Personal Statement

In order to better understand my learning from this class and where I see using the Bible in the future let me set the context for my coming to this class. I came to this class with a desire to learn how to build community with postmodern people outside the church walls so that I could earn the right to share the Gospel with them. I knew this was what God has been calling me to do over the past decade as I envisioned opening up a coffeehouse ministry in 1998 when I began taking seminary classes at Fuller. It has taken much longer than I thought with many sidetracks to learn things I didn’t know I needed to learn.

To prepare for my calling I have studied and run evangelism training programs at my church. I know how important one’s personal story is in telling others about the Gospel through the Contagious Christian class. I know how important eating together and building personal relationships is with seekers through the Alpha program. I ran several of these classes/programs at my church. But I felt like we were preaching to the choir. The knowledge and faith of those who came was enriched but we did not seem to reach many outside the church.

In 2000 I took a class in Creativity and Spirituality in Evangelism and Worship at Fuller. This class was transforming experience for me. I learned that we could use very creative approaches to telling the Gospel story through art, music, film, clowning, drama, dance, and ambience. We could take the Gospel outside and play with others. I was so inspired I wrote a mime sketch called “Out of the Garden” about Boom Boom the clown who has a love for life and beauty, but seems to search for love and significance in all the wrong places. Boom Boom represents the average person who wants to live life to the fullest but is constantly disappointed and never finds true fulfillment in what he does until he looks at the world through the eyes of the Cross and finds the heart of God.

My experiment in using creativity in an alternative worship service to help people experience God failed to flourish. After six months of monthly services we ended our experiment due to low attendance. But we learned a lot through this experience. We learned that we introduced too many new ideas at once. This was the first evening service ever tried at our church. We also found out that Friday was not a good night for people who were tired from working all week. Monthly gatherings did not allow for relationships to develop and grow. We tried too many different ideas at once and we stretched people too far beyond their comfort zones. On the other hand our church has slowly begun to incorporate some of the ideas we introduced into the main worship service. Our pastors are using film clips more often to illustrate their sermons. We are using interpretive dance in worship. We have a Yiddish storyteller who acts out the Bible text as if he were actually in the story. We set up a temporary art gallery in our church one time to experience God through art. We have a long way to go but these small steps have enriched our worship times and have connected with people in an experiential way.

This class has helped me put some things in perspective. My previous attempts at reaching the culture for Christ have been frustrating and disappointing. I knew all the right stuff: a good theological grounding in reading and interpreting Scripture, an understanding of the mission of the church being sent into the world, the latest postmodern philosophies and their cultural reflections in art, literature, and mass media, the latest cutting edge worship models and practices, and a passion for my neighbor. But I was not seeing the harvest occurring that is talked about in Luke 10. I think I have become jaded and almost a little fearful to risk sharing my faith and specifically, the Bible stories with those outside the church.

So I have taken a slightly different tack. I have seen powerful stories told through film coming out of independent film and even some Hollywood films. I took classes on film and theology that showed me how film is the new medium where many people are seeking answers to life's big questions and purpose. This has encouraged me to pursue video and filmmaking to tell relevant flesh and blood stories that point towards God and His story of the redemption of creation. But I realize now that I have been holding back, fearful that I may scare people off with the Bible text, not realizing that it is these stories that need to be contextualized and incarnated for the culture today.

In this class I have experienced telling the Bible stories in fresh, new, relevant ways that I hope to utilize in my new career in video and filmmaking and in opening a tea house. I have learned that living the text can be a conversation or dialogue between the speaker and the listeners. We can solicit feedback during the telling to guide our conversations or storytelling. We need to envision the variety of people we are working with and what questions they might have for the text or for us. We need to envision the Other, who might be the poor, the oppressed, the abused, the suffering, or the outsider on the margins. We need to use real life examples (flesh and blood) and be transparent with our successes and failures when we share our stories. In addition we need to learn to use words and images together. Words alone can be blinding without images to show examples of putting the words in practice. Images alone can be deafening without the words to connect them back to our story and God's story. I really liked the idea of the body builder who needs to work all of his muscle groups to reach people effectively with the Gospel. We are to love God and others with all of our emotions, intellect, body, and soul. I think I have tried out each of the different ways of relating the Bible to culture, but never doing it an integrative way that DJ’s the right parts at the right time for the right people.

I am excited to have a “crack” storytelling session at the tea house where people can tell each other their personal struggles and joys on their journeys towards or away from faith. This may get messy at times, but I am ready to trust the Spirit in guiding us in community. In community we can name the times in our stories where God has been at work and help others see this in their own stories. I am ready to trust the Spirit again to guide the film discussions, the storytelling, the music, the spoken word, the art reflection, and even the tea tasting events. For I have been reminded through this class that God is active in the world and in culture to bring about His purposes of redeeming creation to reconcile all things to Christ. He is doing this using real fallible people like me who sometimes take years to learn how to follow a calling.

Introduction

I can't believe this is my last class at Fuller!! I am finishing my M.Div. after starting a journey towards ministry over 10 years ago. In my previous life I was a software engineer in network test equipment design for over 20 years. I started a company in '91 with four partners and we were acquired in '96. This allowed me to leave engineering project managment in '99 to pursue ministry and seminary. Through seminary I discovered a love for theology and film and am currently starting a video production company to promote issues of social justice and spirituality.

My passion is for those seeking God outside the church. Many have been wounded by organized religion but are still seeking spiritual truth. I am opening a tea house this Fall to create a space for people to gather to relax, refresh, and relate in community. I plan to use creative arts (paintings, photography, music, spoken word, and film) to inspire people and stimulate their conversations. I am hoping this class will give me lots of ideas on how to engage people with the living text of the Bible in the tea house and through the videos we produce.