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PART TWO
CHAPTER 3: THE CHURCH AS A MONUMENT
The most unredemptive kind of remembering is what many people call nostalgia. How sad to visit elderly friends and relatives to find them sitting around listlessly, pining for the good old days. They have no life in the present and little vision for the future, because they are locked in the past. The Sacred Romance Eldredge & Curtis

In his classic 1975 book, The Problem with Wineskins, Howard Snyder writes that church buildings attest to five facts about the Western church: its immobility, inflexibility, lack of fellowship, pride and class divisions. "The gospel says 'Go,' but our church buildings say, 'Stay.' The Shaping of Things to Come Frost & Hirsch

A dead cat in the road As soon as I started to think about monuments as a metaphor for the church I noticed them everywhere, from the impressive obelisks, arches, statues, buildingsto the easily overlooked, like commemorative plaques and tombstones. If you pay attention to the monuments around you, youll begin to feel what it means for the church to be a monument. For me the metaphor is attractional, filled with history, and depicts something made out of a rigid, durable material. I confess that when I first began to consider the parallels between local congregations and monuments I used the metaphor to rail against what I saw as lifeless rigidity in ecclesiastical institutions. On a walk one morning near our home in Toluca, Tim and I passed a dead cat lying in the road. In Mexico the city doesnt pick up dead animals so over the next few weeks that cat became part of our morning walks. For the first week or so we avoided that street altogether because of the flies and the smell. After we resumed our customary route I chose to walk on the far side of the road until there wasnt much left of the cat. One morning as we walked by the remains, Tim said, Isnt it weird that the things that were the most alive disintegrate the fastest and the things that were already deadthe teeth, the fur and the nails last the longest. That dead cat became a symbol for us of institutions whose spiritual vitality has disappeared even though the structure continues to exist, a mere monument to the past. But it would be reductionistic to leave the monument metaphor there. Although I like the sense of validation that comes from being able to show why Im right and someone else is wrong, I recognize that kind of approach isnt particularly helpful to anyone. I already know what I think and pride endangers instead of fosters my wellbeing. Chances are my friends are, in part, my friends precisely because they already

2 think like I do. So the people who most stand to benefit from a discussion about the value of a specific institution are the very people who are pouring their energy and resources into it, people who will be alienated by my analysis of it as dead. What is helpful though is to stop and think about the strengths and weakness of monuments, their proper use, and the dangers we can steer clear of in the church.

In bed with Tim The heading makes it sound like this is going to be more interesting than it is, but its not false advertising. I had gotten up early to write, Tim asked me a question, and I climbed back in bed to continue the conversation more comfortably. So how did your writing go yesterday? It had been Chases last full day in Argentina and I hadnt seen Tim, Chase and Terence at all because they spent the afternoon exploring the Delta, an enchanting maze of islands and channels that feels like a cross between the Louisiana bayous Ive seen from Interstate 10 and Low Country, South Carolina. I had given up the outing to one of my favorite places on earth to try to write something worthwhile about the church as a monument. It was ok, but Im struggling with just how didactic to be. I want this to be a framework for discussion, but at this point in the conversation Im the one doing all the talking. Tim didnt give me advice about my dilemma. He simply encouraged me and prayed for me. But after sixteen years of being married to him I know that if Tim values anything, he values clear communication. He doesnt tire of talking over an issue if he thinks something is still unclear or misunderstood. So in honor of clarity Ill just come out and list some of the general properties of monuments that are particularly relevant to the metaphor of the church as such. Monuments are location based. Monuments point to the past, serving largely to remind the onlooker about important individuals and events. Monuments are valued and understood by a group with a shared history and culture. Monuments can speak for themselves but their impact is maximized when they have an interpreter. Monuments require considerable investment in their construction and maintenance.
Comment: And, in places where The Streets Have No Name literally, like many areas of Mexico, monuments serve as reference points. But this function is limited to a few blocks from where the monument is. Memo Bernaldez

Maui 1972

3 When I was six years old my family spent a month in Hawaii. I dont remember how I felt about the beach before then, but on that trip I love imprinted on jade colored water, white sand, palm trees, tropical fish, the smell of frangipani, the sound of the waves and wearing a bathing suit all day, every day. My parents occasionally dragged my older sister and me away from the beach to learn about the history of the islands. On one such outing we came across a huge statue of King Kamehameha, bare-chested but sporting a cape and a tall headdress. I didnt pay any attention to the facts about him that my father read from a plaque at the base of the statue. I heard the word king and began to daydream that I was his great-great-great granddaughter. I reasoned that this would explain why I always had darker skin than my mid-western classmates. Ive forgotten the specific details I conjured up about how this discovery was to have been made but I know I relished the idea of moving to Hawaii as royalty so I could daily enjoy the delights of this world so far removed from my ordinary life. That monument is woven into the fabric of my memories. Without it I would have never remembered the name Kamehameha for all these years. But I doubt my island princess fantasies were what the Hawaiian people had in mind when they erected the statue to honor the memory of their ruler who unified the Hawaiian Islands. I had a pleasant experience but like most of the monuments Ive seen throughout my life it had no significant impact on me. Not all monuments are built to commemorate something; some originally had a function in society but over time have become largely, and sometimes exclusively, commemorative, instructional or iconic. Historic Cowtown in Wichita, Kansas exemplifies this kind of monument.

Comment: How sadly true. This is often the case as one considers the church. Dan Haase

Cowtown, on the Arkansas River just off the Chisholm Trail* During the hot summer days of my childhood, I earned Girl Scout badges by working as a tour guide in Historic Cowtown, a re-creation of early days of Wichita. Dressed in a long skirt and homemade bonnet, I would stand at my post in one of the old buildings and explain its history and use to visitors who came by. The general store, the blacksmiths workshop and the doctors office were the most interesting. The parsonage was the coolest because it had high ceilings and a peaked roof. The bank was the most fun because it got robbed by the bandits coming out of the saloon during the afternoon reenactments. Many congregations remind me of Cowtown in that they are full of elements that were intended to support and foster life, however with time those elements have become inadequate to meet the needs they were designed to meet but they are maintained because of peoples nostalgia. What once was alive has become a museum. And, because of entropy, because of the inevitability of deterioration, monuments require an investment of resources in their maintenance. Joel Hunter filled his seminary classes with practical wisdom he had gleaned over many years in the pastorate like, Be very careful when you receive an invitation from a

4 congregation with a cemetery on its grounds. He explained that years ago a friend of his had received a call from a small country church with a cemetery. The friend learned the hard way that a community who invests in maintaining a cemetery has its focus on the past and not the present or the future. When times got tough in the farming community and the congregants had to choose between keeping their pastor or keeping up the cemetery. They chose the cemetery.

INP San Pablo, Toluca, Mexico After studying at a language school in Cuernavaca, Mexico for six months, Tim and I moved 100 miles and 4000 ft up to our new home, Toluca, known for its chorizo sausage and soccer team, the Red Devils. It took some time to get settled in. Even something as simple as learning our address took work since we lived in a section of town called San Mateo Oxtotitlan on a street named Nezahualcoyotl facing the extinct volcano Xinantecatl. An even more daunting task was finding a church home. Our field director, Steve, wisely encouraged us to look for a congregation whose youth ministry was active enough that we could be involved in it without it becoming dependent on us. We visited a number of congregations which fit that profile but knew we had found the one when we visited San Pablo on the closing Sunday of their Vacation Bible School. The program was well done and the service packed with families but what impressed us was the passion of the woman directing the event. After her closing exhortation to the parents, Tim and I looked at each other and said, These seem like the sort of people we could work alongside. Throughout the almost ten years we were part of the San Pablo community we saw results from their openness to new models of ministry and their commitment to youth ministry. However we also saw weaknesses which are natural results of a congregation which functions primarily as a monument. In much the same way that a monument is designed for the benefit of those who visit it, the San Pablo community functioned on the assumption, well enunciated by the authors of Shaping of the Things to Come, that the building and religious activities they call the church are the institution to which outsiders must come in order to receive a certain product, namely the gospel and all its associated benefits. As result of this attractional perspective, evangelism focused on bringing people to programs held inside the building instead of taking Jesus out to where people lived and worked and played. For example, for years the youth groups evangelistic strategy consisted exclusively of planning one service a year with a special speaker that the teenagers were supposed to invite their friends to hear. Evidently deficient in a number of ways, the plan was doomed because many of those friends were forbidden by their parents to step inside a protestant temple. Felix Ortiz first brought to my attention another limitation of the attractional mindset in an article entitled The Educational Reality in the Local Church,

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Most educational processes related to the church happen around a cultic structure. They are centered in the place the congregation meets and are characterized by a rigid schedule and structure....The membership is expected to be available at this time and place.

At first this made me think about the people who were excluded from the community because of a scheduling conflict, say someone who travels for work. But over time I realized that when a congregation defines itself by meetings held at specific time and place, it in effect separates the community of believers from the broader community. San Pablo has always been a congregation with lots of activities. As missionaries and newcomers to the community, we felt obligated to help out or at least participate. But after about seven years, we realized that nearly all of our relationships came from within San Pablo and we had lost contact with the rest of the culture. About that time we pulled out of some of the activities we had been involved with to give more space to Veronica the youth pastor and because we had started traveling more for our ministry. Suddenly we found ourselves developing deeper relationships with people, both those who already followed Jesus and those who didnt yet. Not only was San Pablo attractional and defined by its location, the past played a prominent role in its ethos. When we arrived we were struck by the fact that the most important event of the year, the one activity that got the full support of every sector of the congregation, that consumed time, energy and a sizable chunk of the annual budget, was the anniversary celebration. The preparations began earlier, the sanctuary was fuller and the service lasted longer than for any other event. But the nostalgia struck me as sterile; it drained energy and resources but did not further our God given task of making disciples.

After dinner at The Cheesecake Factory My maternal grandmother lives two blocks away from the condo where were living in Orlando. At 93, she still drives and lives alone. Her favorite time to get together is over a meal and she insists on paying the bill. I think one reason she wants to pay is so she can slip an evangelistic pamphlet in with the tip. In the 1920s after a life changing encounter with Jesus, her father, Arnold Pent, decided to sell his part in a tobacco empire and become an evangelist. Greatgrandfather Pent was just as much an entrepreneur in his new profession as he had been in his old one. He fitted out a horse drawn carriage as a mobile literature distribution unit and took his family out into the streets of Boston. After they had drawn a crowd by singing, he would preach while the others handed out pamphlets to passersby. Back then this was a cutting edge multi-media presentation. Grandmother Smith has handed out tracts ever since. For as long as I can remember her handbag has been a portable filing cabinet; she carries tracts in a wide variety of languages as well as for every occasion and American holiday. She gives them to people everywhere she goes and slips one in the envelope with every bill she pays.

6 One night at the Cheesecake Factory Grandmother gave Tim and me a copy of the tract she left with the tip. Id read it before, but this time I tried to put myself in place of our 20-something waiter with a goatee and two earrings. If he actually read the pamphlet, I imagine the following lines from the poem it contained would be confusing if not incomprehensible: And many a man with life out of tune, And battered and scarred with sin, Is auctioned cheap, to a thoughtless crowd, Much like the old violin. A mess of pottagea glass of wine, A gameand he travels on
The Touch of the Masters Hand by Myra Brooks Welch

Regardless of whether you do or dont like the poem as poetry or as a presentation of the Christian message, what is clear is the high context nature of its communication: it draws inferences from vocabulary, experiences and expectations common to a particular group of people. When the poem was written in 1921 it might have been clear to the general population that that a mess of pottage, with its allusion to the lentil stew Esau got from his brother in exchange for his birthright in Genesis 25:29-34, means something of little value. I didnt know that until I looked it up so I doubt our waiter knew it. In a high context culture, many things are left unsaid and unexplained because it is assumed that everyone already knows and understands, whereas a low context culture explains things further, because its members expect individuals to have a wide variety of backgrounds. My Grandmother used to tell Tim and me that she didnt understand how we could be missionaries and not give people evangelistic pamphlets. To me both their medium and their message are monuments to the past, to a time when people were grateful to receive free reading material and when Gospel Crusades were at their peak. Shaping of the Things to Come begs the church to [live] out the gospel within its cultural context rather than perpetuating an institutional commitment apart from its cultural context (p. ix). An important part of this process is recognizing that those of us who consider ourselves followers of Christ alienate those outside our religious subculture when we assume that everyone understands the vocabulary and activities that flow out of our religious tradition and history. I am always befuddled by youth groups who organize evangelistic campaigns during which they sing worship songs without even projecting the words to the songs. I see the unchurched visitor as the target audience for such an event, and I wonder what he or she, if they were present, would feel while they are the only people in the room who dont know the words to the songs everyone else is singing with gusto? A high context culture doesnt just alienate those who are outside it, but it can suffocate those who are inside. Over time these cultures develop layer upon layer of traditions and rules that remind me of the quilts piled high on the bed where I slept in the attic at
Comment: That reminds me of an experience I had at Camp HoneyRock a Roman Catholic student who had not grown-up with the choruses that were familiar to the other campers. One evening after our singing around the campfire she came up to me and was confused by one of the songs we had sung. The lyrics, as she heard them and sang them, went, Oh how I need you Lord you are my only hope, where does my hell come from, my hell comes from you, Maker of heaven, Creator of the earth. Dan Haase

7 my uncles house in Wisconsin. I was so cold that I slept under them all but I felt suffocated by their weight.

Park Gell, Barcelona, Spain I was in the housing development designed by Antoni Gaudi studying a serpentine bench decorated with broken sections of tile when Tim came up beside me, saw what I was looking at and said, In order for something rigid to have its form changed, its gotta be broken first. We had spent the previous week at the Montserrat Monastery in meetings led by Alan Hirsh in which we were thinking through issues about the church related to his book The Forgotten Ways so my mind went directly to the implications of what Tim had just said for the church. Oooo, thats good. I said with admiration, Very profound. I could never get out of him if he was just making an observation about those specific tiles or stating a philosophical truth, but I thought he was brilliant either way. A rigid ecclesiastical structure will have to be broken to be changed. Because monuments are designed to last, they are built out of durable materials like stone or metal, substances that have to be put under stress, broken or melted in a crucible, to be altered. And the more durable an institution is, the more were tempted to make it an idol, to make its maintenance a goal instead of seeing it as a mere tool that helps us achieve another goal. When we find ourselves investing in the church as a monument, we need to remember Jesus conversation with his followers when they stopped to admire the monument of their faith, the temple in Jerusalem: As Jesus was leaving the temple, some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. One of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!" But Jesus said, "As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.
Luke 21:5-6 and Mark 13: 1-2

Comment: This reminds me of how when a tree has been dead for hundreds of years it becomes a kind of fossil. What used to be alive becomes petrified and, it if hasnt turned to something like stone, the only thing its good for it to burn it as carbon. At least that way it gives off some heat. Jonathan Peralta

CHAPTER 4: THE CHURCH AS A WEATHERVANE

Let us be frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by. We simply found ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed modern and successful.
The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis

there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren't. And it is very, very important that we are cool. So, when we find somebody who is cool on television or the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves.... The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool....Because in the end, the undercurrent running through culture is not giving people value based upon what they believe and what they are doing to aid society, the undercurrent is deciding their value based upon whether or not they are cool.
Blue Like Jazz Donald Miller

Metepec, Mexico Ive always been interested in the weather. Growing up I checked the thermometer outside my parents bedroom window every morning. Even though it didnt provide a complete forecast for the day, it did help me decide whether I should wear a short sleeved shirt or a sweater with my blue plaid Catholic school uniform skirt. For our wedding someone gave us a weatherstick: a twig that angles towards the sky when the weather is clear and towards the ground if it is going to rain. We put it on a tree in our backyard in Metepec, an eastern suburb of Toluca, and it ended up being more helpful than a thermometer because there is not a wide range of temperature 19 degrees north of the equator at 8,800 ft above sea level. It is almost always cool. Except when it rains. Then it gets cold. Another simple meteorological device is the weathervane which helps people predict the weather through the changes in the direction of the wind. Even though I dont have any personal experience using a weathervane as a forecasting tool, it became an important metaphor in my thinking about the church because of the ways it differs from a monument. Instead of constantly pointing towards the past, a weathervane draws attention to the immediate present with an eye towards the near future. In contrast to congregations who are focused on their heritage and history, there are those who are primarily interested in today and tomorrow. They dont think in terms of historic categories of theology or denominations. Congregants bookshelves are filled with works by contemporary authors and their corporate worship centers on songs written within their lifetime, maybe even within the past five years. For example, one worship leader I know draws his songs exclusively from the frequently released CDs and songbooks of the Vineyard Music Company.

Frequent change is another characteristic of weathervanes, another difference from monuments which dont change, except by decay. Quintana Roo, a congregation known by the street name where the building was located, provides an example of how a church can change due to the prevailing winds around it. When we moved to Toluca, this congregation, which founded an international apostolic ministerial network, had one of the largest youth groups in the area and the only full time youth pastor. Over the years the youth pastor, JC, became a friend and respected ministry colleague. We invited him to teach youth leaders how to use the arts in youth ministry and evangelism at our conferences and he invited us to teach volunteer leaders in his network. In the midst of coordinating a large youth ministry as well as several projects with marginalized children through Compassion International, JC made the time to write a column for our web site for youth leaders and even to travel around the continent teaching leaders with whom he had contact through the web site. Because we always had so much to talk about and so little time together, we didnt often hear how things were going with the youth program of his congregation. But over dinner a few months before we left Mexico, JC gave us a synopsis of his ministry throughout the ten years we had known him: With 75 regular attendees, our youth group was one of the largest in town. I was pleased with the way things were going until I asked myself how many teenagers and young adults went to our Sunday morning worship services. I did a census and found that there were more than 400. Our great youth group was ministering to less than 20% of the population of the youth already in our church family. In an effort to change this, we implemented a strategy that complemented our large group meetings with home groups. It was such a success that the church decided to apply a cell group strategy to the whole church. As JC spoke I remembered a conversation with him when he was flush with the success of the small groups for youth. With good reason, he felt honored that the church saw the youth ministry as a model to be imitated, but Tim tried to explain that the multigenerational cell groups the church was planning were in fact a very different dynamic from the small groups they had with the youth. Tim also shared his opinion, based on many years of observation and personal experience, that a well-rounded youth ministry should include some environment where students can be discipled according to the needs of their unique stage in life. At the time JC had brushed off the concern, responding that the new pastor had studied in Korea the model he was now implementing and had seen dramatic growth in his home church in Central America. Back at our farewell dinner, JC went on to explain what had happened as a result of the new strategy,

10 When the Central American pastor began to implement his model, he dismantled the small groups of our youth ministry and incorporated the teenagers and twenty-somethings into heterogeneous, multi-generational, cell groups. The youth ministry staff focused all our energies on the churchs new vision. Unfortunately, the change was disastrous for our youth program. Because the cells were led by adults, we lost the environment in which we had been training and mentoring young leaders. And because our time and energy, and that of our former volunteers with the youth ministry, were directed towards the members of our cell groups, who were of all ages, we had much less contact with the youth. The majority of the teenagers and young adults didnt enjoy the heterogeneous cells and over time stopped going. It took more than a year for us to realize all this and it has taken many more years for us to get back to the point where we were before we imported the new model. As the conversation drew to a close JC told us that the leadership of his congregation had recently decided to implement a new model called G-12. This church growth strategy was developed in Colombia so JC was being sent there to learn how to spearhead the project for his congregation. My point here is not to focus on the merit of homogeneous over heterogeneous small groups or to comment about the G-12 movement. I simply want to illustrate how a local church can look like a weathervane, changing its direction with the winds of every new model.

San Bernardino, Paraguay Several years ago I was explaining these metaphors for church to a Spanish friend who has worked with Christian leaders throughout Europe and Latin America for more than thirty years. He said, What about the churches that provide little more than a show, whose focus is numbers and entertainment? You need a metaphor for that kind of church. As he spoke I remembered an unfortunate incident with a worship leader at a Roots conference. All of the promotional material for Roots conference for youth leaders explains that it is not a traditional motivational event which divides the platform time between speaking and music. Although we believe that both individual and communal worship should be a primary activity in the life of every believer, for the few days of the conference we want to provide youth leaders with what they cannot get the rest of the year, in-depth training in youth ministry. That said, the local conference organizer invariably decides to invite musicians for the beginning of each session and for a concert one evening. Every conference the Roots team hopes that this time it will be a good experience. We hope that the worship will focus on God instead of on the musicians and their show and we hope that the band will respect the time limit they have been given. The band who was invited out to the conference center/campground in Paraguay for an evening concert was a hit with the youth leaders. They sang and clapped and jumped,

11 clearly enjoying themselves. However, the agreed upon time for the concert to end came and went but the band played on. Alex Chiang, one of the most engaging speakers weve ever heard in any language, had been flown in from Peru and stood waiting to deliver his message. The schedule mattered not to just to respect him but also because the conference attendees still needed to spend time in small groups reviewing the days assignments. The conference director signaled to the musicians that they needed to wrap up the concert. They ignored him. After they started a new song, he discretely approached the lead singer from below the stage and told him their time was up. As soon as the director stepped away, the singer said to the crowd, Theyre telling us to get off the stage. Do you want us to leave? No, the crowd called back. The singer went on, The Spirit is here tonight. Were not going to let him be quenched; were going to keep praising him and led the band into a new song, clearly believing that their playing was the most important thing on the Spirits agenda for the evening. After a brief consultation with the founder of Roots, the conference director walked over and turned off the power. With no electricity for their instruments and microphones, the band soon left the stage. The pride and disrespect of those musicians was particularly extreme, but there are many congregations which are guided primarily by the opinions and agenda of the person holding the microphone. Tim has described the weathervane church as the religious reflection of cultural fashion. What could be more of a cultural fashion than market driven entertainment? The world values numbers; more viewers, more sales or more clients means increased importance and success. The entertainment model draws people by giving them what they want, by making them feel part of the Inner Ring, by saying what their itching ears want to hear. As Tim and I have talked through the points and counterpoints of congregations whose time together centers around a visual, musical and technologically rich experience, at times I have felt lost in a maze of issues and questions. Precisely because they are a kind of technology, weathervanes have provided a way for me to get some clarity on many of these issues. Weathervanes seem like very simple technology. They consist of nothing more than a movable object positioned on a vertical axis so it can be turned by the wind. However it is anything but a simple process to be helped by one. When we evaluate technology we have to ask the question Is it working? in two different senses: 1) Is the tool itself working well? 2) Is the tool helping us achieve our goal?

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In order for a weathervane to work in the first sense, it must be constructed and positioned correctly. The movable object must be perfectly balanced with equal weight but an unequal surface area on each side of the axis. In order to obtain an accurate reading, the weathervane must be positioned well above the ground, away from buildings, trees, or anything else which would interfere with the true wind direction. If these elements are all in place and functioning well, the tool itself can be said to work. But it still remains to be seen if it is helpful. In much the same way, a congregation obviously should do their best to have all the tools they use functioning as well as possible, whether were talking about music and technology or programs and institutional authority structures. But the evaluation cant stop there. We must do the hard work of analyzing if these tools are helping us accomplish Gods purposes for his church. We should neither laud nor disparage a congregation or movement based on its size or its use of media and technology. Our praise or our questions should stem primarily from an evaluation of the purposes being accomplished by the tool.

Comment: A weathervane does not work better if it is made of gold than if its made of steel. Size is a factor but there is a broad range in which it works properly. Memo Bernaldez

Township of Bridgewater, New Jersey Our last few months in Mexico my elder sister, already mother to a toddler, gave birth to triplets. Tim and I have discussed child raising strategies with our siblings and their husbands, who, unlike us, are all, in fact, parents and we all agree on one parenting principle: Man-to-Man is a more effective defensive strategy than Zone. The triplets obliterate this plan because with four children under the age of three in one house youre pretty much always in the zone defense mode. My parents were starters on the newly formed defensive team but every once in a while the second string is called off the bench. That would be Tim and me. When the triplets were two months old, we helped my sister for three weeks. Life was so crazy that frequently at noon we would still be in our pajamas because we hadnt had time to put clothing on yet. When the triplets were eight months old we spent another few days with them. Even though the house was still busy, not only could I get out of my pajamas, but I even got out for a run a couple of times. One morning as I ran down a secondary road near the house I saw a picture perfect farm with a traditional rooster shaped weathervane on the top of the red silo beside the barn. As I got closer I noticed a sign, Eggs picked fresh every morning. When I was immediately across from the farmhouse I could see a picnic table next to a shiny silver cart announcing, Come enjoy our hot dogs and chili. As it became evident that the farmer no longer planted and harvested crops, I realized that the weathervane that had caught my eye was now an ornament, not a tool. My guess is that, in the very near future, when that farm is bought up by a land developer, the weathervane will be sold to someone who wants some local color for their home.

13 I spent the rest of my run thinking about the relationship between weathervanes and monuments. At first they had seemed like polar opposites but the more deeply I considered them, the more similarities I found. First, they are both attractional; you have to go to the place where they are located in order to benefit from them. Second, for the data they communicate to have practical value it must be interpreted and applied. And finally, historically they were created for the benefit of the community. Most very old churches or town halls in Europe and the United States were topped by a weathervane so everyone around could profit from it. But when a weathervane becomes an architectural ornament instead of a forecasting tool it shifts from a communal to a personal focus. Ive been in many congregations whose style reminds me of an ornamental weathervane: what used to be in touch with the present looking ahead to the future is now a nostalgic reminder of the past. For example, when San Pablo was established in the 1980s it was so progressive in its worship style that it was ostracized by others in the denomination. But the musical innovation has not continued. When a friend who had been the original drummer came home for a visit in 2004 he told us that the songs we sang that Sunday were the same ones he had played almost twenty years before.

Over tea in Argentina Our friend Memo grew up in the San Pablo community. In fact, as we were reminded at the anniversary celebrations every year, many of the early gatherings were held on his familys property. But our first Sunday at San Pablo was his last. That day he was commissioned to work with an indigenous group, the Mazahua, who lived further up the Toluca valley. As newly arrived missionaries ourselves, we formed a connection with Memo then and have become close friends over the years despite the fact that we have never lived for more than a few weeks in the same city. Memos journey has taken him through a degree in architecture, community development work with the Mazahua, two years of reconstruction projects in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch, two masters degrees at our alma mater, RTS, and now to Buenos Aires for his PhD in theology. So even though we dont live even on the same continent, our paths cross regularly. Six months after Memo and his wife Janelle had moved to Buenos Aires, Tim and I were in town and they invited us for tea at their tiny apartment on the seminary grounds. Memo had been warned that the school was liberal theologically but he was still surprised by much of what the professors taught as though it were Christian belief. The other day one of my professors was teaching about salvation, Memo told us, His premise is that each generation has to figure out what salvation means to them. He said that for todays generation, salvation is to be freed from a nuclear disaster and an ecological meltdown. This struck me as the most perfect picture of weathervane theology. Although this professor probably calls himself a Christian, he is unabashed about the fact that his framework for understanding life is not grounded in a historically orthodox view of the

14 Bible and the basic tenants of faith outlined there. As a result he is directed by the prevailing winds around him. The prophet Jeremiah describes the same phenomena in the religious life of Israel, every mans own word becomes his oracle and so you distort the words of the living God, the LORD Almighty, our God. (Jeremiah 23:36) When an individual, a congregation, or an ecclesiastical institution abandons Revelation in favor of opinion they become nothing more than a spinning weathervane and they lose significance in the lives of people because they have nothing of lasting value to say to them. If this individual or group claims to speak in the name of God, they resemble the religious leaders of whom God said,
Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They keep saying to those who despise me, The LORD says: You will have peace. And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, No harm will come to you. But which of them has stood in the council of the LORD to see or to hear his word? I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message.
Jeremiah 23:16-18, 21 Comment: The Bible itself can become a monument if we stop seeing it as Gods living word. Memo Bernaldez

The end result both for the prophets and for those who accept their words is sobering,
Therefore, I will surely forget you and cast you out of my presence.I will bring upon you everlasting disgraceeverlasting shame that will not be forgotten. Jeremiah 23:39-40

Which reminds me of Jesus words, What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?

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CHAPTER 5: THE CHURCH AS A COMPASS

The Sailor cannot see the North, but knows the Needle can.
Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson in EMILY DICKENSON: THE COMPLETE POEMS

I would like to encourage you to give up on keeping up. In many ways weve been trying to solve the problem the wrong way.To enter the church experience is to take a step back to some treasured period in history. Each denomination has its own century of preference. And yet the key to dealing with this rapidly changing world, to dealing with this culture addicted to speed, is not to catch up but to give up on keeping up and to discover that there is something more significant than going fast
AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE by Erwin Raphael McManus

Sanatorio Santa Maria, Santiago de Chile Because Tim passed out near the end of an eight hour flight from Miami to Santiago, he decided to have some medical tests run at a local hospital after the conference we were involved with finished. As a result, I spent parts of three days in a hospital waiting lounge. Fortunately it had good coffee and alfajores, comfortable leatherette couches, a free wi-fi internet connection, and huge windows with a great view of the city. As I drank my coffee and watched the morning rush hour traffic, I thought about how all the people streaming by were going somewhere. If they werent, they would have stayed at home. The Messages version of Ephesians 4:1-4 reminds us that the Church is composed of individuals who are on a journey:
In light of all this, here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walkbetter yet, run!on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and disciplinenot in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences. You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly.

In the compass we have our first metaphor that reflects this missional sense of the church. A compass is related to a mission in two ways: it is used when you are trying to get somewhere and it accompanies you on your journey. The composition of a compass is similar to that of a weathervane in that it consists of an object that turns on an axis. Unlike the pointer on a weathervane whose orientation reflects changing conditions around it, the compasss needle always points the same direction: north. Because north is north in every culture and time period, in contrast to the other two metaphors, a compass is a-temporal and a-cultural; rather than drawing our gaze towards a particular culture or to the past or the future, it centers on a timeless reality that can continually reorient us on our journey.

16 For a long time I stared out the windows of the hospital lounge in Santiago watching the well dressed men and women on their way to work and the teenagers and children with backpacks on their way to school, all moving purposefully towards their destinations. I had been thinking about the church as a compass and had been asking myself questions like, If the church is a compass, where are we trying to go? and What do people who call themselves Christians see as their destination? Observing the traffic from my comfortable seat, two contrasting pictures of Christians came to mind: pilgrims on a journey and members of a social club. As I thought about the contrast between the two it occurred to me that maybe so many people are comfortable and at home inside of the religious structures they call the church because they believe them to be a destination. So much energy is expended trying to draw people to programs and events inside buildings called churches that it would be natural for people to feel their presence there as a goal, especially if as children they were given gold stars for attendance in Sunday School. However, in all fairness, if asked, very few people would say that is the destination of their spiritual journey. A more likely answer is heaven. But the more I think about it, the less Im convinced that heaven, meaning a place you go when you die, in and of itself is the destination the assembly of Gods people is journeying towards. To accurately reflect to the overall sense of the Biblical record, the destination towards which the Christian travels must be something that is both already accessible in time and space as well as not yet fully realized. As I study the Gospel records I see that Jesus began his ministry talking about the kingdom of God (Mark 1:15). When he sent his disciples out, he instructed them to preach about the kingdom of God (Luke 9:2). For the forty days before his ascension he focused his teaching to the disciples on the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). All my life I have prayed thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven but now I wonder, what in fact am I asking to happen?

Ezeiza International Airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina I am regularly amazed at the privilege Tim and I have to travel like we do. Visiting new and interesting places is just icing on the cake of being able to encourage and help individuals who work with teenagers and young adults around the Spanish speaking world. The actual traveling part of a trip, however, isnt fun for me. I dislike packing, lugging suitcases, waiting in line, and the stress of having to make flights and connections. The evening we left Argentina, Terence had to drop us off at the airport three hours before our flight. He was apologetic but we assured him it was no problem. We anticipated checking in quickly and relaxing for a few hours in the waiting area. How wrong we were. After we had not moved a step closer to the check-in counter in 20 minutes, we started paying attention to what was going on. It turned out that the airline agents were directing the people who were booked on the next departing flight into a

17 high priority line. Because ours was the last flight of the evening, everyone from all of the other flights was being processed ahead of us. We finally got our boarding passes but there were more lines to come. Seven to be exact. There were lines to pay our exit tax, to get a refund for the national sales tax, to go through security, to go through immigration, to enter the boarding area, to have our hand luggage checked for liquids, and finally, to have our boarding passes checked as we walked on to the plane. The frustration of spending so much time standing in so many lines was exacerbated by the fact that we were always behind the same passengers who had been processed before us. Thinking about it from the comfort of home I can understand the rationale for ticketing the most urgent passengers first, but after standing in line for an hour and a half, watching hundreds of people who arrived after us get processed while we stood and waited, I was not happy. As I stewed in my indignation I was reminded of a book I had read a few months before in Chile: Leadership and Self-deception: getting out of the box. We had just dragged our suitcases into Aarons house in Chile when he held up a small book with a black and white cover and asked, Have you read this? Its short, easy to read, and really worthwhile. Aaron was right. I dont know when a book has actually changed the way I think about and treat other people. It came to mind while I was standing in line because one of the fictional senior leaders of the company it describes illustrated his selfishness, which he calls being in the box, through an episode on an airplane. To a casual observer the man was just a businessman seated next to an empty seat on a plane who occasionally glanced over his newspaper at the people who were boarding. But he knew in his heart that he was actively sending out all of the nonverbal cues possible to keep that seat empty. He saw his own selfishness clearly when another passenger cheerfully exchanged seats so a family could sit together. The executive uses this incident to explain the following principle,
Whatever I might be "doing" on the surfacewhether it be, for example, sitting, observing others, reading the paper, whateverI'm being one of two fundamental ways when I'm doing it. Either I'm seeing others straightforwardly as they areas people like me who have needs and desires as legitimate as my ownor I'm not....one way I experience myself as a person among people. The other way, I experience myself as the person among objects.

I have found this imagery of being either in the box or out of it helpful in visualizing how we live simultaneously on two levels: the level of what we are doing and that of what we are really trying to accomplish. Through even the most mundane acts we can be building our own kingdom, a state in which we see ourselves as a person among objects. Or we can be building Gods Kingdom. Just as our kingdom isnt about geographic or national borders, neither is Gods. It isnt political, organizational or institutional. It does not focus on the kings realm but on his reign. As Dr. Chamblin says, Where Gods will is done, there his kingdom comes.

18

In many cases we will do different things depending on whose kingdom were building. But there are also times, like standing in line at an airport or the grocery store, in which the action is the exact same, but our orientation is different depending on if were focused on getting what we want or if were thinking in terms of our Kings bidding. When Im in the box, I think Im the king of lifes chess game and everyone around me is a pawn in service of or an obstacle to my rule. Because in reality Im not the king of the chess board, this will invariably create anger and frustration which then affects me and others in a variety of destructive ways, depending on how I choose to channel it. But when I remember that if I am still on the board it is for the sole purpose of forming part of the win-win strategy of the rightful king, lots of things change in my perspective. My standing order is to love those around me. I am to view and treat them as individuals with immeasurable worth, not as pawns in my game. When my life is transformed by the kingly rule of God, I might be just standing in line, but I can also be an outpost of the Kingdom of God. It might seem implausible that I could do something significant and eternal while standing in line at an airport but the book The Tipping Point provides compelling illustrations of how the contagious behavior of a small number of people can create a movement that spreads exponentially. In her radio script called The Man Born to be King, Dorothy Sayers fleshes out one of the metaphors Jesus used to demonstrate this understated arrival of the Kingdom, Jesus: I will tell you what the Kingdom is like. Youve watched your wife making bread. She takes a little piece of yeast and stirs it into a mass of dough. Then she sets it aside and the buried yeast begins to work in silence and unseen, till the heavy lump rises and swells and becomes light and ready for baking. That is how the Kingdom will come. Andrew: Like that? Jesus: Just like that.Are you disappointed? I cant honestly say that I was an oasis of the Kingdom at Ezeiza. But as I look back I realize how foolish that was. All of my frustration just created hell inside me when I could have relaxed in Gods love for me and looked beyond myself for something he might have had for me to do. Those are the moments when it would be useful to have a compass, something to remind me that Im no longer heading towards my destination, or, more accurately, that Ive forgotten that my goal isnt my comfort and security but establishing Gods reign characterized by faith, hope and love.

Metro de Santiago I believe I first rode in an underground train in London. The Tubes symbol of a red circle on a white background reflects how I perceived it: simple, clean, bright, and somehow very cool. Tim and I didnt own a car for our first two years in Mexico so we

19 spent a lot of time in buses and on the Metro in Mexico City, which was not nearly as bright and shiny as my memories of the Tube, but was efficient. I find it much easier to navigate a subway than buses so when we needed to get from Aarons house near uoa to the hospital downtown we used the Metro de Santiago. Unlike other subways Ive been in, the one in Chile was one long train instead of being made up of separate, enclosed cars. This means that instead of just looking at the people in the car with us I could see up and down the whole length of the train. As I stood watching the sections of the train ahead of us, snake left or right, up or down at the flexible joints between sections with seats, I realized just how prone I am to self deception. I would look back through the train as it arched away from one side to another. Then I would turn and look forward through the sections weaving their way down the track ahead of us. At some point I noticed something very odd. Even though I watched the car ahead of us swerve continually, I always felt like the one I was riding in was moving ahead in a straight line. Logically I knew this couldnt possibly be true. I knew that if the car ahead of us turned right, a minute later the car I was in turned right as well. But as hard as I tried, I couldnt get the sensation of my orientation to line up with what I knew to be true. This showed me another reason I need a compass in my life. I invariably think I am heading in the right direction when in reality I might be going further and further off course. Tim knows this all too well as my confidence in my navigational instructions occasionally outstrips my accuracy. I have been known to lead us into dead end shortcuts and to get us completely lost, all while giving confident directions. The stories of abduction, murder, and revenge at the end of the book of Judges illustrate how bad society can get when everyone does as they see fit. Our weaknesses and sin, our capacity for self deception, our tendency to lose our way means we need something outside ourselves to guide us on our journey. The needle of a compass points north because it of its magnetic attraction to the Earths magnetic field. You can create a compass needle out of non-magnetic metal, like a pin, if you first magnetize it by rubbing it against a magnet. The church as a compass is a community magnetized by Gods written Word. The Bible constantly points towards Christ, the embodiment of the Kingdom, and helps people assess themselves and reorient their journey. Pauls previously mentioned admonition in Ephesians four keeps both the individual and corporate nature of this process in view, You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. Ive heard that when a boat is heading into the Panama Canal the captain has three lights in sight. If there were only one light, any angle could seem to lead straight into the canal. Even with two lights there is room for error. But when all three lights line up, when the captain sees the three as only one light, he or she knows the ship is lined up directly with the canal and can proceed with confidence. This reminds me of Matthew 18:20, For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. The council of two or three others is not a magic formula to keep us perfectly on course but

Comment: This reminds me how in orienteering if you try and move in a straight line without using a compass you have a tendency to veer in the direction that is your stronger hand (i.e. left-handed or right-handed) it is slight but over a long distance even a small percentage would cause you to really miss your mark. Dan Haase

20 as Neil Cole observes in The Organic Church: growing faith where life happens, two or three working together issafer than a solo leader but more powerful than a committee.

Northland, A Church Distributed to a white Ford Explorer in the highlands of Mexico Because our office in Mexico was in our home, on our days off we would leave the house to get away from the visitors, email and the phone. There were lots of destinations within a three hour driving radius ranging from the ancient city of Teotihuacan to the modern megalopolis of Mexico City. I usually wanted to go hiking in the mountains around Toluca while Tim would choose a trip into Mexico City for the weekly art fair called Baazar Sabado. In any case at least once a week we would pop a cassette into our cars tape player and worship with Northland on our way to and from some adventure. Unlike most congregations who distribute only the sermon, Northlands tapes have the entire weekly service, from the greeting to the benediction. Tim used to say, If you told me when I was younger that I would choose to listen to sermon tapes, I would have said you were crazy. But these are great! The stated goal of Northlands weekly gathering is to worship God for who he is and what he has done. Senior pastor Dr. Joel Hunter explains that this kind of worship enables us to love God with all our heart, and to be transformed into His imageThe result of the worship is the motivation and ability of the worshippers to serve people in ways that glorify God and reflect Christ. Our time with Northland gave us the opportunity to stay connected to that community, to soak up what God was saying to them through his Word, and to worship God in the language of our hearts. It gave them the opportunity to be a compass in our lives. Through the songs, the readings, the prayers, the sermons and the testimonies, they helped us keep our eyes on the destination. They reminded us that when we worship God everywhere, all the time we are building the Kingdom of God, creating a physical space where God rules now the way he will rule everywhere in the future. Many congregations can be a compass in this sensepointing steadily towards Christ and His Kingdomwhile remaining attractional, a destination people must visit. But here the metaphor challenges us and pushes us past our comfort zone. A compass is not just something that sets you off in the right direction but something that goes with you that you can check along the way. Although Northland literally accompanied us on our journeys through the tapes they sent us, I dont believe that a media ministry by itself makes a congregation non-attractional. Ive struggled a lot with the discussion of the missional vs. the attractional church. Its hard for me to wrap my mind around how something that is, by definition, a coming together of people can be at the same time a sending out of those people. But I had never even started to think about this until Dr. Hunter introduced us to the idea of the

21 distributed church and Northland changed its name from Northland Community Church to Northland, A Church Distributed. He explained the change this way,
In 1998 we got this hint that God was doing something new. Instead of being a community church and just building up our congregation, God was calling us to define ourselves more by what was happening in relationships outside the building than in relationships inside the building. We didnt want to be the traditional community church anymore. We wanted to re-center the focus from the congregation that meets inside a building to all of those Christians while they were in their fieldstheir ministriesevery day, and reshape the church on behalf of their ministry rather than trying to get them into the church to do a church program.

Not long after we had started hearing about the distributed church in the tapes, we happened to be at Glen Erie conference center in Colorado for some meetings at the same time as Vernon, a pastor at Northland, and his wife Connie. It was a glorious fall day so the four of us went for a drive along Gold Camp Road in the mountains above Colorado Springs to enjoy the brilliant yellow Aspen trees. Once again Northland met in our car. Along the way Tim and I tried to figure out what it meant for a church to be distributed. Is it a denomination? we asked. No, Vernon replied. But it is churches linked together? Yes. How is that not just a new kind of denomination? Well Vernon paused. It was clear that we couldnt imagine what he was talking about and he searched for a way to bring it into focus, Theyre linked by personal relationships not by a governmental structure. At the time, although we didnt realize it, Tim and I were so accustomed to thinking of the church as an ecclesiastical institution that we could only think in organizational terms. Even Vernon confessed that it took him time to get a grasp on the concept of the distributed church. But over the years Northlands vision began to permeate ours. So looking back, it makes sense that when we had completed our goals and objectives in Mexico we move closer to the Northland community while we try to figure out to where we should be distributed next.

Lookout Mountain, TN In the four months since I hammered out the first draft of this in Buenos Aires, Ive been asking myself, What does the church as a compass look like? And for four months Ive been stuck. On the one hand my goal has never been to present a model for people to imitate but metaphors to help us discern how we can form better churches. On the

22 other hand, everyone I talk with wants to hear about a model that is working well. For example, after reading the chapter Ecclesiology 101 Aaron said, Maybe you could add what we should do. I know that is probably the last step, but if there is no action then the who and for what are just a bunch of words. We can agree on so many things about what the church is, but we still just do the same old crap every Sunday. This reminded me of our friend in Mexico Steve who started a house church. He had an enthusiastic group of new believers willing to experience fellowship, instruction and worship outside of traditional forms. But after a few years of meeting together to pray, sing, read the Bible, and listen to teaching Steve told us that he was so bored that he didnt even want to go, proof of what our friend Richard repeats like a mantra, If you cant imagine it, you cant do it. The time weve spent with the Northland community this past year has been encouraging and stimulating. Ive grown in my understanding of what it means for a congregation to both gather together and be distributed. Dr. Hunter says,
The distributed church gathers not as an end in itself, but to send people out renewed for service and for explaining to people what God did for them in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the emphasis is always identifying the church as those who are going rather than what happens inside a building.
Comment: In reality, conclusions are not all that helpful in our walk. Thats why C.S. Lewis is so powerful. Its also why the wisdom literature of the Bible is so powerful. Obviously thats not to say there isnt bedrock theology and law giving, but it is to say that we walk by faith, not by sight. Richard Hostetter

It might sound contradictory to say that the point of coming together is to go back out again, but you can see the organic logic and rhythm to it if you think about how blood is pumped throughout the body. Life-giving blood must be part of a system in which it continually flows into and out of the heart. The health, and ultimately the life, of the organism depends on this rhythm. If the blood doesnt deposit the carbon dioxide it is carrying and get a fresh infusion of oxygen, it can no longer serve the part of the body it is distributed to. But it only returns to the heart so that it can be sent back out again. In the same way, the purpose of the weekly assembly of Gods people is not to create a domesticated, cozy community but to remind them where they are going and to help them in their journey. But despite the fact that we love being part of the Northland community and are always eager to introduce our friends and ministry partners to it, I shy away from presenting it as the example of the church as a compass. It is not, and the leadership would be the first to agree, the model of how a congregation should look. Although they are willing to explain their philosophy of worship, multi-site connections, and intergenerational leadership and are happy to share resources like curriculum and even staff, they challenge visitors and even their multi-site congregations to figure out what each program or element should look like in their specific congregation. So because I dont have a model model to present or even the imagination to envision one, I havent been able to wrap this up. Then Tim and I visited Lookout Mountain for Christmas. This community formed Tim. While his father was associate pastor there in charge of youth and small groups, members of the community taught him Sunday school and scolded him for riding his skateboard in the fellowship hall. They served him hot chocolate after he sledded down

23 the hill on the golf course and gave him donations so he could spend two summers on short term missions trips with Teen Missions. A family even took him into their home so he could finish his senior year of high school there after his parents had moved on to their next church. Christmas Eve, as we assembled with a congregation that could be stereotyped as a monument because they meet in a stone building with moss on the inside walls, I realized I wasnt stuck because I lacked the perfect model. I was stuck because I was, once again, confusing Church with church. Surrounded by this assembly of believers, I saw clearly that what makes a church a compass is not the style or content of the programs and activities, but the lifestyle and content of the individuals who gather together. A few years ago Tim and I had dinner with Richard and Susanne, a couple who were part of the community while Tim was growing up. Richard came to believe in Jesus as his Lord and Savior in his early 30s through Bible study and long conversations with Tims father and other men in a small group. He then he directed his perceptive legal mind to knowing God better. Richards understanding of theology was not a purely academic pursuit. He used it making decisions as a ruling elder of the congregation and chairman of the board of an internationally significant teaching ministry. And he not only used, but intentionally passed on, his understanding. Every year he chose a high school senior and met with them every week for a year to study Calvins Institutes together. Over dinner Richard reminisced about the community at Lookout, highlighting the way different individuals contributed to the overall quality of the group, Hugh challenged us all regarding our generosity and Frank made sure we were thinking clearly about issues. Your parents, Tim, modeled being completely committed to God. George was a man of complete integrity. Fred and Peggy were always giving themselves to others in need. Charlie and Jan were always exercising the gift of hospitality. Tim hasnt lived on Lookout since 1983 and Ive only been a visitor there but we continue to be guided and accompanied by the compass of that congregation formed by the unique perspectives and strengths of the individuals there. We have experienced the generosity of Hugh, his wife and children many, many times, not only financially but also through their time, their hospitality, their wisdom and their friendship. One of their sons encouraged us by visiting us in Mexico with his son, and their son-in-law and two of their granddaughters went to Argentina with us to support a congregation there that we love. Well never forget the time when we were at the receiving end of Franks clear thinking. We were talking with him right before we moved to Mexico. Most people put missionaries on a pedestal, speaking glowingly about our sacrifices. Not Frank. He looked at us very seriously and said, You two better not do anything the people you are working with could or should be doing for themselves. Those words have stuck with us and guided us since then.
Comment: The community of believers was and is the Key! We cant escape them. They hover over our lives, not by instruction or correction, but by example. Each of our Christian friends, not only at Lookout but here in Orlando as well, are specially gifted in almost completely different ways, and their lives not only serve as compasses, but as roadblocks when I try to take a wrong fork. Our friends on Lookout raised our children, as did we theirs and collectively they have discipled us over these many years, by their lives. We are not only not permitted (I hate double negatives) to get off track, but their constant examples force us to reach higher levels of obedience and love. Richard Hostetter

24 And Richards involvement with Tim didnt stop after they studied Calvin together for a year together. Due to him, Tim got his first job out of college and over twenty years later, he and Susanne continue to support our work. Many of these individuals lives were transformed by a lay renewal in 1975 but it is not because of a specific person or program that they have become a compass. Week after week, year after year, they have done what believers have done since Pentecost, They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. In his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society, Eugene Peterson, contrasts the lifestyle of a spiritual tourist, someone who only wants the high points, with that of a disciple:
Disciple says we are people who spend our lives apprenticed to our master, Jesus Christ. A disciple is a learner, but not in the academic setting of a schoolroom, rather at the worksite of a craftsman. We do not acquire information about God but skills in faith.

Although to some observers the people who make up the church at Lookout might just look like neighbors or friends, muddling through the many demands on them as parents and spouses, citizens and volunteers, homemakers and professionals. But as individuals and as a community they have chosen to be disciples, not spiritual tourists, and their long obedience traveling together on the same road towards the same destination gives me a glimpse of the church as a compass. Each one of the three metaphors for the church has a distinct feel, a sense, almost a scent, of something that is their essence. The church as a compass has none of the importance and stability of a monument, none of the cool factor and presumed relevance of a weathervane. Instead it is straightforward and simple, even humble, flying in the face of our desire to impress, to be innovative and to feel important. It has the aura of weariness, sweat and dirt as well as the satisfaction that I feel during a long hike. But what, you might ask, can a congregation do to become more like a compass? As our boss Ric Escobar says, Sooner or later all good ideas degenerate into work. The first step is to recognize that our understanding of church is buried within layers of tradition and assumptions that can blind us, in the same way that the Pharisees knowledge of the law made them unable to see God when he was standing right before them. The next step is to be willing to strip away the superfluous things that drain our time and resources so we can focus on being disciples who make disciples. In The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsh explains that persecution fosters the viral growth of the church because, by stripping believers of everything but Christ, it makes them hold him and him alone. I would like to think persecution is not the only way for that to happen. There are those who choose to travel light. Argentine pastor Gerardo Muniello frequently tells the story of the visitor who, on entering the home of the Polish rabbi Chofetz Chaim, was surprised to see only a table, a bench and a few books. Rabbi, where is your furniture? the visitor asked.

Comment: Having spent last two Christmas in hot weather, has led me to ask myself what the essence of Christmas is. Santa should not wear a red coat, maybe a red swimming suit. The mere thought of snow was so weird. We are in the middle of the summer in the south. Even my mind does not respond to the idea of Summer in January (and winter in July). For me, Christmas was always related to winter, how wrong I was. Then the pine tree and the deer. It is about God incarnated. I know this may sound too commercial, but it has helped me ask a similar question about Christianity and the Church. There has been a lot of commercial build up around the Church that it is really hard to distinguish the essence of the Church from all the things around it. I needed to remove myself from the traditional environment where I had experienced Christmas, in order to start seeing it. I may need to take some distance from the traditional church environment in order to start seeing the Church. Memo Bernaldez

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Where is yours? replied the rabbi. Mine? Well Im a visitor here. Im only passing through. So am I, said the rabbi. If we live our lives here as a journey to somewhere else, we wont want to be burdened with excess baggage. If we focus on building Gods Kingdom instead of our own, our priorities will become clear. Well be like the marathoner who doesnt want to eat dessert because it will weigh her down in the long run. This is the perspective the writer of Hebrews encourages us to have,
Surrounded then as we are by these serried ranks of witnesses, let us strip off everything that hinders us, a well as the sin which dogs our feet, and let us run the race that we have to run with patience, eyes fixed on Jesus the source and the goal of our faith.Dont wander away from the path but forge steadily onward. On the right path the limping foot recovers strength and does not collapse. Hebrews 12:1,2,13 Phillips Translation