Review: Near Christianity

By Michelle Van Loon www.MichelleVanLoon.com and www.ThePerennialGen.com

Historically, Evangelicals have been those who’ve planted their flag well within carefully-defined spiritual boundaries. People are either “in” or “out”, based on their stated relationship with Jesus. On the inside of that boundary line, there are dozens of other fissure lines based on denomination, worship style, and doctrinal difference. Boundary-crossing words like “interfaith” and “ecumenical” are usually viewed by those in the Evangelical world with great suspicion, as they seem to speak of human-engineered truces and kum-bay-ah emotions. And most Evangelicals I know believe the prayer for unity Jesus prayed for his followers hours before his arrest is something that will be realized at some misty date in the future, but not today. As a result of all this, we have been trained to stay far, far away from boundaries.

Anthony Le Donne, Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary, has not only devoted himself to exploring the spiritual boundary that exists between Evangelical faith and Judaism, but finding new life there. His new book, Near Christianity: How Journeys along Jewish-Christian Borders Saved My Faith in God (Zondervan, 2018) is not a book about apologetics or Jewish evangelism. Instead, it offers a compelling description of how Professor Le Donne has become a student of various streams of contemporary Judaism, and how his own Christian faith has deepened as a result.

He opens the book with a helpful description of the differences between the way Christians and Jews understand their faith identities, noting that while Christians view themselves in terms of belief, Jews tend to name themselves in terms of heritage and blood line:

Many Jews do not attend synagogue. And many Jews who attend synagogue regularly are openly agnostic. Also, it is becoming increasingly popular for Jews to study and practice Buddhism. And whether they are secular, observant but agnostic, or Buddhist, their status as Jews is not in jeopardy. Among my Jewish conversation partners, it is not uncommon to speak of “Jewish Atheists” (Jews who deny the existence of God) or “JewBus” (Jews who practice Buddhism). There is no perceived contradiction here as there would be in the title “Christian Atheist”.

Though Le Donne doesn’t mention it, I would be remiss if I didn’t note here that this seemingly-expansive view in the Jewish community about who is a Jew almost always stops short of including people like me – Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and have committed their lives to serving him. I’ve been called a traitor enough times by my fellow Jews to know that this historically has been one boundary line guarded by an electrified fence.

Because I’ve been living on that boundary line for more than forty years and know what it is to exist in both Jewish and Evangelical worlds, I was keenly interested to see what Le Donne discovered as he mapped the border from the Christian side of the line. He tackled topics including American culture’s consumeristic approach to Christmas, genocide, how Christian theology contributed to Nazism, the deeply entrenched tendency in the Church to either demonize or fetishize the Jewish people, the link between laughter and intimacy, and the relationship between tolerance and love.

His chapter on the border between pilgrim and stranger offers a good sampling of the approach he took throughout the book. As I recently wrote a book on the topic of exile and pilgrimage, I was keenly interested in Le Donne’s approach to a subject core to Jewish identity. He shares his surprise at discovering an armed guard at a synagogue he attended with a friend, but used the experience as an opportunity to reflect on the numerical disparity between Christians (2.7 billion) and Jews (14 million) in the world. He notes, “Extinction is not a necessary concern for Christianity. We may have unhealthy denominations, but there is no danger of Christianity’s imminent demise. In contrast, Jewish extinction is a real-world concern for many Jews.” He cites reasons including Middle Eastern politics, intermarriage with non-Jews, the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish community, and evangelism, adding, “…there is little comfort in the knowledge that these borders are populated by Christians.”

Though in the Middle East, the concern about who is on those borders tends to focus on Muslims, I understood Le Donne’s point here. The chapter went on to note that many Jews in the first century were awaiting a return to the full blessing of being in the Land, living the commands of Torah under the rule of a Davidic king. He notes that after the Resurrection, the apostles asked the risen Jesus if now was the time that the kingdom of Israel would be restored (Acts 1:6). They were homesick for the blessing of the life their forebears had enjoyed in the Land. “So when did this mentality change for Christians?” he asks. “When did Christians stop hoping for a way of life in the Land and seek, instead, a way to the afterlife? When did Christianity become an outward-focused mission with little regard for a single holy place?”

This focus on mission rather than place has allowed Christians to cross geographical and cultural bodies with ease, though, he notes, “…it is often because we are unaware of the fault lines we have imposed on the Western landscape.” Le Donne’s interactions with Jewish people and various streams of Jewish thought have called him to a humbled approach to faith in contrast to the triumphalistic Evangelicalism of his youth:

The borders of Christian identity are renegotiated, redefined, indeed crossed over as motivated by suffering…they do perhaps strike closer to the heart of Christian beginnings. While we were still strangers, while we were still enemies, St. Paul tells us, God through a ‘son of God’ suffered. This will seem banal to most Christian ears, but it must be heard in a different way. Acquiring cultural, political, and religious power has not worked well for Christianity.

He recognizes in the Christian impulse toward accumulating worldly power a kind of kingdom-building that completely erodes a healthy understanding of our shared life with God and one another. I’d add that even when the children of Israel lived unfettered in the Land during the reign of David, the three pilgrim feasts named in Leviticus 23 were a reminder to them of their core identity as spiritual pilgrims.

Near Christianity wraps with a solid discussion about the relationship between belief and belonging. Le Donne recognizes that even when he’s wished to run in frustration from the Christian world in which he lives, his exploration along this boundary line has strengthened his understanding of who God is and who he is as a follower of Jesus.

While I wish he would have included a bit of dialogue with a Messianic Jew or two in the book because I believe this could have added an additional measure of illumination about what it means to journey along Jewish-Christian borders, I do honor the thoughtful approach to those borders Le Donne took in Near Christianity. The book is relevant to those struggling to make sense of their Evangelical roots, those interested in the way some of the many variations of contemporary Judaism interact with Christianity, and those believers involved in study, dialogue, or shared community concerns with members of the Jewish community.

By Michelle Van Loon

www.michellevanloon.com
www.theperennialgen.com

What do unscripted charismatic prayer meetings have in common with carefully-crafted public relations statements on behalf of a leader accused of wrongdoing?

When I saw these words posted by Jen Hatmaker making the rounds on social media recently, I recognized in their well-meaning sentiment an “end justifies the means” thinking I’ve seen at play in both settings. Hatmaker said, “I read of a priest asked about what is godly and what is not – How do we discern between good & bad? He said, ‘I look for where there is life.’ When people are flourishing, valued, honored, & restored, there is Jesus.”

At first glance, Hatmaker seems to be saying there are many excellent efforts – some faith-based, some secular – at work in this world to bring value, honor, and restoration to people God loves. But do these good things equal Jesus? Is the fruit equivalent to its source?

Certainly, the priest’s words seem to point to the false fault lines some create between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Those on one side of the divide put the emphasis on determined polishing of their doctrinal positions. Others land squarely on the side of rolling up their sleeves in God’s name to care for the hurting and oppressed in the world. While this is a conversation that has been going on since the first century, Scripture never frames the relationship between thinking rightly about God and doing rightly in his name as an either/or question. Instead, the narrow road to which Jesus calls us means embracing the tension of living both/and.

But this isn’t really what I heard in this quote shared by Hatmaker, which I’ve seen repeated in various forms over the years. What I hear in these words is a celebration of pragmatism wrapped in Christian-y language: If “it” – a ministry, a gathering, a group of people – looks like what we most like about God, then it must be of him. Full stop.

Though pragmatism is everywhere in American Church culture, I saw a particularly virulent form of it in the charismatic circles where I once worshipped when I saw an audience focused on “fruit” in the form of people anxious for a first-hand, electric experience with God and warm fuzzy feelings of “love” as a sign of his blessing. Theological rigor there tended to be branded a sign of spiritually-dry intellectualism and a cold heart. When I questioned some leaders about extra-biblical practices (such as roaring like a lion during worship services) or about the way in which prosperity teaching shamed the suffering, I was told, “Revivals can be messy, and sometimes people can respond in the flesh to what God is doing, but we are not bringing any correction here because we don’t want to quench the Holy Spirit. Look at all the fruit!”

Pragmatism seemed to have the final word in every conversation that touched on topics of orthodoxy and orthopraxy: “It’s working for us, so we know God is blessing it!” It didn’t seem to matter that the least of these in this community – the poor, the chronically troubled, the mentally-ill, the sick – weren’t counted in the same way (which is to say, not at all) when “fruitfulness” was being measured by leaders. If you only count your success stories, you’re always going to be a winner.

Though this may be the most dramatic example, it is far from the only one. More recently, I’ve noticed this same kind of pragmatism when it comes to conversations about leaders of large Christian organizations, denominations, or church networks who are being accused of moral compromise. Defenders of these leaders point to the fruit of their ministry. “Look at all the good they’ve done in God’s name,” they say. “New believers have come into the fold, gospel work is being done, and the kingdom is advancing!” When tabulating the fruit, no one mentions the high cost of lives changed or ruined by an abusive leader’s ambitions. And let us remember that damaged fruit may be of far higher value in God’s sight than all our typical measures of ministry “success”.

While Jesus taught his friends to assess the teaching they were hearing in light of the fruit it bore, our Western versions of this notion tend to match our culture’s ways of measuring popularity, even if we use a gentler word for it like “flourishing”. In doing so, we disconnect the fruit from its source in the same way as the shrink-wrapped, genetically-modified, pre-packaged fruit we purchase in grocery stores.

I am struck that Jesus made a point of including the tree of origin as an integral part of measure they were to use in assessing the value of the fruit: “By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:16-17) I cheer secular and religious efforts alike that bring care to people in need, but at the same time, I recognize that the fruit Jesus says has eternal value is both sourced and measured in relationship to himself.

What do you think? Does the priest’s quote resonate with you? Why or why not?

By Michelle Van Loon

www.michellevanloon.com

www.MomentsAndDays.org

I’ve been writing about faith at midlife since…well, since I hit that life stage more than a decade ago. I discovered that when I sought support and encouragement from my local church as I was facing a string of disorienting changes and losses directly tied to this stage of my life, the answer I received (and I’m paraphrasing a bit here) was: “Just keep doing what you’ve always done. Serve your way out of that funk. We always need help in the nursery!”

I recognized that while serving is an essential component of a healthy spiritual and emotional life, my fragile health and family responsibilities combined to mean that working in the nursery was no longer a good fit for me.

But that was about all the church had to offer. I discovered that suburban church was pretty typical in that most of the focus of community life was on families with children under 18. About this time, I started noticing stats that reported that Millennials weren’t the only ones leaving the church; people in my age demographic were, too. The statistics proved what I already knew: many committed Boomer and older Gen X believers were quietly slipping out the doors of their church, never to return. I began asking a lot of questions about the way in which we think about discipleship through every stage of life. I’ve blogged on the topic of midlife spirituality on my own website, on Christianity Today’s blog for women, and now at a website a friend and I launched a year ago, and occasionally, here in this space.

Over the years, many people have talked to me about the challenges and changes they’re facing in their faith journey at midlife – things including ministry burnout (say, from years of serving in the nursery), unhealed wounds from bad congregational politics, health issues, financial worries, sandwich generation caregiving responsibilities, and being neglected or marginalized by their local churches. There are good, if heartbreaking, reasons many are drifting away from congregational life.

During this decade, I’ve sought examples of congregations doing meaningful work to support and challenge those in the second half of their lives. While being involved in church leadership and mentoring younger believers are both tried-and-true ways older members can serve the body, certainly not all are called to these roles. There are many other ways to re-engage and strengthen those at midlife and beyond, though they come with this caveat: Older members chafe at being treated as a project or problem to be fixed. And really, isn’t that true for all of us? People can tell the difference between a church offering that comes from a whole-life discipleship orientation versus being a slot to be filled on someone’s org chart, creating more church-y busywork for everyone.

That said, you may find some inspiration from one or more of the ideas below if you’re a church leader wondering if you’ve neglected outreach to some of your older-but-not-yet-old members.

• Resource your congregation with names of trained spiritual directors. While spiritual direction has become more mainstream, for some conservative churches, the notion of a spiritual director may be outside their tradition or experience. (If this is you, I commend to you Sharon Garlough Brown’s Sensible Shoes series; her hybrid of fiction and instruction in these books helps de-mystify what a spiritual director does.) Older members may especially benefit from time spent with a trained, trusted spiritual director who can journey with them as individuals or even in some small-group experiences.
• Create book groups, conversation groups, movie-watching + discussion groups – These offer options for congregants and community members alike to engage ideas. They each require a sensitive leader who is better at asking questions than delivering conclusions (or sermons!); each of these can also be a great intergenerational activity among adults of varying ages.
• Form groups committed to serving the community outside the church. One church was involved through a local ministry with gathering and delivering fresh food to needy families in a lower-income suburb about 45 minutes away. An older man led the group, and together they worked hard to build mutual friendships with a couple of people living in an apartment complex. Over time, that food delivery came to include a small weekly Bible study led by a couple of members from the church. They worked to connect Bible study members (and others) with a nearby church located nearby, and the kingdom of God grew both numerically and relationally – all because the sending church encouraged this group of older adults to serve beyond its own four walls. Integral to their success was the fact that their home church frequently celebrated the work of this group, soliciting both prayer and funding from the congregation for this ministry. Many older adults who serve ministries outside of their church do so without much attention or prayer from the congregation. This church embraced the work of this group, and the entire congregation benefitted from their example and testimony.
• Develop instruction that addresses the unique challenges of second-half-of-life faith and experience. Kim Post Watson wrote her master’s thesis on midlife faith formation. That thesis was the foundation for a group she convened last fall at her church. The group is discussing issues of vocation and self-knowledge, learning about classic spiritual disciplines, and will end in a time of retreat and pilgrimage next summer. She wrote a bit about her plans here. When I checked in with her recently, she said the group is going very well. Other congregations are being proactive in helping their members face and plan for end-of-life issues.

I’d love to hear from you if you know of a church caring for its second-half-of-life members well. I’m always searching for thoughtful, pastorally-sound, real-world examples.

Touch Not God’s Anointed?

By

Michelle Van Loon

www.michellevanloon.com

www.MomentsAndDays.org

Those who’ve attended a spiritually-abusive church have more than likely heard some version of a warning drawn from the pages of Scripture about not challenging a leader’s authority: “Touch not God’s anointed.”

There are a couple of big problems with this kind of talk. First, in an authoritarian church system, challenging a leader’s authority might mean anything from not showing up every time the church doors are open to daring to ask a question or express a doubt about something a leaders has said. Second, this warning (which, let’s face it, sounds pretty ominous when its pronounced over a congregation in KJV English) is yanked out of its context. The phrase is found in 1 Chronicles 16:22 and Psalm 105:15. Both of these passages celebrate God’s protection over his Chosen People (“God’s anointed”) during their wanderings before entering the Promised Land and have nothing to do with our relationship to human authority.

However, the verses have long served as a shorthand way of expressing the proper response of subjects to the Divine right of kings. The example drawn from Scripture to affirm that a ruler’s authority comes from God and we humans should not in any way meddle with it is David. He is the exemplar of someone who chose not to touch God’s anointed, King Saul, even though Saul was bent on destroying the young man who’d been anointed to be his replacement.

However, being chosen to lead a congregation is a far different proposition than being anointed by God to rule a nation. I’ve heard versions of “Touch not God’s anointed” in rigidly fundamentalist congregations influenced by the teachings of Bill Gothard. I’ve also seen it at work in Charismatic congregations where a leader’s spiritual power and authority are signifiers of God’s blessing for all. In both settings, “Touch not God’s anointed” is another way of saying that once a leader is in place, he or she is covered in a thick coating of spiritual Teflon. Woe to any who may challenge this cozy arrangement. I learned the hard way in an abusive congregation that whistleblowing looks suspiciously similar to those in charge as an attempt to touch God’s anointed.

When “Touch not God’s anointed” is the rule, the sheep become tasked with protecting their shepherd. It is an upside-down version of the way in which Jesus spoke of his role as a shepherd, and the way in which pastoral gifts of shepherding are meant to be exercised.

I’ve heard the suggestion in authoritarian circles that the best way to apply the “touch not” mandate is to focus on the content of a leader’s teaching, rather than “attacking” his or her character. While character assassination is not a fruit of the Spirit the last time I checked, this dialed-down version of the rule protects pastors and teachers who may be excellent communicators but toxic human beings. In the case of the abusive church my family and I attended, the pastor’s teaching was orthodox. His character was the issue. He was given to fits of rage. The rage worked as a moat around his real problem – he was a porn addict and had been carrying on an affair. Because of the “touch not” culture he’d created, the church elders coddled and enabled him for years, choosing instead to demonize, shame, and shun anyone who got too close to the truth.

True authority is marked by humility, honesty, and love. I’ve seen enough imperfect but faithful church leaders whose shepherding is marked by these traits to recognize the difference. A “touch not” leader is a toxic blend of charmer and bully, which is another way of saying that fear and anger are the primary motivators behind the culture they create. A good shepherd is someone who is becoming more fully human as they seek to follow (imperfectly!) their Good Shepherd.

A “touch not” church culture may give the appearance that it is a growing, vibrant organization. However, it can’t cultivate maturity in its members because fear and anger make lousy fertilizer.

Have you ever been a part of a church with an authoritarian culture? What first drew you there? Leaders, do you believe there are instances when it is appropriate to tell members “Touch not God’s anointed”? If so, when?

By Michelle Van Loon

mishvl@yahoo.com
and http://MomentsAndDays.org

Is instruction in order to prepare for baptism a requirement in your church? If so, who is the focus on that process?

If I’d been required to take a series of prep classes or undergo a formal catechism, I wouldn’t have been able to undergo baptism until I was an adult. I became a follower of Jesus as a teen, and my Jewish parents forbade me to attend church as long as I lived under their roof.

However, I was presented with an opportunity to undergo baptism by immersion just months after I first came to faith. I was visiting a friend who was a college student living in another city. The pastor of the campus ministry with which my friend was involved put together an impromptu Sunday afternoon baptism service at a local church for students involved in the organization’s weekly Bible study.

As I watched one student after another give testimony to Jesus, I could barely stay in my seat. Jesus had changed my life, too. When the pastor asked if there was anyone else present who wished to be baptized, I stepped forward. As he didn’t know me, the pastor took me aside to do a quick Q and A to ascertain whether I understood what baptism meant. I had been transformed by the resurrected Messiah, and wanted to publicly demonstrate my commitment to him by obedience to his command to repent, believe and be baptized. I had decided, in the words of the old gospel song, to follow Jesus. There was no turning back.

Decades later, I served at a church that practiced adult baptism by immersion. There was spirited debate among staff members about whether it was wise to “baptize on the spot”, as I had been, versus requiring those seeking baptism to first undergo some rudimentary instruction in the form of a class or two about what the Bible had to say about the sacrament.

I thought of the account of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40. The Ethiopian was immersed in study of the book of Isaiah, and invited Philip to explain it to him as the pair rode from Jerusalem to Gaza. As Philip preached Jesus to him as the fulfillment of those ancient prophecies, the eunuch saw a body of water, and asked to be baptized on the spot (8:36-38). The passage described instruction leading up to the man’s confession of faith, but also highlighted the unplanned, on-the-spot baptism that flowed organically out of the conversation between the two men. I appreciated the importance of instruction, but remembered with gratitude the pastor who was willing to baptize me with no prior preparation. In the end, the church leaders decided it wise to encourage people seeking baptism to sign up for a class, but also left space during baptismal services to invite anyone feeling moved to be baptized right then and there.

My study of early church history confronted some of my low-church notions about the importance of preparation for baptism. I discovered that Lent (which begins this year on March 1) had its roots in baptism instruction for new converts. Baptisms on Pasch/Easter Sunday were an essential expression of the Church’s celebration of the resurrection. The preparatory period of fasting, prayer, and instruction for converts leading up to their public confession of faith through baptism included the entire Church walking the baptism prep journey together. Believers took seriously their responsibility in coming alongside new converts in prayer, fasting, and instruction in order to enfold them in the community.

I was struck by the notion that baptism was not viewed by early Christians as an individual expression of faith, done in the presence of others who basically functioned as a studio audience. It was, instead, something in which the entire community participated. Frankly, this communal aspect of baptism hasn’t been emphasized in my experience in the low-church traditions where I’ve spent most of my Christian life. Lent got me thinking about the way we baptize believers, and what our responsibilities are as we welcome new members into the body of Messiah.

So I’d appreciate your thoughts as I ponder, Jesus Creed community. I’m not looking for a debate about infant baptism here. I am looking for input from those of you who practice “believer’s” (or adult) baptism in your congregation:

• Do you insist an individual seeking baptism first undergoes some form of instruction? If so, what form does this instruction take? Are you open to “baptizing on the spot” if someone requests it without preparation? Why or why not?
• Does preparation for baptism extend to the rest of the church, or is it focused primarily on the person seeking baptism?

By Michelle Van Loon at www.MomentsAndDays.org

and www.MichelleVanLoon.com

I’ve been blogging for more than a decade,and I’ve written often about spiritual abuse by church leaders – sharing both my own experience and referencing the struggles of others. I’m just one voice in a large crowd: there are numerous blogs, books, and worthwhile organizations telling the stories of spiritual and/or clergy sexual abuse survivors. The internet has been a tool for good in this struggle as it has facilitated connection between survivors. In a few high profile cases, the networking of survivors has been instrumental in bringing to light what has happened in the darkness.

Understandably, many who’ve experienced abuse from a church leader never return to a church. In the wake of my own traumatizing experience, I remember repeating my own version of Peter’s words from John 6:68 (“Lord, where else can I go? You have the words of eternal life.”) even as my husband and I tried to figure out how our family could ever be a part of a congregation again after all that had happened at our previous church. I still loved Jesus even though I was hurting, but it seemed at the time his big “C” Church didn’t love me back.

In the wake of the trauma, it was easier not to attend church. We relied on our Christian friends to provide us fellowship. We even attempted home churching with two other families for nearly a year. But as time went on, we realized we missed the structure and relative diversity of congregational life. It was a milepost on our continuing journey toward healing that we found we could hope most churches were not teeming with gross dysfunction or being run by adulterous leaders – and then act on that hope.

The road back to church was a two-steps-forward-one-step-back process. One telling moment came as we were moving toward making a commitment to a new congregation when an elder tasked with plugging people into the ministry of the church sensed some reticence on my part.

He said, “It sounds like you have a lot of trust issues.”

There are a few different ways in which these words can be expressed: with empathy, with concern, with motive-judging suspicion. In the case of this elder, he was functioning as a commission-only salesperson, trying to overcome possible objections in order to close the sale. His hard sell was a well-meaning but misguided attempt to enfold us in the life of the congregation.

I wanted to say, “Of course I have trust issues! If you’d been through what we’ve been through, you’d have trust issues, too.”

I simply wasn’t that quick on the draw. Instead, I stammered through a muddy statement explaining that we’d experienced some painful things in our previous unhealthy church, and we were trying to ease into congregational life. We’d been attending the church for several months, and he naturally assumed we were ready to take the next step into ministry involvement.

For what it’s worth, I still have trust issues. At this point of my life, I recognize that the caution I carry has little to do with fear of a church leader wounding me again and everything to do with the wisdom birthed from a deeply painful and faith-forming experience.

While it wasn’t helpful to have a church leader I didn’t know (and who didn’t know me) challenge me regarding my damaged trust, there were things many other leaders and fellow congregants said and did that assisted in my rehab process:

• I appreciated it when I was seen by church leaders as a person, not as a warm body to be leveraged to fill a slot on a church org chart.

• It was meaningful to me to have congregation members reach out in conversation before or after a worship service more than one time. A simple hello one week is nice; a second or third conversation with the same people helped us ease into congregational life far more than a “newcomer’s information luncheon” ever did.

• Simple, low-commitment opportunities to work alongside other church members (such as serving together at a soup kitchen or food panty) were far preferable to joining a small group. Working alongside people with a common purpose in mind was far easier than going to a stranger’s house for a two or three hour weekly meeting.

• My husband and I were grateful when a leader took the initiative to invite us out for a cup of coffee so we could get to know one another outside the four walls of the church.

While these things can make a difference for all newcomers to a church, they were essential parts of what helped us find our way back to congregational life.

If you’re an abuse survivor who has stayed in or returned to the church, what other attitudes or practices would you add to my list above?

By Michelle Van Loon

www.MomentsAndDays.org
www.MichelleVanLoon.com

As we face a transition in leadership this week in this country unlike any we’ve experienced before, I am praying we in the Church may find that this moment brings us healing, clarity and unity like we’ve not experienced to this point. There is an incredible amount of incendiary anger swirling around and through us like a virulent illness, and it has affected us all. Before you go calling me a Pollyanna, I will affirm that things look pretty bleak. I’m not given to optimism as a rule. But when I read, say, the diagnosis and correctives given to the churches in Revelation 2–3, I am reminded that the Spirit’s goal isn’t band-aid treatment of an ailing local body, but a cure.

And we are ailing, aren’t we? There is anger directed at the Church from those on the outside over issues including (but not limited to) moral hypocrisy, abuse cover-up, and an addiction to culture warring. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Some of this is well-deserved. How much is “some”? I’ll leave that to you.

On the other hand, there seems to be plenty of anger percolating within the Church related to these very things, plus a host of in-house issues ranging from gender roles to the color of the carpeting in the nursery. It occurs to me that we spend a lot of time focusing on the anger via blogs, podcasts, twitter battles, sermons, our media opiners of choice, gossip and face-to-face argument.

Anger in the body of Christ is a sign that something is out of alignment. That misalignment can be a small bit of offense – say, an awkward social exchange in the church lobby – or it can be the expression of deep, long-standing poison. A measure of this is good and righteous anger. For example, anger can be a healthy, God-honoring response to racial injustice if it leads to change, dialogue, repentance, and healing. But a lot of the anger among us points to our fears, and is a good way to assess our general lack of health in the Body. (Yes, I include my own moments of anger-expressed fear in this diagnosis.) The last year in America seems to have surfaced new wells of fear and anger among believers, and it seems to matter not how those believers voted, what kind of congregation they attend, and whether they’re in the Done category or whether they’re well-established denominational leaders. We are often a deeply hurting people.

I’d like to suggest this anger is a symptom of deeper untreated pain in the body of Christ. C.S. Lewis has called pain God’s megaphone, and we’d all do well to ask for ears to hear what he may be saying to us.

The 1993 book coauthored by Philip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand originally entitled Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants (later versions have been re-titled The Gift of Pain) illustrates the purpose of pain. Dr. Brand’s work with leprosy patients revealed that most of the damage and disfigurement suffered by the patients happened because the disease attacked their nerves. As a result, they couldn’t feel pain. This left sufferers prone to injury and infection – conditions that caused them no discomfort at all. The inability to feel pain led to the damage and disfigurement associated with the disease. The book is an extended meditation on physical pain’s recalibrating relationship with health in the body.

I learned this lesson first-hand a few years ago. I was in the Old City in Jerusalem, and rolled my ankle on a narrow street’s ancient pavers. As I lay sprawled on the ground in pain, I had three nearly-simultaneous thoughts: (1) “Ouch”, (2) “This is going to put a huge damper in our trip”, and (3) “Ouch!”

I was determined to quell any possibility that number two would happen by doing everything I could to ignore numbers one and three. I wrapped the ankle like a mummy, took handfuls of ibuprofen, iced and elevated when we weren’t touring, and gimped my way through the remainder of the trip.

When I returned to the U.S., I went to see a doctor. “There’s not much we can do for this,” he told me. “It’s probably between a grade 2 and 3 sprain. But it’ll take you longer to heal because you ignored what the pain was trying to tell you, which was that you should stay off of it.” Ouch.

A lot of churches are like this, aren’t they? We try to contain our anger and pain because there seems to be no safe way to express honestly it to one another. We may try to drug it with church-program busyness. If the pain gets out of hand and anger erupts, we may split and go our separate ways. Instead of nourishing our lives together with worship, prayer, study, and service, we ingest either spiritual junk food or whatever our particular self-curated media echo chamber is serving up that day. Too many have disconnected from relationship with the Body altogether.

When I read Revelation 2–3, I see instruction given to churches dealing and not dealing with their own ills. It is instruction meant to heal: Repent and do what you did at first (2:5); don’t be afraid even though suffering is coming; (2:10), cut yourselves off from false teachers (2:14-15); hold on to your faith (2:25); wake up and stay vigilant (3:2-3); hope in God and hang on to that hope for your very lives (3:11); accept his discipline and return to him wholeheartedly (3:19).

I suspect our cure here and now might not contain different ingredients than these.

What do you think? How are you seeing fear, anger, and pain manifesting themselves in your church context?

By Michelle Van Loon,  www.MomentsAndDays.org

and www.MichelleVanLoon.com

Last week in this space, I wrote about a flawed Proverbs 31-focused approach one congregation took when they decided to rethink their ministry to women. Even as I raised concerns, I noted that I’ve been enriched by time spent in prayer, study, fellowship, worship, and service with women’s-only groups.

Do these single-gender groups reflect who the Church is? Paul highlighted diversity within the Church, even as he reminded us that there is one Savior for all: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) Even so, there are specific gender-related discipleship instructions in Paul’s letters (for instance, here).

As the purpose of women’s ministry has received new attention in recent weeks, I’ve been reflecting on both gifts and lumps of coal I’ve received as a result of participation in various women’s ministry efforts over the years. As a good chunk of the audience for my writing and speaking is female, I want to ensure I am contributing to the call to make disciples, rather than creating church-y busywork for women.

Women’s ministry has been a gift to me in three specific ways:

Fellowship – Certainly there is no gender restriction on the familial comradeship flowing from our connection to our Head, Jesus. However, the “women’s only” groups of which I’ve been a part have helped me learn how to be a sister both to other women and to my brothers in the Body of Christ.

The healthiest women’s groups of which I’ve been a part over the last four decades reflect the kind of “one anothering” care described in Scripture. I’ve experienced fellowship among women-only groups via involvement in practical care (casserole-toting and assistance with childcare when a church member is ill), in shared service to the extended community (believing women staffing the local Crisis Pregnancy Center or becoming a band of sisters in order to advocate for victims of human trafficking), in prayer (gathering to intercede for prodigals, for pastors, for congregational needs), and in coming together for study or conversation.

Experience – I have been enriched by the unfiltered stories of other women as I’ve navigated everything from post-partum sexuality to toddler toilet training to the disconcerting echo of a newly-empty nest. I can and have accessed the experiences of other women via online forums or in non-sectarian settings. But in the context of the Church, I’ve discovered in the community of other women how these life experiences can shape my life as a female follower of Jesus. Other women’s stories have comforted me and confronted me, and have empowered me to share my own stories with others.

Friendship – Out of fellowship and shared story, I’ve found a few meaningful female friendships at Church. The best of these relationships have continued across time, congregational affiliation, and geographic location. Female friendships have been little sanctuaries in my life in far different ways than have the friendships I’ve formed with men over the years. There are subjects – and frank ways of talking about those topics – that I am far more comfortable discussing with another trusted believing female friend.

Women’s ministry efforts at the various churches I’ve attended have also delivered some pretty big lumps of coal. The toxic women’s ministry efforts have threatened to turn me off on the whole enterprise. If the congregation is unhealthy, women’s ministry will reflect that. In my experience, unhealth in church-based women’s formation efforts tends to show itself first either via a Christian version of fear-based peer pressure (“All good Christian women home school/sell essential oils/—fill in the blank—; if you want to be a good Christian woman like us you’d better shape up quick!”) or in clique-y interpersonal dynamics. A clique is an ersatz form of fellowship. The relational drama diminishes the possibility that good teaching will flourish, leaders will develop, or that it’ll be safe for anyone to be honest about who they are.

I’m curious, female Jesus Creed readers. What gifts (if any) has women’s ministry brought into your life? Or has your experience with women’s ministry been all negative?

By Michelle Van Loon www.MomentsAndDays.org and www.MichelleVanLoon.com

Contrary to the song lyrics, it’s not the most wonderful time of the year for many of us. The jingle bell merriness of the season is like an out-of-tune gong for those grieving the deaths of family members or friends, struggling in the wake of a divorce, suffering the effects of broken relationships, experiencing financial hardship, or dealing with the effects of physical or mental illness in themselves or their loved ones.

My family has been marked in recent years by each one of these losses. There have been years when it has seemed as though all the most lovely gifts and warmest invitations were inscribed with the names of others. Advent’s practices of simplicity and themes of waiting have been a balm for me during the darkest days, as they’ve helped me to fight the temptation to compare what I don’t have with what I imagine others do. The prayers and hymns of Advent are rich with the language of longing, of groans too deep for words. My soul is familiar with the sound of those groans.

Even in congregations committed to the church calendar’s Advent worship cycle, church services during December can be a challenging place to be for those struggling with loss. Most church event calendars are full of various holiday gatherings, children’s programs, and other events that don’t always sync with those in mourning.

That is why I am appreciative of the churches that host Blue Christmas services at this time of year. When our sorrow was fresh and December’s festivities seemed to pour salt in our open wounds, an acquaintance invited my husband and I to a Blue Christmas service at her church. It remains to this day one of the most meaningful holiday worship services I’ve ever attended.

This invitation snippet from a website with a number of Blue Christmas service resources captures the reason behind this service:

“Cries of ‘Merry Christmas!’ and non-stop caroling contrast with the feelings of many people at this time of year. For those suffering from the recent or impending death of loved ones, dealing with recent separation or divorce, struggling to find employment, or facing depression or family crisis, this can be a very isolated and dreary time. Every greeting and every song reminds the grief-stricken of how unhappy life is at this moment. We recognize that a lot of the Christmas celebrations do not meet everyone’s needs. To fill this gap we are offering Blue Christmas.”

Many Blue Christmas services are offered on or near the shortest day of the year (December 21^st), a nod to the darkness of the season as well as capturing the final movement of the Advent season. The liturgy of the Blue Christmas service we attended two years in a row was intentionally simple, and followed this structure.

While about 70% of those in attendance were members of the host congregation, many were visitors who’d been invited by friends, referred via local hospice chaplains or from connections with members of a local National Alliance for Mental Illness chapter. The pastor opened the service by affirming that each of us was there because of loss, and letting us know we were not alone; Immanuel was near. The Scripture readings were punctuated with the familiar, haunting lyrics of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The liturgical “prayers of the people” (congregational prayer) allowed both space and silence for those who wished to voice their loss or struggle as well as those who chose to offer it in prayer to the Lord in silence.

As a pianist played quiet instrumental music, those gathered were invited to come forward to light individual candles as a way of honoring our loss. Prayer ministers were available to pray with or for us for specific needs, or simply to lay their hands on our heads and offer a blessing over us. The pastor ended the service with a few additional words of words of comfort. Congregation members had baked and wrapped individual loaves of sweet holiday breads, and handed a loaf (or two!) to each person departing the sanctuary.

I left was grateful someone had made a space for us in the midst of the season. The Blue Christmas service certainly didn’t erase our pain, but as we shared our grief with one another and expressed it before the Lord, we were comforted a bit and strengthened to go back into the world to face the holidays, knowing we were not alone in our grief.

For those of you planning holiday services this year, it is probably too late to include a Blue Christmas service in your schedule. But if you’re putting together a file for next year, book mark this idea. A Blue Christmas service is something well worth offering to your community – or partnering with another congregation that’s already having one. It is a profound, practical way to mourn with those who mourn, and honor the One who is well-acquainted with our sorrow.

Follow The Leader, By Michelle Van Loon http://www.MomentsAndDays.org

I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. I am of John Piper or Jim Wallis or Jen Hatmaker or Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

It was a first century problem, and it is a twenty-first century problem. It is perhaps most pronounced in the Protestant world. Our very spiritual DNA contains a desire to divide. As we lack a single hierarchical authority structure on which we can all agree, we are tempted to form our own tribes.

Today, our Bible teachers and Christian communicators are brands™, driven as much by personality and marketability as they are by doctrine. We are far less inclined these days to be discipled by denomination, and more inclined to be fed and formed by the offerings endorsed by a Christian leader who has a platform on the conference circuit.

It wasn’t all that long ago that many young male seminarians in my acquaintance were quoting and emulating Mark Driscoll’s particular style of testosterone-fueled neo-Calvinism. Women of my generation (Boomers, older X-ers) filled arenas for the Women of Faith events; the books and study materials published under their banner offered audiences a positive ‘n encouraging conservative suburban Evangelical approach.

Buying into a communicator’s brand can serve as a filter for the dizzying array of theological choices facing a well-meaning believer who is seeking to grow in his or her faith. Aligning with a particular leader offers adherents more than theology. It can also define the spiritual aspirations of those in the tribe. John MacArthur’s conferences tend to attract a more crew than Andy Stanley’s events do, for example. They’re not just buying books and conference CD’s at these events, but are carrying home with them a picture of how their lives, families, and communities can be based on the image they get at these events of both teacher and fellow adherents. I’ve known women who aspire to be the next Beth Moore or a Christine Caine clone, and try to copy their particular look, content, and style of ministry in their own context.

It rarely goes well. Certainly a word about the greater spiritual responsibility of those who teach is in order here, as well as a reminder that some of those in our congregations are being discipled from afar by high-visibility communicators with whom they have no relationship in real life. Celebrity Christian voices are an idealized mirror of who their followers want to be.

The apostle Paul told the Corinthian Church, “Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me.” (! Corinthians 4:15-16, italics mine) Paul recognized his role as disciple-maker. He also affirmed that there is a place in the spiritual growth process to attempt to copy the leader.

In her seminal 1947 essay The Lost Tools of Learning, Dorothy Sayers called this the Poll-Parrot stage:

The Poll-Parrot stage is the one in which learning by heart is easy and, on the whole, pleasurable; whereas reasoning is difficult and, on the whole, little relished. At this age, one readily memorizes the shapes and appearances of things; one likes to recite the number-plates of cars; one rejoices in the chanting of rhymes and the rumble and thunder of unintelligible polysyllables; one enjoys the mere accumulation of things.

While we assign this kind of imitative learning to young children, there is a correlation in spiritual development, too. As a young believer in the 1970’s, I watched The 700 Club (don’t judge me – it’s been four decades since then!) and saw the way Pat prayed for people on the air. I wanted to be a spiritual giant like Pat, and so I approached prayer like it looked like he did. I aspired to be an exemplar of submissive trust to God, so I tried to be the sotto-voiced, modestly-dressed Elizabeth Elliot I read in books and listened to each day on the radio. Yes, at the same time as I was trying to be Pat. It was as awkward as you might imagine.

There was no one discipling me at the time, so I looked to these far-away icons to show me the way of Jesus. I was a Poll-Parrot, not yet capable of critical analysis and unsure of my own identity, gifting, and place in the Body of Christ. My two-dimensional disciplers may have fed me information about the spiritual life, but their real power was as a reflection of who I wanted to be as a follower of Jesus at the time. Moving past the Poll-Parrot stage took a long time for me, as I think it does for most of us.

If you’re in a church or gathering marked by devotion to this person’s teaching or that particular conference, or conversely, your local assembly is being influenced negatively by pressure from followers of celebrity teachers to be more like whatever model of church or faith these teachers are representing, it might be a helpful exercise to consider what it is that their adherents are looking to reproduce in their own lives. And then consider the question for yourself – what far-off teachers do you most admire, and why? Or what have you parroted in the past, and how have you grown past this stage?