More on Story

I continue to wrestle with the idea of Story. I haven't written an official document yet for our church that describes everything we mean and entail when we say "Story Church." Part of the reason for that is that I feel like the idea continues to grow in my mind, and I'm not ready to commit to one idea yet. But let me go ahead and think a bit here in this format about one aspect of story that I've been thinking about lately.

First off let me give one assumption from which I work. The Story that we find in Scripture, and that we see unfolding around us all the time is dynamic, it's happening. It hasn't just happened. The Story continues onward. This is really an important point. If I understand that the Story is still being told, that it isn't over yet, then my part in that Story suddenly becomes pretty significant. But if the Story is over, and now I'm simply telling people about it, my own life seems to be less important in terms of what I do, as long as I tell the Story. For me this metaphor helps to underscore the role that I play in not only telling, but actually helping to write the Story that God is telling.

Also, to understand my place in the Story I need to understand some things pretty clearly. For one thing, in order to know how to write the next chapter, I need to know what has happened in the Story up to this point. To know where we're going, we need to know where we've been. The big question is this: What is the Story about? I would argue, that the very simple answer to that question is God's love. But let me unpack that a bit. Let's start in Genesis. Why did God create the world and people to begin with? He certainly wasn't lacking. He didn't need us right? God created the world in an act of love. He desired a love relationship with us. He desired to love and to be loved. So then in the garden, man went ahead and messed that up. We broke the intimacy with God that we were intended to have. Now what is the rest of Scripture about? I would argue that it is God unfolding His plan to bring His people (all of mankind) back into relationship with Him. He ultimately does this through an act of love in giving His own Son on behalf of us. So again, it's God's love and His desire to be in loving relationship with His creation. So what about now? I believe that the Story continues on. It is still God's desire to love and to be in loving relationship with His creation. We are headed for restoration. At times we see glimpses of it now. One day we will see things as they were intended to be. The difference being that now God has a people (the church) who help to bring about God's purpose for the world. We bring restoration to people as well as to creation. We partner with Him in this process, and by so doing, we help to write the Story. We become the embodiment of the Story, the incarnated hands and feet of God to the rest of the world.

My dream for Story Church is that we will truly be known by our love for one another. My prayer is that we will see lives restored all around us. That people will find hope, grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness in our midst. Make no mistake though, this Story is not about us, we are not the heroes. This Story is about the resurrected One, the one who made all this possible, the one who made this kingdom available to us here and now.

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Responding to Injustice

I had a great discussion last night with Story Church about the Christian's response to injustice. We were studying Matthew 5:38-42. In this passage, Jesus teaches that the old way of dealing with injustice was "eye for eye" and "tooth for tooth". This served a couple of purposes, I'm sure. One was to provide a very practical and easy to understand system of justice. You kill my goat, your goat gets killed as well. You take from me, you get taken from in equal measure. I'm sure it made people think twice about doing something when they knew that the punishment for their crime would be exactly the same thing they are doing to someone else. The other benefit of this system was probably to avoid what many people today call "the Myth of Redemptive Violence." That is, it kept things from escalating. Watch children for example - what happens when Billy takes Tommy's truck? Tommy hits Billy. Billy then bites Tommy. Of course adults aren't much different, just more sophisticated. The Old Testament law that Jesus is referring to kept people from believing the myth of redemptive violence - the idea that I can somehow achieve justice through a worse violence or offense than what happened to me. This is one of the reasons that many people have problems with the war in Iraq, or what is happening between Israel and Palestine right now in the Gaza strip. Sometimes the response to injustice seems to be a greater injustice than the one that started it all.

So in light of that, Jesus basically says that was the old system, but the new system for responding to injustice is different. In the kingdom, we don't play by those rules. When someone wrongs me personally, I don't respond eye for eye or tooth for tooth. But many people have wrongly (I think) interpreted this passage. Jesus is not simply saying that when someone hits you, turn the other cheek and let them hit you again. He's not saying to become a doormat and simply suffer through injustice. I believe that Jesus is teaching here a way to respond to injustice that boldly calls it what it is, while not continuing a destructive cycle of violence. The text refers to a slap on the right cheek - that is, a backhanded "You're beneath me" kind of slap from someone who thinks they are better than me. Jesus says in such a case, we "turn the other cheek." We force them to recognize us as equals - "If you are going to hit me, you're going to have to hit me like you would an equal." Now, Jesus is clearly NOT advocating fighting someone here in order to maintain your dignity. He's simply saying that we refuse to allow injustice to go unchecked. We force the one bringing about the injustice to face our humanity. If you keep going through this passage and recognize the cultural stuff going on here, it's clear that this is Jesus' message.

Now, back to our discussion last night. We started asking the question - what is the church's response to injustice? Without rehashing the whole conversation, it's exciting to me to be tackling this issue with people who really believe that the kingdom way of living is the answer to these kinds of questions. What do you think? How does the church respond to issues of injustice both locally and globally without playing by the rules of the world? How do we come along side of the voiceless, the oppressed, the poor, the marginalized and creatively say to the rest of the world, "this is not right"?

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2009

Ten years ago, people were frantically getting ready for the end of the world, also known as Y2K. People were stocking up on gold (maybe that's why we see all these commercials now about sending your gold away in an envelope - seriously, who does that?), non-perishables, water, guns and propane. I must admit, that this year feels pretty weighty to me. It is pregnant with possibility and the unknown. I feel like I should be stocking up on something, preparing for something. 2009 will be a year that will change me. It will be a year that I am stretched in new ways. It will be a year where I learn to lead in ways that I have never experienced before. This is the year that Story Church will or will not get off the ground. It's the year that my baby girl will start school. And it's the year that my bride and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage. This year will no doubt serve up many challenges. I may be hit with tragedy. I may suffer loss. I may lose some hair, gain some pounds, let people down, be let down. But I sense hope is in the air. My feeling is that this will be the most important year of my life so far. So in order to kind of hold my feet to the fire, let me share with you some of my hopes and dreams for this year. I have always been a goal setter, so resolutions have always sort of made sense for me. But my wife uses the term "aspirations" and I think I like that. Mostly because if I break a resolution I'll feel guilty and bad, but an aspiration is something to aim for, even though I may not get there. So here they are, my aspirations:

Celebrate. Really celebrate life's great moments. My Anniversary this year is a big one.

Get healthy. I know, it's pretty typical for new year's. Let me break this one down:

Part I - Exercising. I'm really starting to enjoy running (which I started last year, not just on New Year's). I would love to get to where running 5 miles is a pretty normal thing for me to do. In the back of my mind I keep thinking about something like a half-marathon. But maybe that's for next year. haha.

Part II - Eating. I'm also realizing I should probably eat better than I do. Not saying I'm going to start loving broccoli, but I can probably cut back on the grease and lard and eat a salad once in a while.

Guitar. I picked one up the other day for the first time in years. I've played the piano my whole life and have occasionally strummed a guitar. I basically know a few chords. But out of necessity I learned some songs in order to lead worship for our church gathering this week. Now I want to really learn how to play.

Story Church. Oh yeah, then there's the whole church planting thing. Sometime this year the goal is to get a church off the ground in a public way. We are currently a small group of people meeting in my home. This may need a whole post on its own, but I have several goals for this community. For now, I'll just say that I look forward to seeing what God does with this dream.

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