Reemergence

I am finding gardening to be a hit or miss proposition--missed opportunities, inopportune monsoons or droughts (while on vacation usually), missed minor infestations of weeds or disease that loom to biblical stature, much like the zebra mussels blanketing Lake Michigan, and the occasional serendipitous emergence.

A year ago this August I capped my stream embankment creation with three spindly toadflax plants as a backdrop for the streamside rocks. Good to zone 4 with perfectly supple stems to create some movement in the breeze, and, if I had read more of its bio, prone to spreading. Toadflax is a European transplant, adapted to Mediterranean climate, and just the thing to fringe a patio striving for echoes of Tuscany or the Peloponesian pennisula.

Then spring came and the steady emergence of all those perennial investments (a perennial gardener is one who is perennially investing). Except the toadflax. In their designated parish nothing was emerging from the winter kill stem clumps. So I wrote them off and later deposited some husker penstemmon, which didnt so much flow as slump before the wind. This was after vainly searching the nurseries for toadflax and finally deciding I wouldn't be suckered again into a plant of ambivalent constitution (like the butterfly bush).

Come July the Japanese beetles arrived with an appetite for our Lindens, willows, roses and primrose. And as they multiplied I noticed some spires erupting all over the streambank, and the pond beds and around the porch stairs: the progeny of the late toadflax. Hundreds of shoots, crowding the penstemmon, and poking up through the primrose and cranesbill. The legacy of those half dozen stems making music with the breeze.

Purple toadflax, Linaria purpurea native to the Mediterranean basin and cultivated as a garden plant in North America. Grows to three feet when mature. Purple to pink flowers appear in mid-summer. Prolific self-seeder. Medicinal use as a laxative or an ointment to treat hemorrhoids and ulcers.

There are other wonders, testimonies to nature coloring outside the gardener's preconceptions. Those butterfly bushes? My first three did expire, seemingly, but a year after moving a dead stalk to my island bed one came back. In that same bed another butterfly bush, different variant, appeared one spring, and who knows how that was parented?

Somewhere in this is a lesson on church planting and revitalization. A money stream, deep research, creative and inspiring leadership, and support from local churches is no guarantee the plant will take root and thrive. Sometimes a congregation takes root in unexpected but fertile soil; or reemerges after being given up for lost. Careful planning and resources do work, as seen every Sunday at Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe in Waukegan where worshippers fill every pew and spill out into the narthax and beyond,the result of a partnership in planting between area churches and the diocesan office. And now in Grayslake at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church the congregation of Nuestra Senora has provided the rootstock for an emerging Hispanic congregation there, one that was not part of our five year strategic plan in 2003.

So with the garden I continue to plot out arrangements; match plants to sun, and soil, and drainage; and, hopefully more often, allow more space for resurgent toadflax.

Just do it!

Hospitality, welcoming ministry, or more technically—reception process—are in vogue as the church continues to test its aptitude for evangelization. We plan for it and program it, and unleash ad campaigns (Hungry Hearts,We're Here for You, We Live in Very Complicated Times, and most recently, Put Your Faith to Work); and grand ventures (Decade of Evangelism, 20/20). And having lived through all of these, I think we would be better off with Nike’s approach: Just do it.


On a flight into Portland, Oregon this past Thursday night, my wife and I found a church just doing it (maybe that’s the thing in Nike’s corporate home). We stayed at the Quality Inn near the airport for a little rest before driving on to Walla Walla, Washington the next day. The staff were responsive and friendly, the rooms well-tended and clean, and free breakfast offered at the inn’s café. Not that unusual for a well-managed inn, particularly one with a high aspiration name, but this particular lodging is owned by the Eastside Four Square Gospel Church.
The connection was clear but not over the top: just a sign below the marquee and a plaque in the inn lobby. And in the lobby a patient and friendly clerk, and beside the counter an easel with poster inviting guests to add a donation to their bill to support a transitional housing ministry in Portland, My Father’s House. Which we did (point of sale does work in the right setting). No testimonial flyers with your room key card, no bibles on the pillows, and no invitations to attend Bible study or prayer services. Rather low key for an evangelical church.


Across the driveway is the Eastside Four Square Gospel café offering free breakfast (waffles, biscuits, muffins, cereal, hard boiled eggs, coffee and juice) to inn guests, and again friendly, even eager, service. The only church goods present there are the literature in a tract rack. It’s all about hospitality and comfort, just as the names of most chain inns connote. Walking out the door, you leave with two impressions: welcomed and well-fed; and your measure of the people at Four Square is much more positive than if you had been blanketed with doctrine and devotional pitches. No one invited us to attend a service or a meeting, nor did anyone hand out literature or point out the tract rack. The whole focus was on service and welcoming. This may reflect the religion averse nature of the Northwest, but I suspect the approach would be on target in Bucktown, Bolingbrook or Buffalo Grove. It’s what is known in emergent church as contextual faith: orienting the church to the community it serves. We are doing this to some degree in the Diocese of Chicago—All Saints in Ravenswood, St. Gregory’s in Deerfield, Epiphany on the Near West Side, and Trinity, Aurora come to mind—but we could do more, much more.


So your reading assignment: Radical Hospitality, and Take This Bread.