Why isn't our church like that conference?

"Why isn't this church like that conference?"

A friend recently reported that her teen daughter asked her this question after attending a teaching and worship event that drew thousands of people from across the U.S.  The young woman had experienced the sweet intensity that occurs when a large group of people is gathered for a single, focused purpose. She came home ready to change the world, and sat through a typical church service or two before she realized that though the conference speakers and her pastors were both using the same words for realities like discipleship, calling and mission, they ended up carrying completely different meanings. The conference was a call to a deeper and more courageous Christian life, complete with stirring testimonies from people who were living that life. Church services were...well, 4 songs, a collection, some announcements ("Ladies Bible study Thursday morning, Youth Group trip to Six Flags next month"), a sermon, communion. Same thing every week with the same people who were mostly content to leave the boat unrocked.

When I was on staff at a church, we spent time in our staff meetings discussing that very question. Some were very offended when members of the congregation returned from various conferences and asked the question as they were coming down (hard) from their mountaintop experience. These staffers almost always heard the question as an accusation. Because at least in some cases, it was. Some on the church staff worried about alienating those who were new to our faith community, or who didn't have the capacity to swim in the "deep end of the pool". Others took umbrage at a perceived challenge to their leadership decisions.

Silencing the question-askers by branding them as malcontents missed the importance of the question. Why, indeed, isn't the church stretching its members' faith and motivating them toward holy action? No one on staff was willing to reflect on this question (which came to us repeatedly, from a variety of different people), or to view it as an expression of divine discontent with the status quo.

We sure do love our status quo. It's relatively easy to program and staff. And you don't really need trained lifeguards if you keep everyone wearing floaties and splashing in the wading pool.

Conferences (which are also programmed, and feature various Varsity Teams of musicians and speakers) aren't meant to replace the sacramental context of life together of a local church, of babies being born, people getting sick, or married, or dying. Of being born again, then learning how to follow Jesus in their job at Jiffy Lube.

But they do call people to the deep end of the pool, and offer a look at what life together could be like if we had the chutzpah to hear the hunger for maturity embedded in that question.

What has your experience been in your church if you've been to a conference or two, and returned home asking that question? Did you have a difficult time integrating the "mountaintop" of your experience into the status quo of your home congregation?

How do you say "potpourri" in Japanese?

A Saturday afternoon grab bag:

If you like books and book reviews, you'll want to bookmark the Englewood Review of Books website. Every Tuesday and Friday, a thoughtful variety of book reviews are posted, along with an occasional poem or music review. Browse the site to give yourself a sense of the breadth of the sorts of books covered there. Both Bill and I began reviewing for the site earlier this year. (You can search for our reviews by typing our names in the search box.) One of my ERB reviews even got picked up by the Christianity Today her.meneutics blog. I love that ERB is an outworking of an Indy-area church that seems to have some very wise convictions about who they're called to be.

We have no shortage of ethnic groceries in Chicago, and whenever I shop at one, I've tried to make it a practice to buy something that I've never tasted before. (Sometimes, I don't know what I'm buying because I can't read Polish or Korean or Arabic.) This morning, I headed to Mitsuwa, and came home with this nearly-incomprehensible haul of sauces and seasonings. Dinner tonight should be interesting.

6 weeks from today is our son Ben's wedding. 6 weeks and one day from today, we'll be on a plane to Israel. Our plane will take off just as the Lost finale hits the airwaves. When the show first came on the air, I figured it was Gilligan's Island for the new millenium. A coworker at the Trinity Bookstore kept insisting I'd love the show, and I eventually watched the pilot episode. I was instantly hooked. The events taking place in 6 weeks - and 6 weeks and one day from now are the kinds of high points and fireworks full of celebration and joy. But as that plane is taxiing down the runway on May 23 at 7 PM, I will be clutching the armrest of my seat and/or my husband's arm (nervous flyer) and wondering just how it's all going to end on Lost.

I got a free copy of John Ortberg's newest release, The Me I Want To Be at a recent Catalyst/Christ Together event in conjunction with his monvee rollout. I've read and enjoyed a few Ortberg titles before, but this one is a home run. He makes the sometimes heady, other times contemplative topic of spiritual formation accessible, joyful and simple without being silly, pandering or simplistic. This is the mark of a truly great teacher - and one of the most freeing books I've read in the last several years.

Wouldja look at that? I just snuck in another book review.

The real deal

"When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love him." - Ps. 116:15 MSG 

I remember where I was* in 1982 when I heard the news that Keith Green died. Though I'd never met him in person, his life message of radical discipleship shaped me more than the sermons I sat through in church most Sundays. He was the real deal.

I remember the "oh no..." roller-coaster drop I got in my gut in 1997 when someone told me that Rich Mullins had died in an accident near Bloomington, IL. His music flowed from his life of poverty, simplicity and service. He inspired me to remember what discipleship was supposed to look like. He, too, was the real deal.

And yesterday, I had another one of those moments when I learned that Michael Spencer had gone home after a brief, intense battle with cancer. Spencer's prodigious output of blog posts and podcasts under the internetmonk moniker have been touchstones in my spiritual life over the last several years. His intelligence, honesty, humor and willingness to ask lots of hard questions of God, of his fellow Christians, and occasionally, of the world at large have both comforted and confronted me. He poured out his soul and shared the mess of his journey all while doing his day job at a rural KY boarding school. His insistence on Jesus-shaped spirituality in all pointed me (and at times, provoked me) to think like a disciple. He was the real deal.

When I am tempted to discouragement at the puddle-shallow Christianity I see around me (and in the mirror!), I am grateful...very grateful indeed...that the real "narrow road" deal has been modeled for me by the likes of these unlikely disciples.



* Glad you asked. Sitting in the parking lot of a strip mall in Mt. Prospect, IL.

Review: 66 Love Letters

There has been a (welcome) shift in many corners of Evangelicalism in recent years toward story-shaped preaching and teaching. Many pastors and writers have discovered that three alliterative points have more to do with activating short-term memory than engaging spiritual imagination and motivating long-term growth.

Dr. Larry Crabb understands this shift. His rich teaching and counseling ministry have been all about helping people connect deeply with The Story, one that's bigger than any single individual. To that end, he walked through the sixty-six books of Scripture in his new book, 66 Love Letters: A Conversation With God That Invites You Into His Story (Nelson) - not as an academic or a theologian, but as a "mere Christian, a hungry follower of Jesus who desperately wants to hear whatever God is telling me, a man in misery who only wants one thing, not relief from misery (although that would be nice), but hope - hope of intimacy and meaning and joy forever, in relationship with God."

His journey through Scripture is a poetic quest to find the core of the message of each book of the Bible. He dialogues with God as He writes, exposing his soul in order to fully engage with what God is saying. Crabb understands that the Bible is meant to BE a dialogue, a living letter to the created, thirsting for recreation world. Here's a taste from the chapter about 1 Thessalonians:

"So the more frustrated I feel with myself and life, the more thirsty I'll become for you? And that's maturity?


"Your frustration with everything else, including yourself, makes it possible to turn in deeper dependence to Me. Your weariness requires the strength of supernatural love to continue serving Me. Your haunting sense of futility shuts you up to a kind of endurance that can be sustained only with hope in My Son's return." 

This 400-page hardcover makes a wonderful devotional companion for those who know the Bible well, and a joyful jolt of orientation to those new to Scripture.


Note: A copy of this book was provided me by the publisher.

Express yourself

Our youngest son Jacob, 23, regularly surprises us as he'll offhandedly recount a little snippet of a childhood memory. He remembers the shape of trees, the location of a neighborhood kid war, the texture of food on a plate. I've long since forgotten the details that are vivid brushstrokes inside of him.

He's an artist now (illustration major at Northern Illinois University), and this deep gift of perception spills onto his canvases and sketch pads. Perception for him is more than just an internal cataloging of sensory input. It has to be expressed.

This is the best picture I have of Jesus' words in John 12:40-45, as he quoted from Isaiah 6:  

"'He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn—and I would heal them.'" Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him. Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God. Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me."

Jesus didn't speak these words in a quiet, conversational tone. This was an emotional, raised-voice exclamation point statement meant to make an unforgettable impression: Don't just look at me - turn to perceive me, eyes, ears and heart. You'll be restored. You'll know the Father. Full perception will bring courageous, unblinking expression of that faith, spilled onto the canvas of your life. 

May it be so for each one of us.

Note: Jesus also references these verses from Isaiah 6 here. Same meaning, different context.

Chicken soup season of life

About as long as I can remember, the fall, winter and spring seasons have been punctuated by fairly predictable bouts of bronchitis/sinus infections, usually at least two doozies a year. This week, like clockwork, a sinus infection ambushed me, and even the twice-a-day doses of unpleasant antibiotics didn't work much magic on the misery.

When my kids were little and I was sick, I would run from activity to activity with them, only slowing down if I was running a fever - or, in one memorable health crisis, ending up in the hospital with pneumonia. That one slowed me down for weeks, but I bounced back to my regularly-scheduled program.

But my last couple of go-rounds with respiratory infections have shown me that I'm somewhere new in my life. I'm not bouncing back like I did at 30. It's more like I'm rolling back.

Uphill.

Some call this mid-life. I'm not sure it's mid-point for me (both of my parents died in their sixties, I turned fifty last summer), but it's definitely a new season.

One that definitely requires a bit more patience, and someone, somewhere to bring me some homemade chicken soup the next time I get ambushed by a case of upper respiratory creeping crud.

The Big C Church

"They're all here to hear John Ortberg, don't you think?" a first-time attendee at this morning's Catalyst Lake County "Bonfire" gathering wondered aloud.

Warm conversation filled the room as 400+ congregational leaders, community builders, non-profit heads and church champions representing over 75 churches from Lake County, IL (and beyond) spent the morning talking, laughing, weeping, schmoozing, worshiping and praying together. 

Hearing a well-known speaker like Ortberg was definitely a draw for some. But for many others, simply discovering the joy and power in coming together in Christ as the big C Church is the draw for these events. I know this is the hook for me. I think I could have listened to Jane Smith read the Round Lake phone book this morning and I would have been just as delighted to be a part of today's gathering, though I did enjoy hearing Mr. O.

I've had the privilege of writing a few of these stories describing God's work in this region since last summer for Catalyst. (If you're curious, you can take a look at the stories by going here, then clicking on the "News" button at the top of the page. Click on "local news" and pick a month or two to read a small sampling of the stories on the site.)  

There's a lot of excitement and interest coming in from other parts of the country about what it means to be loving and serving Christ together here in Lake County. Even with this interest from other places, it still comes down to both responding in surrender to Jesus, and in humility to one another to those walking beside us. In Jesus' final high priestly prayer for us, He asks His Father to set us apart, unify us, and send us to proclaim His life and character.

"Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one...As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:11, 18, 19)

Every once in a while (like today), I get a tiny glimpse of what the answer to this prayer might just look like.

A mixed bag full of apricots and hammers

The recent news that a child's death has been blamed on the parents' adherence to the extreme fundy teachings of Michael and Debi Pearl made me think about the bombastic, insistent voices claiming to offer the perfect formula for not only raising children, but living a godly life. (As if a holy life was a recipe!) Voices of folks like Bill Gothard, Jonathan Lindvall and the Pearls dominated the home school movement in the `90's when we began home schooling. They had enough capital T Truth in their teachings to make them very convincing salespeople for their Readi-Mix approach to discipleship.

Some of these bombastic teachers' convictions (in modified form) made their way into our home. Some were helpful and connected us to a proper fear of the Lord; others connected to our own worries about getting it wrong as we raised our kids. It was most definitely a mixed bag full of ripe apricots and hammers. The people who filled our world (other home schoolers) were in that world, ingesting and being shaped by the same voices.

It was not an easy world. Or a particularly joy-filled one.  :(

In fact, I reflected on that world in a chapter in my book Uprooted: Growing a parable life from the inside out. Here's a segment of the chapter entitled "Unsatisfied contentment: When does hunger become a way of life?":

Dave pulled into his driveway, and punched his radio off. Even in the quiet, the atmosphere in the car still carried the adrenaline charge from the uncompromising words from “God’s Agenda Today”, the radio show to which everyone at church religiously listened. This afternoon’s topic, “How Hollywood distorts the gospel”, didn’t even affect Dave personally. With four young kids in his household, he hadn’t even seen anything other than cartoons on DVD the last few years. He didn’t really know much about the movies to which GAT host Larry O’Brien referred, but by the time Dave pulled into his driveway, Larry had him convinced that evil had a California zip code.

His entire right arm started to throb, and he realized that his hand had been clenched into a fist the whole time he was listening to the show.

He shook his hand loose as he walked into the house. The decibel level today was one setting above “Boisterous”. Seven year-old Matthew was slouched in a chair in the living room, holding a bag of organic frozen green beans against the side of his head. His wife Christy was in the kitchen lecturing Jesse, nearly six, and holding nine-month old Lizzie on one hip. Christy looked ten years older than she had when he left the house that morning.

He kissed her on the cheek, and took Lizzie from her. “Looks like you’ve had a fun afternoon.”

She continued to glare at Jesse. “We were at the Tisdean’s house for lunch today, and Matthew and Jesse ganged up on Jeremiah Tisdean, going from one fight to the next. Both of them were very rude during lunch…and I could tell that Donna wasn’t too happy with the chaos. I got us out of there so I could discipline them, and then when we got home…”

Dave’s mind wandered while Christy continued to give a blow by blow description of the afternoon’s drama. Why did his kids always act up at the Tisdean’s house? The Tisdeans were spiritual giants at Covenant Bible Chapel, and seemed to have their ideal brood functioning with an eerie military precision. When Christy took the now-fussing Lizzie from his arms, she said, “So what are you going to do about Sarah?”

Her question jerked him back to earth. “What? Sarah? Why is Matthew icing his head?”

“Were you paying attention, Dave? The boys had another fight in the yard just before you came home, but that’s really not the problem. I was telling you that I discovered that Sarah stole a doll from Charity Tisdean while we were there. And then she lied to me about it. She’s up in her room. I told her to stay there until you got home and could deal with her.”

Dave found himself wishing he could steal something from the Tisdeans, too. Like a little of their perfection, maybe. “God forgive me,” he whispered as he trudged up the stairs to Sarah. “I don’t need their perfection. I need Your wisdom.”
+ + + + + + +

Jerry Tisdean was really revved this morning in Sunday School. His class was the place to be at 9 AM Sunday mornings among the faithful of Covenant Bible Chapel. After a brief prayer, Jerry launched into it. “Did any of you get a chance to listen to God’s Agenda Today on Friday?” Several men nodded. “That discussion about the way that the modern psychology movement has infiltrated the church never gets old, does it? Can’t preach the good, old-fashioned gospel if they’re using the world’s methods. These are dark days…”

The balance of the hour was spent rehashing the radio program’s contents. Always quiet, Dave willed himself to listen to the discussion, trying not to think about the argument he and Christy had in the car on the way to church. The discussion wasn’t really much of a discussion, since everyone in the class seemed to agree with every word that Jerry said. Various people weighed in with their own third-hand tidbits about the worldly tactics used by well-known parachurch ministries and churches, gleaned from the internet and various newsletters from fundamentalist “discernment” ministries.

The discussion was so heated that they nearly missed the beginning of the service. Jerry’s tribe filed into the dim 1960’s-era sanctuary as the first flat notes of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” thundered from an ancient upright piano. No big deal if they missed worship, Dave thought. Most people at Covenant felt that the musical portion of their worship was an aural endurance course they had to run in order to get to the main course of the morning: the red meat of God’s Word - the sermon.

He slid into the pew next to Christy, who sang with the voice of an angel. If she was pondering the ugly words he’d spoken in the van on the way to church, she wasn’t showing it. She’d told the bickering Matthew and Jesse, “Listen, boys…if you don’t zip it, we’re going to turn around and go home.”

Dave had smirked, “You’re scheduled for nursery duty today during Sunday School.” He might as well have told the boys that they won this battle, because they understood that her nursery duty meant they wouldn’t be going home, no matter how naughty they were. Christy glared icily at him, and was silent the rest of the way to church.

During verse 3 of the second hymn of the morning, Dave wondered if any of the rest of them ever said stupid things on the way to church. He suspected so, but never heard many of them talk about their own failures since most of them were too busy analyzing the failures of others. Dave and Christy had always felt that that the strong opinions from the others who attended Covenant Bible Chapel were a sign of their spiritual commitment and maturity. Lately, though, he found himself asking why their ‘maturity’ made him feel like a hopeless adolescent.

He reached for Christy’s hand, and she squeezed his in return. It was a splash of grace, and allowed Dave to focus on the sermon. Dave had always admired Pastor Johnson’s verse-by-verse teaching. He spoke today about the importance of doctrinal purity, from Philippians 1:9,10 (“And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ.” [KJV]) By the time the sermon was over, Pastor Johnson had aimed his cannon at the ACLU, MTV, the contemporary Christian music industry, Hollywood and the Juniors department of the local Wal-Mart.

Though Dave shared Pastor Johnson’s concerns about purity, he wasn’t quite sure how all of those offenders got roped into the sermon, especially as he pondered what the biblical text had to say.

But there was no questioning that Pastor Johnson was on his game today. He had to be, every week. Dave knew that most of the armchair preachers in the congregation would analyze his message with the gusto of sports fans. Post-game sermon analysis was entertainment to them. Some of them even collected and traded sermon tapes they’d obtained from fundamentalist ministers promoted by Larry O’Brien of “God’s Agenda Today” or Pastor Johnson. It reminded Dave of the way he used to collect and trade baseball cards when he was a kid.

He looked at Christy’s hand, so small in his own. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong somewhere. “Where are you in all of this, Lord Jesus?”

It was a prayer that snuck out of Dave more and more these days...

***
Have you ever had experience or exposure to extreme teaching? What effect has it had in your life? 

Review: The Living Dialogue Series

When I first came to faith in Christ, Bible study tools were like comprehension drills:

"For God so ____ the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

Though they were the spiritual equivalent of busywork, like those SRA boxes full of multi-colored reading comprehension cards tucked in the corners of 1960's elementary-school classrooms, the fill-in-the-blanks books did a good job helping to acquaint me with the Bible's content. 

In a classic case of overselling, these Bible study programs claimed to be creating disciples. However, never in the gospels will you find the disciples sitting on rocks filling in the blanks of a quiz book. You will find a lot of life-on-life with Jesus. There were a few examples of extended instruction/sermons, healings and miracles, and conversation. Lots of conversations. There is an entire photo album's worth of snapshotted conversation in the gospels; the frame for each beautiful portrait is the culture of rabbinic instruction into which Jesus was born. That instruction was shaped by questions and more questions.

I recently ran across a terrific discipleship tool that captures the flavor of this form of learning. The LIving Dialogue Series (Credo House Publishers) is a series of books that allow a pair or a group to talk through a book of the Bible, one section at a time. Yes, you could do this without an aid, but if you're not comfortable developing the kind of questions that demand reflection, invite debate and challenge preconceived ideas, the books (five so far, covering Mark, Romans, Exodus, Hosea and John) offer a wonderful way to dig into the text.

The questions do not have easy answers; in fact, they are the exact opposite of fill-in-the-blank no-brainers. The how- and why-type questions demand that we dig into our own beliefs in order to fully interact with the text. Here are a couple of examples of the questions accompanying Mark 1:14-20:

• Jesus lured these fishermen to follow him. What "bait" do you think could have led these men to "immediately" respond to the call of a perfect stranger? 
• Put yourself in their position - minding their own business, going about their daily work. Under what circumstances would a person say yes to such a call? 

The books include tips on how to engage in meaningful dialogue - something in which few of us are well-versed - as well as an appendix with additional coaching for group members. The authors, John Dannemiller and Irving Stubbs, have created a unique and truly useful tool that would be equally at home in a traditional small group or by a pair in a coffee shop, accompanied by a tall soy latte no whip. 

Recommended.

Retreat

My dear friend and long-time prayer partner Meg and I both kept expressing the same thought to one another: "I could really use a silent retreat." The thought of an uninterrupted block of time to simply listen to the Lord, to rest, to soak in the Word, to rest, to unplug, to rest..

Well, you get the idea.

We'd always imagined ministering together someday - she's a woman of the Word and an amazing contemplative musician. But last fall, we talked about simply wanted to steal away from our regularly-scheduled (crammed!) lives to be with God.

And then, like a series of billboards on a highway, within a couple of weeks' time, a handful of people unconnected to one another each expressed the same exact longing. "I could really use a silent retreat."

Hmmm....

Too many to be a coincidence. (No such thing, anyhow.) 

Meg and I visited one retreat house, and then I hit the net in search of a place where we could go - or where we might invite some of those hungry souls to join us. I found a place, we put the word out among those we knew, and this past weekend, ten women had a (mostly) silent retreat at the Siena Center in Racine. The retreat was a gift to Meg, to me...and I think, to the other eight women who participated. We ministered together, and the Lord ministered to all of us. Thanks be to God.

Yep. Silence is golden.

Review: One Million Arrows

Julie Ferwerda, the author of One Million Arrows: Raising Your Children To Change The World (Winepress Publishing, 2009), wants to inspire you to hit the parenting bulls' eye as you raise your children to be spiritual champions. Motivated by both the work and message of her mentor, M.A. Thomas, and her deep desire to see her teen children take ownership of their faith, Ferwerda pulled together a self-published book filled with stories designed to motivate parents to aim at a higher purpose in their parenting:

"The mission is not just about working as a full-time missionary, but about accepting a part of a bigger story where there is a battle being waged between lies and truth; between destruction and redemption; between darkness and light; between death and life; where ultimately goodness and love prevail. God has written an individual part for each of us in this story; and this part is our mission. It's a job for arrows because, without arrows, the battle cannot be won, and the mission can not be accomplished."

Some of the stories are v-e-r-y familiar to those in the evangelical subculture: Tim Tebow; Josh, Alex and Brett Harris; others were collected by Ferwerda as she surveyed the world-changers she discovered in her life. The portrait with the most impact in the book was that of her beloved mentor, the man she (and hundreds of others in India) call Papa. His pastoral letter in the appendix section of the book summarized the book's message in a winsome, heartfelt way. 

The book is sprinkled with pithy advice (consider home schooling, fast for your kids) and is meant to challenge young parents to think and pray beyond trips to the mall and soccer/ballet practice. Good goal. Ferwerda expresses it clearly.

But this is the same message we heard at every home school conference we ever attended, every Christian parenting book I read as we raised our children, the kind of prayer we (and many friends of ours) would pray for our kids. One Million Arrows reads as a distillation of most of the popular Christian parenting formulas packaged as guarantees and dispensed to hopeful moms and dads. The book is sorely lacking a balancing and honest discussion of how to parent children who struggle, doubt, rebel or simply don't believe. (If you're one of those parents, please check out this article in the January, 2010 issue of Christianity Today.) If you faithfully do the things suggested in the book and your children aren't spiritual champions at 18 or 21, have you failed as a parent? Have your kids failed? Though Ferwerda writes with enthusiasm and a good measure of grace, I wonder if some will walk away from the book and feel like a handful of those one million arrows were aimed at them.

Recommended to the young parents who need their vision expanded - as long as they are willing to prayerfully take the info to God and ask Him to show them what His vision is (and isn't) for their own family.

Purim

The Jewish holiday of Purim takes place this weekend. The holiday is a miraculous story of survival in the face of super-size, demonic anti-Semitism. The book of Esther never once mentions God's Name, yet His unseen hand is visible in every moment of this drama:

"The story is about the Jewish people in Persia during the reign of Xerxes (486-465 B.C.). The ultra-short version of the story is as follows: An evil man named Haman hates the Jews, and manipulates the king into making a ruling that in effect will lead to the execution of the Jews in his kingdom. The Jewish queen, Esther, uncovers the plot and helps to save the Jews." (from Walking With Jesus Through The Jewish Calendar, published by the Caspari Center).

Upon learning of Haman's plot, Esther's uncle Mordecai challenges the young Esther with what has to be one of the epic questions of the ages: 

"Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" - Esther 4:13-14

One beautiful teenage Jewish princess exposed the plot and changed the course of her people's history.  2500 years later, in spite of wave after wave of persecution meant to to finish what Haman had tried to start (including Hitler's anhiliation of 6 million during WWII), there are now about 13-14 million Jews in the world.

Including me. Thanks, Esther (Toda, Hadassah).

The Great Tylenol Caper

Yes, it's a picture of shelves full of Tylenol and some of Tylenol's pain reliever cousins. 

Go ahead and ask the burning question: "Why do you have this picture on your blog, Michelle?" 

To answer your burning question, I have to give a bit of backstory. A year ago, I had a job that required me to go sit in an office each day. Like all jobs, it had great parts (the students with whom I worked) and some not-so-great parts. But I knew it wasn't exactly where I belonged. I am a writer, but I knew I needed to do something else to (a) bring in some sort of regular and non-imaginary part-time income and (b) get out of the house so I didn't get wacky. When we were in Israel in February last year, I was praying with an amazing intercessor there, and the fully-formed thought came into my head: 

Be a caregiver. 

I didn't argue right away, though the thought certainly blind-sided me. I viewed myself as more of a kid through young adult person than an old person person. The "Be a caregiver" thought was so shocking that I voiced it in the middle of our prayer. My prayer partner just smiled and nodded.

There was a small amount of context for the idea: I got to know some caregivers when my mom was in hospice care, and experienced first-hand each how amazing it was to have someone come into a hard, transitional situation and graciously do what was necessary to support a patient and the patient's family. I became a caregiver fan. But it certainly wasn't anything I imagined for myself. Evereverever. Never. 

But sure enough, within a few weeks after I left Trinity, I was hired by a caregiving agency. I didn't feel goosebumps or hear angels singing as I searched for a position. I simply followed the voice that had spoken that shocking thought to me. 

Which leads, nearly a year later, to me standing in a drug store, taking pictures of Tylenol. I knew the lady I care for would never believe me if I told her the store no longer carried the formulation she liked. So I whipped out my cell phone and took a few pictures of the shelves so I could show her exactly what was in stock. Yes, I felt a little creepy doing this, but I knew it would help her understand what her options were when I came home empty-handed. (And it did!)

Like the last job I had, this job has some good parts (I get lots of opportunities to share my faith in word and deed; and it's only part-time!) and some bad parts (I'd be better at the job if I had some mind-reading skills; my client keeps the thermostat in her house set at about 87 degrees). 

Was The Great Tylenol Caper one of those good parts or one of the bad parts of the job?

You decide.

Review: Crave

We are hungry people.

Author Chris Tomlinson explores the contours of these hungers in a pithy, engaging 218-page read entitled Crave: Wanting So Much More of God (Harvest House). Each of the book's 15 short chapters tackles a different desire within us ranging from comfort to purpose to significance. His confessional style gently coaxes readers' longings into the light. Here, he discusses the slow "ah ha!" that dawned on him as he learned to quit making prayer into a Job:

"...I stopped trying so hard, and instead, I just sat still before God, open to anything that might happen...silence brought a wellspring of thoughts, each stream cascading down the rocky paths of my life and smoothing over the rough edges of my perspectives about life and faith..I don't know if I stumbled onto any sort of spiritual secret. I think I just realized that prayer was meant to be a conversation, and I had spent all of my prayer life talking to God without ever taking the time to listen. In fact, I'd talked so much that I often bored myself to sleep."


Tomlinson's relaxed discussion of desires also indirectly references classic spiritual disciplines like evangelism. Though he shares a few gutsy stories of how he "just walked across the room" (or set up some lawn chairs with Donald Miller-style signs reading "Confess Your Sins", "What Is Your Prayer Request?" and "Ask Anything About God" in a public place) in order to engage strangers with a gospel-focused conversation, he shares some of his internal battle over the issue and always frames the stories in terms of obedience to something specific God was asking him to do. By honestly sharing his stumbling, clumsy attempts as well as the mixed results (surprise! his efforts don't always end up in a victorious ending), Tomlinson offers readers a portrait of the satisfaction that results from pursuing joy instead of happiness.

The book is an easy read, and would make a good discussion-starter for a group of young adults. (You can preview the first three chapters here.) Though I'm not the target demographic for the book, I appreciated Tomlinson's efforts to challenge his fellow twenty-somethings to allow their cravings to direct them to the One meant to satisfy those desires.



Note: This review copy of the book was provided me by Harvest House, the publisher.

We are fam-ah-lee

The pastor's wife leads the worship ministry at their small congregation. Or...the pastor's son-in-law becomes the youth minister.

It's only natural that family members serve together at a local congregation, isn't it?

Even some of Jesus' first disciples were brothers, right? The ideal is that families share an active, engaged faith. Wouldn't the logical conclusion of this shared faith be shared ministry?

Yes.

And no.

Did you know that the word nepotism has its roots in medieval church practice? One pope even went so far as to appoint his nephews, ages 14 and 16, as cardinals.

A husband-wife team ministering together, doing a lot of the heavy lifting in a small church can be a beautiful thing. It can model a healthy marriage and the joy that comes from serving together. It can go terribly wrong when the relationship puts a stranglehold on ministry growth, for example, a pastor's wife who runs the women's ministry with an iron fist in order to ensure her position is never challenged. Who is there to remove the pastor's wife from her role if she doesn't do a good job?

We attended a church that had a pair of brothers-in-law and a set of sisters on the paid staff of 7. Further complicating the situation was the fact that one of the pastor's kids was dating the child of one of the relatives. The elder board at the church included relatives of these relatives. Disclosure here - this cozy arrangement included me as I was a part-time staffer and my husband was an elder. When I started getting a paycheck as part of my service to the church, both Bill and I were pretty naive about how very complex these interconnected blood relationships would impact the way decisions were made at the church.

It took about twenty minutes for me to figure out that not all staff meetings happened in the church building. Some also happened at family birthday parties and vacations. Plans were hatched and decisions were made in the context of these tight family bonds. I learned through the painful tutorial of experience at the church that blood ties had a powerful insulating quality if someone was toxic in his or her ministry role. Protecting the family was a more powerful motivation than protecting the sheep.

Even with that horrible negative example, I believe there is great power in family doing ministry together. It can be an amazing, countercultural expression of shalom as long as the focus stays on the kingdom, not on tribe.

I'm curious, dear readers - has your experience with family members heading ministry roles in a church been positive or negative?

Book review: Thy Kingdom Connected

Is the church: 

(A) series of bunkers, sheds and silos storing already-harvested grain 

or 

(B) an organic, open network of interconnected relationships?

Of course, we know the answer is supposed to be [B].  However, [A] has often defined our functional reality. Dwight Friesen has written a book designed to expand our imaginations about the kingdom-shaped web of connections into which God is weaving His children.

In the hands of a less-insightful analyst, Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks (Baker) could have been a corny and derivative exercise. Friesen, an associate professor at Seattle’s Mars Hill Graduate School and pastor of an organic fellowship, instead gives us a thought-provoking exploration of how the body of Christ is wired. The “is” in the previous sentence is an important distinction of this book. Friesen is not spinning out ivory-tower theory though his writing reflects his academic bent. He’s not given to think-tank theorizing about the way he wishes the church would behave or could be structured if only they’d buy into his program.

He is determined to help us see the interrelationships that exist in our lives as the sinew and marrow of the kingdom. Here, discussing church leadership, Friesen disarms the oh-so-modern notion of “Big Dawg” management:

“If we are obsessed with control, we will never discover the wonder of participating in God’s connected kingdom. Leading connectively dethrones the tool of hierarchy and busts the control myth. Connective leaders serve as hubs, linking people to the very best of their resources and relationships unto God’s dream of fullness of life.”

Friesen clusters his chapters around the themes of seeing connectively, God’s networked kingdom, leading that connects, networked church and connective practices. Each cluster contains two or three chapters. Each chapter’s content includes a listing of additional resources as well as a few thoughtful discussion questions. Though Friesen uses computer-based networks as an organizing metaphor for the book, his purpose in writing is to help us see the web of relationships and connections our Papa-King has given to each one of us. 

I do have one language quibble. Friesen avoids using the male pronoun for God, and ends up with a few tortured sentences like this: “This means that God does not just reveal Godself through a narrative but presents Godself to us in a person to be encountered.” Suffice it to say that every time I ran across one of these pronouns, my reading ground to a screeching halt. Mercifully, they’re few and far between.

Thy Kingdom Connected is a valuable read for anyone who cares about encouraging the Bride to be who she’s called to be. Recommended.

Note: I received a review copy of this book from www.viralbloggers.com - this review is cross-posted here.

Your advice?

I've been blogging for over four years now. In that time, I've had two addresses, four jobs and three cars. I've written two books, lost a parent, added a new grandson to the family tree, been to Israel twice, joined Curves twice (sigh), and have attended three different churches. 

What hasn't changed in my life? Besides the unwavering love of my Savior and the grace-gift of a patient, patient husband, there has been at least one other unchanging reality for me: words. I have read more books than I can count, and mixed in the thoughts of dozens of bloggers along with the content on websites that have taught me everything from the White Supremacist view of the Bible (wrong and terrifying on so many different levels) to how to bind off the knitting stitches of that first scarf I made a couple of weeks ago (super helpful). 

I once fed my book reading jones with a non-stop flood of new books when I was working at Trinity's bookstore. It is now coming in the form of a pretty steady stream of books to review from a couple of publisher programs (Thomas Nelson, Hachette) and a couple of book review websites (TheOoze Viral Bloggers, Englewood Review of Books).

Reviewing books merges my perpetual hunger for words I can devour with my desire to score free stuff. I've been at this reviewing-in-order-to-devour-and-score game for quite a long time. I was a book and curriculum review for years for a home school magazine. And though the evaluation and review process was lots of fun for a word nerd like me, I quickly discovered that my efforts served others as well. Reviews help others make decisions about where they're going to invest their time and money. A review needs to be simultaneously charitable and brutally honest. The reviewer's own biases need to show so the reader can intelligently filter the reviewer's opinion through his or her own grid. And all this has to happen while the reviewer is giving the reader an relatively-untainted synopsis of the book's content. It's a bit of a high wire act. 

That said, I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to share my thoughts about what comes in my snail mail box with those of you who are nice enough to stop by my blog (or read the echo that pops up on facebook). 

My husband is looking forward to writing his first book review for ERB. I guess the love of reading and critiquing must be in the chlorine-flavored tap water in this house! 

As each of us dig into the stacks of print here, I have a question for you: What makes a book review especially helpful for you? What do you look for in a well-written review? 

Book review: What's He Really Thinking?

Another book review today! 

I have to put my own bias out here: I am not a fan of "relationship" books. After working in a bookstore off and on for 4 years, I concluded that this was a one-note genre. All the books seemed to have the same basic advice and tone, no matter what the title or who the author happened to be. 

That said, I didn't have high hopes when I received a review copy of Paula Rinehart's What's He Really Thinking? How to be a Relational Genius with the Man in Your Life (Nelson). Rinehart, a former Navigators staffer and professional counselor, is not new to the genre. She's written several well-received earlier relationship-themed books.

What's He Really Thinking? is meant to be a sort of a field guide meant to help orient women to the physiological, sexual, emotional and spiritual world of men. Chapter titles will give you a good flavor for the topics she tackles: What Men Do, Why Men Hurt and How Men Change are crafted to bring understanding to what makes men tick. Rinehart uses the second half of the book to coach women on expectations, respect, conflict, perseverence and intimacy. Appendixes with prayer points and an extremely thorough, thoughtfully-designed discussion guide round out the 206-page paperback.

Rinehart shines when she can dig deep into the "why" behind a behavior. Here, she explains her understanding how God uses conflict to rewrite our deepest, inner stories: 

"In any of us in whom the honor of his name rests because he has made us through Christ, there's a deep excavation happening. As unbelievable as it seems some days, his image is being shaped into the mud of our souls. That's where our fears are dug in deep...He comes after us in various ways, but he's always present in the form of someone we love. Someone we want to love us. Only when there are huge heart matters at stake will we let his light into our own particular darkness. Only then."

I struggle a bit with the broad generalizations ("most/all men are ___.") in a book like this because those sweeping strokes brush over individual differences. Still, What's He Really Thinking? it is a gracious addition to the relationship genre and would be a helpful tool for a young women learning to love the men God has placed in her life. 

Practice makes...an avocado scarf

This is what a first draft looks like. 

After a forty year hiatus, I took up knitting recently. I have no lofty goals for this new hobby - no wooly cable-knit sweater-cap combos. I just want to create a few handmade scarves to give as gifts to family and friends. Think etsy with training wheels. 

A friend who is a gifted knitter spent a morning reacquainting me with the basics. (Thanks, Marie!) The "scarf" above - and I use the term "scarf" loosely here - is my virgin flight into the world of knitting. 

You won't hurt my feelings if you tell me it looks like a nine year-old made it. I was nine the last time I wielded a pair of knitting needles, so my skill development stalled out at that level. But as a fifty year-old woman with a perfectionist streak, knitting (and occasionally purling) row after row of childish, uneven stitches was a mental battle. I was sorely tempted to toss the avocado mess, tell Marie I was too busy to follow through right now, and forget the whole endeavor.

I stuck with it. Visions of delighted people sporting a "Made By Mish" original scarf danced in my head. As I began to discover how to let my fingers slow dance with yarn and needles, I realized that there were no shortcuts to knitting the beautiful scarves I dreamed of giving to others. I had to knit this scary scarfette first in order to find a bit of a groove so I could craft something that didn't look like an occupational therapy assignment.

You know, I've been doing this for years as a writer. I have to write terrible first drafts in order to craft something beautiful. Still. After all these years. There are no shortcuts. I have to write an avocado scarf every time I sit down at the keyboard to tell a story. 

How about you? Is there a skill or craft you're learning or honing in your life? Is this frustrating or freeing in your pursuit of growth in this area? 

Add your prayer

 Just weeks after the wedding last March, my new brother-in-law Larry was diagnosed with cancer. He underwent chemo and radiation throughout the remainder of 2009, and his docs told him there was no evidence of his cancer at the conclusion of his course of treatment.

Just before Christmas, he contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized. Last week, they placed him on a ventilator. The couple remains committed to trusting their Savior no matter what happens, no matter what their location or circumstances.

Please join with so many others who are praying for healing for Larry and peace for his new bride Georgina.

Book review | Live Sent: You are a letter

Sometimes an overarching metaphor organizing a work of non-fiction can feel a little trite or forced. I admit that when I picked up Jason Dukes' Live Sent: You are a letter and skimmed the chapter titles, I predicted the book would be a lightweight approach to the subject of missional living.

I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Dukes, a pastor, presents a valuable and eminently practical exploration of what it means to be sent by God into the life to which God has called you. He challenges, encourages and above all, simplifies the notion of mission in a winsome and accessible book. In some circles of Christianity, there is a lot of overblown, earnest and pompous talk about what it means to be missional. Dukes yanks the concept out of the think tanks and conferences and roots it firmly where it belongs - in God's heart, and in our lives:

"As His church, we have a responsibility to humanity to be God's letter of love. That's why He started this movement almost 2,000 years ago that He called "the church". So that we would love each other as He intended, as His family. And so that we would do more than "go to church", but rather BE THE CHURCH to the people we encounter everyday, loving them as He loves them."

In Duke's hands, the call to follow Jesus becomes revolutionary - as it should be. He tackles the purpose of church, knowing and being loved by the Sender, contextualization, hindrances, our spheres of influence, our understanding of the world around us, disciple-making, dropping our self-protective mechanisms, and some pointed (and necessary) words to pastors about their calling to equip instead of control. Dukes salts his book with lots of practical examples meant to inspire us to see ourselves as the living letters Christ's followers are meant to be.

One small beef - the book could have used a bit more gentle editing (there are a lot of words in "quotation marks"; this was a bit "distracting" for me). However, that small quibble does not negate the big value of this 139-page volume. You'll want to read - and live - the kind of Christ-follower's life Dukes describes in this book.

Note: This was a review copy, sent to me by The Ooze viral bloggers.

Book review: Who Owns The World?

Who Owns The World? The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on The Planet is an encyclopedic accounting of land ownership on our globe. It is packed with fascinating facts: Did you know that Queen Elizabeth owns 1/6th of all the land on earth? Did you know that the largest private landowner in the U.S. is Ted Turner, who owns 1,800,000 acres of land? (Yes, all those zeroes belong in that number.) Have you ever heard of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a land area of 14,720 acres which is now believed to be used as a prison for those captured in the war on terror?

Though most of the 369-page paperback is devoted to information about who controls every square inch of land, authors Kevin Cahill and Rob McMahon explain their purpose in putting this book together: 
This book asserts that the main cause of most remaining poverty in the world is an excess of landownership in too few hands. This book will also assert that private ownership of a very small amount on land - one-tenth of an urban acre or an acre or two of rural land - granted to every person on the planet has the potential to, and, I believe, begin ending poverty on a global basis. The book will go further and reassert that the right to the direct ownership of land is a fundamental human right.

After a 60-page introduction that unpacks these assertions, the remainder of the book surveys every country of the world, giving information about population, size, gross national income, percentage of land held by private owners, a line or two about the country's history, and an explanation of how the country is owned. 

The book doesn't offer solutions to the inequalities presented in the book (a handful of kings, queens, sheiks, religious institutions and individuals control most of the land on earth) or do much to tackle the dicey issues of political and/or ethnic identity that have shaped most modern nation-states. But then again, it isn't meant to do so. Who Owns The World? tells a compelling, unsettling story with stats, and is an interesting reference tool for students and those interested in international politics. 


Note: I received this book as a review copy.

I got the volunteer blues

I originally posted the basic content (below) during 2007 - and have tweaked it a bit for 2010.

I love to volunteer to help, to serve, to minister, to use the gifts God has given me to bless others. You'll note that the word "volunteer" is a verb in this sentence. 

 

I hate to be called a volunteer. Noun.

 

When I was on staff at a mid-sized evangelical church, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to fill slots on our org chart, especially in the children's ministry, cleaning and lawn mowing areas. Some of the other staffers used words like "recruit" and "volunteer" a lot. We brainstormed lots of creative ways to get people to do the grunt work of the church. (Of course, we never quite put it in those sorts of bald terms, but really, that's what it was.)

 

So what is it about the word "volunteer" that cranks me? 

 

First, though no one quite puts it like this, it seems to me that often "volunteers" are the blue-collar laborers, doing tasks assigned by the white-collar staff. Second, most of us know that there is certainly a lot more church social currency given to someone who can play a killer guitar solo than the person who mows the lawn. Though there are lots of good reasons for the former (and not a single valuable one for the second, but I digress), many churches of all sizes and flavors allow themselves to be defined by an institutional identity instead of adopting the organic identity of body that the Bible uses to describe Christ's followers. 

 

There is a kind of non-profit, community-service paradigm embedded in the word "volunteer". Scripture never uses this sort of image to describe the body of Christ. As a matter of fact, the idea of a volunteer kidney or tibia is beyond absurd. Yet, many church leaders insist on calling the grunts "volunteers", as if this is a Scriptural truth, or a non-patronizing compliment.

Each one of does have a word that describes our ministry. It is the word priest. This is not a volunteer position. Our ministry of offering praise to God comes in the offerings we bring to him, and the way we serve others. This can mean watching poopy kids in the church nursery, singing on a worship team - or working at a food pantry with people from a variety of walks of life, or writing a book (!) or going the third mile at your workplace when no one except God sees your effort. 

 

I recently read another bloggers riff on this topic (I wish I could remember where; if my "from memory" summary triggers your remembrance, please let me know) and he noted that in his church, the paid staff recruits - and sometimes guilts - people into volunteering. These volunteers, he noted, are people who have full-time jobs and family responsibilities, and are being asked to give another chunk of time to support the vision and Bigger-Better-More career ambitions of the paid church staff.

Yes, some of these volunteers are people who are exercising their spiritual gifts. Others are participating because they want to be good team players, because they've been told that their service matters to the church and to God. (Which it does - but as an "in spite of" than a "because of" request for volunteers from the church leaders.)

 

As my wise husband noted, there was only one legit Volunteer in the history of the church: 

"Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross." - Phil. 2:6-8

Your thoughts? Am I being too sensitive about this word?

 

I need Thee every hour

Most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine

Can peace afford.

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;

every hour I need Thee....

Please pray for health and safety for the beautiful people of Haiti - and for wisdom for those organizing rescue and relief (and eventually, rebuilding) operations in the country.

And give what you can, to a charity or ministry you know is trustworthy.

Come, Lord Jesus

A friend asked me if I wanted to join her at a night of corporate worship at a church a decade ago in a nearby town. My friend and I were "church nomads" at that point, and we both missed the dynamic of gathering with others to worship. Neither of us knew anyone at the church, and I think we both expected a couple of hours of singing. The end.

As we walked into the church building, there was a palpable, nearly overwhelming sense of the nearness of God. This sense of simultaneous exposure and welcome staggered us both. The crowd was buzzing with excitement about the things God had been doing among them. People were being delivered from secret addictions; there were substantiated reports of physical healings; there was a heightened expectancy that the kingdom was really at hand. It wasn't an abstract concept. It was, in this time and place, a tangible reality.

When the music started that night, the "liturgy" was a loose structure - there was a sense of willingness to cede the stage and set aside the carefully-planned, rehearsed program if the Spirit moved in an off-program way. There was a plea in every note the gathered crowd sang - "Come, Lord Jesus!" And He did. Oh, how He did.

A decade later, I look back and I remember that season in my life with gratitude.

And I wonder...why is what I experienced ten years ago so rare in so many of our churches? Your thoughts?

Strange place to plant a family tree

Open the Gospel of Luke, right there in chapter one and begin reading. The physician-scribe throws us right into the middle of the action first with the warm-up of the dramatic events surrounding the birth of John the Baptist and then the history-splitting incarnation of the Lord Jesus. Luke has penned a real page-turner!

A hinge of sorts happens in chapter 3, as the cousins come together in the river. Jesus asks John to baptize him, and eternity invades finite space and time:

"When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." - Luke 3:21-22

In this heart-stopping moment of theophany, the Father calls the son of Joseph His Son.

If you were writing this story, where would you go from this eternity-soaked moment?

Luke makes what has always seemed to me to be a peculiar choice. He hits a pause button on the advancing action and recounts Joseph's geneaology all the way back to Adam. The placement of this information has always felt a little random, as if Luke thought, "Oh man, before I get into the next chapter of Jesus' ministry, I'd better insert some back story."

(I know, I know. They didn't even have words for modern literary conventions like 'back story' in Luke's day.)

At the moment the Father affirmed Jesus as His beloved Son, Luke is directed by God as he scrawled his inspired narrative to turn his gaze on Jesus' earthly father, Joseph. I know these family trees are vitally important. But the placement of this particular one has been a puzzlement to me.

Today when I read it, a 7-volt lightbulb tried to light up in my head. Luke opens this geneology with these words: "Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph..." (vs. 23)

"So it was thought" - a phrase meant to remind us that Joseph wasn't Jesus' biological father - and then immediately Luke launches into Joseph's family history. The history links Jesus in a mirrored similarity to the genealogy of Mary recorded in the first chapter of Matthew. Joseph's history shows that he is of the family of the chosen people, and prophetically linked to his great-, great-, great- (etc.) grandpa King David and to Abraham before him. He is the right man to shape the Child's life, to tuck him in at night, to teach him to swing a hammer, to live the Shema together.

However, the placement of Joseph's genealogy here ends with an echo of the words heard at the baptism of Jesus. Listen to the final few names in the list:
"...the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." (vs. 38)
Though this is Joseph's genealogy, it seems intentional that the terminus of the family tree brings us back to those words: The Son of God.

It is as if Luke is placing Jesus in context of being God's divine Son and reminding us of his humanity as the son raised by Joseph before allowing those words to send us with Jesus into His ministry.

Do you have any insights to add?

Boundaries or brick walls?

My husband and I had visited a church a few times, and invited the pastor and his wife over for a meal after having some pleasant post-service chat with them both. We told them we were looking forward to learning more about the church as well as enjoying a relaxing evening of conversation.

It was fun to swap child-rearing and ministry adventure stories with them. We'd travelled some similar roads, and we shared a lot of laughter through the evening. But as the evening was drawing to a close, the pastor's mood shifted. He cleared his throat a bit, and said something to the effect of, "Well, you know from your own ministry experiences how dangerous it can be to develop friendships with those in your congregation. We've learned the wisdom of keeping a distance from those in our church."

At the time, I didn't think much about it. We ended up becoming a part of the small congregation. But as the months wore on, I found myself wondering why we really couldn't seem to develop any friendships with the people there. The church was full of pleasant enough people who had little capacity or interest in developing relationships beyond the shallow pleasantries of safe Sunday morning chat.

For months, I wondered if the lack of relational connection at the church was because there was something wrong with me. "Maybe I'm too __(fill in the blank with your choice of a negative character trait)", I'd tell myself. I'd beat myself up because I assumed it was my own unhealed hurts that were driving people away.

And then I started hearing the same complaint from a few others. One woman told me, "I've been attending here for several years, and I don't really know anyone here. I don't know who I'd call or even ask for prayer if I had a problem." The church was full of lonely, isolated people who'd bought into the culture of self-preservation created by the church's leader. I reflected back on the pastor's comments at our one and only meal shared with him, and I realized that unhealed hurts from this pastor's past negative ministry/relational experiences had shaped the emotional life of the church.

I understand the necessity and wisdom of leaders having thoughtfully-crafted boundaries. But those boundaries must be formed by prayerful decision, not wall-building reaction to wounds of the past. The church had tried various community-shaping small groups and efforts over the years, but these initiatives bore little fruit. As the pastor stood unengaged, outside and above these efforts, the congregation reflected his ambivalence. Though he was leading them to do these relational programs, what he was really teaching them was that they needed to protect themselves from one another.

Leaders, how do you balance the need for boundaries with the need to build meaningful relationships?
Congregation members, how does the culture of your church encourage meaningful relationships?

Note: I've had to add a "moderate comments" feature to this blog because I was getting weird autospam comments in Korean and Japanese on here. But please do leave your thoughts - I'd love to hear from you!