Unified Expressions

When I was a kid, anytime I got caught in the middle of doing something I shouldn’t, I would always try to find a way to explain so as to stay out of trouble. My mom would say, “What do you think you are doing?” and I would sigh and start, “...welllll...” and then spin some crazy tale about how my actions made perfect sense, when you considered all the “facts”.

Interestingly enough, whenever people ask what it is we’re doing out here in Tennessee, the question has always been followed by a sigh, “...wellllll...” and explanations that range from planting a church, to being missionaries, to even just a simple, “it’s hard to explain.”

Don’t get me wrong, we know what we’re doing, it’s just difficult to sum up in a way that makes sense to people who haven’t been on the same journey that we’ve been on. The strange thing is that there has always been this recurring tinge of guilt like I just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I’ve felt that if I can’t explain it, what makes me think I can do it, or even that I should?

Then I realized that the problem was not that we were doing something wrong, but rather that we were onto something right. Something so right, in fact, that it could easily become a source of pride and division, and I was instinctively shying away from the inevitable difficulties that come with this sort of work that we’re being called to: the work of pursuing unity in the Body of Christ.

Everywhere I go I see people — faithful people — pursuing and doing the work of the Body, sacrificing and toiling to see the Kingdom of Heaven made a reality on earth, but there’s been a consistent thread that belies a sinister problem within that Body and within that would be Kingdom: division.

It’s not always something blatant, nor is it even intentional, but it is there nonetheless. Every time a person starts a new ministry, every time a pastor plants a new church, everywhere that believers set out into Kingdom work, there is an opportunity to sow seeds of unity or to sow seeds of division, and our current church culture has been ingrained with habits and practices and systems that perpetuate disunity on a gargantuan scale. And yet, if we’re going to pursue unity, we can’t come at it from a standpoint of pointing out what everyone is doing wrong and expect them to all submit to some new system, because that would sow even more seeds of disunity. Like trying to embarrass a shy child into coming out of their shell, it would be counterproductive and have the exact opposite effect from what we desire.

So the answer lies not in decrying the ills and failings of the current systems of churches and non-profit organizations (while it is certainly healthy to continually examine our methods and shortcomings), but rather in sowing seeds of unity within, between, and throughout those systems. These expressions of the universal Church are filled with faithful people, people whom God is blessing and using mightily for His work, and to diminish them would be to diminish the very systems that led many of us to life and faith. No, the answer lies in encouraging, fostering, and developing unified expressions that function in intimate relationships with the existing expressions of the Church.

Within the Body of Christ, there are many areas where unity is already being experienced in small and even some large ways, and these expressions should certainly be encouraged. At the same time, there are blind spots where unified expressions of the Body can be developed that fill in the gaps in ways that no other expression of the Body can. These gaps are what allow us to live in the some of most affluent and “churched” societies on earth, and yet still have people falling through the cracks in despair and brokenness.

One example of a localized, unified expression is our current development of a lay led, multi-church recovery ministry. This ministry is being organized as a ministry of the local Church, with no one church or organization at the forefront of it’s development. It is also a ministry that has submitted itself freely to the influence and leadership of existing recovery focused ministries in our area out of a heart to be faithful not to “do our own thing”, but rather to find where God is already moving in our area and sow seeds of unity with those believers who’ve already begun the work.

Likewise, we are also in the process of developing a local 24-7 prayer room where believers of all backgrounds and traditions can come for prayer. Perhaps one of the most simple things we may be able to do in sowing seeds of unity is to pray to the same God in the same place.

While these are only simple examples, we believe that it is expressions such as these that will help shape and define the future of the Church. Our heart is to be people who serve in the cracks - within, between, and throughout the current expressions of the Body - pursuing the peace of the city and unity in the Body for the glory of Christ, for His name and His renown. It is our desire that our names, the names of our ministries, and the names of our churches would diminish, so that His name would be made much of. May we decrease so that He may increase.

“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

- John 17:23

To Blog, Or Not to Blog

I'm not entirely sure how long I've had this blog page set up here, but it's been a long time. And yet, every time I've come to blog, I go through this strange mental upheaval where I agonize over what to write, why to write, and who to write for. A friend of mine recently espoused a resentment for the idea of blogging, suggesting that it is somehow presumptuous to think that people should want to read what you have to say. I think this mindset hit the nerve which had for so long been irritating my ability to begin this blog, because I have to admit: I agree.

I've read blog after blog that seem to be nothing more than ill-conceived rants, or some person on a mission to advance the rights of animals or convert the omnivore to vegan or prove that Bush has a genetic link to Satan through his father's side. What sort of pretentious boobs must we be to think that our raving is going to somehow sway people to our way of thinking, or somehow build a platform for us to grow our army of precocious blunderers to a size befitting world domination on behalf of the endangered black-spotted desert owl? (it's a made up species, so don't google it ;-)

And yet something within me pushes me to write - to log my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs and questions, my convictions and concerns; and not just for myself, but for others to read and respond to. But why? Is it because I feel that I am somehow better than the majority of bloggers and writers, better than my fellow poets and bards? I must admit, I believe it is that thought that drives many of us to write, and has tempted me so many times before. We feel that somehow we are called to write because we have something important to say, as opposed to the masses of others who are but amateurs scratching and biting to make a name for themselves in a world that they have no place in. But no, that is no reason to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, for in truth we are no better, nor do we have more to say. Ours is but a line within a scene within a much bigger play, and we cannot perceive what gravity our part may bear out.

It is, however, for this reason that we must write, that we must create, that our words and existence bear weight and meaning. While we cannot paint the grand design, the stroke of our lives is what makes the whole a masterpiece, however minuscule and minor or grandiose and bold the stroke may be. It may be pretentious, a presumption of nobility to suggest that we have something to say, but in truth we would not exist were it not for our necessity as part of the grand design.

This is not a necessity born of importance or ability, but one of nuance and complexity, for we know not what our part may be, only that it exists. What impact might our existence perpetrate on the world? What seemingly insignificant happenstance could bear eternal fruit, or what supposedly important events lie forgotten in the dust of time? We cannot know, nor should we presume to suggest that we could. It is for this reason that we share, for this purpose that we join the grand narrative of life with our brief paragraph of testimony. For to withhold what we have seen, what we have undergone, is to presume that we have no place, that ours is the role of the audience doomed to watch the play from the anonymity of the cheap seats, our role surrendered to those less inhibited by decorum or common sense. To remain silent is to presume that we have seen the whole and not the part, and to suggest that we need not partake therein.

Perhaps it seems pretentious to add our stories when there is such a great mass of stories to behold, but I say that it is more pretentious to bite our tongue when there are within us tales of grief and woe, of joys and victories that do not belong to us alone, but to all who could be blessed and encouraged and challenged by our testimony of God's goodness and provision. For in reality it is His story - a story of hurt and healing, of death and rebirth, of loss and restoration - that we find ourselves in. A story that, while we did not write it, we have a role in, and it is a role that would not exist were it not for the beauty and completeness that it brings to the narrative. So I choose to speak, to share, to join in the song of the redeemed with a harmony that is entirely my own in a desire to enjoy my place in the story and not miss out on the beauty of the intricacy of the tale we find ourselves in.