Dan and I have decided to take our debate to the blog-o-sphere! Check out http://debatingeducation.blogspot.com/ to see Dan and I match wits in an attempt to grind out a workable philosophy of education. Dan and I plan on taking turns posting and responding to the what the other has to say. Feel free participate by commenting on our posts. There is a good chance that much of my writing will be showing up on that blog for the next little while so things may get even more sparse around here. Who knows, though, I may be able to continue my sporadic and infrequent postings as if nothing had changed. Anyway, hope you enjoy our discussion; I'm sure there will be plenty of food for thought.
(Oh, and in case you are ever wondering, Dan and I are VERY good friends. We don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things but I have a deep respect for the faith of this man. Don't ever confuse our aggressive debate for personal attacks. Truth be told, we both enjoy a good argument for the challenge of expanding our understanding and skills.)
Monday, August 29, 2005
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Reponse to Dan Hillman
The following is part of a response that I've worked up to Dan's recent postings on his dealing with Dr. Newsome. His full postings can be found here. Reader's Digest version: Dan wants to reclaim education for the glory of God and he feels that drastic steps need to be taken so that the wholesale preaching of the Gospel of Christ can occur in a public education environment. If this sounds radical to you, well, it is. I encourage you to hear him out, though, because he speaks with a sincere heart and has some good things. At this point in my thinking I can't endorse all his conclusions but, well, I'm still in process on all of this myself. When all is said and done, he may just be right. So, with no further ado, here is my open response to Dan. I encourage you to post comments in either my blog or his. The both of us would love to hear from you.
Dan,
Thanks for posting at least a taste of what your meeting with Dr. Newsome looked like. I've got a lot to say in response but in the interest of keeping the size of my posts mangable, I'm going to try to break my thoughts down into (hopefully) single-issue responses. I'm also going to start with a thought you expressed part-way through your post because it is one that I have already collected my thoughts on due to our previous phone conversation. In fact, with your permission, I'm going to paraphrase part of what you said during that conversation and include it in the content I'm going to respond to in this post.
(Paraphrase) "Christians, teachers and students alike, need to either preach the Gospel boldly and openly in the public education classroom or they need to get out of the system entirely." Phone conversation
"We must obey God, not men"
You've really challenged me with your example of Peter and John from the Bible. You make a great point in that we need to be placing the commands of God above the laws of the land and speak boldly into the culture in which we live. Preach the Gospel, brother. Knowing you (and it is implicit in what you write) I think you would also say that we compromise our faith when we allow the laws of the land to keep us silent from proclaiming the truth. This is a challenging statement to me personally and something in which I need to spend some severe amount of prayer. How should this look in my workplace? How should this be played out in my daily life?
There is an aspect of this, though, that I don't think that you have considered and it comes from a desire to find a practical application to this idea. If we don't let any laws of any land prevent us from preaching the truth boldly, then I would say that a SIGNIFICANT percentage of the world's population will not ever even hear the name of Christ (This is assuming that it is entirely up to us to spread his name which, thankfully, is not the case). I'm referring to those who live in lands that are openly hostile to evangelism, China being a prime example but far from the only offender; there are many such nations throughout Asia. Preaching the Gospel openly and boldly in these places has severe consequences: deporation for non-citizens and worse for those who call that nation home. These nations hold a significant percentage of the world's population, somewhere between one-third and one-half is my guess. If we want to bring the Gospel to the people of these nations we must construct other tools besides direct, open evangelism and find other ways to bring truth to these people. A change of tactics is needed to still effectively bring salvation to people who are lost and who's governments would rather that this not change. This is, in my mind, a very plain truth that would be very hard to dispute. Street-preaching in China is not a viable method of saving very many Chinese. To evangelize you've got be there with the non-Christians.
Consider this: due to the increasing hostility towards the message of the Gospel in our own modern, Western culture I suggest that we start viewing our nation in a similar fashion. We still have a great deal more freedom than those in China when it comes to preaching the word and I think we need to use this freedom. Not to become beligerent and annoying street-preachers but to become consistent, truth-revealing lights in the world around us, using our tongues to re-affirm the Christ-formed character our lives demonstrate. Though you may disagree, Dan, I think we have a responsibility to continue to engage our culture in every way possible even if that means having to play by rules with which we don't agree. I think Christians need to be in environments that are openly hostile to their beliefs trying to find ways to subvert those environments for the cause of Christ. For the purposes of this discussion, I think Christians need to be in public education, reaching out to students and faculty to find ways to bring the love of Christ into their lives. (We'll call this the Trojan horse model.) Again, to evangelize you've got to be there with the non-Christian students and teachers.
Dan, I say this because I believe Christianity does not leave withdrawl as a viable method for maintaining purity and holiness in a culture that is corrupt and continuing to be corrupted. Israel has utterly failed to be the light and salt it was called to be in the OT because they mis-applied their understanding of the law. Christ removed confusion by making it clear that salvation is available to all, regardless of their ethnicity. As followers of Christ today that mandate still holds: we hold no prejudice and seek to evangelize all regardless of ethnicity, hair-color, nationality, sexual-orientation, occupation, criminal record, food preference, or educational environment. All are within the scope of salvation and we need to be actively engaged in bringing truth to the world. This means, implicitly, that we have to be there, in their lives, engaged in everyday living with them. We cannot share the truth if we're not around to share it.
When we spoke on the phone recently and you mentioned that you are convinced that Christians in public education need to be preaching the Bible in the classroom(regardless of the consequences) or need to get out of public education entirely, students and teachers alike. Let me make it very clear that I disagree with this for the simple reason that I will not abandon this segment of the population to their own desires and not continue to try to be an influence in their lives. Christians should not be withdrawing from these tough fights where are hands are tied but continuing to engage them despite our hands being tied. We want the lost people in these environments to have to deal with us, hampered and all, if they want to continue harming themselves. I don't think that a necessary condition of evangelism is having a clear and level playing field; this is a sinful world and the cards are stacked against us in so many ways. Though this field is not fair I don't think we have the option of taking our ball and going home; we can't evangelize if we're not there. Similarly, if we choose not play by their rules they are going to ask us to leave and we're in the same position. No, the way to continue to influence them is to stay in the game and work from there. It isn't easy or fun but the alternative of leaving the environment and letting sin run it's course just doesn't seem to have the best intersts of those we would abandon at heart. To bring salvation to the lost we have to be a part of their lives and able to influence them for Christ; we can't save them if we're not there.
One more quick point and then I'll wrap it up for now. As I mentioned above, (if I understood you correctly), you believe that if we cannot preach openly in the public education system then we need to withdraw and wait until the world degrades to such an extent that they come back to us, begging to know the truth. I don't think it will actually work out that way, that our presence will be missed, and I say this because it hasn't worked in the past. Look at the Amish, for example. Through their desire to be holy they have taken the OT Jewish route and effectively removed themselves from society. They seek to evangelize through example and hope to spread the truth when the world comes around and realizes it is screwed up and that they, the Amish, might be able to help. If the Amish have an evangelism strategy, this is it and you know what, it hasn't worked yet, not for several hundred years. Though society has, by their standards, continued to degrade for decade after decade, it is no closer to realizing it's decadence and mending it's ways by coming to the Amish point of view. Though there are several other factors that are causing this method of evangelism to fail, the one that is most pertinent to this discussion is the nature of sin. Sin not only screws us up it also prevents us from seeing how screwed up we are. Look at the book of Revelation. Is the world not engaged in actively resisting Christ at the cost of their lives even up to the bitter end? Sin binds and sin blinds and if we want to be that freeing light we are called to be, we need to not leave the sinful world to it's desires but continue to confront it while staying culturally relevent.
When the rubber meets the road staying culturally relevant while continuing to follow Christ is a very hard thing to do. I think the book of Revelation also makes it very clear that there will come a time when cultural relevancy will be next to impossible without compromising our faith and when that time comes we need to pick a side. You might say, Dan, that at the core of this discussion if the question of whether this time has come or not: I say it hasn't and you (I'm guessing) say it has. You could be right, you really could be. Things might be so bad already that we just need to let sin run it's course and hope things get bad enough that some of world realizes the dead end it is on and turn to us, the isolated followers of Christ, to find truth. Me, I'm not convinced it's gone that far and I'm going to continue fighting in the trenches engaging those around me, confronting them with truth, and challenging their beliefs in hopes that my influence will be positive in their lives. At least, that's what I'm going to try to do. Keep challenging me, Dan, to not compromise.
Dan,
Thanks for posting at least a taste of what your meeting with Dr. Newsome looked like. I've got a lot to say in response but in the interest of keeping the size of my posts mangable, I'm going to try to break my thoughts down into (hopefully) single-issue responses. I'm also going to start with a thought you expressed part-way through your post because it is one that I have already collected my thoughts on due to our previous phone conversation. In fact, with your permission, I'm going to paraphrase part of what you said during that conversation and include it in the content I'm going to respond to in this post.
(Paraphrase) "Christians, teachers and students alike, need to either preach the Gospel boldly and openly in the public education classroom or they need to get out of the system entirely." Phone conversation
"We must obey God, not men"
You've really challenged me with your example of Peter and John from the Bible. You make a great point in that we need to be placing the commands of God above the laws of the land and speak boldly into the culture in which we live. Preach the Gospel, brother. Knowing you (and it is implicit in what you write) I think you would also say that we compromise our faith when we allow the laws of the land to keep us silent from proclaiming the truth. This is a challenging statement to me personally and something in which I need to spend some severe amount of prayer. How should this look in my workplace? How should this be played out in my daily life?
There is an aspect of this, though, that I don't think that you have considered and it comes from a desire to find a practical application to this idea. If we don't let any laws of any land prevent us from preaching the truth boldly, then I would say that a SIGNIFICANT percentage of the world's population will not ever even hear the name of Christ (This is assuming that it is entirely up to us to spread his name which, thankfully, is not the case). I'm referring to those who live in lands that are openly hostile to evangelism, China being a prime example but far from the only offender; there are many such nations throughout Asia. Preaching the Gospel openly and boldly in these places has severe consequences: deporation for non-citizens and worse for those who call that nation home. These nations hold a significant percentage of the world's population, somewhere between one-third and one-half is my guess. If we want to bring the Gospel to the people of these nations we must construct other tools besides direct, open evangelism and find other ways to bring truth to these people. A change of tactics is needed to still effectively bring salvation to people who are lost and who's governments would rather that this not change. This is, in my mind, a very plain truth that would be very hard to dispute. Street-preaching in China is not a viable method of saving very many Chinese. To evangelize you've got be there with the non-Christians.
Consider this: due to the increasing hostility towards the message of the Gospel in our own modern, Western culture I suggest that we start viewing our nation in a similar fashion. We still have a great deal more freedom than those in China when it comes to preaching the word and I think we need to use this freedom. Not to become beligerent and annoying street-preachers but to become consistent, truth-revealing lights in the world around us, using our tongues to re-affirm the Christ-formed character our lives demonstrate. Though you may disagree, Dan, I think we have a responsibility to continue to engage our culture in every way possible even if that means having to play by rules with which we don't agree. I think Christians need to be in environments that are openly hostile to their beliefs trying to find ways to subvert those environments for the cause of Christ. For the purposes of this discussion, I think Christians need to be in public education, reaching out to students and faculty to find ways to bring the love of Christ into their lives. (We'll call this the Trojan horse model.) Again, to evangelize you've got to be there with the non-Christian students and teachers.
Dan, I say this because I believe Christianity does not leave withdrawl as a viable method for maintaining purity and holiness in a culture that is corrupt and continuing to be corrupted. Israel has utterly failed to be the light and salt it was called to be in the OT because they mis-applied their understanding of the law. Christ removed confusion by making it clear that salvation is available to all, regardless of their ethnicity. As followers of Christ today that mandate still holds: we hold no prejudice and seek to evangelize all regardless of ethnicity, hair-color, nationality, sexual-orientation, occupation, criminal record, food preference, or educational environment. All are within the scope of salvation and we need to be actively engaged in bringing truth to the world. This means, implicitly, that we have to be there, in their lives, engaged in everyday living with them. We cannot share the truth if we're not around to share it.
When we spoke on the phone recently and you mentioned that you are convinced that Christians in public education need to be preaching the Bible in the classroom(regardless of the consequences) or need to get out of public education entirely, students and teachers alike. Let me make it very clear that I disagree with this for the simple reason that I will not abandon this segment of the population to their own desires and not continue to try to be an influence in their lives. Christians should not be withdrawing from these tough fights where are hands are tied but continuing to engage them despite our hands being tied. We want the lost people in these environments to have to deal with us, hampered and all, if they want to continue harming themselves. I don't think that a necessary condition of evangelism is having a clear and level playing field; this is a sinful world and the cards are stacked against us in so many ways. Though this field is not fair I don't think we have the option of taking our ball and going home; we can't evangelize if we're not there. Similarly, if we choose not play by their rules they are going to ask us to leave and we're in the same position. No, the way to continue to influence them is to stay in the game and work from there. It isn't easy or fun but the alternative of leaving the environment and letting sin run it's course just doesn't seem to have the best intersts of those we would abandon at heart. To bring salvation to the lost we have to be a part of their lives and able to influence them for Christ; we can't save them if we're not there.
One more quick point and then I'll wrap it up for now. As I mentioned above, (if I understood you correctly), you believe that if we cannot preach openly in the public education system then we need to withdraw and wait until the world degrades to such an extent that they come back to us, begging to know the truth. I don't think it will actually work out that way, that our presence will be missed, and I say this because it hasn't worked in the past. Look at the Amish, for example. Through their desire to be holy they have taken the OT Jewish route and effectively removed themselves from society. They seek to evangelize through example and hope to spread the truth when the world comes around and realizes it is screwed up and that they, the Amish, might be able to help. If the Amish have an evangelism strategy, this is it and you know what, it hasn't worked yet, not for several hundred years. Though society has, by their standards, continued to degrade for decade after decade, it is no closer to realizing it's decadence and mending it's ways by coming to the Amish point of view. Though there are several other factors that are causing this method of evangelism to fail, the one that is most pertinent to this discussion is the nature of sin. Sin not only screws us up it also prevents us from seeing how screwed up we are. Look at the book of Revelation. Is the world not engaged in actively resisting Christ at the cost of their lives even up to the bitter end? Sin binds and sin blinds and if we want to be that freeing light we are called to be, we need to not leave the sinful world to it's desires but continue to confront it while staying culturally relevent.
When the rubber meets the road staying culturally relevant while continuing to follow Christ is a very hard thing to do. I think the book of Revelation also makes it very clear that there will come a time when cultural relevancy will be next to impossible without compromising our faith and when that time comes we need to pick a side. You might say, Dan, that at the core of this discussion if the question of whether this time has come or not: I say it hasn't and you (I'm guessing) say it has. You could be right, you really could be. Things might be so bad already that we just need to let sin run it's course and hope things get bad enough that some of world realizes the dead end it is on and turn to us, the isolated followers of Christ, to find truth. Me, I'm not convinced it's gone that far and I'm going to continue fighting in the trenches engaging those around me, confronting them with truth, and challenging their beliefs in hopes that my influence will be positive in their lives. At least, that's what I'm going to try to do. Keep challenging me, Dan, to not compromise.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Hiatus Thoughts
OK, I have a confession to make. In my post that ended my month-long hiatus I said
"I haven't had much time to think about many other things, much less post the thoughts."
Well, this is only partially true. Thought I didn't have time to post the thoughts I have had several topics of interest that have eaten up a good chunk of my time and in the interest of full disclosure and keeping the lines of communication open with all of you, here they are:
Sleep
Sleeping and dreaming are simply and utterly fascinating to me. I've had a long-time interest in doing some research into these and have finally decided to jump in and just see what kind of credible information is out there. I've had a few very fun and interesting lucid dreams (dreams where you know you are dreaming and subsequently take control of the dream) and have a keen cat-napping ability that may not actually be doing me much good sleep-wise. We'll see what my investigation turns up.
LDS Church (Mormonism)
For me, this a a topic of perennial interest. I've already done quite a bit of research during my high school year and time in Boise and, despite the fact that the Mormon presence in Wichita is relatively small, it is still something I enjoy trying to understand. There are mountains and mountains of papers, articles, journals, and transcripts to read through here; I don't know if I'll ever be done exploring this field.
Wireless Networks
With Katie living just thirty feet away from me now, we've decided to save some money by shipping my higher-speed connection over to her unit via a wireless connection. I've done some reading on wireless network architecture and security but now having a working understanding of these is more than an academic endeavor. To be honest, dipping my feet into the hacker community has been quite an eye-opener and more than a little enticing. No, I don't plan on joining the "Matrix"-like underworld (Seriously, me in goth? I don't think so.) but moving to a wireless network definitely increase the possibility of trouble and I want to be aware, informed, and prepared. As long as the the guy upstairs continues to leave his connection wide-open, though, I don't think I have very much to worry about.
In another month or so I bet I'll be on to other topics but for now, that's what's rattling around in my brain.
"I haven't had much time to think about many other things, much less post the thoughts."
Well, this is only partially true. Thought I didn't have time to post the thoughts I have had several topics of interest that have eaten up a good chunk of my time and in the interest of full disclosure and keeping the lines of communication open with all of you, here they are:
Sleep
Sleeping and dreaming are simply and utterly fascinating to me. I've had a long-time interest in doing some research into these and have finally decided to jump in and just see what kind of credible information is out there. I've had a few very fun and interesting lucid dreams (dreams where you know you are dreaming and subsequently take control of the dream) and have a keen cat-napping ability that may not actually be doing me much good sleep-wise. We'll see what my investigation turns up.
LDS Church (Mormonism)
For me, this a a topic of perennial interest. I've already done quite a bit of research during my high school year and time in Boise and, despite the fact that the Mormon presence in Wichita is relatively small, it is still something I enjoy trying to understand. There are mountains and mountains of papers, articles, journals, and transcripts to read through here; I don't know if I'll ever be done exploring this field.
Wireless Networks
With Katie living just thirty feet away from me now, we've decided to save some money by shipping my higher-speed connection over to her unit via a wireless connection. I've done some reading on wireless network architecture and security but now having a working understanding of these is more than an academic endeavor. To be honest, dipping my feet into the hacker community has been quite an eye-opener and more than a little enticing. No, I don't plan on joining the "Matrix"-like underworld (Seriously, me in goth? I don't think so.) but moving to a wireless network definitely increase the possibility of trouble and I want to be aware, informed, and prepared. As long as the the guy upstairs continues to leave his connection wide-open, though, I don't think I have very much to worry about.
In another month or so I bet I'll be on to other topics but for now, that's what's rattling around in my brain.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Warming Up to Wichita
Maybe this place isn't so bad after all. I've been here about seven months and I'm starting to get the hang of Wichita, learn some of it's traits and characteristics. Sure, it may not have the mountains, forests, beaches, rivers, desert, or hills that I'm used to but once i got past that, it might not be as bad as I originally thought. The cost of living is low, the people are nice, and the town has some of its own unique traits that add a touch of flavor to life.
One of these little treats I've found is a store called "The Spice Merchant" which is a bit of a mis-nomer because they actually specialize in coffees. They buy the beans, roast, and grind the coffee right there in-house (heck, the roaster is in the middle of the store). In addition to the coffee they do also sell a lot of tea, spices (whole and ground), and cooking accouterment. I got off of work early a few months ago and decided to stop on in and just see what they had. What a treat! It was close to closing time so the place was mostly empty and ended up talking to the shop owner. When he found out I was from the Pacific Northwest (arguably the cultural center for coffee in the US), that I was new to town and was looking for specialty stores for ingredient shopping, he gladly volunteered the names of a few stores in the area. Truth be told, the discussion was well over and hour and it was time I was happy to spend with him, learning more about my new home and to hear how his business was doing.
Another example: I just learned about this little nut and candy store called "Nifty Nut House" The store is family-owned and has been for around eighty years. They do their own roasting and have all kinds of nuts and candy for sale. Dry-roasted, unsalted, salted, honey-roasted, caramelized, chocolate-covered (milk and dark) peanuts, cashews, macadamias, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, coffee beans; they've got it all. (The nerd in me was also impressed at their point-of-sale system. Bluetooth (wireless) carcode readers, custom labelling for each sale like many supremarket meat counters, and MANY LCD panels hanging above the counter to display the transaction. Not something the traditional mom-and-pop store seems be willing to do. Bonus points for running a store in both the 19th and 21st century while retaining the advantage of both. Many other small chops could learn a lot from these guys.) After just one visit, I think I'm going to be stopping in their quite a bit more now. Katie's a nut girl so this has a lot of date potential for us.
These two shops are just wonderful; I love little expressions of local culture that provide a unique expression of what this town has to offer. Said differently, its good to know that Wichita has more to offer than Walmart, Best Buy, and Target. (Though I will say that not having Fred Meyer's around has been the hardest thing to deal with. I miss my clearance racks!) Are these kinds of stores in Boise and Portland? I'm sure there are. The bonus for me though, is that both of these places are a ten-minute bike ride away and that is truly wonderful.
One of these little treats I've found is a store called "The Spice Merchant" which is a bit of a mis-nomer because they actually specialize in coffees. They buy the beans, roast, and grind the coffee right there in-house (heck, the roaster is in the middle of the store). In addition to the coffee they do also sell a lot of tea, spices (whole and ground), and cooking accouterment. I got off of work early a few months ago and decided to stop on in and just see what they had. What a treat! It was close to closing time so the place was mostly empty and ended up talking to the shop owner. When he found out I was from the Pacific Northwest (arguably the cultural center for coffee in the US), that I was new to town and was looking for specialty stores for ingredient shopping, he gladly volunteered the names of a few stores in the area. Truth be told, the discussion was well over and hour and it was time I was happy to spend with him, learning more about my new home and to hear how his business was doing.
Another example: I just learned about this little nut and candy store called "Nifty Nut House" The store is family-owned and has been for around eighty years. They do their own roasting and have all kinds of nuts and candy for sale. Dry-roasted, unsalted, salted, honey-roasted, caramelized, chocolate-covered (milk and dark) peanuts, cashews, macadamias, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, coffee beans; they've got it all. (The nerd in me was also impressed at their point-of-sale system. Bluetooth (wireless) carcode readers, custom labelling for each sale like many supremarket meat counters, and MANY LCD panels hanging above the counter to display the transaction. Not something the traditional mom-and-pop store seems be willing to do. Bonus points for running a store in both the 19th and 21st century while retaining the advantage of both. Many other small chops could learn a lot from these guys.) After just one visit, I think I'm going to be stopping in their quite a bit more now. Katie's a nut girl so this has a lot of date potential for us.
These two shops are just wonderful; I love little expressions of local culture that provide a unique expression of what this town has to offer. Said differently, its good to know that Wichita has more to offer than Walmart, Best Buy, and Target. (Though I will say that not having Fred Meyer's around has been the hardest thing to deal with. I miss my clearance racks!) Are these kinds of stores in Boise and Portland? I'm sure there are. The bonus for me though, is that both of these places are a ten-minute bike ride away and that is truly wonderful.
Monday, August 01, 2005
River Community Church
Many of you have commented in personal emails to me (keep 'em coming!) that I haven't done a very good of updating my blog as of late. I just checked it now and sure enough, I haven't posted in over a month; shame on me! The cause for this silence is relatively simple, though: moving. The past few weeks have been highly consumed with moving Katie two times, moving myself once, dealing with waste water from upstairs flooding out my new unit, and getting all this chaos squared away with the management. Saying this, I haven't had much time to think about many other things, much less post the thoughts. Had I realized how long the delay had been, I might have been more on top of things. So, while I work on a few of the ideas I've had in queue, here's a bit out of an email that I sent out a week or so ago that should serve quite well as a full-fledged posting:
Probably the most significant thing that has happened to me lately is my completion of the membership process at church here in Wichita. This is super-important because prior to membership, there really aren't any ways that I can be involved in any kind of ministry. The whole thing is kind of funny in a way. Let me explain.
River Community Church is organized as a cell church, almost. There is a very large emphasis on small-groups with most of what we consider the fundamental functions of a body taking place in the small-group context. They still have services on Sunday morning but there is no Sunday school for anybody older than 10 or so (the youth do meet on Sunday evening for youth group, more on that later). First problem in trying to be involved in ministry at River: there aren't a lot of ministries in which you can participate outside of leading a small group. To my knowledge, the complete list of ministry potentials is as follows: worship band, sound/lights, nursery, small children's Sunday school, youth group, small-group leadership. Outside of these, there is no formal church ministry.
My first inclination was to explore potentials in running the sound system on Sunday morning. Ladies and gentlemen, the church gets even weirder: they have more than enough sound people already. My help, at that time, was totally not needed. The final blow came when I learned that, actually, I wasn't able to be involved in any of these official ministries at all until I became a member of the church. Joining the church is a 4-8 month process (minimum) involving taking new-member classes, consistently attending a small group, and going through a mini-confirmation interview (mostly just paperwork). My church life was, for some time, going to be pretty minimal.
This policy makes a lot of sense but it was pretty discouraging for me to realize that the MOST I could do to be a part of the body was show up on Sunday morning for a service and a small group sometime during the week. I wanted to be involved, to jump in and just get to work, be a part of the body. Just the way this church does things, though, my level of involvement was pretty low and VERY passive in nature. Contrast this with what Bill, the youth pastor at "Number One Baptist" (as my brother and I call it) told me after I was only showing up for a month or so: "We've been praying for God to provide somebody like you and we have great hopes for your involvement."
Truth be told, I can see why River does things the way they do; if I was in charge I would probably do it the same way. These past six months have been a good time of simple learning and understanding as I get used to a new family and they get to know me better. On the other hand, what a blessing it was for Bill, with spiritual discernment, to identify me as somebody ready, willing, and able to be highly involved and give me that opportunity. High-five to Bill for taking that chance with me and allowing me to get plugged right in.
I should also mention another point of ironic frustration: the pastors of this church are VERY relationship-oriented. I mean, imagine that. A pastor who doesn't treat leading the Body of Christ as an institution or organization to be managed but rather as a collection of people and relationships all with individual abilities and needs. In the words of Terry, the lead pastor, River is an "organic body."
(Along with "small groups", "organic" was the answer to almost any question about the structure of River Community Church. I don't think I can tell you how many times the summary answer to my questions was one or both of those words. For example:
Me: "So where does (function of the church) take place?"
Them: "Small groups."
Me: "Ahhhh. Ok. So how exactly does that work? What does that look like?"
Them: "Well, its kind of organic."
No joke, I got to the point where I stopped asking.)
Don't get me wrong, I think its great that Terry, Jim, and Dave, the pastors of River, are so relationally skilled and focused. I, on the other hand, find understanding and meaning through structure; this choice of organization-style was very difficult for me personally to get my head around. This is just the way I am, I've realized. Org-charts, the bane of so many in the business world, are very helpful and meaningful to me. I think in terms of systems, structure, and the big-picture. This church, though not lacking structure, goes to some effort to not make it obvious.
These two factors combined to make a VERY frustrating first few months for me here in Wichita. Now, though, I am past that: I have a good idea how the church is structured and I'm a member. Just one week after officially becoming a member of the body I approached the youth leader, Sherry, and was simply able to volunteer to help out with the youth group. She was very excited to have me on board and we'll be working on how I'll be involved over the next few weeks. In short, I think the hard times in getting used to a new body are past me.
Probably the most significant thing that has happened to me lately is my completion of the membership process at church here in Wichita. This is super-important because prior to membership, there really aren't any ways that I can be involved in any kind of ministry. The whole thing is kind of funny in a way. Let me explain.
River Community Church is organized as a cell church, almost. There is a very large emphasis on small-groups with most of what we consider the fundamental functions of a body taking place in the small-group context. They still have services on Sunday morning but there is no Sunday school for anybody older than 10 or so (the youth do meet on Sunday evening for youth group, more on that later). First problem in trying to be involved in ministry at River: there aren't a lot of ministries in which you can participate outside of leading a small group. To my knowledge, the complete list of ministry potentials is as follows: worship band, sound/lights, nursery, small children's Sunday school, youth group, small-group leadership. Outside of these, there is no formal church ministry.
My first inclination was to explore potentials in running the sound system on Sunday morning. Ladies and gentlemen, the church gets even weirder: they have more than enough sound people already. My help, at that time, was totally not needed. The final blow came when I learned that, actually, I wasn't able to be involved in any of these official ministries at all until I became a member of the church. Joining the church is a 4-8 month process (minimum) involving taking new-member classes, consistently attending a small group, and going through a mini-confirmation interview (mostly just paperwork). My church life was, for some time, going to be pretty minimal.
This policy makes a lot of sense but it was pretty discouraging for me to realize that the MOST I could do to be a part of the body was show up on Sunday morning for a service and a small group sometime during the week. I wanted to be involved, to jump in and just get to work, be a part of the body. Just the way this church does things, though, my level of involvement was pretty low and VERY passive in nature. Contrast this with what Bill, the youth pastor at "Number One Baptist" (as my brother and I call it) told me after I was only showing up for a month or so: "We've been praying for God to provide somebody like you and we have great hopes for your involvement."
Truth be told, I can see why River does things the way they do; if I was in charge I would probably do it the same way. These past six months have been a good time of simple learning and understanding as I get used to a new family and they get to know me better. On the other hand, what a blessing it was for Bill, with spiritual discernment, to identify me as somebody ready, willing, and able to be highly involved and give me that opportunity. High-five to Bill for taking that chance with me and allowing me to get plugged right in.
I should also mention another point of ironic frustration: the pastors of this church are VERY relationship-oriented. I mean, imagine that. A pastor who doesn't treat leading the Body of Christ as an institution or organization to be managed but rather as a collection of people and relationships all with individual abilities and needs. In the words of Terry, the lead pastor, River is an "organic body."
(Along with "small groups", "organic" was the answer to almost any question about the structure of River Community Church. I don't think I can tell you how many times the summary answer to my questions was one or both of those words. For example:
Me: "So where does (function of the church) take place?"
Them: "Small groups."
Me: "Ahhhh. Ok. So how exactly does that work? What does that look like?"
Them: "Well, its kind of organic."
No joke, I got to the point where I stopped asking.)
Don't get me wrong, I think its great that Terry, Jim, and Dave, the pastors of River, are so relationally skilled and focused. I, on the other hand, find understanding and meaning through structure; this choice of organization-style was very difficult for me personally to get my head around. This is just the way I am, I've realized. Org-charts, the bane of so many in the business world, are very helpful and meaningful to me. I think in terms of systems, structure, and the big-picture. This church, though not lacking structure, goes to some effort to not make it obvious.
These two factors combined to make a VERY frustrating first few months for me here in Wichita. Now, though, I am past that: I have a good idea how the church is structured and I'm a member. Just one week after officially becoming a member of the body I approached the youth leader, Sherry, and was simply able to volunteer to help out with the youth group. She was very excited to have me on board and we'll be working on how I'll be involved over the next few weeks. In short, I think the hard times in getting used to a new body are past me.
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