We recently spotlighted the creative expression of a church community located in the Aurora strip (which you can read here.) Aurora Ave. is notorious for heavy prostitution and drug dealing but the neighborhood also houses many of the fringe and outcast people in our city. Lisa, a resident of Aurora and second-year MDiv student, has been looking for humanity and hope for her neighborhood. Through community dinners and support of local business, Lisa and her community have come to see beauty where many have already given up hope. She shares her story below:

Aurora is less of a neighborhood and more of an old highway – a busy street, replete with run-down motels, automotive businesses, and fast food joints. Yet a neighborhood is emerging here.  We feel a particular call to helping make this happen.

Before you have a neighborhood and before you can know how to love your neighbor, you have to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Awake is learning that our neighbors live in motel rooms on Aurora and nice homes in Licton Springs and Greenwood. They attend AA and NA meetings at local cafes and get their groceries at the upscale PCC. They ride the 358 bus and jog around Green Lake. All of these different people are our neighbors!

Recently, a front-page article in the Seattle Times argued what many others have already said: Aurora is a problem and needs to be fixed. Lisa replied to the article in order to help us see what is actually happening in her neighborhood.

There are beautiful stories of transformation on Aurora. People loving one another exquisitely. There are prostitutes crying from exhaustion and loneliness – caught in the evil dual-diagnostic cycle of poverty that keeps them there. And the police will not allow us to help them because of the laws that are in place. May we talk about that please? There are barbeque’s that bring together 50 people from the Fremont Fellowship, homeless vets that live in their vans on our street and us, their neighbors – and laughter happens there. There is dignity already present. There is hope. There are people who believe in one another – who believe in the addicted – that they will be free. There is a community garden.

You can read Lisa’s full response here. Below are images from the community that has begun to sprout from the desire to answer a simple question: who is my neighbor.

Lisa is a 2nd year MDiv student and a member of the Awake Church community.

The weather is beginning to change here in Seattle. While the summers are always welcome, the return of the clouds brings a familiarity that is comforting. Changes are all around as a new class begins their year at MHGS. Convocation weekend, our time to welcome the incoming students, was a time filled with new conversation with fresh students. As we listened to the dreams and hopes these students come to MHGS with, our own passions are sparked and encourage us in our ongoing work.

The convocation service was held at St. Mark’s Cathedral and was followed by an impromptu picnic at the school (seems the rain came a bit earlier than expected.) What follows is the transcript of President Keith Anderson’s first speech to the incoming class:

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Some say the academic convocation has its roots in the story of ancient Israel.  In times of crisis, transition, challenge,or need—the elders called for a sacred assembly, a convocation of the people.  They came as we do—to pray, to remember who we are, to sit in the doorway between what was and what will be.   Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament scholar speaks of reverberations of God—echoes of presence.

Something in me longs that God was always present, visible, and that I could live everyday within the audible sound of God’s voice.  In my experience it is not always that way.  I have known a moment or two of brilliant light and an unmistakable voice but more often it comes in whispers, shadows, and even absence.    Perhaps that is because God is not tame, domesticated, but fully alive, free, and unrestrained.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself stuck with a text I cannot escape on this morning.  It is a text of the exile.   Exile.  Hear the word and let it pour over you—exile.  Can you feel what it might mean?  The synonyms are many and the images are painful for many—Trail of tears, a forced march, homelessness,  desperation,  distance, absence a step into the unknown where you are not in control.

It is a period of transition—whatever else it is—that which was is no longer.  That which will be is not yet so we live in between—a season of uncertainty.  But exile is more than transition.  That which was—failed us—or so it seems—so we are a people with a history that is no longer glorious or successful.  That which was supposed to be strong and true— did not hold strong and true.  What we thought we know about God and God’s presence—didn’t stand this time.  This time, we lost the battle.  And Israel—those who knew themselves to be the people of God—is left with lament.  “How can we sing the songs of Jerusalem now?” A fair question—that which they thought would hold did not. How can we sing in this reality?

How can we sing?  If we feel God failed us.  How can we sing?  Our faith failed us. How can we sing? The liturgies we recited all of our lives seem hollow now. How can we sing? The Torah we were taught and the community that taught us—have failed. How can we sing? The times have changed.  The landscape of faith is new and changed. How can we sing those old songs now?

But sing they did. Anyway. In seasons of absence as they did in seasons of presence.  In seasons of uncertainty as they did in seasons of pillars of fire.  In seasons of shadow as they did in seasons of light.  They were people who lived by faith and not by sight.  That means they claimed the faith of Torah and preserved what it was at its best.  They practiced Sabbath in that land of exile and they practiced the disciplines of the people of God.  They refused to bow the knee to their own sense of a history that let them down and they refused to bow the knee to the empire of Babylon and its culture of power, wealth, success, and might.

They did what people of faith have always done—they subverted that which was through outrageous practice of faith. They sang, anyway.  They subverted the culture for the sake of something far greater—the kingdom of God.

How can we sing? I don’t know but they did.

They claimed their identity as daughters and sons of God.
They claimed their story as people rooted in a faith and history that preceded the moment in which they lived.
They built schools called synagogues.
They taught the next generation to believe and trust and follow.

Even in the midst of the exile.

The greatest threat to Torah faith was that the next generation would look at Babylon and say, “why would I claim the faith of Moses, Miriam, Jacob, Esther, and all the rest when I can bow to Marduk who is strong, powerful, successful, and who won?” The greatest threat was that they would turn away from the story of faith of those who had gone before.

It has been said that those who believe in the future always commit themselves to education.  We recognize the story of the past that has brought us to this moment.  And we believe in a future we have not yet seen. Education is an outrageous act of bold faith.  We plant seeds that we might never see to fruition.  That’s our faith.  EB White, the writer tells of seeing his wife in the garden planting seeds and bulbs in the spring of the year.  What makes the scene so poignant is that she was dying of terminal cancer; she would not live to the fall to see the fruit of her labors.  It was an act of resurrection faith.

Well, we could do worse—in a  season when many are not certain about the church or faith, we could do worse than claim that which claimed those whose  story in which we participate.    We could do worse than to know ourselves claimed by that story of exile and resurrection.

The great prophet Jeremiah knew something of the pain of Israel’s failures.  He was a prophet of the exile.  But he also deeply knew his story was given for something greater than himself.    Do you remember the words to him:   “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you  and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Consecrated means set apart for the Kingdom.  In the great “before” of our lives, God already did something to you, for you, about you and  in you which calls it forth from you.

I consecrated you.  I set you apart.  I set you aside.  I created you for holiness.  God intends something with your life.  God sets us apart to participate in something of grandeur that God is doing in this world.

What is God doing?  Well, God is planting, uprooting, tearing down and building, scattering stones and gathering stones together, embracing and refraining from embracing, keeping and throwing away, tearing and mending, being silent and speaking; God is rescuing and blessing, providing and judging, healing and enlightening. God is battling and resting.  God is doing and waiting.  Jeremiah was already chosen, enlisted, called to write the story of his life of Torah faith.

15 years after I graduated from seminary  I interviewed for a job at my alma mater.  The president was not someone I knew.  We were scheduled for 45 minutes.  2 ½ hours later, we finished the interview.  It hadn’t gone well.  At one point,  he said to me, “you have a reputation at the seminary as a troublemaker.”  To be truthful, it made me proud.   I knew what it meant.  It had something to do with my views and practices in protest of the war in Vietnam.  It had something to do with the work I was doing in baby steps in the work of  racial reconciliation in the early 70’s.  It had a lot do my publicly stated positions in favor of the ordination of women.  It had something to do with my sense of call to the urban mission of the church in a suburban and rural denomination.

I was in trouble because I sang songs that didn’t quite fit.  But for me they were the songs of the text we call the Word of God.  I practiced my education as best as I could. I knew enough then to know that my education did not stop at the edge of the campus or when I left the classroom or when I finished my reading for the week or when my paper was done.

I told you as new students the other day that we stand in the doorway—at the threshold of something we don’t yet know.   The truth of the matter is that when I got to speak to you, I had in my hand notes for something entirely other than what I had planned to bring to you on Tuesday.  But the image of threshold is powerful for me.  Writer Anne Lamott tells of her experience of threshold which came as each week she heard the singing of Christians at worship. It happened that the church building was near a market she would go to, often hung over from alcohol and drugs.  She found herself drawn to stand in the doorway of the little church. “…it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open.”  Now listen carefully,  “Something inside me that was stiff and rotting would feel soft and tender.  Somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries and distinctions that kept me so isolated.  Sitting there, standing with them to sing, sometimes so shaky and sick that I felt like I might tip over, I felt bigger than myself, like I was being taken care of, tricked into coming back to life.”

That’s grace.  That’s who we are as people of God.  People who have been loved and given grace.  “You are the beloved God.”   That’s what I charge you to know, to sing this year.  Who knows what might happen if you let those words shout into your soul.  How can we sing the songs of Jerusalem?  I don’t know what to say but I know that at certain breakthrough moments in time, the glory of God has been visible to me.  I know that I have been touched by something of Jesus that has healed me and from which I cannot escape.  It calls me and it sends me.  And thus I teach and we teach and we learn.

And that is my charge you to as we begin this year.  That together, we—all of us—will learn to sing songs in Exile—songs of future and hope and grace, songs of Jesus and of resurrection.  It won’t come easily.

And so I close with the words of a benediction I believe is from the very heart of God:  May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you will live deep in your heart.  May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people and the earth so that you will work for justice, equity, and peace.  May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer so you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain into joy.  May God bless you with holy restlessness whenever people are dishonored so you will not rest until all people, tribes, and nations are treated as those created in the image of God. May God bless you with the foolishness to think you can make a difference in the world, so you will do the things which others say cannot be done. May you have an openness for new ideas, an honor of old ideas, a readiness to grow and pugnacious desire to met by Jesus in all your learning. May you learn to love the text of Scripture even as you learn an openness to its meaning.  May your know yourselves to be loved deeply by Jesus of Nazareth whose life and call is gospel. May you go into this year, not as an educated elite, but as those who know themselves to be sent forth into this season of education by the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Recently, a group of MHGS students creatively responded to the pain and brokenness of their neighborhood through an artistic expression. Blaine Hogan, an MHGS grad from the Christian Studies program, wrote a thoughtful response on his own blog about the project (reposted here).

What does it look like to respond creatively to the needs of your community? What does the Gospel look like smack dab in the middle of a broken community? Some friends of mine in Seattle are answering these questions and setting a beautiful example for us all.

If you take Aurora and head north of downtown, you are swiftly slapped in the face by the countless cockroach motels, run-down storefronts, adult entertainment venues, prostitution “Watch Area” signs, and the Aurora Bridge, where over 200 hundred people have jumped to their death since its construction in 1932.

If you were to drive this painful stretch of road these days you might notice something new – bed sheets flapping about in the misty Seattle rain.

In response to the hurt they were witnessing in the neighborhood, a group of current and former students of Mars Hill Graduate School (my alma mater) began working on a public art project. White sheets with red messages of hope, declaration, and protest read: “Sex is Beautiful,” “Life is Beautiful,” and “Aurora Means Dawn.” The group stationed one sheet on a corner in front of The Voyeur (an adult bookstore), and the other two were hung from the infamous Aurora bridge, and an overpass welcoming drivers into the area.

In addition to the sheets, the group I listed the other day, Urban Hymnal, created a music and performance-art experience they called, The Bridge, the Corner, and the Dawn, which focused on themes of sexual exploitation, addiction, suicide, and hope.

As I read about the story, I was struck more by what my friends didn’t do.

With a blank slate and a captive audience, they could have responded however they pleased. And yet, instead of a Christian music concert, they created an experience that spoke specifically to their context. Instead of messages of condemnation and contempt, they wrote messages of hope and redemption.

May we all take note: THIS is how you respond to your community.

Some thoughts to consider:

• Are you listening to your community?
• Are you aware of what it needs?
• Do you know where it is hurting?
• Are you willing to admit you don’t yet know?
• Do you have a process for gleaning this information?
• Once you have listened, how will you respond?

Blaine lives with his wife, Margaret just outside of Chicago and works as an Experience Engineer at Willow Creek Community Church. He blogs regularly at www.blainehogan.com and tweets @blainehogan.

Many students at MHGS are more than simply pastors or counselors but artists and creatives as well. Naomi Wachira is a 3rd year MACS student and singer/songwriter.

I sing, because it somehow gives me life. I find that I am regenerated, taken out of the mediocrity of life and for those few minutes, I feel one with myself. I can only hope that as much as I feel life awakening, it does the same to anyone listening.

Picture Me Right – Naomi Wachira

Naomi often plays at coffeeshops around Seattle and posts her music on her site . You can also see Naomi featured on the MHGS “What If?” video .

Recently, Professor Jo-Ann Badley got to spend time in Kenya teaching a seminary course and experiencing firsthand the culture of Kenya. She recently shared her experience with students and staff at a luncheon at MHGS.

Her experience teaching abroad was filled with many surprises. About 25 students all under the age of 35 came to learn church history from Jo-Ann. Her first surprise was that all these pastors, male and female, led indigenous churches with no real church hierarchy or set structure. These church were started because these pastors received a vision from God to bring together a community of believers.

Jo-Ann spoke about holding the class in a different church each each: Catholic, Coptic, Anglican, and Methodist. For many students, stepping inside these churches was their first experience in encountering the expanse of church history.

Besides teaching, Jo-Ann was able to interact with many different pastors in the area. “Over and over again,” she recalls, “the hospitality and kindness of strangers was experienced in Kenya.”

While on safari, she told the story of a hotel worker from a Maasai tribe. He would work for a few weeks at the hotel, wearing a tuxedo and helping westerners experience the wildness of Africa. Then, on his time off, he would head back to his home and herd sheep. Jo-Ann marveled at how an ancient and modern culture were so closely tied together for this man.

When asked what the gospel looks like for Kenya, Jo-Ann thought for a moment and responded that “it is a lot less sophisticated than in a place like MHGS but there is an immanency in their faith that has shown me the fullness of the gospel.”

The MHGS Art Gallery highlights local Seattle artists and offers our school the opportunity to view the world through a new lens. This month’s feature is Kelly Jue’s series, “Saints.”

The artwork that I do is always an expression and overflow of my relationship with the Lord. It is my hope that those who view my work, see and experience something of what the Lord has shown me.

[Show as slideshow]

You can contact Kelly through her email.