Faith's Edge

...that's funnier if you've seen Zoolander...

wow tough crowd

okay, so it's been over 100 degrees two days in a row. Today it was 102. The weather is beginning to make me question the existence of hell. If God is a God of love, He couldn't possibly send people somewhere hotter than where I've been the past two days. I suppose there's the off chance that Portland is hell, but that would upset alot of people.

I've now given two fairly successful sermons on back-to-back weeks. By successful I mean that I wasn't called a heretic, tarred and feathered, kicked in the junk or anything like that.

I'm somewhat apologetic for my previous two posts. Not in a regretting posting them sort of way. I just feel like if people don't know me well (and don't know little things like, oh I don't know, my wife is white) that they might misunderstand my posting those things. I've just gotten kinda fed up with how this country's racial issues have been swept under the carpet lately.

Tonight I met with a group of young adults (what do you call us? kids? folks? I hate the term "young adults") who are wanting to plant a community garden in the back of one of the churches I'm working at (or at which I'm working...my mom is in my head right now) They're really enthusiastic about it and the fact that the church isn't really asking anything of them is kind of a shock. It could be a really good thing for the neighborhood and it's great that the pastor recognizes that.

By the way, I figured out my its/it's problem. I used It's a wonderful life in a sermon a couple of weeks ago and for some reason that made it stick.

I finally started "Shaping of Things to Come". So far it is a fantastic book. At some point I should consider reading fiction.

Well, I'm tired. And hot. And not in the sexy way. Just in the sweaty way. And not sweaty in the sexy way. Just sweaty in the sweaty way. I also think the heat is making me a bit delirious. I'll see y'all tomorrow when it is going to cool all the way down to the nineties. Yay!

As I mentioned in my earlier post of the day, Portland is the whitest city in the country. Here's an article from the Washington Post that talks about the dynamics going into that reality.

so I haven't blogged in a couple of days, which keeping with the tone and flavor my internship to this point means tons of shit has happened. While I've primarily been engaged in sermon writing this week (seriously, what else can be said about David and Goliath and/or Jesus calming the sea that hasn't already been said...stupid lectionary) the rest of the world continues to do things that baffle me.

So while the rest of the world watches the World Cup, those of us that live in Presbyteria have been watching GA stuff. The Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) report, which is quite a good read if you're into fiction, passed with some amendments. The long and short of it is that the PC(USA) is not going to change its ordination standards language in the Book of Order (BOO!) but individual presbyteries will have some flexibility in how they interpret the ordination standards. From what I gather, this has successfully made everyone unhappy. Neither conservatives nor liberals think it goes far enough in their direction. According to my friend who is at GA, alot of discussion has begun about people wanting to leave the church. Oh, and the guy who has pledged to make the $150 million donation is bankrupt. (slight exaggeration)

On to more pathetic subjects than the PC(USA)... Oregon is currently graduating 25% of their African American students from high school. I repeat, Oregon is currently graduating 25% of its African American students from high school. In other words, one out of every four black high school students in Oregon is graduating from said high school. I've thought of seventeen other ways to put that, but the bottom line is that is disgusting!!! It's the lowest percentage in the country. The state should be embarrassed, the school system should be embarrassed, the african american community here should be embarrassed, and of course, the church should be embarrassed. If these folks aren't embarrassed, I'm embarrassed for them. By the way, the national average for african american high school graduation is 51%, which is still embarrassing, but Oregon is not helping our average here.

By the way, Portland is supposedly the whitest city in America. I feel like I've been whiter places. That would explain the bitterness.

Seriously, any thoughts on I Samuel 17 or Mark 4:35-41 would be much appreciated.

The sun has come out, which usually improves my disposition. Maybe if I actually leave the house it will.

So two things I have to be happy about. On Tuesday night my friends took me to this jazz club called Blue Monk. On Tuesdays there's no cover (awesome) and they have really good beer on tap (double awesome) and the trio that plays there on Tuesdays is totally sick (that's a good thing)! Needless to say, I have a Tuesday night hang out! Apparently, they also serve food.

Second thing, on Wednesday mornings I have been going to an ecumenical lectionary study. It has been very enriching. Though the Presbyterians outnumber the other denominations represented, it is great to hear such a wide variety of opinions on scripture, life, and ministry. The group includes UCC, Lutheran, Episcopal, and I think Catholic clergy. They deal with the passages for the next Sundays lectionary readings, thus giving you over a week to mull over the rich conversation. Is there anyway to start an ecumenical denomination without becoming unecumenical? If there is, that's what I want to do.

I've promised that I will write down some further thoughts on Race Matters and the excerpts from A Testament to Freedom that I have read. Maybe I'll do that tonight. For now, I'm going to take a shower and go enjoy the sun!

Life seems to be happening faster than I can blog about it. I suppose that's good as I'm spending more time involved in living life than writing about it. Or something like that.

Yesterday I had my first real pastoral care call and it was quite a doosey! The church where I actually have pastoral care duties is the first one that I visited. I remeber telling Marnie at the time that I didn't think there was any way that they would actually call me in a pastoral emergency while the pastor is in France. I said the same thing to my friends Josh and Jon the other night as we cruised Portland. So you can imagine my surprise when I not only got a call, but also had to deal with some pretty intense stuff. I have to admit, I haven't had much time to process the whole experience, which I imagaine is what I'm doing to some extent now. On one hand it felt good (humbling and an honor) to be there for someone in a time of such pronounced need. On the other hand, I felt woefully unprepared and inadequate. To be honest, I still feel a little drained from the whole experience.

My sermon on Sunday, which also drained me, went over pretty well. Having not had the experience of worshipping at that church before I preached there, I was a little surprised by the atmosphere. For this being the church that might not be around in a year, it seemed very vibrant and alive. Certainly you can't get a church's full story in the amount of time that I was there, but it seems like they are just wrestling with some hard questions, not dying. I feel that some of the churches I visited before this past Sunday were closer to death than this one, though none of them thankfully seems ready to check out.

Those of you with any connection tothe PC(USA) have no doubt heard about the 150 million dollar bandaid the presbyterian church was given. Here, it seems to be the only thing from GA that anyone wants to talk about. It almost feels like it was planned that way: a well intentioned and incredibly generous diversion from the church's real issues. 150 million is alot of money, gaudy in some ways. But it won't solve the church's real problems because the church's real problems aren't financial.

I'm grumpy today. I shouldn't blog when I'm grumpy.

Well, actually I'm not procrastinating. I'm finishing up a sermon and I have a little bit of writer's block. It'll get done. It might just finish itself Sunday morning.

Marnie is coming into town tonight! YEA!!!!!! I've been cleaning and stuff today. I'd rather she not see that I've been wallowing in my own filth for two and a half weeks... two and a half weeks! that's a long time to be apart. After this we have to do another two weeks. UGH!!!

So the sermon I'm working on is for a church that might not be there in a year. Its currently worshipping at about twenty a week. The pastor told me that this week she is beginning the conversations with the church this week about the church's future or lack thereof. its weird writing a sermon under those circumstances. Am I just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic here? Weird feeling. I'm reminded that I'm just here to be faithful with the time that I have. I have to remind myself that I'm not here to save Portland. I wouldn't want that job anyway.

I had an interesting exchange with one of the pastor's here. On Tuesday afternoon we had are regularly scheduled lunch meeting where I mentioned something about all of us minister types having had some sort of life transforming encounter with Jesus Christ. Later that evening I went to a neighborhood association meeting with one of the pastors. After the meeting he mentioned to me that his church is more "evangelical" than some of the other PUN churches. I told him that wasn't a big deal to me and that I had been raised in a pretty "evangelical" church. He went on to say that he had gotten that impression from what I said earlier. "Its kind of a shock to hear Jesus mentioned in a Presbyterian meeting"...uh...okay. When did "evangelicals" get a corner on the Jesus market? When did Presbyterians abandon Jesus? If Jesus isn't being brought to the meetings than no wonder the churches are shrinking. Maybe we need to have a "bring your saviour to work" day.

I met a pastor here the other day who some would call emergent (mostly because he's a young, white, male pastor), but he des not consider himself that. Missional, yes. Emergent, no. Interesting all the terminology we come up with. Anyway, after explaining what I'm doing, his advice to me was that I need to call these churches to repentence for not truly preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He believes that there is no reason for a church to be dying in Portland. He believes that churches say they want new people, but what they actually want are new people who look and think like them (if they actually want new people at all). I believe he might be right. I think that's true of most of us; we want people in our churches (and in our lives) that look and think like us to the exclusion of difference in opinion, race, religion, etc...So how do we break out of that? I don't know, but I'll let you know when I've figured it out! hahaha...

Last thing, Dietrich Bonhoeffer has some really interesting thoughts on the nature and mission of the church from 'A Testament to Freedom'. I've been reading them in my devotional the past week or so. I'll share some of that next week. Something to look forward to...

So I have all of this wonderful stuff to blog about, but it has to wait because of Ben Roethlisberger. For those of you that don't know, Ben is the quarterback of my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers. He was in a motorcycle accident today. He wasn't wearing a helemt, which in my mind puts him in the lucky to be alive category. In the midst of a very good and very full day, I've been dealing with this on a couple of levels. Marnie called me this morning, sounding very panicked. When she asked if I had heard the news, I feared the worst (though not really knowing what the worst, might be I just prepared myself for anything). As it turned out, I was pretty freaked out by the news, but somewhat relieved it wasn't something worse. What was weird was that I was playing Madden '06 (the NFL video game) and was a particularly bad game with Big Ben (the defense kept us in it). I often tease my wife for having unhealthy boundaries between reality and fantasy (like when she has dreams she's hanging out with the characters of Friends (the characters, not the actors), but my own fantasy/reality barrier (or lack thereof) was severely exposed as a person who has for the last few months been a video game character to me was taken to the hospital for emergency surgery. All reports indicate that he'll be fine. Broken nose and jaw. Some other internal stuff will probably surface. For those of us that are into sports, I think we get closer to athletes than other "celebrities". They're somewhat more accessible. You're more likely to meet (at least it feels that way) and in a football city like Pittsburgh, they feel like more apart of your community. At the same time, I had to ask myself the question of why Roethlisberger's accident was important to me. Was it because I see him as a beloved child of God or because he entertains me as an athlete? The other level on which I was thinking about this whole thing is the issue of mortality. In an interview he did in the offseason, Ben talked about how he rode without a helmet, but that he was safe. I would imagine that as a 23 year old quarterback on one of the best teams (well, the best team!) in the NFL that there has got to be a bit of a feeling of immortality. I'm sure he's not feeling that today. I've been thinking about that in terms of the churches I'm working at. I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit of an ageist. One of the reasons that I (and I think many my age) are creeped out by older people is that they remind of us of our mortality. They remind us that we are just grass. Yesterday, one of the churches had a health fair. I learned alot, but it was depressing. Why does death depress us? Better question: why does dying depress us? I spent today with an older gentleman (a retired pastor) from one of the churches and he reminded me that older people have alot to offer. They have perspectives colored by history and by experience. They have wisdom that is time tested. They have stories. and if we're willing to listen, they have visions for the future. Not all do. But many do.
Of course, as a Steelers fan, the level that I'm working on is one of wondering what kind of condition Ben will be in by the time that football season starts. That's pretty selfish. He's a human being whose suffering, but like many human beings, I only see him in terms of what he can do for me. Which isn't actually anything, directly, other than give me a greater sense of pride in a place that I'm already pretty proud of. I do hope he's okay.

The story of me and my next door neighbors is beginning to spread...I've become a bit of a maverick in Presbyteria. HA!

I'm currently reading 'Race Matters' by Cornell West. It is a phenomenal book. He has quite a vision for the future of race relations in this country. Its been a quick read thus far. I'll write a more comprehensive review when I'm done.
Speaking of reviews, I saw a couple of pretty intense movies in the last week or so that I'd like to recommend. The first was 'V for Vendetta'. Its an over exaggerated tale of what happens when conservatives take over the government. There are some not so subtle jabs at the current administration. It is a very fun film, despite its political undertones. Hugo "Agent Smith" Weaving is quite good in it and you never see his face. Natalie Portman, however, carries the film. Her british accent is suspect, but its good that some one trusted her enough to let her hold an action movie togther (ahem...George Lucas). The other one is 'A History of Violence'. As the title would suggest, the film has some rather graphic images in it, but it is also quite good. The ending is a bit confusing, but best I can tell, the film ends on a note of showing the redemptive power of love. If you've seen it and disagree, please chime in. enough for now. More later.

Weird stuff happens to me out here. I just bumped into a guy on the street who was walking down the street with a cane in his hand (he was holding it, but not using it). He started talking to me when a random noise on the street startled us both. From there we talked about a really nice Mazda station wagon we saw parked on the street (it was okay...its still a station wagon). The he asked me if anyone I knew could use a cane. I told him no, but that the church I worked at might have someone who could use it. He then went on to tell me that he didn't feel as sentimental about the cane as some other things his father had left him. His father died at three this morning. He watched him die slowly over time of stomach cancer. Again, I can't express how privileged I felt listening to him tell me about the struggle he's gone through over the past few months. He goes to a church around the corner, so I hope folks rally around him. I also hope I bump into him again. He gave me the cane for now. He may want it back at some point, but he said that his dad would want it to go to someone who could use it. I told him the churches where I work have some elderly folk (his does not).

Before we parted ways he said "Do you know what time my dad died? Three o'clock. Jesus died at three o'clock" According to Luke 23:44, he's absolutely right (albeit Jesus died 3:00 PM, not AM... I had to look it up). What faith! I guess Portland's not as Godless as I was led to believe.

If you think about it, pray for Mark.

You Are 40% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well.In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

Money sucks! Well, I guess the need for money sucks. Having to plan your life around how much money you have sucks. Feeling limited and stifled because of money sucks! The actually bills and coins are rather pleasant.

I know that alot of what motivates the pastors I am working with this summer is money. Not so much what they make, but what the churches bring in in order to keep their doors open; a legitimate concern I suppose, but it makes you act more as a CEO than a shepherd (to use Dan Kimball's terms). I wish that churches could think of themselves in other terms other than an organization that needs a building and whatnot.

My own personal frustration comes from having to make decisions I don't want to make. Because my wife and have dumped so much into our car as of late (including a windshield we're getting replaced tomorrow ....stupid kids!) we're having to decide if it is really feasible for her us to hookup this weekend. Grrr...

My other frustration of the day goes back to the churches I'm working with. They want me to help design an "emerging" worship service, but they don't want it to be something sustainable. Just something that whets the appetites of their communities to do something different. I don't get that at all. They have an opportunity to reach out to this growing community of young adults with families but no church connection and they just want to play with the style a little.

Okay, last one. Why do we Presbyterians have this thing about pastors not being members of the church and instead being members of the Presbytery? Maybe I'm just dense, but it seems to me that if the pastor doesn't really have to feel the congregation's sense of urgency (or need, or joy, or whatever the congregation might be feeling) than they aren't really able to be adequate shepherds. I understand the there are protections built into the system for clergy, but why are we so scared of our congregations?

Alright, enough out of me. Its late and I haven't had dinner. Maybe all of this will make sense after I eat.

Sometimes you just see a title that catches your eye - The Porpoise-Diving Life was one that caught mine. While it initally looks like a stab at The Purpose Driven Life, the author, Bill Dahl refutes that idea. He's got articles, poems, and descriptions of his books online. Seems like an interesting guy. From what I read, I think he's got his head (and heart ) in the right place. Check it out!

I realize that this whole thing has gone down in relatively no time at all, especially for something Presbyterian, but it feels like I've been talking about going to Portland for a long time. Well I'm here now. I've been here since Wednesday. It is already going super fast. I'm going to try to get back to my lenten pace of blogging, because my mind has been going a mile a minute (60/mph) since I got here. I'm going to do this post in sections.

I. Adjustment

So my biggest adjustment, of course, is being without my best friend. I've talked to Marnie pretty much twice a day on the phone since I touched down, but I hate talking on the phone. Of course I'll do it for her. As some of you know, Marnie and I were really good friends before we got married. My only advise to any single person would be to marry a friend. Alot of other things can come and go, but friendship is sustaining. I really miss her company. I will hopefully see her this weekend.

A much smaller, but possibly more frustrating adjustment is having to use dial-up again. What is this the stone age?! Hopefully, I'll get that rectified soon.

One pretty awesome adjustment is living in a house. It's a cool little place. Cozy might be an adequate descriptor. The bathroom is on a different floor than the bedroom and having a bladder like an 80 yr. old, that's kinda frustrating, but other than that, I love being in a house. Going back to Hunter is going to suck!

So the other major adjustment, and my segue point, is the adjustment from "student" to "intern". Honestly, I've been waiting for this since I got here, but it is weird. For all intents and purposes, people look at me and treat me like a minister. That is cool and scary and humbling and exciting all at once! An example: for one of the churches I will work with I will be on call to provide pastoral care while the pastor is on vacation. I initially thought that this group of sixty, seventy (maybe eighty?) year old white folks isn't going to want this 26 year old black guy to come visit them if they have a "spiritual" need. I was shocked by how warmly the church reacted when the pastor announced that I would be available for those duties. As Marnie explained to me, they se me as clergy (or at least someone with the aspiration of ...clerginess?). Its a huge shift. (BTW: I don't know if you've noticed but I use "its" and "it's" interchangeably. That's something I don't think I ever learned adequately and don't particularly care about anymore)

II. The Internship

So I'm working for about seven small (membership under 125) Presbyterian churches in South East Portland. They are "urban" but not "inner city". These churches are, for the most part, in decline. While I am definitely here to learn and observe, I'm also here to generate ideas that might help these churches grow and reach their communities more. These churches are part of an experiment (that's really the best way to describe it) called the Presbyterian Urban Network (PUN...ha, ha!). PUN has only really "existed" (I put that in quotes because there is still some ambiguity to PUN's existence) since November. Igot the feeling from a conference I attended on Saturday that everyone in the Presbytery of the Cascades is thrilled about PUN. C'est la vie.

Speaking of the conference, I went to this thing sponsered by the transforming congregations task force of the Pres. of the Cascades. It was boring as hell! Actually the information was interesting, but it was all very vague and I didn't hear them address practical steps to transforming the churches. Instead they talked about models of culture and what not. They talked about change in very vague and inoffensive terms when I think these churches need to hear things in specific and possibly offensive terms. What do I know?

The churches themselves are interesting to me. I heard all of this talk coming up about how liberal Portland was/is. Its true. You can tell by driving around what the values of the culture are. The churches, the ones that I've seen so far, look nothing like the neighborhoods. (Hmmm...I wonder if that has anything to do with the decline?) I was surprised by how "conservative" alot of the language I heard in these churches was. Some of this might just be adjusting from the PC gobbelty guk we use at SFTS, but it was a little bit of a shock. (I am so moderate, see I insulted everyone!)

III. Who are my neighbors?

Okay, one more section. This is actually a story. So when I moved in my landlady told me that my next door neighbors were a couple in their twenties who were bi-lingual teachers. Excellent! Going into this weekend I hadn't met them yet. Friday night/Saturday morning I heard alot of noise coming from next door. People hangin out noise: talking, laughing, music, etc... I had to get up early that morning so it didn't really bother me (I heard them around 4 and I was waking up at 6, no big woop). The next night, I went to bed later and was waking up later. Around three I hear them again. This time I'm thinking, I need to get back to sleep and I can't becaus ethey're being loud. I considered my options: I could go out and yell at them, I could call the cops, or I could go introduce myself. After a brief prayer ("Okay, God, what should I do?") I put on my sweatshirt and jeans and went outside. The woman I later found out was my neighbor asked if they were being too loud. Before I could answer another one of them asked if I wanted a beer, a question I rarely say no to. Long story short (ish), I stayed out with my neighbors and their five freinds for about an hour having a couple of beers and talking. Funny thing is, we ended up spending most of the time talking about what I'm doing this summer and, by natural consequence, talking about religion. It was a really awesome experience. Several of them are self-described atheist, though they admit to have a spiritual side (typical postmoderns!). I think they were really shocked to talk to a Christian like me, you know, one who will have a beer at 3:30 when they have to be at church at 10! Seriously though, I think they were impacted that I'm not a conservative, republican, Bible-thumper who was going to judge them. I explained to them what my faith meant to me. One of them even said, "Now I would love to hear a sermon from you". I told them he would have about seven opportunities this summer. We'll see if anything comes of that, but I was priviliged to have that interaction. To share my faith in those kinds of context really is my ultimate goal. It was casual, open, non-judgmental (on either side, they certainly had plenty of reason/opportunity to judge me), and respectful. They seemed genuinely grateful that I would share my beliefs with them. They told me that since my neighbors are teachers that they are out there whenever they don't have school the next day and gave me an open invitation to join them. That was cool!

So here's the challenge: I can manuever in the gray haired Presbyterian world pretty well. I can also manuever in the twenty-something "atheist" world fairly well. How do I bridge those gaps? Is it a bridge worth building if the churches make the twenty somethings conform to their standard? Hard questions. Important questions. Keep me in your prayers.

Its great to be doing ministry again!