Born again

Writing a blog is kind of a silly exercise. Does anyone actually read what one writes? Or more importantly does anyone care? Probably few people actually know the person writing or why the person is writing what they write so why should anyone place much importance on what is written. If no one really is impacted by blog writing, does the writing have value for the writer himself? Maybe it is like speaking to an empty auditorium where one can sort out what one wants to say in the sound of ones own words. I believe this was the value of what I wrote in the year 2008. But it's now the end of 2011.....Life is so different for us now. I believe I need to write another chapter.

I live in a very small world. Essentially, I moved but one time 4 miles from the cooking of my mom, working with my Dad, to the cooking of my wife in house we built together when we married. The center of my world has always been the congregation I was carried to as an infant in1952, just as my father in 1924 and my grandfather in 1898 had been carried.

As you can imagine, this rural Mennonite congregation has been impacted by the moves of many “spirits” over this past century. There were spirits of nationalism generated by the waging WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War, the Cold War, and our current wars. There were the spirits of isolationism vs. the spirits of acculturation or assimilation which contributed little “wars” of their own in our church. There were stresses in the financial world as the congregation moved from many small diversified farms to specialization becoming something like factory farms. There were stresses in the church community in farming which for a hundred years relied on a cash crop of tobacco to balance the books despite the criticisms of the broader Mennonite Church. As the farmers brought the radios into the cow barns they listened to theologies of what God expected of them which was quite different from what they heard from their church papers. Since the congregation was traditionally opposed to higher education they seemed a bit suspect of people who chose to go on in school. The net result of all these “spirits” was almost all of the young people raised in the Church left leaving a congregation of older people. It’s tough to buck the tide of social momentum.

But these were my people. Teaching Sunday school,leading music, I did almost everything that I was asked to do. I contributed as I could because “these were my people”. They deserved to be loved, but I must admit I was a bit lonely. I wanted to model and teach the importance of owning your own people to my children.

An unbelievable turn of events in our church came in the late 90’s as our children were in High School. Primarily because of the attraction of the charismatic personalities of our pastor’s children we were able to start a coffeehouse at the church and many young people came. As they grew older these young people began to take more responsibility in the church. I felt totally excited that a congregation could be born anew which could bridge generations, worship and cultural differences, even theologies out of a common love and allegiance to Jesus and covenant love for each other.

As a congregation we always held a strong conviction in support of the mission of God and this too was a conviction of young people coming to our church fellowship. Fund raisers were held regularly as 14 persons took mission trips with an independent youth mission group to many places of the globe. All of us were excited about this opportunity our young people had to be exposed to the world outside our borders. When individuals came back with testimonies of seeing hurting people in orphanages and told of their youthful motherlike heart feeling a strong compulsion to adopt these children even though they could not, we all knew this was a really good thing. So it is really hard to be critical of any effort to bring Christ’s hope and healing to the world.

Even though I supported these trips highly and I was never on any these trips, I need to be really humble about my analysis. I also talked at length with other people who had experience with the same organization who returned from mission trips and used their experience as a huge blessing to their congregation. So I know my analysis is the exceptional and not the norm. But I wonder sometimes if these mission trips did not contribute toward our demise as a congregation. So much of what I describe in this next paragraph are characteristics we often want to encourage. How could these important practices be a problem?

Theologically,the teaching was very “worship centered” and “spirit” led. In worshipful mediation one was taught to hear from God, walk in obedience and speak the truth which God spoke. Passionate expressions of love for God was the expected norm. Denominational pride and traditional cultural expressions of any church were great hindrances to an intimate relationship with Jesus. One’s spiritual life was one’s prime reality where God intended one to live. Everyone was encouraged to wage spiritual battle at all times against the principalities and the powers of evil. Reading the scripture was authoritative. God said it, we believe it, and that settles it would be a strong motto fully accepted by everyone. Prayers are prayed in faith believing and God will answer.

Taking Christ to the nations is the mandate of everyone,waging war against the spirits of oppression which one could identify freely as ambassadors of Christ. Moral purity is primarily expressed as sexual purity. Pure sexual accountability to each other was commonly discussed as naturally as one would talk about the weather. Spiritual leadership defining one’s walk in obedience under the anointing of the one God placed above you is absolute. The prophetic visions that an anointed one hears from God are taken very seriously.

Clearly all these teachings are important. They are all convictions we support if we love each other and are committed to walk with and listen to each other as a body. But a wedge was driven into the congregation. A meeting was planned to highlight our differences among us as a congregation. Those of us who grew up in the congregation begged for unity but it was not to be. Someone saw a sword in Ohio which was a prophesy that our congregation should divide so it must be so. It was like we loved Jesus so much we cannot love the extended church. The morning of the great tsunami wave in Indonesia,ignoring the overseer of our district of churches, it was announced to the congregation that our church was leaving the denomination. The last sermon preached included the true story of a “prophetess” who befriended the wife of the pastor and loved her,dividing the marriage covenant between husband and wife, paralyzing the ministry of the pastor, crippling him as a person.

A plumber in our congregation said afterward the story just screamed of our experience as our covenant as a body was broken and ministry of church was paralyzed. One cannot describe the despair we felt. For several years we worshipped together as in shock. One time a tenant called and told me her husband no longer wanted her to be his wife. She lived for him, cared for him, even bore a child for him but he left, leaving her wondering what she did wrong, was she worth anything, who would want to walk with her, how was she going raise her children now, or even who was going to pay the bills? I knew her feelings exactly. These were all my questions.

In 2008 I started to write this blog. Maybe it was OK….maybe it wasn’t….one never knows these things but I think it was somewhat defensive on my part. After feeling totally alone, isolated, and despondent, I wanted to shout, Look there is tremendous value in the teachings, the modeling, the humility, the servant ministry, the inclusion in a spiritual body of a global church, the forgiveness, the seriousness with which one takes following Jesus exemplified by the Mennonite Church. Almost every story I wrote in 2008 was my attempt give dignity and respect to what was rejected by the people I loved as brothers and sisters.

I wanted to uphold and honor the faith of the traditional people like the Amish, respect for old order groups in the Mennonite Church, the ordinariness of being a simple people, the grace, thoughtfulness, and faithfulness to God and each other of the older people in our own congregation as they meet together Sunday after Sunday,the blessings of a generational bridge between young and old….the young giving energy to the old and the old giving grace to the young, and theologically I wanted to demonstrate a theology where Jesus became flesh, meaning that when Jesus became wholly man and wholly divine there was very little difference between what is spiritual and what is earthly. In other words Jesus said you show love to me when you do such an earthly thing as giving a cup of water in my name, you sit with the rejected, or when you sell what you have and give to the poor. I wanted to teach that the closer we get to God the closer the natural world and the spiritual world come together: a theology of being real, body soul and spirit.

Why was Jesus so critical of those who prayed publicly….he said please go into a closet, or those who fasted….he said please be normal and don’t tell me about it, or those who gave great contributions….he said, I more impressed with what you kept, or those who evangelize,….he said you make them twice the devil that you are, or the judgments of the righteous…..he said if you are without sin you may throw the stone. Obviously this is a challenge for us all. Certainly Jesus was not opposed to public expressions of spirituality. I suspect Jesus was primarily concerned about those who make spirituality a performance; a practice of spiritual intimidation. I wondered if this overt divisive spirituality we experienced in our congregation was not exactly what Jesus was talking about when he criticized the religious authorities in his day.

At the same time we were driving the wedge between those passionate and those still bound by tradition in their spirituality, a tradesman in the congregation was driving along a country road and he noticed a women using a bucket to draw water from a stream. He stopped his truck and walked down to the woman to find out if she had a problem. He learned her water pump was broken and she was getting water. He asked to see the problem. Making a long story short, our tradesman called a friend and together they reworked the water and furnace supporting this needy woman. It’s significant our tradesman who rarely sings a song or speaks a word in church made a comment about our church difficulties; I don’t believe the extrovert ever understands the introvert.

I wonder why Jesus gave the story of letting the weeds grow up with the wheat and letting the Lord of the Harvest separate it all at harvest time right before he prayed his most passionate prayer that we might all be one. We have grown up with so much teaching that Jesus is coming for his pure and spotless bride without blemish. This is true but as we have defined our churches throughout our history attempting to create that pure and spotless bride, I wonder if we have not sinned the most grievous sin; dividing the Body of Christ. Our churches have become congregations of peer groups of similar culture, lifestyle and politics. Mission trips are largely tourist experiences with no long term relationships created. Pastors desire to be independent from outside accountability other then their own church boards. We have become consumers of religion as it pleases us much like we would shop for car. If it costs us too much or if we need a little more performance, it is not difficult to trade.

These were my angry thoughts of 2008. But there is no life in casting stones. I got tired of writing and quit. I needed redemption too. I wanted to run away but running away was far from faithful. But God was merciful. He dropped the poorest of the poor on our doorstep. They have accepted us and loved us. Our Banquet table is beginning to fill. It’s like a mission trip which does not end….however in this case we are the mission field and they are the missionaries because they are the displaced people of Burma. Everyone with their own story of relatives killed, tortured, fleeing and hiding in the jungle, living for years in the refugee camps of Thailand, They have come to us and together we experience the kingdom of God among us. So I really needed to write another chapter to this blog.

We have many spots and many blemishes. We are extremely vulnerable as a people, the anxiousness of the job market, health care, transportation, and learning the language are constant enormous challenges. If there was a problem the Corinthian church had we probably have it too. We are of two classes of people; the poor and the voluntarily poor as we live for each other. We speak two languages;I heard our 84 year old song leader say, “It’s funny, when they sing I almost feel like I can understand it!” Maybe he can, just like Pentecost. We feel like family. We belong because we are. We have children again. Can anyone adequate describe the joy and energy children bring to a community especially older people who have prayed so long for children? Three mothers brought newborns to our congregation this year and three couples were married. Every wedding and every child is important. But for us these events symbolically are enormously important….an expression of Faith, Hope, and Love. But the greatest is Love. I feel like I’ve been born again.