The Welcome Table

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

A Third Place Center on TV News Again

Our "A Third Place" Center received more television coverage this weekend, on Tulsa Channel 2 news, as we did our Turley Talks kick-off event partnering with OU. I haven't been able to find any of the television coverage posted on the web at the news station in order for you to link to, but you can read the web story at http://www.kjrh.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=2C7F95BC-8A08-4E0F-B2DB-1061F3F065D4&gsa=true. The video included shots outside and some inside our space as the community forum were being held, and they also did some shots of places around the community. They were here early in the day and their coverage focused more on the needs of the area, while the program itself is focusing on the assets we have, uncovering and unleashing them, and building community from the inside out and the bottom up rather than waiting for "fixes" to come from anywhere or anyone else. For a link to a story on us by Channel 6 and our new medical clinic we brought to our area, go down to the blogpost for Feb. 15 at the bottom of the page.
For more on the Turley Talks program, see the Easter post below, or go to http://www.turleyok.blogspot.com/. It is further proof of what a handful of UU Christians can do when we get outside the boundaries of what we think of as "church". End

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

How Easter Happens: then and now, there and here

This is another post from our mission outpost-style church movement planting beginning here in Turley, Oklahoma, along with Easter message. Read on.

First, the news headlines and invitations to participate in great events happening here through our A Third Place Community Center, and church activities, with our big weekend upon us, and then commentary on what I have learned, especially through living and working here in this area, about how Easter happens.

1. Spread the word and come Saturday if you live in, work in, shop in, have family ties in or are interested in the future of our area. The OU Turley project kicks off this Saturday, with events from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. OU representatives from the social work department will be here to listen to talk about Turley and what people would like to see in our area, what our strengths and resources are. Overview and history in the morning and then at 2 p.m. the surveys begin, followed by a community forum. The Center will also be open for all of our regular public free services as well (including the TVs tuned in to March Madness). Come and go, or come and stay. We also have up now our big community board where we will have people listing the free services they will offer to others, the free goods and tools they will share with others as a lending library, and the services and items they would like to receive, as well as a place to list birthdays and people in need of prayers of concern. "Now all with faithfulness and trust were together, and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all, as anyone had need." (Acts 2:44-45; oh that it were quoted as often as other passages). Thank you so much to all who are helping to make this a meaningful experience.

2. Come Friday, Mar. 21, noon, at All Souls Church, 2952 S. Peoria, for Good Friday Tennebrae Service. I will bring a homily "Who Are You After?" as part of the service put on jointly each year by All Souls, Hope, Restoration, and The Living Room churches. It will take place in the All Souls chapel.

3. Come Sunday at 10 a.m. for a brief Easter morning communion service and then journey with us for the 11 a.m. service at Church of the Restoration, near Pine and Greenwood, as we experience the Easter Spirit and begin looking for ways to help one another serve our north Tulsa community. The regular Sunday afternoon gathering won't be held on Easter Sunday, though I will be around for conversation. We will then return the following week and schedule in an updated completion of "God vs. Empire" series on Paul and plan our topics to come for conversation, sharing, study, leading to service.

4. Come Tuesday, Mar. 25 to O'Brien Park for the 7 p.m. community association meeting.

5. ReTree Turley Event, April 4 and 5. Come as we give away free trees to help replant our area devastated by the December ice storm disaster, whose effects can still be seen everywhere.

6. Looking ahead: Come Sat. March 29 to a peace-making workshop at All Souls where I will co-lead a session; come April 4 and 5 to more OU Turley Talks programs; come April 8 at 7 p.m. for Turley Networking Tuesdays, come April 12 for breakfast at the Odd Fellows Lodge raising funds for community projects and that day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the beginning of monthly fund-raising hotdog lunches at the Center to help support our mission; Come May 9 and 10 for Turley Volunteer Day/Trash-Off Days; Come May 10 for the Garden Fair, seed-sharing, plant-swapping, tools and pots trading and community gardening day.

7. An update: If you want to help volunteer at the center sometime come to one hour orientations on April 4 at noon, and on April 12 at noon. Also we are preparing to install a kitchen to better serve our community through the Center; if anyone has leads or donations toward an electric stove.

How Easter/Resurrection Happens (then and now)

The biblical witness: The resurrected spirit-body of Jesus comes almost entirely not in spectacular public expansive entertaining super-sized mega-church ways. Instead, consider this; To Paul, the earliest testimony we have, as he himself writes about it decades before Luke writes about him in the Acts of the Apostles, the Risen Christ comes personally, one to one, as an internal life-changing event. In Paul's own words there is no blinding light, nothing that anyone else would have been able to see or know. The Risen One comes as Jesus said the realm of God comes, like leaven in bread, slowly transforming from the inside out, the downside up. The next oldest written witness we have is from the Gospel of Mark, where in the original ending there is simply the empty tomb power itself, and the voice of the young man disciple, speaking to just the three women, telling them where to go if they wish to follow Jesus now. Next in Luke, rewriting Mark here, there are a few more women added to the original three at the tomb, and then Luke alone tells the story of just the two men walking to Emmaus who don't at first recognize Jesus walking with them, until they stop and break bread together. Then Christ appears to the "eleven" and some few more. Slowly, gradually, but still minimally the size of the numbers grows of those encountering Resurrected Life. Matthew echoes Luke. And lastly, in John, Easter happens first to only one woman, Mary Magdalene, and then to disciples few enough to gather in a room, appearing to them in private space, making it holy, and not the way the Caesers and other authorities owned the public space and made it the epitome of sacred space. In fact, in John, in the famous story of "Doubting Thomas," resurrection is supposed to be felt and known even in absence, with no one present, through story, faith, trust, hope. Jesus mocks Thomas for having to be there, to see, before believing. And finally in John, even in the later endings, Christ comes to the few out on the lake fishing, by the campfire by the sea, in small breakfast sharing just as he had before.

Why? Why not appear before thousands in Rome or Jerusalem? Why not make it easy for people to know, to follow? Surely if conversion were the aim, that would be the means. But if it is inspiration, if it is invitation to participation in something God has started and needs us to continue, then Easter comes not in feel-good spectacle, but in, as Mother Teresa said, "doing small things with great love." Filling a few with a transforming idea, a God DNA so to speak, and doing so amidst the everydayness of life. That becomes unstoppable, like mustard seed weeds and leaven's fermentation and the loving justice of a Samaritan, a Syrio-Phoenician woman, and the redeemed failures of all us disciples like Thomas, Peter, and the rest.

Easter continues to happen that way. Spring is normal; Easter is not. I have grumbled about Easter 'coming early' this year, but that is how Easter always should come to be true to Resurrection, when you don't expect it, when it disrupts your normalcy.

Here it happens too. Normal says we can't and shouldn't do what we have done, in just these past few years in this little part of God's land. We joke lately about all the stories being told about us and our Center and its activities and how it could only be doing what we are doing if there was some major grant involved or we were being supported by a Casino (our latest laugher). It is hard for people to begin to grasp the power of one and two, for then they would have to confront the power within themselves for giving to others when they believe they are filled only with need and scarcity. That this could be done with volunteer giving, all of it, and that we reach across racial, religious lines to be in mission. That we could do this and continue to dream and imagine and create even when we juggle utility bills and end each month at best still at zero because we keep investing in that which is beyond ourselves. That we could manifest so much trust in people, here where everyone is supposed to be in it for themselves, in what I call a die and let die mentality. And, of course, it is impossible for many people to broach the concept that this is actually "doing church." Normal has so much power in our lives now as it did 2000 years ago, though we are being the church in the spirit of 2000 years ago, by 1. breaking down the barriers between sacred and secular, by 2. simply following the spirit of Jesus with no creeds or strings attached, and by 3. creating soulful relationships to counter the soul-sucking empires felt in the civic abuse and neglect of our area, in our workplaces, sometimes even in our homes and personal and family relationships.

This is like another three-fold path we practice here at A Third Place--1. connect with people where they are in their need, be it giving to them through the donation room, food bank, free internet, library, tv, or helping out in the myriad ways that happens here daily (just this last week one woman in another part of Tulsa had read about us last summer in the Tulsa World and when her car needed repair here in Turley on her way home she limped it into our parking lot because she figured we would be able to direct her to the best closest place to go, only to find someone here who was able to fix it for her for free); 2. form community with people, getting to know them as they come back for more, letting them know us, sharing, eating together, talking in bits and pieces, gradually evolving from client-provider to a sense of community and ownership, which takes time, and trust, and knowing the goal is not ever to have them join our church (though sharing about it if it comes up, even there not with the goal of "getting" members); and finally, three turning community into communitas, which is a community on a mission, releasing them as partners in mission to others themselves, where they can connect with people in their needs. Some folks naturally gravitate toward the communitas, some never will, but the opportunity and the path is there. It is the way Easter happens.

I think back to what our community was like two years ago, even one year ago, even last Easter, and how much it is changing already, even though normal keeps me remembering so terribly much how much transformation still awaits. Normal keeps coming even at me and saying sometimes "don't try that" or "that's no success if it doesn't turn into x number of people" or dollars, or "well that was another mistake wasn't it." I sometimes long for "normal church" too. Then Easter happens and something inside me breaks open and I feel the grace of the resurrected life that is the spirit of Jesus, the spirit that crosses then or now, even those erected in the name of Jesus, can't extinquish, and often I know this isn't anything of my own doing, just as Jesus didn't resurrect himself and we can't either, but from a source beyond myself I begin to see the beauty of "the abnormal way," and how catching it is, and I can't be anywhere else.

The greatness of Easter, the greatest thing of love I can imagine, happens in small ways and to people who have all but given up. It happens between empty tombs and the shores of Galilee, where the presence of God is felt while fishing, eating, sharing with a few others. And so if you feel you are between an empty tomb and Galillee, have faith, know others have been there too for milennia, and look carefully and with mindfulness around you--something abnormal is about to happen!

Thanks and blessings, (oh two more things: if you want to see the homily for Good Friday go to www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com; and I was watching one of my favorite "Easter" movies the other day, Harvey, and was caught again by the wisdom of Elwood P. Dowd when he says "Well, I have wrestled with reality (i.e. normalcy of the world) for 35 years, Doctor, and I am happy to state I finally won out over it." As well as that great Easter-y exchange between Elwood and the oh so reality-bound asylum orderly Mr. Wilson who wonders "Who's Harvey?" to which nurse Kelly says "A white rabbit, six feet tall." To which Elwood says, "Six feet three and a half inches. Now let's stick to the facts."

Ron

Good Friday Homily: Who Are You After?

scripture: The Message version, John 18:1-11

Who Are You After?

Jesus says, at that moment in the darkness, who are you after? who are you looking for? Who are you coming for? As if Jesus doesn't already know. Maybe there is a hint of vulnerability there, in that question, a final staving off, a desperation, but the story has him being the proactive one, the victim refusing to play the role those in power tried to enforce.

Everything has been leading right up to this moment, the moment when freedom, as the world views freedom, gives way to bondage, captivity, death, as the world sees those things. Jesus turns toward those coming to him, toward the real emblems of oppression and imperial power, turns toward what he has to face, the real cup he has to drink now.

He hasn’t sought the cross that marked the Great Empire’s power, but he has risked it for something greater, his true passion, showing a way of living a life of love, justice, and mercy that are the marks of a truly eternal empire. He doesn’t go to the cross in place of anyone else, to save anyone else from the cross; in fact he says if you are a real follower of God’s way, then you too have to be willing to confront the crosses of your world. It is not God’s will that nails him to the cross, but the very normal official ways of how society functioned, functions. Still, with such knowledge, and even when God kept turning away from him, he kept turning toward God.

And so too at this time of year we turn toward the story, toward Jesus. Today again this year, as people are doing around the world, as they have done for centuries, for millenia, people are turning this day toward the story, participating in the story, and opening themselves up to let the story into their lives. And to let the story eventually ask of us: who are we looking for? Who is looking for us?

This is a question Jesus asks those around him throughout John's gospel, the particular version being used during this holy season in the common lectionary. Jesus asks this of potential disciples in the very first chapter of John. He asks it here in the Garden of Gethsamene at the pivotal moment of his arrest, and it is asked of Mary Magdalene when she is the first to enter the empty tomb. The story of Jesus asks us still today, especially in our moments of fear and doubt and crisis and pain, in long nights when we can‘t sleep and it seems everyone around us can: Who are we after? Which path will we take?

Too often I take the path of Peter. He is our stand-in. We who think we know who we are after, what we are after, who we are serving, but when we get into our crisis times, we fail ourselves, our beloveds, our God. Too little, I believe in re-telling the Good Friday story, do we dwell on Peter. Maybe it is easier to dwell on Jesus, especially in John’s gospel, where he seems a little too godly; maybe it is harder to sink into Peter’s skin; for he is very human, very real.

Peter is full of uncertainty about what is happening, what it all means; no surprise, the gospels always have the disciples getting Jesus wrong, but they are the ones ultimately lifted up; all but Judas, the story says, who is the one who was the most certain he had it all figured out, he is the one who turns away and ultimately fails. We, like Peter, follow Jesus to the garden; though we fall asleep, though we don't respond the way we should, reacting, betraying our mission, denying our truth even, still like Peter we are there, just outside, we can’t go all the way with Jesus but we can’t leave him either. The other disciples fled, but Peter didn’t; he remained on the edge of the story; at any minute maybe he would find the trust that would go deeper than his fear of the cross.

Peter is left, at this point in the story, standing by the fire outside the gates, trying to warm himself. He has denied and broken all that is most important to him; I am sure he is as surprised and shocked by that as by anything else; it must have seemed like an unstoppable force that swept over all his will toward goodness and his loyalty and what he thought he was like, all his ideas. In the days to come after the resurrection he will again be beside a fire beside a sea when Jesus appears and truly warms Peter's soul, giving him the chance to repeat three times that he loves him, just as he denied him three times. But for now, Peter too is having to face his Gethsamene, he can only try to warm himself by the fire. Throughout his relationship with Jesus he has been getting things wrong, and here at his one shot at proving himself, he fails again utterly. Not only does he deny he followed Jesus but in trying to take up arms he shows he has absolutely no idea of the kind of Messiah Jesus actually is.

Still, as we are here, so Peter remains, on the edge of despair and hope. He hangs in there by facing the despair but not letting it control him, as it would Judas, he hangs in there by being open to God still hanging in there with him. Like Jesus, like Peter, we always stand on the edge between freedom and captivity, between despair and hope, surrounded by crosses, by betrayers, by our worse selves, by powers of oppressions of many sorts. And at that moment, though it is impossible to see, touch, feel, know, or even imagine, at that moment we are surrounded too by a Spirit of Love so strong that it can make even this Friday God’s Friday. End.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Theolog.org

Here is the latest from The Christian Century

at theolog.org...
Edwin Searcy proposes rediscovering the 23rd Psalm by singing it.Jason Byassee takes a road trip and reflects on the politics of bumper stickers.Lou Carlozo takes his "kid fears" with him into Lent-and on to Easter.

and at ccblogs.org... Writing at A Wee Blether, Adam Copeland ponders the differences between the Church of Scotland and the American Presbyterian Church.

Deep Shift--Brian McLaren

Here is the latest from Brian McLaren

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DeepShift / Everything Must Change NewsIssue #17 February 27/2008 In This Issue Message from Brian Message from Linnea Quick Links Register Now! DeepShift Website Buy The Book
Video Clip about Tour Get the Newsletter

MESSAGE FROM BRIAN

Dear Friends -

"I had no idea there were so many people in Dallas open to all this" - that's the comment I heard most often last weekend at our third stop in the Everything Must Change tour. Participants seemed so glad to meet each other and a lot of new connections were made.

It was another excellent weekend - our hosts at Cliff Temple Baptist Church and the great team of Dallas/Ft. Worth volunteers made the experience a complete pleasure for Linnea, Tracy, Jo and Will, Eric and me.

The other comment I heard several times... "I've been uncomfortable with the religious status quo, but I didn't know what to do about it. This weekend is putting all the pieces together for me." As I was packing up to leave, one participant handed me a note that said, "For the first time in all my conference/retreat attendances, I am leaving not feeling guilty and overwhelmed by all the things I must do to be obedient to God. Rather this time I am set free to begin on the way to being part of the new framing story that God calls us to. I truly believe God now can accomplish more through me!"

There were two special highlights for me in Dallas. On Friday, we had a private luncheon with the local sponsors; it was a good and honest dialogue about what it's like to work among the poor and to seek to involve local churches in service and advocacy. I was struck again about how hollow and shallow it would be to try to live a Christian life that consists of singing songs, studying the Bible, listening to sermons, and so on - without being involved as agents of change in the world around us, especially relating to the growing global crises surrounding our planet, poverty, and peace.

Then on Saturday morning, as we're doing in each city, we had a special gathering for church planters and participants in emergent cohorts. We have an hour of Q & A, and I was struck by how much these folks "get it." We started deep and went deeper because of the insightful questions folks raised. Their insight and passion give me a lot of hope.

There were so many other rich conversations - for example, meeting a recent college graduate who organized an anti-torture demonstration on her Christian college campus, a woman who owns a large manufacturing business and is leaving with new inspiration to deal with the environmental impact of her business, and a man who had left the Christian faith and was now coming back with renewed hope and a fresh perspective. I was also surprised how many people introduced themselves to me as former pastors: whether through burnout and bad experiences or simply a new sense of calling, they had changed careers and were putting together a more holistic understanding of faith now as "normal" people. The range of denominations was again encouraging - Baptist, Pentecostal, Episcopal, Methodist, Roman Catholic.

So, there has been a lot of encouragement in each of our first three cities. All of us feel that something is percolating and the center of gravity is shifting in a positive direction.

We're really grateful to all of you who have been part of our first three cities. We look forward to seeing more of you in Tampa, DC, San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Goshen. If you've been thinking about coming, we hope you'll sign up now - and we hope you'll spread the word to some friends.

Linnea passed on this beautiful quote from Gordon Cosby:

If men and women today began by the thousands experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ in a transforming way, there would simply be no place for their expression of experience to fit into present-day straitjackets of Christianity. Protestant or Catholic, neither one is structured to contain a mass of devoted people who long for spiritual depth. We are structured towards infancy.

When I imagine what Gordon is dreaming of - people "experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ in a transforming way" - I think they would express their experience with Christ not just through "religious" activities like prayer and singing...but even more, through their daily lives, in the ways they care for the planet, work for justice for the poor, and build bridges of peace. That's what we're hoping to encourage among the beautiful people we're meeting around the country this spring. That's the revolution of hope.

Thanks, as always, for your interest and prayers -

Brian McLaren

Also, the video of The National Cathedral Forum I participated in on 2/17/08 is at this link.

MESSAGE FROM LINNEA

Hi everyone!

Just a quick update for those of you thinking about joining us in San Diego, Chicago, Seattle, Kansas City, NYC: The Bronx, or Goshen... we are extending the "Just in Time" registration fee, which is due to end this Friday. So tell your friends to register soon for one of those stops.

In addition, if you have a friend who has already attended an EMC tour stop in Charlotte, Boise or Dallas, or has registered for one of our upcoming cities, ask them to share with you the discount code we sent them to give to their friends.

People are connecting all over the country to a deeper call of living the Way of Jesus, to each other on the journey, and to action to impact the world crises: planet, poverty, peace and purpose. Won't you invite others to Connect?

With joy,
Linnea

Money and Plants

In the move to more organic and incarnational churches/missions, where everything in your usual church default mode is turned inside out and upside down, this can help with the perennial issue of financing too. Already bi-or-tri vocational planters are an established means, but as we make the church a woven part of the wider community breaking down secular/sacred space, look for ways to do this with finances too. Here in Turley in our first site we not only have community donations an integral part of supporting us, but we are now setting up our ministry as a truly community based ministry as its own non-profit community foundation, able to tap into many more grants and donations to operate A Third Place overhead, what our church members and supporters donations go mostly toward now, which will then free up those funds to go toward staff and more growth here or expansion into new sites.

Existing churches can adopt this method by looking at how their church fund-raising events, such as dinners and auctions, can be seen not as by and for the church organization, but the church is a conduit and its events are by and for the wider community to support the church as mission and the church's community missions. Like everything else in organic incarnational communities, such as attendance at events, daily contacts, etc. I think the financial ratio too should ideally be 2 or more non-church community people supporting you for every 1 church person. End.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

God vs. Empire: Then and Now

Go to www.livingthequestions.com and check out the latest DVD discussion series called "Eclipsing Empire' by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. It is 12 episodes looking at Jesus and Paul, especially Paul, and the struggle for God's values and reality against the Roman Empire values and reality, and extrapolate to today. It is pricey for individuals but good for small groups, churches, and I think a good historical theological background that could underpin starting a new church, new mission group, in today's world. We are going to do that here in Turley with our Living Room Church group. It would be great to counter-balance the historical focus with a DVD series that looks at new organic and mission communities, in the early church mode, like Simple Way in Philadelphia (see posts on The Irresistible Revolution which we did study on last year). I will do my best to blog on how we move through the DVD series here in Turley as we are beginning our 12-week group on it on Sundays for one hour 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. from Mar. 2 to May 18 (all are welcome if you are a reader who happens to be in or know of someone in the Tulsa and surrounding area). The Book of Acts and the Letters of Paul have been favorites for church planters seeking to instill mission-mindset in those joining with them, but too often the authentic Paul has been overlooked in this approach. This series with the latest of biblical scholarship can correct that. End.

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Church Obama v. Church Clinton v. Church Anti-Cool

Okay, I've been trying to put off this post and don't have time to fully develop it I am sure, but here goes anyway. Everyday seems to give me more fodder for thought.

Also, disclosure up front: this is analysis and might tend I suspect to be seen somewhat as pro-Sen. Obama, so just wanted to say I support in the primary Sen. Clinton and voted for her here in Oklahoma in one of those reddest of red states where she won 2-1 on super tuesday over Sen. Obama. I'll support him in the general if he wins the nomination.

And this is going to be about culture and religion.

Looking at the Obama campaign is like witnessing the postmodern turn in church culture. To use Leonard Sweet's terms, it is exhibiting a primacy of experience, participation (from bottom up), image-driven, and community connecting. It is EPIC. This will seem ironic to some in terms of experience since the political rhetoric has thrown this around so much, but what I mean is that the Church Obama provides an experience, and that is more important, or inspiring, than knowledge about an experience. Experiencing God vs. Knowledge about God or God-Talk. Yes, Sen. Clinton has more knowledge about...fill in the blank, but that isn't any longer what is valued the most, nor in a media-saturated empire how best to be emperor even. Obama's campaign is inherently native to this culture, in large part because of generational tides; whereas Clinton's campaign is, in Sweet's terms, an immigrant to this culture. Obama Church is like a real church begun in 2004 (yes, of four years ago and not of 2008), and Clinton Church is like a real church begun in 1992, both exhibiting the DNA of their originating times. Obama's imagery, Obama's we-emphasis (modern age was Luther's Here I Stand; postmodern age is Here We Move, see commentaries after Iowa on the rhetoric and imagery of the two campaigns), Obama's strategies of fundraising and of local connecting, are all right out of the postmodern emergent church playbook of the early 2000s.

Church Clinton is modernistic, knowledge-based, more print than aural (you can see it in their websites too), and expecting people to connect with her and her national organization (like denominations that think people should join them just because they were raised in them, or even--and this is related to the recent Pew study and the discussion on Philocrites about UU number and attendance and membership--just because they actually identify with them, as if identity and identification were the issue when it no longer is) instead of incarnating an embodiment of herself throughout the country in an organic way--that is beyond those who already "get her" for she is, of course, who she is, and those like myself who see ourselves and our journeys and our battles in her navigate to her naturally, as do those whose life journeys match up more closely with Obama's. She should have known this going in and found ways to counter-act it, just as, if he eventually wins, Sen. Obama better know about the inherent weaknesses of the EPIC approach that will do to his governing, and just as quickly, as what Sen. Clinton's campaign strategy from the 90s did to her. We are on the cusp still of native/immigrant which is why the race is as it always was going to be, very tight, and why the general will be again also. But the 2008 race is a reflection of the kind of candidate and campaign we will see more of, at least for another eight years. And even though many like myself will be enthusiastic about whomever eventually gets the Democratic Party nomination, because of the culturally epic battle between Obama and Clinton, because it is the way they inspire people based on people's own life journeys and demographics, whoever wins will have a lot more wounded people on the other side unlike what we have seen in recent elections. Imagine if a church did in fact present two candidates to be the new minister and the church had to vote between them, and imagine the typical UU church and imagine some kind of close stand-ins for Obama and Clinton, complete with age, race, gender, were the two candidates. Imagine the after-effect of the vote. People themselves, even more than is usually the case, will see their very selves as being rejected, because they have participated so fully in the experience of the one seeking to be leader.

(I have a hunch that if you did a comparison of the actual two churches where the Senators are members, Trinity UCC for Obama in Chicago I know but I don't know where Clinton is now worshipping in NY? Or is it still primarily at the D.C. UMC church where they did during 92-2000? that if you compare the church styles related to this modern/postmodern shift, that you would see the difference show up there too. Love to hear from any who have been in both.)

We live in an increasingly EPIC world, but we haven't fully gotten a glimpse of its shadow side.

Against all this there is the Church Anti-Cool. It is the church of those who find Obama and his EPIC strategies and embodiment too cool for their taste, too much like the kind of advertisement they have been exposed to all their life. I don't know if it is the Church of the Fringe, of those who seemed to gravitate to Gravel and Kucinich and Paul and now Nader as a way, deep down, of reclaiming politics from the media narrative stranglehold, of those young millenials who don't turn into the cable news and not even the Colberts and Jon Stewarts but live in an increasing internet and small tribal connection of their own. I read the latest Adbusters issue and it seems to peg for me what I see as the downside of the idolatry of the Church Obama that is a creation of the EPIC sense that is mired in the American Empire in the way it questions the cultural coolness and emotional emphasis that have become marks of the new Media/Entertainment/Business Empire that dominates culture. I sense that the Church of the Anti-Cool, which will grow and be the next wave, as are those milennials who are rejecting the boomer evangelical postmodern churches, see Church Clinton as irrelevant and Church Obama as too hip.

So, as the political campaigns have or should have understood church culture changes and the effects on their campaigns, so church leaders should be paying attention to this political year and what it reveals about the world in which the church, one would hope, seeks to be a mission embodying God's values.
End.

Friday, February 15, 2008

In Reality: Latest "A Third Place" reports

On this blog I try to balance the theory with the real practice of planting God communities, so periodically I post on the local front here in Turley, OK and its north Tulsa environs and our incarnational church. You can actually get a glimpse of me and some of our work, our kenotic Christianity, in a recent TV news piece on us. You can get to it at www.kotv.com and going to their website exclusive stories, called Bedlam Clinic in Turley. Or here at http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=7874529. And click to read more. Oh and you can leave comments on the local news site about the story too. I hope it airs on the regular news soon, of course, since so many of our folks don't have computers, hence the center itself.

So we now have the Univ. of Oklahoma health clinic here at our place twice weekly (the response has been overwhelming, so much that they now have to book patients by appointment only and can no longer handle walk-ins; this might change after the rush of the beginning). This shows the severity of the health discrepancy between our zip code area and other places in Tulsa. The OU report showed that our area has a 14 year average life expectancy less than the wealthiest zip code area which is just some eight miles away.

But the deeper issues persist. The reasons why there is such a discrepancy in the first place need to be addressed even as we are trying to attack the tip of the iceberg. Getting access to health care is a moral issue, and it is being talked about in that way, but few if any are talking or reporting about why the problems exist in the first place, which is also a moral issue. And how the answer ultimately is a radical call for people and communities to change and upend their normal value system, to invest their homes, their lives, their money, their organizations in this area, not as service providers ultimately, but to do so as if their future and life depended on it, to see this area as one of beauty, of promise, of having great people that can change their lives. We are one of the best kept secrets, an opportunity for people to re-shape their lives, to live sustainably, and to have a huge difference in life just by being here as what I call "culture agents."

So, this Sunday at our gathering between 4:30 and 7 p.m. we will focus on "Gardens, God, and Food" and some of these deeper issues and ways to respond to them in order to create healthier lives in our community. While we still have no grocery stores within at least an eight mile or more circle that carry options of healthy food, and while transportation for most people to get to these stores is still difficult, and while there continue to be no pizza delivery in much of north Tulsa's urban area, and while cigarettes and alcohol and casinos continue to be available and growing, we don't have to wait for others to make the kind of moral investments that are needed. We have proven that a small group can make big differences, and we can continue this by looking at community gardens, farmers markets, food co-ops, healthy living workshops and lectures, and sharing resources, services, goods, and working beyond ourselves for social justice for others in all those other "abandoned places of Empire." (Speaking of Empire, I will be showing and studying a new DVD class called Eclipsing Empire, a look at how Jesus and Paul challenged Rome, and how we can challenge America today. I would love to hear from any who would be interested; we can do it weekly, in a weekend workshop format, monthly, you name it. Just let me know).

We also know that while we have changed the face of our area already, and while we are doing it because this is where and how and with whom we experience God's loving presence and can follow freely in the spirit of Jesus, part of our community ministry is nevertheless spiritual, a ministry. We know we need to cultivate the spiritual center in our own lives and in our community in order to more fully be present to and with others as we have been and will be doing. Burnout is the dead-end of where our dominant culture seeks to send us all. Both God's means and ends are the opposite, are life-affirming. So we also need to go forward from this point more intentionally seeking centering prayer, quiet meals, thoughtful study of scripture, sharing moments of awe and wonder in our lives.

This Sunday morning and for several Sunday mornings to come at 11:30 a.m. I will be teaching a bible study at All Souls, 2952 S. Peoria Ave. in Room 207. You can worship there at 10 also, or at another church, and still come to the bible study I'll be leading on the Apostle Paul's witness about God and Jesus, and what it speaks to our time and place.

Let's share ways to go deeper spiritually, personally and as a community, and with other communities, even as we share ways we can continue making A Third Place a better place.

Keep in your prayers Jolene and her family as they grieve the death of her sister-in-law Beverly earlier this week. Keep in your prayers Keith as he is in St. John's, and let's plan to visit with him soon and often as it looks as if he will be there for some time. Keep in your prayers all those who have come to the Center this week especially in search of care at the clinic. And keep us and our mission in your prayers, our many needs, and above all our gratitude for this opportunity to serve and to meet so many we may never have otherwise met, the people of all ages who are beginning to make a place in their lives for others here through A Third Place we call church.

Oh, yes, and pray for our next event as week try to get business owners and employees to come together in our area, and for the public to give thanks to them, at a Mar. 4 6 to 8 p.m. reception.

May what we do together---celebrate, serve, study, and party--fill up your life so that you may spread faith, hope and love wherever you are. We hope to see you again soon too here.
Type rest of the post here

Saturday, February 02, 2008

A Blog Recap: Hope you didn't miss these