ARE YOU A MERCIFUL PERSON?

ARE YOU a MERCIFUL PERSON?
-by David Wilkerson.

Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord” (Psalm 119:156). “The Lord
is gracious and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great
mercy. The Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all
his works” (145:8–9, my italics).

I want to ask you a question I’ve been asking myself lately: Are
you a merciful person? Most of us would answer, “I think I am
merciful. To the best of my ability, I sympathize with those who
suffer. I feel the pain of my hurting brothers and sisters in Christ,
and I try to help them. I do my best to assist my neighbors in
need. And when people hurt me, I forgive them and don’t hold a
grudge.”

I believe all true Christians have a good measure of mercy for the
lost and hurting. I thank God for that. But the sad truth is, God’s
Word exposes in many of us deep roots of bias and very limited
concepts of mercy.

Most religions that claim to fear God have a creed or doctrine that
says, “God’s tender, loving mercies extend to all of humankind.”
As followers of Jesus, we talk so much about his tender mercies
to the wide world. But here is the truth:

There are many people to whom large numbers of Christians limit
God’s mercy. I think of prostitutes who work in godless brothels. I
think of people in Africa and other continents dying by the
thousands with AIDS. I think of homosexuals who endure endless
heart-aches and mental anguish, the trials of their lives, and who
drink themselves into oblivion to try to cover their pain.

From what I read in Scripture, I can’t accept that my Savior would
ever turn down the desperate cry of a prostitute, a homosexual, a
drug addict or alcoholic who has hit rock bottom. His mercies are
unlimited: there is no end to them. Therefore, as his church —
Christ’s representative body on the earth — we cannot cut off
anyone who cries out for mercy and deliverance.

We may not even be aware of these inner biases until suddenly
they’re in our face, confronting us with the truth about our hearts.
As you consider this in your own life, I ask you again: Are you a
merciful person, tender and loving? I picture many readers saying,
“Yes.” Yet, ask those around you — your family, your co-workers,
your friends and neighbors, your friends of a different color — and
see how they respond.

THE QUESTION that CHANGED MY LIFE

THE QUESTION that CHANGED MY LIFE
-by David Ryser.

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school
of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly
searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with
Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across
a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short
version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this:

Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece
and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution;
it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and
became an enterprise. Some of the students were only 18 or 19
years old--barely out of diapers--and I wanted them to understand
and appreciate the import of the last line, so I clarified it by adding,
"An enterprise. That's a business." After a few moments Martha,
the youngest student in the class, raised her hand. I could not
imagine what her question might be. I thought the little vignette was
self-explanatory, and that I had performed it brilliantly. Nevertheless,
I acknowledged Martha's raised hand, "Yes, Martha." She asked
such a simple question, "A business? But isn't it supposed to be
a body?" I could not envision where this line of questioning was going,
and the only response I could think of was, "Yes." She continued,
"But when a body becomes a business, isn't that a prostitute?"

The room went dead silent. For several seconds no one moved or
spoke. We were stunned, afraid to make a sound because the
presence of God had flooded into the room, and we knew we were
on holy ground. All I could think in those sacred moments was,
"Wow, I wish I'd thought of that." I didn't dare express that thought
aloud. God had taken over the class.

Martha's question changed my life. For six months, I thought about
her question at least once every day. "When a body becomes a
business, isn't that a prostitute?" There is only one answer to her
question. The answer is "Yes." The American Church, tragically,
is heavily populated by people who do not love God. How can we
love Him? We don't even know Him; and I mean really know Him.

... I stand by my statement that most American Christians do not
know God--much less love Him. The root of this condition originates
in how we came to God. Most of us came to Him because of what
we were told He would do for us. We were promised that He would
bless us in life and take us to heaven after death. We married Him
for His money, and we don't care if He lives or dies as long as we
can get His stuff. We have made the Kingdom of God into a business,
merchandising His anointing. This should not be. We are commanded
to love God, and are called to be the Bride of Christ--that's pretty
intimate stuff. We are supposed to be His lovers. How can we love
someone we don't even know? And even if we do know someone,
is that a guarantee that we truly love them? Are we lovers or
prostitutes?

I was pondering Martha's question again one day, and considered
the question, "What's the difference between a lover and a prostitute?"
I realized that both do many of the same things, but a lover does
what she does because she loves. A prostitute pretends to love, but
only as long as you pay. Then I asked the question, "What would
happen if God stopped paying me?"

For the next several months, I allowed God to search me to uncover
my motives for loving and serving Him. Was I really a true lover of
God? What would happen if He stopped blessing me? What if He
never did another thing for me? Would I still love Him? Please
understand, I believe in the promises and blessings of God. The
issue here is not whether God blesses His children; the issue is
the condition of my heart. Why do I serve Him? Are His blessings
in my life the gifts of a loving Father, or are they a wage that I have
earned or a bribe/payment to love Him? Do I love God without any
conditions? It took several months to work through these questions.
Even now I wonder if my desire to love God is always matched by
my attitude and behavior. I still catch myself being disappointed
with God and angry that He has not met some perceived need in
my life. I suspect this is something which is never fully resolved,
but I want more than anything else to be a true lover of God.

So what is it going to be? Which are we, lover or prostitute?
There are no prostitutes in heaven, or in the Kingdom of God for
that matter, but there are plenty of former prostitutes in both
places. Take it from a recovering prostitute when I say there is no
substitute or unconditional, intimate relationship with God. And I
mean there is no palatable substitute available to us (take another
look at Matthew 7:21-23 sometime). We must choose.

-Dr. David Ryser.

The ROMANS ROAD

The ROMANS ROAD....is a pathway you can walk.

It is a group of Bible verses from the book of Romans in the New Testament. If you walk down this road you will end up understanding how to be saved.

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

We all have sin in our hearts. We all were born with sin.

We were born under the power of sin's control.

- Admit that you are a sinner.



Romans 6:23a "...The wages of sin is death..."

Sin has an ending. It results in death. We all face physical death, which is a result of sin. But a worse death is spiritual death that alienates us from God, and will last for all eternity. The Bible teaches that there is a place called the Lake of Fire where lost people will be in torment forever. It is the place where people who are spiritually dead will remain.

- Understand that you deserve death for your sin.



Romans 6:23b "...But the gift of God is eternal

life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Salvation is a free gift from God to you! You can't

earn this gift, but you must reach out and receive it.

- Ask God to forgive you and save you.



Romans 5:8, "God demonstrates His own love for us, in

that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us!"

When Jesus died on the cross He paid sin's penalty. He paid the price for all sin, and when He took all the sins of the world on Himself on the cross, He bought us out of slavery to sin and death! The only condition is that we believe in Him and what He has done for us, understanding that we are now joined with Him, and that He is our life. He did all this because He loved us and gave Himself for us!

- Give your life to God... His love poured out in Jesus on the cross is your only hope to have forgiveness and change. His love bought you out of being a slave to sin. His love is what saves you -- not religion, or church membership. God loves you!

Romans 10:9,10 "...If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."


Romans 10:13 "Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved!"

- Call out to God in the name of Jesus!

Once you cry to God to be saved, God has commanded that we be baptized in obedience to his command (Acts 2:38) the Roman Road discusses Baptism like this:

Romans 6:1-5
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

My friend the Roman Road is only a tiny portion of what God's word says- but it does demonstrate the need to turn to Christ for your salvation and how to express this need to others. I pray you are restored to Christ today!

"Being In but not Of" Effective Alternative Ministry

"Being In but not Of" Effective Alternative Ministry
Peter Whole - Source – Minneapolis MN


My experience and observation of the “Counter Culture” is seeing it evolve from a definable segment of society in the 60’s and 70’s, to establishing sub-cultures with the “Counter Culture” in the 80’s and early 90’s, to now in this last decade having so many different sub-cultures that consider themselves alternative.
Once you could define the alternative types by the appearance, music style and lifestyle. Tattoos, colored hair, piercing, and funky hair have crossed into the mainstream. After all, Nirvana was the alternative band that went platinum.
But still there remains in the population of the West a definite element that either desires or has just found that they are part of those who are not part of the main stream. These alternative types, though they would see themselves as very different, after all what does the gutter punk, rainbow kid, hardcore, raver, hippie kid, have in common.
*Similarities of Counter Culture/Alternative Types
o Hate corporate
o Value organic vs. conventional
o Don’t want to be treated as a number
o Value relationship vs. task
o Value authenticity vs. artificial
o Holistic vs. Compartmentalized
o Want something fresh, vs. stagnant
o Want to make a difference

Their culture, childhood, peers, and experience have also given them a similar view of the Church of Jesus Christ and Jesus himself (corporate, conventional, treat people like numbers, task-driven, artificial, compartmentalized, stagnant, and not doing anything to make a real difference.) It would not be hard to go to a common coffee shop in any of our cities and find a 19 year old who would respond to, “what does it mean to be a Christian,” with “going to church on Sunday” or “the ten commandments.” A God of love and forgiveness, redemption, atonement, A God that has a plan for each life, or a truly personal relationship with the God of the universe would be void of their vocabulary and of their worldview.

“Being in but not of” (John 17)
A true key to effective alternative ministry, given to us (John ch. 17) by Jesus when he prayed in Gethsemane in his last moments before taken to be crucified is for us to be “In but not of the world”. Mark 16:15 Jesus instructed, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Not just go into the global world, but to also go into all the world’s sub-cultures as well. In Mathew 5:14 we understand the need for us to be light in darkness. The alternative culture is the keepers of the dark places in our society. For many of those we reach out to it is the norm that we are the only representatives of Jesus that they know and trust. And we are the only ones praying for these individuals to overcome their pasts and began a new life with Jesus.
Being effective at being a light in darkness involves being 1) in the world (being culturally relevant and relational) and 2) Not being of the world.

Being In
Most models of outreach and evangelism with in the church rarely reflect being relational or culturally relevant. “Going to” the world (by coming into proximity during an outreach night and throwing some tracts and words) should not be mistaken with being in the world. I know gutter punks with tract collections. Half the young people we reach out to have been raised in the church and they have seen hypocrisies first hand.
Going through the external motions because you are “supposed to” to appease some ancient ritual vs. having a relevant and valid reason. Why believe what a stranger says to a crowd from a stage or on the street corner? His motives, “to serve the corporation he works for, ahead of my best interest,” are ultimately questioned.
They don’t need someone to just tell them about Jesus, they need someone to be Jesus to them. They will not follow what logically make sense. Their lives are full of hurt, pain, and abandonment (if not directly they have seen it in their peers – which most the time is closer than family).
They will follow what they see and experience to be real. When they see and experience real love through a relationship of someone they have grown to trust, and then they are willing to be open about Jesus.
The Joshua House, Source’s transitional /discipleship housing has seen young men make radical, lasting, life changes. One young man had as many as 20 friends come up to him after he had been there a few months and ask, “What happened to you? You used to be angry, depressed; using drugs, and out of control with your life. Now we see a real change.” He had the opportunity to tell them it was Jesus growing him. When those friends saw and experienced something real, they inquired about what it was and were open to investigate if it could be something for them personally.
Most people believe Christians do not relate to them. For many it is a paradigm shift to meet a Christian they can relate to who is more concerned about being real vs. putting on a façade of perfection.
When people are treated as individuals vs. a number they are more willing to let others speak into their lives. When relationships are valued more than the number attending, you begin to communicate community vs. corporation. Many times it is the difference of quality vs. quantity.
The good Shepherd leaves the 99 and searches for the one that is lost, taking time and energy for the individual. A two-hour conversation would be consistent with “organic” or relational evangelism in comparison to a five-minute presentation. And most likely the first 90 minutes was spent listening to the individual.
Organic/relational evangelism also does not subscribe to the, “one size fits all,” method. It embraces seed planting, looking for ways to serve and pray for, and getting to know the individual over time to be able to personalize how God can affect an individual’s life.
It is ironic that the evangelical speaks of a personal relationship with God but often displays only impersonal expressions. Relationships were core to the ministry of Jesus. He changed the world by spending three years with twelve. Not by having the biggest show in town, but by genuinely displaying love and being relational with individuals do we earn the right to speak into others lives.
Another attribute of alternative types is they will readily identify if something is only surface deep. Being authentic is a core value of this generation and the fact that it is so hard to find, makes it even more attractive.
Their hearts hunger for intimacy and know that authenticity is an ingredient. Valuing relationships, allowing each other to remove masks without being rejected and growing from weakness are all attributes of authenticity. And when anybody comes in contact with it, it forces him or her to figure out what the source is.
Being culturally relevant is the other aspect of “Being in” goes hand in hand with being relational.
By
- 1) knowing culture,
- 2) Being in culture, and
- 3) being culture allows you the opportunity and right to begin to make contact to speak into individuals’ lives (or being relational).
The reverse is true as well in that how can you be relational with people if you don’t know and are not in their culture.
I can know culture and be in culture by being willing to be vulnerable, to go to where they are at, to hang with them, to ask questions about their world, and to demonstrate that I can relate to them (this really isn’t that hard to do you just got to be willing to go). Through prayer, gathering others with similar vision, discernment, and willingness to fail I can find cultural bridges to be friend people, grow relationships, and communicate the Good News of Jesus. I can be culture.
Shouldn’t we through the power of the Holy Spirit be able to be more creative, have more passion, establish more energy, and impact and lead culture more powerfully than any pagan (as in Paul’s use of pagan, “without Jesus) is able to muster?

But not of
The inherent trap of alternative ministry is to be swayed from God’s kingdom by the cultures values. As much as we should be in and want to be a friend and a voice... As much as we want to treat people with gentleness and respect... We cannot be of. We are different. We have a master. We have sold ourselves, our rights, our lives. We are called to morals and obedience. When a Christian enters the alternative scene, there should be no greater contrast in our society.
The alternative culture is the junior high kid of our society’s family – the one that knows enough to point out the flaws in the family, but doesn’t have the tools or maturity to figure out how to bring healthy change. So often, the alternative element of the family goes and seeks the dysfunctional neighbor kids for acceptance and rejects the family relationships.
It’s time for us to move forward. It’s time for us to grow up and bring to the table the grace that Christ has given us. We are a part of the Body of Christ. Be in every area of culture, but being of is being severed from the body.
I’ve ministered with those who were passionate about the Kingdom, now settle for serving mother earth or worse, rogue self.
Individuals, who began being hurt, frustrated, sometimes not accepted with the Church. Who made reaching out more important than keeping Jesus fresh in their lives? Who gave up on meeting together for prayer and encouragement? Who used legalistic pasts as excuse to give up on the spiritual disciplines and not wean themselves off the bottle?
Many churches may reject your method of reaching out, but I guarantee you there are plenty of suburban church woman’s circles full of people who love Jesus that would pray for you daily, no matter what you look like, if they knew you were trying to reach the unreachable for Jesus.
There lies the challenge. How do we show love and acceptance to the individual while not being of their culture? We do this by searching for the ways of their culture we can accept. By showing we are interested and will love the individual. And we best love by keeping Jesus fresh in us. By being in (relational and culturally relevant) and not being of this world.

Identity Issues in Underground Subcultures

Identity Issues in Underground Subcultures
Mark Humphries - Red Herring Cathedral - Winnipeg MB

Red Herring Cathedral
The Red Herring Cathedral was a late night coffee house in Winnipeg, MB that started in the summer of 1995. The Red Herring provided a venue for a stream of bands, DJ’s and a host of other artists. It also became an ever changing community of people who would stay up all hours of night and day sharing conversation and too much coffee. The dream itself grew out of the desire of my wife Alex and myself wanting to communicate Christ to our peers, most of whom were not Christians and who would have little to do with organized religion.
We began dreaming about a late night coffee house with the support of an elder at our church and one night we prayed together and asked God for a place to start a ministry. I really did not expect an answer so quickly but through a series of relational connections two weeks later we had the use of an empty house. I remember going with the same elder to meet the owner of the house and trying to explain to him about a whole group of people who would never fit in at a church. He had no idea of the people that would eventually use that house but he trusted that God might be giving us a vision and he offered the use of the house if we would pay the taxes.
It was an exciting time: suddenly God seemed very real and lots of things seemed possible. Even as we began to fix up the house we began to pray that God would form a community; that fringe Christians would come and get connected with each other and that we would be a voice to the alternative culture in Winnipeg. We had only a vague idea of what we were getting ourselves into but we had a lot of passion that came from wanting to share our experience.
To fast forward the story, we went through many stages of growth and change. I tended to get a sense of restlessness unless I felt we were making progress with connecting with people outside of Church culture. At one point we were drawing out many youth groups and we decided to shut the coffee house down because we did not want to become a drop in center for youth groups.

Osborne Village
We then moved into Osborne Village a more central location in the city that attracted squeegee kids and buskers and was the cool place to go for coffee on a summer evening. When we reopened our doors we took the risky step of only having bands that played in the regular music scene. We did this because we saw that Christian bands were simply reinforcing the Christian youth ghetto. I also talked to all the key youth leaders who hung out there and asked them not to come all at once. It was during this time that we began to see the fringes of the street culture and various music cultures come into the coffee house.
At first it was a few people checking it out. One night we had a potluck and there was a lot of food left over so a couple of people went out on the street and gave some food to a group hanging out in what was called The Circle (a general hang out for drug selling/buying). After that, a few of the street youth came in and then along with them a steady stream of disaffected young adults from the various identity tribes---Goth, punk, vampire, nerd, rave and a host of other variations.
I think because of the size of Winnipeg, the identity tribes tended to overlap somewhat and since the Red Herring was the only coffee house where they could smoke cigarettes, drink bottomless coffee and hangout all night with out buying food we became the most popular hangout in Osborne village for a period of a couple of years.
During those two years was when I solidified some key insights and frustrations in why it was so difficult to see transformation take place in the lives of some of these young adults. Over the entire lifespan of the five years the Herring existed there were probably only a couple of dozen people who came forward with a recognizable conversion experience, although even today I still hear stories of different individuals who became Christians.
At the time I felt very frustrated with how slow the process was and how, when someone made a move towards Christ, we usually saw three moves backwards right away. What I see now is that we lacked the sustainable community structures to help people transition into a growing faith. Although on occasion people did make the transition it was often very difficult and the ones who tended to make it had some prior church experience or support.

The Role of Identity
There is one key insight that I saw played out over and over again in the subcultures which made sense both of how I came to understand why people are drawn to these tribes and also what will be required to move people towards Christ. The key issue I believe in working with the various subcultures is the role of identity. We are all driven to seek and maintain some form of identity, as this forms our attempts to make our way through the world. Identity always comes from a source. Another way of saying this is that identity is primarily relational.
Advertisers know this point well because they are always trying to get us to make identity connections with their products by relating our lives to some kind of ideal world. In other words, on the most simplistic level, if I drive this car I will be perceived a certain way; I am making a statement about who I am. Christians maintain that the true source of identity is God which can be summed up in a single scripture from Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them”.
In fact one can see the whole story of redemption as a story of loss and regaining of identity. God first creates humanity in his image but due to the entrance of sin, that primary connection is marred. God then develops a formal relationship to the people of Israel through the law to sustain and maintain a people that he can call His own. Finally, He sends Christ into the world to re-connect people to the original source of identity and, in a sense, remake people in the image of Christ.
The rise of youth identity cultures cannot be separated from the identity vacuum created in the wake of the rejection of church culture since the 1960’s. The generations that largely make up these identity subcultures have grown up without the assumed culture that understood Genesis 1:27. The impact of this shift is that they have little assumed knowledge of God as the source of identity.

The Source of Identity
Imagine you had the money to buy a Van Gogh painting (a few million dollars). One of the reasons you would pay that much money for it is because the creator of that painting was Van Gogh himself. He was, in a sense, the source of that painting. What happens if I take that painting and mass produce it as something that sells at Wal-Mart for $19.99? The image becomes almost worthless once disconnected from the true source. I believe this is the kind of impact that forms the experience of people searching for identity in the subcultures.
One summer our family was on vacation and passing through South Dakota. As is our tradition, we were running out of money and looking for a cheap place to pitch a tent for the night. We found a little campsite in the middle of nowhere and set up our camp. At the time out daughter Cairo was less than a year old and so we laid her on a blanket while we got ready for the night.
At some point I was struck with a thought that no doubt many parents feel-perhaps even God. What would happen to Cairo if something terrible happened to Alex and myself? Cairo would be left alone in the middle of nowhere. Assuming she survived, perhaps through a kind family, she would not know who she was. She would have to make up stories of how she ended up there, perhaps abandoned, perhaps unwanted, or perhaps a terrible accident. She would never know that she was my daughter and that I loved her. She would be disconnected from the source of her identity and in that disconnection she would be forced to define who she was from the wilderness she was left in.
In a sense that is a picture of humanity without God, but it is also particular to the subcultures, in that so many of them have been abandoned by parents and also by virtue of growing up with so little connection to the true story. When we lose this primary connection to our parents and to the original parent God, then by default our identity has only has secondary sources left, namely culture, which is why people are seeking to create identity in the image of culture.
Of course we all take identity from our surrounding culture but the uniqueness of the identity subcultures is that they also represent a rejection of mainstream images and solutions for identity. Within the Red Herring extended community you often hear the mantra, “I’m different, I’m an individual”. Typically this is defined as being unlike mainstream images of normal identity. The business man, for example, would be an image of conformity that would represent mainstream culture and would be an undesirable role model. Often the inverse would be the driver of identity.

Expressions of Identity
I saw this in females who tried to express an identity that was the inverse of a mainstream image of a female. I remember one young woman commenting that “I don’t look slutty enough, I look too cutesy”. There was also underlying attitudes that being dark, angry or messed-up was cool. There were also a variety of other constructed identities that I saw people adopt for themselves.
There was one person who took on the role of a vampire, which was a common myth to draw identity from, except in this individual, due to some emotional imbalance, at times he seemed to believe he was a vampire. One time he picked a fight in the middle of the coffeehouse and started hissing at another individual and talking about how he would destroy him.
There was also an individual I spent an afternoon talking with who claimed to be an angel. This is an example of how identity needs can be reinforced by spiritual experiences. This particular individual had some profound experiences which led him to believe that he was an angel.
We began to see the identity issue as a key barrier for people asking faith questions and an even bigger barrier for someone who wants to make a public choice of faith because if one’s identity is firmly tied to the group and he or she wants to make a different identity choice there is a strong pull towards conformity to the old group.
We saw this when, during the last year of the Red Herring, we started hosting Spiritual Discussion Nights every Wednesday. At first we tried to start from the bible and engage discussion but that really did not work well so we reversed our thinking and started from the culture. We discussed Satanism, drugs, suicide, anything and everything that opened up room to be real with people and also to dig into identity issues. There were often some amazing conversations and insights and I started to see that discipleship is something that begins before and after any clear choice to follow Christ.
There was one person in particular who had started to go with some of our key volunteers to a Vineyard church. Most of the time when you saw him he had a typical Goth persona with black Crow-like makeup and black ripped clothing. Sometimes he would go to the Vineyard dressed like this and he was also hanging out on Wednesday nights at Spiritual discussion night. He asked good questions and myself and others had honest dialogues with him and I noticed less and less of the external persona over time.
Then one particular discussion night he came in with the full look and I could sense something had changed. At the start of the discussion he declared to the whole group “I have made my choice I have checked out Christianity and I have decide that I am a witch”. I never got to find out why the switch happened because he stopped coming around, but I would guess he encountered some identity barrier with some Christians and returned to the identity role of the Goth/Witch which brought him instant identity reinforcement.
In understanding the change an individual needs to go through, it is critical that there are some peers who can understand and, in some sense, have one foot in the world of the person who is encountering Christ.
I have seen over and over again that a person begins responding to Christ and there is a pullback because they feel they are losing themselves. They rightly feel the center of their identity switching and it can be scary. In a sense, discipleship is a process of switching the center of our identity towards Christ. For this reason, if we desire to help someone else work through an identity transformation in Christ I think we need to have some awareness of our own identity issues and needs.
I know it is common for Christians to say, “Put your identity in Christ and not in the world,” but I think the truth is that, to some degree our identity is always in both. In my experience, Christians often wanting to work with subcultures tend to see the subcultures in a glamorous way.

The Importance of Communities
I believe that what is needed are church communities of people - no matter how small - who are close enough to the identity subcultures that people can connect with them and see an image of Christ being modeled before them that they can identity with.
Finally we need to dialogue with people in a way that brings them into contact with their real experience. Often identity subcultures mask or romanticize pain and difficult life experiences in a valid attempt to keep their lives together. When people are able to be real about the painful experience of being abandoned by parents or seeing a father beat their mother, then there is a pathway both to healing and honest spiritual dialogue.
Communities that encourage honest dialogue about the painful experiences that led people in a search for alternative identity will be better able to help people connect to Christ.
Let me finish with the story of John (name changed). John came to the Red Herring as an angry young man who had adopted a Goth persona. He had some Christian background through his mother but his step-father had made life very difficult for him he had also been rejected by some Christians in an earlier youth group encounter.
John was quite intelligent and had begun to look into Buddhism as a means to help explain his world. In Buddhism he thought he had found a way to accept his pain through the path of accepting life as suffering. The problem was that it was not working and he was deeply angry at God and the world around him. He began to ask people a question based on an experience.
When he was still attending youth group a friend had become very depressed and he had prayed to God to help his friend. God did not answer and his friend committed suicide. His question was why did God allow his friend to die? The standard answer was that God gave his friend free will and unfortunately his friend used it in a negative way. I could see this answer was not helping him and while I was trying to think of how I should answer I saw the question from a new perspective. The image that came to mind was of Christ dying on the cross and while He is dying He cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
I began to see Johns underlying question as the same as Jesus’ question; God why have you forsaken me? The difference of course is that Jesus had a strong relationship with the Father, he knew who he was. He had heard the Fathers voice say “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) Can we become the kind of church communities that help people hear that voice?
Mark Humphries virtualmark@mts.net
http://incident-report.blogspot.com

William Paulsell

"It is unlikely that we will deepen our relationship with God in a casual or haphazard manner. There will be a need for some intentional commitment and some reorganization in our own lives. But there is nothing that will enrich our lives more than a deeper and clearer perception of God's presence in the routine of daily living."
~William Paulsell~

Understanding the different sub-cultures

Understanding the Different Sub-cultures
Andrew Jones - Boaz Project- Prague, Czechoslovakia
Making sense of today's subcultures can be overwhelming. It was certainly a challenge for me when I moved my family to the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. So many subcultures, each with its own alternative world of taste, shops, fashions, music, choice of drugs. And then the conflicts of having them relate to each other --- the ravers were too happy for the punks and the goths were too serious for the hippies.
But after living among them for a while I began to see patterns emerge which helped to put their cultures in perspective in a way that gave value to their distinctiveness without confining them to a box. I began to see different worlds that each had a gravitational pull. These worlds offered various directions in which young people could move if they wanted to leave the mainstream and journey towards an alternative world.
At first, I saw these directions take place on two axes. The first is in relation to time; The directions are backward in time or forward in time. It is much like how a mechanic will either retard or advance a distributor to synchronize the right timing for a car, or like rewinding or fast-forwarding a video. The second axis is in relation to space; The two directions are downward or upward, either descending or transcending the mainstream dimension like climbing up or down a ladder.
I later found it helpful to add another axis which has to do with personal interaction or integration with society. It also has two directions--- toward or away. They moved along the axis towards either extremity or isolation.

The Time Continuum:
Backward or Forward?
Backwards and forwards are related to time. Escaping the mainstream existence, also known as Babylon because of its greed, selfishness and conformity rather than creativity and community, can be attempted by going back in time or forward in time.

Backward
Going backward can represent a movement towards a simpler world. It could mean going back a few decades (retro) and adopting the clothes and values of a world that seems to make more sense than the present mainstream world. Or it could mean slipping back to a more tribal, primitive existence. Adopting neo-romantic ideals of the simple human, the "noble native", a society free from modern concerns of materialism and consumerism., a rural utopia where equality exists between humans and animals and trees. I have referred to such a world as "The Enchanted Forest", it is a world alive with living things, and people that live in it tend to wear natural fibers with natural colors and use natural drugs (marijuana, hash). There is a return to primitive religion for guidance --- animism, monism, communal living, organic foods and organic building materials, tribal drums, tribal tattoos and piercings. There is an expectation of oneness, a desire for unity and harmony, for peace on earth.
I found it helpful to bring the gospel in its original narrative form rather than a prepositional formula. I re-told the Creation story from Genesis, as it relates to and fulfills much of primal mythology. I present myself not as one who holds to a 2,000 year old religion, but rather as one who traces his heritage back to the very first person who responded to the initiative of God to restore the harmonious relationship that had existed in "dreamtime". The tree of life is central to my storytelling.
The longing for the tree of life is something that touches them deeply and gives interpretation to the primacy of trees in their own religion and lifestyle. I tell them the tree of life was transplanted (Rev. 22) and that it is accessible through the One who hung on the Tree to enable us to have life and life to the full.
I try to avoid the 20th Century preoccupation with individualism in the gospel. It is the family of God that He calls us into, His body, a community that they we live together in forever with their Creator. He came to seek and to save "what" was lost, not "who" was lost.
The redemption of God involves all of creation, a new heaven and a new earth. Those that join this redeemed community have all things in common and look to the one who one day will bring peace and harmony to a new heavens and earth.

Forward
Many people would rather live in the future than in the past or the present, since there are so many exciting possibilities. For them, the future does not come quick enough. They move forward to embrace technological advances.
The fusion of technology with the human (often represented by their body piercings) is a combination they believe will result in a brave new world where many of the problems of the present will not exist. They love motion and speed rather than stillness and reflection. They embrace what technology produces. They wear man-made fibers with colors that are heavily synthesized. Their music is electronic and achieves sounds that only technology could produce. Their drugs are also synthetic made in labs (ecstasy, LSD, Speed) and often have the effect of forward acceleration.
There is great interest in aliens, the Internet and the future. The raver's ideal of P.L.U.R. (peace, love, unity and respect) could well fit many other cultures in this world although the skinhead's philosophies of fascism and social Darwinism are also present. Much of this world has to do with getting the "edge" or advantage over others (smart drugs, smart bars, smart cards, etc). It is these people whose fears are relieved in the knowledge of the hope of God, the Coming One. He knows what the future holds and, as the Psalmist sings, "our times are in His hand."

The Space Continuum:
Downward or Upward?
For those that want to exist in a dimension other than the present world of the living that traps them, there are options of escape. They can descend it (downwards) or transcend it (upwards).

Downward
The downward trip is an attempt to live sub-terrain, underground from mainstream. Descending can be achieved through drugs (depressants, heroin, alcohol), through temperament (gothic) or living out a personified deconstruction of everything the mainstream represents (punk, riot grrl, grunge).
a) Industrial music creates sounds out of the grinding noises of a society in decay.
b) Punk music, in its various forms, gives expression to the anger and frustration.
c) Goth music can often find the "marvelous" in the mystery and play on the remains of dead religion. It can also access the soothing silence of death that carries its own beauty for those seeking to descend the ugly realities of a broken world.
Spirituality often revolves around what is secret, mysterious, and unavailable to mere earthlings. Interest in the dark arts of occult is high and whatever has been forbidden or persecuted in the past is valued. Vampirism is admired for its mysterious, spiritual and erotic value. Black tends to be the dominant color and studded leather carries a symbolic rebellion and protection against violence. Piercings in this world are often valued by the experience of the piercing itself (pain, eroticism, and rebellion)

Upward
The upward trip is one of transcendence so the spiritual aspect is a large factor. If the trip downwards is often connected with a desire for power or healing, then the upward journey is often an attempt at higher knowledge, leading to a higher existence. This attempt may be through drugs (psychedelics) or spirituality (mysticism) or a combination of both (techno-shamanism). There is much stress on creation - planets, cycles, seasons, and the appropriate rituals that enable humans to interact.
Historical ritual sites become places of power and the ideal site for a spiral dance or rave or drum circle. There is a longing for a convergence of all things so that universal harmony might establish a higher way of living for all. The clothing is loose and unrestricted and often in the colors of the sky (blues and oranges). Jewelry is often connected to the stars or to various forms of mysticism. Babylonian, Egyptian, Celtic, and Ethiopian in particular.
Paganism is popular as a return to earth based religion. So is wicca and goddess worship, which can represent the restoration of the female dimension for an overly patriarchal spirituality and thus another balancing mechanism to enable convergence of the forces. Time is cyclical rather than linear.
Things that are timeless are valued over things are bound by time (pop-culture) or progressive in time. Tantric sex, in its present western packaging, has more to do with a continued moment of spiritual ecstasy and is considered "higher" than intercourse that moves progressively towards a climax. They tend to see Jesus as a mystic or shaman.
I present him as the Ascended Master, the Knowledge of God, the One who stands behind all the forces of the universe and will one day cause the great convergence to happen when He brings all things into harmony under his gentle care. I learned a lot from studying Celtic Christianity and found a platform on which I could meet with witches and carry a conversation that wasn't stained by witch burnings and Crusades.
The Celtic believers followed Jesus into a holistic lifestyle that embraced the arts, avoided institutionalism, created life-transforming ritual, and accessed power from God to raise the dead. The next generation respects that. I also gained a lot from studying the redemptive fantasies and fairy tales of George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis who portrayed the "deeper magic" in a way that is palatable to the generation now learning from Harry Potter.

The Relational Distance Continuum:
Towards or Away?
The Third Axis is that of Distance. It describes where cultures place themselves in relation to others or to elements in their world. They will usually either move towards something to be close to it and even go beyond it or they will move away from something to avoid it, hide from it

Towards
This the direction towards extremity, exaggeration, excess. It escapes the mainstream by moving towards its fears and taboos rather than avoiding them. Embracing death through music and art (death metal), experiencing danger through extreme sports (skaters), making excess a fashion statement through distortion and exaggeration.
Hard Core music knows no bounds of volume control or voice projection.
Creating shock value through abnormal body manipulation, forbidden sex practices, non-sensible tattoos and extreme piercings, 1930's suits and yellow top hats.

It is a rebellion against normality and a deconstruction of society's norms. It finds a heritage in the dada and surreal art movements of France and Germany. It makes weird fashionable.
When it comes to spirituality, the religions and cults that demand the greatest commitment seem to be the most attractive. The "Straight Edge" movement is often embraced for its commitment to the "no's" of a strict lifestyle.
Christianity is normally perceived as something tame (or lame) and predictable. I am quick to point out the radical nature of following Jesus, which historically has often ended up with the upheaval of "normal" society as well as the death of his followers.

Away
The opposite direction on the distance axis is away from society, a removal, a relocation of ones existence to a point as far away possible from where everyone is. It is a means of escape, an avoidance of life, a refusal to communicate, a shying away from whatever is going on. It is taking a culture to its introverted extreme where the solitude provides a safe place for contemplation.
There are many goths who choose to live in the quietness of the night rather than the day. Increasing numbers of "Cultural Creatives" choose to live off the power grid in remote areas where human contact can be more selective. Cyberspace also offers a respite for geeks who prefer a virtual world where they can avoid the demands of face to face interaction and the norms of fashion and etiquette.
For people occupied with this movement away, spirituality that values meditation, pilgrimage, and disciplines of silence are attractive. Many have recently taken another look at Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox spirituality. Even evangelicals are exploring the idea of labyrinths and monastic orders. The Celtic way, with its history of pilgrimage and "martyrs" that traveled to the mountains and islands to seek God in an isolated place provides encouragement to do the equivalent in the 21st century.
The writings of the Desert Fathers come from a deep place of experiencing the presence of God and are valued highly.



A Colorful, Rotating Ball
Putting the three axes together gives a three dimensional ball on which most subcultures could be placed in relation to their time, space and relational distance. It should be pointed out, however, that there are two factors that add to the complexity of understanding these subcultures.


Motion
No culture is stationary. All are moving and changing and so are the people that make up those cultures. It is common for people to move out of one culture and into another and then into another. From hippie to gutter-punk to cyberpunk, for example.

Integration
Movement across subcultures means there will always be elements of one subculture present in another. A "Velvet Goth" may still have his hemp necklace from his Rainbowithdeadhead past. Tattoos remain despite paradigm shifts. There are some sub-cultures that tend to stay within their own worlds and others that find acceptance in another cultural environment. A drum circle within a tribal rave on an ancient burial site, for example, might be attractive to alternative people from within very different subcultures.
It may be best to imagine that the ball is constantly rotating and the colors are always blending with each other to create new flavors and remixes, always changing and always reflecting the hopes and fears of the people that have the boldness to wear their anxieties, tattoo their story for the world to read, openly display the color that represents how the deepest part of them feels.
Such people refuse to conform to expectations and are therefore often sidelined as rebellious, out of touch, or just weird. It is no secret that Jesus felt especially drawn to the social outcasts of his day. Among them he found a heightened receptivity to the Story of God. It was these alternative youth that were called out to form the Body of Christ and represent Him to the world. I expect that the emerging church of today will find its most uncompromising leaders from among the alternative subcultures of today.