The Four Churches I Love

• Faithbridge Presbyterian Church.  On paper, my connection here is strongest, but in actuality and function, the connection here is the most tenuous.  Faithbridge is the church I was a member of when I entered the ordination process, and therefore the church I remain “under care” of until after seminary.  That said, we now live 1,500 miles away from this church, have no family and few connections there, and I haven’t heard from my “session liaison” in well over a year.  Faithbridge played a large part in my decision to enter ministry (for which I’m eternally grateful), but it’s hard for me to consider myself a “member” there, even though of all four churches, this is where my membership officially resides.
• Middlesex Presbyterian Church. This is where my family attends every Sunday morning in New Jersey, and we are “affiliate members” here.   I consider the pastor here, Dr. Neal Presa, as “my” pastor, and the congregation is an extended family that looks out for and cares for me and my family, and we participate actively in the life of the church.  However, even though this church is a lot closer than Faithbridge, we still live 45 minutes away, making it hard to engage with the community throughout the week.  We spend long chunks of time away from this church in the summer and over the Christmas holidays–some of the most important times in the life of a church.  I also realize that this is a temporary family for us, as my time at seminary will come to an end, and we have no deep roots or family in New Jersey.
• First Presbyterian Church of Second Life. This is the online community I helped organize a little over a year ago that meets in the virtual world of Second Life.  It is probably the most cutting-edge and innovative of all my church communities, and there is a great excitement among those who participate.  My wife and I can participate in this church wherever we travel, and even worship together when we are in separate cities.  There is a very real, very embodied community in this church, that has deepened my faith and my relationship with others.  However, because our denominational polity still lags behind the technology, this church cannot yet be recognized as an “official” church, and there is no way (yet) for my children to actively participate with us.  Many members of this community are also members at other, geographically-based churches.
• First Presbyterian Church of El Paso.  This is the church where I’m currently serving as a summer pastoral intern.  On one hand, this church is entirely new to me and to my family (and has been very welcoming), but on the other hand, El Paso is my hometown, where my wife and I  grew up, met, and married. We have more family here than anywhere else, and will almost certainly return here after seminary.  I am not a member of First Presbyterian, bu t shortly after my arrival, I was given two things: An email address (neal@firstpres-ep.org) and a  very professionally made and nice-looking hard-plastic, magnetic name tag.  These things may sound trivial, and yet one (the name tag) is traditionally recognized in church culture as an unofficial sign of membership, and the other (the email address) is a clear and certain hallmark of membership in the digital culture of my generation.  For this and many other reasons (like the fact that the pastor is a former college English professor, and that the father of my high-school best friend is an elder here) I feel very much “at home” here.

Serial Monogamy vs. Polygamy

While monogamous relationships have long been the ideal in Western culture, many sociologists have noted the recent trend toward “serial monogamy” – in other words, people are likely to have multiple amorous relationships over the course of a lifetime, but in sequence, not all at once.  Church membership has seen a similar trend:  For most,  the era where a person might be baptized, married, and buried all in the same church community is long gone.  Still, in the 20th century, church members were generally committed to only one church at at time in a given location – serial monogamy.

So does that make me a polygamist when it comes to my own church membership?  Am I “cheating” on the church where my membership resides by seeking to fulfill spiritual needs elsewhere, or by contributing my time & talents elsewhere?  Perhaps this is where the metaphor breaks down, but I do feel a certain guilt in the fact that I “need” not just one alternate church community, but no less than four!

Each of these church communities, to some degree, offers something necessary and good for my faith journey.  I like to think that I have something to contribute to each of them as well.  And yet all also have shortcomings – yes, all churches have “shortcomings” but here I do not mean the sort that results from human failing or lack of effort – the shortcomings in this case are all hurdles of geography, technology, or institutional structure.  They are shortcomings for which no solution currently exists, other than “polygamous” or at least “promiscuous” notions of church membership.

Toward Post-Modern Membership

So, in case you hadn’t noticed yet, fixed boundaries are rather difficult for those of us who grew up in a post-modern world, and classic notions of membership seem to be built on expectations of exclusive fealty.  Contrast this with membership in the very post-modern world of the internet:  I have “officially joined” facebook, twitter, Second Life, Google, Wikipedia, FourSquare, Presbymergent, BrightKite, Amazon.com, Ebay, ReverbNation, Pandora, YouTube, Yelp, and hundreds of other “social networks.”  In fact, I was required to join each of them before I could “fully” participate in the life of their respective communities. This is a fixed boundary of sorts.  And yet it is fluid:  None of them seemed to object to my membership in of any of the others — in fact, the really smart (and successful) ones have found ways to actually help me integrate my participation accross platforms so that the unique strengths of each community can benefit the others.  This is the paradigm of “membership” that I think most people in my generation embrace, whether consciously or not.

So what would it look like if church membership took a page from the Web2.0 playbook?  I think the greatest fear that might be voiced is one against fragmentation and confusion.  Promiscuous membership might indeed play into our existing consumerist tendencies.  And yet, is “church collecting” really worse than “church hopping?”   Another fear might be that members would be “stretched thin” – too involved at too many places to be of any use to one.    This is certainly a valid fear.  But I think that here again, skillful integration might be the key.  Most aspects of our lives are balancing acts to begin with, and church communities that find ways to complement and contribute to one another are more likely to survive than those who prefer their members live in isolated fidelity to one community.  I participate in the Amazon.com community far less frequently than I do in the twitter community, but when I need an objective and detailed book review, 140 characters doesn’t quite cut it.  But once I find the review, chances are I’ll post a short-link to it on twitter for others to follow — and thus value is added to both communities.

Epilogue

I would love to say that from here I will now ride happily into the sunset with my four beautiful church communities in tow and live happily ever after – but I acknowledge we’re not quite there yet.  I suspect that my membership promiscuity still makes some people uncomfortable, in some communities more than others.  But I also see hopeful potential  in an expanding understanding of “membership” – for me, for my family, and especially for a denomination in dire need of new approaches and new forms of collaboration.  After all, the one thing my four church communities have in common is that they all share a common name, “Presbyterian.”

Uh oh.  Does that make it an incestuous promiscuous relationship too?

I guess I’d better stop before the metaphor gets “out of hand“…

This one draws from the lectionary passage (Amos 7:7-17) as well as a few scattered reflections from General Assembly 219 and my personal angst over the ongoing “numbers crisis” in the PC(USA). While I’m certainly preaching to myself here, I hope others may find something of value in it, too.

And I’m still tinkering, so if you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to weigh in – you’ve got until about 9am tomorrow.

Anyhow, here’s the Link to the full text over on my wiki:

• I Am No Prophet:  Sermon for July 11th, 2010

PREFACE

I. GOD

We trust in one God, who alone is the creator and sustainer of all worlds and all realities, whether labeled virtual, physical, spiritual or otherwise.  God reigns over all. God loves all.

But we rejected God’s reign, and scorned God’s love.  From the beginning, we attempted to create our own worlds, with our own rules, where we loved our own selves above all. Virtual realities are nothing new. As a consequence, we are a broken and messed-up people, still wandering through dysfunctional worlds of our own making, longing for a better one.

God, however, didn’t sit around idly, waiting for us to come back. Instead, God came to us where we were, taking on the flesh, blood, molecules and matter that would best communicate to us in the medium most  familiar to us at the time: We know this manifestation of God’s love by name: Jesus.

And so we trust in Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, who entered into an existence fundamentally different in substance and structure than the one he knew before his time on earth.  He came as a child into a strange world where he had to learn to sit, stand, walk, and communicate with others. He did this with the help of two in-world natives, Mary and Joseph, who showed him gracious hospitality, welcoming him into the world and teaching its customs.

We take note of Jesus’ ministry, as he gathered both crowds and small groups to himself, effectively using the technology, language, and familiar images of his day to convey God’s love and reign to all.  He particularly embraced those outside the mainstream—the ones labeled by society as outcasts, deviants, and unbelievers. He visited the sick and comforted the suffering. He challenged powerful institutions, calling them out on oppressive bureaucracy and legalism, and calling them back to the heart of the best traditions of their ancestors.

Ultimately, he gave up his life for this cause and was subjected to cruel betrayal, torture, and execution at the hands of those he came to save. He willingly accepted a fate he did not deserve on behalf of those who did, so that we might know mercy and grace, and through this act be once and for all awakened to God’s love, saved and redeemed.

We believe that God raised Jesus up from death into yet another new form and context, giving us hope and reassurance that, following his example, we need not fear new forms and new contexts—in the life to come, or in the life we live today:  We are a resurrection people.

Before his death, Jesus promised that his presence would remain among us, even when his physical form did not. Because of this, we trust in the Holy Spirit, who comforts us, guides us, and binds us together with all God’s people in all places.  We believe there is no place, whether made of molecules and matter or bits and bytes, that God’s Spirit does not permeate.

Further, God’s Spirit provides us both example and inspiration for presence that transcends geographical boundaries, as we strive to be present with and for one another across our own geographical locations in a deep and meaningful way.

We trust that God calls together faithful believers in every age to be the church, to worship and pray together, to fellowship and study together, serving one another and the world. Historically, the church has been recognized in two forms: The universal church, and the local church.  As professing Christians, we stand together with our sisters and brothers as members of the universal Church, which is not limited by time or place.

We celebrate the remarkable diversity and adaptability of the local church through the centuries.  Christian communities have gathered in homes, cathedrals, mountaintops, prisons, airports, in prosperity and in adversity, liturgically and spontaneously, and wherever two or more have been gathered together by the leading of God’s spirit.

Until recently local churches have almost always been associated with a geographical region, and this has served the church well.  However, churches transcending geography are not without precedent.  The Apostle Paul considered himself a participant and leader of many churches dispersed across the Mediterranean. He even writes that his “virtual” presence by means of his letters should be viewed as no different than his physical presence (2 Cor. 10:11).  Paul used the information superhighway of his day—letters, roads, and messengers—to be actively present and engaged with his faith communities.

We believe it is time to acknowledge that the idea of “locale” extends beyond mere physical location. Most people today are part of one or more thriving communities that are geographically dispersed.  We reject the notion that communities mediated through technology are inferior to ones mediated by physical space, or that they are acceptable only as a substitute when physically based community is not possible.  Rather, each type of community is different, each with its own strengths to be celebrated and weaknesses to be addressed. Some people will entirely prefer one to the other, and many will seek a mixture of the two.  We believe that God’s presence, true fellowship and community, as well the human propensity for sin, can be found to their fullest extent in any of the above.

We recognize that ever since the invention of the auditorium, eyeglasses, hearing aids, and pulpit microphones, our worship experiences have already been increasingly mediated through the medium of technology, and we are thankful for the enhancements and inclusion these things have represented for the church.

Accordingly, we recognize the full legitimacy and divine calling of churches that gather partially, primarily, or solely in virtual worlds, and call upon our sisters and brothers in the universal body of Christ to join us in welcoming them into conversation, fellowship, and shared ministry.  This recognition is to be tempered with the caution that all churches—in any medium—are ultimately flawed and human institutions, and not all who self-identify as churches live up to the high ideals to which we are called.

Because of the wonderful diversity of local churches through the ages, and especially the new and unique ways in which churches in virtual worlds are evolving, we find it useful to affirm three historic marks by which Christian churches, and Reformed Churches in particular, have often been recognized: We believe that the church exists where the Word of God is truly proclaimed and taught; where the sacraments are rightly administered, and where church discipline is effectively practiced.

Our intention in affirming these marks of the church is not to define precisely how each one ought to function, or what “rightly” consists of, but rather to elevate the importance and seriousness which we ascribe to each of them.  We trust that churches who ascribe to these ideals and approach them with reverence, prayer and thoughtful discernment will be led by God’s Spirit to creative and appropriate decisions.

2.  Administration of Sacraments: At different times in the life of the church, various sacraments have been recognized, and in virtual worlds new expressions of the sacred continue to be explored.  However, there are two sacraments instituted in scripture by Christ that are recognized by most professing Christians: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  We affirm the historic importance of these two sacraments, and their significance as signs and seals of our faith.

We believe that all of these marks of the church are not just profitable, but indispensable to the life and witness of the church in any time or place.  For this reason, no church should ever be prevented from observing them publicly and visibly in some fashion within its normal context.

Yesterday, I led a Presbymergent conversation group for those interested in exploring the intersection between the Emerging Church and the PCUSA — it was an interesting chat in light of all the recent proclamations of the “Death of the Emerging Church.” There was certainly much life to *our* conversation!

This morning, I led morning prayer with the assistance of my little Ukulele and the Book of Common Worship. What an interesting pair…

And, in about one and a half hours, I’ll be leading a workshop called “Open Source Education in Emerging Congregations.” We’ll explore Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, Linux, and Second Life — not just as “tools” to use in ministry, but more importantly as ways to understand how emerging generations think, interact, engage, and live out their calling.

The workshop starts at 2:00pm CST and goes until 3:30pm. You can follow the conversation on twitter via hashtag #APCE10x — and if you’re logged into SecondLife, there’s a wee small chance that we might be stopping by the 1PCSL Chapel around 3:00 or so, time permitting. Oh, and you can find my notes, and various links for the presentation on my wiki here.

So…in one year, have things changed?  That’s hard to say.  I still run into assholes on a fairly regular basis — many are still PhD students, sometimes they’re M.Div students, and as I noted in my follow up piece a year ago, sometimes I’m the asshole.  However, I do think, after a year of reflection and interaction, that quantity words like “most” or “almost all” wore a little hyperbolic.

Of course, it’s hard to accurately analyze the change, since now the post itself has influenced the situation.  While a blogger always hopes that his posts will be read, I genuinely didn’t expect that post to spread as far and wide as it did, among the seminary population.  For awhile there, I was told there was a nasty letter about my lack of sexual prowess hanging on the wall in the PhD lounge (classy, huh?).  So now whenever PhD students are really nice to me, I always wonder “Are they doing that just so I won’t blog about them?”  Of course, when I’m nice to PhD students, they probably ask themselves “Does he really think I’m an asshole, and is just being polite?”   And, of course, I’ll probably always wonder (and fret over) how much temptation the blog post causes the PhD students who routinely grade my papers (yes, that’s the way we roll here).

Every now and then, someone will still give me a knowing wink and say–”I just read your blog post about PhD students, man…right on!”  This bothers me a little.  The post was born out of genuine frustration and feelings of powerlessness and isolation that probably most first-year graduate students feel.  I don’t like being reduced to a sort of stick-it-to-the-man kind of mascot (believe it or not).  The post was nuanced, especially in the comments.  And I’ve since learned that most PhD students often feel as frustrated and powerless as I did (which is, of course, still no excuse to take it out on M.Div students).  Probably a good dose of Paulo Friere is what we all really need.

What bothers me even more than this, are the few people who were deeply offended by my post, and who have abandoned relationship with me over the course of the year.  Perhaps that’s just the sad consequence of my actions, or perhaps its my unwillingness to completely “repent” of the post and retract it (I still stand by my right as a blogger to vent my frustration and be human, aka “not nice,” from time to time).  Whichever, it bothers me that there are people who live right across the street from me who haven’t spoken to me since the incident.

I still believe passionately that many people at Princeton Seminary (from M.Div students, to PhDs to faculty and staff) take themselves WAY too seriously, and that the cut-throat spirit of competitiveness is antithetical to the mission of the institution.  A year and a half has solidified that view.  If the seminary adopted a pass/fail system for all classes, that problem would be easily solved.

But that’s not too likely, and here I am slipping into back-seat driver mode again (see how easy it is?).

In studying the Bible, one question that gets raised often is whether or not God changes over the course of the narrative (to which all the orthodox readers all too quickly shout “NO!).  Personally, I don’t have a problem with a God who changes (or evolves), but usually the answer people gravitate to runs something like this:  It’s not God who changed, but rather our perception of God.

So I don’t know whether PhD Students at Princeton Seminary have really changed, or maybe just my perception of them, but all in all it’s been a better year for all of us.  In that spirit, I raise a toast to the PhD students at Princeton Seminary:  May the year to come be prosperous and productive for you, full of the choicest books, the deepest conversations, and the highest praise from your professors.  May you get to know a few MDiv students too, as friends and equals, and not hold the transgressions of the past against them.  And finally, may your humanity to others shine forth in all you do, in the classroom, in the dining hall, and on the quad.

Of course…since I didn’t call them assholes, none of them will probably read this, damn it.

Right now I think virtual conferences are a ways from becoming mainstream because virtual worlds are still a ways away from becoming mainstream.  So, while virtual conferences may reduce the barriers of time and money they introduce new barriers of competency and comfort with the virtual world.

But the number of people engaged in virtual worlds like Second Life continues to grow.

Twenty years ago it would have been crazy to think you could get 10,000 people to sign up for an Internet-only, live streamed Christian leadership conference, but now that most Americans have high speed Internet access and view video online on a daily basis, the Leadership Network was able to pull that off with The Nines conference.

Could it be that in 20 years (or less), the Internet will no longer be primarily a 2 dimensional experience viewing flat text, images, and media, but a 3 dimensional experience?

He also posted this really cool video of a recent conference in Second Life, where (as some of you may already know) I’ve been spending some time recently developing a Presbyterian faith community.  Here’s the video:

I think Paul’s experience and judgment in the Christian “tech industry” are exceptional, so I respect and value his input on this subject.  I also think his analysis here is spot on, too.  Here’s my response (also posted as a comment on his original post):

Paul — thanks for posting on this.  I think you’re right that virtual conferences are still a ways from becoming mainstream.  But I’d answer your final question by saying, yes, the internet will go from primarily 2d to primarily 3d in quite a bit less time than 20 years.

I think the “web designers” of today will become the “virtual world environment and event designers” of tomorrow (borrowed from Ray Kurzweil on that idea).

But I also think that the current economic downturn will help spur a growth movement in virtual conferences right now — Unfortunately businesses intent on saving money will probably lead the way here, not churches (who are generally slow adopters).  That said, Doug Estes new book SimChurch highlights the increasing number of virtual faith communities, and real world churches with “internet campuses” — so maybe the church isn’t that far behind.

But be it church conferences or business conferences, you’ve also hit on a key point in this post:  competency and comfort with virtual worlds are the biggest hurdles to adoption.  I think this is where tech-savvy organizations can work wonders.  My experience with Second Life has been that when people join and explore in isolation, they tend to get frustrated with the experience, stuck, or even bored.

But on the other hand, when people come into virtual worlds with a fixed purpose, are met in-world by other people (represented by avatars) who walk them through a quick training session…the competency and comfort barriers fade quickly.  I imagine this is exactly what Virtualis did for their event.

For a Christian conference, providing this sort of virtual world “welcome wagon” orientation would have another advantage.  In addition to overcoming the barriers mentioned above, it would be an opportunity to practice just the sort of hospitality and welcome that many of our churches suffer from a lack of.

That said, I think what we’ll most likely begin to see in the near future of Christian conferences is a hybrid arrangement — real world conferences that develop virtual world equivalents, allowing people who can’t make the trip to participate and interact with those who do.

Three months ago, I embarked on a project to gather together Presbyterians in the virtual reality world of Second Life, and with them form a community of people who pray together, fellowship together, support and encourage one another, and reach out to others in the name of Christ.  What initially drew me into this project was my ongoing commitment to explore the intersection between new technologies and the church, my commitment to exploring what it means to be a Presbyterian in a post-modern culture, and my desire to follow God’s universal call to evangelism in all places.  Honestly, I was also a bit surprised to find that my particular “faith tribe” (the PCUSA) was one of the only major denominations not already organized and taking advantage of the opportunities to do all of the above in a global community with over 1.3 million participants, many or most of whom are what would be considered “unchurched” in either virtual or actual reality.

Despite the somewhat bizzare and otherworldly, high-tech nature of Second Life, as I began to encounter people there (Presbyterian and otherwise), have conversations with them about God, faith, and the church, and as our community began to meet regularly for conversation and prayer, I noticed that the skills I was drawing upon most were not my “high tech” ones, nor even my sense of “cultural relevancy.”  Rather, it was my experiences in a real-world New Church Development for several years, and snippets of advice I had gleaned from various New Church Development and Evangelism conferences (that I had often scorned or considered outmoded at the time) that I now found myself straining to remember, and, when implemented, met with the greatest success.  I am beginning to learn that the shared wisdom and experiences of those who have gone before me and worked hard to plant worshipping communities — however different they may initially appear from my own context — are of great value, and that solid principles of organization and leadership often transcend age, location, and context.

There are two reasons I would like to attend this NCD Discernment event.  The first is short term:  It is the hope that by spending a few days with those who have done what I am attempting to do, I can listen attentively and glean some useful guidance about church planting, about myself, and about following God’s call into difficult places.  In this, I hope that I can bring some benefit to the virtual-reality community where I feel God is currently calling me to lead.  The second reason is a more long-term one:  While I have always felt called to evangelism, mission, and community building, I have generally expected to do this work independently, “outside” of denominational structures.  I have felt that while I may have something to offer my denomination, my denomination would likely not have much to offer me.  My experiences in the past few months have led me to question this position, and to be more open to the idea that I, and any community I might someday lead — no matter how “different” or “outside the box” — would stand to benefit greatly from the collective wisdom and experience of those who have done NCD work in the PCUSA.  Now, with ears that are more “ready to hear,” I hope that this event can help me better discern the nature of my calling in relation to my denomination, and whether NCD work in the PCUSA is where God is leading me upon my graduation from seminary.