A Church for Starving Artists

HH and I live in a neighborhood within walking distance of four coffeeshops, three breweries, and about fifteen restaurants. We have a lot of choices about where we will spend our time and money.

We like the brewery closest to our home, not just because it’s convenient, but also because they have a culture of hospitality and especially a culture of service to the community that makes us want to be with them.  The photos above were taken in one of their clean and modern bathrooms.  Note the accomodations to parents.  Note the organizations they partner with for the good of the community.

We also live within walking distance of nine houses of worship.  Although my ministry involves working with 93 Presbyterian congregations – including three within walking distance to my home – I often ponder, “What church would I join, if I could join just one?“

I would connect with a church that has a strong culture of hospitality and an especially strong culture of service to the community.

Even and especially in this season of social distancing and face masks, we can offer hospitality and outreach into the neighborhood.  Congregations who continue to offer those things are thriving during this pandemic.

As followers of Jesus, we have the added opportunity to partner with people in faith.  What does that look like during a pandemic?

• Include both prayer and relational time in Zoom meetings. Open each Bible Study, Book Study, or meeting with a relational question: Share what you know about your own baptism. Who has had the greatest impact on your spiritual life besides Jesus? Share the first time you remember observing racism.  Make the question fit your context. Yes, this will make the meeting Zoom run longer but it might be the most important part of the meeting.  And pray specifically for people by name. 
• Call those going through both good and not-so-good things and pray with them on the phone.  (Your pastors can teach you how to do this if you don’t know how/feel too nervous to pray out loud.)
• Invite people to participate in activities that serve others during this pandemic.  Write letters to strangers in retirement communities or nursing homes. (Look up the ones closest to you and find out where to send the letters for distribution.)  Start a drive to share stimulus checks (if you do not need the check for your own day to day needs) with a local food pantry or shelter.  Collect gift cards so that each family in the hotel for evicted families gets at least one.  

How sad is it when a brewery builds a better sense of community than many of our churches?  It can be really fun to change this.

Images from Pilot Brewing in Charlotte, NC

Hey Church: It feels like a good time to make plans for 2021 if we haven’t done it yet. The attacks at the Capitol and the changes in national leadership delayed looking past mid-January, but now’s the time to assess where we are and where we are going this year.

I hope we are moving forward. I hope we are creating new paths for ministry not inspite of the pandemic but because of the pandemic.

Do we need to open a door and let the light shine into our meetings and mission plans?  Over the past several months as COVID-19 has weighed us down, I’ve heard these comments from Church People I love:

• We can’t use our unused property to build a shelter.  I’ve always imagined kids playing soccer on that field. (NOTE: The church building has been there for over 50 years and there has never been a soccer game – or any game – played on that lot.)
• We can’t use our Education Wing for transitional housing.  What if we get an influx of children who need Sunday School space? (NOTE: There are five children in the congregation and they are thriving without traditional Sunday School.)
• We can’t close our church.  Sure, we have only eight people participating, but once the pandemic is over everyone will come back!  (NOTE: There were only twelve participants pre-COVID and so “everyone” will not give us the capacity to thrive without some death and resurrection.)
• We are hoping to call a pastor who will bring us back to our glory years after this pandemic is finally over.  (NOTE: The glory years are long gone.  They are never coming back in the way we remember them. The right pastor can lead your congregation towards looking more like the Reign of God, but you have to want that.)

At 9:21 last night, we lived through the 21st minute of the 21st hour of the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century.  It’s time to get moving into the next days and years and centuries.  Or we can stop here and close our church buildings.

It’s easy to say, “Yes, we want to move forward” with our lips but we don’t really want it in our deepest souls.  I’m praying every day that our faithful Church People ask God to make us crave this desire to move forward with more than our words.

Image source and the article is pretty good too.

I drove a car much of Inauguration Day so, although I listened to the ceremonies, I didn’t see the faces, the jewel-toned suits, the wind blowing through everyone’s hair.

Not everyone voted for the new President and Vice President. Some who voted for them might not have considered them their first choice. Some were very excited today.

I’m home now, and as I watch some of the coverage of the day, I realize that I find comfort in quieter voices and healing words. I’m grateful for friends with whom I can share my hopes and my dreams of what A More Perfect Union looks like. It looks like Republicans and Democrats sitting together. It looks like the excellence of Amanda Gorman. It looks like a Latina Justice swearing in a Baptist Woman of Color with a Jewish husband.

This looks like The Reign of God to me. It’s less about politics and more about my faith in a God who has put on human skin and crossed boundaries to include those who hadn’t been included before.

Exhausted tonight and grateful to be an American. 🇺🇸

Flags are placed on the National Mall, looking towards the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial, ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Monday, Jan. 18, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

After walking around in our socially distanced world for many months, our Presbytery was led in prayer yesterday in three parts by three leaders for those impacted by the COVID-19 virus, for our divided nation, and for the new President and Vice-President.  That last part was mine.  Here is part of that prayer:

Just as we ask for peace for the outgoing President and Vice-President, we ask that you protect President-elect Biden and Vice-President-elect Harris.

• Protect their bodies from physical danger.
• Protect their vision from serving their party to serving their country.
• Protect their minds from cynicism and their souls from hopelessness.

Grant them that deep peace that passes all understand when they are carrying the heaviest of burdens and the most difficult of duties.

• Grant them wisdom and honesty.
• Grant them a circle of people who will tell them the truth.
•  Grant them – we dare to pray as Presbyterian Christians – energy, intelligence, imagination and love.

We have been praying for our nation for many months and we continue today. God have mercy upon us.

I agree with my colleagues who say that this pandemic has jolted us five years into the future. In early 2019, small struggling congregations still had time to discern missional ministry shifts to keep them going beyond their historical purpose. In early 2019, healthy dinosaurs had time to figure out what was keeping people away and what was welcoming new believers into the fold.

COVID-19 changed all this. Suddenly with the requirement that worship happen online and The Work of the Church involved serving our local neighbors who lost their jobs, homes, and basic lifestyle (hello homeschooling) it became clear that the institutional Church has been forced to make decisions before they expected.

• Congregations on the cusp of closing made that decision earlier than expected since they didn’t have the capacity to thrive on YouTube.
• Congregations wringing their hands over the decision to build affordable housing realized that This Was The Time to provide for those in need.
• Congregations debating the whole “let’s do things the way we’ve always done it” versus “let’s take the leap to be God’s hands and feet in our community” were forced to resolve the debate sooner than they expected.

As I’ve written before, congregations who were thriving before the pandemic continued to thrive after the pandemic and congregations who were struggling before the pandemic were practically dying after the pandemic started.

Time travel.  We have projected into the future at least five years.

I share this comment with all love and respect:

This is the time to consider (now) what God is calling us to do and be.

Some tell me that “this is not the time” to invest church endowment money into affordable housing.  This is exactly the time to invest in affordable housing.

Some tell me that “this is not the time” to start new mission ventures.  Actually this is precisely the time to start new mission ventures.

Time travel helps us to realize what we should have done and what we could still do with the benefit of a cosmic opportunity.  Let’s not waste this opportunity of having a pandemic and being forced to quarantine and make some pivots.

God is good.  God has offered us this opportunity to do a new thing.  Let’s do that.

Image source.

 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  Jesus in Matthew 5:43-44

I was in seminary when a would-be assassin severely wounded President Reagan. One of my classmates – a second-career student with a young child – was not a fan of Reagan, but she was staggered by a conversation with her daughter that night. At the dinner table, the daughter said with all seriousness, “Mommy, we’re glad that Reagan got shot, right?“

My friend dropped her fork and said, “Oh honey, no. We don’t agree with him, but we never want him to be hurt.” My friend was mortified and it was a good reminder for her to be clear in teaching her child that even when we disagree with people, we don’t wish them harm.

I fear that this sensibility has changed especially in the 21st Century Church.

From David Brooks’ opinion piece in The New York Times yesterday:

“Over the last 72 hours, I have received multiple death threats and thousands upon thousands of emails from Christians saying the nastiest and most vulgar things I have ever heard toward my family and ministry. I have been labeled a coward, sellout, a traitor to the Holy Spirit, and cussed out at least 500 times.”

This was written on social media by Charlotte Pastor Jeremiah Johnson after he shared this letter with his congregation in which he criticized the President.  Among other things, Pastor Johnson wrote that there is “potential great danger and trouble ahead for America if he is re-elected.”  It clearly didn’t go well with his followers.

Jeremiah Johnson got death threats. Death. Threats.

It’s not enough to disagree politically with someone these days.  Now Christians are threatening other Christians with death threats.  Or better stated, some Christians who do not consider others to be Christian enough are threatening each other.

Our nation is consumed with this kind of enmity.  Not only are we not praying for our enemies.  Some of us are threatening to kill them.

Political speeches past: “The President was my opponent and not my enemy.” Bob Dole (1996)

Political speeches present: “He’s going to do things you wouldn’t think are even possible because he’s following the radical left agenda.  Take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment. No religion.  No anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God.  He’s against guns.  He’s against energy, our kind of energy.” Donald Trump (2020)

So, here’s my question, Christians:

• What are we doing to give our children and our neighbors the idea that physically hurting people with whom we disagree politically, theologically, culturally is okay?  Do we casually blurt out things like, “Nancy Pelosi should be strung up” or “Somebody should punch Ivanka Trump in the face.“?  If you feel that way, try the decaf.  If you say such things, watch your tongue.
• What are we doing to curb the meanness in the world?  Do we laugh off friends and family who make violent statements?  Do we claim to have “no enemies” but we make it clear that we “hate” everyone on the other side of the political divide?

We are supposed to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.  We are called to pray for our enemies and those who persecute us.  This never means that Jesus wants us to wield a weapon while wearing a John 3:16 shirt.

It’s up to us to speak the truth in love. 

Nothing looked like love on January 6th, 2021 in Our Nation’s Capitol but it’s not enough to point fingers and be shocked.  We need to clean up our own acts and our own words.  We need to open our Bibles and get on our knees.

Happy Friday.

Image source.

Ordinarily I write an end-of-the-year post about my discoveries in the previous year. Sometimes my “discoveries” reveal that I am a late bloomer or a late-to-the-party girl. The end of the year felt heavy a couple weeks ago but I’m ready to share some resources that will change your life.  It’s important to nourish our souls while grappling with the serious issues of our world. Here you go:

• Bernadette Joy Maulion became one of my new favorite people last year for so many reasons. She is the Brene Brown of personal finance with a goal to help women (and specifically women of color) build wealth.  Coming from a lifetime of little to zero financial savvy myself, Bernadette has made it fun to become financially stable and secure.  She teaches online classes here and you can join her Debt Crushers group here.  And you can hear part of her story here.  
• Jimmy Greene is a professional saxaphonist who is also known for other things.  I love his online presence.  I love his #HymnOnSunday each week. His words and music soothe the soul and not in a Hallmark card way.  He is married to Nelba Marquez-Greene who is a national treasure.  He is the father of Ana Grace and Isaiah.
• Nelba Marquez-Greene is one of the best human beings on the earth. She has deep faith in God and also sometimes wants to break things.  In other words, she is an authentic follower of Jesus. See above.
• Edgar Villenueva (the author not the Peruvian politician) wrote one of the best books I read last year: Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance. His N.C. roots caught my attention and his clear explanation of colonialism and its impact on philanthropy kept me engaged.  I literally see everything through a different lens because of this book.

If you have any life-changing resources you’d like to share, I invite you to do so in the comments or in a link to your own blog.  We need to be spiritually nourished in these days and I love it when a seemingly secular subject (e.g. finance, music, philanthropy) is reframed as a theological practice.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Image is an original painting by Ana Grace Marquez-Greene.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”  Thomas Jefferson (1776)

“And when I meet Thomas Jefferson I’mma compel him to include women in the sequel” Angelica Schuyler via Lin Manuel Miranda (2009)

We all know that when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence that by “all men” he was not including enslaved men, immigrant men, or any women.  Some men were not considered fully human.  Men identified as “white” were considered intellectually superior.  Women were still considered the property of their fathers and then their husbands.

And so for hundreds of years, we have said “All men are created equal” but we didn’t mean it literally. It was more aspirational than true.

The evidence is overwhelming that we did not truly consider all men and all women to be created equal: Jim Crow Laws, Racial Segregation, Red Lining, Inequities in Education & Medical Treatment & Law Enforcement & Voting Rights & Prison Sentencing & Financial Opportunities & Banking Laws & Bodily Self-Determination & Marriage Rights & . . . I could go on and on and on.

As I’ve written before, I’m a fan of straight white men.  And it’s true that white men have held almost all of the power in business, sports, politics, entertainment, publishing, religion, medicine, and education throughout our nation’s history.

But here’s the blessing some of us are embracing: Every one of those entities is improved when a diversity of people are included in how they operate.  We are better when we include a full range of experiences, perspectives and voices in leadership.

You can look it up everywhere: Forbes. Harvard Business Review.  The United States Office of Personnel Management. The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church USA. (page 36)  Obviously, this is not a complete list of resources, but please do your own homework.

If the point is to be as effective and impactful as possible – whether our goal is to make more money or expand the reign of God or – don’t we want this?

Diversity is not a gimmick.  This opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal felt cynical and shortsighted.  Yes, there are many “firsts” on the incoming President’s cabinet but this is not a gimmick; it’s what we do in an increasingly multicultural nation in order to govern well.

What makes our country great?  I believe we are best when we include people whose perspectives are not the same as our own.

And when people do not feel heard, they lash out whether they are White Men who feel they are losing power or Black People who feel they never had equal power.

Sharing power is not easy.  But it makes a country great.

We are increasingly not merely a democracy but a multicultural democracy.  Thanks be to God because – if we let it happen – it will make us a greater nation.

Image is from the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

After a disturbing event in a church I was serving a while back, the elders were discussing how to respond. One elder – a distinguished older man – said this:

Let’s just pretend like it didn’t happen.

Some people naturally avoid conflict and some use conflict as a tool for relational growth. I am curious about the people whose ordinarily active social media accounts have been silent about what happened on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon.

Congregations would be healthier, families would be healthier, and work places would be healthier if we addressed conflict directly.  Directly addressing conflict doesn’t mean we duke it out until one side is left standing.  It means connecting to understand each other. 

Yes, it will be uncomfortable and most of us like comfortable.

I’ve tried to reach out to people I love who voted for Trump in hopes of understanding where they are coming from. I want to understand what I see as a gaping disconnect between what they say they believe as People of Faith and/or People Who Love Their Country and what the current administration is about.  Most are not interested in grappling together and I chalk that up to conflict avoidance.  But it’s more complicated than that.

Part of Christian spirituality involves engaging in practices that move us closer to being the people God created us to be.  This is why we confess our sins and try to change our ways.  This is why we ask neighbors to forgive us so that relationships can be repaired.  This is why we study scripture to understand what God is calling us to do.  This is why we meet in spiritual groups to challenge each other and admonish each other.

When we refuse to grapple with conflict, we are missing the opportunity to understand ourselves and each other better.  Read the stories of Jesus through the lens of identifying conflict and we quickly see that Jesus always – always – stepped into it rather than walk away.

• He could have ignored the Woman at the Well rather than engage in a conversation with her.
• He could have walked past Zaccheus sitting up in the sycamore tree to avoid connecting with a tax collector and all the subsequent fallout he’d bring upon himself.
• He could have avoided lepers, bleeding people, and mentally anguished people in order to avoid the criticism of the Pharisees.

But he didn’t.  

It occurs to me that much of our conflict avoidance is also about our privilege.  

Me: I feel sick inside watching the Confederate flag being paraded in the halls of Congress.

Conflict Avoider: We don’t know all the details.

Me: Do you care that my (brown) daughter-in-law is having to carry her passport to work to avoid being pulled aside by someone who accuses her of being “an illegal”? 

CA: (no comment)

Me: What can we do about the fact that police officers are more brutal to peaceful BLM protesters than they were to MAGA protesters wielding flag poles and breaking windows in Statuary Hall?

CA: I’d rather think about “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable.”  Let’s think positively!

If we forget what we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears and not address what made that happen on Wednesday, I believe we are displeasing the God who came to earth to show us a different way.  Jesus addressed hypocrisy and injustice every day.  And I believe he expects this of us too. 

To ignore the suffering and inequities we see makes us just like the priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan (when we tell ourselves we’re the Good Samaritan.)

If we already have amnesia or if we simply want to pretend like something ugly or uncomfortable never happened on Wednesday in Washington, DC, I believe we are enraging God who literally died to show us how to serve the least of these.

“Don’t be an agitator,” someone told me recently.  And the Holy Spirit helped me blurt, “But Jesus was an agitator.“

Those of us who are privileged and can pretend that white supremacy, abject poverty, rampant homelessness, and financial injustice aren’t real because they don’t impact us personally might call it conflict avoidance.  (It’s not impacting  me personally, so I’ll just put it out of our minds and go play golf.)  But it’s also an affront to the God who created us to be in relationship with each other and especially with the vulnerable.

Please don’t quickly “move on” from what happened Wednesday.  Yes, I put a pleasant photo on Instagram Wednesday night myself because I need restorative beauty too.  And we need restorative beauty in order to have the energy to address the world’s conflict and the interpersonal conflicts around us.

What I know is that Jesus never said, “Let’s pretend that didn’t happen.“

Image source.

Some of us will say there is no good time to swear. It breaks the 4th Commandment (“Thou shall not take the LORD’s name in vain.”) It shows a lack of vocabulary. It’s lazy. I’ve heard all these comments.

It bothers me when people speak in a way that every other word is an F bomb. This seems to diminish the power of that word.

And I can’t take it when people actually do take God’s name in vain. When I hear “G-D (anything) I literally feel pain. My dad used to swear by spelling D-A-M-N long after his kids could spell but he never added the G– before it.

Last evening I was asked to write a prayer for the night of Epiphany on a day when a mob desecrated The People’s House, when thugs broke into the offices of members of Congress and staffers hid in closets and under desks. My prayer was called a “Prayer for Epiphany when there’s a ****show in our Nation’s Capitol.” I was asked if that title was okay and I said it was. I’m sorry if it offends you.

Sometimes there are no words that have the same impact as a colorful scatalogical word. We Christians are often shocked when pastors and other people of faith dare to express themselves with such words. I for one believe that sometimes they are the only words that capture the depth of what’s happening.

What happened in our nation’s Capitol yesterday was devastating. Arlington, VA was my home for over twenty years. My home. My children’s home. What I saw yesterday happened less than 10 miles from our former house and it was horrifying. It was swear-worthy.

And . . .

. . . and, we live in a nation that can do better. We are called to do better, to be better. Our nation was founded on noble principles but we have fallen short of those noble principles and we continue to fall short every time white men are allowed to storm a federal building and be asked to disperse peacefully while we all know that if that mob had been black or brown men, they would have been shot. We know this.

It makes me want to swear.