Tag Archives: church

Reflections on tradition and community

Posted on October 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

My friend Marc, had some questions regarding tradition and community in response to my reflections on our ceremony, and I think it’s worth a post.

I am curious to know what place (if any) you think tradition has in the concept of community. Communities are constantly changing — people come and go, they age, structures are built and torn down, etc. — but perhaps ceremonies (weddings, graduations, national anthems sung before ball games, etc.) play an important role in maintaining a steady hand amid all the flux. Certainly, there are plenty of ways to have a wedding, but at what point is a wedding no longer a wedding and becomes something else? Is it OK if it becomes something else entirely? How does that affect the community? Are certain communities more adaptable to change and, if so, is that adaptability something that can be intentionally developed or does it just happen?

I am currently working toward a Master’s in Public Administration, so I am so eager to hear your thoughts about tradition, change, and how communities can address the two. (Government is infamously slow to change, but I think the public’s longing for tradition can play a big role in that.)

There is a huge place for tradition, ceremony, and ritual in community. As Marc said, communities are constantly changing and yes, government has been slow in adapting… I would say, to an extent, religion has as well. Tradition helps us stay grounded in history which is absolutely essential if we are to adapt to change well. It’s a paradox really. Adapt yet ground in history. So, we as a community must know and celebrate (or even lament) our history, and yet we must continue to build new ways of doing ceremony and ritual.

Tradition often gets developed unintentionally, but ritual and ceremony MUST be developed intentionally. Continue reading →

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City Church and things changing in Bend

Posted on March 3, 2009 | 6 Comments

**Edit:I have made some changes to the following post and comments as I realize it is terribly bad form to begin naming churches in negative ways. I never want to slam churches and what they are trying to do.

Please know that I apologize for the deliberate naming. My feelings don’t change, but better to not name.

Also, in no way am I trying to link City Church with anything else that other churches are doing. My comments are my own and not belonging to City church as a whole.** With that said:

I gotta say I’m proud. Proud of my good friend, Kevin Wright, one of the pastors at the community I am getting involved at, City Church, here in Bend, OR. He has just recently been on the program, The Story, on public broadcasting.

Here’s the LINK for the audio.

City Church | Bend OR

This all reminds me of a post I put up a few months back, about the inevitable division that I see happening within Christianity and within Bend as well. It’s a painful time we are facing right now and going to be facing soon. My thinking in the fall of 2008, was that here in Bend we would see a number of individuals really get raked across the coals because they are trying to think and do Christianity outside the box of traditional Christianity. I had no idea that it would happen so soon.

The dissolving of Oasis I didn’t see coming so soon. I think sometimes we try and soften the impact by letting people know what we think in small doses or doing what we can to change our language to help others digest it better. My thinking is that the same people are going to be effected. It can happen all at once or we can prolong the pain and stretch it out.

Another friend of mine just had a very frustrating and saddening dismissal from his church. This church here in town let him go as there was apparently too many students thinking for themselves and asking questions. At a time when the students were more excited than ever about following Jesus and my friend was more fulfilled than ever in youth ministry, they decided not to renew his contract. He was to be done in two weeks. After many rumors, much incomplete information given, and church politics, my friend and his wife could use some prayer.

So all this has happened in the first two months of 2009. What’s next? I am kind of glad that I am able to do what I am most passionate about independently of the overarching perceptions and pedestals of a church hierarchy. While it is so difficult to imagine, at this point in life, that I will not be paid to do ministry… there is a bit of freedom there. I am called to be a spiritual leader, no a professional pastor-person. We need more spiritual leaders (who actually are not always liked and are not always paid). The spiritual leaders among us need to realize that this must be our first priority and MUST not be compromised.

So yah, 2009 is going to be hard. I imagine many of us trying to do new things will be challenged to our limits. I would give things about a year and hope that in 2010 there will begin to be fashioned a very strong and authentic community expression. We will come together again. Keep listening…

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Posted in Community, emerging church, Friends, Ministry, Out and About in Bend

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Our adults are adolescents

Posted on February 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

My hope in the next few weeks is to begin to develop a greater focus in what I am writing here. Namely, I will be emphasizing many of my thoughts and perceptions regarding the general perpetuating cycle of generational segregation that I believe is causing such great detriment to communities, families, and society in Western America. This damaging cycle, which has been going on (and getting worse) for decades, has much to do with the absence of intentional rites of passage (the handing on of manhood and womanhood responsibilities) from the elders to the “becoming ones,” the Western educational system which gives men and women the marks to achieve but sends them out as professionals and not necessarily the maturity to face society as adults, and the honoring of children and seniors as gifts to our society.

I won’t plan on any specific order, but I am sure there will be repetition of some of the main things I feel need to happen. Starting with education…

I have been through the education system. High school, college, graduate school (seminary)… I’ve done them all. My sense is that the Western modern educational system leaves men and women still wondering what it means to be a functioning and mature adult in our society. What they do get is a lot of knowledge and a degree that shows that they are responsible in their field… sometimes even an expert. The final goal is most often based on what they are now able to produce, or the job that they are now able to get. We then send them off into the world, telling them that money-making, job keeping, house and car buying, and family raising is all up to them to figure out. But there is so much that they do not get.

Young adults do not necessarily get elders who show them what it means to live life maturely and selflessly. They do not get lessons on conflict management, self-awareness, and honorable behavior. They are instead sent out into society without any sort of leadership in character development. This is something they must figure out on their own. I see the problem being that they don’t have any idea of where to look for it. They could try churches, but I have much doubt that they are finding it to a great degree there, as much of our churches are based on the modern education system anyway… about producing a packaged product bound for “success.” They could look at the media… but media does a terrible job honoring humanity and the gifts that we can offer as mature men and women. They could try to find their elders themselves, but this is a daunting process that often amounts to an endless pursuit of ever-elusive elders that have “done their work in society” and are looking to do their own thing now.

No one steps in to take over where our fathers and mothers have left off and we are left with trying to find replacements who will heal many of the wounds from which we have never recovered. I would argue that the perhaps the majority of adults in our society are still floundering in adolescence… lost during their most transformative years. It is not only until LIFE initiates us (at 50.55.60 when we look back and wonder what we have really done in life and why we feel so unfulfilled) that we as men and women begin to realize that there is more to life than being a professional getting a good paycheck and having a “safe” environment for one’s family (if they can even provide this!). Unfortunately, it is too late for our kids. We have already sent them off to “further their education” in a system that is directing them to learn the same values that we have all been learning all along. They are already on the track to being stuck in adolescence.

I’m not sure that the education system is what really has to change… more so, the perspective of the elders and those “becoming-ones” who will be elders one day. A larger topic for a later day.

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Posted in Community, Men's issues

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Cheech and Chong go to church?!?

Posted on October 21, 2008 | Leave a comment

Whaaaa!! This video is insane! I love it!

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Posted in funny

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Spiritual leadership in our culture today

Posted on June 19, 2008 | 7 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything that is my own. This is primarily due, I think, to the vast amount of processing I’ve been doing myself. Personal journaling and lots of thinking. One thing that has been on my mind lately is the extent that spiritual leadership goes to here in the west.

Ultimately, what I long to be is a spiritual leader, a guide… a shepherd. When I think of spiritual leadership and how it has taken shape in much of our world, especially in the East, I see leaders who have earned their leadership by “walking through the fire.” They have done the work… they have proved themselves to have wisdom, insight, and an ear for the spirit. Some of them end up blind, crippled… far from the flashy appearance we see from many of our leaders here in the West. They have sacrificed greatly for what they now have. People choose to follow them because their lives are changed.

My understanding of spiritual leadership comes mostly from within the Christian tradition, so I will focus there. When I look of the evangelical side of things, I see a strong passion for theology and “heady” stuff. It seems to me that as long as a pastor has had the seminary training, as long as he knows his Greek and his Hebrew, as long as he can give an extensive interpretation for the “right” way to read the Bible… he is ok in his church’s eyes. It comes down to education, seminary, and the ability to give complicated answers. He is the “professional” truth-teller.

Within the mainline tradition, there is less an emphasis on right doctrine and much more of a passion for polity, or “how we do stuff.” The structure is much more important than making sure that we all agree on the right theology. It seems that often a minister|leader in a mainline church just has to be a good upholder of the practices. If he/she can hold a good Sunday morning service, everyone is happy. As long as a minister sticks within the traditional structure no one will get upset. Even better if there is a good measure of energy within the structure of the church.

Holding both of these sides together is the authority that is given via titles, education, degrees, and higher authorities. As long as you earn it by going through the system, you may be deemed as one who has authority. Doctorate, Masters of Divinity, PhD, ordained… with a score card that has one (or all) of these, who can question the authority of the person in charge?

There must be something more than this. The question remains as to what it looks like and who, of those looking for some kind of leadership, desire something more? Is there a place in our individualized western world, that loves success and title, for a different kind of leader? I hope so… I really do.

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