the Starbucks Church Update

It has been a year since I first decided to step out of traditional church and spend my Sunday mornings with Jesus at Starbucks. Over that year, “church” has had to move out of Starbucks for financial reasons and has often happened on the beach or my back porch. Another surprising turn of events was a Sunday in October when I woke up really   missing traditional church and wanting to sit in a pew and sing old hymns with people around me who were also trying to love Jesus and be like him. I wanted to sit and listen to a preacher who had spent time the week before asking God what he should say. I wanted to walk out of church and see familiar faces and hear a sweet southern voice say, “Hello darlin’”. :) So, I went to church. And I have been going almost every week since then. And I love it. 

The interesting thing is, my church is hundreds of years old. It has not really changed in the past few hundred years. So, since I decided church wasn’t for me, not much has changed either. They still sing the same songs, the same men preach on Sundays, and the same people sit in the same pews. The same old ladies wear their hats and the same old man in the third row falls asleep at 10:35 every week. The same people give me funny looks when I walk in wearing jeans. The same old lady grabs my hand and looks into my eyes in a way that makes me think she can see my soul and tells me it’s good to see me. Nothing about church has changed. 

Imagine my dismay when I found that the thing that needed to change about church was...me. I shouldn’t have been surprised. There is no doubt in my mind that I am a colossal failure when it comes to living life the way it should be lived. I make a mistake on average about every 20 minutes...on a good day. I am not condemned by this inadequacy. On the contrary, it is this very inadequacy that makes me need Jesus and as long as he can handle it, so can I. But it was incredibly humbling to realize that the months that I spent complaining about and missing out on the gift of church were due to my own immaturity and not to any significant inadequacy or failure on the part of the group of people that call themselves “the church”. At 23, my regret over not having learned my lessons sooner grows stronger each year. As I look back over the last 5 years of my life, however, I can’t help but notice that it looks to me like a very well-written story. There are certainly chapters of peril, of near-death experiences, of heart break, frustration, and wanting to quit. But, like any good story, it is those very chapters that make the arrival, the very existence, of Prince Charming so necessary. I am grateful for the way my story is being written, even if I sometimes wonder at the author’s reasoning, because it is being written by someone I can trust. And so it is not with regret, but with gratefulness that I look back and realize that the lesson was worth the loss.

I still skip church on occasion and enjoy a quiet Sunday at the beach or in a coffee shop. The last year of seeking Jesus wherever I happened to be on a Sunday morning has taught me to be prepared to find him everywhere and I want to stay in shape. This is probably a good discipline, as I imagine his story may lead me to places where a traditional church has never existed and where community may be scarce. But, the absence of corporate worship in my life has also taught me its value and the privilege that is ours in being able to enjoy each other’s company on a Sunday morning, regardless of our various shortcomings. So, this Sunday will find me sitting on a red velvet pew, singing old hymns, and basking in the presence of Jesus and other people who love him. The story is still being written, the lessons are still being learned, but for now, this is where I am content. 

My life is but a weaving between my God and me,

I do not choose the colors. He’s working steadily.

Often he weaves in sorrow and I in foolish pride

forget he sees the upper, and I the underside.

Not ‘til the loom is silent and shuttles cease to fly

will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why

the dark threads are as needful in the skillful Master’s hand

as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned.

Hospital Escuela, Honduras

The hospital was a maze. Maybe this feeling of fighting to survive had caused my sense of direction to shrivel up, the same way your body knows how to send blood to the only the vital organs when it thinks its dying. Maybe my mind thought it was dying. I had passed that baby sleeping on the stairs at least twice, yet I was no closer to understanding where I was. Perhaps it should have concerned me that there was no one nearby who appeared to be taking responsibility for the little dreamer, but my mind was on other things. One thing, actually. Acetaminophen. My eight year old, Jorge, was in pain and as I had come to find out from the more seasoned inhabitants of this cold, dark maze, the only way to get medicine was to venture out into the city and find it yourself. Of course, upon returning to the small room that Jorge was sharing with six other little boys, I was sure to bring enough to go around. Some of these boys had not seen their parents in days or weeks. Many of them were waiting for their parents to earn enough money to pay for that next test, round of treatment, or surgery. In the meantime, they were at the hospital’s mercy, which was in short supply.  I looked across the room at the youngest member of our little hospital family. He spent most of his time propped up in one corner of his crib, arms hanging off each side and wide eyes staring blankly around the still room. He almost never cried, but some instinct in me felt that he needed to be touched. He looked so fragile and I was afraid to pick him up, so I just walked over to rub his back and talk to him. He was hot. Too hot. I wondered to myself how much he weighed. Maybe ten kilograms? I could probably give him about a teaspoon of Tylenol. No nurse had been in to see him for at least eight hours. His mother was hours away in a village working to pay for his treatments and no one wanted to waste time on a baby who offered no assurance of reimbursement.

“Did you bring my food?”

As usual, Joshua had given me a few Lempiras before I left so that I could bring him back some dinner. The hospital provided one meal a day and it was anything but edible. He had been born with tiny legs that never grew. They stuck out from his eight year old body like chicken feet. What he lacked in leg power, he made up in upper body strength.  I set his box of cold Chinese on his bed and watched his little wheels spin in that direction. He swung himself up like a monkey and inhaled his meal.

Hospital Escuela is the teaching hospital of Honduras. That fact in itself made me nervous, as anyone who learned to practice medicine in such an environment could not reasonably be faulted for any future lack of competence, conscience, or integrity. The first time I entered the ten story building in the middle of bustling downtown Tegucigalpa, I was shocked by the filth, the emptiness, and the amount of people sitting on the floors. It occurred to me that we were in a very poor city and perhaps waiting room chairs had been deemed a luxury in the presence of such basic needs as water and electricity and armed guards. As the days before and after Jorge’s surgery passed, however, I began to develop an odd familiarity with the faces sitting on the floor. Some of them never changed. Then one day, I sat down on the floor with them and found out why they were waiting. Some of them had already been diagnosed, but they were too sick to go home and too poor to pay for their tests. So they waited. Others had formed a line, maybe days ago, and were still waiting for a consult, a prescription, a medical file. Still more were sleeping on the floor outside of a loved one’s room. On any given night, the floor of the waiting room outside of the unit where Jorge was would be covered with piles of clothes, people underneath them, too tired to even swat at the cockroaches that scuttled from room to room.

I never understood why I was allowed to stay with Jorge. Perhaps the nurses had some sense of protection for the young, blue-eyed, American girl who would probably not be safe sleeping among the crowds outside.

After I got Joshua settled with his food and dispersed pain medicine to the motherless boys, I began the evening search for linens. The hospital laundry service provided gainful employment to several kind Honduran ladies, but somehow there never seemed to be any sheets or towels. Ever since my roommate and I had become the mothers to Jorge and nine other children months before, we were now expert hospital survivors and had discovered that if we waited until the small shipment of laundry arrived on the unit each night, we could sneak enough sheets to at least take care of “our boys”.

Sheets, medicines, and food dispersed, I slumped into the plastic chair next to Jorge’s bed. As usual, the running water to the unit had been turned off for the day and the one toilet was almost overflowing.

“Are you OK?”, I asked him, knowing full well he was not.

A tube from his side had been draining bright red blood ever since his surgery and his Foley bag was getting uncomfortably full. No doctor or nurse had been to see him yet and I was sure the acetaminophen had only put a dent in his pain. He turned his back to me and I tried to let him be a man by pretending not to hear his sniffles. The other boys were beginning to calm down, too. One other mother had appeared to stake a claim under her toddler’s crib. She crawled under there after nursing him, no blanket, no pillow. Two other boys, who had been best friends that day, lay in their beds and kicked their little feet up in the air, laughing at each other. I followed their IV lines with my eyes and realized why they had been together all day. They were connected to the same pole.

During the day, the room was lit by one functional bulb of fluorescent light that hung precariously from a wire twelve feet above. It flickered sometimes just to remind us to be grateful for its presence. When the sun was out, a warm spot of light would travel across the floor, spilling in from a bedpan shaped hole in the window. and providing one wheelchair bound child, who amused himself by following its path, with his daily dose of Vitamin D. Now that it was night, the only light seeped in from the nurses station down the hall. I didn’t mind the darkness. We all took refuge in the opportunity to close our eyes to the unpleasant realities around us. Tomorrow the fight would begin again.

When we say church

this picture is from a "church" moment in the Mexican desert last year

when we say church
church is not something you
drive by
look at
walk into
go to
sleep in
live near
get married in
attend

church is not something that
starts at eleven
is boring
never ends on time
asks for money
has stained glass windows
needs new carpet

church is something you are

church is a gathering of people
believing God
following Jesus
being filled by the Spirit
loving each other
serving the city
changing the world

church is something that belongs to Jesus
church is something whose birth cost His death
church is something he promised to build,
and against which that gates of hell have no chance.

taken from http://www.dealministry.com/blog/index.htm

Slow Growin'

I was listening to Tim Keller speak the other day on how growth is a process. When we see a child after some time has elapsed we say, “My, I think you’ve grown.” When we plant a garden, for weeks it looks as if no growth is happening. That’s because growth is gradual; a process that happens in increments so small, they’re not even measurable in the moment the growth is taking place. This can make it easy to become discouraged and feel like nothing is changing in our spiritual development. The kind of frustration that comes from this realization is the very proof we need, though; to be sure we are actually growing.

I tend to be very impatient with myself in this process we call growth, but recently I’ve been comparing the unseen with the things that I can see and realizing how silly I’ve been. When I can create an analogy in my mind, taking myself and my need for personal perfection out of the picture, it is much easier to see the truth. I don’t think I am the only person who gets frustrated with the seeming lack of evidence of real change in my life. Many friends tell me that they feel the same way.

[I can think of several people who would probably shudder at my insinuation that any kind of "growth or change" is necessary. They would say that grace and the gospel tell us that Jesus has done it all and we must only receive. They've got a point, but so do I, so just keep reading. I'm not downplaying Jesus's imputation of righteousness on us, I'm just pointing out an encouraging picture about grace. We can argue about whether or not it's theologically sound another day.]

The thing is we Christians have a catchphrase that would solve this dilemma for us if only we would understand what we are saying. We say Jesus is our “Savior and Lord” and we understand the “savior” part.

He saved us.

Not to minimize in any way the agony of the cross; it’s just not the point I’m trying to make.

Jesus died; we’re saved. Punto.

The “Lord” part is where we get stuck. Accepting Jesus as Savior is as easy as repeating the sinner’s prayer. Keeping him in our lives as our Lord, however, is a daily discipline that is challenging to say the least.

 Todd Simonis preached on this at St. Andrew’s a while back and gave the following illustration:

If we were walking down the street and you stepped out in front of a bus,

hopefully I would be heroic enough to reach out and stop you.

In some respects, I could be considered your “savior”. I would certainly not

expect to come anything close to becoming your “lord”.

Jesus becoming our Savior took one decision (on our part) to accept one action (on His part), but that is only the beginning of Chapter 1. The whole rest of the book is about us making daily decisions to accept His ongoing action of setting us free, making us like Himself, and filling us up with His Spirit. It’s all about the process of learning day by day.

What I just wrote is common knowledge. I’ve known what Jesus did for me since I was three. Only recently, however, has that knowledge slid from my head to my heart and become understanding. I am now content to rest in the perfection and security that is mine since I accepted Jesus as my Savior. Recognizing that letting him be Lord is a long process of daily decisions and actions gives me not only more grace for myself, but for others as well.

In Defense of Starbucks Church [Part 3]

So, I have come to church at Starbucks. The rationale behind this decision is really quite straightforward. I like coffee. I like strangers. I like drinking coffee and talking to strangers. I realized that I have often felt closer in my relationship with Jesus when I am sitting in a coffee shop sharing life with another person, than when I was sitting in a church pew hearing the same song and the same sermon. Now this need of mine to withdraw from traditional church for a time is not at all indicative of a lack of knowledge or honesty or genuineness in the church in general, for I know those qualities exist in abundance. Rather it is indicative of my inability to get over my own prejudices and petty complaints and find Jesus in spite of the small inconsistencies and rough spots I found in church. I realized that if I could not meet Jesus just about anywhere I looked for him, then my relationship with him was seriously lacking in intimacy and integrity.
Let’s say, for example, that I’m stuck on a plane next to Bob. I don’t know Bob and he doesn’t know me. We are both annoyed to be stuck on a plane. We have nothing to talk about and having each other as seatmates does not make the experience any more pleasant for either of us. Now imagine I am stuck on a plane with my friend Alma. We have shared many good and bad circumstances together. We know each other’s dirty messes and we have loved each other in spite of them. Even though I may not enjoy being stuck on a plane, I can still enjoy Alma’s presence there with me precisely because I know and love her, appreciate her friendship, and cherish every moment I get to spend with her. That is how I think it should be with Jesus. Only I wasn’t enjoying his presence when I was in church, the very place where I should feel closest to him. I decided to pull myself (and Jesus) out of church for a while to work on our relationship alone. It’s been 2 months, and I can say that this was the best decision I have ever made.
It has been here at “Starbucks Church” that I have walked deeper into my relationship with Jesus, simply by spending time alone with him, and often inviting a friend to join me. It makes perfect sense that we would get to know God better by getting to know his creation better. And if what he says is true, people are his favorite creation. This made me think that an excellent way to expand my understanding of God would be through sharing conversations with his people. That includes the ones who believe in him and the ones who don’t. I like to call these conversations “heart talks” because they’re all about two people taking their insides and putting them on the table for the other to look at. There is something so vulnerable about letting someone else see what only I know about myself, but the feeling of connection and of validation that comes when they see me for who a really am and accept me in spite of it is marvelously worth the risk. When someone shares their heart with me, I feel like I’ve been given one of the ultimate gifts, one of the highest honors.
My friend Cari says that these are the conversations that make you realize who you are, and who you are not, and what you are capable of, what you stand for and believe in and how much you love and care for the person you are talking with. I think she’s right, especially about finding out who you are and who you are not. In my “heart talks” with other people, I’ve found out three life changing things:
1. I am not alone
2. other people long for connection as much as I do and
3. God likes it when we find him in and through eachother.

I cannot even begin to express the feeling of relief that comes from finding out you are not the only one with problems.

In Defense of Starbucks Church [Part 2]

Now transparency is not something I learned by myself. In fact, it was only through friendships with people who were willing to be honest with me, despite my messiness. It was Heather who first modeled transparency for me and who, in doing so, gave me permission to be real around her. I found myself wanting to spend more and more time with her, because I had not yet learned to translate that freedom into other relationships. All I knew was that no matter who I was, no matter how I acted around her, no matter how LONG it took for me to get my act together, she was always patient, always there for me, always encouraging. At a time in my life when I was having trouble believing that Jesus could love and accept me when his own Christians didn’t, Heather showed me what a Christian is supposed to be like. She helped me to see that it was unfair for me to judge Jesus’ character by the imperfect people all around me who were following him, but who were just as messed up as I was. It took two years of Heather’s patience, love, and gentle pushing to get me to the place where I truly felt like I had learned to see myself and others like Jesus sees us. Since then I have found so many people just like her: Laura, Reames, Alma, Marlene, John, Patty, Rachel, Rod, Lauren, Marcela, Irma, Sheyla, and so many more...and my life as taken on this rich quality that only community, unconditional love, and deep friendships that spring from Jesus's grace can bring.
Now, before I make it sound like I have “arrived”, let me say that there are still days when I wake up with a frown, feel unloved, have a bad attitude, judge, hate, curse, lie, etc. How I can call myself a Christian and still be such an imperfect person is a subject for another post. For now, all I need to know is that I am a work in progress, which, when you think about it is the best we can say of anyone, regardless of their beliefs. It has been a lesson for me in grace-giving, both to myself, to people I don’t like, and to people who don’t like the people I think they should like. If I got grace, everybody should get grace.
And so it has been that in the presence of other Christians, other Jesus people, that I have found both the most hurt and the most healing, the most pressure and the most freedom, the most sorrow and the most joy. And now that I look back, I think that this is how it should be. I came to church with high expectations, expecting no one to fail me, expecting no one to judge me. Now, however, I realize that what I wanted to find was a bunch of perfect people, all waiting for me and willing to love and accept me in my imperfection. That is what I mean when I say that I came to church with unrealistic expectations. What I was wanting from other people (unconditional love, forgiveness, joy, acceptance) were things I was not willing to give to them or myself yet. In fact, though I didn’t know it at the time, I wasn’t even willing to receive those things from others yet, let alone from God (yet another story for another post). And while I did come to church with the expectation of finding certain characteristics, my expectation of what I would not find was the one that really got bashed to the ground. I did not expect to be failed by Christians even though I myself have failed others. I did not expect to be hurt by Christians even though I have hurt many people. When you think about it, though, the entire premise of Christianity is based on the idea that everyone in the who world, from Mother Teresa to Jeffery Dahmer, is a failure when compared to God’s perfection. Why I expected to find perfect people in church is beyond me.

In Defense of Starbucks Church [Part 1]

I have given myself permission to not go to church for 3 months. One Sunday morning in Mexico, I woke up and realized that I was dreading going to church. As I lay there analyzing that feeling (which is what, as an introvert, I feel obligated to do with all my feelings) it dawned on me that I had not wanted to go to church for a long time. I would wake up on Sunday morning and go to church out of habit, but once I got there, I just wanted to leave. This had happened to me at every church I went to over a year, so I do not blame any particular church for not catering to what I wanted to find. Most of the problem lay in the fact that many of my expectations of what church should be were unrealistic. There were parts of me that wanted to find community in church; that wanted to be vulnerable and find love among fellow Christians in spite of my inadequacies and failures. I think that is a reasonable craving, but I have to admit that the environment I found in several churches was not one of acceptance. Unconditional love was preached, the idea of it was held up as ideal, but in practice most of what I found was a watered-down version of grace that only reached to superficial failures like telling white lies and letting dinner burn and leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot. At first I felt like there was no one in the church who would accept me for who I really was. It was hard to believe that Jesus would accept me when some of his Christians got squirmy when I asked about sin and failure.

Then I realized two things. They didn’t come to me out of the blue one day sitting in the sunshine and listening to the birds. They probably came to me one night when I was running my heart out on the beach and crying about what a sad, sad case I was. I realized that first of all, I am one of the Christians I was complaining about. The very act of not being transparent myself was only exacerbating the problem. By not being real, I was encouraging others to do the same. The second thing I realized was that I didn’t know how to be the person I wanted to be. When I thought of what a Christian should look like, and then held that blueprint over my own sad heart, none of the shapes lined up. I needed to figure out if there was something wrong with me, something wrong with my blueprint, or both. It ended up being a little of both, but that took me a long time to figure out. I’m slow.