Advent and Starfish

The in between.

Irrespective of our faith, humans often live in an ‘advent space’, anticipating the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event. For Christians around the world, now is the season of Advent. They remember the first coming (advent) of Christ, and remind themselves that they live in the ‘in between’ of that first event and Christ’s’ promised second coming. 

We all live the in-between:

• In between dreams and reality
• In between expectation and present circumstance 
• In between promises and fulfillment 
• In between hope and despair 
• In between careers (as I am now)
  

Currently global conflict and political rivalries have many of us living in-between our hopes for humanity and the brutal reality of ego, power, selfishness and outright hate. We hope and perhaps even pray, for peace. We protest and pressure politicians. Our desperate wish is that our leaders would lead change; would see fit to reconstitute the systems that support injustice and lead to conflict. Yet it seems so rare that this happens.

So, what are the options? Do we abandon our hope?

The best and most immediate path to change lies in ME. I may not hold political sway, but I hold sway around me. You and I as individuals are the ones who can, in the face of human need, show up with grace, mercy, love. We live in the trenches, in the street and the neighbourhood where needs are seen and experienced. While our individual actions will not necessarily change policy or the political process, they are immediately felt by the receiver. By the one.

But in a world of crushing need, is any effort worth the one?

It's like that old starfish story. A young child is walking on the beach. The tide is out. Hundreds of starfish are stranded on the sand and rocks, exposed to the sun and to predators. She’s concerned for those starfish, so starts picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean. Someone sees the futility of this effort and gets her to look up an see all the starfish on the beach and says “Look, there are so many of them. What possible difference can you make?” That child picked up a starfish, threw it into the ocean and said “It made a difference to that one”.


When we are confronted with the vast expanse of global issues, or within our own local communities, it is often overwhelming. The tide is out. It’s way out. People are stranded and exposed to crushing systems, indifference, and lack of courageous and principled political leadership. Many voices, including our own, say there’s no use trying. “What possible difference can you make?” It’s too big a task. Leave it to charities, non-profits or government. The system is too entrenched for your personal efforts to make a difference anyway. So, take care of yourself. Don’t vote. Don’t get involved. Don’t step in. Throw a few bucks to a charity. Then don’t forget to post your anger and indignation on social media.

But what if you could make a difference to one?

What if the one who showed up to address a need became a hundred?

What if those hundreds became millions?

This seems inspiring. Good fodder for a charity’s commercial or a sermon! But frankly there’s simply no guarantee your act of good will be repeated by others. How would you even know? Who is keeping count? You can’t control the math.

But that’s not the point. The point is to show up. Sleeves rolled up.

Yes, you can pray for leaders to lead. Yes, you can pray and/or protest for systems to change. Yes you can vote and hope for the best.  Yes, do those things and more - but don’t wait around for the answer. The small, repeated and real-time demonstrations of love and grace to fellow human beings will do more for a person now, in their time of need, than praying and waiting for miracle to happen.

For Christians, the point of the Advent season is not to be ‘hopeful’ about a second coming as though hope was a feeling. To hope is to act with that future in mind. To build a world that represents the wishes and ways of the One who is coming again.

For all of us in the human family, our hopes for an equitable and peaceful world are worthy. Worthy of action that starts with one small act. 

 

So, pick up a starfish. It’s an advent act.

My Last Day

Dec 8, 2023 is my last day as an employee of The National Ministry Centre of The Alliance Canada. I have served in numerous roles within this faith community since Sept 1983. 40 years. Most recently as Strategy Director for Marketplace and International Churches. This isn’t a retirement. I intend to keep working. It’s a release due to significant budget constraints the organization faces. The processing of this has taken me through many emotions, all typical of an unanticipated transition. I wish the ending of this part of my career was different, but it is my reality now.

However, a budget cut isn’t going to be my story. While it is the organizations' story, here is mine: 

I have been privileged to have a ministry career where I could develop and then utilize my skills in facilitation,coaching, leadership and program management. It has enabled me to serve on a global stage and according to who I am. What an uncommon joy to be able to leave while living the optimal experience of vocational & personal convergence. I also leave a high functioning, committed and ‘’real’ team that has exemplified true servant leadership. So, if a person must ‘go’, it’s a great way to go. 

There are many ideas to sort through and untangle on the path to creating what’s next for me. However I have no immediate career plans except to finish my basement renovations, enjoy some family time, and take along-delayed anniversary trip with Becky. Together we have travelled the road of transition many times in our lives, and one thing we know – Christ always has a future for us.

A good friend spoke at a retreat I recently attended and addressed the notion of ‘finishing well’. He reminded us that no one knows where the finish line is, or when you will approach it. So then, how do you actually finish well? By finishing today well. If you finish every day well, no matter when the time comes, you have finished well. 

I am content to have finished this part well.

Harv Matchullis

Measuring What Matters

Expansion isn't necessarily a sign of growth.  It could just be swelling.

When a church wants to grow, it's a good thing.  But what kind of growth?

The metaphors of growth Jesus used in His parable-stories are clues to how churches can map their path to true 'expansion'.  The mustard seed, salt, yeast and light metaphors are about growth, but a kind that is organic and permeates its' environment.

The numbers of people in the proverbial pew do not adequately represent Kingdom growth. To design a church's budget, staffing and programs around that growth metric is an exercise in missing the point of the parables of Jesus.

Influence and integration of our surroundings is the point.  

Two questions for you and your church:  

1. Is your church equipping and releasing you for influence in the places and spaces where you spend the bulk of your life: your workplace, community, family and social life?  
2. How can that change?
   

YOU are yeast and seed and salt and light. Your world needs your influence and integration.

Harv

Stop Yelling

There’s a sector of Christianity bent on taking Jesus public, crowning Him king over everyone and forcing their version of Christianity on the world. 

It’s most obvious in Christian nationalist movements, but it also shows up in the rhetoric/posture of Christians who are engaged in culture war, defending their way of life by opposing things they view as inconsistent with Christ.

Let’s talk about being consistent with Christ, with the Jesus Way. The rhetoric of war permeates the Biblical story, and literalist readers carry that forward as applying to the way of Christ.  But it doesn’t. Leaving the literalist reading of Scripture aside for another discussion[1], let’s look at Christ (the true Word of God) and how He comes across to the world.  By implication then, how are we His followers to show up in the world?

For brevity I’ll refer to one story from Isaiah 42:1-4 where God the Father describes the posture His servant (Jesus) will take with the world. And I think that as you read about the life of Jesus, you will see how consistent He was living according to this ‘way’…

“Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.  A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice.  He will not falter or be discouraged until he establishes justice on earth.”

For some Christians it seems Gods' ‘justice on earth’ is accomplished forcefully and via a culture war.  That’s the opposite of what God the Father lays out here as the ‘way’ of Christ.  Stop yelling.  Stop hurting the broken. Stop blowing out what little flame exists in the hearts of people towards the Divine. Show up quietly, faithfully, consistently, persistently.   That’s the Jesus Way.

 

Perhaps Robert Service, in his poem The Call of the Wild, sums it up best how we change the world:

“…the simple things, the true things, the silent men (sic) who do things…”

Harv

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[1] Suggested reading: A More Christlike Word by Bradley Jersak, Whitaker House, 2021

 

What Are You Looking For?

Jesus often asked people: "What are you looking for'?

Bono hasn't found what he's looking for yet.  Most of us are still seeking...something.

If Jesus asked me this question today, how would I answer?  Here are my responses. 

1. PEACE.  Deep in my soul I want peace with my Creator (which I actually have in my following of Jesus Christ).  However I also want peace within myself and for this fractured, tortured world.
2. PURPOSE: There is a purpose that peace with God brings to me, though admittedly I often wander away from it.  Yet I sense there is more to it, and I am not talking about a some kind of grand, earth-shaking purpose - but the knowledge that my everyday engagements, loves and interests are not meaningless.  I know that all of life is God's and therefore has meaning.  However I want to embrace that truth in my everyday, and be content in it.
3. 
   WONDER:  I live on the 3rd rock from the Sun, in a vast, unfathomable universe, surrounded on this planet - and in my own yard - with amazing life, beauty and mystery.  I want wonder rekindled in me.  
   

How would you answer Jesus Christ's question:  "What are you looking for"?

The Church and CSR

I am involved in many ongoing conversations around gospel, marketplace and the all-encompassing way of life that Jesus guides us to live.  To live into His truth - that as you are going about your everyday life in whatever you do and with whatever knowledge you have - you are a disciple-maker, is tremendously freeing.

Yet many churches are still not freeing people into this way of life.  Ironic.  Even tragic.

In their own expression of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), many churches have contained and restrained the gospel by programming the Way of Jesus into group activities and forays into ‘the world’, rather than equipping and releasing people to live their life in Christ in the 98% of life they spend while NOT in church.

How would our neighbourhoods change if the organized church re-organized itself in this direction?

Less will actually mean more.

Is the Christian Gospel Any Good For the World?

Christians talk a lot about this thing called the Gospel, and that it is ‘good news’.  However, just how good is it when it is often encountered as a demoralizing message of shame and guilt over things people have done wrong, and that behind all this is a God who will punish you if you don’t conform (but hey – accept Jesus and you’ll be saved).  The church as the corporate purveyor of this so-called good news hasn’t had a good run of it lately either.  Public perception of the church (warranted or not) is coloured by many things that detract from the ‘good news’ such as the impact of colonialism, residential schools, anti LGBTQ stances, and in some contexts, Christian nationalism and its related issue-politics. 

This is not His ‘good news’. It makes me sad and frustrated at how far the expression of this Gospel has strayed from its original story. 

It’s only in the last decade I have come to extricate myself from a narrow and truncated version of God’s Grand Story for the world that was so often put forward by some within evangelicalism. Yes, I am deconstructing – and in reality we all should be.  Not to destroy and abandon, but to renew, rebuild and restore.  Our faith is not static.  How can it be if it is focused on the Creator of the Universe????  Can you remain in your knowing, thinking you’ve ‘got it’?

What happened to love?  What happened to inclusion?  What happened to embracing the outcast?  What happened to radical hospitality? What happened to resisting and even challenging the straitjacket that is religion?  What happened to living as a representative of Jesus Christ, who displayed all these things I just mentioned? 

What happened is that instead of living out His ways in the workplace, the neighbourhood, and wherever we go in our lives - and thereby attracting people to that way and truth about real, abundant life -  contemporary Christianity chose to slice and dice the Bible as though it was merely a divine last word theology-text, draw the lines of who can qualify as a Christian, develop the words and the rules of entry into God’s Kingdom and in effect, take on the role of humanity’s judge.

A tragic case of missing the point.

The Gospel is indeed Good News for the world in that ALL THINGS will be restored to God’s original intentions though Christ.  As we live according to His ways, that process of restoration is being enacted in real-time. God’s good news is that in Christ there is a path to abundant living with nature, with each other and with our Creator.

The earth desperately needs good news.  My personal sense is that everyone in this world has a primal sense that things could and should be better.  Don’t we all long for more peace, more love, more abundance and joy?  The Good News is that Christ is the Way to that kind of life.

Let’s show up and show that Way.

Change: Rhetoric vs. Reality

We are in an era of organizational re-design and rebirth.  Whether it’s new working arrangements or new ways of doing business/ministry, things are not what they used to be.  Thank (or blame) the pandemic.  Here we are.

However, the dynamics of how change works has not changed.  Change impacts structures and processes but it’s humans that carry out the change. To declare change without paying attention to the human element of how people process and experience change, is to ultimately struggle through a failed change management process.

Here’s a classic downward spiral that I have seen take place in many organizational change processes.  If you see your organizational experience reflected here, know that it’s quite common.   My question for you is: What have you seen or experienced that has helped to get you out of this downward spiral?  Let’s help each other, and our organizations, move forward.

The Spiral: 

DISCUSSION about a sticky area; a place where everyone senses a need for change.

DECLARATION of the intent to do something about it.  Sometimes there’s even a ‘plan’. 

DELAY in taking action.  This often happens because there wasn’t an actual plan in the first place. Delays usually mean people…

DEFER to the old ways/patterns of acting.  When people realize promised change isn’t happening, the result is often a…

DECLINE of confidence that the system, or leadership’s commitment to change is real. 

DISCOURAGEMENT sets in and sometimes people begin to depart - not necessarily via actual resignation from the job, but a resignation to a status quo environment.  Leave a person in that state too long and it results in a…

DROP in both productivity and engagement[1].  After all, why take the initiative to change and improve if the system you are in, won’t?

 

Please share your thoughts & ideas in the comments.  Help us all move forward toward positive change.

Harv

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[1] 85% of employees are not engaged at work. According to Gallup's recent State of the Workplace report, a significant proportion of employees are not fully engaged in their work. Specifically, 85% of employees are either unengaged or actively disengaged. Dec 22, 2022

That "Deconstruction" Word

Words create worlds. Epic works take you to fantastical places.  A despots' rhetoric can destroy lives in a once-wonderful world.

Words create and shape your world.  Never underestimate their power over you or others.

Here’s a sample from my world. The buzz word/reality among many people of the Christian faith these days is ‘deconstruction’. For many that word creates a world of destruction, of tearing down, of assuming what was built is no longer functionary. It infers that ‘what I believed was wrong’.  Moving forward from that world, what’s the motivation to re-construct?  Your world becomes one of tearing down, with no other goal in mind.

Carefully chosen words shape your world and your approach to it.  They open new vistas (good & bad) and point in new directions.  It’s one reason why they are powerful. I am going to suggest an alternate word/world to 'deconstruction' later in this blog.  However, let’s first look at the power of some words that have shaped the evangelical Christian world: 

• Punishment vs. Sacrifice - Viewing the cross as God’s punishment of Jesus in our stead vs. His willing sacrifice to put the world right, has led to a punitive faith narrative where God is angry and requires punishment to assuage that anger. It results in a faith relationship informed by rules and perhaps some fear. 
• The Bible is the Word of God vs. The Living Word - In reality, Jesus Christ is the only true Word.  The Bible (Scripture) is a narrative script of God’s working in the world.  Though divinely inspired, it isn’t without its anomalies, contradictions, and inconsistencies.  (inspiration is another word to deal with). Yet everything in it points to and is subject to, the real Living Word.  Yet the world created by the words “the Bible is the Word of God” results in the words of the Bible interpreted and taught as though they were an unchanging, perfect legal document vs. the dynamic revelation/script of God’s working in the world.  Many have felt the shaming and the power exercised by those who ‘preach’ this approach to the Bible.  Jesus ironically becomes a secondary agent to the Bible. 
• Mission vs. Salt, Light, Yeast, Seed, Sent… (I could go on and on with more of the Scriptures' descriptors). ‘Mission’ (not even a strictly ‘Biblical' word) has carried with it a sense that we have a superior message.  It creates a world where we need to draw you and bring you into our understanding & expression of that message.  It leads to words like “outreach”, which infers a reaching TO the other to bring them IN to something. The truly Biblical words of salt, yeast, etc. instead create a world of participation with and among people vs. executing forays to spread the gospel. ‘Mission’ can truncate a message of global world restoration into a fixed point of light represented by a ‘decision for Christ’ and a joining with a church.

Oh and another word to examine: Gospel. What actually is it?

These and many other words have shaped the world of Christians for generations.  They are scripts, and we become so accustomed to these scripts, we often don’t even hear them anymore when spoken. While Christendom is still the dominant script for too many western churches, it’s clear that it’s over – except in our minds and attitudes, which are fueled by words & scripts that perpetuate our worlds.  So, do we need to deconstruct all of this?  Is it all wrong? 

Perhaps there’s a better way to view this by allowing a new word to shape our world of perception and inquiry;  a new word to help shape a faith that is so under scrutiny and reflection these days. 

I suggest that rather than de-construct, we rediscover in order to re-script the story.

Walter Brueggemann (bio below) uses this language to help us understand that we are a part of a STORY, a SCRIPT, and that we have to often examine it, and potentially re-script.  He once said that “This script turns out to be an alternative way of life. (But) we’re being seduced by bad melodies”.  NT Wright (bio below) often says that like the Israelites who had to get outside everyday to collect the manna God provided for them, we too need to refresh our relationship to God (which includes our understanding) on a regular basis.  In a sense, everyone at all times is a newcomer to faith.

Many of you are not singing the evangelical melody any longer.  I am one of those.  Yet it does not have to mean a rejection of the greatest story.  It could be that instead of de-constructing, you need to re-script. There is more to God’s Grand Story than we have been told.  Time perhaps to believe Jesus Christ when He said the Spirit will lead you into all Truth. 

Revisit and refresh the Script.

Harv Matchullis

 

Walter Bruegemann is the William Marcellus McPheeters professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga. https://www.walterbrueggemann.com/

NT Wright is Research Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity
at St Mary’s College in the University of St Andrews and Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.  https://ntwrightpage.com/