multi-site church ad nauseum

My most recent post for Out of Ur went up yesterday.  The audience on that blog tends to be those with an interest in or experience with church ministry.  Frankly, I’m not sure most of the readers here at Signs of Life would find the content all that intriguing, but it’s certainly a blog I appreciate watching and learning from.

My latest post is a bit of a rant about my fatigue with the amount of time spent over the past few years debating the merits or pitfalls of multi-site models of church.  Believe me, if you’re unaware of this conversation you’re not missing much.  I’ve become frustrated with this conversation because 1) it’s not all that relevant to the majority of folks in ministry and 2) it can distract from the legitimate and unique challenges faced by churches, challenges that demand solid theological thinking and creative responses within their local context.

So what could we be talking about instead of multi-site models of church?

I can think of a few things I’d prefer that we were talking about. How about articulating a theology that addresses the plight of millions of uninsured Americans? What about expressing the intrinsic worth of the undocumented immigrants who live in the shadows of our multi-site churches but never enter to see our impressive hi-def video preachers. What about a global conversation about ways the Majority World can influence evangelism in our increasingly post-Christian nation? One day someone will look back at our movement in the early 2000s and judge our priorities. I doubt they will find our current infatuation with sites and venues will all that important.

The entire post can be read at Out of Ur.

deadly viper character assassins [updated]

I prefer to stay away from the arguments that so often characterize  blog-world; don’t we get enough of that in real life?  However, on occasion there are disagreements of substance worth pointing out, ones that have the capacity to teach.

Yesterday Dr Soong-Chan Rah (whose book and blog I’ve recommended before) wrote about a new book by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite, Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership, whose cover and promotional materials he finds offensive.

So the “Kung Fu” part got my attention, as well as the dragon on the cover and the Chinese characters. I guess I was hoping against hope that it was the story of an Asian-American Christian rather than another example of Asian culture being pimped out to sell products.

In a more recent post Dr Rah shares his email exchange with one of the authors.  There’s no need to recap that dialogue here but it does raise an observation.  Rather than defend themselves to Dr Rah and other Asian Americans who’ve taken issue with their use of stereotype and characture, couldn’t the authors listen to the concerns, frustration, and anger that is being expressed?  One friend put it this way on Facebook,

Why do these authors (both are white) feel the need to use a bizarre amalgam of Asian cultures as a means to sell more books? Do they realize how many people (myself included) have been mocked and ridiculed by very similar caricatures and stereotypes that make up the premise of this book?

There are moments like this one when those of us who are white have the chance to learn something about the experience and perspective of those who haven’t shared our privilege.  I probably miss most of those chances because of my defensive instinct, but during those times when my mouth has stayed shut there has always been much to learn.  It would be a pleasant surprise if this turned out to be one of those moments for these authors and some of their readers.

Keep an eye on Dr Rah’s blog for more updates as this story develops.

One final thought.  Stories like these are poignant reminders to those of us committed to the reconciling implications of the Gospel of how gritty the work can be.  How grateful we are that with God all things are possible.

____________________

Update, 11/5

Since first posting this a few days ago there has been a lot of conversation online and, apparently, in person.  This morning Dr Rah posted a nice summary of what sounds to have been a very productive phone conversation between the book’s authors and a few Asian American Christian leaders.  After some initial missteps it appears as though this thing is moving in a redemptive direction.

I’m hoping that a friend will be posting some of his reflections about this here on the blog within the next day or so.  Check back soon.

happy saturday: charlie darwin by low anthem

How can a song be so beautiful and utterly sad?  Such is the case, in my opinion, with Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem.   Here’s the new video; the lyrics are below.

3 recent films you may have missed

Last week I drove out to some friends’ vacation home for a few days of study, reflection and prayer.  It was a restful and productive time despite missing Maggie and Eliot.  The number of films I’ve seen this year has dropped off since we welcomed Eliot in April so during this time away I enjoyed watching three excellent films that had been on my “to see” list.

I don’t have time to write much about any of these films- Goodbye Solo, The Band’s Visit, and The Visitor- but I wanted to point them out to this blog’s readers.  Have you seen any of these?

The Band’s Visit is the most humorous of the three and tells the story of an Egyptian police band’s unplanned encounter with the residents of a small Israeli settlement.  The director, Eran Kolirin, explores the nature of relationships between those who are not meant to like each other.  While the setting and characters could have bordered on cliche (Israelis and Egyptians!  Jews and Muslims!), these elements are downplayed in favor of intimate moments both awkward and tender.

Both Goodbye Solo and The Visitor (the film you’ve most likely heard of because of Richard Jenkin’s Oscar nomination last year) observe America’s constantly changing cultural landscape.  In both stories we see the awe and dread of the immigrant experience.  In contrast, these films also include the experiences of men whose mundane and borderline hopeless lives are disrupted by their newly immigrated neighbors.  These stories also avoid the easy cliche and, in both cases, leave the viewer wondering what might happen to these characters in the future.

Perhaps one of these will satisfy your weekend DVD rental needs.  Any other recent overlooked films we should know about?

what is your personal food policy?

I really enjoyed The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan when I read it last year and now Maggie is reading that very enlightening and entirely entertaining book.  A couple of days ago I saw that Pollan had solicited people’s food rules, or “personal food policies.”  Pollan’s request, made via the New York Times, stems from our cultural obsession and confusion with what we should eat.  As he points out, this is a rather recent dilemma and one with a solution perhaps based more in culture than science.

How did humans manage to choose foods and stay healthy before there were nutrition experts and food pyramids or breakfast cereals promising to improve your child’s focus or restaurant portions bigger than your head? We relied on culture, which is another way of saying: on the accumulated wisdom of the tribe. (Which is itself another way of saying: on your mom and your friends.) All of us carry around rules of thumb about eating that have been passed down in our families or plucked from the cultural conversation. Think of this body of food knowledge as samizdat nutrition: an informal, unsanctioned way of negotiating our eating lives that becomes indispensable at a time when official modes of talking about food have suffered a serious loss of credibility.

From the more than 2,500 responses he received, Pollan selected his favorite 20 which were then whimsically illustrated by Roger Kent.  Here are two of my favorites.  The first I adhere to quite religiously; the second… not so much.

Be sure to read the original article and then check out all 20 of the personal food rules.

On a slightly related note…

The anxiety about what to eat is downright depressing when we consider the reality of “food deserts” in many of our urban centers.  I’m no expert on this subject, but I’ve often wondered about the connection between the over-abundance of highly processed and heavily subsidized foods and the lack of healthy options for those on the lower end of the economic ladder.  Food as commodity will be found among those with the capacity to buy the most of it; a sad reality that makes the apples purchased from the Bronzeville Community Market taste that much sweeter.

the most annoying phrases

You’ve likely seen this already.  Last week the folks at Marist Poll released their list of the most annoying phrases.  There were five choices respondents could choose from:

• “at the end of the day”
• “it is what it is”
• “you know”
• “whatever”
• “anyway”

If my wife represented the average respondent, than the phrase “it is what it is” would have ranked as the most reviled of phrases.  (Seriously, if you ever want to provoke an audible sigh and possible eye roll from Maggie, just drop the vaguely fatalistic “it is what it is” in conversation with her.)  I’m probably most guilty of the second most annoying phrase, “you know”.  It’s a handy phrase to gauge whether a conversation partner is following a train of thought.  You know?

And the most annoying phrase?  47% of respondents agreed that “whatever” should immediately be dropped from our collective vocabulary.  While I agree and would prefer never again to hear this sarcastic phrase in conversation, what can we actually do about it?  After all, it is what it is.

immigration? no. torture? yes. christian? for sure.

This morning I finished the very excellent book by Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang, Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion, and Truth in the Immigration Debate. I’ll post a more thorough review later, but the following paragraph in the second to last chapter caught my eye and is worth sharing here.

Indeed, there does seem to be a disconnect between the pulpit and the pews on the immigration question: while many prominent evangelicals have endorsed a more generous immigration policy, and very few have vocally opposed such a policy, an April 2006 study found that 63 percent of white evangelicals see immigrants as a threat to U.S. customs and values, and 64 percent consider immigrants a burden on society- higher percentages than any other group surveyed, whether religious or secular.

The study they reference, “Attitudes Toward Immigration: In the Pulpit and the Pew”, comes from the Pew Research Center.  Here are two summary tables from the study that fill in some of the details.  Click the image for a larger view.

What do you make of these numbers?  I’m curious how those of us who fall within the “white evangelical protestant” category might explain our pessimistic view of recent immigrants.  This study reminds me of another recent Pew study regarding how religion impacts a person’s view of torture.  This study found that white evangelicals more than any other group thought the use of torture could be justified.

What is it about us white evangelical folk that leads to such views?  In my more cynical moments I think we have been spiritually formed less by the Bible, Christian tradition, and the Holy Spirit than by a certain political ideology.

The Pew immigration study does conclude with one sign of life.  “[W]ithin each of the three largest religious groups in the U.S., the most religiously committed Americans tend to hold views that are more favorable toward immigrants.”  It appears that those most closely associated with their faith tradition are more likely to form beliefs and perspectives that counter the prevailing opinion.  The faith of these folks actually appears to make a difference in how they think and act.  Now there’s a novel thought!

home

The blog has been pretty quiet these days.  All of family Swanson’s energies have gone to our move from Logan Square down to Hyde Park.  On Tuesday night we closed on our condo (to those who warned of ridiculous amounts of paperwork, you were correct) and then the packing and moving kicked into high gear.  We had some tremendous help from New Community friends who packed the moving truck in an hour and unloaded it in even less time.

I’m not sure how smart it was to buy our first home the same year we adopted our son and began the church planting process, but I’m happy to report that all three Swansons seem to be sound in mind and soul… though our bodies are a bit tired from carrying boxes up and down stairs.

We’ve been in the neighborhood for less than 48 hours but it’s clear how much there is to appreciate about Hyde Park.  We’re thankful to be living here for a number of reasons, including the proximity to Bronzeville to the north where the church plant will be located.

Maggie and I have moved quite a few times during our 10 years of marriage and this is the first home that we plan on being in for the indefinite future.  That kind of permanency would have terrified me a few years ago, but now I find the appeal of neighborhood and neighbors too strong to resist.  I hope we are here for many years to come.

eugene peterson tells it slant

Eugene Peterson has been a favorite author for a few years now.  Widely known for The Message translation of the Bible, my first exposure to the author and pastor came in grad school when we were assigned Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity.  A few pages in and it became apparent that Peterson is one of those few authors who deserves a slow reading, less because of his writing’s complexities than for the wisdom that oozes from each sentence.

More recently I have anticipated the publication of each of Peterson’s five-part spiritual theology series: Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (2005), Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (2006), The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way (2007), Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers (2008), and (according to Wikipedia) the forthcoming Practicing the Resurrection.

Last year I reflected on The Jesus Way in three parts (one, two, three), something I don’t intend to do with Tell it Slant.  Having almost finished the book, I can highly recommend it to you, along with the three previous titles in the series.  Peterson divides the book into two sections: “Jesus in his stories” and “Jesus in his prayers.”  Delving into Jesus’ parables (drawn from Luke 9:51-19:44) and prayers, Peterson revels in the powerfully subversive language and shows the life-giving thrust of Jesus’ words.

It’s tough to quote a Peterson book- one delightful or potent paragraph runs into another- but here is a section where the author is looking at the Kingdom of God from within the context of the Lord’s Prayer.

Those of us who grow up under democratic governments commonly count ourselves most fortunate in living under an elected, not imposed, government that best serves the human condition.  That might very well be,  But it also carries with in the habit of thinking that the best government, including God’s government, is run along the lines of a democracy.  This is a hard habit to break.  God is not president or prime ministry of a democracy.  God is king.  “The LORD reigns… Thy throne is established from old” (Psalm 93:1-2).  God is sovereign.  that is the assured and frequently expressed witness of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.  But there are not earthly analogies to God’s throne and rule.  It is not imposed; it is not despotic.  All our needs and hungers, our tears and longings, our petitions and praises are assimilated in God’s rule.  It is a sovereignty that invites our participation.  We share his rule, but it is his rule.

And one more, a few paragraphs on:

If we even so slightly begin thinking of the kingdo apart from the well-documented Jesus context, we will easily come to think that the kingdom we are praying for is in competition with the kingdoms that are written up in our history books and reported in our current events.  Then it isn’t long before we are thinking of ways to outmaneuver the kingdom ways that we see operating in business and industry, in government and war, and compete with them on their terms.  But the kingdom we are participating in when we pray, “Your kingdom come,” is not in competition with the kingdoms of America or IBM or Honda or Microsoft.  It is subverting them.

If you’ve not yet read Peterson, Tell it Slant may be a great place to start.

race & healthcare reform: distraction or reality?

A couple weeks back I wondered how much of the current outspoken opposition to health-care reform is related to race and racism.  At least one commenter thought I was off base, that focusing on race misses the actual concerns of those opposed to President Obama’s proposed reforms.

Not one debate I heard from anyone opposing him referred to the president’s race. His defenders are the only ones using the race issue to obscure and dismiss legitimate complaints and questions raised by the proposed legislation. It’s not whitey fearing the black man it’s citizens cringing in fear of the loss of freedom due to a huge unconstitutional intervention by the federal government.

Not that he’ll ever read this blog, but if he did David Brooks would likely agree with this comment’s sentiment.  In a recent New York Time op-ed Brooks claims the while the vocal backlash to health-care reform may have racial elements, it is better understood through a populist lens.

Barack Obama leads a government of the highly educated. His movement includes urban politicians, academics, Hollywood donors and information-age professionals. In his first few months, he has fused federal power with Wall Street, the auto industry, the health care industries and the energy sector.

Given all of this, it was guaranteed that he would spark a populist backlash, regardless of his skin color. And it was guaranteed that this backlash would be ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top — since these movements always are, whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else.

And yet.  So much of the angry and frightened language coming from those opposed to the president’s proposed reforms is tapping into issues of race.  There are surely elements of populism in these protests but does this overrule the obvious expressions of racism?

Writing for Religion Dispatches last week, professor Johnathan Walton asserts that it is the president himself- less than his policies- that has provoked such fear among the president’s white opponents.

This is why, it would seem, Barack Obama’s body standing behind the American presidential seal has a critical segment of America losing its hold on reality—a reality, I would argue, few have ever been forced to acknowledge up to this point. Whether it’s the birthers, tea-baggers, deathers, indoctrinators, or “You lie!”-ers, they have neither veiled their racial animus nor cloaked their white nationalism. The prevalence of racist images of President Obama brandished by protesters juxtaposed with calls of “taking our country back” are reminiscent of D.W. Griffith’s fictional America as depicted in Birth of a Nation. And the pride with which this segment of society has rallied the troops around its shared sense of whiteness reveals that their skin color is the one true object of pledged allegiance and determinant of professed patriotism.

So which is it?  Is it a simple coincidence that those most opposed to the president’s proposed reforms are white?  Or, as Walton claims, is there something troubling about the way this public debate has devolved?

From my vantage point there have been too many examples of racially-charged commentary to ignore.  While it is entirely appropriate to oppose this president’s policies based on one’s politics, the ugly rhetoric by those like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh make it important to distance one’s political opinion from those who peddle fear.

I continue to wonder whether Christians in American can transcend (or subvert) the way health-care reform has been debated thus far.  For those with nothing to fear but a loving God, how might an issue as complex as this one be discussed?  I’m not sure we’ve seen the church in America rise to this significant occasion.  Will we?