…but it’s okay. There’s a way around that.

Last fall, I read a great book on startups called The Lean Startup by Eric Reis. I know, I know – you have problems with the mash up of business talk and church talk. I do, too. The great thing is that this book hates “business talk” as well.

Everything Reis writes is based on the idea that traditional business practices are good for traditional businesses, but that start ups are completely different beasts. Much of what he offers is golden, but here is the most golden thing:

The #1 job of a startup is to learn.

Here’s what Reis has to say on theleanstartup.com:

Too many startups begin with an idea for a product that they think people want. They then spend months, sometimes years, perfecting that product without ever showing the product, even in a very rudimentary form, to the prospective customer. When they fail to reach broad uptake from customers, it is often because they never spoke to prospective customers and determined whether or not the product was interesting. When customers ultimately communicate, through their indifference, that they don’t care about the idea, the startup fails.

I think this has HUGE implications for starting new churches because it is the difference between emphasizing the product and the people.

About a year and a half into my ministry at the church I was serving, I tried to reframe the way our congregation did missions work. Influenced by my time at Covenant Community Church in Louisville and the work of The Church of the Savior in Washington, DC, I was convinced that the best way to help persons engage in service to the world was to help them arrange themselves in to smaller “intentional communities.”

To that end, I embarked on a months long planning and implementation process to help persons discern their gifts and the needs of the world, to train them to lead communities, etc. When all was said and done no one took advantage of the training I had given them by starting a community.

The hard lesson I learned was that the people I was serving wanted to serve God’s world, but they didn’t want to do it through these intentional communities.

The Lean Startup method suggests that every entrepreneur begin with a “minimum viable product” (MVP). The MVP is a bare bones, rudimentary version of the product that allows that startup to learn whether they have a sustainable model on their hands. By placing the MVP into the hands of a continuous series of customers, they will learn what does and does not work or whether they are even in the right market sector at all.

As I wrote in Open Source Church, I happen to think that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the point of the church is to actualize freedom. Given this, what is the church version of the MVP?

In three days, it will be Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Naturally, folks are all abuzz about how to best observe. As I read through Facebook comments, tweets, and blog posts, I find that I have had all of the typical responses.

• “I’m gonna give up chocolate or alcohol.”
• “Giving things up is ridiculous. God wants us to live fully live. This whole practice is just stupid.”
• “Instead of giving something up, I’m taking something on this year.”

Like I said: I’ve said and done each of these things. I’ve given up something that was that important, I’ve wholly rejected the practice as a part of my rejection of conformist religion, and I’ve tried to reframe “self-denial” into “self-giving.”

But each of these responses makes a mistake, in my opinion. Notice that all of them are about me. They have very little to do with what God might be doing, but about something that I’m doing. Each of these responses betray a belief that I am the one in control, that I am the one, ultimately, who matters. As Richard Rohr says,

Resurrection takes care of itself. It’s getting people into tombs that’s hard. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, most contemporary people, both liberals and conservatives, abhor boundaries.

This realization was a hard truth for me, and so I have returned to the classic Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I encourage you to do the same.

Prayer

Prayer is not about asking God for things. It is about establishing, maintaining, or strengthening your connection to God in Christ. We do this so that we can begin to see the world as Christ sees it.

This is the first, most foundational Lenten practice. If you do nothing else during Lent, commit to the practice of daily prayer (preferably silent and contemplative, like Centering Prayer or praying with beads). Lent is the perfect time to reignite your prayer life. It is the time of the year when we intentionally focus on dying in order to rising.

Fasting

Fasting (what we typically mean when we talking of “giving something up”) is not about doing without “something you LOVE,” but doing without something you need. We should be limiting our chocolate and alcohol intake anyway. What do you say we not use Lent as an excuse to go on a diet?

The point of fasting is to recognize our dependence on God’s provision. Typically, fasting is done once or twice a week. Try John Wesley‘s practice of  sundown to sundown on Mondays to Tuesdays and Thursdays to Fridays.

Almsgiving

If you are submitting to Christ through prayer and fasting, you will begin to see Christ in “the least of these.” When you do, offer yourself to the Christ you find in them. It’s really very simple, and it can be planned or spontaneous. Either way, it will be countercultural.

If you’re anything like me, you have to fight making spiritual practice into a self-improvement project. The Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the best ways to avoid that impulse that I’ve found. As Craig Dykstra wrote in Growing In The Life of Faith, Spiritual practices are actually not ours. They are the practices of the Holy Spirit that we get to inhabit. That these practices are not mine is important, in my opinion. Whereas Lenten disciplines are intended to remind us of our dependence on God, we more often inhabit these practices as if we are the ones responsible for the outcome of our lives and the world.

In the end, whatever you do during Lent is between you and God, but let’s commit to engaging in disciplines that remind us of our dependence on God not ones that prop us up as the saviors of ourselves.

My earliest memories were in church.  Life began and ended there.  My life began there, and, some would say, my “real life” as a child of God began there too.

We went to this remarkably big church for a while in Broken Arrow, OK, which is just outside of Tulsa.  It was your typical early to mid-eighties Charismatic church.  There was singing and dancing galore – holy rollers to be sure.  I have a vivid memory of that church because, apparently, that’s where I “accepted Jesus into my heart.”

“Accepting Jesus into your heart” was a big deal in my family.  It seemed like every moment of your life your family would look forward to you “getting saved.”  It happened to me when I was five or six.   To be honest, it never really was that big of a deal to me (the getting saved part, not the being a Christian part) and apparently it wasn’t that day either.

The band at the church had been pumping for what seemed like an hour (in that church it could have been) and the pastor kept saying that “the Holy Ghost is obviously in this place.”  I took as evidence of that the fact that people were running around the freaking huge sanctuary like they were at a track meet, dancing in the aisles, on the seats, banging tambourines, and clapping like Jesus was, literally, on his way back to pick them up.  It was a riot.

But to my little boy sensibilities, it was not a riot. I was intrigued at the total abandon that people were able to experience.  I was amazed to see grown men and women flailing their bodies about.  I was always too embarrassed to do it.  To this day, I have a difficult time dancing in front of other people, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that dancing for me has always been equated with religious fervor – a fervor I have struggled to understand my entire life.

I’m not sure how it happened but after a while I was up on my feet.  I don’t know what was different about that particular Sunday, but I needed to move.  Of course I thought it was the Holy Ghost coursing through my veins (and it may have been) but all I knew was that I needed to move my little body.

So I began to run and run and run and run.  The music was frenetic and exciting and triumphant and I was like a little Christian Rocky Balboa taking the spiritual steps of Philly.

After a while the music seemed to calm down a bit and I landed on the front steps of the stage.  An adult came down to talk to me and, almost without thinking, I told him that I guessed I wanted to be saved.

Now I knew that I was not a perfect little kid, and I never really claimed to be.  I’ve gotta say that I wasn’t really scared of hell – hell wasn’t even a thought in my mind.  All I knew was that it felt good to be there and to run and dance and sing and if that was what having Jesus in your heart was about then I was all for it.

It wasn’t about Jesus for me.  It was about me.  I’m not ashamed of it, nor do I think that it’s wrong or unique.  In fact I would be willing to bet you that if you asked any group of little kids why it was that they “got saved,” they would most likely tell you one of two things: a) because Mom and Dad told them they should or b) because they wanted Jesus on their side.

It was the second for me.  I wanted Jesus on my side.  If what the pastor said was true then it seemed to me to be a pretty good option for me to have the kick ass King of Kings in my corner.  This Jesus he was talking about is the one that told the Devil to shove it, cast out demons, and walked on water.  Oh damn – he walked on water!

To be honest that was the coolest freaking thing about Jesus to me: the guy had superpowers.  Now, we were taught to call them “miracles”, but, let’s be honest, these are superpowers were looking at.  Raising people from the dead?  Healing people of diseases?  Lame to walk?  Deaf to hear?  This is straight outta the comics folks, and I wanted to be a part of every bit of it. But, whereas superheros live in the comics – I’ve got Jesus in my heart.  Take that, Stan Lee.

So this guy asks me if I want to have Jesus I my heart, and I say yes.  Then he asks me if I’m sorry for all my sins.   I have no clue really what I should be sorry for, but I say yes. And he tells me to repeat after him, and I do, and now I’m saved.

Kind of a let down.  You’ve got the most powerful entity in the universe, who can kick the shit out of anything, and all I had to do was say “come in”?  Fine by me, if there’s nothing more to it.

Later when we were standing outside of the sanctuary with another family my mom told me to “Tell so-and-so your exciting news.”  I was puzzled.  Exciting news?  What the hell was she talking about?

My own mother had to prompt me to retell the story of how I had just gotten myself saved from the fiery pits of hell.  All I wanted was to have a superhero for a best friend.

About six months ago, I left the congregation I had been serving to begin service to a regional level of my denomination. This is the first time in almost 10 years that I’ve not actively served a local congregation (in some capacity) on a regular basis, and a few things have brought themselves to my attention.

I’m a firm believer in the Pareto Principle. Most of us know it as the “80-20 Rule”, and it states that 80% of the output is the result of 20% of input. I look at everything this way, constantly trying to pare down the things I’m doing to what is actually effective and beneficial.

Naturally, attending other churches with the kind of insider knowledge I have means that (for a while) I’m looking at what can be improved upon and what is working well. For six months I have been given a perspective on congregational life that few pastors get. And so, in hopes that it will be helpful, here are the Top 5 things I’ve learned about church in the last six months:

1. Preaching matters. A lot. I’m not saying you’ve got to be Anna Carter Florence or anything, but if you half ass the sermon, shame on you. This is your number one job.
2. If the folks you serve don’t know how to be hospitable, it’s over. And the bigger you are, the harder it is. Think about it like the way you want a server at a restaurant to behave: attentive to what you need and willing to get it, but not too chatty that they smother you. It’s a fine line and it’s hard to find, but that’s no excuse.
3. Casual or informal worship is fine. Unintentional and watered down is not. Plus, anything that smacks of a performance? Boo.
4. All things to all people just doesn’t work. There are a gazillion churches out there. Not everyone is gonna love the kind of stuff yours offers and that’s okay. Do what you do, do it well, and make it easy for folks to get involved. This is particularly applicable to Christian Education programs. Multiple offerings is fine, but come on – Some of us are ridiculous.
5. Every congregation needs a mission project to rally around. Of course, given my belief in open source methodology, congregations should have a culture of experimentation and permission, but a lot of people are not “starters” and need something to latch onto.

These, in my opinion, are the 20%. They are not earth shattering, but in this changing landscape of whatever church is and is becoming I have to admit that I was surprised by a couple of these.

A few years ago, I was fortunate to hear a lecture by New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine. Aside from being brilliant, the unique gift that Levine brings to the world of biblical scholarship is that she is (in her words), a “Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt.” Plus, she’s hilarious.

During the lecture I was able to attend, she offered an understanding of the Parable of the Good Samaritan that I had never heard. Her take was that Jesus was playing on a common motif for stories of the day by using the particular characters of ” a priest… levite… Samaritan…”

Levine offers that this motif functioned as a hook in the same way that we often hear modern jokes begin. We’re all familiar with the class of jokes that begins with some variation of “A man, a woman, and a dog walk into a bar…” right? My favorites are the religious ones, ie – “A Roman Catholic Priest, a Presbyterian pastor, and a Rabbi…”

The purpose of setting up a joke in this way is to play on stereotypes. Each kind of person named in whatever joke you’re telling carries an assumption. For instance:

What is the difference between a Baptist and a Presbyterian? The Presbyterian will say “Hi” in the liquor store.

The reason this is funny is because every Baptist I know drinks, even though legend holds that they do not. So when Jesus says (in essence) “A priest, a levite, and a Samaritan are walking down a road…” he is trading in cultural assumptions and stereotypes, but I’m not sure anyone is going to find his story funny. Because Jesus changed the characters.

This was a typical kind of story for Jesus’ Jewish listeners. They had heard this story numerous times, but when other rabbis told it, they started off with “A priest, a levite and a Jew were…” This was the trio that the stories were always about. Samaritans were nowhere to be found. There were certain assumptions about each kind of person listed. Priests can only do/are obligated to do these things. The same for Levites, and then we have a discussion about what a “good Jew” would do. But Jesus does not talk about the “good Jew.” He talks about the “Good Samaritan.”

This throws a wrench in their thinking. Samaritans were “less than.” They were racial and ethnic “half breeds” (there was nothing “pure” about them) and they were religious deviants who practiced a form of Judaism that the Jews of the day despised. No one would use a Samaritan as an example of goodness and love. But Jesus did.

In my opinion, the use of the Samaritan was a stroke of genius by Jesus. In one fell swoop he address two of the failings of the Fundamentalist worldview and allows us to answer for ourselves the question posed by “The Postmodern Problem of the Fundamentalist“: Why is my theological worldview better than that of a Fundamentalist?

As I ended the discussion of what constitutes “good theology” and “bad theology” I acknowledged that it would be “silly” for me to assume that someone like Fred Phelps doesn’t love his family as much as I love mine.

I think the real question is not one of “how” but of “who.” It’s not a matter of knowing how to love, it’s a matter of knowing who to love.

I would like to assume that we all know that

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Whether each one of us actually lives this way is beside the point. This is what love is, and none of us disagree that this is anything other than the way Jesus would have us live. What is at issue is who we believe we are called to love. Recall: This story was told because someone tried to test Jesus about inheriting Eternal Life. A back and forth occurs which affirms Love God and Love Neighbor as the Correct Answer, which prompted a further question intended to trip Jesus up: “Who is my neighbor?”

“Who is my Neighbor?” indeed.

Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan is provocative in the first place because of the visceral reaction his listeners would have had towards the Samaritan in racial and ethnic terms. At this time, Jews derided Samaritans and called them “dogs.” That doesn’t seem much different than the ways many white USAmericans used to (and some still do) think, feel, and speak about the descendants of African slaves. It is the way that many immigrant groups think, feel, and speak about other immigrant groups in our country. It is also the way that many USAmericans are increasingly speaking of the Middle Eastern persons that live in this country.

When we do not love our sisters and brothers who are racially and ethnically different than we are, we are using the “shorthand” of how someone looks and behaves to make categorical judgments about whether or not they have any inherent value as human beings. There is a larger discussion to be had about this topic, but for this space it suffices to say that (more often than we’d like to admit) we do not love others because we have discomfort over their behavioral norms. To be blunt: we think they are weird and because they do not engage life in the same way we do, we decide they are inferior and not worthy of our love (see definition above).

Part of the reason I think my worldview is better is because it does not allow me to love only those persons who look and act like me.

But, Jesus’ parable is not just about racial or ethnic difference, it is also about religious, theological, and ideological convictions. This is the place where the majority of Fundamentalists live. As evidenced by the story of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, the Jews also held the Samaritan people in disregard because of their religious practices and beliefs. Put another way: If you didn’t believe like a Jew then you were held to be “less than” and not worthy of my patience, kindness… (see definition above).

I struggle to see how this is any different than the war our Christo-American society is currently waging on the Muslim community.

I also think that my worldview is better is because it does not allow me to love only those persons who think like me.

Christ named that the commandments on which all else hang are Love God and Love your neighbor.  The mission of Jesus of Nazareth was one of setting people free (Luke 4) and making available Abundant Life (John 10). He consistently ministered to those who were shunned by the religious establishment of his day, and we know that that is how his disciples understood his mission for they continued it by offering his Grace and Peace to those outside of the faith (the Gentiles) and outcasts (ie – women and the Ethiopian Eunuch) (cf. Acts).

But, more pointedly, Christ gave us the New Commandment to Love one another as “I have loved you.” And love, as we have seen, does not mean one must be in agreement with another, but that we are called to patience, kindness, a lack of envy, bosting, arrogance, or rudeness. Love means not insisting that I get my way, or being irritable or resentful. It means not rejoicing in wrongdoing, but in the truth. It means bearing, believing, rejoicing and enduring all things.

So, ultimately, this is my answer to the Postmodern Problem of the Fundamentalist. I believe that the worldview I hold is better than that of a Fundamentalist, not because of an ability to do any of these things in extra measure (it is not I who loves, but Christ through me), but because of the words “all things.” As a Christian, I am called to love not just those who behave or think in a certain way that I am comfortable with, but all persons. Everyone is my neighbor, and so (with God’s help) I will love them.

Yesterday, I tweeted this:

I am so damn tired of privileged white, straight people playing the victim card. #youveneverbeenoppressed

This was in response to a trend I’ve seen for a while, but is cresting in the particular religious world I live in. In short, it is increasingly the case that those who have historically been in the majority on several issues are now not, and it is making folks crazy. There are some that, to their credit, are doing the very hard work of trying to reframe their understanding of living in a community that they do not wholly resonate with, but so many more are playing a game I find deplorable.

Persons who have historically occupied positions of privilege have begun to declare that the tables have now turned and that they are the victims of marginalization and oppression.

What is at play is a lack of understanding of regarding the actualities of marginalization. Given that these persons have rarely (if ever) had to function in an environment where their behaviors and understandings were not the dominant norm, when they enter into a situation where their options for control are limited they begin aping what they believe they have heard from other marginalized persons or groups and mistakenly apply those to their present situation. They declare that they are now being marginalized and demand to be accommodated.

This betrays a belief that life is a zero sum game and the best strategy to win it is to seize control. This is problematic in a Christian religious environment, where we have historically affirmed that God is always creating and that there is “always room at the table.”

So (in a nod to Godwin’s Law) I now offer “Landon’s Law of Declarations of Oppression”:

As the influence of a person or group of privilege decreases, declarations of oppression and marginalization will occur in the inverse.

A colleague of mine, Ken Kovacs, reminds us of the dangers of “literalism”:

Literalism is the belief, the philosophy, the attitude that truth can only be found in exactness and certainty.  Literalism is an obsession (and it is an obsession) with what is actual, literal, with the “letter of the law,” with the need to nail down (sometimes, literally) what is true and not true and then defending that “truth” at all costs.  It’s a way of being and believing that seeks to maintain a tight “hold” on reality.   It’s a way of being that is suspicious (maybe paranoid) of anything that smacks of analogy or metaphor, of anything that leaves open the possibility of multiple meanings, of plurality, because for the literalist, for example, there can only be one interpretation of a text – whether it’s a religious text (such as the Koran or the Bible) or a secular text (like the U. S. Constitution) – only onemeaning, only one way to be and one way to believe in this world.

So, why is literalism such a threat?  Because, quite simply, the literalist bent undergirds and stands behind the many expressions of fundamentalism (religious and otherwise) unleashing its toxic effluence throughout the contemporary public square.  The unmitigated fact is that reality is infinitely more complicated and complex than fundamentalists will acknowledge, actually more than they are free to admit.  Fundamentalism, especially the religious variety, is the very opposite of freedom.  It’s a form of bondage.  It’s a defense reaction against the ever-increasing intricacies and challenges of the contemporary world.   Fundamentalism might be viewed, as one commentator has said, as a refusal to see beyond the vested and small certainties that do more to hold off the unknown, than give answers.  As a result, fundamentalism and its bedfellow literalism have inflicted untold most damage against the very world they say they care most about and try to defend and preserve, the world of religious faith.

Read the rest.

This week I have been honored to be the Guest Director of Ecclesio, an online magazine/conversation from my friend Cynthia Holder Rich. Throughout the year, Ecclesio begins a conversation on topic and asks two people to officially respond. My contribution was to ask two stellar theologians to reflect with me on an adaptation of my ebook Theology Is Art.

One of the responses comes from Mihee Kim-Kort, who takes the idea of theology as a primarily symbolic art form one amazing step further with “Pneumatological God-Talk: The Poetry of Theology.”

From her article:

Theology is not meant to be experienced in the ivory white tower or in the stratosphere of religious experience because it is not only about God, it is about God and humanity. It opens the doors to connecting more deeply with one’s experience, and more importantly, with each other’s experiences. Landon echoes this sentiment in a way: “Art, according to Langer, is also symbolic. Its purpose is not to define, lock down, or restrict. Rather, art wants to suggest, set free, and expand. While precision may have a role to play, ultimately, art wants something more not less. Art wants abundance, not scarcity.” Art, and specifically poetry, has the wideness to allow us to experience God more fully.

The other response come from my good friend Rocky Supinger. His article “Theology as Art,” looks at the question of what is required of theologians if theology is to be understood as art.

From his article:

By “artists” I don’t simply mean those recognized as “artistic” for their superior technical skill or for their temperament or for their acute sensitivity. I do mean them, maybe even primarily them, but I also and completely mean everyone else. I mean each adherent of the Christian faith as a theologian and therefore an artist.

If anybody should indeed care about an art-theology, then they must be made to care about art-theologians. We need to more and more situate the believing subject squarely in the center of whatever theological discourse is emerging. Claiming theology as art in a meaningful way probably means celebrating individual theologians’ experiential, limited, contextual, grasp of theology’s object, God, and not perpetuating anymore the modern preference for objective, dispassionate, propositional, wrapped-in-printed-text, discourse as more theologically reliable.

I am so grateful for these two taking the time to reflect with me on the art from that is theology. If you have reflections, I would love to see them as well.

Who cares if there’s a GigantoMegaSuperStore over there if there are no roads leading to it?

In this time of restructuring and change, we need to make sure that we are paying attention to the the infrastructure of the system. We have to make sure that the Big Ideas we are generating have some place to go because it truly is about arriving at a destination.

In the place I live, real estate development is exploding. It seems like every single day there is a new building going up here or there. But for a long time all there was were roads. Roads leading nowhere. But when they put those roads in, they did it with the plan that, someday, there was going to be a store you could drive to.

Roads are boring. No one likes to build roads. Everyone likes to build GigantoMegaSuperStore. Or maybe they just want to build Mom&PopStore. Doesn’t matter. No one wants to build roads.

The awesome product is great. An awesome church/ministry/program that changes 10, 100, 1000 lives is great. Truly, it is. But everyone wants to work on that thing. Everyone wants to lead that thing. But where are the people who want to do the dirty work of setting up the infastructure needed to make sure people can get to that thing?

People always want the big, flashy, and important, but they forget the small, mundane, and overlooked steps it takes to get there.