Every once in awhile I get an email from some one who is feeling that old postmodern itch on the top of their nose. These folks are very sincere, and want to make good choice…but damn it, the old church that they used to love is just not working any more and they don’t know what to do! It’s a pretty scary place. Believe me, I can still call up the emotions that surrounded my own multi-year journey. I’d really like to be a help to people along the way…I only wish it didn’t take some much time between the experiencing of the thing and the understanding of the thing, don’t you?

Anyway, I just dashed off this email to one such soul with some tips for the journey. It’s pretty much just off the top of my head, but I thought it might help some other postmodern pilgrims out there. Also, if you have some tips to add re: how to navigate the early stages of the post-evangelical or post-mainliner shift, do Do DO put them in the comments.

Shalom!

Rachelle

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Jennifer,

I am just finally giving your emails the attention they deserve.

This is an emotional journey you are going through. When Paul and I pulled away from our traditional church, we had been there for 15 years! I was a pastor on staff, and my kids were in love with the sanctuary. (They love holy spaces.) It was hard for us to make the decision. At one point, Paul said that we could try forming something in our home, but we had to go to a church service somewhere too. I was surprised at how quickly he let that go. We both rapidly came to find our little gathering in our home far more edifiying and challenging than any church service. I don’t think that means everyone needs to evacuate the buildling! I just think that there _is_ a “move of the spirit” going on that is calling some of us out to something newer, smaller, and more oriented towards the soulcare than attendence or performance.

One thing that we’ve found very helpful in times of decision making is to do the ignation examen. A simple version of this is just to ask your self each day, “Where have I most experienced God’s love/light today? Where have I most experienced it’s absence?”) Doing this over a few weeks will often reveal patterns of contentment and discontentment. Then you can evaluated what you want to do about those patterns. For instance, in the area of discontentment — do I want to try and change things, or is it time for me to exit gracefully.

Another thing that I’ve found helpful is this question from my mentor, Jim Henderson. “Do I thrive in an environment where I am the more conservative member and those who surround me challenge me to broader thinking? Or do I prefer and environment where I am the more liberal member and I can challenge conservative community memebers in their thinking?” (I’m just using conservative/liberal as an example here … You could easily substitute other terminology.) This question helped me realize that I’m the former rather than the latter. I like to be challenged to new thought, and constantly trying to change the system exhausted me, rather than energized me. So that required me to leave a setting in which the main emphasis was on maintaining the status quo definition of success. Instead I had to enter into a place (or in my case, create a place) that had a more organic approach to how we lived and grew/changed.

One last thing that has been helpful is that my mentors (Jim Henderson and Rose Swetman) have taught me to be okay with experimentation. The traditional method of making changes in church/spiritual lifestyle is to write some sort of new vision statement and then throw yourself into it. The problem with that is, when that mission doesn’t actually work out the way you thought it would, or if it doesn’t meet the need you thought it would meet, then you have failed. But if you are just experimenting with this and that — trying to find out what works and fits — something “not working” is okay. It’s all a part of the discovery process. This way you can give yourself permission to play, try, test things out and not feel totally devastated when something doesn’t fit.

I guess there is one more thing (the last word, and the word after that…:-) I’ve experienced a shift in my thinking lately. Somehow I’ve come to see that there is not a “right way” and a “wrong way” to be/do church or to follow the example of Jesus. Jesus’s way is generous. It’s not a matter of pinpointing the one “right” thing. This idealology (and I’m not sure how I got it) has helped me to be a cheerleader for my siblings in Christ who are doing something different than me, and still feel secure in what I’m doing. I call it “following your path of obedience.” Obedience is not one static thing. We each must determine what the Spirit is asking us to do, and then follow her lead. If someone else is doing something different then me, I can be glad for them and see them as obedient to God — and hopefully they can do the same for me!

Wow. That’s a lot of typing. I hope some of it is useful. Be gentle to yourself and remember that this all takes time. We’ve been playing around with ThPM/Monkfish Abbey since 2001 and it’s only now really taking shape — and there’s only 12 of us! But small can be powerful, as we’ve seen people’s lives change dramatically under our God-inspired care! (No, there’s been no “conversions” — but that’s so TOTALLY not my goal. I just want people to connect to their souls, and to the divine. I just want to live a loving, healing, truth speaking life like Jesus. Anything else that needs to happen is up to the Spirit to work out. Some guy asked me recently if I was “winning any souls” to Christ and I just had to smile at him gently and say…”I’m not really sure. But I’m watching people become more whole and they are helping me become more whole, so that seems like a good thing to me.)

Also, don’t worry about your kids. Your two year old will be allright. Soulcare for kids works better at home, I think. My girls are thriving little priestesses inspite of our heathenish way of not taking them to Sunday School! Sure our Sunday morning “Bible Story Club” last week consisted of reading four stories from the Brick Testament on-line followed by an hour of playing poker with Daddy….but they’re still conversant about and with God, and they’re doing just fine making space for kids of other faiths while still understanding our family’s holy story. (Their school is about 10 percent muslim, and probably 80 percent agnostic).

Anyhow, enough already. Email or call anytime. My cell phone is my mail line and listed below.

Shalom Jennifer!

Rachelle