Class Review: Emerging Church

Class today was about the basic foundation of emerging churches. The ideas and basic principles of the emerging church relate to issues of love, grace, compassion, and justice. I was struck with the question of why wouldn't we want these as the identifier of Christian faith? I think it's interesting to ask the question and seek understanding of why people would want to stay in a dwindling church with lack of action and deadening of community. How do we function in our world with two languages? Modern and Post-Modern. I believe in a space without extreme absolutes. Why not be moved and keep moving? Why is the church afraid of progress?

I want the ability to be free in who I am and who I am becoming. I don't want to limit myself and I certainly never want to limit others. Can we get out of our own ways? Can we move past our own fear of the unknown and jump in to wrestling with the present instead of the un-lived future?

The importance of cultural theory seems foundational into understanding the best way to love. Love means we die to ourselves for the knowledge of all people as well as to ourselves. It made me remember the song War on War on Wilco. It goes something like this:
It's a war on war
It's a war on war
There's a war on

You're gonna lose
You have to lose
You have to learn how to die

Let's watch the miles flying by
Let's watch the miles flying by
You are not my typewriter
But you could be my demon
Moving forward through flaming doors

You have to lose
You have to learn how to die
If you want to want to be alive

Okay?

You have to lose
You have to lose
You have to learn how to die
If you want to want to be alive

You have to die
You have to die
You have to learn how to die
If you want to want to be alive

Okay?

Seems simple enough......right?

Week Two: Wednesday

Today in class we recognized the historic beginnings of cultural theory. It was interesting lecture from Ryan followed by a discussion of what would Jesus do with the differing view of cultural theory. I think at this moment I checked out. I struggle with placing Jesus in 1965. I have trouble placing Christ in our current cultural conversation because it means that we have not placed Christ in our current cultural conversations for some time. How far has Christian dialogue removed itself from the foundational practices of Christ? I think it's a difficult demand because we want Jesus' culture to fit our understanding of our present context. I think there are merits but it provides new problems. The problems are do we create new meaning to how we understand Christ? and what part of Jesus' cultural climate not extend a hand in our present experiences? Is there a better way that theology place itself in the cultural conversation without overly spiritualizing, or dumbing down, the beautiful complex nature of Christ.

On a more upbeat hand I do see the create spirit existent in culture. There are pockets of humanity that are striving to insert that freedom and grace back into our daily conversations and that to me is the spirit of Christ.

The body (both physical and communal)

The week has been crazy. Life I had mentioned earlier I have started the new quarter has begun and new expectations come with that. I don't really feel the transition though. I have been entrenched this week finishing a paper about Body Theology. It has become a real passion and a real interest for me the last few years and I am excited that it is being written in academic form. I have come to terms with my nerdom and pleased to be writing something that really embodies a lot of subjects that interest me: the church sucking, the body, feminism, theology, culture.

I couldn't be happier with how things are turning out for me and this paper. I would like to be done sooner than later but I don't know if that will happen. Life seems to swoop in but I think with enough coffee I will end up alright.

In a completely different note I am exploring a new method of practicing my spirituality. I am trying to meditate on a daily basis, giving either my morning or evening a bit of a rest and listen to what is happening in my life. I am trying to face the fears in my life and understand where they come from and why they exist. I am trying to recognize the places of hurt and pain, forgive them, and walk on with a new understanding. I am also practicing yoga. I want my body to catch up to where I have been working my mind. My mind is a tough muscle but my body has taken to being lazy. The most change I have experienced is that I went to a real church on Sunday. Pasadena Mennonite graciously opened their doors to the spiritual practices I believe in. They talked about serving our neighbors with environmental practices and the sermon touched on the grace and unity when we work together rather than compartmentalize our beliefs and understandings.

Something I noticed about myself is that I didn't fight through the service. I was around familiar faces and new ones that seemed kind. I was happy to be in the environment and felt at peace when I was offered communion. I think there might be something to community and meeting together. I don't know what it will look like but I would like to attend more frequently. I think I am beginning to make my home here in Southern California so I might as well settle in.

Back to the paper....here's to a healthy conclusion!!

The Sacred and the Secular

The past five days I haven't been to far attached from my computer. I spent the days writing and wrestling with the topic of the sacred and the secular. Something that I always knew was silly and selfish but I took the quarter and did some reading on it. I finished just moments and I feel good about it. I feel like the writing is pretty strong and I feel like I believe and relate to everything I have written. If you would like to read it you can HERE.

So of course that is about all I will say in regards to this topic but I will talk about music because that is about all I did when I wrote the little paper.....well big paper it is about 15 pages. I made a mix I entitled..."A mix to write a Paper to..."
So here it is:

Christmas Time is Here (Vince Guaraldi) seems to be my theme song as of late
No one is gonna love you (band of horses)
Lousy Reputation (we are scientists)
green gloves (the national)
One True Vine (Wilco--Sky Blue Sky Ep)
Homecoming (Kanye West)
You are Not Alone (Patty Griffin)
First Day of My Life (Bright Eyes)
True Love Waits (Radiohead)
I Taught Myself to Grow Old (Ryan Adams)
Impossible Germany (Wilco)
Ode to the Lrc (band of horses)
1 2 3 4 (Feist)
Sunken Treasure (Jeff Tweedy)
The Sun Also Sets (Ryan Adams)
Lord Leopard (Caribou)
Wonderwall (Ryan Adams)
That Right Ain't Shit (The Books)


So there it is...I put that on shuffle and repeat and just write. I think I listened to at least ten times by now. I would add songs as I would get bored and this is the final list. I love it.

In the next couple of days I should have my top 10 of 2007. It's frickin great...some debatable records or placement...You can debate me because I want to know what you think....so until then enjoy the last few days before Christmas.

A Conversation with Relevant Magazine

Throughout this quarter I was able to take a Directed Study with Professor, Rob Johnston, about the topic and conversation of the sacred and the secular. I have been putting off the research for sometime in the last couple of weeks. I have felt stuck and didn't know where to go with my reading or my research on the topic. Today I have finally sat down and tried to gather my thoughts. It's hard some days to write a formal paper because I have become a blog writer and to write academically takes a bit of my spunk and sass away.

Throughout the years I have become a dropout of Evangelical Christianity and if I had to put a qualifier around my faith I have found the most connection with the anabaptists (non-violent, communal, peaceful, and freedom). I think about who I am and who I have become in the last years and I have found a lot of joy with my new language to my faith so attacking a conversation with the sacred and secular has been not an easy task but I have come with a new language and have found hope and a future with my analysis as well as courage to speak on an issue that is quite taboo with evangelical Christianity.

To be a part of an Evangelical subculture for some time I have come across a magazine called Relevant. There aim is for twenty something Christians to break stereotypes and encounter culture through a Christian perspective....or so I thought. I made a phone call this morning and talked with a woman at the magazine who helped answer questions regarding their magazine as well as their aims of the magazine.

I had questions regarding their music reviews. In the magazine there are three qualifiers there critique; music, lyrics, and spirituality. Many issues ago they reviewed Explosions in the Sky's "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone". It is an instrumental record that is utterly beautiful, something that builds and bursts, and has been used frequently on Friday Night Lights (movie as well as television show). Anyhow...in the review their critique said the spirituality was N/A. Which for me begged the question what makes something spiritual? Does Jesus have to die on the cross or is the issue tug on the heart and challenge or affirm our own understanding of spiritual?

On the phone call I asked what makes something spiritual? Something bigger than ourselves was my reply. I was also given the understanding (which to be honest shocked me) that they were a 'secular' magazine that talked about God and faith. Well it's interesting to me (as well as something I talked about on the phone) that it's hard for me to believe that when they don't talk about any other faith other than Christianity as well as the advertising is specifically Christian (christian Universities and Seminaries, youth group promotions, Christian companies). It boggles the mind a little bit that it would be anything but secular and again begs a new definition.

My question is what is your qualifier for spirituality? Is their a qualifier? Is the divide even necessary anymore? In the next week this is my quest. To ask these questions, not to come to anyone conclusion, but maybe look and see the damage a division can do or how it may help others see and qualify their faith.

Simple Beauty.

the last couple of weeks have been tough. They at moments are overwhelming and make you sit back and say…huh? I want to move from that space and I wanted to see with new eyes. Today, just for a moment, I remembered how life really can be beautiful…

Someone on the 134 freeway blew up a surgical glove so that it would be a balloon.
let it go.
and as the cars zoomed by it danced in the wind.

At the moment where my car collided with it, the song on my ipod ended and Joanna Newsom’s Bridges and Balloons began to play.
and I smiled,
with my sunglasses on,
the windows rolled down,
and the forgotten sun streaming through my windows,
the hair on my head blowing in the wind.

and I remembered that the simple beauties in life make my heart jump
and I think someone knew that same truth
and blew up the glove.


…lyrics to the song, Bridges and Balloons.
We sailed away on a winter’s day
with fate as malleable as clay;
but ships are fallible, I say,
and the nautical, like all things, fades

And I can recall our caravel:
a little wicker beetle shell
with four fine maste and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel

O my love,
O it was a funny little thing
to be the ones to’ve seen.

The sight of bridges and balloons
makes calm canaries irritable;
they caw and claw all afternoon:
“Catenaries and dirigibles
brace and buoy the living-room –
a loom of metal, warp - woof - wimble.”
And a thimbles worth of milky moon
can touch hearts larger than a thimble.

O my love,
O is was a funny little thing
to be the ones to’ve seen

freedom.

I have been reading all day. The last couple of hours I have been reformulating some thoughts I have had for some time ago and they were shoved or shelved for a later day. I am in the midst of understanding some thoughts in Job that are taking to me some new places in my thinking but over all reaffirming what is happening in my mind and thoughts.

It is time we move from our many traditions.

This being said I know that now i need to defend it. I need to stand firm behind my overwhelming thought. This can no longer be a statement that we mention but really stand behind this and begin to move. Our traditions are weighing us down. We are hurting ourselves more than we are helping the church.

I am using the church because it is the last institution that is usually the one to move.

i use the church because it is archaic.

we can no longer go backwards. We can not stand with the feet of our forefathers. We can't because it destroys us, rather than to help us. We can't stand there with our feet in the ground saying that the traditions help us. Do they? Really, do they?

Our movement needs to be forward rather than back. I am sick of being in churches that do things without questioning anything. I am tired of emerging churches that look like they value art but they steal from the culture, add a few Jesus' or Christ's and call it spiritual. The culture is already spiritual. We have lost that in the church.

The church feels like a clubhouse where only members can come. It was like that Berstein's Bears book that I always read where the cover had Brother bear in a tree house where there was a sign that said NO GIRLS ALLOWED. Now we can let girls in but they have to play by there rules. I am bored by these rules. I don't want to play by them so I will go some place else. I will go where it is better. I will go where people are accepting of me. Because these places exist. They exist because the church failed. I am bored by it making me feel bad, unloved, unreceptive to grace.

I don't want to make a new denomination. I don't want to make a new building. I want to make something that is a safe place. There is some places that need rules there are others that need to be explored. We need to take our blinders off. We need to be bold and we need to be allowed to change.

We need to stand up for freedom, and originiality, we need to be bold and free. We can't stand there and take it. We are better than that. so we why do we allow ourselves to hurt and humilate? Why are we running after power and influence? Why do we think that I (we) are the only ones in the world that God is using. Wake up. Realize that we are not. It's time to move on. We are allowed to. God grants us freedom? Did we forget this? Did we forget that God gave it to someone else as well? That is community. That is what we are made to do.....

Why do we seperate?

I got into the Christian music scene when I was a freshman in college. My friend Andy Soper saw that I had some potential in understanding what music was and that i had style in fashion but not the musical knowledge to back it up. He insisted I put away the DC Talk and move over to this group called P.O.D. which I swiftly did and onto other records such as Stretch Arm Strongs Rituals of Life, MXPX's full catalogue, and many others. It was an addiction that started there and hasn't really stopped. Now it's a lifestyle, a love, something that always comes with me and has become a passion over many of the passions that I store.

This book chronicles all sides of the Christian music industry. In some ways it chronicles my life. He was at Cornerstone in 2004, my second adventure there full of heartbreak, but also the debut of Beauty From Within. He was at the Festival of Faith and Music where Sufjan Stevens played most of Seven Swans and Danielson was on amazing in his little tree. He was also saw Jay Bakker and Revolution at Cornerstone Florida, i was not there for that but life has been ever impacted and changed by their efforts. It was fun to see his point of view of these little festivals but it was also interesting to see his interaction with the Nashville music scene, the corporate politics of the big wigs in Christian music. To hear many peoples painful stories of trying to earn Gods love or make meaning out of their faith.


It was interesting to hear the wide array of stories but what the author found the most interesting or compelling were Dave Bazan from Pedro the Lion and Aaron Weiss from Mewithoutyou. He connected with their honesty and their authenticity something that i don't think he saw in a lot of the people he interviewed or came into contact with. I feel he saw their doubt and was attracted to that. There is something about not having all the answers and the ability to be real with your faith that people see and react positively. I know that my life has been forever changed by both of these bands. They help raise new questions as well as reveal what's longing in your heart. Real doubt or real fear that this life is not what you thought it was going to be. I think it's interesting to engage in that type of conversation.

He also raises questions that I have had for sometime. Why do we separate the Christian from the 'secular'? Other than worship music is there a need to create something that separates yourself from the rest of the quote on quote world? What is this life that we think that we have that is so privileged over the rest of the worlds? Aaron makes a point in saying that life wasn't so bad before Christ but with it brought a lot of pain and a lot of new questions. I think that is my struggle as well. Is the good news all that good news? Was Ghandi right when he said he liked our Christ but not our Christians? Can't we find God in the culture? We do we demonize people who were also created in Gods image?

I have a lot more questions than I have answers and I am definitely okay with that...

The beauty of love through the world of Harry Potter

My undergraduate experience my sophomore year was quite a stressful one if I remember. As a way to deal with all that was going on I decided from a friends recommendation that I would pick up the Harry Potter books and give them a shot. In such a short time I found myself entrenched in the world of wizards and magic. I loved the world I was transported to and forgot all the bullshit of my as I escaped into the world of Hogwarts.

I can say with no shame that I am SO excited for this next book to come out as well as my recent screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The movie left me with a few thoughts that tie directly to the church and my theological experiences.

The first thought I had was regarding the horses Harry and Luna encounter after one has encountered death. This is really ecclessial to me. It reminded me of when I saw Little Miss Sunshine with my parents. If one has avoided pain or has not experienced death or the loss of someone the jokes may have not been funny. With Harry Potter it was a reminder of how necessary pain is to experience. Without it we only see what we want or need to see. Once pain is encountered we see life with different eyes. We see life that isn't so visible but there is an underlying understanding to see beauty with a completely new perspective. Beauty needs pain. Life needs pain. We can not avoid and nor should we.

The second was the dual nature of tradition and the essence of truth. So often history or tradition dictates the meaning of life rather than life showing up and letting it be a whole new way of being. What happens to me may not necessarily happen to you so why do we want a universal truth for everyone to have the same, if not similar experiences? The movie (and book) is based on the rejection of the idea that Voldemort could have returned. All these rules and laws are set into place to keep this new truth hidden and the nature without this truth to stay in place. It is very modern in it's nature, trying to claim an absolute when really no absolute (other than God) can exist. I think this whole concept really mimics the church and the problems the churches are facing. We are working out of old paradigms that we are trying to make work in our present day post-modern culture. In the end it fails and we have to face the new truth and move our understandings to the new revealed truth.

The third is the good vs. evil language that is based on the understanding that love wins. Love is so important within the framework of Harry Potter and something that Dumbledore pushes on a continual basis. I think the cultural understandings that we emphasis evil rather than the good. The fact that they call Voldemort "He-who-must-not be-named" gives power to something that really is powerless and ultimately at the end of this movie is rendered powerless because he has never known aspects of love and friendship, something that ultimately holds power. Wow...this sounds quite familiar. The biblical text pushes understanding in community and above all love is the most powerful commandment and the lens faith is often viewed from.

i think Harry Potter is excellent correlation of love and the church, especially the brokenness. I think J.K. Rowling has Christian roots. I know that i might be wrong in this but I know that these things are inherently biblical and if she is not a Christian what does that say about God and how God reveals her/himself throughout our culture. Wouldn't that be a great conversation to have in the future about what it means by revelation, illumination, and common grace.

all those creepy crawly things...?

Lately I have been faced to face with Marxism and Socialist thought. No, I am not a communist and don't really seeing myself put a label or moniker that I will be using anytime soon. But I appreciate the ideas and the theory. I find myself engulfed in the ideas because in some ways they have many similar points that line up with Christian community and wholism, and looking out for more than just myself. I think we always have a long way to go but I am glad i am choosing a path that is filled with the goal of togetherness than of personal achievement and power.

I say all of this because I joined a little book club with some friends at Fuller. We are choosing to read classics as well as some new ones that I have been wanting to read. We started yesterday with the Metamorphosis. A VERY short story from what I gather 1915 that really dealt with the transformation of a man into an insect. It shocked me that this man transformed was not bothered that he one day couldn't get out of bed and no less make it to work yet questioning the very nature of what makes us human or valued within our Western culture.

I walked away last night asking some questions that I believe are raised in the literature. How do we take care of those less than ourselves? How do we listen and interact with those that are disenfranchised? How do I now listen?

My friend Dave mentioned how this is really tied into Socialist ideas and beliefs. I thought it was lovely and it really continued to pull on the little heart strings that show and reveal how we put ourselves into class systems that limit people into entering. We show and pursue power in this state. We hold onto whatever power we have and use it to make ourselves feel comfortable and/or unique. I think our love is limited in these states. I think how we open our lives, trust, home, and food pantry is subjected to how we view what's right or normal.

What really is normal and how do we deal with people who are different than the life we (I) have taken so long to built. With Christ how is our lives different? How do we see with different eyes and hear with different ears?

Hip Hop Project

Last Thursday I spent the afternoon watching the documentary "The Hip Hop Project." The Film focused it's attention on a group of artists out of Brooklyn that was connected to an after school program. It was a good film, not excellently shot, but worth watching if you are involved with working with people.

For me the film was a true manifestation of the church. It was the church as I want or desire church to be. They were honest, vulnerable, imperfect. They prayed together, worked with one another, was challenged by one another. The 'rabbi' was not perfect and was forced to deal with his own issues, those of being abandoned as a child and grew up without his mother. Those are tough issues and many people face the issue of what does it mean to be left without love.

The group as a whole seemed to have genuine love for one another. They seemed to really want the betterment of a culture that told them that material goods could provide the worth that they needed. They used culture to express their pain but seemed to be a dialogue where they could work at living outside of the pressures of the culture. The music was the escape as well as the purpose.

I walked out of the movie seeing what the church could look like if we were not afraid to engage in and with our culture. I am excited to see church happen outside of the church. I have spent this quarter being the teachers assistant to Theology and Hip Hop culture. I am in love with the culture. I am in love with engaging in this dialogue and helping to push the universal church to move past theological traditions and move into a space that uses culture to help see and communicate the nature of God.

There is no perfect way to do church or even be the church...all i know is that i have to move with it. Listen. Hear. Ask a lot of questions. I don't know where it will lead me but I hope that it continues to have me fall in love with life, living, people, and interacting with people. I need to be vulnerable. I need to be honest. I need to explore. I need to love others without strings attached but I need to feel it in return. That's the beauty of community. What can we learn from community? Where can we be vulnerable and where can we be guarded?

How do we explore in this space and where do we let ourselves create and be vulnerable?