If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for Trinity Sunday here and the materials at lector prep.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for Pentecost Sunday here and the materials at lector prep.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for Fourth Sunday of Easter here and the materials at lector prep.

I sat this morning watching a video (below) that highlights the last five years of a homeless ministry that houses and feeds the homeless in churches every night of the winter months. My mind went back to one evening about six years ago spent with Jonathan Stewart and Wes Gristy; we had been making and serving sandwich dinners on Friday evenings in a parking lot downtown, and our question had become “are there homeless in our community?”

In following that question and other rumors that accompanied it, we met at the church late one evening, made a pot of decaf coffee, and headed to the amphitheater where we had heard those who were homeless stayed.

I remember conversations about exit plans, what we would talk about, how we would find them. We parked facing the main road, flashlights in hand, and started walking through the damp ground toward the amphitheater calling out in the darkness.

“Are you there?”
“We won’t hurt you.”
“We aren’t the cops.”
“We have coffee.”

There was, of course, no one there.

Six years later, with churches across the community working together to host those who are homeless in their buildings night after night, what seems most certain now is that we were, indeed, calling out in the darkness.

We are, those of us fortunate enough to have grown up in church, blessed with a great deal of treasured heritage, and at the same time plagued by a deep spiritual paternalism that we can’t see until we are staring our ignorance straight in the face.

Were I to ask “Are the homeless christians?” the answer would no doubt be, “not necessarily.”
Were I to ask “Are the homeless not christians?” the answer would no doubt be, “not necessarily.”

But were I to have asked “Why do we serve the homeless?” the answer might have likely been “to show them Jesus.”

We are still often calling out in the darkness.

Six years later, I can say that I have learned more about who Jesus is and what he has done from the Christian men who are homeless in our community. Their homelessness is not a result of their not-Christian-ness. And they were not necessarily waiting around for me to show them Jesus.

They are often showing Christ to me, as even Jesus made clear that when we interacted with them we were interacting with him.

But we say we serve to show them Jesus, so we do little looking to see him in them.

But that is changing with those who are willing to open their eyes and see that when we have experienced relationship with those in need, we have experienced relationship with Christ.

Here’s to a future of continuing to open our eyes more and more, and continuing to call out in the darkness less and less.

Theirs is the kingdom, of course.

djordan
South Church St.

OTHER RELATED POSTS | the fear of the weak among us | we can assume | crack our great ambitions

When my wife, Amanda, and I moved to Madison, Wis., we just wanted to find a church. Preferably, it would be the type of contemporary nondenominational church — like Communitas or Forefront in New York City, or Kensington in suburban Detroit — where we already had been going.

But we didn’t find that kind of church in Madison. Instead, we founded churches that aspired to use the arts — music, drama, etc. — yet fell flat for various reasons. Perhaps they didn’t have the people or the vision to pull off what larger, better resourced so-called megachurches can do. Or, maybe it was our changing personalities that made it harder for us to find value in that kind of church service. Whatever the reasons, we failed to connect.

Instead of scouring the Internet to find more churches to try, we decided one Sunday to walk to the closest one. There was a Catholic church, St. Bernard Parish, a few blocks from our Near East Side apartment. We had low expectations — I had gone to only a couple of Catholic churches in my life, and Amanda had experienced Catholicism as a child and wasn’t eager to return. But when we got there, we enjoyed it.

The homily, from Rev. Michael Hippee, was engaging and relevant. The music was as beautiful as the church itself. And there wasn’t a word uttered about same-sex marriage or abortion — two themes I thought must dominate every Catholic community on Sundays.

Since we couldn’t think of anything better to do, we just kept going to St. Bernard. We never intended to become Catholic, but we joined a Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults group to learn more about it. Eventually we discussed giving the Catholic church a year — you know, to experience it and perhaps even grow in faith and cultural understanding.

That was in fall 2010. This is April 2012 — just a few days after Amanda and I were confirmed and received into the Catholic church at Corpus Christi Parish in Baltimore.

I never expected to become Catholic. I’m still processing how it happened and what it means for the months and years to come. That’s why we’re — yes, Amanda plans to write here, too, and describe our journey in her own words — starting this blog. To try and explain — for those who know and even don’t know us, as well as to ourselves — how our Catholic year became a Catholic lifestyle.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for Third Sunday of Easter here and the materials at lector prep.

Download: 21-mike-brantley-interview.mp3|animation=no|remaining=yes

Mike Brantley returned to New Orleans, his native home, during Hurricane Katrina and, at the instigation of his wife Susanne, planted roots there a year later to pioneer Communitas, an ecumenical order of missional communities affiliated with InnerCHANGE and CRM. Up till this point, Mike had wrestled for years, as an Army officer and a pastor in various church contexts, with the fact that conventional models of “church” and “mission” simply weren’t reaching people in post-Christian Western culture. Influenced by the ancient Celtic monastic missionaries, the monastic orders, and a handful of people and communities involved in contemporary neo-monastic, New Friar, and missional movements (including some I’ve covered in this podcast, such as Church of the Sojourners, Mark Scandrette, and especially John Hayes and InnerCHANGE), in the ruins of post-Katrina New Orleans, Mike began to experiment in earnest with a model of church that integrates community and mission in a shared, committed way of life. At present, Communitas is comprised of residential communities embedded in three neighborhoods in New Orleans, and a fourth community in Valparaiso, Indiana. Mike is also known to be one heck of a lacrosse coach and is one of the most generous, warm-hearted people you’re likely to meet.

In my experience, Communitas typifies a model of church rooted in intentional relationships, with one another and with those in their neighborhoods. On the surface, especially to those of us accustomed to thinking of “church” as something that occurs in a place and time set apart from our ordinary daily round, and “mission” as applied strategies oriented toward re-making others according to our own religious convictions and ideals, this more diffuse, relational model may appear…well, kind of fuzzy. For instance, I spent one afternoon with a community member, Adam, who took me for a tour around town. We eventually settled in for deeper conversation at one of his “ministry spheres,” a local coffee shop. Better than any explanation he provided, simply watching how well he knew customers and employees alike, and how they spontaneously opened to him and shared about their lives, spoke reams of how a missional, communal church functions: real relationships, real caring, solidarity, and a posture of service and investment of one’s life in the lives of one’s neighbors. Whether or not such people choose to join the community for a meal or to pray, they know that the door is open, and are uplifted by authentic friendship. While members of Communitas may also participate in more conventional types of ministry, this overarching relational context renders them uniquely present and available, addressing real-world concerns through concrete relationships with those otherwise unaffiliated with Christian faith.

Adam also spoke in some detail of the formation he’s undergone as a member of Communitas, an aspect of their life that seems particularly thorough and well thought out. In fact, Mike attributes his past experiences as an Army officer with teaching him effective practices of formation that engender real transformation. He also draws upon a military analogy to explain the role of new communities and orders like Communitas in the church and world today: in the wake of ineffectual and outdated church structures, these pioneering communities are like the reconnaissance mission that forges ahead, tinkering, experimenting, and developing new systems and infrastructure for churches to come.

One concern that Mike brought to me involves finances. While some of the communities I’ve visited manage to meet most or all of their financial needs through support-raising (Servants Vancouver, InnerCHANGE Los Angeles), Communitas members work outside the community at least part-time. While this engenders a certain humility and provides a context for establishing themselves among and serving their neighbors, Mike laments that at present they’re not able to commit themselves fully to the mission to which they feel called, and as a consequence, their time and resources are often stretched to the hilt. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common challenge among lay intentional communities, with no easy solution.

In our conversation, in addition to topics already mentioned, Mike and I discuss the significance of being an order and learning from the classic religious orders; his hopefulness about younger generations; what he sees as the disintegration of Christendom and the opportunity for Christian communities to re-take their place on the margins as a subversive influence; what makes for healthy and unhealthy missional communities; the need for a greater emphasis on contemplative practice; and the satisfaction he takes in the risky venture of coloring outside the lines for the sake of the Kingdom. Typical of the relaxed, relational tone of so much of my experience of New Orleans, Mike and I lingered awhile outdoors over coffee, with a passer-by chiming in at one point, only to return to spontaneously lavish us with several loaves of bread on her next go-round.

Other people and resources mentioned in this interview: Stuart Murray; Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution.

Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for Second Sunday of Easter here and the materials at lector prep.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for Easter Sunday here and the materials at lector prep.

I wish all the people I loved the most

…I wish we could all lay beneath the stars
with nothing to do and stories to tell.

+ Sara Groves, Every Minute 

We’ve met over dinner or over skype, caught up over email or over lunch, and talked over drinks or over text. What has glared at me through the rest of the details this week are some of the people I love the most. They are the people who have seen me ugly cry, and the people who have seen me laugh until I start crying. They are the people who have called me out in ways that bring me more into who I have been made to be, and the people who have reminded me that I am worth something when that very notion has been challenged.

I do love the notion that at some point it will be possible for those people, from all of the different circles and communities and countries and eras to gather in one place and get to know each other. I think about how I have been shaped by those I want to imitate, and those I want to be nothing like. It would be a dream come true for those I hope to imitate to be able to meet each other and share dinner with each other.

Perhaps the possibility of the incredible folks over the years who have challenged me to challenge the status quo and seek first the kingdom, perhaps if those people could know each other and love each other well.

I think that very meeting would be, in itself, a glimpse of what is promised as a part of life in the kingdom.

Cheers to that.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

We were finishing class today, and I had just asked my friend Caroline––skyping in from a patio in the shadow of the great Table Mountain in Cape Town––what advice she would give to my classroom full of students going into the world with the issues of poverty and the church on their minds and hearts.

I was sitting in the front of the classroom which I suddenly regretted as these words came out of her mouth.

“Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”

She went on to elaborate, and my mind floated back to my days in Cape Town last spring almost a year ago. I was in the middle of major transitions where the issues of poverty and the church were becoming issues that meant a world of difference when it came to my job, my income, my church, and my future. I remember sitting, clinging to the future as we now refer to it, scared of what the future held, but knowing there was nowhere to go but into the issues of what it means for the church and its people to worry less about success and more about obedience.

Caroline went on to say to the students, with me sitting in the front of the classroom, “Never give up. You will follow Christ in pursuit of the kingdom, and you will struggle. And you will feel like you are the only one. And you will feel as though you have been beating a drum for a very long time all by yourself and no one is listening, and no one else is beating that kingdom drum…”

Sitting in the front of the classroom, where the students can see me but Caroline cannot, I feel my eyes beginning to well with tears.

“…but you are not the only one beating that drum. And there are others, too, following Christ not into success but into obedience, into the kingdom, who feel as though they are the only ones being champions of justice, and they need to find you as well. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”

My intentions had been for our class to pray for Caroline before we ended the Skype call, but we were not able to.

I caught myself trying to say, “Caroline is a dear friend who has taught me much. And she and other very dear friends have reminded me in times that felt quite lonely that it is worth speaking out for justice and working toward the kingdom…” But that is where the thank you had to end, because my eyes were getting thick with tears at the wrong time.

Another friend spoke today at the community-wide Holy Week noon service. “The time is now,” he said, “to worry less about seeking our own success, and more about seeking the kingdom.”

He also reminds me that I am not drumming alone.

I had a conversation tonight with an elderly gentleman about our small house church joining their older congregation in serving the homeless this summer. He reminded me that I am not drumming alone.

A dear friend once grabbed my shoulder at a time when I needed it more than anything else, he looked me in the eyes, and he said, “You are not alone. There are many of us, and we are seeking the kingdom together.” He reminds me constantly that we are not drumming alone.

Thanks, Caroline, for making me choke up in front of my class.

And thanks for reminding me, and them, that we seek first the kingdom together, and that we are not drumming alone.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for Palm Sunday here and the materials at lector prep.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent here and the materials at lector prep.

Communitas vs. Corporatas

To understand Boyd’s argument, one must know the meanings of communitas and corporatas. In their most basic forms, communitas ideals in sports rhetoric represent the fun side of sports, while corporatas ideals represent the need to win. Communitas ideals include playing for the love of the game, valuing team success over individual success, and practicing equality among teammates, among other things. Corporatas ideals include playing to win, valuing individual success and advancement over team success, adhering to the strict rules of sports on and off the field, praising sports stars, and more. All levels of sports, from young children’s leagues to professional leagues, are comprised of some sort of balance between the opposing ideals. Communitas is at its extreme in little league play, which is focused on fun; corporatas is at its extreme in professional leagues such as Major League Baseball, where focus is on “big business, winning and the bottom line,” according to Boyd. The NCAA falls somewhere in the middle ground.

Boyd’s Method

As I mentioned above, the focus of Boyd’s article is the tension between communitas and corporatas ideals in the NCAA. The Association’s balance between communitas and corporatas is crucial, as its support of communitas and corporatas values is almost contradictory. The NCAA advocates communitas ideals, but has corporatas operations as amateur collegiate athletes play for organizations in a lucrative industry. Although the Association is based on communitas, its existence depends on corporatas. To back up this point, Boyd studied Stay In Bounds (SIB), a community outreach program run by the NCAA. The program, which is available to third through eighth graders, is designed to teach children the value of citizenship through sports.

To study SIB, one of the article’s authors attended SIB tours at the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indiana from June 2001 to April 2002. During the tours, the author observed various combinations of participants, materials and tour guides. In addition to the program itself, the authors examined numerous promotional and public relations materials including:

• SIB-themed prizes given to the children

• Evaluation forms given to teachers, parents and other chaperones

• Activity packets sent to coaches and teachers prior to visiting the Hall of Champions

• The strategic plan for SIB

• SIB media kits

Results

Boyd found a paradox in the way that the SIB program was conducted. He states that the objective of SIB, to improve the lives of children through sports, is of communitas value; however, the children can only reach this objective by following the program’s specific rules, a corporatas value. This is an example of how the NCAA cannot operate on communitas or corporatas values alone. The Association founded SIB on communitas values, yet the program is unable to operate without corporatas values.

Conclusion

The tension between communitas and corporatas values provides a challenge for sports PR practitioners. Because either side of the spectrum cannot exist without the other, sports organizations must try to find the balance between the two in their public relations practices. Each organization must find its own unique balance based on its needs.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent here and the materials at lector prep.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for the Second Sunday of Lent here and the materials at lector prep.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for the First Sunday of Lent here and the materials at lector prep.

If you are a lector, consider preparing for Mass by reviewing the readings for the Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time here and the materials at lector prep.

I found myself constantly checking my watch thinking about pace and whether I was faster than the week before. It struck me that maybe I was missing the point.  You see, I run not be be a world class runner, but to avoid buying a larger wetsuit!  I run to stay in shape. While my ultimate goal is not to break some sort of record, but it is easy to fall into a performance trap and lose sight of the real purpose of things in our lives.

When it comes to following Jesus and bringing others along we can easily get caught up in the hype that so many folks promote:  we wake up one day to realize that we crave fans — our egos fed by a following.  We’re told it’s more than faithfully listening to His still small voice, that it’s about others hearing our booming message and reveling in their thunderous applause.  Maybe that’s overstating things – but we can easily get caught up in having the approval of many as a marker of success.

We find strength (or so it seems) in the drug of recognition and praise, so we find ourselves craving more, not seeing that we are moving farther and farther away from the real source of life.  But with recognition often comes a paycheck and with a paycheck comes more privileges — and more power.

But drugs lie.  Fame is fleeting, and wealth ensnares us until we lose sight of real life and drift into unconscious consumption, accepting a cheap imitation in place of the life we once pursued.

Midway through my run, I stopped.  As I stood on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I realized that we can easily miss what sits under our noses in our pursuit of something greater – but the Jesus I follow has an upside down economy.  His goal was not a fan base. It wasn’t a best selling book.  It wasn’t to elevate sex or money or position. His goal was not to simply have followers, but to create leaders.  Not leaders who rule with an iron fist and a dogmatic ideology, but ones with tender hearts and a willingness to lay down their lives for others. Not leaders who are quick to tell others how wrong they are but to quietly listen and engage in friendship with the most unlikely people. Not ones who elevate their position by controlling others, but who create freedom through washing feet.

Living in a town with nonconformists and anti-institutionalists whose focus is often on sustainability, conservation and confronting consumerism has been life-giving as I consider the life and message of Jesus — that life is not about running for approval and applause of an audience of many, but running for the pleasure of the One who already loves me whether I fit into my wetsuit or not.

Sarah Jackson writes: Now, Steinkuehler will help the White House design “big, save-the-world games” to be used across the government.  Steinkuehler tells USA Today that the job represents “an incredible opportunity to make good on the claim that games have real promise.” Click here for the article.

Constance looks at education and community organizing and asks the following:

• What do you, as a community, want to accomplish?
• How do I marshall the resources to help you accomplish that?
• And on the way, how to tool you up with practices, knowledge, and dispositions that you keep for a lifetime?

Here we see elements of life-long learning, just-in-time learning, immersion, digital media, community disposition, motivation, economics, ecology, and fun. Perfect! :]

Constance’s blog can be found here.

I was cleaning up around the house and found journal pages from Cape Town this past summer. Here is an entry from June 10, 2011, written while sitting in a restaurant at the V&A Waterfront. The picture is from the same restaurant, different trip. Thanks again to the friends who welcome me at the table.

***

Catch us up this day into the reality
of your good purpose, that by the time we leave
each other we will know – yet again – that your
mercy and justice and love outrun all the needs of the world …

… keep us simple and on task, and we will
praise you by our glad obedience.

+ Brueggeman, from “Prayer of the Church”

We fear that we’ve lost our minds, and perhaps we have.

Perhaps we’ve lost our minds and our life.

Life with.
Life by community.
Life plural.

Broken by the reality of our own struggle against status, power, privilege.

Broken by the reality of our own struggle against dulling.

Broken by the reality of what we see for only a moment when we dare open our eyes
Those things we see in others and then become terrified to see in ourselves

Greed. Pride. Injustice. Dishonesty. Piety. Blindness. Insecurity.
Relentless protection of the status quo under the guise of protecting the church, the faith.
Our arrogance.

And with
by community
plural
in the harsh reality of the present, you call us to join one another

At the table.

And slowly, as our broken pieces sit together
around warm food made by broken hands
around dim candlelight that already threatens darkness
around the giggles of children, around their questions

we begin to become whole.
Only in the context of others.

Truthfully
Honestly
Humbly

Broken hands. Threatening Darkness. Giggles and Questions.

Together.

At the table.
And for the first time in a long time
Something tells the truth, and we are made new.

djordan
V&A Waterfront
Cape Town, SA