Core Commitments

This last Sunday we walked through something we call the "core commitments" of our community. The core commitments were something we developed over some months, opening it up to input and comment and revision from the whole community- they represent a broad stroke vision of what it looks like to commit to a community that doesn't have official "membership."

At evergreen, everyone is free (as I said on Sunday) to define their relationship to the community. But we want to recognize that there's a difference between someone who (very legitimately) says "I'm just kind of dipping my toes in the water and checking things out" and someone who says "I think I'm ready for the deep end." It's good to know what the relevant and practical differences between the two places are, even while journeying from one to the other and even while being, perhaps, somewhere in between...

Our Core Commitments and then some thoughts...

on Life in the Way of Jesus- Evergreen is a distinctly Christian community, and though one does not need to be committed to Christ to participate in it, this community as a whole is committed to seeking God through the person of Jesus. For those who are following Jesus, this means commitment to living life in the way of Jesus, and to introducing others whenever possible through word and deed to the person of Jesus. We commit to time spent listening to God individually and as a community and to living out life in the way of Jesus for the glory of God, and the good of the city of Portland.

on Presence- part of being a part of a community is being present. We commit to being present physically, emotionally and spiritually at community events whenever possible, and present to others in the community, giving them the gift of our attention, our wisdom and our friendship as well as our prayers. We commit to time spent with each other, formally and informally, whether in Sunday gatherings, home groups, or in each others homes and over meals, and seeking a balance in our relationships between those within the community and those who are not.

on Giving Yourself- Evergreen is committed to organic, non-programmatic ministry. All that to say, if you don't do it, no one else will. Being a part of evergreen means making significant contributions to who we are becoming as a community. We commit to giving our time and our skills and passions as well as our financial support to this community. We commit to praying for evergreen, for its continued health and service to God and to Portland. We commit to missional living in the city of Portland, serving others for the good of the city and for the sake of others knowing and esteeming the person of Jesus.

on Discipline- A large part of being in community is teaching others, making substantial contributions to their lives, as well as being teachable, being open to learning, changing, and occasionally, being corrected. Very, very rarely, a church community needs to confront someone (as in the case of a spouse who is cheating on a husband or wife). In this instance, every attempt is made to approach the individual in a sensitive and listening way, but at times, when someone refuses to listen, refuses to stop hurtful/sinful behavior, church discipline needs to be enacted on behalf of the entire community through the agency of the elders. We acknowledge the authority of the community in our lives enough to listen and we commit to loving the community enough to speak. When we see someone acting in a way that is hurtful to themselves or to others, we accept the responsiblity to speak to them in a loving manner.

on Leaving Community- When, for some reason, someone decides that he or she no longer wishes to participate in the evergreen community, it is important to let the community know, and to let them know why. Rather than simply disappearing or jumping to another church community, commitment to community means informing someone (whether that be an elder, or someone else with whom you have a relationship at Evergreen) of a decision to withdraw. Part of community life is being open with one another, and the future absence of someone will affect the entire community. The reason we ask you to tell someone is that 1. We value your presence and want to know if you choose to be part of another community. 2. You probably have something to tell us, something that we need to hear.

on Our Core Values- Our presence as part of the evergreen community signals our commitment to the core values of the community. We commit ourselves to missional living, to justice, to participation in the community, to giving the gift of hope to others and to seeing ourselves as part of the story of the people of God.

We've always conceived of our local thing of evergreen as being a centered, rather than a bounded set kind of community. I was thinking through this over the last day, reflecting on Sunday and realized...
Really, what we did Sunday was implicitly introduce yet another metaphor for community- the relational set (ht to Doug Pagitt for the metaphor- I think he got it from Dwight Friesen).

Evergreen tries hard, while recognizing the reality of the bounded set nature of the Church-with-a-capital-C Body of Christ, to allow our community to be a centered set- a group of people with Jesus in the center, not feeling the need to define who's in and who's out, but rather to allow people the freedom to come closer or remain at a distance, but all the while inviting them ever nearer the center of the community, which is Jesus.

I think that each metaphor works really well in some areas of conversation and less well in others. There's time for bounded set talk. Some people really are "in" the Body of Christ, and some are not. But to insist that there be strict 1-to-1 correspondence between the Body of Christ and the local church community is simply unworkable. It leads to the kinds of things we have seen in the churches we grew up in- clearly unregenerate people who were on the "membership rolls" because they were willing to jump the hoops and clearly regenerate people who weren't. I guess I take a wheat and tares approach to the local church and believe that God knows who is who- it's my job simply to invite everyone closer and closer to the center, to Jesus, and to mark significant places along the way (as with baptism).

Occasionally we are going to have to recognize that our communities exist in the paradoxical places of being a bounded set (by virtue of the spiritual reality of the Body of Christ), a centered set, and a relational set. While understanding the bounded set reality, and functioning as a centered set (kind of like "believing like a Calvinist and preaching like an Arminian"), relational set thinking has a role as well. The fact is, even with a centered-set, it's pretty clear that some people are stake-holders and some are not. Some are invested and some are not. The beauty of relational set thinking is that in and out is determined by the individual- am I in relationship with this community? And on what level?

I recognize though, that bringing up DTR (define-the-relationship) questions might be uncomfortable for some... I was gratified to see the response of someone who was hurt pretty significantly in a previous church experience on our forum say:
"I listened carefully to all the things that were spoken about community sunday and even with all the negative background I have had with "Church Mandated Community", I felt invited to a table, as I would with my own family. Thanks for making what has in the past been spiritually and emotionally damaging, ......Approachable and Embraceable."

We did an experiential piece where for those who wanted to commit to community (even if it wasn't ours), there was an opportunity to place a piece of fabric in a community art work we created- two boxes that began as simple frames of wood, but as more and more people attached their strips of multicolored fabric became cool tapestry boxes- a visual illustration of everyone adding their piece and together making something cool that none of us would have alone (thanks Kobie for the idea and for putting that together!!).

I can imagine someone sitting there on Sunday who's maybe been hanging around for literally 2 years or more, holding their ribbon, struggling with "Am I 'in'?", "Am I not?", and "If not, why not?"

I can imagine there was probably some tension around that. I can also imagine (and prayerfully hope) that tension was potentially needed and potentially useful to God... if I've been on the fringes of this Christ-community for this long, what's really holding me back from taking a few steps closer to the center? What keeps me from saying "I'm in"? Those might be hard questions to ask, but...

Even as we think more process-oriented in our view of evangelism and church, giving people a place to belong before they believe, there are still places along the way that are ripe for having the DTR- the define-the-relationship talk. Brian McLaren uses the "midwife" metaphor in "More Ready Than You Realize" where he says: "The evangelist is never coercive, pushy, combative, rather, she is patient and gentle like a midwife, knowing that the giving of life takes time and cannot be rushed without potentially lethal damage." Amen! And having used a midwife with the birth or our daughter Jane, I think we can also say "She instinctively and prayerfully knows when it's time to help a birth happen- she reads the signs well, and knows that while rushing is bad, so is the opposite extreme- both can do damage."

My prayer for evergreen is that we be a community full of especially-skilled midwives... knowing when to help others relax and when to help them push, and seeing many people mark significant spots along the way as they journey towards Christ.

Comments

[Jon]

One of the many things I appreciated about our last pastor was that when somebody decided to leave our body -- and told him beforehand -- if they were willing, he would announce it on Sunday, and publicly pray a blessing on them.

[Kester]

Bob-

Could you shoot me an e-mail as to how this played out in your community. Our Immanuel community has been together since October and is trying to hash out how you recognize these differences without creating too much of an insider/outsider culture.

-Kester