Kids & Households of Faith

A little over a month ago my wife & I had the awesome experience of the birth of our daughter. As many of you know, such an event makes a man think, and I feel affirmed more than ever concerning how God has led us. I am so grateful that my daughter is going to grow up in house churches.

In order to make sense of a house church network, we really need to think differently. I’ve been reading research about the value of small groups, family, and relationships between adults and children when it comes to spiritual growth and outreach. For example, Dr. Holly Allen points out that many churches in the U.S. base their children’s ministry on modern education practices. While this is okay for learning facts in school, Dr. Allen’s research shows that small groups where children & adults worship together is likely more effective when it comes to a child’s spiritual development. Doesn’t it make sense that a child would best learn about faith and courage and God from being an active part of a community where they can learn from spiritual “uncles” and ‘aunts?” Besides, think about it: What do children remember more? A lecture or a story that inspires them? Of course, the best place to begin the process of rethinking anything is the Bible — God’s message of love to humanity.

In the Old Testament many of the national celebrations were feasts, and one of the most important times of worship was at a meal. That is, the Passover. Both young and old joined together. Similar to modern-day Thanksgiving in North America, it was a time of remembrance, but it was also so much more. It was a worship service around a table in a home.

In the New Testament, Jesus shared similar experiences with his earliest followers, and after His resurrection, the church continued to meet together — both young and old — in homes as extended spiritual families. It would have been possible to gather around a table for Communion because they met in homes. Biblical scholars have consensus that the church continued meeting in homes for the first three centuries until the Roman emperor began having an influence on the church in the 4th century. I’m not saying that buildings are bad for churches; however, I do think that Jesus’ followers today have a lot to gain from this emphasis on home, relationship, and family.

So many of the little moments over the last couple of years have truly impacted me. I remember a Friday night meeting. A father had brought his two year old daughter to a meeting in my home and at one point during the evening, she laughed and rushed into his arms and exclaimed, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” I walked away from that meeting touched by what this child taught me about my relationship to God. Recently, another father told me about a time when he was sitting in his living room feeling --and probably appearing -- angry. One of the women in his house church had taught the kids the night before in their home, and his four year old son came up to his father, looked into his face, and said, “Daddy, do you know Jesus? And what about Moses, Daddy?” Needless to say, the mood began to change. I loved recently seeing two adults in another house church both dancing back & forth during worship to the sound of the song “Clap Your Hands” with a one & a half year old and two year old smiling and swaying with them. I enjoy seeing an eleven year old pick out our next song and sing with the group.

I’m excited to raise my daughter in these households of faith. They're not perfect, and I know that there are no guarantees. Someday she will choose who or what she will serve, but I know that we’re giving my little girl the best opportunity to explore who God wants her to be.

I love it... even when it hurts.

I love house church. It's a funny thing too. When I was a boy, people thought that I'd make a 'good minister' because I had the ability to do public speaking. I still preach sometimes since our house church network meets together once a month, but most sundays I attend one of our 'house churches' and participate with one of the leaders that I have begun to train to lead a group of 5, 8, or 15 people in a home. I love what happens -- or at least can happen -- in a simple church. I love gathering in a circle and praying for one of our sisters in need. I love watching an 11 year old sing at the top of her lungs with the grown-ups during worship in a Bronx living room. I love walking into the lobby of a building in a less-than-perfect neighborhood and being greeted by my Christian brother with a smile and a hug. I love seeing people sit in a discussion concerning spiritual matters and see one person in the room realize a life-altering truth there in the midst of the discussion. I love children playing at our feet (and I know that they're watching) as we sing with hands raised and hearts lifted high. I love church. I love church in a living room. I love church in the city. I love church as an agent of restoration and a battering ram against darkness. I love it.

And there is just something about opening our Bibles to the book of Matthew or Acts or John while on the sidewalk outside of the window behind me someone is cursing another human being. I certainly don't love that, but it somehow makes it all so real. It is a reminder of the urgency of the task of participating in Christ's mission here and now. There is something about the risk involved in opening our lives to people that seems so much like what Jesus would want from his followers. There is really something about the way I feel when I see tears that represent healing, confession, renewal of life & commitment. There is certainly something about planting simple churches in the city that is raw. I have to admit that I love it. I love church in its raw and primitive form in a city that pushes back so much it hurts. I don't love the hurt. I just love pushing back! ...Especially when it is really Jesus doing the pushing!

Wine & Wineskins

I feel like a child sometimes. And it's not because I'm currently having a psychological wrestling match with my inner-child. Rather, I feel like a child because I am entering what feels like such virgin territory as a vocational minister.

I'm planting a house church network in the Bronx. We are facing the emerging culture in an extremely diverse city. And as we do so, we are in pursuit of new wine and new wineskins. Although the concept of house church networks appears to be at least as old as the New Testament, it is still really quite new in our contemporary setting. We are seeking a new wineskin that provides the space for drinking of the new wine of Jesus Christ in all His fullness. We are seeking community, mission, authenticity. We want to know and be known. And yet like a child, we are so afraid.

Contructing new wineskins, there are questions that must be asked. What if we meet as in a new wineskin and experience church in a living room or a Starbucks or a city park, but we still "hide" from others just as if we were on the back pew waiting to escape after the final 'Amen?' What if we organize highly effective outreach programs, but fail to have passion for mission or compassion for the people we seek to reach? What if we have flexible structures, but we remain inflexible to God's movement among us?

I suppose we don't always do real well at answering those questions. At least not all the time... maybe most of the time. Still, sometimes we drink of the new wine, and when we do, we drink deeply. Sometimes we stumble onto the experience of a healthy level of transperancy in Christian community. And sometimes we have a vibrant gathering of mutual sharing and openness. Sometimes we have genuine confession and real healing. And at times a new visitor shows up and declares (in so many words): 'God is among you!' It doesn't always happen. Many of us are just so comfortable with old wine, but when we drink that new wine, we take one step closer to the essence of church as community in a society that drives us away from authentic community.

I don't feel so bad that I have to say 'sometimes' because we're new at this. We all are. We're used to experiencing presentations and programs and 'calling it a day.' And so we are like a child seeking out the experience of church in a world that is challenging and yet invigorating. We are longing for new wine in a generation that is thirsting. And through new wineskins, we are inviting Jesus, the giver of new wine, to fill us and to take us where He would want us to go.

It's kind of like being child learning how to behave in church all over again. But didn't Jesus say, 'become like?...' I suppose He did, so maybe this feeling that overwhelms me is not so bad.

*(In case you haven't heard, the wine/wineskin analogy is a reference to a very breif parable in Matthew 9.)

The Congo, Liberia, & the Bronx

The recent film, Hotel Rwanda, features the genocide and injustice taking place on the beloved African continent. Soon after, Don Cheadle, the lead actor in Hotel Rwanda, hosted a Nightline episode reporting the refugee crisis and relecting on his own realization of the horror. A popular line in the film makes the statement: "People in America will see this on the evening news, say 'Oh my ---' and go back to their dinner."

Perhaps the average Western Christian sitting at his/her dining room table does not know what to do. But how easily do we chalk it all up to 'God's will' and move on with seeking as much comfort as possible for our own lives. We may not know what to do, but wanting to do something is a start.

This trama has come home to impact me in a personal way. My life in the Bronx has brought me to a crossroads with these stories. I have met new friends and associates who have traveled from Liberia, the Congo, Rwanda, and the Ivory Coast. I have sat in a worship assembly, on the train, in my home and in theirs, with those whose stories sound very much like the late night news. (The African continent is seldom given the honor of primetime attention.) The stories of lost spouses, lost parents, lost siblings are commonplace and heartbreaking. I have friends who have been shot at with machine guns and beaten until bloody. The only hope they have is escape. These, whose stories have intersected with mine, are the ones whose names have been called to board a plane and fly to JFK under the cover of refugee status.

What can the multitudes of middle and upper class churches scattered across this wealthy continent really do? What is there to do? How about this? What if a church decided to sponsor a refugee (who is working hard to provide for his family with the kind of job that many of us worked when we were a 20 year old university student) with the necessary salary and tuition in order to enroll as a full-time student at a local city university? It would be a gift beyond measure, and I happen to know a man right now that I would trust with such a gift! What about tutoring children? Teaching computer skills? Even disposable diapers are a sign of the wealth of their new land.

Or... if Evangelicals across the country can rally (whether we should or not is less the issue here) as a political niche, why not do so for the sake of the Congo? The Sudan? Will constitutional amendments or political speeches really change sexual and/or domestic practices -- much less people's hearts? How is that conservative capital being spent? Really, I don't have all that much to say about the interaction of church and state. For me, it is entirely too personal. These are my friends.

An Introduction

When I was a child, I rode on a tractor, chased around chickens inside a fence, had a pet rabbit and pet a duck besides countless dogs and cats, climbed trees, and made a camp fire only steps from my back yard.

Today, I ride a bus into Manhattan, but sometimes I take the train. I live on the 3rd floor, and outside the door of my building, I can hear Russian, Albanian, Spanish, Urdu, or Vietnamese. I live by the cell phone and e-mail.

Before living in New York, I lived in Houston's 6th Ward. I moved in at the dawn of gentrification (At $375.00 a month rent for my small apartment, I was not part of this process) and watched a neighborhood change before my eyes. I spent my time driving along railroad tracks in 5th Ward, waving away drug pushers in 4th Ward, and circling through the narrow streets of housing projects picking up teens who were caught between loving their God and obeying the message of the story that had shaped their lives up until that point.

The rhythm of my life has changed since my childhood. I have undergone a cultural conversion in order to engage the world as it is. Urban. Pluralistic. Cosmopolitan. My city -- where global meets local -- is New York. My community is the Bronx. I love the people and the culture despite the stress and pressure all around me -- and at times within me.

I believe that my conversion represents the conversion that must be undergone by many Chrisitan traditions such as mine (Churches of Christ) who are largely rural. The call to conversion is from rural to urban, from culturally Southern (United States) to global citizens, from institutional to missional.

This blog is not intended to be a cyber soapbox. Rather, a space for thoughtful reflection and dialogue. We must plunge the depths for understanding this gift that God has given us called "church." This is, of course, secondary to understanding and knowing Jesus our King. If we are to be faithful to our calling, how do we today live in an individualistic, pluralistic, postmodern, multicultural, urban society? I find the best starting place to be an ancient voice (late 2nd century) in the Epistle to Diognetus:

But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.