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KATHY - fabio jesus

Monday, September 3rd, 2007


i hate to pick on fabio, but honestly, I do not know what his appeal is. he’s just so….perfect. those abs, the flowing hair, the perfect smile, those penetrating eyes. if you could can the world’s view of “perfect specimen” of course he would be it. (i will admit i do have a weakness for long hair, jose had me under his spell when he grew his hair out last year and had that liberal-lawyer-surfer look! too bad he has to keep his job as mr. conservative united pilot) but, back to fabio. and Jesus.

a few weeks ago, I was watching the trinity broadcasting network, the home of christian-evangelical-name-it-and-claim-it-craziness. we are talking a serious multimillion dollar industry—all in the name of Jesus. it actually is quite nauseating but our friend nadia was asked to write a book about her experience of watching TBN for 24 hours straight. she wanted to add some flavor to each hour, so she invited karl & i over to offer our perspectives since we are now pretty much former good evangelicals who now live in the sh**ty christian camp. well our hour slot included a ½ hour program called God Wants You to be Wealthy where the “speaker” wore a silver trenchcoat mini-mini dress with 4 inch heels and tried to hock her book “God wants you to be a millionaire.” She encouraged us to “sow our best gift now” by donating to her program. don’t even get me going on that one. but my commentary for the moment is that she was perfect in every way, with off the charts confidence, and an absolutely convincing delivery to all of the poor souls who are just hoping for some kind of crumb to make their lives better. her promises were ridiculous and using God that way just really gets to me…the other 1/2 hour program featured the Holy Land Adventure theme park in orlando, with Jesus reenactments throughout the day. guess who Jesus looked like? yeah, fabio.

have we simply made God in our own image? we want Jesus to be hip, cool, appealing. that’s what we are drawn to—images in people magazine & cosmo. christianity (mostly the american version) have become the root of a money making machine, a business that is fine-tuned and finessed to perfection. we like to watch and listen to people who are good looking, smart & make life look simple. this flawless, easy, and comfortable appearance has become a staple of church programming. we want to make the gospel easy for people to get. we want to make their church experience comfortable, distraction-free. we don’t want anyone to be offended. we want Jesus to be attractive. what Bible are we reading for goodness sake? Jesus was ugly. not cool. not worldly. not slick. not hot. the old testament prophet isaiah describes him this way:

he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
he was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (isaiah 53:2-3)

does this look like the Jesus most churches are trying to sell? does this look to you like any of the pretty, neat, and tidy intact families you see on most church programs & websites? I don’t want to dismiss all those pearly white teeth and smiling faces, but come on, people that look like that, really only “look” like that. and here’s the rub–these are the people most churches are trying to attract. pretty, happy, smiling, successful, confident, married with 2.5 kids. they look great—on the outside.

well, Jesus surely wouldn’t have made the photo shoot cut. there’s no glamour in who He was, what He did, and what He has called us all to. in fact, not only is it not glamorous, but it’s downright stinky, dirty, and as ugly as you can get. feed the poor, hug the lepers, give away all of your money, care for the prostitutes, share your stuff, sacrifice your pride & comfort & family’s name, lay down power, hang out in the slums, be honest about all the daily struggles in your imperfect life. that, my friends, is the gospel. you see, it can’t be cleaned up. because real humanity, people trying to live this difficult Genesis 3 life, isn’t pretty. it’s full of pain and insecurity and shame and sin and craziness and desperation. i don’t care how pretty you try to dress it up on the outside, it just isn’t all that attractive. now I personally find it beautiful beyond words—all that rawness, dirt & sweat rubbed up against honesty, unconditional love, grace, healing, and hope. to me, it’s glory. i believe wholeheartedly that Jesus came to dwell with us in the stench and offer beauty and redemption in the midst. He sits in the muck and isn’t afraid of it because it’s real.

so why are we so afraid of it? i am. i admit it regularly. i think it’s because i often make God in my own image. i lump Jesus into all my worldly ideas about success and value and beauty. everything has to be fabio-like, but in reality, life gets ugly. yeah, i can clean up the outside pretty nicely, but it’s just christian window dressing. my faith isn’t strong enough to heal me, victory is not my middle name, shame is. i can never really measure up. i keep screwing up the same things over and over again. i know that’s the big idea of the gospel—we can’t. i can’t. it’s why i so desperately need the real Jesus and His grace, His hope, His help. the whole big idea here was always our heart, the stuff on the inside, but that is always the most dangerous place to go. my hour of TBN tv-watching just reminded me how often the current contemporary “church” (and me, when i’m making God in my own image) isn’t into the real Jesus. and i think that there’s a simple reason—the real Jesus is unpredictable, wild, crazy, and asks us to do hard things in our life that require us to get up off our comfy seats, peel our eyes off the video screen, and engage in the ugliness & beauty of other human beings. to bring what’s underneath our veneer and coverups to the table and look beyond what we see on the surface in others, too. money, power, comfort. strength, worldy beauty. none of it means a damn thing in God’s economy but it sure gets some serious airtime in the american church, and not just the ones on TV. Jesus, forgive us, for making you in our image. we admit, it’s a really bad (albeit easier) idea.

Posted in church stuff, kathy, mega church craziness, theology | 5 Comments »

KARL - I am a Sh**ty Christian

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

I hope you will forgive the coarse title, I was quite depressed when I started this blog. The title reflects the way I often feel when I compare myself to others. I used to be a good Christian. Well, I was almost a good Christian. I only missed it by a few devotions and had I lead two more people to Christ I am pretty sure I could have gotten some merit badge. I was a confident and positive young man filled with lots of interesting trivia about the Bible. Now, I am middle-aged, have spent most of my adult life being paid as a “professional Christian” and mostly wonder what happened?

And I am realizing that it is as difficult now to move from being noticed to obscurity as it was to sit alone at lunch in junior high. Mostly, only good Christians get noticed. As a matter of fact that may be the primary task of the good Christian–to be noticed. God, friends, admirers, kids, spouses, bosses, you name it. We crave that our goodness, godliness, and “hard work for the Kingdom” be acknowledged. So as I sit back and reflect on how far back I have fallen in my good Christian duties, I have identified a couple of the primary qualities that separate good Christians from the rest of us.

Goals.
Good Christians have lots of goals.
Attendance to double, do more devotions, more push-ups, better schools, and more moral government officals and laws. The Christian bookstore can assist you…apparently we have become a fix-it faith, get-er-done kind of Christianity. Think back to last New Years, those resolutions you made, and I bet you wanted to be a better Christian.

Sh**ty Christians are slow, and sometimes appear lazy; but what they are trying very hard to do is to stop measuring everything. Loving people seems to look different now than winning people, and I can not for the life of me find that passage where Jesus told his disciples their numbers were a bit low….can anyone help me?

Here are some of my new lofty goals:
not tinkle when I sneeze
meet tiger woods
love better

That’s about it….

Power.
Good Christians seem to have a lot of power.
Good Christians have an enormous amount of power, especially over nagging character defects. It seems that good Christians do not struggle much with issues of the flesh and personal history. Somehow, they always find victory, which means, that as far as anyone can see, they have no visible defects. Only good Christians are considered as leaders, and the better the Christian, the more “leadership” they are given. With power comes a sense of independence that allows the good Christian to not really need others too much.

Shi**ty Christians are usually total losers. They struggle with morality, substances, and the confidence to believe that everyone should do what they say. They compound their problem by telling folks of their problems. And then just to make things worse, they actually ask for help.

Certainty.
Good Christians are certain they are right.
How often do you hear from a good Christian, “I wonder, what do you think, maybe I am wrong?” The Bible is book of facts to be mastered, and once you have the proper key, it all fits into a nice, neat little package. Certainty is what gives the good Christian such confidence, the ability to tell others how to live without hesitation. They often seem to say certainty is faith, but if you are sure do you really need faith?

Sh**ty Christians doubt, ask questions, and aren’t too sure anymore. We tend to wonder, question, and notice that some believe differently than we do and we don’t always feel obligated to fix the difference.

I wrote this blog to just create a conversation, to stir some thoughts. Have you thought of yourself as one of those shi**y Christians? and if so what prompts it? What is that makes you so bad at this? Just know you’re not alone.

Posted in church stuff, fundamentalism, karl | 13 Comments »

8 ways to shrink a church

Tuesday, August 14th, 2007

this is a reprint of an article we shared in our august 07 vertigo, the online journal of spiritual dizziness at the refuge. we know some of you have already read it but we wanted to put it up for those that don’t get vertigo (if you are interested in subscribing, click here). plus, this way you can comment, too.

when we planted the refuge 15 months ago, there were many people who thought (and secretly hoped) we’d replicate the “attractional” church model that we had been part of. it could have been so simple–a few good messages, amazing, upbeat music, a few light trees and fog machines, and we would have been golden. good communicator, solid care pastor, it was the formula for success. one problem–it violated so many of our core beliefs about what “church” is supposed to be. so instead we have chosen this harder path in the wider Christian community. at this point we aren’t sure if we’re smart or stupid.

but we do know there are many church leaders out there who are overwhelmed by the exponential growth they’ve experienced in the past few years (they definitely followed the manual we seem to have misplaced). they don’t quite know what to do because their budgets and staff keep increasing, they’re running million dollar building campaigns, and sunday programming continues to ramp up to near-hollywood levels. we have heard their cry and offer our heartfelt and sympathetic advice. you see if there is anything we feel competent at, it is managing rapid growth. in fact, we are confident we can solve the problems of churches that are too big. our answer? our area of expertise?

we call it “Church Shrinkage”….

just apply these 8 easy principles and we’re 100% sure your church will shrink (but who knows, maybe in the end you’ll live out some of your dreams of the way you’ve longed church could be)

1. shoot the sheriff.

don’t build what is called a faith community on any superstar other than Jesus. remember, He said He was the head of the thing, although people usually want a more tangible and handsome superstar, one hero who makes all of the decisions. hmm, no telling where it all went awry, but as far as we can tell the early church was just a group of men & women who loved God and each other and wanted others to know Him, too.

2. tell the truth.

be more honest about where each dollar goes, who gets the biggest salary (and the least), what the real agenda is. do 25 million dollar buildings really help poor Jesus out, or are they in fact ways to proclaim power and comfort? what is hidden is always bad news for the poor.

3. embrace brokenness.

sounds good when it is a program for others, but is confession a way of life for leadership or are the stories of brokenness someone else’s and the speakers seem to have more “victory” than the average schmoe? what happens to people when they aren’t getting “healed” fast enough?

4. demand equality.

look around, do women have equal status & power? enough said.

5. defer to the least of these.

are the folks in charge the ones Jesus would notice, or do they seem more from wall street? are poor, uneducated, but loving servants of Jesus on the elder board? or does the board look more like a fortune 500 company? is success measured in dollars and numbers? whose phone calls get returned? who is getting invited to play golf with the pastors?

6. be generous.

where does most of the money go? what is spent on “the show”, programming, creating comfort versus single moms, struggling families or hungry children?

7. let people speak.

why are we so afraid of dialogue? why do only the “professionals” get to speak?

8. value people above strategy.

what happens when someone is passionate about something but it doesn’t align with the personal preferences of church leadership? do staff people seem to come and go on a regular basis? someone is being sacrificed for a strategy, and that strategy is about being bigger.

see, anyone can have a smaller church, if you lay down power, control, and personal comfort. if you are willing to be honest about what happens behind closed doors, then your church can also have the joy of shrinking. we’ll be glad to help.

Posted in church stuff, mega church craziness, shared leadership, the refuge, women in ministry | 10 Comments »

high degree of grace required

Monday, July 30th, 2007


planting a church is hard. planting a church that is committed to trying wacky things is harder. planting a church that is committed to being safe for wacky people (as in every human being, when we’re really honest) is even harder. the reason we have chosen the harder path is that we believe simply and firmly in grace. not theoretical grace. not grace when it works in our favor. not grace that is just a nice Christian word. to us, grace means cutting each other a lot of slack, offering a ton of mercy and understanding instead of judgement. we’re not saying that there’s not a lot of grace offered out there in the wider Christian community. of course there is, but in the average church there’s not a ton of need for a lot of it to be dispensed. really, people’s craziness isn’t rubbing against each other too much. you sit, you listen, you pass out bulletins, you go home. you might need to give grace to the guy that stole your parking spot or the person that decided to talk to his wife during the worship in front of you, but the truth is that for the most part, real grace isn’t necessary.

but what happens when you really share your lives together in community? show up on sunday, open the floor and give room for comments and thoughts from all over the place? what happens when even the people in “leadership” don’t hide and say their crazy thoughts out loud? what happens when there’s not a program to hide behind but just this raw, real authentic entrance into the messiness of life? what happens when you don’t let only pros sing and play? what happens when people feel safe enough to share really deep things out loud? here’s our guess: some of us want to run for the hills as fast as we can!

why, because we begin to realize “this kind of place requires a high degree of grace and i’m not sure i have it to give.” we totally understand this dilemma. we know how much easier it would be if some great speaker or singer stood up front and put on a great, inspirational show that would make everyone love us and think we were the greatest thing since sliced bread and everyone could go home feeling jolly. but we know we can do that week after week without ever really living in community together. and Jesus’ design for the Body of Christ was real community not “going to church.”

real community requires an incredible amount of grace. it means seeing beyond the moment into the bigger picture. it is realizing that God is at work in people’s lives even when we can’t see it. it demands cutting each other slack. it asks people to supersede selfish comfort. it means we give the person next to us a break and then the next time they give us one, too. it means recognizing that everyone isn’t the same and seeing the power and value of diversity. it means loving unconditionally, not just when it feels good or people “do what we wish they would do”.

our ability to give grace has probably increased over the past 15 months we have been together, but to be honest, we suck at receiving it. so here goes—we are going to ask for it directly. the refuge needs continued grace. we need continued grace. we are just doing the best we can for the given moment and it is harder than you can imagine to not give up and throw in the towel. we must fight to be a place that can give & receive grace. it must work two ways—we can’t expect others to give it to us in a moment and then the next minute turn around and be unwilling to give it. we believe wholeheartedly that the ways that God conforms us to his image is in relationship with each other—what better place, then, to learn Jesus’ ways of kindness, sacrifice, love, forgiveness, humility, and yes, grace than in a community of people who are choosing to learn a better way of living. but, there’s no doubt, the cost is pretty high—it’s brutally hard. it will require us to get in touch with our selfish, judgmental ways, and it takes a ton of time. not super appealing on the surface, but Jesus was never about the surface. it was always about something deeper.

we honestly think that Jesus is calling us all to grace and we’re a little bit afraid of it….what are your thoughts?

Posted in church stuff, community, healing, the refuge | 2 Comments »

KATHY - no girl pastors allowed

Monday, July 16th, 2007


a few days ago i got sucker punched for having ovaries, if you can believe that. i was in atlanta at the big christian retailers conference to launch a book that I co-authored that is just being released. it is a women’s bible study/journaling tool in a magazine format and it’s pretty cool. check it out here. (this isn’t the actual cover but an older version that ended up going out earlier). anyway, some of it’s me, some of it’s not me, but the essence–a tool for women that addresses our real story, what’s really going on in our relationship with God & others instead of pat, surface answers—is, in my humble opinion, a desperately needed voice in the Christian market that is saturated with simplistic, bumper sticker answers to some complex and painful issues. (plus, it’s kind of fun to have someone want you to write something for them and actually pay you for it!)

during the whole gaggle of getting it ready for promotion in december, it turns out the publisher couldn’t print that i was a pastor in the material because some of the salesmen said they wouldn’t be able to sell it to the by-far-the-biggest christian account (with southern baptist roots) with a woman pastor author. I am not kidding. if I had any other title in the whole wide world it wouldn’t matter. it’s just because I am called pastor, that is the word they can’t tolerate if there’s not a y chromosome with it. I fought the battle with the publisher (new hope, they are great by the way, but really underestimated how crazy the system really is on this one) and ended up losing. they decided to not mention I was a pastor in the bio. there was nothing for me to do about it, really, i used my voice, advocated for what i could, and had to just let it go or pull out of the project, and I had invested countless hours writing the tool part and it just felt too bad to walk away. i understand they had profits to consider and wanted the book to have the best possible shot and without that biggest book order, it was going to be tough.

so, here we are 7 months later, I have mustered up getting excited about it despite how weird it has felt (it’s like telling a teacher, we can’t call you a teacher because it might offend somebody). they paid for me to fly to atlanta, stay in a great hotel, and all of my expenses to launch it. i have been on my best behavior, trying to make the most of being at a conference filled with the marketing of Jesus. it’s been a little hard on my soul but I was so happy being quiet in my hotel room reading eat, pray, love by elizabeth gilbert and catching up on my zzz’s, that I didn’t even mind.

well, i found out toward the end of the conference, that the retailer—lifeway christian stores—still refused to carry it. even though it isn’t printed in the book, they now know I am “one of those women pastors” and it is against their doctrinal beliefs. what is so gross to me is that automatically because I have the title pastor, have something to say to our little faith community, I am theologically anti-biblical and immediately disqualified. it’s ugly. disgusting. makes me want to throw up. but after the initial shock and trauma (1 hour before our book signing where I needed to be extra perky and happy. I saved my tears for later) I just felt relieved. all of my ranting and raving about inequality, injustice, ugly evangelicalism is not unfounded. I am not crazy, I am not making this up. it is alive and well in the year 2007 whether anyone wants to believe it or not.

so what can I do? what can you do? well, I hate to pick on you, boys, but it starts with you. women can stand on the tables and shout out “don’t you see?” but really we need men to understand how engrained this injustice is and intentionally make sure they are not subtly buying into the system. I am grateful for the refuge because karl, mike, john, kevin, paul—as members of the leadership team–have openly embraced that we are equal. girls’ anatomy doesn’t preclude me or any of the other women on the team or in our community from anything. they see the value of diversity, where young and old, women and men, married and single, divorced and widowed, all have something to say. I never, ever feel discriminated against at the refuge. every man who is part of our little crazy community, whether they realize it or not, is changing the tide of an unjust system just by their presence. (thank you guys, I love and respect you all so much….). you can also go to a lifeway store near you (they’re mainly in the south but are a few in colorado & california) and ask for refresh, ask why don’t they carry it and ask them to order a copy for you. new hope would love for them to see a blip get on their radar.

but bottom line is this hub-ub has been a catalyst for me to stay on this journey, to do what I can to just keep being, well….me. i readily admit, some days i just want to give up, throw in the towel, and say okay, jackasses, you win. i’m out. you can have your church and eat it, too. but i am too much of a fighter and it is so not Jesus’ heart that half of all people, that those with a passion for his message, the Kingdom, for the poor & oppressed wouldn’t be able to have a voice or role as a pastor or shepherd or leader because they happened to have a different chromosome combination.

like racism, the only way to change things is to not stand for it anymore. I believe as Christ-followers, we must visibly show the world that sexim, racism, classism, and exclusion is not the Way of Jesus. God, help us be an instrument of change, hope & healing in this really messed up, sexist, racist, egocentric, classist world (and sadly, church)

Posted in church stuff, equality, injustice, kathy, women in ministry | 9 Comments »

detoxing from church

Wednesday, June 27th, 2007

we know we sometimes drive people crazy at the refuge with our rugged rawness and lack of “professionalism”. where’s the power points, the lights, the 30 minute exciting inspirational message that gives you that shot in the arm you need to make it through the week? why do we ask questions and open up the floor to all kinds of crazy things that sometimes make us feel uncomfortable and awkward? where’s the predictability, amazing program & comfort that some of us have become so accustomed to? in the past few years we have undergone some major shifts in what we believe about church. we think that people are kind of hooked on church in a way that’s not super healthy–that if we don’t get a, b or c, then it’s not a worthwhile experience. that if we get pushed, challenged, made to feel uncomfortable, we bail. that sitting in a chair for an hour once a week, soaking in and not really having to do much more than listen is considered church. that we can be part of a church for years and still not be connected to anyone in an intimate and meaningful way. that our serving experiences need to be as pain-free as possible by keeping everyone on a once a month rotation for one hour timeframes so that they are not inconvenienced too much.
we believe the refuge is part of a movement in the body of Christ away from church toward real community. we recognize that this is against the grain and takes an incredible amount of work & risk; it is completely disorienting to some of us but what we believe is a more accurate representation of what Jesus meant. we are wholly committed to it at the refuge. and getting to it it requires detoxing. a pretty strong word. but we think it hits the nail on the head when describing what it is like to move away from our addiction to church toward a real and lasting intimacy with God & others in the Body of Christ. check out this article here, http://www.theofframp.org/Detox.html.
it is long but worth the read. we’d love to hear your comments.

Posted in church stuff, healing, mega church craziness, the refuge | 2 Comments »

KATHY - Can Church Really Be Church if We Don’t Listen to Someone Talk?

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

Well in typical Refuge style we tried something a little out of the ordinary this past Sunday and at first glance it felt like a disaster. I realize, yet again, how foreign it is to not have the safety of a sanctuary with padded chairs, a perfectly timed worship set and a 30 minute inspirational message. We are all so programmed to think that is what “church” is that we forget that really none of that has to do with the original thought of living out the gospel.

So our little experiment scared the hell out of me. (for those who perhaps think we have become too liberal, notice the subtle way in which I have included a theological word!) And it really shouldn’t have. Honestly, it was no big deal but it felt like it was this big crazy thing because we are so not used to doing church this way.

We actually didn’t meet for a regular service this past week. Instead, we gathered in the parking lot—no chairs, no music, no signs (we don’t have any anyway), no nothing. We didn’t even take an offering—now if you have ever been on a church staff, you know that is the cardinal no-no (please, oh please God, don’t forget how much we need the money!) We were just a group of people showing up for “church” together. Karl and I lamely shared our hope for the night (please, friends, forgive us for our lack of any sort of clarity but rest assured, in our heads it sounded good!)—that instead of sitting together in one large group we’d actually scatter and spread a little love, a little Jesus in some small way in the community. It was not to “serve” in the typical way we think of serving—serving has come to mean signing up to serve a meal to the homeless, go volunteer in the church nursery, or be on the greeter team (no greeter teams at The Refuge, sorry, we know some of you probably miss that smile at the door a little but it’s just really not our gig).

Our hope was just that we’d pass on some love to the least likely, in the least likely way.

We were wondering, what if “serving” was just “noticing” people? Who around us might need a smile, a little help, a little hope instead of making it so complicated or disqualifying ourselves because of time, perceved lack of spiritual maturity, or a myriad of other excuses? So we split up in teams, grabbed some bags of random stuff we put together to use in whatever way anyone wanted to, and we met back at Karl’s for dinner and conversation. Some people went home and didn’t feel like joining in, that was so okay (of course, my first reaction was feeling like we had let them down, disappointed them, they were expecting church and got this instead. Then sometime later today I was like “why am I thinking all of their thoughts for them, who knows what they might have done on the way home????)

There were some fun stories afterward..some people brought flowers and a card to a woman who had cancer, others brought thanks and cold drinks and toys to children’s hospital and blessed all of the nurses & staff there who serve the Broomfield community, others went and visited a co-worker who barely makes it every month and is trying to get some healing in her life and gave her some groceries, others played with kids at a park, payed for someone’s meal at Burger King, brought toys to a family with little kids and not too much resource…all different ways that we passed on, in some random tangible way, Jesus.

Why do we always think it has to be in the big things? And why are we so hooked on having to go to church for an hour and a half every week instead of just hanging out together? This experiment was a little contrived, no doubt. But I think that was the idea—we’d probably never naturally do any of those things . We’re just so caught up in the whirlwind of life and all of our inadequacies that we miss all of these opportunities to offer a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty, feed someone who is hungry, visit someone who is in some kind of prison, love the least of these.

So it seems so simple, so natural to the way of Jesus, so why was it so risky? Because church has become known for being a place where similar people gather instead of scatter, a place where we are supposed to get fed (and inspired) instead of give hearts to each other. Do you think that’s what Jesus had in mind for church? Creating a community is completely different from building a church. Church planting advisors in the church growth model would tell us that was a pretty stupid thing to do, not meet, don’t take an offering, encourage people to get out of their comfort zones…. That is church growth suicide.

But I guess I am constantly reminded that really following Jesus means church growth can’t be the first thing in my mind. Learning how to be more loving towards people is. And learning to be better lovers requires practice and it also means we will have to risk. It means risking an offering, risking offending, risking numbers of bodies in seats, risking my pride. I want to be a person who is more willing to risk. I want The Refuge to be a place where people are more willing to risk. I want to be part of a community that is committed to Jesus and each other first and foremost and doesn’t really care if they are entertained or inspired. They just want to live a new way, a real way, a risky way, the way of Jesus.

Posted in church stuff, community, kathy, spiritual formation, the refuge | 1 Comment »

KATHY - Downward Mobility

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

Well it’s official I am over the hill! 40 years old. I know those of you who have already hit this mark don’t have a lick of sympathy for me. My favorite card this year was made by my son Josh, who’s 15. Here’s what he made up:
Roses are red, violets are blue
You might be 40 but you look 22
Yeah, he’s a liar, but he loves me (and if you ever need a self-esteem lift, just talk to Josh, he’s the best at that). But really, I am realizing that this whole turning 40 thing has been harder than I thought it would be. I keep flashing back to the idealistic dreams I had when I was twenty. When I was young and stupid I definitely thought life would be a lot easier when I was forty. In my dream, I wouldn’t have to worry about money, I’d be at the pinnacle of my career, fairly chaos-free, I’d have my two perfectly behaved children and a maid who would clean my house every week. Somehow, someway in the last 20 years, things have gone awry. A lot of my friends from college are rich but I now make less money than I made almost 20 ago when I graduated from college. Chaos is a word many people use when describing my life, somehow two kids became five, and walk into my house and it’s quite clear that there’s not a maid to be seen! My big plans for upward mobility have been thwarted over the years. Things didn’t go quite the way I had hoped. What happened?

Jesus got a hold of me, that’s what happened. And he keeps ruining my plans for upward mobility. Every time I try to get it, it sort of slips away. I think that’s a little bit what happened to me in this past year and a half as I transitioned off the mega-church fast-track and back into real life. Power, status, money, whatever you call it, escaped me once again. Hmm, I am pretty sure those were the exact things Jesus railed against but I am so attracted to. Jesus’ plan seemed to be a lot more about downward mobility than up. That’s kind of the big idea in the Kingdom. Whoever is first shall be last and the last shall be first. The least of these…blessed are the poor in spirit…all of the things the world (and even the “church”) told me I should shoot for, achieve, do, really, in God’s economy, means nothing. God’s economy is about love, tangibly expressed. And boy am I surrounded by a lot of people who know how to do that well. Real, true, authentic people who don’t give a rip about upward mobility and 401k’s and color swatches for their walls. I am in the trenches with people who are fighting for their lives, trying to live it well, and fighting for mine, too. And they’re fighting for the lives of others who can’t fight for themselves, either. Yesterday I watched a video of the poorest of the poor in India, beautiful women and children ravaged by AIDS and living in the slums, sold into prostitution, sifting through garbage to find something to eat. I sat at this table with people who are smart, talented, educated who have sacrificed their careers, money, status and power, to care about the least of these. I was awed. And reminded, for the next 40 years, I will have to fight against my human nature to clamor for “upward mobility”, a bigger paycheck, more status and power and listen to Jesus’ call…go down, Kathy, downward mobility, that’s what I’m all about…

I need to be reminded that Jesus’ words of blessing to the poor, marginalized, the downwardly mobile was not a threat, a coercion technique to force me into a miserable life. His call to me to go downward is His methodology for the abundant life, the easy yoke He places. If I crave His peace and presence, then I guess I have to trust His methods. Funny, isn’t it, that I think more money, power, status will give me security and a strong sense of self? Yet Jesus says it will be exactly the opposite…if I find my life, I will lose it…

Posted in church stuff, healing, jesus, kathy, spiritual formation, the refuge, theology | 2 Comments »

KARL - Inspiration Addiction

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

At The Refuge we have a high sensitivity to people who struggle with addiction. Not in the typical church sense, where the recovering alcoholic is paraded around like some trophy that shows how cool and “grace- filled” you are, and it is made clear the addict is the other person, the one you want to help. At The Refuge we have this sense we are all in the same boat, and addict or dabbler, we are all the same. But recently I have noticed that at The Refuge we have left out a silent and growing mass of addicts, and I have realized we have nothing for them.

I like to call it inspiration addiction. Like any addiction, this drug needs to be consumed in ever larger doses to maintain the high. We have created a faith culture that has confused adrenaline with the Holy Spirit. It is fairly easy to identify the addiction–“amazing” will be applied to all the movements of the service/show. For example, the worship, speaker, fog machine, light show, are amazing. I was once stuck in the lobby of a large church behind closed doors, when I wondered to someone in charge why we could not go in. He replied that making everyone wait builds anticipation and excitement. Anticipation of what? We can say God, but color me suspicious, I think it is the adrenaline rush of music that makes me sway, speaking that makes me feel, and fog lights create a sense of being part of something “incredible.” I am not saying God isn’t present in these moments, but I submit it is the fix, the high that is being promoted and everyone behind the scenes knows exactly how to feed the junkies.

I am sad today, but it will only last a few hours. I am sad because I feel I can not compete with “amazing”. I have long believed that the only proper answer to “why do you belong to that faith community?” must be something along the lines of “ I love to be with those people, who need me and whom I need, and together we are experiencing Jesus, giving Him away and growing, and becoming more loving human beings.” Whenever the answer is “I go to this or that church because of the amazing ________” (fill in the blank with anything you wish) we have become enablers to the inspirationally addicted. But at The Refuge, we have nothing amazing. No great teaching–often the most profound thing said is from some audience member. No slick program–we use for worship most weeks those friends who want to do it, not those who auditioned and have met some man-made bar of music excellence. The truth is we don’t even offer certainty, another favorite drug of inspiration addicts. At The Refuge I am realizing the only thing we can really offer is hope and long term journeying, listening more than telling, and a faithfulness to live the principles Jesus shared in every way we know how. As much as I sometimes still long for the old high, too, I am finding my inspiration sobriety is teaching me the hard but real way what it means to live an unplugged, unhyped, authentic life.

Posted in church stuff, karl, mega church craziness, the refuge | 6 Comments »

KATHY - Reflex

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

“Where’s Jared? You brought him home, right?” We had been home about 20 minutes from a team basketball party at a restaurant and were mindlessly sitting in the living room watching the end of American Idol when Jose looks up from his computer and asks again, “You brought him home, right?” I immediately leaped out of my seat in a complete and utter panic. No, I don’t remember bringing him home! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I have got to go get him right this minute. My 7 year old is stranded alone in the parking lot! It’s dark. It’s cold. Somebody call the restaurant! Where are my keys? Who cares about shoes or coats or absolutely anything else in this moment. The only thing I can think about is getting to Jared as fast I can. My response is purely visceral. No words can describe my thoughts and emotions. My baby needs me. I am in a panic while I hear Jose calling the restaurant and I am almost out the door when one of our other kids says “Jared’s here. He’s asleep in Sadie’s (our dog’s) bed.” I start to cry. I am overwhelmed with relief. The fog slowly lifts, and I begin to remember he was in the car when we left the restaurant!

I know you are thinking, so how could you not remember that??? But when you have five kids running to and fro and five voices all blending together, let me tell you, it’s easy to forget. It takes hours for the adrenaline to wear off and of course we have a story to laugh about and yet another reminder that mommy needs to keep a little bit better track of who she’s in charge of.

I would sacrifice almost anything for my kids. In that moment, my reflex was go. I didn’t think “oh, what an inconvenience” or “he can figure it out on his own and doesn’t need me” or “I would rather be watching American Idol right now.” The absolute only thing I could think about was getting to him. Me, my, mine was out of the equation.

And I was reminded how little I really live in that selfless place. The place I live most is in a world of me’s. What works for me, what I like, what I don’t like. What I’m willing to do. What I’m not willing to do. My self-centeredness is more evident to me probably than anyone else but it’s there, it’s my natural bent. Sacrificing my time, dropping everything for another human being, being willing to lay aside my life, my ways, my desires to “be Jesus for someone else” doesn’t come naturally. In fact, everything inside of me screams against it. But in that moment, when I thought Jared was alone in the cold, it was a no-brainer. Sacrifice didn’t feel like a sacrifice.

In John 15, Jesus says “there’s no greater love than he who would lay down his life for a friend.” And what does it mean, to lay down my life? I think laying down my life means I’d be willing to run out the door when someone is in need, willing to give up American Idol and spend time with someone who is lonely, desperate, hurting. That I’d get beyond my to-do list and show up at my kids school unexpectedly to show them how much I love them. That I’d give up needing to win an argument or be right or be noticed or praised. That I’d get beyond just my desire to serve others and actually spend time feeding the hungry, offering water to the thirsty, giving my stuff away instead of hoarding it. That I’d spend less of my thoughts thinking about what other people think of me and pray for others instead. It’s giving up some of the me’s, my, and mine’s for my friends.

Okay, sounds good, but why is it so hard? It’s just unnatural. What comes naturally for me is to live in my own little Kathy world. And in my little Kathy world I value status, I treasure my to-do lists, I like to be in control, I like things to basically go the way I thought they’d be. Remember, I have a carnival in my head where I am the main attraction (see previous blog). Laying down my life for my friends means I have to give up these things and rely on God, to trust mystery, to do things that never get noticed, to be flexible, to give up my self-centered way for His others-centered way. Thinking about Easter this week, Jesus gave it all up for us. All of it. But what I love about Jesus is that He didn’t like every aspect of His sacrifice. He didn’t say “hey, this is the greatest thing ever, it’s a piece of cake.” He wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemene with God, crying out “do I really have to die?” knowing His sacrifice was going to mean pain and suffering.

We’re not Jesus, and in our case, the honest answer is we don’t really have to. I can live in my own little Kathy world all I want and God will keep loving me. But I’ll miss out. I won’t get to experience the joy, the hope, the freedom, the peace, the purpose, the passion that comes from laying down my life for my friends.

Posted in church stuff, jesus, kathy | 1 Comment »

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