Since December

A lot has happened to me since my last post! In January my wife and I have our first child, E!, who is the most easy-going kid I know. In March, one my best friends mvoe back to his hometown to start a “living farm” that provides organic produce for farmer’s markets (and eventually a host of other organic and “living” approaches to food), and on my birthday I started my PhD program at Fuller Seminary studying Christian Ethics. Lots to keep up – I hope to do this more faithfully….

I’ve Been Lost!

Just wanted to post something before the end of the year. Have been deep in applications for doctoral programs this fall, and have been feeling some pretty significant anxiety about it all. It feels like every word and every sentence I write impacts the rest of my life. This does not breed a worry-less existence!

One of the elements of an application to doctoral programs is writing a purpose statement, where one is supposed to integrate one’s academic and experiential history into a culminating movement towards an application to a doctoral program – and how this program might catapult one forward to a further expansion of one’s call. At first, I found this a daunting task – and a bit ridiculous! Isn’t this just another academic degree? But after struggling for two weeks about what to write, the purpose statement was an opportunity for me to ask myself critical questions about my call, what I want to study, and how it might impact my teaching and ministry in the years to come. And I ended up enjoying the process of writing and reflecting this piece.

This whole process has also reminded me that I am a right brained person (though it seems I have a penchant for living in a left brain context!). I have seen people do “wordles” as a way to integrate a piece of writing into a form of visual art – giving it a dramatic or romantic quality. SO – I thought that since this document is a dramatic culmination of my history and vision for my future minsitry, I thought I’d give it a try. Here’s what I came up with…

Andrew’s Purpose Wordle

Introduction to Community Transformation

I mentioned earlier that I am trying to put together a paper on a Kingdom perspective for transformational ministry among marginalized communities. This has been a new experience for me, and I have been working within a context that is somewhat challenging – writing for a particular organization with particular interests and purposes, frequently not my own. So in the paper there are a few spots where that may come through, but overall it is my work.  Here is a rough draft of a paper that is going to be used at the Christian Community Development Association annual conference in Cincinnati this fall – if you are interested, I’d love to hear some of your thoughts!

Viruses and the Marginalized

Over the last few months, the craze about the H1N1 virus has been on the minds of everyone. For many people, vulnerability towards something greater than themselves is an uncommon experience, and can be terrifying. So often the calamities that plague humanity are isolated from those of us who live in the Western Hemisphere. This is not to say that those of us in the west to not experience the helplessness of being at the hand of something out of control: cancer, depression, and tragic losses of spouses, family, and friends are a well known experience to many. These incidences are more isolated, but for those who experience them, they are certainly just as brutal – maybe even more so because of the loneliness often involved in these struggles. 

In response to the H1N1 craze, government officials and pharmaceutical companies responded, and are soon to release an inoculation that can be used to mitigate, if not prevent the spread of H1N1. If this works, it is helpful news for both the vulnerable and the general population in the West.

However, throughout this craze, it was little reported what impact the H1N1 virus might have on those in other parts of the world that are already plagued by immunodeficiency diseases. For those in the West, to get H1N1 usually means mild to moderate symptoms of the flu, while in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, in areas plagued by AIDS or other diseases, an uncontained outbreak could have devastating consequences. 

I have spent the later part of the summer reading (over and over) Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, which convinced me that he believed by definition, the people of God are to live in the midst of those who are suffering at the hands of enemies. According to Bonhoeffer, it seems that to fail to do so, is to fail our identity as the people of God in the world. To follow Jesus means to follow him into the suffering of others. So, at the beginning of a potentially, extremely challenging season, what does it mean to be God’s people, and how are we to follow Jesus into the lands filled with suffering?

Blogging…

So there certainly are apologies to be made for not blogging over the last month! Much has been happening in my life and while I think blogging is a very helpful way to keep oneself critically engaging the events of one’s life, it also sometimes can be onerous! That being said, I only blogged a few of my 30 straight days, so I intend to pick up where I have left off! 

So to update you all on what has been happening in my life:

As far as work, I am currently working part time for the Institute for Urban Initiatives (a local faith based non-profit), working with local churches to coordinate research and response surrounding the issues of human trafficking in Los Angeles. More to come on this as the project progresses. I also am starting a new part time job working the Ecumenical Council of Pasadena Area Churches on the first of October, helping to develop a united response among the churches in Pasadena to the issue of homelessness in the city. Lastly, I am interning with World Vision LA, helping to think about a “transformational approach” to doing ministry in marginalized community. I am currently working on a paper that connects transformation among the poor, to the life and ministry of Jesus, and the coming of the Kingdom of God. 

I also found out that my wife is pregnant – and that we are going to have a little girl sometime in late January! While it was somewhat of a surprise to us, we are very excited and I am currently thinking about what it means to be a good father to a little girl. We also have been thinking about the importance of naming, and realize that as parents, one of the first decisions we make is one that is going to last our child’s entire life.

So – what’s in a name? Does a name impact who a person is going to be, or how they are going to live? And how does one go about deciding on a name? Certainly there is major emphasis on names in Scripture – usually pertaining to places, people, and events, when God has made his presence known on earth. Certainly the name of the Messiah has broad connections to the history of God’s relationship with the people of Israel. So what does naming a child have to do with this? What processes would you use to chose a name? What significance has your name given to your identity? 

Speaking of names, the difficulty in naming also has plagued the process of this blog…It needs a title!

Anyways, I look forward to blogging again on a more regular basis, and learning more about the genre of “blog”.

Bike Trip

Over the next few days, I am going to be riding on a cycling tour with B’s home church and area churches. In many ways, this church for me too has become a home church over the years, and even as recently as yesterday B and I have talked about officially joining the church to symbolize this relationship. 

Denominational relationships have always been difficult for me – I was baptized Catholic, confirmed Lutheran, went to “youth group” in a non-denominational community church (also a place I consider to be “home”), went to a Baptist college, married a baptist(ish) woman, and graduated from an “interdenominational” seminary where I was profoundly influenced by the Mennonites. So, in the words of D. Stephen Long, I am either denominationally confused or ecumenically inclined, which I think is a common experience among Christians of my generation. Either way – commitment to a particular faith community in the form of a historical denomination a process through which I am currently working, and despite its challenges is something critically important. 

The tour is a three day trip over the course of about 190 miles, fully supported with SAG vehicles, a cook staff (which also happens to be my mother in-law), and it is a fundraiser for the camp that serves their denomination (if you have any interest in sponsoring a rider, you can do it here). Both B and I are excited about spending the next few days with our family of faith that for many years has supported and prayed for us.

Everyday Discipleship

A few nights ago I had an opportunity to spend some time with five of my old college roommates (who at this point are not bloggers – but I am working on them!) that meet in a weekly Bible/book study that usually ends up being a time for the guys to get together an tell the stories of the week. After being away from this group for almost five years, this was my first time returning, and it was a refreshing time of thinking about Christian discipleship in the everydayness of life. 

Most of these guys are not in “vocational ministry” (someday I will post on how this term lacks a robust understanding of the Christian community, and I would say represents an unfaithful development of Christian vocation): as a few are involved in the corporate world and a few in non-profit work. 

Throughout the evening, the conversation surrounded issues of faithfulness that each person encountered in the everydayness of life: concern about sick parents, rebellious siblings, and stewardship of limited financial resources; consideration of approaches to relationships with in-laws, and our own family histories from just down the road to halfway around the world.

Each of these issues represented deep theological questions about human identity, Christian discipleship, the Christian’s relationship to culture, the Christian community, and those in the wider world; and it became again clear, that theology apart from daily questions of Christian discipleship is really no theology at all. I realized more that the task of the theologian/pastor is to remain deeply invested in these questions of daily faithfulness, while helping to form the Christian  imagination to see a new reality (one which is constantly seeking repentance and reformation), that re-frames these questions of daily discipleship around the particular narrative of Jesus – the climax of God’s purposes in the world, and the embodiment of the coming reign of God. 

My experience with these disciples a few nights ago encouraged me to reconsider once again the everydayness of discipleship – that to be a disciple means to render once allegiance to Jesus and the Kingdom of God in every area of life. And it reminded me that all disciples, regardless of training, are theologians in need of faithfulness, repentance, restoration, and an imaginative vision of God’s new reality.