Spirit On The Margins

I had a delightful meeting this week with Ben McEachern, Senior Pastor at Northridge Fellowship Church in Rogers Minnesota. Along with the pastoral team at Church of the Open Door they are the most open evangelical pastors I have met.  I’m sure there are many more that I just have not yet had the chance to meet.

Northridge Fellowship

In my opinion, the media tends to portray all Christians as members of the Christian right and all members of the Christian right as evangelicals. Hence, all Christians must be evangelical. Then the media has tended to go on to portray people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as representative of all evangelicals, hence representative of all Christians.

What has been so refreshing to me is meeting and listening to some very faithful and bright evangelical pastors like Ben, who are clear about what they believe and not afraid to say it, but who are open to listening with respect to others with differing theologies and points of view.

Pastor McEachern described in depth his passion for overseas mission work with which he has been personally engaged.  He talked with confidence about his congregation’s readiness for reaching out to the poor in the Roger’s area.  I could hear the yearning in his voice as he described his hope for that to happen soon.

We discussed the difficulty of reaching out to the poor - the tendency for all of us to start out with the attitude that “we” are going to help “them” that need us. It is natural and quite human.  But, it is a place of power and privilege from which we come which turns off the poor and creates mistrust.

We talked about the particular challenge of being evangelical in reaching out to the poor. Within that tradition, the focus is on bringing souls to Christ.  It can create a challenge to building trust with the poor when they sense that one has an agenda like this. And yet, one has to be true to one’s faith tradition.

We both acknowledged the need for humilty when congregations reach out to the poor.  One must go to them before expecting the poor to come to us.  And, if one goes in with the attitude that this is a child of God and that in some ways they too are a gift to us, it goes a long ways towards breaking down those barriers of mistrust.

I like Ben a lot. I hope God has something in mind for his congregation and City House to work on together.

Today I had the privilege of speaking at the adult education hour at Spirit of Hope UMC in Golden Valley, Minnesota. The talk was entitled, “What the Poor Can Do For Us”.

Spirit of Hope UMC

I talked about the role spirituality plays in giving meaning to our pain and suffering, whether we are rich or poor. We reviewed select City House outcome data that shows there is some connection between spirituality and changed social behavior.

Select City House outcomes data

Then we talked about how we can open ourselves to and be changed by those on the margins of our world. To emphasize the point, I played short video clips from the movie Dances With Wolves, starring Kevin Costner.

Dances With Wolves Synopsis

We also reviewed the 4 stages of spiritual growth that one goes through in working with the poor as postulated by Albert Nolan, a Dominican South African theologian.

Stages of Spiritual Growth in Working With the Poor

Then, Ulysses Snell, a City House program participant told his story and the importance of God and his spiritualty in his life. 

Ulysses contended that people think race is the issue, but that in his mind it is really about class differences - the “haves” and the “have nots” - that separate us. He said, “People think that people like me are only about wanting money, but it’s about just being with me, understanding me, and loving me for who I am - that’s what I want.” When Ulysses talked about his deceased mother, he began to tear up and had to stop.

Those in attendance were very respectful, warm, and welcoming. Several people afterwards went out of their way to thank Ulysses for sharing his story. We both felt quite welcomed.

After worshiping with the congregation, Ulysses and I went to lunch. I asked him for feedback about what I had said. He said, “To be honest with you Tom, I was falling asleep while you talked. I really didn’t know what you were trying to say about Dances With Wolves. You were showing them a story about Native Americans…? Whatever…I just decided to go with the flow.” Hmmm…another lesson in humility.

As I reflect on the morning, I feel so graced to have a friend like Ulysses. We just like spending time together.

On Monday, November 12, we are honored to have Emily Wilmer, a gifted spiritual director, to lead a City House volunteer retreat. She recently gave a beautiful talk at an Advocacy Interfaith Breakfast out east.

“Over ten years ago, I was sitting with a young mother who had been coming to me for spiritual guidance… I’ll never forget the moment she leaned forward in her chair and with a wonderful transparency in her face, looked at me and said: ‘What is it - really - we are supposed to be doing as parents?’  With barely a pause to think I replied: I think we are supposed to be creating an environment in which their little spirits can thrive.”

“What does it mean - and what does it take - for faith communities to create an environment where spirits can thrive?… It requires us to explore, study, and become knowledgeable about things we would rather not see - or don’t know how to see: like domestic violence and sexual abuse.  Love requires us to go to the edges and meet people in the midst of hard times, sad times, and confusing, scary, and lost times. Love calls us to walk to the margins, and build places of safety and welcome for those too afraid to come in on their own.  Love means learning to be a non-anxious presence to one immersed in anxiety, to practice deep listening without judgment or advice and yet speak out against what is unjust, unsafe, and hurtful.”

“Faith communities have a unique opportunity to provide a “soft place to land” for the survivor of domestic violence and sexual abuse.  When a person has experienced family violence, she may be too embarrassed and afraid of others’ perceptions and judgments to admit what is going on in her intimate life.  She may have a distorted or skewed understanding of the scriptures of her faith tradition and think that she must stay in an abusive relationship in order to be a faithful person and faithful to the vows she made. Unfortunately, some pastors and religious leaders may reinforce such views due to their own lack of training and understanding.  As the Advocacy Center staff has observed, it is the abuser who breaks the marriage vows with violence.”

Domestic Abuse and Faith Communities Emily Wilmer

Above left: Lutheran Church of the Reformation church council 

Center: Carol Cushman, City House volunteer spiritual companion

Above right: Violet Johnson, City House participant

Lutheran Church of the Reformation (in St Louis Park) http://www.reformationslp.org/  is exploring ways in which they might do outreach into the community. They asked City House to attend their recent council meeting to talk about a possible partnership.  The church council was very welcoming and hospitable and we were grateful for the opportunity.

Violet wanted the church council to know that the clothes she was wearing were all donated to her - that she had nothing when she came out of prison. She described how difficult it is to find a job with a felony on your record. She said, “If you looked just at my criminal record you wouldn’t understand that there was a lot more to my story.” Violet’s voice cracked with emotion at times as she described the life circumstances that led up to her time in prison. She made it clear that she was accepting responsibility for her actions that landed her there, but it wasn’t hard for me to understand some of her life choices as I listened to her.

Violet was incredibly courageous to make herself so vulnerable in front of a group of strangers. She talked with passion about the role that God has played in her life. She expressed appreciation for the 2 City House volunteer spiritual companions that visit with her, Carol Cushman and Cathy McDonald. Violet beemed with pride when she talked about the job that she now has at a local church and all the ways she now gives back to her community.

 Carol described how uncomfortable it was when she first served at a halfway house for women coming out of prison - because of the perceived differences between herself and the women there. Carol went on to say that now when she enters that site, she fully turns it over to God, and how blessed she feels whenever she leaves after an evening with these women.

Carol described a recent inner cities pilgrimage she had been on,  sponsored by City House and Christos Center for Spiritual Formation.  

http://www.christoscenter.org/ 

She heard a story told by one of the persons on that pilgrimage that sounded a lot like the experiences of some of the women she serves at the halfway house. Having been on that pilgrimage myself, I remembered that I too was struck by the fact that we can’t always tell the story of a person just by looking at them or making assumptions about them based on their current station in life. She said, “At the moment I suddenly knew that we are all the same.”

Carol happens to be a member at Lutheran Church of the Reformation.  Pastor Tom Mundahl has been serving there for only 3 months. Carol is an introvert and tends to be quiet. Pastor Tom expressed to her his surprise that she was in their midst, a person of such strong faith, doing this kind of work, and that he had not yet heard about it. I have a feeling that Carol will be telling her story to the congregation real soon.

City House described several ways in which we could possibly support the congregation in their outreach efforts: Helping them better understand the culture of poverty; Leading them in a discernment process about whether and how they might want to reach out to the community; Training members in how to support the spirituality of the people who are poor; Supporting church members in understanding and articulating how they are being transformed spiritually in their work with persons on the margins. All of these activities might include inner city pilgrimages, reading and reflection, workshops, and more.

I left the evening feeling amazed and awed by the stories told by Violet and Carol, being keenly aware at how active God is in this ministry, and grateful for the opportunity and hospitality of Reformation Lutheran Church.