I often sit thinking about titles for a long time...usually, I have a few I turn down. This time (but not last time) I had a few, then went with a line from a song as I'm listening to it...so much for thinking about things beforehand.
My fourth week of full time fund development is at a close. It was the worst week yet...not usually something you want to say after week one. Well...I don't know, maybe it wasn't worse than week one...but it has nothing on weeks 2 and three. I think I just thought I was on a roll after last week, but I wasn't, apparently....and this week was kind of a setback it would seem.
Anyway, I'm pressing on. That's all I can do.
And I'm probably not getting a job in the meantime. I had two interviews at Meijer(two of three...yeah, they think their barely above minimum wage job is that much better than most far better paying jobs...)...just to find out after the second interview that they were looking for someone permanent. That brings up two questions: why didn't they say that when I told them why I'm fund raising and why I can't work evenings, and why in the world is Meijer that adamant about getting permanent empolyees? Sure, it makes business sense...but do something for the community for crying out loud, and hire people in between places....Meijer should, by design, create jobs as stepping stones to better things....it's like a college saying it's looking for students that will be around more than 4 years....that's a terrible model. I'm really wrong on all sorts of economic levels about this, but I think it would be better for everyone if places like meijer, McDonalds, Wal Mart, places in malls, etc. would set up most of their jobs as stepping stones...not as careers. I don't mind that much...sure, I'll be pretty broke all summer, but that's alright...I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I cared that much about money.
My mom has finally graduated and been pinned as a nurse. That's really wonderful...it's been a long road.
That's part of why I had a slow week on the FD trail, but it's worth it, to celebrate once in a lifetime things with my family.
I'm going to a VBS program tonight. Apparently, there will be puppets. Mostly though, I'm going to meet Peter's girlfriend, whom I've heard tons about, but never met. They have either a very tame relationship or a very off-of-facebook relationship, because other than the status that declares their togetherness, I don't see much of the obligatory wall posts or the sort...which, if anything, is pretty refreshing, because I feel like I'm meeting a new person tonight...and that's almost rare these days, if you know anything about someone.
I've been thinking a lot about the "emerging Church" these days...I found a blog all about how wrong it is to try to be post-modern to embrace the post-modern...I've got a lot of problems with this, philosophical, theological, and emotional...but that's not for right now...don't believe anything you read about post-modernism on a blog or by a Christian especially if it's a critique...I know I write a lot about the topic, but you can take that or leave it...the problem with the post-modern really is that it's true to it's own nature...it can't be grasped because nothing can. And I believe that Post-modern thought is much closer to the Biblical model of truth than Modernism ever was or could be. All Post-modernism really is is the acknowledgment that as humans, we need God to know anything at all...that's my spin (and Berkley's, oddly enough...), but it's the Christian version of how without a center existence really is....God is the center, but we, as humans, can only know God through God, so he's locked out to us unless he chooses to reveal himself to us...existence, as we know it, as we experience it, is based on subjectivity to each thing or thought...apart from what God steps in from outside to reveal or comment on....and you can say God isn't "outside" and sure, that's kind of true...but he's perfect, this world and us, are not...so he's separate, sanctified, even if not outside but I'm using outside much differently than we would normally define it....
Anyway, I don't want to ramble too much about that. I was talking about the "Emerging Church." I think we should scrap that name, when applying it to particular places or bodies of people. There can be The Emerging Church, which is, the young, post-modern group that acknowledge Christ as Lord and Saviour. But it can't be emerging forever, and part of my goal in being in ministry is to take it from emerging to prevalent and bigger...I think we should call places we now call "emerging churches," places usually with catchy names (707, journey, community of hope), "post-modern churches" if we have to use the word church (which we probably do for awhile yet). The Emerging Church seems too big a term and concept to relegate to small pockets around the country....it's also the case that places like Hip-Hop churches get left out, when I would arguing they are the exact same idea as "emerging churches", just not so white (or not so culturally white...the only one I've been to has a white pastor). The Emerging Church is the post-modern movement to decenter tradition and cut to the core of the gospel to do real, hands on ministry and not think so highly of ourselves...and I'm down with that. I honestly think calling the particular places "emerging churches" is a power move on the part of the bigger denominations and churches to keep them small, to keep them on the periphery (ala calling Malcolm X or MLK Jr. a radical), and not acknowledge that they are something pertinent and something powerful. If we start calling them "post-modern," that's a linguistic nod to the fact that it's the future of Christianity being born, because we live in a post-modern world. Bigger churches want to feel like they have something to offer...and yeah, they do...but the use of powerball linguistic tactics to accomplish it is not right. Calling the places "emerging churches" ties that movement to a particular style and place, but it's not at all a descriptive name, and it's not a name with which I've ever heard one such congregation self-identify. By removing description, we remove acknowledgement. When the movement can be emerging and the churches post-modern, I think we'll have taken a step in the right direction.
I once wrote an essay, my sophomore year, descrying political correctness in the name of free speech. I still believe in free speech...but I'm not at all against "political correctness," but I do know that the inclusion of "political" in that name is a way to say, not really correct. But I think what it's signfying, the sign it's giving off to reader and listeners, is correct...I think it's right to use words to create the most correct and right and non-discriminatory signal for something or someone. So let's drop political and just be correct. I'm not against free speech...say what you want...but you can be wrong.
Facing a Task Unfinished gets me through a lot of things.
Check it out sometime.
It's #174 in Hymns II
-Zack
" Take me for anyone but me
All that you feel is never true"
-The Smashing Pumpkins
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