Sacred Space: Mister Woods

OK, actually it's called Westminster Woods. Our youngest daughter E can't pronounce the full name, so she calls it "Mister Woods." It's a Presbyterian owned and operated camp and conference center just outside of Occidental, near Sebastopol in God's country aka West Sonoma County. We went as a church group last week to several simultaneous camps. Matt Prinz and I spoke together at the Central, or Junior High, Camp. It's a sacred space for me because it's where I met Kristy, discovered most of my deepest friendships in life, discovered who I am, claimed my gifts and first deeply encountered the integrative experience of living faith and living in community. No matter when I go: simply to swim for the afternoon, to attend a campfire, or to spend the week - it is a place of rejuvenation, rest, renewal - resurrection for me. As E says, "it's the best place in the world - there are so many trees and so much shade!!!!" I think chillin' with Chillie Willie at the Craft Shack always entices too.

Here's a slideshow of our week together there last week.

Goodbye Fruitvale Church

Today was the last Sunday that I served as pastor of Fruitvale Presbyterian Church. We gathered for a service of celebration, celebrating the past, giving thanks for today and hintingly pointing towards the future.  Several members gave personal reflections about the past seven years together.

I've been wondering the past weeks about what to say at this last Sunday gathering together.  How do you sum up so many times, so many events, conversations, words exchanged, words received?  How do you reflect upon the meaning of and the meaning-making experiences of community, including both the good and the bad, the encouraging and the existentially challenging?

I chose to attempt to sing a song that makes great meaning for me: "For Good" from the musical  Wicked.  Realizing that I can't quite sing the octave range that Kristin Chenoweth can, I opted to simply quote the lyrics of the song: "Because of you, I have been changed for good." [the whole song is below]

In the end isn't the unequivocable truth of human existence the paradox of mutuality?  We're inter-twined, inter-connected, inter-dependent.  I think that is what in large part the Christian faith points to, invites us to live, and challenges us to embrace.

Homelessly Heading towards Life in France

Folks have been wondering where my family and I are in our journey of moving from Oakland, to France, specifically to the town of Poissy where I'll be pastor of that parish of the French Reformed Church. We have moved out of our home in Oakland and this next Sunday, July 12th will be my last one as pastor of the Oakland church I serve: Fruitvale Presbyterian.

We are at summer camp this week with a group of youth from our church. We return for a week of work in Oakland, then have a month off before moving to France on August 17th. That time will be filled with house sitting in the Dimond District, hanging out with friends, graduation day at our preschool and then 2 action-packed hang-out weeks with the grandparents. While at camp this week, a prize was given to the camper that came from the farthest distance to camp. Our eldest won, as she said that she soon will live in France. When asked where she lives, she replied "I don't really have a house." Not quite homeless, but definitely a sojourner. Of course she can't understand that. Maybe that's part of the whole journey of living and growing cross-culturally? Recognizing that we don't necessarily have a home, but rather several homes in between which we move. I find that California is by far home, and Oakland seems to be it for me, and at the same time that are many other places that are home for me in California: Fair Oaks, Westminster Woods, Cloverdale; and also in France: St. Germain-en-Laye, Strasbourg and Montelimar. Poissy will become our new home. But what does that mean for our children: 7 and 4 years old, who have only known Oakland as home?

I awake most days thinking of them, praying for them in the changes and transitions that await us: those of which we're aware and those of which we have no idea. How will they be transformed by the experience? I have some cultural cues and suspicions, having done that jounrney myself, yet what does it mean or a 4 year old to learn another language? What will it mean for those two to begin school in 8 weeks in a local public French school in a different language, culture and with all new people? It seems overwhelming. It sure was for me when I did that at the Universite de Grenoble in college. Yet maybe overwhelming is what is actually unavoidable in our world today? We're overwhelmed each day with the amount of knowledge and information we have to sift through and the decisions and choices we have to make in daily life. Maybe embracing the emotional overwhelmed-ness of living cross-cutlurally moves us along the path of maturation in a post-modern, globalized and flattened world? I wonder if we are either providing our children with the best possible educating and growth opportunity in childhood through this experience, or directing them towards a great challenge. I suspect it's both and more of an opportunity in the long-run than a nearly-impossible-to-overcome challenge. I guess only time will tell as well as our commitment to walk with and to carry our children through this time of transition that will last not just for a few weeks but for quite possibly a few months.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Communication and Communities of Faith:

The old paradigms just don't seem to work.

I'm at Westminster Woods speaking in partnership with friend and colleague Rev. Matt Prinz at the Central - Middle School - Camp.  We had the vision and desire to try speaking together - it may very well be the first time this has ever been dared here - as a reflection upon the reality of how we communicate culturally these days.  It's much more about conversation, dialog and participation than upon lecturing, passivity and indoctrincation.  The campers seem so far (after 2 speaking experiences) to be into the conversation form and format, making comments, participating.  Hopefully the experience helps to set the parameters and context for quality follow-up conversations in smaller groups.  Isn't that how we really learn?: small group discussions, reflecting upon what we've already "learned" or experienced.  How is it then that more often than not in the church we think we learn best by rote, by imitating a "master" by listening to a speech.

In tonight's campfire gathering I asked what we do in church.  The first response was "sit down" One of the last was "be bored" and "kill time while the boring pastor drones on".  Quite possibly harsh.  And most likely true.  Thankfully it wasn't a youth from my church.  Somehow we've come to interpret and practice experiencing God as listening to a sermon.  Maybe that's where the church is getting it wrong.  Maybe it's because of that passe communicative style that our churches are emptying without being revitalized because of death, attrition and even division.  

Another example of the splintering because of communication changes and style/form transformations is the recent departure of the new pastor at Riverside Church in NYC.  This is a big deal: a big church gig, in a highly respected progressive church which is often lifted up as a model of multicultural faith community.  Yet I wonder if what happened is that a question of communication.  Progressive criticize conservatives.  Conservative criticize progressives.  Yet what neither "side" recognizes is that they way (not necessarily the subject matter) that they communicate is out to lunch, not inherent or reflective of the ways that we communicate, relate and educate in our society today.  "God Needs You to Get Out of the Bubble..." [Religion Dispatches blog]

What I found in tonight's campfire talk was that the kids were honest about church, how they listen and how they talk to God.  The forms lifted up around them as models to emulate don't seem to interest, enthuse or be practised in large part by them. So if the way that we have been doing it, isn't working.  Why do we expect it to eventually if we just keep doing it over and over?

Communication and Communities of Faith

A family friend when asking me today what my sermon was for tomorrow, told me that she doesn't like the word sermon.  "It seems so negative and moralistic" she said.  I'd have to agree.  Isn't that what "church" communication often is?: a one-way-street experience of lecturing, moral aggrandizing and emotional belittling.  There has to be more?  What I'm looking for is something that's vibrant, includes me in a conversation/dialog not just a speech intended for the dissimenation of religious information, and that involves me as a participant.

The New York Times ran an article today entitled "Our Father, Forgive Us That Tweet..." in which they raise a question traveling extensively across the blogosphere:  is Twittering appropriate in religious services?  What kind of communication is essential and which is not a propos for worship experiences?  What constitutes an experience of community and what undoes it? I think it's what my friend is asking about in terms of what the word "sermon" re-presents.

I've Tweeted and Facebook-ed in worship and other community gatherings (not as a worship leader, but in the capacity of participant).  For me personally, it has empowered a dynamic sense of communication, a sense of mutuality that doesn't seem to often occur in worship in which I'm a regular part.   I found it dynamic, invigorating, stimulating on a multi-level way involving, inviting and enthusing me in worship and my experience of a community of faith.  Yet others say it distracts, divides, and denies the depth and integral authenticity of face-to-face communication.  I think worship is in large part about community, about sharing thoughts, discussing sacred texts, dialoging about the word given, received or experienced in a worship setting.  Increasingly such new methods and means of communication | social networking are either transforming, revitalizing, or rivalizing our traditional ways of communicating across the board, why wouldn't that also apply to the ways in which we worship as community.  Does it lead to the possiblity of gossip, of tweeting discussions that become divisive or anti-inclusionary?  Yes. And yet can't other things such as coffee hour cliques, parking lot discussions, and sitting by the same person in the same pew every week?  Maybe it's not any different in terms of the meaning of it all underneath, but merely a different means of communicating - one which transcends traditional control done in a hierarchical top-down way.

Other online articles/blogs on this include "Twittering in Church..." from Time Magazine and a good blog by Bruce Reyes-Chow [Thou Shalt Not Twitter During Church].  These experiences and the emerging discovery and discernment of what parameters should exist with Facebook and Twitter in Christian Worship point to the reality that my friend lifts up in naming the reality that the word "sermon" tends to have a negative connotation.   There has to be a better way of communicating, not necessarily in terms of efficacy - for that's surely not what worship is about - but rather in terms of participation, inclusion, empowerment and and experience.  Maybe Twittering in church is the way forward?  Maybe it isn't? I doubt that it's an either/or answer we'll articulate as it emerges from our practice, failures and successes - rather it'll be some sort of dialectical both/and response.