If there’s one thing I’ve learned about job-hunting, it’s that companies obsess over experience and no one wants to give it. Almost every job I’ve applied for over the last year has required at least 2 years of related on-the-job experience, and almost none (save Target and that pyramid-scheme marketing company) offered entry-level work. Now here I am  nearing the end of my seasonal job at my local Target.

The hardest part of job-hunting is that too many companies never consider the person behind the paper. I understand it would take an awful long time to personally interview every applicant, but so many organizations miss out on potentially great employees when they skip the face-to-face or phone interview. You see, I can’t help that I passed on some work experience to get my graduate degree. I can’t change that, no matter how much I wish I could. I can’t change the fact that I’m not interested in being a pastor, and that my seminary education is still useful in any non-profit workplace. I may have never been paid for working with WordPress, Twitter, or Facebook, but I can tell you I know plenty about them. I have never written an article for a newspaper or magazine, but I once had a photo of a New Orleans Sunset used by Intelligent Travel (a National Geographic blog).

In other words, I may not be able to put a lot on my resume, but I bring a lot to the table. I’m a funny guy. I’m intelligent and I learn quickly. Some of my closest friends tell me I write well, and that I’m a pretty good photographer. I still have two degrees, and I think that even if they’re not entirely relevant to the position I’m applying for, they still reflect that I’ve worked hard and accomplished something. They prove I’m a dedicated worker. They prove I finish what I start.

So if you’re a potential employer checking up on this “Joseph L. Kennedy” fellow who listed a website on his resume, here I am. I think you’d like to have me around. I’d sure love to be given a shot. (In case you didn’t get my resume, here it is for you.)

[Profile]

A long-time resident of Mobile, Alabama, I received a Bachelor of Science in Communication from the University of Mobile and attained a Master of Divinity in Urban Missions from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Hurricane Katrina struck Gulf Coast while I was working toward my master’s degree, and upon my return to New Orleans I added extensive experience in community relations through my church and the seminary. That work often involved meeting and assisting community members whose homes were damaged by the flood, gutted by Christian volunteers from cross the country, and rebuilt during the ensuing years. In addition to acting as a community-church liaison, I honed my photography skills and started a side business.

[Experience]

Freelance Photographer
Words Are Not Enough | Mobile, Alabama | August 2006 – Present
I became a freelance photographer, shooting engagements, weddings, and portraits. In 2007 I was approached by Invisible Children, a non-profit organization dedicated to telling the story of war-affected children in East Africa. I took promotional photos of the Displace Me event site at Tulane University in New Orleans. I also worked as a photographer at various ministry events and conferences in New Orleans and Fort Worth, Texas.

Church Planting Intern
North American Mission Board | New Orleans, Louisiana | January – May 2008
I worked as a church planting intern in the Gentilly and Filmore neighborhoods of New Orleans. I assisted in meeting with families and individuals whose homes were gutted by volunteers from Edgewater Baptist Church after Hurricane Katrina.

Community Missions Intern
First Baptist Church of Tillman’s Corner | Mobile, Alabama | May – August 2003
For the summer of 2003, I served as the community missions intern for First Baptist Tillman’s Corner. I organized community events for the church, including a Backyard Bible Club, apartment outreach, and an apartment Bible study. I also used my graphic design skills to promote outreach fundraising events within the church. I remained with the church as a volunteer for the youth and college ministries once the internship was complete.

Associate/Barista
Books-A-Million | Mobile, Alabama | March – August 2001
While working as a barista and associate at Books-A-Million, I gained retail experience. I prepared drinks and food for customers in Joe Muggs Café while filling in for customer service during breaks. In addition to working in the cafe, I also helped restock the bookstore, participated in inventory, and worked the floor as needed.

[Education]

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
New Orleans, Louisiana — Master of Divinity (Specialization in Urban Missions), 2008

University of Mobile
Mobile, Alabama — Bachelor of Science in Communication (Advertising and Public Relations), 2004

[Skills]

I have worked extensively with Microsoft Office, Apple iWork, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and I can work on both Mac and Windows operating systems. I am very familiar with social networking websites, including Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress. My camera is a Canon EOS 40D.

The oak tree is tall. Conversely, the mushroom is small. It is plucked from the ground and seems to disappear. With plenty of sunshine, the oak tree grows in the open; it has many branches and can live hundreds of years. The mushroom grows in dark, damp places; it is small and provides neither shade nor shelter. The oak provides and shade and shelter to those in need. It is a beautiful symbol of life. The mushroom reminds us of fairy tales, superstitions, and witches (and mystics?). Enter Armillaria ostoyae (the Honey Mushroom). In Eastern Oregon a honey mushroom colony was found to span over 3 miles underground and is estimated to be nearly 2400 years old.

Armillaria is long lived and form some of the largest living organisms in the world. The largest single organism (of the species Armillaria ostoyae) covers more than 3.4 square miles (8.9 km²) and is thousands of years old. Some species of Armillaria are bioluminescent and may be responsible for the phenomena known as foxfire and perhaps will o’ the wisp.

Suddenly the tables are turned. It’s not that being like an oak is necessarily a bad thing for a church. Its qualities are wonderful. But the oak is like a Broadway show. It’s big, it’s showy, and it lasts a while. Then it’s gone. The mushroom, on the other hand, is hidden. It grows mostly underground. The mushroom grows in the darkest, dampest places, and it can glow in the dark (Matthew 5:14?)! It’s bigger- spanning miles, not yards. It sprouts here and there, and if it’s plucked out of the ground, it will sprout elsewhere seemingly overnight. Chop that oak tree down, and it’s not growing back. A single mushroom colony can last thousands of years. It’s subversive. It has staying power. This is organic growth.

So while Rick Warren, and many other pastors for that matter, wish for you to be like the mighty oak, I pray you will take the time to consider the mushroom. May the Holy Spirit work through your church to be mighty as the mushroom- deep and wide, long-living and multiplying.

*Seriously, I really do like Rick. He seems like a cool guy. So this is not me picking on him. We just have a difference in perspective. He’s the pastor of a gigantic oak tree church in California, and I’m trying to do the organic thing in Mobile, Alabama.

Could it be that some pastors, particularly among the denominations with more congregational autonomy, are upset when other churches start up in “their” territory because they view that congregation as their life-support? That the tithes given to the church are not only their primary source of income, but also their retirement fund, and any competition that threatens their church attendance affects the tithes and in turn, their income? Is it possible? (Yeah it is.)

There’s something to being bivocational. In fact the way I see it, there’s nothing particularly Biblical about the professional ministry outside of the Old Testament. Jesus appeared to rail against the institutional religious leaders (often). Maybe we should spend less time bringing in a salary from our churches, instead pouring that money back into the community (both local and global missionary activity). I’ll deal with that stuff more another time… right now I really want to pose this question:

What would happen if we put God’s money back into the hands of His people with the sole instruction to pay it forward- to change someone’s life- instead of using it primarily as the support system for our pastors, our buildings, and our traditions?

What’s clear is this: the disciples of Christ worldwide must live more like Jesus. We were once called Christians because we acted like little Christs. Today, at least in Europe and America, we act more like spoiled little children who wouldn’t know sacrifice or compassion if it stretched out his arms and died on the cross in front of us. We’re no better than the pharisees who crucified our Christ two thousand years ago.

So let’s read the last passage from NT Wright’s For All God’s Worth, pp. 18-22:

And if the seams are still visible – if the stitching still shows – so what? Those journalists of whom I spoke should leave their comfortable metropolis for a moment and come here; come and worship with us, share our life for a few days; then come round the diocese and see the new green shoots that are growing through the secular concrete; look where the blind are seeing, and the lame are walking, and the dumb singing for joy. … Let them come and see that at the heart of England there is a building whose very stones speak of God’s healing love; that at the heart of that building there is a book whose every page is a work of art celebrating that love; and that around that book there is a community of people committed to the one whom that book speaks, who know themselves called to live not for their own sakes but for his sake who died and rose again. This is our God, the Servant King; he calls us now to follow him.

And if we are to make such an invitation, our immediate task is to consolidate what this community is already good at. No one comes into this cathedral, or into any church, without some pain or fear, without some guilt or grief. But the testimony of many is that when they have come here they have felt welcomed, loved and sustained. That is wonderful, and I thank God for it. People have learned elsewhere today to expect rudeness and even violence as the norm. They are thirsty for gentleness, for kindness, for the sense that they matter. They need to be shown that there is a different way of being human, that the true God embraces them as they are, with the healing power of the cross and the life-giving breath of the Spirit. That welcome is our work, because it is all God’s work, and he invites us to share in it.

San Miguel Mission in Santa Fe, New Mexico | November 2009

We are therefore, in Paul’s words, to be ambassadors for Christ. We don’t have to be perfect in ourselves. On the cross he dealt with our sin so that he could then work through us, so that we in turn might embody the saving faithfulness of God to all those whom we meet, all those who enter here. And the real mystery of that is that we do it not so much in our triumphs as in our tragedies; not in our strength but in our weakness; not in our success but in our failure. In the real world it is the wounded who heal. That is why the chequered history of this cathedral forms such an eloquent statement of the gospel. Celebration and healing; this is to be a place where eyes are opened to truth, where ears long deaf hear their name spoken in love, where those who had forgotten how to sing discover a joy which refuses to remain silent. And when we live by that gospel, then tourists may find themselves becoming pilgrims; photographers may stop clicking for a moment and glimpse true beauty; musicians may hear undreamed of harmonies; and historians may come face to face with the one who is Lord of the dead and the living. And so, as celebration leads to healing, healing leads back to celebration. It is all God’s work; and those who find themselves called it must, quite simply, ‘serve God and be cheerful’.

El Santuario de Chimayó in Chimayó, New Mexico | November 2008

In this and the next two posts, I’ll offer an excerpt from NT (Tom) Wright’s, For All God’s Worth, pp. 18-22.

The reason why Chad came to Lichfield, and the reason why an ancient scribe lavished such craftsmanship on those priceless pages, is quite simply that the message in those Gospels is even more priceless: the message, that is, that the true God takes our brokenness and in Christ makes us new; that he picks up the pieces of our life, yes, even of our muddled attempts to follow him, and sticks them together again in a new way; that he heals those who are broken in heart, and gives the medicine to heal their sickness; that he promises new life, resurrection life, beyond all our sickness and death. To celebrate precisely hear is to celebrate not the wonderful achievements of the church but the healing power of God to build his church with battered and broken building-blocks; including people like you and me. Celebration and healing; it is all God’s work.

And what if the seams are still visible? What if the stitching still shows? What if we carry about with us the pains of being half pt back together and half still in pieces? What if we have identity crises, if we live with ambiguities and face problems we can’t fix overnight? Is that no what being a Christian is all about? As Paul continues, we are taken for imposters, and yet are genuine; dying, and behold we live; in pain, yet always full of joy; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, yet possessing everything. Paul is not describing an occasional unfortunate lapse from the norm. This is the normal Christian experience.

Crosses on the fence behind El Santuario | November 2008

Ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, Maryland | March 2008

My friends Adam and MO in Ellicott City, just outside of Baltimore, sent me to the Patapsco Female Institute ruins on the hill overlooking their city center. You’ll have to read more about it on their website, because for the life of me I can’t figure out how it ended up in ruins.

The Town Harbor in Annapolis, Maryland | March 2008

First Baptist Church of Eastport, Maryland | March 2008

Eastport is just across a downtown bridge in Annapolis, but it’s definitely a unique community.  Eastport seceeded from the Union on Super Bowl Sunday in 1998 over the closing of the aforementioned bridge, forming the Maritime Republic of Eastport.  In addition to a wonderful sense of humor, I found the community to have beautiful homes and a great atmosphere.  I must have caught it at the right time, because all the flowers were blooming, too.

Orange and Yellow Flower in Eastport, Maryland | March 2008

Joe McKeever, the Director of Missions at the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans (BAGNO), wrote a post on his blog a few weeks ago outlining the status of our local Baptist churches. He broke them down into three categories: struggling, flourishing but with issues, and normal. My church, Edgewater, fell under the struggling category, as did many others. It’s really no wonder why a lot of Baptist churches are struggling. Dr. Charles Kelley, president of NOBTS, always opens up the semester in chapel by telling us that 80 percent of Baptist churches are plateaued and declining. Some say it’s close to 90 percent. In New Orleans, I wouldn’t be surprised if 90 percent were a low estimate. This post isn’t to discuss why that is. I’ve addressed that in other places, and will continue to do so elsewhere. This is a guide to help you, if you’re interested, pray for the people of New Orleans.

I’m asking you to pray for The Church, the inter-denominational universal Body of Christ in New Orleans. That means pray for the Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, Mennonites (yes, they’re here), and all the other followers of Christ in this city. How can you pray? Be creative. Be positive. But here are a few I can immediately suggest (please, don’t limit yourself to what I’ve suggested):

• Hope. The number one issue in New Orleans is that the people have lost hope. The Church MUST be a voice of hope to New Orleanians. This is a priority.
• Unity. We don’t work together. Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Pentacostals- we aren’t working together. Until we show that the Body of Christ can get along, we can’t expect the people in our city to get along. And they’re not getting along. Pray for our unity- maybe not in doctrine, but in the common mission to bring hope and love to New Orleans.
• Faithfulness. Pray that our Christ-followers would grow in faith, which would make us more active and bold in offering hope and love.
• Strength. We need emotional strength to go along with our physical strength. The suicide rate is up. It’s difficult when you’re surrounded by people without hope. We need God to give us the strength to endure, so that we can be the voice of hope to New Orleans.

Please pray over these things, and whatever else you can think of, while they’re still fresh in your mind. Know that we are thankful for your encouragement.

For those of you who haven’t read anything by Donald Miller, or have no idea who he is or what he’s about, I encourage you to check out the Christianity Today blog Out of Ur. If you don’t like the guy, think he’s a heretic, or just outright can’t stand him and think he’s headed to hell, I still encourage you to read the interview at Out of Ur. A few posts back, I asked the question, “How Friendly Is Your Church?” I want to focus on two points Don made.

I attended the Dove Awards and was brokenhearted. I saw all these beautiful Christians, wonderful people, with this wonderful, revolutionary message of Jesus, who, instead of saying, “Look, fashion doesn’t matter, hip doesn’t matter,” were saying “World, please accept us, we can be just as hip as you, just as fashionable, only in a religious way.”

This is something I see in the younger Christians today. Look, the simple fact is, we’ve got a lot of people (especially in our youth and college groups) who are playing the Christian subculture equivilent of a popularity contest. I went to a David Crowder concert last October. All I saw were high school and college students vying for the role of “closest to the stage.” Everybody a walking Abercrombie or American Eagle advertisement. I walked around some, and nobody smiled at me when I smiled. There was little to no courtesy or friendliness. It’s the same thing in church. A popularity contest. This isn’t how it should be. This isn’t Christianity. It’s the same thing they were doing before, but now they feel like they’re better than everybody else because they believe in Jesus.

We sometimes take a Darwinian approach with love—if we are against somebody’s ideas, we starve them out. If we disagree with somebody’s political ideas, or sexual identity, we just don’t “pay” them. We refuse to “condone the behavior” by offering any love.

If the basis of following Jesus is to “love God and love others,” then we’re blowing it. There’s rarely any talk of love these days. Not the real kind. I mean, when was the last time I heard of anybody talking about leading a relief team to Africa or Southeast Asia? Okay, too big? In a time when “God Hates Fags” and Pat Robertson’s assassination calls are considered a valid portrayal of the vast majority of Christians (in particular evangelicals), how are we changing that? It’s time we stop getting caught up in our own hypocrisy and start proving that we mean what we say we believe. It all starts and ends with love.

“Are we supposed to be known more for our love or for all the things we hate?”

Someone else said something very similar once, I’m sure, but it doesn’t matter. Anyway, my thoughts immediately went to the media portrayal of Christians and pastors. I’m not one for censorship in that regard, so it can’t be a power play from Christians to force the media to present the good to go with the bad they like to show. No, really, the goal should be for us to not do as much of the bad. By bad, I’m thinking more in terms of Haggard-bad or foot-in-mouth-Robertson-bad. Are you tracking with me?

So what if our good deeds (yes, I know salvation is by grace through faith, stop freaking out) outweighed our bad deeds. What if we were so popular among the people because we were known for our sacrificial love and selflessness that the few opportunities to really stick it to us didn’t really matter?

Man that’d be cool, wouldn’t it?

I think, in the end, it all goes back to the gospel we preach. What gospel are we preaching?

The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning. I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. (1 Timothy 5:17-22)

And now a question or two:

1. How many people are disqualified from eldership based on their poor reputation in the community?
2. How does “Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.” fit into our current context?

What are your thoughts on this, with regard to these?