Knowtown…

fu•sion n. The merging of different elements into a union

fis•sion n. The act or process of splitting into parts.

A large part of my ecclesial dream revolves around the idea of fusion. I believe that when individuals come together and are allowed to bring all of their gifts and abilities into the community a beautiful new thing emerges. For this to take place the conditions need to be right. People need to have the space, time, opportunity and desire to really connect with others in a self-sacrificing way. I dream of church being this kind of venue but so often times it is not. Many come for purely selfish reasons and have no intention of connecting with others or God. Some come willing to make the connection but have no space, time or opportunity. We have structured our “worship” services in a way that prohibits people from connecting with each other. In most relationships when one person does all of the talking and the other person is forced to listen we see it as an aberration. In extreme cases this can even be abusive. But at church this is expected, acceptable behavior. We sit looking at the back of everybody’s head and listen to music, listen to a sermon, maybe watch a drama or video clip. If you’re lucky, you get about 45 seconds to “get around and shake hands with someone new”. Beyond that we are not encouraged to participate in anything, except maybe the offering. When the individual elements have no opportunity to connect, fusion never really happens. Nothing new or beautiful emerges. Over time these individuals may develop a resistance to connecting. After bumping against each other for so long and having no chance to connect they may actually begin to repel each other. Instead of fusion we get fission. We break everything up into parts and everyone goes their own way.

The church I am currently attending is going through a period of transition. As you would expect these things are never easy. I have no idea if months from now we will see fusion or fission. In reality we will probably see a little of both. Much of this will depend on important conversations that are still to take place and whether or not everyone is allowed to bring all of their giftedness to the conversation. Looking ahead I sense the church is headed towards fission while I remain dreaming of fusion. What will that mean for me and my participation? I think it is too early to tell. I’ll keep you posted.

“…’doing the right thing’–whether recycling your plastic and glass, choosing not to double-park on a busy street (even just for a minute), or filling up the coffee urn after taking the last cup–is individually costly but collectively beneficial. From the collective point of view, if enough people do the right thing, then everyone is better off– the world doesn’t run out of natural resources, the street doesn’t get jammed, and the urn is never empty. But from an individual’s point of view, if everyone else is doing the right thing, it is always tempting to free ride on their efforts, reaping the benefits of a public resource without contributing to it. Or, even worse, if no one is doing the right thing, then what is the point of even trying? It will cost you the same amount of effort but won’t benefit anyone. (from Duncan Watts’ book, Six Degrees: The Science Of A Connected Age)

Duncan Watts’ book is about the emerging science of networks. He is showing, scientifically, that we are all living in a connected age. He says many things that are intriguing to me as an ecclesial dreamer. I am not sure why but this book really spoke to me and my feeling that I no longer “fit” in my community of faith. I talk to a lot of people who struggle with this as well. I think this comes from the fact that we are designed to be in relationships (networks) with others. We are built for community and connectivity. But a community has built in tension. For the whole community to benefit, the individuals must think collectively. As soon as individuals begin to think selfishly the whole community suffers. So here is the catch-22. For me to get what I want from a community (which is selfish) I have to think of what is best for the community (not selfish).

I have been thinking about how this data speaks to me and my community of faith. How does this work when you see yourself as a carrier of a dangerous infection? To contribute what I have to the community (not selfish) may actually be destructive, in which case it is really not good for the community. But to not contribute (selfish), while beneficial to the community, will not bring any reward to me as the individual. It becomes a lose-lose proposition. If I contribute the community suffers, and if I don’t I suffer. But is dropping out of community altogether a viable option?

Watts’ book gave me a whole bunch of things to chew on as I try to answer this question. He points out that there is more than one type of contagion. To determine how a contagion moves through a network we have to have information about both the contagion and the network. Maybe there is a better way to see myself than a small pox carrier. Maybe I am simply someone who hold ideas that are just different enough to make it hard to connect in my network. Thinking like this will not help me “fit” any better but at least it is not destructive.

I have a friend who says we all need to be in communities where we are celebrated and not just tolerated. So maybe it is time to start looking for a new network where the people have already been infected, or at least are carrying the same contagions. If you are ready to do what is individually costly it would be nice to do it in a community that will benefit.

I refer to myself as an “ecclesial dreamer”. There are many reasons for this. One is that I have a dream about what a community of Jesus followers could be and I want to be involved in it. Another is that I have a few issues with the packaging and structures of church today so I try not to use words like “pastor”, “church”, etc… For me, using those words implies that I agree with the structure. Sometimes it is easier to be a dreamer.

Of course, the word dreamer implies certain things as well. Some may argue that dreamers never really accomplish anything. Dreamers are not doers. I do not believe that. I think that dreamers have an obligation to paint pictures of the way things could be so that others will know what to aim for. How powerful was Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech?

But there is a downside. Sometimes dreamers can cause destruction without even being aware of it. Jim Campbell recently posted an interesting thought on the Emergent website bulletin boards about Small Pox. He talked about European colonization of the new world. Although they brought many good things, they also brought diseases like small pox that caused a lot of destruction. The idea made me stop and wonder. Do the dreams I have carry the potential to be destructive? Could it be that what I see as an ecclesial dream, others see as an ecclesial nightmare?

In my current community of faith I see the potential for it to go either way. Jason Clark, an ecclesial dreamer and one of the leaders of Emergent, has some discussions about this dream (based on the Brian McLaren book titled, A New Kind Of Christian) that you can download from the Emergent UK website. In one of those discussions he talks about the character traits of Jesus followers (a.k.a. fruits of the Spirit) and how we gain them by living through situations where we need them and do not have them. For example, if you are in a situation where you need patience but do not have it, living through it will help produce it.

This has been a very humbling corrective to my dream. I am trying to learn how to live as an infectious carrier of a dangerous dream in a community of followers who don’t see things the way I do without causing destruction. In trying to live through this I am learning a lot about what it means to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. So far it has been a painful process.

My wife is the student leader at our community of faith in Parker, Colorado. Tonight her group hosted the first ever Friday Night Loud (a.k.a. F’N Loud). They did a great job. They opened up the building for 4 local youth bands.

The long story is that a local coffee shop used to host open mic nights for local kids to perform. For whatever reason they stopped doing that about 3 months ago. So there was no place in town for the kids to do this anymore. The youth kids came up with the idea of opening up our building. They worked with my wife to get it all organized and approved by the leaders of the church.

The short story is that it was an overwhelming success and it lived up to it’s name– it was F’N Loud!! Actually it went way beyond my expectations. I thought we would maybe have 40-50 kids all sitting around like wallflowers. Instead we had about 130-150 dancing, jumping around and having fun! The bands were better than I expected and the local youth of Parker were great. The bands were happy to have a venue to play, the kids were happy to have a place to hang out and listen to bands and the few parents who showed up were happy that there was a place for their kids to do something like this in Parker.

We had a police officer there just to be practical and I had a great conversation with her. She told me how nice it was for a community of faith to let something like this take place. She said just by allowing them to be there we were keeping some of them out of trouble. Then I talked to some of the parents of the band members (there to support their kids) and they again thanked me (as if I had anything to do with it) for opening the building for something like this. I can’t help but wonder why something like this has become the exception rather than the rule? Maybe if every church allowed F’N Loud, punk music bands to have a space we would actually get to know some of the kids from our community. Maybe we will present a powerful gospel message to these kids and there parents. It remains to be seen if the youth kids will make the connection from a “band night” to pointing people to Christ. The jury is still out on if the un-churched kids will see this as a step towards a relationship with Jesus. They are planning F’N Loud for the first Friday of every month so we have time to see how it plays out. Maybe we will never know how any of the participants will respond to F’N Loud but one thing I am sure of… Jesus Christ was there. To me, that was crystal clear.