They Like Jesus but not the Church

i finished reading Dan Kimball’s book They Like Jesus but not the Church the other day. this was the first time i read Kimball beyond his blog or his comments in others’ blogs, and more than anything i was struck by his passion and compassion for the church and the world.

this book is geared mostly towards church leaders and others in ministry, while his follow up book I Like Jesus but not the Church (which is due for release in February 2008) is geared towards those who resonate with the title.

In They Like Jesus, Kimball gives several examples of positive views that our culture and those within it have of Jesus: as a man of deep spirituality, good teachings, and charismatic attractiveness. he focuses on emerging generations (essentially those in their teens through 30’s) and their criticisms of the church of today. he gives a lot of weight to those criticisms, explains the reasons for them, and makes suggestions towards correction. to make his points and create suggestions he interviewed several people both in and outside of the church and quotes them extensively.

the criticisms of the church that he focuses on (both in this book and the next) are:

• the church is an organized religion with a political agenda
• the church is judgmental and negative
• the church is dominated by males and oppresses females
• the church is homophobic
• the church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong
• the church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally

in each of his responses he describes why people view the church in these ways, why it’s problematic, and how the church can respond in a positive way (read: change), become welcoming and honest, while not compromising core beliefs or biblical principles.
i felt that Kimball wrote with integrity, being honest about how the church is seen in this culture, while writing with love and passion for both the church and those who find themselves outside of the church because of those reasons.

towards the end of the book he has a chapter specifically on what the people he spoke to wish the church were like, emphasizing the importance of listening to those ideas, and making suggestions for implementing them as a way of staying true to the biblical view of the church.

another thing that impressed me was that he included an appendix responding to the criticisms he received from christians regarding the content of the book, answering questions addressed to him concerned with the idea that listening so intently to those outside the church would dilute the church’s mission and message.

Kimball’s book is an important one for those who truly want the church to be the community of God on earth and who want to see the church move from being an obstacle in many people’s path to God towards becoming a place of invitation and authenticity.

Leaving Church

it feels strange to post about a book titled Leaving Church (by Barbara Brown Taylor), just when Jak and i are returning to church after a quasi-hiatus (but i'll post more on that later).

Leaving Church is writing in three parts, or movements if you will: finding, losing, and keeping.

in the first part, finding, Taylor - an episcopal priest - talks about her call to ministry and her move from a church in the city to pastoring one in a rural town in north georgia. ministry, and ministry in that church, are clearly a vocation she loves and feels called to. in part two, losing, she tells of the loss of the call to that ministry and that church, a call to come out of the work she has loved and into a different life altogether. in the final part, keeping, she pulls the previous sections - finding and losing - together as she writes about why she needed to lose what she'd found, how her life has changed, and what she has kept through her learning and experiences.

it's a beautiful book. i really enjoyed Taylor's writing, but since i actually finished the book almost two months ago, i'm short on details right now. i've had this post hanging out half writing for a more than a month, and figured that since i haven't posted anything in so long, it'd be better to get this up rather than worry about figuring out the details.

violence in the news

it is criminal that we are people that create a world where violence is acceptable. it is felonious that we are perpetrators of violence onto our children.

twice in recent weeks, there have been news stories of adults entering schools and shooting children. the first story was shocking. the second one crowded the first one out of the news. yet the tragedies are still there, weighing heavily on the families who have lost children, frightening other kids who have with these stories.

we are made criminals by living in a society that drives adults to hurt children if we are not actively pursuing ways to bring peace. we are abusers and murderers by helping to create a society that causes children to perpetrate violence against other children.

three shootings in schools in the recent weeks.

we are just as violent as the society we live in if we are not actively striving to be peacemakers.

i don't know what to do with that.

how can i be a peacemaker? how can i make our world safer? how can i protect the children of this world? how can i help bring healing to our society?

i don't have answers to those questions. but i also know that i can't ignore these news stories.

when Jesus was moved to compassion, he acted. he did something. he healed, he helped, he saved, he spoke. i need my compassion to move me. there must be passion in my compassion.

in the words of Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

stations of the cross

how many classes in evangelical seminaries would not only take the time to discuss a variety of prayer practices, but to include ones that are part of our historical christian faith, even those that have for so long been ignored or rejected outright by protestants?

this week, during prayer I, as a class, we walked the stations of the cross. this is a form of prayer practiced since medieval times, but lost amongst protestants since the reformation.

while, for me, it was distracting to walk in the midst of a group of at least seventy of us, there was also a sense of something beyond me that i experienced by being with such a large community all at once. i must say, it brought to mind my sinful nature by the fact that i spent so much of my time judging - thinking badly - of those i walked with.

i think the best part of the experience for me was the reminder of quiet walks through the stations of the cross at my childhood church. i probably never did it on my own until high school, and then rarely (and only until hurricane andrew blew away our outdoor garden which contained the stations). but i remember the quiet peacefulness, and the communion with God that i got to experience in those walks.

it makes me want to find a church somewhere nearby with the stations. it makes me want to make it at least a semi-regular practice. and it reminds me of some of the reasons that i still long for something that the R.Catholic church offers that i can't seem to find in any protestant church. for at least a few years now, i've been longing to go to mass - at least occasionally - yet i never seem to do so. i can't help but wonder if i would be able to feel more at home in protestant churches, if i allowed myself to worship in the mystical liturgy of the R.Catholic church on a regular basis.

i think i will always remain brokenhearted over the negativity between catholics and protestants. i can't help but believe that by dismissing each other so vehemently, we are blinding ourselves to many essentials of our faith.

how will i minister in the midst of this tension? i mean, what does discipleship to students look like when i allow myself more openness than the churches we'll be sure to be in will allow for in our ministry? what can i do, in my own small world, to find ways to peacefully bridge protestants and catholics, without trying to force anyone to lose their own particularities? and how can i live in the tension, without anger or judgement towards those who disagree with my viewpoints?

the last few (5) books i've read

i'm sure that if i got really creative, i could come up with other stuff to write about, but since i want to include the books i'm reading on this blog, that means that all i'll have time for tonight is a quick summary of the last few books i've read. so here they are:

1. Small Group Leadership as Spiritual Direction by Heather Webb (former professor at Mars Hill Grad School). after having led small groups and bible studies in church and parachurch settings for several years, i'm wishing this book had been out well before i ever got started in ministry. this is one of those books that makes me wish i were ten years younger and reading it - though i probably couldn't have thought clearly enough then to know how much of it needs to be applied. i did get frustrated with her writing style though - at times crystal clear and precise, at times vague and wandering. i know that it's a book focused on spiritual direction, but i still thought it could have been more practical, even if simply by giving more case studies or examples. but this is definitely a book i'll be recommending to small group leaders i know.

2. Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture by Walt Mueller. Walt was a youth minister for years, and now seems to primarily work in research and now has a more family/youth centered focus in his ministry (Center for Youth and Parent Understanding). this book was rather intense, very well researched, and directly pertinent to our time (unlike most youth ministry books i've seen). it's geared not only towards youth ministers, but parents and teachers and anyone else working with this emerging generation. he clarifies how if we plan on reaching this next generation, we need to see ourselves as missionaries entering their culture. we can't simply expect them to understand our language, our norms, our culture, our expectations, but that we need to hear the way the speak, listen to their music, watch their stories (movies, etc.), and go to where they are. i haven't read a book with this many footnotes in a while. :)

3. Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (pastor of National Youth Workers' Convention, since i was fascinated by his study and knowledge of first century Judaism. the writing style can get old though since it is essentially web writing on the printed page (you know, no indents, spaces between paragraphs, small blue arial-like font, and ellipses where completely unnecessary). but what he says is worth getting past the stylistic problems simply for the sake of allowing the dialogue of Truth to continue instead of allowing it to remain stale, crusty, moldy, irrelevant, and not as True as it could be.

4. Leading with a Limp by Dan Allender (president of Mars Hill Grad School). in my opinion, one of the best books on leadership i've seen in a long time. but, of course, i'm a bit biased towards Dan's writings, since he's one of the few people i tend to agree with so much of the time, and i've been so moved and changed by previous books of his. there was so much that affected me in this book, i don't really know what to say about it. i guess the only thing i can come up with at this late hour, a couple of weeks after reading it, is that the thing that struck me the most is something i least expected: his constant use of she or her in his writing. i think this is the first leadership book from a Christian perspective (maybe even Christian book in general) that was so obviously inclusive, it almost felt as if he used she/her more often than he/him. i'm far from being a feminist, yet i can say that i greatly appreciated that, it was cool.

5. Blue Genes by Paul Meier and some other guys. so this is a book about certain mental illnesses (such as ADD, Depression, Anxiety, etc.) and the genetic causes behind them. be forewarned: this book comes from a 'Christian' perspective. having read my share of books on these sorts of topics, i can't say i was overly impressed with this one. for one, i felt that they put too much emphasis on the genetic aspect (as i could have guessed by the title), ignoring environmental aspects (such as attachment issues, home life as a child, etc.) perhaps for the sake of making sure not to cause people to not 'honor their mother and father;' but in doing so, they leave out way too much research and don't look at the whole story (i'm not saying genes aren't a part of it, but i think they swing too far in that direction). second, i felt that the passages from the Bible that they used were not always in context (proof-texting) and they just kept using the same few to prove their point, over and over and over again. lastly, the book was very simplistic in style and information (i hope it's not an indication that we Christians are so ignorant that people need to write 'down' to our level). i guess it would be a good primer for someone regarding mental illness, if they come from a Christian perspective, and if they are unfamiliar with the topic or feel that all mental illness is due to sin.

so i guess i've averaged about a book every two days. not bad. except that probably means i could be much more productive with my time if i could just get myself to put these books down when i have other stuff to do.

current reads / ADD & ministry

i finally finished the half dozen books on ADD that i bought right around the time i was diagnosed a month or so ago. it's quite relieving to finally have a better understanding of so many of the struggles i've faced in life.

the last two i read were good books.

the first of those was ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Kolberg and Nadeau. there wasn't a ton of stuff in there that i haven't tried that seems particularly helpful. but the book was well laid out for someone with ADD and easy to follow. at some point i might try to implement at least a couple of their ideas, but i'm not feeling ready for that yet.

the latter of the two was Scattered by Gabor Mate. it was an excellent book that while speaking specifically about ADD managed to seem more like a book on attachment than anything else. it was theoretical yet practical, and something i'll find helpful not only now, but in the future when Jak and i are raising kids.

i think that the only other book i've finished since i last posted on what i've been reading has been Experiential Storytelling by Miller. it's a book about relearning how to communicate in our culture so as to be able to present the biblical story in way that it can be heard. he explains how preaching as we know it is something that came about with the reformation and as such has only been around for about five hundred years, during the days of the Enlightenment and through modernity. now, that we've entered a postmodern and post-literate period, we have to learn to preach through other means. so he offers experiential storytelling as an answer. experiential storytelling, as he explains it, involves people, involves the senses, includes the location, and allows people to use their imaginations, their minds, while trusting in God to draw people towards him. it's a short book (under 150pp), so i just read it this afternoon. it was interesting, and certainly has things i would love to work with whenever Jak and i are doing youth ministry again.