Archives For Church & Beyond

A Voice for Belonging to a Church

Nathan Aaberg —  February 28, 2023 — Leave a comment

I received a number of thoughtful responses to my last blog post entitled Longing for the Belonging of Church. For this I was grateful. What I had written was quite personal and, frankly, counter to what most Christians would think of as being Christian. 

Below I share one of the responses. As you will see, the writer’s words, which he and I edited slightly for this blog post, also come from the heart. He communicates the challenges and joys of being part of a church while also being a voice in that church for the deep value of Creation to God. I admire his faithfulness and compassionate spirit. 

Hi Nathan,

I enjoyed your most recent blog piece and especially appreciate your willingness to share your struggles with finding a church that reflects the whole of your Christian values.

I’ve been reading Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright, which is chock-full with both the hope of the new creation and a radically healed Earth. I’ve wept at the strength and conviction of his writing, words that I’ve felt strongly in my heart but could never articulate very well. I think you’ve mentioned that book as an influence also, yes?

One of things that attracts me to Wright’s writing is his conversational style, with portions sounding like they could be delivered in a lecture (and I think he notes that portions actually were). In this way, his writing reminds me of C.S. Lewis, coincidentally or not, who also had ties to Oxford.

Which brings me to a word of encouragement, from C.S. Lewis. One of the things I recall poignantly from Mere Christianity is Lewis describing Christianity as a large house with many rooms off the “main hall”. Each room (church, denomination, etc.), has its own characteristics (and flaws), but his observation is that fellowship and community develop within the room as people share life together. His encouragement is to “not stay in the hall” but to enter a room.

My heart aches for you and Mayumi not being able to find Christian fellowship together at a local church. I applaud your willingness to ask yourself hard questions in humility, like “Am I being unforgiving”—it’s a question many of us need to ask when we become frustrated with others, especially our leaders (in our churches, nation, world, etc.).  I also find I need to remind myself of other virtues as well, like forbearance, humility, and charity (caritas/love), even when I don’t feel like being charitable toward others.

But I have found that if I’m willing to plug into a place and do it with some virtues, and find other people grounded in virtue, even if they don’t think quite like me about restoring the Earth, they’re at least open and curious to hearing about it, precisely because they’ve grown to know and love me as a person.

I’ve also left some communities because the fit didn’t seem right. But my overwhelming impression was that my leaving grieved those who stayed, because they knew I had something different to offer while I was there.

For myself, I’m a cradle Catholic and find both hope in figures like Pope Francis and frustration with lack of action and what I perceive as political bias on behalf of U.S. bishops and their lack of action on things like climate change. But I stay in the room, knowing that I’m slowly influencing others.

I thought I had our pastor on board for solar panels about five years ago. We still don’t have panels, at which I sometimes shake my head in exasperation. But he did recently announce that as part of our capital campaign (part of which involves solar) there would be a Care of Creation committee to ensure upgrades were as sustainable as possible—and he asked me to lead it. In particular, he also wanted to make sure that promotional materials that are distributed to every member of the church highlight the importance of putting our values of caring for the earth and future generations into practice. I don’t know a hoot about building sustainability and energy efficiency, but I’m glad to be at the table.

When I first met him, I never would have dreamed he’d designate a Care of Creation committee for the capital campaign. Although pastoral in person, he is also at times a strident conservative, which rubbed me the wrong way.

There was even a time when my wife and I and some close friends thought seriously about leaving that particular Catholic parish in large part because of what we perceived in some of his homilies. But we have stayed, offered up our frustrations in prayer, humbly tried to enter into a dialogue with him and others, and then rolled up our sleeves to make it more of a place where we wanted to stay. It’s far from perfect, but it’s our community.

A few weeks ago, our pastor, who frequently preaches on the theme of God’s love for us, went on to also say “God loves his Creation.” I beamed. I would like to think it was partly my influence in continuing to beat that drum. He still doesn’t preach on it much from the pulpit, but he did invite me to give a short reflection to the entire congregation on it this Lent, which is further affirmation that the Spirit is at work in both our hearts.

I think in part my influence was due to him being convinced that I wasn’t lobbying for something from the outside. I was committed to the community and to personal and collective spiritual growth. For example, I lead a men’s faith-sharing group (most of whom share my views on Creation care or have come to do so over time). I have also served on pastoral council, even being asked to be president. So I have some street cred, I guess.

I’m praying that you might find a church you can call home. Grapes can only grow on the vine.  And the vine has to be grafted on a rootstock, which I imagine could be painful and feel binding and awkward at first for both rootstock and vine. But only when a vine is rooted in a particular place can it sustainably bear fruit.

Blessings and peace.

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Longing for the Belonging of Church

Nathan Aaberg —  January 31, 2023 — 2 Comments

I was driving home late last year on a familiar road when I saw a sign for a new church that I had not seen before.

There was no traditional church building in sight. But there was a barn with fresh red metal siding and a metal roof. That, I realized, was the church’s sanctuary. Intriguing.

Perhaps this was it. Perhaps the alternative approach to church architecture signalled an assembly of believers where Creation mattered, where people really believed God loves the whole world.  Could this be a community of faith where Creation’s presence in the Bible was reflected in theology, culture, and way of living? Maybe this would be a place where I could belong.

After pulling away from church a number of years ago, I’ve longed for belonging around faith and Jesus. Seeing that new church in a non-traditional building brought that old familiar pang back to the surface of my heart.

When I got home, I promptly visited the church’s website. It was bright and well-designed. Its photos and text highlighted the church’s racial diversity. The faces, set against a background of wooden barn walls, were friendly, enthusiastic. Promising, I thought.

I found the “What We Believe” section of the website. Hope crashed into reality.

 

Not a word about Creation. Not a single word.

I have to admit this – in that moment, for a moment, I questioned myself.

Maybe I am wrong, I thought. Maybe there’s a good reason why so many churches don’t speak about Creation or care about it. And maybe staying away from church is a rebellion against God’s will. Doesn’t the New Testament speak clearly about the obligation and rewards of being with other followers of Jesus?

That old familiar pang pressed against my heart. Here I was again, feeling guilt for not going to church while longing for belonging in a faith community.

 

Am I Unforgiving?

Some new friends, who I met at a field walk last September at their farm, suggested a different way for me to consider my situation.

They are faithful believers who steward their land carefully and attend a church in Indiana. There they often find themselves alone in expressing a Creation care consciousness. They are not always understood.

During the field walk, we had bonded over our common convictions. I had shared my challenges in finding a church. They wrote this in a recent email:

For us, it’s forgiveness every single time we walk into our church. It can be a struggle for fellow Christians to understand our views, but we think it’s important to lend grace and forgiveness so we can continue to educate them on this matter. People are starting to listen, starting to realize the connection we have to all of His Creation. We pray that you can find forgiveness in your heart so you can go out to disciple this to His people.

These words brought me up short.

Was that the problem? Am I not being forgiving? Was that why I couldn’t fit in and make a home at a church?

Perhaps I needed to commit myself to forgiving fellow believers as they would need to forgive me for my own blind spots. If I repented of the judgments I was making, would I then be able to find a church where I could belong?

 

A Buck Outside the Window

More recently, I was having a conversation with a coworker at the nonprofit I work for in a room with a wide window. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in one of our organization’s farm fields roughly 80 yards away. I couldn’t help myself. In mid-conversation, I turned to look closer. Through a row of trees between us and the field, I saw a deer. It was a young buck. The head it held high had a small set of antlers.

Then it strode through the row of trees and onto the lawn south of our office. This was midday. It was now in full view and less than 30 yards away in the middle of a subdivision* in a Midwest town.

By now, I was no longer pretending to be engaged the conversation. We both watched as the buck strode across the lawn. Its eyes were watchful. Its posture powerful.

He passed out of sight. The lawn seemed a wilder place even with him gone. My mind and heart were still absorbing the experience even as my coworker renewed the conversation as if nothing unusual had happened and without a word about the buck.

 

Ears to Hear

Jesus sometimes used the phrase, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:9, Mark 4:9, Luke 8:8, etc.)

In recent weeks I’ve encountered stories and insights that convince me that…… well, let me share them first and then share my conclusion.

The first came from an article in Christianity Today about Bono’s newly published memoir. In it, Bono shares his recollection of a conversation he had with Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham. Billy Graham, one of the most famous Christian evangelists of recent history, had invited Bono to visit him. Franklin had picked him up at the airport. From the conversation that Bono recollects, it’s clear that Franklin was dubious about whether the rockstar Bono was an authentic Christian.

“You … you really love the Lord?” (Franklin)
“Yep.” (Bono)
“Okay, you do. Are you saved?”
“Yep, and saving.”
He doesn’t laugh. No laugh.
“Have you given your life? Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?”
“Oh, I know Jesus Christ, and I try not to use him just as my personal Savior. But, you know, yes.”
“Why aren’t your songs, um, Christian songs?”
“They are!”
“Oh, well, some of them are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, why don’t they … Why don’t we know they’re Christian songs?”
I said, “They’re all coming from a place, Franklin. Look around you. Look at the creation, look at the trees, look at the sky, look at these kinds of verdant hills. They don’t have a sign up that says, ‘Praise the Lord’ or ‘I belong to Jesus.’ They just give glory to Jesus.”

 

Killer Whale Theology

Cover of Beyond Words by Carl Safina

 

In Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, ocean advocate Carl Safina opens the reader’s mind and heart to the complex world of killer whales.

Three things astonished me. The first is the very creatures themselves. There is, for example, not just one generic kind of killer whale. There are actually estimated to be eight types of killer whales. Some eat only fish, primarily salmon. Others prefer mammals. One type, much smaller than the type that eats seals off of ice flows, hunts penguins. Yet another type hunts sharks. Regardless of type, these are highly social animals with matriarchal leadership. Oddly, pods of the same type of killer whales will not socialize with other pods of the same type. They have their own cultures. Yet, killer whales in the wild have never been seen being aggressive to each other.

Their vocal communication capacity is amazing.

“Killer whales in a  group can be spread out over 150 square miles – and all be in vocal contact,” write Safina.

Having huge nerve cells for hearing and generating sounds from skulls that are sophisticated technologies, killer whales (like other dolphin species and whales) inhabit a world we can only dream of. They live, in fact, by sound.

The second remarkable thing is how little humans have known about killer whales for most of human history. It was only in 1960, just over 60 years ago, that a researcher discovered that dolphins relied on sound for so much and that eyesight was a secondary source of information. And it’s been even more recently that people have differentiated the different types of killer whales and discovered that each killer whale has its own individual personality and remarkable social intelligence.

And the third most remarkable thing?

After detailing how powerfully effective killer whales can be as hunters, with some even hunting down 30,000-pound sperm whales, Safina writes this:

“Even stranger, then, that killer whales have overturned no kayak, emptied no rowboat, and slurped no human. It is perhaps the greatest behavioral mystery on our mysterious planet.”

 

Seeing Blue

In Joni B. Cole’s excellent and warmly witty book on writing – Good Naked – she has a chapter entitled “Seeing Blue.”  In it she argues why each writer’s writing matters and is worth pouring energy into, even when it seems to have no immediate reward.

 

Here’s a paragraph in that chapter. It follows her statement that the Egyptians were likely the first civilization to create a word for the color blue and that research indicates few people until modern times really noticed it as a color (don’t worry – you’ll see the point in just a bit):

The claim that a culture with no word for a color it cannot see is supported by a contemporary study with the Himba tribe in Namibia, whose language has several words for nuanced shades of green, but nothing to describe blue. When shown a screen with eleven green squares and one distinctly blue square, the Namibians could not pick out the blue one. Yet, among the green squares that appear identical to a Westerner’s eyes, they could immediately identify the different shade. The ability to see or not see a shade speaks to its important to a culture. Now just imagine if every culture had the ability to see every kind of color!

Her point – every writer has the potential to help readers see something they could not see before.

What I also see in her words is this – our culture can blind us to truth that is right in front of us.

 

A Misfit Who Can’t Unsee Blue

The blue so many churches and so many church cultures cannot see is the life, beauty, mystery, and vulnerability of God’s Creation all around us. The blue that Franklin Graham and many other Christians cannot see is that Creation matters deeply to God and that care of Creation is part of the very core of what we were created for.

I can’t unsee that blue.

Nor can I force Christians who are happy with their churches to see that blue if they don’t want to see it. Nor do I believe that many churches, who are struggling with declines in attendance, will be open to changing their culture and theology around Creation.

So what is worse? Going to church and not belonging because I see a color in the Bible and Creation others won’t see? Or not going to church and missing the fellowship and singing of songs with other believers? Of longing for belonging to a group of people committed to God and Jesus in a whole way?

Right now, despite those old familiar pangs that emerge from hidden places in my heart when I see a church, I’ve come to accept that I am what Jon Terry called me in our conversation earlier this year.

A misfit.

That’s who I am.

Or, if one puts a more positive spin on it, you could label me an “edge walker,” a term Valerie Loorz calls herself in Church of the Wild.

Is there any reason to think such a path could be faithful to God?

When Jesus responded to the Pharisees who complained that he was healing people on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5), he asked them if they would not act on the Sabbath, despite the prohibition on work, if they heard a child or an ox stuck in a well.

When you imagine the scenario that Jesus presented to the Pharisees, you cannot help but hear the cries. Whether a child or ox fell in a well, there would have been heart-rending sounds – the pleading screams of the child, the plaintive bellows of the ox.

My ears can’t unhear the cries of Creation today. Nor can I unhear the lamentations of people whose lives are or will be in misery because of what is being done to Creation.

Pretending I couldn’t hear those cries or shutting my ears to those cries would be, in my mind, a betrayal of God.

I see the blue.

I hear, and I listen.

And what I hear (and oh how I wish I could hear the sounds of killer whale clans as they race through the ocean) resonates with the thread of Creation’s worth through the whole Bible.

So I need to act as best I can.

I pray that people out there who are like me will find each other and act out of the convictions we have from our faith.

Perhaps we will together form new wineskins?

And perhaps many years from now there will be people who drink the vintage of the wine from those wineskins and smile and nod and make more of their own and please God in the process.

 

 

*To be fair, the subdivision is not just any subdivision. It is the Prairie Crossing conservation community, where a significant amount of habitat has been set aside and managed for natural habitat. This makes the buck’s appearance just slightly less surprising. But still a remarkable moment in the middle of an afternoon.

 

 

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10 Thoughts from Giving Two Sermons

Nathan Aaberg —  October 31, 2021 — 2 Comments

Earlier this month I gave two sermons in joint services for two congregations on our Christian calling to be good shepherds of God’s Creation. What was that like? What did I learn? I share my thoughts below:

1. Sharing Whole Faith Ideas in Sermons and Discussions Was Great: I gave the first sermon in a hybrid service with some people present in the space North Suburban Mennonite Church rents out and with some people, including the Christ Community Mennonite Church of Schaumburg, attending by Zoom. I decided to speak in person. And I’m glad I did. Making eye contact as I spoke, I noticed that many people were engaged with the message. That did my heart good, especially in this time of covid. Those unspoken responses and the positive energy during the discussion that followed the service were immensely rewarding.

This blog has been an act of faith. The years of working on it, I realize, have enabled me to crystallize convictions and insights that I’ve hoped to be able to share. I am deeply grateful to both congregations for giving me the chance to do that. I’m especially grateful to North Suburban Mennonite Church, which has always warmly welcomed my family and me in the years that we have known them.

2. Importance of Rooting Principles and Ideas in the Bible: In the first sermon, which was the opening sermon for the Creation Care series, I shared a number of Scripture verses. In the second, I shared several more at the beginning and used an additional verse midway through. I did this to highlight one of my key points – if you are paying attention, you will find that the Bible makes clear that Creation matters to God.

That Creation matters is both very conservative and very radical. It is conservative because it takes the whole Bible seriously.

Believing that Creation matters and living out those convictions are, simultaneously, very radical. Most humans throughout history have taken Creation for granted and used it for their purposes without regard to Creation’s wellbeing. To live and advocate for a different worldview, a Biblical worldview, puts a Christian on a collision course with the human powers that be. Our economy and civilization are built on mining and extracting wealth from Creation without regard to Creation’s own prosperity. To live as if Creation matters to God also runs counter to centuries of Christian disregard for Creation in theology and church life. In short, the Christian advocate for Creation is a human monkey wrench in the secular economy and in traditional Christian culture.

Most radical of all, loving God and loving our neighbors by preserving Creation means a Christian approach to economic activity would involve restraint and limits. Our American culture celebrates freedom above all else. Calling for restraint and limits to protect and prosper the wellbeing of the whole Creation is, in our setting, supremely radical. It is radical even as it honors God and leads us on the path to true wealth.

Is God our treasure or is treasure our treasure? How we treat Creation answers that question.

3. Several Insights Seemed Especially to Resonate: I made a point to talk about what a Biblical perspective on human exceptionalism really is. I also called attention to the cross and the crucifixion. The cross, as I’ve written, was a tree. It now lives as a symbol for the Christian faith. And in its “symbolness” we no longer see that it was a tree. When we don’t see it as a tree, we don’t see the crucifixion as a pivotal moment involving God, Creation, and humanity. These insights seemed to resonate.

4. Speaking is Very Different from Writing: This is likely not news! While I certainly have developed ways of thinking and expressing the insights I’ve had (and been given), they have mostly been in written form. I did not want to just read a sermon so my brain and tongue needed to figure out how to articulate in spoken words what I had spent so much time writing in my blog posts. I need more practice doing this.

5. So Much More to Say: Two 25-minute sermons were not nearly enough (at least for me). There is so much to say about the Bible, Creation, and how we should be trying to live with it and prosper it. My major challenge in planning both was choosing what not to include in order to give a cohesive and focused talk. I’m ready to write a book and/or develop a podcast.

6. The Challenge of a Diverse Audience: I came to appreciate the challenge of speaking to a diverse group of people. From the discussions that followed the services, it was clear that members were at different places in their thinking about their lives and Creation. How does one introduce ideas and theology that are new to some and that are standard operating practice for others? I did not want to overwhelm the first group. Nor did I want to seem to be soft-pedaling the issues the second group is acutely aware of and has made significant life changes in response to.

7. Is There Hope?: The question of what kind of hope there is for God’s Creation is a fraught one. It comes up, directly and indirectly, in almost every conversation.

The truth is that the scale of the problems for Creation is immense, and many trends are negative. Just one example – I shared information in my second sermon from the Environmental Working Group about the metastizing of factory farms across the Iowa landscape. In 1990 there were 789 factory farms (Confined Animal Feeding Operations in industry parlance), where at least 1,000 animals are kept. In 2019, the figure was 3,963. Animal waste from these factory farms is now estimated to be 68 billion pounds per year. Human waste from the 3.15 million human residents of the state is estimated to be 1 billion pounds. Unlike the animal waste, the human waste is treated. Every new factory farm means more animal suffering, more misery for neighbors, more overuse of antibiotics, more degradation of the streams and rivers of Iowa, and poorer quality food.

This is just a small example of the forces at work in our world. I haven’t even mentioned climate change and how populations of unique species of Creation are shrinking and even winking out at a growing rate.

In my second sermon, I noted that the declining condition of God’s earth is a symptom of system problems. So restoring health to God’s earth will not come about just from families recycling and making more God-honoring food choices, although those are important.  It will take changes to systems. And system change is challenging at a whole different level.

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a Christian climate scientist, is a wonderful voice of hope, as you can hear in this interview. Yet, as appealing her positivity is, I believe she underestimates how structural, cultural, and even theological our issues are.

Where am I? I have ultimate hope most days. I am committed to doing what I can here and now. Simultaneously, on many days, I perceive what has been lost and what is on the verge of being lost. My heart sinks into lament and despair. Yet, I know God is a creative, surprisng God. And God’s earth can surprise us with its resilience. I don’t know how to tie up all those threads I feel and think. The neatness and tidiness of “hope” doesn’t seem to capture them all.

8. Food and Farming – The 20% of the 80/20 Rule?: The Pareto principle says that in most human endeavors approximately 80% of the results come from 20% of the activities or factors involved. As an example, for many non-profit organizations, a large percentage of donation incomes will come from a relatively small number of donors. So when we think about where to focus Christian commitment to living out a whole faith that includes Creation, it makes sense to figure out what is the pivotal 20%.

While decisions about energy, landscaping, and simplifying are also important, I would ultimately choose food and farming. This was why I chose to focus the second sermon on food and farming and invited Bryce and Jen Riemer to be part of the discussion after that service.

One reason is impact-related – approximately 50% of the world’s terrestrial surface is used for growing food. We eat multiple times a day. And each time we eat we are choosing the kind of farm system our brothers and sisters experience and how God’s earth is treated. What’s more – choosing to eat with love and consciousness for God, God’s Creation, and our neighbors is good for our health and a spiritual discipline.

The challenge, of course, is that in a community of farmers making judgements about what kind of food is congruent with the God of the Bible and what isn’t gets personal and controversial very quick. And, oftentimes, more God-honoring ways of raising food are more complex and time-consuming and are not subsidized by the U.S. government. So the foods become more expensive.

How to reconcile all of that is one of the challenges we all will need to wrestle with. But who said doing anything the right way with one’s values is easy? it’s not easy being a good parent. It’s not easy being a devoted spouse. it’s not easy being a good friend. It’s not easy being good at a challenging job (like being a health care worker the last two years).

It’s the same with shepherding Creation. I am hoping that North Suburban Mennonite Church (and Jesus followers in other churches) will not content themselves with platitudes. I am hoping they will focus their personal change energies on their eating decisions and find help in making the best food choice decisions.

9. A Need for More Expressed Anger: Perhaps it’s legacy of my Midwest Lutheran background. Perhaps it’s a legacy of my introverted nature. But I found myself speaking in a largely reasonable and calm and sometimes even light-hearted way. In retrospect, I wonder if I would have been better served to have added in more anger and urgency. What works better? Did the fury and despair of the Old Testament prophets bring about change in their time? But do we call 911 in a calm and deliberate voice when our child is in mortal danger?

I believe I need to be both full of grace and love while also authentically open about the full range of emotions I feel around these topics.

10. How Would My Message Go Over in a Different Kind of Church?: My wife was talking to a Christian friend recently and told her friend about my sermons. Her friend gave her a blank look. “What is Creation care?” she asked my wife.

That was a good reminder that there are many churches right now who would never dream of devoting a service, much less a month’s worth of services and discussions, to Creation.

So what would it be like to present the ideas behind this blog and my sermons to congregations where many of the members have not thought about the topic or might even see the topic as the intrusion of progressive politics into a spiritual setting? Would they be open at all? Would I even be the right person?

I don’t know. But I pray God will show me the path I should walk in the years that remain. I pray I will have opportunities to make a difference for how Christians walk in God’s world. Even if that brings challenges.

I pray, too, I pray will be able to bring together Christians who are doing their very best to creatively restore God’s earth for encouragement and community.

 

P.S. The sermons were recorded. I plan share them with people who are interested.

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Is There Hope?

Nathan Aaberg —  October 4, 2021 — Leave a comment

The North Suburban Mennonite Church in Libertyville, Illinois, has invited me to speak to their congregation and Christ Community Mennonite Church in Schaumburg on October 10th and 17th.

I’m looking forward to it and am grateful to be invited. My family and I spent one year with the congregation some time back. Learning about Mennonite history, singing their music, and understanding how they read the Bible and live their faith made a deep impression on me. My faith would not be what it is without that time with them.

They started their month of services centered on Creation yesterday. During the conversation session that followed the service, I was struck by a trend that two different people’s comments related to. One was a biology teacher who shared that her students despair over the trajectory of the world in light of population trends and climate change. She fears that communicating the trends our world faces without also offering some hope leaves her students in a bad place.

Another person shared (and here my memory doesn’t serve me well) of a young person who had tried to commit suicide in part because of the perception the young person had that he/she was, just by living, contributing to the destructiveness of climate change.

What do we do with that?

First, we must affirm that in the face of the facts we are facing, some level of despair, anger, and sadness are normal and healthy. A person who can shrug off climate chaos and the disappearing of beautiful, complex life is not, in my mind, fully human. It would be as if we expected a child whose parents are getting divorced to be upbeat and calm.

Second, we take all this to confirm what we read in the Bible. There is a fundamental sin and dysfunction in people which results in sin and dysfunction in our human systems of how we treat God’s earth and each other. Sometimes what people in despair need is not false hope or anasthetics but resonance. Knowing that others care and also see the same problems and feel the same things makes us feel less alone.

Third, we need to accept that the pain people are feeling and the diminishment of the earth are signals that we can’t ignore as followers of Jesus. We must be people of action. We sometimes fall into passivity. Yes, God is at work, but there is no sense in the Bible that we are to do nothing. We must be able to offer people in despair a chance to be part of concerted efforts to chance what is causing the problem in the first place.

Fourth, we share stories of regeneration – of people’s hearts and lives through life-changing faith in Jesus and of the earth by people and communities who have committed themselves to action.

That is a response written in a hurry. But I recognize I need to wrestle with this more.

I am grateful to have been part of the conversation and look forward to sharing more thoughts next Sunday. I hope to be able to offer a video recording later.

 

P.S. I want to welcome members of the North Suburban Mennonite Church and Christ Community Mennonite Church in Schaumburg who are coming to this blog for the first time. Please use the Topics sidebars to jump to blog posts around different topics. In particular, I’d encourage you to click on the START HERE topic category.

Two posts in particular that I’d encourage you to look at are:

True Human Exceptionalism

 

And my first blog post ever:

William Wilberforce’s Whole Faith

 

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A New Kind of Faith Community

Nathan Aaberg —  September 30, 2021 — Leave a comment

I’ve written from time to time about my challenges in finding a church that felt complete and whole to me. Not surprisingly, a big part (but not the only part!) of that challenge has been my unwillingness to be committed to a church where God’s Creation is not seen as significant to God’s purposes.

Yet I long for community around faith in the God of the whole Bible and in Jesus.

I have asked myself whether I could be wrong and misguided. I know that many Christians find deep satisfaction in their church lives. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis portrays a junior devil being advised to encourage his assigned human target to search far and wide for a “suitable” church. This, it is suggested, will make the human a critic when God actually wants humans to be pupils. Is that me? Could I have the wrong expectations for what church is supposed to be? Are my expectations too high? Should I work to be a voice within a church for paying more attention to Creation? I know good and faithful people who are doing that.

Here’s the thing – I’m in my late 50s. I know what resonates and what doesn’t. I have sat in the pews of many churches and found myself feeling empty and even heartsick. Even as I know others find deep meaning in churches, I must listen to myself. My mind, heart, and body are telling me something that I must finally respect.

I am indeed hungry for a Christian community of faith. But faith communities as they are commonly done in churches don’t seem to be the right place for me. That leaves me with several options. One would be continuing to search for the right one. Another is to give up on having a faith community.

A third is coming up with something different.

For more than a year I’ve found myself musing on what something different might look like. From what we know of the early gatherings of believers from the New Testament and from the examples of the Quakers and Amish, it’s clear that the modern, mainstream approach to church is not the only way to do a faith community. (For much more provocative thoughts, check out Pagan Church by Frank Viola).

So here I put myself out on a limb. I will share the unique elements of the faith community I’d like to see that I have come up with to this point. Down the road, I’d like to flesh out each element in greater detail and explain why I believe each is important to have. Here I just want you to see how everything fits together as a whole.

(One last word before you read the unique elements – holding everything together would be worship and discipleship of Jesus and the God of the Bible and of Creation with communion and baptism.)

Focus on personal transformation to whole holiness: The faith community would invest significantly in enabling its members to become more holy in every aspect of their lives. There would be concerted efforts made to provide members with the guidance, support, and spiritual development tools to open themselves to the Spirit, to become more like Jesus, and to live out the fruits of the Spirit that God offers. After several years as a member, a person could literally not be the same person they were when they joined.

Instruction in Kingdom living: God loves us and this world. How we live in it matters deeply. Yet never before have so many people lacked fundamental knowledge about the craft of living. There is an infinite amount of wisdom to be gained from the Bible and from people who approach living with compassion and wisdom. This faith community would invest in helping its members grow in Kingdom living in every aspect of life. Marriage. Money. Growing food. Cooking. Parenting. Prayer. Art. Advocacy. Friendship. Carpentry. Productive conflict. Conversation and the use of words. The fellowship would be a center for just and satisfying living skills that would benefit members and other people in the local community.

Tapping Kingdom gifts: This faith community would collectively help each member identify and use their unique spiritual gifts and their other gifts for God’s kingdom within the faith community and in their lives in God’s world. The community as a whole would honor and celebrate each and every member’s gifts and how they are being used on a regular basis. Spiritual entrepreneurship would be encouraged and fostered. The community would seek to grow each person’s gifts and their use of those gifts. The faith community would be a dynamic place where people become better and fuller versions of themselves.

Rich with art and song: We are made in the image of a creating Creator God. We are meant to be creative in ways that are generous, good, and just. Art can also free and open our hearts.The community I envision would be a vibrant place of diverse music and artistic expression by adults and children. Each member’s voice and creativity would be encouraged, valued and heard. There would, for example, be a wide variety of music – traditional, modern, acoustic, chants, jazz, international, and of all emotions.

Surprise, variety, and diversity of tone: Every month there should be surprise and freshness in the format and tone of the worship. While there should be some consistent elements and themes, there should also be great variation and creativity. Members should arrive in expectation of surprise and engagement with an infinite, surprising God. There should be services of lament as well as services of celebration and everything in between. Our lives, our relationship with God, and the books of the Bible itself are all complex and nuanced. Consider the emotions of Job, the Psalms, the prophets, and even Jesus. Worship should reflect that complexity and diversity.

Fellowship commitment to certain ways of living: I’ve been very struck by the concept of ordnung from the Amish. The ordnung is an unwritten set of guiding rules among a particular group of local Amish on how they will live. I am not suggesting that the community of faith I write of be like the Amish in terms of prohibiting electricity and the use of cars, for example. There should be freedom in many things. However, the community’s members should have a common commitment to living patterns that are consistent with the fellowship’s convictions. This doesn’t seem so far removed from the early house churches of the New Testament. One good example would be Sabbath – honoring the Sabbath should be something people of faith do because it honors God and it brings so many blessings. But there could be latitude for how exactly each family would actually carry that out. Does this all sounds cult-like or Puritanical? That’s not my intention, although I know what I suggest is radical. But imagine if a community of faith did their best to live out similar convictions outside in the world  that were not only good for each person but also good for how the community as a whole functioned?

To build or not to build: There is value in having a building that is the center of a faith community’s gatherings. It puts the community on the physical and mental map of a community. But maintaining the building can draw away resources from actually living out God’s Kingdom. The Amish, for instance, don’t have church buildings but meet at each other’s homes. That might be one option. Another might be using a building as both community center and place of worship. Or perhaps a barn could function as meeting space, worship space, farm building, restoration hub, learning space, art space, and dance hall. In any case, there should be careful thought given to whether and how the community invests in a building.

Community common life reflect a 100% commitment to Kingdom living: As an example of this, common meals, like the Lord’s Supper and potlucks, should come from farms where God’s earth has been respectfully treated. If there is a church building, then it and its landscaping should be as Creation friendly as possible. Green burial would be the standard burial method.

Communal, interactive, creative worship: Worship should not be a passive, spectator experience. Members should be as involved as possible. There should be interaction along with singing by all attending and insights into the Bible. Hands-on activities, like foot-washing, should be used as much as possible. People should share insights from their own lives. In this community, the sacredness of the God of the universe would intersect with the real people the community brings together.

Membership means something: I envision people needing to acquire a base level of Bible and faith knowledge and committing to certain patterns of life before they would become members. To become a member, a person should first be given a thoughtful understanding of how the Bible works and what a whole faith looks like. There would be classes and mentorships. And, as per Hebrews 10:24-25, members would, like fitness buddies, goad and push each other towards good deeds and faithfulness while also encouraging and consoling each other when difficulties come. In a loving and engaging way, members should give and receive feedback on how they are living and contributing to the faith community. Yes, I know this sounds restrictive and perhaps exclusionary. It’s not intended to be that way. But it is intended for membership to mean something. The Christian faith is hurt deeply by card-carrying church members who act in ways that reflect badly on the faith. (Read more about lessons in membership from the history of a church in my previous post.)

A place of seeking, open discussion, and whole Bible inquiry: This would be a community where people could ask questions and seek God. Because Jesus’ Bible was the Old Testament, understanding how the whole Bible fits together and what wisdom we can gain from the whole Bible would be a fundamental and engaging part of the life of this faith community. I’ve been tremendously inspired by Tim Mackie and The Bible Project in this regard.

Creation as fundamental part of the whole faith-life: Creation would not be ignored nor denigrated in this faith community. It would be celebrated, savored, and cherished. As part of the whole range of member commitments would be a commitment to being as holy as possible in our interactions with God’s Creation. Members called to devote their lives to protecting and restoring Creation in the world as a ministry would be celebrated and supported just as much as anyone else called to live their life for mission.

Thoughtful, intentional planning for how the faith-life is shared: Sharing Jesus and the eternal life Jesus offers would be a key element of this faith community. Life skill classes and art demonstrations would be ways of attracting people just as would creative sharing of the Bible’s messages. Members gifted with teaching and explaining would be empowered to provide classes and other venues for engagement. There would be a system for how seekers would be welcomed and taught about the faith-life of this faith community.

A different kind of leader: Because this faith community would be worshipping and living out the Christian faith differently, the skill set and character of its leader or leaders would need to be different. Ideally, the leader or leaders would be deeply rooted in a whole understanding of the Bible and would help build the right “architecture” of the community while coaching and encouraging members to grow in their gifts and faith-lives. The leader or leaders would have little ego but would get the most joy out of seeing the community and its members having success as a community that learns and lives the faith together.

 

What to Call This Community?

For a while, I thought about calling this faith community a “whole faith church.” But now that seems needlessly provocative and limiting. “Church” also conveys expectations of what will and won’t be done. Rather than struggle against those expectations, I believe its better to use a fresh word that suggests something distinct.

The phrase “fellowship” seems better to me. “Fellowship” has strong Christian roots and a sense of common labor and work. But it does not carry with it long engrained assumptions about how it will be organized. There’s a freshness and unboundedness to it.

Here is a quote from a blog post of Grace Theological Summary that resonates with me. The post describes the origins of the Greek word we translate as “fellowship” and what Christian fellowship entails:

The word fellowship is derived from the Greek word koinonia. Koinonia can be defined as “holding something in common” and is specifically used 20 times in the New Testament (e.g. Phil. 2:1-2, Acts 2:42, 1 John 1:6-7). Koinonia describes the unity of the Spirit that comes from Christians’ shared beliefs, convictions, and behaviors. When those shared values are in place, genuine koinonia (biblical fellowship) occurs. This fellowship produces our mutual cooperation in God’s worship, God’s work, and God’s will being done in the world.

I love that phrase – “mutual cooperation in God’s worship, God’s work, and God’s will being done in the world.” Even the term “cooperation” suggests an interlocking of efforts and resources for a common goal. “Work” and “God’s will being done” are even stronger in conveying the focus of the fellowship – a common commitment to down-to-earth action springing out of faith.

The faith-life of early Christians was known as the Way. We need to again convey being a believer as being a way of understanding God and the world and a way of loving God and God’s world in our everyday lives.

Fellowship, it seems to me, suggests a group of people committed to some task or way, like the diverse fellowship we see in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The word carries with it notes of engagement with life with a larger purpose. It also suggests mutual dependence in very practical, real ways.

That feels right. That’s the kind of faith community I am looking for.

How about you?

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