traditions and practices, and resources.  The Emergent Church has people who are under the age of 35 .  Seems like a match made in heaven to me.  Actually, there is much more to be said about how these two groups could benefit each other, but that will have to wait for another day.

Pentecost, Youth Group, and Cornhole

 Pentecost was this past Sunday.  It is a day where we remember the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church.  Pentecost reminds us that God is present here on earth and that God is still birthing newness everyday.  It was fitting then that last Sunday Kate and I started a youth group at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. 

Like the initial gathering of disciples in the upper room at Pentecost, our group was small but certainly not insignificant.  Unlike that first gathering we did not experience tongues of fire nor ecstatic speech.  However, we did draw some attention.  The “thump” “thump” of corn filled bags slamming against wooden boards in the middle of the church’s labyrinth caused the occasional Uptowner walking by to take notice. 

So thank you God for sending your Spirit, thank you St. Paul’s for letting Kate and I carve out a place for the youth in the parish, and thank you Cornhole for making our first youth gathering a success. 

Why Episcopal? Part II: Worship as Divine Drama

 

I had the privilege of studying under the late Robert Webber at Northern Baptist Seminary.  From his tutelage I learned much about his idea of Ancient-Future worship.  This was the beginning of my journey down the Canterbury Trail.  Bob taught me that worship should proclaim and perform the story of God.  This is because Christianity is a religion based in story, and to be formed as a Christian is to be subsumed into that story.  From Bob’s perspective Christian worship expressed in its varying liturgical forms is a clear expression of this narrative.  This is accomplished in the four act drama of a liturgical service.  (Disclaimer: The liturgical church does not have the monopoly on this four act drama.  Many other church forms perform it in one way or another.)