Love Your Neighbor

One of my classes this semester has explored in-depth some of the issues the metropolitan area of Denver is facing and how some ministries are reaching out to help solve those problems. A couple weekends ago, we met with a pastor in Arvada, a suburb just to the northwest of downtown Denver. Our topic of conversation that afternoon was the suburbanization of poverty. Poverty is being pushed out of the downtown area because of large contingents of wealthy people moving into lofts and older houses near the downtown. This man had been a pastor in Arvada for about 10 years. When he first joined the staff of the church, weekly attendance was around 2000 people and it was one of those suburban churches with lots of flash and cash and everybody and their dog would attend. However, the neighborhood began to change and poverty was soon pushed into the first ring of the suburbs. The pastor realized that something needed to change and that change was to reach out to these people stricken by poverty. However, not everybody thought this was a good decision in the church. Over half to be exact. He said there are about 800 people who attend the church now while all the others have left after the church shifted its focus from entertainment-driven worship services on Sundays to helping people in need. They have sold some of their facilities and are getting ready to get rid of some more. From the realm of mega churches and numbers, this church may seem like a failure when it is anything but that.

This pastor, along with some other area pastors, meets with leaders in the Arvada area to see how they can best serve the needs of the community. They were at a meeting with the mayor and he was talking about the issues that Arvada was facing. But his last comment stuck with the pastor who in turn shared it with my class. The mayor said, “All these problems would take care of themselves if we could just be good neighbors.” The pastor said the comment rang loudly in his head for weeks. As pastors, we try to lead our church to love their neighbors but somehow we have reduced that command to loving a hypothetical neighbor rather than the tangible neighbors we are geographically located near. We have turned the command to love our neighbor into loving those that love us or those in the church or those that are like us and we have completely neglected our physical neighbors.

What does it mean for us to be good neighbors? We should start by getting to know our neighbors and chatting with them on the sidewalk or on their front porch. Maybe we can get involved with the neighborhood association and learn about the issues our particular neighborhoods face. Maybe we should try to take tangible steps to loving tangible neighbors rather than hypothetical steps to loving hypothetical neighbors.

Praying for our Troops

Ever since I wrote a paper and did a presentation on civil religion, I have found myself noticing the presence of it in churches time and time again. The most obvious sign of it is the American flag usually positioned near the front of the church. However, I have also noticed that almost every Sunday, churches pray for our troops, meaning our American troops. This is usually in conjunction with specific prayers for those who are from the church in the armed forces. This has always made me a bit uncomfortable because we often neglect to pray for those that we are fighting against. However, Michael Gorman recently posted on his blog a letter to the church in the U.S. in regards to praying for our troops. It is worth a read. Gorman is a professor and the dean of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland. I first heard him at a Pauline conference I attended (he is a NT scholar and his specialty is Paul). Anyways, I thought I would share his letter with you and introduce you to him.

The Black/White Church Divide

On Sunday, I worshipped at Agape Christian Church in Five Points. This is a small, Congregational church composed primarily of blacks (primarily in this case is 99% of the parishioners). After encountering numerous stares upon first entering the door, I noticed my awkwardness dissipating almost instantaneously because before I could take a step, a number of people were already shaking my hand and greeting me. Let’s just say this was a very hospitable congregation. It was a typical service to say the least; it was about 2 hours long, with large amounts of singing and praying.

After the service, I found myself wondering why it is so difficult to integrate black and white congregations. I think a fundamental issue is the music. The worship wars are not just between hymns and contemporary music – a church of multiple ethnicities would run into many problems. To find some sort of middle ground would probably just alienate all the different sides. To cater to the blacks in the group would probably lead to some of the whites leaving and vice versa. If it is a mix, then neither group is completely satisfied and they begin to look for other churches. As much as we would like to say the fundamental issue is not music, I would disagree. I think it is a much bigger issue than we make it out to be. Many church-goers today look for good music when they visit churches, particularly good music that fits their tastes. And if a church does not meet that expectation, there will be another church that will. Emerson and Smith write about the effects of the religious marketplace on American churchgoers. This requires churches to focus on a particular demographic to meet the niche in the market and to forget or ignore the other demographics. If churches seek to attract people through their music, then naturally racial divisions will become a part of the churches. It is much more difficult to cater to both blacks’ and whites’ music tastes rather than just one. And therefore, the decisions a church makes in regards to the demographic they will reach automatically discriminates against groups that do not fit that demographic.

So, even though music is a small thing (at least this is where our lip service is paid), in the religious market place of America, it becomes a disproportionately important factor.