Finding Allies

There are more interesting posts in this thread, which Aaron Klinefelter has graciously tagged here.

Kevin Rains brings up something important that I'd like to play off in his post, I'm 'Bi' and Proud:

"A community of allies is key to sustainability: I remember talking to Chris Marshall about all this many, many years ago as we were both transitioning into new, non-paid-ministry positions. He ended up in education and I ended up in business. Most importantly we’ve remained allies and champions for one another since those early conversations."

The questions surrounding sustainable ministry / rethinking vocation / kingdom economics cannot be addressed in a bubble. These are not, in essence, academic questions that are debated by non-practitioners in general terms. Answers will come slowly through trial-and-error, slogging through the mud and mundane of real life: hurt feelings, difficult family situations, confusion, fatigue, and sacrifice. Solutions will be found on the way to the store to pick up some eggs or in the middle of losing your house to the bank. For this reason, having allies - comrades - that you can call on and that have your back are absolutely critical to the process. The question at hand for many right now is, "How can I find allies...and how should we relate to each other?"

When I started blogging in 2002, these kinds of conversations were common among the blogs that I read on a regular basis. Many of us were 'starving ecclesial artists' who were simply trying to make sense of what we were thinking, reading, and trying to live. Since then, blogging has become an arena for pushing your position or product more than an exchange of ideas. This doesn't surprise me...but it does make me miss the 'old days'. Within a year of starting a blog, I had found ten or so other people who were tracking with me, that I could count on as allies and 'champions'. We occasionally met face to face, first at conferences or other meetings...but then we just found ways to be together with no agenda other than to be together. In fact, we found these agenda-less times to be the most powerful and beneficial. We were able to share our stories (and eventually even share grief through tragedy) without the typical posturing that happens around conferences or in most organizations. Even though we don't see each other often, I know those men and women are for me with no pretense or reservation. We share a common anchor in the hope of God's kingdom and the resurrection...and that is enough.

Is there a way to reproduce what we have? I honestly don't know. These relationships were not planned. We had no organizational aspirations and even resisted the idea that we could somehow spark a 'movement'. Honestly, these relationships were about our survival more than anything else. We are not influential people in the wider Christian conversation, at least in terms of being authors or known speakers. Collectively, our faith communities do not amount to much on paper. But now five years later, I know I am going to survive. In fact, I have great hope for our future, what God is doing, and how he is going to use us. Believe me, this conversation about kingdom / vocation / economics is right in our sweet spot. This is stuff we've been thinking about for years and experimenting with in small ways in our own communties. So no...we don't have all the answers. We aren't qualified to prescribe a step-by-step plan for planting the next great emerging church or creating some world-changing organization. Ours has been a way of waiting, questions, pain, and even death. Not fun stuff. Not "host the next big innovative conference and sell a million books" kind of stuff, that's for sure. But where I stand, I'd rather have a few friends that will call me brother for life than a successful book deal or my name on a conference agenda.

This post is already too long, so I'll stop here. I do have some thoughts about these kinds of relationships can be initiated and sustained, mostly from lessons our local community has learned from an unlikely source - Alcoholics Anonymous. More on that next time, though.