I'm on a mission trip this week. My church has several youth and adults serving in Washington DC. We've done work with the homeless, people trying to kick addictions, and with victims of domestic violence. We've worked with numerous faith-based and not-for-profit agencies. We've been sent out to do mission work on behalf of our congregation...and it's diseased.
We've visited with pastors and ministry leaders. They've talked about how big the plight of addiction, homelessness, and poverty is, and how it's systemic and a cycle. We may very well think that our labor is in vain; and to some extent, it is. We're not dealing with the system to end this. We may serve a meal, clean a chapel, hand out toiletries, glean fresh vegetables, or more - but those things are Band-Aids on a much larger problem. Our actions reduce poverty, or homelessness (temporarily), but they don't eliminate it.
I've been thinking a lot about the disease of mission this week in terms of our understanding of mission. A church sends out a team to do mission work. The team goes, does the work, and comes back home - and very little changes. Let me offer some examples of what I mean.
1) We helped prepare and serve a meal for about 20 people earlier this week. They were waiting outside the building (and so were we). We went in and did our work, but also spent time talking with the people. We heard lots of stories about their lives. I'm certain for many, that might have been their only meal of the day. People are walking around hungry - two meals, one meal, or none at all. And, shortly after we finished serving breakfast and were in the middle of our work at the next place, people in our group were already complaining of hunger. Seeing and hearing the plight of hunger does not make us change our eating habits.
2) We helped with a shower ministry at our home church this morning (and will do so again later in the week). People came into the church with varieties of things - garbage bags to small suitcases, to purses, to the clothes they wore. We handed out toiletries for them to shower, and for those that needed it, a new pair of underwear or socks. Some walked away with two pairs of socks - the ones they wore into the church, and the new pair they wore out of the church. Yet, people were shopping in souvenir stores the past couple of days, wanting to buy another t-shirt or sweatshirt for an already overabundant collection of clothing. I looked at the new pair of shorts I bought to bring on the trip, and felt ashamed that I had so much, and gave so little.
The disease of mission is that we think it's a one-time thing. We go out and we do it, and then we're done with mission until the next time we are scheduled to feed people at the local mission, or the next opportunity to travel for mission comes up. We say that mission and our interactions with people changes lives, but it doesn't produce lasting change. It doesn't change the system of our hearts. It simply allows us to think we've been following Wesley's General Rules - to do no harm, to do good, and to stay in love with God. But, if we truly follow Wesley's rules, we can't just do mission work once a month or a week out of the year. Wesley's rules are intended to change the systemic cycle of our spiritual, physical, emotional, and relational lives. And so, mission cannot be a destination or a date, but it must become part of the fabric of our lifestyle. We must, in the words of Mahatma Ghandi, "be the change you want to see."
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Spiritual Discipline
This week, I've been taking the opportunity to go through some stacks. I almost always have a stack of papers on my desk, and sometimes more than one, depending upon the number of projects on which I am currently working.
Things have been piling up at home. For several months, I've been behind on entering receipts and bills into the computer for taxes. We've been dealing with tax paperwork, adoption paperwork (again for taxes), school papers for kids, magazines, Internet articles, recipes, magazines, scholarly journals, bills, unwanted mail, magazines, report cards, books, magazines....did I mention magazines? We have every good intention of filing our receipts, paying our bills, reading and filing away or recycling magazines, shelving our books and our scholarly journals, putting away music when we're finished with it...and more. All good intentions, but before we know it, life has gotten the best of us, and the two or three things that should be filed and put away have quickly become a pile. And I've been through a lot of piles this week.
My wife may not like it so much when she returns home. Her bills are stacked on the counter, along with mail that has accumulated while she's been gone - but instead of three piles, there is now only one. The piles of magazines on the side tables and on our nightstands have been sorted - some recycled, some filed, and some prepared to go to our offices. The children's schoolwork has been reviewed, nonessential papers and projects sorted, and most of it put away. There is still more to be filed, receipts to be recorded, and more - but I can see the wood top to our desk. It's taken a lot of work, and a lot of drive and steadfastness to accomplish what has been done so far...and I am hoping I have enough of that ambition left to finish this weekend.
We do that a lot with our spiritual lives too, don't we? We have every intention of having focused prayer at a certain time of day. We want to read our Bible, and have devotions, a time of worship, or some other act of praise. We want to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort those who mourn. But, even if our intentions are good, we quickly begin to pile up our hopes for spiritual disciplines, and things get out of hand. We no longer do much of anything - or anything at all.
I recall that, as I prepared to go to seminary, I thought it would be a good spiritual discipline to read through the entire Bible (imagine that, a soon-to-be seminarian who wanted to have read the Bible). Knowing that I would be moving in early August to arrive in time for ordination, I set an ambitious reading schedule of five chapters per day. Well, that was fine when I was reading about Noah and Joseph and Moses....but then I got into the laws of Leviticus and the history of Israel in 1st and 2nd Samuel, and I was finding it more difficult to read five chapters a day. Things would come up, excuses would form, and before you know it, 45 chapters would be waiting to be read. I couldn't get to them; I didn't really want to read them. But I would force myself to sit (for hours sometimes) and catch up, because I felt the discipline was important.
Spiritual disciplines shouldn't be piled up, but they are. You can't make excuses for them; you can't ignore the fact that they're there; you also can't sweep them up into a box when company comes, and forget that they've made their way to the basement. (Interesting that that's how some of the piles ended up in our bedroom - company came!) Thank goodness that praying can't overwhelm us. We don't have to catch up on it, or reading Scripture, or serving those in need. We can pick up at any time...and although Christians are striving to practice their faith constantly...God desires a relationship with us, more than having the i's dotted and the t's crossed in our spiritual discipline. God desires genuine relationship, and sometimes that's messy and sporadic and piled up.
When all is said and done, the piles will go away...and they will eventually return. At the end of the day, I hope that I've invested more time in my relationship with God, as well as with my wife and children, than in having my life be pile-free and perfect by human standards. God will honor my messiness, and call it good.
Things have been piling up at home. For several months, I've been behind on entering receipts and bills into the computer for taxes. We've been dealing with tax paperwork, adoption paperwork (again for taxes), school papers for kids, magazines, Internet articles, recipes, magazines, scholarly journals, bills, unwanted mail, magazines, report cards, books, magazines....did I mention magazines? We have every good intention of filing our receipts, paying our bills, reading and filing away or recycling magazines, shelving our books and our scholarly journals, putting away music when we're finished with it...and more. All good intentions, but before we know it, life has gotten the best of us, and the two or three things that should be filed and put away have quickly become a pile. And I've been through a lot of piles this week.
My wife may not like it so much when she returns home. Her bills are stacked on the counter, along with mail that has accumulated while she's been gone - but instead of three piles, there is now only one. The piles of magazines on the side tables and on our nightstands have been sorted - some recycled, some filed, and some prepared to go to our offices. The children's schoolwork has been reviewed, nonessential papers and projects sorted, and most of it put away. There is still more to be filed, receipts to be recorded, and more - but I can see the wood top to our desk. It's taken a lot of work, and a lot of drive and steadfastness to accomplish what has been done so far...and I am hoping I have enough of that ambition left to finish this weekend.
We do that a lot with our spiritual lives too, don't we? We have every intention of having focused prayer at a certain time of day. We want to read our Bible, and have devotions, a time of worship, or some other act of praise. We want to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort those who mourn. But, even if our intentions are good, we quickly begin to pile up our hopes for spiritual disciplines, and things get out of hand. We no longer do much of anything - or anything at all.
I recall that, as I prepared to go to seminary, I thought it would be a good spiritual discipline to read through the entire Bible (imagine that, a soon-to-be seminarian who wanted to have read the Bible). Knowing that I would be moving in early August to arrive in time for ordination, I set an ambitious reading schedule of five chapters per day. Well, that was fine when I was reading about Noah and Joseph and Moses....but then I got into the laws of Leviticus and the history of Israel in 1st and 2nd Samuel, and I was finding it more difficult to read five chapters a day. Things would come up, excuses would form, and before you know it, 45 chapters would be waiting to be read. I couldn't get to them; I didn't really want to read them. But I would force myself to sit (for hours sometimes) and catch up, because I felt the discipline was important.
Spiritual disciplines shouldn't be piled up, but they are. You can't make excuses for them; you can't ignore the fact that they're there; you also can't sweep them up into a box when company comes, and forget that they've made their way to the basement. (Interesting that that's how some of the piles ended up in our bedroom - company came!) Thank goodness that praying can't overwhelm us. We don't have to catch up on it, or reading Scripture, or serving those in need. We can pick up at any time...and although Christians are striving to practice their faith constantly...God desires a relationship with us, more than having the i's dotted and the t's crossed in our spiritual discipline. God desires genuine relationship, and sometimes that's messy and sporadic and piled up.
When all is said and done, the piles will go away...and they will eventually return. At the end of the day, I hope that I've invested more time in my relationship with God, as well as with my wife and children, than in having my life be pile-free and perfect by human standards. God will honor my messiness, and call it good.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Reflections on Annual Conference
Today was the fourth and final day of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference 2011 Session. It was my first time of commuting to Annual Conference because I wanted to be able to be home with my family. I came home more weary than in previous years, and I'm sure the commuting had something to do with it.
I also think I'm tired for a myriad of other reasons. In no particular order, they are:
1) I enjoy seeing colleagues with whom I've had close friendships, or do now. I also enjoy visiting with former laypersons. Catching up and hanging out takes time and intentionality.
2) I spent a lot of time complaining about things this year, mostly having to do with flow issues and dealing with unimportant matters.
3) Voting for General and Jurisdictional Conference delegates is tedious.
4) We can't see the forest because of the trees, debating wording and amending resolutions that deal less with people and more with political correctness or bricks and mortar.
I'm sure there are other reasons as well, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I just took my leave of a Facebook conversation bemoaning the fact that IGRC clergy only elected elders to General and Jurisdictional Conference, but elected no deacons. There was some (what I felt was) respectful disagreement about the issue in the conversation - but as I sit here reflecting on the Annual Conference session and this minutes-ago conversation, I am reminded that the church is full of sinners, and is therefore imperfect. I cannot expect perfection. I can't expect everything to be smooth and flow easily. I can't expect people to stay on task and on target. I can't get upset when people complain or nit-pick about the little things. I can't get upset over wording, or who got elected (either persons, or Orders, or ethnicities, or special needs, or gender, etc.), or did not get elected. I can't get upset when people think more about buildings than they do about mission. I can't get upset - because the church is imperfect. It's a human construct filled with sinners. It can't be perfect; but by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, it muddles through towards perfection.
And so I'm grateful that I'm a part of this ragamuffin group of folks (laity, clergy (local pastors, elders, deacons, associate members), who want to love Jesus and serve him. Thank God there are many ways to do that!
I also think I'm tired for a myriad of other reasons. In no particular order, they are:
1) I enjoy seeing colleagues with whom I've had close friendships, or do now. I also enjoy visiting with former laypersons. Catching up and hanging out takes time and intentionality.
2) I spent a lot of time complaining about things this year, mostly having to do with flow issues and dealing with unimportant matters.
3) Voting for General and Jurisdictional Conference delegates is tedious.
4) We can't see the forest because of the trees, debating wording and amending resolutions that deal less with people and more with political correctness or bricks and mortar.
I'm sure there are other reasons as well, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I just took my leave of a Facebook conversation bemoaning the fact that IGRC clergy only elected elders to General and Jurisdictional Conference, but elected no deacons. There was some (what I felt was) respectful disagreement about the issue in the conversation - but as I sit here reflecting on the Annual Conference session and this minutes-ago conversation, I am reminded that the church is full of sinners, and is therefore imperfect. I cannot expect perfection. I can't expect everything to be smooth and flow easily. I can't expect people to stay on task and on target. I can't get upset when people complain or nit-pick about the little things. I can't get upset over wording, or who got elected (either persons, or Orders, or ethnicities, or special needs, or gender, etc.), or did not get elected. I can't get upset when people think more about buildings than they do about mission. I can't get upset - because the church is imperfect. It's a human construct filled with sinners. It can't be perfect; but by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, it muddles through towards perfection.
And so I'm grateful that I'm a part of this ragamuffin group of folks (laity, clergy (local pastors, elders, deacons, associate members), who want to love Jesus and serve him. Thank God there are many ways to do that!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)