No Need for Church | The Christian Century
An essay of mine, “No Need for Church: Ministry with young adults in flux” is published in the Feb 8, 2012 edition of The Christian Century. A teaser is posted below, which is also available to all readers on the Century website. To read it in full, find a dead tree edition, or subscribe and gain full online access.
Within the metro area of Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota, are scores of vital mainline churches. So why are 45,000 young adults—close to a quarter of the entire population—not connected to any of them?
In economic terms, it’s not a supply-side issue; there’s simply no demand for church from the young adults. In my new call as developer of young adult ministry in the Fargo-Moorhead area, I’ve been meeting and talking with young adults in area pubs and coffee shops. After only a dozen conversations, it became clear that what many mainline churches here offer—the worship, the programs, the intergenerational community—fails to connect with many in their twenties and thirties. Perhaps this was predictable, but for me, a 28-year-old pastor called to work with other young adults, it’s been a troubling discovery….
For the full piece, visit: The Christian Century website.
Adam, Have Your Say: My Brush with the BBC
Blogging has opened many doors for me over the years. That’s not the reason I blog (see “Why I Blog”), but it’s a fun perk. Last week brought a special highlight.
I received an email from a reporter at the BBC radio show, “World Have Your Say.” In light of Christopher Hitchens’ death, they were planning a show on the use of metaphorical language and cancer. Somehow — through Google, I presume — the reporter found an old blog post of mine reflecting on a book I read last year, a chapter of which was on this exact topic.
The email asked if I’d be willing to be a guest on the live show which, by the time I read the email, would be taking place in under 3 hours. Obviously, I couldn’t make it to their NY studios as they had queried. The local MPR studio in Moorhead wasn’t an option due to staffing constraints, so after speaking with someone at the WHYS office in London, we agreed I could be a guest via Skype.
For the next 2+ hours, I was a nervous wreck. I scanned several chapters on Google books addressing language, cancer, and pastoral care. I read Hitchens’ essays on his cancer in Vanity Fair. I perused several obituaries and remembrances of Hitchens. By the time that was done, I had five pages of notes and it was showtime. But, no call. The show started without me.
The host welcomed several guests from around the world, so I figured I hadn’t made the cut. Perhaps a midwestern Presbyterian minister’s perspective wasn’t quite what they wanted after all. And then, 15 minutes into the show, my cell phone rang. A very British-sounding producer quickly explained I’d be joining them after the news break.
So that’s how I found myself upstairs in the study, listening to a BBC Radio show on my cell phone, too nervous to breathe. After the news break, indeed the host welcomed “Adam from North Dakota” to the conversation. I said my two cents exploring the non-violent metaphor of “journey” or “walk” language for those living with cancer, trying to keep things short and sweet. I attempted to jump in with a question later, but then one was asked of me, concerning cancer diagnoses and faith struggles. Thankfully, I had anticipated I might get asked something like that, and had a few notes at the ready. I also tried my best not to bumble the next follow-up as much as I might have.
Then, 55 minutes were up, and the show was over. After the credits rolled and the news began, a producer came on the line and thanked me for appearing. “Oh, sure, no big deal, I do this all the time,” I said. As if.
The show is archived here: World Have Your Say, Dec 16, 2011: “The Topic of Cancer: Following the death of Christopher Hitchens, we ask ‘can you ever fight cancer with a positive attitude?’”
What would Jesus wear to prom?
Originally posted at Gathering Voices: Faith Conversations from TheThoughtfulChristian.com
When I was in high school, I used to hate it when older people spoke to me using phrases like, “Well, when you get to the real world…” Um, last time I checked, high school students do indeed live in the real world, and for many it’s a rather challenging world at that. So, when I wrote The Thoughtful Christianstudy, “Faithful Budgeting: Connecting Our Spending Habits to Our Beliefs” I wanted to make sure the study didn’t come across as condescending. Youth today, perhaps more than many adults, are in the real world when it comes to spending money.
Price of gas? Most youth with a car know that. Price of the new iPod? Youth know that too. Discussions on the values of buying name brands versus imitations? That’s a daily issue for many a young person. The tricky issues of money, spending, and values aren’t somehow hidden from youth culture — they’re part and parcel of growing up.
Think back to when you were in high school. What was the cool thing? Do you remember your biggest purchase as a young person? Before I drove, my biggest purchase was a Trek bicycle (my parents paid the orthodontist themselves!). After I drove, I bought a tool box for my pickup (bought by my parents) and slowly bettered my golf clubs. Thank goodness these were the days before iPads and MacBook Pros — things could have gotten ugly.
In high school, my friends approached money from several different perspectives. Some had wealthy parents who paid for practically anything they wanted. Others didn’t receive much money from their parents, but had well-paying after school and summer jobs. I worked as a soccer referee most every Saturday for most of high school, but my parents also gave me an allowance. My allowance didn’t depend on whether my room was clean or I mowed the lawn. Some of my friends, though, could earn more from their parents by helping out around the house. And the neighbors wondered why their parents’ cars were always so clean!
For better or for worse, the Bible does not tell us how many songs Jesus wants on our iPods (or other music-playing device), or whether to buy Chacos or Crocs. But, the Bible does give us resources to approach questions of money and stewardship. Jesus, after all, lived in the real world. God, very much, cares how we use our resources.
The “Faithful Budgeting” study is designed to enable discussion on how youth spend their money, but also about how the broader culture approaches money. Check it out, and with youth and adults, ask (and maybe answer) questions like: Do you know how much the average U.S. family spends each year and on what? If you were a single mom with a young child, how would you prioritize among your child’s nutritional needs, rent, and vehicle costs? Is that expensive prom dress really essential?
High school, after all, is as real as real can be.
image by sanja gjenero
Additional Resources from www.TheThoughtfulChristian.com
Check out all of Adam’s studies on The Thoughtful Christian.
Why I Blog (hint – not for narcissistic purposes)
Originally posted at Gathering Voices: Faith Conversations from TheThoughtfulChristian.com
Shortly after I began blogging four years ago, I often found myself explaining what a blog actually was. Many people, I found out, had heard of blogs but never actually read one. These days, when someone finds out I’m a blogger, people are more apologetic than inquisitive. “Oh, I should really do that, I know,” they’ll say, “I just don’t have the time.” What a difference four years makes.
Jakub Krechowicz
I don’t actually think everyone should blog any more than I think everyone should have a dog or have a taste for cheese curds. Yes, bad blogging can be narcissistic and reactionary. Yes, blogging takes time that could be spent otherwise. But as a pastor and pilgrim, I find blogging both feeds my soul and sharpens my skills for service.
In Bird by Bird, a fantastic reflective book on writing and life, Anne Lamott pens a chapter entitled “Looking Around.” I first read the book for a seminary preaching class, our professor emphasizing the qualities of good writing for strong sermons. Years later, upon becoming a regular writer beyond sermons, I still think of this chapter fairly often as it aptly describes an important element in my blogging and other writing: looking around. Lamott writes:
Writing is about learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on….The writer is a person who is standing apart, like the cheese in “The Farmer in the Dell” standing there alone but deciding to take a few notes. You’re outside, but you can see things up close through your binoculars. Your job is to present clearly your viewpoint, your line of vision. Your job is to see people as they really are, and to do this, you have to know who you are in the most compassionate possible sense. Then you can recognize others. (97-98)
Most good writing — including blogging — calls the writer to assess her place in the world and consider others. It requires slowing down; thinking. Good writing comes to those who wait.
Lamott’s image of the cheese standing alone rings true for me, because blogging and writing does take a certain apartness. For me at least, I find that I must stand alone to look carefully at how we stand together. That said, blogging is about making connections, connections between ideas and connections between people. Countless times, a comment on my blog will call me to reassess a perviously-held thought, or take me to another more considered position. Links and ideas posted on other blogs inform my writing, my preaching, and my daily life. Friendships with other bloggers — some of whom I’m met in person, many of whom I haven’t — enrich my life and deepen my community.
In brief: I blog so that I might live more faithfully. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I do hope, in whatever way works best for you, you can find practices that help you look around, that enable you to see the world with complexity, so that you might recognize others and the God who is working in all our lives, even now.
Additional Resources from www.TheThoughtfulChristian.com
- Travelling Mercies, by Anne Lamott
- Grace (Eventually), by Anne Lamott
- “Writing as Prayer: Journaling, Blogging, and Other Tools for Reflection,” by Lisa Nichols Hickman (Youth Study)
- “Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline,” by Delia Halverson (Adult Study)
Three good books
Lit by Mary Karr — I hadn’t read any of Karr’s previous memoirs, but after reading Lit her two previous books have jumped to the top of my list (on Springpad and Amazon). Karr is a splendid writer, but it’s her life story that amazes most. The challenges she’s endured are astounded for sheltered me — abuse, alcoholism, wacko parents, destructive relationships (and that’s before college). The jacket calls it “learning to write by learning to live;” an apt description. I totally recommend Karr’s unvarnished (and at times quite funny) third memoir to anyone who’s up for a heart-wrenching story well told.
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen — Yeah, ok, I was a skeptic on this one. I mean, it was just getting so much press a few months ago. Franzen was on every talk show on earth, even before he made up with Oprah. And I’m always uneasy about a book being read by more than three people on the same airplane. But, thanks to my kind Pittsburgh friend Susan Rothenberg (thanks Susan!), I was sent a copy of Freedom so I could free my skeptical conscience from the Freedom media frenzy. And, yes, it’s a damn good book.
Character development: A. Gripping story: B+. Believable characters: A-. Epic cynicism: B+. Holds your attention for 500+ pages: A. Amazingly skilled look at contemporary America’s beautiful and contradictory freedom: A+. You should read it, even if it’s just to be like everyone else.
Feed by M.T. Anderson — My friend Kristin recommended this Young Adult novel and I ate it up for it’s dystopian look at cyberculture (plus, it’s a stellar YA story). Set some time in the future, the book imagines a “feed” that is implanted into wealthy people’s brains that connects them constantly to an Internet-like stream of constant contact and commerce. The feed is both exhilarating in its helpfulness and paralyzing in its ubiquity. I wasn’t drawn in the by the characters, really, but the treatment of technology, choice, freedom, free market, environmental disaster, and teen relationships is pretty amazing. This book is a must read for Internet and social media advocates as it pushes back vehemently on an overly utopian view of technology. If the “feed” is the direction in which the Internet is headed, we should be very scared.
Three good books. Now what should I (and readers of this blog) read next? Comment away…
Tiger Woods: PR Grace or Simply a Disgrace?
After working on rehabilitating his personal life, Tiger Woods last month started to rehab his public image too. And, for this skeptical un-fan at least, it’s a good start.
The first step in his off-season PR moves was a Newsweek article, “How I’ve Redefined Victory.” I’m not naive enough to think Tiger wrote much of it himself, but if he signed off on it, I’m well-pleased.
Sure, as Lilit Marcus argues, he could have been a bit more explicit in why exactly he’s redefining his notion of victory — sexual addiction, infidelity, colossal stupidity aren’t exactly admitted. But he does write,
This much is obvious now: my life was out of balance, and my priorities were out of order. I made terrible choices and repeated mistakes. I hurt the people whom I loved the most. And even beyond accepting the consequences and responsibility, there is the ongoing struggle to learn from my failings.
And if the essay is to be believed, learning he is. Actually, after reading the piece I’m more open-minded and even hopeful for Woods. “[My previous self-reliance] made me think that if I was successful in golf, then I was invincible. Now I know that, no matter how tough or strong we are, we all need to rely on others” he writes.
Maybe I’m a sucker. (And yes, I surely am for grace and forgiveness and a fresh start — call me Christian, or call me American since such things are essential to the fabric of both my faith and my country.) But I really feel for the guy, and I wish him the best. He’s right when he says he can never truly repair the damage he’s done. But that doesn’t mean he should stop trying, or he should stop playing golf, or he should stop loving his children.
In a predictably caustic rebuttal of the Wood PR blitz Tim Dahlberg scoffs
“The most miserable year [Woods] could ever imagine is about over. He should be shouting in joy that he’s survived, even if his golf career may be ruined forever.
Except this time it won’t work.
Instead he’s trying to sell himself to the world in the same calculating way he once sold Nike’s golf equipment.
Besides the fact that Dahlberg seems to enjoy wielding blanket unsupported statements to back his depressing thesis as much as Vikings fans, in recent weeks, like to rip on Brett Farve, Dahlberg’s view that Woods public image is irredeemable simply isn’t accurate. Heck, in a strange way, I think Woods’ image has even more cache now, because America loves a tragic hero.
To be honest, I wasn’t much of a Woods fan before the affair++, but now, for some reason and really for the first time, I’d like to see Woods do well. And regarding the PR efforts, I guess I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. I wish him luck as he begins to rebuild his image through Twitter and Facebook, TV appearances, and, well, maybe even winning some golf tournaments again.
image by Brandon Ledger
A New Century of Blogging
The Christian Century has been gracious enough to partner with me on several projects over the years, in the early days accepting A Wee Blether in the CC Blog network and more recently printing essays of mine in the magazine. Today they’ve rolled out a spanking new and very pretty website — huge changes done well. Now at the user-friendly ChristianCentury.org, you can not only read the best take on the mainline church, theology, Christian living, and society around, but you can also access archives (which I’m totally pumped about).
For several weeks, I’ll be regularly contributing to the CENTURY Blog, cross-posting here along the way. Feel free to comment on either site (at least, that’s the plan for now). I’m not quite sure how our partnership will affect the content of A Wee Blether, but I may be more churchy or pastoral at times and perhaps comment more often on recent news and cultural events. No matter what, however, I want to be sure to keep my voice, however underdeveloped it might be. And, I’ll pop up some posts here (of personal or local interest) that won’t fly at the CENTURY Blog. As always, let me know along the way how things are going. So, stay tuned as a new adventure begins…
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from the CENTURY BLOG: From Other to Friend
Amy Frykholm posted yesterday about Muhammad Musri, the Muslim leader who met with Terry Jones and helped defuse last week’s Qur’an-burning situation. If more Christians and Muslims knew one another personally, the whole furor may not have occurred in the first place.
It’s a lot harder to adopt anti-Islam rhetoric when your family doctor is Muslim, or your daughter’s college roommate is Muslim, or your congregation has worked with a mosque to build a Habitat for Humanity house. Many of the troubling statements I’ve read in recent weeks—and heard in my pastoral ministry—would never have been said if folks simply got to know their Muslim neighbors. Conversations about Islam could shift from a focus on the unknown other to one on knowing one another better.
Recently, I’ve heard of many Christian pastors participating in interfaith services, posting supportive statements regarding Islam to their Web sites and teaching Sunday School sessions on Islam. NPR recently ran a great piece on “bridging the Christian-Muslim divide.” This is all positive and helpful, good steps on the journey from fear to understanding. But nothing beats personal relationships.
Have relationships or experiences with Muslims affected you personally? How can Christians promote positive relationships with our Muslim neighbors? How can churches help connect congregants to those of other faiths?
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