I talked to Thea today, who attended last Sunday's service at St. Stephen for the first time. Thea is a true "seeker," exactly the sort of person that we in the church really don't know how to serve. All the church growth literature these days talks about "seekers," a generic term for people looking for God, but who have needs that we "traditionalists" don't address very well. They may believe in God, or not; or consider themselves Christian, or not; but for whatever reason "church" doesn't seem to meet their needs.
Thea is probably the most genuine "seeker" you'll ever meet--she's even blogging about it, www.theameetsgod.blogspot.com . She's a divorced single parent, between jobs in a bad economy, with lots of worries. She's sought God in all sorts of ways. She attended one mainline denomination and was on the path to be confirmed but was told she had too many questions. She has tried prayer and other spiritual practices. Now she's decided that she's going to study and attend a different religion a week and blog about it.
What's hard for her is that she's in an emotionally difficult position and doesn't "feel" God there--God seems detached, indifferent, perhaps even non-existent. I can relate. Several years ago, when I was having a very hard time at a church, I started struggling with the same doubts. Why was it that things I was trying to do to serve Christ and benefit others were turning out so badly? Why was that things were going personally so badly for me? Why did God seem "so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?" (Psalm 22: 1) I had no sense of God's presence or God's answer to my prayers.
I developed an interest in Christian mysticism at that time. I was deeply moved by John of the Cross, a 16th Century Spanish mystic who wrote "The Dark Night of the Soul," about his struggle with exactly that issue. But his struggle made mine sound like a walk in the park. Here was a man whose life was dedicated to prayer and service of God, and he described such a deep pit of despair that even in my darkest moments I could not grasp--what we moderns might call anhedonia, a complete inability to take pleasure in anything, no doubt a side effect of a deep-seated case of depression.
John had based much of his certainty that God loved him and was with him on feeling that God loved him and was with him, a feeling that he got from prayer, from worship, from doing good things for others. But now the feeling was gone. Had God abandoned him?
Despite this deep Slough of Despond (as Bunyan calls it in Pilgrim's Progress), John refused to give up. He challenged the still-popular notion that feelings of God's nearness are either our reward or our indication that God is with us. Faith, he taught, is deeper than feelings, deeper than thought. Somehow he learned to have faith that God was near him even when he felt the distance was impossibly great. He somehow believed that God loved him in spite of his overwhelming feeling that this was impossible--that he was too great a sinner, that God not only was not near him but had in fact rejected him. He continued to pray, to worship, to do good works, despite the fact that he felt no sense of pleasure in them but often only burden bordering on despair.
My despair wasn't as great as his, and trust me, my faith isn't as great as his, either. Nonetheless, I was taken by his point: the greatest faith we can have is to believe that God loves us despite the fact that our feelings, our mind, our experience--our everything--tells us this just couldn't be true; to believe that God is near to us when we know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it couldn't be true.
Thea and I talked about this, and about other things. My sense is that she, and other "seekers," are frustrated by the same thing about churches--our presumption that we have the answers and our refusal to tolerate much questioning. She seemed to represent well a demographic that Christianity is failing to reach--intelligent people who are turned off by Christians who promulgate a literalist interpretation of the Bible at the expense of modern science; good people who are turned off by the exclusivity and cruelty of many Christians toward gays or people of other faiths; people longing for a loving, accepting God because they themselves feel abandoned or alienated. Most of all, they want to go someplace where they are welcomed with all their questions, flaws, and quirks, as children of God, beloved of God, by people willing to get to know them in their uniqueness, and to love them for it.
In that sense, aren't we all seekers? The challenge is to be the church that does that.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Room in the Inn
The other Tuesday night, I visited with about five homeless men in our Parish Hall. One was playing Chinese checkers. Another was reading an adventure novel. A couple of others had been outside smoking, and came in just as the conversation started. The novel reader looked about sixty, but as he told his story I realized he was younger than I am, in his forties. Life on the street will do that to you. he'd worked various jobs, starting with some white collar work, but descending gradually into catch-as-can construction work. He told his story matter-of-factly, without going into detail, but it wasn't hard to guess that drug and alcohol abuse played a role. Sometimes our homeless guests are straightforward about the dark side of their lives; other times they talk around it, perhaps hoping that we'll believe that life just did them a bad turn.
Every Tuesday night--in the months of December, January, and February in the winter; and July and August in the summer--St. Stephen hosts fifteen homeless men in our Parish Hall. The program is called "Room in the Inn," and it started about two years ago. Right now at least eight churches are participating. Our guests--for that's what we call them--are screened through the Day Resource Center to make sure we don't get people with a history of violence, serious anti-social behavior, or with needs non-professionals couldn't manage.
Our volunteers run the gamut. Corbie and Ray are a former ministry couple who have spearheaded the initiative. They are in their seventies. They have a quiet, kindly, but immoveable commitment to this ministry. Bill and Wendy are almost their doppelgangers, a middle-aged couple with no "traditional" church ties. Bill is a roadie; he's travelled with some big name bands. Wendy is an engineer and isn't afraid of asking hard questions. But both love the church, both love Corbie and Ray, and both love this ministry.
Then you've got Tommy, Craig and Peggy, Robbie, and Melissa, and probably more I can't think of. Tommy is a rock of the church, the person you can most depend on to use his gifts for organization and compassion on behalf of the people most in need. Craig and Peggy are big-hearted, salt-of-the-earth folks who'd do anything for anybody. Robbie is a firefighter whose wife Beth is our Director of Christian Ed. And Melissa is a public school librarian who has only recently joined the church.
We start off with a big dinner. It has amazed me who signs up to prepare the dinner: couples old and young, committees, special groups within the church, individuals who throw together teams committed just to that one meal. We never have a problem finding cooks. Robbie the firefighter is a popular cook. Apparently his forte of preparing meals for a firehouse full of big hungry men translates well into the "Room in the Inn" setting. He recently served up the best meat loaf I've ever had--and there was plenty to go around.
The guests run the gamut, too. About a year ago I was introduced to a couple of clients whom I'll call "Jose" and "John." They were both recent Christians, trying hard to keep the faith and stay on the straight and narrow despite the fact that even at the shelters, they are still surrounded by all the temptations of the street. The guests are assigned different churches each week, so all of us Room in the Inn volunteers know them. Jose is one of our favorites. He's gotten a job and does volunteer work as well. He has gotten VA benefits and is in the running for housing. He still comes around now and then just to thank us. He tells us that simply coming to Room in the Inn made a huge difference for him, because we treated him with respect, and he could imagine a life for himself beyond the streets.
Every Tuesday night--in the months of December, January, and February in the winter; and July and August in the summer--St. Stephen hosts fifteen homeless men in our Parish Hall. The program is called "Room in the Inn," and it started about two years ago. Right now at least eight churches are participating. Our guests--for that's what we call them--are screened through the Day Resource Center to make sure we don't get people with a history of violence, serious anti-social behavior, or with needs non-professionals couldn't manage.
Our volunteers run the gamut. Corbie and Ray are a former ministry couple who have spearheaded the initiative. They are in their seventies. They have a quiet, kindly, but immoveable commitment to this ministry. Bill and Wendy are almost their doppelgangers, a middle-aged couple with no "traditional" church ties. Bill is a roadie; he's travelled with some big name bands. Wendy is an engineer and isn't afraid of asking hard questions. But both love the church, both love Corbie and Ray, and both love this ministry.
Then you've got Tommy, Craig and Peggy, Robbie, and Melissa, and probably more I can't think of. Tommy is a rock of the church, the person you can most depend on to use his gifts for organization and compassion on behalf of the people most in need. Craig and Peggy are big-hearted, salt-of-the-earth folks who'd do anything for anybody. Robbie is a firefighter whose wife Beth is our Director of Christian Ed. And Melissa is a public school librarian who has only recently joined the church.
We start off with a big dinner. It has amazed me who signs up to prepare the dinner: couples old and young, committees, special groups within the church, individuals who throw together teams committed just to that one meal. We never have a problem finding cooks. Robbie the firefighter is a popular cook. Apparently his forte of preparing meals for a firehouse full of big hungry men translates well into the "Room in the Inn" setting. He recently served up the best meat loaf I've ever had--and there was plenty to go around.
The guests run the gamut, too. About a year ago I was introduced to a couple of clients whom I'll call "Jose" and "John." They were both recent Christians, trying hard to keep the faith and stay on the straight and narrow despite the fact that even at the shelters, they are still surrounded by all the temptations of the street. The guests are assigned different churches each week, so all of us Room in the Inn volunteers know them. Jose is one of our favorites. He's gotten a job and does volunteer work as well. He has gotten VA benefits and is in the running for housing. He still comes around now and then just to thank us. He tells us that simply coming to Room in the Inn made a huge difference for him, because we treated him with respect, and he could imagine a life for himself beyond the streets.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Yesterday evening the youth hosted a "thank you" dinner for everyone who helped sponsor their mission trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. I know, I know, Myrtle Beach--for me as a South Carolina boy it conjures up beach music memories ("Myrtle Beach dayzzzz/ lots of fun in the hazzze") and all the teen angst of falling in love with some girl I would never see again. So you're thinking, "some youth mission trip!"
Except it really was. Our youth went to the Race Path neighborhood, an African-American community with some real needs. They worked really, really hard, ripping off an old roof and putting on a new one for a dear, 97-year old lady; building a new, wheel-chair accessible porch from scratch; and providing childcare in a crowded day care center. On the way to Myrtle, they visited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, site of one of the worst atrocities of the Southern Civil Rights Era--a racist church bombing that killed four little girls--Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley. They viewed statues commemorating Dr. King and the boldness of the non-violent citizens who stood up to police dogs and firehoses.
There's a poignancy to this for me. The Civil Rights movement had a big influence on my faith, and played an important role in my call to ministry. I've been pastor to churches that tried to integrate their youth programs with only moderate success. But here at St. Stephen, a mostly white, upper-middle class church, we have quite possibly the most integrated youth group I have ever seen anywhere. African-American, mixed race, hispanic, and white; of various social and economic backgrounds--they're all here, and the relationship is entirely organic--nobody tried to create it, it just happened. Nearly 50 years later, the upcoming generation of Christians seems to be living the prophetic hope that Dr. King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial--that our children would be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And based on their mission trip, if we are to judge our youth by the content of their character, St. Stephen is blessed indeed.
Except it really was. Our youth went to the Race Path neighborhood, an African-American community with some real needs. They worked really, really hard, ripping off an old roof and putting on a new one for a dear, 97-year old lady; building a new, wheel-chair accessible porch from scratch; and providing childcare in a crowded day care center. On the way to Myrtle, they visited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, site of one of the worst atrocities of the Southern Civil Rights Era--a racist church bombing that killed four little girls--Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley. They viewed statues commemorating Dr. King and the boldness of the non-violent citizens who stood up to police dogs and firehoses.
There's a poignancy to this for me. The Civil Rights movement had a big influence on my faith, and played an important role in my call to ministry. I've been pastor to churches that tried to integrate their youth programs with only moderate success. But here at St. Stephen, a mostly white, upper-middle class church, we have quite possibly the most integrated youth group I have ever seen anywhere. African-American, mixed race, hispanic, and white; of various social and economic backgrounds--they're all here, and the relationship is entirely organic--nobody tried to create it, it just happened. Nearly 50 years later, the upcoming generation of Christians seems to be living the prophetic hope that Dr. King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial--that our children would be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And based on their mission trip, if we are to judge our youth by the content of their character, St. Stephen is blessed indeed.
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