Here are some of the ideas I picked up during the day from the speakers and from participants. It will give you a flavor of the day. First, the title was intentional. It is not just about religious tolerance or even dialogue. It is about reconciliation. One spoke of this as a family reunion, and that is not Pollyanna. Family reunions are often difficult. We have hurt each other. Done things that have been destructive.  But we have also prospered with each other.

Swedish theologian Krister Stendahl once listed 3 rules for religious understanding. (1) When you are trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies. (2) Don’t compare your best to their worst. (3) Leave room for “holy envy.” (By this Stendahl meant that you should be willing to recognize elements in the other religious tradition or faith that you admire and wish could, in some way, be reflected in your own religious tradition or faith.)

Inter-religious dialogue does not mean that we leave our faith traditions particularities at the door. That only invokes a watered down, generic, sterile religion. Rather, we must bring our uniqueness to the conversation and celebrate it!  Rabbi Mark Diamond  of the Board of  Rabbis of Southern California spoke about seeking knowledge of the other tradition, understanding it, respecting it, having passion for your own tradition, and compassion for the other.

And along the way we need to approach our tradition, and the traditions of others with a sense of humility, and recognizing the oppositional identity we carry.

The most difficult part of the day was the panel with the Israeli Consul General and the Turkish Consul General. The conversation moved to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the Armenian Genocide. Quickly we were thrust into the arena of politics, involving land and people groups.  I realized that the only hope for reconciliation and peace for us–diverse faith traditions in the US, conflicts between peoples, disputes over land–will come from the faith traditions.

We need to talk to each other and learn from each other. We need to pray for each other.  We need to work together–maybe simply by creating an inter-faith soup kitchen. Or working together to eliminate homeless (Imagine LA does this!).We must work for the common good. We must work together to care for our neighbor–and we must broadly define who are neighbor is.  Our neighbor is the person next to us, or distanced from us, who, like us, is created in the image of God. As Rabbi David Wolpe reminded us–faith matters. Children of Abraham must celebrate and embrace our own faith traditions. And we must work together to repair the world.

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created Man and wanted Man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the Earth. We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know Him in the light. God promised in the book of His word, the Bible, that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good His promise by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left His home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, He rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Him. All who have faith in Him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the Good News to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for Him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

Pastors should not complain about their congregations, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to them in order that they should become its accuser before God and others.

The only church we know is the local church found in a neighborhood.  The only church we know is the mysterious and messy church made up of people with depth and maturity, and those who have many miles to walk on that journey.  This local congregation is the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Spirit.   This local church is the one that has been entrusted to teams of pastors and lay leaders.

Pastors start complaining, not without good reason. The work becomes burdensome. The hours are long. The accomplishments are sometimes difficult to see. The criticisms flood in. Still, pastors are called to task of faithful service.  Pastors are to ambitious for the gospel, not in a hyper-productive, success driven sense, but rather pastors are called to nurture a congregational environment where the presence and power of God might be manifested among the people leading to a missional vocation in the world. This local church will be characterized by beauty and vitality and flourishing, not by destructive habits, corruption or mediocrity.

The task towards congregational renewal does not rest solely on pastors. Rather, it is the call of the entire congregation, guided by the Spirit, to discern the movements of the Spirit and then to obediently follow. Still, it is the responsibility of pastors to humbly and joyfully tend to and draw a congregation towards greater fruitfulness.  Pastors, church leaders,  don’t get to complain.  Pastors enter into service anew, strengthened by the Lord, and yearning for extra measures of patience, and grace.

We certainly can look at ministry from a number of different vantage points.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/buildingleaders/ministrystaff/determineyourministryage.html

Jim’s book has been well received and advances the discussion of how to be the church in contemporary American society.  President Richard Mouw will lead a Question and Answer segment.

If you are in the area, please come. For more information contact me at KurtF@fuller.edu

Belcher Flier

This video has been around for a while. Still it is quite whimsical.  A few people begin to dance in a train station. It is met with curiosity and suspicion.  But they continue to dance, and other dancers join in. Soon even more in the crowd catch the joy.  There is something wonderful and viral about joy. It spreads! The very best news is always like that. It can’t be contained.

This is a great class exploring ways in which real, tangible, local congregations can contribute to the good in their neighborhoods. This course is about taking the gospel into the streets. It is about being a different type of church.

TM710 SL 2009

TM710 Fred-hirsch 11-09 email[1]

But there is another side to suburban living. Where we live, how a community is fashioned affects the way we think and act. This is the dangerous side of the suburbs.  While suburbs are looking more and more like urban settings, there is still something insidious about the suburbs.

The suburbs are a place of escape–away from more urban settings with crime, and noise, and traffic, and messiness. So when the messiness appears in the suburbs, we do all we can to ignore it hoping it will just go away. We get uncomfortable with lawns and people who do not conform, who are outside the norm.  We wish the untidyness would disappear.  It doesn’t

I get saddened when we who live in the suburbs, including me, turn a blind eye to the messiness. We don’t like hearing or knowing about homeless people, kids sleeping on the street, kids going to school without a shower, clean clothes or a meal. So we ignore.

When we hear that good middle class kids can’t find the money for musical instruments, or police officers need more canines to fight crime, or the arts need a boost—we do fundraisers, and money flows. We like to give to good middle class, increase our standard of living causes.

But when we hear about kids not being able to get proper dental care, or the underemployed not being able to get adequate medical treatment, or the working homeless not being able to find affordable housing, we turn away.  That just isn’t an exciting way to spend money: we don’t want to have those sort of issues in the suburbs.

This is the danger of living in the suburbs. We forget about the marginalized, the “least of these.” Yet this is our task, as human beings–to reach out to others, even the messy. And for the church, this is our obligation–to do the messy work, the hard work and extend ourselves to others in the name of Jesus. We are to be about doing good—even when it is hard.    Maybe this is more difficult in the suburbs.  The church can lead the way.

I begin with a blog post by Dave Gibbons

The Most Dangerous Place in America

Yes, the situations in Iran and North Korea continue to give concern to us and our government, but when it comes to our own backyard, where is the most dangerous place in America?

New York City.

Detroit.

Baltimore.

Chicago.

Los Angeles.

Large cities such as these have received a lot of attention as havens of crime, disorder and mayhem. I don’t want to argue that. Sure, violent crimes and societal concerns seem common in our concrete jungles.

But how about cities like these:

Irvine, California

Lake Forest, Illinois

Plano, Texas

Ellicott City, Maryland

Irvine, California was recently given the title, “Safest City in America” (over 100,000 people) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on June 1, 2009. I would like to submit that suburbs just like this may actually be the most dangerous places in America.

The Burbs
The suburban enclaves with their middle class citizens and well- manicured lawns, gates, and guards protecting our Orwellian lifestyle and toys, Starbucks a few minutes apart from each busy intersection, and boasting some of the best schools in the country may actually be the most dangerous locations to live. Okay, we may not have the high murder counts or robberies, but I wonder if the suburbs have become breeding grounds for the accessible and shallow thrills of drugs and alcohol abuse, extravagant parties and proms, and mere facades of happiness and the American Dream. Just ask your local city drug dealer about his primary consumers. . . suburban teenagers and college students.

Okay, I’m not a researcher, but my gut impression from my travels and intersection with youth in the major cities of the world as well as the suburbs and rural communities is that they are all equally dangerous but just in different ways.

The dangers of the suburbs entail the lack of imagination (where do you find real art museums, innovative music venues and creative opportunities to explore nature. Sure there are exceptions but it’s not the norm); materialism; greed; isolation behind cookie-cutter neighborhoods and homogeneous clubs and churches; boredom: apathy; the fascination with the relevant more than the real; a love affair with popularity more than loving the poor; and a thirst for excitement superficially satisfied in the Friday night party. This takes precedence over a dangerous ride with God on the frontlines of His movement.

Ironically, guess what consistently is the hottest selling music in the suburbs? Hip Hop! Seriously. . . check out this article from Wall Street Journal in June of 2005. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB111521814339424546.html

Why do you think Hip Hop is so popular among Suburban youth?

Hip hop is a voice to which suburban kids want to relate. Perhaps some wannabe has a type of connection to reality through Hip Hop while others envision radical change and revolution, inspired to be at the forefront of a new generation of leaders who will not remain silent. It’s a type of music that breathes with the vibe of danger and rawness.

My concern is that our children are missing out on one of the greatest moments to live in the history of humanity. These are the times of global shifts and crises and once-in-a-life time opportunities. Our generation and the next can be so focused on our own survival and the satisfaction of pleasure that we miss out on one of the wildest adventures. Hip Hop music has become the voice of our youth. It describes a thirst for danger and a rawness that is wild and out of control. It’s filled with angst and cynicism. These elements are the seeds of revolution found in the cities. My prayer is that the intrinsic frustration and boredom in the suburbs and rural cities of America will find its purpose in a radical revolution of love.

Perhaps instead of a one-week mission trip, the next generation will commit to a lifetime of roaming the earth in the power of the Holy Spirit like has never been seen before. Sure, our cities have been the focus of the church, but let’s not forget the quiet suburbs– the current breeding ground of potential zealots who are looking for something more to awaken them out of their boredom.

In response to what I wrote above my teammate, Dave Brubaker wrote: The verse I love for this (if you want one)—Luke 12:13-21. It really could be about the suburbs, the guy is so rich, he’s afforded the luxury of ISOLATION. He’s so alone in his gated community that when he needs financial council he has no one to confer with but himself (verse 17); he’s so out of touch with the poor and needy, he can’t think of a single person to share with when he’s got extra. The only idea that comes to mind is to make bigger barns (verse 18). Apparently God finds this so detestable, he kills the guy (verse 20), the words “your life will be demanded from you” are actually a financial term re: collecting a loan; in the case the “loan” that God is collecting is “life.”
Easy to judge this guy as a “fool” but the truth is, isn’t he “successful” by suburban standards???