;

Jer Swigart

Entering the Voids. Waging Peace.

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Door

4 Things I learned about “Us” from “Them”

by 8 Comments

Throughout my recent blog series, “‘Gays,’ the ‘American Church,’ and 2 Severed Relationships” I invited us (American Church people) to embrace the beauty of our own silence longer than felt comfortable so that we could learn about ourselves from the perspective of the LGBTQ community.

Here are top 4 things I learned about “Us” from “Them.”

(1) “We” are not even close to being “Us” :: I despise the title of this post as it both exposes and perpetuates a broken reality.  As I read the responses of my two friends (an agnostic lesbian and a same-sex oriented, Jesus-following man) it is clear that “we” are not yet “us.”  The chasm between the American Church and the LGBTQ community is wide and jagged: “us” and “them” is our current reality.

I wonder what Jesus would say to “Us” about the way we’ve perpetuated the marginalization of “Them” in light of two realities:

  1. His command that we spend our lives on the holistic repair of broken relationships
  2. His promise to be the One who heals broken humanity (you, me, Constantine, Annika…)

(2) We struggle to embrace critiques of our perspective, posture, and practice :: In light of the invitation to listen long and to do a civility check before entering the dialogue, it was an unsettling experience to watch the predictable emergence of well-worn monologes.  Being “right” seems to interrupt our ability to listen well and to learn from the valuable critique of others.

One critical critique that stood out to me that we must pay attention to is that, from the perspective of the LGBTQ community, we don’t look, act, or sound like the Jesus we follow. I am a part of this problem and, with the help of the Spirit, I intend to intelligently and compassionately be a part its solution.

(3) “Our” Bible (and our interpretations of it) is “our” authority…Jesus Isn’t :: In the comments section of Part 3, one commenter eloquently exposed our misplaced allegiance by saying, “The most loving thing we can do for anyone, gay or straight, is to point them to the Word of God….”  By use of “Word,” she is not referring to the crucified and resurrected One but is, instead, referring to the Bible as our authority.  I couldn’t possibly disagree more.

Simply put, Jesus is our authority (Matthew 28:18) and the Scriptures are authoritative in that they point us to the Authority.  As we go to the Scriptures, we discover Jesus who demonstrates for us what it means to be fully alive as a human being that is wrapped up in the unfolding Story of God.  As we meditate on the Text, we discover a God who, despite our sin, saw His image in us, immersed into the radical center of our conflict-riddled story, contended for our flourishing, repaired the severed relationship between us, and then gave us His authority to go and do the same.

Bible as authority works well for us post-enlightened American Christians whose intellectual formation has occurred primarily in an academic setting.  We’re comfortable with it because we know how to read and master content without allowing it to master us.  The problem with this is two-fold:

  1. The moment we place anything (even the Bible) other than Jesus as our authority, the object becomes an idol and we become idolators.
  2. The Bible has no transforming power.  The One it reveals does.

Yohanna Katanacho says that the biblical text has an agenda: to change us.  I would respectfully argue that God has an agenda: to transform us and that part of that transformation is informed and guided by the biblical text.

(4) Our impassioned fixation on the “gay issue” is misplaced :: So long as we continue to fix our gaze on solving the conundrum that is the “gay issue” we easily deceive ourselves into believing that we are getting on with what we were put here to do.  The trouble is, while we fight over who’s right and wrong on this issue, we continue to treat the local and global hungry, imprisoned, immigrant, orphaned, and exploited with polite indifference.  While we fight impassioned online and denominational battles about gay marriage and gay leadership in the church and being “open” and/or “affirming” communities, we give ourselves permission to ignore our own soul-killing addictions.

What about you?

  1. What did you learn about “Us” from “Them”?
  2. How is Jesus getting your attention?
  3. What is one reconciling step you can take to move toward the LGBTQ community?

Living in the “in-between”

by Leave a Comment

Three weeks ago, my worlds collided.

Daniel Kirk & I concluded our teaching series on Philippians with The Open Door Community where, for seven months, we explored and experimented with the Cross-Shaped life. Just before its conclusion, I listened to a powerfully prophetic talk by Ruth Padilla DeBorst at the Christ at the Checkpoint conference in Bethlehem.  In it, she read from Isaiah 65, helped us to imagine the world that God is making, and empowered us to be the Cross-Shaped community who ushers that world in.   Add to that, I had just returned from another unbelievable encounter with Global Immersion where our Learning Community learned from the peacemakers embedded within the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

After studying Philippians, guiding Global Immersion, and reflecting on Ruth’s challenge, I was struck by a new-found awareness of the “in-between” that I and we find ourselves in.

I speak to the “in-between” in this 9 minute talk. The teaching goes from 10:00-19:00 on the recording, but you should probably listen to the story of infertility, adoption, and the cultivating presence of God that unfolds after the talk.  Matt & Faye’s story is one of the most powerful stories ever told in an Open Door gathering.

What do I mean by the “In-Between”?

We live our lives in this beautifully bizarre “in-between” space. On the one hand, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus initiated the new world that God is making, and on the other hand, the world God is making is not yet fully realized.  It is from within this “in-between” space that we hear Jesus beckon us to follow and, in so doing, experience the fullness & favor that comes with joining Him in what He’s doing.

The more I learn about my own East San Francisco Bay neighborhood, the greater Bay Area, California, my nation, and the world it finds itself in, the more I recognize our “in-between” reality.

Jesus died and rose again, yet, in my neighborhood and in neighborhoods around the world:

  • brothers are still killing brothers
  • women and children are still being sold for the sexual pleasure of men
  • men, women, and children are still owned & used by greedy power brokers
  • our streets are still flooded with the tears of mothers who have lost their children to senseless gun violence
  • our immigrants still hopelessly hide in fear in the shadows of overcrowded apartments
  • our refugees still hold desperately to the keys of their homes and the hope of their “right of return.”
  • our indigenous tribes still find themselves sequestered to the corners and restricted to within fences
  • our men, women, and children still live out their days in cages to the benefit of the wealthy
  • our elderly are still removed from society and tolerated from within institutions
  • addiction to chemicals, images, violence still robs the future of untold millions
  • our people still go hungry while enough food to feed the world over is thrown away
  • our people still build dwellings that they will never live in and plant and harvest fields that they will never own
  • our children of the poor still die from curable ailments
  • even though there are plenty bedrooms, our little boys and girls are still trapped in a saturated foster-care system without safe places and people to call home
  • capitalism still trumps compassion
  • consumption still trumps generosity
  • my flourishing still trumps yours.

Quite a list, eh?  It raises 2 significant questions for me/us: (1) How do we follow Jesus in a world where this list is still reality?  (2) What is the world that God is making and how does it become real?

Perhaps these are the very questions Paul was seeking to answer in his letter to the Philippians as he exhorted a community living in a similar “in-between” to live a particular kind of life.

What kind of life did Paul live and invite us into?

It’s a shared life that looks like the Cross.  That is, it’s a shared life defined by self-giving oneness and sacrificial generosity.  It’s a shared life that is poured out for the sake of human flourishing.

The great surprise for the Philippian community and, no doubt, for our own communities is that rather than joy being found in self-preservation, image management, power brokering, and upward mobility, joy is found as we join God in spending our lives on the flourishing of others.  Joy is found as we join God in weaving heaven and earth back together again, especially from within the contexts of our everyday.

As we, together, learn to embody the posture of the Cross for the sake of others, we, too, will experience the fullness and favor that come when we usher in the new world that God is making.

For His is a world where:

  • no more will brothers kill brothers
  • no more will women & children be exploited for the pleasure of men
  • no more will humans be owned by the powerful
  • no more will senseless gun violence produce dead kids in our streets
  • no more will tears be shed by our mothers
  • no more will immigrants hide in fear
  • no more will refugees hold keys to doors they don’t own
  • no more will indigenous tribes be kicked to the edges
  • no more will people be trapped in cages or elderly seen as useless
  • no more will addiction have power
  • no more will hunger & thirst plague humanity
  • no more will children be trapped in a system without families who love them
  • no more will capitalism trump compassion
  • no more will consumption trump generosity
  • no more will my flourishing trump yours.

I give my life to see His world a bit more realized today than it was yesterday.

Following Jesus in 2014: 3 Critical Questions

by 2 Comments

In a context of upward mobility, competing interests, smorgasbord spirituality, and distrust in the Church, the thought of following Jesus seems daunting, unrealistic, unnecessary….

From within this context, my friend, Daniel Kirk, and I are team-teaching a series on Philippians in The Open Door Community.  The series is pushing our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus here and now.

Here are 3 critical questions that are emerging for us:

  1. What does following Jesus really look like for us?
  2. Why are we convinced it’s a better way to live?
  3. How do we live this life in a healthy and sustainable way?

What does the Way of the Cross look like?

  • As an academic, a theologian, and a New Testament Professor, following Jesus for Daniel often takes the form of writing and teaching.  Numerous times has Daniel felt compelled to offer content that will, no doubt, push existing paradigms beyond their current limits and invite his readers & students to spend their lives on the flourishing of others.
  • As an experimentalist, activist, envelop-pushing, rip-tide surfing pastor, following Jesus for me often involves entering the voids and, while there, waging peace.  The voids tend to be places where more is broken then whole, where injustice is rampant, and where the Story of Jesus is neither being lived nor narrated.  When I invite other people with me and when I talk about my experience of following Jesus within other communities, existing paradigms are pushed beyond their current limits and those who are with me and/or listening begin to spend their lives on the flourishing of others in creative, costly ways.
  • Our shared learning: Jesus has wired us differently to follow Him differently.  This is a liberating, beautiful, strategic reality.  Rather than having to follow Jesus like someone else follows Jesus, we simply need to learn to tune our ears to the voice of the Father and live, empowered by His Spirit, what we hear Him say.

Why are we convinced that the Way of the Cross is a better way to live?

  • Because spending our lives on the flourishing of others turns out to be the most full, complete, whole way to be human.
  • Because the joy found in contributing to the flourishing of others far outweighs the upwardly mobile journey of our careers.
  • Because God raised Jesus from the dead.  That means that the Story doesn’t end with a life spent…it ends in resurrection.  God is continuing to fix a broken world and He invites us to join Him in the adventure.  If that’s so, then intimacy with God is found not only as we sit in silence, but also as we walk the Way of the Cross with Him.

How do we live the Way of the Cross in a healthy, sustainable way?

First, it’s important to point out a couple of key ideas around Jesus & sustainable pace.

  1. Jesus compels us beyond comfort, but never calls us to an unhealthy pace.  Bottom line: following Jesus, while the best possible way of life, is often uncomfortable because God is committed to our becoming more like Jesus.  In order to do that, He needs to till out of us the parts of us that don’t look like Jesus.  This is uncomfortable.  What’s more, crosses aren’t comfortable.  When we spend our lives on the flourishing of others, it’s often both exhilarating and uncomfortable (perhaps this is the fullness Jesus refers to in John 10:10?).  In our experience, following Jesus becomes unhealthy when we make it about “me” rather than “Him” and “others.”
  2. “Discomfort” and “fatigue” are NOT synonyms of “unhealthy.”  So often, it seems, we’ve come to understand an experience of discomfort (or inconvenience) as unhealthy. Is this a first-world problem?  In response, we set up “boundaries” to prevent us from feeling uncomfortable (or inconvenienced).  The same could be said about how we interact with anything that causes us fatigue.  Bottom line: following Jesus is neither comfortable nor easy: we’re going to be uncomfortable and we’re going to feel fatigue…but we’ll also experience a deeper sense of identity, purpose, and community than when we sit behind boundaries that might be unnecessary. (Disclaimer: boundaries are good and necessary, but are intended to keep us healthy rather than to separate us from the formational experiences that will likely cause discomfort and fatigue.)

Now for a couple of practices that help us stay healthy:

  • Rooted. It’s in the daily practices of submitting to the King that we recognize (1) that Jesus is the Savior and that we’re not and (2) that we are Beloved by God.  It’s also in the daily experience of being Rooted in Christ that our lives are focused: we get clearer on the good and better that can be released so that can tend to what is best. (Ideas: Utilize a resource like Common Prayer for your daily readings and work in a prayer walk around your neighborhood or a wilderness wander in the open spaces once a week.)
  • Woven. It’s impossible (unhealthy) to follow Jesus alone.  It’s an incredible experience (healthy) to follow Jesus in a community of mutual interdependence.  Why? Because in community with others we (1) bear one another’s burdens; (2) share in each other’s joy; (3) discern what’s best; (4) gain perspective; (5) evaluate pace; and (6) encourage rest.  (Idea: Ask Jesus this question: “Who am I supposed to be following You with?”  He’ll likely answer that question with a couple of people.  When He does, ask those people to join you in the adventure of following Jesus. Use these two questions to seed our experience and conversation: (1) What is Jesus saying to me? (2) What am I going to do about it?)

Open Door is Hiring!

by 2 Comments

Print

Who We Are:  The Open Door Community is a creative, multi-generational expression of the Church in San Francisco’s East Bay. We are an experiential, risk-taking, failure-embracing, grace-extending family of sojourners learning to walk in the Way of Jesus for the good of the world.  Rather than forming moral intellectuals, we seek to cultivate followers of Jesus who are Rooted in Christ, Woven together as family, Extending sacrificial love, and Cultivating others to be and do the same.  Our cultivation occurs in two primary expressions: Gatherings & Circles.

Our weekly Worship Gatherings are the place where our entire community convenes to worship God, to grow in our experience of our belonging and our awareness of our belovedness, and to focus on our shared mission. Our Circles are smaller communities of people learning to follow Jesus on mission within the spaces they live, work, & play.  Through Gatherings and Circles, we are becoming a worshiping family that’s joining God in His mission of weaving heaven and earth back together again in the East Bay & beyond.

Who We Are Looking For: We are seeking a Pastor of Community Formation whose life, leadership, and mission are oriented around Jesus.  We are looking for someone who has the heart of a pastor, the mind of a leader, the impulse of a mobilizer, the imagination of an innovator, and the experience of a collaborator.  This person will be a creative, strategic team-player and infrastructure builder whose primary passion is to help individuals and communities be cultivated into the image of Jesus by worshipping God, belonging with one another, and living out their identity as God’s beloved.

What You’ll Do: As the Pastor of Community Formation, you will contribute to Open Door’s mission by leading our Worship Leader and volunteer Gatherings Team in re-imagining, designing, implementing, and evaluating our Worship Gatherings.  As the primary visionary of our Gatherings you will help to cultivate Open Door’s Rootedness (belonging to God) and Woven-ness (belonging with one another).  Alongside our Pastor of Mission & Pastor of Worship, you will work to fuse Gatherings and Circles such that Open Door faithfully & holistically lives out its mission of cultivating followers of Jesus who are Rooted, Woven, Extending, & Cultivating.

Who You’ll Share Ministry Alongside Of: You will lead our Worship Leader and volunteer Gatherings Team, collaborate with and report to our Directional Leader, and participate on our Elder Board.

Qualifications:

  • Our minimum educational requirement is a Bachelor’s Degree. A Master’s Degree or equivalent study in Theology, Ministry, or Leadership is preferred.
  • At least four years of proven experience in pastoral leadership, leadership development & mobilization, collaborative leadership, and program design & implementation.

This is a full-time, salaried position.

Additional Resources:

If you’re interested, please email your resume or CV and cover letter to Kate Schwass.

ODC Feed

TGIP Feed

From the Blog