"The Church is Like a Car"....or "One of the Wost Metaphors I've Ever Heard..."

So I'm taking this class on Women and the Church, which is amazing, as you can probably tell from my previous posts. For our next paper Dr. Scholer wants us to read two different books, one by Linda Belleville, an evangelical feminist and another by Dan Doriani, a male traditionalist. I appreciate this assignment, if we're going to spend ten weeks studying this issue, we should be reading things from "both sides." However much I might appreciate some of Doriani's points, he has already completely lost his credibility in my eyes, and I'm only in chapter one. This isn't because I blatantly disagree with a lot of what he says (although I do) but rather because he has come up with what is, in my opinion, one of the worst metaphors I have ever read about women in the church (or the church in general). I read the page and then stopped, and literally asked out loud "did I just read what I think I read?!" So I re-read the paragraph and started laughing out loud because yes, I did just read what I had thought! It was so amusing to me that I felt I had to share it with my faithful readers....

This is taken from his introduction, where he is setting out reasons why he wrote this book. My commentary is in paraenthases....maybe my comments take away from the essence of his message, but hey, it's my blog, I can comment sarcastically if I want to! He writes:

"God loves women enough to send his Son to live and die and live again for them (oh good, at least he grants us that much!), but what does that mean for the ministries of women? I believe God ordained men to preach, to teach doctrine with authority, and to oversee the church (excellent, but what about those women whom God has specifically gifted to preach? Do they just not get to use their God-given gifts?). I also believe the Spirit has gifted women for ministry and wants women to serve in many spheres (just not anything that has the word "authority" connected with it right?). (ok this next part is my favorite...) Some people say this puts women in a box, but let me modify the metaphor and say it puts them in a car. Cars are like boxes in some ways. (I think his analogy is getting a little weak here...) While driving, we must remain within the confinement of their doors. But cars can be roomy and comfortable, with gadgets and hidden compartments to explore. (yeah, I want to know what kind of car he is specifically refering to--if it's a corvette, I'm not sure I buy the "roomy" piece, but if he's talking about an SUV, well then maybe we have a conversation starter....) More important, is that cars have wheels and take people places. The church is a roomy vehicle, filled with a family on a journey. (Oh give me a break....) The doors and speed limits set boundaries, but the family accepts these restrictions because these make the trip possible and safe. On the journey, father may do most of the driving, but mother drives too (oh good, she can drive a little too....that's so nice of the father!) and both parents navigate, tell stories, and help the children have a good time.

The church is like a car. Safe travel occurs within the parameters set by our nature and God's word. We are going somewhere (well, some churches are...) and the relationships built during travel can be as sweet as the destination. Pastors must steer a large car and keep an oft-contentious family unified as they travel (no they don't! If it's a car, just draw a line down the middle of the backseat!) I hope to help pastors with this book by helping women enter into the ministries God appoints, and I propose various ministries for women, (let me take a wild guess, they all involve making coffee right?) while affirming that God calls men to preach and oversee the church."
Taken from "Women and Ministry" by Dan Doriani pages 14-15 in case you all want to run right out and buy this fabulous example of metaphorical writing....

I have no idea what the rest of his book is going to say (well actually I can imagine...) but I'm only on page 15 and I'm already so annoyed (although a bit entertained) by his horrific writing and use of metaphors that I almost can't bear to keep reading...but alas, I'm continuing in my trek through these pages...if only in search of a metaphor even worse....(I'll let you know if I find one!)

I think that if anyone out there is having conflict in their next congregational meeting you should just stand up and say "look people, the church is like a car...so as the "parent" of this car, I am going to draw a line down the middle of the backseat and if you don't like what the other person is saying on the other side of the line...well....plug your ears and stick out your tongue at them but no poking them across that line...." Let me know how that goes.

I am an official groupie....or just a seminary nerd...

About two years ago, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner, and told me that I just had to read it because I would love it. So, I did. And I did (love it that is). From the very beginning her writing style caught my attention and made me love her book--her subtle sarcasm, her brutal honesty in some places, and her wit made me a new Lauren Winner fan. Several months ago I came across a new book by her, Mudhouse Sabbath, and devoured it in about a day. It's a short little book that I have written about before on my blog (see "The Liturgy of an 8-Year Old in May of 2006 for more...) but basically she connects the Jewish life and traditions she grew up with to her now-evangelical beliefs as a Christian, and discusses how much the Christian faith is missing by having done away with the traditions that the Jewish faith is steeped in. Mudhouse made me become even more crazy about her...I loved the things she was arguing in her books and found myself becoming slightly more starstruck by this young woman. So, last April I was playing around on her website (www.laurenwinner.net) and looked up her speaking engagements just for fun--to see if she was coming anywhere remotely near Los Angeles anytime soon. I remember being in class playing on the internet (shhh! don't tell my professor!) and about fell over in my chair when I read that on October 25th she would be at Fuller Theological Seminary speaking several times throughout the day. I think I put her on my calendar then and there and figured that I would just skip or cancel any obligations that day to hear her. So after months of waiting the day finally arrived. I knew chapel would be packed, they'd been advertising for her pretty heavily around campus, so I showed up early, got a seat near the front andlooked up and there she was! Definitely a surreal experience seeing someone I've adored for so long there in person. Her talk was taken from her new book, Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity and was entitled Lies the Church Tells About Sex. She was fabulous to listen to--this woman is unbelievably intelligent (she graduated from both high school and college early) and has such a solid understanding of community and the church's role in people's lives. Her whole premise is that the messages about sex that the church and church youth groups often send people are so unhelpful, and often completely untrue. She's very open about her own past, how she didn't grow up Christian, she had sex in high school and college, and even after her conversion that was one thing she didn't want to give up. It wasn't until she had been a Christian for awhile that she finally figured out having sex before she was married was sin, and try as she did she could not figure out a way to justify her behavior, so she embraced the mandate to live a chaste life until she married her husband 3 years ago. She made some points yesterday morning that I thought were incredibly helpful and I love that someone has finally put them into words and is being vocal about them.

One of the lies she believes the church tells people about sex before marriage is that if you have premarital sex, you will feel bad and guilty about it. Period. Her point is that if we go around telling people this as a scare tactic, it won't work. People will have sex outside of marriage and like she says, they won't necessarily feel guilty about it--they'll enjoy it. What she would love to see the church doing instead is starting by talking about sin. What is sin? How does Satan work? Sin separates us from God, but it doesn't always make us feel "bad." That's the nature of sin--we tend to enjoy the things that are sinful--so she argues that instead we need to start by talking about sin and move from there to talk about specific sins.

Another lie she believes the church tells people about sex is that women have no sex drive. Thie is often the message the is preached in youth groups--guys are told they need to control their out of control raging sex drives and girls are told that they are going to have to fend off these walking hormones coming after them. Very rarely are young girls taught that they too might have a sex drive--they will be attracted to guys, they will experience feelings of desire, and that is NORMAL. Instead girls often feel shameful and guilty when those feelings DO show up because they don't think they are normal and this lie also makes guys out to be the bad guy all the time.

The third lie she points out that many churches tell people is that if you have had premarital sex, you have participated in the unforgivable sin. Her main point here is that sexual chastity is NOT the most important thing when it comes to discipleship, yet the church often acts like it is. She belives that forgiveness and grace is THE key to understanding Christ and there is NOTHING we can do that the blood of Christ cannot forgive and heal, and when we single out sexual sins in the church it makes people feel like Jesus can forgive everything BUT having sex before they get married. She's clear that forgiveness should not be a justification for people to go out and sleep aroun, but that there IS forgiveness and grace at the foot of the cross.

After she gave her talk there was a panel discussion for another hour with her and 2 of our faculty members answering questions and that discussion lead to some great conversations. One of the comments I loved that came out of that conversation (and I'm not even sure what the original question was) is that there is a profound double standard in the church today. She used the example of internet pornography. She said for most evangelical men, looking at porn online is almost a mark of being a good Christian as long as they are "struggling" with it. Think about that--how many forums and seminars are there to help Christian men "struggling" with this addiction? Thousands. Most of us women don't even bat an eye anymore when the topic comes up in evanglical circles--we know it's an issue and it's almost expected that Christian men will struggle with this. However, like Lauren pointed out yesterday, thousands of women struggle with internet pornography as well, and in no circles in our country would that ever be the "mark" of a "good" evangelical woman. Just like the idea that women have no sex drive, and they are to be the docile, innocent girls until they get married and then they are all of a sudden supposed to flip the switch and turn into "raging sex kittens" on their honeymoon (her words, not mine!) It was a fascinating conversation and then again last night she spoke and participated in another pannel to answer questions with our own Dr. Mouw (Fuller's president). Both chapel and the night time lecture were packed, and the question and answer time could have kept going for hours, which I think only goes to show how much this book and her ideas have struck a chord and how needed these conversations are. Like she said yesterday, "churches spend a LOT of time talking about sex, yet they do such a poor job of it. If churches could figure out a way to do a better job dealing with this issue they wouldn't have to spend near the amount of time talking about it. Sexuality is not the most important piece of true discipleship, yet the way that churches talk one would think that is all that matters to following Jesus."

I have several more random thoughts about her and her talks yesterday--but I have to go babysit so I can't write any more tonight...hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to add another story of a question that was asked yesterday that I thought was hysterical (and I'm pretty sure by the look on her face that Lauren did too...so check back!)

Random Musings

Someone asked the other day when I was going to take time to update my blog, and my response was that I feel like I just did. Then I went back to look and realized it has been almost 5 weeks since I last wrote anything! Here we are at midterms already, and part of me is looking around in confusion wondering how we got here so quickly! So for those who have been faithfully checking back to see if anything is new, I thought I'd try to catch you up on the high points of the last 5 weeks.

Classes
Are going....yeah....they're going....hey, it's midterms, I'm tired of them! (Don't worry, that's normal around here!) I am LOVING my class on Women, the Bible, and the Church, and I'll write more about that specific class in a minute. The other two (an exegesis of 1st Corinthians and the Writings of the OT) are going well--I'm realizing how much Greek I did NOT learn last year in my 1st Corinthians class, which is a frustrating feeling, but I am also impressed at how much I did manage to retain. So this week and next week are a LOT of papers and reading (ok the reading never stops) and then there is a bit of a lull leading into finals. Remind me to keep working during that lull though--finals week is not looking so fun right now!

Church/Internship
I LOVE being an intern at Burbank! The church is amazing and has been so welcoming and accepting of me as part of their staff, and my supervisor, Ross, is an incredible mentor and role model. He's given me the opportunity to do anything I want--this week we're supposed to pick a Sunday for me to preach my first sermon (probably late November or January), and probably in January I'll get to teach the adult sunday school class on a topic of my choice. He's let me come to meetings with the elders, deacons, staff meetings, educational committee meetings, next month is the budgeting meetings and eventually I'll start joining him on his visits to hospitals and nursing homes. He's let me be up front every Sunday leading some aspect of the worship service, which has been a wonderful experience (writing and giving the call to worship or the offering prayer or children's sermon...). I think part of me was a little afraid I would start this internship and hate it and think "Oh no! I don't want to be a pastor! What am I doing in seminary?!" But the opposite has happened. This internship has made me feel incredibly overwhelmed and inadequate and has made me realize that I will never learn everything I need to know to be a pastor but I still feel compelled to keep going, I feel more alive leaving the church each day than doing anything. I love the conversations I am having with parishoners each week, I love getting to be involved in meetings and looking at how a church operates behind the scenes, and I love having someone I can bring any and all questions to. I am going to go before my session (the committee of elders) at Bethany in Seattle in November to hopefully begin the first step of the ordination process, the inquiry phase. It's a period of time that the church elders and the pastors in the area commit to walking alongside a person to help them discern whether or not they are in fact being called into the ministry. It's a process I could have entered a long time ago, yet I wasn't ready, and now I realize why. So much has happened in the last year, and so much growth has taken place, that I know I could have gone before session last August, but it wouldn't have been right. God had a LOT of work he wanted to do on me (and still does) but now I feel like I am at a place where He really is telling me I am ready to start this process. So I'll keep y'll posted! (I'll be in Seattle Nov. 14th to meet with session...)

Fun times in LA...
My parents were here in town this weekend! It was VERY fun having them here (and not just because they pick up the bill when we go to dinner!) I loved getting to show them my life here, a life they've heard a lot about, but weren't able to picture until they came to visit. They met my friends, came to church with me, met Ross, wandered the bookstore at Fuller (I think my dad could have spent HOURS in there!), and of course needed some kind of project that invovled Home Depot so they added more shelves in my cupboards in the kitchen. Ross let me lead most of the service on Sunday since they were here which was a great experience, (He wanted me to preach and I told him i needed more than 1 week to write my first sermon--especially in the midst of midterms!). I have a few pictures to post but my dad has to email them to me first so when he does I'll post those.

Women, The Bible, and the Church
This class is amazing. It has been such an eye-opening class to really look at this issue in depth. We're looking at some of the tough passages where Paul writes that women should not speak in church and should not have authority over men and we're looking at the cultural reasons he wrote those things in the first place. It has been such an affirming class to take, especially in connection with my internship in a church that is very supportive of me being in ministry. Last Wednesday Dr. Scholer gave one of the best lectures I've heard in a classroom. He spent 2 hours talking about Jesus and women--the different women Jesus interacted with (and he definitely didn't interact with the high society women, he talked to a lot of women no one else would have looked twice at which was VERY counter-cultural for his time!) and looking at how Jesus treated them. He had 3 main points about women that Dr. Scholer wanted us to gain from looking at Jesus and how he interacted with women: Jesus saw women as people of dignity and worth (something most men in those days did not do), women were disciples of Jesus even though they were not officially named in the 12 (Jesus could not have had a woman be part of that inner circle of 12 in those days--it would have been too counter cultural and would have let people to ask too many questions but women followed Jesus in every town he came to, they were the last ones left at the cross when all the men had run away, and they were the first ones Jesus appeared to when he was raised from the dead, in fact they were given the job of going to tell the men that Jesus was alive! The men were all hiding in a locked room and the women were the ones who had the courage to go to the tomb that morning.) and third, women were proclaimers of the Gospel--the first missionary ever named by Jesus was a woman he had talked with and he told her to go tell her town all that he had said. In the infancy narratives there are 5 people who declare the birth of Christ as being significant (Simeon, Zechariah, Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna) and we know more about these 3 women than we do about the 3 wise men--yet everyone preaches about the 3 wise men--Dr. Scholer challenged us to preach a Christmas service on the "Three Wise Women" next year :) Anyways, the lecture was amazing and affirming and I left wanting to weep at how much Jesus loved women and how muc honor he gave them in a culture and a time period that believed they weren't even worth bothering with. Dr. Scholer found a hymn that a contemporary hymn writer wrote about some of these women that Jesus interacted with and he had a student who is a very talented singer come in and sing it for us after his lecture. It was a powerful song to hear especially in light of what he had just been talking about for 2 hours, and I found the lyrics on line and thought I would share them with y'll. It's called Woman in the Night by Brian Wren who lives in England. See if you can figure out which woman each verse is about:

Woman in the night, spent from giving birth,
guard our precious light: peace is on the earth!
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again. (Mary's verse)

Woman in the crowd, creeping up behind,
touching is allowed: seek and you will find!
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again! (the hemmoraging woman who believed that if she could just touch Jesus' robe she would be healed)

Woman at the well, question the messiah,
find your friends and tell, drink your hearts desire!
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again! (the woman at the well to whom Jesus offered the living water)

Woman at the feast, let the righteous stare;
come and go in peace; love him with your hair!
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again! (the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair in the house of the Pharisee)

Woman in the house, nurtured to be meek,
leave your second place: listen, think, and speak!
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again! (A verse probably about Mary and Martha)

Woman on the road, welcomed and restored,
travel far and wide; witness to the Lord!
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again! (The many women who traveled with Jesus from town to town)

Women on the hill, stand when men have fled!
Christ needs loving still, though your hope is dead.
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again! (The women left at the foot of the cross when Jesus died)

Women in the dawn, care and spices bring;
earliest to mourn; earliest to sing!
Come and join the song, women, children, men.
Jesus makes us free to live again! (The women at the tomb on Easter morning)

Jesus Loves Me This I Know

This morning was probably one of the best all-seminary chapel services we've had since I've been here. Doug Nason, our wonderful professor of preaching was speaking to kick off our year, and he was given the job of beginning us thinking about our theme for the year: Micah 6:8. That's right, the entire year will be spent talking about how to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God." I've always been impressed with Fuller's chapel team and with how they incorporate so many different traditions of worship into their services, and I am so excited to see where they will go this year with our theme. My favorite moment this morning though, wasn't when Doug was speaking (although he was amazing). He had just told the well-known story of Karl Barth visiting Princeton's 150 year anniversary celebration back in the 60s (or maybe 70s, I can't remember). During a press conference someone asked him "Dr. Barth, you have written volumes and volumes on systematic theology and dogmatics and philosophy, can you summarize the essence of your beliefs and work in one sentence?" Barth got a twinkle in his eye and replied very seriously "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." That, my friends, is the essence of our faith. Doug Nason was reminding us that in the midst of our academic thinking and theologizing we need to not forget the most simple lesson we know, that we carry in our hearts. We closed the service with the band returning to lead us in singing "Jesus Loves Me." All of us. 200 seminary students, esteemed professors, well known theologians, all joining together completely seriously to sing the most basic truth we all know. As this year continues, may all of us wake up singing this tune each morning. May we know that it is only because He loves us that we are even here in the first place.

Workin Together...

On Saturday the Student Advisory Board (our leadership team of students that help facilitate different aspects of the Office of Presbyterian Ministries) had our beginning of the quarter mini-retreat to do some team building and advance planning, and fun-having! We had a great morning together continuing to practice our communication and team work skills. Here are some of our photos from the day....
So we started the day by breaking the 10 of us into 2 groups. Each group had to create a machine using all the team members and then describe to the rest of us what they were and how they worked. Here are Alan, Ryan, Lisa, and Denise creating their blender--they even poured water into Lisa's mouth and had Ryan shake her to mix it up.....nice job team!
Meanwhile, Bob, Dave, Marge, Ron and I were busy creating our cotton candy machine. Dave is the "candy man" who sang the song from Willy Wonka while spinning the cotton candy onto his....uh....badmitton racket, while Ron was the "repository of sweetness" as he deemed himself--in other words, he was the sugar container. Marge, Bob and I creted the spinning motion that was required to spin the sugar into cottony fluffy goodness!
Our main task of the day was to get all of us from one side of the rushing river to the other, only balancing on these two 4x4 boards. There were cinderblocks strategically spaced as "rocks" in the river we could stretch the boards between, but there were only 2 boards and more rocks that we had to move between. So here we are, looking nice and perplexed trying to decide the best course of action. (Bob couldn't talk, and they put Sophie in a sling which would throw off her balance to handicap her).

The Rushing River part 2

We started by seeing what it was like to try moving the boards while balancing on the cinder blocks, so we sent 4 of us across first with the expectation that 2 would stay on the one side and 2 would return with the boards to get the rest of the team. So Alan, myself, Marge and Dave were the guinea pigs.

When we got to the other side, Alan stepped off first, and as he did, Denise told us that the rule was whoever touched the other side couldn't return. So Alan and Marge stayed and they sent Dave and I back with the boards. Here we are trying to balance on our cinderblocks while moving the heavy 4x4 to new rocks.

So once Dave & I made it back to the beginning with both boards, we decided to try a more efficient way of seeing how many of us could fit on a board and try to all go together. Here most of us are--we managed to get everyone on and only had to make the one more trip.

Once we were all balanced on the one board, we had to pick up the first board and move it to the next cinderblock--all the while making sure no one stepped off the board and got swept away into the raging river! Bob and Ryan were on each end to do the lifting and moving of the boards and they did a great job balancing while doing so!

I love this picture, I think it looks like we're doing some kind of dance step...really we're just trying to stay on the board! I was in charge of leading Sophie to help her keep her balance & I kept forgetting her and ended up having to turn around to go get her several times....sorry Sophie!
Bob repositioning the board for the last time. Alan and Marge had been waiting on the side for us and here's Alan helping him get the board positioned for all of us to walk to safety.

The last few feet....we're almost there!

We did it!

Aloha!

Last Thursday we had our annual beginning of the year Presbyterian bbq to welcome our new students, and this year we decided to do so Hawaiian-style! It was a lot of work but it was a lot of fun. We had great food, including pineapple burgers and several salads we made ourselves. And we had great Hawaiian outfits and decorates to complete the effect! Here are some photos from our evening...
Sophie, Pocket and I ready for a luau! Sophie and I didn't really plan on being twins, it just happened. And the hats were thanks to the fact that all the leadership team voted to wear something to help people figure out who we were, and so the hats were the least expensive and most gender neutral option....
Part of the Student Advisory Board--Bob, Ginger, Marge, Ron, Dave and Lisa modeling our lovely hats!
here's me working the registration table, and my friend Kernie came to keep me company! (Even he got into the Hawaiian spirit--yup that's right, our monkey has his own Aloha-shirt!)
Dave, Kernie and I working the check in table
So during the clean up, Chris and Ryan decided there had not been nearly enough "authentic" Hawaiian entertainment...so they took the grass skirts that we had wrapped around the tables and decided to....uh....perform for us. We were all quite surprised--both of them weren't that bad! (Chris used to live in Hawaii and Ryan says he has taken hula lessons...)