What the church can learn from DIY Punk

"I love music"

I cringe when I hear someone say that. It's the elitist in me. I know, I know. I'm working on it.

I cringe because once upon a time I was a part of the DIY punk scene here on Long Island and across this country. You may not be aware of it, but there are young people around the world writing, recording, and releasing their own music. They're booking their own tours and playing shows in their own "clubs" (basements, kitchens, alleys). Their DIY scene is made of small groups of communities that are extremely tight knit while being completely open to aiding and being aided by the other communities within the network. I cringe when people flippantly say "I love music" because I know what it is to LOVE music. To labor for it. To create it, to deliver, to watch it become more than you imagined. I believe in music. I love it.

And it's my involvment within the DIY punk community that makes me more than a litle uneasy about the state of most churches today. I won't broaden it to "the Church universal", but truly many churches and christians could learn a thing or two from a few sweaty kids playing punk in a basement.

In the world of DIY punk there is no gap between those playing the music and those listening to it. Everyone's role is valid and valuable.
        Within the church the chasm between the pew and the pulpit (both real and imagined) is wide. We've created (or allowed) a culture that says that the people on the riser are better gifted and better used than anyone else making up the congregation.

I was in a DIY punk band that toured frequently. We would often book shows in towns we had never been to playing with and for people we had never met. In my years of playing I never had a single instance where I was not given a meal and a place to stay. The members of that community are eager to help in any way that they can. They give out of their own wanting cicrumstances. I was always greeted upon my arrival and many would engage me throughout my stay.
        Within the church we find very little outreach to the individual guest at our Sunday services. It is so untasteful for us to engage a stranger amongst our ranks that we've designated "greeters" to take care of the job for us! Allow yourself to realize how ridiculous that is! If a stranger walked into your living room you would certainly engage them in conversation. So should it be in the sanctuary! Rather, the norm is that often guests go ignored and walk out without ever having been engaged and if we aren't engaging people we aren't serving them.

DIY punk is a cooperative community that works together for a goal.
        I know all the arguments for denominations. I agree with a lot of them. I don't think that divisions are inherently evil. I do believe that we need to find ways to work together in spite of our differences because that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. Even churches within the same denomination treat each other as competition and not as family.

Let's be honest. We all know know these problems exist, and we will battle them until the end of this age as we struggle to flesh out what "doing church" looks like. I only hope to add fuel to our fire as we press forward. I just don't want to say that the greatest organization of passionate, cooperative, loving people that I was ever a part of were bohemian twenty-somethings putting on punk rock shows in their row house basements. Not when the church could be so much more.

Youth Group 8/28/09

First try. Single SM58 into a 4 channel mixer into GarageBand. Will try harder next time.

Church is where you are.

It's hard to imagine a time when there was no church. We walk through our towns and there are churches of every shape, size, and color on every other corner. Small churches broadcast their services on public access cable channels while mega churches broadcast their own channels. Church, though too often removing itself from culture, is truly ingrained into it. If you say to a coworker or a person at school, "I'm going to church", everyone knows what you mean. I've never been asked, "Church? What's that?"

But there was a time when the church had it's beginning. It was an exciting time when, instead of figuring out how to work a church themselves, people had faith in God to do the figuring for them. All of this is recorded in the book of Acts and to a lesser degree throughout the Epistles. The book of Acts is our historical record of the very beginning of the church. God preserved this record and included it in the scriptures as an example for us. Acts is how you do church.

Paul becomes the focus of the book of Acts a few chapters after his conversion. Paul is a cool dude. He is very sure of himself before he knows Jesus, very self-reliant and prideful. After Jesus comes into his life we see a different man, a man that is sure of Jesus and is Spirit-reliant and humble. That's what Jesus does, He changes people. He changes them for the better and He makes them His church. God's building program isn't roofs and doors and windows, it's men and women and children. Your church might be a building on Maple Street but God's church is people - no address required.

So, Paul finds himself in Athens. This is a pretty big deal, in a day before $79 flights to Ft. Lauderdale and family vacations to Aruba. Athens was quite a distance from his home town but he didn't let that stop him from doing church. Too often we do church where it's clean and pre-cut and normal, but Acts contrasts that with the example of church being messy and free-form and weird. How many times have you been in a "strange place" and were unwilling to do church? You'll talk about Jesus when you're in a Bible study or at your kitchen table but not when you're in school or a friends house?

Without hashing things out too much, here is the boiled down version of what takes place: First, Paul observes what's happening where he is. The scripture says he was deeply troubled by what he saw going on. How many times do you see the things going on around you and are upset by what you see? The hurt of our friends, the stupid choices people keep making that only bring more pain, these things upset us. Second, he did something about the hurt he felt for these people. He didn't just say a prayer about it and go about his day. He engaged the people with a remedy for their problem. Third, Paul introduced them to Jesus. This is the natural development of witness that God set up. God wants us to be missional. That means he wants us to be like Paul and engage our culture and introduce Jesus into it.

It all starts with love. Love for God. Love for people. Let's face it, we can get upset for all sorts of reasons, and most of those reasons are selfish. Our churches have been upset for a long time, and for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong outcomes. Our driving force should be love and love doesn't leave things alone. When love sees a problem, a hurt, a pain, it acts. Love isn't still, it's active and alive and engaging.

What I pray for us is that we get over calling buildings churches and start taking the responsibility to be the church, just like God planned. I pray that we would take the example of Paul in Acts 17 and follow the three steps of a missional lifestyle and that our lives would be wrapped in and empowered by love. Awesome.

Big Hands, Little Hands

Let's dive right in. David and Goliath, familiar story. The thing about familiar stories is that we usually just blast right past them. We think that we know all there is to know and so we miss all the great details. It's a sad thing to do when it comes to the Bible because often the most significant things God wants to show us are just below surface. What I want to talk about is the three steps that David took to accomplish all he did in this story.

First, most importantly, he was willing. David was a young guy, hanging out, living on his father's sheep farm. His country was at war with the Philistines and things were not looking good. The battle was at a stand still for over a month and David's team the Israelites were shaking with fear and hiding from the Philistine's champion giant Goliath. David was in the middle of a bad situation. He didn't create the situation, and he wasn't in any real position to change things, but he was willing to be part of the solution if he could. He took that first step in the right direction of saying, "God I don't know how to fix this but I know that You do. If I can help in any way, let me be a part of your plan." And for most of us this is the most difficult part. We look at the problem and we think that it's too big for us to tackle. Most of us can't get passed "here I am, send me".

Second, David did what God gave him to do. It's a simple thought, but a profound action. Many of us have a dream, a vision of what our service to God will look like. We have a desire to see our friends saved and following Jesus, but the things that God gives us to do seem off topic. It may be that we desire to enter into a specific ministry like overseas missions or worship leadership, but the only doors that seem to open are for children's church or the drama group. David saw himself in the middle of a bad situation and he had a real desire to help, to be part of the deliverance and victory he knew God could provide for the Israelites. But instead of God handing him a sword and shield He hands David a couple of cheese sandwiches and tells him to go pass them out on the front lines. The truth is, if we took every situation head on when the passion hit, many of us would burn out quickly and end up dejected and disenchanted. God knows this and He takes us through the necessary steps to prepare us for the larger things ahead of us. It's the principle God displays over and over again in the Bible and the one behind Jesus' teaching on baby step ministry. I don't like this new teaching going around of "launching" churches, or of young men and women exiting Bible school and immediatly entering a full time ministry position. God is a gardener. He plants seeds and they grow. He never meant for us to hit the ground running. Slow and steady wins the race in God's Kingdom.

So first David was willing. Then David was faithful to accomplish the small tasks God gave him. This is where most of us are at. The small stuff. The truth is, with God, nothing is small. Nothing is small. Remember that. Every thing you do for God's Kingdom is eternal and will have eternal implications and eternal rewards. Nothing eternal is small. I encourage the people in our church all the time, if you give just five dollars to missions, that's a huge thing. One day, God Himself is going to look you in the eye and say, "I remember that time you gave five dollars to missions. Thank you." That's huge. That's not small at all. Anything we do for God is huge, and if David had never slain Goliath (oops, did I give away the ending?) God would have looked him in the eye up in heaven and said, "I remember that time you handed out cheese sandwiches on the front lines. Thank you." God is awesome, and the fact that He sees and remembers and cherishes all that we do for Him is just one of the many amazing things that cause us to worship Him. What a great God.

The third step is often the one that gets talked about the most so I'll talk about it the least. God took David from his willingness to help, to his faithfulness in little things, to the front of the Israelite army facing the baddest dude the world could throw at him. And he won. See, God doesn't take us places to fail. God accomplishes things, he never fails at them. So if we position ourselves in service to God we will never fail. David had a slingshot. Not exactly high tech warfare. It was probably nothing more than a strip of leather with a small pouch on one end in which to hold a small stone. A stone no bigger than a fist. And as long as it was David's slingshot it wouldn't be worth much of anything. It wouldn't pose a threat to the great Philistine giant. But David didn't keep the slingshot to himself, he let it be a tool for God to use. And when we give God our lives as tools for His purpose there is no giant that can stand in our way. Our hands are just our hands, as long as we keep them our hands. But when we dedicate our hands to God's work we find that there is nothing too big, nothing too great that God can accomplish through us. Our lives are meant to be instruments for God to work out his purpose on this earth.

Why not take the time and pray right now? "God, make my hands Your hands. I give you my life as an instrument for your purpose and glory. Use me to advance Your kingdom in the middle of this bad situation."

Doomed To Repeat It

Palm Sunday gets a lot of credit in the church, but it seems like a pretty strange event to celebrate. As far as the Christian calendar goes it comes in on the top five list of our favorite events every year. We get extra people in the pews and everyone has fun making those cute little crosses out of palms.

The whole thing breaks down like this: Jesus shows up in Jerusalem (Mark 11:1-11) fulfilling prophecy by riding on a donkey and ready to force the issue. A ton of people see Jesus coming and they start freaking out. They're excited for a savior to come in and start shaking up the place. Everyone takes off their jackets and lays them out on the street ahead of Jesus (sort of like a gentleman spreading his coat over a muddy path for a lady). After his donkey ride Jesus checks out the Temple and heads back to Bethany.

To give a little bit of background I should mention that the people spreading out their clothes and shouting at the tops of their lungs were Jews. The Jews have not had a ton of luck historically and this chapter in their story is really no different. Those pesky Romans were currently using the people of Judea as their personal punching bags. Things were really no fun for the Jews. Imagine a bunch of people from another country moving into your town and taking over. Lame.

This whole Romans-dominating-the-Jews thing is where we get the saying, "go the extra mile". See, there was a rule that said that if a Roman soldier came along and told you to carry his backpack for a mile, you had to do it. It didn't matter how busy you were or which direction you were headed in, if a Roman soldier told you to carry his pack you had to it. Pretty lame rule. The Romans are starting to sound like bullies, right? So why do we say "go the extra mile"? It seems like going that first mile would stink enough as it is. Well, Jesus shows up on the scene and starts telling people that when you want to scream, that's when you sing. When you want to just reach out and knock someone in the teeth, that's when you hug them. When you want to throw the backpack down on the ground and tell the Roman guy exactly what he can do with it, that's when you go the extra mile. As a rule, the God thing to do is nearly always contradictory to what we want to do initially. It's all turn the other cheek type stuff.

Let's put it all together. The Jews are being oppressed by the Romans. Clearly, everyone is pretty angry about the situation. The Jews have been reading for years in their scriptures that one day a savior would come. A savior that would free them from their oppressors. A savior that would ride into town on a donkey. Jesus fits the bill and everyone starts getting really excited. They wanted Jesus to save them from their oppressors. They wanted Jesus to save them from their problems. Only one problem: that's not what Jesus was there to do.

Oh sure, Jesus was on a rescue mission - just not the type these people were after. Jesus was there to save them from themselves. He was there to save them from their own selfish ambitions, from their sins, and ultimately, from hell. Jesus was a lot more interested in these people's eternities than in their temporary situation under Roman rule.

Now here's why I think it's so weird we keep celebrating Palm Sunday: it's a retelling of our own sad story with Jesus. Each one of us has looked to Jesus and told him what we want to be. We've prayed to Him and told Him how to behave, how to perform. We've done our best to put our strings on Him and make our own little Jesus puppet. Just like those people on that road to Jerusalem two thousand years ago we're getting loud and excited over the Jesus we want, but not the Jesus He is.

Think about it. In only a week these same people are screaming just as loudly for Jesus to be killed.

Sometimes it doesn't take us nearly that long to turn on Jesus.

There's one big reason I believe we need to take Jesus as He is and that is that He's always done so for us. Jesus always takes us as we are. He doesn't ask us to be someone else. He doesn't force us into some mold before He'll love us and accept us. He always does. And what's so strange about it is that we're not all that great! We do horrible things, we think horrible thoughts, we treat people in horrible ways. And yet He loves us as we are. On the other hand, Jesus does wonderful things, all His thoughts are wonderful, and He treats people wonderfully. And we still find it so hard to love Him as He is.

Maybe we need to keep Palm Sunday around after all. Not as a celebration, but as a reminder of a loving Savior that takes us as we are and as a somber push in the right direction to love Him as He is.