John O'Hara is...

John

Thumb-typed via iPhone

Happy Independence Day!

John

Thumb-typed via iPhone

Long day.

After leaving ChurchWorld, the biggest and most difficult question I
had to face had to do with my identity. If I'm not a pastor at a
church, then who am I? Like many people reading this, my psyche had
become enmeshed in my work, and the past six months have been a
liberating, if not often painful, experience. And yet, ironically, it
has been through my "doing" - acquiring new skills, wearing aprons,
answering to bosses - that this untangling has taken place. Work,
good hard simple work, has empowered me to do my work and retain some
clarity about who I am apart from it.

So what am I doing? At the moment, I'm sitting on a mini fridge in a
warehouse in Napa on a rainy Sunday morning, raising cash for our
experiment (The Renew Project) in 50 cent increments. My routine work
has been as a Barista at Starbucks, which comprised of making and
serving beverages in our cafe and drive through. That job has just
ended, and I am now preparing myself to start a new job as a route
sales driver for Oroweat (bread and pastries).

Going out and finding work was one part necessity - gotta pay the
bills - and one part philosophy. It was very important to us that we
leave behind the apparatus of salaried, full-time pastoral work, in
order to view life and the whole concept of ministry through the lens
of everyday people. We still spend around 8 hours per week seeking out
and raising financial support for our project, which will be the
subject of my next post. Viewed through the "work" lens, support-
raising has been our opportunity to deal with ego and become humble
beggars for the sake of the Gospel. It also helps us stay afloat
financially and save up for small, intentional experiments in
spiritual formation among our neighbors in Temescal.

But "doing" isn't regimented merely to paid work and ministry support.
My doing has also included an amazing season of being more present to
my family than ever before. We play games, swing on the monkey bars,
prepare meals together, read together. We pray together and tell jokes
together.

Viewed from a marketplace perspective, leaving a reliable job with
decent pay to work at Starbucks would seem foolish. Believe me, at
times it felt foolish. But we are learning to view our lives and our
world through new eyes, and live into the delicate balance of being
and doing.

Part I of the story would be called "Living the Dream," in which the character played by me is found writing sermons, preparing slide show presentations, putting together volunteer teams and enjoying the fringe benefits of pastoral ministry: long, meandering lunch meetings, followed by long meandering coffee meetings, followed by in-depth Bible studies and fun trips down philosophical rabbit trails with my peers. Everything about Part I made sense and was deeply rewarding because it hinged on a basic plot line, namely, that what we were working on - dynamic, entertaining, engaging church services - is the linchpin of spiritual formation. In this plot, going to church and participating in its' programming is the pinnacle of Christian self-expression in the world.  I think this is especially so in the Charismatic realm, where altar calls and the like are readily embraced as life-changing moments of spiritual empowerment: physical healing, emotional lift, and intellectual challenge are all expected to take place to varying degrees.

So what happened? I liken this turning point part of our family's story to the Disneyland experience.

When I was a kid, I might have visited Disneyland once or twice, and both occasions distant enough to my memory that, by the time I was a teenager, I had no emotional connection to the place. I knew it existed, but I really couldn't remember tasting it. Well that all changed when I was in high school: our youth group took annual trips to the Magic Kingdom, and soon enough I found myself logging annual trips down Interstate 5 to Santa Ana and Anaheim to the Happiest Place on Earth.

After my first youth group excursion into Disneyland, I was completely hooked. I literally wanted to live there. Really - I remember walking through New Orleans Square, theme music playing softly in the background, and gazing up at the second story lofts wondering what it would take to get a room inside the park. To my mind, nothing seemed so sublime as living inside the experience.

There's a temptation from within Christianity, with our deeply-developed subculture and heartfelt connections, to live inside the experience. In fact, that's what we usually measure in churches to gauge our effectiveness: how many people are clicking through the turnstiles, how frequently, and how much are they contributing to our programming in time, talent or treasure?

To this day, I still adore Disneyland. Gabriel's been there, and I hope to take Josh soon. Disneyland holds a place deep in my heart, because I've had amazing experiences and want to share that same experience with my kids. In a similar fashion, our church structures are very important on a cultural level - they're a touchstone for people, reminding us to extend peace to one another, pray with one another, recognize God among us. Great religious experiences bring us back into the rhythm of spiritual formation, just like Disneyland brings us back to the magic of childhood.

But to live there is another proposition altogether. Some of us make a go of it: season passes to the theme park, or alternately, making sure the right worship songs are playing on our car stereo at all times. But try as we might, we cannot live at Disneyland, and we cannot live in ChurchWorld, either. There's the mundane stuff of life we must constantly attend to: paying bills, dealing with sickness, going through the daily grind, dealing with boredom, learning to be still, learning to listen. Many churches recognize the importance of this connection and do their best to offer practical helps: seminars, classes, themed teaching series. It's a step in the right direction, and one I think will result in greater harmony between religious expression and actually cultivating spirituality. But even at the end of the greatest sermons ever preached, everybody grabs a doughnut and walks across the sidewalk into the real world, where for professing Christians, practicing the presence of Jesus really begins.

So here we are at Part II: "Waking Up." The dream is good, and I still kind of envy those who have made a career of working at Disneyland/ChurchWorld. I enjoy visiting and making the most of that experience. However, my heart is moved to work with and live among the people who are deeply spiritually inclined, but have lost faith in the theme park. Some people who love the park - programs and services of the local church - will look at this move with a little suspicion, perhaps even wonder if we've lost our way or even betrayed the church. All I can say in response is, I believe the church is more than what is produced at designated locations on any given Sunday, and we're willing to be misunderstood if it means we get to embrace the opportunity to become the church in the day-to-day world of our local context.

He told me, "John, there are plenty of people who believe in you, and
they want to believe in what you're doing. They just don't understand
it."

This friend wasn't the first to hint at my tendency to be obscure with
my language. Part of it is intentional on my part; it's a rich
tradition to hide ideas in plain sight, behind words, in a way that
invites readers to exercise their own reasoning power. On the other
hand, I have to be honest, sometimes my writing is so coded and
esoteric that even I don't know exactly what I'm getting at.

Hence, an attempt at this, a new series of posts I am dedicating to
simple, straightforward explanations. Okay, maybe not straightforward.
But I will try to keep it simple, and express concretely some answers
many of our friends and followers have been waiting for:

- Why did you leave Church World?
- What are you doing now?
- Why are you asking for money?
- Are you still a Christian?
- Why does Google Wave suck, and what are you doing to fix this?

Maybe I should stick to the first four questions. In my next post,
we'll start with the first one:

Why Did You Leave Church World?

The iPad is allegedly going to revolutionize personal computing and
the way we interact with the Web. If this is truly the case, then our
reading habits -- and writing style -- will be influenced by the
technology.

So let me say it again, unequivocally: I'm going to write an entire
book using the iPad, to be read on the iPad, for the first person or
group to donate a new iPad to the Renew Project.

I don't know if I'm the first person to issue this kind of challenge,
but I hope it starts a small wave of interest among publishers,
distributors, authors and readers. Let the bidding - and writing -
begin!