It's official. On Friday, April 11th I will be a member of Reddit for one whole year. The site marks the occassion by putting a small cake by my user name. Most of that time, over the past year, has been spent on the /r/Christianity sub. While I am still a noob in many respects, I wanted to mark this occasion by sharing some very important lessons I have personally learned over that time. Because I will be sharing this with the /r/Christianity sub tomorrow, I want to stress, these are not lessons for them, but us. We treat the internet like we did missionary work a hundred years ago: poorly. The modern missionary movement had an ah-ha moment with one little sentence. "God has always been there. " The focus turned from bringing our Western style Christianity to them, but, instead, trying to help them discover how God has always existed within their culture. It means Christian worship looks different in, let's say, Africa, than it does in central Europe or the United States. Up until that moment missionaries were practically trying to cram their culture with Christianity down the throat of the mission field. Then they were confused when things like the Boxer Rebellion took place. The biggest change that happened with, "God has always been there," was the realization that the missionaries needed to learn the culture of the people they were trying to Evangelize to, and ultimately create healthy relationships with the people. (Some of y'all over seas might see the obviousness in what I am about to say.) From an American perspective, the Christian culture is no longer the general culture. We need to realize we are not the societal 'normal' anymore and we need to treat our nearby missions like we do our overseas missions: with understanding of the outside culture. Christians have taken Romans 12:2 (Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.) and in their effort to follow the scripture became poor missionaries. Let me explain: If a random person were to walk into an American, Sunday worship they would be met with songs they have never heard, cadences they won't understand, and traditions that don't make any sense. If they are a mega-church they will be necessarily ignored, and if they are a dying church they will be overly greeted. A hundred years ago we could return to our home churches and we could have our version of Christianity and we they could have theirs. That can't work anymore. Not when the culture we are reaching out to is supposed to be our own. What does that have to do with the internet? People want to learn about God, but they cannot connect to our Christian culture in church. They turn to the internet, and Reddit. In response Christians try to take their culture, praise songs and all, and put it online. When it is ignored or down voted, they don't understand why. Which leads me to #2: Most churches become the most despised things on Reddit: Dumpers, or also known as, Spammers. Before you are all offended, in the beginning, I was a dumper. Dumping is when you take your sermon, text, whatever and just dump it to the site and leave. If you do this, you are a poor evangelizer and are wasting the internet. Think about it this way. You are bringing a God given message. To do this you must know the community you are giving the message to. Just a hint, this community (Reddit, YouTube, or otherwise) isn't going to sit around and watch you speak in front of a camera for 45 minutes. They are also not going to give your message the time of day if you copy and pasted it into a blog. ( Fig Tree's most popular meditation was posted almost a year ago. Hardly any pictures; mostly words. There are exceptions to everything. Legally Speaking.) Usually it doesn't matter if you created a turd or spun gold, if you are not connecting with how they connect you've just posted a big pile of nothing. I saw a crazy statistic last week: 2 million blogs are written everyday and almost as many videos are posted. No one, even fellow Christians, are going to give your work the time of day when there is that much highly crafted content out there. Sorry. The Christianity sub. doesn't take dumping lightly and it can get you blocked if you are not willing to contribute to the group in something other than your posts. Pinterest naturally rewards the pinner who pins other's work because the other sees it. Occasionally they will follow up and pin something of yours. Facebook is all about relationship, and dumping just goes down the feed and is lost. Consider the community. They are all different and exciting in their own way. If you are not willing to stick around and show you care, why should they care? The internet is full of people who just want to know they are worth something. To me, it seems more important to spend time raising other people up and showing support. So maybe my page hits are down one week. It's not as important as getting out there and showing others they are awesome. As an extra note: the moderators at /r/Christianity need to be thanked on a daily basis. They are working hard to make sure the sub over there is a safe place for people to educate, share prayer concerns, ask questions, and discuss outside sites. It doesn't look like Christianity has looked for the past 10 or so decades. I think that is a good thing. If you like what you are reading there are many ways to connect:
Connection Board And as always, contributions are greatly appreciated. Sometimes our Christian journey can feel a little bit like Psalm 23: Beautiful and simple. There is something very innocent about Psalm 23. I love the analogy of being a lamb in God's care. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to pick it apart. It simply exists for me to appreciate. Like I can just appreciate the imagery. I can imagine the smell of new grass, as I imagine lying in greenfields. I love lying in it. It brings back images of being a kid. (Back when I didn't think about the bugs and dirt that came with grass.) Reading about peaceful waters makes me want to take off my shoes and dip my feet in. There are days where I rejoice in the simplicity of faith. My first sermon ever: "God is love. That's it. It's that simple." I basically repeated it for about five minutes back during a Youth Sunday. Sometimes it is nice to have those scriptures that make us deflate our brains and see the beautifully simple side of things. Sometimes our Christian journey can feel a little bit like Psalm 23: Outdated and overused. Nothing seems more overused and overdone than Psalm 23. Whenever I think about it, I naturally find myself repeating the King James Version. Just the language of the KJV separates me from the text. The scripture can be stuffy at times. It can symbolize tradition over Divine council. Sometimes I hear Psalm 23 and I can imagine the smell of really old bibles. (Strange, right?) It becomes difficult to come back to it time and time again, because I've come back to it time and time again. I get that way sometimes in Church. I feel like we are fighting the same battles over and over again. I begin to feel like I'm running the Caucus race from Alice in Wonderland. We are just going in circles to dry off. Nothing is really being accomplished. (I eventually remember great tasks often require repetition.) Sometimes our Christian journey can feel a little bit like Psalm 23: Overwhelming. I know this is hard to believe, but there are times I just choose to shut up. Sometimes I shut up because someone else needs a chance to speak. Other times I am overwhelmed by Church bullies and choose to shut my mouth. Psalm 23 is a scriptural bully. If anyone asks: what's your favorite scripture, there will always be a Psalm 23 contingent. As people share their favorite verse the Psalm 23 group begin countering with why the others are wrong. "I love John 3:16." "Psalm 23 is much more descriptive." "Micah 6:8 is the mantra by which I live." "Well, Psalm 23 has more to it." Chill! We can both exist with our own favorite scriptures. But often I just allow that battle to be won from the other side and not fight it. Church can get that way sometimes regarding battles that deserve to be fought. I have so much respect for those people who willingly sacrifice to speak the truth. When dealing with community dynamics, church can be a difficult place to speak the truth. Sometimes our Christian journey can feel a bit like Psalm 23: Gloriously diverse. It says something that I can find the same amount of meaning in the 23rd Psalm as my Great Grandmother found in it. It's one of those scriptures that are not really divisive because it presents itself as an invitation. Political, gender, social lines are erased with this Psalm. God is the Shepherd to all. At the end of the day, as stuffy, overused, and overwhelmed we are as Christians, we are still the Body of Christ. We are so different, and that's how it's supposed to be. If you like what you are reading there are many ways to connect:
Connection Board And as always, contributions are greatly appreciated. On Tuesday I heard someone say what I have heard others say now for years: There is no war on women. I realized, for the first time, hearing those words felt like being kicked while I was down. Yes, I am grateful for what has been accomplished.
All this I understand and appreciate. I respect the matriarchs who have come before me. I pray for those who do not have the freedoms I have. I realize I am walking on hallowed ground when I do things previous generations had to really sacrifice to achieve. That's why it hurts so badly when I feel beat down by those who use previous matriarchs in order to get me to shut up. It feels like I am being told, "Whatever you are feeling, just stop talking about it. The fight is over." I guess that is difficult to grasp, especially considering my history and what I am aware of. I been through some stuff. (And I would substitute 'stuff' for another word which is more PG-13.) I watched, as my mother was almost killed by a drunk and abusive step-father. (Domestic abuse against women still exists in the United States.) Young girls are still being kidnapped and put into the sex trade. (It happens every day, right in front of all us.) Men are not judged even nearly as much by his body. Women cannot be on camera- film or photograph, without being manipulated on some level. Make-up is only the first level of taking away the natural female face. Photoshop is overused and turns women into meat. Eye candy. This alone lets me know the war on women is alive in well in subtle and dangerous ways. But, if I am wrong another war has taken it's place. The war on standards. I know some excellent women. By excellent I mean excellent. These women are mothers, wives, and/or sisters, and work full time. Some of these women work full time at home, cleaning, raising, and doing some totally awesome things like making quilts and other amazing crafts for the home. They take the kids to practices. They use their limited funds to put together meaningful birthday parties. I am humbled by their skill and creativity. Some of these women work full time in an outside job. They set the standard for their work incredibly high. They go above and beyond the specified task and do everything they need to do at home. If the war on women ended, women took the next step and set the standards incredibly high. They became teachers and gave 60 hour work weeks. They became ministers and took on a full time pastorate with the christian education position. Perhaps some stayed in the home, but took it to the next level. All these women, whether in the workforce or not, have been told, who they were or were not supposed to be, and ignoring it. Because, no matter what they were told they had to be, the most important was exceptional. And quite honestly, they put many men to shame. They raised their standards while men kept theirs. I know today there are no scriptures or flashy images. It's just, I've been kicked one too many times and I finally had to cry uncle. OK, you say the war on women is over. The war on standards has just begun. If you like what you are reading there are many ways to connect:
Connection Board And as always, contributions are greatly appreciated. When the site's foyer, or front page, is all about spring and summer, while most of the nation has a nice layer of snow outside their window... well, it's a difficult analogy to sell. Or is it? The United States has had an abnormally cold winter this year. Even the south has felt the icy sting of northern air. And spring is only a waiting game away. If we sit on our butts long enough the perennials will break through the cold ground, and the warm breeze will be back again. Finally, we can talk about our tans instead of our chapped lips. And that's our problem when we begin to discuss church. Many know this is a winter for the Christian institution. (Let's pray it isn't autumn. Then we are in real trouble.) There are a few things we do in a winter.
And we act like we can wait it out and it will go away. It won't. This is the real danger of Church in America: we don't have the American spirit anymore to drive us to fix it. When the Baptist, Anabaptist, Christian Church, and other denominations took off in the late 1700's to early 1800's, it was partly because of the American can-do attitude. We were workers, growers, and entrepreneurs. We saw the need for church to change and we just changed it. I was easy because the spirit moving it was in line with the need. Today, it is different. We have been taught we can buy happiness, we don't have to work for what we want, change is out of our control. This has not only kept us in a Christian winter, it has deepened the cold. Everyone is just waiting for the right group or person to come forward with the right formula. (Usually involving keeping things as much the way they already are, as much as possible.) I'm surprised I haven't seen the book: How to fix the church in 20 easy steps and not break a sweat. What do we do? I can't say this enough. Something. Get off our butt, and try things. For Fig Tree Christian its getting a dedicated group of individuals together to begin praying and researching. Not to internalize how to recreate what exists at 20 different churches in a 10 mile radius. This is about figuring out what God wants Christians to be in this climate. God isn't calling us to jump ship after we see the next great thing coming over the horizon. This is about God calling us to help build and create the next step, the future mode of transportation for the Christian faith. Otherwise, and I say this with as much grace and love as possible, we need to stop this suffering and just pull the plug. This is not a winter we can just wait out. This is a winter that ends when we are ready for it to end. Are we ready? Until March 24th, any love offering made to Fig Tree Christian will come with a hand knotted heart bracelet. It is our way to say thank you for your gift. Bracelets are one size fits most, and colors are randomized. Checks can be sent to: Fig Tree Christian 42 Essex Ln Hiram, GA 30141 Or you can make a donation by clicking here. Today is my birthday. When I was younger, I used to love the idea of my birthday falling on a Sunday. I enjoyed the attention I would get from other congregants as I celebrated being another year older. Ah, how age can change a person. My perspective changed a bit. I had heartache, seminary, love, marriage, kids. The world happened and seminary just gave it context. What context? Well, Matthew 5:13-20 to begin with. Jesus is teaching on the mountain, when he gives these two little illustrations: salt and light. See, so many times I went to church wanting the attention and admiration. I wanted others to make my experience richer. I wanted others to show me the light. Yet, when Jesus uses these images he isn't talking about others being those things to us. It is our place, nay, my place, to be those things to others. I am the salt of the earth. To be worth something I need to enhance the experience of others. I am the light of the world, therefore my light should always shine in order to help others see. Kinda changes the outlook a bit. So I have a birthday wish today. I hope the light shines for you today, and you can embrace it and shine it out for others. I hope this little message can enhance your day, and make it a little better. Until March 24th, any love offering made to Fig Tree Christian will come with a hand knotted heart bracelet. It is our way to say thank you for your gift. Bracelets are one size fits most, and colors are randomized.
Checks can be sent to: Fig Tree Christian 42 Essex Ln Hiram, GA 30141 Or you can make a donation by clicking here. I have been spending the past few days trying to make sense of what happened last week. Only a few people really know the full extent of what happened, so I will begin by summing it all up: Two Thursday's ago I began a series on the tensions we need to keep in Christianity. I began by explaining the tension between the individual journey and the communal journey. Last Thursday I discussed the tension between reaching people with content and how that content is expressed. This message went viral on Reddit. Over 400 people visited Fig Tree from the subreddit link. Of those 400 visits it was shared with others and 400 plus more people found the meditation that day. This has made last Thursday's meditation the second most visited mediation to date. It had enough upvotes to keep it on hot page of /r/Christianity for most of the day. From everything I just shared, it was well received. By the end of the day it was like by 79%, which is good for a Reddit link. However, there was a very vocal minority that spoke up and shared their opinion. Before I continue I wish to say, thank goodness for the dialogue. I appreciated all of it. Week after week I end by saying I want to hear from you, and I mean it. If I am wrong I want to hear it. If you have something to add, I want to hear that too. Nothing is going to be solved by simply reading and moving on. Part of being the Body of Christ is connecting. So this isn't a bully pulpit moment. I hope if nothing else makes sense, that is understood. The vocal minority helped me realize what needs to be said about the internet.
Well, I believe that hits the highlights. I am glad what happened last Thursday and I wouldn't take it back. If it hurt, I'm sorry. This is me showing you I put up my sword years ago. No guest meditator, or minister of Fig Tree will carry a sword here. I hope that clears the air. This is a place of love. We would really love to hear from you. Please consider joining the discussion on our community board. Let's connect.
Not only do I believe God answers prayers, but I have personally witnessed the answer to prayers through Fig Tree Christian. Everything I have posted that I needed, some way or another, has been given. It has been a year of blessings. Therefore, with a heightened awareness of where Fig Tree is going in the new year, I wish to share what Fig Tree Christian would like to receive for this year: We need 8-12 core people who are willing to take a leap. While Fig Tree Christian is considered a new church start it is not church as understood by the contemporary definition. Church is being used as a missional term. Instead of starting by choosing whether worship uses organ or guitar, we start by understanding what the community needs to understand God better. This is putting the contemporary/traditional worship skeleton aside and trusting God can lead us to see what worship looks like in this new world we live in. Unlike many new church starts this does not require leaving a current church setting. This group would meet on another day, like a Monday night. If we could get this group together, it would be 6 months of deep study and prayer. I have been working for the past three months to secure a tax code for Fig Tree Christian. Every time I send it in there is something small to fix. With a little prayer, this one will be resolved over the next month... I hope. This one is huge. See this building? This was the community center for the community that used to work at the old treadmill in Clarkdale, GA. The mill closed years ago, and the community has suffered since. Even this community center is in need of more than just a little TLC. When the above two needs are met, Fig Tree Christian wants to look into acquiring this building as the meeting place for future worship (whatever form that takes) and community outreach. My husband has felt a desire to see this community helped and I have felt a draw as well. Just gaining the building and restoring it, would be great a great start. The community center/church would once again be available for birthday parties and community events. To earn money for the family I have worked for the past year and a half at a local Cajun restaurant in Hiram, Georgia. Last month, in December, they had to permanently close their doors. As my last gift to the owners, I wrote a eulogy to remember them. Dearly beloved, Today we lay to rest a friend and confidant. We spent our weekends visiting this friend, and our free nights sharing in the communion of a good meal. Today, after four years, we say goodbye to Cajun's Cookin'. I have a unique roll at this celebration of life. I was a server for their restaurant for one and a half years. I am also a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) where I currently hold my standing. Everything and everyone deserves a funeral, a chance to say goodbye. While I have worked in churches for over a decade, participating and leading funerals and weddings, I have never buried a restaurant. Bare with me as we work through this together. Cajun's Cookin' leaves behind the owners, Cajun and Amy, their kitchen staff, serving staff, and customers- both old and new. They were dedicated to the 'real deal,' as Cajun liked to put it. They served food I could get behind. I refused to lie. The food I sold was the best. It was always the food I wanted to eat, and I wanted to eat it all. I raved about the premium shrimp, ate up the red beans and rice with andouille sausage, and couldn't sell more bisque when the crawfish lobster mix came back. I even liked the catfish, and I am not a fan of catfish. As Cajun put it, “All our seafood comes fresh from Louisiana once a week. We use the tenderloin of the gator, because the tail meat is gamey and chewy.” We will never forget the gator head greeting us as we walked through the door, or the Cajun words that remained our companions above us as we ate our meals. We will remember fondly the jokes Cajun shared with us. There is no easy way to say goodbye. As for me, I have so much to be grateful for. I can remember my first conversation with Cajun when I applied for the job, “You're not going to be all preachy with everyone?” I could barely understand what he was saying, as I had never had long interaction with anyone from the New Orleans area. Now, at the end, we have had long conversations about what has happened and what the future holds, understanding everything he says. Oh, how things change. Back at the beginning, I promised I would be there to do my job, and I would be around for awhile while I got the ministry together. (I was and I am working on getting a group together to start a Disciples church in Paulding County. That could happen in months or years. It's God's time.) Oh yeah, and I promised to not be preachy. While I cannot speak for the many lives Cajun's Cookin' has touched over the past four years they were open, I can personally say how the restaurant has positively touched my life. When I first began serving at the restaurant, Cajun always had an issue with me. He called me meek. It was true. Seminary teaches a future minister a multitude of lessons. A hidden unspoken lesson at my seminary was evangelism is dangerous. We learn about things like the Boxer Rebellion and street side preachers and come away thinking speaking the truth too boldly will lead to nothing but heartache. Now, I come away from this serving experience knowing the opposite is the case. I learned loving the product but not openly selling it, doesn't sell the product. This is true for explaining why Gator Bites are a really good appetizer, and it's true of Christianity. I am not ashamed of my calling, but I was taught to live in shame. God is good. All the time, God is good. There is nothing wrong with that. It's good. It took me learning if a meal is good, I should want others to try that meal too. It took learning to be a server to learn how evangelism is right. I also learned something more recently. Not all death comes from things that ought to die. I have seen many a church recently, and many a church is scared, and dying. I can feel it as I walk through the door. I can see the desperation as they try to talk me into getting involved. This is a scary time for organized religion. Up until now, I have seen the churches lost in dementia, where they cannot remember their roots and live into it. I have seen the bitter old shells of former glory, hanging on to life by the thin thread of a paid off building. I have no problem seeing these congregations letting go. I want to help them see the grace and love in death. After all, Jesus did not abolish death. Death still happened and it happened in a cruel and heartless way. Jesus overcame death- but to overcome death, one must die first. It is difficult to see these congregations who preach overcoming death every Sunday but are afraid to take the leap themselves, trusting God is on the other side. As I talked to Cajun I saw a restaurant that isn't suffering from forgetting their roots. They are not bitter old shells of their former glory. This is good food. This a family sharing their family meal with others. This restaurant deserves to live, but this restaurant had to die. It could not survive in Hiram, Georgia. For God's call to Amy and Cajun to continue, the original call had to die first. This is a terrible and beautiful reminder of our own calls. When God calls us to faith, it is not a faith attached to our old lives. We must die to our old lives to be reborn as new creatures. As Amy and Cajun taught me, this is not easy. It could be one of the most difficult steps in the journey to new life, but it is a step that has to be taken. It is also a step that sometimes happens to the young and youthful spirits that appear to be on track. Death can take the young, old, healthy, and broken. Freewill can mess up something God set right and turn it wrong. So today we remember Cajun's Cookin' fondly for the many great memories it will leave us with. We pray for the Dubroc family, hoping their next journey is fruitful and God inspired. And, as a former server I ask: In lieu of flowers go visit your favorite small business or restaurant and tell them thank you for their hard work. You never know when it will be too late. Would love to hear from you. Wanna share your story? Respond in the comments.
Join the conversation on http://www.reddit.com/r/FigTreeChristian/ Like Fig Tree Christian on Facebook. Part of marriage is the blending of traditions to make new family traditions. One of the places where this is seen the clearest is in Christmas. There is a give and take. When Linc and I first met we each had a very specific tradition. At the beginning of Advent I would watch A Muppet Christmas Carol. The weekend before Christmas Linc would watch, MST3K: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Yes, it was ripped on a VHS and featured those old commercial breaks. We made it our tradition to watch both movies. Eventually it morphed into a weekly movie experience. Now our tradition is as follows:
Linc reminded me, early this year, of our list when he said we wanted to add A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Mickey Christmas Carol to it. It made me realize we have surrounded our season with films. Halloween we watch A Nightmare Before Christmas and Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin. Christmas Eve we watch, It's a Wonderful Life. It got me thinking, could Advent draw on those movies we love and connect them to a Christian context?
So for Advent we will be going to Hollywood and drawing connections from some of our holiday favorites. This list won't look like my personal family list. I give them to you today so the DVR's can be set, we can pull out the popcorn, and celebrate the Christmas season together.
Today marks the one year anniversary since the internet launch of Fig Tree Christian. The best way for us to celebrate is to say thank you to everyone who has helped over the year. Thank you to the congregations who have helpedCentral Christian Church- They participated in the fundraiser and sold t-shirts. More than that, they wore the t-shirts at the General Assembly and showed their love to a fellow Christian organization. Thank you. First Christian Church in Hendersonville- They felt called to send a love offering to us which allowed us to do the first Good Samaritan Gift. Thank you. Thank you to our guest meditationsRev. Frank Sherard- He was the bold Christian who kicked off guest meditations and became our first contributor outside of myself. Thank you. Rev. Paul Appleby- He wrote a guest mediation and has been a supportive voice in the background. With his wife, Sage Appleby, they are grade "A" cheerleaders of the faith. They are strong supporters to Fig Tree Christian. Thank you. Chaplain Kimberly Russell- Yes, she is my sister, and she is the person to turn to when I need to work out a theological issue or brainstorm the next step. She has written two guest meditations. Thank you. Thank you to the Georgia RegionThe Georgia region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has shared its excitement and support of Fig Tree Christian. They have sent myself to the Leadership Conference and has stayed in contact to try to find ways to support this ministry. Thank you. Thank you to those who have donatedFor privacy issues I don't want to mention these supporters of the faith by name. Just thank you for believing in the mission of Fig Tree Christian enough to give a financial contribution to the ministry. Your gifts throughout the year has made it possible to bring fliers to the Paulding County area. Thank you. Thank you to my familyOn Thursday anyone can check the website after 8am EST and find a beautiful meditation with pictures and a meaningful message. What one would not find is all the praying and soul searching that happens in between that time. If it wasn't for the support of a loving husband we wouldn't be where we are today. Thank you Linc. Last but not least- thank you to everyone who shows up every week!Whether you come every week to read or you are sharing the word with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. You only show up as a number on my end, but I pray for each of you on a daily basis. I love y'all, and you are the reason I do this every week! Now join our Reddit community and add your thoughts! We would love to hear your story and connect! http://www.reddit.com/r/FigTreeChristian/
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