Birth Pangs

And Jesus began to say to them, "See to it that no one misleads you.  "Many will come in My name, saying, `I am He!' and will mislead many.  "When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end.  "For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

I want to take a passage quite a bit out of context to illustrate the idea that the turbulence, churn and flux that we are going through at Journey are merely the beginning of birth pangs.  There is no life without a swollen belly, pain, blood and water.  It's messy, and perhaps, for those queasy like me, somewhat disgusting.  Even though a woman knows her hour will come, it comes suddenly with increasing levels of discomfort. And then anguish, groaning, screaming and awful pain.

Yet, the the pain and flux are almost instantly forgotten as the joy of new life washes over her.  I've heard moms I have been friends with over the years describe the intense pain of child birth and it always amazes me because usually the story of pain is capped with, "And I'd do it again." Mothers of one child seem understandable to me; mothers of two or more kids seem insane, because all I see is the pain. What mothers see is the life. To them, that is more important.

For all of us, the changes are hard.  They are confusing.  They challenge our ideas of what is "good," what is "true," and what is "right."  For some, the changes feel foreign and disorienting.  Perhaps there is a feeling of betrayal or outrage that what was comfortable and knowable has suddenly been (unnecessarily?) scattered all over the place.  Have we replaced order with chaos?

The presence of birth pangs doesn't necessarily lead to life, though.  Sometimes, babies are still born. Or they die a short time later.

So, it's not enough to say that all this churn is leading to life.

But I think it most likely is leading to life.

Even though there are colliding ideas. Even though there are strong feelings toward changes.  Even though we are in a new location with a new layout.  Even though things sometimes feel divisive.  Even though I know there are people who disagree with me and I with them.

I still think it is leading to life.

Do I think the direction is perfect?  Does it satisfy all my longings and beliefs about what church is about?  Nope. In fact, I have been discouraged the last few weeks about church in general and Journey in particular. What I think I am realizing is that what I deeply long for in terms of relationship, community and worship will probably never be fulfilled until I die.  That's not pessimism toward church or the Journey: it just shows how big our souls are and how incomplete even our best efforts fall short of what we want and need. I think I'm coming out of my discouragement because I realize that my lack of complete satisfaction with the new direction is more a function of longings that stretch me to heaven than because something is way off with the Journey.

Do I think it's possible a fair number of people will leave?  Yes. It's probable, actually.

Does this bother me?  Sometimes Yes, sometimes No. But mostly No.

In a Christian culture where most churches don't have the vision and drive to stand for something other than the Gospel of Least Common Denominator, I find Journey's change in direction intriguing and enticing.  Given our vision and mission, which I remind everyone is oriented toward the undiscipled person, I think the changes make great sense.  Here's why:

There are two primary segments of spirituality in our culture. Those who are ok with the standard model of church and those who are not.  For me, I'm not very interested in attracting church people -- there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of churches in the country playing church with church people.  Let the church people go play church with other church people.

I'm interested in the other group of people: the undiscipled yet spiritually sentient person who looks at the church and rightly discerns hypocrisy and artifice, yet wrongly concludes that God is not present among people.

These people are part of the current moment of culture. As usual, the church at large is lagging behind where the world is at and we are again answering questions that undiscipled people aren't even asking.  Spiritual people walking in the moment of culture aren't reading books about the proof of faith.  They are going to events like Burning Man. Their hunger is not one of intellect but one of experience.  In the past, books on the facts of faith would be effective. Today, they are irrelevant.  Experiences are key.

The relaunch team and the senior leadership team believes that in order to connect with people at the current moment of culture, we need to adapt our methods (but not the message).

The methods we use can be best categorized as post-modern, which means that today, many people no longer believe that the rational mind, the scientific method and an objective notion of truth can completely handle the questions of the human soul.  The modern mind is oriented toward intellect, objective truth, a teacher/student relationship between those in the know and those not in the know and a belief that the most meaningful approach to life is rational and intellectual.

The modern mind believes: Get the right ideas into your brain and you will make good decisions. 

If you have right ideas, right facts, if you apply principles and develop proper habits, life will work out. Amazingly, in spite of being a gob of hooey, some people fervently believe this.

The modern mindset is passing away and the post-modern mind is emerging to take center stage.

The post-modern mind doesn't reject the value of the intellect but neither does a post-modern person believe that intellect and some ironically relative notion of objective truth is adequate to handle the issues of life. Post-moderns, which I am, believe in mystery, experience, experiments (sound familiar?), longings, emotions, story more than facts, perception more than an ostensible objective reality.  They are interested not in a teacher/student role but a flat, peer-based set of relationships that are built on a sense of equal footing.  For many post-moderns, relationship and story are central to how they experience life.  Just the other day, I noticed a plaque for sale in the Target Housewares section that read: Home is where the story begins.

This is the current moment of culture.

If we want to connect with these people, we cannot insist they ascribe to our beliefs in order to belong.  We need to include them, not because they are spiritual projects but because we love them and like hanging out with them. And just as Paul wandered around Mars Hill looking for cultural connections with the gospel, we too look for ways to create an environment and an ethos that helps the PM feel more at home, to feel like we "get" them not just because we studied some books about culture, but because we are like them and connect with them.

I suspect that much of the churn we are going through is the conflict between the modern and the post-modern people at Journey.  One worldview is not superior to another. Everyone is where they are at.  It's as simple as that. But in some important ways, modernism feels incompatible with post-modernism.  There are times when the conflict is not trivial.

Whether we can change and adapt remains to be seen.  Whether the modern can mix effectively with the post-modern at Journey also remains to be seen.

But I believe the churn, the collision of ideas and values, the discussion is all part of birthing something new. And just like new parents, we will bring a new baby into our lives and that life is going to throw us into chaos and sleepless nights (like tonight, I woke at 3:30 AM and my mind and heart are swirling with thoughts, worries, half-baked and half-hearted prayers and so now all I can do is write this in hope that once I get it out, I can sleep for just a bit more).

Be strong and courageous, people. The Lord your God has called you out of the wilderness.  He has called you to a life of blessing, where you not only experience favor but you too extend favor and blessing to those around you.  Don't think that the kingdom is built solely on intellect or market saturation of the gospel message.

Whether modern or post-modern, the ethos is the same: we grow in relationships and no true disciple ever knows Jesus without a relationship with a person engaged in the intentional pursuit of the Superunknown.

You and I are here because 11 guys understood, in kludgy and awkward ways, that the kingdom is about connecting and loving people, whether they ever align their lives with God or not. Those 11 men infected the people they knew with a virus that has replicated itself billions and billions of times.  We are here because of those 11 men. 

2000 years later we are here to do the very same thing.  In light of that, perhaps we can accept the birth pangs, perhaps we can set aside our favored ideas of what church looks like. Perhaps we can recognize that historically, God has consistently taken his people through new modes of experiencing him: from the perfection of Eden, to life with no law and no provision for grace, to the Law, to the priests, to the Temple and finally to a day where the curtain separating the Holy of Holies was torn apart so that you and I could ourselves be priests and the temple of God -- the very container of God Himself.

With this perspective, is it unreasonable to hope that we can persevere as a church, endure the hardship of change, have the humility to flex our favored notions of what makes church "good," and have a mindset that is about more than What's In It For Me?