Still don’t know what that means given me fear of becoming desensitived to the images and the lack of humanity I feel inside of me when I see such awful things (almost like a voyeur), but it brings up questions all the same.

Not sure I told you, but I thought that this was an EXCELLENT presentation that nicely put in thoughts of your experience, questions about the meaning of missions and serving and yet nicely through in some deep theological questions and close ties to Scripture.
–jen

At the same time, here is this tremendous potential force of catalytic energy that could rock Manassas like a Prov 31 woman Ellen-Davis-style subverting the dominant culture of suppression. Heck, we stay home all day long. And we have this rallying point. A woman of virtue is an f-ing prize.

I’m not going to blog about this because I’m trying not to piss anybody off for a few weeks. But there it is. The kernel of a thought.

Yeah, I’d say you got it right. I love how you can articulate the same things I do, yet somehow not piss everyone off. Maybe you can give me some tips in how engage without being so dag-gone confrontational!

It is true, I think suburban life is becoming more diverse, as both you and Brian pointed out. It seems that our old residential categories don’t fit any more. Where we once had ghettos, we now have trendy metro-areas. Where we once had suburbs, we now have delabidated rust-belts surrounding major cities.

What’s been most troubling are the contruction of these new “lifestyle centers” which you see a lot of around DC and Virginia, which are constructed with office buildings, condos, restaurants, and retail shopping, all in a self-contained little community usually erected out in what used to be rural farmland. This is the next and hopefully final step in the suburban pilgrimage for purity from poverty. In an almost monastic move, these people have left the cities and neighborhoods of our world to set up shop where they can claim their destiny, a paradise of wealth and privledge where a kind of dark community is fostered in the absence of the weak and the powerless.

Now granted, there’s a lot of spiritual poverty that must be addressed in such places, and it only makes sense that we as Christians would not be content to allow such people wallow in the sin of their American Dream. However, I would still push against the idea the Christians should or even can live counter-culturally in such areas. Firstly, the cost of living in such places is astronomical, and even paying for a condo in such a place would require that we spend a unfitting amount of money on our home.

Also, we need to think about the temptation that is associated with such places. Again I think the strip-club analogy is a good one. God wants us to reach out to strippers without patronizing their establishment. So perhaps we need to think long, hard and creatively about how we can reach the people who inhabit such places without being tainted by the sin which runs rampant there.

ps…I have a couple chapters done if you’d like to take a look at them. And yes, it was for copyright reasons. =:o)

I’ll be honest that when Al Hsu’s book came out that I was very confused about it. Coming from the Press (IVP) that I read all of my justice books from, how can they print this book asking folks to do ministry in the suburbs?

But then I slowly realized that ministry in the suburbs is the last place I’d eVEr want to serve. I’ll never forget the piercing response of my sister when I told her I wouldn’t get up off the couch and serve her a drink b/c she had legs and she responded with “you’d be nicer to a homeless person than you would be to me.” She was right. I never lived in the burbs, but I had a deep seated hatred of sorts towards burbs-like folks or wannabes like my sister and her friends.

It was almost like there was something in my heart that thought well if I’m serving the “right” people then I’m obeying God, when I couldn’t even begin to love my family and neighbors. I hate campout with a passion b/c it is way out of my comfort zone and in a lot of ways almost outside of my culture. And someone nicely mentioned to me that maybe suburbia would be an ideal mode of displacement toward me if I’m to learn to love my neighbor. I had never thought about it that way. Everything that I’ve seen in suburban life speaks of brokenness just as in other parts of the world. I’m not sure how to accurately and justly compare them, but there is a lot of brokenness just the same.

So I think we can be Christian in the burbs, but it still would require a lot of countercultural living. I definately don’t think it means self-segregation like it does for many churches. It also makes me wonder for those of us who go off and want to get our hands dirty then we may still need the people in burbs for our fundraising and support for missions, etc. I think we need ppl like Al Hsu to work in the publishing industry to honor the call that God has put on his life so that the rest of us can do ours. But I think you have hit on some very important points about how the Church in the burbs does not look like the Church that is described in Scripture.
–jen

That being said, I wonder what the ramifications for Christians living in suburbia are. More and more of the problems of cities will start to have significant affects on “safe” communities. I hope it presents a wonderful problem to the churches in the suburbs.

Beautifully stirring thoughts. Not much to comment on yet, my sister. I need to think about this, and probably read it again. I miss our times together and discussions. But just from this essay, you have added much to my reading list.

I think about the poor everyday. It is kind of difficult not to when it is so prevalent in Tampa. Not that it is not prevalent everywhere, as you have discussed here, but it is very difficult to “hide ourselves from our kin” when they are on every street corner, exit ramp, sidewalk, etc.

Thank you and I will get back to you when I have thought about this more.

Sam

Take two: “PREACH! TELL THE TRUTH! YOU GO, SISTER!!!!”

(That’s what was in my heart)