Just some simple thoughts tonight from an ongoing conversation among friends. Evangelical Christianity, in my experience, and the experience of quite of few others is a mixed bag. I am talking about the whole project - its churches, denominational expressions, schools, doctrine and beliefs, values, and ways of practicing its form of faith.
At its best it causes people to affirm the dignity - the "right to life" for all people, regardless of age, race, economic status, geography or productivity. At its best it inspires hope and changes history for the better. At its best it reconciles whole communities, empowering them to move toward each other in love and kindness, through forgiveness and humility. At its best it sends its adherents into a broken world with the best of intentions and sometimes those efforts heal and mend.
At its worst it enables the power hungry to abuse and prey on the powerless. At its worst it breeds systems of oppression that isolate and destory individuals. At its worst it sets whole communities above and against other groups of people. At its worst it enables vindolence and gives rise to ignorance. At its worst it becomes complicit with a culture of consumerism a takes up public positions defending the profiteering of corporations, playing to the hand of the super-rich. At its worst it fails to deliver what it promises.
Any other contributions?
At its worst...
At its best...
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Someone, somewhere
Sometimes I feel fractured,
pulled apart by a million
small but strong strings.
Thus the quest
to be here now,
to live and love
in at least one place
well.
pulled apart by a million
small but strong strings.
Thus the quest
to be here now,
to live and love
in at least one place
well.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Thank God for (the bad) Psalms
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann betrays his bias in chapter 3 of a thin book he called Spirituality of the Psalms. With only 74 pages it feels in-hand much more like a pamphlet. WB exposes a possible way of viewing the Bible's Old Testament Psalms through 3 natural (and general) categories: Psalms of Orientation, Psalms of Disorientation and Psalms of New-orientation.
Maybe in the role of the prophet, definitely armed as the veiled critic, he begins to let us know what he really thinks about the state of things:
"It is a curious fact that the church has, by in large, continued to sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented. That may be commendable..." he continues as the church makes "a counter-statement" insisting "that God does in any case govern, rule, and order, regardless of how the data seem to appear."
Then he begins to move to it:
"But at best this is only partly true. It is my judgment that this action of the church is less defiance guided by faith and founded in the good news, and more a frightened, numb denial and deception, that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life."
He goes on to talk about this as a "cover-up," suggesting the church continues singing its "happy songs" all the while ignoring Biblical patterns of "lament, protest, and complaint" about the "incoherence that is experienced in this world."
Continuing with, "...we have believed that faith does not mean to acknowledge and embrace negativity. We have thought that acknowledgment of negativity was somehow and act of unfaith..."
Further, "The use of these 'Psalms of darkness' may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith and failure, but for the trusting community, their use are acts of bold faith, albeit transformed faith. It is an act of bold faith on the one hand, because it insists the world must be experienced as it really is and not in some pretend way. On the other hand, it is bold because it insists that all such experiences of disorder are proper subject for discourse with God. Nothing is out of bounds, nothing precluded or inappropriate. Everything properly belongs in this conversation of the heart. To withhold parts of that conversation is to withhold part of life from the sovereignty of God. Thus these Psalms make the important connection: everything must be brought to speech, and everything brought to speech must be addressed to God..."
(All quotes from Spirituality of the Psalms, by Walter Brueggemann, p. 25, 26, 27)
Maybe in the role of the prophet, definitely armed as the veiled critic, he begins to let us know what he really thinks about the state of things:
"It is a curious fact that the church has, by in large, continued to sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented. That may be commendable..." he continues as the church makes "a counter-statement" insisting "that God does in any case govern, rule, and order, regardless of how the data seem to appear."
Then he begins to move to it:
"But at best this is only partly true. It is my judgment that this action of the church is less defiance guided by faith and founded in the good news, and more a frightened, numb denial and deception, that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life."
He goes on to talk about this as a "cover-up," suggesting the church continues singing its "happy songs" all the while ignoring Biblical patterns of "lament, protest, and complaint" about the "incoherence that is experienced in this world."
Continuing with, "...we have believed that faith does not mean to acknowledge and embrace negativity. We have thought that acknowledgment of negativity was somehow and act of unfaith..."
Further, "The use of these 'Psalms of darkness' may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith and failure, but for the trusting community, their use are acts of bold faith, albeit transformed faith. It is an act of bold faith on the one hand, because it insists the world must be experienced as it really is and not in some pretend way. On the other hand, it is bold because it insists that all such experiences of disorder are proper subject for discourse with God. Nothing is out of bounds, nothing precluded or inappropriate. Everything properly belongs in this conversation of the heart. To withhold parts of that conversation is to withhold part of life from the sovereignty of God. Thus these Psalms make the important connection: everything must be brought to speech, and everything brought to speech must be addressed to God..."
(All quotes from Spirituality of the Psalms, by Walter Brueggemann, p. 25, 26, 27)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
For reasons unknown
On a cold February night, for reasons unknown to us, a man walks out on to the beach. He goes right up to the surging surf. With waves crashing heavily before him he shouts into the salted wind, "GOD IF YOU ARE THERE, SAY SOMETHING! DAMN IT! IF YOU'RE REAL THEN SHOW ME!"
He waits. Seconds pass. The wind is ceaseless agaisnt his face. He's patient. His face grows numb to the cold air. The sets of strong dark waves are constant as they rise and fall.
Two things are apparent in this telling moment: First, there are no vengeful lightning bolts that fall from heaven to strike down the one who dares to challenge his Creator. Neither does a sudden ironic swell overtake this tortured soul, dragging him out into icy waters. Second, there is no clear voice that rises above the surf to meet these desperate cries with a consummate assurance. The clouds don't part to reveal a descending dove against the light of the moon. There is no holy sign to be seen in the night sky.
What can be said about this? On the one hand there seems to be no immediate consequence for "putting God to the test." On the other hand there seems to be no immediate response to the deep cry of the soul inviting the universe to reveal its maker.
The man is left standing there, with nothing. And that may be the worst part...
God is hauntingly absent.
He waits. Seconds pass. The wind is ceaseless agaisnt his face. He's patient. His face grows numb to the cold air. The sets of strong dark waves are constant as they rise and fall.
Two things are apparent in this telling moment: First, there are no vengeful lightning bolts that fall from heaven to strike down the one who dares to challenge his Creator. Neither does a sudden ironic swell overtake this tortured soul, dragging him out into icy waters. Second, there is no clear voice that rises above the surf to meet these desperate cries with a consummate assurance. The clouds don't part to reveal a descending dove against the light of the moon. There is no holy sign to be seen in the night sky.
What can be said about this? On the one hand there seems to be no immediate consequence for "putting God to the test." On the other hand there seems to be no immediate response to the deep cry of the soul inviting the universe to reveal its maker.
The man is left standing there, with nothing. And that may be the worst part...
God is hauntingly absent.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Projects and expirementation
The wind is blowing so hard outside it's moving the doors back and forth. Faint sirens in the background and swirling leaves. Strange for Salem. I guess a cold front is sweeping in across the pacific northwest.
The kids are tucked in tight and sleeping and I am wanting to write about these projects I have had going for years now. Maybe they are more like experiments I have launched into. They have to do with pushing against the confines of my Christian experience and getting to bottom of things.
I guess I realized a while back that it is hard to tell the difference between Christian behavior motivated by "obedience to Christ/scriptures" and Christian behavior motivated by the subcultural Christian norms themselves. I am talking about the things Christians do or don't do and why. Like "cussing" for example, or, drinking alcohol, or...being nice for that matter. Going to church could be another one. Embracing "secular music" definitely another. Maybe what I am talking about are the boundary markers that we use to organize ourselves into the in-groups and the out-groups.
This is where it all started with me. I decided one day at least 6 years ago that I didn't like the fact that I was uncomfortable holding a beer bottle in my hand. It felt weird. If my neighbor offered me one I wouldn't know exactly how to hold it, let alone drink it! So I brought it back from that sacred teenage resolution on new years 1996, "I will not drink another glass of alcohol for the rest of my life!" And I began to buy beer. And I began to drink a few every once in a while. And I kind of winked at myself the whole time, but I started to enjoy that simple pleasure. And found it awkward at times. I had trouble admitting it. I was worried I might like it too much. I was worried what people would think. And then I started to push it out there as something that could be known publicly. And then I justified it as something I could control and enjoy. And then I realized it might not be pure evil. And then said, "Fuck it!" and just didn't care about the issue anymore because liked a beer because I liked it and it had very little to do my walk of faith. And that brings us to another example.
Cussing. Or cursing. Using "bad" language. Obviously I knew the words, but I didn't always feel free to use them like you may find me doing now. Shit, I "felt offended" if someone else did, as if the word "Fuck" was in the the Bible, as if it was on a list of "don't say" words. So what was it really?
The realization was that these words were simply socially unacceptable. The "don't say" words I had thought were connected to Bible-prescribed holy living were really just Christian culture caving to the dominant culture that said "good people don't say those kinds of things." That idea kind of freaked me out. So I started taking liberties, doing experiments. Dropping four letter words in youth group meetings to shock kids (and myself). This was a project. In the end I learned that many behaviors I had sanctioned off as "off limits" for myself or my fellow Christians were bullshit. They were not "biblically grounded" per se. They could be defended of course. All it took was some creatively scriptural mining and we could read into the text where II Timothy says that we should be free of all "course language." That surely he meant the F-word and semi-dirty jokes. Whatever.
More than anything these "experiments" got the ball rolling. And since then I have had to "test" every action, every behavior I thought might be motivated (even remotely) by my so called "Christian" values or scriptural fidelity. And this was just to make sure I wasn't being fooled into becoming what the dominant culture simply wanted me to become - chiefly nice, obedient, safe, tithing, consuming, subdued and sequestered to a church pew, basically non-existent.
So I am long way from the beer drinking and F-bomb dropping projects. These have been resolved. Of late it is larger projects like messing with this one for example:
If as a child or young adult, I had never been given the option of choosing to locate my "God experiences" in evangelical Christianity would have located them there?
So that ones a little harder to test than swinging by the Grocery Outlet after work on Monday for a six pack or $3 bottle of red wine. But maybe you get the picture. Everything is under a microscope because one project lead to another and I keep finding layers of unchecked assumptions under the veneer of a table that is supposed to bear the weight of the whole world past to present.
The kids are tucked in tight and sleeping and I am wanting to write about these projects I have had going for years now. Maybe they are more like experiments I have launched into. They have to do with pushing against the confines of my Christian experience and getting to bottom of things.
I guess I realized a while back that it is hard to tell the difference between Christian behavior motivated by "obedience to Christ/scriptures" and Christian behavior motivated by the subcultural Christian norms themselves. I am talking about the things Christians do or don't do and why. Like "cussing" for example, or, drinking alcohol, or...being nice for that matter. Going to church could be another one. Embracing "secular music" definitely another. Maybe what I am talking about are the boundary markers that we use to organize ourselves into the in-groups and the out-groups.
This is where it all started with me. I decided one day at least 6 years ago that I didn't like the fact that I was uncomfortable holding a beer bottle in my hand. It felt weird. If my neighbor offered me one I wouldn't know exactly how to hold it, let alone drink it! So I brought it back from that sacred teenage resolution on new years 1996, "I will not drink another glass of alcohol for the rest of my life!" And I began to buy beer. And I began to drink a few every once in a while. And I kind of winked at myself the whole time, but I started to enjoy that simple pleasure. And found it awkward at times. I had trouble admitting it. I was worried I might like it too much. I was worried what people would think. And then I started to push it out there as something that could be known publicly. And then I justified it as something I could control and enjoy. And then I realized it might not be pure evil. And then said, "Fuck it!" and just didn't care about the issue anymore because liked a beer because I liked it and it had very little to do my walk of faith. And that brings us to another example.
Cussing. Or cursing. Using "bad" language. Obviously I knew the words, but I didn't always feel free to use them like you may find me doing now. Shit, I "felt offended" if someone else did, as if the word "Fuck" was in the the Bible, as if it was on a list of "don't say" words. So what was it really?
The realization was that these words were simply socially unacceptable. The "don't say" words I had thought were connected to Bible-prescribed holy living were really just Christian culture caving to the dominant culture that said "good people don't say those kinds of things." That idea kind of freaked me out. So I started taking liberties, doing experiments. Dropping four letter words in youth group meetings to shock kids (and myself). This was a project. In the end I learned that many behaviors I had sanctioned off as "off limits" for myself or my fellow Christians were bullshit. They were not "biblically grounded" per se. They could be defended of course. All it took was some creatively scriptural mining and we could read into the text where II Timothy says that we should be free of all "course language." That surely he meant the F-word and semi-dirty jokes. Whatever.
More than anything these "experiments" got the ball rolling. And since then I have had to "test" every action, every behavior I thought might be motivated (even remotely) by my so called "Christian" values or scriptural fidelity. And this was just to make sure I wasn't being fooled into becoming what the dominant culture simply wanted me to become - chiefly nice, obedient, safe, tithing, consuming, subdued and sequestered to a church pew, basically non-existent.
So I am long way from the beer drinking and F-bomb dropping projects. These have been resolved. Of late it is larger projects like messing with this one for example:
If as a child or young adult, I had never been given the option of choosing to locate my "God experiences" in evangelical Christianity would have located them there?
So that ones a little harder to test than swinging by the Grocery Outlet after work on Monday for a six pack or $3 bottle of red wine. But maybe you get the picture. Everything is under a microscope because one project lead to another and I keep finding layers of unchecked assumptions under the veneer of a table that is supposed to bear the weight of the whole world past to present.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
distance from mission, distance from the whole thing
As I reflect back on the previous post, the comments that ensued on facebook, and the places the process of writing took me, ideas come to mind.
Come to think of it, it seems like there is a spectrum when in comes to evangelical mission. There are those on the one side who are hard-nosed fundamental types, who live to make converts. Those who get the "asshole" label. The kind of folks that lift up cardboard signs reading "Repent! The end is near!" on the corner of every downtown city street in America. The kind of folks who "go door to door." The kind of folks who use tracts and have quotes from the book of Leviticus all over their sedans. The kind of folks who have the gall to say that "God hates fags."
On the other side of the scale are those who try to be like Christ in the world - as he was. Think acting kind. Think feeding the hungry and paying attention to the outcasts, challenging the powerful and power systems that punished the weak. Missional thinking/living really follows the latter. In many ways I can see how over the past few years I have taken this second view, chiefly in identifying "my mission" with the self-sacrificing, incarnate Christ as describe above. Obviously no one wants to be an ass. And those qualities of Christ are absolutely beautiful. Who ever get's faulted for helping poor people? For taking a bullet for a friend? Or humanity?
Anyone who knows the evangelical movement knows there is room for scriptural interpretation to lead one either way down the sweep of the spectrum. Maybe part of my aforementioned discomfort in being associated with mission is because it always has the possibility of being misinterpreted. The perception of being more like an asshole and less like the holy Christ.
It goes like this:
So I am trying to tell someone I just met the other day, "Yes! We lived in Spain with our family for two years. It was amazing!"
"Oh wow! What did you do there?" says the new friend.
"Well... (then comes the difficulties)... we had a cafe. We... we... were with a mission organization." Do I or do I not tell them we were going to try and plant a church? If I am talking to someone who I think may be a Christian then I am good to go. In fact I may have just put credit in the bank of our newly budding friendship. But if there's any doubt about that and I want to avoid being assigned the fundy label, I had better be clear with my next sentence.
"Yes, our goal was really to learn from people there. To listen. To take a up a normal place in society. It was an incredible experience while it lasted." Having wrapped that up, I change the subject.
The issue of mission is complex. It's related to power and who is really right. Pump into the word it's historical track record and it grows ever darker. Down through the ages it has been married to ruthless and barbaric colonialization. That is an ugly fact, a fact that in itself causes me to want to get as far away from the word as possible.
So I am shaking it off. There are quite few good reasons to.
But as I also said before the foundation of this guy's faith is cracked pushed open by the pressure of uncertainty. Increasingly I feel like David Bazan when he asks, "Can a guy get a little distance from it all?" The less and less I root myself in evangelical circles (people and churches) the more and more the whole thing feels like a house of cards. And the more and more the heart of the skeptic imagines what life may look like on the other side of orthodoxy.
I know. "Well don't do it then stupid!"
"Go to church! Read your Bible! Call your Christian friends! Pray dammit!"
Let me tell you, it's not as if I haven't tried any of those anecdotes. Again another one from DB, "As if I even have a choice."
Come to think of it, it seems like there is a spectrum when in comes to evangelical mission. There are those on the one side who are hard-nosed fundamental types, who live to make converts. Those who get the "asshole" label. The kind of folks that lift up cardboard signs reading "Repent! The end is near!" on the corner of every downtown city street in America. The kind of folks who "go door to door." The kind of folks who use tracts and have quotes from the book of Leviticus all over their sedans. The kind of folks who have the gall to say that "God hates fags."
On the other side of the scale are those who try to be like Christ in the world - as he was. Think acting kind. Think feeding the hungry and paying attention to the outcasts, challenging the powerful and power systems that punished the weak. Missional thinking/living really follows the latter. In many ways I can see how over the past few years I have taken this second view, chiefly in identifying "my mission" with the self-sacrificing, incarnate Christ as describe above. Obviously no one wants to be an ass. And those qualities of Christ are absolutely beautiful. Who ever get's faulted for helping poor people? For taking a bullet for a friend? Or humanity?
Anyone who knows the evangelical movement knows there is room for scriptural interpretation to lead one either way down the sweep of the spectrum. Maybe part of my aforementioned discomfort in being associated with mission is because it always has the possibility of being misinterpreted. The perception of being more like an asshole and less like the holy Christ.
It goes like this:
So I am trying to tell someone I just met the other day, "Yes! We lived in Spain with our family for two years. It was amazing!"
"Oh wow! What did you do there?" says the new friend.
"Well... (then comes the difficulties)... we had a cafe. We... we... were with a mission organization." Do I or do I not tell them we were going to try and plant a church? If I am talking to someone who I think may be a Christian then I am good to go. In fact I may have just put credit in the bank of our newly budding friendship. But if there's any doubt about that and I want to avoid being assigned the fundy label, I had better be clear with my next sentence.
"Yes, our goal was really to learn from people there. To listen. To take a up a normal place in society. It was an incredible experience while it lasted." Having wrapped that up, I change the subject.
The issue of mission is complex. It's related to power and who is really right. Pump into the word it's historical track record and it grows ever darker. Down through the ages it has been married to ruthless and barbaric colonialization. That is an ugly fact, a fact that in itself causes me to want to get as far away from the word as possible.
So I am shaking it off. There are quite few good reasons to.
But as I also said before the foundation of this guy's faith is cracked pushed open by the pressure of uncertainty. Increasingly I feel like David Bazan when he asks, "Can a guy get a little distance from it all?" The less and less I root myself in evangelical circles (people and churches) the more and more the whole thing feels like a house of cards. And the more and more the heart of the skeptic imagines what life may look like on the other side of orthodoxy.
I know. "Well don't do it then stupid!"
"Go to church! Read your Bible! Call your Christian friends! Pray dammit!"
Let me tell you, it's not as if I haven't tried any of those anecdotes. Again another one from DB, "As if I even have a choice."
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Confessions from the missionless
I know it's as random as real life. And then the guy just starts talking...
From Missionary to missional, and finally to amissional, it's a long way to go in short amount of time. I was telling Tania the other day, "This is just the way we do life! We let it happen to us. We expect life to surprise us, and in some sense carry us along." I mean we do plan. We are intentional about many things. But we don't ruthlessly set our course and then become slaves to our long term assumed trajectory. Life has always just happened to us and we have reacted to it. The control we have exerted over life has seemed to be small in comparison to the external forces of life itself. It's the wind or river metaphor, whichever you prefer. And maybe all that is a disclaimer for what comes next.
I remember how I felt ambivalence when leaving our home church at the time, a C&MA church in the greater Olympia, Washington area. It was April or May of 2005, I don't recall the exact month. At the time we had just become official missionaries with International Teams. Like a confession, I cringe to write the word, but it's true, we were being "sent out". We'd done our part - "raising the support," casting the vision, and preparing ourselves for the mission. Admittedly I had been growing uncomfortable with the big "M" word even then. I resisted it as a title - meaning I let people call me that, but never called myself that. Unless of course we were at some very traditional church services, with some great older folks who needed to hear me drop the big "M-bomb" in order to connect with "the ask". So maybe occasionally it happened as we stood up on Sundays. But I know I didn't really like the idea it represented. However, at that point it was survival - a way out. I hoped my growing discontentment for my new title would level out or cool off, or change.
At the time the big surge in Evangelical-progressive circles was toward missional living/thinking and away from Missionary living and thinking. I don't need to fully explain all this, because it would be wasting time. Basically, whereas historical missionary work was for the few "called" folks, missional suggested that all and every follower of Christ was called to live on a mission where and when they are/were. Just google it and you'll get the point. Back on subject. So I went in the direction of missional. It was easier to swallow. Shoot. It was in. There were new missional books, missional churches, and missional people popping up everywhere. The unsettled feeling was pacified by a movement that I could identify with.
The jump to Spain was a survival move as I said. This is contradictory because at the same time it marked the completion of a long term goal for Tania and I. Mission dreams were first born at Simpson College for each of us in the late 90's as we traveled abroad during summers, being exposed to different kinds of mission work. I am trying to move forward here and go somewhere but I keep swirling back in the current. Sorry. Simply put, going "overseas" in 2005 had been ten years in the making.
Arriving in Spain felt at first freeing. There were no supporters, no people looking over our shoulders. Everyone was thousands of miles away and most were a full 9 hours behind in the time zone. But soon and from every new person we met, the question came, "What are you doing here? And why?"
It was the worst when it came from close Spanish friends. I remember clearly one drizzly day in some dank bar, over tapas in Santiago. They had brought up the questions, but I found myself asking them, "Are you guys OK with the fact that we have been sent here by people in churches in the United States?" As we sipped on red wines, "Are you OK with the fact that they send us money?"
Maybe I should have been asking myself that question. Maybe in a way I was. The conversation drifted into explanations of what we were doing there anyway, because to date we hadn't presented our two friends with any overt invitations to join our religion. We been simply "making friends." But like an elephant in the room between the four of us was the question: Are they trying to convert people? Our answer to most people was "Of course not!" but we knew in our hearts what we were supposed to be doing.
Another confession comes to mind: For me personally, among many other factors, part of the decision to return from Spain in the summer of 2007 was connected to the recognition, on some unsaid internal level, that what we were doing, or a least supposed to be doing had no long term viability. We were taking money from people in the United States to convert people to Christianity and makes churches in Santiago. The problem was we couldn't really do it. The whole thing was growing increasingly dishonest on both sides. On the one hand folks in the U.S. were sending the bucks for us to do the mission we weren't sure we could do. On the other hands folks in Spain were asking us why were there. And we were dodging the questions. I don't like to be dishonest. I can definitely can tell a tall tale, but I don't like to lie. I am no good at it.
The whole thing was complex. It was convoluted. And it fell apart for me personally.
Here, as I type today, I want to try to put into words what were only compelling intuitive feelings back then. The thought is this: Missional Christians are still on a mission. They are still sure they have it. And they are still sure other people need it. Maybe they present it in a different way, but they still believe to possess it. And it still drives their motives and directs their actions. And that causes me a lot of discomfort. Because I know that I know that I know, deep inside that I don't really, really know it for sure (content for another day). It seems wrong to present it to others as something they need if I am not absolutely certain of it myself. Again. It feels dishonest. More than that, certainty is something I am finding myself most absent of lately as the complexities of life, as I experience it, overwhelm and overtake notions of certitude. What's a guy to do? I am not really looking for suggestions here all you literalists out there.
Another confession: Basically I have become amissional. I am man left without a mission. This is because I can't claim certainty "where it counts," as one true friend told me I would need to do. I am willing to disappoint in an effort to be more honest with myself and others. This is tough. I feel like I have "said too much."
From Missionary to missional, and finally to amissional, it's a long way to go in short amount of time. I was telling Tania the other day, "This is just the way we do life! We let it happen to us. We expect life to surprise us, and in some sense carry us along." I mean we do plan. We are intentional about many things. But we don't ruthlessly set our course and then become slaves to our long term assumed trajectory. Life has always just happened to us and we have reacted to it. The control we have exerted over life has seemed to be small in comparison to the external forces of life itself. It's the wind or river metaphor, whichever you prefer. And maybe all that is a disclaimer for what comes next.
I remember how I felt ambivalence when leaving our home church at the time, a C&MA church in the greater Olympia, Washington area. It was April or May of 2005, I don't recall the exact month. At the time we had just become official missionaries with International Teams. Like a confession, I cringe to write the word, but it's true, we were being "sent out". We'd done our part - "raising the support," casting the vision, and preparing ourselves for the mission. Admittedly I had been growing uncomfortable with the big "M" word even then. I resisted it as a title - meaning I let people call me that, but never called myself that. Unless of course we were at some very traditional church services, with some great older folks who needed to hear me drop the big "M-bomb" in order to connect with "the ask". So maybe occasionally it happened as we stood up on Sundays. But I know I didn't really like the idea it represented. However, at that point it was survival - a way out. I hoped my growing discontentment for my new title would level out or cool off, or change.
At the time the big surge in Evangelical-progressive circles was toward missional living/thinking and away from Missionary living and thinking. I don't need to fully explain all this, because it would be wasting time. Basically, whereas historical missionary work was for the few "called" folks, missional suggested that all and every follower of Christ was called to live on a mission where and when they are/were. Just google it and you'll get the point. Back on subject. So I went in the direction of missional. It was easier to swallow. Shoot. It was in. There were new missional books, missional churches, and missional people popping up everywhere. The unsettled feeling was pacified by a movement that I could identify with.
The jump to Spain was a survival move as I said. This is contradictory because at the same time it marked the completion of a long term goal for Tania and I. Mission dreams were first born at Simpson College for each of us in the late 90's as we traveled abroad during summers, being exposed to different kinds of mission work. I am trying to move forward here and go somewhere but I keep swirling back in the current. Sorry. Simply put, going "overseas" in 2005 had been ten years in the making.
Arriving in Spain felt at first freeing. There were no supporters, no people looking over our shoulders. Everyone was thousands of miles away and most were a full 9 hours behind in the time zone. But soon and from every new person we met, the question came, "What are you doing here? And why?"
It was the worst when it came from close Spanish friends. I remember clearly one drizzly day in some dank bar, over tapas in Santiago. They had brought up the questions, but I found myself asking them, "Are you guys OK with the fact that we have been sent here by people in churches in the United States?" As we sipped on red wines, "Are you OK with the fact that they send us money?"
Maybe I should have been asking myself that question. Maybe in a way I was. The conversation drifted into explanations of what we were doing there anyway, because to date we hadn't presented our two friends with any overt invitations to join our religion. We been simply "making friends." But like an elephant in the room between the four of us was the question: Are they trying to convert people? Our answer to most people was "Of course not!" but we knew in our hearts what we were supposed to be doing.
Another confession comes to mind: For me personally, among many other factors, part of the decision to return from Spain in the summer of 2007 was connected to the recognition, on some unsaid internal level, that what we were doing, or a least supposed to be doing had no long term viability. We were taking money from people in the United States to convert people to Christianity and makes churches in Santiago. The problem was we couldn't really do it. The whole thing was growing increasingly dishonest on both sides. On the one hand folks in the U.S. were sending the bucks for us to do the mission we weren't sure we could do. On the other hands folks in Spain were asking us why were there. And we were dodging the questions. I don't like to be dishonest. I can definitely can tell a tall tale, but I don't like to lie. I am no good at it.
The whole thing was complex. It was convoluted. And it fell apart for me personally.
Here, as I type today, I want to try to put into words what were only compelling intuitive feelings back then. The thought is this: Missional Christians are still on a mission. They are still sure they have it. And they are still sure other people need it. Maybe they present it in a different way, but they still believe to possess it. And it still drives their motives and directs their actions. And that causes me a lot of discomfort. Because I know that I know that I know, deep inside that I don't really, really know it for sure (content for another day). It seems wrong to present it to others as something they need if I am not absolutely certain of it myself. Again. It feels dishonest. More than that, certainty is something I am finding myself most absent of lately as the complexities of life, as I experience it, overwhelm and overtake notions of certitude. What's a guy to do? I am not really looking for suggestions here all you literalists out there.
Another confession: Basically I have become amissional. I am man left without a mission. This is because I can't claim certainty "where it counts," as one true friend told me I would need to do. I am willing to disappoint in an effort to be more honest with myself and others. This is tough. I feel like I have "said too much."
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