Grace & Peace in Jesus Christ!

The whole experience has been a surreal case of déjà vu.

Not only have I moved back to Spokane after living here from June of 1988 to September of 1991.  I am also having another go ’round at establishing a new congregation in the Presbyterian Church (USA)—and this effort comes after my spouse, Sheryl, and I served for over a decade as the co-organizing pastors of the Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Limerick, Pennsylvania, from 1996 through 2006.   So, it’s as if I’ve ascended or descended some mysterious spiral staircase.  The scenery and the architecture look extremely familiar.  And yet, a great deal has changed.

Two Years Old

One thing that has changed is me—my identity as a leader and as a follower of Christ Jesus! 

That twenty-four year old graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary has aged twenty years and has gained at least twenty pounds.  Losses include my father who passed away in 1996 (one month prior to the start of Crossroads) and my ring-finger (due to a freak accident involving a soccer net and a wedding band).  Gray hairs now mingle with tasty table-scraps in my beard.   I am amazingly the father of two teenager boys (Ian, 16, and Philip, 13).  But the biggest transformation that has occurred over the years and over the miles has been the erosion of that chip that had been ensconced upon my shoulder.   The chip, of course, had to do with the Church.  The Institution of Church simply didn’t correspond to my idealized dreams of what it could or should be.  In my youthful exuberance, it seemed far too judgmental about all the wrong things (sex, sexuality, movies, music, pop-culture, etc.).   Plus, the church had proven itself time and again to be a push-over when it comes to the external sirens of success (numbers, nostalgic coziness, personalities, political power).  Anyway, that ecclesial chip has now been whittled down, and here I am.  I offer myself as a struggling poet, in scribal apprenticeship to Jesus of Nazareth (see Matthew 13:51--52 below for details).

The second thing that has changed is everything.   

Everything in North America has been tweaked, twisted and intertwined with what sociologists and other scholars call Post-Modernity.  In the world after modernity, we don’t have all the answers and have become incrementally aware that our technological progress will net us next to nothing when it comes to spiritual fulfillment.  Stanley Grenz, the author of A Primer On Postmodernism, has this to say:   “The postmodern ethos resists unified, all-encompassing, and universally valid explanations.  It replaces these with a respect for difference and a celebration of the local and particular at the expense of the universal” (p. 12).  This kind of dynamic may appear to put a damper on the cosmic claims of the Christian faith.  We may not get to tell the whole story like we used to.  But maybe that demotion in social status will ironically work for our mutual benefit after all.  Maybe, with a newly-discovered appreciation of the local, we don’t have to duplicate what congregations have typically done in the past.  We don't have to manipulate the media.  We don't have to manufacture a product.  We don't have to mandate a ritual.  Rather,  we might engage in relationships without steering the conversation (See The Big Kahuna).  We might believe in Jesus as the Son of God and put that belief at risk among others who think differently, or among others who have been alienated from the whole religious sub-culture. 

Either way, whoever you are, there’s much to talk about.  Much to do with and for one another.  And I’d love to listen…

Peace--

Scott Kinder-Pyle
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