Trying to follow

A great series I enjoyed writing that I wish I continued was about the church. And it started with this post, Why a Building?:

I think my initial hesitation about the whole building thing came when the church building craze started my last year of high school. My church decided we need to add a $2.5 million addition on to our building. I didn’t realize we were outgrowing the original building in the first place, and now they wanted to add on. And in adding on they wanted it to look really nice, which is understandable since the current building looked quite nice. But I thought to myself $2.5 million is a whole lot of money, and it just doesn’t seem necessary.
Little did I know over the next few years practically every church I went to was doing a building campaign. Some of them really needed it, others I wasn’t so sure. We attended one church for a while and then they started a building campaign for a second building and they where putting an indoor waterfall in it. That was it, I was gone.

Then at some point I started thinking… Why the heck do we need a building anyways? I mean we all live somewhere, why don’t we meet in our homes? It seemed to me that’s mostly what the early church did. I mean, it’s true we couldn’t all pack in to hear the really good preachers, but since when is that what it’s all about? Some would say that’s what small groups are for, to meet in smaller communities in our homes and stuff (I’ll address this later).

I’m not saying church buildings don’t have a purpose, I’ve just started questioning if they are really necessary at all. I mean is it feasible to do the things we do in a church building in our homes instead? And what about bigger events? Is it possible to do those in a place other than our own building?

One of my main concerns about the building is that seems to be all we spend our money on, or talk about spending our money on. The main time you hear about making tithing pledges in most churches it seems is usually related to a building campaign. And then the church goes into debt to purchase the new building before they even have all the money.

That was just a rant of sorts, I really should fine tune it a bit, but there it is raw.

The conversation that began from that post was great and it continued into a brief series entitled, Considering Church.

From some dude in the movie Walk the Line:

If you was hit by a truck and you were lying out in that gutter dying…
and you had time to sing one song, huh, one song…
people would remember before you’re dirt…
one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth…
one song that would sum you up…
you telling me that’s the song you’d sing?
That same Jimmie Davis tune we hear on the radio all day?
About your peace within and how it’s real and how you’re gonna shout it?
Or would you sing something different?
Something real, something you felt?
Because I’m telling you right now…
that’s the kind of song people want to hear.
That’s the kind of song that truly saves people.

I’m not exactly the biggest fan of country music. However, I went to this little music showcase thing with Mindy and my in-laws with some country singer/song writers, and I have to admit I enjoyed it. There was a lot of story involved in the songs they sang, and though some of the themes got old quick, others I enjoyed and was touched by. Now back to the quote above.

I’ll be honest, when I was in high school, I was quite involved in the youth group at the church I attended, and I enjoyed the worship music songs and sessions. But, for the past six years, I have had the hardest time feeling connected or in tune with the songs that are being song at any church I’ve attend. There are a number of reasons for this, but I wanted to touch on just one: They are not real.

I don’t know a lot of Johnny Cash songs, but from what I’ve heard, and what the quote above infers, is that he sangs songs that were real. Not all the ‘worship’ songs these days are touchy feely, but a lot of them are. Not all of them are happy all the time, but a lot of them are. And sadly, most of the songs we sing lack any story, any connection for us and the place we as individuals or as a group are.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to go to a church on Sunday and the songs they sang had to do with the events unfolding around them? In Nashville there is a big effort by the homeless community right now to be recognized and for the need for adequate affordable housing to be available in the Nashville area. Wouldn’t it be amazing to sing ‘worship’ songs about God being a God of the Oppressed with lyrics that connected it to that story of the homeless in Nashville? With some much talent available musically in most churches, can’t we sing more of what’s on our hearts, sing about what we don’t understand, about our hurts, our pains, our lives? Let’s give glory to God, but let’s do it in a way that is real and connected to our lives, not totally unrelated.

A News article tells of the story behind this sign in front of a Sydney baptist church and the criticism from The Australian prime minister.

I’m happy to hear of kindred spirits in the world. After 9/11 I posted a sign on my door that read:

GOD BLESS AFGHANISTAN
PRAY FOR OSAMA BIN LADEN

It was torn down multiple times in the first few days I had it up. Then I made a t-shirt, and it got comments from people left and right. I made a new shirt when we went to war with Iraq and it met similar resistance.

So, it amazes me that there are whole churches out there that are clear on the radical love Christ calls us to, and it doesn’t surprise me that there are plenty that are opposed to it.

Anyone else ready to erect a Jesus Loves Osama sign at their church?

This was a discussion that started with some friends of mine at Wheaton College our senior year. If your interested in some of the history of the discussion here are some links: My first post on it, Nate’s follow up month’s later (including a lot of discussion in the comments), Another Nate post and discussion, finally here is a related post by me from March.
You can skip those and I’m going to write my thoughts on it below, hopefully touching on everything of importance from the previous discussion.

2006 HHS Poverty Guidelines

SOURCE:  Federal Register, Vol. 71, No. 15, January 24,
2006, pp. 3848-3849

An important clarification needs to be made about what I’m about to suggest. This is not an attempt at sainthood, or some “holier than thou” type of living, rather it is meant to be very simple and practical. As a member of the human family, and more specifically as a Christian, I think there are certain guidelines by which we should try and live our lives. As a society we already have some standards in place through governmental force (speeding) and simple public consensus (think making noise during a movie, cutting in a line, etc). The idea of living a dollar above the poverty line is simply another attempt at putting before us some sort of standard to live by.

The choice of the national poverty line was a simple one. Though we didn’t all actually discuss the choice of the national poverty line, it is the guideline we as a society have accepted as the indicator of poverty. It is a simple line, if your annual income is below that amount you are considered “in poverty” and you are eligible for certain help. If you have one dollar above that amount in your annual income you are NOT poor and we as a society agree you have the financial resources you need.

As a Christian I think there is a good case for us to not take more then we need (maybe like the manna in the desert), and to use what we have been given to contribute to the needs of those around us. That being said, we should probably be thinking about a guideline for ourselves to determine how much meets our “needs.” In a society of more wealth and resources then we’ve ever imagined, it’s hard to even admit that there might be a line below “whatever you can afford” by which we should live. I believe we as a church should be having this discussion together. And I believe that the national poverty line is a good guideline to start with.

So, I believe strongly that effective immediately, we should begin to try and live by the standard of one dollar above the poverty line. For my wife and I that means $13,201 a year. A monthly budget of about $1000.
Mindy and I have made series efforts throughout our marriage to make lifestyle changes to live within that amount. We’ve had roommates for a number of reasons, but one of them being the financial necessity of staying within our budget. We thought through and planned out a budget we try to stay within to make that budget possible. In all our attempts though, we still fall far short.

First, if you include the cost of Mindy’s college tuition, we are no where near a $1000 a month budget. The reality is anyone living at our nation’s poverty line will have a difficult time moving past that if they can’t afford an education. We also couldn’t have simply purchased a decent car last fall when ours broke down. Though we’ve made an effort to adjust our budget to accommodate the cost of the car, and a couple plane tickets home for Christmas, the reality is that if we truly didn’t have more then a poverty line income, we couldn’t make those large purchases when we needed to.

Second, the recognition of our inability to “survive” at the poverty line puts us in a compelling position to take political action. What that probably means is that you need to give your senator a call and tell them you believe the minimum wage and the poverty line should be raised. You should let your congress person know that you tried living near the poverty line and it just wasn’t possible without some extra help. And I guess if your not political, you could at least set-up an appointment with your pastor and tell them about the gap between those trying to survive and the places they can go to meet their needs. Forget politics for a second and we’ll come to the real meat of this post, the ability the church could have for good if we started living by a guideline that meets our needs and then meets the needs of others (rather then our own wants).

Can you imagine for a minute a church that adopted that sort of expectation for it’s members? In the same way many churches spend their efforts convincing their congregation that they should outlaw gay marriage, it would be refreshing and amazing to see pastors encouraging their congregations to radically change their current lifestyle. Imagine a church with doctors and school teachers, CEO’s and janitors all choosing to live at a standard that meets their needs and giving their extra resources to meet the needs of others. Shouldn’t we as Christian’s dictate our cost of living more as a group within the churches we attend than by the income we make?

This is meant to be an ongoing conversation. I haven’t set in stone this dollar amount as a standard for myself or others, but I believe their should be one. So let’s have the discussion, and let’s decide how we should live.

Does this strike anyone else as an oxymoron? I went to Cancun once, and saw the real life that the people of that land live, so I recognize that there are plenty of people in the Bahamas that our in poverty, and have physical needs that should be met.
A cruise though? It seems to be quite in conflict with the idea of meeting the needs of the people. Seems like two steps forward, three steps back.
It’s also disappointing to see all the musician’s and speakers willing to join in this disgusting display of privilege. Starting at $695 per person, I wonder if anyone is going to be raising support for this mission trip from their church.

Anyone else remember this story?

h.t. cottage print works