Rob Bell on Working Together

This an excerpt from an interview of Rob Bell by the Burnside Writers Collective that I really enjoyed. This portion of the interview was a bit of fresh air for me. Hope you enjoy.

BWC: Turning an eye to social politics, how do you feel about news like that of Maine’s repealing of LGBT marriage rights? Granted, everyone’s got an opinion, and I’m not asking you to answer the “Is homosexuality a sin?” question. But in general, how do you feel we should respond to this news, and that of other minority groups? How should our faiths inform our behavior?

Bell: You can simply take a side, which a lot of churches do. If you’re a leader, you say, “This is where we stand” and if you’re part of it, just go along with it. The problem with that nice, neat view of reality is that in a church like Mars Hill, we have members across the full spectrum. So we have war protestors and we have parents of soldiers currently fighting in Iraq.

There are people who say, “Well, you need to talk to the half of the church that’s wrong, and get them right.” But then that’s where your energies go. That’s all you do. Convincing all those on one side to come over to the other. The next week, though, the issue will be something different. And you spend most energy on yourself.

What we say is, “What are the things that 10 years ago, this year, and 10 years from now that we could address?” For instance, we’ve been building a micro-finance bank in Burundi for those trying to get loans. We send accountants over to see if things are sharp, filmmakers to capture it and spread the word, and show others what our money is doing…what’s actually happening. We’re also working at a local school. There are about 150 kids being mentored, and the school is asking the church, “Please send more!” The goal is to have a mentor for each child.

We pour our energies into something together. “You and you are at odds on a certain issue? Could you work on THIS together?”

We talk about being aggressively non-partisan, while acknowledging that what we’re doing will have political edges. So if we talk about the environment, for instance, it’s not because we’ve been co-opted by a particular political party. It’s because this is something pretty close to God’s heart. We talk about widows and orphans. We talk about empowering people. It’s not because we’ve been co-opted by another side. It’s because it’s helpful.

Station: Magnetic Manger

This station is designed to slow people down so that they can contemplate the meaning of Jesus’ entry into the world and then express what the Holy Spirit is revealing with magnetic poetry pieces. Click Here for Instructions

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): Music

Idea One:

I think of singing as a spiritual discipline that can be used to mine the depths of Christian history and theology. Unfortunately many churches miss this rich opportunity and wind up focusing simply on a specific style of music (i.e. only singing songs published by Passion or Integrity). Music unites disparate lives into a single body while exposing hearts and minds to bigger truths. Music can be a great reminder that God, not ourselves, is the center of all things

Idea Two:

Write your own music! Have people create lyrics or melodies that address the uniqueness of your church and its journey. Explore themes relating to your core values, create lyrics based on a scripture passage, or write a unique song to sing each week that bolsters your sense of identity such as a benediction or call to worship.

Idea Three:

Create your own music book that reflects who you are and what is important to you. If you have multiple worship leaders or teams, this will help keep some consistency in the weekly worship. In addition, the congregation can take copies home in order to sing or play favorites during the week.

The Tithe

During our first year of marriage, my wife worked for a large non-profit that dealt with issues surrounding homelessness. As she was visiting various homeless shelters that Fall, she heard a common plea from fellow staffers: winter coats. Their clients were cold and coats were in short supply. We longed to do something to help out, but the only money available to us that month was (gasp!) our tithe…

We sought advice from various ordained minister types on whether or not this was a legit use of our tithe (this was back in my litmus test Christianity days). The answer? The tithe belonged to the church, umm, I mean God and we would have to sacrifice in other ways to help the homeless. Needless to say we were disturbed by this universal lack of response to individuals who were suffering (no mission committees offered to help either).

So after seeking this advice we promptly went and filled our little Civic full of brightly colored winter coats from Steve and Barry’s and dropped them off with the staff at the shelters. It was quite a kick seeing bright yellow and red coats all over the streets of Baton Rouge that winter.

Sometimes we in the church can’t see the forest for the trees. We get so caught up in the structures, rules, and minutia of being an institution that we lose sight of who Christ calls us to be on occasion. I am certainly as guilty of this as the next person. The “what I am supposed to do” often overwhelms the “who I am supposed to be”.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): Not Singing

Idea One:

Not everyone enjoys singing. There are a wide variety of gifts represented in the congregation beyond music. Each of these gifts can be used as an act of worship during the time allotted for singing. Simple stations can be set up that allow worship through drawing, painting, journaling, guided prayers, etc.

Idea Two:

Use twitter as a means to offer live and unedited prayers and praises during the service. Hook a computer with internet access up to a projector or TV, set up a twitter account, and let the congregation express what is on their hearts as the Holy Spirit moves.

Idea Three:

Have people sign up to lead an element of the worship service. No strings (or predetermined methods) attached! Allow the volunteer to express that element of worship in any way he or she chooses. Use a volunteer coordinator to organize and touch base with the volunteers. This works when you truly allow people to lead an element of worship with no limitations placed on their creativity. The liturgical piece should be re-imagined and executed in any manner the volunteer chooses (are you catching the emphasis yet?). It is the ultimate in community participation and requires radical trust on the part of the staff who are used to planning and being in control the service. Occasionally things will bomb, but over time people will begin to discover their giftedness.

Free Images

I got a few emails asking for a good place to get free/low cost (and legal) images to use in worship. I get my free stuff from Stock Exchange and my cheap stuff from istockphoto. Istockphoto has a little bit higher quality images than Stock Exchange, but with some patience I can usually find what I need on Stock Exchange (for free). The key to Stock Exchange is sorting your search by the highest number of downloads or the highest number of comments. This brings the cream of the crop to the top of your search.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): The Sermon

Idea One:

Do sermon preparation as a group and not as an individual locked in an office. You might have a small bible study on the assigned passage prior to the sermon being written in order to allow the Spirit to reveal issues from within the body.

Idea Two:

When a preacher asks questions of the congregation during a sermon, the questions often become rhetorical in the silence that follows. Instead, use seeded interviews to start a conversation. Prepare one or two people with the intended question in advance of the service. Call on them to speak first. This breaks the silence and gives everyone else time to contemplate the question before answering.

Idea Three:

Expand the use of narrative especially in the sermon (or in place of a traditionally structured sermon). Abduct people’s imaginations so that they see their story within the context of the narrative being shared. People more readily walk away from a sermon with a story that is internalized as opposed to three easily forgotten bullet points.

Jesus Creed

I intentionally took a several year hiatus from reading books on the topic of church while I was in school. With graduation finally under my belt, I decided it was time to break my fast and begin exploring what I have missed.

I ran across a book by Scot McKnight entitled Jesus Creed which I greatly enjoyed. It was quite a refreshing look at being a follower of Christ and I recommend it. In the process of reading the book, I discovered that McKnight writes a blog on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century. It covers quite a diversity of topics and I mention here because it might be something that you would also enjoy. Plus, I realized that he is a professor at my future school and it never hurts to do a little ground work.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): Quiet Practices

Idea One:

Occasionally incorporate silences, listening, and centering into the service. Explore a different rhythm to life and worship. A byproduct is that you will equip the congregation with several spiritual disciplines they can practice at home.

Idea Two:

My personal favorite is using Lectio Divina in the place of a sermon. Lectio Divina is an ancient Christian practice which is a slow, contemplative reading, praying, and listening to scripture. Lectio Divina can be practiced individually or corporately. If you are unfamiliar with the practice, Google and Amazon have plenty to say on the topic. In a worship setting the Holy Spirit does the teaching (instead of a preacher) through praying the scripture, listening in silence, and then small group discussion. This reinforces the ideas of stillness and silence while also allowing folks to interact in the pews.

Idea Three:

Do a visual Lectio Divina by using a painting or photograph on the main video screen. In today’s visual culture, this can be surprisingly powerful. It is one thing to read about Isaac as a sacrifice, it is quite another to see the Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio and interact with it.

Simple Suggestions (for churches with pews): The Video Screen

I’ve decided to offer a short series entitled Simple Suggestions. Simple Suggestions are worship related ideas aimed at the pew-bound that have the goal of broadening participation in worship by creating more trip points into God’s presence.

Idea One:

Take advantage of your video screen and use it for visual metaphors pertaining to the week’s main sermon/scripture idea. Use a series of images under the song and sermon slides that reinforce the main push of the day’s theme/message. For example: show a series of images that move from darkness to light as the service progresses or black and white pictures that transition into color, or crosses that become empty.

Idea Two:

With the proliferation of digital cameras and flip camcorders, allow the congregation to participate in creating these visual metaphors. Publish a list of future sermon topics and scripture passages. Have families or individuals come up with a series of images to help illustrate their interpretation of the scripture passage and theme. The same can be done with art instead of photographs.

Idea Three:

Magazines like Time or Newsweek use small sidebar articles within the context of a larger main article. These smaller, related articles are usually what I read first and they enhance what I get out of the main article. The video screen can be used in the same way. Instead of putting up an outline of what the preacher is saying during a sermon, why not put up quotes, scripture passages, prayers, images, etc. that reinforce the main idea of the sermon, but say it in different words.

Pray Without Ceasing

I have recently discovered the daily office or more accurately, I have finally started practicing the daily office after years of mild curiosity. I am hooked. I love this spiritual discipline and am sad I waited so long to start.

Simply explained the daily office (also called fixed hour prayer or the liturgy of the hours) is a set of beautiful prayers prayed at specific times throughout the day. For the hardcore, you can do this seven times a day. I like doing it three times a day.

Fixed hour prayer is the oldest spiritual discipline in the church stretching back to ancient Judaism. This type of prayer was regularly practiced in the early church, the medieval church, and even through the Reformation years. Fixed hour prayer fell out of use in American Protestantism, but is alive and well in Orthodox, Anglican, and Catholic traditions.

I use s series of books called The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle instead of an actual denominational prayer book. Tickle prints everything you need for three sets of prayers each day. A Prayer book comes with a steep learning curve and requires endless flipping back and forth to find the assigned prayers and readings.

Are these long winded time killing affairs? No. In a rush I can pray an office in 5 or 6 minutes. Taking time to contemplate and drink more deeply from these prayers takes longer of course. I was surprised to find that when I miss a day, I become miserable and long for those moments spent in beautiful prayer.

I Feel Like Esau

I have been unhappy with my last post for it does not express well what I am trying to communicate about exploring my future. I led worship this morning at Belle Meade United Methodist and Mike, the pastor, preached on Jacob and Esau and helped me realize a better way of communicating what I am feeling.

Jacob and Esau are twins at odds with each other. Jacob first tricks Esau, the older of the two, out of his birthright and then, by way of outright deception, tricks their dad into giving Jacob his blessing which rightfully belonged to Esau. This blessing was from God and was supposed to be passed on to the eldest son. As you can imagine, Esau was in anguish over learning what had been stolen from him. He cried out to his father asking if there was even one blessing left for him. His father answered no, that Jacob had received everything.

I realize that over the years in my struggles with the church, I often feel more like Esau than Jacob. I also know well that there are huge people groups out there whose encounter with the church has left them living more deeply in Esau’s story rather than in Jacob’s story of blessing. That’s who consumes my heart these days and where I want to serve next; with those who have experienced this lesser truth of a God who withholds his love and blessing from his children.

Our time in Nashville introduced us firsthand to the struggles and deep frustrations within the GLBT community concerning their relationship with the church. Many of our friends have been told repeatedly that they are somehow lesser beings in God’s eyes and are undeserving of His love and grace. This is a lie for God takes great pleasure and delight in all of his children.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan brings a broken and bleeding Jewish man to an innkeeper and charges him with doing whatever is necessary to bring the Jewish man back to health and wholeness. The church often interprets the Samaritan as being Jesus which means that we in the church are the innkeepers, charged by Christ to restore all who are broken and bleeding to wholeness with God and each other.

Our story, all of our stories, is one of God taking great delight in each of us. I want to help people discover or rediscover this delight.

Done!

I am now officially a college graduate! After 24 years, 189 hours, and three different schools, I finally hold a bachelor's degree...in liberal studies no less! I am not sure whether to laugh or cry over that last sentence.

These last few years in Nashville have been brutal to say the least. Lindsey earned her Masters of Divinity at Vanderbilt while I worked full time at Home Depot and went to school full time at Belmont (this is not recommended for the faint of heart). We are still feeling a bit dazed and worn out from the journey. Even so, we felt the hand of grace upon our lives and marriage while having amazing adventures and making new friends.

These new friends and adventures were the unanticipated part of the Nashville journey. They stretched me and reshaped my world view in some major ways. I spent the last 15 years working full time in churches. The church work universe is a bizarre other-world removed slightly from the reality "normal" lives. I knew this intellectually, but experiencing life outside the walls of the church was mind blowing.

And while I made many amazing new discoveries, the one that has transformed me the most is the level of suffering I encountered. More specifically, the level of suffering people had experienced at the hands of the church (note the lower case "c"). Whether the suffering was a simple slight, overly exaggerated, merely perceived, or an outright heartbreaking injustice is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that I keep meeting children of God who hurt deeply and feel alienated from God's life giving grace.

This hurt has transformed the way I think of my future now that school is done. As Lindsey and I wait for the next steps of our journey to unfold, I at least know I that want to reach out and address the pain I have discovered. I want create trip points through worship and the arts for people to literally fall into God's love and healing.