Jacob's Well

Sometimes you forget how important orientation in life is. All of us, whether Christian, atheist, postmodern, young or old, have found some way of navigating through the landscape of life. Maybe our way isn't working very good, or maybe it's seamless. But everybody has a worldview, a way of orienting themselves to one another and the world we live in. For the last several months, its fair to say, my way of orientation has been slipping. Or more succinctly, I've lost my orientation.

This past Sunday Hannah and I were at Jacob's Well in Kansas City with our friends Derek and Joy. JW is a postmodern church in Midtown KC, full of trendy young adults and hip ambience. Keenly aware that faith -which is how as a Christian I've learned to orient myself over the years - hasn't been working well for me lately, I did not expect to experience much. We went mostly for a professional scouting report, just curious as a pastor to see another church in action. I, at least, got way more!

Things were slow out of the gate, songs I'd never heard were tough to sing (even regular attenders were just listening much of the time). The lyrics to one song, "Horse and Rider," were fantastic though, a great blend of radical politics and strong faith. But then, Tim began to speak, and I was sucked in. Initially, I was taken by his style. Funny, participatory, off the cuff. But he began to paint a broader picture, one that included me squarely in the bulls eye, based on Phil 3:1-14, an orientation passage if ever I've heard one. He hammered on about: spiritual clutter, second hand faith, shoulds and oughts, and defining self based on external voices. These are, for most of us, our primary ways to orient ourselves to God, others, our world, and ourselves. But not Paul. And not, according to Tim, for us either. No, our orientation, our defining element, is Christ. The story of Christ is the grain of the universe, the way things are, the way to orient ourselves. "Forget what lies behind damnit! Press on towards the heavenly calling you will find in the worldview of Christ." Man that's not why I went there.
Sermon over, we moved seamlessly into communion, a vertical & horizontal act of orientation, complete with a rocking song based on the beattitudes. "These are words to build a life on," no doubt that was true for me at noon Sunday, I was singing my way back to reality. "Sing your freaking heart out," we screamed, marinating ourselves deeper and deeper into the worldview, the faithfulness, of Christ. And as I sang, as we worshipped, I felt oriented. I felt "lined up," I felt my confidence rising, hope peeking its head again, the unmistakable urge to commit myself again to God. "Blessed are the poor, blessed are the outcast, blessed are the loosers, blessed are the weak," on and on in chanting fashion the importance of orientation -of worship - hit me: this is how we form ourselves. This is how we heal the world.

And so we left KC, wishing Jacob's Well were our church too. Longing to stay within the orientation Christ offers. What we found there is possible for all of us: in the words, the songs, the stories, the practices of the church. And mostly, in worship. Worship is, when done right, a step into reality, not a step back from it. May you be overwelmed by God's reality today!