Party Quirks and More...

While pushing on for years towards the serious goal of expressing local church in ways that are both accurate and accessible, we have increasingly discovered the value of humor. Most of our gatherings have an edge of humor these days, but our Thanksgiving dinner has become our night at the improv. (I suppose the whole American evolution of a holiday on which we stuff ourselves with food and football in solemn commemoration of a harsh year’s bare survival starts us out on a foot of irony. Plus, we usually have several Brits present with us, due to the timing of a November conference we all attend, which makes for even more possibilities of tea and tax jokes along with some friendly national rivalry!) Modeling our games after the popular British-then-American show, Whose Line is it Anyway?, we have learned how to capitalize on our collective need to laugh at ourselves. This year’s Thanksgiving dinner was no exception.

Though I usually master-mind the festivities, this year I got to sit back and enjoy as the legendary mind of Tabitha Summers went to work. Releasing the next generation is a fulfilling experience, especially in this case. She went wild with the game they call "Party Quirks" and planned five rounds, each with participants that couldn’t have been selected more perfectly. If you are not familiar with the Whose Line is it? version, four guests with unusual character descriptions (quirks) assigned to them attend a party and the pretend host has to guess what each one of them has going on. The audience knows through subtitles so the fun is in watching the guests try to act out the situation and watching the host try to guess. In our case, Tab made a PowerPoint that told us the guests’ “agendas” without letting the host see. So, picture it: one by one the host answers the pretend doorbell ring only to have people enter who range from a “broadway star wannabe” to an “overdramatic detective finding ridiculous clues to a murder,” a “kindergartner posing for a class picture,” a “football player tackling in slow motion,” a “blind bird mistaking closed windows for exits,” or “random animals crossing the road.” As the person playing the host continues to ask the attendees, “Are you a….” they walk around, four at a time, squawking, banging, poking, bobbing and generally doing their own assigned things. Of particular mention was our British friend Alistair Beattie whose impression of a mouse running through a maze to get cheese will not be soon forgotten, as well as Reese Bailey who did a great job being “angry at the neighbors in the apartment downstairs.”

Eventually, with or without some help, the party hosts guessed the agendas of the quirky guests while we all laughed. I really wasn’t looking for a lesson or a poignant moment—just enjoying with the abandonment of someone who is not in charge! BUT, here we were in church and I couldn’t help but marvel at the metaphor. As I sat there watching, the “host” seemed to me like a church leader, trying to do something: throw a party beginning with that all-important step of welcoming guests properly, but the poor soul was completely at the mercy of the ridiculous agendas that each guest carried in. Whether it was an animal’s fear of becoming roadkill or the neediness of a Broadway wannabe, these guys did not show up to offer greetings like proper guests! Instead they wandered around the pretend party responsive only to the inner script they carried in the door. Some of them “did” their thing “to” the party host: tackled him, poked him, posed in front of him, pulled a hair from him for DNA testing…while others (the blind bird in particular) ignored the party host all together flying, running, banging all on their own in an effort to meet their “inner need”. Reese—angry at the folks down stairs—yelled and stomped on the stage, right in front of the baffled party host.

As I laughed (and I did really, really laugh), it actually seemed to be touching me. I realized that as a church leader I feel like I am (at least metaphorically) standing there trying to do something—organize something, host something, inspire something or just stir something—and often it just doesn’t work because the people in attendance have arrived with unmet needs inside of them, needs that are spinning off agendas and making them either oblivious or at least competitive with my “agenda”! “THIS is church,” I thought. People come as they are and fly, squawk, analyze, resent, chase, tackle, relive the past, and pursue a brighter personal future right through the call to change the world! Until you get a grip on what’s going on inside of the non-cooperators, it can be downright frustrating. And yet…I didn’t feel frustrated as I watched the Party Quirks fiasco! I felt strong appreciation and love for the strange and wonderful place we call church! I realized, in fact, that that’s exactly why I love the church so much! It is in this environment of unlikely synergy that God does His best work. God knows how to throw the party! He specializes in orchestrating the inner programming of His people such that by meeting their needs, He also builds the Kingdom. We as human hosts might at times feel mystified, but He is never caught off guard. (Somehow I seem to remember a band of distressed, in debt and discontented and a captain named David…hmmm…and these were called his "mighty men...")

Church is NOT like a business. At work you are expected to stuff your quirks (as best you can) and get your job done. You are not paid to relate but to perform (unless your business has a spiritual understanding of the workplace, that is—but that’s another blog entry). Church, however, when practiced as heaven intended, is not about performing at all. There may be jobs to do, but expectation and pushing on in spite of faulty inner programming is not the goal. Church is about coming as you are, broken but hopeful, gifted but challenged, and planting yourself in a network of Kingdom focus. So, your mixed inner bag cannot be hidden and should not be resented. Church is that strange and wonderful place where blind birds can stop flying into walls, but they need permission to hit a few now and then while they are healing. It is a safe place for people who have a larger goal in life than just being good “party guests” and not making a stir. And, though at times I’ll admit that I have felt like no one at this party is listening, I still wouldn’t trade my experience of being hooked relationally to God’s wonderful menagerie for anything!

Church really is holy chaos—even without any exotic “tangible manifestations” of the Spirit of God. This colorful array of people assembled for Kingdom purposes, is wildly wonderful in all their strengths and weaknesses—and how little they know it. They are God’s big tapestry spanning the ages—accomplishing His purposes via the most unlikely routes and candidates—a group of messy messengers with enough wisdom to come to the party but no idea what to do with themselves once they’ve arrived. God in heaven laughs with joy and I should, too, as their leader.

Why wouldn’t I laugh? Why would I instead resent wounded church people for their lack of cooperation? In those moments, I am afraid I have fallen back on the false but easily revived notion that it all depends on me. A sense of responsibility is good, but heaven’s measurements of success are often quite different than earth’s and if I have accidentally replaced some of my gold shields with brass ones, I will forget that the only One who can orchestrate this shindig is the Creator of the world and the Author and Finisher of our faith, who by the way, has also proclaimed himself the builder of the church! Even amidst corrupted inner agendas, God himself will show up, guiding people to assemble not just as bodies but as spirits joined for a purpose and truly meeting one another’s needs. It’s God’s party—God’s festival—God’s show, not mine. I am really just the host!

Joseph Campbell (Hero of a Thousand Faces) says there are two major pitfalls in every hero’s life—the first is thinking it all depends on me and the second is thinking it all depends on “them”. God give us leaders in church who are real heroes—those who have met both of these obstacles and reached beyond them. They are the ones who will no longer be angry over the party quirks or frustrated at their inability to wrestle control of the dysfunction! With a gaze fixed on heaven’s agenda, they will also look continually to God for the enabling of that agenda (rather than further “enabling” people’s quirks!). With all my heart, I believe that God is raising up these kind of leaders—hosts—ready to answer the door and receive the seeking masses. Our best days in church are yet to come! I’ve seen the future and I’ve laughed with joy! I'm not afraid of our "party quirks"!