Jen Hatmaker - 7. An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

7, Digital Edition

Based on Print Edition

Copyright 2012 by Jen Hatmaker

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-4336-7296-5

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Author represented by the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.

Dewey Decimal Classification: 248.84

Subject Heading: MATERIALISM \ CHRISTIAN LIFE \ COST AND STANDARD OF LIVING

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the New International Version (NIV), copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Also used is The Message , the New Testament in Contemporary English, 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson, published by NavPress, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Also used is the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America, used by permission, all rights reserved.

7 8 9 10 11 12 17 16 15 14 13

For Jesus, who lived so lightly on this earth,

He didnt even have a place to lay His head.

I want so deeply to be like You.

No one lost their lunch on this joyride more than Brandon and my family, swept up in another one of my little ideas, as the hubs says. God love them. There are not four people Id rather eat eighty pounds of avocados and learn how to compost with more than the Hatmaker tribe. Hey? I know! Lets add two more kids and become a full-fledged circus. I love you, Brandon, Gavin, Sydney, Caleb... and our two Ethiopian darlings who have no idea what they are about to get into. You are the family Ive always dreamed of.

The second gaggle of people who invested in is The Council. For reasons yet unclear, you joined the fray and kept the wheels on. You ate seven foods and wore seven clothes and gave your stuff away and shut down Facebook... and you werent even getting paid. Your wisdom and enthusiasm were my fuel. Becky, Molly, Jenny, Shonna, Susana, and Trina: I love you, you crazy, wild, hilarious, inappropriate, loyal girls. Be mine forever.

Our little Austin New Church family has changed my life in such acute ways I can no longer envision my life without you in it. You are adopting, sacrificing, fighting human trafficking, dreaming, fostering, feeding, building wells, building orphanages, building the kingdom. In the context of ANC, fit right in. Im not even a weird girl around you people, and that is really saying something. I love you profoundly.

I want to thank the advocates and visionaries and dreamers and thinkers who guided me through the mazes of . I didnt understand demand-side economics. Now I do. I didnt know how sugar snap peas grow. Now I do. Ive had so many teachers. Thank you for your books, your articles, your divergent and courageous lives. Keep saying what youre saying. It matters.

Lee Hough, you are the best thing that happened to me this year. Why on earth you believe in me and champion me like you do, I havent the slightest idea, but you are the best advocate and agent in the galaxy. Im so grateful youre in my corner. Thank you for the tireless work you do on my behalf. If I ever have another baby, Ill name it Lee Hough.

So much love to the B&H team. Special thanks to my editor, Jennifer Lyell, who became more than just someone who deletes my ellipses, but a true friend and advocate. Weve shared Friday Night Lights, therefore, we are now in a covenant relationship. To Kim Stanford, Amanda Sloan, Jeff Godby, and everyone who made this better, beautiful, possible... thank you.

This is all Susanas fault. She had to trot out her little social experiment, Pick Five right when God was confronting me with my greed, excess, materialism, consumerism, envy, pride, comfort, insatiability, irresponsibility, and well, there was other stuff but I want you to like me, so Ill shelve the rest for later. (Did I mention need for approval?) Let me back up. My husband, Brandon, and I have undergone profound transformation in the last three years. Let me sum it up: God really messed us up. We were happy-go-lucky; Brandon was a pastor at a big ol church making excellent scratch, and we spent our money however we wanted (on ourselves). We were climbing the ladder, baby. Fortunately, we didnt have to worry with the poor because we were paid pros serving the saved. We spent so much time blessing blessed people, there was nothing left over. Besides, that wasnt really our thing.

Then, lets see, a bunch of stuff happened, the Holy Spirit leveled us and laid our motives bare, we turned into crazy people, yada yada yada... we started a new church centered on justice. Sorry for the gaps, but its too much (but my book Interrupted will walk you through the thrilling account of God turning our world upside down).

Our adventure in relearning the essentials of faith, Austin New Church, has been on the ground for two years. Its a little faith community that has, quite simply, changed my life. Our mantra is Love your neighbor, serve your city. Taking a cue from Francis Chan, we take the Scripture love your neighbor as yourself seriously, and we give away half of all we receive. We wont spend more on ourselves than our poor neighbor.

A poor church plant operating on half of its intake means we rent a worship space with dancing frogs painted on the back wall and carpet that saw the Nixon administration. Our front door wont open properly, which resulted in one guy leaving during church to get something, not being able to get back in, and sitting on the curb until service was over. Our parking lot looks like it was hit by an earthquakeand then patched up by drunken monkeys. We have no support staff, no secretaries, no copy machine. Our band is almost entirely homegrown. When we needed a drummer, one of our guys reported playing a few times in college. He was on stage the next week where he kicked over a cymbal and accidentally launched a drumstick into the crowd. These are deficiencies most pastors would never stand for (or most churchgoers), but we wont buy carpet at the expense of orphans. $10,000 for a new parking lot could fund a hundred thousand tree seedlings to reforest Africas decimated land and stimulate their local economy. Its kind of a no-brainer.

But before you launch a parade, lets revisit my description in the first paragraph. Granted, we descended many rungs in the last three years, and transformation did not come cheaply or without pain. We suffered lossrelationships, reputation, position, security, approval, acknowledgmentall the stuff I used to crave. But here is what I gave up the least:

Comfort.

I might have disagreed two years ago when having a conversation with a homeless man was the most uncomfortable situation I could envision. When God first sent us to serve the poor, every moment was awkward. Each confrontation was wrought with anxiety. In Interrupted , I made this statement: I thought Id never be happy again.

However, God changed me and grafted genuine love for the least into my heart. I looked forward to every encounter, rejected service that was labor-intensive rather than relationally focused. I became a girl who loved the marginalized. I couldnt get enough of them in my personal space.

So what used to be comfortable (being a big fat consumer Christian) became uncomfortable; then what was uncomfortable (engaging the poor) became comfortable. Follow? Perhaps I gave up emotional comfort for awhile, but then God affirmed Himself as our provider, established the vision He gave us, and taught me how to love. The uncomfortable turned into our lifes mission, and we would never go back.