c. scott andreas

Sorry for the lack of updates - strange days have found me.

22 hours of traveling our Oregon trail brought Darrell and I safely home, albeit in the late-1990s.

The hard drive in my Powerbook died shortly after I looked up the departure time for our train to the airport. I expect that it wanted to return to Indiana about as much as I did. It’s not that I don’t like Bloomington - in fact, I’m quite fond of it - it’s just that I’m anxiously awaiting my return trip this summer. Imago Dei has offered me an internship which I’ve gladly accepted. (a toast!)

There’s something satisfying about having a week-old full backup handy when losing a hard drive. Defiant of disaster, perhaps (I learned my lesson last time). A two-hour delay at an airport Starbucks gave me the opportunity to copy my vacation photos to a flash drive — the last life boat to depart from my fair aluminum friend. So I’ve lost nothing save a phone number. This is the first time an extended warranty has served me well.

Oddly enough, the desktop PC which I use for work at a nearby software company is out of commission as well. When it rains, it pours. I hope to pick up a new power supply soon.

In the meantime, I’m faced with a dilemma. I have a paper due this afternoon and no PC on which to type it. The library is full of them, but the sidewalks are covered in snow and campus always feels like a desert island. Enter this little trooper.

Last summer, I found him next to a dumpster. Nursed back to health, I’ve been seeking a home for it since. Blazingly fast, this “IBM Personal Computer 300GL” packs a 533mhz Celeron and 128mb of RAM. Thank you, Jessica Jones, for throwing this bad boy out. After cleaning out seven viruses, 670 pieces of malware, and all of your personal files (don’t worry, no peeks), it was downright usable. Consequently, I’ve a new primary PC for the next week or so. If anyone has a legitimate need (or knows someone who does) for a decent desktop workhorse (inc. monitor/keyboard/mouse), let me know…free to a loving home.

Stories soon. Until then, enjoy what spews forth from this wise old box.

hourglassfully yours,

c. scott andreas

Darrell and I are leaving for Portland in two hours. It should be a good trip. Assuming we can catch the last train from the airport to our hotel at midnight (thus, avoiding a $50 cab fare), it should go really well. I have three meetings set up with people from Imago Dei, tickets to a David Gray concert, and a burning desire to explore the land where rain is grown.  Here’s hoping for some time to read, write, and reflect, too.
Look for sporadic updates and photos this week - have a good one!

Many of you wrote that you enjoyed Mike McKenzie’s “Monster Truck” and “Airline Safety Lecture” faux-ads. Mike and the Senior Warden at his church, Harold Warren, were kind enough to leave comments on my post. They explained its origin, their thoughts on the piece, and also a bit about how it is affecting their church. I’d like to take a moment to draw attention to what they wrote.

“Monster Truckâ€? was not intended to be a marketing campaing of any kind…It is my conviction, based on my experience and almost 20 years of experience in the mass media that no matter what message we as Christians send out via mass communication, we are not going to convince others to drop either their pre-concieved notions or their feelings from past expereiences with the church.

They have to make that discovery for themselves.

However, what we can do, is do the right things that keep these issues in the forefront to where others will debate the issue within themselves or with others.
- Mike McKenzie

As the Senior Warden of Mike’s parish, I am coming to see something different at work here than just being able to laugh at ourselves. This silly meshing of a monster truck ad with the church I love, though the creative effort caught me a bit by surprise, has been for me a holy thing…

There are LOTS of people at least looking at the church at the moment, who might not have been looking otherwise. This is a gift.
- Harold Warren

Mike makes an excellent point. We cannot expect those outside the church to “[place] all preconceived notions in the overhead compartment,” regardless of what we do. Instead, we must continue the conversation, engaging and interacting with those who perceive the church negatively (and too often for good reasons). The purpose of these interactions is not to show them that “Christians can be cool and fun, too.” It’s to build a relationship with a real human being. And to allow them an opportunity to encounter Truth in the person of Jesus Christ without fear of condemnation, judgement, or snobbery.

Thank you, Mike, for continuing this conversation.

I’d also like to take a moment to consider the issue of denomination. In my original post, I briefly mentioned that the “radio spot” promoted a High Liturgy service. I’ve attended such a service at Trinity Episcopal in Bloomington and found it beautiful, engaging, and holy to one familiar with liturgical worship. I often find it a great struggle to cultivate an attitude of reverence that could hope to match that of High Liturgy. In fact, I’ve not encountered such a beautiful, humbling, worshipful atmosphere outside these stone walls. Truly, Christ is the focus — not a “spiritual high” (why don’t we kneel)?

Interestingly enough, “irreverence” is precisely the issue here. The “Monster Truck” (and to a much lesser extent, “Airline”) pieces take something that is perceived as absolutely Holy and present it in the form of a parody. But what can we learn from this? I’ll follow my usual course of action and look to the fruit.

“Monster Truck” and “Airline” have invited listeners to consider the issue of reverence in church. Can we look with humor upon the manner in which we worship God, but still worship with utter sincerity? Might there be value in this? What do the rituals we practice mean, and why do we observe them? Does our worship honor God? Does the form of our worship invite others to participate? How do other Christians worship? These ads invite those outside the church to the congregation as well. How can we make the interpretation of these rituals accessible? If people willingly waking up early on Sunday mornings to stand up, sit down, kneel, and give away their money, might there be a reason? If the church is “uptight” but the people are “fun,” could that mean that Christians are just human beings who take their worship very seriously? Should I?

Harold’s comment tells me that this is the case. Though not even “released,” these two small mp3 files have resulted in a global discussion in which the church is edified and God is glorified. Maybe we’re not all just stuffy, boring Christians who have potluck dinners and watch G-rated movies. Maybe some of us just take our worship and its deep, rich history seriously. I’m not Episcopalian. But this conversation has transformed a few “preconceived notions” of my own. “All that glitters is not contemporary liberal evangelical.”

Thank you, Harold, for looking at this conversation as a blessing.

I see these pieces as a cultural collision. Sacred content is contained within a profane medium (I use “profane” to mean simply “common,” not “offensive”). I’m reminded of a CD. In his latest album entitled “A Collision,” David Crowder beautifully juxtaposes “hoedown” and “remix” tracks — something I enjoy immensely as a “big city” guy from “small-town” Indiana. Perhaps the Truth of Jesus Christ cannot be confined to one single “true” medium. Perhaps, as I wrote in my “dirt” article, it is what is on the inside that makes something clean.

Perhaps we could print a tract on condom wrappers containing only a pair of plastic wedding rings.

(note: I live in a college town. I’ll not defend this idea, but I do meet it with a chuckle.)

The point is that Mike, Harold, and the folks at St. Andrew’s are continuing the conversation. They’re not part of a “monster truck church” (my apologies for using this as a title). They’re part of a church who knows how to glorify God in many genres and are willing to stand up for it. I’d like to thank them for speaking so gracefully. I’d also like to recognize their effort in seeking out the many blogs that have picked up on their work.

The least we can do is to keep talking. Now, what do you have to say?

I can’t seem to get out of church any sooner than 20 minutes after the service has ended - there are just so many great people to talk to and get to know. There’s something nice about a quick, friendly conversation, I think. As usual, I found myself in one of these conversations this afternoon.

We were talking about the importance of service and celebrating the deacons’ care ministry in our church. This group is dedicated to meeting needs of people in our congregation — for those who have difficulty paying rent, heating bills, or simply putting food on the table, they are there to help. Lately, they’ve been having trouble meeting these needs due to a lack of money and resources. That’s unfortunate.

But the focus of our conversation wasn’t about giving money. It was about getting one’s hands dirty, stepping down, and actually serving others. I find that — especially for me — it is often much easier to give a few dollars than to give a few minutes. Though “time is money,” I do not feel that money is a valid substitute for time.

Giving money to a ministry is a great thing — I celebrate it and those who do. In fact, thanks to all who helped to make my trip to San Francisco possible. But I said to my friend, “There’s just something so important about getting your hands dirty and serving.” Both of us agreed to act upon this and parted ways for the afternoon.

As I reflected on my words later in the day, they began to decay. I mean really, really stink. In saying what I said, I lamented the all-too-common idea that it is possible for one to really take part in the inherently, unavoidably missional journey of a life with Jesus Christ without actually participating in it.

But I framed the thought in the context of “dirt.” As if people chose not to serve “the hungry, the helpless, the least, the last, the lost” (in Jim Wallis’ words) for fear of being “polluted” or otherwise hurt by them. My solution was to “get dirty” and just serve those who need help more than anyone else do.

The word “dirt” is toxic. I use it here as a technical term, of course — I’m not actually talking about “dirt” so much as I am profanity and booze and sleaze and hurt and criticism and pain and suffering that knows no end. But what I realized was that by using — even thinking — the word “dirt” presupposed a categorical division between “us” and “them.”

And that is a grave lie. There is no such thing as dirt.

Those in need are not dirty. “Their” lives are steeped in the very same sin and recurring failure to glorify God that “ours” are. Perhaps “they” simply have not been trained to hide it so well (that is, trained in the fine art that is deceit).

“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’ ” Matthew 15:17-20, ESV

I should note that these words do not speak directly to the situation at hand, but rather to the broader categories of what is “clean” and “unclean.” In saying the above, Christ states that we needn’t concern ourselves with being polluted by what we touch (people, for example). It’s what comes out that counts. His actions confirm this fact — he eats with tax collectors, allows a prostitute to pour perfume on him, and takes a drink from a Samaritan woman (think of the early 1960s racism in the US to get an idea of this). All of these were startling breaks from what was traditional at the time. There was no one considered “unclean” by the Pharisaical standards of antiquity whom Christ was unwilling to touch. And if what we might consider to be “gravely impure” could not pollute the most pure of all Beings to grace the earth (who arguably faced the greatest danger of being “polluted”), then how much more should we who are already unclean be willing to serve all?

There is no “dirty” and “clean” in serving others. These are culturally-constructed categories that do nothing but ensure the perpetuation of the classism, hatred, and distrust against which Christ so strongly speaks. We participate in the construction of these categories by even thinking in terms of “us” and “them,” for there is no “them” but only one continuous, hurting, sinful “us.”

To those among us whom I have attempted to exclude in this manner, I apologize. I’d like to take a moment to celebrate all of the incredible people from Connexion, Campus Crusade, Navigators, InterVarsity, Indiana University, and other organizations in Bloomington who are willing to serve and have committed to put words to action. Tonight, we clapped and prayed for about 100 people from Connexion alone who are committing their spring break to doing just that. Thank you.

Let’s not “get our hands dirty.” Let us glorify Him and just “do good” by doing what He Himself has done for us. May we act in obedience to what He has commanded and empowered us to do.  Because He’s also done it for us. May we serve those among us who are in need, not because they are believers or because they are not believers, but because they are fellow creations of God. For what we do to “the least of these,” we do to Jesus Christ.

in celebration and conviction,

c. scott andreas.