There are a lot of blogs out there. Millions, probably.
Most of the ones written by Christians are about ideas. Theology, practice, interpretation, scripture, shoulds and shouldn'ts, what really happened way back then and what's revisionism.
Ideas.
This blog is a bit different in that it's almost entirely about people. Lives, conversations, histories and futures. And choices - good or bad, future or past. Some things that are deeply personal.
Because of that, I have to be very careful, sometimes. Careful who I talk about and how. What's too private to discuss and what's OK to share. I use initials that are randomly selected, or mean something to just me. Sometimes I forbear from using he or she, or take creative license, genderwise.
And not only when it's about something negative. Respecting peoples' privacy is important, not only because I don't want to get yelled at or sued or ostracized, but because they're people, after all, and I like them and care about them.
So this post is something I've given some thought to, and even as I'm writing it I'm not sure I'll put it out there. If you're reading it, obviously I decided to go for it. Otherwise, it'll go into the "trying to figure out the world" file.
Last week our group, GTI, hosted a 'meet and greet' in town for people interested in social and justice issues. We invited a great whack of folks who work for agencies, both government and independent, to come and tell us what they do and why.
Quite a few came, and we had about 2 hours of information, asking each other questions, explaining our areas of passion and concern and getting to know each other. Very cool.
A few days before the meeting, everybody on the team that planned it got an e-mail (we're great believers in the Reply-All) from one of the newest members of the team. We're just getting to know this couple and coming to appreciate their giftings and passions, and to find out how much they have to contribute.
So this e-mail from LA suggested that we should all pray and fast, if possible, on the day before, so we'd be open to whatever God had for us at the meeting. The idea was that maybe God wanted all of these community leaders and servants to get together in one room.
Very cool suggestion, of course. I felt a little badly that I hadn't come up with it. I thought, after reading the e-mail, that I should have, though my job description as Figurehead is a little vague.
The response to the e-mail was universally positive and some of us said, "Count me in."
After the meet and greet was over and a few of us were congratulating each other on how well it had gone, one person mentioned the e-mail and said wasn't that great? How come none of the rest of us thought of it? We'd been planning the meeting for a couple of months and none of the old guard had said, hey, let's pray.
And I'm like, yeah, really.
The other person said, "I read it and I'm all, yeah, absolutely, completely agree, but I didn't have a folder to put it in, ya know?"
And I'm like, yeah, totally.
Not because we'd never fasted and prayed before. Not because nobody'd suggested anything before.
Because the person who made the suggestion, who had exercised such spiritual vision, showed such leadership, who had reminded us all to pray and depend on God's leading, is gay.
And for many of us out here, who have been told certain things and taught to see the world through certain lenses, receiving spiritual leadership from someone who is gay is a new thing. We don't have a folder to put it in.
When I first met this couple, we got together for coffee to talk about what we do at GTI and how they might participate.
Around the same time, I ran into someone from a local church who's been very encouraging and supportive of what we do and I mentioned our new team members.
That person's response was, "I don't have a problem with that, as long as they're not in positions of leadership."
I responded that we don't really have that kind of a structure. That we don't have an authority based org chart.
And, on the ground, we don't. It's very hippie-organic. We get together every couple of weeks and talk about what's happened and what might happen and how we should respond to or proceed with ideas or suggestions or dreams. We function by consensus and it works quite well, since we're all like-minded. Conflicts are over minor issues or semantics and either resolved quickly, or agreed upon with disagreement. (Right, TB? Or are you ready to repent?)
Everybody has equal opportunity to exercise their gifts, spiritual or practical (except nobody ever asks me to sing. Sigh.) and everybody has the chance to learn from each other and to teach each other out of invaluable experience where to step boldly and where the quicksand is.
For those of us who've grown up in and, for some, grown out of, trad evangelical church structures, the way we do things is wonderfully freeing and we don't begin to understand why everybody doesn't do it this way.
But it means figuring things out on the way. Like what do you do with the things that don't fit into folders. Things you don't have any previous definitions for. Like "gay Christian".
Problem with chucking the folders is that you have no place to stick the labels anymore. They don't stick to people. Because they're, well, people.
They have hearts and hopes and they love and they belong or they don't. Which mostly depends on how other people decide to react to them.
And all of a sudden, all of the theology and interpretation and shoulds and shouldn'ts aren't so important and all that matters is "Love one another as I have loved you."
Because all of a sudden, you're wondering what it's like to be a gay Christian, on the fringes of the church, and maybe, on the fringes of the gay community and you start to feel deeply glad to be on the fringes of the church, yourself.
Because otherwise, you might not have had the chance to get to know two very cool and loveable people.
And otherwise, who would have reminded us to pray?
r
Most of the ones written by Christians are about ideas. Theology, practice, interpretation, scripture, shoulds and shouldn'ts, what really happened way back then and what's revisionism.
Ideas.
This blog is a bit different in that it's almost entirely about people. Lives, conversations, histories and futures. And choices - good or bad, future or past. Some things that are deeply personal.
Because of that, I have to be very careful, sometimes. Careful who I talk about and how. What's too private to discuss and what's OK to share. I use initials that are randomly selected, or mean something to just me. Sometimes I forbear from using he or she, or take creative license, genderwise.
And not only when it's about something negative. Respecting peoples' privacy is important, not only because I don't want to get yelled at or sued or ostracized, but because they're people, after all, and I like them and care about them.
So this post is something I've given some thought to, and even as I'm writing it I'm not sure I'll put it out there. If you're reading it, obviously I decided to go for it. Otherwise, it'll go into the "trying to figure out the world" file.
Last week our group, GTI, hosted a 'meet and greet' in town for people interested in social and justice issues. We invited a great whack of folks who work for agencies, both government and independent, to come and tell us what they do and why.
Quite a few came, and we had about 2 hours of information, asking each other questions, explaining our areas of passion and concern and getting to know each other. Very cool.
A few days before the meeting, everybody on the team that planned it got an e-mail (we're great believers in the Reply-All) from one of the newest members of the team. We're just getting to know this couple and coming to appreciate their giftings and passions, and to find out how much they have to contribute.
So this e-mail from LA suggested that we should all pray and fast, if possible, on the day before, so we'd be open to whatever God had for us at the meeting. The idea was that maybe God wanted all of these community leaders and servants to get together in one room.
Very cool suggestion, of course. I felt a little badly that I hadn't come up with it. I thought, after reading the e-mail, that I should have, though my job description as Figurehead is a little vague.
The response to the e-mail was universally positive and some of us said, "Count me in."
After the meet and greet was over and a few of us were congratulating each other on how well it had gone, one person mentioned the e-mail and said wasn't that great? How come none of the rest of us thought of it? We'd been planning the meeting for a couple of months and none of the old guard had said, hey, let's pray.
And I'm like, yeah, really.
The other person said, "I read it and I'm all, yeah, absolutely, completely agree, but I didn't have a folder to put it in, ya know?"
And I'm like, yeah, totally.
Not because we'd never fasted and prayed before. Not because nobody'd suggested anything before.
Because the person who made the suggestion, who had exercised such spiritual vision, showed such leadership, who had reminded us all to pray and depend on God's leading, is gay.
And for many of us out here, who have been told certain things and taught to see the world through certain lenses, receiving spiritual leadership from someone who is gay is a new thing. We don't have a folder to put it in.
When I first met this couple, we got together for coffee to talk about what we do at GTI and how they might participate.
Around the same time, I ran into someone from a local church who's been very encouraging and supportive of what we do and I mentioned our new team members.
That person's response was, "I don't have a problem with that, as long as they're not in positions of leadership."
I responded that we don't really have that kind of a structure. That we don't have an authority based org chart.
And, on the ground, we don't. It's very hippie-organic. We get together every couple of weeks and talk about what's happened and what might happen and how we should respond to or proceed with ideas or suggestions or dreams. We function by consensus and it works quite well, since we're all like-minded. Conflicts are over minor issues or semantics and either resolved quickly, or agreed upon with disagreement. (Right, TB? Or are you ready to repent?)
Everybody has equal opportunity to exercise their gifts, spiritual or practical (except nobody ever asks me to sing. Sigh.) and everybody has the chance to learn from each other and to teach each other out of invaluable experience where to step boldly and where the quicksand is.
For those of us who've grown up in and, for some, grown out of, trad evangelical church structures, the way we do things is wonderfully freeing and we don't begin to understand why everybody doesn't do it this way.
But it means figuring things out on the way. Like what do you do with the things that don't fit into folders. Things you don't have any previous definitions for. Like "gay Christian".
Problem with chucking the folders is that you have no place to stick the labels anymore. They don't stick to people. Because they're, well, people.
They have hearts and hopes and they love and they belong or they don't. Which mostly depends on how other people decide to react to them.
And all of a sudden, all of the theology and interpretation and shoulds and shouldn'ts aren't so important and all that matters is "Love one another as I have loved you."
Because all of a sudden, you're wondering what it's like to be a gay Christian, on the fringes of the church, and maybe, on the fringes of the gay community and you start to feel deeply glad to be on the fringes of the church, yourself.
Because otherwise, you might not have had the chance to get to know two very cool and loveable people.
And otherwise, who would have reminded us to pray?
r
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