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Jen Hale Christy

Coach and Writer

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Leaving Church: What I’m Learning (Part Two)

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“Come and help us learn to be the people of God in the neighborhood where we find ourselves.”

That was the call.

Last month I shared here about my departure from paid congregational ministry. Unsurprisingly, I’ve found that many of the practices I engaged as a paid minister were things I could still do after I left:

  • BLESSING There are lots of people outside the church walls who are in need of blessing. So I don’t hesitate to write a blessing in my co-worker’s birthday card.
  • SHOWING KINDNESS I still show kindness cashiers and gas station attendants and janitors, asking them how their day is going and making sure they feel seen and heard.
  • NEIGHBORHOOD I’m still involved with the neighborhood association—but now it’s the one where my home is located, rather than the one the church building is located in.
  • CEREMONIES A friend from the neighborhood recently asked if I do funerals because his ex-wife is on her deathbed. Yes, I can do that for you.
  • SPEAKING I accept speaking opportunities as they arrive, but I also preach through my blog, reaching friends near and far with words of hope and solidarity and challenge.
  • INVITING We still invite people into our lives and home, listening for God’s movement and looking for ways to bless others.
    Living missionally and extending hospitality – these things don’t require a paid ministry gig. Of course.

CALLING
No longer tethered to a Christian institution (which has positives and negatives), I consider myself a minister-at-large.

I don’t draw a paycheck from a church anymore. But I know who God has created me to be, and I’m living into that calling wherever my feet are planted. The affirmation of a church ordaining and blessing and paying me as a “minister” was a beautiful gift. But also…

I was a minister long before anyone paid me to be—and I will be long after as well.

CHURCH
Still, beyond how I live and move and work in the world, there’s something critical about Christian community. Although attending Sunday services doesn’t totally fulfill this need, we wanted to be growing together with a body of fellow travelers. We wanted to continue sharing communion weekly. We wanted to keep singing the hymns that have been etched into our hearts through decades of singing them with our church families.

For the better part of a year we spent Sundays at home or traveling, with a dozen or so spent visiting a handful of churches.

We found churches that met some, but not all, of our priorities. We weren’t trying to be picky (although admittedly we are), things were just so complicated after working for a church. Our disenchantment with the ways we’ve institutionalized Christianity was stronger than ever.

While we worked through the grief and healing, hopeful for a day we would once again be regular church-goers, we spent that season focusing more on Christian community outside the walls of a church building.

CHOOSING THE NEIGHBORHOOD
We chose to be more intentional about getting to know our neighbors, and eventually doing life together with some neighbors who became close friends.

Together we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and successes. We share struggles, carry burdens together, and check in with each other. We cook and eat together, vacation and play together. We’re last-minute friends. We’re “can you pick up my kid and hang onto them for a bit” friends. We’re “let’s go for a walk around the neighborhood” friends. We’re “hey dinner’s ready, do you want to come over and eat?” friends. We’re friends like family.

It’s life-giving, and deeper than relationships we could build just by being with people on Sunday mornings. Although we have different denominational backgrounds, we share a common faith in Jesus and often pray before sharing meals together. But we don’t sing. We talk about hard things and our faith undergirds our conversations, but we aren’t opening up the Bible and exploring how it speaks to our lives.

CHURCH
It’s taken a little over a year of healing to reach the point where we’re ready to commit and engage with an institutional church again. We’re almost settled on our church home for now. I’m sure we’ll keep talking about planting a church, and exploring non-traditional ways of doing church, but for now—things feel settled and sustainable. We’re still doing Christian community in our neighborhood, but we’re adding a layer of institutional Christian community in the form of a church near our home.

CALLING REDEEMED
As a family, we’re “learning how to be the people of God in the neighborhood where we find ourselves.” There have been long seasons of questioning that call—not the call to ministry generally, but this specific call we heard to a particular church. And in a curious turn of events, the call persists although the context and faces have changed. God is faithful.

Time To Get Woke

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Our familiarity sometimes blinds us to things that are out of the ordinary.

“Jesus is Coming Soon” is a favorite song among many in my tradition—Churches of Christ. Its cheery, catchy tune matched with lovely harmonies will embed itself in your brain and have you humming it throughout the week. It’s super familiar to me because I grew up singing it often, but I was a full-grown adult before I consciously processed the troubling lyrics we were singing with great vigor “Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon, many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound!” Whether or not you agree with that statement, the tone is all wrong. But my familiarity with the tune blinded me to just how out of place the lyrics were.

Those of us who have been in church for a while run the risk of being too familiar with the stories of Jesus’ earthly ministry to see how radical and counter-cultural he was. Moreover, already knowing how these stories end, we see them in the rear-view mirror (with Jesus as the victor) and are no longer scandalized or surprised by the outrageous ways in which he transgressed norms.

First, consider his ethnicity and resident status.

It’s too easy to miss the Jews being an ethnic minority and the implications of hearing their stories through that lens. Their prophets continually spoke harsh truths to those unjustly wielding their power—not unlike our rulers today. Jesus’ ministry was to those on the margins of the margins.

We ignore the fact that the Jews, and later Jesus, were immigrants and refugees at various points. Coming from a long line of nomadic immigrants, Jesus was a dreamer in Egypt as his parents fled the slaughtering of children in their homeland.

We overlook it when Jesus describes himself as homeless. He was not a homeowner with comfortable roots in a sleepy suburb. Rather, he was always on the move, depending fully on the hospitality and kindness of strangers and friends alike.

Second, consider his way of life.

We fail to see just what a revolutionary leader he was when his feet carried dust from town to town. Yes, he had a ragtag band of followers, but his resistance to systemic injustices made him unpopular among the rich and powerful. He was an activist, agitating for change.

Jesus broke all kinds of social and religious rules. He chose to dine with those of ill-repute, those who were regarded as less-than and living-in-sin by those in the middle and upper crust of society. He even had people like that among his followers!

He did not acquiesce to societal, governmental, or religious expectations if they stood contrary to God’s heart and Kindom.* Not only did he resist those expectations, he spoke openly against them. He called out misunderstandings and misinterpretations, pointing us to a better way to live, a freer way to be in the world.

Friends, we need to get woke and discover who Jesus was and is. He doesn’t toe the party line and he probably participates in some marches. He doesn’t fit neatly into our rich, white, American, consumeristic, patriotic lifestyle. So let’s stop trying to squeeze him in, and instead start following our revolutionary leader who pursued the Kindom at all costs.

*I recently received an education in why we should be using “Kindom” instead of “Kingdom:” The former highlights our kinship and community, while the latter still assumes and requires a monarch.

A Beautiful Execution

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Jesus was a revolutionary–a political dissident who was executed for his subversion of the Roman government. I know, it’s a bit unsettling to layer modern legal terms over stories that took place ages ago in another world. Crucifixion? Yep, we’ve been using that term long enough that we’ve desensitized ourselves to its true meaning. Execution? That sounds more like something that happens today…to criminals.

And yet there it is, in the Bible and serving as the foundation of our faith—Jesus was executed as a political criminal. God raised him from the dead three days later as a witness to God’s existence, Jesus’s identity, God’s power and triumph over death, and God’s promise to raise us one day too.

We prefer to focus on these truths rather than the ugliness of a death sentence and execution. But he was executed. And before that, he was arrested, imprisoned, and beaten. This was all legit because legally, the government had a case against him. He *was* teaching things that sounded like resistance to Roman rule. When faced with the government’s questioning, he didn’t defend himself.

Of course we know his trouble had more to do with the religious authorities than the government. When the religious leaders were fed up with his critiques, outrageous claims, contempt for some of their rules, and the ways in which he was leading others astray, they turned to the government to end this once and for all.

Those words printed in red ink in Bibles, verses we hold so dear and put to lovely melodies, phrases we memorize and cross-stitch on pillows—those are the words that got him killed.

I mean basically, if you were wealthy or powerful–middle class on up—and you weren’t helping others, Jesus had some harsh words for you. He criticized your traditions, called out the way you spent money and hoarded possessions, and questioned your loyalties. He didn’t have you singing “what a friend we have in Jesus…”

Jesus’ tenderness was for the poor, the one whose neck was trapped under the boot of oppression. His kind words were for those society said “no” to: the one with disabilities, the one whose only means of earning a living was by selling her body, the one infected with an incurable disease. To all of these he said “YES. The kingdom is for you. God is for you. I am for you. All those labels and divisions and hierarchies—rubbish. God’s kingdom is for everyone and you’re the first ones there. I’m here making God accessible to all.” And that got him killed.

But that was Jesus. And this is us. That was then. And this is now.

I mean, yeah, we want to be like Jesus, but… that doesn’t mean we protest in ways that might bring us harm, right? That doesn’t mean we speak truth to power and get ourselves slaughtered metaphorically or literally, right? We don’t have to go befriend or help those who are lower than us in society, do we?

Consider again that these are the things that Jesus did. These are the ways in which God’s eternal, transcendent kingdom crashed into time and space in the person of Jesus. Injustices had to be called out and corrected. God’s truth busted out and set records straight left and right. And God’s love bowed his head, breathed his last, and submitted to execution knowing that through his death, all would have life. Through these ashes would come beauty like the world has never seen before.

Friends, if we find ourselves in positions of wealth or power, we are called to wield those in ways that bring healing, kindness, and love to the world. We are called to submit in ways that bring life, wholeness, and peace. In this way, may the light of Jesus shine brightly through us and illuminate a beautiful new world before our eyes.

How [Not] To Be Christian: Part Two

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Bigotry, hate, homophobia, hypocrisy, misogyny… abuse, power, politics…excusing or ignoring or dismissing unChristian behaviors. These are the words we talked about last week, the ones frequently associated with modern Christianity. They all have the same root: fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the other, fear that turns to hate. There’s the fear of not being in control, fear of losing power or privilege, and fear of others learning ugly truths. These fears are real, and we all struggle with them to different degrees.

Although we know Jesus was fully human, we might lean too heavily on his divinity and miss the fear that he certainly felt. But Jesus didn’t give in to fear. Every time he was faced with fear-inducing situations—from public accusations of wrong-doing, public shaming, and attempts on his life, to close friends deserting, denying, or betraying him—every time, he chose faith.

Of all humans who have ever lived, Jesus truly could have flaunted his power, position, and privilege to make the world right, to make the world submit to God’s kingdom. Instead, in careful listening and submission to God’s leading, he let humility drive how he used his power, position, and privilege. Refusing to coerce, manipulate, or lord over others, he moved to the margins, giving voice to the silenced, bringing healing to the suffering, and speaking truth to power.

He chose faith in the God who called him to a particular way of being in the world. He chose faith in the self-giving God who demonstrated the life of self-sacrifice that defines the God’s kingdom. Trusting that God would never leave him, he continued his painful journey with ears inclined to hear God’s leading. Choosing faith over fear, he embodied God’s kingdom and modeled a way of life for all of his would-be followers.

Fear is real. May we admit it, examine it, deal with it, and choose not to be led, owned, or paralyzed by it. When we are tempted to fearfully label and mistreat others, may we be encouraged by Jesus who stands with the oppressed. When we want to lash out at the oppressors and give them a taste of their own medicine, may we remember Jesus who, with the power of the universe in his fingertips, let them drive nails through his palms–never returning their violence with violence. When we fill the chill of hatred oozing through our veins, may our hearts, minds, and words be softened and emboldened by Jesus, who had every reason to hate those who accused, denied, betrayed, beat, and killed him–but instead, through faith, chose to love.

May we choose faith over fear. May we choose faith in Jesus, who experienced the range of fears just like we do—from social fears like public ridicule to the threat of mortal danger, yet still chose faith. May we lean on his faith as we find our own.

When I say “Christian,” you say…

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In 2018, what words come to mind when the average non-Christian in America hears the term Christianity? Bigotry, hate, homophobia, hypocrisy, misogyny… abuse, power, politics…excusing or ignoring or dismissing unChristian behaviors? We’re familiar with the research, not to mention many headline-making high-profile cases, that demonstrate this, right? (Some of the studies are discussed here.)

I confess at times I’ve been hesitant to tell someone I’m a minister, embarrassed by the legitimate reasons Christianity has a mixed reputation.

As much as I want to identify with the great heroes of faith, I also have to reckon with the uglier parts of our ancestry: those who perpetrated the crusades, those who bought and sold people, those who engaged in ethnic cleansing – to name a few. Sadly, it’s not all in the past. We’re currently living in a time when (white) American patriotism is conflated (and thereby confused) with Christianity.

In this era, there are pockets of Christianity in which you could expect your Christian convictions to be called into question should you appear unpatriotic, express “liberal” points of view, or question those in authority.

Interestingly, this is what led to Jesus’s trouble with the law, his arrest and execution. Ushering in God’s kingdom, he challenged the authority of the Roman Empire. Claiming to be the son of God, he challenged Caesar’s claim to the same. Leaning away from legalism and towards grace, he challenged the Pharisees’ approach to the law.

Jesus didn’t worry about labels, and was always pushing boundaries. He immersed himself in God’s kingdom vision of shalom—wholeness, peace, fullness, harmony. And his rumbles with religious leaders were rooted in their denial or departure from that shalom when they were excluding or mistreating others, and being hyper legalistic. He boldly proclaimed “woe to the religious leaders who make religion too hard for others to follow…” (Luke 11.46)

If we find we’ve been a bit exclusionary or legalistic–corporately or in our hearts–perhaps we can hear Jesus’ “woe” for us and shift course. If we find that we’ve been on the other side of the exclusion or legalism, may we feel Jesus’ inclusion and unconditional love for us.

He said—wherever you find yourself, whatever color of skin or family you’re raised in, whatever language you speak and gender you identify with—seek the kingdom. Love God, love others. Love God by loving each other. Love each other by loving God. Go all in on these things, full speed ahead.

Yeah, let’s be those kind of people.