Something of each...

So. College conference.

I have been around many, many religious conferences in my time. Not that my time has been long, but my time has been filled with religious conferences and retreats. Having both grown up in the church going to conferences and retreats my entire life (early memories of that retreat University Baptist Church went on where there was lots about “give me oil in my lamp” and “the cord of three strands is not quickly broken” and where we all made our own stamps), and worked at a conference center for two summers, I’ve been around a LOT of conferences.

This year’s College Conference at Montreat is probably one of the best conferences I’ve been around. Granted, it’s a conference aimed at my age group, but honestly, I’ve rarely connected with conferences aimed at my age group. My favorite conferences to work at Montreat were the adult conferences. (I particularly loved “Proclaiming the Text”, which was aimed at preachers.) But College Conference was fabulous.

I love the church. I really do. I know the church is far from perfect. I know the church has had many failings, I know the church has done terrible things, but I still love it. The church is an imperfect, human institution that at its best is people getting together and trying to make sense of things and I have great respect for that. I’ve met incredible people through the church, the church has enriched my life in so many ways. I know how to navigate the church. I believe the church is important, and honestly, that’s not an incredibly popular position to hold in a lot of the circles I tend to find myself in. And I have, personally, made a promise not to abandon the Christian church. They’re my family. And while I think my calling has something to do with the church, keeps me close to the church... it is not a call to a career solely within the church. Sorry, guys, but I’m not being called to pastoral ministry. I’m not being called to music ministry. I’m definitely not being called to youth ministry. I could see myself being involved with conferences, as a speaker, as a workshop leader. I could see myself working with readers and pastors on presentation, lending theatrical skills to the church world (I’ve already started that one, really). I will always be involved with the church, it’s quite likely I’ll go to seminary, but it won’t be to become part of the clergy.

And often, I wish it was. Sitting in the pews in Anderson Auditorium, looking up and seeing banners bearing the same kind of cross I have tattooed to my skin hanging on either side of the stage, I’d like to stay there. It was such a joy to have the opportunity to be with so many people who shared the same basic belief system, all asking incredible questions, being open with their faith, making jokes you really only get if you’re familiar with the Bible. I always felt so happy for the preachers getting together for the Proclaiming the Text conference because they’d make jokes about Schleiermacher and Zwingli and while I didn’t understand them, I knew that this was the one time in the entire year that they could make those jokes and be met with laughter instead of awkward, uncomprehending silence. Since I was there with Davidson College Presbyterian Church, I went to the dinner for groups involved with North Carolina Presbyterian Campus Ministry. Now, it’s not that NYU/NYC doesn’t have spiritual resources. But honestly, they’re not that easy to access. Apparently NYU is just now building a physical Center for Spiritual Life at NYU, which has previously only existed virtually with a very small circle of chaplains for a very large school. I went to a couple Christian fellowships my freshman year, but the only one I’ve been able to stay at all connected with is the Episcopalian one, which offers the best ministry to people with very busy schedules that I’ve ever witnessed. The others I experienced seemed to requite your constant presence for you to really feel comfortable within the group, which isn’t possible for many busy students, so it only reaches a certain (pretty small) percentage of the student body. Frankly, spiritual guidance is not a priority at NYU. Which, of course, you know when you start at NYU. Of course campus ministry is going to be stronger in schools in the South, and I bet NYU does a much better job with Jewish and Islamic populations than those schools in the South. If you’re religious at NYU, you have to create your own network. Now, I’ve been lucky in all of this. While I believe there’s no one else in my specific program who goes to a Christian church every week (...or even once a month...), there is someone who goes to a UU church every week, Lindsay, and we’re extremely good friends (as noted by anyone who’s friends with either of us on Facebook). I’ve managed to find lots of people who are spiritual and totally willing to talk for hours about the Song of Songs. (I feel like I’m slowly drawing all the spiritual people towards me because it’s all I ever talk about, really.) I’m incredibly enriched to be around people with so many different viewpoints and opinions on religion (this is quite important and I’ll expand on it later). And I even found one teacher who’s completely obsessed with religion and last spring semester had office hours every week where he let me come in and talk his ear off about Job. (Turns out the two of us have eeriely similar obsessions in religion. I’d say, “I think I’m going to write my paper for your class on St. John of the Cross, particularly The Spiritual Canticle,” and he’d say, “We did a show on that, called ‘Canticle’.” Of course.) But sitting there in a room of people who all have very easy access to a pleathora of mainline Protestant campus ministry programs... not gonna lie, I was jealous. Being the only one who comes into class with a marked forehead on Ash Wednesday gets tiring. And lonely.

“Do you think, my daughters, that it is an easy matter to have to do business with the world, to live in the world, to engage in the affairs of the world, and, as I have said, to live as worldly men do, yet inwardly to be strangers to the world, and enemies of the world, like persons who are in exile?”

--St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection

I know I am called to ministry. I think we all do, that’s been obvious for a long time. But I also know that that call is not to a vocation in the church, but being sent into the world. And while I know that working in the church comes with its own trials and hassles (both my parents work in churches, I should know!), it’s sometimes hard to think of a call to work in the world as being as “valid” as one to work in the church. And getting a taste of what it’s like again to live within a community of Christians (really, I had 7 months of that, with Montreat and Ghana), I really wanted to stay there, even though God’s clearly said, “Alright, keep moving.”

During the first sermon of the conference, Aimee Wallis Buchanan, the conference preacher (who was AWESOME), invited us to draw a road sign on a peace of construction paper, to physically represent the point of the journey we were facing. I wasn’t sure if this was meant to be an actual, existing road sign like a STOP sign, or a more personalized, abstracted road sign, then I figured it was probably one of those “whatever you think I said is what I meant,” things where you do what you’ll best benefit from, so I went towards abstraction (as I do...) My sign looked something like this:

(I know, I know, I would.)

I actually found this an extremely useful exercise in articulation. Particularly having been relatively away from abstraction in any form for over half a year. A way to vent frustrations and confusions. This conference ended up being the perfect place for voicing such questions. The theme, “Wondering Wanderers”, was all about questions, and being okay with living with those questions. The conference provided us with group opportunities to voice our doubts, connect with others who may be having similar issues, and offer support.

There’s lots of debate floating around about how to get young people in churches, especially since you need to engage young adults if you want the church to continue. Some people feel that drawing young adults in has to do with the style of worship (“contemporary” vs. “traditional”, etc.). Now, I’m a member of that demographic the church is trying to engage, and while I acknowledge that I don’t necessarily represent the majority as far as how I feel about worship styles, liturgy, etc., I do know a lot of people within that demographic, and our opinions on how we like to worship are as varied as any other group. Having a praise band is not necessarily going to draw in young people. But something we are ALL doing is we’re all questioning. We’re at a major transition point in our lives. When people go off to college, it’s often one of the first times they’ve been exposed to new viewpoints. We’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do with our lives. We’re asking questions, and looking less for people to give us the answers, but for people who are going to accept our questions and doubts. So if a church is looking to reach out to young people (and really, in my opinion, if a church is looking to move forward at all), it must provide a place for those questions to be asked without fear of judgment, and must respond to those questions with humility and curiosity.

Speaking of this, let’s talk about Brian McLaren, the keynoter for Tuesday morning. I attended his workshop, “Everything Must Change”, on Monday, and I was floored. He believes strongly in the importance of diversity in the church and the world, the responsibility of the church when it comes to responding to global crises, and the inherent value of each person. He is an incredible communicator both in his ability to translate between different groups of people and in his ability to research, synthesize the information, and then present that information in ways that are easy to understand. Something that particularly hit me was something he said in his workshop, which was that the world’s religions are not offering “alternative stories” to the ones that are harming the world and the people in it.

For example. There’s a narrative that exists in society today about possession. It says that you should work to accumulate lots of things, own a house with a yard and have lots of money in the bank. However, this narrative is not sustainable. Our resources are strained, there’s inequality because not everyone has the resources to acheive that goal, and conflict arises when resources are strained and there’s inequality. Christ came in at a similar moment and said, “No, you should give up everything and share what you have.” Presenting an alternative story, that “a person’s worth is not the accumulation of possessions”. (Yes. I am making the claim that at least parts of “The American Dream” are antithetical to the teachings of Christ.) But instead of these alternative stories, you have religious institutions (definitely including Christianity) who keep outmoded, inequal stories in play. This struck me particularly not only as a person of religion, but as a theater artist. We deal in stories. Stories are our business. I cannot count the number of hours I’ve spent in class talking about the importance of story. I cannot tell you how many dramaturgy meetings I’ve had obsessing over story. If you want to talk about how the religious world and the secular world can meet, this whole idea of stories is a great place to begin. (duh, Colleen, duh. Jesus dealt in stories, too.)

Brian McLaren, in his keynote, talked about stages of faith development, which I was skeptical of until he outlined the exact state I’m in right now. We broke off to our discussion groups and debated these for a while, and then came back for a question and response session with Brian. We’d submitted questions just after the keynote, which was a great organizational move, and also gave people the opportunity to ask questions annonymously. (This was an opportunity I was particularly grateful for. I was, surprisingly, extremely self-conscious about my question which I desperately wanted to ask but would not have asked had it not been anonymous. My question was posed and answered quite well and I was grateful). This question and response session was fabulous. Tough questions were posed which Brian handled very elegantly. I’m planning on ordering a copy of this session from the Montreat bookstore, it was so good. (We actually gave a standing ovation.)

I’m still letting a lot of what he said sink in, it would take forever to talk about every thought he inspired. For now, I’ll say that I was clearly exactly where I was supposed to be at that moment. And I’ll give you some quotes:

“You can’t acheive peace by fighting wars with violence. That’s like trying to acheive virginity by sleeping around.”

“You could say that the Gospel and Religion are two different things. ...and religion has to get continually re-converted by the Gospel.”

“If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.”

“Thinking is a social act. ... the community you're apart of makes some kinds of thinking easy and other types more difficult.”

“Denominations aren’t a problem; denominationalism is.”

"In its best expression, the Reformed tradition makes room for people to bring their brains to church."

(related on this talk on denominations, he mentioned how Presbyterians can help Pentecostals think, and Pentecostals can help Presbyterians loosen up)

“Part of leading is understanding and working with people where they are.”

On Christians who would call for the destruction of other people if a bomb hit America: "their loyalty isn't to Jesus Christ; it's to some sort of Christian nationalism."

“We can't live in the same relationship we have for the last 400 years.”

“By being here, we are all privileged to some extent. With privilege comes responsibility.”

“We've turned ministry into a profession of primarily knowledge, with a few people skills. We need a holiness in spiritual leaders.”

“Our seminaries have been able to move ahead way faster than our churches.”

Conferee: "Can you go on the Glen Beck show?"

McLaren: "Sure, but it wouldn't be pleasant."

"How do we live and communicate a message of love, and not fear?"

"You have permission to be bottom-up organizers of random acts of reconciliation and hope."

“It’s important for us to have a strong Christian identity that’s benevolent to other faiths.”

I’m currently reading his book, “A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian”. Russ says this book is my life and I have no doubt of it (I was born and baptized Baptist, raised and confirmed Methodist, worked for Presbyterians for two summers, and go to an Episcopalian church in New York).

RICHMOND FOLK: Brian McLaren is going to be speaking at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as a part of their Lenten Series. He’ll be there March 9th - 11th. (Dr. Jim Forbes, who’s there April 11th - 15th has also preached at Montreat and was fabulous. And I’ve heard wonderful things about Tom Long, March 28th - April 1st.)

There was a cloth labyrinth set up in the Way Out Building as part of the ‘spirituality center’ offered during Montreat-sponsored conferences. I walked it, of course, as I do whenever I come across a labyrinth. Generally, the moment I feel the most at peace in any labyrinth walk is when I’m sitting in the center of the labyrinth in prayer. But this time, it wasn’t the center that did it to me.

“Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power. Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.”

--Ephesians 3:7-9

Like Paul’s, my call to ministry is not simply within the church. I mentioned before that I’m blessed and enriched by the people who surround me who have wildly different opinions on religion. This is vital. In any group, the trap we can find ourselves in is the trap of failing to connect with those outside of the group, and we start inbreeding ideas. In my discussion group, we spoke of how to grow in our faith when we find ourselves in secular environment, how to create support systems for ourselves, and one of my suggestions was to surround yourself with curious people, of all religious affiliations and walks of life. I have people who I consider to be mentors of my faith who are not Christian. Who are not even religious. As I interact with those who don’t share my specific viewpoint, I am challenged with incredible questions that people within the faith wouldn’t think to ask, and I learn from other people’s ideas and traditions and opinions. And I try to spread the whole “love others” thing that is central to Christ’s message, and to be an example of a religious person who’s not a crazy fundamentalist for people who have found religion too often to be a place of hatred more than a place of love. I believe strongly that the church has things to learn from the world and the world has things to learn from the church. And thus, I’m working to bridge them. One foot in one, one foot in the other. Funnily enough, I’ve become a kind of evangelist. Actually, evangelism is most of what I do, which is mindblowing because I, like many liberal mainline Protestants, have a nasty association with evangelism. I have a giant rant about evangelism that I’ll post later. For now I’ll say, we all need each other, and we need to learn how to communicate with each other, and that’s a large part of my work.

When you’re walking a prayer labyrinth made in the style generally referred to as the “Chartres style” labyrinth, there’s a moment where you’re walking rather close to the center, but you’re actually about to exit the labyrinth. (There’s also a moment where you’re walking rather far from the center but are about to reach the center. The metaphors never end!) It was here, close to the center, but about to step out in the world, where I felt most at peace. Probably because that’s actually where I was, and where I’m supposed to be. Close to the center, stepping out into the world. In the center, I asked, “Where am I supposed to go? What’s the next step?” And I heard “You know exactly what to do next.” (almost with the subtext of, "oh come on.")

Which... somehow, I do. If you asked me what it is, I couldn’t tell you. Do I have any idea what it looks like? Nope. None at all. But I never do. I doubt I ever will. I just go.