when you hear the words “church calendar” what do you think?

when you hear the word “liturgical” what do you think?

different people have different reactions. some might say “i have no idea what either one means.” others might think “liturgical means something lutheran, catholic or episcopalian and it’s usually boring.” because we are a community with an extremely wide breadth and depth of faith experiences, we always want to be cautious about throwing in words and ideas and thoughts that could exclude or throw people for a loop. at the same time, we are deeply dedicated to filling in the space between all of our diversity and finding our common thread. that thread, i believe, is Jesus. sure, there are people who aren’t quite sure about Jesus or have all kinds of weird associations with him that typically come from wacky church experiences, but the one thing we seem to be fairly clear on is that we are trying to learn what it means to follow Jesus. i like to think of our life together as a community as a place to learn what it means to “love Jesus, others, and ourselves and learn to be loved by Jesus, others, ourselves.” it’s a place to learn, a place to practice.

this year together at our saturday evening gatherings we are going to do something we have never intentionally done together since the refuge started 3 1/2 years ago–follow the church calendar. this means that instead of us as a community randomly deciding which passages or themes to use each week, we will use what millions of other Christ-followers around the world are using at the same time. for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the new year of the church calendar starts with advent, which is the last sunday (saturday for us) in november. we’ve always celebrated advent as a community but then just left it there at christmas eve. this year, we’ll continue with the seasons of the church year all the way through until advent 2010 and see how we do. remember, everything will still be refuge-style. conversational, interactive, experiential, weekly communion and eating together. i think what will be really good for us is we’re going to learn a lot together. we’ll use the gospel passages–the stories of Jesus–as our guiding thoughts. we’ll intersect with the scriptures in ways that we might not have before. we’ll hopefully stir up some trouble–good trouble, the kind that moves us, transforms us.

here’s a helpful way to maybe think through the church seasons. it comes from the story formed calendar:

advent - the season of expectation
christmas - the season of celebration
epiphany (this is where we are now, the upcoming weeks are called “ordinary time”) - the season of illumination
lent - the season of listening
holy week - a time to remember
easter - the season of “hallelujahs” and the
season after pentecost becomes the season of intentional living in love, justice and mercy, in praise and gratitude

my take on it is that it is going to be a challenging & inspiring & fun year for us a community. i am excited about orienting my heart and my head toward the big story of God in a new way, to intersecting with the gospel stories from new angles and letting their power stir up new life in me.

i love that we are a community that is willing to try new, creative things on our faith/life journey together. so much beauty awaits.

i’ll close with this, i think it’s what our year holds for us, what our faith/life journey through the gospels will remind us of, point us to:

“it is in the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith, the deep-down wrestling match of conflicting ideas, that resides the motivating power it takes to become what we see in Jesus.  the world around us tells us that life is about money, security, power, and success.  but the Gospels tell us that life is about something completely other.  real life, the Gospels tell us, is about doing the will of God, speaking for the poor, changing the lives of widows and orphans, exalting the status of women, refusing to make war, laying down our lives for the other, the invisible, and the enemy.  it is about taking everyone in instead of leaving everyone out.” - joan chittister, the liturgical year.

here’s to a beautiful, challenging year together. i’ve got a lot to learn. i hope you do, too.

    NOTE: this is a re-post from emergent village but in the spirit of the off the map live born again church tour coming to denver this week, we thought we’d share it here for the refuge readers.

in a covert conversation in the middle of the night, Jesus, in john 3, shares with nicodemus what it means to be born again. i love this imagery—a religious ruler sneaking out of his house so no one would see him because somehow this wild & crazy guy named Jesus had gotten under his skin. Jesus’ response to nicodemus have become pivotal words in the history of evangelical christianity—“no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (v. 3). i remember the day that i was “born again” in Christ. the day will be etched in my brain & heart forever. but it didn’t stop there. it wasn’t a one-time experience where i “sealed the deal and then was done with it.” rather, it was the beginning of many more spirit-led experiences where i knew i needed to shift, change, grow in my relationship with Jesus. i believe a huge piece of our personal spiritual journey is the ability to continually be born again, to be willing to readjust our thinking, our actions, all kinds of things, as the Holy Spirit moves & changes us. life experiences change. cultures shift. we grow up and out and into places we never expected. and with each twist & turn we are required to re-examine our faith, listen for God’s spirit, and be willing to be “born again”.
the same thing applies corporately to “the church”, the messy & beautiful body of Christ. i believe the church is in the midst of a major, history-making “born again” experience that is creating a wide range of responses from its people. some are resistant to change, satisfied with the status quo, and probably can relate to the religious order of Jesus’ time that said “hey, we have got this buttoned down, what do you mean we need to be born again? we’ve been doing this for a long, long time, and it is so working for us, don’t mess with it!” but there was a whole other group of people that got a stirring in their heart they couldn’t ignore, a taste of Jesus’ ways that they were desperate to live out. and who could have imagined that little wacky band of misfits would end up being part of changing the course of history forever? i think a lot of us reading this blog would consider ourselves in this category. a little like nicodemus, many have found ourselves sneaking off to have covert conversations with other people about the stirring in our hearts. our dreams for the kingdom of God keep us up at night & we can’t seem to shake it.
so what will it mean for the church to be “born again”? i know there are opinions all over the place on this one, but here are a few of my essentials of a radical shift in the church’s heart, way of thinking, actions.
recognize that it’s not really working for a lot of other people (even if it’s still working for us). let’s face it, christianity has a bad reputation. people are tired of our judgmentalism and lack of compassion & care for the poor and marginalized. while some churches are still growing, we need to remember that many many others are dying. people are leaving the “system” by the droves, and the new generation of young people isn’t too keen on joining into the existing monster. the old methods & rules just won’t work anymore. 
continually humble ourselves & admit our mistakes. i think the world is waiting for this. they do not see christianity as a reflection of Christ. they see christianity as a reflection of power & control. something is wrong with that picture. corporately, we have a lot of work to do to demonstrate our humility, our heart for justice, peace, equality & diversity in actions not just words. this will take a long time to shift, but i believe it’s possible if we, as the body of Christ, draw back to the sermon on the mount as guiding texts for our faith. 
be willing to be uncomfortable & let go of what we have always known. Jesus made it oh so clear that the ways of following him would require giving up what we held dear. the only hope for the church, in my opinion, is for its people to be willing to give up what we have conveniently relied on to make us feel comfortable & safe. we will have to shed things that hinder our ability to love our neighbor the way Christ calls us to. we will have to get honest about really tough questions: what is God asking us to consider that we really don’t want to do? what needs to change? what do we need to let go of? what do we have to risk? how can the true heart of Jesus be expressed through us, individually & as communities? what’s holding us back? what are we afraid of? 
practice being more flexible & fluid. the church was always meant to be about relationship, not structure. to survive, i believe the body of Christ has to learn that its strength is in its heart not its skeleton. the more fluid we become, the more we can permeate & penetrate our neighborhoods, our cities, the world, one relationship at a time. we humans have a default mechanism to organize & build. i am not against that, i think some structure can be very helpful & productive, but i think we will have to become more adept at flexibility & fluidity, which means giving up mortgage payments, egos attached to org-chart positions, and programs that perpetuate the status quo & distract us from love. 
learn how to do relationship, relationship & more relationship. this may be the part that is the hardest for us & is the most critical moving ahead. yeah, we talk about loving God & loving our neighbors, but when the rubber meets the road, real relationships are tricky especially when God is asking us to love people we aren’t used to loving. our greatest hope is to learn to love like Jesus loved. sacrificial love. crazy-in-the-trenches love. nonjudgmental love. we won’t hit it right, we are human, not God, but i do believe as we stretch & learn & try, more and more people will be touched by Jesus through us and the “church” will come alive in beautiful & powerful ways.
i realize this is barely scratching the surface, but they were the ones at the top of my head. i’d love to hear your additions & reactions, too.
i have so much hope for the church if we will stay the course & allow ourselves to go through the pains of re-birth over & over & over again so we can become a better reflection of Jesus in a changing world. it will be hard on us personally. it will be hard on us corporately. but i strongly believe it’s possible.

God, please help us to be born again. and again. and again.