Finally Have Something to Say
I struggled a bit with what to write next…soooooo…I stopped writing. A little over a year ago it got in my head to start a church and I thought God may have put this idea there. So this chronicled the good, bad, and ugly of how we got there with a few temper tantrums along the way that seemed to have provided mass entertainment. But then what? After that first service I was in figuring it out mode. So my writing was getting stale and my thoughts were overly pragmatic. No, that is not true, my thoughts were very deep. It’s just they were so deep that I had no idea how to get them out. So all that would come out as I tried to write was xx people came today and tithed $xxx and they liked my sermon and the music was okay. And while that is factual, it is not very helpful…..or interesting.
Truth is, I started trying too hard. I also found myself caught in traps that I was claiming to be raging against. The worship area looked like a stage and I hit behind the security and comfort of a mic. I used notes to refer from and did everything in three little points. I worried too hard about the music being something people would sing along with. I struggled with communion. It became a miniaturized version of what most small evangelical church plants are. In practice, I really had no idea WHAT I was doing and I had more seasoned pastors nodding and smiling as if I learned some life lesson and now I was one of them raging into the machine of conformity and claiming to talk about a rebel and radical Jesus while knowing inside I was blowing this. But I was not merely blowing MY vision. I was blowing the renewing that was given to me in my heart by God and confirmed by men and women of action in their faith who lived and wrote about this stuff. Bonhoeffer, Assisi, Wright, Theresa, Mandella, McLaren, and some guy named Jesus of Nazereth.
Over a year of planning and praying and dreaming about movements only to find that the establishment still co opted my practice. This was not the Jesus of the Gospels, this was the Jesus of the movies with the glazed look on his face, monotone voice, and feathered hair. This was the Jesus of the WWJD brigade who have carefully stuffed God in a box and gave us permission to be Pharisees again. I quote David Byrne when I cry out, "My God…what have I become?"
So, in usual Pat Green fashion I sung the pendulum to the other extreme and had me a sermon where I essentially said, "Hey, ya know that ? I can’t be that pastor guy you see in consumer church and here are some quotes from the purpose driven church book and why they suck." Did you know flipping the bird verbally to the establishment who some people see value in does not warm people up to you as well as Jesus like behavior does (now Jesus did go after the system and the pharisees, but it was all in balance). Insulting systems and establishments does not a movement make. I am hearing Dan Kimball and Jay Bakker and others saying the same thing, but I did not listen for a spell.
Life seems to forever intertwine great beauty hidden in the midst of confusion. Some of natures examples are pearls erupting from irritation, a yellow rose in the middle of a desert, and the giggle of a toddler in the middle of a hell called haiti who is too busy spinning in circles to know he is poor and destined for a life of pain and struggle. While I allowed vision to languish in the sea of pragmatic delight, birth was being given to something that would force me to dip deeper into the well of idealism and hope more than ever before. A youth outreach with more beauty and God in it than anything I have ever seen in my life. There are no books written that describe what is going on here, no formula, no nothing. Yet, it is working better than anything I have ever seen in Christiandom. I would like to say that I am an evil genius, but the truth is, I feel like I am just the guy who picks up the pizza and sets up chairs. I am humbled, scared, and renewed and these moments of beauty have allowed me to put into practice what has been in my heart. When you have a dream that is bigger than you, it can be intimidating, but when you start to live that dream and taste it, things start to click.
In a matter of weeks, stadium seating became a semi circle, microphone and a podium got replaced with a chair, notes are no longer needed, intimacy abounds. As far as the music, I am being most literal when I say that Savage Garden and The Black Eyed Peas have become worship music that people sing along to.
In future entries (coming SOON, I promise), I am gonna tell you about a vision called YASO and the kids within it.
A little nugget for you. 6 years ago a 13 year old girl tried to get me to come to coffeehouse on ninth street. 4 years later I finally went and the road to ministry began. I tried to start a church in Bolingbrook and I ended up back in that building on ninth. I tried to start a church for single moms and homeless people, and the kids on ninth cried out in the darkness. Turns out it begins with them and it began with them.
