The Intentional Conversation | The thought process of Robbie Shreffler

Rain, Rain, Go Away. Come Again Another Day!

Man it has been raining a lot around these parts lately! We’ve got all of the signs of a wet winter her in the Bay Area: Chilly days, High winds, Dark Clouds, and Green Green Hills!

Most people across the country probably don’t realize this but native grasses in California get super green during the winter but dry out during the rest of the year. If there is a lot of rain, you’ll know it based on how green the hills are! And right now, the hills are neon!

It’s beautiful here. There aren’t many places that I would rather be in the world outside of the Bay Area, so I’m really thankful to be serving here.

If you haven’t been able to tell through the tone and subject of this blog lately, I’m in the middle of a class on Church Administration and Finance. All of this leadership talk is the result of the class’ subject! It’s weird and I don’t even need you to tell me. The class itself is a little boring but it has me thinking of myself and the rhythms that I get into on a regular basis. There are times, like right now where I’m feeling good I’m ontop of things and everything seems to be going my way (I guess I’m only happy when it rains!). But then there are those times that I feel as dead and brittle as California grasses in late summer.

What do we always here about around those times? Brushfires! Up and down California, fires burn through the native lands because we don’t get water from late March all the way into November. Life is rough right?! It’s our blessing and curse all at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »

I found the most wonderful item this evening. It’s something that I saw on television and it’s something that I can just run across the bay and pick up… it is a Maple Glazed Bacon Apple Donut from a donut shop called Dynamo Donuts. Man doesn’t that sound crazy?! Donuts are good, Bacon is good, doing things in San Francisco is good… I’m getting one ASAP!

This new craving is reminding me of my new resolutions for this year. Over the past few years I have been developing one of my families more prominent physical features: The big belly! Dad, older brother, cousins, uncles you name it, we are big people! In the past I’ve been very careful about what I’ve eaten and how active I was because I REALLY wanted to avoid the very predicament I find myself in right now. But you know the story, once I got married my lifestyle really changed. Work and other time requirements kept me from the active lifestyle that I used to have and the lbs start packing on. Add that to a change in the style of work that I was doing and my metabolism really took a dive! Sitting behind a desk really beat me up.

I looked at myself in the mirror one day and decided that I needed to make a change. Eat healthier, work out, a more active and healthier lifestyle, the whole deal.

The problem comes with things like a Maple Glazed Bacon Apple donut. Mind you, it’s not the donut that’s bad… the donut actually is making my mouth water just writing about it lol. Rather the problem is the bad habit I developed with food. A Maple Glazed Bacon Apple donut sounds really, really… reeeeeeallllly good! But it’s probably not good for me… probably.

How often do we develop bad habits in our lives that go unnoticed until one day we realize what a mess things are? More often than I’d like to admit personally. But how do we keep from developing these habits? Sometimes it feels as if there is nothing we can do but there are a few things that we can do:

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I am at the church really early this morning.

I’m supposed to meet two men that are leaders of a senior adult group that want to use our facility for cooking. They are part of a group of Gujarati Seniors that meet twice a month…

Before I go on, Gujarati is an Indian language group (sometimes I forget that this isn’t common knowledge). The language is native to the Indian State of Gujarat and the most notable of Gujarati speakers was this little guy called Gandhi… maybe you’ve hear of him!

Anyhow, their group meets twice a month but the local senior center where they meet has no cooking facilities. They approached us about using our kitchen to cook and we are trying to make that connection in order to build that relationship in our community.

Funny story though, I’ve been at the church since 6:00 this morning and they haven’t shown up yet. In fact this is the third time that I’ve been here and they have not! Most people would be a little irked at this but not me and there are two reasons. First, I’m getting stuff done! lol My normal schedule is packed with different tasks that keep me busy throughout the day. Coming in early gives me some time to work on my classes and to blog a little. Second (and more important), I understand why I’m here and they aren’t! The group is not a very mobile group in the traditional American sense. Americans have cars and drive everywhere! These men are not from America and they have a different way of getting around. It is called walking!

:Side Commentary: It’s funny how we spend the first two years of our lives trying to perfect this skill of walking but as we grow older we just don’t want to do it anymore. Seems like it would be a better idea just to give babies motorized carts and teach them to drive from the beginning! :End Commentary:

Members of this group walk and they ride bikes and they take the bus to get where they need to go. And, as it has been for the better part of a month, it is raining today. When it rains, they don’t meet because no one wants to walk in the rain!

So what do I do? Do I get angry that it isn’t working out so far?

No.

I know that during the rest of the year we’ll meet up and I’ll be opening the church for them to cook (and hopefully we will become a place for the group to meet too!).

Being sensitive to other cultures is increasingly important in this part of the world. The lines are blurring, and the communities are changing. If I am stubborn and I hold on to the non-essentials then I run the risk of alienating myself from those who are now around me.

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Our church has been doing a lot of work to reach out to different communities in Fremont. Most recently our focus has been towards the South Asian Community in our area.

The big question that I’ve developed in this regard is how do I (a white, christian) reach out and make a difference in a community that is neither caucasian nor Christian?

Obviously I can’t go out and minister in one of the dozen + Indian languages because I don’t speak them. Thankfully most Indian and South Asian’s that have made their way to the Bay Area speak some level of English and therefore we are able to communicate. But what is the best way?

I could seek out a person to preach and represent our church that speaks the language. This seems ideal, but in reality it is a stretch of resources. Unfortunately, there aren’t many South Asians in Fremont that have the right set of qualifications. Namely they would need to be connected to a group here in Fremont and have the language skills neccessary to communicate, but also they would have to understand and believe in the Christian dogma which really narrows the search. We are also a denominational church, so having someone in the same ballpark dogmatically becomes an even more difficult combination of qualities to match in a person.

It seems that we would literally need to find an Indian or South Asian Nazarene and relocate them from their home country and come here to assist in our ministry! That’s where the stretch comes into play, how do we find that person? and how do we accomdate them also?

So what are we to do? We can’t hold off on doing this until we find that person, but we can’t fully shape a ministry without.

Here’s the deal, we feel called to this ministry at our church. If we are called to it then we are encouraged to go ahead and begin because of a few factors concerning our beliefs. First, we believe in an all powerful God. One that can do things that we cannot imagine. Two, we believe this God has told us that he is faithful to complete the work that he has started. If we believe this, by holding off and waiting for the perfect moment we are the only thing standing in the way of this work being completed. Three, we believe that God wants us to be a part of his work, so going back to number two… what are we waiting for???

Even though we don’t have what we think of as ideal conditions, we are still moving forward in this ministry. We believe in engaging people and building relationships as the easiest way for us to move forward and make disciples.

Pop Question: What is the church?

If you answered the building where you go on Sundays to sing a few songs and hear a sermon, you couldn’t be more wrong! Welcome to the western world where we think that we have invented everything! My dad likes to complain about people in their early 20’s. He is always talking about how we think that when we come to recognize something, we believe that we are the inventors and sole proprietors of the intellectual property. To some, it is the ramblings of an old man. To others it is the sage wisdom of an old man. It seems to me that what he accuses younger generations of represents more than just a phenomenon of one generation. To me it seems like the whole Western Culture is probably guilty of this same mentality.

Take the church for example. The title church has come to represent a building where people worship. It is likely that the building was not intended to become the house of God but indeed it has turned  into that very thing. And when I say the house of God I’m not talking about it in the holy-roller, welcome-to-the-house-of-the-Lord way. I’m talking about it in the way that God originally considered a structure that was intended to be his “house”. When David wanted to build a house for God, he was told not to bother because God didn’t want to be boxed in. Surely David didn’t intend to box God in but it appears that God knew what was in store for him.

Here we sit in the United States thinking that we’ve got everything together, that we’re the inventor of all good things, that we are the owners of all intellectual property and we’ve put God into a box. We’ve come to know the church as a building. Back in the days of David, God was trying to tell his people that it wasn’t about a place or the ceremony even though they didn’t want to listen. God was trying to tell them who they were. The Israelites were his people and just wanted them to follow and trust in him.  

Today it still isn’t about the place. Now we are his people and all he wants is for us to follow and trust in him yet what we’ve done is make him a home to box him in. In calling the building we meet “the church” we have a nice separation from God for the 6 days that we aren’t there. No responsibility, no calling, nothing to worry ourselves about except what we want to be worried about.

Here’s the truth, we are his people. The people are the church, not some building. When we come to that realization there isn’t a separation between us and God. Church isn’t a place we go to, it becomes something that we are. I am not just a Christian but I am a part of the church. When I go to the grocery store, I’m the church. When I am jogging in the morning, I am the church. When I’m driving in my car, I’m the church. It opens our lives to a more considerate and worshipful way of living. When we think of ourselves as the church, we will consider God in everything that we do. So…

Pop Question: What is the church?

This coming Saturday I will be boarding a plane and shipping myself off to India for three weeks. It has been an intense few weeks ramping up and preparing for this trip. I enjoy going into different cultures and observing what is happening. I need your prayers as my team and I handle that last bit of preparation for departure.

Prayer is a topic that can sometimes get pushed to the side in the conversation of compassion and justice. Recently I’ve observed pastors trying to wrap their mind around what it means to be an emerging church. There is no doubt that the church is changing to a more active and outwardly focused entity. To a lot of us we think that we are inventing the wheel on this service/justice thing. I’m sure that as we expand our point of view we will see that we are just getting back on track with people like Assisi, Wesley and Bresee (for all you Nazarenes!).

The emerging church is scary for a lot of people because they see it as a departure from the “old” way of doing things which was so inwardly focused. We worked on our own personal salvation, we went to church to make sure our hearts were focused on God, we confessed our sins… we were very much in control of our religion. For people raised and entrenched in this version of Christianity the thought of changing is extremely daunting!

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Our garden day was a relative success. I hope for good things to come from our ministry partnership with a second local church in the Fremont area. In retrospect the theme for the workday was Fellowship and Farming. We had a tractor rolling through the garden; mowing and tilling the ground in preparation for the coming growing season. Meanwhile we were building relationships between two congregations that are ready to do something more for our community than provide Sunday Services. We believe that we were called to more than the bare minimum effort in spreading the Gospel. We believe that in order to spread the gospel more effectively we need to be involved in the lives of community members.

The question for you is how are you making an impact in your community? If we are to preach the gospel to the poor, how are you being active in persuing that? We’ve come to believe that it’s a personal call to each Christian and that it is not good enough to pass the buck along in the form of I’ll-pray-for-you or here’s-a-few-dollars. Prayer and money are needed but the poor, the hungry, those that are in need; need you your time and your attention.

So think about it, think about what you are doing… Is it enough? Can you do more? Should you do more?

It has been a couple weeks since I last wrote on the blog. Life get’s crazy! Right now at Fremont Journey of Faith we are preparing to launch our garden: Year 2. Last year the garden was planted and run more or less by myself with a lot of help from a few committed gardeners. This year we are teaming up with another local church here in Fremont to help us carry the load. I’ll update the garden here as we do more and more things with it.

 I came across this the other day. Althea Taylor is the Coordinator for Nazarene Compassionate Ministries in the USA/Canada Region. She writes a blog here at nazareneblogs.org called Courageous Conversations. You can see how this need to talk about the issues at hand is an important thing.

Her most recent post is titled, GUILT By Association. She has a great vision and passion about compassionate ministries through the church and also a wealth of knowledge in regards to Justice as a necessary action of the church. Check out her Blog and what she has to say at Courageous Conversations!

 So the question we need to ask today is… Why? It’s about to sound like a four year old up on this blog, so get ready! We determined that single mothers are oppressed by poverty at a higher rate than most everyone else, now we ask why is that?

But… before I get into the social justice meat, let’s think about why women become single mothers.

The obvious reason is that they have at least one child and they are raising that child on their own (I told you it was obvious!). perhaps the better question is why are they raising their child(ren) on their own. I would say that there are three main reasons.

First (and these aren’t in any type of order), perhaps the children’s father died. I’ve stated before that single mothers are the modern day equivalent to the bible’s widows. In some cases they are in reality; widows.

Second, the father leaves. In our day and time divorce rates hover around 50% but that only accounts for married partners. Marriage in our society is not such a binding legal/ moral force that some advocates would have you believe. Some people have children while not being married. Regardless of the reason the father leaves, leaving the established family behind.

The third reason is similar to the second but under slightly different circumstances, the father leaves prior to the birth. Generally this situation will happen to unmarried couples in which the level of commitment at conception is less than desirable for long term commitment. Luckily we are not here to judge, we are here to deal with the realities of our day. This can happen to couples that are not ready for children, casual sexual encounters, more unfortunate sexual encounters including rape and incest. Children are born and the mother is left to fend for herself.

Moving further, the obvious reasons for single mothers and their families being in poverty at a higher rate than any other family group are all out there for us. Women make less money than men, the more family members we have the higher the poverty line goes, the younger a person is the less money they make… the list goes on and on and it’s a sociologists basic check list to poverty. Check, check and check!

So women make less money than men, is that an issue of social justice? In the instance of single motherhood it is an issue. The reason why single mothers get more airtime than single fathers is closely tied to this reason (also the fact that women inherit the children of a split relationship at a much higher rate). Single fathers annual income is substantially higher than that of their female counterparts and therefore do not fall into poverty  at the same rate. It’s not even close. So the answer is yes the fact that woman make less than men is an issue of social justice.

Youth makes a difference in the amount of money that you are paid. Obviously, we make more money in our jobs with more experience. This is an issue with to take into consideration when we think about single motherhood. Many of these mothers are having children at an age in which they are not steeped in experience and are therefore on the low end of the pay scale. There is actually more to this as many of you parents already know. Having children takes up a lot of time and for an aspiring ladder climber, having children can put a big dent in the amount of progress you can make… but we’ll get back to this in a little while.

These are just two reasons why this is considered a social justice issue. Ask yourself, is it fair that these women are left to fend for themselves and their children? Is it fair that women in general make less money and therefore it is more difficult for them to provide for their families? Here’s another question for you… What should the church do about it? Is it up to the church to help these mothers?

Think about it and let me know what you come up with…