Get To Know DBCC Thing

So, you’ve done your homework. You’ve looked up DBCC on the Internet, went to our web site, poked around the FAQ and About Us pages, Facebook stalked us. And maybe you’ve thought to yourself, “This seems like an odd and interesting group of people,” and decided to check us out in person. Maybe you’ve heard about us in some other way, but you’d like to know a little bit more about us—who we are, what we’re passionate about, what kind of role we believe we play in making the world a more peaceful and just place, or why we think the Marx Brothers are superior in every way to the Three Stooges. (Sorry, the last thing was a bit of editorializing. ~Derek)

Well, we’d like to buy you dinner and a drink, and answer your questions. We’re going to have a “Get to Know DBCC Thing.” The first will be on Sunday, April 30th at 12:30. The second will be on Wednesday evening, May 3rd at 6:30, downstairs in The Commons. Bring your questions and your appetite. And if you don’t have either of those, come anyway and meet some pretty great people.

RSVP here.

Seeking A World Without a Map: Some Reflections on Preaching

By Derek Penwell

A Course in Creative Writing

They want a wilderness with a map—
but how about errors that give a new start?—
or leaves that are edging into the light?—
or the many places a road can’t find?

Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing
to explain anything: you blow a little whistle
just right and the next tree you meet is itself.
(And many a tree is not there yet.)

Things come toward you when you walk.
You go along singing a song that says
where you are going becomes its own
because you start. You blow a little whistle—

And a world begins under the map.

~Willam Stafford

---

“They want a wilderness with a map.” 

Boy, ain’t that the truth?  In a world that seems constantly to be shifting beneath our feet, ministers feel that unspoken expectation every time they step into the pulpit. 

“They want a wilderness with a map.”

I think that’s why bumper stickers are so popular.  There’s a sense that if we could just get a few things nailed-down, if we could just see a few markers that would point us through the briars, through the overgrown brambles, through the violence, and uncertainty, and senselessness of it all, we might somehow survive another day in the wilderness. 

Straight-line, discursive speech that tells us where to put our feet next.  We all know about preachers only too anxious to give it to them.  The sermon as self-help, as moral disquisition, as prosaic orienteering.  “I’m okay, you’re okay.” 

“Five easy steps to a better prayer life.” 

“God helps them who help themselves.” 

“Do this.  Avoid that.  Don’t talk back to your mother.  Brush your teeth after every meal.  A penny saved is a penny earned.  Wash your hands after you go to the bathroom.”

 “Be careful little feet where you go.”

“It’s so hard out here.  Tell us something that allows us to believe the whole thing isn’t so unpredictable, isn’t about to blow up in our faces.”

We preachers understand it.  We know the diminished expectations.  Such deflated speech, however, bridles all complexity, all nuance, all mystery.  In our rush to have a manageable reality, a tractable existence we lose the “errors that give a new start/or leaves that are edging into the light/or the many places a road can’t find.” 

The temptation of preaching is to smooth the rough edges, to iron out the wrinkles, to fill in the cracks and gaps with caulk, to be assuring and affirming, to opt always for the palliative, rather than the curative.  

But this attenuated speech raises the question of why anyone would need to come to church to receive such thin gruel?  You can buy that sort of non-confrontational, low-cost reassurance anywhere.  Daytime television is busy dishing this stuff out in much more convenient doses, which don’t even require you to get out of bed to partake. 

The problem with all this tiny talk for tiny Christians is that bumper stickers are too small to make good maps.  If you tame the wilderness, it’s no longer wilderness; it may be easier to move about in an illusion, but you don’t really get anywhere—and it’s not near as exciting.

“Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing/to explain anything.” 

Maybe, like Walter Brueggemann has argued, the job of the preacher is not to circumscribe the known world with bromides and banalities—but to render a world heretofore unimagined, to break open a reality that has gone unobserved because we didn’t have the resources to name it, to speak it—by the grace of God—into being, a world where “you blow a little whistle/just right and the next tree you meet is itself./(And many a tree is not there yet.)” 

If you ask Jesus, the reign of God is too huge, too grand, too paradoxical ever to be contained by our pedestrian prose; it’s a world so inimical to the way we’re conventionally trained to see things that often the only way we have to speak about it is poetry and parable and story; it’s “a land where you have to sing/to explain anything.” 

And in Christ, we’re finally given the words to sing the tree.  As we sing the truth, we see that it was a tree all along, and not just a stick with green attachments shooting off in every direction, or a large birdnest, or an inconvenient obstruction to new housing development. 

And by singing that one tree into existence in all of its wooded glory, maybe we can begin to understand that there are forests of other trees standing before us, and beside us, and beyond us that we formerly saw as merely wilderness to be traversed as efficiently and painlessly as possible, by whatever map promised the easiest route.

The very act of singing this world sets you on a journey into the heart of the mysterious wilderness.  Who would be callow enough, stupid enough to claim that it’s an easy journey to walk?  Only those with a pretend map of a pretend land that exists in an illusion called reality, utility, fact—conjured up by people with inexaustable fear, but limited vision. 

“Things come toward you when you walk.” 

The fact that you begin the journey at all means that you’ll run into obstacles that you would otherwise have avoided if you’d only stayed home and watched Jeopardy. 

Beginning the journey at all means that you’ve surrendered the notion that you possess a way to map the wilderness, that it’s possible to have any real understanding as an antecedent to actually taking the first step.  In the same way it is impossible to learn to swim without ever getting in the water, it is impossible to know the terrain, to understand the wilderness, while sitting at home in your Barcalounger with a map in one hand and a Budweiser in the other. 

“You go along singing a song that says/where you are going becomes its own/because you start.” 

Following Jesus is a contact— not a spectator — sport.

“You blow a little whistle—/And a world begins under the map.” 

Sing a little bit, take a few baby steps and soon you see that the prosaic maps of the bumper sticker producers, the map-makers only serve to cover up the reality that’s there beneath the surface of a different reality contained in the words the church uses to name that world, and thereby call it into being—a radical, crazy wilderness in which it makes sense to turn the other cheek, to pray for those who persecute you, to sell everything you have and give it to the poor. 

Those sorts of big, unwieldy truths don’t much lend themselves to bumper stickers, or to maps . . . or unfortunately for us all . . . to many sermons.

Judgmentalism: The New Heresy

By Derek Penwell

Judgmentalism.  It's one of the things Christians do best according to those outside the church. 

Unfortunately for the church, emerging generations find any kind of judgmentalism off-putting. Consequently, they tend to seek the broadest possible parameters for what previous generations would call orthodoxy.

Now, let me just say that some of what passes for non-judgmentalism is simply an unspoken social contract in which I promise to keep my nose out of your business if you agree to keep your nose out of mine. I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting Christians should approach faith and morality as a laissez-faire proposition—in which the church, to avoid appearing judgmental, agrees to keep its mouth shut about important matters.

What I am suggesting, however, is that no matter how the church feels about being labeled judgmental, it would benefit mainline churches to think carefully about the way they come across.

Growing up as a religious conservative (an Evangelical, I would have said) I took it as an article of faith that salvation was like an obstacle course. Once you began to move toward the goal, you couldn’t go back, and every step was a potential hazard, threatening to disqualify you from finishing.

I was convinced that having the right beliefs about God was of equal importance with doing the right thing. In fact, having the wrong belief might be even more problematic than doing something wrong.

If you screwed up and said “Dammit!” because you bent your dad’s driver trying to hit rocks in the back yard, you could always repent and ask forgiveness.

Wrong belief, on the other hand, assumed a kind of intentionality, a willfulness that was much more difficult to recover from. You couldn’t accidentally believe in evolution or that the Bible might contain some mistakes in it.

Additionally, I believed that among the barriers Christians must negotiate on the obstacle course of salvation the need to “save” other people was a high priority:

If you observe a toddler wandering into the middle of a busy intersection, you have a responsibility to try to protect the child from being hit by a bus. Looking the other way is sin of omission. In the same way, if you see someone boarding the express train to perdition, you have a responsibility to help jerk them back onto the platform. Not to do so is to have saddled yourself with the responsibility for someone else’s damnation. You get enough of those lost souls in your column and the sheer weight of them might just drag you down, too.

Now, I’m willing to admit that my description of my childhood beliefs doesn’t necessarily represent all of Evangelical Christianity. However, they were my beliefs, and they are often the same things I hear people describe as “what Christians believe.” It’s important to name the reality that “Evangelical Christianity” has largely become a placeholder for “Christianity” in our culture.

That Christianity has become known by many people more for its beliefs than for what it actually does is problematic for the church in an emerging world.  Part of the way I read the common charge against the church as “judgmental” has to do with the conviction on the part of emerging generations that Christians tend to believe more than they actually live.

That fact, turned back upon the individual is hypocrisy   (another post) —that is, “I believe this, but I don’t think that means I actually have to make it a part of my life.” 

Turned outward, however, that conviction about believing more than you’re willing to live, often expresses itself as judgmentalism—that is, “I believe this (and I’m right); and therefore, I’m holding you responsible for living up to my expectations.”

Hint: The combination of hypocrisy and judgmentalism is deadly for the church, since it communicates an inordinately high opinion of oneself and one’s abilities to determine what’s right—an opinion of oneself that isn’t mapped onto reality, and therefore, need not be taken seriously by the individual.

At the heart of the criticism of judgmentalism lies an accusation that Christians feel themselves superior.  In other words, when people look at the church what they see is a collection of overweening know-it-alls who assume that everyone is breathlessly awaiting a word about how to improve themselves.  Any deviation from “Christian expectations,” these observers believe, cannot but be met with moralizing opprobrium from those who “know the mind of God.”  Christians, on this reading, have nothing better to do than to think up rules for everybody else to follow—then set about in earnest being exceedingly disappointed in everyone else when the moral revival doesn’t take shape.

“That’s not fair.  I think people ought to live right, but I’m not the judgmental person you so sarcastically describe.”

In the absence of information to the contrary, I’m perfectly willing to concede that that’s not a fair description of you.  I don’t even know you, after all.  That’s not the point, though.  The people who believe you’re judgmental, probably don’t know you either.  As far as they’re concerned, if you’re a Christian, they already know as much as they need to know about you. 

Among emerging generations, “Christian” is metonymous with “judgmental.”  That is to say, for many people the sentence, “Derek is a Christian,” is a shorthand way of communicating that “Derek is judgmental,” since “Christian” is merely a placeholder for “judgmental.”  Whether it’s true or not, the perception is, for my purposes, what matters.

Why is it the perception that matters?  Because, as a very wise man once told me: “The difference between reality and perception is that reality changes.”  If you want perception to change, you must work not only on the reality, but also on the perception. 

Not only must the church adopt a positive understanding that it is called to be something for the world not just believe something about the world, but it must do so in a way that communicates its own humility.

After all, in our culture judgmentalism is the new heresy. 

And for Christians used to occupying the role of heresy hunters, being the target of the new hunters of heresy is going to be extraordinarily uncomfortable.

We're Christians, and technically we don't believe in karma . . . but, dang!

2015 Halloween Party

We had a great time at the Halloween party Saturday night! It was wonderful to have the women and children from Freedom House with us. Thanks to everyone who participated, and everyone who helped. Most of all, thanks goes to Jennifer Vandiver for organizing everything.

Collecting Presents for Family Scholar House

DBCC just delivered over 80 presents to Family Scholar House for single mothers and their children for Christmas. If you don't know this great organization, follow the link above to check out the wonderful work they do!

This I Believe

By Derek Penwell

I believe because I have to believe.  I have to believe because life doesn’t make any sense to me otherwise. To say I believe, however, leaves open the question of the object of my belief.  That is to say, what do I believe?  I believe that God is behind all of this in some way that makes sense to God, even if it escapes me.  I know I’m supposed to have it all together, to have it systematized in some way that will hold up to scrutiny.  Yet, I’m secretly afraid, I suppose, that if I interrogate my reasons for belief too vigorously, those reasons will remain just enough beyond my reach to make me wonder, in times of darkness, whether they make sense, or even ought to be considered reasons at all.

Even so, let me venture into the fray with a few things that do make sense to me. These are neither systematic nor exhaustive, merely suggestive:

I believe that the Jesus we encounter in the Gospels has only a passing acquaintance with the Jesus we encounter in popular Christianity.

I believe that much of popular Christianity (mesmerized as it is by the atomic individual) is designed to distract middle-class white Christians from the fact that they drive SUVs, inflict violence on people who happen to be born under different flags, and ignore the cry for justice from the margins.

I believe that, in Christ, God is busy loving people I disapprove of and with whom (sadly) I too often can't be bothered.

I believe that Christianity operates more often than not as a mechanism for affirming what people already believe—before they ever encounter the subversive Jesus of the Gospels.

I believe that the ministry of the Jesus who died abandoned and alone is a terrible model for what most people think of as "church growth."

I believe that heaven is God’s jurisdiction; my responsibilities require me to be present and to work here and now.

I believe that if what you believe doesn’t make somebody mad, you’re not doing it right.  Jesus wasn’t killed because he was nice.

I believe that in a world concerned only with saying yes, being taught to say no is the most loving thing that can happen to us.

I believe the church needs to quit clinging to its life as if its life were an end in itself, and needs to start getting comfortable with the notion that the church belongs to God.

I believe that Christian belief is only intelligible, only interesting, if it is embodied in a community of people committed to living and, if necessary, dying like Jesus.

It’s not much, but it helps me hang on.

What do you believe?

An Update on the Life of the Church

By Derek Penwell

As you may have noticed, a number of things have changed around Douglass Blvd. Christian Church over the past few years. I thought I'd take a moment to help you see the scope of these changes, and to offer you the thinking under which we're currently operating. It's all pretty exciting!

Organizational Philosophy

We no longer operate on the Functional Church Model of church organization—that is, an efficiency model of church organization popularized during the industrial revolution. The thinking in the early twentieth century was that businesses were enjoying some success by reorganizing themselves with a board of directors, an executive committee, and a host of standing committees. The Functional Church Model worked pretty well during the salad days of Mainline Protestantism's cultural ascendancy in the middle of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, as churches experienced membership decline beginning in the early 1970s, filling out the organizational flow chart became more and more difficult. [I've written extensively about this here and here and here.]

Moreover, with the increase in the number of families where both partners work, finding time to devote to committee work became increasingly difficult. At some point, young people seemed no longer to be stepping up to take over the often difficult work that had been performed by committees. Consequently, congregations began experience a great deal of stress, wondering how the work that had been getting done, would now be done.

At DBCC we've experienced these same stressors. Beginning in 2006, the congregation underwent the transition from the old Functional Church Model to a new form of organization, where the work is driven no longer by committees "thinking up stuff to do," and then having to figure out how to convince someone to do it, but by people who have a desire to see a particular ministry take shape. We still have a few ministries that cover things like worship, property, and personnel, but almost all of the ministry opportunities in the church have developed because someone saw a need, and asked the church for help in figuring out a way to meet it.

• Woodbourne House
• our move to become Open and Affirming
• Louisville Classical Academy
• the Douglass Loop Farmers Market
• Freedom House
• our public stance on marriage
• our ministry to refugees
• our work with the Fairness Campaign and Louisville Youth Group
• five mission trips to Mexico
• CLOUT
• our support of the Louisville Gay Men's Chorus
• Diersen House
• our support of GLAD
• the expansion of our web and social media presence
• the clothing closet

None of these ministry initiatives started in a Leadership meeting, or because of the work of a committee. They all came about as a result of people who saw a need, brought it forward, and then took responsibility for helping to make it happen.

Now, our Leadership Coordination Ministry isn't primarily responsible for thinking up new things to do; it is responsible for seeing that the church meets its obligations and for seeing that potential ministries have the resources they need to thrive. Consequently, we don't have to worry about expending energy on continuing things for which there is no longer any enthusiasm. We invest in ministry where the energy is.

Facilities Management

One of the most visible changes in the life of DBCC over the past few years revolves around the use of our campus. We've undergone a philosophical shift in our thinking about the resources over which God has made us responsible. For years there was anxiety about how the church was going to maintain a campus as large as the one we have with a congregation that, for a time, continued to see itself shrinking.

There were several serious discussions about how we should handle such an enormous responsibility, ranging at certain points all the way to whether or not we might be better off selling our building, and finding somewhere more manageable.

A philosophy began to evolve, however: What if we use our building and grounds as tools to be used for ministry, rather than as keepsakes to bequeath to future generations. Of course, we'd still want to care for them as good stewards. Only now, we could feel free to give them away to other groups when we could, and to charge rent for other space where we needed to.

As important as anything about this shift in philosophy is its implications as a theology of stewardship. We've tried to move from an "attractional model" of programming—in which we do programming with an eye to attracting people to membership at DBCC—to a purely ministry-driven model of programming—in which we offer space and programming as a gift, because it's the right thing to do. Of course, we hope people will like us and want to come find out about us, but that's not why we do what we do. We do what we do because we believe it's what God is calling us to do.

This theology of stewardship has allowed us to have our facilities used at almost total capacity every day. With Woodbourne House, we've helped offer low cost senior housing to eleven people. We give our grounds to the community on Saturdays for the Douglass Loop Farmers Market, allowing a neighborhood gathering place every week for people in our community. We donate space to Highland Community Ministries every weekday for a senior adult day center. On weeknights, we donate space to two AA groups, the Humane Society, HCM Water Color and Ball Room Dancing classes, the Louisville Gay Men's Chorus, and an LGBT Film Group.

We offset the costs of ministry by renting space to the HCM day care and to the Louisville Classical Academy. In addition, we rent 28 parking spaces every day to businesses in the Douglass Loop, and lease the front parking lot to the bank.

Our mixed-use formula has allowed us to stabilize our revenue over the foreseeable future, while at the same time giving us an opportunity to serve the community . . . just because.

Operations Management

The change in our organizational philosophy, the way we use our facilities, together with the increasing use of electronic communications is revolutionary enough that it has caused us to rethink the way much of the staff does its job. With the constant use of our facilities, we've had to employ a handy man, Neil, whose primary responsibility is to maintain and repair the building. Neil, in consultation with Gary King, is kept busy trying to look after a heavily used facility.

These changes have probably had more impact on Jennifer Vandiver than anyone else. Jennifer's responsibilities have increased significantly. She still answers the phone and produces the bulletin and newsletter. But now she spends a great deal of her time coordinating the use of the building between so many groups. Recognizing this shift in responsibility, Jennifer has been given a new job title by the Leadership Coordination Ministry: Operations Manager. Because we now must deal with the reality of space limitations, Jennifer is the point person when it comes to the many requests to use our facilities. Moreover, she acts as the "first responder" when a group has a difficulty or complaint.

Our Internet presence, which has grown considerably over the past five years, has become a major area of ministry to people all over the world. A majority of first time visitors when asked how they found us will say they saw our web site. Our sermon podcasts and blog articles are consumed by people all over the world. The realization that our ministry was broadening in this area caused the Leadership Coordination Ministry this year to fund a new position, charged with the responsibility of managing this new frontier for ministry. We're proud to welcome Geoff Wallace back to help us discover the exciting possibilities of ministry done on a global scale.

And of course, Joanna, Brenda, Clare, Ben, and I are also finding new ways to engage in ministry that allows us to equip followers of Jesus for the unfolding reign of God.

As we move forward together, please help us keep our eyes open for new possibilities for ministry at DBCC. The coming years look just as exciting!

Femto Photography and Seeing Around Corners: Why Following Jesus Is about Risk

By Derek Penwell

In July, 2012 a scientist from MIT, Ramesh Raskar, gave a Ted Talk on an amazing new innovation in photography. Femto photography films at one trillion frames per second. What this allows scientists to do, for example, is make a time lapse video of the movement of light (which is pretty dang cool on its own merits!). You can watch a burst of light projected from a laser as it shoots through a Coke bottle!

[Note: I realize that’s two exclamation points in two consecutive sentences—a grammatical practice upon which I generally frown, except to say things like “Happy birthday!” or “Congratulations on your Bassett Hound’s successful completion of agility training!”—but this stuff is pretty phenomenal! Oops. Sorry.]

The practical applications of this new technology are even more astounding. For one thing, when a burst of light is shot from a laser, it diffuses when the photons strike an object. Various photons are then reflected back to the source. Using heavy computational power, the scientists are able to stitch together the individual photon speeds to produce a 3-D model of the thing that the light hits.

The ability to produce 3-D models of things struck by a burst of light gets really interesting, however, when you realize that the reflection of light doesn’t have to come from an object in a straight line with the laser. Meaning … you can project the light around obstacles, and the computer will take into account the extra angles of reflection, and still construct an accurate 3-D image.

In other words, it allows you literally to see around the corner—to construct a 3-D image of something you can’t even see! [Again, sorry.] It’s almost like seeing into the future—getting an accurate vision of something before you ever get there.

I like the sound of that idea. It’s not flying or retractable adamantium claws, but it’s still kind of like a super power.

I understand the attraction of seeing around the corner; it’s a great metaphor for predicting the future, of telling you whether a thing will be worth doing.

But here’s the thing: In real life the only way you’ll know if a thing is worth doing is after you’ve already done it, when you look back on it—which is to say, after the toothpaste is already out of the tube.

“Should we let our daughter go on that trip to Europe?”

“Should I pay the electric bill so we don’t freeze, or should I fill my blood pressure medication so I don’t have a stroke?”

“Should I take the new job with exciting potential, or stay in the job where I’m most comfortable?”

“Should I tell my parents and friends I’m gay—risking their love and support, or should I keep it to my myself—risking my sanity?”

How do you know until after you do it?

That’s life. We have to make all sorts of calculations about what to do without enough information about what it will look like when it’s finished, or whether having done it will prove advantageous or harmful.

How do you know until after you do it.

That’s also what life following Jesus looks like. Seeing around the corner would certainly make church planning more effective, for instance. It’d be nice to know whether something is going to work before you had to take a chance on it. Face-saving is what it is.

If you don’t know what you’re getting into when you plan something, you risk failing. And failing is unacceptable to many churches.

Congregations in decline almost always understand church planning to be a matter not of achieving success, but of avoiding failure. Consequently, they tend to stand before decisions trying to do the advanced calculations necessary to see what lies around the corner, refusing to act boldly for fear that something might not work.

“Should we do this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because if we do, it might not work. We’d be out all that money, plus things like this tend to make Janice mad.”

Flourishing congregations, on the other hand, weigh a decision against past experience, then make a decision. They’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that they will never have everything nailed down before taking the leap. They’ve made peace with the knowledge that everything they try has a pretty good chance of washing out. But they’ve learned to accept the prospect of failure as the cost of doing business.

Flourishing congregations realize that there’s no way to ensure something will work on the front end. They understand that they’ll never know if an idea was a good one until they look back on it, assessing it in the rearview mirror. But the inability to look around the corner to see what’s coming doesn’t prevent them from turning corners they think faithfulness calls them to take. They understand that a life spent following Jesus is an adventure, not a tour.

Before we get there, we’d like to know that where we’re going is where we want to be.

Maybe one day there will be an ecclesiastical version of Femto photography that will make discipleship a surer thing. On the other hand, if discipleship is an adventure, whatever such an innovation might produce, it won’t have much to do with following Jesus.

“Tell me what you want to do, not what you want to avoid doing.

By Derek Penwell

“What do you want to do when you get out of college?” That was the question on the table. Summer camp. We were gathered together with one of the grizzled veteran counselors to talk about what we planned to do with our lives.

Having just graduated high school, we found the whole conversation a bit abstract. We didn’t know. And we certainly didn’t want to be reminded about the fact that we didn’t know.

But somebody asked the question, and we were all raised with the kind of manners that wouldn’t allow us to say what we were thinking: “I really don’t want to think about this. Ask me about the beach, or about what we’re going to do when we get to college. After college is just too far away.”

One girl said, “Well, I don’t want to have to do a job I hate, where I’m stuck doing the same thing over and over—like a factory. And I don’t want to work someplace that makes me do busy work just to satisfy some kind of Human Resources directive intended to create a ‘positive working environment.’”

“Ok. What kind of working environment do you want to work in?”

“I don’t want work with a lot of passive-aggressive people—you know, the kind who get mad about little things and start putting up signs about not eating their yogurt or taking the stapler off their desk.”

“You run into a lot of sign hangers, a lot of yogurt and stapler thieves in high school, did you?”

“No, but I hear my dad talk about it all the time.”

“Anyone else?”

A long-haired guy in a denim jacket and boots said, “I don’t want to have do any job that requires me to wear a name tag or be a part of a ‘team’” (his use of air quotes tipping us off to his studied use of sarcasm.)

I jumped in and said, “Look, I just don’t want to have to get up too early in the morning.” I was not particularly ambitious.

The counselor, showing signs of frustration, said, “You’ve obviously thought about this. Here’s what I want, though. Tell me what you want to do, not what you want to avoid doing. What are your dreams? What makes you excited enough to get out of bed in the morning? What do you care about so much you’d be willing to die for?”

The impression many young adults who’ve lost any desire to associate themselves with the church feel like they’ve heard ad nauseum an answer to the questions, “What do Christians want to avoid? What do Christians hate? What kinds of things are Christians willing to kill for?”

As cliché as it may sound, more people in emerging generations know Christianity by what it stands against than by what it stands for. Jesus, though he clearly had strong opinions about what people should stay away from, seemed on balance more concerned about the kind of things in which people should be investing their lives.

This full-throated commitment to doing something got Jesus in trouble. In Matthew, he is contrasted with the ascetic John the Baptist: “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!’”

It’s important to point out that Jesus drew the contrast between himself and John the Baptist to indicate that there’s just no pleasing some people, no matter what you do. However, it is worth noting that Jesus developed a reputation not for the things he avoided, but for the things he threw himself into.

In a post-denominational world the church must be aware of the widely held perception that it cares more about keeping people from doing things than in giving them the resources they need to live and flourish, and, finally, to follow Jesus. As commitment to mainline denominations deteriorates, the church would do well to think more intentionally about how it embodies its vision of the reign of God.

Justice. Equity. Mutuality. Community. Compassion for the poor, the outcast, the powerless. These are positive visions.

“But isn’t that just a rehash of the traditional liberalism mainline denominations have been trying to interest people in since the latter part of the nineteenth century? If it were such a winning strategy, why are mainline denominations dying?”

Excellent point! I realize I’m trying to thread a pretty fine needle here. What I’m suggesting, though, isn’t a strategy (I don’t think traditional liberal mainliners necessarily thought the Social Gospel was just a strategy either). Making strategic decisions about justice in God’s reign as a way to attract more people misses the whole point. Justice, equity, mutuality, etc. are what we think Jesus came to establish, not well-devised membership recruitment tools.

In a post-denominational world the church needs to quit thinking first about how to save its own bacon, and start devoting more thought to doing the right thing—because we have no other way of conceiving our lives as followers of Jesus.

Staying Busy or Changing the World?

I remember that point in my first ministry when I came to the office, sat down behind my desk prepared to write a sermon and realized I had already said everything I knew to say. I kept going over possible angles for the sermon, and kept running headlong into a brick wall: "Said it. Nope, said it. Said that. Said that too."

I figured my career had reached its conclusion. I was sure that the next sermon would be my valedictory.

Where do ministers go after they've exhausted their knowledge, or perhaps better, when they've lost ways to communicate what they care about? After all, I hadn't really said everything I knew. I just couldn't see the bridges that would take me back to all the knowledge I had accumulated.

Sometimes I still feel that way when I preach or when I write—like whatever good I've had to say has already been said. Not much in front of me from here on out. I start feeling sorry for myself, wondering why inspiration isn't a constant companion.

Some of it is boredom, some of it laziness. You do your thing for a while and you start thinking, "What's next? Surely, there's got to be something that will motivate me."

And do you want to know what usually happens when these thoughts come flitting back through my mind? I eventually think: "I need to get busy doing something . . . something important."

I know that sounds counter-intuitive, in part because what I seem to have lost at these times of depletion is the ability to identify what's important. Perhaps better put: What I've lost is the the belief that I'm no longer able to identify what's important.

There's a difference, because I haven't really forgotten what's important. I'm still able to name the kinds of values I bring to my work. What I've lost is the ambition to discover where those values might be found in the next thing I want to do.

So, my response is to get busy doing something that I think might be important, with the idea that what I value will reveal itself to me soon enough.

Here's how it works in writing. I don't know what to write, so I fiddle. I fiddle until I feel guilty enough about it; then I force myself to write something. Usually, I will start out writing about the first thing that comes to my mind. And if I keep writing, eventually what's important will find me.

But this doing something important isn't just motivational talk. Human beings continually struggle to find meaning in life. However, many of the ways our culture seeks to define that meaning center on quantifiable measurements like money and success. But while money and success are nothing to sneeze at, they don't ultimately provide much in the way of meaning.

According to Harvard Business School Professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, meaning is to be found when we are a part of something that makes a difference. She argues that "everyone regardless of their work situation, [should] have a sense of responsibility for at least one aspect of changing the world."

So, engaging in something important isn't merely a bridge back to the interesting, but a chance to make a difference.

Turns out, I'm not just trying to get motivated; deep down I want to change the world.

Churches, it occurs to me, often experience this same cycle of despair, when there's not a whole lot new going on. Maintenance. If you've been busy, then taking a break can feel pretty good.

After a while, though, somebody notices that "we're not doing anything anymore."

Somebody, often clergy, will respond by saying, "What do you think we should do?"

And like my kids at home during summer vacation—usually sometime in July—the person responds with some sort of variation on: "I don't know. Nothing sounds good."

That's when it's time to get busy doing something important.

"But what should we do?"

It matters less at first what you do than with doing something that aligns with your values, with something you feel will make a difference.

Let me put it another way. What kinds of things have you done in the past as a congregation that you take pride in?

"Well, we did that back-to-school backpack thing that one summer for the children of undocumented workers in the area. That was pretty great?"

Why did you do it?

"The kids needed backpacks."

A lot of kids need backpacks. Why these kids?

"Well, somebody in the congregation heard that this group of people are often paid so little that their children go to school under-equipped. So, we thought that we could do something tangible to help."

Why'd you stop?

"It was just a one time thing."

Why?

"I don't know, now that you mention it. But it sure did feel good to be able to help. It was a lot of work, but it felt right."

What's going on with those kids now?

"I don't know."

Why don't you find out? Call the people you worked with last time and see what they're up to, what their needs are.

Pro tip: Why not find out what it is about the system as it now stands that continues to under-pay workers, and get involved in that?

Look, here's the thing: Being a Christian (or a writer, or a software designer, or a seamstress, or a golf cart salesperson) is almost always more about intentionality than inspiration.

Get to work doing something, and the important stuff will find you . . . if important stuff is what you want to find, and not just looking to stay busy.

You follow Jesus. You shouldn't be worried about trying to stay busy. You should be worried about trying to change the world.

It's All About Getting There

By Derek Penwell

Shipping

Shipping. In the end it’s all about shipping.

It’s not about starting. Anyone can start.

It’s about producing. It’s about seeing a project through to completion. It’s about shipping.

Used to be, I was a good starter. I liked the process. I’d get excited about something, and I’d go out and buy a notebook to start taking notes, start planning, start getting ready to start.

And pens. I bought a lot of pens.

And calendars. Notebooks, and pens, and calendars.

How could I not be serious with all these office supplies?

Or, after I got into the computer age, it was software. If I only had the right software, I’d already be finished.

The problem was I mistook starting for shipping. I thought that if I could just get started, I would have done the really important work. If I could just line up the perfect office supplies, the right software, I would have solved the hardest part.

I mistook preparing to work for work.

And it’s not that preparing for work is unimportant. You need the right tools to do the job. Unfortunately, I spent so much time getting the right tools, then organizing them, and making sure the desk or the paints or the tool bench was just so, that I could walk away from the work thinking I’d accomplished work without ever actually working.

Perhaps, even more importantly, I usually had tools enough to start anyway. I convinced myself that the work couldn’t get done, however, without “better” tools.

Here’s what it took me so long to figure out—and occasionally still need help figuring out—good work is the application of resources in the service of realizing a goal—that is, good work is about completing a project and shipping it. Good work doesn’t require a perfect beginning. Perfect beginnings are a white whale that lead you to the middle of nowhere.

Good rule of thumb: If the work you’re doing isn’t bringing you closer to achieving your objective, it’s wasting your time. Not only is it not helping you do good work, it’s preventing you from doing good work—since all the fiddling around deceives you into thinking you’re actually doing something, when in fact, you’re actively, not doing the very thing that would help you achieve your goal.

Sometimes you just have to use the notebook you have.

Maybe you have to make peace with the fact that the old Bic you find at the bottom of the drawer will work just fine.

Perhaps what you need isn’t new software, but a bare-bones text editor and the determination to start driving the cursor across the page—before you have all the details worked out.

The Church and Getting Sidetracked

One of the problems with following Jesus is that you never know quite where he’s going to go. According to the Gospels, the disciples regularly found this little idiosyncrasy of Jesus vexing.

First, he’s going here. Then, he’s going there. The disciples found it next to impossible to keep up with him.

Then, after Jesus left, they stood around, waiting for someone to tell them what to do next.

After the ascension, they stood around looking into the heavens, wondering, “Now what?” Suddenly, two men in white robes sidle up and say, “Why are you just standing there? Quit mouth-breathing and get back to work.”

At Pentecost, they were all gathered together in the Azalea Room at the local Holiday Inn Express, wringing their hands, unable to work out just where to go next. The Holy Spirit showed up, kicked them out into the street with no discernible plan, “For crying out loud! Will you just get out there and start working?”

“We don’t know what to do.”

“Of course you don’t. And you’re never going to know sitting here, rearranging office supplies. You’re going to have to get out there and start.”

“We don’t know where to go.”

“If you wait to start walking until it’s all lined up for you, you’ll never find out where you need to go.”

“But what if we go in the wrong direction? What if we do the wrong thing?”

“You will. Inevitably. You’re going to make so many mistakes, even Lindsay Lohan’s going to look thoughtful next to you. But so what? Most likely, you won’t know exactly what to do and where to go until you’re already out there in the middle of it. So, go ahead and make some mistakes; because making mistakes in the service of a goal is preferable to sitting about endlessly rehearsing the reasons to continue sitting about.”

Congregations too often gets sidetracked. Worried about making mistakes, congregations freeze up.

Well, that’s not true entirely. It’s not like congregations that are afraid of making mistakes don’t do anything. They start things; they just don’t ship much that’s interesting. Unfortunately, the things they start are things with which they feel comfortable.

They spend a great deal of time lining up budgets, making flow charts, buying fancy stationary, dreaming up new programs. And these things feel like good work, like ministry.

But so often these scared congregations stop just short of doing good work because they fear making a mistake. Not wanting to do something that might raise the ire of the faithful, they stick to things they know—which would be one thing, if what they know actually took them toward anywhere interesting. As it is, much of the normal flurry of activity fails to help them arrive at a destination, amounting to energy expended in the service of wheel-spinning.

Here’s What I Think

1. Use the tools you’ve got … until you have enough experience to know they’re not sufficient. Then, go get what you need. (Consistently reversing the order here, will almost certainly guarantee you won’t ship.)
2. Start working. Start heading toward a destination.
3. If you don’t have all the details figured out about your goal, start working anyway. You’re more likely to understand exactly what you’re trying to do only after you’ve begun.
4. If you don’t have the exact GPS coordinates in hand, start heading in the general direction. (This isn’t the same as traveling at random. Start heading north, if north is where you think you need to be.)
5. Make some mistakes. Embrace your mistakes. They provide you valuable information.
6. If you’re on a journey to a destination, backtracking is not defeat; it’s re-calibration. (If you have an idea where you’re going, backtracking is almost always better than sidetracking.)
7. If you’re vaguely afraid of going someplace, it might be that you need to pay more attention to that place. It could truly be dangerous. Or it could be that it’s the very place you should be headed, since all truly interesting places involve a certain amount of risk.
8. Start. Produce. Finish. Ship. Repeat.

Reflections on PRIDE! (Dennis Blake)

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend Louisville’s PRIDE FESTIVAL…my third…as I have only been active in the LGBTQ community for about 4 years. The festival began with the parade on Friday evening. My church, Douglass Blvd. Christian Church, has participated for several years now. I experienced real joy as I marched alongside some of our gay and straight members, carrying our banner of support. I have been involved in church music ministry for 50 years, and experience real joy at being part of a faith community which welcomes and affirms ALL people gathering to worship and fellowship, regardless of gender, age, color, creed or sexual orientation. It brought sheer joy to my heart to witness the smiles of people watching, knowing that many of them were not members of the LGBTQ community, but there to support it. On Saturday, I volunteered, along with some other church members, at our booth…passing out information about DBCC, and engaging in conversation with those who stopped by. I felt great joy in my heart as I heard person after person express thanks that we (representatives of the church) were there with our support. (And lest I forget, there were other churches there as well. Hopefully, next year, there will be even more.)
The balance of the afternoon was spent walking around the festival, meeting old friends, making new ones, and taking in all that the festival had to offer. While there, I could not help but notice the others who had come. As I walked, I saw outfits of every color of the rainbow. People in long pants, short pants, underpants, t-shirts, no shirts, crazy hats, crazy hair, nipple rings, ear gauges, tattoos, lip rings… you name it and it was there. I heard some comments about how the news media only seemed to film and photograph the ones who dressed and behaved in such outlandish manner. I was asked, “Is that the message that we want delivered to the larger Louisville community about the LGBT population?” What about those who choose to be less conspicuous about their “gayness”? After all, the LGBT community contains not only those who blatantly flaunt their homosexuality, but those who dress and act in a more conservative manner. The fact is: we are lawyers, doctors, teachers, servers, sanitation engineers, accountants, students, real estate brokers, managers, construction workers, nurses, bartenders, etc. I would daresay that those in the “straight” Louisville population cannot go anywhere in the area without some contact with a member of the LGBTQ community, and may not even realize it. Some of us are noticed, while others are well-hidden. We are black, white, Asian, Indian, and of mixed descent. We are teenagers, baby boomers, and members of the X and Y generations. Are you getting my point? We represent DIVERSITY, within our own LBGT community.

Youth: Saturday Night Movie Social

The DBCC Youth, as well as our friends, are invited to our first monthly Saturday Night Movie Social (official name pending).  Youth are encouraged to bring friends as we dine, play games, watch a movie, and just hang out together.  The event will be from 6-11PM this Saturday, Jan. 28th.  Bring friendly attitudes, empty stomachs, and lots of friends! 

Sunday Happenings!

Here are some of the cool things happening the next few Sundays here at DBCC:

Jan. 29: Fiesta Dinner

• Come join us in the Robsion Family Life Center for a Mexican Fiesta meal! We'll have all sorts of Hispanic-inspired cultural dishes. All donations from the meal will be attributed to our Mission Trip Fund!

Feb. 5: Super Bowl Party!

• If you haven't already bought your catered tray of hot wings, come on down to the church and hang out with us for Super Bowl XLVI! Whether you are a die-hard football fan, or prefer to partake of snacks and non-sports related conversation, please feel free to join us. We will also be visited by our friends from the Grace and Freedom House.

Feb. 12: Planning Meeting Follow-up

• Join us for a follow-up to our January 7th Event Planning Meeting to dine and discuss the progress of our 2012 events and ministries. As well as discussing plans in greater detail, we will also be giving dates to those events who have progressed to a hard date. This is also a great chance for those who couldn't attend the Jan. 7th meeting to offer their support and assistance for one or more of these initiatives.

Feb. 19: DBCC Dessert Auction

• To raise money for the Mission Trip, some of the members have donated some of the fabulous desserts for auction. Bring your sweet tooth, wallet, and your bargaining edge. These deserts will be in high demand!

Philosophy Power Hour

Our philosophy discussion group is back for the new year! We meet from 6:30-7:30 on Wednesday nights discussing all topics from non-fat cheesecake to the existence of a Deity.  Please join us tomorrow and every Wednesday and share with us in our gymnasium of thought (also referred to as the Youth Room)! 

Friday Night Movies!

Join us for our next Movie Club event on January 6th.  We will celebrate Sherlock Holmes' birthday by viewing a vintage Sherlock Holmes movie.  We gather and snack at 6:30, and the movie begins at 7:30.  We will meet in the Youth room.  If you have any questions, see Paula Spugnardi.

Breakfast Success!

Thank you to everyone who made our first annual Breakfast with Santa a huge success! The profits accrued have already been added to our Mission Trip Fund.  We hope everyone had a great time and hope to see all the new faces at our upcoming events to be announced. 

Everyone who had a picture taken with Santa has been sent an email with a link that will take you to the site from which you can download your own copy of you or your child's picture with St. Nick.  If you haven't received your email by Wednesday, Dec. 21st please contact us via email or telephone. 

We hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday Season! Thank you for sharing it with us. Merry Christmas! 

Grace & Freedom House Angel Tree

 

This Holiday Season we are sponsoring an Angel Tree for our friends at the Grace House and Freedom House of Volunteers of America.  On each Angel Ornament on the Christmas Tree in the Gathering area is a Christmas gift wish along with the name of a mother or child at either Grace or Freedom House.  If you would like to buy a gift for one of these, please pick an angel from the tree.  Take as many as you like!  Wrap your gifts with the angel ornament attached and return to the church no later than December 21.  Join us in sharing the Christmas Spirit with all of God's children this season!

DBCC/DLFM Holiday Bazaar

Douglass Boulevard Christian Church and the Douglass Loop Farmers Market will be hosting a Holiday Bazaar on December 3rd from 10am-4pm. For sale will be all locally handmade items from some of Kentucky's finest handcraft artists. Come do some Christmas shopping, admire the craftsmanship, and enjoy a bowl of chili from members of the DBCC family.* All of this will be located in the Robsion Family Life Center of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church. Bring your empty stomachs, Christmas wish list, and holiday spirits!

*Chili proceeds will go toward the mission trip fund for Casa Hogar de San Juan Children’s Home in San Luis Potosi, Mexico

Trunk r' Treat!

The Youth are planning to help sponsor a Trunk r’ Treat here at the church on this coming Halloween Weekend, the 29^th of October.  Our hope is to create yet another chance for outreach in our Highlands Community.  There will be lots of candy to be had, as well as chili and some interesting costumes to behold. However, we CANNOT do this on our own!  Being that none of our students actually have their own trunk, we’ll need some of you to lend yours.  If you know any children who would like to make a stop on the Trick r’ Treat trail on Saturday night, send them over!  If you know any youth who would like to participate in this event, direct them to us and we will certainly appreciate the helping hand.  

If you would prefer not to decorate your own trunk, the students have said they would be happy to help decorate your trunk on the day of (or the day before) the Trunk r’ Treat.  To make sure we have a student decorator available, please contact Jennifer or myself.

With so many wonderful bakers in our congregation, the students have decided that this year’s Trunk r’ Treat should include a cakewalk.  We have already been rallying for pledges of cakes and deserts.  If you would like to pledge a cake for the cakewalk, we’d be more than happy to accept.  There is no such thing as too many cakes, after all.  We are also still taking pledges for chili.  We’ll accept all kinds! 

If anyone would like to sign-up for a trunk, or pledge cake, chili, or candy, contact our Secretary, Jennifer Vandiver, or our Youth Minister, Geoff Wallace to set you up!