BACKPACK RADIO REVIEW: "The Vermon Trilogy" (11/17/13) Episode #165:

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Listen to the show here: Episode #165: TheVermon Trilogy (11/17/13), or “Who Am I?”

Vermon Pierre, the lead pastor of Roosevelt Community Church, wrote three blog posts for the Gospel Coalition. They’re related, maybe.

As I thought about it—and I’ve actually been thinking a lot about it, personally, because it’s part of the fiction I’m working on—there is a common thread: how we define our own sense of self. Personal identity. What does it mean to be individuals, and what does it mean to be in a church? Is one more basic than the other? Is one subjugated by the other? Who are we, basically, within the Body of Christ? And, then, who is this Body? (Poor Pastor Vermon. I’m probably taking his totally normal ideas here and using them to serve my own psycho agenda. He’s all like, I’m just talking about suits and ties! Who said anything about the subjugation of self?)

Go with me on this, because I’m not going to do too much more than raise questions.  My own reflection here is a little jumbled. I’d really welcome your responses! Here are the original blog posts:

1: “The Awesome Church”
2: “Don't Throw Out Your Nice Suit Just Yet”
3: “Why I Wanted to Go to the Million Man March”

The Awesome Church: In this first piece, Vermon speaks about how we’ve entered this era in which it’s super easy for the church to self-promote through social media. The minutia of church life, as well as the big stuff—sermons, for instance—is instantly available online, to all. So, here, are some questions for you to discuss amongst yourselves:  

Should social media be used by churches, and how? Is this part of transparency? While self-promotion is not so hot, what about the opposite extreme: churches acting as “secret societies,” in which you’ve gotta be “plugged in” (see, I’m using the lingo) to get access to the good stuff? If not painting an awesome picture of all of the amazing accomplishments of your church, what picture of the church should we be painting? Is the minutia wrong?

I kinda like minutia. Though that may just be me.

What in the world does this have to do with personal identity or the subjugation of self? Well, let’s see . . . Is there something wondrous about the ability to assert our sense of self in the contemporary technological age—or it necessarily narcissistic? What are the implications of self-assertion? Is it ever appropriate? Individually, we want to have a personal identity, right? Isn’t this part of being made in the Image of God? Weren’t we created specially, personally, individually? Is the desire to be known connected to self-promotion? In the Bible, we’ve got those not-so-veiled references to sex, in which a man knows his wife. We’ve all seen those parts. I think I breezed over one the other day when reading to my kids. There’s the sex, yes. But what else is implied in knowing someone intimately? Are we trying to be known on social media? Are we trying to define our personalities? Do churches have personalities? Is marketing good, desirable? Is it the same thing as promotion? How might this be distorted by narcissism and sin? Is it always narcissistic to publicly define ourselves or our church? Where is the fine line between self-promotion and humility?

And what do you think about the ice bucket challenge?

Don’t Throw Out Your Nice Suit Just Yet: Here, Vermon talks about how clothes make the man? No, he talks about the way our clothes in churches speak, often enough, to other Christians. Seeker-friendly churches (are we all to be “seeker-friendly”? Just what is that anyway?) might be sensitive to appearances. We dress up for the traditionalists. We dress down for the hipsters.

On the show—I could be wrong here—it seemed as if the guys were slightly dismissive of one response to the blogs that suggested we might want to dress up as if we’re meeting a king. We’ve sorta lost the awe of meeting royalty, the guy implied. I think this response might’ve been a little blown off as being beside the point. Though I’m wondering if that is the point: we should dress for God, not the people?

I need to be honest here. I don’t like dressing up for church one bit. I like my blue jeans very much. Out of four Sundays in a month, I’ll wear nylons (yuck!) maybe once. So, tell me something: should we be dressing up? Am I failing to properly teach my kids something by letting them wear their shorts and jeans?

As far as personal identity goes, how are clothes related to identity? If our identity is in Christ, what should we be wearing? Besides the obvious jokes I’m not going to make about tunics and Birkenstocks, what about that other stuff—like women covering their heads? Do we have to talk about that? (I don’t really want to.)

Why I Wanted To Go To The Million Man March: In this final post, Vermon talks about the significance of the multi-demographic makeup of churches. This raises some interesting questions about cultural identity.

I’m just going to give you his wife’s recent blog post, which I sorta love: Dennae Pierre’s “on what marrying a black man has taught me & why Ferguson matters (part 1).” One reason why I love it is because Dennae talks about how she used to think to herself, prior to her marriage, as someone who’s—quite simply “got it.” I know I’ve totally thought the same thing about myself, even though I like to say I’m married to the whitest guy on earth (this really isn’t true, I’ve learned). As it turns out, we may not have it like we think we do. I think we are way too dismissive of the significance of cultural experience. Becoming a member of the Body of Christ doesn’t negate our individual identities.

So where does cultural identity come into play when talking about our sense of self? Is this something that should be ultimately insignificant when we’re talking about the Body of Christ? I think we’re at the point when we’d say it is significant, but how? Why? This is another unique aspect of who we are as individuals. To what extent is this to be brought up, and to what extent is it to be subjugated?

I hate that word, actually. But I’m trying to make sense of personal identity.

This radio show, and Vermon’s blog posts, create a forum for discussion—not just on churchy stuff, but on what individuals within the body are like.