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Views from Underground

Views from the Underground are a collection of rants. aspirations, and longings that cover subjects as diverse as God, pop culture, music, the church, politics, art and whatever else our contributors are thinking about. Mostly they pose a challenge to religious institutions to consider the course they are charting for themselves...Want to contribute one...email Bill Golderer @ bill@broadstreetministry.org

 

My View

Matt Joyce

Matt JoyceI often wonder what the internal dialogue of the person sitting beside me at church sounds like. I always used to feel a little guilty when my mind wandered far from the religious realm as I listened to a prayer or sermon. Was everyone else staying on task?

Well, in case you happen to be sitting next to me grappling with the same burning question next Sunday, here's what I'm usually thinking: I'll pay as much attention as possible until I hear a passage, a phrase, or a word that resonates with some aspect of my life, no matter how loosely connected. Then I'm gone. For a moment church becomes background noise to an internal discussion. For the next hour, that process repeats, sometimes following a single thread all the way through, sometimes going in 100 different directions.

Services, to me, end up as a kind of assisted meditation where I have the opportunity to sit, reflect, and put some things into perspective. It's valuable – but a lot of churches offer that. And during the ten years before Broad Street Ministry opened its doors, I'd been to as many Christmas services as I had Sunday worships – so I guess I'd align myself with a group that needs something more than just worship to hold our attention.

While I appreciate the opportunities for introspection at BSM, that's not why I regularly attend. I go for the food...

I'll explain.

Broad Street's tagline, "at the intersection of secular and sacred," is fitting, but overly modest. If I could rewrite the slogan without the constraints of brevity, it would read something like, "at the intersection of faith, music, race, class, attitude, sexuality, education, age, vision, innovation, curiosity, fear, courage, humility, and confidence." That would better describe this community. To accurately portray BSM, the four-way junction depicted in its logo would need to look more like the intersecting spokes of a bicycle wheel.

While this faith community could easily be described as "diverse", that title again falls short in depicting the investment of BSM's members. Diversity can be captured in a snapshot, but BSM has managed to extend it to a third dimension by engaging, not just attracting, a wide variety of people. Any charismatic minister with a worthwhile message can get people in the door – but how many can get them to clean the kitchen after the post-sermon meal? BSM's community is unique because we feel that we have a role in the future of this church. There's a lot of pride to be had in bringing to life a once forgotten historical landmark along the Avenue of the Arts; a large part of BSM's success comes from Bill and Warren's willingness to distribute that pride among every individual who walks in its doors.

When Reverend John Buchanan spoke at BSM this February, he described the four reasons people attend church. The first three all dealt with spirituality and the search for meaning – it wasn't until reason number four that Buchanan mentioned the reason I continue to stay involved with BSM: Community. At Broad Street, everything begins with community, with the understanding that spirituality and meaning will follow.

I'd be lying if I said that I'd found God after nearly a year at BSM. I did borrow a Bible from a friend in hopes of familiarizing with the rhetoric of services – but six months later I'm still mid-Exodus (take whatever irony you will from that). That said, I think I've found something just as good. I've found a group of people who are so talented, so committed, so giving and caring that they create the environment that I believe organized religion was meant to promote.

BSM leverages this unique community at every service – taking the concept of communion far beyond the symbolic and hosting a community meal for the entire congregation. Keeping in mind that this happens at 8pm on a Sunday night, the fact that nearly everyone in the crowd sticks around for an extra hour of food and conversation is in itself a success.

The food is a catalyst for creating the most interesting, and perhaps the most unlikely, community of Philadelphians I've ever seen. It works because of a shared desire to understand our similarities, rather than hide behind differences. A philosophy that BSM has ingrained since opening.

Like many at BSM, I didn't enter this faith community searching for meaning and purpose. I spend enough time doing that the other six days of the week. I entered looking for a different prospective – and I got a hundred of them. The BSM community is built on optimism and support. Encouraging one another in pursuit of what we want to accomplish and who we want to become. In philosophy and in practice, I believe Broad Street centers on the single important reason to attend church – hope.

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A few stray thoughts on Proclamation and the Word
For the Broad Street Ministry

Steve Jungkeit

To begin, here are some words from a little book on the contemplative life called Everything Belongs, by Richard Rohr:

How do you make attractive that which is not?
How do you sell emptiness, vulnerability, and nonsuccess?
How do you talk about descent when everything is about ascent?
How can you possibly market letting-go in a capitalist culture?
How do you present Jesus to a Promethean mind?
How do you talk about dying to a church trying to appear perfect?
This is NOT going to work
(admitting this might be my first step)

Before proceeding further I need to offer my own confession: I number myself among the disillusioned ones, those for whom the dominant modes of Christianity and understandings of God have largely ceased to speak. Though I spend my days reading theology, and though I show up for church most Sundays, I often fail to hear anything resembling good news in those settings. I've witnessed the way theologians have used their considerable skills in logic to build impregnable mental fortresses, devoid of passion, where they never need to feel any of the fear and trembling of ambiguity ever again. I've witnessed the conformist aspect of the church, on both the right and the left, where an all powerful and sovereign God claims he loves us (no need to use gender inclusive language here!), and yet has a very specific moral program he would like us to adhere to if we are really to know that love. I've seen the way the moral demands of that sovereign God have rendered people bland automatons, bright eyed, well manicured, cheerful, polite and pleasantly deodorized, afraid to allow their deepest questions or their most painful or uncomfortable feelings to show through. And perhaps most importantly of late, I have witnessed along with everybody else the truly terrible aspects of religious expression, including Christian expression, where Christianity becomes a nationalist ideology that helps to justify foreign violence abroad and an individualistic culture of ownership at home.

And yet for all that I remain strangely attracted to the figure of Jesus, and to the rather ironic kingdom he proclaimed. I continue to be attracted to the communities of people who tell and retell all the stories about Jesus, and his predecessors, the prophets, and his apostolic successors. In their best moments, these stories contain a vision of freedom (a word that we need to wrest away from George W. Bush), of individuals impassioned by an irrupting event, of a God who loves without demanding adherence to a program, of a God who is content to allow us to be kind of a mess, without needing to sanitize us. In short, in all those old stories I think I hear a freeing word from a God who has issued an invitation to live outside the norms prescribed by a consumer culture. I think I hear the word of one who frees us to get in touch with the world at its deepest and most profound levels, where words can barely reach, where laughter and spontaneity and joy and sex and irreverence and profanity mix with deep wells of sorrow and anger, fear and confusion. I think we'll have to affirm that it's in those places in particular, places that some cultural theorists call "limit experiences," where we'll discover the strange revelation of God.

And so I've been wondering for some years now what it would mean to take this vision of a fragile and vulnerable God seriously, together with the strange freedom that I think I sense lingering in the stories of Jesus and the prophets. I've been wondering, long before this gathering was planned, how such a vision might be communicated, how such a Word might be proclaimed.

Here is what I've come up with: first, we'd have to break away from the idea that it's a principle or an idea or a religious truth or a system of ethics that we're communicating. If we are to proclaim this word we'll have to trust in something as flimsy as an event. We'll have to trust that once upon a time something irrupted in our own lives with force enough to compel us to proclaim this strange good news about a God of freedom. We'll have to resist hiding behind the good name of philosophy or apologetics when we talk about this event. The best Reform theology I know is insistent on this point truth is a person, a moment, one that we name Jesus Christ, not a proposition to be proved. So we'll have to stake our claim on the fragility of a subjective moment, without nervously rushing into the arms of proof texts or philosophical arguments. We'll have to make our proclamation personal.

I think we'd also do well to borrow from some recent literary theory on the nature of testimonies. We'll have to understand that when we proclaim the crucified and risen one named Jesus, we're testifying to a wound that was opened some two thousand years ago. It's that wound, that rupture, that gave Christianity its original force. Recall that Paul was knocked off his horse and blinded shortly after he witnessed the traumatic stoning of Stephen. Recall that when Stephen was stoned, he was bearing witness to the crucified one. Recall as well that all the Hebrew prophets were testifying to disasters of one sort or another, urging their culture to look at places within themselves and within their worlds that they would sooner forget. I think our understanding of proclamation will have to have something of the same character, testifying to the wounds that we have sensed within ourselves and the wounds we have witnessed in the worlds we inhabit. And that means we'll have to be vigilant about critiquing the gospel of success and prosperity, for that is a systematic way of occluding and repressing the wounds that attempt to speak through us.

Here's another thing: maybe we'll have to borrow from Kierkegaard, who knew the use of irony and indirect communication in preaching the gospel. His finest theological and philosophical treatises are playful events, in which he introduces various characters and voices into the texts that force upon readers the question: "what do you think about all this? If you don't have an author (i.e. authority) telling you what's true and what's not, what's to be believed and what's not, if what you've got is a cacophony of voices and truths competing for adherence in the text, then where will you yourself land on all these questions?" So maybe our job as proclaimers of the Word in Christian worship is akin to that. Maybe we'll have to swear off thinking ourselves authorities about religious and spiritual matters, and find clever and humorous ways of eliciting the truth from those we come into contact with.

Another way of saying it is that the sorts of things we're trying to proclaim can't just be stated outright. It's like gazing at stars on a clear night your view is better if you catch a glimpse from your peripheral vision. It's the same with Christian proclamation I think it's best if we do it on the sly, in ways that seek to elicit a response from our hearers, rather than simply saying outright what's what. It's no accident, after all, that Jesus proclaimed his kingdom using parables and subversive irony. That's why our notion of what counts as proclamation, including what can be done in a sermon, is nearly limitless. Music, sculpture, painting, narrative, especially narrative, film all these are useful means of bearing witness to the event that we've witnessed in Jesus. That most of our churches shy away from these media, limiting themselves to moral instruction or some such thing, testifies to the paucity of their understanding of proclamation.

Additionally, it seems to me that a church located in the arts district of a major city could find ways of incorporating into itself not only the highbrow arts, but middle and lowbrow arts as well. It would find ways of incorporating into its aesthetic sense urban kitsch and camp, cowboy bands and hip hop acts. It might hire a local artist to do its mailings or bulletins. It might form its own house band that would play on Sundays but then also around town from time to time. I don't know. I guess what I'm suggesting is that the use of irony and indirect communication throws the door open to all sorts of interesting methods of proclamation, which in turn suggests the importance of having an aesthetic vision as well as a theological one.

I think these are all ways of addressing the questions from Richard Rohr that I began with. They are ways of embracing risk and passion, of allowing the church to speak in ways that aren't determined by the marketplace. They're ways of emphasizing descent as opposed to successful ascent, ways of testifying to the myriad ways in which we're haunted by the wounds of the world. They're ways of taking seriously the fact that because of the Incarnation, we're given the freedom to discern the presence of God in every aspect of life and culture, no matter how tawdry or apparently despicable. In the end, what I mean to suggest is that there is virtually no limit to what might be done with proclamation, and the presence of the Word of God in our midst is license to think freely and creatively about how to bear witness to what we have encountered in Jesus Christ.

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Stream of consciousness regarding church...

by Kirsten King

Kirsten KingChurch... you think it would be easy for a girl who grew up in church, has been in church her entire life, to write about what church is (I was asked to write this a year and a half ago!). Funny thing is that it's really hard. Maybe because my idea and experiences with church are ever changing.

Growing up church was where my Dad worked, and spent his best hours; total devotion to God and church. (Funny that I've used the word "church" several times, but am just now mentioning God... Sad that's the reality of it all too often).

But anyways, back to the church of my youth. It was pleasant, familiar, old... the congregation and the building. It never really grew, never really got smaller either. Church was God's building, a place to go for the exact same service every single Sunday, and Holy Days, and other times just for kicks. Mostly, I loved it, because my parents loved it. People came to the church for things-food, shelter, gas money; but the church didn't go to the people. My parents tried explaining to me what all of it was all about–the reason we used the same prayers, same hymns, same type of floral displays... tried describing the importance and significance of the service rites and all its parts. But, either I didn't get it, or I was disinterested in knowing all that yet. I just knew I had to be there whenever my parents were, and for the most part I didn't object because I didn't know life any other way.

I believed in God, some how grasped the idea of Jesus, got that the Holy Spirit was God's way of always being with me ("like the wind", mom would say). I believed in all that, but I didn't believe in the church. I didn't know that the church was something to have hope or belief in.

When I got to college, on the opposite side of the country, I naturally found and began attending a church of the same denomination I'd always been to. Only thing was, I noticed something... it was pleasant, but old... the congregation and the building. Sound familiar?

And, something clicked, and I stopped going to that church feeling determined that there had to be more to church. God was still God, but was this really all there was to church?! God, I hoped not!

A few months and several church tries later, I began attending a new church. The church was younger–congregation and building, friendly enough, contemporary... service in a gym, different prayers each week, no hymnals, a praise band (where's the organ?! The pews?!). It was totally weird at first. People (the community) did come to this church for help and care, and the church went to the people, but only sometimes, when it was scheduled and well planned out. And this church, it was very rigid with its rules–"believe as we do, or move along" is how it felt. This church was very inward focused, had a lot of internal problems, but that would all be fixed once we found and moved into a new building, we were told by the pastor and elders. The building was the answer; they were convinced, and the congregation became convinced. And for a while, I didn't let that bother me because I was very involved, and being asked to lead this and organize that...

Six years I was at that church. The new building never came, the problems were never faced or talked about, and the church grew stale... but I stayed there that long, not even because I was glad or wanting to be there, but because I didn't know where else to go. And, although I couldn't put my finger on it, I knew God's Church was meant to be bigger, more alive and mysterious than I'd experienced so far. I don't mean bigger as in the building space, or even the congregation, but in its thinking, in its vision, in its relations with the community and world around it. And, I knew I had to find and be a part of God's Church-Church the way I read God wanted a Church to be. The thing is, Church is not a building, not God's Church anyways! That would be too contained and defined, and God can not be boxed up... stuck in wood, brick, rafters or pews.

God's Church, as I understood it to be, is made up of His people, coming together to fellowship, and to work for the betterment of the community, neighborhood, city, state... you get my point. The Church is God's people extending a kindness, fighting an injustice, sharing a meal. Church is God's people coming together when they're at their best, or when they're at their worst, but coming none the less.

I have found such a Church. And, I am convinced it's not the only one out there, that there are others similar to it out there–like I said, God cannot be contained or pinned down like that–His Spirit is moving ("like the wind") and His people are every where. (Funny that now God and Church go hand in hand as I let my mind onto the page... that is how the Church needs to be).

Anyways, back to this Church I have found. It's beautiful... so many shades, ages, experiences of God's people all coming together, at our best, at our worst, just coming together for the fellowship and with the hope of bettering the community, neighborhood, city, state... you get my point.

It's known as Broad Street Ministry, and it's incredible, because it is Church as I knew Church could be. It is the Church I knew could exist, well, it's constantly striving to be that Church any ways. And, that is one of the things that make it so endearing and precious to me–it's real people; no show, nothing pretentious... just real people, God's people, coming together right where they're at, just as they are.

I won't ruin it for you by describing every facet and nuance, or every program or service, because that's another intrigue and beauty of Broad Street Ministry–it is many things, to many, many people. To me, it is God's Church, and to you...

When you get the chance, or the bug of curiosity bites you, head on over to 315 South Broad Street, step through the red doors, passed the immense stone walls, but please do ignore the building, and check out the Church.

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broad street

beccai have said before that i love being surprised by my love for someone--about how all it takes is a certain mannerism, a gut-level laugh, or an unabashed display of passion for something, to make my heart turn over, to slip out from my fingers and begin loving someone anew. this is true. but i also love it when i am conscious of the falling-in-love part--when i can look at a whole evening or day or whatever and see the exact places my heart slipped out through the cracks of too many defense mechanisms and fears.

i realized this today when i was trying to pin down what was my favorite part of the worship service i went to yesterday. immediately my mind jumped to communion but then it kept going, flitting from one aspect to another, and i started to realize that i'd been falling in love with this place little by little all evening (all summer, really, but especially last night).

I often get distracted by other things and end up not listening to the sermon. but every once in a while the gospel message hits me upside the head, it bruises me hard, hard enough for a teeny hope-breath to leak out, for the most wounded and small part of myself to whisper 'really? me too?'. and that is the power of narrative, that is the power of story, that is the tradition we come from, of telling story after story of love and grace and beauty manifested in the small things, in the easily-missed things. the power to quiet down fear and the power to prop up a frail and slowly healing hope by the shoulders.

and then there was the song in the midst of the sermon (yes, there are songs sometimes and people visually telling the sermon-story other times, sometimes smoothly and sometimes awkwardly interjected) i think the man wrote it, although i'm not sure, a song about how Jesus isn't the pretty white boy represented on those slightly sickening glassy-eyed portraits--Jesus is the prostitute on the corner, Jesus is the homeless person asleep in the subway, Jesus is the wounded-angry neighbor who makes us uncomfortable. all of these are Jesus, asking us to love him. the song was heartfelt and vulnerable and true.

and then there was communion, the Eucharist, and a beautifully sung 'i love you lord and i lift my voice to worship you oh my soul rejoice take joy my king in what you hear may it be a sweet sweet sound in your ear' and i'm singing along, humming along with the soloist even though he's doing his own thing with it, and then the rest of the choir chimes in with the familiar melody and i think about how i used to sing this song to myself during the seemingly endless hours i spent in the darkroom, focusing, unfocusing, focusing again, sliding paper under metal frame and out again, sending chemicals sliding over paper, watching the image develop like magic i love you lord and i lift my voice not caring about the smell anymore and forsaking tongs picking the limp paper in my fingers, and into the next tray and i lift my voice to worship you oh my soul rejoice and then sliding it into the next tray, scratching my nose with the top of my wrist and take joy my king in what you hear and then in the water, swirling, rushing, setting the image forever into stark blacks and whites and grays and i walk back to the enlarger to do it all over again, and may it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.

and i go up for communion, singing, singing, singing, and i mean it today, i mean the words. and i walk through the sand on the floor (part of the sermon illustration) and i move my foot in a little circle, trying to push the sand, trying to leave a swirl. and i take the bread and dip it in the cup and i eat the hard crust soaked in deep red wine and i taste the sweetness of the dissolving bread and the bitterness of the wine (i never liked wine very much). and i sit and i watch the people go up, this is my favorite part of church, any church, watching people walk up to the front, watching old men shakily kneel, watching cherub-faced children be prayed over. so i watch the people walk up, each person in his or her own world, and yet present in this one, too. i watch my friends walk by, slow, solemn, and i love them all over again, just by each one's little mannerism here and there, the way one walks, the way another bows her head.

the i love you lord song keeps going, after everyone has received, after grace has been mediated through these earthy means.

and i kneel, and even as i'm doing it i question my motives, i question whether i really mean this or if this is a silly show, but i am tired of all my questioning of everything and all i answer myself with is that i want to kneel, now. i sing the song and bow my head and curve my back, resting my hands on my thighs as i just try to be quiet.

and then there is the peace-passing, the part that makes me happy but also scares my little introverted self, i actually have to talk to people, to tell them my name, i have to acknowledge that i am here--i can't slink in the last row and be comfortably ignored, i have to get up and talk and laugh and hug and i am slowly becoming less afraid of this. i meet (again) one of the song leaders, and i can tell by the look in her eye that i've been recognized, that i've come often enough that she's knows i've been here before and as i turn away i think to myself that i'm in trouble now, people start recognizing you, you start loving a place, soon you'll be involved, invested, soon you'll actually have to be vulnerable with these people instead of trying to remain a calm and collected outsider, observer. and i go to the bathroom, because i know this peace-passing will take a while, i love knowing it'll take a while, and i come back towards my seat and there you are, i know you are here somewhere but there you are in front of me and there are hugs and smiles and i think to myself, yes this is a mess, but what a beautiful one it is, and i can't help but smile again.

and then it's offering time, and i love how honest it is, yes we need your money, we need your change, but we need you, too, so now's the time. i scrawl a prayer request on an index card, the first time i've done that all summer, and i drop it in with a couple dollars. and the small (but powerful) choir starts singing leaning on the everlasting arms and it takes me right back to pounding that out on the piano growing up, and then again one time with mom and bill, mom and i sat at the piano and i played the melodies (that's all i know how to play) and we sang together, straining to hit some of the high notes with our soft alto voices and i can almost see which keys my fingers need to touch, even though it's been years and there's no piano in front of me.

and it's over. not really though, there's a meal and a meeting after, but my friend and i have to go, i love that they eat together, it feels like something Jesus would do. and there's some more talking and more hugs and my heart feels light. my friend and i walk through the streets in the falling darkness, and i keep getting overwhelmed with how much i love this place, and i swing my arms up and sigh deeply and then it occurs to me that must've looked bizarre so i explain to kristen and she knows me and loves me so all she says is 'i figured' and i love that she didn't really need me to explain but that she didn't mind hearing, anyway.

and that is the story of how i fell in love with broad street ministries, a small vibrant church in philadelphia.

i wanted to say "the end" here, but instead i am going to put

the beginning.

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