Recently a friend and collaborator Harry Jarrett Jr.posted his thoughts about why he likes a denomination my wife and I have been members of for the past several years.  Although our historical family tradition is Mennonite, and we both went to Mennonite Highschools CD and LMH, but, I have not been actively involved in the Mennonite church as a larger denomination/network or agency until recently.

A brief  backstory.

As a family, my spouse and I  have worked in the space of evangelical mega-church, after which we spent half of our adult life not going to a formal church, but started a home group called Livingroom during our recovery from Church. After some major life transitions we become active member/participants in a local congregation where we have found support and friendship for our journey and a space to belong to God’s Body, the Church,  even I don’t “fit in”, (in the more traditional sense of the word).

The reality of the work I have been invited to participate in would not be possible with out the connection to the Church and it’s agencies.

Being Church Again.

Here is how I have participated with this denomination called Mennonite Church USA

I was invited into leadership development relationships through Franconia Conference and given oppertunities to apply my ideas and experience through leading seminars and speaking.

Later, I was invited to apply experience and learning for a missional experiment  through Doyelstown Mennonite Church called

This past year I have listened and shared thoughts on a Transformational Team through Eastern Mennonite Seminary where I am continuing my adult learning in Leadership from an Anabaptist perspective to graduate in 2012 with a M.A.

In 2013 I will be apart of implementing innovative ideas for an interactive experience through media/tech at Mennonite Church USA Convention in Pheonix Arizona.

Possible Reasons for Church

A gift this network of people, churches, agencies and higher learning.

Relationship with a broader community of faith acting out of a narrative of peacemaking and reconciliation in our world.  This has transformed my understanding of self, others and mission.  I have become a player in a theatrical story taking place in our world for the work of God, where people with out food, share a meal with people who live in abundance.  I can invision what Jesus talks about in the gospel being repurposed through an actual Church in a where society has removed themselves from the system of doing church on a large scale.  I imagine from my own experience this is due to the amount of corruption, and injustice done in the name of God, Jesus, Crusades where ”Jesus”, “God” are used for personal/political gain.

I can imagine an actual body of work over the past 1500 + years of being Church reconciled in our local communities and global society where acts of violence/injustice are actively confronted through practices of resiliency and peacemaking from a broader perspective  of faith.  This is due to the STAR program I participated in last year on a hilltop in scenic Harrisonburg Va. through Strategies for Trauma and Resiliency .  Recently a Nobel Peace Prize winner winner was a graduate of this institution  and applied her leaning from the Center for Justice and Peacemaking to her context in Africa.

The greatest part of being apart of Church, is the sense of participating in the narrative of God’s love in our world that confronts our own fears and inabilities to understand others on a  healthy and functional human level.   This grand story in scripture and live out through history, be it unreconcilable at times, invits us to particpate in practical ways in our relationships with self, family and friends.  Our indavidual story has the chance of getting caught up in the epic journey of holistic spiritual transformation in order to actualize a self that can make a mutual benifit in society.  I have witnessed the results and outcomes in my relationship with my spouse, daughter, extended family, community, colleagues, and a cohorts of learners.

What is your expeirence with Church?

In what ways are you making meaning out of Church?

What are your reasons for or against Church?

The ability for the Christian community to read this book and find themselves in the story provides a possibility of transformation not unlike the gospel.  It is in the story we find hope, not in a perfect life lived.  There is no great stage to attain or success to measure up to by the end of the book.  These are idols in the mirror of a man broken by his own addiction and humanity.  There is no idol greater than the ideal self projected onto others.  This story allows the reader to find his/her own shadow and be visited by Christ great love.  Christianity has the power to reconcile one to another, when one of the great hero’s tells a story that opens up broken spaces in our humanity.  Providing room for the love of God to illuminate our own limited expectations and understandings of God.

As I read “All is Grace” I found myself crying, laughing and hoping again in the Christian identity to go beyond our constructs of truth, function and form.  We are created beings, shaped in the image of God.  Our great joy is the participation in the story of reconciliation.  When this story becomes true we can live loud the good news in the midst of our brokenness and humanity.  He answers the great questions of why fall back into addiction and brokenness after your encounters with “Abba’s love”?  with his final statement, “these things happen”.  This book is a journey not an answer.  And like many great memoirs it captures the vary nature of the human story.  It is with great anticipation I recommend this book for all those who want to encounter the love of Christ through the story of a broken and loved man.

When we sit down at a table with a person unlike us, we are engaging in the work of reconciliation.  If we dare to break bread and share a meal, we may find ourselves in the midst of transformation.  Similar to the early followers of Jesus in Rome or Corinth, pre Christendom.  Before the empire held the church to the center of society and Christians settled into the comfort of an earthly kingdom.  At the time after Jesus’ death when followers were opening their homes to passers by, on their way to the city.  The message of Jesus was shared during a meal, in a home or in the market place.

The call we hear from Paul in the scripture today, is to be proud, in verse 12, of the people who are persuading others to live a radical lives of following Jesus through the mission of reconciliation.  Here we see the church as the message of reconciliation to the people of Corinth.  Christ’s love is the compelling impulse in life to act out radical faith with others in our neighborhood.

We may hear this radical call, that God is all ready reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting peoples sins against themselves in verse 19. (pause) And yet we live in a world where horrific acts of injustice, violence, and corruption are done.  We may ask, how could there be a God, let alone a reconciling Christ when these things take place.  May I suggest it is precisely in these moments when we hear the call to be present in a place where we are ambassadors of reconciliation?

(BREATH)

Recently, I had the opportunity to serve alongside Jenifer for 3 evenings of coffee and conversation in Souderton.  These took place in a coffee shop in Souderton during the season of Lent.  During the conversations with people in the neighborhood we discussed issues of faith from the themes of the Sermon on the Mount.  This sermon is when Jesus calls his followers to see the kingdom of God in an upside down reality.  Where those who mourn are comforted and those who are meek inherit the earth in Matthew 5.

It was in these moments I witnessed an ambassador of reconciliation in a Post-Christian society.  Where Jenifer set the table of intimacy and vulnerability through a posture of compassion to the others in the room.  Trusting the spirit of Christ in all of us, she invited the other’s to share around broken places in their lives and this community.

Then four weeks ago I had the opportunity to witness Jenifer again creating hospitality through her presence in a block party in down town Souderton.  Where a group of radical followers of Jesus had the audacity to believe celebrating a town was in and of itself a generous act of hope.  Where over 1000 neighbors jumped on blow up kids games, broke bread with hotdogs, shared the cup with rootbeer floats and sat down at the table during a local concert and art show.

Someone asked me after the event, called Celebrate Souderton; the block Party.  Did you have a message?  Perplexed by the simplicity of this question I said no…  Unsatisfied with my answer I was reminded by Jenifer that the event was the message.  That simply being present, offering a gift, and our best art is an expression of our faith in a reconciling Christ through the people of God.

What I see in Jenifer Erikson Morales, is a follower of Jesus much like the one Paul is asking the listener to be proud of for their visible acts of reconciliation when no one is watching and no one is paying for their service.  I see a willingness to move from the center to the margins of society where the people with out a voice are given space to be heard.  For example the work she does with local mothers in her neighborhood.

At this time in society when churches are realizing they may have lost their prophetic voice due to the shift in the way people perceive Christianity.  We have a leader emerging with a deep trust in the one who’s name is Jesus, the one who invited his early followers to walk with him from town to town, until he enter the city of power, where his message threatened the very system of control.  Calling people to follow Christ, so that they may have life, reconciled with God now and forever more.

I see Jennifer as a leader in the Post-Christendom church when we begin to rediscover hope- a vision of what society will be like when the kingdom is fully present-and advocate on behalf of those who are oppressed by the current system.

“A church that knows it can no longer control how history will turn out, what people believe, or how they behave can revert to its original calling to bear witness to the gospel.” Stuart Murray

Lately, in the Christian thought community found through online media platforms like twitter and blogs, people have been getting excited about the possibility of heresy.  A word used to describe people who do not toe a particular orthodox line of thought or belief in the more evangelical stream of Christianity.  There is a lot of fear in the christian community.  All though I am a “member” in tradition and heritage, I often find a lot of the stories, being followed believed and told.  Unchristian from a kingdom perspective.  This perspective is represented well through the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels as well as modern day theologians like N.T Wright and pastors like Greg Boyd.  There is a kingdom reality to our life, a space of trans-formative justice where the kingdoms, powers of our world are turned upside down.

There is a place where a table can be physically made in the midst’s of suffering and great loss.  where a community is invited to eat, a prepared meal is shared by the host and the hosted.  This is the kingdom message/story I hear in my imagination.  The one that is called out of many people from different perspectives and world views.

This week after the horrific news of a murder of the girl in my town.  I found myself protesting the narratives coming through news outlets and the broader community.  People naturally wanting to keep their kids off the street and lock their doors, so that the violence will not happen again.  Although, I can sympathise with the response and any emotion felt is a necessary part of a grieving community.  However, I would like to suggest an idea that the merely locking of ones door and becoming more vigilant, like a recent facebook post said, “I believe taking the community back means we all become responsible gun carriers,” is the wrong action to take and will not accomplish a shared desire to make the community a safer place to live, play and ultimately belong.  I would like to suggest this will actually have the opposite effect in our community.

This belief is not only grounded in a restorative narrative of Christ’s kingdom through the gospels, it is also grounded in leading restorative justice research and practice.  My belief based on the stories I follow and share is that we prepare a table for the other, the one we do not know, the one who scares us.  We sit down, we break bread and we listen.  We listen to the great terror in our minds, hearts and body’s.  We then invite the other to wash their hands.  As they lean forward to wash we offer a towel.  As they begin to dry off their hands we hold out some bread.  When they break the bread, we offer them a cup to drink.

There has been a stream of the Evangelical message that promoted a fear of going to hell in order to be “saved”.  We can all relate to fear and a way to communicate a message is by relating to an audience.  There is fear of dying, fear of being rejected and fear of failure.  I can’t help but applaud Rob for facing the fear of loosing his evangelical platform to speak about an inclusive God of love.  Where love wins and people choose the way of compassion, generosity and peace making.  People choose heaven right now.

It seems like people will engage when what they see from Christians is authentic and connecting with a deep longing.  My gut says the movement of Christ message is happening both in and outside the church building and people are looking for ways to be involved in what God is doing in the world.

The revolution is the leveling of the playing field.  People want to offer their best to the world and they are tired of being told to wait until the powers that be are ready for them to serve.  This is heard in the global voice of young educated leaders in Egypt who used social networks to organize, communicate and create change in their country.  This revolution is taking place in the market space of philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and and it is even taking place in and around the American evangelical faith communities.

This can be witnessed in the rise of tribes who support the release of a new book by Rob Bell.  This can also be viewed as a grand marketing platform which get’s an organic trending topic on twitter and thousands of comments on blog posts.  I think of it as a sign of what people of faith want.  They want to bring their “calling” to the for front of the way they live.  Not in a dogmatic or forced way.  They want to be liberated and able to lead with their whole heart.

As a recovering Evangelical I found myself liberated in my 20′s by the ability to enter into the questions people like Rob Bell, Brian McLaren and now early Anabaptist voices through class’s and Eastern Mennonite Seminary.  The historical narrative of faith expressions connecting people to the teachings and way of Jesus is and will always be transformational.  The fact is we do not “know” intellectually as we once thought we did and this scares a lot of people.  It is easy to sell Certainty, people want to know if they are in or if they are out.  If it is not as simple as hitting a “like” button on my computer I may loose interest a leave your church for my television or go to a golf course.

As a person who has just emerged from many years wrestling with my identity as a “christian” and how I live and work in the world.  Recently I have started working with local leaders on a faith experiment this has helped shape the way I feel I best serve the needs of my local community.  I am both a leader and a listener.  I am listening to the passions of leaders in and around the church and I am leading by creating platforms for people to collaborate and bring their inner desires to the community.

We have asked the question of what it would like like to work together with other faith communities, business leaders and artists for the common good of a community.  We do this through collaboration and generosity.  You can learn more about the emerging platform for generosity at Open Hand Initiative.

In my recent life, career, and spiritual mentoring I have found it difficult to tell that very loud voice of individual idealism to “shut up and simmer down”.  “You had your 20 plus years to speak now it’s somebody else’s turn,” I want to say to that little boy whom struggles to grow into this 31 year old mind, soul and body.  Maybe I like to keep fighting against the forces of nature, because I think suffering is Divine.  However, causing pain in another persons life because of my own inabilities or limitations is more than I can bear at times.

My mentor recently told me, “your gift to an organization or person is small and significant.”  He calls what I bring to his business and leadership, “rocket fuel”.  I love it when he talks to me about what he sees, because all I see at times like this is confusion and chaos.  Constantly questioning past decision to make sure I didn’t screw up…  But wait a minute if who I am in the world is a starter, then most of my effort will go un noticed and there will be many pieces left to complete. This is where leaders are important and why I believe every can lead.  Leadership comes from our internal desire to live in a way that fits our personality and unique style.

Ever since I worked in the church out of college my view of leadership has been changing.  The minute I started listening and stopped leading the young people through speaking to them, things started to move and people started to connect.  They were responding to their own words reinterpreted to them through my mind and each other.  Now there are times I think what is going on is because of me, and that is when I get out of sink with the team, because what I am is a molecule on the body that makes up the organization and the people leading create the future.  With out leaders there is nothing for me to do, but wait, listen and wait.

My favorite way of being in the world is through leading in my activating, futuristic, and catalytic ways.  This has happened several times through out my life.  Most recently with a group of people who have started organizing here.

He was talking about Walter Brueggemann and the journey to the center of good.  It became apparent that Peter Block had done his homework on the pastoral life.  Comparing the journey of the Israelites out of cannon to the promise land to our human condition in the wilderness of uncertainty.

He then went on to explain how there is a fault line in the patriarchal narrative of our society and we must decent through conversation.  As an Anabaptist in trenched in Pennsylvania Dutch culture most my life I mostly felt like an outsider in the place I grew up and now live with my wife and child.  However, listening to the a thought leader in the area of community transformation speak about descending and liberation I could hardly keep myself from leaping out of my seat and shouting.  “Here I am send me!”

He then went on to deconstruct our view of leadership in community.  Leaning up and against the systems of patriarchal hierarchy: is patriarchy held together by systems of hierarchy.  Revealing the alternative future we are inviting people into when we become interested in the voices outside of the centers of power.  He explained how we are not in a vocation to meet the expectation of others. In response to this perspective of expectation he stated, “I want from my boss all the things my parents can’t give.”  The room erupted with awkward laughter and I felt at home…

With gentle ease he spoke these words into the open space of a beautiful church sanctuary, “Your freedom is scary.”  My eyes began to well up with tears, I looked up at the stain glass to hear the voice of the images speak to me, but I heard nothing at all.  In my upward gaze I say the art installation of hundreds of dreams put together in origami by people of this faith community.  Professional, people with out homes, people with addictions, students, artists, activists, a community on Mission of reconciliation.  HERE

Peter Block then went on to explain how in the wilderness, excess is not valued.  This made so much sense to me evoking a conversation I had with Andrea several nights before about money and how certain months we bring in less and stay in our budget and enjoy the gift of life more than the months we make more money.  “Why is that?” I thought…  Maybe it is about well-being, and when we are more alive we need less material to fill our void.  Maybe is is about Jesus’ version of the kingdom in Mark, were people can not hear or see kingdom when they are in power and are at the center of systems.  Jesus is the image of transformation.

More coming soon of a community development exercise that is having profound transformational implication on how I live and work.

I had the privilege of listening to Stuart Murray speak at the Franconia Conference during a leadership breakfast.  The Naked Anabaptist has been one of many books which have influenced my return to a Mennonite faith community through the Salford Congregation.  Recently, Andrea and I became members at a time when many people are finding their way to faith through an Anabaptist tradition.

Here is a brief history of our vocational/educational/communal faith journey:

Andrea and I met in high school on a trip to Atlanta for people interested in missions.  We both experienced some transformation and believed we were called to live a life as mission.   I was a senior at  Christopher Dock and she attended Lancaster Mennonite.  We were both influenced in positive ways by Anabaptist stories and formation through excellent education and development.  Even though our family history is Anabaptist we never felt apart of the Mennonite culture, which has made our return to this community even more transformational.  It has allowed us to rescript our story and bring new life to our worldviews.

After High school we went on to study at Eastern University where I majored in Youth Ministry and Andrea majored in Theology.  During College I served at Branchcreek as a youth pastor while Andrea helped develop and launch Encounter.  Then we moved to The Woodlands UMC to work in youth ministry as well develop another alternative service called “Teleos”.  We then moved back to Pennsylvania to pursue further education.  We collaborated with some local leaders and started a faith community called Livingroom which we participated in for the next five years.  During that time Andrea received her MBA in Economic Development and I started attending Biblical Seminary, but was unable to finish due to the launch and growth of One Village Coffee which I co-founded in March of 2007.  This fall I transferred my credits to Eastern Mennonite Seminary Pennsylvania Campus where I plan to finish a degree in Congregational Leadership with a focus on local and global mission.

Recently, I was speaking with a life long Mennonite in my congregation and he asked me, “why are so many people coming joining Salford?”  I explained something that Stuart Murray made clear during the leadership breakfast.  The Anabaptist tradition offers good news to the marginalized lonely people in our world.  We have transformational stories to tell about how people lived out their mission of reconciliation and peace.  These stories point to the meta-narative of God’s Mission through Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection.

As someone who was surrounded by the Mennonite culture my whole life and never felt like I was home, I know that Stuart’s point about “good news” for our world is arguable.  There has been much pain caused through cultural differences, shunning and other destructive behaviors.  However, like any great story there is pain and there is reconciliation.  I will continue to tell my story of transformation and how relationships with this faith community are creating a new reality for Andrea and I to live out our calling.

We are designed to live and create meaning.  We are all on a path toward new creation.  I found a space to belong in a Mennonite context in Southeastern Pa and I plan on sharing this good news as a story of hope, faith and love.  May you find encouragement from this simple story from a Mennonite on the margin.

Passing notes to the devil
Fear masked in barbell denials
Taping our hands to reduce the strain
Passing notes over ashes
Bury memory in the bright lights
Tape my eyes to mask the shame (Lyrics from Cages by Ellul)

We are in transition as a society and this is having an effect on our lives.  Some of us are feeling this more than others: possibly in our inability to find work that pays us “what we are worth” or in finding any work at all.  This economic crisis has allowed for great possibility of transformation, revealing the lie we have believed for the past decade.  This begs the question: how will we live the possibility of what’s to come for the next decade?

A new way of thinking, believing, and bahaving in this world we no longer belong too.

We can no longer belong to the kingdom of God and keep the system alive.   WE HAVE BELIEVED THE LIE and now we have to go through a time of transition.

This past weekend I spoke with some young people about how we follow stories from our society or social spaces.  I was asking them what stories do they want to tell?  It is in the following and telling of stories we create reality.

Here is a movie that makes the point about what type of messages we send and how they reveal our motives:

If you have not seen The Green Zone and you like conspiracy war movies.  I highly recommend it…

In this story as the unfolding of a lie is revealed to the main character and truth emerges.  That truth cuts to the core of this characters purpose in being a soldier and belonging to the U.S Military.  In this story the reality the media and systems of power create has massive consequences.

If your anything like me, it is not hard to look at your own life and see how telling stories or living certain ways has created a mess of chaos and confusion.  Recently, I have returned to a faith community(Mennonite Church) as well as a world view where there is an overarching story of belonging to God’s Mission through Reconciliation represented in the life, death resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is in the telling and retelling of this great story of judgment, sacrifice and love that I find hope.

Here is a video from a song I shared this weekend: Mumford and Sons

As you listen to this song maybe you want to ask yourself:

What stories am I following that are no longer bringing life?

What stories am I telling myself or others that are lies?

Maybe  naming the fear, judgment, cynicism and regret we begin the process of transformation…