Yesterday, I listened again to Krista Tippet’s interview with Jaroslav Pelikan on Speaking of Faith: The Need for Creeds. Later in the day, I did some reading of Pelikan on the internet. Two quotations of his have been ringing in my ears. The first I found on numerous pages:

If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.

The second quotation comes from the Speaking of Faith interview. As Pelikan and Tippet discussed the Maasai Creed, he refers to the important feedback loop evangelism creates. As we reach out and express the Christian story in ways that make sense to different cultures, we find that we understand new aspects and see new angles of the story.

[I]t is not enough to Christianize Africa. We have to Africanize Christianity.

Unpacking the riches in these two quotations could take a lifetime.

While in Hawaii last week—about which I’ll write more later—I read William Willimon’s thought-provoking book on clergy ethics, Calling and Character: Virtues of the Ordained Life. He writes specifically to those ordained for ministry, but because of the difficulty it is within the Body of Christ to distinguish one member’s ethical responsibilities from another’s, much of what Willimon writes is relevant to the whole Church. I appreciate greatly how he describes the necessity of community in order to practice Christian ethics.

We ought to placard over all Christian ethics, “DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.” That is, do not try to live nonviolently, simply, or graciously without a community strong enough to back you up in such endeavors. Do not try to be extraordinarily faithful apart from a community that is extraordinarily forgiving. Violence, servility to the powers, and deceit come quite naturally to us. The lone individual, attempting to stand alone is no match for the subtle and persistent pressures of the empire. Do not attempt to protect the life of the unborn apart from a community that assumes responsibility for those who are ill equipped to have children in isolation and loneliness. It is the church that makes Christian ethics make sense. (86-87)

I’ll likely post a few quotations over the next few weeks since I found Calling and Character especially invigorating and thought-provoking. But anyone who has read or listened to Willimon will not be surprised that I found the book thought-provoking.

The congregation I serve shares a campus with a Spanish-speaking Covenant congregation. It has been a joy to get to know the staff and people of Iglesia Del Pacto (IDP) since I started at Eagle Rock Covenant Church. Yesterday IDP had their annual Christmas potluck after the worship service and they graciously invited us from the English-speaking congregation to join them. We had a great time meeting new people, laughing, and eating terrific food. I also experienced one of those moments when the reality of the kingdom of God is overwhelming. Usually those moments are not something altogether unique and yesterday was no different. It came as Gus, the worship pastor of IDP, prayed for the meal in Spanish. I barely picked up a few words since my Spanish is terrible to non-existent. As Gus prayed, I was in awe of the fact that we worship this big and glorious and multilingual God who loves and receives praise from his children who speak all sorts of languages. How many times in my life have I heard prayers in languages I do not speak? For whatever reason, yesterday’s prayer moved me. I am so grateful to be a member of Christ’s bride. We as one are all preparing to celebrate the incarnation in a few days. How amazing it is to think we worship the same God. That is a miracle of Christmas.

On the back of Stanely Hauerwas and Jean Vanier’s new book, Living Gently in a Violent World, I came across this pull-quote from Amos Yong and I love it.

Church takes time, patience, gentleness, vulnerability, friendship, hospitality, mutuality and peaceableness. In other words, church takes practice.

The announcement I mentioned in an earlier is that I have accepted a call to be an interim co-pastor at Eagle Rock Covenant Church. I will serve alongside my friend Brian, who was an intern with me at Pasadena Covenant Church. Together we will minister as pastors for the church as they reflect on the season they had with their outgoing pastor, listen to God for direction, and prepare to call the next full-time pastor. This will intentionally be a temporary position. It is not one I would have imagined for myself coming out of seminary, but as Carey and I have prayed and sought God’s discernment with other friends and family, it seems like this will be a good fit for both Brian and I and the congregation. It will be a part-time position as Brian and I will split the pastoral responsibilities and thankfully, Servant Partners has graciously allowed me to transition to part-time work there as well. I’m excited for the opportunity of this new phase of ministry.

Rick Meigs at The Blind Beggar initiated a synchroblog on “What is Missional?” Busyness kept me from signing up, but I’ve enjoyed reading the answers others have posted. Though I’m not participating, I thought I’d offer the following quotation from Darrell L. Guder’s book, The Continuing Conversion of the Church regarding the good news of God’s mission in the world. Guder is something of a founding-father in contemporary missional discussions.

Through the particular encounter of God with Israel, the good news that God is loving and purposeful enters into human history and becomes knowable. Apart from such a particular history, Christianity has no universal message to proclaim. The Bible is not a collection of universal ideas cloaked in a particular culture. Universal ideas cannot be the good news that the concrete testimony of a particular people at a particular time can well be, if their witness is credible. Such universal ideas are merely the product of human imagination and creativity. Christian witness is not the interpretation of philosophy but the continuation of the event of God’s self-disclosure in human history. The historical experience of God is the surprising result of God’s initiation, God’s desire to speak and be heard. That surprise continues to define the concrete history of the world, and of the mission community within the world which is called to be the witness to God’s goodness, the “gospel of God.” God’s mission is good news because it is historical: it has been historical from the beginning and continues to be the history that defines our hope. We encounter God within that same history as God makes us part of salvation history for the sake of the world he loves. (29-30)

Over at Mere Mission, Todd Hiestand asks what the announcements in our church bulletins can tell us about how missional our congregations are.

Are all your announcements about things internal? While I’m a believer that discipleship and community life stuff is important for the mission of a local body, if all of the activities, programs, etc are pointed inward, this might be a good indication that the church needs to take some intentional steps outside itself.

This is a good question, in my opinion. If bulletins tell us what is happening in the life of a congregation from week to week, I think they can give us a sense of where our focus lies. This would be a challenging and life-giving experiment for many churches, I imagine.

Matt Barber sent me this GigaOM interview with director Brad Bird regarding how he engenders a creative environment. He sounds like a fascinating manager. Bird has made some of the most original and multifaceted films in the past ten years. He doesn’t receive the attention he deserves and I think that’s because his films are animated, as if that medium is somehow deficient compared to live-action movies. But Bird’s three films, The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, are testaments to his imagination and skill at inspiring people under his leadership to express their creativity. Here are a couple of their exchanges.

The Quarterly: Do angry people—malcontents, in your words—make for better innovation?

Brad Bird: Involved people make for better innovation… Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.” If you had thermal glasses, you could see heat coming off them.

The Quarterly: How do you build and lead a team?

Brad Bird: I got everybody in a room. This was different from what the previous guy had done; he had reviewed the work in private, generated notes, and sent them to the person… I said, “Look, this is a young team. As individual animators, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if we can interconnect all our strengths, we are collectively the greatest animator on earth. So I want you guys to speak up and drop your drawers. We’re going to look at your scenes in front of everybody. Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together…

What would it look like in churches if we employed similar ideas? It might be chaotic, but there is certainly something beautiful in Bird’s sense of we are stronger together than as individuals.

My good friend Eddy has a funny list of “Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained For Ministry.” It made me laugh. Here are a few items:

7. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this.
5. Some men are handsome, and this will distract women worshipers.

I returned from a week in Chicago at the Evangelical Covenant Church’s (ECC) Midwinter Conference, our denomination’s annual pastors’ conference. I went to take a couple of ordination classes. The classes were more inspirational than informative, but I did come away with a better sense of how the denominational ministry offices help local congregations as they participate in God’s mission. I also was able to get to meet and spend time with some very godly and cool people. We heard some great speakers such as my theological crush Miroslav Volf and Mimi Haddad, the president of Christians for Biblical Equality.

As I’ve thawed from the freezing weather and reflected on the week, some thoughts have solidified. I am thankful that the ECC has put an emphasis on pursuing and embodying the integral connection between ministries of word and deed. I came away inspired from hearing stories of people open to having God break their hearts in the face of suffering and injustice and then having the faith to follow God in addressing these wrongs. Our denomination is rediscovering its missional roots and just last year, we created a new denominational ministry, Compassion, Mercy, and Justice (CMJ). CMJ is in a discerning and defining period, trying to learn from God what CMJ should be about and what it should do. I was able to participate in an important think tank on the matter since much of the work I do at Pasadena Covenant Church is in the areas of compassion and justice.

While I wish I came away with more specific next steps, last week lit a fire under me to pursue a life that embodies Micah 6.8, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (NRSV) I realize that matters of compassion and justice can be controversial, especially for someone like me who has a certain amount of power in this nation because of my sex and ethnicity. Moreover, I’ve noticed in my life and in others’ lives, that when we ask God to open our eyes to injustice in the world, the amount of suffering we will see is daunting. The oceans of injustice break many hearts and people feel helpless. All the injustice of the world is too much for us to address by ourselves. Establishing peace and justice requires God’s leadership and calling. And because there are myriad issues out there, let us not assume that we have to be perfectly righteous in each matter in order to act compassionately or justly at all. Let us in our lives, homes, churches, schools, and cities, ask where is God leading us, what situation does God want us to address justly? Some may be called to focus their attention to suffering caused by AIDS on other continents while others may be called to help the mentally ill for whom county jails are their hospitals. We should see ourselves as participating in the whole mission of the Church, not as solo actors who have to fix everything ourselves. Edward Everett Hale had this to say, “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”

My leadership style tends to seek out consensus as much as possible, but at times that style can stall with people-pleasing. I don’t want ministries of compassion and justice to be unnecessarily divisive, but I understand that not everyone will agree with us, and more to the point, some may try to hinder justice in any way they can. The story of the Israelites in the book of Exodus reminds us of this fact. So while I believe it is important to try to bring all people along, I am beginning to see that God wants us to act righteously now and not wait for everyone to get on board first. That does not mean we leave opponents or the hesitant by the wayside, but their sincere questions should not keep us from following God’s Spirit in working for wholeness and welfare of our world. The costs of stalling are too high. I pray that this Lenten season will be one in which our hearts break because of the injustice around and within us and that God’s grace will lead us to hope and action.

In her presentation regarding evangelicalism, Haddad cited the following quotation from William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army and a hero of mine who never saw ministries of word and deed as separate endeavors,

While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight—I’ll fight to the very end!