While scrolling through my news feed the other day, I read the first of what would be many articles I would read about my former city of Portland, and one way that they are choosing to address those who are living outside: The Homeless Sweeps. This is nothing new, and has been done from time to time since long before I ever started working among those living outside in Portland. I have seen them happen to my friends, and have seen the devastating effects the sweeps can have on people who are already pushed to the margins of our society. But the fact that is still occurring, and even increasing in certain areas of our country, just made my heart heavy. That this tactic, which is proven time and time again to do nothing to help those who live outside and only to protect the middle class from having to see poor people in their area, is being wielded by the powers that be.

If you are not familiar with the sweeps, they happen when the city decides - either on their own or because of citizen (read: middle class) complaints - to clear out anyone sleeping in a certain area. They are required to give at least 24 hours written notice before they clear out an area, but that is not always that much time if you happen to be gone for the day. Then the police show up one day in force, and make everyone who they think is sleeping there move out of the area, with the threat of arrest should they not comply. If people are gone, their possessions are confiscated. Now, legally, the city must hold their possessions (which for many is their worldly belongings) for at least 30 days (4th amendment and all that), and make a reasonable effort to get it back to them. But having seen this stuff firsthand, I can say I rarely saw any effort to locate the owners, and in fact i have seen friends of mine who tried to get their stuff back have a very difficult time finding out where it was being kept. 

Often the folks who were being cleared out would ask the officers where they can sleep, if they aren’t allowed to sleep in this area. They were never given a straight answer. Often they were told by the officers, “I don’t know, you just can’t sleep here.” I have asked officers this myself and not been given an answer. I have been in a room with the downtown Portland precinct commander who was asked this question, and even he couldn’t give us a straight answer. So what those who sleep outside hear is that you can’t sleep here, and you can’t sleep anywhere. That you are not welcome in this city. That basic life sustaining activities like sleeping are not available to you because of your economic status.

Given all of this, I find it telling that the powers that be don’t like it when people use the word “sweep.” The police spokesmen says that clearly in the article. They don’t like that term. Because it describes accurately what is happening:  the sweeping of human beings. Just look at any article about the sweeps. You will likely see the city, the police, and the media talk about cleaning up an area as a reason for the sweeps. Cleaning up people. Sure, they will point to the actual garbage in the area, and the need to clean that up. (Which, by the way, is a by product of not having a garbage can outside of your back door like us good middle class consumers do.) But in the end, the result is the sweeping of human beings.

And at the end of the day, sweeps will not work. They are the city wide equivalent of me shoving all of my toys under my bed, and then telling my mom that my room is clean. Only instead of a messy toys in my room, we are talking about people, and the injustice that so many people sleep outside every night in our prosperous nation. I do not have all the answers for what a city should do. I am a pastor, not a public policy person. But regardless of what solution they come up with, people deserve to be treated like human beings, deserve to practice life sustaining activities without harassment, and deserve to have a say in the solution to their own situation. 

And sweeps deny them all of this, which is why they need to end. 

“Come on Punky Brewster, let’s go! We need to finish this!” I yelled those words quietly but angrily at our dog this last weekend. We were finishing up a walk, and she thought that would be the best time to stop and smell everything we walked by, and even to roll in some unknown goodies in the grass by the sidewalk. It was like she could sense my hurry, and was just pushing my buttons, trying to get me to slow down.  By the later half of the walk, I was annoyed. I was on a mission to finish this walk now, and Punky Brewster was going to listen and stop dragging her paws. Or so help me God...

This story would be nothing more than a little amusing, if not for the fact that this wasn’t just an everyday walk, but a journey on one of the neighborhood labyrinth’s that our church-in-formation has started practicing. These were something my wife and co-pastor Rebecca created, as we talked with those around us about what it would look like to begin spiritual practice that is focused on our neighborhood. Rebecca had inspiration for this idea for the neighborhood labyrinth walk after reading a children’s book to some kids in our neighborhood. The story she was reading was about talking an older dog for a walk, and how the person walking the dog was forced to slow down because the dog couldn’t move as fast as it once did. But in slowing down, the dog’s owner was able to notice things they had not noticed before in their neighborhood.  Rebecca loved the idea of slowing down on a walk, for the purpose of seeing, listening, and noticing things we may have missed in our neighborhood.

So there I was. Annoyed at our dog. For causing me to slow down, which is one of the main purposes of the walk I was on. An act that mirrored the very story this spiritual practice was inspired by. The reality of that hit me not long after the walk was finished.

You see, I am not always good at slowing down. At taking the time during a busy week to take a deep breath and truly listen to my neighborhood. To see what God is up to in unexpected places. To see beauty in my community that I might otherwise miss. To notice pain and injustice that I might have overlooked.

It is so easy for me to let that spiritual practice of listening become simply another task to accomplish. Something that needs to be done in pursuit of something else. A means to an end. Rather than a way of life. A practice that helps me live out the gospel of God’s love and justice in our world.

Labyrinths have traditionally been a place where one could slow down. Where one could re-center themselves on the sacred. Labyrinths are by their very nature a spiritual practice in not taking the most efficient path, but rather seeing that the journey to the center can be long and winding. They are also a place to slow down our minds and to listen. To the Spirit. To the sacred. 

As our community continues to practice these neighborhood labyrinths, I pray that I might build into my life a rhythm of listening and being present in the physical space in which I dwell, Bayside neighborhood in Everett. I want to see our church-in-formation not simply survive, but be a presence of love and justice in our community, seeking the good of our neighborhood.

And slowing down and listening is a good place to start.


*We will be walking these Neighborhood Labyrinths every month, in each of the five neighborhoods in North Everett. Come and join us! Here is the next one coming up.

“Looks like it’s going to rain,” one of my friends said, as we were standing outside in downtown Portland a few years back. “Really?” I replied, looking at the sky and seeing a little too much blue to think about rain. “Yeah,” he said matter-of-factly, as he began to gather up his things and pack them away where they would be protected from any sudden storm. My friend, like two thousand other people in the Portland area, happened to live outside, and most of his stuff fit into the large pack he carried. As he packed up his belongings and we began to walk away, I notice other outdoor dwelling folks packing up their stuff as well, occasionally glancing at the sky. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, I feel the first drop, and soon after it is pouring. 

You see, when you live outside, a little thing like a rain shower, mere annoyance for most of us in the Northwest, can be a much more serious threat. Particularly if it is cold out, as it was with that day with my friend. So knowing when it might rain is vital not only to your comfort, but also to your survival. My friend was not an expert on the weather. But he was an expert on surviving. And since his survival depended a deep connection with his place, including knowledge about the rhythms of the weather, he was ready to go the minute he sense that rain was coming.

Those who live outside inhabit the extremes of place. On one hand, they are more connected to the land that they live on than almost anyone else in the city. They have to be in order to survive. Downtown is not a place to come work and play before you head back to your safe suburban house. It is home. They know the ins and outs of this city:  where to get dry, where to make your money go the furthest, and where you are less likely to get harassed by the police.  Their survival depends on being connected to the place that they inhabit.  But on the other hand, that are some of the most dis-connected to their place. They have no land to call their own. They are often driven out of the public space that they are on, by the powers that be that don’t like such visible poverty in their midst, or by those that associate houselessness with crime. They are seen as an issue, not as people, and as such often have little control over areas of their lives that we take for granted. My friends who live outside have a deep wisdom about their place, but a wisdom that is often overshadowed by the fact that they sleep outside. 

I have been thinking quite a bit about this story this last season of life, ever since my wife Rebecca and I have accepted a call to explore a new church community in Everett, WA. Both of us from day one have been asking the question, “What would a church look like that is intimately connected to the land, the rhythms, and the culture of Everett?”  We want to be a church community that deeply knows the place in which it dwells, and lets this knowledge shape who we are.  I have also been thinking about this story this week, as we get ready to spend a few days with other practitioners at the Inhabit Conference. Every year this group gathers to ask how our churches, ministries, and organizations can practice the mission of Jesus in the place that they dwell.  It will be attended by people from all over the country (and even the world), many of whom are doing some amazing and beautiful things in their communities.

Yet in these stories, I can’t help but see the privilege that we enjoy. For Rebecca and I, place is not a matter of survival, but rather something we have the privilege to explore. We were able to move here from out of state (though it is coming home for Rebecca), with the support of an amazing denominational community, knowing that each of us have at least part-time jobs for this next season. Regarding the Inhabit Conference, in order to participate, one needs to travel to Seattle, take time off of work, find a place to stay, eat meals, etc. All of these make it more accessible to those with privileges of time and finances. Conferences, by their very nature, are less accessible to those whom connection to place is more about surviving than about exploring the idea of place.

I very much believe in the church. And I believe that being connected to one’s place is one of the best ways that the church communities can live out God’s mission of love and justice in the world. But If we as the Church are going to take seriously the importance of place, then we also must take seriously the fact that there are people that have been living out this idea in our communities long before there were conferences and books and blogs about place. We need to take seriously that there are people like my friends who live outside, who carry a deep wisdom about place, but often have little access to the conversation. We need to recognize that the more steam and exposure an idea like place gets, the more it gets commodified, which will inevitably push it into the hands of the privileged. 

And one way we can stand against this is to make sure we not only listen to those on the margins, but sit under them with a willingness to learn, in our desire to inhabit well the place in which we live. And in doing so, we not only learn better how to be a church that is rooted in our place, but we also learn how to live into God’s Kingdom, a place where those whom are often pushed to the margins have a place at the center, and those at the center get to step back and learn from those at the margins. 

And together, we can live out God's mission of love and justice in our communities. 

Over the years of working in and around the streets of downtown Portland, I have talked to many folks who, for different reasons, find themselves living outside. I have listened to how many different people talk about their situation, and one of the resounding things I have heard is a sense of failure. Because we live in a culture that sees success in terms of power, money, and recognition, they see themselves as having failed at all of that. Since the "American Dream” (which in reality is more of the American Myth) says that hard work equals success (which usually means money and power), and their hard work did not, they see failure.*

I read a Facebook post today talking about the moralistic fallacy we make when we make we we equate what “ought” to be (that hard work will lead to financial stability) from what “is” (that in our context hard work in only one factor, whose influence is often small compared to, say, if your parents have money). How embedded this is in our society can be seen in so many ways. You can see it in dehumanizing system we force those in poverty to go through to get their meager benefits. We can see it in how we think we should have a say in what folks on food stamps do with their limited money.  And we can see it in the reality that those of us in the middle class and up actually see those in poverty and living on the streets as less than human.

The fact is, this myth needs to stop. It is hurting people. I am not saying I have all the answers, but if we can't recognize that our economic "success" is not just about how hard we work or how smart we are, we will continue to lose the imagination we need to ask better questions and find better solutions. And there will continue to be a larger and larger wall between those in poverty and those in the middle class, a wall that desperately needs to be broken down, because it is preventing the relationships and community that is vital to moving forward. 

I say all of this as a pastor, and I see relationship and community as central to anything we do in regards to those in poverty. But I think this goes beyond the faith community. Our whole society would be better if we stopped blaming the poor for their situation, and took the time to get to know them. If we truly listened to the complex situations and forces that led people to end up where they are.

How can we do this better? How can we begin to create a culture that sees success outside of money and power? How can we challenge these harmful myths that ignore things like class and privilege and put the blame solely on poor people? And how can begin to imagine, and create, communities where one’s economic situation is not a hinderance to being a participant in the life of the community?

We can do better. I know we can. Let's do it together.


*In case anyone wants to ask, yes, I occasionally met folks who were ok living outside. But it was a very small number. Most, by far, did not want to be there. Some had lost hope. Some did not know how there could get out of where they are. But very, very, very few were actually ok with living outside. This is another myth that needs to go away.

As I was sipping my coffee this morning and looking over the day, this tweet popped into my Twitter feed. I didn’t think much of it, and it passed by like most tweets do. But I kept thinking about it. It simply said, “Evangelicals divided over whether immigrants are drain on resources or an opportunity to share Jesus."

Though there were many issues I had with this quote, I was struck by the word "opportunity." I realized how much of the Christian faith that I grew up with saw people as opportunities. Sure, they were human beings, made in the image of God. But at the end of the day, there always had to be a string attached, a way of making sure that we didn’t miss out on the opportunity to share Jesus. Now this is nothing new nor surprising for those who grew up in, or have a decent knowledge of, American Evangelicalism. 

But what struck me today in thinking about this was how much this idea kept me from really having to encounter the other. Really encountering someone different from me. The church I grew up in was, like most churches in the United States, full of people that looked just like me, and had similar levels of wealth and privilege to me. This meant that when I met someone outside of that context, even when I really liked them and just wanted to know them, there was always that underlying question of how to bring up Jesus. Even as I began to shift in my faith, and began to see salvation as far bigger than a decision for Jesus, that feeling lingered.

My friend Ken, who began HOMEpdx, the community I worked with in Portland for three years, would often come and share with churches and other groups that were volunteering. He was wonderful at facilitating those times of reflection about how we be friends to those living outside. In one of these conversations, the idea came up about seeing Jesus in “the least of these,” referring to those living outside. Ken thought for a moment, and then replied, “You know, I don’t see Jesus in my friends who live outside. I just see my friends.” 

The point he was making was not about whether or not Jesus is present with those our culture has pushed to the margins. He was pointing out how often we don’t see people for who they are. We see an opportunity. We see an example of injustice. We see a need we can fix.  But all of us, first and foremost, need to see them as people. As human beings like us. 

And by seeing the humanity in those who live outside, we were seeing Jesus.

This was one of the most powerful things I learned at HOMEpdx. That seeing the humanity in those who live outside was not a step in living out the Gospel. It was the Gospel. I begin to see people, not as needs or opportunities. Not as objects in a story about the cool Christian things I am doing. But as people. People who became my friends. I still fail at this sometimes. I still sometimes see a need before I see a person. But I want to be a person that sees people, as they are, as worth of knowing simply because they exist.

You will often here me say, as many have said before me, that the biggest hinderance to the church helping the poor is that the church doesn’t know the poor. And it’s hard to know the poor if we can't begin with seeing them as people.

For many years, a sign hung at HOMEpdx. It was a quote from Ken, that read: “You deserve to be loved simply because you exist." How can we, as followers of Jesus, live out this quote today?

Like many people in the US, when I turned 18 I headed off to college. And because my family didn’t have the money to pay for my college, I was able to receive some help in the form of a Pell grant. It wasn’t much, but all in all I probably received around 3,000 dollars a year from the government to help pay for my undergraduate education. And when I let people know that I had some help in the form of that grant to go to school, the most common response I got was, “Good for you. Way to use all the resources at your disposal to get through college.” In most peoples eyes, even those who question whether government money for things like Pell grants is good, I was just doing the right thing in order to better my future and help me get by.  And do you want to know what I never heard, not even once? I never had anyone feel that they had the right to dictate how I used my college education because they paid taxes that in turn paid for my grants. 

This is why it angers me so much when people think it is fine to judge what poor people buy with their food stamps. I read another article this last week about this very thing: about how so many Americans see no problem in judging what poor people buy in the grocery store. Even though the average food stamp recipient gets roughly four dollars a day (which on a yearly basis is less than half of what I received for college), people still feel they have a place to judge how that meager money is used.

Which is why this part of the article stood out to me:

"Why do people think they’re entitled to decide how food stamps, in particular, are used? Not all government benefits elicit such feelings. When we give people assistance through the home-mortgage interest deduction, we don’t feel entitled to tell them what house to buy or what neighborhood to live in; when we subsidize a college education through student loans, we don’t tell students what school to go to or what to major in. When we tax capital gains income at a lower rate than income made from labor, we certainly don’t tell those stock pickers what to do with the extra cash."

She goes on to say that much of this has to do with the fact that food stamp use is so visible, whereas so many of the other benefits are hidden in the form of a tax break, credit to a college account, or other such "behind the scenes” activity. While I agree with this, I think there is another reason as well: there is still a belief in the US that poverty is a moral failing.

I think there are very few people that would admit to believing this, but - like so many other unjust beliefs and practices in this country - it has woven itself into the fabric of our culture. The belief that, for the most part, hard work equals success. That those who are poor must, in some way, be responsible for their lot in life. They must have done SOMETHING wrong, or else they wouldn’t be poor. And you know what? We want to believe this. Because if we were to admit that, maybe, the poverty and and houselessness in this country is the result of something larger than individual decisions, then we will have to admit that our own economic success might not be the result of our own talent, hard work, and good decision making.

Which brings us back to food stamps. You can see why people get so angry when they see someone buying candy, or soda, or steak with their food stamps. It is not just because of tax money. It is because, deep down in our culture, we don’t think poor people deserve those things. We think that a luxury like soda should be reserved for those who deserve it (read: those who have made a certain amount of money). We see those things as something we deserve only after a certain amount of hard work.

I know this is so ingrained because I can still feel it in myself. I have spent the last three years working with, and learning from, folks who live outside. I know how much this stuff has hurt them. The shame they feel when the use their food stamp card, or get criticized (sometimes to their face) for how they use that money.  Yet when I am in a store, and I see someone buying a 6-pack of Coke with their food stamp card, I can feel a twinge of annoyance. Followed by a good dose of guilt for feeling that way. But it is there, built into me by our culture.

This is obviously about more than food stamps. It is about our culture that sees people in poverty or living on the street as failures, morally as well as financially. I am not saying that bad decisions play no part in how people end up on the street. Of course they do sometimes. But even then, we don't have the right to shame people.  And when we judge people for what they buy at the grocery store, it only adds to the shame that people in poverty already feel. And that shame is often a huge hurdle for people trying to escape poverty or get off the street. As Brene Brown says, “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change."

And if we as the church are to every truly stand with those living outside, we have fight this culture of shame and judgement in every way we can. People are not failures because they live outside. They are human beings, created in God’s image. They are worthy of our love because they are people. Because as Dorothy Day says, “The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.” 

I have a confession to make. I am a "do gooder." I want to do good in the world, and see good done to those around me. I think most of us want to see good done in the world. This central to how I see the gospel of Jesus.

It is funny to me that I hear this term used sometimes as an insult, or at least as a way to critique people who are trying to do good things in their community. I have been called a do gooder in regards to my work at HOMEpdx with folks who live outside in Portland, at best by people who just didn’t understand our relationally-focused work with those living outside, and at worst by those who saw our work as disrupting their safe and secure middle-class existence. I took these small jabs in stride, even seeing them as a badge of honor. After all, I had been called worse, and my friends outside get called worse every day.

But I also came to realize that there is a better reason to be wary of being a do gooder. I came to see that in my effort to do good for those around me, for those in my community, I can actually end up hurting them. That my efforts to go good can end up doing bad.  My friend and mentor Ken Loyd often talks about do gooders. About how the church is often full of do gooders. And how this is a good thing! But, he says, in our efforts to do good, we so often end up hurting those we are trying to love and serve.

At the end of the day, I think most churches and individuals who desire to love and serve those living outside would want their work to do good and not harm. Yet it is amazing how defensive people and churches can be when you point out the harm that can come from certain ways of giving and serving. When people have brought food, gifts, or other items that my friends outside don’t want or need, and I kindly let them know a better thing to bring next time, I have been told things like, “Well, at least we are giving," or “Hey, giving something is better than nothing.”  And I do understand. Here you are, trying to help, and your efforts are met with criticism, however kindly it is communicated. But if we want to take serious the idea that in our desire to do good we can end up doing bad, then we can’t take these criticisms personally. Because it is not about us.  It is not about our intentions, however noble they might be. 

It is about my friends who live outside.

Which brings us to what I think is the main reason we inadvertently hurt poor people we want to help: We don’t know them. Which makes it harder to listen to them.  So much of the harm that comes from efforts to do good for the poor might be done away with if those who desire to give and serve would take a pause before doing so in order to listen and know those they wish to serve. Then they might see why a meal devoid of protein isn’t the best thing to serve. Or why certain clothing items are not needed as much as other ones.  And the simple fact of knowing another person makes it less likely that we will assume anything about their needs and wants.

This is why I truly believe that if the church wants to love and serve the poor, the church must know those who are poor.  I know this isn’t easy. And I also know this won’t fix all the harm that comes from good intentions. I mean, I have spent the last three years trying to listen to my friends who live outside, and I still fail sometimes at causing harm when I try and do good. But if we want to truly love and serve our neighbors who live outside, we must listen. We must learn. We must be willing to leave our comfort zones.

Because at the end of the day, us do gooders might not only find betters ways of doing good. We might also meet some new friends in the process.

Hopefully Cynical, and Cynically Hopeful.

I wrote those words down last week on a 3 X 5 card. It was in response to a question asked by my friend Kathy Escobar. She was leading us in a time of reflecting on our journeys of faith, particularly the shifts in faith* that so many people who grew up in the church go through. She asked us to write down, in 5 words or less, how we would describe our faith right now. And those were the first words I thought of: Cynical and Hopeful.

I know that people who are cynical of the church often get a lot of pushback here, telling them to stop being so angry. Stop being so bitter. To look for the good and stop focusing on the bad. But cynicism, for many of us, is an important step in our journey. I loved what Kathy had to say about cynicism and anger. She said that for those who have been hurt by the church, abused by the church, or pushed away by the church, cynicism and anger are OK! It’s ok to be pissed at the church and the systems and the people that caused us, or those we love, harm. Being cynical and angry is a part of the journey for those who have been hurt by church. For some that’s just a few steps in the journey. For others, it’s a longer and more winding path. But it’s part of the journey. (And furthermore, I almost always see declarations to not be cynical given by pastors and leaders with power and privilege. I see it used to silence critiques from those on the margins. Calling someone cynical is just another tool to silence someone. I hate that.)

For me, anger and cynicism were a vital part of the journey to hope. Because in spite of my anger and cynicism at the church, I found hope. I often refer to myself as a reluctant pastor. It seems that every time I try to run from the church, I soon find myself not only back in church, but serving in some way as a pastor. And that is because I see hope. When I stumbled into the little community at HOMEpdx three years ago in Portland, I was glad for a time away from traditional church, where I could learn from, and serve among, those living outside. And I saw there a beautiful community of people, loving each other in spite of every reason not too. I saw hope. And the hope I saw caused me to dive right in, and before I knew it I was an ordained pastor in that community.

And I continue to see hope. That doesn’t mean I am not angry and cynical sometimes. I sure am. When I see huge church buildings and huge pastor salaries and budgets, while people sleep outside in the same city, yeah, I am cynical and angry. When I see my LGBTQ friends getting told they do not belong because of how they were born, yeah, I am pissed. When I see a church focused on individual sin, but silent on the structural and systemic oppression all around us, yes, I am so angry. I never want to lose that anger at those things that hurt people. 

But the hope persists. It persists because I see in the way of Jesus the possibility of a community that truly loves it’s neighbors, that truly welcomes all people, and seeks justice, and fights against systemic injustice, and tries to live differently in the world in order to love others.  I want to see that happen. I believe that can happen. But it will need a little bit of hope.

Hopefully cynical, and cynically hopeful.


*Kathy has a new book out called Faith Shift. If any of this speaks to you, please check it out. And her blog. Both are worth reading.

"God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretensions. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own laws, and judges that brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together


Rebecca and I have frequently repeated this quote over the last year of discerning about starting a new church. When we were called to move to Everett, we put this quote on the back of our "all things church" binder, where it remains today. This quote not only resonated deeply with us, but has become central to our new journey in Everett.

Now, do I think dreaming is bad when it comes to the church? No. But hear me out.

When I hear this quote, I hear in it the temptation to look at this new church community we are exploring as the place where all of my critique of church can finally be put down. I see a community living up to my ideal of what church should be. I see a place where all that I hate about the church is left in the past, and where all that is right and just in the church is lived out perfectly. This church I envision becomes a projection, a way to deal with all that I see wrong in the modern church.

It would be a church created in the image of all that I hate, dislike, and critique about the church.

It would be a church created in my image.

This is where dreaming gets dangerous: when it becomes about me. As a straight white male, my ideals of what church should be is intimately affected by my place of privilege in our culture.*  My thoughts and dreams and critiques about the church come from this place.  And, while a church built on dreams like this might be the answer to my middle-class angst, it will likely become a difficult place to live out the justice and love of God in our community.

So this is why I want to dream. And why I can't dream alone.

I want to dream with those who have been pushed to the margins, listening to them about what church should be, not just inviting them to church.

I want to dream with people who are not white, not straight, and not male, even if the ideas about church that emerge are not my ideals.

I want to dream with the indigenous voices of the land I am on, who were here long before people that looked like me arrived.

I want to dream with those experiencing poverty and houselessness, asking what church would look like outside of a comfortable, middle-class experience.

I want to dream alongside my neighbors, whether or not they even come to church or even call themselves Christian.

I want to dream about what church would look like if we honestly listen to all of these voices.

So yes, I want to dream. But that will mean realizing that true dreaming about the church and the gospel of God's love and justice in this world will often mean laying down my own dreams and listening to the dreams of others.


*It should be noted that my wife Rebecca is going to be the lead pastor of this new church we are dreaming of. She is an amazing woman and a gifted pastor and artist, and you can read more from her here!  http://www.rebeccasumner.com/

As I write this today, I am sitting here in the midst of transition. For the first time in my life, I am no longer a resident of the great state of Oregon, where I was born and raised. I no longer live in Portland, which was my home for the last 5 years. And last Sunday was my last day with HOMEpdx, the community in downtown Portland that I have been blessed to be a part of for the last three years. So why all this transition?  On January first my wife Rebecca and myself begin the wonderful and daunting task of helping to begin a new church community in Everett, Washington. This is not something either of us are jumping into lightly, and something that comes after a long time of discernment. We both feel that this move, and this new endeavor, are what we are supposed to be doing in this next season of life.

This is something that we are not supposed to do alone. Obviously, the new church cannot be done alone. We are excited to meet new people, continue the conversations we have already been having, and see who else might feel called to join us in the crazy new adventure  It is our hope that this church will be a place of love, a place of justice, a place where a diversity of voices are not only heard but are called to lead and serve, and a place where all people are welcome. And this will require the wisdom of others who will join us on this journey. 

We also hope to learn from those who might not be able to join us, or who are already practicing church, whatever that looks like, in their own respective traditions and locations. This is one big reason why I finally decided to have a website (Rebecca, my crazy talented wife, actually made the website, because she is awesome).  I hope that this is a space where you not only can keep us with us on this new part of our journey, but also where you can join in and wrestle with the questions that come up as we ask what church should look like in 2015. One beautiful thing the internet has provided is the ability to collaborate across distance. So our church-in-formation, which will be embedded in the location and context of downtown Everett, can learn from your church and the context you are in.  With all that is going on in the world, we need to be able to listen to others, outside of our location and context, as to how we as a new church can practice the gospel of God’s love and justice in our community.

With all of that, welcome to my website. I am not the best at regularly writing on a blog, though I do hope to get better at that practice as part of my new routine.  I am also horrible at promoting myself, even when I should, though eventually there may be some of that here as well.  This will be an evolving space, as this journey moves Rebecca and myself in uncharted waters.

If any of this connects with you, you can follow along this journey here. And If the idea of this new church intrigues you, you can read more about that here.  I look forward to connecting with friends new and old, and I wish you the best this holiday season.