my rambling feelings for the week:
this week i have been feeling much like the rich young ruler. i've kept to the law best i know how, but when it comes to being closer to Christ i get thrown in my face that i have to give everything away to the poor... i have much and i can't bring myself to do that.
back story: this week i've been helping out with some youth at 61st ave umc with their summer day camp program. it's been a fun these past few days, but getting to know the kids more only makes their struggles and future paths so much more apparent. children no more than 5 years old have anger that is just scary and not something that should be harnessed in the soul of a child. words, oh the words they carry with them. images, images of who they want to be, "i want to be mean like my daddy" "i'm going to be a mommy like my sister." it's not new, children have grown up like this and around this environment forever. i've known that, so why do i feel this way today?
tuesday i was sitting with my friend nita, one of those saints on earth, and i listened and she told about how churches have come and gone trying to "fix" the problems of the neighborhood. however, when their ideals of progress are not met they flutter off slowly, never to be heard from again. thus leaving the church back at the same place. there are consistency issues. there are money issues. there are facility issues that take forever to get done. the churches that have come (myself included) do good while they are there, but we don't make lasting changes because we are not committing our resources and selves into being a part of the community, because they have become like all other short term mission experiences of youth group mantra, we come in, do a little good and go home feeling good about ourselves.
tuesday might have been the first day that i've gone home from what i perceived to be a "mission experience" feeling absolutely pissed off at myself. i'm pissed because i headed back to a church with a sizable budget. as a youth community we just spent 1k to upgrade our nickel and dime sound system so that we could have a better sound for our praise team and youth gatherings. this was certainly warranted in our viewpoint, as is the many thousands we spend on retreats and "mission experiences" off in other states. personally i'm going home to a nice home with digital cable a couple of thousand dollars worth of computer and photography equipment. did i mention how much money i spend on books? all these things i'm so consumed with i can't fathom giving them up... i don't think our youth can fathom giving up some of the trips either.. i'd probably be out of a job if we did... so like the young rich ruler who has much, i walk away from meeting Christ a little peeved because i just don't know how i can live up to this one.
so, this is a literal view, which literal viewpoints of scripture is not my way. but the message is there, i've got my things, as the young man, that have attachments which keep myself as well as the churches i've been a part of that keep from truly living as Christ teaches. i don't know how this changes, so let me see a problem that i feel we can respond to appropriately.
there's a problem with seeing poor or marginalized as a "mission." if i take my limited historical perspective, "mission" has a connotation that we go somewhere do something and then return back to our lives as we left them (generally patting ourselves on the back with what we've done). the experience might change our lives, but does it really change the lives of the people that are viewed as the mission? on the short term, it doesn't. as someone who has done the summer camp missions for years i've returned to the areas where i've sent groups to work with people. no change in the lifestyle from building a porch, even an extra room, the ills of poverty continue to set in. what then?
in my struggle i put it to some of the staff at our church. can we be a church that approaches the mission of the church differently? in my short re-imagining of how we 'do' missions it came as a feeling that we don't do missions, that we just do for our neighbor. it's not something we commit to for a one time event, but something that we are engaged in through a context of relationship, so much that we live with those whom Christ calls us to give to. we don't have to do the common understandings of missions, building things, painting a room, but come even closer to the critical needs of those Christ calls us to give to.
for our church to fulfill this calling of Christ, we no longer seek to be short term missionaries, but people who just do what Christ calls us to. to enable our church to do this, we seek out people who have a depth of faith and understanding to forgo what they've known to be as missions and give themselves to be open and listening for opportunities to help seek the needs of a community. through listening, communing with, and prayer this group discerns together where God is calling them to be present in the community. the response comes as people who have sought God's guidance, not their own concepts, enables the church.