Who's first and who's last?

My thoughts are still not cristalized in terms of my last blog entry (call me minister x). My mind is full of stuff - but I'm struggling to unpack it in an expressible way.

I read 2 blogs that reflected on the same events and ask similar questions, both of which added to the simmering stews of my thoughts.

Check out

Bruce Reyes-Chow on "Why I Should Leave the Presbyterian Church (USA)"

and

Sarah Reyes on "Getting in the way of the Gospel!"

In reading the SF Chronicle today I ran across a surpsing article - again adding too much for me to handle to the stew - "Dean urges Dems to welcome young evangelicals" by Carla Marinucci.
Turns out Howard Dean was in the Bay Area yesterday, the politican of internet fame, the infamous scream, and the widely publicized proclamation that the GOP is a white Christian party. He must have met some new folks, or gotten some new advisors...or something. He spoke yesterday encouraging the Democractic party to reach out to the young evangelicals scattered in the red and blue states specifically via their Christian faith. "People don't want to go to church anymore ... and come out feeling bad because they happen to know somebody who's gay,'' he said. "People want to go to church because they know what they can do about poverty, about Darfur, about the environment.'' What is it that Howard Dean has learned through observation or quite possibly some experiential participation about the emerging Christian world-view being born pheonix-like from the ashes of the GOP-embracing, single-issue focused Christian political/propoganda machine of Focus on the Family, Fallwell and others? Dean seems to be more aware of the world, and the young-erish people (in age and world-view) that are present, passionate and purposeful in our churches both evangelical and progressive, than many of our own church community leaders!

New leadership paradigms repeatedly point to the necessity of being outward or external focused while being secure and sure of core values. Interesting that much of the church runs the gauntlet in a backwards fashion, focused on core values while being secure and sure that no external forces/thoughts/communities might actually share those, or be articulating them differently. Makes me wonder...in a stereotypical way it seems that many of the church that are consumed with the raging debate on ordination and sexual orientation share similar traits....larger, multi-staffed communities (with no shortage of people or finances) or smaller churches with very large financial endowments. It's a gross over-simplification. But interesting. Do we become so inwardly focused when we're wealthy financially or people-rich that we lock the doors refusing to looks outside what's happening rallying the troops around the flagpole of our core values so that they won't wander off? Do smaller churches - either by choice or who've become deeply dysfunctional, destructive or depressing because they've been so inwardly focused for so long - have more fluidity and freedom to rediscover their core values, articulating them in ways that resonate and enter into dialogue with the evolving thoughts, emerging values, and growing world-view all around us? Although it's overly-simple, the contrast strikes me as possibly ringing true at certain levels, at least in my limited experience and exposure. If it is true how does it resonante with Jesus' teaching that the "first will be last and the last will be first,"[Mark 10:31, Matthew19:30, 20:16 and Luke 13:30]. Granted in those places Jesus is talking about the first as those that deem themselves first in importance in the eyes of God because their righteousness and purity surpasses all the least and last in importance around them (a comparison-judgment made based on race, enthnicity, gender, class, and experience in that day). The deeper question seems to be to be about core values - what we define them as -which we share and which we don't and which we consider to be the 'first' in essential importance and which we consider to be the 'last.'