Comments on: Stating the Obvious

By: jeremy

jeremy — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 20:40:18 +0000

FUNNY!! I’d like to hang some of those in my office on the Hill :)

-jeremy

By: Morphea

Morphea — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 20:05:58 +0000

No, I’m chuckling. You’d get kicked out of the country, of course, if you ever published them, but they’re funny as hell. Cerise

By: aly hawkins

aly hawkins — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 18:30:13 +0000

So I woke up this morning around 4 and had a brainwave that made me wish I was visually artistic. In my mind, I see a series of religious paintings that are based on the cheesy Illustrated Bible Storybooks we had when we were kids…remember how the illustrations were pseudo-illuminated Renaissance-revival? Anyway, the first piece would be Jesus standing on a cliff with Satan, looking out over all the kingdoms he could have if he would just bow down and worship The Evil One. And Satan is the Statue of Liberty, gesturing with her torch. The second piece (and I think you’ll see a theme developing here) would be of Jesus getting baptized in the Colorado River, and John would be looking up into streams of golden light from heaven, only instead of a dove, there would be a bald eagle. [At 4AM, these seemed a lot less angry and a lot more funny.]

By: jeremy

jeremy — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:04:50 +0000

Aly, thanks for your observations, you’re very right. That was my point in one of your other posts about the yeast and the Church worrying and strategizing more about how to love their individual communities thatn to get a certain judge confirmed…if the EV church spent half as much time “yeasting” in their communities, think of the transformation that would occur, and all without having a “seat at the table.” A GREAT book on this is “Blinded by Might” by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson…basically they were in Falwells Moral Majority and the book is their severe reaction to this sort of posturing by the Church…

this is great dialogue…I’m definitly tracking with you all :)
-jeremy

By: jeremy

jeremy — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:01:22 +0000

Sure thing Michael…great question! Maybe I should explain what I do, first :)
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I moved to DC 3 years ago to work on Capitol Hill. God was gracious and provided a great opportunity to work for a Senator from Ohio. Then 2 years ago June, I had a major life-course change: God moved me away from politics and into ministry. I started working for a ministry on Capitol Hill almost 2 years ago. Our sole purpose is to be a spiritual resource to Members of Congress and their staff. We exist for three reasons: first, we proclaim and explain the gospel message of Jesus to Members and staff, especially those who are spiritually seeking and desire to get answers to their questions of significance; then we desire to encourage and equip staffers for ministry and service where they are at, to be missional and live incarnationally on the Hill; and lastly we desire to restore a vision of Christian statesmanship among our elected and non-elected leaders.
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So with that said, what does that look like, to be missional on Capitol Hill? A few examples: I just finished leading an 8-week group that trained staffers to disciple other staffers, six staffers were trained and will partner with us to disciple interns and staffers on Capitol Hill; another example…I just submitted an 11-page proposal to better train Christian staffers to engage other staffers in spiritual conversations and story-tell the Gospel Redemptive Narrative in the hopes of a spiritual revival all led by staffers; another example…I wrote a small group study called “Incarnational Living” for my House of Reps. small group that hopefully will light a fire under a handful of guys butts to actively and deliberately be Jesus to their lost co-workers….just three examples of what that looks like in real life.
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And what is the hope in all this activity? As I mentioned in my previous post, Capitol Hill alone is literally run by 23,000 postmodern staffers (average age is 27), roughly 75% are unsaved. And these staffers are leading very broken lives that need the restoration power of the love of Jesus and His gospel. It is out of this hurting, broken, lost, sin-marked heart/mind/life that policy is being written. I guess the vision, and it is a lofty one at that, is to see people’s lives transformed for the good of the Hill community, for the good of America. When the Hill-world sees a spiritual revival and awakening, when staffers minds and hearts are renewed by the gospel, they will “be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

do you see the vision? do you see why it can happen no other way than life transformation through the gospel?

-jeremy

By: aly hawkins

aly hawkins — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 23:54:31 +0000

I think the EV approach to politics is characteristic of its flawed approach to just about everything (SUPER generalization alert - I’m responding to Jeremy’s observations only). Our prevailing attitude is often “If only they would give us a chance to be in charge, then they would know how awesome and right we are!” The reality is that Jesus-followers shine brightest when we’re most definitely NOT in charge, when the temptation to power is at its lowest. I grieve our desire to be at the top of the food chain, because we miss the joy and blessing of willingly going to the back of the line. Master of Metaphor that Jesus is, I don’t think he was painting a complicated picture when he said, “The last will be first.”

By: michael lee

michael lee — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 23:41:46 +0000

Jeremy,
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What would that change look like? I’m curious how you think the sort of Kingdom expansion into the beltway would alter the political realities of that place?
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BTW, this is not a leading question. I’m not trying to back you into an ideological corner, I’m just looking to pick the brain of someone closer to that world than I am.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 23:33:14 +0000

Whenever I share with church people what I do, I always draw blank stares, like they don’t get it. Sure, being on the Hill for ministry reasons is just plain unique, in and of itself, but they don’t get why being there for purely missional/kingdom of God, and not political, reasons is so key to bringing about change.
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The Hill-world is no different than any other community: it is filled with individual hurting, lost, broken people. Except these 23,000 staffers and 535 members are legislating from that brokeness! I wish Christians would realize that Washington is not going to change by sending yet ANOTHER Christian lobbying group (which is what Christian Coalition and the newly resurrected Moral Majority truely are) or bowing down to the”glory” days of our founding or spiritualizing this countries symbols. No it will change when the power of the gospel of Jesus invades that community, when the the Church is Jesus’ eyes, ears, feet, hands, heart, mind, and mouth and expresses His love through those parts.
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Anyway, please pray for patience, perseverance, and sanity in my job on the Hill, because articles like this remind me of how backwards the Church approaches Capitol Hill and the rest of America’s government…

be His,
-jeremy

By: Chad

Chad — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 22:06:09 +0000

Oh yeah,

And I think the left sucks too. I am forming the United State of Chad in central Africa (my favorite country), they’ve been waiting for me.

By: Chad

Chad — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 20:41:44 +0000

The think that just KILLS ME is that EVERY time throughout history when the Church (any church or religion for that matter) it’s the church that gets corrupted, not the government that gets fixed.

Oh yeah, and when the hippie liberals take it back over the backlash is gonna be a sumbizznich.

Oh yeah, and the Religious Right has never ever read the book of Matthew.

Chad

By: aly hawkins

aly hawkins — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 20:07:05 +0000

Chad, that was very Handel’s Messiah.

Sometimes when I wake up before my alarm (when I do most of my worrying), I get a horrible, heavy feeling pressing down on my chest when I think about how combustible America’s brand of evangelicalism has become. I mean, it’s difficult for me to understand how the volatile mix of religious and patriotic fervor doesn’t seem to bother a lot of sincere, Christian people. It’s become normal to feel religious devotion to the flag, to feel patriotic devotion to the Cross. It’s very Crusades. Very retro. And then I get REALLY worried, because I think I’ll probably fall prey to the same syncretistic lie, only I’ll feel religious devotion to the UN or to the Fair Trade Lobby. God save me.

By: centuri0n

centuri0n — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 16:10:01 +0000

Addison, you are my new favorite blog.

By: Morphea

Morphea — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 15:16:06 +0000

Hallelujah. Praise Jebus.

By: Chad

Chad — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 07:28:02 +0000

amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen

And again I say….

amen