What do you mean by simplicity as a core value?
It's just the sense that church life doesn't have to be measured by number of activities. We would rather do a few things well, than try to cater to every felt need we can imagine. We know we're supposed to be about authentic worship and preaching where we say what we mean, and not more than we can honestly own up to.

We also believe in rest and reflection. That times of quiet are good. And "Quiet Times" can be full of pressure and guilt. We want to be counter-culture in the sense that we try not to wear "busyness" as a badge of honor. We all need to play more board games, take more hikes, and even a nap or two. Life is not what we will have crafted years from now by our busy schedules. Life is happening right now. The choices we make right now define what "life" is for us. So we don't want to postpone life until things "quiet down" or until we get our bills paid off, or until the kids get through college.

What we are together on Sundays is very important to all this. Sunday is the day of change, a day of rest. It should be a day of perspective and enjoyable worship. A day of reconnection with those whose hearts beat like ours, and a witness to those whose hearts are still restlessly searching for rest. Most of what a church is supposed to do can happen on Sunday alone. That doesn't mean we don't ever meet on other days. Wednesday nights provide another point of meeting halfway to Sunday. But we all need to learn to say "no" to good things- even church things. Or else we end up feeling like victims of somebody else's agenda for our lives-- and that's really no way to live.

Well it's been fun to hear many of your responses to the note I wrote last week about simplicity. Seems a lot of us have a longing for a more simple life. It's just difficult to make the choices that foster it. We're sort of addicted to busyness and have to go through withdrawal of sorts. No easy answers here, but let's muddle through together.

The second core value I wanted to mention is Authenticity. Now at first that seems rather obvious. Doesn't everybody want to be authentic? I mean who really says, "I actually think duplicity works better."? But, like simplicity, it's easier said than done.

I think authenticity means not shooting for more than you are. A lot of times, in an effort to keep up with what we think is expected of us as Christians, we are tempted to profess more than we possess. More knowledge than we actually have (who wants to admit you don't really know what you should know?) More intimacy with Christ than we actually have (who wants to talk about a dead or dying prayer life?) More integrity than we actually have (who wants to think about how we might frame a certain situation to make ourselves look a little better?). More outreach than we actually do (who wants to admit we haven't really reached out for a long, long time?)

So when we parrot words about ourselves and our spirituality that don't ring true (to ourselves, to our consciences), there's a sense where we stop believing ourselves. The words and the worship become "mere" words because deep inside we know they don't actually reflect reality very well. So authenticity means starting where we are, and starting to own what we actually are, even if the product isn't very exciting. At least then, even though we might say less, we'll believe what we do say, and it feels right when it comes out. It feels truthful. That sense of truthfulness is what produces conviction, credibility with others, and the ability to look people in the eye.

So let's go easy on each other. Or as some have said, "I move we accept reality." Let's start with where we are, and offer ourselves the same grace as Christ has offered us. That means there's no threat to admitting the truth. No fear of failure or rejection. No drive to impress others or keep up with them. It means freedom to say, "I'm not very good at that." Or "I've never been able to..." Or "I don't think I understand how..." That's authenticity. It's not the way of our culture. But it's the truth.

Authenticity. Simplicity. Nice words, hard to achieve. That's why we don't have 7 or 8 or 9 core values. Core values are important enough that they earn a sort of elevated status. They are worthy of sustained effort and repetition. If you have too many core values, they're not really all core. Some of them become second string by virtue of the fact that we can't do everything well. The things we keep coming back to... the things that give us our bearing in crazy times... those are core.

The third core value of the Chapel at Tinker's Creek is service. Brilliant, you say. Keen grasp of the obvious. We all need to serve. Next topic, please. But wait. Service in church often becomes a process of filling holes. In other words, the jobs are already decided. We just need warm bodies to plug the holes. So we coerce and beg and manipulate people until they agree to fill a hole. But that's all they're doing. Biding their time until relief comes (sometimes it never does).

Seems to me it's wiser to find out what people already love and then use that passion for the kingdom. When you already love something, you have all the motivation you need. There's a natural attraction to helping others experience something you've learned to love. So churches often start with the wrong question. Instead of "How has God gifted you to serve the kingdom?" it's "What hole can you plug?"

Are there holes at Tinker's Creek? Not really. Oh, there are some non-glamorous jobs that always need done. Some of you are doing those, or will do them soon. I'm grateful for that. You can click here to see some practical areas to serve. But I'd also want to ask you a more general question: What do you enjoy? What do you do in your spare time? What magazines do you get? Those questions start to get at the root of how you were made. Now, what if you could do those things for the kingdom?

I love off-roading. How can I use that for the kingdom? I like history. How can I use that for the kingdom? Backpacking? Decorating? Cooking? Photography? The list is endless. I believe that if we (the church) help you use what you already love for the kingdom, we'll be way ahead even if our programs don't look like those of most other churches.

Some of you already use your giftedness in creative ways that I don't even know about. That's great. That counts for service even if the church never officially sponsors what you're doing. We are called to be salt and light in lots of little ways. The church can organize some of those. But many others can just be done to His glory without any fanfare and brochures and sign-ups.

So, what do you love? How can we help you brainstorm that passion for the church and the kingdom?

Every church aims to teach the Bible. But it can be done in a haphazard way so that we learn all kinds of biblical stories and doctrines, but with no integrating sense of history or an unfolding Master Story. So when we teach the Bible, we aim to put each story in context of an actual timeline of divine and human events. We want to know whether Moses or Elijah came first. We want to know whether Daniel or David came first, and whether they knew each other. We want to know who Jesus is quoting when he quotes a prophet, and why he made the connection between the times of that prophet and his own time. All this is part of teaching and learning the Bible in context. That also means the most important information about what a particular verse means is its immediate context (the verses before and after it). After that, the context of that book of the Bible... and then, finally, what Scripture says about that same subject in other places.

We use an imaginary timeline of 4000 years of history depicted on 4 walls of any room. Using this simple memory tool, we can learn to place events in biblical and church history. Starting with Abraham and working all the way to today, we get a sense of perspective of ourselves on those 4 walls.