How to be real human beings: an Eastertide sermon

The themes and questions raised by Kenda Creasy Dean's Almost Christian are being engaged by youth, their parents and parish churches. How do we faithfully form people to be friends and followers of Jesus Christ?  And, to ask the same question with a theological twist: how does Jesus form us to be his friends and followers?  To this end there are a variety of programs and resources for Christian formation, including Journey to Adulthood (J2A).  The following sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter was preached by the Rev. Dr. Deborah Meister, rector of Christ Church in New Brunswick, NJ, on the occasion of a Rite 13 liturgy of J2A and the renewal of wedding vows.  

This is a great day for us at Christ Church. Today we celebrate what God is doing in the lives of our young members: their creativity, their intelligence, their desire to help others and their burgeoning power to do so. So often, changes pass us by unnoticed: we look up from our hurried lives and find that buds have become leaves, children have become adolescents, relationships have changed, and we are standing on land that only looks familiar, but is wholly new.

So, today we take time to notice: Ashlinn, Darby, Evan, Alex, Taylor, Audrey, Camryn, Becca, Matt, and Joanna, you are becoming teenagers. (If you are a bit afraid of this, don’t worry -- your parents are much more frightened!) You are joining that group which advertisers love, parents fear, and everybody else wants to throw rocks at.  Strangers will now expect you be rude, arrogant, flaky, and uncooperative, wandering around in packs, texting one another constantly and drowning out the world with an i-Pod attached to your ears at all times. (I’m a bit concerned that you are not wearing one right now!) When I was a teenager, I suddenly noticed that people reacted to me with suspicion. I was followed in stores to ensure that I was not shop-lifting, seated apart from others in restaurants in case my friends and I began to behave badly, greeted with alarm when we tried to sing Christmas carols at neighbors’ homes. While I was still in high school, the press announced our fate: we were destined to be the first generation who achieved less than our parents. I remember gaping. We hadn’t even started yet, and already they were acting as if the game were over. Stadium closed! Go home!

Do not listen to these voices. Listen, instead, to the voice of your God, who spoke through the prophet Jeremiah: “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jer 31:3) When your friends treat you badly, when your classmates are mean, when people are pressuring you to do things which you believe are wrong, when you can’t figure out who you are or what you want to do with your life, hold onto this truth: God loves you, and always will. It doesn’t matter if you’re perfect. (You won’t be.) It doesn’t matter if you’re good-looking. (God sees your heart.) It doesn’t matter if your friends think you are cool. God loves you, even when you don’t love yourself. God sees what is good in you even when you cannot. God sees the promise in you, even when you cannot feel it. God gives his grace to you, not because you don’t need it, but because we all do.

St. Peter writes, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner.” (I Peter 2:7) He is speaking, of course, about Jesus, who was rejected, crucified, and buried in a stranger’s grave, but who is still the very key to God’s plan to redeem creation. But he is also speaking of you, and of all of us. You see, Peter knows that, when things in our world challenge the way we like to do things, we often become hostile, circle our wagons, and turn away. But in God’s world, the challenge is exactly the thing we needed to hear.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is sitting with his friends at the Last Supper, trying to reassure them that it is going to be all right. And he says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life...If you know me, you will know my Father also.” (John 14: 6-7) It is a ringing statement, one of the most-loved verses in the Christian Scripture. And so we often fail to notice what comes next: Philip, one of Jesus’ friends, looks at Jesus and says, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” (John  14:8) Show me. It is the challenge which you teenagers often throw at our adult lives. You say that this is true, but I’m not a kid any more; show me. You pay lip service to these values and you say that this would be good for our family, for our country, for the world; show me. You say that such-and-such is a good way to live, but you often don’t do it; show me. You ask questions which force us to examine our assumptions, test our choices, and hold us accountable for our ideals. So does Jesus. You ask us to go beyond easy assumptions, familiar custom, and half-baked pieties; so does Jesus. You push our buttons, test our patience, and bring us face-to-face with our own shortcomings; so does Jesus. You see, it is only by asking the hard questions, of ourselves, our world, and our God, that we are able to learn and grow.

The other day, I was reading a book by a woman who was speaking about her life. She said that she had always been difficult -- the kind of child who cried over the least thing, the kind of teenager who flew off the handle all the time, the kind of grown-up who was always convinced, even when she was doing well, that she was just a fraud. But each time she failed, each time she disappointed herself, each time she was worried or frightened or angry, she took her concerns to Jesus. Lord, fix me. Lord, help me. Lord, do in me what you will. Lord, make me yours. And so the very pieces of herself which she most wanted to reject became the very places at which she turned herself over to God to become holy. Mistake by mistake, fall by fall, she stitched herself firmly to God, embracing her very frailty as the path by which God could make her whole. We Christians call it “grace”: the power God gives us to come to God, not only in spite of our weaknesses, but even through them.

When Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he meant that he is our best model of how to be a human being. If we listen to his teachings, if we wrestle with what he says, then we will be on a path that is true. But Jesus is also the way; he shows us how to live our lives. That’s what Philip was demanding: Show us God. Show us that this stuff you have been teaching is real. And what Jesus shows us is that God chose to be a real human being -- not a fake one, not a person with a big facade, not a person who never got angry or sad or confused, not a person who was never frightened or alone -- but a real one: a flesh-and-blood person who worked and traveled and laughed and learned and suffered and was lonely and ate with strangers and with his friends and did the best he could in a world which was not perfect -- not any more than it is today. And that means we are free to be real human beings, not just holy poseurs -- real people living real lives wrapped in the real and living love of Jesus.

This is the mystery of God: that even when we are “rejected by mortals”, even when we wish we could reject our selves, still we remain “chosen and precious in God’s sight.” (I Pet 2:4) I urge you to wrap that around yourselves as you enter your teenage years, because this world in which you are becoming adults is kind of shaky right now. We seem to have survived yesterday’s prediction of Judgment Day, but big changes are happening around us. In recent months, storms and earthquakes have come smashing into people’s lives, changing them forever. Whole countries are experiencing revolutions, with the mixture they bring of hope and danger. Here at home, our economy continues to struggle, and many are looking for work. Some of you are hearing about this in the news; for others of you, this is part of your family’s own daily struggle. You are learning to be faithful in difficult times.

And yet, “God loves you with an everlasting love.” God is not faithful to us just when everything is going well; God’s faithfulness is also there for when we really need it. And we need to be there for one another as well. A few minutes after I bless each one of you, you are going to witness two people, Kathy and Chris Brennan, as they renew their wedding vows. They have been married for twenty years today, and that means they have faced real challenges as well as wonderful times. Each day for those twenty years, whether they were happy together or fighting or confused or making difficult decisions about where to live and what kinds of work to do, they have chosen to stay together and be there for one another. In this, they show us the love of God: that God’s love is not a matter of passion which comes and goes, but of God’s eternal decision to stay with us, no matter what.

St. Luke gives us the only portrait we have of Jesus as a boy; some of you may remember it from your first lesson in Rite 13, two years ago. Jesus is twelve years old, and his parents take him up to the Temple to celebrate the Passover, as they did every year. When the festival had ended, Mary and Joseph went home, but, when they had traveled for a day, they noticed that Jesus was not with him. (Honey! I lost the Christ Child!) Frantic with worry, they searched among all the travelers, then retraced their steps to Jerusalem. After three days (Three days! Parents, don’t do this with your teenagers!), they found him sitting in the Temple, talking with the teachers. Surely, Mary and Joseph did not expect this kind of independence from their son. Surely, the teachers in the Temple did not expect to learn from a twelve-year-old boy. But Jesus replied, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Did you not know, he is asking, that I must ask questions that matter, seek real truths, learn what God I wish to serve, what purpose I wish to pursue in my life, and dwell in that house forever?

These are the questions our lives are meant to answer. Seek them with all your heart. For Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life; if you ask his questions, you will have life, and live it richly. Amen.

¹ Ruth Burrows, Before the Living God.

Hanging Loose: The Art of Detachment: Cassandra Myers on Chapter 8 of Almost Christian

Recently a friend I had assumed to be atheist revealed his fledgling faith to me. He had come to acknowledge that something bigger than him was at play following the untimely death of his cousin. While any realization of faith is amazing to witness, the truly shocking part came when he began to apologize. He felt it must be wrong to come to faith only in the wake of a tragedy. I hope I was able to comfort and counsel him appropriately. After all there’s a reason we call these moments that alter our paths and our beliefs “life-changing experiences.” Whether unfathomably sad, remarkably positive, or somewhere in between these moments shake our old selves to the core and set us in a new direction.

My friend was put on a new path without premeditation or warning—and this sort of tragedy will undoubtedly strike many of us off our guard—but he is not there alone, for he has friends who have been on similar paths, and can navigate it with him. His is the sort of experience Kenda Creasy Dean wants us all to experience. To be clear, the life-changing part is what she wants for us. Any undertaking or event—happy, sad, in between—that sets us on a path closer to Jesus’s commandments is a life-changing experience.  It sounds easy: Don’t we see God every day and talk about Him in Church each Sunday? The reality is a much bigger challenge.  We need to be constantly seeing our lives and our call to serve God from a new perspective; and, the only way to gain a new perspective is to move to a different vantage point.

So we need to be constantly moving. Not necessarily physically, but distance is one tool that’s especially helpful for young people. Dean points out some of the positive attributes of the mission trips we send our youth on are that they remove the kids from the routine of their everyday lives, give them a chance to freely enact and talk about God’s will for them, and allow them to reflect on how they live their home lives. On a mission trip the familiar excuses for living a self-serving rather than Christ-serving life are stripped away by distance. Miles away from temptation the kids are able to step outside of their lives and, whether they realize it or not, pray reflectively. As adults we are able to think in more abstract terms. While changes of pace or scenery remain useful tools for drawing us back to God throughout our lives, if we’re able to discern God’s call to us in the mundane they are neither always necessary nor the only way we find new perspective. You may not go away as these teens do, but you can reflect on your habits; and, like the teens your consciousness and life will be altered by what you find.

One example Dean gives us for discerning God’s call to live out our faith is through Ignatius’s prayer of examen. This is a self-reflective prayer that can be split into five sections. I find this prayer to be such a useful tool that I’ve copied Dean’s modernized “Ignatian Examination of Consciousness” below:

THE IGNATIAN EXAMINATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

(PRAYER OF EXAMEN)

1.     Recall that you are in God’s presence.

2.     Return thanks to God for the gifts of the day.

3.     Ask God to reveal the truth as you look at your actions and attitudes with honesty and patience.

4.     Review the day, looking especially for spiritual consolations (places of increased love for God, hope and charity towards others, sorrow for sin, interior joy, peace, movements toward God, etc.) and spiritual desolations (places of unrest, darkness of the soul, self-focused desire, lack of confidence, sadness, thoughts that lead away from God, separation from God).

5.     React and respond to Jesus personally, putting into words your heart’s desire, asking forgiveness, strength, and hope to confront desolations, and giving thanks for consolations.

By taking the time to go through this prayer we set aside a time to step outside of ourselves and look at each of our days as possible life-changing experiences. We are able to find the infinitely huge love of God in Christ Jesus in even the smallest things, and consciously change our paths to better share that love. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about the constant bettering of the self. Each day brings new experiences, so the Prayer of Examen is always new, and we are always growing closer to God through its use.

As adults, we are able to create life-changing moments through examining ourselves. When we treat ourselves as perpetual works in progress and strive to experience God’s life-changing presence (with or without an expensive trip) then we are showing our youth how to do the same. That’s not to say that Christian camps and mission trips are superfluous, but that as children grow into teens who mature into adults they should be welcomed into a community that lives into the ideals those camps and mission trips impart. Without a dynamic Christian community to which the kids return the trips are just experiences in a vacuum—there’s no longer a life-changing component to them.  So keep moving, keep changing and growing.  Strive to live the life God intends for you and those around you, especially the youth, will follow your lead.

Cassandra Myers is a volunteer youth leader at Grace Church in Haddonfield, NJ.

Make No Small Plans: A Case for Hope: Nathan Ferrell on Chapter 9 of Almost Christian

There is no question that we the Church are in a very challenging time.  We all have heard of or seen the statistics on church decline, falling religious affiliations, and shrinking church budgets. All of these are symptomatic of larger shifts in our society as a whole.

Kenda Creasy Dean suggests that many of us in the Church have adopted Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as a default position, as the path of least resistance. It is certainly easier for me to pursue this path and to be accepted by the people around me, rather than to pursue a passionate relationship with Jesus Christ and perhaps to be written off as a zealot or - even worse! - a fundamentalist. But rigidity grows out of fear, and I believe that Dean is right in pointing to another way, a third way between these two options. As the inheritors of an Anglican penchant for discovering a “Via Media” resolution, I sincerely hope that we will all embrace the incredible depth and richness of our Christian tradition without watering it down and without allowing fear to govern our thoughts.

Hope is the antidote to fear, but it is not the same as optimism. I imagine that many German citizens felt very optimistic about the glorious future of their nation during the Third Reich. On a lighter note, we know that almost all baseball fans feel optimistic about the potential for a World Series victory by their home teams during the spring-time of each year. For me, optimism is the duty of being a fan. We must believe that our team could win, that our nation will prevail, that our Church could grow and become strong. But just because we believe this way does not mean that it will in fact become reality. Optimism reflects the particular viewpoint of the invested fan. As the divine apostle stated, this is part of what it means to view things "according to the flesh" or "from a human point of view." I assume that all who are reading this are "fans" of The Episcopal Church. It is right then that we might feel optimism about the future of our beloved Church, even if this optimism has no connection with reality as it will come into being.  

Hope, as I see it, implies a vision of the future as seen by a big-picture reality. Our Christian hope comes from seeing the world, our lives, and our Church from God's point of view. There is, of course, always reason for hope. This is God's Church; this is the Body of Christ. God is in charge of nourishing and strengthening this human community known as the Church. And I have no doubt that God is doing this right now. The shame of the matter is that we might not be part of the Body that is getting the most attention at the moment. As with any human body, some areas grow stronger with attention and focus, while others might plateau and decay.

I have heard it said that if you were to ask a mother in Japan about her hopes for her children, she would say that she hopes her child is successful. And if you asked an American mother of earlier generations this same question, she would say that she hopes her child is good. And when an American mother is asked this question today, she says that she hopes her child is happy. If happiness is our commonly accepted goal, then Moralistic Therapeutic Deism likely is the best path to lead us toward that goal. But this truly is the inane and bland dis-interest of a half-hearted bystander. It is not a goal worthy of our commitment. 


By contrast, if our goal as Christians is to fall deeply in love with God as revealed in Jesus and as seen in the faces of human beings around us now, then we must immerse ourselves and our children in our “glorious inheritance among the saints” and feel the passion of folks like Miriam and Moses, Mary Magdalene and Peter, Macrina and Anthony, Brigid and Patrick, Clare and Francis, and countless others. These are no tame, dull souls who labored only to be happy consumers of society’s entertainments. These faithful souls give us hope, because they reveal to us that “it can be done”, that a passionate and faithful life lived with God gives “more life than the ways of the world.”

And so, to be honest, I am not very optimistic about the visible success of our Church (sorry about that – I’m still a fan, though!). But I do maintain hope for us. After all, God is in charge of this entire human experiment, and God’s plans are always good. It is likely to not be easy for our Church in the years to come, as God prunes and refines us for a future better than we could imagine. But as long as we can focus upon loving Jesus and being sent by the Spirit into the world, then we may have hope.


The Reverend Nathan Ferrell is vicar of Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry, Gloucester City, NJ.

"The Art of Testimony": Bob Legnani on Chapter 7 of Almost Christian

We all know that talking someone into something usually means getting someone to do something he or she might not otherwise not want to do.

But how about “talking into being”?  Here is an example:  In college, I took a course in first-year French.  Knowing how French was pronounced (especially from the way it looked on the printed page) seemed like a mystery to me.  But, our French instructor knew how we could talk ourselves into being French-speakers.  He invited the whole class over to his apartment where he and his wife served desserts and talked with us (not “to us”) in French.  I learned as much listening to them and holding up my end of the conversation in French as I did studying a page in the text book and filling in the right answers in the accompanying drills.  I was talking myself into mastering French. 

Well, so much for French.  But what about learning to speak another language, say the Christian language for example?

In her book, Almost Christian, Kendra Creasy Dean writes about “The Art of Testimony.”  Now, “testimony” like “talking someone into something” makes us uncomfortable when we first hear it.  But, all “testimony” means is telling someone what we believe to be true.  And that starts with words we use to express what we know.

Long before Christianity had written scriptures or a prayer book, it was spoken religion.  In our Holy Eucharist, the “Word of God” is not silent reading, but a member of the congregation reading out loud.  Saying those words forms us into Christian men and women.  Our prayers do, too.  I’m convinced that saying the Prayer for the Human Family (see below) has made us into people who are more aware of our common humanity as God’s work and more willing to accept others.  In other words, we are talking ourselves into being Christian.

A fellow Christian writes:

“We don’t just say things we already believe.  To the contrary, saying things out loud is part of how we come to believe.  We talk our way toward belief, talk our way from tentative belief through doubt to firmer belief, talk our way toward believing more fully, more clearly, and more deeply.  Putting things into words is one of the ways we acquire knowledge, passion, and conviction.”

We talk ourselves into being Christian.

As Lent and Easter approaches, we Christians turn our thinking to who Jesus is, why he was born, to his death and resurrection and what they mean to us.  Our scriptures and prayers give us the words and those words will form who we are if we say them.  The Christian story becomes our story as we say “Jesus”, “love”, “sacrifice” to each other, our children, others who will see in us just what that story and those words mean.  This is testimony.  It’s making our own the words we hear and say in Scripture, creed, and prayer.  And as these words form us into being Christians, we join the company of those women who went from the tomb on Easter morning to bear testimony to others.  We say, “Here’s how it went, here’s what I saw.  I’ve been there and I’m going back.”

The Rev. Robert Legnani

Rector, St. Stephen’s Church – Beverly, NJ

A Prayer for the Human Family (Book of Common Prayer, page 815):

God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Parents Matter Most: Henry Jansma on Chapter 6 of Almost Christian

St. Mary's in Haddon Heights has spent the past two years in research, preparation and launch of a fresh expression of our ministry in families. We wanted to return formation to the intimacy of parents as their baptismal vows profess. We also wanted to ensure our educational ministry emphasize not simply Bible facts, atomized verses, and moral virtues, but doctrinal knowledge in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord” that would help young minds conceptualize the depths of their sinfulness and the wonders of the Redeemer and His salvation.

The result is Family Inside/Out. Held between our two services, Family Inside/Out joins children and parents in Sunday school for a large group and parent-led small groups breakout. In this safe and structured session both parents and children learn the core teachings together. The result? Two of our families left prior to launch for churches that still continued the failing traditional model. The remaining parents and children have seen a genuine spiritual revival in their families with attendance holding at 90+%.

The fact that families left prior to launch led us to discover that we had failed to distinguish differences in the moralism in our members. We thought we were dealing with only one type of moralism, the one described in Almost Christian (hereafter AC) as “Christian-ish”. What we discovered was that there are actually two strategies of moralism: one that exists outside the church and one that exists within:

• ·      In nonbelievers of the wider culture (irreligious moralist)
• ·      In the nonbelievers within our churches (religious moralist)

These two errors are very powerful because they represent the natural tendency of the human heart and mind. If you fail to recognize these different moralistic strategies, your church simply replaces one expression of moralism with another.

The only way into a ministry that sees people’s lives change, that brings peace and joy and power and electricity without moralism – is the preaching and teaching of the gospel that deconstructs both religion and irreligion’s moralistic strategies equally.

It is not a method, but the content of the teaching of the gospel that deconstructs the moralistic strategies of irreligion and religion. In Chapter Six of AC, Dean points this out as she writes that Martin Luther’s Small Catechism,

located teaching out loud in households, not congregations, which had the effect of locating Christian formation in the intimacy of families, where children drew direct connections between religious instruction at the dinner table and the lives of people that loved them.… [I]t was an educational stroke of genus, since it effectively ensured that parents and children learned the core teachings of the church together. [Italics added]

As we observed a Latter Day Saints seminary teacher in Christian Smith’s DVD Soul Searching, we also took careful note of her emphasis on the precision in the content of the teaching.

What is the core teaching of the church that Scripture, the historic formularies, and our catechism bear witness? It is the truth of the gospel. In his commentary on Galatians (2.14f) Luther writes on this core teaching of the church: “The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine… Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually” (Just like Luther to write like this!).

At the heart of the gospel is the propitiation of God’s wrath by the substitutionary life and death of Jesus Christ, so that His children by faith no longer fear the judicial, retributive wrath of God ever again (Romans 8:1). This cuts against not one but the two moralistic strategies in our culture and churches today. This is the heart of the gospel taught in St. Mary’s.

Family Inside/Out is not a stand-alone program. As Dean suggests in Chapter Four, Generative Faith, it is firmly anchored in five factors of revival that preceded it by nearly four years here at St. Mary’s:

The first factor is dependent prayer. Those who realistically face the demanding task of revival and local mission are immediately driven to prayer by the magnitude of the work confronting them.

The second factor is a recovery of the grace-gospel. It was an understanding of salvation by grace rather than moral effort that touched off my own personal renewal and made me an agent of revival as my preaching, my teaching, and my ministry radically changed.

The third factor I would mention is renewed individuals. Often several visible, dramatic life-turnarounds (“surprising conversions”) may cause others to do deep self-examination and create a sense of spiritual longing and expectation in the community.

A fourth factor I will call the use of the gospel on the heart in counseling. The gospel must cut away both the moralism and licentiousness that destroys real spiritual life and power. There must be venues and meetings and settings in which this is done, both in one-on-one accountability and in small groups.

The fifth and final factor is an orientation toward local Mission. We are to develop partnerships with other local churches in a network of common vision and mission.

To deconstruct two moralistic strategies simultaneously is very risky. There have been moments of grief, grief for those that remain, grief for those who have left, grief that I have been such a blunt instrument in His hand. And yet our leaders will testify that Christ has never left nor forsaken us. There have been many moments when we have understood so well what Paul says about dying being gain. All mercy we have in Him, all roads lead to Him. Christ Himself has redeemed His church and is now building His church in the power of His Word and Spirit. It is not a kingdom we are building, but a kingdom we are receiving (Hebrews 12:28).

We must never confuse Christ’s work with our own. There is a lot of loose talk these days about our “living the gospel” as if the church is an extension of Christ’s incarnation and redeeming work, as if Jesus came to provide the moral example or template, and we are called to complete His work. We must remain vigilant for this drift of the grace gospel into the default “gospel-ish” religious/irreligious moralism of the sinful human heart that AC documents so thoroughly.

Henry Jansma

St. Mary’s, Haddon Heights

"We Are Not Here for Ourselves": Emily Griffin on Chapter 5 of Almost Christian

“Translation is how we hand on faith to our children.”

– Kenda Dean, Almost Christian, p. 98

           

As anyone who’s ever used an online translator can tell you (i.e. any teenager with a foreign language requirement), translation is an art – not an exact science. Think about all that is required to translate from one language to another. In both languages we need a mastery of vocabulary, spelling and grammar, not to mention cultural idioms. Even then, it’s often easier to read a new language than to speak it. It’s certainly safer. Books don’t talk back.

Add the human dimensions of accents and dialects, and the complications rise exponentially. Translation requires a quality of listening we’re not accustomed to anymore and a slower pace to conversation than anyone in New Jersey is willing to tolerate. When trying out a new language, we tend to think more before we speak. We ask the other person to slow down so we can make sure we understand their perspective before risking a potentially foolish or even offensive response. Risks are unavoidable, and mistakes are inevitable. Many times, rather than risk dying of embarrassment, we try to avoid speaking at all.

It’s not surprising that so many of us end up resorting to pantomime instead (behaviors I’ve noted in my own parish’s mission trips, incidentally. Mission may not be a trip, but mission trips do offer ample opportunity to practice the translation skills we need just as desperately back home.) When words fail us, we use our hands. We communicate with our eyes. We try to make our intentions and actions as clear as possible. No wonder Kenda Dean in Chapter 5 of Almost Christian names translation as a skill for transmitting faith – not only across cultures but across generations as well. The good news is that what we do out of necessity may actually be more effective in sharing the Gospel of Jesus’ unconditional, self-giving love than even our most careful words.

It certainly helps to explain the sense of inadequacy many adults feel when it comes to sharing their faith with adolescents in particular. Those who feel ill-equipped to speak the language of the Christian faith themselves – either from lack of familiarity or lack of practice – may also feel ill-equipped to speak the language of today’s teenagers. Intimidation at the technology our teens have mastered, lack of interest in the cast of characters inhabiting the pop culture landscape, as well as the comfort level we enjoy with our own use of adult jargon may leave us stymied when it comes to sharing what is closest to our hearts with our young people.

Perhaps if we allowed ourselves the grace we allow ourselves when speaking a new language, we might find our role of witness a little easier to bear. Witness, after all, does not begin with speaking. It starts with what we notice, what we hear. We might begin our “missionary work” by honing our ability to listen rather than by filling up the anxious silences with more words. (For as Dean rightly notes, “God does not send out a few teenagers in a church van to represent Christ in the world on behalf of the church; God sends the whole church.”) We might then focus on our non-verbal behavior – what our actions and reactions say even louder than our words.

Eventually, of course, we are called to speak. It may help to remember that risks are unavoidable, and mistakes are inevitable. But is love – even divine love - communicated any other way? Love, by definition, involves vulnerability and risk. In sharing the love of the One who risked everything for us, perhaps the medium is inseparable from the message. We are a resurrection people. That means there’s life even after dying of embarrassment. Thanks be to God.

The Reverend Emily Griffin

Associate Rector, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church - Pennington

"True Love": Debbie Cook on Chapter 4 of Almost Christian

One of our favorite family movies is The Princess Bride, a clever Rob Reiner movie (based on a book of the same name by William Goldman) about the love story of the handsome and faithful Westley and the beautiful Buttercup.  We have watched it so many times we can quote almost all the lines.  The scene of their reunion after many years of Westley’s absence (and his being presumed dead) is one of my favorites:

Westley:              “I told you I would always come for you.  What didn’t you wait for me?”

Buttercup:              “Well, you were dead.”

Westley:             “Death cannot stop true love.  All it can do it is delay it for a little while.”

Buttercup:            “I will never doubt again.”

Westley:            “There will never be a need.”

Ah, true love.  The stuff that causes the hero or heroine to go to the ends of the earth (or beyond) for their beloved, that causes us to sometimes do irrational things.  Songs have been sung, poems composed, quests undertaken, all in the name of true love.  We’ll know it when we find it, we say. And when we do find it, it can fill us to overflowing, and we often feel the need to share our good news with the world. 

Unless, it seems, our true love is with Jesus.  Then so many Christians suddenly get very quiet.

As Christians, we are called to share the good news of God’s true love for us, for all of creation, with others, by word, by example--even to the ends the earth.  In Chapter 4 of Almost Christian, Dean writes about the gospel’s missionary impulse, rooted in the reality of a God as “both sender and as the one who is sent.”  A God who reaches out, crosses boundaries, seeking us with all the passion and true love of a lover seeking their beloved, even to the point of death and back.  We too are sent; called to live lives of sacrificial love, to share our love story, THE love story with others so that they may be part of it too.

A generative faith, a faith that bears fruit, is one that is rooted in true love.  Not the romantic love of the movies, but love that is true, honest, unconditional, powerful—the kind of love that changes us in ways we would never expect or even dare to ask for.  Love that asks for all of us, and gives all back and then some.  Love that is so life giving that it can lead us to bear those fruits of faith as naturally as an apple tree bears apples. A love like that can only come from God.

There are many wonderful ways to open the door, to let us know about that love, about God: catechesis, scripture, worship, living and working together in Christian community.  But our formation, our journey, cannot end there.  For knowing about Jesus is not the same as knowing Jesus—that takes time and trust and commitment.  And we cannot get there on our own: we need others to show us the way by sharing their own love story; we need the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us.  Our children, our youth, long to know why God matters to you, to the world.  They already know true love matters—they just need someone to help them make that connection.

Help to make that connection: share the great true love story of God’s salvation as experienced in your life.   Tell the story of God’s unfathomable love, a love so powerful that even death cannot delay it—so that we will never need to doubt again.

Become sent.

The Reverend Debbie Cook is chair of the Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation [click here to learn more about this ministry]

"Mormon Envy"? Sue Legnani on Chapter 3 of Almost Christian

I have to admit that I do have “Mormon envy” for the Mormons do keep their young people close to the church.  In fact, Mormon youth are so close that they are able to articulate their faith much better than many of the youth and, for that matter, some of the adults that I know in the Episcopal Church.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are lots of wonderful people, young and old, who attend church faithfully and love their church.  They just can’t tell you what they believe about God or Jesus or name a favorite Bible story.  They work tirelessly on fundraisers, paint and maintain buildings, fix broken snow blowers, or shovel snow in the worst of conditions.  But they can’t bring themselves to invite a friend to the church they have worked so hard to maintain.

I also envy the framework that Mormons have worked so hard to build over the generations.  This framework guarantees that there will be future generations of Mormons, unlike our mainline Protestant churches whose numbers are declining at an alarming rate.  Their Christian formation is so complete because parents and other adults are very invested in the instruction and life of their youth that these kids always have someone to mentor them at home, in church and in the world since most of their friends are Mormons too.

It makes me wonder what the Episcopal Church might look like if every priest was able to sit and talk individually with each young person in the church to check in with them and, “make sure they were doing all right”? (Mormon bishop’s do this on a regular basis.)  What could happen to Episcopal family life if we took one night a week to spend with our children at home to read the scriptures together or to just have some down time to talk about our Christian faith? (Mormon’s do this every day.)  What if the children and parents of our Episcopal Church families were in church every week so they and their parents had the chance to learn the vocabulary of our faith through attending and participating in the liturgy and Sunday School from infancy through high school? (Mormon youth assume that their contributions to church life matter.)  Would any or all of these things make a difference, not in attendance numbers, but in commitment to Jesus and the mission of his Church? 

Christian educators in the Episcopal Church are wrestling with this very question of life-long Christian education and faith formation.  At a resent meeting of Christian educators from a broad perspective of denominational perspectives (Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Episcopal) Sharon Ely Pearson, Christian Formation Specialist for Morehouse Publishing, writes that those attending this meeting discussed these questions:

• How can faith formation flourish in Christian churches over the next ten years?
• How can congregations address the increasingly diverse spiritual and religious needs of people today?
• What are the promising innovations that can guide faith formation for all ages and generations in this decade?

There are four scenarios or outcomes that are identified for the future of faith formation.  In brief they are:

• Vibrant faith and active engagement: similar to the highly devoted teens in Dean’s book.
• Occasional participation, but not actively engaged or spiritually committed: their spiritual commitment is low and their connection to the church is more social and utilitarian than spiritual.
• Spiritual, but not religious: this reflects a growing minority of the American population, especially among the 18-39 year olds.
• Unaffiliated and uninterested: this group rejects all forms of organized religion and reflects a steadily increasing percentage of the American population, especially among the 18-29 year olds.

Pearson ends with this thought: “Imagine what faith formation could look like if your church is responding to the challenges and opportunities of all four scenarios.  Imagine the impact on the life of your congregation if faith formation addresses the spiritual and religious needs of all ages and generations in each scenario.” 

What a challenge and what a blessing this will be!

  

Sue Legnani

Director of Christian Formation

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

Medford, NJ

Kindness or Honesty? Kep Short on Chapter 2 of Almost Christian: Claiming a Peculiar God Story

One evening not long ago, Jennifer and I found ourselves reading through a book of questions – the kind of questions intended to foster conversation.  When we came across the question, “Is it more important to be honest or nice?” we initially offered the same answer – nice, of course!  Perhaps it is our southern upbringing, but we like for people to get along, and fall back on the idea that most conflict could be avoided if people were just thoughtful and considerate towards one another.

It isn’t really true, of course.  While compassion and kindness certainly make our world a better place, they do not erase disagreement.  Excessive amounts of deference to others robs us of our ideals, slips our identity away from us, denies us a chance for collaboration, and all the while teaches us that we still can’t make everyone happy no matter how hard we may try.

Chapter 2 of Almost Christian illuminates a reality for many of us in the church: we practice a “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” that is an empty and easy substitute faith which demands little, teaches little, and delivers little.  In the name of being nice and attempting to make everyone comfortable in church, we have gutted the gospel of its true call of self-sacrifice and passion that make Christian faith so unique and urgent.  We have quietly reshaped Christianity so that it fits neatly (and without disruption) into the fabric of everyday life.  Churches often resemble polite social service clubs more than communities of fiery seekers and followers of Jesus Christ.

For those young people who do go to church (and that number is waning), this is often their experience.  This is what they learn - a vague and foundation-less faith in niceness at the expense of honesty.  Honesty is avoided or unaddressed from fear of offending others or making church “too hard” – honesty about our holy hope and joy, honesty about our own sin and shortcomings, honesty about the promises and demands of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I understand.  I really do.  It feels easier to be nice than it does to be honest.  But over time, lack of honesty comes with a great cost.  It costs me, and everyone around me.

There is no doubt to me that the change we need begins with us.  We must know our own personal and unique God-story and be willing to share it – without judgment but also without apology.  We must claim the passion and burden of Christ for ourselves, knowing it is the only thing that can truly liberate us.  Our children learn from watching us.  Our journey with them begins at their birth and baptism, and watershed moments can occur at the most unlikely and unplanned times.  Are we with them to help shape and share in those times?

Our job, as Christian adults with our children (biological and otherwise), is to be passionately in love with God, dangerously committed to the way of Jesus Christ, and willing to lay down everything we have to see God’s work done in the world.  We need not demand that others believe exactly what we do.  But we must know what we believe and why, and not hesitate to claim the powerful stories of our faith.  For they may just be a doorway, an inspiration, a thought, or question for someone else. 

Perhaps the kindest thing we can be is honest.


Kep Short is the Director of Youth Ministry, Diocese of New Jersey.  [Learn more about youth ministry in the Diocese of New Jersey]

Bishop George Councell introduces One Book and reflects on Chapter 1 of Almost Christian

Introduction: One Book for the Diocese of New Jersey

Our Vision is that the Diocese of New Jersey is one family of diverse and unique congregations, belonging to Jesus Christ and belonging to one another, for Jesus’ sake. That vision is realized whenever we worship or serve or bear witness together. With their “One Book” proposal, the Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation invites our diocesan community to live our vision of belonging to one another through common study of a new book entitled Almost Christian, by Kenda Creasy Dean.

I commend the Committee for their creative work in development of this proposal and the selection of a challenging volume that will help us all to think critically about what we mean when we affirm that we will “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers” (The Baptismal Covenant). While this work is about the faith of teenagers, it is addressed to the entire Church. It details some of the Church’s unmistakable failures while never losing confidence in God. It is well written, clear and accessible. It is worthy of our best efforts to “ read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” its findings and recommendations.

My prayer is that each of our 155 congregations will develop opportunities for members to read and reflect on the issues raised in this volume. Consider study and discussion groups; forums and lectures; sermons and seminars. Stay tuned to this blog for notes on each chapter, offered by different writers across our diocese. Above all, let us keep our hearts and minds open to the leading of the Holy Spirit in the renewal of the Church. May we see today an answer to our prayer: Lord, in your mercy, make New Jersey new. Amen.

Chapter One of Almost Christian: “Becoming Christian-ish”

A recent cartoon in The New Yorker magazine pictures four people seated around a table in a sports bar, enjoying drinks and chips. One man announces, “I’m in the market for an easier religion.” [view the cartoon]

Why not something Christian-ish? How about the Church of Benign Whatever-ism? This “church” is an expression of an easier religion, known as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, whose guiding beliefs are:

1.     A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

2.     God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3.     The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4.     God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.

5.     Good people go to heaven when they die.

Now, before you read on, find a copy of The Book of Common Prayer and recite The Apostles’ Creed. Then ask yourself, “What are these two statements about? Which is the easier religion? Which is the set of beliefs that our Church has passed on to youth?”

That exercise was just one segment of a powerful daylong workshop led by Kenda Creasy Dean at our Cathedral last month, sponsored by the Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation and the Right Onward Vision Committee of the Diocese of New Jersey. Kenda Dean is a longtime youth minister, an ordained United Methodist pastor, a wife and a mother of two adolescents, a Professor of Youth, Church and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of many books and publications, including Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church.

In Chapter One, Professor Dean begins, “Let me save you some trouble,” and gives us the gist of her book: American young people are fine with religion. They just don’t care about it very much, and it doesn’t last for very long after they graduate from high school.

But, in her second paragraph, Dean plunges us into a world of trouble when asserts that, “we’re responsible.” What? Why? Because teenagers’ religiosity is a reflection of their parents’ religious devotion (or lack of it) and the devotional life of their congregations.

There is more disturbing material ahead, with lots of research to back up claims that should shake the Church down to its foundations. The results of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) are all over these pages. They are clear, convincing and point to what we already know: the question is no longer, “How can we keep young people in church?” Rather, the question is, “Does the church matter?”

At this point I pause to reassure the reader that I have no time or interest in reading another punishing study from a sociology department that tells me what’s wrong with the Church and why it can’t last. But Kenda Dean sets this research in a framework of faith and uses it to speak the truth in love to faith communities that have “fallen from faith to religion.” She finds the theological and ecclesial crises amidst the sociological findings. She writes, “In Christian tradition, faith depends on who we follow, and that depends on who we love. Believing in a person…creates a very different set of expectations than believing in ‘beliefs.’ [F]aith means cleaving to the person, the God-man, of Jesus Christ, joining a pilgrim journey with other lovers and following him into the world.”  

In her first chapter, Professor Dean also introduces us to the idea of Christian Parasitology (think of the 1979 movie Alien) and gives a quick sketch of the NSYR.

There are spiritual gems on every page and she is not at all dry or boring in her presentation. She writes with passion about a Church that has lost its passion. She makes clear that the findings of the NSYR are a mirror for the Church. God has become an object, not a subject; an idea, not a companion; a butler or a therapist, not a living Lord. And so we have passed on religion as a trivial pursuit rather than a “consequential faith.”

We can do better. There much more to learn and much to do, by God’s grace. Read this book with your parish, your diocese, your bishop. Read on. Right onward!

The Right Reverend George Councell

Bishop of New Jersey