the drum|rob fairbanks

I know who you are

My mom has had cancer for almost five years.  She prays that she will live to see her three daughters get married.  Last summer, the first one of us daughters had her wedding in our front yard.  My mom wept: It was like God was giving back, gift-wrapped, her deepest desire that she had surrendered fully to Him.

 

One of our friends who had been battling brain cancer died last week, leaving her two sons without a parent.  One of her sons has Asperger’s syndrome and will need to live with and be cared for by her other son.  She told me once her prayer to see her first grandbaby…God didn’t grant her request.

I don’t know why God hasn’t healed my mom from cancer, and I certainly don’t understand why He would take this mother away from her young sons, never realizing her dream of seeing a grandbaby

Yet “sometimes the only way to understand is fall on your knees and say you don’t…Because God knows sometimes there is suffering beyond our knowing.

When we want to know answers, God simply wants us to know Him.

The answer to our suffering is so incomprehensible that it has to be incarnated — the Word must come to us as flesh…He came – because in all our pain, we don’t want some answers like we want a Someone”

                ~Ann Voscamp.

J.J. Heller echoes this belief in her song lyrics: “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know who you are.”

Yet again, we hear the reverberations of this faith in the powerful words of Oswald Chambers: "Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.”

This I know with all my heart: The character of God is trustworthy and steadfast.

                And I know He knows our pain: He loved enough to lose a child so we could live.

“Since the children have flesh and blood,
[I] too shared in their humanity –

so that by [my] death, [I] might break the power of him who holds the power of death—
that is, the devil—

and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

~Hebrews 2:14-15 

“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” ~ Corrie Ten Boom

Jessica

Thankful

Today as I sit in my house in Portland, sipping coffee, and listening to the sweet sound of rain fall on the ground outside, I am thrust into waves of peace. I am reflecting on a month of learning, laughter, increased friendship, sorrow, and deep joy. The past three weeks I got to spend listening to amazing classmates (who I now consider friends) discuss and grow in what it means to be the church. I again learned that there is no perfect church, mostly because there is no perfect person. And in my most vulnerable moments, I have to remind myself that the church is people. Beautiful, broken, alive, and challenging people. 

We read the Gospel and understand maybe a tenth of what Jesus was trying to teach and model to us. Reading through Mark 10 and 11 a few minutes ago, I am in awe of how little I seek the Kingdom of God and instead seek the opinion of the world. How often do I stop and listen? How little do I remind myself that joy is a gift and a choice? How terrible am I at thinking of myself as a little child, hopeful that God redeems and saves? How often do I care more for my possessions than I do for my present relationship with God? 

All of these questions I examined this past term and found that there is no greater answer than the person of Christ. And for me, that begins by being thankful and being disciplined enough to listen wholeheartedly to God. So today, I don’t have any huge theological answers to how the church should function better, serve God more, or be wholly united. But I am able to live into the posture of being thankful. Thankful for a class who tested me, encouraged me, and put up with me. Thankful for a Creator who is infinitely more able and loving than I. 

Thankful.

Katherine

Being Missional Will Kill Me

    Relationship. This is the word I keep coming back to the more I learn about the true calling of the Church and the people of God. Everything centers on the idea that to be a “city on a hill” we have to have relationships with the people around us that will allow them to see what the family of God looks like and what being a dedicated disciple of Christ really means. And, yes, I love the idea of “doing life” with fellow Christians and living in a way that shows what the gospel is about.

    BUT, I am terrified at the idea of relational. I’m not kidding; I am not good at first impressions, holding coherent conversations, making small talk, meeting new people, etc. Don’t get me wrong, God has given me a heart for people and I love being around those whom I already know, but for some reason God also made me a person that would rather stay in a corner than engage others. So when I think about starting conversations with strangers and putting myself out there with other Christians, it scares me.

    At times it is easy for me to tell myself that God must have a more “behind-the-scenes” plan for my place in the Church, since He made me an introvert. However, I have realized that in some way or another Jesus calls everyone to radically change who they are and how they act when they join the family of God. He asks us to lay down idols and sins and our old selves in order to abide in Him and rescript our stories to include the fullness of life that He wants to give us. Jesus says to us in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” What if, for me, denying myself means denying the part of me that would rather not talk to anyone? It might be that being missional will kill that part of me, but I am called to die to myself anyway; “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Reaching out to strangers and engaging the world might scare me, but if stepping outside of my shell and into Christ’s power allows me to be a part of the work of the Kingdom of God, then it will be entirely worth the pain of death.

Kate

Eucharistic Mess

Jessica

Where does your allegiance lie?

    Why do we have different church denominations? I mean, I understand how they came into existence and the reasons behind it, but why?

    I think that having different church styles is extremely important because it can be hard to meet the vast variety of needs amongst us as individuals. We are strengthened when we come together with our differences. However, saying that, I think the church has been splintered rather than strengthened by its denominations. Instead of drawing closer together under one banner, Christ Jesus, we've separated off into factions, each claiming its own ways and rights. If we follow Christ, and are His, why do we claim alegiance to any other spiritual background? Why do we place our identity in anything other than Him?

    We are ultimately not Lutherans, nor Baptists, nor Presbyterians, nor any other denomination and we are not Non-denominational (which has become a denomination of sorts in its own right).

    What kind of a witness are we? One to a fractured church? If you have placed your faith and trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ then you have been adopted into the family of God. You are His. And as His body, you are called to be unified. As a follower of Christ Jesus, a son of the King, and a brother in the family of God, I'm done being defined by what denomination I do or don't belong to. I am His, and that's where I choose to stand. It's enough.

Zach

Yes, the Bible does critique your facebook posts.

   Today in class we talked a bit about social justice for the starving and extorted and powerless, talking through Nehemiah 5 and the situation there. Quick summary: the Israelites are extorting their own countrymen, and these countrymen complain to Nehemiah that they no longer have money for food and so are forced into mortgage and slavery. Nehemiah rebukes the nobles and officials, asks them to throw out their usurious ways, and then sets the example by feeding his fellow men and not taking the taxes and food he is due as the governor.

    There’s the example the bible sets—feed the hungry, redeem the enslaved, set a good example for everyone. This picture I pulled off a friend’s facebook page (someone I would consider a deep and sincere lover of the Lord) says something entirely different. If we feed the hungry, they’ll become dependent on us. I know this picture is only meant to be sort of funny, but it sends a powerful message that the Christians liking and reblogging can’t really mean, and yet we espouse all the time. I hear it from my parents, my home church, peers at Whitworth. We believe that everyone is offered the same opportunities and those who are poor simply didn’t take advantage of those—so it’s their fault they’re starving, suffering, powerless. It’s a completely American attitude, and yet we’ve pulled it in and started expressing it as part of our political views despite the way it contradicts everything our Bible teaches us.

    I’m looking at Nehemiah this way: we are the governors, the noblemen and the officials. Right now we’re Nehemiah, looking at the people and saying “you didn’t save enough grain to feed yourself. You made bad financial choices, went with the wrong mortgage, didn’t raise your kids properly. And if we feed you, redeem your children from slavery, and give you power in place of powerlessness, you’ll only become dependent on us and rely on our free handouts.”

    I’m exaggerating. Even the people who would trash food stamps and welfare programs help out at a homeless shelter from time to time, do laundry for the clothing bank. But in some sense we look at these things as beneath us—and therefore, the people who utilize the ministry as beneath us too. That needs to change. We need to become the biblical Nehemiah. 

Anna

Coffee Shop Christianity

    “The coffee was bad, the chairs uncomfortable, and the music wasn’t really my taste. Plus it didn’t really have a cool vibe. I don’t think I’ll go back.” Initially, one would have thought that my friend was talking about the new coffee shop that had just opened down the street. Unfortunately she wasn’t though, this was her response to me when I asked if she liked the new church she had attended the previous Sunday. “I mean the message was good, it just wasn’t my thing.”

    I think few of us would like to actually admit it, but it often feels that looking for a church frighteningly correlates with the way we would look for a new favorite coffee shop. I think this is especially true for the arising younger generation of today. The marks of a “true church” seem to resemble a coffee bar, worship pastor in skinny jeans and toms shoes, abstract art on the wall, cool typography in the bulletin, and a well-dressed congregation. Where is the power of the gospel in that? The importance of doctrine, community, ministries, and service can come second to that of the “vibe” of the church. This focus on being relevant, cool, and hip is not inherently bad or evil, I think, but unfortunately it can dangerously skew the priorities of a church, it’s members, and those seeking to find a place in it. It can turn the church into a chill environment where Christians go to hang out, meet cool people, and sit for a few hours. This selfish, consumerist institution has little resemblance to the Church Christ spoke of. The church he recounted was one of hope, kingdom priorities, selfless love, power, and incarnational living. “Church is God’s people intentionally committing to die together so that other’s can find the kingdom” (Halter, Smay). The church is not a Coffee Shop. 

Melissa

I Don't Want to Hate the Church

      I venture to say, based on observations as far as I am able to see, more people are calling themselves Christians while more Christians are denying the title for all its negative connotations. Have you heard anyone claim their faith as “believer” or “follower of Christ” or “Jesus lover”? That’s dandy, and true. But the term “Christian” has been taken away from us, much as the symbol of the rainbow has. As a young person learning that I am in the midst of much needed revelation and change for “the church,” I fear the negativity toward the church. I fear for non-believers because it will keep them away, and for believers because of unforgiveness and bitterness toward those who have been getting it wrong. I fear the anger I’ve seen. I fear more splitting, more division dangerously close at hand within the whole Christian body. I pray it doesn’t happen that leaders who are making right changes due to convictions about how the church has been failing begin to find new titles. I don’t want to see a new movement rise up again only to lose itself in its mission once more. I want to see the church be taken back; for the term Christian to be taken back.  To bring them back to mean the body of Christ and Christ-like. The only way to know those meanings is through Christ himself and we find him in the Word, our Bibles, and in prayer. I think this means we must look at the broken church with a heart of forgiveness. Jesus saw the broken and flawed and he forgave them, then said, “now sin no more.” Forgiveness and correction. Jesus was, is, for the church, his bride, so I want to be, too. Jesus’ heart probably breaks for her, I want mine to, too. Let us lift the church back up to what it should be, not break it down.

   “And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had… they worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity- all while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.” Acts 2.44, 46-47

-Ashley

"We Need to Kill the Church"

    
“We need to kill the Church.”  As a lingering skeleton of good intentions, the Church has become ineffective at relaying the only knowledge that truly matters in this world—telling all who Jesus truly is.  When I say, “We need to kill the church,” I am speaking about the institutionalized Church of our current day which caters to societal trends, fashions, and the myriad of other “things” that draw people in to church each week.  However, something is lost when we glitz and glam up our churches to fit the marketplace.  That same “something” is also lost when we stand, stiffly and uncomfortably, waiting for praise and worship to end, so we can finally sit down and mindlessly listen (or daydream) while the pastor, priest, or whoever stands on stage for forty minutes talking about how Jesus died for our sins.  The same “something” is even lost in services where enthusiastic worshippers get that “tingly feeling” during a “really good song” or those chills when the pastor brings a sermon home.  These “somethings” are self-edifying, but sadly, they stay within the walls of the church building never to see the light of day.   What is lost?  Jesus.  This man who was born as the lowest of low, who knew ultimate joy, and suffered an unimaginably brutal death is lost.  There is no raw, real Jesus in our institutionalized church today; we have fashioned Him to be either a condoning sweetheart (so we can feel good about ourselves and our actions) or a hardnosed, fire and brimstone bringer of wrath and judgment (so we can look down our noses at homosexuals, druggies, and all the “true” sinners of the world).  So, let us, as the Body and Bride of Christ, choose to shut this “Church” down.  This “Church” that is more a business seeking consumers than a delightful extension of our missional God. 

    This is not to say there are no churches doing it right; that would be absurd!  Of course there are churches, many, who seek after Jesus with everything in their being.  Unfortunately, our society (even Christians) send these churches into exile and deem them crazy radicals. Salvation and eternal life are radical concepts; shouldn’t we believe so passionately to the point of fearlessly seeking God’s holistic view, and not just pieces of it?  We understand the world does not know us because our identity is in Heaven, so let’s not become offended when people disagree with us for making waves.  As long as our actions are biblical and in accordance with God’s character and will, we are surely a force to be reckoned with!  Through community, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, and the ability to imagine in radical ways, we can collectively step into our role as the true Body of Christ, how the Church was intended to be. Arise, Church, as the hands and the feet and the ears and the eyes of Christ to kill this institutional “Church” and bring Jesus to the center where He belongs.  In this way, we, as the body of Christ, and the whole world will be forever changed.

Jamie

Joyfully Removed

    The Western church is no longer center stage in modern culture, and as we are shunted aside it seems reasonable to think that becoming more like the world will entice more people into our buildings. Then I come upon Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Hold up, what?! Blessed are who? It might be a small stretch to equate marginalization and persecution, but I am beginning to think that being pushed out of mainstream culture could be the best thing that has happened to the body of Christ today.

    In his book The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch points to the church in two different times and geographic areas, the early Christian body and the underground church in China. Both of these groups of believers became vibrant and large communities during harsh and unrelenting periods of persecution. Hirsch sees that “Persecution drove both the early Christian movement and the Chinese church to discover their truest nature as an apostolic people” and it “acted as a means to keep these movements true to their faith and reliant on God.”

    But how did these communities turn persecution to power to promote the Kingdom of God? James calls out from the Word, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Think about that for a minute. This isn’t telling us to tolerate trouble or to “grin and bear it”, but instead be joyful in it—have a deep, indescribable emotion welling up in us whenever we face trials because of faith in the Lord Jesus. What if, instead of pushing back as we are pushed aside or fearing persecution for our faith, the Western church opened ourselves to the possibility of being collectively JOYFUL? How much more would we be able to point the way to the Kingdom of God if our joy in all situations shone through? Something attracted millions of converts in the early and Chinese churches. Maybe this joy in persecution promised to us by our living Savior can be the way we truly live into our calling as a missional and sent church. Maybe this strange joy from hardship can revitalize us and help us be the instrument and foretaste of the Kingdom we were meant to be for the world.

Kate