Significance of Jesus' Baptism

This Sunday we explored the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) to find out more about what was going on at Jesus' baptism. We are in a series looking at the life and ministry of Jesus and so this wasn't about OUR baptism, but about Christ's. And really, why was Jesus getting baptized anyway? Did he need to repent? I thought he was sinless. Was this merely an example, a ritual he legally needed to complete (but, then why in the desert with the wild man John the Baptist and not in the temple)? Or was it something mysterious, awe inspiring and supernatural? Well, we are talking about Jesus...

Below are some quotes that were illuminating in preparation for yesterday's discussion:

From Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, Ed. David Noel Freedman, 2000.

"Jesus requests baptism apparently not simply in order to identify himself with sinners but primarily "to fulfill all righteousness."

"To fulfill" can be translated "to bring to completion or perfection." Jesus' own baptism is thus an identifying sign about Jesus himself. He is the one who completes the intention of God, who brings to perfection all that God has envisioned since creation. Christian baptism is thus less a negation (in token of renunciation) than an affirmation of being incorporated into Christ, who is the perfection of all God wills, and thus of being granted new life as a gift.

This motif of bringing to completion all that God intends makes sense of otherwise obscure allusions in the narratives of Jesus' baptism. The Synoptics mention water and a voice, together with the descent of the Spirit - all reminiscent of God's spirit hovering over the waters and speaking creation into existence in Gen. 1:1-5. Thus Jesus at his baptism is identified as the one who fulfills the old creation by instituting the new creation. Jesus, by going into the wilderness for 40 days, is portrayed as the new Moses and the new Elijah (Exod. 24:18; 1 Kgs. 19:8). Similarly the figure of the dove further identifies him as the new Noah (Gen. 8:8-12), thus intensifying the motif of the new creation. To be baptized as a Christian is to receive and to be received into the whole sacred story in its fulfillment - a profound gift of the Holy Spirit, whose activity in baptism is so frequently asserted throughout the NT."

And from Introducing the New Testament, John Drane, Fortress Press, 2001

"Admittedly [John, the Baptist] appears to have seen with more clarity of spiritual vision than other religious people of his day, who took for granted that the objects of God's anger would be the Romans. But he did not fully appreciate the true character of the 'kingdom of God,' which in the teaching of Jesus turned out to be based less on damnation and judgment than on more generous qualities such as love, forgiveness and unprejudiced concern for all kinds of people. This had always been the one thing that the ancient nation of Israel had found most difficult to understand, and it continued to cause problems for Jesus' disciples, who could never quite grasp what it might mean for God's will to be done through self-denying service to others and suffering on their behalf (Mark 8:31-33). Though John announced the coming of the kingdom of God, the precise nature or what that might involve only became clear after the death and resurrection of Jesus."

I think I would question just how clear it became to everyone even at that point.
The early Christian church was still expecting Christ to return any day. They were expecting a divine jugement immenently and so tried to live as holy a life as possible, even defering baptism until the death bed so as not to be held accountable for new sins.

My question is this. We have a perspective and vantage point they did not have. It has been over 2000 years and Jesus has not returned. His baptism, his life, his death and resurrection were an ushering in of a new age – the beginning of God’s kingdom coming. A new creation, which according to Jesus, we are already living in to some degree. What does it mean for us and how we live as followers of Christ? How does Jesus' call to "all the nations" affect the way we view other people and our world?

In this light, Jesus' baptism takes on great significance and mysterious splendor. I'm still pondering. Thanks for all of the insight and discussion last night!
-Lisa

About Incarnation

This past Sunday our worship gathering focused on questions of the Incarnation of Christ. I wasn't able to be there, so I just thought I'd post some of my thoughts.

Oxford Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church:

"Incarnation: The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation affirms that the eternal Son of God took flesh from His human mother and that the historical Christ is at once fully God and fully man. It asserts an abiding union in Christ's Person of the Godhead and manhood without the integrity or permanence of either being impaired, and it assigns the beginnings of this union to a definite and known date in human history.

The doctrine took shape under the influence of the controversies of the 4th and 5th cent. and was formally defined at the Council of Chalcedon. But discussion continued."

I just think there is so much in this. God who is eternal enters "into human history!"

Think about that like an author actually entering into a story and becoming one of the characters while still being outside the story and its author. (This analogy works too because many authors talk about the characters in a story taking on a life of its own. Even though the author is still writing and can control what happens, there is a certain amount of allowing the story and characters to go where they will.)

I think this is mind bending. First that it is even possible and second that God would desire this. To intentionally become "less than" in order to create relationship runs completely counter to every social system on earth. Not just the west! Even in tribal cultures there is a sense of moving towards the head of the pack and ostracizing in order to convey place within the system. This is a totally revolutionary, subversive concept.

Other religions (myths) which talk about god or a god like creature becoming human do not have the same motives as the Christian version. In others, the god comes to enjoy earthly pleasures, teach, give wisdom, etc. Christ is supposed to have taken on fully human form while being fully God for the express purpose of building RELATIONSHIP with us - mortal, created beings. What could God possible get out of this? That is the mystery to me. It can't be that God is sitting up there getting cosmically lonely because God is perfect. So what it is it? In some weird way it only makes sense that communion with God is part of the created and uncreated order. It just must be - these are the rules of the universe that God put in place at the beginning of time. And the whole story of the world is this working its way back to complete and total union with God. Christ is the demonstration of that as possible. Christ's coming to human form is the crack, the breaking point which is like the turning point in history that the earth starts turning in the other direction. Suddenly the eschatological "someday" is starting. The now and not yet. The Kingdom of Heaven in a very real sense is HERE because Christ is among us (STILL) and yet not yet fully realized in our personhood and world.

This stuff is just so mind blowing to me. It leaves me in awe to think of this as the God of the universe. The God who values relationship, wholeness, love as the highest values, the rule of law in the universe. Wouldn't it be more advantageous to value power and obedience and fear? Is salvation partly us "getting" this shift? This repentance (turning) if you will. What if repentance is as much about seeing the world in a completely different way, about seeing the Kingdom of Heaven before us and participating in its progression, as it is about eschewing personal sin?

I don't know. Just some thoughts. -Lisa

confession

Pride

A prayer of confession by Quentin Paquette

Lord, I’m always putting myself first.

Not asking freely for Your help:
Claiming the responsibility for myself,
Taking the credit for myself,
Accepting the blame for myself,
Presuming self-reliance,
Getting my work done,
Seeing it my way,
Saying it in my own words,
Accountable for my own cleanliness,
Forgive me my arrogance.

Not listening openly to Your guidance:
Requiring proof and meaning,
Expecting to understand in full, 
Making analogy to my own experience,
Pursuing my own agenda,
Imposing my own schedule,
Impatient for the results of my effort,
Frustrated when my plans fail.
Substituting my reasoning for Your offer to cleanse.
Forgive me my overconfidence.

Not acknowledging Your gifts:
Applauding my own successes,
Self-satisfied with my cleverness,
Boasting about my accomplishments,
Denying the power of Your work in me,
Miserly with the blessings I’ve been given,
Overlooking the blessings at hand,
Not trusting You to provide.
Unmindful of Your example at the basin.
Forgive me my selfishness.

I’ve limited myself
By leaving You out.
Accumulating dirt.
Too proud to let You wash my feet.
Help me to live in Your world.
Forgive me my pride.
Teach me humility.
Wash me, so that I may belong to You.

encouraging words

From our friend Bud Hensgen, painter, home-brewer, philosopher extraordinaire: 

There is a movement underway, however, among some protestant faith communities, to reach out beyond the traditionally dogmatic expressions of their communities to explore the fundamentals of Christianity in a way that modern Americans may be able to relate to and to choose as their faith expression.   I believe that Convergence is one of these communities.  

The hope for contemporary Christianity, in my view, lies with progressive protestant communities that are working as "faith laboratories" if you will, to how the fundamentals of Christian belief can successfully be adopted by thinking, educated Americans in order to ensure that Christian traditions will succeed and prosper in the 21^st century.

I commend Convergence for its bold efforts to work on building a faith community without binding it hopelessly to a narrow interpretation of the Bible, but rather to attempt to call together questioning Christians to explore the possibilities of building a faith community both relevant to contemporary thinking Americans and consonant with fundamental and traditional Christian principles. 

...I think Convergence needs to continue to walk that fine line between traditional theology and experimenting with newer expressions of faith.

Connecting our Community through Conversation

Last night, we had a follow-up conversation to Thursday’s Art and Faith in Community Lecture on “Artists in Christian Community.” I truly enjoyed last week’s lecture and the informal conversation afterward. That conversation explored issues like the difference between creativity, imagination, and artistry. Last night’s conversation took a different turn. We spent a lot of time talking about artists’ contributions to worship as participants, leaders, and visitors in the pews. We talked about our creative work; critique and encouragement, and allowing our work to honor God when we’re pleased with our efforts and when we’re not. Later in the evening, the conversation moved from worship as public event to worship as living out our lives as God intended in our creation.

Even though this lecture series is focused on worship, we have to be careful not to limit our consideration of art and artists to worship. As I’m preparing for this week’s lecture, I am reminded that liturgical art – or art in worship – has some specific constraints. Of course, any constraint is an opportunity for inspiration and discipline, blah blah blah… but even constraints imposed by a community’s values and the purpose of worship can inhibit the working of the Holy Spirit through the artist to call our attention anew to some issue in our lives.

I truly believe that not just the art that artists produce, but their ways of seeing and being in the world can teach us something. The artists themselves are a resource for their interpretive skills, their visionary capability, and their modes of communication that capture an idea and a spirit of an age. As the night wore on, I felt privileged to hear mature Christians speak about small group experiences, prayer, confession, acceptance and the joys and challenges of contributing your gifts to God. I’ve been in churches many years and participated in discussions, retreats, and all sorts of teachings on these topics, but approaching these issues from perspectives of people who engage in creative work helped me see these topics in new ways. I’ve frequently been in small groups where I identified with common experiences of being a woman or student or single person, but far more infrequently have I been able to share a common experience about being creative.

I was reminded that Christians can learn so much by being in authentic communities that live out values of compassion and mutual growth. It is encouraging for me to be in a place where I can learn from mature believers who approach Scripture with the interpretive lens of artistic experience and share the way faith enables them to live out their unique calling.
-Elise

More blogging about last night: Amanda's blog: http://badcaseblog.blogspot.com

Jesus' Main Themes

Sunday's topic was "The Main Themes of Jesus' Teaching."

Here are some of the questions we discussed and some of the answers we came up with:

1. What are the main issues or topics that the church seems to be concerned with?

• abortion
  
• gay marriage
  
• role of women
  
• individual salvation
  
• authority
  
• conformity
  
• correct doctrine
  
• sin
  

2. What are the big problems our world is facing?

• hunger
  
• poverty
  
• war
  
• disease
  
• homelessness
  
• environmental issues
  
• persecution
  
• prejudice
  
• oppressive or corrupt governments
  

The point of these first two questions is to examine the relevance of the church. I'm not saying the issues in #1 aren't important. But if the church is to be God's agent in the world, shouldn't we be concerned with all issues that impact our world?

3. What issues did Jesus address most in his teaching?

• God as Father
  
• God's Kingdom
  
• Ethics
  
• Love
  
• Forgiveness
  
• The poor
  
• Prayer
  
• Repentance
  

All of these reflect our central Scripture passage for the evening--what we refer to as the Great Commandment. In Jewish culture, it is part of the Shema, the most important prayer in Judaism. The commandment is found in Deuteronomy 6:1-9, Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34, and Luke 10:25-27. 

4. What did Jesus say and do that was so radical?

He challenged the religious status quo. He said that it's not about you, it's about God and other people. He taught about grace rather than the law. He emphasized communal living, caring for one another, rather than focusing on individual spirituality. He taught about bringing the Kingdom of God to earth, not just about getting to heaven when we die.

For Jesus, the bottom line was to love God and love people. Everything else is secondary to that. Being focused on the things Jesus was concerned with will help us make sure we are addressing the right problems in our world, rather than getting caught up in things that we may think are important but don't move us closer to loving God and loving people.

Question to think about:

What does it look like for us--the Convergence community--to love God and love people? If we're called to specifically love and support artists, how are we doing at that? How can we do better?

Don't Miss This!

starting tomorrow at Convergence--this will be a great opportunity to see where we are headed in some areas and how important this is to our community and our world.

The Artist and Faith in Community

Artist in Residence, Elise Edwards, will lead a series of lecture and discussion groups in July on the theme of the Artist and Faith in Community. 
This series is free and open to the public. 
Thursdays, July 10, 17 & 24 at  7:00 pm

 

Discussion Topics:

^{-What is the place of the artist in Christian community?}

^{-Worship Planning and the Design Process}

^{-The Connection Between Art, Faith and Civic Engagement}

Elise is an architect and designer. She holds an MTS degree from the John Leland Center for Theological Studies and is a Ph.D. student at Claremont Graduate School in Claremont CA. Elise is also a founding member of Convergence and the designer of our renovation projects.

remembrance

Last night we talked about communion as remembrance. Over the past week I've thought a lot about this. I discovered that remembering is far more than just mental ackowledgement, looking back at past events.

True remembering involves the heart as well as the head. It is about connecting the past and the present--not just mentally, but emotionally, spiritually, even physically. It is also linked to imagination--which helps us as we remember on these different levels.

When I was young I spent a lot of time daydreaming about the future--being a famous actor, or an all-star baseball player. I realized that in recent years I spend less time thinking about what lies ahead, and more time looking back--reflecting on wonderful memories--my wedding, the birth of my children, special times with family and friends, funny stories...

I was surprised how powerful remembering can be, and how physical. When I remember my father, who died four years ago, I close my eyes and I can see him, smell him (he was a real outdoorsman), I can even feel the stubble on his cheek when I hugged and kissed him.

A few weeks ago Brady (who is 2) got a balloon, and played with it for hours, throwing it, batting it around the room, trying to catch it. Yesterday I was reading to him, and he was identifying and naming objects in a book. He came to a picture of a balloon. I watched in amazement as Brady reached toward the book, and pantomimed picking the balloon up, throwing it up in the air, and batting it with his hand, while laughing at the memory.

Remembering became emotional and physical for him. He was fully engaged in the memory, using his imagination to go back and experience the balloon all over again. 

That's what communion should be for us; remembering Jesus and the last supper with our thoughts, emotions, spirits, even our bodies (hence the eating and drinking). In addition to looking back, we also remember that Jesus said He would be with us always, so when we gather and take communion, Jesus is just as present with us as he was with the disciples. 

I experience this every Sunday when we gather at Convergence--this incredible sense God's presence as we eat, talk, listen, pray, and sing, and share our lives with each other.

at the end of all human energy

Amy, inspired/encouraged by Jim and Amanda wrote this during our worship gathering about the gospel story: the feeding of the 5000.

At the end of all human energy

We went to the mountain to pray

We went away from the crowds and the noise and the chaos

All the distracted, destroyed lives and bodies and broken spirits

All seeking healing.

But they followed You there.

They followed us: unwilling,

at the end of all human energy,

seeking our own souls to feed.

You looked upon them with compassion

You the Bread of Life

in Perpetual Offering of Yourself,

willing Sacrifice.

We were waiting for a warrior.

We did not understand.

At the end of all human energy

we said

Oh Jesus, please send them away

Send them back to the streets and the towns

and the seasides and the slums

Send them back to the muck where they came from

Let us feast on You alone

Let us be with You.

Alone.

And You turned to us and said

"You give them something to eat."

At the end of all human energy

We gazed at the Bread of Heaven,

ravenous to be filled to bursting,

ravenous to possess and not to share

We did not understand.

That You, with a prayer

had all that we needed

and oh so much more.

12 baskets filled to overflowing

You gave without questioning.

At the end of all human energy

We did not understand

That in dying we live

That in giving we receive

and that in You, the Bread of Heaven,

we were only beginning to believe.

The Best Laid Plans

Remember the Mulch! My friend Beth and I had a conversation about how sometimes we make plans, we think we know The Plan, we try and figure out how make plans happen and God has another plan altogether.

This weekend, we had 23 volunteers who were willing to come and help at various times to spread mulch in the flower beds. The city was to deliver mulch on Friday...calls were made, things double checked, plans set. And when I arrived on Saturday morning, there was no mulch.

What??? How could they do this? How could they ruin our plans? You know how hard it is to get 23 people willing and ready to work in the heat of summer?

But much like life, there was a lesson in the destruction of my plans. Once again God took control in order to make sure I got the message. You see, the flower beds had slowly been taken over by weeds. Destructive little things. They would have been difficult to get out once we buried them with mulch and it would have taken twice as much work later to make sure they were gone.

It's like God was trying to tell me "You have to be prepared for change BEFORE change can happen." Change is hard. New things take time and care and planning. And sometimes you are planning for the wrong thing. And it takes God changing your plans to get you back on His path...not yours.

I am someone who has made a lot of plans in my life. Got into situations thinking I knew the plan. I knew why I was put somewhere...only to find out that God meant for me to be there just not for the reasons I thought. Most of the time it was preparation...just like pulling the weeds, I had lessons to learn, my own weeds to pull. Things and ideas that needed to be pulled from my life to make way for new. Things I should not just cover up but instead needed to rid myself of completely.

So what about MY plans? I had to be willing to let my plans fly out the window and go where God was taking me. And that was and is the absolute hardest part. To let go of my expectations, my wants, my plans...to get to the thing He knew I needed. The life I was meant to have.

All that from a failed mulch delivery. The good news is that mulch will hopefully come this week. And the ground is ready for it. And now the process of getting myself ready for change is starting to happen. I no longer know the plan. I just know that my job is to be ready to follow. To prepare the ground for the mulch.

--Michelle Nolton

a lament

Beautiful lament from Sunday's worship:

After the Worst That Could Happen... Did

There is nothing left to say now

I have struggled as much as my emotions can bear

I have fought with the demons of doubt and despair

and there is nothing left to say now.

There is nothing left to do now

My emotions are drained and my body feels weak

I open my mouth, but there's nothing to speak

There is nothing left to do now.

There is nothing left to pray now

I have cried tears through my fingers, my head in my hands

I have given my will to what You would command

and there is nothing left to pray now.

There is nothing left but this silence,

the sound of my breath in the still of the room.

Finally my heart is quiet

Finally my mind is quiet

But I don't know if you'll enter this empty silence.

Make these bones You have broken rejoice

Make this heart that has broken rejoice

Make this soul that is broken rejoice

Oh, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice in the LORD

Because only in Him do we know

that what's broken will soon be redeemed

and only in Him can we know

that the worst is never quite what it seems.

Oh God, help me shout alleluia

Let me cling to the shreds of the hope You have given

--the comfort that is meant to save--

Let me cling to it, praising,

knowing that You were raised from the grave.

Build from these ashes a cathedral

Build from this brokenness life

and with Your comfort, kind Jesus, sweet Spirit,

Take my hand, make me fully alive.

We worship the God of resurrection

We worship the God of resurrection

We worship the God of resurrection

and we sense, in our sorrow, redemption.

--Amy Moffitt

worship Sunday--religious culture of Jesus' day

Sunday evening was great; but I need to do a better job of time management, worship keeps running long!

We talked about the religious/spiritual culture of Jesus' time, and did some comparing with the Christian culture of our time. People broke up into groups and examined different groups --Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots; as well as the general Jewish culture, and the overall (outside Judaism) culture of the region. 

One interesting discovery was that most Jews of Jesus' time did not belong to any of the 4 groups mentioned above. Here are some general observations people made, as well as some of my own:

Judaism was sometimes very legalistic. Jews believed in and followed the law, but some, like the Pharisees, build rules around the laws, to help people follow the law, and became very restrictive and legalistic.

Judaism was patriarchal--men were in control, women did not have much of a voice--and hierarchical. 

Some parallels in our church culture: we, too, have divisions and different groups. For the Jews, the differences were mostly over orthopraxy (Greek for "correct practice)--how they lived out their faith. For Christians today, I think most of the division is over orthodoxy (correct belief).

I think the modern church wastes a lot of time and energy arguing over issues of theology that aren't crucial, missing out on opportunities to live out the love of Jesus in a world that really needs it. 

Jesus stepped into Jewish culture with teachings and actions that were radically different. I believe a church community that truly lives out the teaching and follows the example of Christ will also look be radically different. In the coming weeks we'll talk about how.

worship and butterflies

One day last week I experienced great worship…not in a church service, but on my street. After breakfast I got Brady and Cash into the stroller and went for a walk in our neighborhood. We live in the country, on a dirt and gravel road surrounded by trees. There is a lake nearby, and a few streams that run along and under the road…

On our walk we came upon a butterfly, bouncing from one plant to another next to the road, and even fluttering back and forth across the road. I pointed the butterfly out to Brady, then we followed it. The butterfly kept going down the road, always staying close enough for Brady to track him. I pushed and watched Brady; he was fascinated with the butterfly.

Last week at a conference a speaker talked about how to view liturgical art—that we don’t look at it, but through it. The art is not meant to be an end to itself, but a lense, through which we see God. 

That’s how I felt as I watched Brady and the butterfy—that by looking through them and their interaction I could see the face of God--smiling, taking pleasure in His creation. I saw God in the beauty of this butterfly, in the trees and plants around which the butterfly flew. I saw God through the eyes of my son, watching the butterfly with amazement, smiling, laughing, pointing…

It was a beautiful morning, and a wonderful example of this idea of whole-life worship.

Beauty Made Me Do It

Earlier today, I was reading Robin Jensen's book The Substance of Things Seen: Art, Faith, and the Christian Community. Paraphrasing what Jensen tells us, to speak of beauty in reference to God is not about surface appearances.  In theological aesthetics, we have historically understood beauty as a kind of divine attractiveness.  That is, something that draws us to God through its physical properties, evoking wonder, delight, or awe.  In one chapter, Jensen writes about two different styles of architecture and how both the gothic and the ascetic evoke this sense of the beautiful and the splendid.  She also talks about nonrepresentational art, and parallels Mark Rothko's use of color, pigment, and light to apophatic theology by provoking a kind of devotional experience that is nonverbal and nonliteral. 

I have design issues on the mind, so as I read these passages, I considered the sanctuary space at Convergence.  It's a mid-century modern building with tall stained glass windows of bold colors.  Most of the colors of the windows are primary colors. I love that sanctuary because it's a colorful, yet calm place.  That's what I imagine "sanctuary" to be – calming, safe, peaceful but not in a sleepy, boring, way, but in a way that touches and stirs the soul.  The feeling inside the sanctuary changes as the day progresses and the light shifts. It is dim and muted in the evenings.  But in the afternoon, when the sun is streaming through the tallest windows, it is brilliant and dazzling with color.  

I walked into the sanctuary this afternoon with the intention of going to my temporary office and doing some work.  But the beauty of the space stopped me in my tracks.  Color, texture and light invited me to observe and experience Beauty with a capital "B."  Despite my head and heart knowledge about art and faith, I normally don't go around attributing every glorious thing I see to the divine.  It's not that I don't recognize God as Creator – rather it's that I do.  I'm suspicious when people say that God is Creator, and we as humans are created in God's image, therefore we're creators, too - with a little "c" of course. That seems too anthropocentric a picture of God to be ok with me.  Surely we don't create in the way God creates.  So the relationship between God as Creator and us as creators seems more complex than our status as image-bearers of God might permit. 

But what I experienced today gave me a glimpse of what that relationship could be.  I saw God's infusion into human creation, and it attracted me to the transcendent, evoked the glory of God, and provoked me to become a creator myself.  I felt as if that room was allowed me to look through it to see the very presence of God, and that I was called to be a witness to it and to share it with someone else. After I soaked it up for a few minutes, I had to, had to, re-create the experience for whoever would care.  I chose to recreate it in the only way I knew how – through words and pictures.  So forgive me if my attempts are a little clumsy or amateurish.  I'm a creator with a little "c".

--Elise Edwards

I Love Our Church

Prayer of Assurance
(from tonight's gathering)

Christ is our peace;
those who are divided
he has made one.

He has broken down the barriers of separation
by his death and has built us up
into one body, with God.

To all who repent and believe
he has promised reconciliation.
So live as people reconciled.

Amen

I thank God for all of you. Lisa

Merging of the Blogs

Todd and I have decided to consolidate blogs and include entries from other people on here as well. We hope you will join us in conversation about Convergence, God, art and faith. Feel free to comment or send us a post. In the coming year we will be devoting time to exploring questions about artists and worship.

Elise Edwards Ph.D. student studying art, faith and culture will be leading a lecture and discussion series in July at Convergence. We hope to have these podcast and posted on our blog and website. We hope you join the conversation!

Thursday, July 10 - 7:00 pm - What is the place of the artist in Christian Community?
Thursday, July 17 - 7:00 pm - Worship Planning and the Design Process
Thursday, July 24 - 7:00 pm - The Connection Between Art, Faith and Civic Engagement
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Todd wrote this and shared in last week's worship gathering on prayer:

I pray because I know I can't make life work on my own.
I pray because I need to be connected to more than just what I can see and touch.
I pray because I need to know that I am not alone.
I pray because I have seen God work supernaturally, in my life and the lives of others.
I pray because I gain strength and insight when I do.
I pray because sometimes at midnight, God is the only one listening.
I pray because the Bible, full of wisdom and insight into God and humankind, tells me it is crucial.
I pray because it helps me feel God's presence.
I pray because I love God.
I pray because I believe God loves me.

Read more about our worship gatherings

The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

I just watched the commencement address of this year's Harvard graduation given by J.K. Rowling, entitled: "The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination."

This quote goes out to the artist wayers:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. J.K. Rowling

This one is for those who value the power of imagination and see the link to "loving our neighbors."

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared. J.K. Rowling

Listen to the speech

Creativity and the Faith Experience, Bud Hensgen

From Sunday, June 1st Dinner and Communion Service
Artist, Bud Hensgen, Vice President, the Arlington Artists Alliance

During the next few minutes I will try to describe something of what for me is the process of creating an abstract painting. I will talk a bit about how I experience this creativity. And then I will try to relate it to how I experience faith.

I believe that creativity comes from many sources, or paths, within us. I would like to talk for a few moments about two of those sources – inspiration and desperation.

What I mean here by inspiration is fairly general and straightforward and I think is something that everyone experiences in life, whether they create art with it or not. It is something that comes from outside us and moves me. For instance, if I am painting outdoors walking through a field and I come upon a woods with the light at dusk reflecting onto the shapes of a row magnificent oak trees, I am likely to be inspired. I am forced to stop, to look, to be silent, to absorb what I am seeing and feeling around me. So inspired, I may try to express that inspiration with my paints.

Desperation, no doubt a word insufficient to express what I want to say here, is the inverse or the opposite. It is something inside me, lying hidden, waiting to -- or crying to --- or demanding to -- be expressed. It has no words and feels rather opaque. Often it is actually nothing at all until I actually begin warming up to paint. Then it may become a wordless energy in my body that wants to be expressed.

It is much harder for me to describe or talk about this second source of creativity, this desperation. But perhaps the word, desperation, is appropriate after all, since it is often unclear to me where I am trying to go. I know there is a path and I hope it will reveal itself to me as I work. I am familiar with what I am trying to do. I know my paints, my brushes, my surface, and I have an idea that I want to develop. But I sometimes find, once begun, that I must take a different path and follow it. I have to stop, to look, to listen.

What is happening inside me may be something delicate, gentle and beautiful, like a tiny green Mayflower shoot one stumbles across and uncovers from the winter’s leaves in the woods in March. Or it may be dark and powerful, like an angry and sorrowful storm that howls somewhere within me. It may be like a storm that whips up leaves and blows scattered papers in every direction. It lifts up sticks and thorns and even rocks and heaves them to a new place, then soaks them with a pounding rain.

My job is somehow to respond, to let go, to get it out and then to look to see if it makes any visual sense at all.

And of course very often it doesn’t, and herein lies yet another sense of desperation, because what if my expression, my creation, doesn’t work on canvas, doesn’t work at all! And I have to move the paint, push it, scrape it, cover it, start over and over again. I look at this formless junk, this undecipherable mess of lines and forms, this patchwork of irrelevance, this meaningless mess, will it ever come together? Will it say something that is authentic, that is real? And it won’t come together, it looks like crap, and then I tire and I have to stop.

Sometimes I find I have to rest and wait, sometimes in silence, sometimes in solitude and sometimes in the midst of a turbulent city throng. I hope the artistic sensibility will return and that I will be desperate enough to get it out and onto the canvas and that it will come together.

But sometimes it does work. It appears before me, perhaps gradually, perhaps suddenly, often unexpectedly. How did I get
here, to this place? What made it come together? Perhaps the images of yesterday’s forms and shapes percolated overnight -- or over years. Whatever the sources, it feels to me to be real, to be engaging, to be authentic and I know it is time to stop.

When I reflect on this rather bizarre and frequently turbulent process, it occurs to me that when I am working to create something, when I am listening to both inspiration and attending to this desperation, I am living in a part of my inner being that may be right next door to religious experience – to faith, hope and charity, if you will.

After all, when I am painting thus, I am working from a source that seems to me to be a mystery, like seeing through a glass darkly. I am on a path that is sometimes dark and sometimes revealed to me and in order to express it I must turn myself over to it and follow it wherever it takes me, and I don’t know where it will lead. And when nothing happens and the path remains dark, I must hope that tomorrow the path will be clearer and that something will emerge. And I hope that what emerges will be authentic, at least to me and perhaps to some others. Finally I desire that this work, this expression of my own personal being will connect me, bring me into a closer relationship with others in this universe that I may never see and know, because I desire with a great desire to be a part, if only a tiny part of the mystery of this universe -- that envelopes you, that envelopes me and contains us all.

Amy Moffit -Spotlight on Convergence

It is really impossible to understand what is happening at Convergence without hearing the stories. We are going to begin providing space for feedback, comments and stories in our newslettters. Please email us if you've got something to share!

Our first feature is taken from a communion service several months ago. Amy Moffit shared her experience and now we are sharing it with you!

Convergence Testimony 3/30/08 – Amy Moffitt

Last October, my friend Cindi emailed me while I was visiting my brother out in Colorado Springs. She had been looking for a place where she could participate in an “Artist’s Way” group, and she’d stumbled across the webpage of a “church for artists”. She wanted to know if I’d come with her… in case it was weird. Weird things and Cindi combined generally equals a good time, so I said yes.

The place was called “Convergence”. One part of me –the juvenile, 14 year old boy part—sneered at the name and the concept. I imagined a bunch of stuffy, pompous “arteests”, staring down their noses at any newcomers… “are they REALLY artists?”. I imagined things I could do to distract myself if I got tired of it all… fantasized about bringing a whoopee cushion or suddenly faking a British accent or a seizure. In my own way, I was preparing to be really really intimidated.

The other part of me knew deep down that at one time I WAS artistic. I had won prizes for my poetry in high school and had edited the literary magazine in high school and college. I’d also sung. A lot. I’d led music and done solos for churches in England while I was living in Oxford and London and again in Roanoke and Fairfax, VA. I’d briefly joined the Royal Choral Society in London and the choir for the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception here in DC. I’d sung a solo of Panis Angelicus for the Archbishop of (I think) Nottingham in Oxford and blared brassy backup vocals for the CD my then-boyfriend was recording of a musical he’d written in Roanoke. Basically, I was a singer. But I hadn’t sung anything, at all, in almost two years…barely sung in the shower, even. That part of me, the artistic part, was excited and nervous about the church.

My first clue that the place was ok was David Hawkins, or “the blond guy with the tattoos” as I labelled him, whom not only was attending the church, but was reading a scripture passage at the FRONT of the church. Then Todd started talking about laments. Do you guys remember that service? And then he told us that we would be writing a lament… and I felt like I’d been waiting forever for someone to ask me to do just that. My pen hit the paper and the words just came. The tears started dripping down my nose and onto the paper. I pawed around for a tissue, dabbed at my face and kept writing. I still keep that Lament on my bedside table.

I read this out loud, and I was impressed that more than half the congregation also shared their laments. After the service, Doug cam up and asked me if I was a writer, which stunned me a bit. Then Pam came up and thanked me for sharing and praised my writing with real sincerity. I told them that, well, I used to write. And I knew that I’d be back.

At some point in my teens, I had come to believe that I –the voracious reader and constant writer and composer of songs and singer ever since I’d been old enough to do any of those things was bad and selfish for spending my time on such activities and not in the service of others. I think this was the message I got from Christian culture… that you couldn’t be a Christian and an artist.

So I did try to serve others. I co-led the prison ministry and worked in a soup kitchen in college. I led young adults ministries, taught Bible studies and kids camps, led worship, taught ESL. Then I got a job in the international student office and threw myself into that wholeheartedly. I lived with international students, socialized with international students, prayed for them, worried about them. Then I started a Masters degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution with the intention of going abroad when I was done so I could help those in need. Except that I didn’t want to. I didn’t like the Masters program, and I was burned out on helping people. Friends who went overseas came back burned out, sick, and disillusioned with how little they’d actually been able to do. The more I worked and studied, the more I felt I was parroting some version of what I thought I was supposed to be… like I was sleepwalking through somebody else’s life. My decisions in my personal life refelcted a sort of fatalistic detachment, as though I no longer knew who I was or what I wanted.

I am, honestly, still struggling with this, but a lot of it has changed since I’ve come to Convergence. I faithfully write my Artist’s pages every morning as I started in the Artist’s Way workshop. I’ve been indulging in reading books I want to read rather than ones I feel I’m supposed to, watching independent films that I’ve wanted to watch for years but felt guilty spending the time on it. I’ve started a blog and even started writing songs with Cindi’s help. I’ve started singing again, just a bit. I can honestly say that so much has changed as a result of my new belief that my creativity and my Christianity are 100% compatible, and that I have been given the gifts I have to use, and not just in ways acceptable to mainstream Christian culture. I feel like I’m reclaiming the me that God created me to be, not the useful drone that I was trying to be. I have a greater sense of integrity and wholeness now, like I’m no longer pretending. I’m not trying to save the world. I’m trying to be whole and to let God dictate my priorities rather than the workaholic culture… and I think I can already sense God blessing me as I slowly come into focus.

Amy's Blog

We Got the Grant!

I can't believe it, but the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship has given us a "Worship Renewal" grant to fund our "Fueling Creative Convergence Project."

The aim of the project is to ask questions and begin to find answers through collaboration. These are the goals of the project:

- To create an effective worship planning procedure which results in worship gatherings that include multiple voices, allow for the history and tradition of the worshiping community to be honored while allowing flexibility and freedom for the inclusion of creative elements to create new traditions and experiences.
- To better understand the ways in which the artist enters into worship and incorporate these into our worship services.
- To find the ways in which the artist may serve the congregation without being "used by" the congregation.
-To help the congregation understand how to have a Christ honoring relationship with the artist.

Here is the summary that was written for the proposal:
Imagine an initiative which infuses worship with creative expectation through deep integration of the exploration of the artist's role in the worshiping community. Suppose a church gave a collaborative leadership role to believing artists in worship planning to gain a deeper understanding of both the contribution and worship needs of the artist.

We have been given $13,000 to work on the project earmarked for several great opportunities including: Artist's in residence, creation of works, an intensive class offered to our team and communities on worship through the John Leland Center, Hosting a local conference for artists and church leaders to explore our findings and share new ideas and experiences.

Most importantly, we will embark on a journey to explore how to plan and worship together in an authentic, organic way which builds community rather than preference divisions. The project begins May 2008 and will continue through June of 2009. At the end of the project we will be invited to share our findings at a national conference of other grant winners.

Thank you so much to those of you who contributed to the grant proposal!! If you are at all interested in participating in the implementation of this project please let me know. You can read the Fueling Creative Convergence Project proposal here.