In the Coracle

Spirituality in the Suburbs (riffing on Al Hsu’s book)

August 7, 2008 // No Comments »

This entry is cut n pasted from a section of a paper that I’m writing on spiritual formation for my BGU Overture I class.

Spirituality in the Suburbs

Albert Hsu’s book The Suburban Christian contains the best-developed thinking that I have yet seen on suburbia as a mission field.

Contemporary culture tends to look down upon the suburban life. From my experience, this is particularly true among Christian leaders pursuing whole-life spirituality with concern for justice and the poor. It becomes difficult to believe that true mission can happen in the affluence and comfort of the suburbs.

The suburban world, far from an Edenic garden or American dream, often seems to be more of a fallen world… Living in such a material environment, we begin to suspect that suburbia may be detrimental to our spiritual lives. We feel spiritually impoverished in the midst of this land of plenty. Can we truly experience God in the suburbs? Is it possible to live authentic Christian lives as suburban Christians?[1]

Hsu answers this challenge clearly.

While it is certainly true that different settings will lead to differences in how the Christian life is lives, we should not assume that faithful Christian living in the suburbs is by definition impossible. Rather, the challenge for suburban Christians is to discern how they might avoid the pitfalls of suburban life and be authentic Christians in this very setting[2].

The suburban setting is a significant place in our culture. By 2000, over half of America’s population lived in suburbs[3], and suburbs continue to grow. Further, contrary to popular opinion, the suburbs are not only home to the middle class. “We think of the suburbs as middle-class, but 46 percent of all people living under the poverty line reside in the suburbs.[4]”

My own experience confirms this. Although my home is in an upper middle class neighborhood in North Bend, our community lived in trailer homes, older single-family homes, and in at least one person’s case, a variety of short term housing as a result of chemical addiction. Our cities include the poor, but they are not as easily seen as those panhandling in the urban center. Herein lies one of the challenges of suburban ministry: finding, befriending and being with the poor in an environment where minimal social services exist for the church to partner with existing agencies already doing the work of God among the poor and outcast.

Suburban life, because it has become central to American life, is an important location.

Suburbia has become the context and center of millions of people’s lives, and decisions and innovations made in suburbia influence the rest of society. If Christians want to change the world, they may well do so by having a transformative Christian impact on suburbia and the people therein[5].

Exactly how Christians can have that transformative impact is a serious question. Finding answers to it require that we understand suburbia itself.

My neighborhood is a community of 2000-3000 square foot sized single-family homes on small lots, fairly close together. New construction in Snoqualmie Valley continues this trend, with newer homes being smaller, lots much smaller and much closer to each other. Community spaces are outdoors in the form of parks and exercise trails, but few indoor gathering spaces are created – my neighborhood of several hundred homes does not have one.

Our homes are identifiable by small or nonexistent front porches, large garages and parking spots for our commuter cars, and homogeneity in home colors which is strictly enforced by neighborhood covenant and by architectural review committee who has final approval on a homeowner’s color choices when repainting.

In the summer months, our neighbors are easy to find – those with children, especially – in front yards on our cul-de-sac, and on the bicycle paths around the neighborhood. Friendships are grown, people are invited to others’ homes for dinner, and the details of life are shared.

In the fall, winter and spring months, which tend to be wet and cool in the Seattle area, kids play inside their own homes or the home of a friend, and adults much less seldom interact.

Until the past year, our neighborhood had a fairly fluid population. Most people on our street had lived there less than five years; often a family would move in for two or three years and move elsewhere with a change in work. In the past year, the downturn in the housing market has fixed our neighborhood’s residents for the first time in the ten years my family has lived there.

In this city it is easy to find consumerism hard at work. Name brand goods, comfortable to luxury cars, and ongoing home improvements are frequently spotted and the pursuit of them requires much time.

To counteract suburban consumerism, I offer three main alternatives. We need to reclaim the Christian spiritual practices of creativity, simplicity and generosity.[6]

Hsu correctly argues that the opposite of consumption is production. Creative production, whether of art or homemade birthday cards or of gardens, can be a spiritual activity which subverts the tendency to consumerism. Generosity provides a path for us to release material possessions for others’ good instead of collecting more for ourselves. Simplicity gives us the opportunity to be released from the hold that our possessions have on us. Together, these spiritual practices remind us that we are not to be influenced by consumerism.

Hospitality and community are welcome practices among those who seek the good of others, and so they should be in suburbia also. Hospitality is the basic act of caring for others who are unlike us, so that they feel welcome. It can be practiced between neighbors intentionally in order to build relationship and community.

God needs suburban Christians who are willing to take a sharp look at their environment, recognize the challenges of the suburban setting, and then stay here to do something about it[7].

Christians in the suburbs can have amazing impact not only on the suburbs but upon the world that the suburbs touch, simply by intentionally living as faithful disciples in their culture.

Posted in Faith

Tags for Where We’re Going

July 24, 2008 // No Comments »

Today I had a really helpful and powerful chat with one of my heroes, and though I want to digest that a bit before talking about it here, it also spurred me to find a page in my journal and open it up.

Here are some tags that I wrote in my moleskine notebook a while back when thinking about the topics I’m pursuing these days, and potentially in relationship with my dissertation thesis, and more so in relationship to how I’d like to see a community of faith grow - in particular, as we keep feeling a sense that at some point we’ll lead a community again.

I’ve been thinking about this topic kind of in terms of a tag cloud, though I’m not sure what sizes each ta would be. I’m jotting them here not to give you information so much as to snapshot this step in the journey.

The main ones that I find myself repeating over and over again are these, in no particular order:

• Celtic
• Missional
• Incarnational
• Organic
• Intentional
• Rhythm
• Community
• Simplicity

And extending on those, several more:

• Transformational leadership
• Bounded set within a centered set
• Transforming the city
• New monastic (neo-monastic..)
• Brokenness made whole
• Relational
• Multi-enthic/cultural/racial/class
• Multiplying networks
• Suburban // urban // rural
• Embedded in context, but portable to other contexts
• Finances directed outward (all, if possible)
• Un-busy
• Intentional community, if not a common roof
• Service
• Justice oriented
• Hope
• Aiming up (worship), in (spiritual formation), out (mission)
• Exile, theology of exile
• Theology of place
• Edges of the empire
• Living Matthew 5-7, living the Sermon on the Mount
• A network of networks
• Network multiplication
• Leadership from within the community, not outside it
• Stewarding power, money, relationships, …

Models and networks that I find helpful and that I relate to

• Mustard Seed Associates
• Community of Aidan and Hilda
• CRM
• Church of the Savior
• Vineyard Central
• Vineyard Community Church, Shoreline
• Sustainable Faith
• Third orders
• Ohana Project

I don’t think I’ll take the time to detail each of these out in bulk, but I suspect they’ll all come into play over the coming months.

Posted in Celtic, Faith, Grad School

Attractional vs Missional

July 7, 2008 // No Comments »

With regard to those outside itself, …

• The attractional church says come and see.

• The missional-incarnational church says go and be.

Posted in Uncategorized

With, not For

June 28, 2008 // 2 Comments »

I’ve been taking my time going through the missional synchroblog posts, and summaries of those. One of the best summaries is here. There I found the link to Kingdom Grace’s post which had a nice little hammer in there. One of Grace’s points is:

With not For

As we walk together with others in their faith journey, we walk in mutual relationships, both giving of ourselves and receiving from them. When we share the love of God with others, we encounter Christ himself in their midst. The idea of mutuality is expressed by doing things With rather than For others. This necessitates that we take the time to know them. We develop relationships of commitment, to be with them in their journey rather than to simply show up for charity work.

Of all the synchroblog stories this week, this theme - with, not for - is the one I’ve been chewing on the most. Like a mantra, really. Pair that with Philippians 2; pair that with incarnation; pair that with Jesus’ “I will be with you, even to the end of the age”.

For implies separateness; with implies togetherness.

With identifies with others.

With hears the stories of others; for sees others as a target to aim for.

I see the professional clergy as a for structure. Is servant leadership the antidote, the with structure?

I’ve been thinking this week that the most dangerous thing on the planet for Christians to do - and we do this all the time - is to do something for God. But the most liberating (and at the same time uncomfortable) thing is to do something with God.

Bonus points: Here’s with, not for in a story from Sports Illustrated about a young Muslim woman who gives up her family’s wealth to serve refugee children in Georgia. It’s a deeply powerful story.