It’s a beautiful thing to be reminded of why we do what we do and why we love what we love. I recently spent the weekend in Spokane, Washington (a lovely part of the country) speaking to some high school students and young adults. The subject of the four talks I gave from Friday through Sunday was the concept of Shalom and the greater mission of God. And my time there was as fulfilling for me as it was for anyone else there.

I speak at my own church - The Mercy House - each and every week, for the most part. I’ve been doing it for over four years and we’ve built a community that I love to be a part of. It’s a creative, young, missional community and I feel lucky to lead such an amazing group of people. But it’s also true that what I have to say and how I say it is rather old hat. “Yes, Matt, we’ve heard that story before” or “Yes, Matt, that analogy was a fine one to make the first three times we heard it.”

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Jim Palmer is determined to help anyone who will listen to get deeper than the standard Christian experience of attending church and believing correct moral truths. His first book - Wide Open Spaces - became a journey and search for the divine beyond what was normal and Jim chronicles his experiences. The next step in the ‘evolution’ as he terms it is Divine Nobodies - his second book and the work we most discussed in this interview.

Jim Palmer is a passionate forthright guy and it comes across in this interview. More than anything, he describes the freedom he has to simply be his “dorky self.” Learn all about Palmer and his ministry in today’s HSP interview.

Matt Conner: What led you to write Divine Nobodies?

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I have worked in places where staff meetings were Staff Meetings. First thing Tuesday morning (or Wednesday morning or Monday afternoon). Begin with cheesy devotional. Break for coffee (usually Folgers) from the break room. Discussion on why the Committee on Committees is having issues, why the Robinsons haven’t been to church in three weeks and how we need to get flowers for Gladys, who is in the hospital for the third time this month. Prayer at the end and then we go about our business. And I mean the word ‘business.’

Then there was tonight. We had our staff meeting for the Mercy House and I just returned from some time away in the Pacific Northwest. It had been a couple weeks since I was present for one of these and, until tonight, I was pretty downtrodden at the recent state of things. It’s Seasonal Depression time, for one. For another, typical church drama, gossip and issues are taking place - even in our beloved assembly. So, needless to say, I was ready for a pick-me-up.

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It was 6:25am on a recent Sunday morning. I was one of two people in the church building. I often arrive this early to prepare myself for our corporate worship gatherings. The lights were already on in the sanctuary, so I walked in to set up a few things for my portions of our worship experience. It was at this moment that I found myself overcome with an ill feeling. My stomach began to turn.

No, I hadn’t just wolfed down several donuts from the gas station. The feeling of sickness came due to the aesthetic aspect of our worship space. As I looked up at the front of the room, I saw two enormous U.S. flags draped on each side of the cross. The flags were so large that they dwarfed the cross.

I wish I could say that this was a one-time event. However, this occurs at least three times a year at the church I serve (Memorial Day, 4^th of July, Veterans Day). We have a very patriotic and conservative congregational make up. One would often wonder how a somewhat liberal, unpatriotic guy like me wound up in a church like this.

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Erwin McManus needs no introduction. As the author of multiple books and the pastor of the influential church, Mosaic, in Los Angeles, McManus is a highly creative and innovative personality that has changed the way many think about ministry.

Not long after his book Soul Cravings debuted, I had the chance to sit down with Erwin to discuss the role of creativity as a pastor and how to reach the innovative leaders in the cities we do ministry in.

Matt Conner: You’re in arguably the creative center of the world. What is it like to be a pastor there?

Erwin McManus: Wow. It is a different world. I guess I don’t think of myself as a pastor in this setting. I think being a human who lives a life that others might be interested in and attracted to and having a journey that others feel is authentic and really connects to God. That’s really why I’m here. I’m trying to live out the life that Jesus talks about, hopefully in a context where people will go, “Maybe this is real.”

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It seems a little bit insignificant on the day after an election, but Matt asked us to think a bit about the obstacles in our lives and ministries.  That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, being just two months now in a new country (Northern Ireland).  To keep in the spirit of the day - what is holding back “change we can believe in” here?

Personally, the biggest obstacles I face as a pastor are timidity - shrinking away from risk, particularly in conversation - and a lack of reliability and faithfulness to do what I say I’ll do and/or see something through to the end.  That would include both the usual “you e-mail me and don’t get a response for two weeks” as well as the less obvious “I get really excited about something for a few weeks and then move on to something else.” I’m coming to believe that there are SO many things I miss out on in the kingdom because I either don’t strike when the iron is hot or don’t see it through to the end.

Corporately, I think we dealt with the same issues in the church I was part of and then pastoring in Indianapolis. It’s hard to move forward when there’s about a 60% chance anyone who promises to do something is going to forget, get bored and quit, or just drop the ball (including yourself). I don’t know if it’s just a generational thing or what, but Biblically I think this faith thing only works well on the 10-year plan, not the 10-day plan.

In my new situation I would say there are some different dynamics. Personally, I’m finding one of the biggest obstacles is that I grew up as a church kid. I’m now really wishing I new how to throw a really good party and that I had ANY idea what to do at a dance club. Corporately, I think we face a lack of hope that things could be different (which is fair considering the history), as well as a LOT of baggage from well-meaning, under-loving, over-aggressive evangelism. There’s a sense that people feel like they know what Christianity is all about and they either like their version too much or don’t want anything to do with it.

That’s what I see right now. I’d love to hear what some of you other guys think.

Twelve hours ago I wanted to be right where you are now. Better yet, I just didn’t want to be where I was. I didn’t want to be what I was or even who I was. These sort of Sundays happen for me every now and then - the ones where I feel there couldn’t be a more incompetent pastor in the history of God’s calling. There were multiple points throughout my own teaching where even I was wondering what I was talking about.

Then came the meetings. It took me seemingly forever to be able to leave the church only to have to meet up with more over an extended lunch. All nice people. All good intentions. Nothing over-the-top. But there’s this wall that you hit, really you know that it’s coming far before you hit it because it’s properly labeled “ENOUGH” in giant white letters across the brick facade.

I came home and I couldn’t have been more done in that moment. I didn’t want to write, study or talk to anyone (which in my communal house of four married couples is an achievement unto itself). And, ultimately, I didn’t want to do it again.

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I write and speak for a living. Sometimes it is my own story that I communicate while many times it is the stories of others - of friends, Biblical characters, interesting people past and present. It is honestly a fun way to spend my time and I enjoy what I do.

But every job hits a wall and I recently retreated from my own life to the wonderful countries of England and Ireland. During my two weeks there, I found myself writing and reflecting about my own job and my role as a storyteller. I began to think about the health of a storyteller and what I am finding to be true. Here’s part of what made its way into my journal:

“I’m reading in a cafe. NLA. No Laptop Allowed. This is nice. I’ve watched four movies in four days. I’ve spoken with total strangers and made new friends. Other people’s stories. It’s nice to step into them. I need to step into them. After all I am a storyteller by trade and my own story isn’t nearly enough to propel the heart of a storyteller.

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In our final of three interviews focused on the Christian’s response to social justice, our attention turns to one of my favorite interview subjects - Andy Crouch. Andy is the author of the fantastic new book, Culture Making - a much needed treatise for the intersection of faith and culture. He’s also director of the Christian Vision Project for Christianity Today.

I’ve interviewed Andy twice now and each time is drinking from a mental fire hydrant and you come away refreshed and challenged by what Crouch comes up with. This time was no different than the first as he discusses the warnings for those of us charting toward the waters of social justice.

Matt: What’s the balance for counter-cultural movements with their work toward social justice and the mainstreaming of those movements?

Andy Crouch: I think we have to recognize that the mainstreaming of alternative movements is a continual process in American culture since the 1960s. It’s been happening for a long time, so it’s not that new. It’s just the latest version of it now, where something that begins as even very consciously outside the mainstream is adopted for commercial purposes.

I think it’s really double-edged sword. Here’s the positive thing about it: to the extent that social movements that become part of a profitable enterprise, they are much more scalable than they are when they’re not-for-profit. Because a not-for-profit is always have to replenish its resources, whereas a profitable enterprise has found a way to provide something that’s of sufficient value for people that it can actually grow from the generation of excess income. In a way, I celebrate the fact. When anything becomes mainstream enough that people can make money doing it [Laughs]…

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Most of my thoughts today find themselves in orbit around a concept seen throughout the Bible. Unfortunately, it’s leapt out of the pages and into my own life as well.

It started when studying Paul’s words in his letter to the Philippians, urging them to focus on eternity and not to be distracted by the temporary things that can dissuade and distract. It’s a beautiful piece (and a familiar one) where Paul resolves that the once profitable things in life he now considers “loss for the sake of Christ.” Of course, that’s easier said than done.

The issue is that the things that “dissuade and distract” seem so nice. And they do, in fact, satisfy us for a bit. We know they will feel good, quench the thirst and appease the hunger in that moment. And when we are desperate or undisciplined, it’s the quick and easy choice. Esau needed to eat. And in a moment of poverty, a birthright wasn’t going to satisfy the need.

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