Five days.  In five days, I set off for Lakewood, New York, for the first leg of my journey.  I can hardly believe that the crazy fantasy of one year ago has turned into a concrete reality.  In final preparation, I’m about to sell off all of my childhood belongings in a massive two-day yard sale.  Hopefully I won’t have a breakdown over the Pokémon and Pogs…

This is the final random summer post, but please check back near the end of this week when I post a complete list of the questions for the upcoming year.

Last week, I got the chance of a lifetime to hear two great religious authors/theologians speak at the annual meeting of the United Methodist Campus Ministry Association (UMCMA).  My own beer-brewing, South Park-loving, ex-hippie campus minister invited me to see one of the foremost young thinkers, Peter Rollins, in panel discussion with one of the foremost “less-young” thinkers, Tex Sample.

Rollins is a 38 year-old rock star type from Ireland, who writes books with titles like The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales, or Insurrection: To Believe is Human, to Doubt Divine.  He runs an experimental collective called Ikan that describes itself as “iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging and failing.”  And he possesses a killer Belfast accent.  I imagine he has absolutely no trouble with American women.

Tex Sample (yes, his real first name is Tex) provided a nice counter to Rollins.  He was getting graduate degrees when Rollins was running around the pub in his diapers, and his own accent is one every great Arkansan surely aspires to.  He writes books with titles like Blue Collar Ministry, Hard Living People, and White Soul: Country Music, The Church, and Working Americans.  Needless to say, the two made for quite an interesting discussion, if for no other reason than to compare their hilariously dichotomous country sayings.

They found some common ground, however, on the idea that church could be an embodiment of our faith, rather than just a place to talk about it.  Tex spoke in terms of “muscle memory,” a metaphor I found especially useful.  Basically, if the goal of one’s faith is to act it out in our everyday lives, then wouldn’t church be more helpful if it was a time to practice the skills dictated by whatever interpretation we subscribe to?  With any other skill, we take the time to practice it in a supportive environment led by teachers who can guide us, so why not with our faith?  From my understanding, then, church becomes less like the pre-game pep talk and more like the Super Bowl.  Or, I don’t know, the Irish Hurling Championship.

Rollins caught this idea and ran off with it into left field, talking about how “the only church that illuminates is a burning church,” and how giving up our identity allows others to “reveal our own monstrosity” and other such abstract, allegorical observations.  A lot of it went over my head, but when he described some of the practices carried by his group, Ikan, it rang true with Sample’s talk of embodying our faith.

His activities, however, are not exactly mainstream.  He takes common Christian practices and turns them on their head in order to make people challenge their faith in the rawest possible way.  For instance, Rollins’ “Last Supper” is a time where 11 people gather over food and drinks, invite a guest who distinctly diverges from the group on their views, and then has an open conversation with them.  “The Evangelism Project” is when Christians go to be evangelized by people of other religions, in order to better understand how others perceive them.  And he even does a program called “Atheism for Lent,” which is just what it sounds like:  You give up God for Lent.  Yeah.

(Told you his accent was awesome)

It certainly borders on the heretical for some people, but his focus is always on how the exercises can ultimately strengthen one’s faith.  I don’t know.  It’s really “out there,” but it is the kind of provocative idea that could nurture a whole new perspective about some of the faith-items we might currently take for granted.

Regardless, the idea of church being somewhere to really practice our faith is a cool idea.  Some might object that we already do practice our faith in church – that teaching and worship through music and prayer is the essence of Christianity.  And I would agree.

But can we do more?

I attended a wedding this past weekend – the most beautiful wedding I have ever witnessed or heard of – in which the bride and groom washed one another’s feet before the vows.  Their reasoning was that they wanted the marriage to be one of service to one another, and this was their first symbolic act of service.  I know, right?  That’s love.

It got me thinking though… What if?  What if we came to church and did the things that we hear about Jesus (or whoever you follow) doing?  What if we literally washed each other’s feet?  Or if you’re averse to toe-fungus, what if we went out and fed the multitudes instead of just having a lunch in Fellowship Hall?  Or if we all climbed to the top of a mountain and spent the night praying?

Where do we already embody our faith, and where do we have room for improvement?