Our Many Voices
When our perception of audience changes what we say… also just pondering blog pace slow down
I’ve been on a bit of a slump here on the blog, or perhaps I shouldn’t call it that: more like a summer lull. We travelled much of June and the first two weeks of July I hosted two camps at church, a week of Queer Camp and a week of VBS.
This week I’ve been catching up on all the things I postponed those weeks, including writing a study project grant and visiting our homebound members.
But I did manage to post some reflections on social media, including some long-form posts (that’s my jam). Which has me noticing once again today how I sometimes shift voice depending on audience. I find it far easier to “find” my voice when I have an immediate audience. It’s probably why I love social media and this blog but sometimes shift into a far less easy and natural voice when trying to write something for print publication.
In order to finish the grant application I tricked myself by just telling myself I was writing a social media post about it, and then the words came…
I’m including a couple of recent posts here especially for readers of the blog who aren’t connected on social. You can follow me here if you’d like: https://www.facebook.com/schnekloth
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July 27
This Sunday we are trying an experiment at GSLC, a format we will likely continue throughout the year. We are initiating a “fifth Sunday” where our worship gathering is done otherwise.
I think a lot of us agree that there is much to love about traditional worship: liturgy, listening to a sermon, praying, corporate hymn singing.
However there’s not a lot of room for some other things, in particular time to really know, talk with, console, support, cherish, the body of Christ as it gathers.
So this Sunday we are having an ice cream social for church. We are planning some intentional mixers that will help all of us overcome some of social anxieties and engage one another.
I’m also hoping people will share a lot of smiles, hugs, awkward sidelong glances, diverted gazes, all the ways we relate to one another as actual humans in this thing called church.
We will provide the ice cream (and also sorbet etc for those with dietary needs). You bring cereal toppers and other toppings. A few folks may bring waffle irons for a value add.
We’d love to have you join us. 10 am Sunday. It’s not gonna look like church you have known and it might be a big sticky mess but how else do we be the actual body of Christ in the way Christ invited?
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July 25
Clergy in our denomination have a designated amount of time they can invest in continuing education each year. For many years I took this time either to attend church conferences, work on a Doctor of Ministry, read and write on theological topics, etc.
More recently I've decided to experiment with seeing how secular conferences do their thing, and intentionally think about church and the life of faith in the context of the conferences.
Two years ago I attended WorldCon (the world science fiction convention) which was super generative in many ways. I'm still pondering much from that time, and wishing I could be in China this year for WorldCon. But, instead...
I'll be at Gen Con next week, the world's largest gaming convention. I've been thinking about gaming and religion for a long time, ever since I wrote Mediating Faith back in 2014. But I'm excited to attend Gen Con for many reasons, not the least of which is related to its strong focus on gathering role-playing gamers.
My oldest son will be there with me, and we're going to be attending some sessions in entirely new game settings (a LARP, Avatar Legends, etc.) plus playing some familiar systems (Shadowrun and Dungeons & Dragons). We're also just going to soak it all up, and I imagine you'll all see, for better or worse, some long blog-like posts about games and life and conventions and all the geek things.
I'm also a Kickstarter backer for a documentary that will premiere at Gen Con: Dream's From Gary's Basement, which is about Gary Gygax, the famous founder of Gen Con and of D&D. Backers get to watch it digitally before the premiere, but it's fun to be a small part of stewarding that important story in our culture.
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July 24
One of the most common questions I get asked is whether or not you can be agnostic or atheist and join our church.
I always respond with: of course you can we have a lot of them that are already members.
It’s funny… I think over human history it may be ONLY in the modern era that it even occurred to anyone that believing the right things would be the condition for belonging.
For example in the medieval era, and I’m assuming this is descriptive of many places and peoples over most of human history, the average member of the church in Europe didn’t for the most part know what Christians believe. Even the priests didn’t. They just memorized liturgies in Latin (a language they did not comprehend except for perhaps the very learned clergy in urban area) and recited them in worship.
Everyone was a member of the parish. It was geographical not noetic.
Of course again you might get yourself in trouble teaching overtly against the faith of the church, but only a small small set of people knew enough of theology to even attempt that.
The vast majority were just members of the flock and belonged because they lived there and could quite easily participate or not while keeping whatever it was they actually believed to themselves.
The world is still mostly like this. Even in these waning days of the dominance of evangelical Christianity people are taught you have to believe the right things to belong, but almost nobody actually believes all the things.
Here I like to simply say that quiet part out loud, and instead emphasize we put the believe, behave, belong in a different order.
We are more belong-behave-believe.
I’ll take an atheist in the pew pushing for housing first and lgbtqia inclusion any day over a Christian nationalist, or really even just any run of the mill precious Christian who prefers squishy comfortable aspects of 20th century majority western Christianity.
Give me some agnostics who are for a Universal Basic Income and like to sing old hymns sometimes.
Or a few pagans who think the best thing about Christianity was Jesus turning tables.
I don’t care a whole lot what you believe. I care much more whether you are engaged, and awake, and for the neighbor in their need enough to act.
I’d assume if we can’t believe apart from the work of the Holy Spirit that means we belong before we believe.
In regard to believe,behave, belong, or belong, behave, believe it is. Odd that someone purporting Lutheran confessions would not understand the proper order is faith (believe) , belong, behave as reflected in the Third Article. I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him. Our own reason or strength is Conscious thought. But the Holy Ghost calls me by the Gospel, enlightens me with his gifts ( This is subconscious thought. We are led by the Spirit.) [Believe] In the same way he calls, gathers and enlightens the whole Christian Church on earth [belongs] and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.[ behaves]. Your example does not recognize the work of the Holy Spirit.