Closing the Bible a Path to Transformation

How has closing the Bible improved our congregation's engagement with Scipture? Well, the journey began as we started this church when a mentor and friend asked why white people don't believe the Bible. "What??" I asked, certain that I had misunderstood what was being said. "We take the Bible very seriously" I shot back in defense. "But you don't know the stories," my friend replied. "You open the book, read them. Then close the book, and forget them." And a seed was planted in my heart and mind that I have tended now for 7 years.

We have done many things over those years to think about how one gets scripture inside of us in a way that make evident that this story is the story that shapes our every moment and that is available to shape your story in every moment. Some have met with some success. Others have been abysmal failures. This journey has been further guided by the reality that literacy levels in our community are low to begin with and in any gathering there is a very wide range of comfort with print media.

So, as pastor, I have given up preaching in favour of recovering the oral tradition of scripture itself. Well, not totally given it up. I preach in a very dialogical format once a month. The rest of my time I have committed to teaching scripture by hearing and sharing what you have heard.

Currently we use a method of scripture study called, "Simply the Story" and use it as the teaching tool for our House Church gatherings.

It is a method of learning the story of scripture by hearing not seeing and then passing that on to the group as a way of getting the story "in" people's hearts and minds. One of the guiding ideas being that one need not be literate to be a disciple of Jesus and even a teacher of the word. Our culture, however has gotten so print focused that we have unwittingly excluded many who do not learn well in that way.

For those of us with higher levels of literacy it has been a challenge to abandon comfortable and familiar ways of learning and communicating. And we find ourselves engaging scripture anew as we learn these new (but very old) skills.

Our prayer and conviction is that God's Word never returns void.

Unity

The drum beat reverberated off of the ceiling and walls, it echoed through my body. This sound I have come to associate with our church gathered and it directs my attention to God's presence among us. This afternoon though we are in a very atypical space for us and my heart is praying that this familiar sound is putting some at ease in what is otherwise an uneasy space. Usually we gather outside on the grass and the drum echoes off the buildings around. Other times we gather in a small hall and the drum dominates because of the small space no other conversation is possible. Today we are gathered united in worship though diverse in our expressions, our ethnicities, our styles and our communities of faith. Today we are gathered with our neighbours, both friends and strangers to worship together and to look around the room, reminded of what the body of Christ looks like in our neighbourhood, at least somewhat. One friend in the midst of conversation with me exclaims, "oh, I had no idea they were follower of Jesus" as a family from another congregation walks through the door. "We walk to school with them every day. My son will be so encouraged to know that he is not alone in his class." We are gathered in what is now known as Strathcona Church (funny since that is the name we chose for this blog 5 years ago). Up until a year ago it had been a Korean Foursquare Church with a mostly commuter congregation. Then, last spring it was purchased by a private family with a vision of stewarding this space for the use of various churches in a shared way. While conversation is still ongoing about who all will use the space on a regular basis this joint service was the first event held in the space. For almost a year pastors of incarnational churches in the neighbourhood have been gathering to pray and ask God if there are ways we could work together more intentionally. God's House has had a practice of inviting other churches to join us for Good Friday, Easter Sunrise and Christmas services. The Salvation Army had also been spearheading a month of prayer that we would all participate in, but we felt it was also time to gather collaboratively for worship and fellowship. Strathcona Church was a good venue for that and allowed us to all come into the space afresh. The service was organized by Strathcona Vineyard, Mosaic (Alliance), God's House (Baptist) and we invited The Salvation Army 614, friends who live in the neighbourhood but are attending church outside of it. We also invited churches that are newly planted and anticipated or had just launched; Coastal (non-denominational) and Vancouver Foursquare Church. On Good Friday we look forward to accepting the invitation from the Chinese churches in the neighbourhood (Mennonite and Church of Christ China) to expand our fellowship further, gathering again in the Strathcona Church space. Jesus prayed that we would be one. While we all have distinctive contributions it is encouraging to move toward greater unity in these gatherings. In fact it was a goal when we set out at God's House as a metric of health that we would see greater unity in the whole body of Christ. As with any sign of health, this is God's doing as we try and lean in to his heart.

Confronting the Powers in the Way of the Cross

Part 1: He Knows Your Name

It is Good Friday again. Our 5th as a community. Again, we take to the streets following the way of the cross.

Our first stop, Oppenheimer Park, is teaming with people on this beautiful sunny day in March. Oppenheimer is considered the "front yard" for mNy of our neighbours who are homeless or who inhabit rooms that measure 6'x9'. We listen to a Flamenco piece, done on strings, full of passion and tension, an almost palpable push and pull as we imagine Jesus betrayed by one with whom he has shared his life and for whom he walks this road.

Our gathering was noted by those hanging out in the park. Groups who come and go to "see the poverty" of our neighbourhood are common place around here, especially around holidays. And as we leave a woman calls after us in a drunken slur from the bench where she is sitting "I love you guys!!" Without missing a beat a voice from within our crowd yells back, "we love you too Hilda!!"

I am reminded on this way of the cross that Jesus too knew the names of neighbours as he walked this road, and called them by name, calling forth our humanity.


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Being Good Neighbours

One of the issues facing our neighbourhood right now is gentrification, and what it means to be a good neighbour when higher-income people are moving into a low-income neighbourhood, often displacing poorer people.  I (Beth) am currently writing a series of blogs about gentrification, and I invite you to engage with me in the comments section over on my blog. But on this blog, I wanted to post something written by another member of our church on the same topic.

Last year, a man named Mike Comrie wrote a letter to the National Post, describing his life as a middle-income father-of-two in the DTES.  It was fairly scathing, as you may guess from the title: "Raising kids amid the hookers, junkies and drunks of Vancouver's worst neighbourhood."  You can read it here.

Krista-Dawn Kimsey, a God's House of Many Faces member and mother of two, wrote a letter to the editor in response to Mike.  It was never published, to our knowledge.  But I'm very happy to post it here, and to showcase her excellent thinking and writing, and her gracious way of living in this neighbourhood.  I hope it spurs some further thought and reflection.

-Beth

---------------------


Dear Mike,


I would like to ask you if you see yourself as the “good neighbor” that you are looking for in the DTES. I am also a resident of the DTES and have lived here with my family of 2 kids of a similar age to you (3 and 7) for a few years. We lived right on Hastings Street for a year and now live a few blocks away from Strathcona Elementary. I can commiserate with you over the outrageous housing prices. I don’t see us ever affording to buy in this city even though both my husband and I are college graduates and come from middle class family support structures. I would also join you in inviting other families to raise their children in this neighborhood; it’s a great place for a family to thrive. But my recommendation to new families would be to please buy elsewhere if they share in your opinions of this community and place their hopes for the ideal lifestyle arriving at their doorstep through gentrification. What this neighborhood needs is better neighbors who seek the welfare of all its residents, not new neighbors waiting for cultural annihilation.

I’ve lived in major urban centers most of my life, in all kinds of neighborhoods and also have always had the choice to stay or go. My experience of the DTES is that it is the most welcoming place I have ever lived. This “disturbing new community” that you describe has been a foundational teacher to me and my kids on subjects like generosity, hospitality, acceptance and most significantly, respect. My kids love walking on Hastings, and we also accept the generous gifts of people who have nothing but want to affirm kids being kids. My kids have been given all kinds of gifts, from money to toys to tricycles by the “dodgy” characters that you refer to. The chorus of “kids on the block” to hide their drugs is a kind and respectful act by people who have not received a fair share of kindness in their life. The streets we walk on are their bedrooms and living rooms, not because they all want to live there, but because the city is refusing to listen to the community’s plea for dignified and affordable housing options. Kids are intuitive, they can instantly know if someone is safe or not safe. What they need are parents to teach them how to engage with people who at first glance to them seem fearful, not parents who affirm that there are people so different than themselves that you need to walk on the other side of the street to avoid them.

Perhaps the bus stops and streets are dirty because neighbors who are not living in crisis have not taken responsibility to care for one another. Do you really think there is a kind of human being that enjoys going to the bathroom on the street? Are there not hundreds of apartments and homes in the DTES filled with people with clean bathrooms? When the city is glacially slow to take on responsibility to provide a decent number of public washrooms, couldn’t we know each other’s names and stories enough to answer the door and see a friend who needs to use a bathroom, or a washing machine. People on the streets know each other’s names, they know what their lives have been like, they know when they go missing after 12 hours. Do you know your neighbors in your condo like that? Who is going to teach your kids that people are more important than stuff? It wouldn’t take too much time when you walk with your kids and see a bunch of needles on ground to pick them up and get the name of person who owns the closest sharps container. They are all over, and I’ve found people to be most grateful. We all want to be safe when we walk down the street, not just you.

You don’t have to look far for excellent neighborhood teachers here. People in the Carnegie Community Center know how to identify the dignity in each person in a second. Families in homes like St. Chiara’s, Servants and 614 can show you how to eat dinner with people suffering on a mental illness journey and oppressed by addiction without feeling afraid. I’ve found the best teachers are the ones who are sitting on the park bench in Oppenheimer, while my kids play. So many people in this community have time to share what they are passionate about, where they have come from, what they wish their neighborhood could be like. You could dream with them, and join them in the fight to have those dreams be taken seriously even though they aren’t going to bring big profits for the city. There are lots of people here who can fan the flame of courage to move you along the journey from initial contact to greater engagement and solidarity.

Where I wouldn’t look for help in creating a caring community is the police department. Our residents association invited them to address some people’s safety concerns. All they did was drill into us that there are “bad guys” who will do anything to get our stuff. How many more news stories to we need to see to know the truth that those who are the most dangerous to our kids are more likely to be in our own extended families, or living in quiet suburban neighborhoods behind closed doors?? When we did get the statistics in writing, it was clear that neighborhoods like Kits have higher rates of all kind of crimes than Strathcona and the DTES.

What the DTES really needs is for the city to listen to what the current residents have identified themselves to help them be better neighbors that have the ability to provide for themselves. The city’s refusal to listen to the community and block destructive condo developments like Sequel 138 are only going to bring greater responsibility to us all currently living here to model what a thriving community looks like. How can our current neighbors thrive when their basic needs of decent housing, healthy food and a good night’s sleep are out of reach for them? When Sequel 138 new neighbors sign their lease they need to sign on for a steep learning curve in how to look for and affirm our common humanity. Not use stereotyped preconceptions that identify “dodgy” people as unsafe and look for something to arrest them for. My neighbors won’t be arrested for their drug use because they do it in their backyard, where the smoke comes through my windows to my kids. But they sure would be arrested if they smoked in the breezeway of the Sequel 138.

I agree with you Mike, drug addiction does horrible, horrible things to a human soul. And all of us have a responsibility to speak, write and engage with each other that affirms our common dignity and our human right to thrive. The city is refusing to put those values into action by honoring their earlier policy of replacing 1 SRO to 1 unit of dignified social housing, so ever more new neighbors will be coming just because it’s a cheaper place to live. If these new neighbors like yourself are only coming in hopes that they will create a new kind of community to displace the one that established themselves here for decades, then the soul of Vancouver will be lost. Instead of waiting for something of value to come to this neighborhood, you could take time to make friends with your neighbors and realize the gems that have learned how to survive despite crushing odds. The people here are complicated, just like you and I. But I’ve seen just as atrocious behavior in residence association meetings from people with comfortable homes and 6 figure incomes as the brawls outside the bars. Violent behavior is everywhere, including ourselves. This community has its share of violence, but more often I’ve experienced it’s ability to listen, accept and have each other’s back. The city should be coming down here for lessons in how to develop a supportive community, and import those ideas it to the other neighborhoods that have created Vancouver’s reputation for being a difficult city to know anyone in.

So Mike let’s do the neighborly thing. Let’s get together over coffee and introduce our kids and hear each other’s stories. We could meet at the new doughnut shop down the street from you, the one that sells them for $4.50 each. I’ll bring a friend of mine on welfare and we can start the conversation by brainstorming how he can pay for his dinner since his $8 allowance to live that day went to a coffee and doughnut.

Sincerely,
Krista-Dawn Kimsey

A Nation Not Our Own

A long day's journey from where I live, there resides a small nation surrounded on all sides by a far larger, far stronger nation. Over time, this small nation has seen its borders trespassed, its children stolen, the sustenance of its land and water despoiled and eroded, its culture and language threatened with extinction, all by that larger nation which surrounds it. The life of this nation has been challenged now for over a hundred years, but remarkably-miraculously, even-its people still hold on to their heritage. Despite relentless efforts to eliminate their identity, they have not forgotten who they are. And now, faced with continuing threats to their self-determination and livelihood, they must hold on to that more than ever...

The above lines could describe countless indigenous nations all around the world. Whether "surrounded by" Canada, the US, Brasil, India, Australia, or numerous other nations, First Peoples everywhere have shared the oppressive experience of colonization. But lest we make a grave error, let us remember that this is not simply a destructive pattern belonging to a regrettable but finished past. We all move in the currents of history, and the channels it has dug are not undone in a day, a year, or even a hundred years. Colonization is a contemporary experience for indigenous peoples. And it is an experience I-a white, male, middle-class descendant of British settlers-profit from.

What does it mean to follow the God who delivers slaves from their oppressors in Egypt, when I am an Egyptian?

It's a question that led me last week to a territory about an hour's southwest of Houston, in central BC, the traditional lands of the Unis'tot'en clan of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation. At the Unis'tot'en camp, one family has built and moved into a cabin directly in the way of a proposed natural gas pipeline, the Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP). Here in BC, there has been a lot of noise about the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, transporting raw bitumen from the tar sands in northern Alberta to the coastal town of Kitimat, where it would be shipped overseas to China. There's a lot of good reasons to oppose it: dangerous potential for spills for tankers navigating to and from Kitimat, the several major watersheds in BC crossed by the pipeline, the fossil fuel dependence it would further entrench in the Canadian economy, devastating impacts of extraction practices on land, forest, water, and rural communities in Alberta... What people don't know is that Northern Gateway is just one piece of a whole Energy Corridor the Harper and Christy governments want to develop, including numerous pipelines crisscrossing BC, a new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Kitimat, and the Site C Dam. Northern Gateway is still under review, but PTP was already approved as of April this year. And if it is built, the Northern Gateway pipeline could very readily slip through along the same route, PTP paving the way.

This is what colonization looks like today. Historically, large swaths of land in BC were never legally ceded over by First Nations peoples to the government, meaning much of this industrial development is essentially illegal, imposition on foreign lands. At the Unis'tot'en camp, the Wet'suwet'en First Nations are again taking up their territorial responsibility, asking all visitors - politicians and corporate reps included - to abide by traditional protocol analogous to the United Nations' requirement for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) with indigenous peoples. When I arrived at the camp, I was asked to explain who I was, why I was there, and whether I had been involved in industry harming their traditional territories. It was their decision whether I would be allowed on their lands. Anyone who fails to respect this protocol has been turned away.

In respecting their protocol, however, I experienced a profoundly humbling welcome, one of gracious acceptance rather than arrogant entitlement. I stayed with the family and some of their other allies about four days, long enough to do a little cabin renovation, chop timber and cook on a wood stove, almost freeze in an attempt to sleep outside in the wintery conditions, and to dip my head into the rushing waters of the nearby Morice River, one of the few uncontaminated rivers remaining in the area. I left with a strong desire to return, to continue my own journey out of Egypt by walking alongside an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination.

Posted by Jason Wood member of God's House of Many Faces


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Children and Poverty

BC has the highest percentage of child poverty in the nation. This is something that should not be! But it is.

We are not sticking to the rules for the challenge in regard to the child in our household. It is good for him to experience limits in terms of choice. Every morning he asks, "how many more days do we have to have plain oatmeal for breakfast?" And then groans no matter the response. One more day is too many in his mind. But I am not worried about that. I am worried about the parents who have to feed their children on this amount of money and I honestly do not know how they can do it. The amount of bread and peanut butter we could afford this week ran out today, on day 3 and we don't even have to feed him lunch because he gets it at school. There is only enough fruit for one serving every other day and 3 carrots, 3 potatoes and a spaghetti squash are all the veggies we could do and we aren't eating meat or eggs. That again is for 4 people.

More than anything else I am struck by the plight of children and their parents when it comes to having to make do on this amount if money. This must be set right!


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Welfare Food Challenge

Many in our church are on social assistance. Almost all live at or below the poverty line. Personally I (Jodi) felt like taking the challenge this week to live on a food budget if $27/person would not be an especially big deal. We live on close to this amount most weeks. However I am starting to see things very differently. Today is day 3 of the challenge. Here are some of the "rules" that are making this pretty tough.

You cannot use anything you already have on hand. This includes spices or oil for coating a pan, a teaspoon of sugar or coffee unless it comes out of your whole budget. Since I am the only coffee drinker in the house, no coffee.

There are 4 of us in our household. Three adults and one child. We are cheating all over the place for the kid. Otherwise this is nearly impossible to do healthfully. More on that later.


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Gospel Seeds

July has been a busy month. Jodi spent the month with the Sicangu Lakota in South Dakota and then met up with 18 people from God's House for our second trip to the Wiconi Living Waters Family Camp and Pow Wow in Turner Oregon at the end of the month. Through out the month one question has been, why, after 500 years of missionary endeavors with the indiginous people of North America are there so few who would identify as following Jesus? And what, if anything, can be done now to rectify that? One Native elder who was asked this question responded, "The gospel was never planted as a seed in our cultures. A seed adapts to its environment, it takes on some of the characteristics of the life around it. The gospel was always brought to us as an already formed plant, a plant that had the characteristics of Western culture. Now we need to let the gospel be planted as a seed and see what will grow." It is interesting that when we first attended Wiconi Family Camp and Pow Wow, Allan, a Kwakwat'l man said that it was the first time he felt like he could be Native and Christian at the same time. Even though we use many indiginous forms in our ways of being church this was the first time he was seeing Native men and women worshipping Jesus in culturally appropriate ways. Not only historically, but even today I am amazed at how many Native people I meet who believe (because they have been told it over and over and over again) that they need to choose between being Native or following Jesus, they cannot do both. But this is a complete denial of the fact that culture bears some aspect of God's glory. That culture is an expression of our humanity and yes, our humanity is fallen, and something of its true nature is obscured by sin, but it is also an expression of the nature of God, we are made in God's image, and our cultures will also bear something of God's image. The gospel both brings out the "God light" in culture and corrects the lies of sin in culture. Missiological practice tells us though that it is the people in the culture who, by the Spirit of God are able to discern what is of God and what is not. However it is outsiders to Native culture who continue by and large to say what cultural practices are of the devil and what of God, without an insiders understanding of those practices, and the seed of the gospel continues to not be given space to take root.

Goal Posts: What are we trying to do here?

Recently as a community we went through the core values we wrote down over 3 years ago. These were to shape what we were setting out to do, and yet were written in a void, based on educated guesses about the needs and dynamics of the community. It was a little scary for me (Jodi) to put these in front of our whole community to examine, evaluate and dream with. Yet at the end of the process I was deeply encouraged by our re-committment as a whole community to essentially the same values we had set out with. In the next few posts I would like to lay out some of these values and a bit of the work we did to translate those values into the particulars of our context and to dream about the gospel bearing fruit. Core Value: The gospel changes everything. The gospel is the "power of God" that changes unbelievers and believers alike. The gospel is wholistic in its nature, changing the spiritual, social, economic, political, cultural, ecological, emotional, physical, moral, judicial, educational, and familial dynamics of individuals and communities. As gospel people we desire to be wholistic in our ways of representing the gospel in our community. We explored where we have seen these things happening in our community currently, and were encouraged that we could give examples of the gospel working in our community in each of these areas. Two I want to touch on right briefly, are ecology and education. Our farm, Red Clover Urban Farm, is a hub in our life together as a community. As we care for the land that was otherwise abandoned in our neighbourhood we are also finding ourselves restored, and with something to offer to others. Check out our new website and the update as to what is going on at Red Clover Urban Farm

In the area of education we are gaining deeper insights into the dynamics at play around education in our neighbourhood. Those of us who are new to the neighbourhood are beginning to understand that residential schools have an affect being seen even today. We knew in moving into the neighbourhood that lots of kids were having trouble with school attendance. By grade 3 many kids of the low-income kids were only in school 2-3 days a week on average. Someone explained to me that while most people in the world see education as a road to improving your lot in life, for many aboriginal families education was still a painful part of a healing journey because of the generational impacts of the trauma of residential schools. What does the gospel look like as a piece of that healing journey? One mother in our community who's parents were a product of residential school, and whose partner is a residential school survivor said that she has hope that her son's children might be able to be free of the generational impacts. Her son, however is making great strides. As a 3rd grader he was attending school 3 days a week. Now, in grade 6 he has had perfect attendance for the past 4 months and has only missed 15 days this whole school year. Please pray for kids, and families still struggling in this area.

Truth and Reconciliation

Did you know that Canada is in the midst of a Truth and Reconciliation process like the one that South Africa went through at the end of apartheid?

Read below for more information on this. I (Jodi) have had the privilege of working with a this group in BC on behalf of our denomination and God's House of Many Faces.

Over the past few decades,there has been an increasing awareness of the church's disturbing historical relationship with native people in Canada. The key role that missionaries played in the colonization of this land, and the specific task of administering Indian Residential Schools that certain denominations fulfilled, are both very troubling aspects of our history in this place.
In particular, from the 1870s to 1996 Canada established 130 Indian Residential Schools across the country, which were government funded and church run. These schools had the express purpose of eliminating parental involvement in the intellectual, cultural and spiritual development of Aboriginal children.
Survivors took the government and churches to court to address the harms of this system. The settlement involved 2 parts: compensation to former students and the implementation of a 5 year Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The mandate of the Commission is to learn the truth of what happened at the schools and to inform all Canadians of this truth as a means of healing and reconciliation (taken from the TRC website, www.trc.ca).
Here in BC an Ecumenical Coalition was called together at the request of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS) to be the hands tasked with ensuring that the process of the TRC becomes an opening in the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal persons whereby real healing and reconciliation can begin.
The Ecumenical group consists of party denominations (those responsible for running schools) and non-party denominations. While the TRC officially only involves party denominations, deep and lasting reconciliation requires all followers of Jesus to own our part in the attitudes that contributed to the schools, and to learn new ways of relating to Aboriginal persons in light of the wounding that has been done in the name of Jesus to our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. The Ecumenical group is committed to finding openings and opportunities within our traditions to further the work of reconciliation.
This work is important because 1) in the name of Jesus, the church in Canada colluded with the State to remove children from their homes and communities in order to "kill the Indian in the child"; 2) for the sake of the gospel, Canadian Christians need to know our history and be given the opportunity to repent of our misdeeds; and 3) for the sake of reconciliation (the primary task of Jesus our Saviour) we must examine and renounce the doctrines and traditions that allowed us to justify and perpetuate this sin against our brothers and sisters.
In South Africa during apartheid, a group of theologians across a variety of denominations got together and wrote a document renouncing the practice of apartheid and the church doctrines and traditions that supported it (see http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/kairos-document-1985-0#.TyWPM8ikeOI.mailto). Survivors of Indian Residential Schools in Canada are asking that the same thing be done here.

The Deserving Poor

(originally posted on Beth's personal blog)

Not long ago, I read a blog that raised an interesting question: why do Christians and churches in North America tend to give more to the poor overseas (especially to Africa and to places where natural disasters have occurred) than to the poor in their own cities?

Robb Davis, the writer of the blog I read, thinks it has very little to do with the fact that overseas poor people are poorer than our poor people.  He thinks it has more to do with the fact that we generally see overseas poor people as deserving, and our own poor people as undeserving, or at least less deserving.  I tend to agree.

Whether or not we care to admit it, I think we all have a subconscious scale of who really deserves our help (money, mission trips, prayers, attention).  It probably looks something like this:

MOST DESERVING

Children born into poverty in third-world countries

Victims of natural disasters
Adults in third-world countries
Prostituted women in other countries, trafficked into North America
Children born into poverty in North America
Adults in North America who have lost their jobs due to the recession
Adults in North America who have never had stable jobs
Prostituted women born in North America
Drug addicts
Drug dealers and other criminals
Sex offenders

LEAST DESERVING 

Ok, maybe that list is splitting hairs a bit.  But I do think we have this natural tendency to decide who deserves our help based on how much we think their choices led them into their circumstances, that is to say, based on how much we think their poverty is their fault. Children in Africa definitely didn't choose to be born into malnourished, war-torn environments where they will receive little education and few opportunities.  We have no qualms about helping them.  Natural disasters are nobody's fault (or the developed world's fault, if you consider climate change), so we're definitely supposed to help those people.  Trafficked women were kidnapped or tricked into prostitution, so they're deserving - the worst we could accuse them of is naivete.


But prostitutes in my neighbourhood?  The popular opinion is that they're choosing to do that work.  And probably choosing it because they need to fund their drug addictions, and it's their fault that they're addicted.  No one forced them to do drugs.  And look at all the social assistance programs and advantages they have!  They get an education and plenty of opportunities like everyone else in North America.  So if they're still poor, obviously they lack initiative; they're just working the system, choosing to remain poor and taking welfare money from hard-working middle class people.  Why would we enable their bad choices by giving them more hand-outs?

This sounds harsh, and most of us don't go that far in our thinking, but believe me, when I am dumb enough to read the comments on online news articles about the DTES, I see far more scathing opinions about the poor people in my neighbourhood. 

I have begun to learn the real meaning of "choice" in the midst of the oppressive and degrading structural inequity that most people in my neighbourhood face.  Just this week I met a woman, who has likely been prostituted, in recovery for her addiction, using our hard-earned tax dollars.  She shared with me that she had been in twenty-four different foster homes over the course of her life.  Yes, she got an education... in fourteen different schools.  "Never really fit anywhere," she said.  No kidding.  The choices she has had to make and odds she has overcome just to get into recovery far outweigh any of my good life choices as a middle-class, stable-familied Masters-educated white girl.



So in light of this, who deserves our help? Who deserves our love? Who deserves our self-sacrificial giving?

In her book "Jesus Freak," Sara Miles tells a story about hosting a group of grade four kids at her church's food pantry program, and some of the questions they raised. They were concerned that some people who came to get food didn't really need it, or were cheating and taking too much. Like many adults, these kids didn't want anyone to take advantage of the church's generosity. Here's what Sara writes:

      "I talked with the kids about the idea of “taking advantage,” explaining that it was impossible to be taken advantage of as long as you were giving something away without conditions. “If it's a trade, than it's fair or unfair,” I said. “But if I'm going to give it to you anyway, not matter what you do, then you can't take advantage of me.”
     “How many of you have ever taken the best piece for yourself, or stolen something?” I asked, raising my own hand. Slowly, every hand went up.
     “How many of you have ever been generous and given something away?” Every hand went up.
     “Yeah,” I said, “You know, poor people cheat and steal and are really annoying. Just like rich people. Just like you. And poor people are generous and kind and help strangers. Just like rich people. Just like you.... In my church, we say that judgment belongs to God, not to humans. So that makes things a lot easier for us. We don't have to decide who deserves food.” (37)

I think Sarah Miles is on to something here. All of us do beautiful things and awful things, simply by virtue of being human. Yes, poor people in Canada cheat and steal. Poor people in Africa also cheat and steal, as I just confirmed in a conversation with a friend of mine who works in Darfur. Regardless of nationality, people who have been repeatedly abandoned and betrayed by others get used to cheating and stealing to survive. And yes, rich people cheat and steal, in ways that are often rewarded by society. All of us are sinners and letdowns, even the "noble" poor in the World Vision commercials. It's just that we're close enough to the poor in Canada to see their shadow sides. And they're close enough to make us feel very uncomfortable and guilty, and we can't just change the channel to push them out of our view.

Now, I do think we need to think carefully about the ways we try to help the poor, whether they're here or overseas, because our methods can often decrease their dignity and self-worth and increase their predisposition to want to cheat the system. Peter Maurin, a good friend of Dorothy Day's, said that we need to strive to make the kind of society in which it is easier for people to be good. This is a society in which we assume the best of one another, strive to see the image of God in one another, draw out each other's gifts and skills, love each other unconditionally over the long term, and uphold each other's dignity. In that society, no one will want to cheat the system, because they will belong; they will know they are needed, and they will have what they need.

This past Wednesday night at our worship service at Jacob's Well, a friend of mine did something that is really quite strange. She drew a cross on my forehead with ashes and told me that I was made of dust, and that one day I would die. She did the exact same thing to everyone in the circle, all of us, rich and poor... all of us bags of ashes and water, all of us sinners and sinned-against, all of us selfish screw-ups... all of us unable to be good on our own, unable even to sustain our own lives... all of us undeserving...

...all of us created in the image of God, the grateful recipients of unearned and undeserved grace, of each new day and each next breath...all of us empowered and sent to care for one another and to share with one another and to be healed and sanctified together. 

So, all of us - let's share what we have with everyone who needs it, in Africa, in Japan, in Canada, in the DTES, whether or not we think they deserve it.  And let's love each other so much that we want to be better people, in the knowledge that we'll never be good enough to deserve the love and grace God seems to want to keep lavishing on us.

Tales of an up-and-coming Fancy Dancer

(originally posted on Beth's personal blog)

Every Monday night since July, I have been trying out a new activity: First Nations traditional dance classes.

(Well, it hasn't been every Monday night... I took a bit of a break from dance after I stepped on a sea urchin while on vacation, but that's for another blog entry.) 


I will say this up front: I am the whitest regular attender of the drop-in class.  Last Monday, several new people joined us, so we did the customary go-around-the-circle-and-say-your-name thing, but we were also asked to share our tribal background.  There were Miqmaqs and Plains Crees, two Squamish girls, a Haida woman, a Gitxzan, and a few people from Tsawwassen nation.  When it was my turn, I said, "I'm Beth, and I am British/Irish/Swedish/Czech."

I am not only the whitest dancer, but also possibly the dancer with the least natural talent for dance.  Sure, I can move in time with a piece of music, but I have always lacked the confidence required to do it creatively and convincingly.  For much of my life, I have avoided school dances, and have made awkward small talk with other non-dancers during wedding receptions.


My whiteness and my lack of dance training combined to produce a fair amount of anxiety the first night I headed out toward the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre for dance class. As I walked, I rehearsed the reasons why I was going.

I need exercise.
The Friendship Centre is only a fifteen-minute walk from my house.  
The classes are free.

Those reasons were convincing (especially the last one, on a low-income pastor's budget), but they could apply to a lot of other potential activities.  They were not adequate to get me through the doors of the Friendship Centre.

I was invited to the class.  That was a better reason.  The teacher, who was fancy dancing at a National Aboriginal Day celebration put on by a local church, had invited the whole crowd to come to her class.  But I could still rationalize that the invitation wasn't specifically intended for a white non-dancer like me.

I tried to think of another reason.  I love to watch fancy dancing.  Fancy dancing drew me in from the first time I saw it, in Saskatoon, during my undergrad years.  I watched, dumbstruck, as the colorful ribbons of the dancers' shawls spun around them.  They seemed to spend more time in the air than on the ground, traveling by tiptoe, their feet stepping deftly, as though the grass under them were actually a bed of hot coals. Perhaps if I enjoyed watching it, I would also enjoy doing it.  Still, I had little faith I could reproduce such beautiful and free movement.

Thankfully, there was one more reason I had for learning to fancy dance, and this was the reason that pushed me over the edge: I believe I have a responsibility to protect and appreciate the cultures of my brothers and sisters, especially if those cultures have been denigrated, or threatened with assimilation and extinction. 


I co-pastor a predominantly low-income First Nations congregation in a neighbourhood that is home to one of Canada's largest off-reserve Aboriginal populations.  About a century ago, my people tried to take away the dances of their peoples; we called them evil and outlawed them in the name of Jesus.  We tried to rob them of many of the ways they worshiped their Creator and expressed their uniqueness.  We cut their hair, changed their names, and muted their languages.  It was only by their ingenuity and collective memory that they kept these cultural elements alive.  Today, some First Nations languages and practices are still very much in danger of extinction.

I have a responsibility to protect these cultures by virtue of being human, but even more so as a human who claims to follow Christ.  I believe that what my people did was sinful and unjust.  My Creator loves variety and values culture.  His plan for humanity is not for us to merge into a monoculture, but for all the kings and nations of the earth to march (or maybe dance!) into the holy city in our glorious diversity, bringing all our splendor (Rev. 21:24).

I did not think that learning to fancy dance would in any way undo the damage caused by my people.  I did, however, hope that it would take me a few steps closer to appreciating and understanding the beautiful culture I sought to protect in the name of Christ.  Besides, the slight discomfort and embarrassment I might feel as a white girl in dance class would, at most, be a small taste of the many marginalizing experiences most First Nations people face daily.

It turned out that my first dance class wasn't nearly as awkward as I expected.  Rather than explaining the steps, the teacher stood in front of me and demonstrated them over and over, which is a typically First Nations way of teaching.  She told me to keep trying them for the next hour of dancing.  I left exhausted but exhilarated.  It took me a full month to get a feel for the heartbeat of the drum, and many more months before I was able to combine the steps more creatively.  Now, I notice myself loosening up and relaxing.  I am even making a couple of friends. 

I am always ready to share my reasons for learning to fancy dance.  Yet to this day, not a single person at dance class has asked me why a pale-faced redhead would keep showing up.  Maybe in the future they will pop the question, but for now, they simply accept me as a fellow learner, laughing complaining with me during the warm-up abdominal exercises, and poking fun at me when I fail once again to anticipate the ending of a song.  It is a privilege to be so welcomed, and to work with them to preserve and promote something so beautiful.

Watch for me on the pow wow circuit years down the road.  I'll be the one blinding you with my white skin and my boss moves.

A video of one of my teachers fancy dancing.

8th Fire

Beth here.  Just wanted to draw your attention to a new show on CBC profiling the experiences and realities of First Nations people in Canada.  It's called "8th Fire."  I watched the first episode, and I found it quite visually engaging, educational, challenging, and balanced.  Highly recommended by me!

You can watch it on CBC on Thursdays at 9:00 pm, or you can watch it online whenever you want - just click on the photo below to find the links.

A Year in Review

2011 was evidently not a great year for blogging for us. Sorry about that. We have been busy, and we are still learning which makes it hard sometimes to make sense of what we are learning enough to talk about it. So thanks for your patience with us. We are trying to do better in this area.

Highlights of 2011:
We are celebrating almost one whole year of stable locations for our Sunday gatherings. We continue to meet outside in the warmer weather and consider this our "true home" in many ways. It is such a joy to worship in public space and watch how creative God can be in drawing people in. Mission Possible, a local mission group extended hospitality to us last February and using their space has been an extraordinary gift. We are able to accommodate a wide range of groupings and use of their industrial kitchen has added much to our life together. We have even been able to partner on occasion, including this past Christmas Eve (pic. of Christmas Eve band above).

This Easter on a cold rainy afternoon we celebrated our first baptism.

Our summer was dominated by two themes. First, Red Clover Farm where we had our first year, start to finish, of managing the entirety of the farm. The space continues to be a source of joy, connection, sharing and learning. We are considering how to best steward this gift in the coming year, perhaps looking to generate some income from the farm.

Last spring the children put together an interactive production of the Exodus story to top off our series on that book. This year as we began our preparations to tell a story from Daniel the kids said, "let's make it be 4D like our one last year, cause that was really cool." We did enjoy a dollar store stock of plague-like toys that we could throw at the audience at appropriate times. This year's fiery furnace might prove a little more challenging...unless I can get my neighbour who breathes fire to join us!

In a neighbourhood where time is largely punctuated by the rhythms of welfare distribution days it has been fun to have children and adults alike begin to comment, "hey, we did that last year!" as the rythm of the church year begins to permeate our lives.

Justice: The Final Frontier

If you have not read the previous two blog entries, please stop, go back, and do so, as these three posts are intended to be read together.

Now that you are back, we turn our thoughts toward justice. What are the just kingdom realities toward which we strive if so much of our current experiences of charity are inadequate and perhaps even harmful?


Often in these conversations I will hear someone throw out Jesus' quote, "the poor you will always have with you." This line is thrown out as though charity is really the best we can hope for anyway. But Jesus himself was quoting Deuteronomy, and the verse in its entire context reads, "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land" (Deuteronomy 15:11). Funny, but we always leave off that later part about therefore care for those in your land. We also miss the quote from earlier in the chapter where it says, "However, there need be no poor people among you" (v.4).

If poverty was supposed to be eradicated in the midst of the people of God how was (how is) that supposed to happen? Spoiler alert, I will not solve this age old question in the following paragraphs. But, how can we keep pressing in to this question?

JUSTICE AS SYSTEMIC REFORM IN SCRIPTURE
The text in Deuteronomy that was quoted speaks to systemic reform. Moses was advocating for an overhaul of how people interacted with one another when there were inequities. First, there was to be a general posture of openhanded generosity as a posture of faith. Faith that there was enough. Faith that God was good and provides in abundance to be shared, not scarcity to be hoarded. From that place of open handed generosity there was then also to be a radical reckoning which was to even the playing field every seven years, at which point debts were cancelled and properties returned to original owners so that the equity with which things were portioned out originally could be the reference point for the whole community.

JUSTICE AS SYSTEMIC REFORM IN THE CHURCH
What might this look like for us today? This radical redistribution of resources is deeper and more thorough-going than our practices of charity, even if we think of charity in terms of redistribution of resources. What does this idea of transferring the means of wealth equitably look like within our churches and between our churches? What might it look like for the offering plate to be not simply a means of income generation for the programs and expenses of the church, but as a mechanism for the radical redistribution of wealth as it seemed to be in the days of the early church? What would it look like for churches, maybe together in a geographical area to commit to ensuring that there was no one who was homeless within the geographical neighbourhood? What would it look like for the church to be at the cutting edge of societal reform around poverty issues because we are motivated by a gospel imperative of love that seeks justice?

JUSTICE AS SYSTEMIC REFORM IN SOCIETY
Throughout Scripture there is a clarion call for justice that removes the yoke of oppression. Removing that yoke cannot be done with bandaids and I would argue that it can rarely be done in a generation. The kinds of yokes that oppress in our society today reach deep into the psyche of all of us and touch on our primary ways of interacting with the world. But creating more just systems can create ladders with which we can all move toward more generous and more equal ways of being in the world.

If you live in BC and Canada, let me point you in the direction of Seth Klein and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives for more information on all of these things. While for many of us who are middle to upper income earners or even working to upper class persons these may seem like ideological concepts that are very removed from your every day life, for the poor, who are often working class as well, this touches on daily life and creates the need for charity. Topics for us to get involved with from a justice perspective include:

The Living Wage: because work should lift you out of poverty, not keep you there
Tax Reform because in BC we have had a decade of eroding tax fairness where the richest 20% pay the lowest total tax rate, and middle-income ones pay a lower rate than poor and modest-income households
Welfare Policies: there is a significant need for reforms here. Some information can be found at the website for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives but a summary of the problems include: the fact that welfare in its current form discourages work by deducting dollar for dollar whatever you make from your welfare payments (particularly since welfare does not provide a livable amount month to month). A person on welfare cannot have any money in the bank month to month or else that amount is deducted from their cheque. There are time limits (as of 2004) as to how long you can stay on welfare (2 years out of every 5) while supports for finding work have been radically cut.

WHAT CAN YOU DO????
1. Educate yourself on problems that don't affect you on a day to day basis but that do affect your neighbours.
2. Advocate for change. Consider joining the living wage campaign or the raise the rates campaign.
3. Redistribute wealth by contributing money to an area of need and trust the people there to sort out how to use it. Give them time to be able to respond in a way that is most appropriate to their context.
4. Ask, who are the invisible poor in your neighbourhood and figure out a way that they can help you. Turn the power dynamics upside down, it was something Jesus was very fond of doing!

He has shown you, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you. Do justice. Love mercy. Walk in humility with your God.

Charity: the good, the bad and the ugly

Following on from the previous post I want to start by saying that I think Charity has gotten a bad name in some circles. I want to re-claim Charity as a term that should mean something good. My friend Jonathan Bird said, "we need to get back to the root of charity, which means love." Indeed, our idea of charity as a biblical concept is the kind of neighbour love that flows from being loved by God, not because we are good, or deserve it or earned it or even have a right to it, but because God loves. That is what God does and it is what we are to do when God lives in us.

That being said, let me move on to the bad name that charity has developed in some circles. In its current form charity (in the forms it takes to care for the poor) has come to mean an organization with charitable purposes who exist to "alleviate" poverty. They do this most commonly through professionalized workers who provide goods and services for needy individuals or families. Charitable organizations often spend a fair amount of time and energy trying to secure funds to do what they do, and sometimes will partner with government in delivering those goods and services through some sort of partnership or grant funding. The power dynamics often involve the professional determining what the needs of the individual are while the person in need has little say in the matter. This is for the sake of efficiency. The bad name comes from the power inequities, and the professionalization of service. Some would say, the need is so great, what else can you do? Charitable groups do important work and they are right, they have developed systems to deal with the overwhelming needs they are confronted with daily.

The ugly part comes in when we stop and think about the situation as a whole. This point was made well by the Carnegie Community Action Project last week during the CBC food drive. They wanted to raise the concern that Food Banks were set up to be a temporary measure, to ensure that people did not starve while a longer term more effective process was set up. It was meant to be a band-aid on a gaping wound that needed stitches, but instead we have taken for granted that we need to give more to the food bank rather than asking why so many people do not have adequate food in one of the most wealthy nations in the world. The wound is growing but we keep assuming more band-aids are all that is required. What makes this particularly ugly is that here in Canada (this is not true in many other countries) a charity is not allowed to spend more than 10% of its resources advocating or lobbying for a change of the system. In other words, charities, who are the best positioned to see the needs on the ground are allowed to put bandaids on the poor and the dying (alleviate poverty) but they are not allowed to work to eradicate poverty if that eradication involves any sort of criticism of government. Government, meanwhile, washes their hands of public responsibility for the entrenchment of poverty in this land by offering capricious funding to charitable groups who do their bidding until said group becomes to political, or falls out of favour.

What are we to do? Is charity lost?

I want to argue that we need to recover charity as loving our neighbours. And we need to push our sense of who our neighbour is, as Jesus encouraged us to do in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Often it is easier to consider the far away neighbour as opposed to the one who actually lives down the street from me who I really don't like very much.

So yes, we must recover charity, and practice loving our neighbours. Loving our neighbours includes coming as equals, listening, caring, sharing what I have and receiving in turn. But, I want to argue that charity is not the answer to poverty. That addressing poverty, which we must do because the poor are also our neighbours but poverty is a power that has trapped our neighbours. Addressing poverty will require engaging in justice. The prophet Micah said, "what the Lord requires of you is to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God." We must put our hands, and our feet, our mouths and our hearts to the work of justice seeking in addition to loving mercy.

Charity and Justice: A view from here

I have had a lot of conversations in the last month or so about charity and justice. In the next few posts I would like to let you in on some of those conversations, and offer some of my thoughts and reflections. It is an important and complex conversation and I want to invite feedback and interaction. I want to also acknowledge that we are in the most charitable season of the year, and by raising questions I want to invite critical thought and reflection but do not mean to be-little activities that any readers here may be engaged in. Rather, I find myself in a unique social location and want to simply offer, as I said in the title, a view from here. My hope is that as we share our views, our perspectives from our unique places we might see together a little more clearly.

So, what does the view look like from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, now the third poorest postal code in Canada and certainly the site of most charitable activities in the Lower Mainland. Tonight, I can name at least 10 families in my community I know who are attending their 2nd Turkey-Dinner-Christmas-Party of the day and their 5th since Friday (today is Monday). Walking past the intersection of Main and Hastings there has not been a day since the first of December when I have not encountered an impromptu food line formed at the back of a car that pulls up, the trunk is popped and soup or sandwiches are handed out maybe with a scarf and toque as well. The kind people will serve until their pots are empty and then will hop back in their cars and head back to work, or home. There is an abundance of food around right now, but everywhere I know of that offers Safeway cards so you can go shop for your own food has been out since the 8th of December. Hundreds of Christmas baskets will be given out in the next week full of special treats, candy and gifts, but it will be really hard for lots of my friends to find the money to make any vegetables or meat for Christmas dinner with their families. And, come January, the turkey dinners will have come to an end, the sugar rush will have worn off and cupboards will be bare, still.

Does charity keep us from justice? This is a question I have heard posed a few times in the past little while. A friend of mine and resident of the neighbourhood asked, does giving to charity enable us to simply make a "better" consumer choice. I decide for example to buy a Christmas dinner for someone in need (through a $5 donation to UGM) rather than get that afternoon latte from Starbucks. But does that consumer choice then allow me to walk away feeling like I have done something good without changing or challenging the system that allows me to choose between these two options while my neighbour is only able to choose between whether to go stand in line for that dinner with her 5 hungry and rowdy kids (outside for at least 1 hour in order to get a seat) or to stay at home and feed them noodles and butter.

My friend likes to challenge people, for every act of charity you engage in this holiday season, would you commit as well to an ongoing act of justice that carries on beyond the season? Its a good challenge. Let's think more on this together soon.

Blanketted

The blanket is one of my favorite symbols in west coast culture. "Coming under the blanket" indicates belonging, family, and responsibility in light of that relational tie. Some of us who are not Native have been blanketed as witnesses in ceremonies or as family to mark celebrations of significant events in the lives of families.

This Easter we celebrated the first baptisms in the life of our community. As AJ came up out of the frigid ocean water at the end of Main Street, he was "blanketed" in a white blanket. A symbol that he belongs to God, that he is clothed with Christ, wrapped in white, pure and new with the presence of the Spirit like a mantle upon his shoulders. This is a gift and an honor. It also comes with responsibility. To be a witness. To tell the story of what happened on this day. To live in light of the reality of belonging to God and to God's family.

Good Friday in the Hood

Today is a holiday, the streets are full. The sun shines. Twenty of us, ranging in age from 74 to two months, stand in line outside the mission, waiting for a meal with another 70 of our friends and neighbors. When the doors open we tumble in with the rest jockeying for seats where there is a good ratio of kids to adults, and we tuck in to a beautifully prepared "easter" dinner despite the fact that today is good Friday. But volunteers don't come down to serve meals on Easter Sunday, so it is now or never for the ham and scalloped potatoes, and no one is complaining.

After the meal Beth stands and invites anyone who would like to join us for a walk through the neighborhood, to remember the path that Jesus walked this day many years ago. Some leave, some stay and we walk familiar paths through our neighborhood. The path we walk to accompany a friend to court, familiar and yet more profound as remember Jesus' experience of a kangaroo court where nothing he said would make a difference in the outcome, so he says nothing. We too have sat silent before judges, powerless.

Over and over familiar spaces transformed by the memory that the One who loves us spent his final hours, on the wrong side of town, on the wrong side of the law. Forgotten, beaten, another dead body. Just like us. But this Friday we call good. A Friday with the power to transform every day since.

Christmas Eve Pagent

We spent Christmas Eve wandering through our neighbourhood in the dark and the rain, carrying Mary and Joseph and the light of Christ knocking on doors, asking if anyone had room to take in a pregnant unwed mom and her partner. When we finally found a space, we watched the story unfold as told to us by our kids in this video. Merry Christmas. May you find space to welcome in the Christ to your life this Christmas.