The "more likely to be killed by a terrorist than marry after 40" myth

Audio and video for weeks 2 and 3 of my Willow Creek class are now available online. Week 2 was on "Seven Myths About Singleness and Marriage," and week 3 was on "The Power of Community, Inside and Out." Here's part of week 2, one of the myths about singleness and marriage:
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Have you seen Sleepless in Seattle? Remember the line: “It’s easier to get killed by a terrorist than to get married after 40”? Where does that come from? Well, it comes from a 1986 Newsweek cover story. In 1986, Newsweek reported on an unpublished study and said that by age forty, a single, educated career woman is more likely to be “killed by a terrorist” than to ever get married. Supposedly they had a 2.6% chance of getting married. The study argued that “white, college-educated women born in the mid-1950s who are still single at 30 have only a 20 percent chance of marrying. By the age of 35 the odds drop to 5 percent.” This study was widely quoted. The only problem was that it was totally wrong.

A Census Bureau report from about the same time found that single women at 30 had a 66% likelihood of getting married, not 20%, and at 40 had a 23% probability of marriage, not 2.6%.

The killed by a terrorist line wasn’t based on any research on terrorism. It was an exaggeration on Newsweek’s part, not a statistical finding of the study. It was written as a funny aside in an internal reporting memo by Newsweek’s San Francisco correspondent Pamela Abramson. She said years later, "It's true--I am responsible for the single most irresponsible line in the history of journalism, all meant in jest." In New York, writer Eloise Salholz inserted the line into the story. "It was never intended to be taken literally," says Salholz. But most readers missed the joke.

Newsweek finally retracted this “killed by a terrorist” claim twenty years later, in May 2006. Twenty years after the original article, they reported: "Those odds-she'll-marry statistics turned out to be too pessimistic: today it appears that about 90 percent of baby-boomer men and women either have married or will marry, a ratio that's well in line with historical averages."

The new article now says that the odds of getting married after 40 are more than 40%. And contrary to earlier projections that college educated women are less likely to marry, it’s now much more likely for women with college degrees to marry than not. A 2004 study says that of female college graduates born between 1960 and 1964, 97.4% will marry.

The original 1986 article looked at 14 women who were single and supposedly more likely to be killed by a terrorist. Twenty years later, Newsweek managed to track down 11 of the 14. Eight are married and three remain single. In other words, 72% of those eleven got married. One got married at age 40 and remains blissfully married at age 50. Several have children or stepchildren. None divorced. And none have been killed by a terrorist.

Singles at the Crossroads class at Willow Creek

I'm in the midst of teaching a 3-week class about singleness at Willow Creek, based on my book Singles at the Crossroads. Video for the first week is available here, and you can download an mp3 of the talk here. I never like watching myself on video after the fact. I know you're supposed to review yourself so you can learn from it and improve your presentation skills, but I always feel like I look and sound goofy. One of the things I like most about book publishing is that it's a way of sharing and teaching without having my physical traits get in the way. (I caught a cold over the weekend, so last night my voice felt all scratchy and strained. Managed to get through most of it without too much coughing or hacking.)

Anyway, things have been going pretty well so far. First week I gave a basic biblical/theological/historical overview of how Christians have thought about singleness and marriage over the years, and last night I ran through seven myths about singleness and marriage. Whenever I present on this topic, it seems that the part that folks respond to as most helpful is my take on the "gift of singleness." Here's an excerpt:

In 1 Corinthians 7:7 Paul says, “I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another of a different kind.” This is the verse that some say is about the "gift of singleness." Sometimes people refer to the gift of celibacy or the gift of chastity. They usually mean something like if you have the gift of celibacy, you don’t want to be married or are specially empowered to resist sexual temptation or whatnot. Some Christians look at this verse and think people with the gift of singleness don’t desire marriage, and that if you desire marriage, that means that you don’t have the gift of singleness and ought to get married.

I think that confuses things and implies things that aren’t really there. The passage doesn’t say anything about people not having the desire for marriage. There’s no “gift of singleness” that magically makes people happy singles.

So what is the gift of singleness, if there is such a thing? How do I know if I have the gift of singleness? What if I don’t want the gift of singleness? My answer is pretty simple. Here’s my take. If you are single, you have the gift of singleness. If you are married, you don’t; you have the gift of marriage. Simple as that. Paul just says that some have one gift, some have another. Paul’s just saying some are single, and some are married. Paul isn’t making a distinction between singles who have some supernatural gift of singleness and singles who don’t. He’s saying that some are single, and that’s a gift, and some are married, and that’s also a gift.

The confusion comes because people think that the gifts in 1 Corinthians 7 are the same as the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. In chapter 12, Paul says that folks have different spiritual gifts – teaching, healing, leading, etc. The Holy Spirit empowers people to exercise their gift in ministry. That’s why they’re spiritual gifts.

But that’s not the case in 1 Corinthians 7. Nowhere does Paul say that marriage or singleness are “spiritual” gifts – only that they are gifts. In other words, he’s describing an objective status. These gifts are descriptive gifts. If you’re single, you have the gift of singleness. If you’re married, you have the gift of marriage. Neither one is a promise that the Holy Spirit will spiritually empower you to have a healthy marriage or a happy singleness. They’re not spiritual gifts. They’re not in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul doesn’t say that someone with the gift of singleness will not desire marriage or will be free from sexual temptation, any more than he says that those with the gift of marriage will be always happy with their marriage or not be tempted to stray. He just says that both are gifts and are to be valued and honored as such.

And if you don’t want the gift of singleness? Paul would say, you can get married. It’s not a restrictive gift, just a descriptive gift. If you have opportunity with someone who is willing to marry you, you can get married. When two people get married, they exchange the gift of singleness for the gift of marriage. When you exchange a gift at the store, you can’t exchange it for something of greater value. You can only exchange it for something of equal value. So singleness and marriage are equal gifts of equal value. Sure, both have their own opportunities and disadvantages. Both have their own sets of problems and challenges. But neither one is more spiritual or more valuable than the other. Both are ways to serve God. The challenge is to make a success of the single life if you are single, and to make a success of the married life if you are married.

Lessons from a 48-hour power outage

Some severe thunderstorms came through the Chicagoland area last Friday evening, knocking out power for our neighborhood for the next 48 hours. Service wasn't restored until Sunday evening. A few observations on our experience:

- Neighbors are helpful. We brought some of our frozen foods and perishables over to a neighbor's house. They were just a few blocks away, but they had power. So we were grateful for their freezer/fridge's hospitality.

- Neighbors can be annoying. Some neighbors ran generators to create their own power supply. Which was fine, except that they were quite loud and ran late into the night. I don't know if our particular city has noise ordinances, but the experience made me wonder what it means to be good neighbors at such times, how we balance neighborliness and inconvenience.

- So much of our leisure/entertainment depends on electronics. No TV, no DVDs, no videogames. Josiah was charging his new Nintendo DS when the power went out, and he wanted to make sure that it was fully charged before playing it, so he very patiently waited all weekend until we got power back to charge and play it. Elijah kept trying to put videos in the VCR and eventually realized that it just wasn't going to work. So the power outage became a good unplanned fast from electronics. We spent much of our time reading, playing piano, and inventing a blow-up-the-Death-Star board game using checkers and wristbands. And we went to the local bowling alley for Father's Day, which was fun.

- Most non-cooking food choices cost more money. I got annoyed that we had to eat out more than we had planned. It's almost always cheaper to make meals than to buy meals, so it was frustrating to have our options limited to being consumers instead of meal-makers. (Though we did make do with what we could.) On Saturday afternoon we pulled our melting ice cream out of the freezer and told Josiah, "Okay, eat as much as you want."

- Teachable moments. Josiah couldn't sleep because of the neighbor's loud generator and said, "I'm so annoyed when there's no power!" So we told him that actually, many, many people in the world don't have access to power or electricity. We explained that we actually have to pay for power; he hadn't realized that. He said, "I think we should get solar panels for our house."

- It's good to clean out the fridge every few years. After we got power back, we went through the fridge and got rid of all sorts of stuff, including salad dressings and condiments that were probably several years past their expiration dates. Funny how we never think to purge stuff until we need to.

Acts 8 on reading and understanding

The board of trustees for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship recently was in town and visited our offices at InterVarsity Press. During their meetings I gave an opening devotion out of Acts 8:26-40, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Here's an excerpt of my remarks:
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Let me zero in on just a few key verses. Verse 30, Philip asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And the eunuch replies, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

This passage highlights reading and understanding. Reading plays a key role in people’s faith journeys. This has been true for centuries. Christians are people of the book. We have a heritage of reading, of being discipled by the written Word of God and Christian literature. But reading by itself is not enough. Do you understand what you are reading? How can I, unless someone guides me? Let me put it this way: Reading plus guiding equals understanding. We need to read, and we need to understand.

Reading by itself is not enough. Content is not enough. But relationship with no content is not enough either. Reading biblical content, in the context of Christian guidance and relationship, produces understanding and spiritual insight.

Obviously Philip is the main guide that helps the eunuch understand the text. But that’s not all. There are more characters in this story. First the angel of the Lord tells Philip where to go. Then the Spirit tells him what to do. Philip the guide is also himself guided.

The prophet Isaiah is also a guide. He is a written guide, giving testimony to who Jesus is, a sheep led to slaughter. Isaiah uses the power of the written word to point the eunuch to Jesus. Isaiah and Philip are partners in witness. They work together to bring the eunuch to Christ. And there’s another hidden guide here. Luke, author of the book of Acts. Luke writes and records this passage, and it’s a gift to guide us in our study and edification.

This says something about the nature of the written word. Writings are an extension of the writer. Through the written word, writers travel through time and space to be present with us. Isaiah still speaks to us today. So does Luke. And Augustine, or Bonhoeffer, or C. S. Lewis. I have a personal copy here of the very first IVP book, Discovering the Gospel of Mark by Jane Hollingsworth. Written six decades ago. This printing is from 1950. Through this book, Jane still speaks to us. She guides us through the gospel of Mark, just as Philip guided the eunuch through the prophet Isaiah.

Books are our guides when people are not physically present. In the early days of InterVarsity, staffworkers covered several states. They might visit a school every few months, once or twice a semester. Veteran staff Marilyn Stewart saw her staffworker just twice a year, so they made the most of their visits. And often those early IV staffers would disciple their student leaders through books. They’d leave behind an IVP book and say read these chapters, and we’ll discuss them the next time I’m in town. Books discipled our student leaders when our staff could not be present.

And IVP books extend the ministries of our IV staff authors. James Choung, Doug Schaupp, Nikki Toyama, Jimmy Long, Paul Tokunaga – great people, but they can’t be on two hundred campuses at the same time. But their books can go places that they can’t. And I’m thrilled that thousands upon thousands of students can benefit from their books.

Firms of Endearment: What makes you emotionally loyal to a company or organization?

I recently came across the concept of "firms of endearment," which comes from the book Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose. Firms of endearment are companies that endear themselves to stakeholders (employees, customers, vendors, shareholders, etc.) "These companies meet the tangible and intangible needs of their stakeholders in ways that delight them and engender affection for and loyalty to the company."

The book reports that not only are these companies more beloved by customers, they are also significantly more profitable than comparable companies on the S&P 500 and even the benchmark companies chronicled in Good to Great by Jim Collins. In case you're curious, here's the list of the top FoEs:

Amazon
Best Buy
BMW
CarMax
Caterpillar
Commerce Bank
Container Store
Costco
eBay
Google
Harley-Davidson
Honda
IDEO
IKEA
JetBlue
Johnson & Johnson
Jordan's Furniture
L.L. Bean
New Balance
Patagonia
Progressive Insurance
REI
Southwest
Starbucks
Timberland
Toyota
Trader Joe's
UPS
Wegmans
Whole Foods

(There are other companies that are FoEs, like Target, that didn't make this top list.) The authors argue that people feel customer loyalty and attraction ("endearment") to these companies in ways that they do not to other companies. This rings true to me; I love Honda and Target but ignore Buick and recoil at Wal-Mart. I've always bought Reeboks and never Nikes. An excerpt from the book:

Of course, millions of customers do shop routinely at many other companies with which they feel no emotional attachment. Customers can be loyal in behavior to a company without being loyal in attitude. Attitudinal loyalty comes from emotional attachment, a force that causes a customer to drive past a Sam’s Club near her home to shop at a distant Costco instead, for example.

The logical “left brain” says you should shop at Wal-Mart so that your shopping trip ends up saving a few bucks. However, the emotional right brain may not welcome the experience. Integrating the two sides is one of the secrets to Target’s success. “Tar-zhay’s” customers get low prices, as well as a pleasant experience and more stylish products than they would find at Wal-Mart. Now consider the impact of these experiential differences from an investor’s perspective: Wal-Mart’s stock has been stagnant for the past five years while Target’s has risen nearly 150 percent.

Seems like this concept holds true not only for businesses but also for nonprofits, churches and parachurch organizations. What makes you love some organizations and not others? Why do I love listening to NPR and feel emotionally attached to them in a way that is not true of other media? What endears you to a particular ministry, church or community? And is there anything we can do to endear our own organizations to others? I'm curious what companies or organizations you find yourself fiercely loyal to, and why.

Summer in suburbia

I haven't been able to blog lately because of school, work, life, etc., but here are some tips from a subtext article by Steve McCoy about how to live missionally in the suburbs this summer:
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So summer is an ideal time to connect with new folks in your suburb as we enjoy the weather and the culture around us. Here are a few suggestions for your summer from the things my family is doing. I hope you will add your suggestions, stories of stuff you’ve done, and share your plans in the comment section.

Be a Participant

Get involved in the life of your suburb. Find a community calendar on your city’s website and put some stuff on the family calendar. We recently attended a very popular fair in downtown Woodstock. My son and I were in the Little League section of the Memorial Day parade and my daughter was in the middle school band. Molly and the other two kids were enjoying the parade with some local friends from school. Through events like these we’ve met new folks, made new friends, and supported the life of our suburb.

Be a Servant

I’m the dad to four great kids, ages 6-12. I made a commitment to try to be a servant when possible as they get involved in public activities. This works best for me with sports. I’ve coached just about every team they played on. Just last night I sat in on the Bittie Ball (“coach pitch” level) coaches meeting. Daniel (6) is on the Devil Rays this year (Satan’s team). So while I’m already an assistant coach for Little League and soccer, I’m now also the head coach for Bittie Ball. It’s going to be a busy summer, but I get to serve a bunch of great kids and their families by being a coach. It forces me to learn their names and get to know them, and they want to know me too.

If you are going to serve as a coach or help out at the local school (as Molly does) or help with a summer play or whatever else, you need to do it with excellence. It’s frustrating to have someone in your family in a public activity only to find out the people in charge are incompetent. If you serve, do it well. Truly love your neighbor and consider them as more important than yourself. It not only makes folks love the experience, but it endears them to you.

Serving through various cultural activities also provides us the opportunity to serve our neighbors beyond these events. We often see former team members and/or their parents out in public or at their schools. I will always be “coach” to these kids. One thing we work hard at is trying to have at least one cookout a year for players and their parents. And that leads to another suggestion for your summer in suburbia…

Be Hospitable

For Memorial Day (last weekend) we had a cookout. It was mostly community friends we’ve connected to through local school involvement, but we also invited a church friend or two and a visiting couple from the previous week’s worship service. We had about 40 people there, some I knew well and others I met for the first time. It was a blast. Here are a few things you should do to make your cookout a hit.

- Introduce people. If you are bringing folks together who don’t already know each other, and you should, make sure you introduce them so they all feel comfortable.

- Have plenty of good food. We had too much food because we wanted to be generous. Nothing like a cookout where you feel underfed. And make it good food, please. I don’t want to come to your house if you are going to buy the hot dogs with the highest amount of rat hairs and bone chips. Not all hot dogs and hamburgers are created equal. Get quality stuff. And spice it up. We got burgers at Sam’s and then added a layer of Famous Dave’s burger seasoning. People raved about the burgers, though most of them didn’t know why. You want your neighbors happy.

- Let people bring something if they want to. Sometimes people feel obligated. Sometimes they really enjoy bringing something. Don’t presume on people and don’t ask them to bring something. But if they want to bring something it can be a good thing. It makes them feel like they’re a good neighbor too. For our Memorial Day most everyone insisted. Some brought a dish, or chips and soda. One family brought a ton of Edy’s ice cream they got for free in a contest. It added a super-charge to the cookout that none of us could probably afford otherwise.

- Have plenty to do. We had more games we didn’t use than we used. You are providing opportunities, not a schedule. We had kids playing baseball in the church field, jarts, football, a fire pit as it cooled off in the evening, lots of lawn chairs, sparklers for kids after dark. And think of the little things, too. We fogged the yard before people came to kill most of the mosquitoes and then we had several cans of Off available. We had sunscreen. We had music. We tried to cover all the bases, though we learned a few bases we didn’t cover as well as we will next time.

The New Shape of World Christianity

Now reading Mark Noll's new book The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith. Here's his snapshot of how the global church is changing:

• This past Sunday it is possible that more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called “Christian Europe.” Yet in 1970 there were no legally functioning churches in all of China; only in 1971 did the communist regime allow for one Protestant and one Roman Catholic Church to hold public worship services, and this was mostly a concession to visiting Europeans and African students from Tanzania and Zambia.

• This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined—and the number of Anglicans in church in Nigeria was several times the number in those other African countries.

• This past Sunday more Presbyterians were at church in Ghana than in Scotland, and more were in congregations of the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa than in the United States.

• This past Sunday there were more members of Brazil’s Pentecostal Assemblies of God at church than the combined total in the two largest U.S. Pentecostal denominations, the Assemblies of God and the Church of God in Christ in the United States.

• This past Sunday more people attended the Yoido Full Gospel Church pastored by Yonggi Cho in Seoul, Korea, than attended all the churches in significant American denominations like the Christian Reformed Church, the Evangelical Covenant Church or the Presbyterian Church in America. Six to eight times as many people attended this one church as the total that worshiped in Canada’s ten largest churches combined.

• This past Sunday Roman Catholics in the United States worshiped in more languages than at any previous time in American history.

• This past Sunday the churches with the largest attendance in England and France had mostly black congregations. About half of the churchgoers in London were African or African-Caribbean. Today, the largest Christian congregation in Europe is in Kiev, and it is pastored by a Nigerian of Pentecostal background.

• This past Sunday there were more Roman Catholics at worship in the Philippines than in any single country of Europe, including historically Catholic Italy, Spain or Poland.

• This past week in Great Britain, at least fifteen thousand Christian foreign missionaries were hard at work evangelizing the locals. Most of these missionaries are from Africa and Asia.

• And for several years the world’s largest chapter of the Jesuit order has been found in India, not in the United States, as it had been for much of the late twentieth century. (pp. 20-21)

National Day of Prayer - and Action

For the National Day of Prayer, here's an op-ed piece by the authors of Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers:

Let Us Pray… And Act

By Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Millions of Americans will gather today in hotel ballrooms and on town squares, in church buildings and on campus lawns for National Day of Prayer. Millions of other Americans will, no doubt, look on this public religious act with some suspicion. Is National Day of Prayer a hang-over from the days of the Religious Right? Are those who gather protesting President Obama’s assertion that we are not a “Christian nation,” but a democracy that welcomes and protects the practice of diverse faith traditions?

As evangelical Christians, we admit that our fellow Americans have good reason to be suspicious. Though evangelicals have often argued fervently for the separation of church and state, we have also blurred the dividing line when access to political power served our agenda (and our pocketbooks). Even when our churches have tried to serve as the “conscience of the state” that Dr. Martin Luther King challenged us to be, our concern has been too narrowly focused on issues of private morality, overlooking the problems of systemic injustice that King himself so boldly challenged. If we are going to pray in public, evangelical Christians must begin with a prayer of confession. We have shouted the gospel with our mouths more than we have showed the world good news with our lives.

But our confession cannot be that we have over-stepped the boundary between private faith and the public square. The problem is not that Christians have been too public with our prayer. What we must confess is that we have done too little to become the answer to the prayers we pray. So often when faced with the problems of our world we have asked, “God why don’t you do something?” without realizing that God might be saying, “I did do something… I made you.”

When prayed by followers of Jesus, “God bless America” cannot be a divine endorsement of a political agenda or an excuse for inaction (as if we were asking God to bless others so we don’t have to). When we pray for God to bless anyone, we are challenged to see that we might be the hands of that blessing, for God has no hands but ours. When we pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” we commit our whole lives to caring for the least among us—the unborn and the undocumented. If Christians are praying with Jesus, we cannot stop praying and acting until we see the restoration of all that is broken in our lives, and in our streets… broken political systems and broken families, polluted ecosystems and shattered lives.

So, rather than argue that National Day of Prayer is something that should go away with Jerry Falwell and the Christian Coalition, we say keep it. Let’s call Christians (and everyone else) to prayer. But let us also challenge ourselves to become the answer to our prayers. When we pray for the hungry, let’s remember to feed them. When we pray for the unborn, let’s welcome single mothers and adopt abandoned children. When we give thanks for creation, let’s plant a garden and buy local. When we remember the poor, let’s re-invest our money in micro-lending programs. When we pray for peace, let’s beat our swords into plowshares and turn military budgets into programs of social uplift. When we pray for an end to crime, let’s visit those in prison. When we pray for lost souls, let’s be gracious to the souls who’ve done us wrong.

None of us can do everything, but everyone can do something. To begin to act on our prayers with any seriousness is to remember why we pray in the first place—because anything worth doing is beyond our power to do alone. We cry out to God because we know we need help. But the God chooses to work in and through us. We have a God that does not want to change the world without us. So let us pray… and let us act.

Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove are the authors of Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals (InterVarsity Press).

For a list of "50 Ways to Become the Answer to Our Prayers" visit:
www.jonathanwilsonhartgrove.com

Crossroads College commencement

Yesterday I was the commencement speaker for Crossroads College in Rochester, Minnesota. I graduated from here fifteen years ago when it was still called Minnesota Bible College. Kind of crazy to be back. Ellen and I spent a lot of the weekend visiting places we used to hang out and showing our kids where we went on dates and whatnot. 

When I was invited to speak a few months ago, I wasn't sure what to say, given the state of the economy and all. But here's a snippet of what I came up with:

Graduates of the class of 2009, I congratulate you on this landmark day. The papers have been turned in, the finals are over. And here you are in cap and gown. This is a tremendous accomplishment, and I and the whole Crossroads community congratulate you today.

But let’s be honest – these are scary times. Recession, job losses, swine flu. I’m reminded of the 1994 movie Reality Bites, which came out the year I graduated from here. In that movie, Winona Ryder gives a college valedictorian address and says, “But the question remains… what are we going to do now? How can we repair all the damage we inherited? Fellow graduates, the answer is simple. The answer is... The answer is... I don't know.”

It’s a jarring scene, but I like it because there are no easy answers. There are a lot of things we simply don’t know. But as Christians, we have hope and confidence that our all-knowing God leads us even when the future is unknown.

So let me give you one main image to take with you. As you go on from here, do things not because you are driven, but because you are called. This comes from the author Gordon McDonald, though it’s probably not original with him. Don’t do things because you are driven, but because you are called. I love the contrast in imagery. One is the picture of a cattle drive where someone drives the cattle to go one way or another, perhaps against their will. The other is a picture of a gentle shepherd, calling his sheep to follow him, for he knows them by name, and they know the sound of his voice. That’s the kind of life that God calls us to. Don’t be driven to succeed, to achieve. Don’t be driven by outside expectations or pressures or fears. Be called. Follow the voice of our Savior Shepherd.

All of you are here today because God has been calling you from the start. At some point in your life, you heard God’s call to follow Jesus. It may have been at church, in Sunday school as a young child. Or it might have been later on in life, at a point of crisis, a moment when you realized that your life had to change. And you heard that first call, “Come, follow me.” So you turned to Jesus. And your life has never been the same.

Later on, somehow or another, you heard a second call, God’s call to come to this college. It may not have made sense, it may have been an unlikely choice for you. For many of you, coming here was a costly act of sacrifice, and you gave something up to come here. But you sensed God’s nudge, and you answered the call. You came.

And many of you have overcome great personal challenges and obstacles to get here today. Financial challenges. Personal doubts. Academic struggles. Maybe family opposition. Let today be a day of vindication, that whatever you may have faced in the past, you are here now, and you are a graduate of the class of 2009. Remember this when you face discouragements in the future, because nothing can take this day and this accomplishment away from you.

But that’s not all. Somewhere along the line, I hope, you’ve also heard a third call, a more specific call, to ministry, to mission, to participate in God’s global and eternal purposes for this world. You might have been at a camp or on a short-term mission trip. Or you may have heard the still small voice in a classroom here, or in a late night talk with friends, looking at the pond or standing up on the hill. For me it was all of the above, at a fireside at Pine Haven Christian Assembly, and during a God’s Hands trip in Minneapolis, and in classes at this college. I heard about how God was on the move, and that he was at work to redeem and restore this fallen world. And he was calling me to participate somehow. I didn’t know exactly what I would do. But God had called, and I would answer.

Today, graduates of the class of 2009, you continue to answer the call. And you are graduating for such a time as this. A time of foreclosures, bankruptcies and global recession? Yes. Because every scary headline in the news represents people who are struggling, in desperate need of hope. And God needs people like you to make a difference in their lives. More now than ever.

More religiously unaffiliated, but many are open to religion

On the one hand, the New York Times reports that "More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops" and that "that those who claimed “no religion” were the only demographic group that grew in all 50 states in the last 18 years. Nationally, the “nones” in the population nearly doubled, to 15 percent in 2008 from 8 percent in 1990. In South Carolina, they more than tripled, to 10 percent from 3 percent." Some of the new atheists are a kindler, gentler form:

In keeping with the new generation of atheist evangelists, the Pastafarian leaders say that their goal is not confrontation, or even winning converts, but changing the public’s stereotype of atheists. A favorite Pastafarian activity is to gather at a busy crossroads on campus with a sign offering “Free Hugs” from “Your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist.”

On the other hand, U. S. News & World Report notes that the religiously unaffiliated are actually rather open to religion:

The Pew report also provides a striking new portrait of those religiously unaffiliated Americans, the fastest-growing segment of the American religious landscape. The report finds that religiously unaffiliated, widely considered to represent a dramatic spike in avowed secularists, are actually quite open to religion and that only a minority feel that science disproves religion.

Just like Protestants who left their denominations, religiously unaffiliated Americans are more likely to have grown disenchanted with their particular congregations or clergy than with religion per se. "Paradoxically, the unaffiliated have gained the most members in the process of religious change despite having one of the lowest retention rates of all religious groups," the report says. "Most people who were raised unaffiliated now belong to a religious group."

Maybe the grass is always greener. People raised in church give up on it, while those raised without religion gravitate toward it.

The U.S. News article also notes that "There are now 8 million nondenominational Christians, according to the Trinity report, up from 2.5 million in 2001." Another sign that we've moved into a post-denominational era.

Random stuff: "This I Used to Believe," false international adoptions, etc.

Okay, in the midst of Earth Day, TV Turnoff Week, the 10th anniversary of Columbine, Susan Boyle (wahoo!) and other stuff filling the news, here are a few things that struck me recently:

"This I Used to Believe" on NPR's This American Life. My wife and I are NPR junkies, and often have "driveway moments" listening to various shows or articles. Last weekend we sat in our garage for at least ten minutes to finish listening to the second segment of this particular episode, which was about how different people changed their minds about what they believe. The segment was about a woman, Trisha, a lapsed Catholic who had lost her best friend to cancer at age 32. She somehow got in touch with a conservative Christian football coach who felt called to talk to her about God. What was fascinating was that they played parts of their actual phone calls together, and we as listeners could eavesdrop on his attempts to witness to her. What was sad and frustrating was that he kept trying to give rational argumentation to prove the existence of God, and and he just wasn't connecting with her. Trisha said later on that she didn't want to be argued at; part of her really wanted to believe again, but she just wasn't there - primarily because of the question of why her friend died of cancer. A good illustration of the limitations of apologetics and the need for listening to people's felt needs for comfort and companionship.

"The Lie We Love" by E. J. Graff, from Foreign Policy - a heartbreaking article about international adoption. Many adopted children are not orphans. Many have been kidnapped, stolen or purchased from their birth families. Some excerpts:

As international adoptions have flourished, so has evidence that babies in many countries are being systematically bought, coerced, and stolen away from their birth families. Nearly half the 40 countries listed by the U.S. State Department as the top sources for international adoption over the past 15 years—places such as Belarus, Brazil, Ethiopia, Honduras, Peru, and Romania—have at least temporarily halted adoptions or been prevented from sending children to the United States because of serious concerns about corruption and kidnapping.

In reality, there are very few young, healthy orphans available for adoption around the world. Orphans are rarely healthy babies; healthy babies are rarely orphaned. “It’s not really true,” says Alexandra Yuster, a senior advisor on child protection with UNICEF, “that there are large numbers of infants with no homes who either will be in institutions or who need intercountry adoption.”

So, where had some of these adopted babies come from? Consider the case of Ana Escobar, a young Guatemalan woman who in March 2007 reported to police that armed men had locked her in a closet in her family’s shoe store and stolen her infant. After a 14-month search, Escobar found her daughter in pre-adoption foster care, just weeks before the girl was to be adopted by a couple from Indiana. DNA testing showed the toddler to be Escobar’s child. In a similar case from 2006, Raquel Par, another Guatemalan woman, reported being drugged while waiting for a bus in Guatemala City, waking to find her year-old baby missing. Three months later, Par learned her daughter had been adopted by an American couple.

One American who adopted a little girl from Cambodia in 2002 wept as she spoke at an adoption ethics conference in October 2007 about such a discovery. “I was told she was an orphan,” she said. “One year after she came home, and she could speak English well enough, she told me about her mommy and daddy and her brothers and her sisters.”

A few quick book plugs: I just read through Andy Marin's Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community. It's a tremendously helpful read. Andy is a straight married white Christian guy who has lived in the midst of a GLBT community for the last decade, and he describes himself as "the gayest straight dude in America." If you have GLBT friends and don't know how to interact with them, read this book. If you are GLBT and fed up with reactionary conservative Christians, read this book. Andy shows how all of us, gay or straight, Christian or not, can move beyond the conversation-stoppers and build real mutual relationships.

And N. T. Wright's new book Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision just came in from the printer (just in time for the Wheaton Theology Conference last weekend, where we sold a boatload of them). This book began as a response to John Piper's objections and grew into a full-blown treatment of Wright's take on justification. I'm about a third of the way through it right now, and it's extremely well done. If you've been following recent discussions on this topic, regardless of where you sit, this book is essential reading.

And on the lighter side: The Atlantic ran a piece about world leaders on Facebook (image here). Has items like "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined the group People Who Always Have To Spell Their Names For Other People." And here's a Facebook news feed summarizing Jane Austen. Funny stuff, like: Fitzwilliam Darcy is proposing to Elizabeth Bennet. It is not going well. :-/

"I'm going to kill you."

Just read this in Bart Campolo's April newsletter. Thought it was well worth passing along.
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Dear Friends,

I often tell people not to ask me for statistics, because in this work all the statistics are bad. Ask me for stories instead, I say, because even in the worst of times I always have a good story. Whether it is one of my own or comes from someone else doesn’t really matter to me anymore. What matters is that it rings true. Like this one I picked up on a visit to Philadelphia last week, which was first told to psychologist Jack Kornfield by the director of a nearby rehabilitation program for violent juvenile offenders:

One fourteen-year-old boy in the program had shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang. At the trial, the victim’s mother sat impassively silent until the end, when the youth was convicted of the killing. After the verdict was announced, she stood up slowly and stared directly at him and stated, “I’m going to kill you.” Then the youth was taken away to serve several years in the juvenile facility.

After the first half year the mother of the slain child went to visit his killer. He had been living on the streets before the killing, and she was the only visitor (in jail) he’d had. For a time they talked, and when she left she gave him some money for cigarettes. Then she started step-by-step to visit him more regularly, bringing food and small gifts.

Near the end of his three-year sentence, she asked him what he would be doing when he got out. He was confused and very uncertain, so she offered to help set him up with a job at a friend’s company. Then she inquired about where he would live, and since he had no family to return to, she offered him temporary use of the spare room in her home. For eight months he lived there, ate her food, and worked at the job.

Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk. She sat down opposite him and waited. Then she started, “Do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you?”

“I sure do,” he replied. “I’ll never forget that moment.”

“Well, I did it,” she went on. “I did not want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. That’s why I started to visit you and bring you things. That’s why I got you the job and let you live here in my house. That’s how I set about changing you. And that old boy, he’s gone. So now I want to ask you, since my son is gone, and that killer is gone, if you’ll stay here. I’ve got room and I’d like to adopt you if you let me.” And she became the mother he never had.

Star Wars, Twilight and Easter

This Good Friday, Josiah and I watched Star Wars Episode I, which he hadn't seen yet. (We of course introduced him to the Star Wars movies in the correct order; we worked through the original trilogy first a few months ago.) Then we watched Episode II on Saturday. I know these prequel movies are fairly weak compared to the original trilogy, with insufferably cheesy dialogue at times, but they've grown on me somewhat over the years. I welcome them as more opportunities to revisit the galaxy far, far away.

Also this weekend Ellen and I watched the movie version of Twilight, as well as all of the bonus features. I thought the movie did a good job of capturing the style and mood of the books, with appropriate romantic tension, suspense and danger. It's been a few years since I'd read the first Twilight book, so I went back and started rereading it to refresh myself on the details.

Oh, and there was Easter Sunday too.

I found myself caught between these various narrative worlds this past weekend. It struck me that watching Star Wars makes me want to be a Jedi. (I already have a blue Force FX lightsaber.) Watching Twilight makes me want to be a vampire. That would be cool. But reexperiencing the Easter story doesn't necessarily make me think, "Oooh, I want to be a disciple. That would so rock."

I know I have a propensity to want to inhabit whatever world I'm vicariously experiencing at the moment. When I read Chaim Potok's classic My Name Is Asher Lev a few years back, I totally wanted to be Jewish. When I saw Rent last week, I really wanted to live in that New York arts community, where everybody bursts into song as a narrative soundtrack to life events. So it probably makes sense that I wanted to be a Jedi vampire this weekend. Except that it's Easter, and I should probably have been reflecting more on what it means to follow the resurrected Jesus.

I think that in some ways, those of us who are overly familiar with the Christian story need to reenter it through other portals. When I read the Gospels, it's not surprising anymore - it's a bit been there, done that. We know how the story goes. But when I do a mental pop culture mashup between Christianity and something like Twilight, then things get interesting again. Because when I watch Twilight, I'm hit by the sense of longing for the beloved, the willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of another, the desire for eternal life, issues of ultimate purpose. The tagline for the movie is a great theological question: "When you can live forever, what do you live for?"

So I don't feel too bad about watching vampire movies or Star Wars while celebrating the resurrection of Christ. Thinking about them together is actually more interesting than contemplating any of them on their own.

Perfect storm and Holy Week

I haven't posted much recently not because of a Lenten fast but because the past few weeks have been something of a perfect storm. I had a two-week modular course (on problem-based learning, and we teased out some fascinating possibilities and implications for PBL in theological/seminary education), and this overlapped an in-house work seminar that I directed. Plus my wife was out for two separate business trips, and last week our kids were off from school for spring break and my in-laws came to visit for a few days. This past weekend Josiah and I volunteered at a Chicago 2016 Olympic bid event (and got free T-shirts!) and then went to the Adler Planetarium to watch galaxies collide (he was a little nervous afterward about an asteroid hitting the Earth). Last night Ellen and I saw the touring company of Rent (which had two original Broadway cast members). And today is Elijah's 4th birthday! And now it's Holy Week, and we're leading worship for our Maundy Thursday service (but don't have any responsibilities for Good Friday, Saturday vigil or Easter Sunday morning, thank God).

This is probably a good as time as any to report on my Lenten experience. Lent is supposed to be a time of reflection, self-examination, repentance, confession, etc. Some of that did take place in good and unexpected ways, but I'm a bit sad to say that the crush of life and the timing of events prevented this Lent from being overly meditative or contemplative. I did find myself to be less compulsive about Facebook, and I did cut out a lot of unnecessary reading (whether of library books, blogs or news sites).

One thing that I hadn't originally planned on but in retrospect was a good thing was that I read a recent "new atheism" book that I picked up at the library. I was thinking about this during my problem-based learning course because non-religion is now the fastest growing religious demographic. On the one hand this presents a "problem" for the church, but on the other hand, I think the new atheists raise great questions and problems that Christians need to grapple with to greater satisfaction. I would encourage pastors and church leaders to read through at least one such atheism book and give it a charitable read, not immediately with an eye for apologetic argumentation but rather to listen and understand where their irreligious friends and neighbors are coming from and what legitimate concerns and objections they might have about Christian faith.

Of course, my personal perfect storm is nothing compared to the storm that Jesus experienced this week. If you're an avid Facebooker, you might appreciate this clever and astute "A Facebook Passion" that walks through Holy Week through Jesus' Facebook profile and news feed (HT: Eugene Cho). Samples:

- The Disciples have taken the Which Messiah Are You? quiz: The Disciples are a Righteous Warrior: Messiah will triumphantly enter Jerusalem, lead the Jewish nation in a bloody slaughter of the infidels, and rule the world with an iron rod.
-- Jesus is downright uncomfortable.

- Jesus has taken the Which Messiah Are You? quiz: Jesus is a Suffering Servant: Messiah will usher in God's Kingdom of Shalom through radical self-abandonment and vicarious suffering for his beloved people.
-- Judas does not like this.

- The High Priests have given Judas a gift: 30 Pieces of Silver.

- Andrew created a new photo album: Hanging in the upper room with JC.

- John is sitting next to Jesus at dinner.
-- Jude thinks John would make a really attractive woman.
-- Peter is it just me, or does anyone else think John is a total brown-noser?
-- John don't hate me because I'm beautiful!
-- Dan Brown is thinking John is really Mary Magdalene.
-- John does not like this.
-- Mary Magdalene does not like this either...Maybe if I break a whole bottle of really expensive perfume and give Jesus a really good footrub, people will put this whole "John is Mary" rumor to rest.
-- Judas wants the money back he gave Mary for the perfume.
-- Dan Brown is writing.

"I can't afford to live in America," Jan. 1992

I've been browsing through some of my old journals and came across this entry from the middle of my sophomore year of college seventeen years ago (egads!). The date was January 2, 1992, when I was home for Christmas break:

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I can't afford to live in America.

I have seriously been spending way too much money while at home this break. Let me just tally up my food and entertainment costs these last two weeks. First, eating out. Perkins was about seven bucks. Arnold's, another six. Baker's Square, at least eight. And today, lunch with Dan and Mooner at Fuddrucker's I kept down to four. Plus the odd snack or pop along the way, that's at least $25 all together.

Now entertainment. I didn't have to pay for Hook, but the entire price of the Children's Theatre tickets is on my charge card, and that's $37.50. Laura covered the Guthrie tickets, and then throw in a few more bucks for City Slickers, Fisher King, JFK, and then $6 full price for Star Trek VI tonight with Dan and Moon. So about $12 for movies. And don't forget the $6 for rollerskating on New Year's Eve. So that's already at least $55 there.

I forgot $2 at Burger King and throw in a $5 haircut today. And maybe six, seven bucks at Northwestern Book? We're talking ninety, maybe almost a hundred dollars on expenses this Christmas break! And it's not over yet! Can I keep up this level of frivolous, extravagant living? Can I afford to be spending six stinking bucks on a movie?

Heck no. I certainly don't have the resources for this kind of lifestyle.

Approaching the Eucharist as a family meal

This weekend our church had a gathering for parents to talk about how to cultivate our kids' experience and practice of the Eucharist/Lord's Table/Communion. And something that struck me is that there's a qualitative difference between fast food and a family dinner. There's a difference between merely eating and truly partaking and communing together. We are so used to just munching, snacking and eating only for caloric intake that to have extended mealtimes of relational building is rare and countercultural.

We discussed the practice of the daily examen (asking questions like "What was good about today? and "What was hard about today?") and how this relates to our corporate practice of the Eucharist. As we cultivate the habit of simple daily examen with our children and in our own lives, we deepen our experience of meeting God at the table.

It struck me later that something I really appreciate about the Anglican liturgy is that the confession takes place at a different part of the service so the Eucharist is truly a time of celebration. Too often in many evangelical churches, the Eucharist is more of a mournful time of remembrance - remember Jesus' death, remember our sins, say you're sorry. Not that those things are unimportant, but Eucharist is a time of thanksgiving and celebration as well.

If family meals were just times that we got together and only talked about how we were sorry for all the bad things we had done to each other, something would be wrong with that. That might be appropriate on occasion, but it would get flat and one-dimensional pretty quickly. Family mealtimes should be places of sharing all the things of our days, the joys as well as sorrows, checking in about the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. Meals should be sharing of all of life, not just the penitential, but also the celebratory and relational. Eucharist can be the same.

The value of music

Excerpts from an address at the Mankato Symphony Orchestra (HT: Andy Crouch). Has big implications/applications for worship and anyone in music ministry.
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"I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings—people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

"You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

"Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

Why young moms should rule the world

"I read somewhere an interesting suggestion. The nations of the world that most vigorously foul the planetary nest and those in possession of the most destructive arsenals ought to be governed only by young women with small kids. More than anyone else, such mothers live in the future, and they also face each day the realities of raw human nature. This gives them a special insight."

- in Children of God by Mary Doria Russell (pp. 207-08)

Grieving

I just found out this morning that a publishing industry friend's wife died yesterday. Ann Baker was in a critical car accident in mid-January, and though she survived the accident, she was in a coma, and eventually it became clear that her injuries were not recoverable. She leaves behind her husband, Dan, and their two children, Adam and Ingrid.

I'm still in shock. Dan and I have been industry friends for about a decade. We're about the same age. Our kids are about the same ages.

I am at a loss. I have all these thoughts and feelings jumbled up in my head, but there is nothing to say.

Here are some excerpts from Dan's message. I am amazed by his eloquence and hope even in the midst of what must be horrible pain and grief. Please pray for him and his family.

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"The permanent repercussions of the Jan. 16 accident in so many lives and families represent an unfathomable tragedy and many unanswerable questions. It is what it is, and we grieve deeply. For Ann's part, our grief comes with the assurance that through her death, Ann has been welcomed into the fullness of Christ's presence, and that she will be spared further suffering in this life. Because she belongs to him, her joy and her peace are now complete, far beyond anything she has experienced in her 35 years with us. In confidence we await the day when death and crying and pain will be no more, and our children will run once again into her outstretched arms.

"As Ann's condition deteriorated, we held the Ministration at the Time of Death service from the Book of Common Prayer at her bedside. Near the moment of her death, I prayed for Ann using the words of the Commendatory Prayer from this liturgy, which is copied below. I invite this community to join me in this or a similar prayer for Ann, knowing that by the grace of God in Christ it is already being fulfilled:

"Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Ann. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen."

Under the Same Moon: Immigration as a sign of the kingdom

Last night Ellen and I watched Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna), a movie about a Mexican boy's quest to be reunited with his mother working in the U.S. The boy, Carlitos, is nine years old and lives south of the border from El Paso. His mother, Rosario, is working in Los Angeles. They have not seen each other for four years, though they have weekly phone calls from pay phones. But circumstances change, and Carlitos goes off in search of his mother. It's a powerful, moving film that had us in tears at many points. Not only does it put a human face on the realities of contemporary immigration, it also serves as a timeless tale of the love between mother and child.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that if Jesus were preaching here today, he would probably use immigration narratives as the basis of his parables. I can totally imagine him saying, "The kingdom of God is like this: An undocumented worker gave up everything of the life she once knew, to journey to a new land, to gain a better life for her and her family . . ."

Or perhaps: "There once was a son whose mother was in a distant country. He left his home to search for his mother until she was found . . ."

What is striking to me is that at first Carlitos thinks that his mother doesn't care about him. But he gradually realizes that her absence is actually a paradoxical sign of her love for him. He has no idea of the sacrifices and pain she goes through on his behalf. It is not until he goes on his own journey that he realizes his mother's immeasurable love for him.

I can easily imagine Jesus saying, "You know this kind of love that propels people into extraordinary circumstances and compels a mother and child to be reunited with each other? If that is how much simple human beings can love, how much more so is God's love for you!"

Often in evangelical circles we emphasize the shepherd going off to search for the lost sheep. This movie shows us the flip side - the waiting parent of the parable of the prodigal son. Rosario's story is a counterpoint to Carlitos's journey. And both are seeking, in different ways. Carlitos gives us a picture of the yearning seeker who feels the absence of his mother so much that he is drawn to find her once again. It's a picture of the God-shaped hole, the heart that is restless until it finds the beloved that brings wholeness and completion.

One particular scene also jumped out at me as a Christlike model of substitutionary sacrifice. As it unfolded, I thought to myself, "Wow. I can't believe that just happened." It was an amazing picture of the cost of sacrificial love. But I can't say more because I don't want to be a spoiler!

The film is of course also about immigration issues, which are woven throughout the plot. It reminded me of the complexity of immigration policy and how the system desperately needs reform. Book plug: Check out the new IVP book Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate by World Relief immigration experts Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang. It debunks myths about immigration and gives guidance for how Christians can be involved on both a public policy level as well as on a local grassroots level in practical ministry to our immigrant neighbors.

The film also invites us to consider where we are within it. As Carlitos goes on his modern-day odyssey, he encounters a variety of characters, some predatory, some compassionate. Which will we be? Where are we in the story?

Ultimately, Under the Same Moon depicts how we are drawn toward reunion with the beloved. It's a picture of the great lengths that love will go to for the sake of the other. Great movie. I highly recommend it.

Pruning

Next week is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and I've been thinking about what to give up. People say that for things to be "living sacrifices," we should give up that which is "most alive in us," or else it's not really worth giving up. There's no point in giving up coffee if you don't drink coffee. But giving up something that will be a noticeable, even painful absence in your life can be far more significant and transformative. In past years I've stopped getting new books for Lent (including library books, comic books and other books), and I think I might do that again, to focus on getting through books I already own.

But the most "alive" consuming obsession in my life right now is probably Facebook. Now that I have 643 Facebook friends, there's a critical mass of constant status updates that can take hours to scroll through, especially if I click through all the various links that are highlighted or stop to comment or look at pictures or whatnot. I need to remind myself that I got along just fine without knowing the day-by-day goings-on of all my old friends and classmates. My irrational fear is that I'll miss out on something important, but the reality is that it's really not a big deal if I don't read everybody's Facebook status all the time. (See this Boston Globe article about how technology means that we are never alone anymore, and that's a problem.)

Another dimension is the fact that how we use Facebook can be spiritually unhealthy. There's a great discussion going on right now at The Mommy Revolution, triggered by the post "Carla is Jealous of your Facebook Status." Often our posts are designed to show off some aspect of our lives, and this can generate envy, discontentment, resentment, etc. I blogged a while ago about the different kinds of Facebook statuses, and I have to confess that some of my statuses are shamelessly self-promotional. (My current status is "Al will be his undergrad alma mater's commencement speaker this May. Figuring out what to say besides "Congrats, and good luck finding a job in this economy...") So I might have to start limiting my Facebooking. I'm not sure I'll drop it entirely, but at the very least it shouldn't be the first thing I check every morning.

More significantly, though, I've been thinking about the dynamics of God pruning things out of our lives. There are various ways of interpreting and applying John 15, some more ecclesial and others more individual. But here's a personal implication of the Father pruning branches that don't bear fruit. Some areas of my life are overgrown, and I spend entirely too much time on some things that detract from my potential fruitfulness elsewhere. To mix biblical metaphors, my life has weeds that crowd out the good seed, and I need to be both pruned and weeded.

Giving up things for Lent is something internal we do of our own volition, but it strikes me that pruning and weeding are external activities that are done by God to us. And I've been noticing some areas of pruning in recent months. I had a few speaking engagements that were cancelled (I think partly because of the economy), and though this was not really that big a deal, it felt like a bit of a pruning, that I'm not called to be a big-time conference speaker or whatnot. My Christianity Today column ended, and even though I knew in advance that it was just a one-year stint for 2008, that felt like another pruning - drop the magazine writing. I also dropped one of my doctoral classes for the spring because of the amount of space and time I would have needed to do it adequately. And I've been increasingly feeling like this blog is something that is inadvertently getting pruned. I intended to blog more from NPC last week, but just didn't get to it. I just don't feel like I have as much to say that's worth blogging about. Maybe because I waste too much time on Facebook!

So, all this to say that this Lenten season will probably be a time of scaling back, both by external circumstance and internal choice. This mid-thirtysomething season is a time of realizing that doing some things means that I can't do others. Life is full enough as it is, between work and family and church and school and everything else. I need to stop being so spread out and let myself be pruned somewhat so I can go deeper and be more fruitful overall.

At the National Pastors Convention

I'm in San Diego now for the National Pastors Convention, connecting with my authors and schmoozing with folks and whatnot. Things are off to a good start. Yesterday we had plenary sessions with main speakers Efrem Smith and Shane Claiborne. Efrem encouraged pastors that "Now is the time for the church to be the church." We need to minister more than ever in this time of foreclosures and lost jobs. The economy is putting stress on individuals, marriages, families, etc., and people need to know that the church is there for folks to help people through tough times, and that God is a God of hope who can bring new life from the valley of dry bones.

Andy Crouch gave a seminar on cultural creativity in the church, extending and furthering his thinking since the publication of his book Culture Making. He observed that most Christians think that culture is made by someone else; folks in New England talk about culture being made in Hollywood, and people on the West Coast talk about culture being shaped by Washington. And Christians tend to think that culture is mostly made outside the church. But Andy said that all of us are called to be culture makers, both within and outside of the church. When the church becomes culturally generative outside its walls, that creates energy and vibrancy within the church.

One objection that Andy gets is that the church needs to focus primarily on evangelism and doesn't have time for culture making. He cited D. L. Moody's notion that God gave him a lifeboat and said, "Moody, save all you can." While not at all dismissing the importance of evangelism, Andy recalled the recent airplane crash landing in the Hudson River and observed that yes, we certainly save all we can and get everybody into the lifeboats - but it doesn't stop there. People, once rescued, are not meant to stay in the lifeboats indefinitely. The goal is to get them back to land, back home, to deploy them to continue to do what humans are supposed to do.

Andy also lamented the "churchification" of cultural creativity. He meant that Christians tend to only think of church applications of cultural gifts - if we have gifted musicians, we invite them to play on the worship team. We don't imagine that gifted musicians can live out their Christian callings as artists in the community or marketplace. Andy mentioned Fringe in Atlanta, where a group of musicians who meet in church created a space for younger generations to discover classical chamber music. It's not "Christian" chamber music - it's just excellent chamber music. Fringe is creating a new cultural good and making something of the world.

We also "misunderestimate" our ability to create culture, especially on a local level. We have "creativity envy" of others who can do things "better" than we can. We just need to get over that, because all of us can create something that no one else can create. Also, we may well be doing too many things. Each of us has the capacity to do a few things well, and we may need to cut out some other things that we are not necessarily gifted or called to do. 

During Q&A, various people lamented the fact that it's hard work to do culture making. Andy responded that we shouldn't think of culture making as one more thing to do on top of everything else we have to do like worship and evangelism. Rather, culture making should be a posture and attitude that infuses everything we do in the church. And Andy said that when churches invest in culture making, the return is that the church becomes infused with energy and vitality and draws out more people with more resources. Culture making doesn't take up a bigger piece of the pie - it becomes a pie factory and generates more capacity for cultural goods.

There's more that could be said, but I gotta go. More later. 

25 Random Things About Me

The 25 Random Things About Me thing has been circulating Facebook recently, and I finally got around to writing my own. Figured I'd repost it here. This ended up way longer than a lot of folks' lists, and it's a little unnerving how geeky I really am. Anyway, here goes:

1. I was born in New York City, and one of my earliest memories is going to a park (perhaps Central Park) and climbing a tree and getting stung by bees. And on another occasion getting wet cement in my hair. And getting spanked for sticking a fork in a rotary fan and shattering the plastic blades. If you want young kids to remember their early childhood, give them traumatic experiences that will imprint on their memories.

2. I grew up in Minnesota and lived there from age 4 to 21, and I still consider myself a displaced Minnesotan. I drink pop, eat hot dish and play Duck Duck Gray Duck. I went to Twins games at the old Met Stadium in my hometown of Bloomington (the site is now the Mall of America).

3. I moved across town between third and fourth grade and changed schools, and my claim to fame as the new kid was that I could solve the Rubik’s Cube in less than two minutes.

4. I had some minor degree of childhood asthma, and my mom didn’t want me playing a brass or woodwind instrument because she thought it would be too hard on my respiratory system. So I played violin instead and hated it. But I enjoyed piano, once I got to play music I liked.

5. In eighth grade I got third place in the entire state of Minnesota at the St. Cloud Math Contest. I was also on our school’s MathCounts team, and in our state finals, the top four finishers went to the national competition in Washington DC. I tied for fourth, and after two tiebreakers, I lost by one point and didn’t get to go to nationals.

6. I got completely burned out by accelerated math programs, so I gave up on math and switched to the humanities, especially literature, theatre and creative writing. In tenth grade, I wrote short stories starring my friends and classmates. One story had my honors English class trapped in the school and all of us getting murdered one by one. Other stories cast our group of friends as having paranormal superpowers, or exploring fantasy lands a la Dungeons & Dragons, or in sci-fi scenarios like Star Trek.

7. I was in 4-H for many years, despite having no farming or agricultural experience. My projects were in things like bike safety and photography. The first time I ever danced with a girl was at a 4-H leadership conference held at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

8. I’ve kept a journal pretty much every day since tenth grade. I was really shaped by Bob Greene’s book Be True to Your School based on his high school journals, which he described as “time preserved.”

9. During high school I once had a part-time job doing phone surveys and market research, and of course I got a lot of hang-ups and annoyed people. So now I like getting phone surveys and always try to complete surveys whenever I’m called.

10. I also had a summer job working at Dairy Queen. We got bored making the same kinds of Blizzards all the time, so we’d invent our own. Or make alternative Peanut Buster Parfaits with layers like blue raspberry, Heath Bar, mint, Oreos, etc.

11. Once in ski club I was coming down an icy hill and couldn’t stop, and I collided with a popular cheerleader and ended up lying between her legs. I don’t know which one of us was more mortified.

12. I was in high school debate league and went to a two-week summer debate camp. I was told that the girls had a “hot guys” list posted in the girls’ bathroom and that I made the list. (Which probably isn’t saying much, but hey.)

13. I ran track for one year because most of my friends ran track. I never did very well, but I trained enough to bench my weight and run a six-minute mile.

14. I had bit parts in theatre in high school. One play, I had thirteen words (not lines – just words), so my cast T-shirt said “Thirteen.”

15. I love Broadway musicals. I’ve seen Les Miserables four times and pretty much have the whole three-hour symphonic recording memorized.

16. Ellen and I have a bunch of Coca-Cola polar bears because a few months after we started dating, she was in the hospital for abdominal surgery, and her family brought her a Coca-Cola polar bear from Hardee’s. I got one as well so our polar bears could date. When we dated long distance, one or the other of us would keep both bears so the bears could be together even if we were apart.

17. One of my college responsibilities was filling pop machines. Just before graduation, I and a friend put some cans of non-alcoholic beer in the pop machines in rarely consumed slots like diet A&W root beer, so they wouldn’t be discovered until the next school year.

18. When I went to Urbana 93, I bought two full boxes of IVP books. I now have what is probably the world’s largest collection of autographed IVP books – over 400 signed titles.

19. During grad school I had a journalism trip to Washington and one of my classmates was friends with a Secret Service agent, so we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the White House. We stood at the doorway to the Oval Office and got to sit in the private presidential movie theatre. I have a picture of myself standing at the press room podium. We also attended a real press briefing, and I stood two feet away from George Stephanopoulos.

20. My master’s thesis at Wheaton was the basis of my first book, Singles at the Crossroads. I had been dating Ellen for three years at the time, and I waited until the book proposal had been accepted and contracts signed before I proposed to her.

21. I love buying books at thrift shops for a quarter and selling them on Amazon for ten or twenty bucks. It feels like magic.

22. I like team comic books like Justice League and Teen Titans and ensemble cast shows like Friends and Lost. Probably has something to do with a yearning for community and the sense that we are better together than on our own.

23. I consider myself a moderate evangelical mutt. My church history has included Covenant, Evangelical Free, Alliance Church, Church of Christ/Christian Church, went to Lutheran retreats, worked at a Baptist camp, etc. I joined the Anglican church in 2005 and appreciate its ancient-future liturgy and worship. Many of the Christian writers who have most shaped my thinking are Anglican: C. S. Lewis, John Stott, J. I. Packer, N. T. Wright.

24. I have never had a broken bone. Or any major surgery, I think.

25. I am an ENFP on the Myers-Briggs and an Enneagram Seven (the enthusiast), so I am described as “a frisky puppy that likes to have his nose into everything.” My virtue is taking joy in life, and my vice/besetting sin is gluttony – I want to try everything and don’t want to miss out on anything.

Christianity Today Book Awards

I am happy to report that two of Christianity Today’s 2009 book awards went to IVP books that I edited: Andy Crouch’s Culture Making in the Christianity and Culture category, and Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice’s Reconciling All Things in the Christian Living category. Here’s what their judges said:

On Reconciling All Things: “I love this book for its range, the weave of the two writers’ voices, its deep appreciation of process, and its combination of spiritual groundedness, accessibility, and ecclesial, psychological, and political awareness. It retrieves the term reconciliation from the buzzword bin, and offers hope and direction at the same time.”

On Culture Making: “An astonishing work that moves from sociological analysis to biblical theology (in story form) to their practical implications. Crouch’s main contribution is to show how Christians can and should do cultural analysis but not stop there: They should proceed boldly and deliberately to creating culture itself. This is a book for the whole church.”

(Just for the record - when I brought Andy's proposal to our publishing committee some years ago, I said, "This is the quintessential IVP book, and I predict that it will get a starred review from Publishers Weekly and win a CT book award." I'm not always correct in my predictions, but with this particular book, I was right on both counts. And it was named one of PW's best religion books of 2008, as well.)

In addition, IVP's Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings edited by Tremper Longman and Peter Enns received an award of merit in the Biblical Studies category.

The Suburban Challenge

I haven't posted for a bit because of any number of factors - busyness at work, inaugural hoopla, watching all of season 4 of Lost last week - but now that the premiere of season five is past us, it's time to move on. Unfortunately I have nothing particularly new or exciting to say, so let me just link to this Newsweek article about "The Suburban Challenge," which highlights some of the changes and issues suburbia faces:

Suburbs now provide more jobs than cities. Only about 22 percent of jobs in major metropolitan areas are located within three miles of a traditional downtown; twice as many are more than 10 miles out. Suburbs also host more immigrants: in the largest metropolitan areas, nearly six in 10 foreign-born residents now live in the suburbs. In places like Charlotte, N.C., Minneapolis, Sacramento, Calif., and Washington, the first address of many new Americans is most likely down a suburban lane.

Then there are the downsides. Nationwide, a million more suburbanites are living below the poverty line than city dwellers. Suburban St. Louis County, Mo., has 50 percent more working-poor families than the city of St. Louis itself. The mortgage crisis only adds to the problems. The foreclosure rate in Clayton County, which encompasses many of Atlanta's southern suburbs, is twice as high as that in Atlanta. Homes in neighborhoods close to downtown Chicago, Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore., have held their value, while prices for homes far from those urban cores have plummeted, according to new research by Joe Cortright, an economist at Impresa Consulting.

The article goes on to note that "the mental line between city and suburb no longer makes much sense; policies need to treat metropolitan areas as a whole." I've argued for some time that we need not pit cities against suburbs, but rather that we should seek the welfare of the whole metropolis. Urban issues are suburban issues, and vice versa. As new suburbs and exurbs become the new cities, old suburbs become old cities, with all the same kinds of challenges and issues. The article concludes:

The end of the (traditional) suburbs was inevitable. Hopeful, mobile Americans may once have thought they could leave behind the pressures, demands and compromises of city life. But social concerns inexorably follow society. Our leaders, starting with a metro-minded president, now have to make the mental jump across the urban-suburban boundary, and catch up.