If Hurt by the Church, part one

This is the first part of a series published in my weekly newsletter Gracelets. If you wish to subscribe to the newsletter, simply email me at bill@mypastoralcounselor.com

If the Church Hurt You,
Let the Church Heal You (Part One)

By William T "Bill" Faris, MPC"

"I finally figured out what is wrong with the church," I once heard a Bible teacher say. "It's people. If it wasn't for people, the church would be perfect". .

Welcome to the (Dysfunctional) Family

The Bible makes it clear that the church is the family of God. The language of family abounds in Scripture. Fellow believers are referred to as "brothers" and "sisters" which, together, make up "the household of faith". This is one thing that I have always loved about being a believer. Over a lifetime, I have truly found "family" in the Body of Christ.

Like other households in human society, however, a given church will include its own unique set of social dysfunctions. Some of these quirks show up in ways that are rather humorous. Other times we find ourselves face-to-face with the fact that some of our brothers and sisters are capable of delivering some very deep wounds.

Some Categories of Church Hurt

Some church wounds are social in nature. We can feel shunned, bullied, misunderstood, ignored, or manipulated by our family members at various times. This is not always intentional, but that doesn't mean it is not painful.

Other church wounds are more intimate. These include the betrayal of trust, abandonment, false accusation, and the violation of personal and even sexual boundaries.

Some of the deepest wounds have to do with the brokenness of church leadership. Because we tend to place very high expectations on leaders, it is not uncommon for us to feel let down by them. But when leaders manipulate their followers, take advantage of their weaknesses, "fleece" the flock financially, fall morally, or otherwise violate the faith placed in them; very high levels of pain, grief and anger result.

Often enough, church members take sides in a leadership crisis and the resulting division of loyalties can end long friendships, split congregations and sidetrack - or even totally undermine -- the faith of weaker believers. "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other" (Galatians 5:15).

Church Treacherous?

As a veteran of church family life and a church leader, I have both dished out and received my fair share of pain, dysfunction, mistakes, wounds and bruises. Nevertheless, I remain as committed as ever to the Body of Christ and continue to believe it to be one of the potentially richest environments for transformation, wholeness, healthy socialization, service, justice, truth and maturity on earth. Why? Because I have learned that - inasmuch as the church can hurt you - the church can heal you, too.

Of Prisons and Escapes

The link to the website profiles 10 remarkable escapes from various prisons throughout the world, including the only successful flight from Alcatraz and the only successful escape from a prison camp during the Vietnam war.

http://www.oddee.com/item_96931.aspx

One man escaped from his confines by helicopter - on three different occasions!

One famous criminal (recently portrayed by Johnny Depp) used a fake gun made out of soap to bluff his way out of his captivity.

The common thread in all these stories was the unwillingness of the various prisoners to accept their confinement. What kind of imagination did it take for these men to overcome the seemingly impossible barriers of walls, barbed wire, armed guards, harsh conditions and chains in order to be free again? To be sure, these escapees may not have been the biggest, strongest, best educated or most experienced prisoners in their place of incarceration. But they did share the common conviction that it is better to be free than it is to remain otherwise and were willing to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Are you in a prison today? Is it a prison of debt? Depression? Reversal? Sickness? Spiritual crisis? Rejection? Inferiority? Fear or despair? Have you accepted your confinement as irreversible? These men did not. They took the risks that were required in order to find their freedom. Are you willing to do the same?

The mission statement of Jesus, as quoted in Luke chapter 4 (From the prophecy of Isaiah) includes the words: "...He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners". Will we choose the familiarity of our prison bonds or will we allow our sanctified imaginations to devise escape plans that will loosen us to become all that God has imagined for us to be from before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1: 4, 5) thanks to our adoption as His son or daughter.

Illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini is famous for claiming that "no prison can hold me, no hand or leg irons or steel locks can shackle me. No ropes or chains can keep me from my freedom". I wonder: have you gotten in touch with your inner Houdini?

Bye, Bye T-Bird

"Down the road in the rain and snow
The man and his machine would go
Oh the secrets that old car would know
Sometimes I hear him sayin'...
Don't gimme no Buick
Son you must take my word
If there's a God in heaven
He's got a [...Silver...] Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car's absurd
Me I wanna go down
In a [...Silver...] Thunderbird

Marc Cohn - "Silver Thunderbird" (thanks, Janiece Hudgins!)

Well, my 'bird wasn't silver. It was gloriously red and white. Still looked great in her paint after 10 years of time spent with the Faris Family (minus a small chip here or there).

Said goodbye to the T-bird today, heading from L.A. to Chicago. The new owner promises he will treat her well and attend to the growing list of things that need some attention. At fifty years old, who doesn't have such a list?

Parting with the 'Bird made me sob. Privately. Gushing out 10 years of memories.

Our Chris's wedding. Chris William's wedding. Johathan Knaup's wedding. Amy (Knaup) Noble's wedding. Andrew driving it to Saint Margarets. Me picking up Andrew, JeanneAnn and Matthew at Saint Margarets. Picking up Robin from the Hospital for her first ride home in nearly three months. Taking Robin to physical therapy. Taking JeanneAnn to the coast for a milkshake at Ruby's right on the bluff. Steve Lendzion and I driving her home to Orange County from Sacramento (where I bought her) - through the Central Valley, up the Grapevine (overheating, but not quitting) and on home even though the generator bearing went out in Costa Mesa.

Thumbs up. People walking up and having their friend take their picture standing next to my car. T-Bird shows. Awards. Repairs. Lots of them. Cruising to Silverado Canyon, cruising to San Clemente, cruising with my sister-in-law's relatives from England. Cruising through Live Oak Canyon - right past Cook's Corner - and turning Harley owner's heads. Cruising to Laguna. Cruising to Fuddrucker's with Tony and Patty Sweet to display her at the casual car show there. Cruising with my neighbor, John, (and his sweet red '63 Sports Roadster - T-Bird twins on the California roads)! Showing her at the little car show we had at Crown Valley Vineyard one year.

Memories? I got a boatload...

So, goodbye, T-bird. You made me smile. You made me cry. Isn't that just like a woman?

Organizing Your Interior World Around Christ

"For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him" (Col. 1: 16).

Organizing our lives, beginning with our interior world, around our anxieties is our natural "go to" - our default mode. Doing so leads to a life of resistance, avoidance and fear-based functioning. Organizing our lives around Jesus Christ as our Center gives us a very different interior state - a very different starting place from which to approach the challenges and opportunities we face. "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14: 17).

I have experienced this difference and yet I find that it still requires significant mental and spiritual discipline on my part to remain organized around Christ inside. When I am frightened by disturbing future projections or bogged down in past regrets, I can be thrown off a Christ-centered orientation and put some fear, regret, anxiety or depressing rumination on the throne. It's not that Jesus is absent from my interior world. I can still worship, pray, acknowledge Him in one hundred different ways, but He is no longer ruling within, that is, I am not organizing myself around Him. It makes me sad sometimes to see how quickly I revert.

The good news is that God has given us the gifts of prayer, worship, humility, reflection, His Word, natural beauty, and other tools of mental and spiritual discipline to help us refocus our center around Jesus. When we employ these things, we have fresh revelation of the excellence of Jesus and we also see more clearly our error in organizing around our anxious thoughts and feelings and basing our projected future and present assessment of ourselves on that point-of-view. Exalting Jesus with as the Center and organizing our state of mind, our future projections and our past perceptions around Him as Lord properly orients us to a future that can't help but extend the Kingdom of God within and without.

As the title of a book I once owned puts it: "He is the still point in the turning world".

Are You Organizing Around Your Anxieties?

Job One: do not organize yourself around your anxieties.

It is a deathly habit that will chain you to futility, limitation, doubts and depletion. Like a black hole in outer space, anxiety will pull you into its bottomless gravity until you altogether disappear. It may be tempting to think of avoiding your fears as real work, but don't take that bait. Remember that churning with anxiety - anxiously mulling things over in your mind - does not actually improve anything. It is not progress. It is not problem-solving. For all the time and energy you give to it, it gives you nothing you can use in return.

You have another choice: you can organize yourself around the Almighty God.

Rest assured that the gravitational pull of grace is more powerful than the gravitational pull of anxiety. And from where does this grace gravity emanate? From God Himself.

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you". In that biblical call we find an alternative to living in reactive response to our anxieties, fears, and imaginations of catastrophe. God's call is for us to organize ourselves around Him. Doing so is the primal, foundational act of faith.

Once settled into that all-important divine alignment, we still will have our challenges to face, decisions to make, and threats to manage. When anxiety was at the center, we found ourselves drifting either into total paralysis or staccato bursts of emotional thrashing. With Christ at the center we can see clearly, think clearly, assess resources and options clearly. "In this world you will have tribulation," Jesus said, "but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world."

Next time, Part Two of this discussion...

Dave Nixon on House Church, Part Two

This continues the conversation Dave and I had while serving together on a pastoral retreat care team in Idaho in April.

Bill: What expectations does Vineyard Central place on people who attend the various house churches? Can you just come out and “hang with the family” indefinitely?

Dave: Our expectation is that everybody will have a role. You can’t just show up week after week as a non-participant. We want to help everyone get to the place where they are able to identify what their role will be to everyone else in the group. Each group helps to name and identify the gifts they see in people and call them to deploy them. By four months in, most people should know their role pretty clearly.

For example, at our house church my Mom – prepares and serves communion and my Dad is the treasurer. He stewards the funds we collect, processes everything through our central system and returns our checks back to house church. (Note: Half of the funds collected from a given house church as contributions are returned to the house church so they can be utilized missionally).

Bill: What are some of the other roles people might take in a house church?

Dave: There are musicians, an apprentice leader, another apprentice leader, outreach coordinator and so on. Everyone can do something.

Bill: Sounds like this depends on the ability to “know and be known” which must be a key value to your community over and above mere attendance.

Dave: For us it matters that we become a transparent community that has conversations of consequence. We don’t dance around the bush. We have a check-in time. “What’s going on, how is God moving in your life”. When I see transparency, I affirm and point-it-out. We want more of it.

Bill: What would a typical schedule look like at “Hearth” (name of the house church Dave leads)?

Dave: Typically, we meet from about 6:00 to 8:00 or 8:15 at the Speckled Bird Café. Some of our other house churches do a full blown dinner. Ours doesn’t yet. However, we do invite people to show up thirty minutes early and “brown bag” it before the official start. There is a check in time and then a time of worship in song. For our Biblical instruction, we have taught our people the technique of Lexio Divina as a way of helping them to strategically listen to the gospel.
In the four months we’ve been together we have gone through James, Colossians and Ephesians – one chapter per night. We help them to prepare for an encounter with God and His Word. Be still. Slow down your breathing. Listen for God’s voice. What lingers after you read the passage? What stirs in you? What stands out? What do you want to tell me?

Then, we’ll ask: “Does anyone have anything to share after sitting with this passage?”

In addition, we’ll add a 10 – 15 minute teaching every other week. These are vignettes on particular topics that are led by me or by others.

Of course, there is always a time to pray together. We’ll break up into groups and pray for one another. Often, our opening check in time will drive some of this.

To be continued…

Dave Nixon on House Church, Part One

“I’ve got to meet these people!” I said to myself after reading the old issue of the Cutting Edge Magazine online.

The theme of that particular issue of the Vineyard’s publication for church planters was “Out of the Box Churches”. The issue featured the church led by Dave Nixon and Kevin Raines and their team in Norwood (Cincinnati), Ohio. I was intrigued, to say the least!

Vineyard Central, the name of the church, was begun as a traditional church plant but quickly shifted to a house church network after the fire department condemned the space they were using for Sunday worship services. Now, many years later, the Vineyard Central community continues as a house church network – and more. Their very useful website is at: www.vineyardcentral.com.

You can imagine how excited I was to find that I would be spending 10 days with Dave Nixon as a partner in the Vineyard Pastoral Sabbath Retreat care team this month in Idaho. While there, we managed to carve out some time together to swap some favorite music (I turned him on to Fleet Foxes and he introduced me to recordings of his daughter, Kim, a wonderful singer/songwriter!). We also talked about house church – him being the veteran, and me being the starry-eyed beginner. Here are some excerpts from our discussion:

Bill: What is the current status of house churches at Vineyard Central?

Dave: When I resigned from leading the ministry in 2000 (to take on some other roles within the community), we had ten robust house churches. After eight years, we shrank back to three. Six are being reestablished. House churches live or die by their leadership. Without really good ongoing training and mentoring, they will not sustain. Leaders need to define the culture of the churches. This is critical.

Bill: How and when does everyone come together at once?

Dave: We have tried different rhythms, but currently we meet once a month (Vineyard Central owns St. Elizabeth’s, a historic former Catholic church structure in their neighborhood). Most people – 60% - will come to the monthly festival. We hope to see that number rise. These gatherings are called “festivals” and loosely correspond to the Christian calendar (Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, etc). Each month has a theme such as community, hospitality, neighborhood, and so on.

Bill: How important is it for the house church groups to know their purpose?

Dave: We expect each house church to be the church in all aspects and not just a Bible study or “kinship” group. We ask them to spell out and make explicit the purpose of their group. We are called together to worship, express the values of Christ’s new community – mutual care – and we are emphasizing the missional aspect of each group more. I have told the leaders of the groups: “If you cannot establish a mission as a home church, it questions the validity of its being”.

As a house church (their particular HC is called "Hearth"), we are committed to exploring, identifying, birthing and supporting expressions of hospitality in West Norwood. We might get behind something we didn’t start if it expresses the heart of the Kingdom of God.

TO BE CONTINUED...