I'm going to tell you the story behind this blog's name. A couple years ago I was taking a preaching class, and harassing my good friend N with videos of my latest sermon. He didn't have a lot of experience with church but he liked my sermons and told me I should start a YouTube channel. I was slightly horrified by the idea of putting my face on the internet for the world to critique but he kept bugging me with the idea. He had even thought of a name for the channel: My Little Parish. It was funny because it was like My Little Pony except like a magical online church world instead of a world with ponies and bronies and the like. I thought about it for a while but was ultimately too lazy and busy to record my sermons while trying to do ministry in a real-life parish (as opposed to a virtual one). By way of compromise, I decided to start a blog. Writing has always been my forte so I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a shot. I thought for a while about the name, but eventually decided that My Little Parish fit perfectly, not because it was as exciting and magical as a YouTube channel or Ponies, but because it fit precisely with the view of ministry that I have had since Clinton was president.
When I was a teenager I was friends with some people who, quite frankly, made my mother very worried. These were kids from broken homes who had dealt with things like sexual assault, drug use, unwanted pregnancy, and hiding their sexuality from their families. It wasn't that my mom didn't like them as people, but she was worried I would start doing dangerous stuff hanging out with them. Aside from them being awesome and fun people, I always saw my friendship as a sort of ministry. I remember once arguing with my 7th grade Bible teacher because he claimed that we should avoid hanging out with people who could be a bad influence because it could pull us away from the right path. I wasn't a very talkative kid in school but I raised my hand and said, "Um, excuse me, didn't Jesus hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors?" His response was a dismissive, "Well, you're not Jesus." But his class lesson didn't change my mind. I had always been taught that it is through our lives that others see Christ. These friends from messed up homes with difficult crap to deal with might never experience truly giving, unconditional love in any way but through me, and not even the principal himself could convince me otherwise.
A sacrament is something which manifests the reality of the risen Christ in our daily lives. Bread and wine, baptismal water, scripture, service, love, comfort, presence: these are things that break into our world full of illness, crime, disasters, accidents, abusive parents, rape, violence, war and proclaim the gospel of Christ. The gospel is the thing which proclaims that there WILL BE healing, there MUST BE peace, that the future which God is calling our world to is one of reconciliation, joy, brotherhood and sisterhood, and I see Christians not as some elect trying to stay pure in order to get to that future but as people who are put here to be doorways for that incredible future to come through every single day. We are to be living sacraments.
So what does that have to do with church? Well, for a long time, the church has looked like something very specific: parish ministry. Usually these parishes were based around small communities. They were a place where everybody in town gathered together to have the gospel proclaimed, to receive the sacrament of holy communion. They were central to our lives, and there was enough social pressure to keep most people within the church. The church became the place from which ministry flowed into the rest of the community. A hundred and fifty years ago, this model held true, and churches were doing pretty well until the last decade or two. Now, you can't swing a small catechism without running into a closing church. There are tons of dire statistics talking about how the church is dying. The emerging church movement has addressed some of the issues of the more traditional church, modernizing worship style, liturgy, and language to fit better with the culture of the people, and this movement is very important, but despite increasing numbers of churches like Humble Walk, Solomon's Porch, and even the food truck ministry called Shobi's Table (all Twin Cities movements local to me), there are still a lot of people out there who feel no real connection to a church community. The problem with these models is that for people outside the church, it doesn't matter if the pastor is wearing tight pants and hipster glasses, or if it gathers in a community center or school basement--it's still church.
Many people feel alienated from church. Talk to a few members of the LGBTQ community and ask about their experiences at church. More than a handful of these folks have been seriously wounded by negative attitudes at church. Talk to young women fleeing conservative churches in droves: they have been told they are worth nothing without men, that their destiny is to be a helpmeet, that abuse and violence are okay because they just need to respect and submit. Talk to anybody who has ever had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of a political battle in the church, or who dares to be the voice of justice while the louder voice is full of hate. Many, many people have been victimized by church communities that look like people gathering around an altar on Sundays. That's not to say churches can't be wonderful, supportive places; my current church is an amazing, healing place and I couldn't be happier to be a part of it. But there have been times in my life where I have wanted nothing to do with church because it hurt me badly. I am still healing from some of those wounds despite being in ministry and being in an amazing community now. But all that hurt or sense of disconnection (which happens for many reasons from hurt to introversion or social anxiety) doesn't stop people from thirsting for living water. Where does that leave us? How can we "re-imagine" church? Well, maybe we need to think like people outside the church instead of like church people trying to get more people to come inside. Maybe we need to go into the world.
We need to stop thinking of ministry as solely a part of the parish. Mainline denominations have an unfortunate tendency to think of ministry which starts in the parish even if it happens in the world, but if this was ever true (which I'm not sure about), I don't think it is anymore. Ministry is praying with an addict in recovery who is weeping in thirst for someone to tell him he is worthy. Ministry is studying the Bible with a family in the hospital before surgery. Ministry is serving food at a soup kitchen. Ministry is gathering clothes for women to go on job interviews. Ministry is anywhere we do work which presents the love of God. The church is part of that, but it's not the whole story. If we are a people who profess that the Holy Spirit is among us and our world like a breath that fills each and every one of us, how can we confine the definition of ministry to that which flows from the parish? Ministry is what happens whenever the Holy Spirit shows up, and the Holy Spirit shows up first in the world and calls us to gather in church. That means that if we think church has to look like a group of people singing hymns, reading scriptures, hearing sermons, we are mistaken. Parishes are, or should be, a training ground for ministry in the world. If that means ordaining people to carry out their vocation in the world as ministers of Word and Sacrament, we should do that!
So back to the name. I consider this blog to be a "parish" in the sense that it is a gathering place for people to come, to hear the gospel, and to take that message of being loved and called and turn right around to be ministers in their own world. That's what I hope you are doing if you are reading this. I want to empower you to live out your vocation as a servant and minister in the world. This is a parish, because it is a gathering place, but this isn't church. YOU are the church. The Christians you bump into out in your world, they are the church. The church is meant to go to the rest of the world to show it the gospel. The goal shouldn't be to get butts in pews, but to get feet on the ground, and until we stop counting "the church" as congregations, headcounts, and offerings, we're doing a grave disservice to the mission we have been called to.
Now stop reading this post and do something! Go in peace to love and serve the world!
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