The Story of My Spiritual Life
: Douglas Selph
12/03/02
Page 3
Sojourners
Sojourners started
out with two families of four (the Reeds and the Bernards) and five single
post-college age women from Santa Cruz that moved up to covenant with each
other sometime in the late 80's. They managed to find a house where they all
live together, practiced shared finances and had their own worship times on
Sunday.
The Reed's were
actively involved with serving the poor in the Mission district of San
Francisco. They formed a very small church, where a few committed Latino
families attended. They also sponsored a free legal aid ministry to help
immigrants. Most of the women I knew from Intervarsity. Because of this
connection, I started visiting, and then attending their worship services
regularly. Then, when my company was to relocate down the peninsula, the idea
of me moving in came up. But the Church of Christ was still a serious influence
on my life. And Chris didn't like the idea of me moving in with this group. The
chief reason he gave was, if I moved in, I would be sharing a hallway with
single women.
Apparently, I was getting to be a bit too much for Chris, because he started
arranging our meetings to include his discipler, Ben as well. Things started
getting more intense then. Their assertion that I wasn't a Christian seemed
ludicrous to me. They said that ever since Christ, there have been a select few
who have been entrusted with the truth, and they in turn passed this truth to
the next generation, until you have the Church of Christ today. The specific
knowledge of sin was what I didn't have. But then one night, after praying and
studying Acts, I saw that the conversion of the multitudes occurred not after
they were given some special knowledge through a special meeting, but when they
were confronted with the fact that they crucified the Christ. After this, the
passage says they responded by asking what they could do, and were immediately
baptized in the Holy Spirit. In another words, there was no time to be given some
"secret knowledge" of all their sins.
When I explained all
this to Ben and Chris they wrote it off. Ben then made the incredulous
statement that the experiences of the Holy Spirit I encountered in college had
to be of the devil! Yikes! Attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to the
devil? Sounded like the unforgivable sin to me! At that point Ben pronounced
that I was being deceived by my own sin and we parted ways.
But God was good to
me. I decided to move in with the Sojourners soon after that and found my
spiritual home at last. Sojourner Years
Eph 4:15, 16:
"...but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him,
who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held
together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of
each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of
itself in love."
The Sojourners
started as a serious group of Christians trying to live the gospel in a radical
way. Just my cup of tea. What Sojourners grew into was something, if I can say,
quite beautiful and unique. We were blessed with excellent teaching and people
of faith. If you ever have a chance to visit them, I would encourage it. I
learned a lot and grew up in many ways while I was there.
Sojourners started
out as a ministry to the poor. It was a social gospel. Are you spending time
with poor? Are you aware of the injustices of our country? Now all of this is a
good thing to advocate for. But there were problems with this as being definitive
on how one was to live out the gospel.
First, we started
seeing the shortcomings of the immigrant legal aid ministry we were involved
with. It felt like we were just enabling them to enter into the "American
Nightmare" (as opposed to the "American Dream") and becoming functioning
consumers in our society. Although we were opting out of that "dream," and
living simply, what good is it if we help others into the dream we left? What
about Jesus? We wanted a way of introducing people to Jesus, of seeing transformed
lives. The law clinic wasn't doing that. In fact, we saw that many helpful
ministries of that sort, whether it be a soup kitchen, or advocating for the
rights of those on death row, or the otherwise oppressed, had that fault. Those
sorts of ministries are designed to alleviate the oppression, which was good,
but did not directly call people to give their lives over to Christ. This is
what we felt was the real transformer that the world needed.
(Later on, John
described how communities that used social justice as a primary way of defining
oneself had a tendency
to "fly apart". I also noticed that the primary evangelistic task turned out to
be trying to convince other American believers of the depth of injustice in the
world, as we understood it.)
In any case, not
everyone in leadership in our early years saw things the same way, and thus it
was fragmented, and we needed help. In southern California there was another
community church like ours called the Church of the Servant King (or COSK for
short). They had dynamic leadership and followers and sponsored seminars called
"The Nature and Purpose of the Church" which were quite inspiring. So we asked
them for help. In response, they let John & Judy Alexander come up for the
summer to do some teaching.
John & Judy were
in their 40's. John graduated from Wheaton, and they had spent their lives in
various communities. They had gone from one failing community to another until
they found COSK. There, for the first time, they saw a dynamic body living in
community and loving one another in tangible ways. But COSK didn't espouse a
"politically correct" view. Many of their members lived a bit too extravagantly
and didn't talk about the injustices done to the poor and so on. However, they
did demonstrate a real laying down of their lives for each other. Members would
sacrifice their living space for foreigners that needed a place to live.
Members would quit their jobs and be willing to move in order to make "church
happen" for some group of believers in another part of the country. And it
wouldn't just be the leadership types that did this, but "ordinary" members as
well. After a lifetime of searching, John finally found a group that realized
the vision he was looking for.
The Alexander's
teaching was received well and even though Judy & Judy had quite good jobs
in southern California, they quit them and moved up to "make church happen" for
Sojourners in San Francisco.
For the first time, I
felt like I was really doing something without being the Sunday school teacher,
pastor, or other person in leadership. I was just an "ordinary" guy following
Christ. But I felt very needed. Because the primary task was loving one
another, and that includes the people coming in the door, there was always a
need for workers. There are a lot of needy people out there, and it's not
possible for the leadership alone to love them. People wanted friends, long-term companions, who spent a lot of time with them and thus got to know them. I
had experienced that when I was doing my lone ranger style of evangelism. But
now it was an intentional act supported by the common vision of the group.
Now churches tend to
have some aspect of the gospel that they make central. This is what guides
their structures and the sort of programs they embark on. If your center is a
social gospel, then you focus on doing law clinics and trying to convince
others about the injustices of the world. But if your center is loving one
another then you focus on how to make your forms care for the needs of the
members.
The initial objection
to this focus is that it feels "ingrown." People would ask, what about ministry
and serving those outside your community? Well, it's not that we didn't do
those things, it's just that we didn't consider this our primary ministry form.
Rather, our primary form was to follow Jesus by loving one another, and call
others into this. Thus creating a safe spot in the universe, a family who loved
one another. This is how the world was to be transformed.
It started making sense. Sojourners ministered in a way unseen in a traditional
church setting. We were able to invite needy people into our lives, to live
with us. I was able to spend relaxed spontaneous time with folk, loving them by
being their friends. Once people started experiencing this sort of friendship
and love they started listening more about Jesus and the Bible. They started
growing up. They in turn were able to love others coming in. And we all
experienced this sort of friendship and transforming effect. We all were needy
in some sense.
Intentional living
made sense too. How could you love one another without spending time with one
another? And how could you spend time with one another if you spent a lot of
energy traveling to see each other? By living in the same space, it made it easier
for a lot of spontaneous relating to one another to occur.
But we had problems
too. Steve, who spent his life seeking God amongst the poor didn't want to all
this self-absorbed nonsense. He and his wife and kids decided to leave. He was
our primary leader. This was a very hard time for the community. We almost
shattered. Nevertheless, by the grace of God, and after an intense weekend
retreat away together, those who were left decided to stick with it and see
what would happen.
Life at Sojourners
developed into the following forms:
Shared finances & simple
living disciplines.
Regular dinner times
together: we managed the five work days and Sunday for gathered worship!
Regular planned fun times
together.
Weekly Bible study and
teaching time.
Weekly group "Kairos" times
where a more pastoral practical everyday challenge is issued.
Weekly small groups gathering
where people get together in groups of three or four to discuss how people
are doing in their life and spiritual walk.
Weekly worship together, with
members assigned to worship and doing the sermon and leading encouragement
time. Occasional retreats together for prayer, or special teaching, or
maybe just a shared vacation.
Yearly Sojourn during the
summer which is the major out-reach time. Invite student types to come in
to be involved in some sort of ministry for the neighborhood (reading
program, or vacation bible school).
Other planned ministries
occur over an as needed basis, perhaps making a point to be hospitable to
a neighbor.
Regular ministry occurred by
inviting the needy into the home and living with. This is the most costly
form of ministry so I think there was a tendency to reduce the other types
in response.
An ideal household would be a
one family unit with one single, or a household made up of a group of
singles. In any of these situations, a temporary or long-term needy person
might be placed.
Over the time of my
stay Sojourners we grew from one house of about 9 members, to four houses with
over 20 members and their children. It was heaven on earth. However, we had a
major problem yet to face.
COSK had been
skeptical of us, of the resilience of our leadership, and whether we would
survive. Then a romance developed between two members of our communities, and
disagreements arose surrounding the timing of the wedding and other pastoral
concerns. When the wedding took place and COSK protested by not showing up, a
significant rift between our communities occurred.
COSK, and we also
developed feelings of superiority towards the rest of Christendom - a tendency
to feel like "we are doing it right, and everyone else needs to be like us."
This is a rotting agent for every human being ever born. But it was something
we consciously struggled with, and saw manifested in the attitudes of COSK
towards us.
In response, Sojourner leaders chose to emphasize the
central fact that it's all about Jesus, and Jesus and nothing else. That is, in
our day-to-day interactions, we are not focused on what is wrong with the other
person, how we can change them, but rather on how Jesus can change us. Although
we had forms we liked, they were meaningless and despicable without a
moment-to-moment seeking of God and humbly doing His will.
After I while, I
started wondering where exactly did God fit into all of this? I felt I began to
understand the loving one another aspects, but where in my life does the
centrality of a God focus fit? I had quiet times, but they began to feel
unsatisfactory. I felt I had read the Bible to death. The reflective reading on
it always (I'm exaggerating) seemed to result in just another admonition to
love one another, serve one another, lay one's like down for each other. I am
already trying to do that. Isn't there something more?
This wondering
combined with another crisis in my life led to my next major transformational
event. My problems with "women" continued well after college and I brought my
particular neurosis regarding this issue to Sojourners as well. I became
interested in several women there who were not interested in a romantic
relationship. But living in close proximity to someone you are interested in
can be described on my worst days as hell incarnate. I had a sin issue deep
inside which made me feel I couldn't be truly happy without being in a romantic
relationship. Feeding into this was a deep dislike for myself. There were times
I would get moody, negative and depressed.
Other people in the
community clearly saw my obsessions and moodiness. And it took a lot of painful
calling on and hard work on the part of my small group for me to get in touch
with truth of the sin behind this. There was one poignant moment when John
confronted me on this issue and named it my central sin. That was profoundly
hard on me. But it was also profound truth and led to life and joy afterward.
Another development
in my spiritual life at the time was my growing interest in the contemplative
tradition. I read and was deeply influenced by The Cloud of Unknowing and
Finley's book on Thomas Merton called The Palace of Nowhere. I would read these
and other books very carefully and slowly over the years wondering on their
truth. I would come back to them more and more often as my issues with women
would surface various frustrations.
Then, after our bad
experiences with COSK we decided to build in some form of accountability with
another body. So we asked various trusted folk from other churches and
communities to come and evaluate, from their point of view, how we were doing
as a church. They came (Sally being one of them), listened individually to all
the members, and then reported their findings to the congregation. One of the
things they said is that the personal faith journey of our members felt weak to
them. As a result, we decided to spend a year where this would become our
focus. Each of us was to make a plan and act on a way of developing our inward
walk with God.
After some
deliberation with my small group, I decided to focus on a spiritual practice
called Centering Prayer. I read Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating and
found it very liberating. It described something concrete I could do to develop
my walk with God that didn't require getting "all my ducks in a row" so to
speak. In fact the "mind" in the practice was temporarily set aside, and what
was intentionally developed was an intimate encounter with God in blind faith.
It described something "more" than just another profound reading of the gospels
(good as they were). It described that a real transforming intimacy with God
was possible and that there are some relatively simple things you could do to
make yourself available for God to work in you like that. This transforming
union with God was described in the contemplative tradition as the ultimate
goal of the Christian walk. This started making all sorts of sense to me. And
soon I had "transforming encounter" with God as a result of the practice and
that pretty much sold me on it. I finally started getting a handle on how both
service and walking with God could be lived out in an everyday sense.
The year of personal
focus at Sojourners occurred during my last few years there. During these
years, I was also living in a particularly challenging situation. Chuck was
legally blind, had a young teenage daughter, and needed a place to stay. Chuck
loved hacking and talking about computers and had lots of computer equipment.
When his first Sojourner household situation didn't work out, I was the next
logical choice. So I moved in with Chuck & Michelle and we became good
friends. We enjoyed things like Star Trek and I could tolerate computer talks
with him. But still the level of sloppiness of the house (he had a lot of
stuff) was hard for me. In this context, God worked deeply and intimately in my
life through Centering Prayer. I learned not to hold on to my resentments,
which were easy to have in that living situation. I also had a particular kind
of intimate fellowship with God that was very sustaining.
Then, on our 1999
Thanksgiving retreat, I met and connected with this very interesting woman,
named Lisa, from Chicago. We started e-mailing each other afterward and then at
the exact turn of the millennium with one particular e-mail exchange, romantic
sparks starting to flicker.
