By Marc Nelesen
(First appeared in the November 5, 2007 issue of the Christian Courier.)
When a colleague gathered a group of clergy friends around a peer learning grant critiquing culture, none of us would have expected some of the fruits of our gathering. Perhaps the most significant of all was a new friendship with a waiter named “Chris”.
About Grants and Our Grant
At first, it was hard to believe. For some of us, the idea of reading books, watching movies, and then discussing our impressions over lunch seemed too good to be true. This was the project we chose however, for our grant from the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Project (SPE) of the Christian Reformed Church (which received a $2 million dollar grant from Lilly Endowment Inc).
SPE encourages pastors to form a small group of peers who commit to meet together to work on something that will enrich themselves in their calling. This leaves much latitude for creativity on the part of pastors to design something that will be enriching.
Our group called ourselves the “Culture Critics”. Each of us acknowledged that our commitment to parish ministry often left us a bit in the dark when it came to popular media. Several of us noted that if we walk into the local video store, the movie titles in the “new releases” section are often films that many of us know nothing about. At first glance that might sound admirable. Yet, each of the pastors in our group knows that we minister in a culture immersed in images and storylines that are foreign to us. Our grant was about gaining some fluency with the images and vocabulary of that culture. We sought to not only learn from it, but to better learn how to speak within it.
More than Lunch
For nine months, five pastors gathered on the first Wednesday of the month around a dimly lit table in the balcony of the Boar’s Head in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Boar’s Head is a cloth-napkin variety restaurant with a casual elegance. Most of our gatherings were ones where we found ourselves surrounded by other professionals doing business lunches. More than once these men and women stopped their discussions to listen to ours. As we familiarized ourselves with one another and our friendships grew, we found ourselves looking forward to our meetings and seeing what insights each of the other group members would bring to our discussions.
Cameos
Our first meeting involved inviting William Romanowski to lunch and discussing pop culture trends. Romanowski’s passion is movies. For him images on the silver screen are icons of a culture that when opened, reveal a culture adrift in its search for meaning. Occasionally, these images capture something deeply transcendent into which many can connect. Our lunch with Romanowski was a great beginning in thinking about the culture of popular media.
On another occasion, we watched the movie “Brokeback Mountain”. One of the more important aspects of this gathering was our invitation to a colleague who is gay. Our other ventures included watching episodes of the TV show “Lost” and reading John Grisham’s “An Innocent Man”. The group also watched and reflected on movies that included: “Pirates of Caribbean” and the popular children’s movie “Over the Hedge”.
These lunchtime gatherings became occasions for growth in friendships, a widening of our understanding, and a deepening in respect for perspectives other than one’s own. Monthly, we found ourselves grateful to our “abstract” benefactor named “Lilly” who continued to not only fund our gatherings, but give us a reason to gather as colleagues. Oddly, in some ways, all of these details seem like background to what has become a center point in our monthly gatherings.
Chris: Our High Priest of Pop-Culture
Our server that first Wednesday was Chris. Chris is an early thirty-something man; he is stocky, wears trendy black glasses, has jet black curly hair, and is gregarious as one could possibly imagine. Chris talks with his hands, is extremely expressive, and speaks in a voice that carries 2-3 tables away. In many respects, he is the ideal server; he is spunky, fresh, engaging, and eager to please.
It did not take long for us to recognize that entertainment media and pop culture are Chris’ passion. Chris speaks of movie storylines and texts in ways that preachers often speak about their texts that form and give shape to life. If ever there was a game show that features pop-culture trivia (and I am naïve enough to be unable to name one), I would expect Chris to either be its champion or host.
Given his entertainment media savvy, it did not take Chris long to dial in to what our group was about. As soon as Chris saw our DVD packages of the TV show “Lost”, he quickly moved from passionate server to engaged conversationalist.
I suppose if you were hoping to dine alone, Chris’ presence and regular insertion into our conversation might have been surprising, or perhaps, unwelcome. Our group however, was about dialoguing with culture to the end of deeper learning. Who better to “text” us than one of that culture’s experts? Chris quickly became one who not only resourced us in terms of themes and titles, but he put a face on both the consumers and creators of this media.
For us, these conversations with Chris gave us valuable insight. Many of these insights were beyond our own reach. Chris’ ability to give us background information and his ability to integrate these themes into the popular culture was very helpful. Sometimes, it was his intensity and enthusiasm that was instructive for us. Often, it seemed as though we were keeping Chris from his other customers – but Chris loved it! Like any other enthusiastic preacher, when Chris was done engaging, he often had to re-tuck his white dress shirt before moving onto the next table.
Mutual respect, mutual appreciation
Perhaps the most meaningful aspect of these encounters with Chris was that we had mutual respect and appreciation. Chris shared with us that he grew up Roman Catholic. Because of this, he had a natural familiarity and respect for institutions and representatives of “religion” – as he called it. It was often important to him to let us know that he “believed in God” and that there were “basic truths that are valuable in all religions”.
Instead of either arguing or evangelizing Chris, we chose to befriend him and sought to learn from him. As time passed, Chris’ openness with us and his obvious enjoyment of engaging with us grew into a mutual cherishing. On the day we told him that we were going to watch Brokeback Mountain, Chris’ eyes widened and his face lit up. “Wow”, he said, “I never imagined ministers doing this kind of thing, I’m proud of you guys.” These words were instructive; we not only valued the affirmation from him, but we felt saddened too, that his perception was that a film like this would be “off-limits” to Christians or clergy.
Somehow, Chris lost contact with the Church; in some ways, the Church lost connection with Chris. For me, these noon lunches where Chris was guest and host were places that the two worlds of Church and culture were once again intersecting.
The Next Step
Over time it seemed as though our server was an integral part of our meetings. The time that Chris was not our waiter helped us recognize how much we valued his input. On that day we decided that we needed to take things to another level with him. We would invite Chris and a few of his friends to pick a film to watch and then discuss with us over lunch. Chris was excitedly agreeable. The following month, we watched the film “The Departed” and chose a lunch location other than his place of work. To our surprise, Chris brought two friends from work; both of whom were women. The dialogue that took place at that table was probably one of the most engaging we had throughout our study grant.
Impressions
Movies, books, and media leave all kinds of images on the mind. Conversations with peers open up new levels of respect and understanding. Perhaps though, the most important learnings of this grant project were not a result of the two-dimensional images that appear on a screen. The most important learnings came through conversation, friendship, and mutual hospitality.
After nearly a year of gathering over lunch, the most significant impression left on our souls was not a line from a book or a story from a movie. What remains is a picture and a personality of one of God’s image bearers who – with us – is in a restless pursuit of questions. Although we use different texts to ask and answer these questions, we found ourselves at an unexpected but welcome intersection.
Our receptivity to one another seemed to open a door for us. We find ourselves grateful to SPE and Lilly for the learnings over lunch, but we also find ourselves grateful to God for Chris. If movies and books have the power to reshape our imaginations, I have learned anew what happens to us through direct encounter with one another.
I am excited to think about what changes may come in Chris’ life because he met five pastors who welcomed learning from him. I am also eager to think about the ways a server will continue to linger in my imagination because of our Wednesdays with Chris.
