From other steps: Louisville

4/9-12

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate Louisville on its own terms, though it’s still an unlikely location for the national offices of a church with missions throughout the world. I enjoy my time there.

But this time...the meeting is at a hotel on an island of land in the middle of an industrial park in urban sprawl wasteland. Ten miles from downtown. A thirty dollar cab ride from the airport. I go for a walk and keep running into highways, cul de sacs, strip malls and car dealerships. And under the I64 overpass, I find a homeless encampment of a half dozen or more people in a jumble of sleeping bags, cardboard, aluminum foil and empty 40 bottles. Late morning, people stirring in their bags....

Finally make it back through the maze of highway cloverleafs to the hotel. And hear muzak in all its numbing audible blandness. I am confounded....

                         * * * *

Meeting take aways, after a panel of young adults...

• In the past, the pathway to connecting with a church was believe, belong, behave. Today it’s behave, belong, believe. Doctrine, theology, belief, the least important....doing matters. 
• Young adults will come if something is going on. Something that makes a difference. That has something to do with changing the world, in big or small ways. It’s not music or gimmicks.
• They’re looking for real community. Intergenerational relationships. Mentors. 
• Authenticity is the bottom line.
• People are looking for radical discipleship. What does that mean in any of our settings? They know it when they see it.

One young man says, I’m sick to death of, have no interest in, a sanitized Jesus.....

Fools in the balcony

9/15

Back from Louisville and another adventure in national church politics.  Still wondering why in all my travels, the most aggressive homeless people I have encountered have been in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky. Seattle, I kind of get. Once you're there, you've reached the ends of the earth.

Louisville, I don't know. I think because downtown is so eerily empty at night. Anyone walking is open, alone and vulnerable. But lots of cities are empty at night. Need another theory. Can't even walk from the Actors' Theatre to your hotel without running a gauntlet.

Three good things about Lousiville:

1. The Mayan Cafe. Maybe the best lima beans I've ever encountered.  And you don't expect Mayan in Louisville.

2. Louisville Actors' Theatre. Anyone who subscribes gets a good mix of classics and the best of what's new and the annual Humana Festival of new plays always produces something that makes it to New York...

3. Bluegrass Brewing Company's Bourbon Barrell Stout. 

Tonight I come to see the Festival of Fools production of Tim Bungueroth's Zeal of the Zealot. Tim is somehow channeling a medieval miracle play through Elizabethan iambic pentameter with contemporary language. Not easy. This is the third in a trilogy about a trickster and his story of redemption and temptation while on a journey to discover his true self. The young and enthusiastic cast has a lot of connections to Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. They thoroughly enjoy their work and so do we. And on this night, councilmember Brewer is here to show support.  They also enjoy knowing they're playing in the remains of Jospeh Papp's old space. The ghosts of Riverside Shakespeare linger.

I'm waiting for Teddy to return from his job at the Federal Building. Need to catch up on what happened while I was gone.