An Excursus and Two Side Notes (a great title)

Does God move us or do we move God? I will come back to the issue of the boring conformity (see last 2 posts) that has settled on American church culture in some of the next posts. Today, though, I wanted to address an under-the-surface issue that is a subtle (but extremely influential) driver of conformity.

There is a theological undercurrent in many churches that originates from a similar root idea, even if those churches come from wildly different traditions.

The root idea is that God is essentially inaccessible (off somewhere else doing his thing), and so we need to do something to get God’s attention. To answer the opening question: we must move to get God to move.

From my quadrant I want to pick on Charismatic (high experience/informal) and Reformed (high didactic/formal) churches for a moment (in no small part because they are opposites, at least according to my diagram, but also because true practitioners of each would be scandalized at being lumped together 😀…so this will be fun).

For Charismatics, there is a strong emphasis placed on worship and prayer (this is good!). But, the subtle (or not so subtle) teaching here is that YOU (me/we/people/etc) need to worship and pray really hard to get this inaccessible god to show up and do something cool.

[[Side Note: much has been written about the charismatic take over of worship songs. This article and this book and this book are great examples. One quote from the article: “Adam Perez said the four most influential megachurches come from the charismatic tradition of Protestant churches. All of them, he said, have a spirituality that believes God becomes present in a ‘meaningful and powerful way’ when the congregation sings a particular style of worship song.”

He goes on to say (and this is sobering): “The industry itself becomes this invisible hand,” he said. “We don’t name the theology of praise and worship — we just assume it. And we use this kind of song repertoire to reinforce it.”

That little phrase “we just assume it” contains multitudes. Conformity flourishes in the soil of unexamined reality.]]

While there is a lot to be said about all of that, take note of this statement again: God becomes present in a meaningful and powerful way when the congregation sings. We have to move to get God to move.

For Reformed folks (who are snorting their coffee right now in outrage over this comparison): we have a very different presentation, but a very similar process.

In Reformed circles one must doctrine correctly, think correctly, study and teach the Bible correctly, obey correctly, submit correctly (you get the idea) and then God will be pleased with us and move (see: “right doctrine leads to right living”, the title of any number of sermons from Titus).

We’re still stuck with “we move to get God to move.”

To cut to the chase, this is formulaic spirituality and the only way out is relational spirituality. (PS. formulaic thinking ultimately leads to conformity).

[[Second side note: This is one of the best, and most important, books I have read in the last five years and it walks a beautiful line of being technical and accessible while making a clear case: we are wired for relationships. Another excellent resource would be the collected works of Eugene Peterson. Start here.]]

In a relational theological paradigm (based on the doctrine of the trinity), we are invited into the community of God by God through God. God is the prime mover and initiator.

But (and this is important), the initiated movement is towards relationship. Relationships have give and take. God is already here and moving and he wants us to join in! To participate.

There are a lot of people who are genuinely and earnestly worshiping and learning doctrine (good things) hoping God will show up, meanwhile God is already there doing stuff wondering if any of these worshipping/doctriners will join the party!

Sort of like this.

Part of my thesis in these posts is that we have a deeper problem than “youtube and instagram are ruining the church.” The problem is both theological and practical, and we’ll get into that more next time…

Seeing vs. Slowing

Today’s post is from my sister’s blog. She writes excellent stuff over at Momma’s Musings. Check her out and enjoy this post on “seeing”.

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Today, my Baby climbed up the park structure. All by herself. In footy pajamas.

My post-toddler, pre-pre-schooler neatly stacked 27 pairs of underwear. And left them that way.

My 4 and 3/4’s kid, who is adamant and clear that he is not 4 and 1/2 or 5, but 4 and 3/4’s, reminded his brother to work hard, because a man takes responsibility, after all.

And I got to watch my kindergartener chew vigorously on the end of her pencil, in rapt concentration as she was following her teacher’s instructions in order to draw a scientist working in Antarctica. Kindergarten is intense.

Anyway, I was struck at the end of this day, how fast it’s all happening, this growing up and getting bigger part of life. We’re not a busy family, by American social norms anyway, but I can’t stop the rapid growth that is leaping through my children’s brains and bones every single day.

I feel like it’s all the rage right now in Christian spirituality to talk about going slow. And perhaps this is the needed Word of the Lord for many.

But for me, I just want to see. Slow is not happening. Devotion is happening. Sleep is happening. Sabbath rest is happening. Togetherness instead of busyness is happening.

But slow is not happening. My 3-year-old can whoop me on a scooter race and my 4 and 3/4’s kid can already outrun me. Life is fast around here.

I can’t change the speed at which 4 children under 6 years of age grow. It’s a miracle to behold, moment by moment sometimes. Yesterday, it was diapers. Today they are drying dishes and memorizing the Nicene Creed. Amazing.

I can’t make it slow.

But I can see.

Jesus models this for me. He is always going to this place or to that place, walking here and there, traveling about. And he is seeing. He sees wherever he goes. He looks, notices, attends to with his eyes. He doesn’t miss what is happening, even in his busyness and comings and goings and growings all around him.

And not only does He see and see clearly, but he is astoundingly accurate in diagnosing heart problems and getting right down deep to the root. He sees and then he looks all the way down to the very bottom. And then he casts light, Himself, right onto the situation or the person. Light in the dark, heart exposed, known. He sees and He knows.

I want to be a Momma like that. I cannot slow the natural fastness of my children growing up. Slowness is not going to be the goal around here anytime soon. But I can learn to see, to see them and know them. I can learn from Jesus how to get right down to the heart of it.

Architecture and Spirituality

I haven’t had time to fully process the conversation I had recently with my brilliant friend Nate who is a graduate student in the realm of architecture (at this school). We spent a good long while discussing buildings and design and connections to spirituality. Here are some ideas that will require further thought (and perhaps further posting):

Adaptive Reuse: the truth that old things can be made new again…the incorporation of new design elements into an old building make a whole new creation.
Multiple Modes of Presentation: architecture (done well) engages multiple senses and calls forth a response from each of those senses.
Clear Narratives: architecture (done well) has a defined story that is followed all the way through the structure.
Questions: As an undergrad architecture students simply learn how to answer questions, graduate students learn how to ask the right questions, and more importantly learn the process of getting at the right questions.
Quote of the day (From a Wentworth Prof): “The person [the architect] who makes the most mistakes wins.”

Some Thoughts on Grief (or how not to be helpful)

I spoke on Grief at REUNION on Sunday, part of our series called “UnDone”. You can listen to it here. I was able to spend a few minute talking about how those who are on the comforting side of the grief process can fall into a couple of dangers.

One of those is dangers is to default to clichéd advice like: “everything will be ok, time will heal all wounds.”

I think we have spiritual ways of sending a similar message. Not liking the messiness of the middle of the grieving process we say things like: “I’m sure God has a plan for all of this,” or “He will work it all out in the end.” That stuff sounds nice, and yes there are moments when we need to be reminded that something bigger than our situation is in control, but most of the time it isn’t very helpful in the moment.

And even more insidious is when this kind of advice gets thrown back on us later on down the road. Maybe things did sort of work out. Maybe you lost a job and ended up with a better one, or a relationship ended and that opened the possibility of something new and deeper. What happens here is that a helpful friend comes along and says: “See this is how it was supposed to work all along, isn’t God good.” They slap God’s approval on the whole thing, and suddenly you have no way to respond to that. Can’t argue with God.

But, that situation, whatever it was, HURT. And yes, things are working out and that is worth celebrating, but what ends up happening here is that those feelings become invalid. Now you have to pretend like that never hurt in the first place. Somehow you are less spiritual and in tune with how God works if you continue to name the pain and call it what it is.

But to truly heal (and to be fully human) you have to be able to say: “that hurt.” And if even something beautiful comes on the other end of it, it is all the more beautiful because it was born out of pain. But that thing was still painful…it doesn’t just disappear.

And, that, I think, is really important to remember.