Notes from the Catacombs Sessions, the Water to Wine Gathering 2019
Something new is occurring, a new beginning. To name it is to reduce it, to flatten it, to deny some aspect of reality that we all experienced there. A Holy Spirit filled event of friends, which goes beyond names or definitions, gathered in St. Joseph, Missouri, over a 3-day period (June 13–15, 2019) to worship, to pray, to hear testimonies and amazing talks, and to fellowship.
This event occurred at World of Life Church by the invite of Pastors Brian and Peri Zahnd to call together their friends, and through them to their friends and family members, to the Water to Wine Gathering. This is the second year of the meeting of friends at the Water to Wine Gathering (W2W19). This year Brian and Peri Zahnd led the gathering with Joe Beach, Jonathan Martin, Cheryl Bridges Johns, Sarah Bessey, and Rich Villodas.
Brian began the gathering by speaking about “Lovers in a Dangerous Time”. Our challenge is to be lovers and not haters. Fidelity to Christ calls us to be lovers. The American Church is having a crisis of fidelity, especially in regards for many of their acceptance of religious nationalism in lieu of its rejection. To trade in your WWJD bracelet for a MAGA hat simply won’t do.
The credibility of the Christian witness comes not from dogma either, but from love. It’s not how orthodox your dogma is that truly matters. “Love alone is credible” as the great Hans Urs von Balthasar spoke and wrote so eloquently about. “Love alone is credible” points to the Way for us. We must love like Jesus. As authentic Christians, we must seek to bare that kind of love in the world.
Christianity of today must reject materialism, militarism, and sectarian politics. The American Church is burning like the great Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. Do we have the eyes to see this? We must become once again the Christianity of the catacombs.
To become the Christianity of the catacombs means embracing aspects of the Great Tradition which are true, beautiful and good. Aspects like the liturgy, where we follow the church calendar during Advent and Lent. Aspects like the sacraments, where we regularly celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Aspects like contemplative prayer, where we sit with Jesus for a daily encounter with the Divine.
Pastor Brian was careful to remind us that those of us in the American Church, who are deconstructing, cannot remain in that state indefinitely. If we keep deconstructing, all that will be left is rubble. A world without a church is not a world any of us want to live in. That is why the Notre Dame Cathedral must be rebuilt, and why the American Church must be rebuilt.
To do so, what we need is a sanctified revolution, both in the church and in society. We must enter through the narrow gate. Christ calls us to love the Other - women, the poor, and the undocumented. If we can learn to love like this, we will become the church of the catacombs once again.
W2W19 will be releasing audios of all the sessions that will be available for purchase at a minimal cost. I can ensure you, the cost of those audios are worth every single cent. Allow me to give you teasers of the W2W19 catacomb sessions.
Dr. Brad Jersak was unable to attend W2W19 due to a family commitment. No worries, he will return to W2W20 better than ever. Another brilliant Canadian writer and blogger, one who has incredible writ and humor, filled the void. Sarah Bessey gave a beautiful testimony of her dear friend Rachel Held Evans. Rachel is now in the “cloud of witnesses” showering love on us all. Sarah described how grief is the means on how the Lord helps us to cross the threshold, to spiritually grow in deeper union with Christ and our neighbor.
Joe Beach spoke about being an ordinary pastor of an ordinary church. Sounds rather ordinary, however, his presentation was extraordinary. It truly was. Joe is a salt-of-the-earth four-decade pastor who speaks out of lived experience, pastoral and human. Every pastor and layperson in America should read his new book Ordinary Church; A Long and Loving Look. If you want to know what a church of the catacombs is for 21stCentury America, listen to and read Joe Beach.
Rich Villodas is a dynamic pastor of a multi-ethnic, multi-generation, urban church in NYC. He spoke about how hurt people hurt others. If we ask ourselves are your hearts hard? They probably already are, therefore how can we renew our fallible human hearts? To renew them, to form them anew, it’s necessary for us to drink from the cups of self-examination, cruciformed listening, vulnerability, and humility to reach the baby Jesus holding the world in His hands.
Dr. Cheryl Bridges Jones holds an endowed chair at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary with over 30 years of pastoral experience. At W2W19 she spoke with a pastor’s heart, not as an academician. She preached about love, and how we can know it now. Many of us exiles have walked in the wasteland, shadow land, or wilderness. We need to know of Jesus’s love for us now. Her message to the packed audience of Word of Life Church was “Don’t Fear!” We must live in the blessed hope that the Lord gives us. The Lord is gathering a people. We can seek, hunger, and know His glory now. In one of her many great Pentecostal insights, she reminded us that our prayers are efficacious. They don’t die and continue to live in the mystery which is the Body of Christ, His church.
Jonathan Martin was Jonathan Martin, what else does one need to say? No amount of writing suffices for the incredible witness of Christ that he is. He began by asking all of us, “What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” The American Church has moved from the frying pan to the fire! We have a choice to make in our freedom. We can follow the Way of Jesus which is peace and self-sacrificial love, or we can follow the Way of Sword, that of self-destruction.
Jonathan went on to tell us the church is the church when it witnesses in the dangerous in-between spaces. We must reject the false narrative of us vs. them. Instead, we must work to do small acts of obedience showing America and the world the cosmic significance of how Christ through the Holy Spirit transforms us and the world to be a New Jerusalem. Without transcendent love, any movement to reform ourselves or the church will fail. He suggested following the model of the black churches in America as a way to learn what the church can be again for those of us who live in white privileged churches and society.
Above are just notes from the plenary sessions at the Water to Wine Gathering 2019. It doesn’t even touch the surface of the amazing workshops by each of the guests. There they were able to go into greater depth in those workshops and do questions and responses. Once again, I encourage everyone to get these catacomb audios because they are the stuff that spiritual revolutions are made of.
For me, for me, the most spirit-filled moment of the entire gathering occurred when all the guests had a panel discussion together as one family, as one church. They each shared their dreams about the church. It was truly one of the most ecumenical moments I have ever experienced in my life, and I suspect many others share that view. They spoke of the need to be rooted in the Great Tradition, and how that makes it possible to be the Early Church to modern people.
They spoke of church never being solely a virtual one, it has to be incarnated through other human faces. They spoke of an embodied church, which is infleshed and can show the love of Christ through a human hug. They spoke of a church which recognizes all of creation, all of the created order. They spoke of a church which does not apply sacred words to patriarchy, racism, or homophobia. They spoke of a church where we don’t have to choose between love and power. They spoke of a church where sacred spaces are embraced again, where the places we worship and live our lives together matter. They spoke of how being a Christian means being a mystic or nothing at all (h/t Karl Rahner). We must all desire a direct experience of God through the human face of Jesus. Through this lived experience we can know what it means to be church and human once again.
The Water to Wine Gatherings are more than just another pastors’ or church conference. I say to Hell to attending another church conference. Real friendships of fellow exiles are happening for those who have found themselves in the wasteland, shadow land, or wilderness. It is a people being called together by the Holy Spirit to be The Church.
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Friar David L. Jones is an Independent Catholic Priest, specifically an ordained Celtic Catholic Priest of the Celtic Catholic Church USA in the Independent Sacramental Movement (ISM). He is a Friar of the Celtic Franciscan Companions, a religious order within New Monasticism. In 2017 by the grace of God and the working of the Holy Spirit, he along with family and friends began a small church plant/mission named Our Lady of Mount Carmel in St. Joseph, Missouri. Friar David holds a Masters in Theological Studies from the Institute of Religious and Pastoral Studies, University of Dallas. He has spoken internationally in Italy at the Rimini Meeting and throughout much of the United States. He is a regular columnist for Il Sissidiario, Catholic Online, the Clarion Journal of Spirituality and Justice. Both he and his church plant have active Facebook pages. His conversion story is published in the Italian book entitled Sotto Il Cielo D'America (Under the American Sky) written by Marco Bardazzi. The introduction of this book has been translated into English and is available on-line. Another story of his life is published in the Italian book entitled Mi Mancano Solo Le Hawaii(They Lack Only Hawaii - Living and travel notes of an Italian transplanted to America) written by Maurizio "Riro" Maniscalco. Friar David has been married to Becky for 25 years. They have four children.
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