Unconvincing arguments for and against homosexual marriage and/or ordination

Homosexuality and its place in civil and religious life has been beat to death and I don't feel like I have any special insight to offer that hasn't been offered before.  However, as I continue to hear the debate, either in the context of same sex marriage or ordination of homosexuals, I have encountered a number of arguments which I find wholly unconvincing.  These points are cited at times as if they are the only necessary data point to draw a conclusion and the conclusion that follows is obvious and unassailable.  However, I find the points lacking in many respects.

I will attempt to portray the points fairly and avoid creating straw men, but I admit that the reason these points are listed here is that I think they are much more complex and subtle than they are often presented to be.  I do not intend to take either side in this post, but simply want to push back against some points from each side that I think are oversimplifications.

Unconvincing points from the "left":

1) Homosexuality is natural.  Other animals engage in homosexual behavior and that homosexual desire is not chosen but is something a person is born with.  The assumption is then that God created it and it must therefore be good.  

Counter point:  There are lots of things that are natural and not chosen but innate and that are exhibited in the animal kingdom but are decidedly bad and we would hesitate to say God created them.  When someone does wrong to me, I have the desire to do wrong to them, but society, morals, faith, and a whole host of other forces say that it's not okay to act on that desire.

2) This is like the civil rights movement and in 50 years everyone will look back and think those who opposed gay rights were all ignorant bigots.  Among younger generations, there is overwhelming support for gay rights and as those younger generations grow up, their views will be the social norm.

Counter point: So?  Seriously though, comparing gay rights and civil rights is helpful to a certain point, but there are distinct differences in the issues at hand (i.e. one is a behavior, one is not).  More importantly, I hope nobody changes their position on an important issue because of what people 50 years from now will think of them.  I have a number of views which younger generations probably think are outdated, misguided, and ignorant but I still think are right.  Should I change them just because 50 years from now, people will think I'm ignorant?

3) The reason the church is dying is because we don't support gay rights.

Counter point: There are many reasons the church is dying, but this is not one of them.  There are growing churches in all different parts of the country that unequivocally do not support gay rights and still bring people to Christ.

Unconvincing points from the "right":

1) The bible says it's an abomination.  Leviticus, etc. etc.

Counter point: The bible says a lot of things.  It tells us to stone people.  It tells us not to eat pork.  It tells women not to go to church with braided hair.  Taking passages and especially commandments out of their historical context or even out of the context within scripture is troublesome.  Now don't get me wrong; I'm not saying we can ignore what the bible says, nor am I saying that we can just hand wave away parts of the bible we don't like.  My point is that everyone interprets the bible when they read it.  Even the most staunch literalist is not going around stoning adulterers because it's a) against the law b) clearly against Christ's broader teaching.  We interpret the bible because it was written thousands of years ago, thousands of miles away and things might not all apply exactly the same way now as they did back then.  That's not to say "the bible says so" isn't a valid argument, just that it isn't the be all and end all of arguments.  There is room for interpretation in every passage.

As a side note, I still don't understand from a strictly biblical perspective, why we're okay without blanket rules about ordaining divorcees, adulterers, addicts, and even murderers, but we need a blanket rule about ordaining homosexuals.

2) "Next they'll want to marry animals."

Counterpoint: One of two things is going on in this argument.  Either it's comparing living, thinking, feeling, loving human beings to animals, in which case it doesn't deserve any consideration at all or, much like the "50 years from now" argument from the "left," it's dealing with something that isn't a reality, may never be a reality, and probably shouldn't influence us anyway.  If we think it's wrong for human beings to marry animals, what does that have to do with human beings of the same gender marrying each other.  We should treat the issue on its own merit, not on some imagined, possible extension of it that may or may not occur 50 years from now and may or may not have anything to do with the current issue at hand.

3) The founding fathers <or other historical figures> believed <whatever>

Counterpoint: This is one that has always puzzled me a little bit, even in politics, but especially in moral and religious realms.  I would hope that in the last 200+ years we've learned something which might make us better informed than our founding fathers.  Even setting aside the discussion of the religiosity of the founding fathers (and Jefferson in particular), what does their understanding of marriage 200+ years ago have to do with us today?  Isn't the whole point of the system of government that they created that it can change to adapt to the times and to the will of the people, rather than being set in stone once and for all?

4) The reason the church is dying is because we don't condemn homosexuality and we've lost sight of God.

Counter point: There are many reasons the church is dying, but this is not one of them.  There are growing churches in all different parts of the country that unequivocally support gay rights and still bring people to Christ.

Conclusion

This question is not a "one liner."  There is no simple argument which opens and shuts the case in one sentence.  It's tempting to assume that people who disagree with us are not "really" Christian or are ignorant, brainwashed, unfaithful, or "don't really believe in God."  That last one in particular strikes me as the last resort of arrogance.  Is it really not possible that someone else with a whole life of different experiences and teachings could love God and come to a different conclusion?  Have we really never changed our mind or position about anything and felt like we were faithful through the process?

This question is complex, subtle, important, and difficult.  Even tried and true patterns of compromise like "Agree to disagree" and "love the sinner, hate the sin" don't really work when passions are so high.  For a while I took the position "Why are we spending so much time and money arguing about this when there are much more important issues to deal with?" but even that position makes an assumption about the relative importance of different issues.  There are definitely faithful Christians on both sides for whom this issue is THE top priority in the ongoing faithfulness of the church.

I wish I had something more useful to say about what we should do instead of just refuting a bunch of points and then not adding anything positive to the conversation, but I don't.  I guess my approach at this point is to speak my voice and vote my conscience when given the opportunity, but generally not to go looking for a fight.  I fully understand that for some, this is a matter of justice and for others it is a matter of purity and both require more urgency than I have expressed.  I hope that whatever your position and whatever your level of urgency, you can see my approach as a faithful one rooted in my love of God and my desire to love my neighbor as myself and I hope that I can see your position in the same light.

Evangelism: Putting the "Good" back in "Good News"

Evangelism has become a dirty word in a lot of circles.  I just spent 3 days at the Church Planters Academy in Minneapolis and none of the presenters used the word "evangelism."  That's not to say that the church plants or the post-modern/emergent/missional church doesn't do evangelism, but we don't like to talk about it much.

Evangelism in Greek literally means, "preaching the good news."  (Angel in Greek simply means messenger or one who is sent).  James Choung, author of "True Story," (from which I stole a lot of the ideas in this post) in his presentation at the Big Tent Conference last year started by saying that we are naturally wired to share things that we think are good news.  When we see a great movie, the first thing we want to do is run out and tell everyone how great it is.  And yet, when it comes to the best news in all creation, we hesitate to share.  He claims that this is the case becausewe don't think it will be perceived as good news by people we share it with.

I think there are a number of reasons for this, but at the top of the list is the abusive, manipulative, and often just downright mean ways that people have claimed to be sharing "good news," all the while making it (and any sign of them) very bad news.  I think the majority of Christians know the gospel is good news, but don't know how to articulate the gospel in clear way that makes it good.

While in Minneapolis, I got into a conversation over dinner with some other church planters about evangelism and a guy asked me, "So then do you think there is truth outside of Jesus?"  I hesitated for a moment (and actually never got to answer his question, since he got a phone call) but I thought about that question and here's my answer:

The truth-iness of Jesus Christ is not relevant to the goodness of Jesus Christ.  I don't think "truth" is the right question for me or for most of the people who are far away from God.  I've never practiced any other religion so I can't speak to the truth of other religions compared with the truth of Jesus Christ.  (Notice the particularly post-modern move of allowing behavior and experience to define truth rather than vice-versa.)



However, as an adult convert to Christianity, I have a very clear understanding of the goodness of the gospel and, for me, it basically involves three moves:

a) The world is full of suffering on the global and individual levels.
The global level of suffering is hard to argue.  Pick up a newspaper and you will see suffering.  The individual level of suffering is a little bit less public, but no less real.  My life was full of shame, guilt, and pain and I really didn't like what I saw when I looked in the mirror.  I felt inadequate, alone, afraid, and hopeless.

b) The God of the bible is good.
In spite of things like the problem of suffering and the wraths in the Old Testament, the overwhelming message of Jesus Christ is grace and love, as well as justice and empowerment.  (For many post-moderns, this move may actually come third.)

c) A life connected to God's goodness alleviates individual and global suffering.
As I struggle to turn my life more and more towards God, I continue to find that I have a much greater ability to live in a way that I can be at peace.  I like what I see in the mirror.  The more connected I become to God, the more I am able to be at peace with my own faults, the faults of other people, and the faults of the world AND the more able I am to change my faults and the faults of the world.  (The faults of other people are pretty much between them and God).

So that's the good news to me and that's the good news that I have committed my life to sharing.  Whether it's true, exclusively true, kind of true, or possibly even not true (another post for another time), I have found goodness in Jesus Christ and when I think that there are still people who feel inadequate, alone, afraid, and hopeless, then I feel ever more motivated to share the goodness that I have found in Jesus Christ.

So how about you?  What about the gospel is good news (or bad news) to you?

(Maybe I'll make this into a series and post about ways to share that goodness, but I think articulating the goodness itself is probably a good start.  Plus, nobody wants to read 8 pages.)

Church Planters Academy Diary - Day 3

Session 0.5 Q&A with Tim and Tim

This was a continuation from the session last night.  We didn’t get to do Q&A with Tim and Tim because of time, so we picked it up again this morning.

The Tims talked more about distribution of leadership and clarified the I and We facets of leadership.  The fact is, just like Jesus had, there are always the 3, the 12, the 70 and the crowd.  Different circles of people with different levels of buy in, commitments, and levels of experience with the church plant.  It’s also okay to NOT do thing which are legitimate and good because they aren’t within the resource pool of the plant or within the ideology or vision of the church.  There are a lot of things that just aren’t at the right time.  (Many people come to a new church plant because all the other churches in town say no and they come to you hoping you’ll say yes.)

Tim Keel also said one of the most important functions of a leader is to name the things that you see going on in your community.  If something is not feeling right, if people seem tired, if something seems like it's running out of gas, if there’s a lot of energy in a particular direction, whatever…

Session 1 – Structures and Organization

Mike Stavlund – Common Table, Washington DC

Bruce Reyes-Chow – Mission Bay Community Church, San Francisco, CA (Former moderator of PCUSA)

Mike made an analogy to Walking Dead which I didn’t quite get.  The conclusion from the analogy was: “Beware of working for the people of the church instead of working with the people of the church.”  He also proposed a similar question: “Think about what will happen if you succeed?  What if you survive?  What kind of person will you become in the process?  What kind of community will you build in the process.”  He highly encouraged leaving gaps in the leadership structure of the church for other people to fill in.  Not a role where you tell them what to do, but a space for them to be creative and express their own gifts within a task.  Build a church that you love, not a church that only loves you for what you do for it.

Bruce did a powerpoint presentation on structures (slideshare.com/breyeschow).  He prefaced by saying he was working in and through the PCUSA and had had a positive experience of the mainline.  He just knew that there were other niches that the PCUSA wasn’t reaching, so he dreamed up a church that might reach some of those people.

Bruce first talked about why structures are often feared – they are most often not built for adaptability or flexibility.  They don’t inspire innovation.  The have been used to control and marginalize people.  Often times they codify one learning from one place and one time as if it will be applicable forever and ever.  He also pointed out that when we as pastors put things into a structure, we are necessarily giving away our power over them which requires trust.

He also pointed out that as people gather, some structure will take root.  We can be intentional about creating a structure which fosters innovation or we can just let the structure solidify on its own however it’s going to.

He talked about how reflective structures (structures which evaluate themselves regularly) avoid institutional marginalization and how healthy structures equip communities to manage polarities and maintain cultural continuity.  (I wrote that in my notes, but now I have no idea what it means.  I think basically he was saying healthy structures that allow adaptivity can give safe space for conflict, disagreement, and different visions, while also binding people together instead of being a wedge or a weapon that divides them.)

He advocated “institutional fluidity” (he chuckled at the almost oxymoronic quality of that phrase).

There are specific boundaries and assets – it’s not a free-for-all.  It embodies visions and culture, unleashes creativity and innovation, and it can mediate the ebb and flow of life.  Basically, a good structure is a healthy thing that creates stability in a good way.

A good structure can incarnate the ideals and values of the ministry.  It can administer and support the things about the church that are meaningful and it can help guide what are the things about the church which are meaningful.  It can nurture the church’s pastoral, prophetic, priestly, and poetic expressions, and it can be an individual person’s way of showing commitment to a church plant.

Bruce advocated using flexibility in structure like having 3 year terms for members of session but with permission to leave.  Mission Bay used face to face contact for the real life giving things – meaningful study, relationship building, organizational thinking and then used technology and online tools for business – votes, nuts and bolts decisions

They built in evaluation cycles for everything so that after 6 months, they’d take a look at a thing and decide if they still wanted to do it or if it had run its course.

Session 2 – Navigating the phases of a church plant

Panel

Doug identified (with some help) the following phases of a church plant:

1)      The church in your brain

2)      The initial core team meetings

3)      The first year before the crisis of change (honeymoon)

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4)      The traditions and history of the church being to compete with the present (That’s the way we’ve always done it)

There was also special mention of the 7 year itch in which everything seems to get deconstructed and a lot of things fall apart.  Bob’s advice was to endure, endure, endure.

I guess there’s a common issue of the core team leaving after 3 years?  Maybe from moving, boredom, burnout?  Tim Keel said that organizations are far more resilient than we give them credit for.  New people will take ownership and it doesn’t always have to be about you.

He said he went from a “trust me” phase where he was trying to build credibility with his core team and church participants to a “how can I help phase?” when people started taking the initiative and he just needed to serve as resource or consultant.

Doug asked about what the rites of passage in the life of church were to mark transitions and whether they were explicitly celebrated or marked.

Tim said sometimes you see them coming, sometimes you get caught flat footed, and sometimes you only see them in retrospect.  Any way the transitions happen, it’s important to name them, sit with them, experience them and celebrate or lament them.  Worship experiences are a great way to allow such moments to “be.”

Often the pastor has to go through a personal transition from approaching things through a “how do I solve this?” lens to a “What is God doing in this?” lens.

Doug asked “How do you balance looking back to reflect with looking forward to innovate?”  Some of the planters mentioned different ways they celebrated anniversaries, looking back at numbers and trends.  The conversation started veering towards numbers in general and the notion of “what you count is what you’ll get.”  Tim said if he counted anything, it was the number of people who were in discipleship relationships (mentor/mentee).

The conversation turned to salary of pastor and there were a couple of different models for paying the pastor.  I think the common thread was that no matter what you’re being paid, it has to make sense within the context of your church.  If you’re a small plant, don’t expect to get paid like a mega church pastor.  Another common thread was to look forward regarding salary.  If you take a small or no salary, what will happen when you leave?  Will anyone be willing to lead the church?  Will it need someone paid to lead it?

Session 3

Doug talked about some future opportunities for church planters.  He’s planning to do annual or more than annual events for church planters.  The Church Planters Academy sessions were all recorded and Doug will distill the knowledge and put it in book form.  Coaching will also be available from the presenters on an ongoing basis for approx. $3000 a year.  I’m hoping to find or raise the money, as I think that would be helpful for me.

Conclusions

Overall I got a lot out of the conference.  It was helpful to see a lot of models, to know that there are a lot of people trying this stuff, and to get some good practical and abstract ideas about church planting.  I’m not sure I related *that* much to a lot of the models that were being examined.  In particular, I have a very positive experience of the traditional, institutional mainline and I’m not that interested in creating something for people to come to.  One of the themes of the presenters was “I wanted to create a church that I would want to go to” but someone (Justin) asked/commented at one point “I don’t want to create a church that I want to go to.  I want to create a church that people far away from God would go to.“ My heart is in creating something where people far away from God might experience God or maybe even creating something where people close to God can go to be filled by the Spirit so they can reach out to people far away from God.  I still find it odd that none of the presenters mentioned the word evangelism.

Church Planters Diary Day 2

Session 1

Rachel Swan and Ann Kim – Pizzeria Lola

Rachel and Ann (in particular) talked about how they started a pizzeria with no experience in the restaurant business.  Ann said they threw caution to the wind financially and put all their life savings plus maxed out their credit cards because they couldn’t find any investors to give them capital.  Their staff is very much a community and every day before work they check in (“preshift huddle”) with each other about their personal lives for 15 minutes.  Ann said the key to making the staff a community was to make them feel valued.  Not that you’ll listen to or do everything they say, but they you’ll hear them.  She said the people were way more important than the building or the stuff and it took time to create a team which worked.  They had to fire people (amicably) whose strengths did not match the vision or expectations of the pizzeria.

Take away idea: “You have to listen to your gut.  The DNA of the organization is in you.  Let it guide you.”

Session 2

Context is Everything

Russel Rathbun & Debbie Blue – House of Mercy St. Paul

Russel and Debbie started a church basically by becoming a part of the St. Paul music scene.  They invited (and somehow got) famous musicians to come play at some of their events and then started doing a Saturday Night / Sunday morning thing where local bands would play at their church on Saturday Night and then during the Sunday morning worship gathering the next day.  They publicized their church the way local artists would publicize a gallery opening or a band would publicize a gig they were playing (send out postcards to friends).  They publically engaged the artists at artists events.  For example, bringing blank canvases to art festivals and just letting people paint on them.  Russel had a feeling that the “post-modern” church was plateauing and whatever was next would be different.  He proposed an idea of a church with an expiration date – what if at the founding of a church, you said in 5 years we hope to plant some new Christian communities and then we’ll be done.  The positives would be it would give permission for the thing to run its course and people wouldn’t feel like they had to hang on to something just for the sake or longevity or survival.  Paul (the apostle) planted a lot of churches and they don’t all exist and none of them look like what they did back then.  I agree with the idea of constant evaluation and the freedom to let a thing go when it’s run its course, but I hesitate to set the expiration date so early in the process.  I would maybe suggest doing annual mission reviews that included the question “Does God still want us to be a ‘thing’?” So that the Holy Spirit can tell us when it’s time to let go, rather than just semi-arbitrarily deciding at the start.

Session 3 – The First Two Years

This was a panel of presenters and other church planters (some who were attendees of the conference) who just got up and gave one liners about mistakes they made and advice for the first two years.  I’m basically just going to give the list:

-When you say you’re going to pray for someone, pray for them.

-If you plant a church, you may get disciples.  If you make disciples, you will get a church.

-Get to know Jesus more, treat yourself well, cook for your people.

-Do things that give you life and energy.

-Just because you do something that works once, doesn’t mean you have to do it again.

-Try not to take yourself too seriously.

-Recognize times when you’re intentionally creating chaos so you can ride in on a white horse to save everybody.

-Do not neglect your own spiritual care.

-Early on, I didn’t want it to be “the Tim show” so I used the pronoun “we” too early.  There wasn’t a “we” yet so language like “we believe…” and “we do…” made people think there was a “we” they weren’t a part of.  For the first few years, it was really about what I was doing and whether people wanted to join in that.

-If you can’t be the church without money, you aren’t going to be the church with money.

-Divorce the sustainability conversation from the faithfulness conversation.  And have both of them.

-Don’t wait too long to start good financial practices (accountability, budgeting etc).

-Have friends who aren’t a part of the church.

-“People leave.”  It’s not about you.

-Instead of thinking about who to reach, think about who you want to be led by and who you want to learn from.

-Stay crazy.

-Approval seeking is toxic and hopeless.  Be yourself and be comfortable.

-You won’t plant a church with the people you think you’re going to plant with.  There’s no one you need in your church plant except Jesus.

-Don’t believe what the people tell you when they say they’ll show up or call or whatever and don’t take it personally when they don’t.

-Don’t pick people for your team because you want to help them. (Codependency)

Session 4 – “I don’t get what you’re about”

Don and Pam Heatley Skyped in from New York (Vision).  The connection was a bit iffy so the conversation wasn’t easy to understand.  Basically what I got from the conversation was – People may not understand what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.  Sometimes it helps to put it on paper, but more for yourself than anyone else.  Have a clear understanding of why you’re doing it, what you hope to accomplish, who you hope to reach, what you hope to reach them with, and then don’t worry if anyone else gets it.

Bob Hyatt – Evergreen Community, Portland, OR

Bob talked more about the question “What to do with what other people think about my ministry?”

He said the biggest pressure was for him to understand himself.

Two types of people want to plant churches – the narcissist and the codependent.  i.e. The need to succeed and the need to please.  He said narcissism is often confused with vision and leadership charisma.  It’s revealed as narcissism by the long trail of bodies.  Narcissists enjoy conflict to demonstrate how much better they are than other people.  Codependents base their happiness on how happy other people are with them.  They avoid conflict.  Bob suggested that the growth of the codependent shouldn’t be to care less about what other people think, but to know more and be convicted more by what I think.  He also cautioned against preaching the unconditional love of God and then leading as if God’s love depended on our success or accomplishment.  He said differentiation is the ability to remain connected in significant relationship to people, while not allowing our behaviors or actions to be determined by them.  He said that Sabbath from a Christian perspective is the resting of my soul in the finished work of Jesus.

Maggie Mraz – Bull City Vineyard, Durham, NC

Maggie had a really interesting manifesto about her relationship with God and her place as a child of God, but I didn’t get any good notes from it.  Here’s what I have:

“When someone doesn’t get you, you feel rejected.”  We have got to care more about what God thinks than what people think.  Guard the time you have with God.  God knows what he’s doing.

Session 5 – Vision casting and leadership

Tim Keel – Jacob’s Well

Leadership is about seeing possibility and then committing whole heartedly to the path that opens up towards that possibility.  Jesus said, “Behold!  The kingdom of God is at hand!”  He pointed to a future and then through his commitment, helped bring that future into the present.  The biggest problem of leaders is a crisis of imagination i.e. not being able to see beyond the status quo.  Tim talked about the four modes of engagement as a leader:

1)      Knowing – perceiving data

2)      Being – Presence

3)      Doing – Practices

4)      Relating – Postures

He said we traditionally understand leadership as knowing and doing, but it’s really 90% about being and relating.

Tim Conder – Emmaus Way

He said that early on he just had to tell people what the values of the new church were going to be and people could either come along and follow or not.  He didn’t open the values of the church to a discussion.  The values were: missionality, hospitality, egalitarian-ism (all staff were bivocational).

Then once he got some buy in to those core values, then he had to work on giving things away.  He had to let other people become the social hub of the church or the mission hub of the church.  He said, “Look at who you are as a person and figure out how to do thing within your temperament.  Look for other people to do the things that aren’t in your temperament.”

At the end of the day, I still had two questions lingering:

1)      I would guess well over half of the church models presented have music and art as a focal point in the church.  Does this have to be the case?  I know the answer is no, but I’d sure like to see that fleshed out more.

2)      (And my wife reminded me that I have a chip on my shoulder about the “emergent church” so take this with a grain of salt)  Why aren’t we talking about evangelism?  Nobody’s even used the word.  There’s a lot of ground work that has to go on before you can even invite someone to check out a church or Christian community or even a “missional happening” or whatever.  How do we engage people who are far away from God in a way that would make them want to be a part of a Christian community or even understand what a Christian community is for or about, long before we’re ready to invite them to check it out?

Church Planters Academy Dairy – Day 1

We started the day by finishing these three sentences in small groups:

I come from a people who…

I come from a place where…

I bring with me…

Session 1 – Creating Something from Nothing

Maggie Mraz – Bull City Vineyard (Durham, NC)

Nanette Sawyer – Grace Commons PCUSA, (Chicago, IL)

Nadia Bolz-Weber – House for all Sinners and Saints ELCA (?)

This session had a lot of good stories of success, but not too much guidance on what the core values or principles guiding that success were.  I know that transplanting ideas directly to a different context wouldn’t work, but I assume certain principles and values could work in a lot of different contexts.  A couple of common points to highlight: The power of relationships.  All three churches were heavily built around what the community was interested in and what the church might do to be a positive force to people in the community.  All three churches had very distributed leadership.  Nadia said “We are anti-excellence, pro-participation.”  In other words, we’d rather have people feel free to participate poorly than feel like only polished and practiced people can do so.  In a lot of cases, the leadership just let people have ideas and run with them without participating in whatever they were doing.  Very permission giving.

Session 2 Part I - ???

Mike Toy – Netscape employee #7

I’m not really sure what the point of this session was.  It was interesting to hear, but really focused on Mike’s story of different startups and how Netscape was incredibly successful by certain metrics but kind of toxic (100 hour work weeks for months at a time) in a lot of other aspects.

Seesion 2 Part II – Why failure is not an option, it’s a necessity.

Mike Stavlund, Rich McMullen, Mark Scandrette

This session was about failure(!).  The presenters looked at it from a couple of different angles.

1)      Failure from an individual ministry perspective – sometimes you just have to let a program or event go, because it’s run its course.  Either it’s not serving its purpose anymore or its purpose is no longer where the church is headed.  No matter how much you like it, sometimes some things just don’t work and that’s okay.  Using a language of “experiment” and “prototype” rather than “program” will help build a culture where it’s okay to try things that don’t work.

2)      Failure from a community standpoint – we heard a couple of stories of church plants that didn’t get off the ground.  Sometimes that happens too.  Maybe the measure of a “church” is in impact instead of longevity.  We all know of churches that can survive but aren’t making an impact.  But my question which I never really got to ask: how do we know we’re not using ‘impact’ as a cop out for not doing hard things.  Like we could all sit around a camp fire and sing Kum-ba-yah and think we’re having this great impact, but if nobody is being transformed by Christ, then nobody will come, and then we’ll die.

3)      Failure from a personal standpoint – the take home here was “It’s not about you.”  The success and failure of the church are not about your ability as a human being or your worth as a child of God.  It’s easy to go into an emergent/mission church plant with a “I’m going to show all those old people” chip on your shoulder or it’s easy to throw yourself into the church plant because your ego really *needs* (word choice intentional) it to succeed, but none of these are healthy patterns.  Sure, God can use them, but they’re not healthy.  The fact is that God’s goodness and our goodness are not contingent on anything at all and especially not on the success or failure of a church plant.  And the sooner we can acknowledge and embrace that and let God use us for whatever he wants and trust that when we give our best, the rest is completely in his control, the more likely we are to “succeed” (however you want to define it) anyway.

My big conclusions of the day was: church planting is really, really hard.  It will test and stretch your faith and commitment. God will show up but not always in the way you want and not always with the news you want. The trust to hold your plans below God's plans is key.

Joe Paterno and the Good Samaritan

Just to create some content and test some features:
Here's a sermon I preached last fall.

Joe Paterno and the Good Samaritan

( I'm going to assume you're somewhat familiar with the situation at Penn State this week).

Y'all have probably inferred that I am a big Penn State fan and in particular a big Joe Paterno fan.  Lindsay went to Penn State and I started rooting for the Nittany Lions when we started dating in seminary.

I first off want to say that the most important people for us to consider are the victims.  The young boys, now young men, who were scarred and irreparably damaged by the horrible act perpetrated against them.  We should always keep them and all victims of abuse in our prayers.  Especially since statistically 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys is abused before the age of 18, that mens that when we pray for abuse victims we are praying for our families, co-workers, baby sitters, police officers, politicians, friends, pastors, elders, teachers and members of our churches.

Joe Paterno could have and should have done more.  I understand the argument that he was brought up in a time when things like this were handled behind closed doors.  I understand the argument that he was taking the word of a 22 year old graduate assistant who wasn't specific against a friend and colleague whom he had trusted and worked with for decades.  He could have and should have done more.

When we think of the story of the Good Samaritan, we often contrast the roles of the Levite and priest with the Samaritan.  We say that the Samaritan was the neighbor because he helped the victim instead of ignoring the victim and we conclude that we should be like the Samaritan and not like the Levite or the priest.  More often than not, we are the Levite and the priest walking by saying, "At least I'm not the thief."  We demonize others so that we don't have to face our own shortcomings or take responsibility for our inaction.  We point at Paterno and Spanier (the University President) and Curley (the athletic director) because we don't want to face the fact that we are not all that different.  We demonize them because we don't want to admit that we all ignore sin, that we all look the other way, that we all don't protect the innocent and we all turn a blind eye.

This morning there were a group of young men smoking pot on our basketball court at church.  It smelled like it, I could see it, they were rolling it.  I went out and said, "I don't know what you're smoking; I don't care what you're smoking; you can't smoke anything on this property."  I turned a blind eye.  I knew what they were smoking, but I didn't call them on it.  I was a Levite walking by saying "At least I'm not the thief."

How often do we turn a blind eye to the famine and AIDS epidemic in Africa?  How often do we turn a blind eye to the sex slave trade in the United States (the center of the sex slave trade in North America is Kansas City.  Bet you didn't know that.)?  How often do we turn a blind eye to the poor, the addicted, the depressed?  How often do we purposely avoid Lancaster Avenue because it's "the bad part of the town?"  We are all Levites and priests walking by saying, "At least I'm not the thief."

The truth with sexual abuse is that we all turn a blind eye.  Given how prevalent and how rampant it is, especially in churches (almost every church I know of has had some history of sexual abuse in its past), it's incredible how rarely it comes up when we talk about the history of the church.  We can talk about the pastor who stole money, who ran away with the Sunday School teacher, or who showed up to the pulpit drunk, but we, as a society, have gotten into the habit of ignoring sexual abuse, burying it, and keeping it quiet.  How many different people in this particular story had a chance to say something?  The multiple levels of the administration at the university and athletic department, people from the charity, victims, parents, other kids.  We demonize because we don't want to admit that it takes a whole town of people keeping quiet and we are part of that town.  In truth, if a scared 22 year old kid came to us and made a vague reference that our friend of decades was doing something inappropriate with a kid in the shower, we would probably kick it up the chain of command so as to not have to deal with it.  We all keep secrets, we all turn a blind eye, we all fail the innocent...and none of us want to admit it.  We are the Levites walking by saying, "At least I'm not the thief."  We all can and should do more.

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Whenever the topic of sexual abuse, especially against minors, comes up, I am always surprised by the intense anger, hatred, and vitriol spouted against abusers and anyone tangentially associated.  Now don't get me wrong, I have no tolerance for those in power taking advantage of people out of power to their harm.  It is inexcusable, unthinkable, and despicable.  Sandusky, should the allegations be true, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

However, when I read things like "I hope there's a special circle of hell reserved for these people" published by writers in a national magazine (ESPN.com in this case) I can't believe my eyes.  Is this really how Jesus taught us or showed us how to treat one another?  When Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Mat 5:44) is this what he meant?  When Jesus said, "Forgive them father, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34) is this the example he was setting?  That we would rather see someone eternally tortured than see them redeemed by Jesus Christ?

I think we demonize and dehumanize him, saying he is pure evil because we don't want to believe that good people could do such terrible things.  We don't want to believe that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are abused.  We don't want to believe that our friends, and neighbors, and co-workers and even our children are victims of abuse and in many cases perpetrators of sexual impropriety (ranging from pornography use to assualt to prostitution to pedophelia) (and yes, children are often perpetrators).  It's much easier to compartmentalize and imagine that "If we could only lock up all the people who do this or turn a blind eye to this..." than it is to face the reality that sexual impropriety is a systematic problem that pervades every aspect of society.

I think the reason why this is the case is because of the secrecy that surrounds sexual abuse.  SO many of us have been hurt by sexual abuse (as a victim, as a friend of a victim, or even as a perpetrator) but have not found a healthy way to come to terms with it.  The only thing we know how to do is to be angry.  And we bottle that anger up inside for years and decades so that when we finally get a chance to express any feelings on the subject at all (like when it's in the public eye) we take all the anger that we've built up over decades and unleash on the nearest target, in this case Sandusky.  We demonize, dehumanize, and vilify him because he is the stand in for the years of un-dealt with pain, hurt, shame, and anger that we've been carrying around.  We've turned a blind eye to our own pain and the only way we know how to deal with it is to project it onto other situations.  We have never figured out a way to deal with it in a way that brings healing, closure, reconciliation, and ultimately redemption and so the next generation of victims is even more afraid of disclosing what happened, fearing they might be somehow implicated and the next generation of perpetrators is even more afraid of seeking help, fearing our backlash.

In truth, in the story of the Good Samaritan, we are not Levites.  We are not the Good Samaritan.  We are not even the thieves.  In the story of the Good Samaritan, we are the man on the side of the road.  We have been hurt.  We have been hurt by people who should have been there but weren't.  We have been hurt by people we trusted but violated our trust.  We have been hurt by people who took advantage of us and people who turned a blind eye.  We have been hurt by our parents, our teachers, our peers, our pastors, our church leaders, our friends, and we have been hurt by ourselves.  We have been beaten and robbed by thieves and we have watched priests and Levites turn a blind eye.  And we wait...and wait...and wait....for someone to stop and love us.  And while we wait we grow more angry, more bitter, more hateful...and more hurt.  So who is the Good Samaritan?

Jesus.

Jesus is the one who has not turned a blind eye.  Jesus is the one who knows what it is to be beaten, to be robbed, to be mocked, to be betrayed, to be left for dead.  Jesus knows what it is to have a blind eye turned.  Jesus knows what it is to hurt.  And yet, Jesus, knowing the consequence of his actions, still stops for us.  Jesus, knowing the priests and Levites will crucify him for stopping when they would not, still comes and bandages us, sets us on his donkey, takes us to the inn, pays for our room and meal, and promises that he will return and pay for everything that we owe.  And Jesus does the same for the priest, the Levite, and yes, even the thief.

Jesus' promise of justice is not that the evil will be purged from creation.  Jesus' promise is that evil will be redeemed.  Not that the Sandusky's of the world will be punished, but that the Sandusky's of the world will be transformed.  Not that the victims of the world will be avenged, but the the victims of the world will be reconciled.  Jesus' promise is that we will one day find a place or build a place where we can share our secrets and not be shamed, judged, or condemned.  Jesus' promise is not that the thief, the priest, and Levite will be robbed and beaten, but that all four characters - the thief, the priest, the Levite and the man by the road will all be healed.

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"Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."  Well, I guess I'm about to remove all doubt.