Conversations of Faith at Common Ground

From a ministry colleague, Rodney Woo, in TX — a PBS special on interracial churches.  (paste this in your browser if the link doesn’t work — http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/december-19-2008/interracial-churches/1734/ )  It’s a joy and it’s hard — it’s a work of Christ.

Pastor Rodney was a plenary speaker at the Mosaix Conference in Portland.  I’m heading up the follow-up to the conference and getting folks who are interested in multiracial/multiethnic ministry in the metro area (Portland, Vancouver, Gresham, Beaverton, Hillsboro) networked.

Interested?  Let me know via the comments or our church web site.

when it snows, Portland can shut down pretty quickly.  as odd as it sounds, i think it’s pretty nice.  snow days at school, highways and streets with restricted access, and ice that turns the freeways into a slalom course — they all impose a “forced” rest on the metro area.  since we can’t do much we soon discover what we really have to do and what we really need.

when the area experiences heavy snow, the other thing that happens is that everyone wonders what’s going to happen the next day.  because the weather is unpredictable planning becomes difficult.

case in point, this past week the elders were trying to figure out whether or not we’d have church on Sunday.  at the beginning of the week, we thought the weather would be fine.  toward the middle we were unsure because predictions of bad weather hadn’t come to pass.  however, we waited until today to decide what we’d do for tomorrow.

what does this demonstrate? it is useless for us to stress out about an indeterminate future, even if it was just a couple of days out.  we could only take each day as it came — planning was limited to what we could see and experience.

i’m wondering if this is a picture of what our relationship with God is suppose to look like.

God invites us to live in the present and rely on Him for our day-to-day needs.  yet, it seems to be our (okay, MY) nature to try to plan ahead — i plan and worry about an unrealized future, which is an imagined view of a possible reality (or “unreality”).  just about the only time i slow down is when things are out of my control.

snow days like these force us to live in the moment because whatever happens tomorrow is anyone’s guess.

of course, telecommuting messes up a slow down but that’s another story…

Telling others what they can or should do is a lot easier than me changing myself to make a difference.  As I bear witness to the birth of Jesus (God entering Creation as a man) what do I do that demonstrates this reality?

Recently, I heard about one approach to bearing witness for Christianity.  A national ministry is calling on Christians to petition retailers to bring “Christmas” back into the market place.  The idea is that Christians, as consumers with persuasive spending power, can “force” retailers to put “Christmas” (the word) in their promotional material by flexing their financial muscle.  From this ministry’s perspective, to not mention the word “Christmas” secularizes (making the sacred worldly or non-religious) Christmas — encourages holiday shopping without mentioning Christmas.

I can’t help but wonder if this mentality produces the opposite.  By linking holiday shopping with Christmas, Christmas becomes secularized by reducing it to a market place transaction.  (Maybe it’s the consumerism that has led to the secularization.)

Retailers, as business entities, have no compelling reason to celebrate Christmas apart from a profit motive.  On the other hand, as a Christian, I have no excuse for making Christmas mundane when I exchange small talk with neighbors and friends (“Any plans for Christmas?”  “Oh, just getting together with family, eating a big meal and opening presents.”)  My wife can tell you that I’ve gotten upset over being on time to a Christmas party or having a meal turn out just right and looked right past gratitude for the birth of Jesus.

Obviously, I’ve got enough problems dealing with my own issues rather than trying to police someone else.  Although, it is a lot easier and more fun to ignore my failings and point out yours.

Instead of going to stores to buy gifts this year, I’m evaluating why I buy them, making presents, and slowing down to be with people (a gift of time and attention).  I want to be a ‘producer’ rather than a consumer this year.

I came across a relevant article about giving by Christians  in short, the author reports that Christians can be as miserly as non-Christians.  What seems tragic is how it can be theologically justified.

By way of observation, he writes,

“One congregant put it this way: ‘God requires it, but … he also tells us that he doesn’t want us to give if we don’t want to.’  The proof text for this attitude is : ‘Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.’

The application, however, suggests that God prefers consumerism to generosity.  If buying the bigger home or the larger car makes it more difficult to give cheerfully, we will cut back on the giving until it’s cheerful.

Yikes!

As a church, we’ve taken on the challenge of the Advent Conspiracy, but what does that mean for me and my family?  Jeannie (my wife) astutely asked, “why am i doing it?” and had deeper questions for me.

Sure it is easy to stop buying presents especially in this economy.  Yes, I can redirect what I would have spent and use it to further God’s Kingdom.  But, what about the gifts we’ll receive?  What if we asked folks to donate what they’d spend on us to the things we are supporting?  How will this change my attitude about $ and spending through the year?

Which Ebenezer Scrooge am I?  The one prior to the Jacob Marley visit or the one whose seen the Ghosts of Christmas?

Owning a Playstation2 might be a lot more expensive than anyone could have imagined.  As one member of the British Parliament put it, “Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to dies to that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms.”  OUCH!

Apparently, a key component in the Playstation is a rare metallic ore called coltan.  When refined, coltan becomes tantalum, a metal used in cell phones, laptops and, apparently, video game consoles.  Because of the demand (low supply, high demand = $$$), militant groups were mining this rare ore to fund their operations.

I’m sure, no one at Sony could have imagined this was happening and would want to be behind such a problem.  But it raises a relevant question for us — how often does what I do have unintended consequences?  As a church, can we do ministry in such a way that we fail to see the impact of unintended consquences?

For example, if the men’s group sets up an outreach activity like golf, who will show up?  It has the potential of only connecting with guys from a certain economic background.  As our church looks for a new place to meet, are we accessible to those who take mass transit?  Further, what type of housing is around our future meeting place and who lives there?  If our value is to reach people of different races and socioeconomic class, are they really in our chosen vicinity?

Who would have thought ministry would involve thinking through the impact what we say and do?