I went to real church this last Sunday. I had a good time. The people were incredible. Some time ago the pastor’s wife had asked if I could bring my band to do morning “worship”. I explained to her that we don’t really do “worship” but that if she could tolerate us, we would try to do something as appropriate as possible. Basically we had to use almost every Christian song we knew, but things went well. Even emo Ben said that he had a “better time than he thought he would”. We were loud and I’m not much of a singer, but I scream a lot and we have buckets of passion. And my band is tight. It felt good to help out.

They asked us back on a regular basis but I’m having the hardest time imagining getting up for Sunday morning church anymore. Clearly I have backslidden long enough that the idea of getting up every Sunday seems foreign to me. It’s my only day off, a day for family and Annette and yard work.

My baby turned 18 on Saturday. As usual he did not want us to make a fuss about it, so I honored his wishes. He didn’t even want a gift but has spent every waking moment playing with the video nano we bought him anyway. He’s gracious that way. Ben is quiet and passionate, and I’m incredibly proud of him. I don’t spend as much time as I’d like with him, but he likes to do his own thing. Ben is the guy who every girl loves, but for different reasons than this gregarious brother. Ben is a friend to the lowly, the quiet, the awkward. He is the type of leader that will always back down in the face of a more powerful voice, though his voice is undoubtedly better. He has a passion for music and people, a quiet maturity that far surpasses anything I have learned.

From time to time people comment on how well my boys have turned out. It is as if they are surprised that someone with my temperament could do so well, especially as a single parent all these years. I am sometimes surprised as well. All I have ever had to offer my kids was unconditional love. That and the fact that I absolutely love hanging out with them, mainly because they are far better looking than I have ever been. They are my heroes.

I’m into my last week of work for Abbotsford Community Services and the nature of the layoff has caused some fur to fly. That’s all I have to say about that. Time for a new adventure.

the wall street journal writes a scathing condemnation of church discipline.

it has been hard for churches to address the moral decline and oftimes blatant belligerence of certain adherents. there have been times when congregations i have known have chosen to shun past members, believing it to be a biblical recourse. usually that belief is founded on a few bible verses in the new testament, applied too liberally, and used as a weapon. shunners totally neglect bible passages like 2 corinthians 2. believing that the person is unrepentent, they feel they have to take such drastic action.
the problem is that most people i have known who are shunned are very tender and teachable. there are few people who have gone through this mess who are not hurt and left wondering why. they were never really listened to or involved in a loving process. those in charge decided in some dark hallway to exercise discipline, usually through some incredibly passive-aggressive process that didn't ask for or engage in any real dialogue. i know personally what it feels to be shunned by well intentioned christians who believe i am beyond redemption. it always surprises me that they think they know what goes on my my heart, much less my actions.
it's a slippery slope and i for one do not know what is in the heart of hurting people enough to assume they are beyond repair.
i'm sure there is a bible verse in there somewhere...

You Act Like You Are 25 Years Old

You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel like an adult, and you're optimistic about life. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. You're still figuring out your place in the world and how you want your life to shape up. The world is full of possibilities, and you can't wait to explore many of them.

What Age Do You Act?

i got laid off from my social work(ish) job this week.

i find it fascinating.

i worked in one continuous field for over 20 years and managed to steer clear, albeit inadvertantly, of the perils of living in the real world with some success. it was easy to speak with some authority to people in the audience, believing sincerely that i actually knew what it was to deal with real life insecurities. the problem was, i had been a minister since my early 20's in a denomination with 0 unemployment and abosolute security. i did not have to ponder the problems of the economy, was not subject to the whims of an employer, never felt the pangs of budget restraints. never. i believed, though, that i had the heartbeat of the real world. past installments in this blog will attest to my ardent belief that full-time pastors, even primary vocation pastors, rarely if ever know the subtle realities of real life. it wasn't until i gave it all up that i found out i had been living in the matrix, for lack of an actually interesting parallel. though i had prided myself on how 'relevant' i was, i didn't understand that it was my own subjective reality. i had opinions on topics, spoke authoritatively on issues, that i really shouldn't have.

so i'm unemployed again. well, unemployed by my standards. i still own a restaurant, still help run club365 and clubchurch, still work, unhindered by a real paycheck. and in a couple of weeks i'll line up in the unemployment line, sweeten up my resume, get my ROE, and do a few interviews. i wish i could say i would sleep-in a few days - but i cook at 7 am. another adventure in a long recent line of adventures.

someone asked me today if i thot that i have been laid off, had experienced so much transition because i'm outside of the will of god or something.... i just laughed.

welcome to the real world.

He did not come to make bad people good or good people better; he came to make dead people live.
stolen from darryl dash

It seems like a long time ago but it was really only 5 or 6 years. A group of pastors from my old tribe were at a retreat in Canmore and it had been a long day. It was time to unwind. With refreshment in mind a dozen or so of us proceeded to the local watering hole – the Grizzly Paw Inn for some ‘snacks’.

Now if you don’t know anything about a group like this you need to realize that evangelicals, and especially the leadership, are still struggling with the whole “drinking” thing. Years ago I was told by a superintendent that “he didn’t want to know” when I came to him to tell him I casually imbibe. It was one of those things you sweep under the rug, an uncomfortable bit of angst in the Christian subculture. Pastors run a thin line between personal liberty and corporate responsibility. For reasons somewhat vague, my old tribe sort of didn’t drink. Kinda. Mostly. At least publically. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great denomination as denominations go, but people are people. And so are some pastors.

Back to the tale, you can smell it coming. We wandered over to the pub and several of the more conservative prairie pastors proceeded to tie one on. These were guys who publically sparkled. They were considered very upright and even staunch. It was not a problem I have struggled with much.

I found the whole experience quite illuminating, though I have never spoken of it publically before. I found it interesting that, free from the artificial constraints of their constituents they suddenly went wild with adolescent fervor. They were products of an entire system that forced them to live one way in public, but for the wrong reasons. Did I have a drink at that event? Well of course, it’s a non-issue for me, as long as it’s micro-brewery beer. I own a licensed restaurant where, incidentally, it is humorous to watch some of the local conservatives buy drinks when no one is looking. The fact is, conservatives drink and smoke cigars and look at porn in alarming numbers. Huge numbers. Pretending it is not happening is simply lying to ourselves. Using a religious system to suppress that urge does not seem to make much of an authentic difference. I remember someone asking me if I got drunk after my wife took off. As usual I was too blunt and said, “well, of course.” Instead of validating my incapacity to deal with the situation the person was shocked that I would admit such a thing. My going off the deep end and seeking a temporary reprieve from the unbearable pain seemed like such a huge moral failure. Trying to kill myself, taking depression medicine, constantly ranting about my pain in public and on Sunday morning, lying, skimming, hiding, harassing my wife, and a host of other activities, well they were just fine. Just so long as I don’t have that beer.

People are shocked when ministers and governors are caught drinking, or with prostitutes, or at pornos, or their computers are rife with damaging evidence. They do not understand when a leader stands up and admits to a closet addiction. I have been (past tense) a part of that system that perhaps inadvertently denies its members the capacity to be fully human. I am not talking about drinking or porn. The issue has little to do with Sleamans Honey Brown Ale (ummmm). At the heart of the problem is the unrealistic expectations of perfection and the inability for leaders to come clean without massive repercussions. Denominations and churches want to publically thrash sin and personally humiliate its victims. Boards put conditions on their leaders they do not have for themselves. People in general are easily shocked by what is arguable very normal, though faulty, behavior. Leadership teams want a pound of public flesh for a very private vice. I am unsure of that the solution may be, but denying there is a problem or forcing leaders to live inauthentic lives is not the solution.

i grew up in the shadow of willow world (for those of you not in the christian sub-culture - willow creek community church. it's a huge church/corporation with a famous pastor/c.e.o that brought the world christian skits and saxophones on sunday mornings. oliver north spoke there. larry norman did not). then there was saddleback (another mega-church with a normal looking guy in charge but he speaks for like an hour and it's like listening to a wickipedia monologue).
i grew up in the era of christian franchises. the year i first moved to british columbia there were over 2000 churches uses the sermons from saddleback. someone once asked me why i did not subscribe. i told him the sermons were:
a. boring and long
b. sculpted for a certain audience
c. long and boring.

he was appalled. did i not know that 15,000 people went to hear these sermons and 2000 churches subscribed? i guess i should have had more tact but before i could stop myself i said, "well maybe the church would be 50,000 if the sermons didn't suck so much." again, tact was not my strong suit. I have since become far more holy and less offensive...

roll the tape forward to 2008. my eldest son is in preaching class at the local bible college and is getting killed because he does not use the expository/exegetical model (if you aren't in the culture it's too boring to explain). after all he has grown up listening to me and tony campolo (bald guy, amazing... tony that is). he is frustrated and does not understand that there is only one safe way to speak now within the christian world - never mind that pretty much all the greatest speakers in history did not speak this way (listen to m.l. king sermon sometime, or campolo, or churchill, or... or...).
the problem is that my son has not grown up in the christian sub-culture. though he is a brilliant speaker, he is not familiar with phrases like "pastor-teacher". he does not understand that real pastors exegete a passage of scripture and speak for 45+ minutes about it. he is confused because Jesus spoke narratively and topically. he has grown up in a secular world of sound bytes and mtv. he finds sermons like those from saddleback and others nauseatingly boring and irrelevant.
the funny this is, though, when he speaks to his culture the audience, if you can call it that, is enthralled. they get what he is talking WITH them about. they respond. for some reason they do not want a 40+ minute expose on the finer points of scripture. they are hungry for truth but not bound by tradition.
how do i tell nate he is wrong?

Well, if there was a God and he had a church—they would care for the poor, heal the sick, and they wouldn’t charge you money to teach you the Book..."
the rest here.

my old roommate and all round great guy glen ryland does a great job at analyzing Larry Norman's influence on the christian sub-culture here.

In many ways it was a homecoming for my wife today. Coming back to a time that, though it was not best of times, has had it’s hurtful parts burned away with time. I did not know Larry personally, but like many of my generation, felt close to him through his music. I had met him once. I booked him to come to Moose Jaw, I put him up in a hotel and fed him. But I didn’t know him. Annette did. I saw that today as she cried with his sister and his brother walked us to the car. I was thankful to be a part of her life today, to be let into an intimate friendship. The entire seven hour drive to Salem Annette talked about their life together, of her handling his finances, washing his tighty-whitey’s, how they would laugh at bad commercials and go to Kinko’s at 2 am (Larry was nocturnal).

The funeral was a rock opera of sorts. It was over two hours long and started with a rock montage of his music, kicked off by “why should the devil have all the good music.” But don’t misunderstand, it was entirely authentic and deeply moving. The first speaker was his mailman, there were no rock stars on stage or posturing. His brother was doing the lion’s share of the work, with class and control that I could never have managed.

Larry was larger than life. He truly lived the life of a rock legend, seemingly never having had a real job, able to fly around and do things most of us cannot imagine. But though clearly a flawed human being, he was also someone with compassion and a heart that was both nieve and engaging. People remember where they were the day they met Larry Norman. He made people, my wife among them, feel special.

I do not like how I am feeling right now. There is something deep within me that is disappointed in how my life has turned out, thus far. Larry was only 16 years older than me when he passed, seemingly leaving a mountain of influence and thousands of people who claim him to be their spiritual hero, or lifelong friend. I am blown away by how deeply my wife feels for someone she has not seen in years, and on one level it frustrates me. It frustrates me that I cannot be sure what people will say about me after I have shuffled off. I wonder how many people will sit around and tell stories about my life and if they will be good. Will I be “larger than life”? I have spent my entire adult life working at a job and a life that’s sole purpose is to help people and I wonder whether it has been worth the effort. There are people who I have given life to, others it seems who are the worse for knowing me. I have worked within a system that never truly wanted me around, though needed what I could bring to the table. I am a marginal person who, unlike Larry, does not have an anthology of hits to spin out.

I am reminded what Dr. King said regarding his eulogy. He hoped people would remember that he gave his life to help someone. I hope someday there will be at least a few people who are better for having known me, even if I never do walk the halls of the powerful and the influential, or write a song as good as Larry.

Thank you Annette for letting me share this life with you. Thank you Larry for giving many of us a reason to believe.

annette writes about her experiences at Larry Norman's funeral here.

maybe it's because i'm in the land of the free...
It’s easy to talk about religious people reaching out to their communities, or about churches making a difference. There are scads of books being written about “being Christ in your community”. The pathetic reality is though, most don’t really even come close. Neither do churches’ attempts to reach into their communities, neither do outreach driven services. Emergent churches do little better.

The problem is that few people are willing to admit that Christianity has become a sub-culture. In many ways it is as foreign to the average Canadian as being a Seik, or Amish. Virtually all church growth strategies still mistakenly assume that the average non-churched person understands the language and culture of evangelical Christianity. The sad fact is, they do not. They don’t use words like “blessings” and they don’t “trust you’ll have a good day”. They are not even marginally interested in hearing some guy talk about an issue that is wholly irrelevant to their lives; let alone in a time slot that is inconvenient with music that they don’t listen to… repeated over and over and over.

I met with a denominational leader this week who admitted that he feels the denomination he belongs to, and the Christian world in general, has lost it’s poignancy and is probably obsolete. This is undoubtedly a hard admission from an individual whose entire career is built on encouraging churches to grow. We wondered together if there was any hope of the church actually connecting on a macro level with its community, based on what is happening now. This denominational head told me he doubted it would happen.

The solution, it seemed at the time, was for the church to finally come to grips with the brutal and almost ugly reality of incarnational living. Jesus Christ was far less mainstream and far more controversial than Christians are willing to be. His lifestyle was well beyond the acceptable range for behaviour in your average Baptist or Free Methodist Church. He was accused, apparently in light of some supposed evidence, of living flagrantly and with moral license.

For my entire religious life I have heard the argument that as a Christian I must be careful when playing with fire, morally and culturally speaking, lest I get burned. The unspoken truth of that statement may be that most Christians are so afraid of being burned by the fire that they don’t even come near the heat. They draw a moral line in the sand that isn’t even remotely close to the edge they are so afraid of falling off of. With all the talk of balance and witness, being “in the world not of it”, the lectures on the slippery slopes and the evils of compromise, people of faith rarely venture into the real world of the messy majority. Though they desperately want to make a difference it is almost always a ‘difference’ on their terms, using their methods, and with their intended results. Eventually it usually comes back to church attendance and discipleship.

The question may be, what would ‘touching your community’ look like without an agenda, without intended results? What if we left our comfortable pews behind permanently and asked to be let back on the playing field?

What would that look like?