I’m very much looking forward to being with you at 4P PT on Zoom.

If we will miss you, may you feel held in the love and light of Christ wherever you find yourself today.

Warmly,

Karissa

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I want to pause here and hold them with you. Trusting that the One I love is present to your reality — whatever that may be.

As we prepare for our second gathering this Sunday, I find myself drawn to the time Jesus spent in the wilderness. You may be familiar with the 3 temptations Jesus faced, and you may even be perplexed with what they might have to offer us in the midst of projects, conflicts, dreams, disappointments and deadlines.

Fr. Thomas Keating was the first to draw my attention to the 3 temptations as universal false programs for happiness. In the years since, I’ve noticed many of the contemplative authors I learn from have also found wisdom in this understanding.

I am tempted to trust that safety and security will bring me happiness.

I am tempted to trust that esteem and affection will bring me happiness.

I am tempted to trust that power and control will bring me happiness.

When I find myself tempted, which is likely more often than I am even aware, I am learning to return — such is the way of Jesus.

We will spend our time together this Sunday listening deeply to the words of Jesus through prayer, the sacred reading of scripture, teaching, and listening groups.

If you missed our first gathering, and you’re curious about what to expect, you can read more here.

We’ll gather this Sunday, August 30th at 4P PT on Zoom. The link will be sent out to subscribers the day before and the day of the gathering.

In the meantime, I will leave you with these words from one of our beloved contemplative saints:

Julian of Norwich

Faith is nothing else but
a right understanding
of our being -
trusting
and allowing things to be;

a right understanding
that we are in God
and God
whom we do not see
is in us

Love and peace to you today,

Karissa

Religion, a word that has not always been life-giving for many, can mean to bind or to re-connect. Connection is foundational to who we are in Christ. It cannot be severed. Our awareness and trust in that connection is what needs tending.

When we gather together, we are at our best as the church when we are re-connecting with one another, remembering our shared story, our shared inheritance as God’s children. When we allow that connection to re-member us as vital parts within the body of Christ, and when we return our hearts and minds to the presence and action of God, something truly remarkable takes place.

We remember that we are unconditionally loved and wholly supported. We remember that we can trust in the compassionate, caring presence of God with us, and that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”1

Can this be done alone, in solitude, in nature? Possibly. Last evening I sat in the car watching our youngest at flag football practice. The sky was magnificent in her sunsetting colors, and as I looked out at hundreds of children, coaches, and parents, I was struck by how many stories we all carry and then by the reality that we are all connected. It was a sweet moment that lifted me out of the heaviness of my own experience of the day.

How much more is available to us when we gather together as the church to re-connect, remember, and return?

We need others to help us remember when we grow weary and tired, which is inevitable and human. Our stories and words and experiences are also needed by others in our community. When we allow our presence to become a gift to others, and another’s presence to be a gift to us, we participate in this interdependence of giving and receiving. Grace is surely found in this flow. The Spirit is surely in the mix.

Our spiritual practices help us return to this awareness. The practices are not special in and of themselves. They are “fingers pointing to the moon,” as Fr. Rohr would say. They help us to wake up, or metanoia, like we talked about in our first gathering. Metanoia is usually translated as repent, but in our first gathering we explored it as an invitation to go beyond our usual way of seeing and into the larger mind of Christ. Our practices help us see beyond our usual way of seeing, perceiving, and thinking, helping us to see with the mind of Christ.

So here I am, already looking forward to gathering together again later this month, August 30th at 4p PST. We will re-connect, remember, and return together.

Until then, I’ll leave you with the reflection that was shared in our first gathering:

Remember the Birds

Remember when Jesus talked about the birds? There were also lilies, coins, seeds, leaven, bread, and sheep. I know there were others, but those are the ones top of mind in this moment. Jesus was a brilliant teacher, and he used the stuff of our everyday life to help us begin to notice the loving care of God surrounding and filling our moments.

In the last year, as I have sensed sacred invitations into new beginnings, the birds have become something of a sacrament to me on my morning walks. When we allow them to, these ordinary items become tactile and tangible reminders of the unseen presence of God. They remind us that Presence is always lovingly and tenderly at work in our lives.

Does a day go by when you don’t hear or see the birds? It’s more likely that days go by without noticing the presence and music of the birds, but they’re always there. Days go by when I forget to notice and attend to the presence of God, and then all of a sudden the stuff of life jolts me back into awareness. These moments lift us, even if temporarily, out of the darkness, the chaos, and the mundane and realign our hearts with the steady rhythm of God’s loving care.

Remember the birds, and how all of their needs are met? How much more does God care for you? Is there a detail that goes unnoticed? Is there a moment too insignificant?

If the hairs on our head are numbered, then surely the details of our lives are contained within Presence.

There will be times when this truth feels so real you can almost taste it. The veil will part, and there will be glimpses of beauty, peace, goodness, and an assurance that all shall be well. Savor those fleeting moments. Store them up like a squirrel with a mouthful of nuts because most of life will be lived with long stretches in between those glimpses.

It may not be so for others, but you will have long stretches of darkness and desert where it seems as if the presence of God has suddenly left the room. The dryness will keep you longing for the One you know to be good and true. Stay with the longing. When the days are long, and dark, and dry, it will be even more important to notice the birds. Allow their presence to remind you of the Presence that’s temporarily hidden from you.

Allow their song to stir your heart to awe and wonder. Allow their freedom to inspire your courage to pursue your deepest longings. The veil will part again, the desert won’t last forever, and the darkness cannot put out the light. Until then, allow the birds to become friends, ministers, and sacred reminders of the Holy holding this very moment.

Practicing Presence

Consider taking 5 minutes to walk or sit outside. Notice the stuff of life that reminds you of the unseen Presence Jesus taught us about. Ask God to help you remember a time when the veil parted, and you sensed the loving care of God in your life. Take a moment to remember, savor, and give thanks for what comes to mind.

Peace to you this week,

Karissa

P.S. If you’re new to C4RUS, we are just beginning to gather together as a virtual, contemplative, and relational community. We would love to have you join us for our next gathering on Sunday August 30th at 4P PST on Zoom. You can read more here about the heart behind our gathering.

I’m grateful for you. What a gift it was to be present with you, practicing some of the ancient rhythms that help us return to the Presence of God again and again. Yes, we need solitude, which we’ll talk about together in the months ahead, and we also need communal spaces where we listen, pray, and practice the way of Jesus together. I continue to be surprised by the way God meets me through someone else’s words, in the unique way they articulate their noticing of the divine. I think we all got a taste of this gift in our sacred listening groups and reflections.

I also have a sense of hopeful anticipation for the ways our community will continue to be formed in the coming months. Anticipation for the gift of being awake together as the sun begins to rise.

A student asked the teacher,

“Is there anything I can do to make myself enlightened?”

“As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.”

“Then of what use are the spiritual practices you prescribe?”

“To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.”

Our practices are not special ways to get God to become present to us. They simply help us become awake to the Presence that is already and always with us, in us, and all around us.

We’ll gather together again on Sunday, August 30 and Sunday, September 27, both at 4:00 p.m. Pacific.

From there, I think we’ll be able to discern together what our rhythm will look like moving forward.

If you were with us on Sunday and didn’t have a chance to complete the reflection form, you’re still invited to do so here.

If you submitted your reflection and indicated that you’d like to help with hosting or reading, I will be in touch soon.

If we missed you this month, we’d love to have you join us in August.

I’ll leave you with this blessing for now:

May you notice the birds.

May their presence remind you that the heavens are open to you, that the Spirit has descended upon you, that you are God’s beloved child, and that God is pleased with you.

More to come,

Karissa

If you read last week’s essay, you may remember that the heart behind Church for the Rest of Us is to create a gathering where we practice attending to the presence and action of God together. That’s really what shapes everything we’ll do when we gather.

We’ll begin with a welcome and then take a few moments to simply become present – to ourselves, to God, and to one another. That might include a prayer, a song, taking a few breaths, or a mindful check-in with our body. I think we often spend our lives moving from one thing to the next and we rarely have the chance to simply arrive.

From there, we’ll move into a practice called Lectio Divina. It’s simply Latin for “sacred reading,” and it’s one of the oldest ways Christians have read Scripture. Instead of reading primarily to understand or gather more information, Lectio invites us to slow down and listen to God’s Word to us in the Scripture. We’ll move through the practice together, with prompts that guide us through each step. If this is new or unfamiliar to you, I’m excited for you to experience it with us.

After we listen to the Scripture, there will be a brief teaching. It will probably be around 15-20 minutes. I’m excited about the themes we’ll explore together over these first gatherings. After the teaching, we’ll move into smaller spaces with about 6 people for Sacred Listening Groups.

Sacred listening has a different goal than most conversations. We won't be listening to fix, solve, or instruct one another. We'll be learning to listen deeply. We're listening with the intention of understanding, which really is the gift of presence we offer one another in community.

This isn’t something I expect us to know how to do right away. Like everything else, we’ll learn together over time. This is a practice I’ve learned from the contemplative tradition, from the Quakers, and now from my spiritual director training. This way of sharing and listening becomes a beautiful gift we get to offer one another over time. It’s important to note that everyone’s voice is welcome, but never forced or coerced. You are welcome to share or not share as you are comfortable.

After our listening groups, we’ll come back together for an invitation and blessing.

I imagine these first gatherings will be small, so I’ll stay on after the blessing if anyone wants to ask questions, introduce themselves, or simply linger for a while.

Here are a few practical details:

• We’ll gather this Sunday (July 26th) at 4:00pm PST for about 75 minutes.

• You are welcome to join us late if something comes up, but please note that you may find yourself waiting patiently in the Zoom waiting room. As we set intentional spaces for quiet and listening, we will pause entry. Once a particular practice or prayer is complete, we’ll welcome you in. If you find yourself waiting, please join us in meditative prayer.

• Here is the Zoom link: *Zoom link is sent to subscribers before each gathering. Please subscribe for free to get the link.

• If you have the option, I’d recommend joining from a computer or tablet. It makes it a little easier to see everyone, especially in our sacred listening groups, but if your phone is what you have, that’s completely okay too. I would recommend making sure the Zoom app is downloaded and updated on your phone for ease.

• You don’t need to prepare anything ahead of time.

• If all of these practices are new to you, that’s fantastic. We’ll learn them together, one step at a time.

I’m really looking forward to gathering with you!

Karissa

The heart behind Church for the Rest of Us is to create a gathering space where we practice attending to the presence and action of God together. I believe this is our invitation.

The rhythms and practices we will learn and experience together aren’t new to me. They have become deeply meaningful over the last several years as I’ve practiced them in my own life. I’ve also learned and experienced them in community with others, and then had the privilege of hosting spaces where others were invited to encounter God through these practices.

The transformation I’ve experienced and witnessed in others, has been significant. It’s because of that experience that I’m excited to begin sharing these practices with our community.

Some of them may be completely new to you. They were new to me when I began learning about the Christian contemplative tradition several years ago, but the reality is that these practices are ancient.

They’re the ones we see Jesus returning to in the Gospels, the ones the early church carried forward, and the ones the desert mothers and fathers continued to practice and teach. From there, we have a long lineage of teachers who continue to invite us into this way of practicing our faith in Christ. They’re timeless, and I’m excited to continue learning and living into them together.

Most importantly, I hope you will come to trust that this will be a hospitable and gentle space. You won’t be expected to do anything you don’t want to do, and you are welcome with your questions, your doubts, and your open-hearted vulnerability. In this space, there will be consistent and gentle invitations to consider and try things that may be new to you. Each invitation is truly an invitation as we learn and practice and allow ourselves to be transformed into the mind of Christ.

As you can probably imagine, I’m excited. I’m also a little nervous. Another thing that feels important to say is that we’re creating this space together. As we gather on July 26th, and then again at the end of August and the end of September, we’ll discover together what this expression of church will look like. We’ll look for what’s life-giving, we’ll make changes as we need to, and we’ll allow the community to take shape over time. The invitation now is to simply begin, to pay attention, and to practice together.

Next week I will share more about the rhythm we’ll follow for our gathering time, as well as the specific practices we’ll learn and live into together.

If you have questions, I’d love to hear from you, and if someone comes to mind as you read this, I hope you’ll consider inviting them to join us.

I can’t wait to gather with you on Sunday July 26th at 4:00p PST on Zoom. I’ll send the link and details out to everyone on the mailing list next week. You can subscribe below so that you have everything you need.

Subscribe now

With gratitude,

Karissa

Our family is taking the week away next week to rest and play and make memories, but I wanted to check in with you before we leave.

We will gather together on Zoom for the first time on Sunday July 26th at 4p PST. I have been prayerfully holding ideas for the flow and focus of the evening, and I am excited to experience it with you.

Until then, I will leave you with four sacred questions I find myself returning to lately:

Where are you?

What do you want?

Are you able to drink the cup?

Do you love me?

You likely recognize one or more of the questions in the list. The first is found in the creation accounts when God goes to find Adam and Eve in the garden. They are hiding and ashamed, and God goes looking for them, pursues them with loving attention. Where are you?

The second is one Jesus asked individuals in the Gospel accounts. Even when the answer seemed to be obvious, he asked: what do you want? Reminding us again and again that our desires matter, and that God cares about the details and deep yearnings we often carry unaware.

The third question is perhaps the hardest to hear. Are you able to drink this cup? In the places we find ourselves and with our deep desires, are we willing to follow the cruciform way of Jesus? Over an over again I find I am being asked whether I will grasp and cling or surrender and consent to the way of Love.

The fourth question is the one Jesus asked Peter three times: do you love me? After we have found our answers to the earlier questions lacking, or we’ve found ourselves failing and fumbling our way through life, we are pursued and surprised with unending invitations into restoration.

So I leave you with these same questions.

Where are you?

What do you want?

Are you able to drink this cup?

Do you love me?

As you hold your own tender answers, may you have a deep sense of God’s face turned toward you, alight with interest, compassion, and care. May you trust that delight flows to you, and may that bring you peace—wherever you find yourself today.

More soon,

Karissa

Yes, to the absolutely unconditional and radical love of God, yes to the offer of healing and restoration that I have not yet fully experienced and continue to pursue, and yes to the opportunity to be a part of a community that imperfectly pursues creating spaces where those values are reflected.

So as we imagine together what Church for the Rest of Us will look like, these are 3 of the values I continue to return to, and as the question about LGBTQ+ inclusion comes up, I want to be clear about the values I’m committed to: Love of God, love of neighbor and love of self. Radical hospitality that says you—yes you—all of you is unconditionally loved by God and by your church community. You are welcome, included, affirmed and celebrated. You get a seat at this table.

I am grieved to admit that I haven’t always believed or practiced this radical love of neighbor. It wasn’t until the late 2010s that I began to realize that my heart and gut were leading me towards a greater love and grace than my head could keep up with. It felt wrong to exclude my brothers and sisters from serving and participating in all levels of life together in our faith community, but I couldn’t theologically explain my internal shift. I knew I needed to do the theological work, just as I had with women in leadership, so as 2020 slowed us down, I ordered the books and began to sit with the questions.

I knew I needed to start with how I was reading the Scriptures. This was even larger than how I would respond to my LGBTQ+ siblings. It began when my tender 4-year-old son asked on the way to preschool “mom, did God really kill the whole world in a flood because they were making bad choices?” I knew then, in my heart and body, that I didn’t believe that to be true. It wasn’t in alignment with what I know of Jesus, and I certainly didn’t want my child to have an image of God that is angry and unpredictable, but I didn’t have a framework for how to hold the tension. It compounded when my elementary age daughter wanted to read the Bible, from start to finish. I wanted her to read the Gospels, but she really wanted to read from the beginning. I didn’t want her to read the stories of rape and genocide seemingly commanded or condoned by God in the earlier narratives. Again, I didn’t want this to be her image of God. Clearly, I had some of my own work to do.

I will tell you that Pete Enns’ book How the Bible Actually Works was incredibly helpful. It built on what I had learned at Biola in undergrad, and at Fuller Seminary (in the MDiv program I didn’t finish.) It helped me to fall back in love with the Scriptures, it helped me to hold the tensions and contradictions, and this opened the way for asking harder questions.

From there, I read books on all sides of the LGBTQ+ inclusion debate1. I can compassionately understand how someone would resist inclusion, just as I can compassionately understand how someone would resist that women are equally called to teach and lead in the church, but I am fully convinced and committed to the affirmation and inclusion of queer people. The harm of exclusion is simply too great and the loss of what women and queer people have to contribute to our faith communities is too significant.

When we hold the question of inclusion from a Biblical perspective, we are drawn back to the creation narratives, a verse or two from the Old Testament, and a verse or two from the New Testament. I’ve come to see the creation narratives as stories meant to reveal deep and eternal truths, rather than literal histories in the way we often think about history today. That shift opened the door for more freedom, depth, and complexity in how I hold these questions. When I study the other verses, it becomes clear that the context was that of harm, abuse, idolatry, exploitation, or unequal power dynamics. The biblical texts were not written with mutual, loving, covenantal same-sex relationships in mind as we understand them today. Culturally, the Bible is writing about and restricting harmful acts.

Then you add in Jesus talking about the eunuch and the way they are included and valued in the Kingdom, and the Ethiopian eunuch being baptized and sent to proclaim the gospel, and I am all in. We don’t really have a clear and modern understanding of what a eunuch was, but some scholars help us to understand them as individuals who existed outside of traditional social and sexual norms. You add in the radical hospitality Jesus modeled for us, consistently going to the ones deemed most outside of cultural norms, and not only including them but affirming and sending them, and I’m here with a big ol’ YES!

So will this be a community where LGBTQ+ people are welcome, included, and affirmed? Absolutely! I understand we are all joining from different places in our theological journey, but the practice of this community will be clear. We are committed to the love of neighbor, radical hospitality, and the full inclusion and affirmation of LGBTQ+ people in the life of this community. We will ensure the opportunity for LGBTQ+ voices to be listened to and learned from as they participate and lead within our faith community.

So here we are. Beginning to set a table where everyone is welcomed, affirmed, celebrated, and unconditionally loved. Invited to participate in the healing and restoring work of God, and included in this community of faith we are creating together. I know this is less of a theological essay and more of a story of my personal understanding—that was my intention. At the very least, I came to understand that loving my neighbor meant investing the time to listen, learn, and understand to the very best of my ability. I could no longer just copy and paste what had been handed to me along the way.

In humility, this is where study, embodiment, and love have led me. More soon,

Karissa

P.S. As Church for the Rest of Us continues to unfold, we're planning our first online gathering for Sunday, July 26 at 4:00 PM PST. We’ll gather on Zoom, making it possible to join us no matter where you live. If you'd like to be part of this beginning, save the date. More details will be shared soon.

I had the privilege of attending the Post-Evangelical Collective Conference a few weeks ago, and one of the patterns that stood out to me the most is that so many of us have allowed our theology to expand and change in a way that is leading us to greater freedom and wholeness, but we have kept much of the old structures. Some of us are beginning to imagine and wonder what the new structures, containers, or “wine skins” might look like for this beautiful and grace-filled way of practicing life with God. I don’t think it means throwing everything out, but I do think we are being invited to imagine with God some new ways of gathering and practicing our faith together.

I have written previously about our values and a few theological distinctives folks can expect as we emerge. I want to clarify that we will hold our community to the practice of our values, not to the intellectual assent to shared belief. Our theology is provided so that there is more clarity around what people can expect from those of us leading and teaching. All people, from diverse religious and theological perspectives, are welcome in this space with us. We value an ecumenical curiosity and humility that allows us to learn from one another.

I do have a couple of our values that have become clearer for me in recent weeks, and I want to share them with you here.

The first is that we will gather together to embody and emphasize a variety of practices that open us up to God’s grace and compassion, and then empower us to live lives of greater freedom and wholeness.

This means the bulk of our gathering time will be structured around spiritual practices like lectio divina, silence, prayer, meditation, sacred listening to others, conversation, and more. There will be a time of teaching, but the teaching will support the practices. When I consider what I deeply desire for others, it isn’t that they would know more about God, it’s that they would discover God’s presence within themselves–present to them in the wondrous and mundane of their very human lives.

We will gather to awaken to this reality. We will structure our time together in a way that helps us to see, to remember, and to change our thinking. Jesus’ invitation everywhere he went was “repent, for the kindom of heaven is here.” The word repent, in its original language, communicates an invitation to change our thinking. What’s the thinking that needs to be changed? That God is distant, angry, fickle, and retributive. Our invitation is to wake up to the realm of God’s presence here and now: in us, in our neighbor and our enemies, and all around us in creation. Our invitation is to see the image of God in us and in others, and to notice the presence and action of God that permeates the world around us.

We will gather to allow the work of transformation as we open ourselves to God’s compassion and grace. As we see, we get to choose to stay closed or to slowly and consciously consent to the work of God in our lives. Grace and compassion are the divine conduits that bring about our transformation.

We will gather to integrate this knowing and experience into an embodied way of living and loving ourselves, our neighbors and our enemies. As we see, and as we heal, we are invited to participate with God in the work of redeeming and restoring the world.

Then we return and repeat again and again with fumbles and foibles along the way because there is always room for our humanity.

Think of it like a spiral that returns us again and again to deeper awareness and transformation and integration. This isn’t a new spiritual path, it’s our Christian legacy passed down by our spiritual mothers and fathers for centuries–I’m only expressing it in language that fits my unique experience.

So we will gather and practice and enjoy community together on July 26th. If this vision resonates with you, I would love to invite you to join us as we begin practicing this way of gathering together. You are also welcome to share this with anyone you think it might resonate with.

We won’t be doing traditional marketing ahead of the gathering, but the details will continue to emerge through this newsletter. If you’d like to join us or follow along, I would invite you to subscribe. Subscribers will receive gathering details and Zoom information as we get closer.

Thank you for your support and prayer. It means the world.

More to come,
Karissa

I knew this season would include writing, but I didn’t expect it to look the way it does. Much of what is rising to the surface is not teaching, but poetry, prayer, and reflection.

Hearing a call and discerning what it means and how it takes shape is a complex and multifaceted experience. Sometimes an invitation begins with clarity, but more often I find myself holding more questions than answers.

Each journey seems to require more patience than I expect and unfolds more slowly than I would like. In the quiet, I consider that this might actually be the work: holding the questions, trusting the unknown and the not yet, while allowing ourselves to be loved, held, and transformed in the process.

There’s a paradox here. We sense and respond to a call, while also holding its unfolding with openness, curiosity, and sometimes even doubt. I’m beginning to accept that this is not an answer I get to arrive at, but a posture I am learning to practice.

As part of this season, I am about halfway through a two-year training in spiritual direction. Each week, we begin with a gathering word.

A few weeks ago, we reflected on these words from Julian of Norwich:

Faith is nothing else but
a right understanding
of our being —
trusting
and allowing things to be;
a right understanding that we are in God
and God,
whom we do not see,
is in us.

We were invited to write freely in response. Here are the words that came:

Here is the word allowing
so close to consent

Will I allow
Will I consent

The question returns
again and again

The allowing is not passive
It is partnership

participating
in the divine dance of life

allowing the flow
to lead
and guide the steps

trusting that the missed steps
and stubbed toes
are covered
and mended by grace

for the flow is grace

I am in the flow
held by grace

yes, I will allow
yes, I will consent

So what happens in the waiting?

I’m not sure I will know until I can look back and see. In the meantime, I’m learning that waiting is not empty. It is not passive.

It is a space where we are invited to allow, to consent, and to participate in what God is forming, even when we can’t see it clearly.

And it may be possible that our communal invitation as we begin will be:

To wait.
To listen.
To allow.

Together.

I am grateful for those who are waiting, praying, and allowing alongside me.

Karissa

If you’re new here, you’re welcome to begin with the introduction to Church for the Rest of Us, where I share more about what this space is becoming.

We start with Jesus, the historical person, whose life and ministry as God made flesh are recorded in the early accounts of Scripture. We learn from what was written for us there. As we read, we listen, learn, and discover what it looks like to be the beloved of God. From there we can begin to trust and follow the way of Jesus.

Belovedness is foundational. While some of us began following Jesus before we knew to trust it, belovedness is still the starting point.

The God-man came bringing the good news of God’s love and presence available to all of us – now. Jesus models for us how to love God, self, and others, even unto death. Death that does not get the final word, but is eternally interrupted by resurrection to new life. He extends an invitation to insiders, outsiders, outcasts, and all the rest of us. In his words, we hear: “follow me.” We do our best to listen and respond to that call. We follow the way of loving our enemies. We follow the way of trusting God’s radical love of us and others. We follow the way of responding to evil with goodness. We follow the way of mending, healing, restoring, and bringing life and light where there is death and darkness. We understand this to be life-long work in partnership with God, and we choose to patiently trust the slow work of God in us and in others.

We choose to focus the center of our faith on the historical person of Jesus, and we trust Christ to be the Alpha and the Omega of that center. While Jesus was present to the world in the flesh at a particular moment in history, we trust that Christ was the beginning, is the end, and holds all things in between. Christ is the sum of it all. Christ is the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Yes, we follow Jesus and we are in Christ, as Paul writes more than 160 times in the New Testament. When we trust that we are in Christ, we are trusting our belovedness. We are trusting that humans have never been separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We trust this love and allow it to lead us into following the way of Jesus. We are following and we are held. God became flesh and dwelled among us in the person of Jesus. Christ was present before time, holds time, and is the culmination and fullness of time as we experience the now and not yet of the Kindom1 of God.

So as we begin to gather in community together, we choose to center our theology and our practice on Christ. We humbly look to the life of Jesus and the fullness of Christ to guide our life together and our call to the world. And even as our words, our theology, our practices, and our understanding remain only fingers pointing to the moon, we trust that Christ meets us there. As we follow the way of Jesus, we trust that we are learning to love, to heal, and to restore. We choose to participate in the life of God’s Kindom: the one Jesus came announcing and the one Christ holds together.

More soon,

Karissa

P.S. Church for the Rest of Us is coming…soon…I hope. I am still holding questions and waiting (some days with patience and others without much) for next steps, but if you’re curious and want to follow along with us, then I would invite you to subscribe here on Substack. For now, this is where we will share the journey as it unfolds.

As the weeks came and went, I came to see and to trust that these small moments were reminders of God’s care and kindness towards me in what turned out to be a long and difficult month. Nature, silence, and spiritual reading seem to be some of the most likely spaces where I encounter God’s presence, and after weeks of daily encounters with my new friend, I opened a new book and read this story:

The Quechua people tell a story about a hummingbird:

There was a time when the Great Forest caught fire. The flames roared and the smoke billowed, and all the animals fled in fear. Gathering at the edge of the forest, they watched as their home burned and burned.

“What can I do?” cried Buck.

“This fire is so big, and I am so small!” howled Fox.

Among them hovered a tiny hummingbird, her beak the size of a honeybee. She flew to a nearby stream, picked up a single drop of water, and flew back, dropping it into the fire. She made her way back and forth from the stream to the flames, carrying one drop at a time. Over and Over.

The other animals watched, confused. Finally Bear asked her, “Little Hummingbird, what are you doing?”

The hummingbird looked at the animals and said, “I am doing what I can.”

Those who have ears let them hear.1

One of my favorite definitions of contemplation is “a long loving look at the Real.”2 This story, and my new friend, invite me to return to Presence. We drink from the streams of living water, have our fill, and then take what we are capable of carrying back into the world. We repeat this over and over again, and we trust that even a small drop (kind of like a mustard seed or spoonful of leaven) can bring relief and life to even the largest of life’s challenges.

This is how I see the practice of contemplation.

As I consider this dream of starting a church, I am wondering what it would look like to gather together in a space where we are all invited to awake and attend to the presence of God within us and all around us? There will be theology, teaching, and discussion. There will also be room for shared experience, listening, and prayer. A space for us to taste and see the Good. This will ask us to practice slowness and silence together in community, and that may be a bit uncomfortable–dare I even say awkward? This may feel true at the start, but if we continue and carry on through the seemingly awkward, we’ll open ourselves up to seeing in a way that leads us to greater freedom and wholeness.3 Imagine practicing silence, the sacred reading of Scripture, and listening together in a way that opens us up to receive the gift of contemplation.4

Our world is weary of religion and hungry for spiritual experience. We intuit that there is more to this life with God/Christ/Spirit than we’ve known so far, but we can’t rationally or tangibly explain it, so we dismiss it. This desire for something more of God is worth pursuing. It’s the treasure you bury in the field. This desire invites us to pay attention and trust that both the immanence and transcendence of God will surprise us and take our breath away. But can’t this be done on our own you might ask.

Well, yes. And no. I think Jesus modeled both because we need both.

We need the silence and solitude that drowns out the noise and dims the human compulsion to contort ourselves to fit the expectations of others. We need the silence to know that Christ lives in us, that within us resides the image and likeness of God. So we return within and remember and then move back into the relational and communal spaces we are woven into. We are connected, inter-dependent, and created for mutuality as we reflect the mystery of the trinity in the places and spaces we reside.

The contemplative life is both solitary and communal. I need to experience God within myself, inside of you, and all around us. It is in Christ that we live and move and have our being. So we practice this together. We gather to remember and remind one another, as we host a space that slows us down and wakes us up. We practice listening and learning from one another’s experience, trusting that the Spirit is uniquely active and present in the diverse experiences of our community. We humbly acknowledge that our unique experience and personality simply scratches the surface of what’s possible of God. There is always more of God to be known and experienced (contemplated.) We learn to drink from the streams of living water collectively and individually and then we take our small drops back to where they are needed, to where we are called, and we trust God to use the small, hidden, and seemingly insignificant to bring relief and goodness.

So this is part of the dream. Creating a space together where contemplation becomes a communal practice that guides us individually and collectively. If you’re wondering how this can possibly be done in virtual spaces, I hear you. Six years ago, I would have had the same questions and even doubts about the possibility of creating meaningful experiences over Zoom. I would have absolutely believed we had to be together in a physical space to experience God and build relationships with one another. Interestingly enough, through the practice of hosting and receiving coaching and spiritual direction in these spaces, I no longer see any barriers to what is possible.

May this space we are creating together become a place where you can return to drink again and again from the streams of living water.

More soon,

Karissa

P.S. If you are wondering when Church for the Rest of Us will launch, the answer is that I do not know for sure. I have more questions than answers, but I do sense an invitation to write more about the values and distinctives I’m imagining while hopefully connecting with like-minded people that would want to gather with us when we do begin. If that’s you, feel free to subscribe so you’re in the loop and consider sharing with someone that may find this to be a life-giving invitation.

So many of us find ourselves on the outside looking in. On the outside of traditional faith spaces wondering where we might find community, gathering, Spirit, healing, learning, restoration, and more of the Kingdom that Jesus came preaching and teaching about. Others of us feel invisible in our current reality. Aware that allowing our full selves to show up would be met with something much less than acceptance and love.

Something new is emerging and we’re invited into partnership with God in the creation and culmination of what is not quite yet. What if God desires our full selves, our gifts, our ideas, our hearts, our words, our dreams? Not because God needs us, but because God enjoys us. Enjoys the partnership of being together, dreaming together, and creating together.

What if this invitation is light? What if Jesus meant what he said when he extended the invitation to come to him when we are weary, tired, and burned out on religion. What if he meant what he said when he spoke about not putting anything ill-fitting or heavy on us?1 What if we get to learn a new rhythm of grace that goes against the grain of all we’ve known, but speaks a resounding YES into the deepest longings and desires of our heart?

I am not here with clarity or answers, but I am here with quite a bit of fear and trembling, the beginning of an idea, and with a humble yes to God’s invitation. What would it look like for us to partner with God in creating something new? I thought I’d put some ideas out and see if they resonate. This list isn’t fully exhaustive, and it’s in no particular order, but it’s the first attempt to bring to light what is stirring in my heart and mind. I’ll drop them here, and then return to expand on each idea further in the future. You’re welcome to join us on this adventure. I’m not sure where it takes us, but I’m willing to risk my yes.

Church for the Rest of us is…

Contemplative: we cultivate space for awareness and practices that help us to notice, see and experience the presence of God.

Christ-centered: we emphasize the life and ministry of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, reading all of the Scripture and the spiritual classics through that lens.

Generous with our time and money: we minimize unnecessary expenses so that we can partner with the poor and oppressed.2

Welcoming and inclusive: all are invited and included in the life of our community because all of us are created in the image of God. No one is left out because of sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.3

All of life is spiritual and sacred, and wholeness includes our physical, emotional, psychological, and relational parts.

We value listening to God, self, and others.

We are ecumenical and hold our tradition, theology, and experience of God with humility, wonder and curiosity.

We trust GRACE.

We preach the gospel as we understand it. We are all created in God’s image and likeness. God is good, loving, kind, compassionate, and relational. God is here, now, in you and all around you. You are a beloved child and God is pleased with you. The invitation is to transform/change your thinking to become aware of this reality (The Kingdom of God.) It’s in the transforming, the trust, the partnering with Spirit, that we begin to experience life, and life to the full. By grace, we realize (we wake up to) our union with God.

God is with us in our suffering, suffering with us. We are invited to practice restorative justice.

God is not retributive. God restores, redeems, and resurrects.

God is neither male nor female. We honor and embrace the metaphors found in Scripture to help expand and enrich our understanding and experience of God.

We hold the mystery of the trinity with awe, curiosity, and invitation.

We desire to wake up to the Kingdom of God, to allow transformation that leads to fullness of life, and to surrender our way into the awareness of divine union.

We teach and live into what we are for.

We value all centers of knowing: head, heart and body.

We value simplicity, slowness, intentionality, and margin. We trust that the contemplative life is the work.

We believe God is present and active in our lives: past, present and future.

We listen and learn from diverse voices and experiences.

We care for souls.

Our contemplative practice informs our response to injustice.

That was a lot of words, so if you’re still reading…thank you. I hope that means something of this idea resonated with you. While I don’t fully know what this new expression of church will look like, I do know that we will begin gathering together in the next couple of months. I know we’ll gather together virtually, hosting a space that is interactive and highly relational. I also know there will be smaller, in-person gatherings in local neighborhoods.4

I have more questions than answers which means I’m here for the journey. If you would like to join us, or if you’re curious about how it all unfolds, I would invite you to subscribe here so that you’re in the know along the way. You can anticipate a weekly(ish) email along with information and invitation as we begin to host virtual and physical spaces.

I would also be grateful if you shared this with anyone that came to mind as you read. I have a sense there are a lot of us out there desiring an expression of the Christian church that isn’t yet available in every local neighborhood.

More soon,

Karissa

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