This past week I participated in a “Consultation on Cultivating a New Generation of Christian Leaders” put on by The Fund for Theological Education.  During the opening session one of the speakers emphasized the importance on “disruptive experiences;” those moments when the best laid plans seem to fall apart.  Then she went on to say that smooth sailing through life does not produce people of depth and grit.  More significantly it is failure and pain that produce people and leaders of substance.

This reality produces an interesting conflict.  I have no desire to go out and intentionally fail.  As a parent I work hard at sheltering my boys from pain.  When I write my end of year reports for DOOR, it is much easier to talk about success.  Currently we are in the process of hiring a new City Director for Atlanta. When we look a resumes we prioritize folks with a successful track-record.

Years ago I had a college professor who claimed that 3.0 students made the best leaders.  They knew something about success but more importantly were all too aware of their own short-comings.

As a 16 year-old I was hired by a local rancher to help during haying season.  He immediately put me on a tractor and had me bailing.  Halfway through the day he sent me to the fuel tank to fill up.  When I arrived I noticed there were two caps on the tractor, not sure which one to open, I guessed.  To my embossment I ended up filling the radiator with diesel fuel – not a smart thing to do.  As I was finishing the owner came by and noticed my error; he was not happy.  It was one of those moments when I should have been fired.  Instead he had me fix the problem which involved about two hours of work.  Once we were done he walked away and muttering, “It’s not worth firing you now, because you will never make that mistake again.”

I don’t think I will ever intentionally put people into situations simply to help them fail.  That said, I cannot help but wonder what it means to create space for failure and disruption, to appreciate these moments as opportunities for growth and development.

As you can well imagine, these discussions are filled with a whole lot of emotion.

The exchange that I keep coming back to occurred this week.  It was with my friend Anton Flores.  He runs a small not-for-profit in La Grange Georgia called Alterna.  Alterna is a group of people that offers community, fellowship and hospitality to the “un-documentable.”  It is important to note that “un-documentable” does not equal criminal or terrorist.  These are people who have come because providing for their family in their home country has become all but impossible.  More often than not the conditions that have driven them to the USA are tied to foreign policies and actions of the past and present.

I empathize with those who wish for stricter immigration laws and regulations.  The desire to feel safe and secure is powerful.  What I do not understand is why the church so often supports these laws uncritically.   Hospitality and making things right are cornerstones of the Christian faith.  As believers our first loyalty is to each other and humanity.  When this loyalty comes into conflict with the laws of the land, our faith commitment must always come first.

I am also a Mennonite; we are historically “non-creedal.”  This means confessions of faith are at best a moving target.  They tell us what a group of people believe about faith, life, and God at a particular point in history.

Confessions of faith have the power to be both healthy and destructive.  At worst they attempt to homogenize the Christian faith – if only we could all believe exactly the same then we could worship the same and look the same, be identical to each other.  Can you imagine a church with no differences?  A place where we always agree about everything, always worship the same way, always approach social concerns with one unified mind.  To some this may sound idyllic.  To me this sounds boring, uninteresting, and the complete opposite of the Apostle Paul’s vision of one body and many parts.

It is our differences and disagreements that help to make the church healthy and effective.  When we use confessions as a starting point to have a conversation, we use them well.  I have a friend who is fond of telling me that creativity occurs at the intersection of diversity; when the diversity and differences increase so does the creative potential.

I would like to suggest that the church is best when it refuses to use confessions as a litmus test for admission into fellowship or leadership.  When we use confessions to explore how we understand faith and life differently it becomes possible to find common ground in unexpected places.

This summer will mark my 18^th year of inviting groups of people into the city.  Safety is a big concern for me.  We don’t intentionally put people at risk, but we do challenge stereotypes and this can masquerade as risk.

Have you ever prayed the safety prayer?  It is the prayer we pray before road trips and mission trips.  It goes something like this.  “God please guide us, protect us, and keep us safe.”  Have you ever wondered why we pray this prayer?  The Lord’s Prayer does not have a safety clause.  Jesus did talk to God about not going to the cross, but I am not sure that counts as a safety prayer.  In John 17 Jesus does pray for protection but he was praying for our souls, that they would be protected from the evil one.

When Jesus did talk about becoming a follower, ideas like self-denial, self-sacrifice, and picking up one’s cross were always present.  The safety prayer was not Jesus’ go-to prayer.  If anything Jesus emphasized the need to count the cost before choosing to follow.

I sometimes wonder that in our efforts to make Christianity palatable we ignore the difficult stuff.  Jesus never called us to safety.  If anything security is connected to confronting our fears, ignoring the impulse to judge, and embracing what culture says is dangerous.

I cannot help but wonder how often I cop an attitude with God.  For example, I am the Executive Director of DOOR.  In my mind this means I need to be powerful.  For me, power has something to do with an ability to control.  Then I read Scripture and Jesus seems to contradict this idea.  For him power is about service and self-sacrifice.  On paper this sounds almost idyllic, but in reality service and sacrifice can be view as indicators of weakness.

Can you imagine living life as a servant?  Servants are people who need to figure out how to survive under the power of a master.  What happens if the master is evil?  Aren’t Christians called to defeat evil?  If we are going to win this battle then we need to be people of power.

Donald Kraybill is credited with coining the term “Upside-Down Kingdom.”  This is another way of thinking about what Jesus was called his followers to.  In this kingdom everything we know about leadership and power is reversed.  Enemies are to be viewed as future friends.  Non-violence is always the response to violence, even when terrorists attack.  Service to others, regardless of social position, is always the starting point for relationship.

Living and acting this way is counter-cultural.  Living counter-culturally is not easy; sometimes it leads to copping an attitude with God.

My initial response was to check out the copyright date of the book, it was published in 1994.  In my mind the societal fear of differences may have been true a generation or two ago, but not in 2012.

Have we made progress?  Do we still separate from one another based on how we are different?  During the last election cycle President Obama regularly said, we are not a collection of red states or blue states we are the United States.  I like the idea that our unity trumps all the things that divide us.  I cannot help but wonder if disunity and differences are what we cling to.

Just listening to politicians talk about each seems to confirm how divided we are.  Politics is not the only place of division.  Sunday morning worship is still one of the most divided hours in the week.  There is Conservative and Liberal options, multi-racial churches are still the exception, family values divide gay from straight, we have hymn churches and contemporary music churches.

This trend extends well beyond church and politics.  Communities divide over school districts, crime rates and ethnicity.  What will it take to get beyond our fear of different?  When I speak to DOOR participants I spend a great deal of time explaining the different is only different.  When we fear different the possibility is created to define different as bad, evil or sinful.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to tame our fear of different.  When we do this a whole new and exciting world of possibilities open up.

There are other ways to describe what listening to this rhetoric is – brainwashing and indoctrination are two concepts that come to mind.  Why are we so easily persuaded to believe half-truths and lies?  It embarrasses me that supposed Christian pastors think that all Muslims are only interested in destroying America.  Yes Muslims believe differently, but different does not equal evil or bad; it is just different.

Is this the kind of society any of us want to live in – a society that defines different as bad, as evil to be destroyed?  Aren’t there are enough real things to fear, things like: a government that is too easily persuaded to go to war, the environmentally dangerous fracking practices energy companies are engaging in, and lack of access to affordable healthcare.

It takes courage to confront irrational fears.  After all there is a tremendous amount of peer pressure asserted to keep our enemies our enemies.  Can you imagine a world where rhetoric and innuendo are quickly dismissed as silly and unimportant ramblings?  Can you imagine a world where we start by assuming the best of each other?  It almost sounds like the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus was so fond of talking about.  The kind of world I want to live in.

Self-denial has never been a favorite sermon or bible study topic.  Taking Jesus’ words seriously have the potential to disturb the status quo and the status quo is comfortable.  To be honest I like things to be comfortable, predictable, safe, and secure.  These are the foundations of an uncomplicated life.

Self-denial removes me from the center.  It may even move my family, church, community, and country from the center.  According to Jesus, self-denial naturally leads to cross-carrying and cross-carrying leads to aloneness.

Jesus carried the cross 2,000 years ago because carrying the cross was what needed to be done.  Without the cross there could be no Easter and without Easter there could be no resolution to the sin problem.

When Jesus calls his followers to cross-carrying it is a call to courage.  It is a call to stand-up for truth even when no one else wants to hear the truth.  It means exposing and naming the powers that have neutralized the church’s prophetic place in the world.

When we name racism as a current sin, we risk our popularity.  When the church declares that we need a president of color because another white man will just reinforce the worst of our prejudices and stereotypes, we risk being called non-Christian.  When the church stands up against the raping of the environment just for cheaper fuel, we risk being called extremists.  When the church stands for the stranger and alien in our midst, we risk being labeled unpatriotic.

Friends, this is the call of Easter; a call to self-denial, cross-carrying, and truth telling.  It will not be easy.  It will not make you popular and you may end up feeling very alone.  Know this; we serve a High Priest, Jesus Christ, who understands.

What is it that makes for effective ministry at the personal and institutional level?  I have been to seminars that proclaim the virtues of time management.  There are the books and charts I have poured over outlining healthy organizational structures.  Well-meaning friends have advised me develop comprehensive policies and procedures.  All of this is good, but I sometimes wonder if all of this is a smoke screen designed to keep people and programs committed to ministry from following their call.

Some of the best advice I ever received was from a stranger.  It was his belief that we show value to others by choosing to waste time with them.  It is not surprising that potential employers shy away from hiring people who value wasting time and hanging out.  On one hand I understand this; effectiveness and efficiency are seen as opposite sides of the same coin.  This is too bad.

Hanging out or wasting time with other people are the activities that develop understanding and respect for the other.  When we understand and respect each other it becomes much simpler to work with each other.  In a world that is religiously pluralist, culturally diverse, and ideologically separated – understanding, compassion, and empathy will only emerge if we take the time to simply be with each other.  Wasting time together and hanging out without an agenda.

I cannot help but wonder what the impact would be if we started to value time together just hanging out over developing programs and structures?  I am not sure that Jesus ever started a program, but his time on earth just hanging out changed everything.

The news this week has also been dominated by a shooting in Florida.  An unarmed 17 year old was shot to death justifiably, according Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law.”  In what world is shooting an unarmed teen justifiable?  Can we really claim to be a Christian Nation and have laws that allow us to kill each other?

Philosophically what happened in Denver is as “justifiable” as what happened in Florida.  A gang member was simply standing his ground – protecting his turf.

I can almost understand why people without faith believe that standing your ground is important and correct, but what I cannot understand is how anyone in the faith community could even begin to endorse a law like this.

Stand your ground laws help to legitimize prejudices, assumptions, and stereotypes.  It is not surprising that both of the dead teens happen to be black.  It is this is population that has been victimized most by society’s irrational fears.

We are not going to get past things like racism, prejudice, and fear by creating space for justifiable murder.  If anything, allowing civilians to arm themselves makes these issues more contencious.

Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, and Jesus had it right all along.  Swords and guns must be transformed into instruments of peace.  When we arm each other it becomes too easy to let fear dictate our actions and fear too often leads to unwarranted violence.