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the beatitudes remixed for community

Monday, May 26th, 2008

hands across

roy soto of via del red camino, a network of communities in latin america, wrote these. we thought they were so appropriate for the refuge commmunity. may these kingdom principles be part of the fabric of our community.

1. blessed are those that share what they have, for they will be a community of life.

2. blessed are those that are able to enjoy the fruit of their labor, for they will be a community of honesty.

3. blessed are those that stand together for equality, for they will be a community of justice.

4. blessed are those that release their grip on their possessions, for they will be a community of freedom.

5. blessed are those that feel the pain of others as their own, for they will be a community of mercy.

6. blessed are those that teach their children kingdom values, for they will be a community of hope.

7. blessed are they that show love instead of the law, for they will be a community of grace

Posted in church stuff, community, equality, social justice | No Comments »

the refuge Xperience

Monday, May 12th, 2008

in november we hosted a really fun evening for people outside of the refuge to get a taste of our community & mission called refuge Xperience. it was an evening of creative conversation, drama, dinner, and communion. part of this evening was showing a dvd produced by tom herrick & paul romig-leavitt that shared a bit of who we were. it all starts with one of our favorite events the refuge hosted last october-dialogue instead of debate, the conversation between an atheist & a christian. since this dvd was produced, the refuge continues to evolve, but it gives everyone a taste and we didn’t want to keep it to ourselves (it took us a while to get it up on youtube!):

Posted in church stuff, community, dreams, the refuge | No Comments »

"if you only knew" - an experiment in listening

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

we’re working on a project collecting data from a wide range of people on their experiences with “church” called “if you only knew: an experiment in listening.” our task is to give others a taste of what some people are really “thinking, feeling, dreaming, and hoping for” as it pertains to the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. we’d love to have as many people participate as possible and provide input on their experience with church, christians, and their hope for a better way.

our survey is available in pdf format here

if you want to download it in microsoft word to fill it out that way, click here

either way, just get it back to us via email at therefuge@therefugeonline.org or send it by may 1st to:
the refuge
po box 6805 – broomfield CO 80020

read the first page so you get a better sense of where we are going, the 2nd page is a lot of data that we would like to gather so we have a sense where the responses are coming from, and the survey itself, feel free to fill out as little or as much as you feel comfortable.

all responses will be confidential (use whatever name you’ve always wish you had!) and if you feel uncomfortable emailing it for some reason, feel free to just send it in. we would love to have as random and diverse of feedback as possible (think of people you know would love to have the opportunity to speak into “the church” freely and safely). we appreciate you taking the time to be part of this project.

we will keep you posted as things develop into a finished project! we are not sure exactly what it will all look like but we know we want to combine it into an artistic, integrated piece available online that will help readers listen in on the hearts of as wide and diverse of an audience as possible. questions, feel free to email us.

we’re listening.

Posted in church stuff, dreams, healing | No Comments »

authentic community

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

“we have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community” - dorothy day

there’s no question, at the refuge, we believe spiritual transformation happens through community. it is not the only way. there are lots of ways to experience God, grow in our relationship with God, and learn a lot about God. Jesus transforms in many wonderful ways. but we also wholeheartedly believe that the greatest work of our spiritual journey will happen through relationships, true authentic community. the reason why this usually gets pushed to the bottom of the list when it comes to church programming is that it is by far the hardest thing to do. lasting, true authentic community doesn’t come in a contrived program. it can’t be talked into people. it has to be created, cultivated. it is messy, it is scary, it is unpredictable. most of us aren’t that great at it. plus, the selling points aren’t the most marketable. in fact, there are a few 100% guarantees when it comes to authentic community:

- you will be annoyed
- it will be time consuming
- you will get hurt and frustrated

100% guaranteed. there’s some good odds! but we do believe there are so many upsides to actually giving your heart, time, self to the body of Christ and allowing others in instead of just protecting yourself by only “serving others” or staying on the fringes. we believe that authentic community will be the place where we learn grace. where we learn to give it. where we learn to receive it. grace can never be theoretical. that is why no amount of sermonizing or scripturizing can teach it. it’s only through authentic community that we can come radically in touch with our humanness, our brokenness, our selfishness, our desire to be loved and truly known (even though it can be terrifying).

so the refuge is deeply committed to creating the kind of sacred space where authentic community has the greatest chance of actually happening. a few weeks ago when we talked about the spiritual discipline of incarnational relationships, sam & tiera trujillo shared with us 7 marks of authenticity in a community. (check out the blog sam edits geography of grace–it has some great stuff on it). these are marks we desire of our culture. they are the things we will keep at the center of our community as guides for our future. they will help us not lose sight of why we do certain things even though they can be annoying.

7 marks of authenticity in a community:

1. be real.
“the prayer that precedes all other prayers is may the real I meet the real Thou.” C.S. Lewis

no need to hide. just put it out there, the real story. the body of Christ should be the one place where you don’t need to pretend.

2. risk.
“test the possibility that in one’s own voice is the voice of another’s suppressed longing.” Krasner and Joyce

our hope is that we will continue to create spaces at our large and smaller gatherings where people experiment with crazy ways of connecting with God, each other. that there’s always this little degree of discomfort that keeps us moving, considering, challenged instead of remaining passive. at the end of the year we want to look back on some things we’ve tried and say “well, we will never do that again, but we’re glad we tried.” we’re not trying to push people because we are sadistic (yes, we know it can sometimes feel that way!) we just think communities need to be willing to experiment and try instead of only rely on “the sure thing that sells and makes people feel good.”

3. question.
“the beautiful answer is always preceded by the more beautiful question.” e.e. cummings

a place to question, a place to doubt, a place to not get certain answers crammed down your throat. this is very important to us.

4. dialogue.
dialogue is the reminder that something can happen not merely “to” us and “in” us but also “between” us. Martin Buber

authentic community can never be created when we aren’t talking together, back and forth. when only leaders get to talk and everyone else just sits and listens. conversation is where the action happens and sometimes we don’t notice it until we think about it later.

5. honor holy failure.
“my idea of God is not a divine idea. it has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself…this shattering is one of the marks of his presence.” C.S. Lewis

well clearly we are really good at failing. we honor it. our motto: “at least we tried.”

6. laugh.
“God gave us an imagination to console us who we aren’t, and a sense of humor to console us for who we are.” Francis Bacon

laughing at ourselves. laughing and crying at the same time. it’s our favorite thing. no need to take ourselves so darn seriously. life’s too hard without a lot of laughing.

7. love one another.
“beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ” 1 John. 4:11

that’s the big idea. without love, we are nothing. talking about love means little. actually practicing loving the unlovable, letting others love the unlovable parts of us. passing on love to our neighbors. now that’s the real deal.

Posted in church stuff, community, dreams, the refuge | 1 Comment »

JENNY - sacred cows

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

this is a repost from jenny herrick’s blog. so good. may we be people willing to give up things that limit Jesus.

PART ONE:

I think one of my resolutions this year will be fewer sacred cows. Having been around the Church block a few times, I’ve at times found, adopted, rejected, or ignored rallying cries and doctrinal dividing lines along the way. Years ago I was part of discussions (i.e. arguments) to do with eschatological events and I’ve been fairly certain about different positions on opposite sides of the spectrum at different times! I could back both sides up with scripture. That shows how crazy some of that stuff gets. This is really weird, but I once had my community of faith (during early college years) tell me they “couldn’t fellowship with me anymore” because I was asking questions about the Holy Spirit! They believed charismatic experience was “wrong.” I wasn’t pushed out of the group because I was selling drugs or living with my boyfriend, but for messing with their sacred cow of doctrinal purity according to them.

Another group said I had to be “spirit-filled.” Anything liturgical was surely a sign of spiritual deadness and just head knowledge. Only certain people were allowed to pray for other people. I heard one leader say she wouldn’t let so-and-so (who by the way loved Jesus) touch her in prayer (afraid she would get slimed), thereby labeling that person as suspect, messed up, demonized or whatever in front of all the hearers. I am not talking about spiritual warfare, which I think is very real, but what seems like unkind pettiness.

I’ve heard warnings to be ultra-careful about what words come out of the mouth. A negative declaration may come true. Okay, this is a little extreme, but I know someone who will not say she is catching a cold, only that she is “catching a healing.” Very important to her, but seems a little like fantasyland to me.

These are admittedly my own absurd examples and in no way reflect the wonderful, wise, loving people I have known in all camps. I am so thankful for what I have learned and experienced from many persuasions in my faith journey. I’ve had some excellent mentors, too. It’s easy to look back and in hind sight see absurdity in some cases, but how many sacred cows do I still hold to (and even feed) that I don’t recognize as such? How many times do I think of someone as being “in” or “out” related to my or my group’s sacred cow? Do I alter my behavior to please people (whom I want to impress) over Jesus?

This year I hope to become freer from bottom lines that will not hold up over time. In other words, I want to grow in a knowledge of truth that causes me to root deeper in Jesus and his way (the way of love.) That sounds simplistic, but it is not. It is a process of debunking sacred cows that interfere with that along the way as I become aware of them. And friends, I will need you to help me. Are you “in” or “out”?

PART TWO:

Have you noticed how some people are affected by our sacred cows (methods of evangelism, prosperity message, etc…) Consider a portion of I Take My Chances by Mary Chapin Carpenter from one of my all-time favorite albums: Come On, Come On

I take my chances, I don’t mind working without a net
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get
I sat alone in the dark one night, tuning in by remote
I found a preacher who spoke of the light but there was brimstone in his throat
He’d show me the way according to him in return for my personal check
I flipped my channel back to CNN and I lit another cigarette

I take my chances, forgiveness doesn’t come with a debt
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get

I’ve crossed lines of words and wire and both have cut me deep
I’ve been frozen out and I’ve been on fire and the tears are mine to weep
Now I can cry until I laugh and laugh until I cry
So cut the deck right in half, I’ll play from either side

 

In Richard Foster’s discussion of Formation Prayer (Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home pp.60,61), he describes the active pursuit of humility. After all formation has to do with conformity to Christlikeness, so could it be that there is an antidote to some of our sacred cows that has to do with humility? He says:

…in simple terms, humility means to live as close to the truth as possible; the truth about ourselves, the truth about others, the truth about the world in which we live…

It does not mean groveling or finding the worst possible things to say about ourselves. Humility is in fact, filled with power to bring forth life. The word itself comes from the Latin humus, which means fertile ground. “Humility,” writes Anthony Bloom, “is the situation of the earth.” In one sense humility is nothing more than staying close to the earth. The earth, Bloom reminds us, is always with us, always taken for granted, always walked on by everyone. It is the place where we dump our garbage. “It’s there”, continues Bloom, “silent and accepting everything and in a miracuous way making out of all the refuse new richness…transforming corruption itself into a power of life and a new possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold out of every seed.” Such is the power of humility.

I want to think more about this power of humility. It sounds like a power for freedom, a power for joy, a power that attracts and makes people curious about the life it enables.

Posted in church stuff, fundamentalism, jenny, spiritual formation, theology | 2 Comments »

KATHY - meat lovers beware! our taste buds have been contaminated

Monday, October 29th, 2007

“i want some meat!”

“i wish we could get more meat!”

“we really need more meat!”

i know those of you who are struggling to buy groceries are thinking the same thing. but i’m talking about a different kind of meat that has nothing to do with grocery stores but everything to do with church. i have heard the cry for “meat” within the church ever since i became a true-blue evangelical church-going christian. when i entered into a season of spiritual and emotional healing about 14 years ago I remember demanding it myself. things started getting a little intense in my women’s group (people were really sharing honestly from their heart, not holding back, going the distance instead of faking it) and i told my group leader “i really wish we used the Bible more in here, i really want more meat! i really want to grow…” (i am now of course so embarrassed that I said this & after having seen the light a few years later confessed to her for not recognizing then that what we were doing in that little group was far more than just some stupid slab of spiritual meat—it was actually the whole cow!). but i was not alone in this kind of thinking. i hear it all the time, although now it is like nails on a chalkboard to me, maybe even like all of my children’s nails on a chalkboard all at once. and as you all know that is a lot of fingernails!

here’s what i think people mean by “meat.”

1. “Bible knowledge” - as in scripture verses and telling us exactly what they are supposed to mean. the more the better. a little bit of hebrew or greek translation adds the perfect spice.

2. “teaching” - teachers telling people what they think they need to learn or know in a very specific clear way so that we feel like we got a “lesson”, something motivating.

3. “certainty” – these are the facts and we are 100% certain that’s what this means and on top of that we are certain this is what you are supposed to do with this knowledge, too.

4. “a touch of shame” – some kind of moment that gets created when you think “now I’ll try harder….I need to be more godly…I am convicted and now this week I will get rid of that sin for good.”

while none of those things are inherently “wrong” what gets to me about all of them is they are sort of irrelevant to the gospel of Jesus. in fact, he said over and over to the religious leaders who had these 4 things mastered up and down, backwards & forwards, “ummm, guys, you are missing the point. here’s all that you need to do—be like me.” he didn’t say “go to a room, feed your belly with knowledge, get inspired and go home feeling spiritually fat.” he said, “hang out with the outcasts, the losers, the nonreligious, the prostitutues, the sick (oh, and by the way, that means you), get in touch with your brokenness & need for me and practice the way of self-sacrifice, generosity of spirit, humility and love. yes, my friends, this is what will change the world.”

i love the Bible. i think scripture can be transforming. but i also believe we have dismissed that true spiritual maturity is a life of serving others in tangible ways, humbling ourselves to the lowest place, giving up our comfort, money, time, pride for the sake of others. remember, the word of God became flesh, and that is what He did.

i think when we are honest what we really want is to be spoonfed spiritual milk and are terrified of true, tasty, Jesus steaks. most of the people i have been around through the years who demand “meat” are great, sincere believers. but usually their expressed desire for “meat” is actually them running for the safety of others who are more socially acceptable and sound more godly.

you see, the church has contaminated our taste buds. we have been taught to think that “spiritual” must include Bible knowledge, certainty, teaching, a touch of shame (and healing that looks like good behavior) so we keep seeking after it, church after church, Bible study after Bible study. but honestly, what it seems like to me is that people keep learning but never really apply much. we’re lonely but we never connect. we keep slipping in and out of services but never engage with a hurting person beyond “hi, nice to meet you.” we keep going to Bible studies & church meetings & services & prayer times hoping we’ll become more like Jesus and end up insulating ourselves more and more from the very places Jesus always was hanging out.

so here’s my soapbox mantra for the past 5 years or so, everytime I hear someone demand “meat”….“okay, no problem, look around. i see freezer after freezer full of it.”

reach out to someone in need no matter how messy it seems. help the poor. sacrifice your time and money. restore a broken relationship. love the outcast, especially the person that bugs the hell out of you. spend the time you waste watching TV investing in a person, no matter how young or old. stop nagging your spouse and change your behavior. serve someone else. open your home to others. force yourself to do something uncomfortable. get your head around the reality that you’re just as messed up as ‘those people’. humble yourself and let another person into your life. stay in a friendship for the long haul instead of running away.

and here’s what i believe usually happens next—never directly, always subtly—“nah, that kind of meat, i can do without. when does the next Bible study start?”

our taste buds have been contaminated. Jesus’ ways sometimes don’t initially taste too good going down. but for me, i have to say, nothing’s better than the aftertaste– the quiet moments when I notice where God’s spirit worked, what He is teaching me about me, life, humanity in the midst, and the beauty in the ugliness.

i know a lot of people think that at the refuge we are drinking milk. it sure tastes like steak to me.

Posted in church stuff, community, kathy, spiritual formation, theology | 8 Comments »

what would jesus do with the church?

Monday, October 15th, 2007


this blog is part of a synchroblog (people blogging about the same topic at the same time). we heard about it from erin at decompressing faith. here are the details. check out the links below for others writing today & see what they have to say about the same topic. we chose to participate because this is a subject near and dear to our heart.. now we will be honest, we can be people who rant and rave about all the things that are wrong with the church. you all know we are good at that! but the truth is that ranting and raving doesn’t change anything. action does. we couple the refuge’s belief statement with brennan manning’s challenging words, “if you want to know what a person really believes, you need to watch what they do.” when it comes to matters of “church”, actions do speak louder than words. we believe it’s that simple. we believe right now, more than ever, the world is watching. wondering. what kind of people are Christians? how are they best expressing the life of Christ corporately?

what would Jesus do with the church? maybe he has given us a glimpse of what he thought the foundational values would be in his most famous sermon. just think how different “church” would be if we took these words seriously corporately not just individually. here’s our little interpretation of the beatitudes in matthew 5:3-10 for churches.

blessed are those who realize their need for God…
“need me the most.”
we think Jesus hopes that we’d be communities who actually recognized our spiritual poverty & need for him. we have observed in church a reliance not on God but on high-tech power points, slick programs, video clips, fog machines, lights, amazing singers, inspiring sermons, and starbucks coffee. we believe Jesus would unplug church and get back to what is really important—raw interactions with people, stories, questions, tangible life on life that required absolutely nothing more than people & hearts.

blessed are those who mourn…
“let people feel”
what if churches became places people could really feel, mourn, grieve, so that they could be comforted? many think that the church is the last place they can struggle because they’ve encountered people who have questioned their faith, given them trite answers, expected them to get over their pain quickly. the result is always shame and the one place we should be able to be free from shame becomes the greatest source of it. we believe Jesus wants the church to become communities that embrace pain. that allow for grief. that are safe for people to shake their fist at God (we think he can take it) but are surrounded by other people who keep comforting, offering hope, not giving up. this means we have to be willing to let go of our “fix-it” mentality, stay in for the long haul and understand real change takes time and might look different than we think.

blessed are the humble…
“put others first.”
Jesus said that those who are humble will inherit the earth, yet the “church” has tended to have an overconfidence, certainty, exclusivity that reeks of pride & arrogance. we believe Jesus is asking the church to consider some really hard things in this category: apologize for the wrongs we have committed, ways we have offended, hurt & beat up people who read the same verses & feel differently about them. bend our knee publicly. admit our mistakes. open our doors to the outcasts or better yet close our doors and use our money to “go out” instead of expecting everyone to “come in”. if we have a building, let other people use it a lot instead of keeping it locked up 6 days a week (yes, that means people from other denominations, beliefs & ideas). give up meeting for bible study and start actually living out the bible with someone in need that requires us to give up our time, money, pride.

blessed are those who hunger & thirst for justice…
“advocate for all of humanity”
the church has a bad reputation in the media for focusing on two issues—abortion & homosexuality. while this isn’t the place to get into that conversation, we must not ignore that every 16 seconds someone dies of starvation. little boys & girls are being sold into slavery right now. as you’re reading this, families are being drug from their homes and slaughtered. closer to home, that woman you just said hi to in the parking lot is getting beat up by her boyfriend, your co-worker can’t buy groceries for her babies because her power bill is so high. the hispanic or african american or middle eastern guy you know overhears the jokes that everyone at work is always telling. Jesus told us to hunger and thirst for justice & righteousness. maybe it is time to be suspicious of power that masquerades as morality. we have to expand our world, find out what’s happening in other places and make people aware of it so they can make their own decisions on how to respond. help people walk a mile in another man’s shoes. show single parents, the addicted & mentally ill, the outcasts that we give a rip about them. give as much money, airtime and encouragement as we can to local & global organizations that are dedicated to changing life tangibly & practically for those in need.

blessed are the merciful…
“be kind. it’s that simple.”
the church can be mean. ask a woman who’s had an abortion. someone who struggles with homosexuality. the single mom who asked for help with her rent. the person who believes in something different than Jesus and just wanted to have a conversation. the christian who starts to doubt. we believe Jesus is calling the church to be places of mercy. compassion. understanding. that we need to listen better. quit talking so much. hold the space. wow people with our ability to stay in & be present instead of ditch, dismiss, and move on to the next thing. build a reputation for kindness in small wonderful ways that starts to spread.

blessed are the pure in heart…
“freedom is better than slavery to approval & power.”
we believe that many churches are filled with leaders with great hearts who are sincerely trying to do what they think is best. we like to consider ourselves in this category! but we wonder if Jesus is challenging us all to notice how much of what we do is motivated by fear? how much approval are we trying to get? are we measuring success by stories of love and hope and transformation or by attendance, budgets, and adherence to the latest leadership book we just read? we think Jesus wants our hearts to be more pure, to be motivated by the right things, not our preservation or reputations. maybe he would challenge us to give away more than we think we can. to do anything we can to diffuse power. share leadership. ask ourselves hard questions about why we think we have to do certain things. don’t cater to the big givers, the power people, the ones we think are going to give extra bang for our buck. love people freely and help fan their gifts into flame instead of using them to get what we need.

blessed are the peacemakers…
“build bridges not walls.”
let’s face it, the church has a reputation for building walls against “the world”, those who don’t believe the same things we do. to be peacemakers we need to build bridges in our community, make friends with people & churches & organizations that are trying to advocate for the poor, the oppressed, the victimized even if we see God, the world differently. network with other faith communities instead of competing against them. teach and model peace, forgiveness, loving our enemies in tangible ways.

blessed are those who are persecuted…
“get ready for it to get harder.”
really living out the gospel means it is going to hurt. paychecks will be cut, women & those without a voice will get more air time. people will leave, demand that we “give them what they are used to getting.” leadership gurus will tell us we are stupid, that we’re not doing things we must do to build a successful church. hardliners will think we are not focusing enough on making sure everyone knows the truth. we might get in trouble with our denomination, our old friends in ministry, oh all kinds of people who won’t like us changing.

+ + +

here’s our bottom line. we don’t really want to do this either. we know this is the hard road and we are human beings guided by a sense of “let’s find the path of least resistence as quickly as we can.” but that was what Jesus was railing against. he told us from the beginning—this is going to be hard, harder than you ever imagined. but if we take his words seriously, then it’s time for the church to quit following the ways of the world—power, success, exclusivity, structures that have to be sustained, techniques-that-win-and-move-us-up-a-notch and start working on downward mobility—diffused, flexible, diverse, power-less, poured out, present, humble. we do not presume to hit this right. we are wrestling with all the same things other churches are wrestling with. but we guess what we’re saying is “Jesus, we’re listening and we’ll try to give it a shot.”

check out what these others have to say about what they think Jesus would do with the church:

erin word
glenn hager
gary means
alan knox
nate peres
sally coleman
barb
rick stillwell
jeff greathouse
dan
jonathan brink
barbara legere
jason ellis
rainier

Posted in church stuff, dreams, equality, spiritual formation, the refuge | 7 Comments »

dreams

Sunday, October 7th, 2007


we have a dream…
it’s not a small one.
it’s not a huge one (we’re not planning to lead any marches anytime soon)
we think it’s a simple one.

and despite our cynicism about ‘church’ (yes, we know it seeps through!) we are idealists. we wouldn’t be doing this if we had given up.

we are still “foolish” enough to think some of our dreams are possible. we think when Jesus said “your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” he meant that the Kingdom was possible now.

here are a few of our dreams…

we have a dream that we’d be people who took Jesus word’s seriously. this means we don’t get to just talk about it, we actually have to be forgiving, loving, sacrificing, humble. we need to be people willing to give away our stuff, care for the widows and orphans, die to ourself, hug lepers, lay down power, and make peace with our enemies.

we have a dream that all people would be valued. when we look at each other we don’t let color, socioeconomics, gender, theologies, shapes or sizes or social abilities get in the way of seeing the image of God and respecting each other’s worth, value & contribution to this world.

we have a dream that no single parent would feel like they were parenting alone. they’d have other people willing to fill in the gaps, pick up the slack, offer help, prayer, and love so it’s not so damn hard.

we have a dream that no one would feel crippled by their weaknesses. the damage from the past & present would not paralyze us from living out who God made us to be, instead, we’d use our story to help another person.

we have a dream that we’d know our neighbors. actually know them, and notice if they’re hungry or sad or lonely and do something about it if we can.

we have a dream that every child had grownups other than their parents who believed in them. we’d see all that was possible, and cheer them on in really tangible ways.

we have a dream that people of Jesus would be known for the acts of Jesus. when people hear the word “Christian” they did not cringe and immediately think “judgemental”. instead, they’d have warm feelings that were associated with the truth of Christ’s love & kindness because they experienced it from one of us at some point and couldn’t escape its power.

we have a dream that we’d be advocates. we will stand with the marginalized, oppressed, poor & unlovely, that we’d risk our pride. position, and power so that someone with none could get a little.

we have a dream that walls between churches & the community would crumble. walls that have been built because of fear and past ugly experiences would dissolve. that we’d learn to share resources, support each other & let care for human beings supersede our politics & theologies.

we have a dream that every person would feel known, loved & cared for by another human being. that we’d do our little part to help banish loneliness.

we have a dream that we’d be a community of dreamers. what are some of yours?

Posted in church stuff, dreams, equality, healing, social justice, the refuge, theology | 5 Comments »

KARL: volume is the key

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007


this past weekend we hosted in the denver area our friends jim henderson and matt casper for a series of conversations. jim is a committed christian (small “c” on purpose, his preference) and matt is an atheist. together they collaborated on a book project, Jim and Casper Go to Church, and in the process they became friends. what a concept.

participating in these conversations over the weekend, i felt something familiar to me, that instinct when someone does not see the brilliance of our position and how we tend to react. it really does not matter if it is an atheist, republican, democrat, or most commonly just my poor, sweet wife–my instinct when someone disgrees tends to be the same.

here’s what i consider the anatomy of a fight:

1. i present the undeniable facts or truth
2. april does not respond by acknowledging my superior intellect
3. i assume she did not hear me. if she heard me, she would just say “thanks, you are so smart”
4. so i end up saying the same thing, but a bit louder
5. april makes it clear that she can hear me, but she disagrees with me.
6. i repeat the volume step (#4), but with more volume
7. april now seems to be not repenting out of spite
8. i assume that if i ridicule her, then she will somehow see how smart my idea is.

you can see how this will end. i am hoarse and april is no closer to my reality. it happened each day this weekend as matt and jim listened to what was supposed to be questions from the audience. every time, someone could not believe that matt or jim saw life or the bible or faith differently, and of course all they need is more volume. or perhaps if we ridicule the atheist or progressive christian, then they will change. of course, this was played amongst many wonderful, thoughtful & sincere other questions as well, but the volume ones really struck a chord.

i loved the weekend, the conversation. i am trying so hard to turn down the volume so I can actually hear what those who see life differently have to say. what do you sy? what are some of your perspectives on the conversation?

Posted in church stuff, fundamentalism, karl, off the map | 3 Comments »

a believer. an atheist. an unlikely friendship. engage in the dialogue in denver this upcoming weekend september 14-16th!

Sunday, September 9th, 2007

the following is a reprint from september 07 vertigo: the monthly online journal of spiritual dizziness at the refuge. some of you have already read it, but the blog gives you a chance to comment on it, too. for those of you who don’t get vertigo, we wanted you to have a chance to experience it. to sign up for vertigo each month, click here.


this subject hits a place near and dear to our hearts–the ability to dialogue instead of debate, offer love & respect instead of judgement & condemnation when others don’t believe the same things we believe. being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to be a judgemental, arrogant jackass whose sole purpose is to tell others of their wrong thinking. ok, so some of you are saying “well, wait a minute, Jesus told us we need to speak the truth, share the gospel, not water it down.” we understand the dilemma, we feel it, too. and that’s the big idea here: how do we live out the ways of Jesus, really? can’t we learn to be better listeners, lovers of all people? what does this mean for the “church’? for the refuge? for each of us?

we hope you can join us as we dive into the conversation with the authors of the new book Jim & Casper Go to Church. jim henderson’s a Christian & former pastor from seattle and director of off the map. matt casper’s an atheist who lives in san diego. they traveled across the US together last summer visiting over 20 churches; their unlikely friendship and perspective on the Christian church will challenge us all. they are coming to the refuge on sunday, september 16th (we are hosting them at two other locations, too, friday night the 14th at CU boulder & saturday morning the 15th at pathways church). more details are on the web.

in preparing for their visit, we had a chance to ask jim and matt a few questions.

what motivated each of you to do the jim and casper go to church project?

JIM: After “winning an atheist’s soul” on ebay I was approached by George Barna about doing a book that featured myself and an atheist going to church together and writing reviews. Beyond that it just sounded like a very fun thing to try and pull off.

ps: you can read a little more about that experience here.

MATT: Ummm. I have been engaging people in talks about such questions-is there God? Why are we here? What should we do?-for years. In the book, you see that first I met Jason, who runs a home church, and we became friends. Then, through him, I met Jim, and we ended up writing a book together. I was motivated by the same reasons I am motivated to travel, to read as much as possible, to write music: I knew it would be a learning experience, and I knew I would have fun, too.

what was the funniest moment on your adventures together?

JIM: My funniest moments came when I knew what Casper was about to experience but I let it happen anyway and just watched for his reaction–like getting ambushed by a couple of Bible thumpers right after church or watching people’s faces twitch when we told them that Matt was an Atheist and I was a Christian and we were writing a book together about church.

MATT: Probably any time Christians made Jim more uncomfortable than they made me. Or maybe at The Bridge in Portland. It caters to a young hip crowd, who are typically a young, hip, and poor crowd. About midway into the service, they all started heading for the exits (a smoke break, I presumed). Seconds later, the collection buckets-trick or treat baskets that looked like Spiderman and Batman-came out. Suddenly, this mass exodus made perfect sense.

thinking back on your travels together, what surprised you the most?

JIM: How fair Matt was in his assessments of Christians–not a surprise as in a BIG surprise but as in a pleasant surprise. Also on how much we agreed on.

MATT: How much we agreed on. See? We just did it again! Also, Jim used to play in a few bands (”We were like ‘The Beatles’ of Mexico City. . . “). The biggest surprise was how quickly Jim and I established a rapport. . . within about a few hours, we were holding nothing back.

matt, if you knew nothing about Christianity but only went to the large churches to find out what would you say are some of the primary values of Christianity?

MATT: Believing in God, growing the church, converting people to Christianity. Sounds good when you read it like that. But I want to know: what good does simply believing do anyone? Belief is not an ends, it’s a means. And growing the church is not the same as helping people or doing God’s will. . . it’s more like a business objective. And when the talk was about converting people, it sounded like folks were more interested in putting “notches on their cross” rather than really helping people. . . “So, Bob, how many conversions did you land this week? Only 3? HAH! I converted 12 people! Boo-yaa!”

jim, if you were telling the average evangelical christian what is on your heart related to the “church”, what would you say?

JIM: If I didn’t have to open with a long list of qualifiers I would say: We’ve inherited a view of church that is flawed. It has been in the works for about 1700 years or more. It is called the religion business. We need to rescue Jesus from religion and take him public. We have an historic opportunity to nudge this thing back into movement phase if we can find the courage to follow in our founders’ footsteps and care more about how the missing see us than how the found do.

of course, your trip was limited to short visits into churches for an hour or so service. if you had really hung out in the community for a longer period of time, what do you think you may have discovered?

JIM: If we could have located them, we would have seen numbers of ordinary people serving non-Christians in ordinary ways. Unfortunately due to the economic pressures (as in justifying the pastor/speaker’s salary) put on churches there is little to no time to feature these ordinary people every weekend.

MATT: I would (and here’s my bias) probably have been disappointed as–based on some conversations I’ve had with more than a few Christians–a lot of people seem to think being a Christian requires little more than a 10% donation and an hour on Sunday. However, I did attend a small group at a local Baptist church where people talked about how to apply what they learned in that day’s sermon, but it was kind of meandering and no real “action items” came out of it.

what is the hardest part for each of you to understand about the other person’s belief system? what has surprised you the most about the others person’s beliefs? what has offended you? encouraged you?

JIM: I don’t find atheism hard to understand. I think it is a common sense and reasonable conclusion to come to if you are limited to measuring using our five senses. Further I think that a reasonable and maybe even a compassionate person (Christians call them humanists as if it is a dirty word) would certainly find it ludicrous to believe in any god currently sponsored by the major world religions. I mean they are pretty weird–including the religion known as Christianity. Having said that, I find atheism to be very difficult to believe in. I have had too many experiences in life that are transrational, loving and lovely to not raise my suspicions that there is a God out there who is at least as good as I can be (on my good days). Besides whether or not Jesus is objectively true or real I would like him to be and since I don’t find anything particularly compelling or interesting about atheism (which could also be a reflection of my lack of intellect) I will stick with the Jesus story and look forward to falling into his arms when this rat race is finally over. There just has to be a place called heaven–this place is just too screwed up. I can’t believe that this is the end. . . sorry.

MATT: This is the question we don’t discuss in the book, but purposefully. It’s not that we avoid it. It’s just that. . . well, what’s the point? If you want me to learn about your beliefs, show me how you live. Jim and Jason and all my believing friends know that I think believing in supernatural gods is really quite strange when you stop to think about it. But what encouraged me was hearing Jim freely agree (”Yes, I see how you think it could be very strange. . . “) and not try to tell me I was wrong. And I never said he was wrong, either, because, in my opinion, when it comes to what you believe it’s subjective and cannot be proven or disproven, so why bother. . . ? Ask questions, get to know a person, be free of an agenda beyond, pursue “I’d like to know what you think.” Nothing Jim did offended me as he answered every question from an honest place. Who could ask for anything more? I came away from all of this encouraged, because American Christians-in spite of the fact they worship one of the most peaceful men who ever lived-can get quite vitriolic and violent while discussing their beliefs. Jim didn’t and doesn’t.

what is the best thing you have learned from being in relationship with one another?

JIM: Being friends with Matt has made me a much more honest and grounded follower of Jesus. It has also motivated me to become a better practitioner of dialog and made me less afraid of difference. Our friendship is a unique gift and one I hope to cultivate for the rest of my life. I really enjoy Matt and especially enjoy his humor, kindness and interest in others.

MATT: Being friends with Jim has made me a much more honest and grounded atheist. It has also motivated me to become a better practitioner of dialog and made me less afraid of difference. Our friendship is a unique gift and one I hope to cultivate for the rest of my life. I really enjoy Jim and especially enjoy his humor, kindness and interest in others. Also, being friends with Jim has changed how I see the world. I was never an “angry atheist” like so many high profile authors we hear about today–Dawkins, Hitchens. et al. (I think they are “anti-theists” not atheists as their books seem to be about how there is no God, not about how living with no God can be a good thing.) I am now so much more in touch with how I see the world, and I remain as open as ever to the fact that I may be wrong about there not being a god. Some would say that makes me an agnostic, but the fact about gods is that no one can prove or disprove their existence. Thus, we never know (until we’re dead). And so, aren’t we all agnostic with tendencies toward either belief or non belief? I never asked myself these kinds of questions or crystallized these kinds of thoughts until I met and traveled with Jim Henderson. I am glad to know him.

the reason we invited you guys to come to denver is we believe in your project. we are listening. as Christians, we really want to be people who ask ourselves the hard questions–how did our reputation become so crazy? what has the church become? why is it so hard for us to live alongside people who disagree? we of course are hoping there will be a wide range of people at these conversations, across faiths, no faith, ages & experiences. so, as you prepare to come here to denver, what are you guys hoping the conversation will do for those who come?

JIM: Move them to connect with someone they think of as “the other” or as “an outsider” and become great question askers.

MATT: Help people return to treating faith as faith, and not as fact. In the book, I close with wishing people would stop staying, “Be a Christian or go to hell” and start saying, “We follow Jesus, and here’s what we do and how it has helped us.”

so, everyone, we hope this gave you a small taste of our conversation. we’d love to hear your comments. this is definitely one to invite your friends to. they will be at the refuge on sunday, september 16th at 5:30 pm. we are also hosting them at two other locations to give as many people as possible the chance to participate. . . CU boulder on friday night the 14th at 6pm and at pathways church on saturday morning at 10 am. for details click here.

Posted in church stuff, interviews, mega church craziness, off the map, the refuge | No Comments »

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