Tag Archive - suburban spirituality

Suburban Spirituality: Guidance from a Liberation Theology Hermeneutic

June 2, 2009 in Ministry-Theology with 4 Comments

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[image source]


I’m going to begin this post by saying, I’m not an expert in liberation theology.  I’ve been drawn to it ever since I lived and served in Guatemala for 3 months in 2001, and I am continually learning from it as I have spent time studying it on various trips to Brazil and Mexico City.  I’ve done my fair share of reading Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff and others, and I’m currently working my way through Ched Myers (large) book, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus.

You might ask yourself, what does a theology that is based in a “preferential option for the poor” have to do with suburban life?

Great question. But I have been drawn to the liberation theology hermeneutic that was taught to me during my time serving with Partners in Hope, Amextra and some of the lectures from professors at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Hermeneutic of Transformation
Based on Romans 12:1-2, the question/challenge becomes for us…what does it look like to offer our lives as sacrifices to God, not conforming to the world, therefore being transformed and renewed in the process? This is the question that many in the Mexican communities I worked with based their work on. The process of being transformed and renewed by God, and therefore helping transform the communities they were a part of by example. There is a lot of praxis to this hermeneutic that I can’t do justice to in one post, but here is my question for us living in the suburbs.

How do we sacrifice our lives to God, in order to be transformed and renewed…while living in the suburbs? What does that look like for your context?

Hermeneutic of Liberation
There are various aspects of this hermeneutic and it often depends on who you read. But what I was taught was the following:

  1. ver (see): to open your eyes…look around you…see the needs, hurts, joys, etc.
  2. juzgar (judge): based on what is seen, then determine (judge) what action must be taken.
  3. actuar (act): to do something…intervene.
  4. celebrar (celebrate): celebrate as a people, community, family.

Living in the suburbs, I wonder if we can use this hermeneutic?

Can we open our eyes to the needs, wants, pains and happiness around us, and not become numb to the consumerism, instant gratification, etc.?

Living in the suburbs, can we judge/determine how we can intervene in the lives of others, based on what we are seeing?

Living in the suburbs, based on what we see, and the judgment we make, are we able to intervene?  Or is suburban life often too comfortable that it is more difficult to itnervene?

Living in the suburbs, can we then celebrate as a community, family, couple for the renewing work and transformation of God in our lives and the lives of those around us?

Conclusion
Like I said in the beginning of this post. I’m not an expert on liberation theology, and I know that just the mention of those words scares many away who have come to equate it more with political movements, and anti-American ideals. But I think that we as Americans, those living in wealth, often with little need, are able to learn from a hermeneutic that has it’s preference in an option for the poor. And I think we can, because though those of us living in the cities and suburbs of America many not be poor financially, but we are poor in many other ways.

We have more in common with those around us than we think, and I think liberation theology has some aspects of its hermeneutic that can be helpful to us as we live in the suburbs…and not just live, but be agents of transformation and renewal through the work of Jesus Christ.

Suburban Spirituality: Don’t Knock the Suburbs

May 27, 2009 in Ministry-Theology with 0 Comments

I’ve been reading the blogs of Joe Thorn and Steve McCoy for several years now…but in the midst of so many blogs, I just never kept up with all that they have going on. So just this week John Dyer pointed me toward their collaborative site subtext. And yeah, I know, they launched it almost a year ago. So I’m late to the conversation. But nonetheless, perfect timing considering that my last five posts have been on the topic of the suburbs. This is what they write about subtext:

sub•text is a discussion on the preaching and practice of the gospel in the suburban context. Here on the blog we’re sharing out throughts and experiences of living life and ministering in the ‘burbs. We do some interviews as well.

That being said, I love Joe Thorn’s latest thoughts in his post Love and Hate in Suburbia:

I have said all this before, but it bears repeating: I both love and hate the suburbs – and I think this is healthy and necessary. Finding stuff to love and embrace in one’s culture can be difficult, at least for some. Some are so focused on the present evil and corruption that any good has been pushed beyond their peripheral vision. On the other hand some are so in love with (idolize) their culture they ignore all that is wrong with it.

Right now it’s cool to love the city and loathe the suburbs, but I do not believe this reflects the heart of God. I believe God has a love/hate relationship with this culture. My culture. And I’m working hard to maintain that balance in my own heart.

I needed to read this post, and I’m thankful that Joe posted it, as this is something that I have really been wrestling with. I love his line, “Right now it’s cool to love the city and loathe the suburbs, but I do not believe this reflects the heart of God.” So, so true. Lots of people bashing on the suburbs these days…and always talking about needing to live in the city, in the hip, cool, urban lofts and other areas. Thanks for the reminder Joe.

Stay tuned, cause my next post will look at a hermeneutic for the suburbs. A hermeneutic I learned in the city of Mexico.

Suburban Spirituality: Church Shopping

May 22, 2009 in Ministry-Theology with 7 Comments

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[image from wearitdotcom]



When someone says it better than I can, then my philosophy is…let them say it. So the following is a long quote from the article Suburban Spirituality: The land of SUV’s and soccer leagues tends to weather the soul in peculiar ways, but it doesn’t have to.

For all of its foibles—which at its worst include lousy preaching, political infighting, self-centeredness, stagnation, a gaggle of special-interest groups—the poky local church (C. S. Lewis referred to the pokey little church in the Four Loves) in suburbia is still the most fertile environment for spiritual development there. Genuine spiritual progress doesn’t happen without a long-term attachment to a poky local church. I’m all for improving the organization of a local church to make it more biblically effective, but the maddening frustration that prompts someone to leave one church for another may be the precise thing that holds great potential for spiritual progress—if one stays. “Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote. “Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.”

Disillusionment with one’s church, then, is not a reason to leave but a reason to stay and see what God will create in one’s life and in the local church. What I perceive to be my needs—”I need a church with a more biblical preacher who uses specific examples from real life”—may not correspond to my true spiritual needs. Often I am not attuned to my true spiritual needs. Thinking that I know my true needs is arrogant and narcissistic. Staying put as a life practice allows God’s grace to work on the unsanded surfaces of my inner life. Seventeenth-century French Catholic mystic François Fénelon wrote, “Slowly you will learn that all the troubles in your life—your job, your health, your inward failings—are really cures to the poison of your old nature.”

I would add “your church” to his list; that is, all the troubles in one’s church are really cures to the poison of one’s old nature, or, as the Apostle Paul put it in Romans 7, the “sinful nature.” The biggest problem in any church I attend is myself—and my love of self and my penchant to roam when I sense my needs aren’t being met.

Staying put and immersing oneself in the life of a gathered community forces one into eventual conflict with other church members, with church leadership, or with both. Frustration and conflict are the raw materials of spiritual development. All the popular reasons given for shopping for another church are actually spiritual reasons for staying put. They are a means of grace, preventing talk of spirituality from becoming sentimental or philosophical. Biblical spirituality is earthy, face-to-face, and often messy.

Comments?

Suburban Spirituality: Being a Good Steward of Your Finances

May 14, 2009 in Ministry-Theology with 6 Comments

After college and their roaring 20s, many Americans find themselves in a subdivision with a lawn and a mortgage and a couple kids. Hip twentysomethings may mock the suburbs and its bourgeois values, but when their first child arrives the nesting instinct sets in. A neighbor and her husband lived on the north side of Chicago until the kids came; then they moved to a western ‘burb for safety and quiet. “I miss the energy of the city,” she says five years later. “In fact, when we moved to the suburbs, we had a hard time sleeping at night because the neighborhood was so quiet.”

That quote has always caught my eye. When I first read the article I was single…not even dating. At each new reading I have found myself in a new place (dating, engaged, married, parent, changing vocations, etc). So I read that quote with different eyes than before.

I think Goetz is dead on. Many twentysomethings, hipsters, etc. do tend to mock the values of the suburbs. I did a little. I couldn’t stand the cookie cutter houses, the strip mall (you know the one w/a Barnes and Nobles, Starbucks, Macaroni Grill, etc.) that is planted in different places all over the country. Even though I mocked at some points, I grew up in the suburbs. And I loved where I grew up. It was not the kind that has their own built in walking trails, parks and pools, but it was the suburbs nonetheless. Honestly, isn’t anything that is not out in the wild, the suburbs. I mean, can’t you picture the early settlers in the cities mocking those who moved out into the country…or maybe it was vice-versa…mocking those who left the outskirts for the comfort of the city.

Since my post college years I have primarily been living in locations within walking distance to the mountains, oceans, grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants and downtown areas…places like Pasadena and Brentwood. But now my wife and I are living in a leased house in the North part of Dallas, contemplating where we want to settle down. And new questions have arisen for us during this journey.

Let me begin with one question we have been asking:

What does it mean to be a good steward of our finances? Continue Reading…

Suburban Spirituality: Contemplating Through a Move

May 13, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology with 8 Comments

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[image by jdnx]

Transitions
I decided I wanted to write something a little more personal over the next few weeks…something that has been on my heart, raised questions, and has me awake at night…sometimes.

For those of you who don’t know, my wife, baby daughter and I have been living in Dallas since August of 2008. We moved here from Los Angeles, and have been excited about this phase of our journey. But there are lots of adjustments as one would expect.

Where to live? Career changes? New friends? New church? Etc? It all becomes pretty tiresome and weary. My wife and I talked the other day about how we haven’t had much constants in our marriage life. It’s been crazy busy with graduate school early on, new baby, moving, new jobs, etc.

Where to Live in DFW Metroplex?
And now we are in the midst of a new decision. Where to live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex?

That may not seem like a big deal, but it is. Because where we plant down roots can/will have strong influence about what our life looks like in some way. The friends we make. What my new private practice will look like. Settling down in a church. Whether my wife needs to continue working or not. Spirituality.

The Article That I Keep Thinking About
And as we contemplate this decision I can not but keep hearkening back to an article written by David Goetz for Christianity Today…way back in July of 2003. The article is Suburban Spirituality: “The land of SUVs and soccer leagues tends to weather the soul in peculiar ways, but it doesn’t have to”.

If you have not read this article…you must!

I’m going to be playing off this article for the next few weeks, and focusing on various topics and questions that have been raised for me:

  1. What does it mean to be a good steward financially?
  2. What does it mean to be content with where you live?
  3. How do we faithfully live out where God has placed us?
  4. What does it mean to be planted in a church community and not shop around?
  5. What does it mean to not be judgmental towards suburbanites or urbanites?
  6. What happens in our thinking from being single, to marriage, to having kids, as far as influencing where and how we want to live?
  7. What can we live modestly/frugally, wherever we live?
  8. How can we be creative with our finances in helping support others?

I have other questions, but let me just stop there for now.  These questions will in fact take on new life and new forms as I write, but I just wanted to give you some food for thought. And I’m lining up some guest bloggers who have written passionately on some of these things.

There are many factors and life experiences that have shaped me into who I am, and as I wrestle through this move, my desire is that I continually strive to be more faithful to who God desires me to be and how he wants me to live.