intersections

2011 Year in Review

I can't believe another year has passed into history. It's been an incredibly busy twelve months, full of milestones and new ventures, for me and my family. This brief update will give you a little idea in words and images, what we've been up to this year.

Family

Urban life is a little insane. There is always too much happening in too little time and space, but we can never complain of boredom. Elysabeth made an enormously courageous decision to start a new career this year. She is currently enrolled in the Vidal Sassoon Academy in Santa Monica. She began the one year program in  September and is looking forward to putting her considerable artistic ability to work styling hair. In February she also had a solo exhibit of her new paintings in Silver Lake. You can see her paintings here, and even purchase one!

Zoe started 6th grade this year in a new school - Renaissance Arts Academy - where in addition to her regular studies she is studying modern dance. On June 4th I had the amazing privilege of baptizing Zoe!

Sophie started 3rd grade this year at Franklin Elementary where she's been since Kindergarden and excelling in all her subjects! After school she continues to learn the piano.

Ministry

My ministry at the Hollywood Adventist Church is as rewarding as ever. This year we had the remarkable experience of partnering with a dozen or more Muslims from the nearby Islamic Center of Southern California and having some inspiring conversations about our respective faiths. On the 10^th Anniversary of September 11 we had the privilege of hosting Imam Jihad Turk, from the Islamic Center, to speak about peacemaking in our world.

Born in failure

Cross-posted from the Hollywood Adventist Church website.

Today is Friday, October 22, 2010.

That's 166 years since the same date in 1844 when groups of Millerites expected Jesus to return to earth on that day to set up his eternal kingdom. In the aftermath of that disappointment a core of those devastated believers clung to their hope of the soon return of Jesus and end of sin and suffering. From the pain and turmoil of those early days the Seventh-day Adventist Church was born. I've always found it interesting that our church's founders are among those "crazy" people who actually predicted the day of Jesus' return. In spite of that, I grew up with a kind of reverence for those early pioneers. William Miller's Bible study method was even praised and taught to me, in spite of the fact that it got him into so much trouble. Despite the ignominy of the event, Adventists have clung to this founding narrative.

At the same time we have tried to minimize the embarrassment. We have, in so many words, said, "We weren't really wrong, exactly. We were just mistaken." At least that's how I remember hearing the story told as a child and a student going through Adventist schools. What is it about religious people that prevents them from admitting to being wrong? Why have we made being right a spiritual value? Throughout history, doing right is a virtue, but not necessarily being right. But somehow, since the Enlightenment, we have elevated being right over doing right. In fact, doing right can often mean admitting that we haven't been right.

So there is a kind of ironic humor, it seems to me, in the fact that the church that believes itself to be the remnant church of Bible prophecy was born out of the embarrassment of being completely wrong in their interpretation of the Bible. I know, someone will still say, "They weren't really wrong, they were just mistaken." Sure. I see that you're trying very hard to not be wrong. But think about it. Utter failure & weakness. Isn't this the perfect place to start a new movement of God's Spirit?!

But such a movement's success will depend on learning to stay there. What if being God's remnant somehow required us to start with this crazy episode of being radically, profoundly wrong? What if the core lessons we needed as God started a new movement of His Spirit at the tail end of the Second Great Awakening, were the lessons of humility and agility. Perhaps God values theological agility over theological stability. Perhaps God values humility over perfection. Perhaps perfection is found in humility. Perhaps God values doing right over being right.

It seems to me that at this time in our church's history we could use to relearn these lessons of humility and agility. As the edges of our denomination seem to be hardening, let create a faithful Adventist witness which remembers our founding narratives and learns afresh that the greatest moments of hope arise from the deepest disappointments. If we listen we can  hear the footsteps of God's coming amid the noise of our apparent failure.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

Sojourners on Faith-Based Community Organizing

I was interviewed back in June for this Sojourners article by Daniel Duncan Collum, "Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Community Organizers?" (a question that the article never attempts to answer, except in the tagline.).

I appreciated the opportunity to share how community organizing has invigorated our ministry in Hollywood. Hope you enjoy it!

Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Community Organizers?

The Main Reason: They upend the power structure to give people at the bottom a better chance.

By Danny Duncan Collum

When Ryan Bell took over as pastor of Hollywood Adventist Church in California, it was a withering congregation with only about 50 active members. And, he says, “We had a homeless ministry we couldn’t afford and a debt that was about to kill the church.” Bell reluctantly closed the feeding program for the homeless but resolved to find a more practical way to address the issue.

Soon he discovered LA Voice, a congregation-based community organizing federation affiliated with the PICO (People Improving Communities through Organizing) National Network that was working to have the city create permanent supportive housing for the homeless in Hollywood.

The Adventist congregation threw itself into that effort, which succeeded against intense local opposition. After that experience, Bell told Sojourners, he went to the Voice organizer and said, ‘Where do we sign up to join?’” But the organizer told him that there had to be a committee of lay leaders involved. “I just groaned,” Bell remembers. “I thought, ‘That’ll never happen.’” But Hollywood Adventist is now an integral part of the LA Voice federation working for affordable housing.

Read the rest here

Meet me in Atlanta

I leave for Atlanta on Sunday, June 20 for the Innovative Impact conference and then the Adventist General Conference Session. Here's where I'll be. I'd love to meet you if I haven't have that chance yet.

June 20 - 22
Innovative Impact - on Monday evening there will be a screening of Stained Glass: Hollywood Blvd, after which I'll be speaking and fielding questions about the film and our church. Hope you can make it!

June 23 - 29
Find me at the "Big Tent Adventism" booth where I'll be helping out with Spectrum/Association of Adventist Forums and also promoting New Name Pictures. Come by and get a DVD of our latest work and learn more about New Name Pictures.

See you in Atlanta!

Faith for Justice

Today we launched our new PSA called Faith for Justice. This is a follow up piece to our first PSA, I'm a Social Justice Christian and broadens the issue to an interfaith conversation about the centrality of justice to our respective faiths.

Please watch the PSA, visit our website - www.faithforjustice.org - and pass the word along through email, Facebook and Twitter to as many people as possible.

The Grace of Not Knowing

Cross-posted on the Spectrum Blog/Spirituality section. Join the conversation there as well.

The Hollywood Adventist Church has had a slogan for the past 8 years which you can still see on our website. It reads, “Where God’s Spirit is given space to change lives.” This is the most significant piece of theology that I have ever encountered at a Seventh-day Adventist Church. This statement predates my ministry in Hollywood by 3 years and when I first read it I wondered, “Is this wishful thinking, or is this truly what this church believes and embodies?”

No church completely embodies its highest ideals for itself, but I have to say that this statement has profoundly shaped my congregation. It is the thing I love the most about Hollywood. However, structuring a congregation around this statement is no simple task. It is messy and unpredictable.

One of my favorite statements about the Spirit is in John 3:8 where Jesus says to Nicodemus,

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

The movement of the Spirit is a mystery. It is not linear, and therefore not predicable. In fact, the Spirit’s movements sometimes appear random, confusing and contradictory.

But we have been raised in a modern world that prizes predictability, control, and measurable outcomes. Pastors today are caught in the liminal space between a modern industrial worldview and the spiritual realities of leadership in a postmodern culture. There are very real expectations placed upon pastors and church leaders – solid Biblical exposition, spiritual guidance, programs that meet their needs and the needs of their families. Conference administrators expect the church to grow in membership and attendance through new baptisms and accessions to the faith, as well as financial growth and stability. These expectations are reasonable in most cases.

Yet, in a rapidly changing, post-Christian world, these expectations create an almost unbearable pressure and anxiety for church leaders. I know. I’ve felt this pressure with such intensity that it has nearly crushed me a time or two or three. Congregations and Conference administrators expect pastors to know what to do. But here’s the dirty little secret: we don’t know what to do! And we’re scared to admit to you that we don’t know what to do.

I'm a social justice Christian - the latest news

Thank you to everyone who has watched our PSA and shared it with others. In under 48 hours we have over 4,200 views between our YouTube feed and our Vimeo feed! There have also been some other nice developments.

First, I was invited to blog about "I'm a social justice Christian" at The Huffington Post. That post appeared yesterday. Here's an excerpt:

When I talk to Christians about justice, many will say it's the responsibility of the church to take care of people; we shouldn't expect the government to do that. There is a partial truth to this. But here's the rub. First of all, we live in a pluralistic society and not everyone is a Christian, to say the least. Do we really mean to say that only people who belong to a church can receive the care they need? And secondly, even if you grant that people outside the church should be cared for (as most Christians would), some issues, like health care, are too big for a local congregation to handle alone. In many cases, such as human rights and public health, our person-to-person solutions are too small.

Read the whole thing here.

Yesterday evening I was invited, along with the director of the PSA, Leslie Muse, and one of the pastors that appeared in the PSA, Rev. Neil Thomas, to speak live with Ian Masters radio program on KPFK called Daily Briefing. You can listen to our conversation here.

Please help us keep this going by sharing these pieces with others!

I'm a social justice Christian

Below is a Public Service Announcement that I've been working on for the past two weeks, produced by the film production venture I co-founded, called New Name Pictures. It's entitled "I'm a social justice Christian.

Please watch it here and spread the word! Also, to see other resources associate with them campaign and to keep participating as new PSAs are created, go to our website - www.socialjusticechristian.com.

Ash Wednesday 2010

This is a video my friend, Leslie Foster, made of our evening Ash Wednesday service. It captures so well the mood of the evening: somber but lively.

Ash Wednesday at the Purple Church from Leslie Foster on Vimeo.

A meditative view of the evening Ash Wednesday service at the Hollywood Adventist Church. Testing out the latitude of Traveling Muse's new Canon.

Hating on the Purple Church

One of the occasional pastimes of people in Hollywood is hating on our church building. I've had plenty of people rave about how they love the unique "atomic" architecture of our church, but lately I've been running across blogger who have been posting these little drive-by screeds. Like John W. Smart, for example. I don't know who he is but today he writes a post about my church called, "Los Angeles eye sore of the day."

But it's okay. I can embrace this weakness for the sake of the work we're doing in the community. We're making good use the facility whether it's considered beautiful by everyone or not. I admit to hating the building when I first arrived, but I've really grown to appreciate it. Everything, that is, except the block walls and black iron fences that surround the place. Ah well...