What Can Women Do?

A few years ago, I was preaching at a church and, just as the worship music began (which signals that the preacher has somewhere between fifteen and thirty minutes until his microphone is turned on), someone came and told me that two ushers had not shown up and asked if I could help recruit a couple people to pass the offering plates at the end of the service.

Okay.

So, I started asking people—most of whom I did not know—if they would mind passing the offering plates. One woman I asked said, “Oh, I’d love to! But I don’t think I’m allowed to do that.”

“Why aren’t you allowed?” I asked, wondering if she had a criminal record or something.

“Well, isn’t that something men are supposed to do?”

I had no response. I didn’t know all of the ins-and-outs of this particular church, but I thought certainly she was mistaken. But I was now more interested in the outcome of this inquiry than I was in the sermon I was supposed to preach in roughly nine minutes.

We found one of the main church leaders and asked if it would be okay if this lady served as an usher. The church leader crinkled his nose and looked down at the floor as if he were trying to solve an impossible math problem.

He finally said, “Well, I guess it would be okay.”

So this very kind, servant-hearted woman was granted permission to touch the offering plate.

I cannot tell you how much it bothered me that we had to go to that much trouble just to find out if a woman could serve as an usher.

There is a pervasive mentality in lots of churches that women should not be “allowed” to serve in specific kinds of ministry roles simply due to the fact that they are women.

What a waste. I’ve seen what women can do in the name of this Jesus that we serve, and it is a remarkable and powerful thing. One woman who serves as a constant reminder of this is my wife Caroline.

In the past few months, Caroline has been forced to endure lots of frustration and confusion, and none of it has been her fault. Because of the nature of my career path and my profession of choice, Caroline (along with my children) has had to be more adaptable and patient than she probably ever expected. And she has done it all with an unbelievable amount of grace and strength.

In spite of everything, she continues to lead a ministry devoted to helping teenage mothers.

She continues to serve people through her gifts as an artist and a photographer. She even designed this website.

She continues to be a better parent to our children than I will ever hope to be.

She comforts others when they are in pain, and she loves the people in her life with all her heart even when she herself is in agony.

So, can women pass the offering plates?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

In her book A Year of Biblical Womanhood (as well as her blog), Rachel Held Evans frequently uses an expression to celebrate women who exhibit Christ-like strength: “Woman of Valor!”

That is my wife. She is a true woman of valor, and she is my constant reminder of what women can do if we (i.e., male church leaders) will simply get out of the way.

Do you know any women of valor?

Adoption as Resurrection (or "What an Adopted Baby Can Teach Us About Jesus")

Several years ago, a teenage girl in my youth ministry told me that she was pregnant and didn't know what to do.

She felt scared and alone. She feared the possible negative reactions from her parents and her friends, and she felt hurt that the baby’s father was not interested in whatever decision she would make.

To make a long story short, the girl ultimately decided to give the baby up for adoption. Eight months later, she gave birth to a baby girl and handed her over to another family.

There was tremendous pain in that decision. She did not make it lightly, and she understood the long-term implications. However, she also knew what was best for this baby girl, and she made the bravest and most selfless decision any person in her situation could have made.

And her sacrifice created a family.

There was a painful moment of death for this girl when she said goodbye to her baby. It was a moment that will stay with her for the rest of her life.

There was a moment of new life for the baby and the family who adopted her.

There was a death, and then there was a resurrection.

This week, my friends Nate and Jackie adopted a newborn baby (you can read their story on her blog). They have been working for years toward this moment. In fact, they did not even believe that they would receive a baby as quickly as they did. I recently heard them speculate that they may have to wait as long as two years.

However, it happened much sooner than they had expected.

In addition to their young son, they now have a newborn baby girl, and she is theirs. They have experienced resurrection, and their family will never be the same.

From a birth mother’s great fear and uncertainty and sacrifice emerges a moment of creation and life-changing love for a growing family.

What a beautiful picture of resurrection.

Thank God for birth parents who make the greatest and bravest of sacrificial choices.

Thank God for people who adopt babies and the families they create.

Thank God for resurrection.

Amen.

 To read more about everyday resurrection, take a look at yesterday’s post, The Avocado Must Die.

When Life Feels Broken (or "The Avocado Must Die")

When I was a teaching pastor at Fellowship of the Parks, I was often referred to as “the avocado guy.” I’d be talking to someone and they would say, “Oh yeah! You’re the avocado guy!”

During my first year at the church, I preached a sermon in which I brought a bowl full of avocados onstage with me and told about a kid I met whose job it was to make table-side guacamole at Fresco’s Mexican restaurant.

The point was that the avocado--while it is attached to the vine--is alive. However, when an avocado is removed from its life source, it starts to die. But in the process of the avocado dying, it is eaten by a person (me) and fills my body with nourishment that keeps me alive.*

Basically, for me to live, the avocado must die.

New life often begins as a death.

 In the introduction to her book Pastrix (which I also cited in yesterday's post), Nadia Bolz-Weber talks about this idea:

The Christian faith, while wildly misrepresented in so much of American culture, is really about death and resurrection. It’s about how God continues to reach into the graves we dig for ourselves and pull us out, giving us new life, in ways both dramatic and small…. It’s about spiritual physics. Something has to die for something new to live (p. xviii).

 All of the great moments of resurrection life have been preceded by moments of death.

That’s the thing about resurrection; it always requires a death.

Perhaps you’re experiencing some kind of personal, specific death in your own life.

A relationship that was broken that may or may not ever be put back together again.

A way of seeing the world or God or faith that no longer seems consistent with your own life experiences.

A level of trust you once had for others but were betrayed, and now you don’t know if you will ever have faith in another human being again.

A sudden—and perhaps unwanted—change in your job or career that has forced you to ask all kinds of questions about your own personal calling and purpose in the world.

Each of these things is a kind of a death, and death is painful and scary.

However, resurrection can only happen if there is first a death, and resurrection rarely looks the way we expect it to.

Resurrection rarely means that things go back to normal. On the contrary, it almost always points to something new and unexpected and original.

If you currently are undergoing a kind of death in your own life, and you are in the midst of despair, may you live in hope of restoration and new life.

May you learn to see resurrection in the world around you.

May you let the avocado die so that you can experience something new and beautiful.

What do you think? Have you ever gone through a kind of metaphorical "death" only to later experience a resurrection? 

 ---

(*Thanks to Rob Bell for this metaphor in the Nooma video “Tomato.”)

Why We Shouldn't Draw Lines

 There are certain kinds of Christians that I have no patience for.

You know the type.

They are the people who stand on the street and hold up signs designed to make people feel bad about themselves.

They are the people who think that they are God’s favorites and that they have everything all figured out.

They are the people who say to the world, “The reason you’re suffering is that you have angered God, and you deserve whatever you get.”

And in my frustration, I often become exactly like them—believing that God agrees with me—and therefore loves me—more than them.

I recently read an amazing book by Nadia Bolz-Weber entitled Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint.

 In the book, Nadia is invited to speak to a large group of people that will include several fundamentalist church leaders. It is clear that the reason she specifically had been chosen to speak to this group is so that she could shame the fundamentalists, which is an opportunity that most of us would have relished.

However, in thinking through what she would say, she is reminded of something her husband had said to her in a previous conversation:

“Nadia, the thing that sucks is that every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is always on the other side of it” (p. 57).

Of course, she decides not to shame the fundamentalists and instead talk about grace and God’s love.

That quote about drawing a line between us and others has stayed with me, and I think about it several times a day. It’s not simply that I want other people to stop drawing those lines; it’s that I need to stop drawing them.

This, to me, is one of the responsibilities of church leaders—teaching their people that we cannot be the kinds of Christians who draw lines, no matter who ends up on the other side of them.

Because when we separate ourselves from others—creating any kind of “us-versus-them” situation—Jesus stands with the people we are excluding or judging or condemning.

What do you think? Are there moments when you want to draw lines between you and others? Have you ever been on the other side of someone else's lines? Do you think there are times when drawing lines is justified? 

When Good Things Happen to Bad People

 I was recently in a conversation with someone who had been wronged in a very deep and personal way. What made things worse was that the person who had wronged my friend seemed completely unconcerned with the suffering he had caused.

This kind of thing makes me crazy. It’s one thing to hurt someone inadvertently, which is something we all do from time to time; it’s a whole other thing to hurt someone, realize what you have done, and then do nothing to make the situation better, even acting smug about it the process.

This kind of person makes it very hard to forgive.

Expressing feelings of pain and betrayal, my friend said to me, “I can’t believe [this person] just gets to keep living his life as if everything is fine. I mean, eventually he’s going to fall on his face, isn’t he? God wouldn’t bless someone who treats people this way, would he?”

That’s a tough one.

Most of us have a very acute awareness of right and wrong, which gives us a deep hunger for justice (as long as it applies to other people, of course). We also believe (correctly) that God loves justice. So we assume and expect that God will extend justice onto all those who harm us.

I’ve heard people say things like this a lot, and I’ve even wished for it a time or two. We see something wrong in the world, find a person to blame for it, and say, “Well, they’d better enjoy it while they can. God is going to make them pay for this.”

While I do like this idea (again, as long as it applies to other people), in Matthew 5, Jesus says something that bothers me a little bit. He’s talking about how we treat our enemies, and he says this-

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

In that culture, both the sun and the rain were good things. In a world where agriculture was one of the primary sources of most household incomes, you needed both the sun and the rain to keep your crops alive.

Jesus is saying, “Good things are going to happen to people who don’t deserve it. Your job is to be the kind of person who loves in spite of what other people are receiving.”

As much as I hate this, it is consistent with the world that I have observed.

Corrupt businessmen receive huge bonuses while those who are devoted to ethical practices are laid off.

Bad teachers receive tenure while great teachers fall victim to budget cuts.

Spiritually abusive pastors see growth in their churches while good-hearted and loving ministers struggle to be heard.

Mean people have lots of friends while those who practice kindness and compassion often feel completely alone.

The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

So if the point is not for God to dole out rewards for the good people and punishment for the bad, what is left?

The answer to this question is that we have choices about what kinds of people we are becoming.

To my chagrin, Jesus doesn’t seem to have much interest in punishing my enemies.

Instead, Jesus seems interested in changing me into the kind of person who can love even the people who try to destroy me.

Maybe that’s what Jesus means when says that the road is narrow. Some of the things he calls us to do seem crazy and nearly impossible. However, there is no question that these are the kinds of things that make the world a better place.

What do you think? Have you ever expected God to punish someone else on your behalf? Do you think God punishes people for doing bad things?

What's Next? The Collective

Can I just take a moment to say how great people can be?

People can be really great.

 

After it was announced that I was no longer serving as a teaching pastor at Fellowship of the Parks, there were lots of people—more than I could have ever expected—who contacted me in one way or another to offer some kind of encouragement and to ask what was next for my family and me.

To the encouragement, I could only say thank you. This is what I mean when I say that people can be really great. I have never felt so widely loved and supported in my life, and there are no words that can fully express how much that has meant to me.

To the second part—the question about what we are doing next—at the time, I had no idea. Then after I spent a week of thinking and praying and growing restless, my friend Nate said to me, “If you want some space to do something, I’ve got an airplane hangar you can use.”

That sounded interesting.

So we began to plan, and the idea for The Collective was born.

In case you don’t know, The Collective is a one-night worship/teaching event with food.

While it may have taken a couple of weeks to come up with what comes next, we finally had an answer to that question.

So why are we doing this event?

Because sometimes we need to stop and take a night to spend time with other people.

We are doing this because some of us need to be reminded that no matter what we are going through at the moment, there is always hope and the potential for new life.

We are doing this because we believe a new conversation is being had in the world, and we want to invite other people to join in.

The next question frequently has been, “What is the long-term plan for this?”

The answer to this question is simply that we don’t really know.

Could this be something we do from time to time, existing apart from any sort of church affiliation or association? Perhaps.

Could this be the beginning of a new church, one that involves a different conversation and asks different kinds of questions? Possibly.

Again, we really don’t know. All I know is that The Collective is the next thing, and my hope is that people will draw some kind of encouragement from being part of it.

I hope you will come.

I hope you will join us in the ongoing conversation about God and life and reality.

I hope you will find life in new kinds of places and new kinds of ways.

Click here for more information about The Collective on November 7. 

 Click here to visit the Facebook event page.