Emergent Brethren

Veritas is planning on having our first “Love Feast” (I really don’t like the name….seems like a throwback to the Sixties, or honestly the name of a 70’s Porn Movie) on Sunday October 11. As I began to plan the gathering I sent out a preliminary gathering plan to our Core Group for feedback and their thoughts. This has turned into an e-mail conversation focusing around the feetwashing part of the gathering. I thought I would post some of the thoughts of the Core Group, and get your feedback. What do you do with Feetwashing? Do you do it, do you offer another way of serving each other (handwashing), do you find a modern equivalent, do you forgo the feetwashing altogether? Would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Here are the comments from my Core Group:

Do we have to wash feet/get our feet washed? I get the whole Jesus got dirty in connecting with us and we need to be ready and willing to get dirty too- and I def think I do that with people (in the mental/emotional/spiritual sense); but is there any alternative for people who don’t want to do that?

am I just being weird over nothing? Totally not trying to be a party pooper….
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To all,

Carmella brought up the same concerns I struggled with about this tradition. Below is my experience

I have been involved in the brethren faith for 5 years and until about a year ago never even considered going the twice annual service where foot washing is performed.

A) I was grossed out
B) I was embarrassed
C) I was cool with washing someone elses feet but didn’t want anyone to do mine.

A. It wasn’t anything gross. A basin is filled with a very mild bleach water solution. The washee placed his feet into or on the edge of the basin and you cupped your hands and poured water over the feet. you then took a towel and dried them.
B. While I was nervous my feet would somehow ruin the entire event my foot washing went just like everyone else. No one singled my tootsies out for ridicule
C. Willingness to humble myself but refuse to let someone humble themselves before me defeats to whole point of the tradition.

It’s funny I remember the last hour or two before the service being really freaked out and now I’m just meh.

The service was moving and I understand why it is a tradition is some denominations. It will never be my “favorite” service but I hope everyone will try it once and then we as a community can discuss it further. I do believe that in experiencing it you will find something of significant worth.

Ray

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I grew up in a church that regularly did feetwashing and i still don’t like it. Frankly, I have trouble seeing the point. Jesus showed hospitality by caring for his guests who had traveled to be with him. It was especially shocking that a rabbi would do something normally done by a servant. So do we do exactly as Jesus did even though we live in a different culture? Or do we show hospitality in a way that people would be shocked at our humility?
And regarding hospitality, I think we need to turn around our definition to truly understand the concept. In many cultures, hospitality means that you recognize your visitor as someone sent from God with a message or gift for you and you are blessed to have that person visit you. How would we treat people that God sends to us? Would you tell them to take off their shoes so you can wash their feet if that is uncomfortable for them?
I do love the Love Feast idea and if we do the feetwashing thing I’ll do it while gritting my teeth.
Brian

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Just to throw out a different point of view… For me, the footwashing service has always been the most meaningful service. I don’t think it’s as much about hospitality as service. It’s about humbling myself to someone else in the same way that Christ did, as well as allowing someone else to serve me, which in our culture I think is the harder part. I’m not sure there is a modern day equivalent. It certainly isn’t about forcing someone to do something that is uncomfortable for them, and I would assume that anyone that wouldn’t want to do it could just “pass”.

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I grew up with this practice and so I can understand how some people would find it meaningful. I might even find it meaningful if I were with others from my same church tradition and who I knew were comfortable with the practice.

But when I think about some of my neighbors or friends coming and being confronted with this practice, I can almost imagine their aversion to it.
And this makes me uncomfortable. If we do foot washing together but fail to communicate the message of servanthood/hospitality what is the point?
Are we then just serving ourselves? Would those who find this a new
practice really understand what we are trying to do? If we really want
to show service and hosipitality to others and one another, how do we best
communicate that to our current culture? Foot washing was as common and
normal to those of Jesus’ day as going out for coffee is for us. We don’t have servants so much these days so it makes it hard for us to understand and feel the impact of what Jesus really did. I think it’s important for us to find a way in our current culture to show each other love and service in a way that’s completely understood and impacts people.

Ranita

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So as you can see we have a very thoughtful team and one that is concerned about the “other” and those who aren’t yet Christ followers. They are aware of contextualization and understanding culture. They have great insight. I don’t want to do something just because that is what we do, or because we are Brethren. What are your suggestions regarding Feetwashing? Any and all thoughts would be helpful.

Thanks,
Ryan Braught
Veritas
www.veritaspa.org

I’m always intrigued when there are reports in the newspapers about surveys or polls on religious or spiritual life in America. Yesterday, I was given a copy of USA Today and found a very interesting commentary on the back page of the front section. We’ve all heard speakers at conferences say that our nation is becoming post-Christian. You may have even seen statistics saying that less and less Americans are believing in God. So, imagine my curiosity when I see this headline: Post Christian? Not even close. Stephen Prothero, the author of the article, is the chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University. He cites several studies. I invite you to read it with interest.

Today, imagine my curiosity when I see this headline: Loss of faith attributed to spiritual drift. This article originally appeared in the Washington Post. Here’s the opening lines of the article: “More Americans have given up their faith or changed religions because of a gradual spiritual drift than switched because of a disillusionment over their churches’ policies, according to a study released yesterday.

It also illustrates how personal spiritual attitudes are taking precedence over denominational tradition.”

Later today, I saw that John Ortberg has written about the latter survey for Christianity Today. His article is called, Snapshots of Religious Life: What do the recent surveys tell us about the future of faith?.

To add to the above this week, Leadership Journal has a poll going this week on the topic: “Evangelicals are talking a lot more about “social justice.” How do you see this development?” As of Wednesday morning, here’s how the vote is going:
Wonderful, it’s long overdue. 62%

Happy, it’s making our message more attractive. 12%

Indifferent, it’s not relevant to my ministry. 2%

Confusing, it’s not something I understand. 3%

Disturbing, it’s a distraction from the Gospel. 21%

If you would like to add your vote to the poll, you may do so at: take poll

Any comments as to what the news is telling us about faith and culture in the U.S.? How does this impact your ministry? Is The End of Christian America here, or is coming, like Newsweek and Ryan writes about below?

For the past two days I have shared two out of the three core values/visions/dreams of Veritas and why we are planting a church in September of 2009. We have focused on the core values of Community and Missional and now we are going to take a look at the last core value, that of Authentic Worship.

Our Third Core Value is An Authentic Worship Expression: A community where people create relevant worship experiences. We see Jesus at the multi-sensory Last Supper—the smell of bread, wine, and disciple’s feet, the taste of the meal, the touch of the disciple’s feet, hearing the words of Jesus gathered around the table. We see the “sinful woman” anointing Jesus’ feet with her tears and perfume, responding in devotion and worship. So we picture creating regular opportunities of relevant worship experiences, not as consumers but participating in and creating the worship that is taking place. We envision people connecting worship on Sunday with their worship on Monday through Saturday. For this to happen, we will create multi-sensory worship experiences at a rented facility (Marietta?) that use creative arts (painting, drawing, poetry, sculpting), and media of all kinds (popular music, movies, cultural references, and videos). Worship/Prayer Stations, Creative Art Stations, Offering Stations, and Sacred Space will allow for people to be actively and creatively involved in the worship experience. A worship planning team (artists, musicians, leaders, etc..) will make the worship time as creative and relevant as possible. Every 6-8 weeks, we will gather around a table and partake in food, community and communion and several times each year, a “Love Feast.”

These three things are what drive us, what pushes us forward, and what we are striving to be as a community of Christ Followers.

Veritas aims to be a Missional Community of Authentic Worshippers. That is our dream, vision, and the core of what drives us to plant a church in September of ‘09. Yesterday I focused on the core value of Community. Today I will focus on the core value of Missional.

Our Second Core Value is A Missional Kingdom Life: A community where people are blessing others in practical ways. We see Jesus serving and blessing people in real and practical ways, healing people of all kinds of illness. “The Word became flesh and moved into our neighborhood.” Jesus took on human flesh, spent time in homes, marketplaces, and in villages and towns. So we picture people spending lots of time in the neighborhoods and places where people are, hanging out at coffeehouses in order to get to know people. We picture the team having meet-up groups (Board Games, BMX, etc.) to be with those who Jesus misses the most. We envision random acts of kindness, service and social justice, some that will be shared projects with local organizations (some Christian-based, and some not). For this to happen, service, social justice and blessing will be evident throughout. Our Missional Communities (House Churches) will each adopt a regular missional “project” involvement. Every 6-8 weeks our worship gathering will include participation in a “service event.” Random acts of kindness can include giving out water at Elizabethtown College and cleaning up roads and parks. Blessing others may include tutoring, after-school program, financial “seminars”, creation care, and disaster relief trips through the district.

Tomorrow I will post the third core value of Veritas, that of authentic worship.

Some of you may know that in September of ‘09 my wife and I will be taking our Veritas ministry from a ministry of Hempfield COB to a Church Plant. We currently have 8 total people on our core group and are still looking for some more. If you know of someone in the Lancaster area who might be interested, let me know. Also if you would like to be on our prayer team, let me know.

The title line above is our vision, mission, and core values statement. Over the next 2 days I will share with you the driving force behind Veritas as we move forward into Church Planting. Today I will focus on the first core value that is describe in the word community.

Our First Core Value is A Safe Spiritual Search: A Community where people experience genuine love and care. We see Jesus with the woman at the well, showing her love, grace and acceptance. Despite what society said about this woman, he cared for her in a very real and profound way, which changed her life for all of eternity. So we picture Christ-followers loving each other and the world around them. We picture safe places to seek truth where questions, doubts and struggles are okay and something to be shared, not hidden. We picture Christ-followers and those who are yet to be Christ-followers in close relationship with each other. We picture a community full of love, grace, compassion, and mercy, following in Jesus’ footsteps. For this to happen, we see people gathered in homes in the Marietta, Elizabethtown and Columbia area on a weekly basis. We see gathering around tables during these gatherings to eat together, pray together, share together, and be in relationship with each other. We see open and honest dialogue centered around the Scriptures. We see people gathering together not just once a week but throughout the entire week. We see people exercising together, going out to movies and dinner together, hanging out with each other, and spending time together.

Tomorrow I will focus on another word in our vision statement, the word missional.