The second day was very helpful. Kimball didn’t say it this way but my filter puts it in terms of my own belief and practice. The challenge is to be able to read and assess the context of the individual or group in order to respond appropriately (would this be another form of proper distinction of Law and Gospel). The reading comes as we listen with the heart of God to the hearts of those around us.

Kimball pointed out what research shows to be the major issues that cause young adults to love Jesus but not like the Church. He says the church is viewed as judgmental, homophobic and afraid of divergent thinking. What can one say. He is correct.

His point though, is that we need to be aware of who we are and attend to the ways in which we respond to those around us. My thought would be that we learn to become transparent so that we love with the arms of Jesus and connect to the needs of those around us as we become aware of the suffering of Christ.

He had some great creative worship ideas that work in his setting. However, even he is quick to point out that worship expression is a matter of culture and context. You cannot just transfer a worship setting or style from one place to the other. Authenticity is grounded in living out the context and as the Spirit leads.

It still is a matter of hospitality.

I am attending Youth Ministry 2008 sponsored by the LCMS Office of Youth Ministry.  The speaker is Dan Kimball, author of Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations and They Like Jesus But Not the Church.   Kimball contends that the Christian sub-culture has created a “bubble” that prevents interaction with the surrounding culture.  Kimball is right on target in many respects and is in agreement with many authors from the past ten years who have said the same thing a bit differently.

Kimball raises the excellent point that the culture around us has formed images of the church (many images well deserved) that prevent interaction and causes the unchurched to want to avoid the church.  Research indicates that the popular perception is that Christians are judgmental, homophobic, narrow minded and closed to those aroung them.  One would find it very hard to argue with this research.  It isn’t just young adults leaving the church for the very same reasons.  The Church is in crisis and the question is does the Church know it?  If the Church does know it, what is the church doing to respond.

Tomorrow Kimball plans to offer insights as to how the Church might respond to the situation.  I do like the fact that he has already said that there are no easy answers that apply to every setting.  He does not appear to be simplistic in his approach.

Personally, I am convinced that we are seeing once again that “hospitality” is the main response to be offered.  The Rule of St. Benedict (Chpt 53) states, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.”  In practice this means that all whom we encounter are to be viewed as Christ.  We are called to view each person as Christ and treat each person as if s(h)e is Christ.  When we view each person as Christ it is very difficult to treat them with judgment and fear.  A Church that practices the hospitality of Benedict will be known as a welcoming Church.

Outreach does not require special programs.  Outreach does not require deep theological knowledge.  Outreach is a matter of hospitality.  Matthew 25, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

My senior DCE students and I are reading and discussing Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.  This is the 20th class that I have discussed this book with and each year I find it to be such a blessing of discovery.  Bonhoeffer starts off by writing, “In the following we shall consider a number of directions and precepts that the Scriptures provide us for our life together under the Word.”

The phrase, “under the Word,” really strikes me as I ponder and attempt to synthesize this past year of surgery, new adventures (CPE, Pivot Point) and the continual growth under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.  When I read about life, “under the Word,” I hear from the catechism that we receive “in, with, and under” and I come to realize and ponder that life in Christian community is both incarnational and sacramental.  God is present in the Christ-filled folk around me and they bless me in the journey.  It is through those who live with me “under the Word” that I hear the assurance of forgiveness and the promise of a new day.

Spiritual formation is about learning to live under the Word.  Under the Word implies humility and submission as the Word guides and directs our life together.  Bonhoeffer reminds us that there is no community apart from Jesus Christ.  A community founded on any other mission is not truly a community and has only a human core.

To live under the Word is certainly confessional but, in the style of Jesus, it is welcoming, inclusive, healing, uplifting and restful.  Life under the Word also leads to confrontation, truth, suffering and even aloneness.  The world outside of Christian community wants nothing to do with Christian community.

This Bonhoeffer always challenges me.  I wish I could have known him and had coffee with him.

I heard a true story today of a person entering into The Third Age (over 50). This person lays flat all day and needs assistance to roll over, eat, toilet….actually needs assistance for everything. This person can only communicate with grunts and noises with an occassional expression of the eyes or a small movement of the hand. As I heard the story I also heard how someone who cared, came into this person’s life, offered conversation, offered recognition and then offered prayer. The person who laid there found ways to communicate deep appreciation.

We need to define lifespan; thus the “?” marks. If it is right up until the moment of death, which I believe it is, we need to rethink our approach and our understanding. When I think of the person who lies there or the person in the last moments of life on this earth, it makes me wonder about how we do faith nurture. How does one support and nurture the faith of the one who lays there? The Holy Spirit is present, and, yet, the person cannot respond. How do we help this individual in their faith journey? How do we help this person find comfort in the God who is present? How do we help this person pray and worship? When we talk faith formation across the lifespan, how do we apply that concept in this situation?

My fear is that maybe we don’t do any of these things because we think that this person is done with life….and, yet, the person is breathing and interacting with the environment, even if only with the eyes. I hope that someone in this person’s life reads the Scriptures with them and prays with them and talks with them and sings hymns with them. I hope we don’t give up. I hope and pray that we validate this person’s life and recognize the dignity of creation. I hope and pray that we celebrate the human connection and then allow the Holy Spirit to seal the spiritual connection.

It makes me wonder how congregations serve this person. Wouldn’t it be great if individuals helped out families and someone would read books………read Scripture……..read the newspaper……….pray…….laugh……watch TV….and help this person remain in the mainstream of life? Wouldn’t that be a wonderful ministry. Wouldn’t it be great if someone gave this person a hand massage or a foot massage in the style of Jesus?

What ministries do you see in operation for this person? How do we help recruit and equip people for ministry to this type of person? This person is still a part of the family of God……..I would love to hear how you see that being a lived reality.

When Jesus says, “Peace be to you,” He offers wholeness and completeness.  Jesus makes us whole and complete through His acceptance and love.  The wholeness and completeness is a free gift that begins a transformative process in each aspect of our life.

The transformation of the spiritual core leads to the ability to respond with a transformative action in every aspect of life.  As my spiritual core is transformed, I have recognize that my physical core also belongs to God.  Paul writes, “do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?”  It is not my body.  It is God’s body given to me to use to God’s glory.  Care of the body is a spiritual action in response to the grace of God.

In the forty minutes I spent on the treadmill today at the gym, I watched CNN display headlines…………Iraqi government collapsing, 1.2 million Americans will forclose on their homes in the next two years, home foreclosures will bring on a worldwide recession, global warming is causing the world to self-destruct…….and on it went.  I thought to myself, no wonder people are stressed.

The situation was amplified by the fact that I was praying for someone, while on the treadmill, whose e-mail I had read just before leaving for the gym.  It was the panicked e-mail of a person overwhelmed with life’s issues while being surrounded by a group of nay-sayers.  I prayed, “God, how do we cope.”

God said, “he leads me beside the still waters.”  In the midst of it all, God provides.  Thanks be to God.

A friend said to me the other day that he was frustrated because he kept praying and he didn’t feel that God was listening.  I said, “maybe it isn’t God who isn’t listening.” 

 We have this tendency to want to tell God what God should be doing.  In my mind, that is a form of idolotry.  Who am I to tell God what God is to do?  Our call is to listen.

 St. Benedict says it well in the first lines of the prologue to his rule, “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.  Benedict goes on to say, “The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience.  This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord.”

And so as times become tough, rather than dictate to God we are invited to sit in God’s presence and listen to God.  To listen with the heart is the first step in ministry to self or others.  To listen with the heart is to seek to understand the other before engaging in dialog.  So, we seek to understand God before we prescribe what God is to do. 

Robert Quinn, in his book Deep Change (1996, Jossey-Bass), writes: “Deep change differs from incremental change in that it requires new ways of thinking and behaving. It is change that is major in scope, discontinuous with the past and generally irreversible. The deep change effort distorts existing patterns of action and involves taking risks. Deep change means surrendering control.” Quinn writes from a business perspective but I am led to the conviction that what he talks about is actually a spiritual question. Deep change happens as we become fully exposed to God and are led by the Holy Spirit to fully examine our life. As we are led by the Spirit to release all those things that hold us back we are led into a process of dying and rising that brings the freedom promised in the Scriptures.