I’ve been getting some adjustments made on my cat’s eyes glasses these days–sort of updating the prescription. You know how when you go to the eye doctor’s they slide that big machine in front of your eyes and flip back and forth between lenses? “Which one is clearer? Number one…or number two?” The thing is, the journey to becoming a new kind of Christian has less to do with ‘figuring it all out,’ and more to do with noticing when you’ve switched to the less-clearer lens option, then waiting for the big doc in the sky to flip you over to the better lens. At least, that’s my current theory.

Last week Randy Bolger, research assistant for the follow up book to Eddie Gibb’s Church Next, did me a huge favor by interviewing me for the new book. It seems Gibbs and Co. have decided that the first book, while being a very handy text on emergent church theory, needed second volume of information donated by actually postmodern church practitioners. (That’s so cool!) Randy spent an hour or so with me asking me fabulous questions, many of which helped me figure out which lens worked better. He helped me update my prescription.

The question that has made the most dramatic change on the clarity of my cat’s eyes glasses is this. Randy gave me three options: “Is ThPM primarily a community, primarily a ___________, or primarily there to facilitate a way of living.” (I forget the middle one. Randy, if you read this maybe your could drop the third option in my comments.) Now the point of the question wasn’t that one was better than the other. It was just a question. “What is your praxis? How do you function?” (BTW, this is a very postmodern question. A modern question would be “what is your mission statement.”) I knew immediately that what I would like ThPM to be was behind door number three. I really intend for this thing I’m doing–we’re doing–to be primarily about facilitating a way of living. And the way of living that I’m trying to learn, promote, and refine together is kingdom living. By that I mean I want to us find a way to really uncover the kingdom reality that Jesus says is already here…and to build more of that reality, to usher in more wholeness everyday. This means a lot of things. Encouraging Sabbath for instance – creating a break in the non-stop urban lifestyle in order to listen. Feeding attentiveness. Jumping up and down excitedly about service (out of genuine enthusiasm.) Celebrating the wonder of real human connection — storytelling, listening, and a cessation of treating people like commodities to be “won” for Christ. Doing lots of loving things, which I call ‘extending the loving hand of Christ.’ Redefining prayer so that it meaningful and helpful to our living and the lives of others. Really stoking the flames of generosity. (BTW when I use words like “kingdom,” and “loving hand of Christ” half my post-evangelical, post-Christian crew cringes. So if you’re cringing, just be nice to me and translate into your own fav. nomenclature.)

Okay…I’m not really sure where I’m going here…so bear with me. It’s all gonna hang together somehow….

After I got all excited about the clarity brought to me by Randy’s questions. (Oh! Facilitating a way of living! That’s what we’re doing!) Someone else asked me another question and I stumbled a bit. Maybe I’m just getting used to my new prescription or something, because it’s really not that difficult of a question. It just tripped me up, like when I first got graduated bifocals and I tried to walk up the stairs. There’s this adjustment you have to make and it can catch you off guard. Anyway, what happened was that I read this question on Jim Henderson’s website. “What do you want to be doing in five years?” Suddenly my stomach dropped. This is a question that I can usually answer quite nicely. I actually like these kinds of questions. (I’m an ENTJ, so maybe that has something to do with it. Really I think I’m a FP, but whatever.) At any rate, when I saw this question I thought, I should say; “In five years I’d like to see ThPM replicated X number of times.” But I didn’t. What I really thought was,“We’ll in five years I don’t want to be doing ThPM this way.”

Yikes. What was that all about? What happened to the clarity??

It took me a few days, but I finally realized what was causing me discomfort. It wasn’t that I dislike ThPM, or that I don’t want to be with these people in five years, or anything like that. It’s just that I haven’t let go of what it means to be a pastor enough yet. Yes, I’ve dropped the title, the building, and most of the pay. (I work half as much as my collegues, but because of the way we purposed to do church and use our money I make less that a quarter of the pay.) Yes, I regularly refer people away from ThPM in the hopes that they will find a better fit in one of my pal’s congregations. Yes, I’m not interested in growing this group for the sake of meeting some arbitrary AVC goal of 250 or what-have-you. So what’s the prob?

Here’s the prob. I’m still feeling guilty that all I want to do is throw open my door, put on a pot of soup and say “Hey, know what I thought about today? Let’s go this way!” Now why should anyone want to follow me about on my random, hopefully Muse inspired jaunts? And is that even enough to qualify me as pastoral leadership type material? Shouldn’t I be worried about their “maturation as Christians?” Shouldn’t I be ticking off a list of some sort of spiritual disciplines? (Daily devotionals. Check. Ten percent tithing to the church. Check. Bible memorization. Check. 90 minutes of worship tunes weekly. Check.) Shouldn’t I be making sure that everyone feels fed and challenged and met at just the right spot?

Here’s the thing. I can’t do that. I don’t know if anyone can. That’s why I left regular pastoring. All I can do, all I can muster myself to do, is follow the Muse. And she seems to fly all over the place. Like tinker bell on too much sugar.

And also, isn’t that awfully narcisstic? “Hey everyone, follow me! Let’s go here.” I think it’s kind of narcisstic. What about everyone else’s Muse inspired thoughts? I’ve been trying, since the very beginning of ThPM, to figure out how to let this crew “share ownership” — how to make space for things that people are interested in while still, as the leader, feeling at home in my own skin. I can’t seem to do that. Either the things people want to do are so opposite of what I’m comfortable with that I can’t follow the advice Jim has given me. (“You have to pastor a church you would want to go to.”) or, most people don’t really seem to care what we do. So is it okay for me to be going, “Hey follow me?” or is that pretentious and weird?

This weekend we had tons of people in the house. We met Josh and T and went to a movie. And then, I don’t know, 25 people or so showed up for our annual 4th of July open house and open mic extravaganza. Then it was back to the movies with Josh and T and an impromptu barbeque on the back porch. Paul was so content. He said, “I hope we can always do this…keep our house open. I think it will spark some sort of revolution. I think it will bring some sort of significant change.”

I don’t know if I will be doing ThPM in five years. I don’t know if the work I’m doing here is legitimate enough, really. I’m spooked about that. But I know this. In five years, or in ten, our house will still be open and Paul and I will be gleefully calling to people, “Let’s go here!” I hope that’s enough. I hope that’s okay. I hope that’s not weird or dysfunctional or trippy. I hope it brings about healthier hearts and more connectedness to the Muse and a lot more extending of the loving hand of Christ to the world. I guess, mostly, I just hope my prescription gets clearer