jesus is cool

pain relief not pain removal

Posted on Dec 28, 2011 in incarnational, jesus is cool | 16 comments

pain relief not pain removal

*this post is part of the christmas synchroblog centered on Jesus came: did you get what you expected?  i hope you all had a good christmas. ours was sweet & simple & really nice. i’ve been really unplugged all week and have enjoyed the quiet.

* * * * *

for advent, i wrote a post about hoping to be open: present, humble, vulnerable this christmas season.  when i look back on it now, just over a month later, it makes me laugh.  vulnerable is definitely the right word for the past month; i think i cried every day for a couple of weeks during advent!  one of the hazards of this kind of living is when we risk our hearts, it will sometimes get trampled on.  it’s part of the cost.  and even though i’ve been in this place before and know the feeling, i can’t completely avoid the pain of feeling used and hurt, and doubting this is all worth it.

thankfully, the amazing Jesus-with-skin-on-people-in-my-life helped carry me through.

the past few weeks have felt a little more sane, a little more balanced, a little more clear.  but at the same time, just as relief came, a new overwhelming feeling arose–the amount of needs in every direction.  it’s nothing new, really, but maybe in my “open, present, vulnerable” season i felt it more.  or maybe it’s because the holidays bring extra pain & struggle & need to the surface. the degree of poverty & pain & loneliness all around was just extra intense and caused me to question so many things. i found myself asking:

“does what we do even matter?”

“why even bother when the systems around everyone are so deeply grooved toward inequity and oppression?”

 ”maybe getting an inspiration high really will sustain people more than the little bit of tangible love we are able to pass on?” 

“why in the %(#&!^!*!(! do people keep giving their money to church buildings when their money could help exponentially with basics  like beds & dressers & gas & food & warm clothes to families who really need it?”

“God, you’ve got some people who really, really need hope right now.  can you please help?”

the last one is the one that lingered.  and i was reminded of what teresa of avila said:

“Christ has no body but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

even though Jesus came into the world as a human and knows our pain and suffering and promised us life would be hard & harsh but that in him, we could have hope & joy & peace & love in the midst, i often forget.

i think the trouble is i actually long for pain removal.  the absence of pain. the abracadabra kind of pain removal that some parts of my faith experience once promised.  pray harder, hope more, surrender more, and it will be “gone”.  i know better by now, i really do, but still, if i’m really honest, i keep wanting (and in weird crazy ways still expecting) pain removal.

what i got instead was a reminder that hope this side of heaven is about pain relief.

maybe that’s a piece of what the incarnation is about.  pain relief.

we can’t remove pain.  God doesn’t seem to remove pain, either.  in fact, he chose to enter directly into it to provide relief in the midst.  hope, healing, love, joy, mercy, peace.

and it most always seems to come through a weird combination of flesh & spirit.  

hope, mercy, and love don’t drop out of the sky.  they usually come from experience.  from interactions.  from real in-the-flesh relationships.  from presents that get delivered even though we know they won’t make one bit of difference next month.  from a hug that might be the only human touch someone receives all week.  from a kind word when harsh ones are usually the only ones heard.  from a hot meal around a messy kitchen table.  from simple hellos to long, drawn-out conversations about deep wounds.  from eyes meeting eyes and hearts meeting hearts.

these little things provide pain relief.

they won’t take away reality.  they won’t change systems that will keep working against people.  they won’t pay the bills next month.  they won’t immediately mend a broken heart or get someone a job or heal a chronic illness or reconcile a failed marriage.

but they will provide some pain relief, a cup of cold water, a healing balm, a sweet fragrance.

on christmas eve when we were singing o holy night (by far my favorite carol), i felt these words stir my soul:

“truly he taught us to love one another, his law is love and his gospel is peace. chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother. and in his name all oppression shall cease.”

i have been thinking of this since christmas eve.  i keep wanting big oppression to cease. i keep wanting all the chains to break that keep people stuck. i keep wanting freedom & comfort my way.  really, i keep wanting pain removal.

but i was reminded this season, yet again and again, how the small things make a difference.  that our hands and feet and hearts and eyes and ears matter.  that when we intersect with each other in love, chains break and oppression ceases, if even for that moment.  that Jesus is alive & well & moving & healing & transforming & revealing love in us and through us and with us. 

yeah, in all kinds of ways, i got some pain relief this christmas. thank you, God. i hope i was able to pass some on, too.

* * * * *

other bloggers writing on the same topic, enjoy:

 

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it’s a beautiful, messy story.

Posted on Dec 14, 2011 in incarnational, jesus is cool, spiritual formation | 25 comments

it’s a beautiful, messy story.

i do not like shopping. i do not like crowds. i do not like commercials and all of the nutty emphasis on buying stuff. and i definitely do not like cold december weather.

but i do love christmas.

i love christmas because i love the christmas story.  i love the wild & crazy way God reveals himself to the world, in a way that most everyone would never expect. i love that angels announced Jesus’ birth first to the the shepherds & the pagans and they were strangely drawn toward this light from the very beginning. i love that the earthly parents God chose were basic people with basic jobs and a basic faith.  i love the reminder that from the beginning of Jesus’ life, power was trying to destroy him but never fully prevails.  i love that the story of Jesus is a beautiful, messy one not a clean & sterile one (even though that’s usually how the storybooks make it sound).

the christmas story wasn’t neat and tidy.

it was messy.  and beautiful.

like ours.

for this season of advent at the refuge we have been focusing on our stories–God’s story, our stories, and how they all intersect. on the first week of advent my friend karl shared how “every Bible story is a christmas story.” i’ll add “every one of our stories is a christmas story, too”.

here are the elements i think are present in the christmas story and in our stories, if we look carefully:

1. pain and struggle

2. something that doesn’t make sense in our own or others’ eyes

3. some kind of redemption, hope, or healing

4. a reminder that somehow, someway, God is emmanuel, always with us.

when i look at almost every Bible story i can think of, these 4 things apply.  when i consider the weird twists and turns in my own story & many others along the way, these 4 things are somehow always present.

i want to focus for a minute on #2 because i think it’s the one that might give us the most trouble–”something that doesn’t make sense in our own or others’ eyes.”

we humans have a desperate need to make sense of everything.  we want it to “work” the way we want it to work.  we want to understand things we’re not supposed to understand.  we want to cram God’s weird & wild ways into our own boxes so we can feel more comfortable.  we want neater, tidier, easier.

i know i do.

but the christmas story reminds us that some things just don’t make sense in our eyes or other’s eyes.  the Jesus story sure didn’t.

two contradicting things can be present at the same time.

the christmas story is beautiful & ugly.  filled with faith & doubt, peace & confusion, fear & courage.  these things living together don’t make sense in our linear-little-brains. but part of redeeming our story and participating in God’s story more fully requires us to open our hearts to letting both exist at the same time.  and like all things of faith, this is a heart-journey, not a head-one. our brains can try to rationalize “sure, both dark and light exist in me” but still do everything in our power to clean it up and make all be good, “right” or okay or go the other direction of leaning completely into only the dark side where everything is hard & ugly & painful.

we can easily become focused on the dark & blinded to the light.

or we can do an excellent job of pretending like everything’s light and dismiss the reality of our darkness.

a lot of our church experiences haven’t helped us to live more comfortably with paradox in our own lives, either.  black & white thinking has often morphed into black & white feelings, too.

we did a little exercise a few weeks ago at our weekend gathering, to open ourselves up to remember that light & dark exist at the same time in our stories–and in all of God’s stories, too.  part of cultivating hope this advent season is living in the tension of both existing but straining to see the light, the good, the beautiful because these are often more difficult for us to see in ourselves.

here’s the exercise we did:

choose one word from the left hand column that describes this season for you.  then choose one word from the middle column.  if the words that come to mind aren’t on this list, use them instead.

right now, my story is ________ & __________.

my two words are “strong & fragile” and those usually don’t make sense together. in my humanness, i only want to be strong or i only see my fragility & weakness.  the beauty of the christmas story in me is seeing that both can exist at the same time, and they don’t have to make sense.  and like most all of them, my story is one of pain & struggle and redemption & healing & God-with-me-in-the-thick-of-it.

yeah, all our stories are christmas stories.

i’d love to hear what words describe your story right now.

 

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comfortable in our own skin

Posted on Dec 5, 2011 in ex good christian women, healing, identity, incarnational, jesus is cool, spiritual formation, the carnival in my head | 29 comments

comfortable in our own skin

one of the things i’ve always tried to do here is write from my heart. to be as honest as i could.  to not worry about who would think what.  it’s pretty hard to do!  there are so many different tribes out here in online-land with different passions & people & ways-of-living-out-their-faith.  for the past five years, i have always struggled with not fully connecting with any of them. for some folks, i’m not sufficiently theological or liturgical or serious or christian or universalist or denominational or missional enough..to feel like i’m tracking all the way.  i love & value them all and appreciate the various expressions more than i can say. but sometimes it can just feel..weird.  off, somehow.   like i don’t fully have a place in any of them.

and at any moment something i say here can bug pretty much any of them for one reason or another.

this is a really familiar feeling for me.  all through  middle & high school & college & pretty much all of my adult life i have always been friends with a bunch of different people that rarely all come together in the same place.  i love it because i know such beautiful, diverse, amazing people.  but it can also feel unsettling & uncomfortable.  i miss some of what you get when you are deeply embedded in a particular tribe.    i think one of the things that i appreciated about being on a mega-church staff for those couple of years is that it’s so big that you don’t really need anyone else.  it’s its own island and a really clear tribe with no room, or apparent need, really, for much else.  now, out here floating around on a lifeboat for the past five years clinging for dear life i have had to learn something that i knew i needed to learn–how to be comfortable in my own skin.

my skin.

not someone else’s.

not what this group is doing or that group is doing.  not what this church is doing or that church is doing.  not what this ministry is doing or that ministry is doing.  not what this person is doing or that person is doing.

i’m learning to become more comfortable with what i believe.

not what this group believes or that group believes.  not what this friend believes or that friend believes.  not what this blogger believes or that blogger believes.

yikes, it’s hard to do!  the systems of the world are built upon people conforming to each other somehow. my friend & awesome refuge teammate karl always says that we mistake uniformity for unity.  true unity is diversity, bound together with a common thread.  to me, when it comes to issues around “church”,  that thread is God.  but we’ve built systems that call for uniformity, that we need to be like “them”, whatever the them is, in order to belong.

i do not think that any of the things i believe are really very heretical!  they’re just one expression of faith that i feel dearly and passionately about, and stem from how i view the gospels & the Bible & what God has stirred up in me through the years. my point in my last post, yep, i guess i’m a heretic, is that by believing & practicing these, somehow i’m “out” of certain circles because of their interpretation of theological truth.  that’s so bizarre to me.  and sad.

but alas, my responsibility is not to change that system or anyone’s minds.

my responsibility is to learn to be comfortable in my own skin. 

my skin, not someone else’s.

but the skin God made that’s me.

this is maturity.  this is healing.  this is transformation.

and this doesn’t have to have to be perceived as something that only has to do with faith or church or anything “spiritual”.  it has to do with becoming better human beings, stronger, more secure, more free men & women, who discover who we each are in deep places of our hearts & practices.

one of the things i love about the christmas story and this time of year is the reminder of Jesus’ humanness.  he had to learn to be in his skin just like us.  and obviously, many, many people didn’t really like his skin.  he had to have his feet on the ground & his head in the clouds in order to walk out the journey he was on here on earth. he had a huge advantage, being God and all, but i take great solace in knowing that Jesus understands humanness.

in all its mess & all its glory.  in all its struggle & all its joy.  in all its reality & all its beauty.

the wise & prophetic father richard rohr says that other “a” words for advent are:  alert, awake, alive, attentive, aware.  i’m not big on alliteration but i love these words!   this season i am trying to be awake, aware, attentive to my story, God’s story-in-me.

and i think it’s a story of growing up somehow, of learning to be comfortable in my own skin. learning to be be less codependent & independent and more interdependent. to be more free.  to be less afraid. to be more clear, even if its only about a few important things.  to be more brave.  to be more weak in some areas & stronger in others.  to care less about what people think & more about what God might think.

God knows our struggle to be comfortable in our own skin.  God is E/Immanuel, with us.  here, now.  down here in the muck and mire of our real lives, our real struggles with life & faith & relationships & all that it means to be human, created in the image of God, living in this broken weird wild world.

enthusiastically wanting to teach us to be comfortable in our own skin.

i’m trying to listen.

* * * * *

ps:  i stumbled upon this original advent song this weekend by matt staniz. i loved it & thought i’d pass it on to you today as we reflect on our skin, God’s skin.

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present, humble, vulnerable.

Posted on Nov 23, 2011 in incarnational, jesus is cool, spiritual formation | 10 comments

present, humble, vulnerable.

* this is part of the second november synchroblog is to celebrate the beginning of the season of advent.  the theme different bloggers are writing on is:  jesus is coming: what are we expecting?   come back & check out the links of other bloggers writing on this topic at the bottom of this post  (they will be added over the next week) and you can go over to christine sine’s blog this month for daily posts centered on this theme, too.

* * * * *

“he has filled the hungry with good things” – mary’s song,  luke 1:53

until 5 years ago i never celebrated the season of advent and the weeks leading up to christmas.  honoring the church calendar was just not something i was taught, but over the past few years i have really come to appreciate the beauty & intention that comes from it.  at the same time, i am not crazy over the typical definition of “expectation”, probably because it can be such a loaded word when it comes to some christian things.  it can sometimes feel a little bit too demanding for me on one end or setting myself up for disappointment on another. it’s tricky for me to say “this advent season i expect….”  a phrase that helps me with this is to substitute the word “expecting” with “being open to”.

so, if i were re-framing this entire phrase, it would be:  Jesus is coming:  what do i want to be open to?

when i am open, i am present.  i am not thinking about the next thing i need to do but rather am present in the moment i’m currently in. i have room to listen, notice, experience.

when i am open, i am humble.  i do not have everything all figured out.  i am not closed off & hardened.  my heart is soft & tender to God and other people.

when i am open, i am vulnerable.  i am willing to feel, the good things & the bad, to let in the beauty & the ugly and somehow trust that God is at work in it all.

it is quite clear to me that none of these things are my first reflexes!

when i think of the christmas story & the events leading up to the birth of Jesus, mary’s “openness” comes to mind.  she embodied being present, humble, and vulnerable.  i feel fairly positive she had to be terrified in every imaginable way. i do not think the cleaned-up stories we read about mary are what it really looked or felt like for her in the moment. she was human and experienced fear & shame & doubt & confusion & trust & hope & joy just like we do.  there are many different ways the story could have unfolded, but she chose the path of openness. of staying present, humble, and vulnerable in the midst of great travail.

like his earthly mother, Jesus embodied these three qualities, too–presence, humility, and  vulnerability. all three are easy to talk about but tricky to live out.  the pull toward busyness & thinking 10 steps ahead, self-centeredness, hardening and protecting our hearts & time, and a host of other distractions is really strong.

so what i am i trying to be open–present, humble, and vulnerable–to this advent season?

i want to be open to be awed by the little & beautiful things that i intersect with over the next few weeks that i might count as ordinary.  i want to be open to God’s story being told in my life & the life of my friends. i want to be open to see slivers of light in the darkness. i want to be open to feel the ground underneath my feet instead of moving so fast.  i want to be open to laughter and joy  in the midst of carrying my friends’ real burdens & pain.  i want to be open to experiencing peace & a sense of gentle strength in midst of the craziness of these busy & fast next few weeks.  i want to be open to being patient & waiting instead of being impatient & demanding. i want to be open to God’s hope.

i know that this is a season of waiting for Jesus to “come” but it also helps me to remember Jesus is already “here.”  working, challenging, healing, illuminating, strengthening, comforting, encouraging, revealing his story to us in our real lives, offering hope.

this advent season, God help me be open–to be present, humble, vulnerable . 

* * * * *

here are some other advent posts i’ve written for the past years & synchroblogs.  yep, same song, different tune!

ps: that guest post i wrote over at rachel held evans’ blog–insecure christians–has a pile of comments that have stirred up all kinds of feelings, both oh-i-so-agree ones & contrary ones.  i definitely am going to have to do a part 2 over here to process some of it.  it is so funny to me, how by saying that maybe there might be some good in us from the beginning since God made us in his image people get in an uproar, thinking i am dismissing sin & brokenness.  it still baffles me that it’s heretical.   people, good & bad can exist together, for goodness sake!  we are living paradoxes. the problem i see is that many of us are blinded by the bad & completely forget the good and the church typically doesn’t help with that in a practical way.  anyway, look forward to hearing some of your thoughts on it next week.   happy thanksgiving & first week of advent!

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other advent synchrobloggers // more coming through the 1st week of advent:

 

 

 

 

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little pockets of freedom.

Posted on Oct 18, 2011 in church stuff, equality, healing, incarnational, jesus is cool, the refuge | 12 comments

little pockets of freedom.

we’ve been talking a lot about wounds from the church at the refuge in preparation for our walking wounded gathering, which is this upcoming weekend in denver.  i am really looking forward to it & oh do we have some fun stuff planned!  we still have a little bit of room if you want to come & haven’t registered yet, do it today.

as we’ve been preparing for it, it is has been interesting how much has been stirred up for me about church.

as you all know, i love the church.  it would have been so easy for me to throw in the towel a long time ago if i had only based things on my experience with “the system.”  but the truth is that God’s people–together in some way, shape or form, living out the ways of Jesus in real & tangible ways–is sewn into my skin in ways that i don’t think i will ever be able to shake.

at the same time, as much as i love the church, i also hate what it has done–and continues to do–to so many people.  i can’t stand the way it limits people. i can’t stand the way it serves itself. i can’t stand the way it excludes. i can’t stand the way it reflects the powers of the world instead of the beatitudes-infused-kingdom-of-God. i can’t stand the way it puts programs over people.

my dear friend barb murphy is the founder and director of cans for hope, a grassroots ministry dedicated to raising money to help women heal from sexual abuse & sex trafficking.  i heard her speak this past weekend at a ministry event & she shared something very powerful. she said “the things we can’t stand, we are called to fix.”

the things we can’t stand, we are called to fix.

out of almost everything related to “church” the one thing i can’t stand the most is how it limits freedom.  i always say that the church of Jesus Christ should be the free-est, least oppressed, most inclusive, most grace-filled place on earth.  yet, as we all know, it has the reputation for being the opposite.  instead of being a pocket of freedom, many churches are pockets of oppression. limiting half of the population from leading freely. keeping God safely tucked into a man-shaped box.  keeping gifts squelched and in the hands of the clergy.  spending resources on perpetuating a system that has nothing to do with community & changed lives & healing & transformation and everything to do with mortgages & strategic growth.  constantly giving into the gravitational pull toward comfort and making sure the powerful-people-who-give stay happy.  assuming people only love God “their” way instead of lots of other wild & beautiful & untraditional ways.

this past saturday evening we talked about gender inequality and the church, and i left so sad (not because of the conversation, my daughter being on the panel sharing freely about this issue will inspire me for a long time!).  my sadness came when i intersected yet again with the reality that on the whole “the church” is a terrible reflection of freedom when it comes to this huge issue of gender injustice.  the world, with all of its cultural bias against the dignity of women, is actually much further along when it comes to embracing and valuing women than the followers of Jesus Christ are.

in the same way i think churches should just be little pockets of love, i think that pockets of love aren’t really possible without first being a pocket of freedom.

where all people have dignity & incredible value.

where no one is oppressed or silenced or considered less-than because of their gender or race or economic status or educational status or theology or any other things that usually keep people over or under another.

where questions are valued & doubt is honored because we trust in a God who can handle it.

where God is not contained by the limits of man’s teaching.

where each person’s gifts, no matter how big or small, have a chance to be expressed.

where men & women are seen as equals and sit next to each other as brothers & sisters & friends.

so that’s why i’m still in “church.”  because the thing i can’t stand, i’m called to fix.

i can’t fix the whole big system.  i know i can’t.

but i can refuse to participate in systems that knowingly perpetuate oppression.  that’s a small & important place to start.  it’s lonely at first, when we make a stand toward freedom, but it’s so worth it later.

and most importantly i can play my small part in fixing the little systems i am part of.

i can help create little pockets of freedom.  for me, these are my family, the refuge & the different groups i am part of & the relationships that i am in.  none of these are perfect; they are each made up of imperfect human beings, young & old ones, and i know everyone in them doesn’t feel fully free or fully loved all of the time.  i don’t, either.  we live this side of heaven so i don’t expect that.  but regardless of our shortcomings,  it’s still possible to play our small part in participating in creating the kingdom of God now by making spaces for freedom.  real Jesus-infused freedom.

Jesus “sets the oppressed free” (luke 4:18) & i’m pretty sure this isn’t what he had in mind:

 

i’m also reminded again of what toni morrison says:  “the function of our freedom is to free someone else.”

i hope that we can all bravely step into our freedom & quit letting man-made systems limit us.  then, i hope we can use this God-given freedom to free someone else.

and someone else. and someone else.

yeah, a lot of little pockets of freedom, over time, can actually create big ones.

God help us play our small part in creating little pockets of freedom, a reflection of your kingdom in the here & now.

* * * * *

a few other things:

  • thanks david hayward at nakedpastor.com for the awesome cartoon.
  • i think this is an awesome addition to the list of questions from the downward mobility synchroblog post last week.  thanks jeff! // read it here:  being loved or being used.  
  • i’m doing a down we go workshop this afternoon at soularize.  if you’re there, come say hi!

 

 

 

 

 

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we may look like losers re-dux

Posted on Oct 11, 2011 in down we go, incarnational, jesus is cool, the refuge | 20 comments

we may look like losers re-dux

* this post is part of october’s synchroblog which is centered on downward mobility, one of my favorite topics!  read what others are saying about upside-down-kingdom-living by clicking on the link list at the end of this post.  i’ll update it as more posts come in.

* * * * *

my definition of downward mobility:

downward mobility is a matter of the heart, not financial resources. it is losing our lives instead of protecting them. giving away our hearts instead of insulating them. intersecting with pain instead of numbing it out. entering into relationship with people different from us instead of staying comfortably separated. learning instead of teaching. practicing instead of theorizing.

one thing i am struck with, more than ever, is just how counter-to-the-ways-of-the-world-and-so-often-the-church, too, a life of descent really is.  it just isn’t all that popular.  it doesn’t sell.  it is hard.  it is messy.  it is costly.  it’s a sure way to shrink a church.  but in so many ways, as Jesus reminds us of in the beatitudes, we’re somehow blessed living down here. in all kinds of weird, wonderful, unexplainable ways, once we’ve tasted it, nothing else really satisfies.

some of what’s in this post is in the chapter in down we go called “we may look like losers.” it was based on this original blog post with the same title.  this past week as i’ve been reflecting on how much i love my little beautiful refuge community & all i learn through it each and every day, i have been reminded just how easy it would be to miss what’s going on if you only looked on the outside.  honestly, we look like losers.  we really do.

but when it comes to relationships & community & learning-to-live-in-the-trenches-of-real-life-together, oh, there’s a lot of beauty & healing going on!

i sometimes tell friends that i wish i had “church amnesia” so that i could erase most of what i formerly learned about “success,” “ministry,” “leadership” and what makes things “viable.” in my old circles, valid ministry means constantly “growing,” “getting financially stable,” and “building up new, stronger leaders.” when i look at the refuge against this list, i tend to get a little embarrassed. i hear the words of successful Christian leadership books and see how we are
falling short.

slowly but surely i am learning that none of the old rules apply.

downward mobility is nurturing a way of living that is really only about one thing—relationships. and open-handedly & open-heartedly loving people in tangible ways. this requires an incredible amount of time, emotional and spiritual energy, and grace. it means i must completely throw out the old measures of success and look in one direction and one direction only—where God’s spirit is at work in the hearts and lives of the people right in front of me.

it is incredibly easy to miss.

i will never forget the words of someone who was visiting our community on our one-year anniversary dinner over four years ago. we were in sad moods; it was a weird weekend and not as many people came as we expected. we felt embarrassed and said to this guest, “yeah, we’re sorry, there are a lot of people missing tonight…we’re kind of bummed.” that woman replied strongly, “well i’m here.”

i will forever remember the power of those simple words. “i’m here.” it cut directly to the heart of the matter and was exactly what i needed to hear.

part of downward living is about seeing what’s right in front of us. looking at what we do have, not what we don’t. being thankful for the gift of today, instead of longing for tomorrow. noticing the beauty. appreciating what is.

even though we don’t have many of the resources i’d love to have, when i take a step back and look more carefully i see how many are actually right before me. they might not be big, shiny, clear, or exactly what i’m sure i really need.  but they are here, right before me.  small kernels of hope, reminders that God is taking good care of us, and showing us what it means to trust. i see tiny gifts of love, hope, peace and connection in places where there once was none, stalks of beauty seeping up from the ground, and small ways God says, “i’m here, too.”

i think instead of the old questions about numbers & programs & budgets & strategic plans, we can ask ourselves these kinds of questions instead:

• are people around us experiencing change, feeling more loved, and passing on more love to others?
• are they less isolated and more connected?
• are resources being shared between people in organic, natural ways?
• are people’s gifts and talents being drawn out of them and being used to grace and encourage others?
• are voices being used that were once silenced?
• are fear and shame lessening, losing their hold over people’s lives?
• are we seeing the image of God emerge from people in whom it once was buried?

incarnational relationships are nearly impossible to measure, but they seem to align with Jesus’ ways a lot more readily than what my friend and missional pastor, rose madrid-swetman calls the three b’s: budgets, butts, and buildings. these are standard measures of success in most ministries because they are tangible and easy to measure.

the refuge has no money, building, put-togetherness, pat answers, or rising stars. we’re just a hodge-podge of ordinary people trying to be open, caring, and dedicated to learning to be together and spread love, mercy, and justice in whatever small ways we can.

i know so many others in the same boat right now, too, in churches & ministries & neighborhoods & groups & unlikely places–people who are putting relationships above programs and finding how hard it really can be.

this is the force that can change the world, though, and is what i believe Jesus challenged us to become–a groundswell of people who look like losers to the powers that be, but are living out love in all kinds of wild & beautiful shapes and forms instead of just talking about it, and who are becoming the kingdom of God instead of just thinking about it.

yeah, downward living means embracing that we might look like losers.

Jesus looked like a loser, too.

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other bloggers exploring downward mobility this month:

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