“I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

– Ephesians 3:18-19

I had a mystic experience about a year ago.

Now, before I go any further, I need to assure you that I am not one of those types of people who see images of Jesus on my toast in the morning or believe that God sends me the winning lottery numbers on the bar ode of my groceries.  Nor was I trying to have a mystic experience, having left my breath meditation and visualization exercises at home where I felt they safely belonged.

I was in a place that, for all of you introverts, probably would seem much closer to hell than to heaven: in a subway car, headed back from a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, crammed in with a hundred other people like sardines in a tin can, but only if the sardines had Red Sox caps and been marinating in cheap beer for the last four hours. And, while you might say that I was returning from the closest thing to a religion that we have up here in New England, this was certainly not prime me-and-Jesus time.

Instead, I was aggressively staring out the window with the well-honed defense mechanism of any introvert who suddenly gets trapped with a bunch of loud, well-lubricated strangers, contemplating the city as it rolled past me.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We would like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet, it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability — ​and that it may take a very long time.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I’ve discovered one social constant with my invisible chronic illness.[1] When there’s not a visibly horrible deformity for people to latch onto, there’s always one question that bubbles beneath the surface. “Are you sure you’re really sick and that it’s not just in your head?” I’m here to tell you: yes I’m sure; and while I may look like I’m just fine, there’s a mountain’s worth of adaptations I’ve made to make sure sure that I can pass as normal.

Here’s what you need to know about my invisible chronic illness that you wouldn’t know by immediately looking at me.

1) There are days I wake up and just don’t have it.

 Some days, I wake up, and I just don’t have it. It may have to do with another interacting illness or a bad night’s sleep, but sometimes, I can sleep, exercise, eat well, and still wake up without being able to function.^[2] Here’s the exciting part: I can’t always predict when these days will happen. It’s like playing Russian Roulette with your body. Most of the time the chamber’s empty, but occasionally, all your plans will have to be chucked out the window.^[3]

2) My normal is not your normal.

        When you say, “How are you doing?,” I will probably answer, “Okay.”^[4]

Sometimes that’s because I’m lying through my teeth.

Most of the time, I’m genuinely telling the truth. It’s just that my “okay” is very different than your “okay.” When you have an invisible chronic illness for a while, you develop a new “normal”, one that is “okay” for me, but you wouldn’t consider “okay” for you.

So what does my normal look like? Here’s one example.

When you ask me to do something, I may say yes, but I’ll be paying for it a lot longer than you will. For instance, I moved earlier this summer. It was a crazy, chaotic, stressful week, one that involved a lot of coffee and a lot of boxes. It would have been an exhausting for anyone. The difference is this: you take a few days off, grab a few extra cups of coffee, and power onwards, no harm done. For me, it is now a full three months later, and I’m still not back to what I was before I moved. Don’t get me wrong, I’m improving, but there’s a good chance I won’t be back to normal^[5] until Thanksgiving.

 3) My time is my most valuable gift.

I don’t get a lot of A-level days and I don’t get a lot of A-level hours. I work like a fiend whenever I’m feeling good, because I don’t know when that will change and how much my plans will be disrupted as a result.  If I commit to something with you, especially if it involves disrupting my sleep, having multiple long days in a row, or giving up the good part of a workday, know that I’m giving you a huge gift.

 4) I’m probably not getting better anytime soon (and I’m okay with that.)

There is no one more invested in my health than I am. There is no one who has done more research about my illness than I have. This is just my reality. I’ve learned to live with it, to adapt within its limitations, and find joy in a life that is more physically limited than most. My guess is that I’ve probably heard of whatever medical remedy that you discovered on Good Morning America, and there are good reasons why I haven’t tried it, or why I did and it didn’t work for me.

I’m not miserable either. My illness has offered me great gifts.  I’ve learned the value of stopping and resting, which is something that this type-A personality would never have learned if I didn’t have my face rubbed in my limitations all the time. I’ve learned compassion for the elderly, because I have the energy of someone much closer to seventy than to someone who’s thirty-two. I’ve learned to be sympathetic to outsiders, because my illness has often made it difficult for me to form friendships and be accepted by my peer groups. There are substantial ways that being sick has made me a much better person that I would ever be otherwise.

In other words, next time you see me (or the millions of people like me), just remember:

Yes: I’m actually sick.

        No: I’m not getting better anytime soon.

        Yes: I still live a meaningful life.

#ourdailyasskicking (Hat Tip:MelissaYosua-Davis)

Getting your church out into your community can seem like a Big Deal, especially if you’re doing it for the first time. Between rustling up new volunteers, squeezing out extra money in the budget, and wrangling all the people who will complain that “we’ve never done it that way before”, it can oftentimes seem like more trouble than it’s worth; especially when it sometimes takes years of consistent effort before your church will see results.

I’d like to offer you a way to start connecting with your community that’s easy and simple: no ad council meetings, new budget line items, or hand-holding required. All you have to do is follow a very simple rule: start with something that takes less than five people, takes less than five hours, and costs less than fifty dollars. (Because, in almost any church, you can always five people, five hours, and fifty dollars for something new.)

Don’t know where to start? Here are five ideas.

1. Does your city have quarter-eating metered parking downtown? Get a truly insane number of quarters and drop them all over the downtown. Pay up people’s parking, leave them on people’s windshields, and occasionally leave a note saying, “You are loved.”
2. Where do people who are homeless gather in your community? Find that park (or parking lot), buy a few dozen donuts and a gallon of coffee, and hang out with them on a Saturday morning.
3. Contact your local family homeless shelter.  Make homemade cards with messages of appreciation and encouragement, and send them to the residents along with cookies (even store bought are fine) and flowers.
4. Talk to a receptive school guidance counselor and find out what their poorest students need most. (It may be books, backpacks, or food for the weekend). Put together care packages for the students. Pray for the children whose lives you will be blessing.
5. Don’t know much about your community? Find the local gathering spot (restaurant, cafe, gas station), and hang out there for a couple hours. Buy coffee for the next person behind you in line, and watch who comes in and out for a couple hours. Afterwards, use what you see as an opportunity for prayer.

Your Turn! What other 5/5/50 ideas do you have?

It’s no secret that I think that community game nights are an amazing way for churches to get out of their doors and connect with their communities. Even better, they take almost no time, no money, and no expertise to get going!

Interested in starting one yourself? Here are a few simple tips:

1) You don’t need to be a geek to play board games.

Don’t worry if terms like “deck-building mechanics” or “meeple” sound as foreign to you as “chancel” or “liturgy” might sound to a newcomer to your church. Gamers love to teach. If you’re willing to learn, people will delight in helping you grow into your geekdom.

2) Don’t start a Game Night if you can just join one.

Why spend the money or take all the energy to meet gamers if there’s already a meetup going on? Check your local gaming store or visit meetup.com to see if there’s a gathering in your area. When you visit, you’ll be in a location where people are already comfortable and open to newcomers.

3) If you start a game night, make it as un-churchy as possible.

Sometimes starting your own game night is the best option. If you do so, DO NOT start it in your church building. Find a spot in the community such as a cafe, a restaurant with a back room, or your local library and hold it there.  Start with a couple friends, advertise with a few posters, put up an event on meetup.com, and be patient as the gathering grows. And, for the love of Jesus, DO NOT play Christian games at it. There is nothing more obnoxious and insidery than a bunch of Christians starting a game night which requires insider knowledge (and allegiance to a belief system) in order to play.

4) Community will just happen.

Don’t feel like you need to invite people to your church, share about your faith, or advertise your ministries at game night. Just make friends, share authentically, and the opportunities will to form spiritual community with people will naturally emerge.

Church Refugees

Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope

  In One Hundred Words: Two sociologists study the Dones: people who are walking away from church, often after a lifetime of commitment.  They examine the reasons why the Dones left, (e.g. judgmentalism, bureaucracy, inflexible doctrine, lack of meaningful ministry), how their exit is a result of their commitment to their faith, and what churches can do to bring them back.

  Who Should Read It: Lifelong church people – both laity and pastors.

  How Long?: A very easy, not-at-all-technical 140 pages.

 ——————

 Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope are not radical firebrands. They are restrained sociologists. They open the book with a detailed explanation of their methodology. They are highly respectful of their subjects, letting them speak in their own words as much as possible. They are careful not to draw sweeping conclusions.

All of this makes the picture they paint in Church Refugees that much more surprising and disturbing. The book is the product of hundreds of interviews with the “dechurched” or the “dones”, people who “make explicit and intentional decisions to leave the church and organized religion.” (14)  They reveals that the dones are not the people many of us thought they were. These are not those who left because the pastor started using too much contemporary music or because their favorite knitting circle shut down. These are not the perennial church-hoppers, who change communities like other people change socks. The dones are deeply committed Christians: people who gave the institution their all ,often for decades, and who left because of their faith.

Church Refugees explores what caused the dones to make that decision. It groups their reasons into four chapters. First is “Community and Judgment”, which explores the dones’ deep desire to experience authentic, non-judgmental spiritual community. Second is “Activity and Bureaucracy” which describes the way that church structure actively prevented the dones from living out their calling. Third is “Conversation and Doctrine” which details the done’s desire to have meaningful, honest, open conversations about faith and life where there isn’t an orthodoxy that everyone has to unthinkingly adhere to. Finally is “Meaningful Ministry and Moral Prescription” which shares how the dones’ experience that the church was more concerned with “policing personal morality” than healing society, especially in regards to poverty.

The stories are often heartbreaking. Among them is Kate, a passionate, extremely gifted Christian who wanted to start an art-therapy after school program.

At first, she was hoping for some support from her congregation for supplies and materials, but eventually asked simply for space to meet….The church council took a vote, and, on the pastor’s recommendation, decided not to support the work she was doing because the kids weren’t members of the church and might not even be Christians…Eventually, Katie decided to start the organization as a non-profit, and ultimately left her congregation. [She says] ‘It just got to the point that it was so painfully obvious to me that the art therapy was making more of a real impact in the world, and was feeding me more spiritually as a group of people committed to relationships than my home congregation had ever done. (58-59)

As a church person, this book is a hard mirror to look into. Any long-time church person recognizes this behavior. Truth be told, we often perpetuated it. We tell jokes about it,^[1] excuse it as inevitable,^[2] and even actively defend it.^[3] It’s become normal.

All those ugly stories that we sweep under the carpet? In this book, we hear all of them and are reminded that our justifications leaves bodies behind.

In the final chapters, the authors make the obligatory pivot to suggesting what can be changed to get the dones to come back (or never become done at all.) Their suggestions, taken in isolation, are good, such as undermining bureaucracy by putting end dates of programs or staff responsibilities that would otherwise exist forever, or using asset-based community organizing to empower people to use their gifts. However, in doing so, they sidestep the elephant-sized ecclesial question that their study raises:

What if the dones are right?

What if much of what we call church is just a highly efficient way for us to hide from God?

What if the vast time and energy that we spend in maintaining our institutional structures is not really about faithfulness, but about choosing to leave hungry people unfed, naked people unclothed, sick and imprisoned people unvisited?^[4]

What if the dones are leaving, not because they’re burnt out on church, but because they’re brave enough to search for a true expression of church outside of the institution?

Perhaps the dones have not left the church, perhaps it is us institutionalists who have left the church, maybe even generations ago, and just never realized it.

In the end, the book left me wondering, do we really need to engage with the dones to get them back, or should we just follow them out into the future?

Then again, maybe that’s a rabbit hole too terrifying to jump into.

The best way to learn how to write is not to read books about writing, it’s to actually write.

The best way to learn how to forgive others is not to attend a class on forgiveness, it’s to actually forgive someone who has hurt you.

The best way to learn about those who are poor is not to read your favorite social justice blog or book, it’s to actually make friends with people who are poor.

The best parts of life are not like bugs that you can stick on a pin and learn from by watching them squirm.

The best parts of life only make sense when they are lived from the inside out.

Where are you looking to grow? What dream, small or large, are you holding close right now?

I have a suggestion for you:

Don’t reflect.

Don’t take another class.

Don’t read another book.

Do it and see what happens.