I visited the CS Lewis Society this past Friday. It’s been on the list of things to do for quite some time and the night’s title interested me – “Another Repressed Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud on Laughter” by Terry Lindvall. Often when I hear/read of Freud, I think, I need to read more of him beyond my college general studies understanding. Throw in some CS Lewis and we got a winner.

I know some of my Twitter friends are CS Lewis-ed Out. I get that, he gets quoted quite a bit but he has so much good stuff, I still find that he’s really worth reading. I like that Lewis is not an evangelical but appreciated by so many. I have always liked how he was able to bring his pre-conversion thoughts and address them post-conversion. I liked how he struggled to find faith and how he honestly wrote about doubt and hope. Further, I like natural law, I admire his mind and I love knowing that he would be completely disappointed with how his Narnia world has been adapted to film today.

First impressions upon walking into the CS Lewis society: Nothing like the Eagle & Child Pub, no lounge chairs, no pipes, no alcohol, just metal chairs in row style and coffee cake served in the back. It meets in the Parish House of the Church in the Ascension in Greenwich Village.  I was among the younger people there (it meets on a Friday night in New York for goodness sakes) but found everyone to be very friendly and very knowledgable about the Oxford scholar.

Regarding the lecture, Terry did a fantastic job. For one he’s talking about humor and he’s actually funny (like professor funny, not Brian Regan funny, ok?). What I liked is the access that he had into Lewis’ thought and work. You probably already know there is a section of academics that have studied Lewis’ work for years but I have found it difficult to hear about it (considering how often Lewis is quote and illustrated. I suppose this is true about anything and that’s why I think this Society is cool). For those interested in more of Lewis’ understanding of humor, check out Terry’s book,  “Surprised By Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis” available on Amazon.

The first part of the lecture demonstrated Freud saw humor and contrasted with Lewis’ perspective. Among many points, it was pointed out that since Freud saw most things sexual, humor was often included in that. Terry showed humor in Lewis’ work and life and offered that Lewis protested that humor did not need to be sexual. Making the point that sometimes things are just funny for their own sake. He used the example that Freud saw sex in everything from cigars to rose gardens. Lewis felt that although you could see sexuality in those things, he simply liked cigars for what they were and enjoyed rose gardens because they were beautiful.

Perhaps my favorite part was the Terry telling of the story of Abraham and Sarah. He asked is there any greater comedy than humor about and between men and women? Both created in the image of God but among other things, so much humor is found too. He recreated the encounter well with Abraham and Sarah and highlighted the part where Sarah laughs. Indeed the thought of their geriatric love-making and conceiving at this age is funny (but don’t think about it. Really. I’m just trying to help. Ok, fine think about it). Instead of rebuking Sarah for laughing, God blesses them and tells them to call their son “Isaac” which we all know means “laughter”. God understands humor, He’s the creator of it, and among the blessings that He bestows on those He loves is children and laughter.  As a young dad, there is a world of pleasure and goodness in that thought.

So much more was said in the night but I appreciated most that God enjoys humor and again, is the giver of it.
I don’t know how many I can get to but let me know if you want to attend one evening. They meet the second Friday of every month (except for August). It’s free to attend but you can “join” the society for $10. The benefit of that is enjoying their newsletter that is filled with essays on Lewis. If you would like more information on the CS Lewis society, here’s the site.

Last week I was given the opportunity to attend the Ecclesia Conference in DC and it was an excellent time. For those unfamiliar with the “Ecclesia”, it’s basically a network of missionally minded churches across the country. Now, my church is not a part of Ecclesia, but my interest is more in the people and the conversations in it and that seems to be ok. Here are a few of my observations as somewhat of an outsider.

Having attended my share of conferences over the years, each gathering has a “feel” to it. This being my second time at this gathering, there were a few things I had my eye on. Of course there are the cliched jokes that we all love, it’s a room full of macbooks, moleskins, and manbags. Further, we all hate cheesy aliteration but cannot help using it from time to time either. Cool eye wear? Check. Cool jeans? Yep, not a pair of khaki’s in the house. Some of these people not only adopt kids but adopt parents – yep. In this room, it makes more sense to pay more for your XLR than your car. Most of this stuff is simply true of people in their 20′s and 30′s but you know you are not at a Southern Baptist gathering because there are tattoos, women, and amillennialists. I’m telling you, it’s a pretty cool group of people.

They are also a very welcoming group. While that is typically true of most church leader groups, if you know anything about twenty-thirty something, educated, post-evangelical, radical church planters, many of whom had difficult church congregant/pastoral experiences (catch my breath), well, you’re a bit surprised that it’s such a friendly place. As a bit of an outsider, it feels like everyone here knows everyone else. Some of these pastors and leaders have been meeting together (multiple times) for years and you can tell by the number of inside jokes (and some you know because of the social media world).

It’s a very sharp, intelligent, well-read room. Many I spoke to are/were a part of the emerging church conversation. I would assume that everyone would say that New Kind of Christian was an important book for them. So much more could be said here but I’ll leave it with, it seems that many of us in the missional church conversation have roots in the emergent/emerging church conversation.

Like I said, it’s a sharp and intelligent room so you don’t ask a question like, “Have you read any Dallas Willard?” You will get a polite answer like, “Well, sure, he was our speaker here last year and a number of us have read his books over the years …”. The question that an Ecclesist wants to ponder is more like, “What do you think Dallas Willard is thinking about right now?” “Well, JR (there are like 8 JR’s, so you never really know which one is being referred to) was just talking to him because Dallas had just update his secret Tumbler and he said Dallas has been wrestling with the idea of …”.

But they are not condescending either. This took me a while to figure out because I simply thought that they were better at being polite but this year it dawned on me – These pastors don’t have enough people or power in their church to be condescending. In some ways, I don’t really fit in this group. I admit, I can be condescending but even more, I’m not bivocational, I don’t design websites, my church doesn’t meet in a bar, and no matter how hard I try, I don’t look like Topher Grace, not even an Egyptian version of “Eric”. My church has a youth ministry, I’m one of the youth pastors, we even have a budget.

This year’s theme was spiritual formation. If you want to read on what what actually spoken about, I recommend these reflections:
Scott Emery’s, Eric Phillips, especially loved this one by Dave Kludt, the summary of tweets,
and keep an eye out on the Ecclesia site for when they post the mp3′s. A summary of tweets. http://lcfva.com/2011/02/formative-tweets-from-the-ecclesia-national-gathering-2011/

This year, I came late (though I enjoyed what I heard from Todd Hunter, found Marykate Morse’s leadership seminars to be fantastic, and loved the panel discussions from the many that shared) and I left a little early, so driving home, I reflected more on the conversations and relational elements I enjoyed those 36 hours I was there.

After some reflection, I think the greatest element that I am walking away with is that many in this gathering are very faith-led. Perhaps it’s their seminary training from Fuller, Talbot, Tibet, or it could be their collective choice in MLB teams. Which brings me to my point, “Is there anyone out there in American Christendom who has more faith than a married with children, bivocational, missional, church planter who cheers for the Cubs??? My prayer this Lent is that the Lord would give me half the faith of these people. Amen.

This past weekend I was one of the workshop speakers at the Grapevine Project. Their mission “is to glorify God by equipping the Second Generation to develop true identity, spiritual maturity, and the skills for discipleship so that they are strengthened forministry in their local churches and communities.”

I first became aware of GP after speaking at a Middle Eastern Church Conference for their College and Career age back in 2007. Between seminary and then kids (praise the Lord for both!), I could never make it out. This year worked out differently and with the blessing of my local community, I was set to go and was asked two give two workshops – one on purity and the other on missional living which was framed by the question, “With all the stress in our everyday lives, how can we live out the mandates of Scripture like worship and serving others?”

Things like Grapevine are important to me because I really wish there was something like this when I was growing up. By focusing specifically on the first and second generation middle-eastern students – a lot can happen potentially.   As any immigrant family knows, there is a great deal of cultural identity searching in addition to the other identity searching that adolescence and adulthood bring. I am so grateful for people like Khalaf, Ash, Maya, Tala, Mark, their families, and the many others including all the small group leaders that have served this need for the last 5 years.

There was a lot I found at Grapevine regarding their hopes and dreams and wonderful moments and conversations I had over the weekend and I’d like to post more but here’s a little bit of what I found:

The value of relationships. This is not new of course, but rather encouraging. It’s always a big thing to me when I hear people say, “It’s all about relationships here.” Of course some people flippantly use that in the same way selfish people say, “I like to help people” but when you see a place that thrives on relationships, you believe it. This weekend I saw so many that gathered to reconnect, share the stories of their recent past and further their relationship with God. As an outsider, this was pretty obvious.

However, even though I was an outsider, I was so encouraged by the unity I found in the body of Christ. Three things struck me. One was our worship. Led by a young twenty something named Mark (who led worship at the conference I spoke at back in 2007) and his friends from Taylor University, I felt that unity of the Body. Second was in Khalaf’s teaching. Khalaf is a fantastic speaker, a recent MDIV grad, and has a full-time career in Microsoft Training. He’s a couple years older than me and we connected on the “stuck between two generations” thing, as well as of course the middle-eastern connection. It was helpful to me that he said a number of things that I normally say and my workshops seemed to reemphasize his main session points. That’s a cool thing when you don’t know each other and haven’t planned that.  And third, I got to meet some great people. Though you cannot maintain great relationships with everyone, in the Facebook age, you can still keep in some type of touch. There were a couple other things that I wrote down in my journal – I was reminded by the importance of inter-generational ministry and inter-cultural ministry which deserve their own posts.

Lastly though I was motivated further to work in my local context to which the Lord has called me to. It’s here in my local church in Montvale (and to a certain extent, the youth group at my first church) that many thoughts and ideas are birthed. It’s our students that have to hear the illustrations that don’t work before the ones that do take some shape. It’s through them and our leaders here that have provided countless stories and other thoughts and ideas and I find myself grateful for that. it’s always nice to get away, speak, and hope to be a blessing to others, but it’s so good to be rooted some place where you can come back, share life together, and hopefully be a blessing (and be blessed as well).

I hope to get back to Grapevine and would be great to either organize an event here or bring a couple church groups out there. We’ll see what happens.

More from the Grapevine Project’s Mission:  Over the years many families have moved from the Middle East to North America, seeking opportunities and a better way of life. These immigrants brought their faith and their traditions, and began to establish churches similar in form to what they had left behind. These First Generation believers worship the Lord with all sincerity of heart, and continue to do so to this day.

The children of these immigrants, the Second Generation, have much in common with their parents. Yet being born here and growing up in a world unlike that of their parents has shaped them differently. … Over the past ten years the Lord as laid a burden on the hearts of many people to effectively reach the Second Generation and nurture them to spiritual maturity in Christ, in effect “reconnecting” them to the True Vine.

Check out their site here.