A note for critics …

Although I’m happy and eager to participate in respectful dialogue, I generally avoid trying to defend myself to critics, especially in the blogosphere. Doing so, I’ve found, is bad for my own spiritual health and generally only serves to disturb the peace even more. But today I received the email below and felt a gentle nudge to offer it as a gift to my critics – not to defend myself, but just to let them see that there’s another story going on that they may not normally see. I always edit emails I pass along to protect the privacy of those who send them, but other than those edits, the email is presented in its entirety. A few links are included below the jump.
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Dear Brian,
My husband and I were in ministry for about 10 years (… as church planters [with an Evangelical-charismatic denomination]). We left, tired and burned out and hurt and with a lot of questions about our faith. (I’m actually not sure what came first the questions or the unraveling of our church.) I won’t bore you with a story that you’ve heard a version of over and over – but we spent many years in ‘no man’s land’ trying to put the pieces back together. I feel like we threw the pieces of our evangelical faith up in the air and waited to see what came down. We waited a long time (searching, crying, ignoring, searching again…etc) and it didn’t seem to me that enough pieces came down to put a faith back together. I was afraid it was over for me and my faith. Interestingly, I felt God’s presence through most of that. Confusing. In the end because of your books and the emergent church movement I began to see that there might be a place for me and my limping faith after all. My husband and I also attended an “Everything Must Change” weekend in D.C. Our first Christian event in about 10 years. You were instrumental…hugely instrumental. I have now been attending a United Church (Mainline) in Canada for about 9 months. I’m finding the conversation much more interesting than I have in years. This weekend the church is sending 5 people on a retreat that the United Church is holding with Tony Jones! I’m amazed. Who would have thought. Somehow I’ll have to express to him what his writing has meant to me as well.
I write to you today because I’ve been on You Tube, looking for something or other and have come across so many nasty, nasty clips about you and the Emergent Village. It made me profoundly sad and I wanted to make sure that my voice added into the song of encouragement to you. You lead the way for us to be able to return to our faith, with our unresolved questions, with our desire for social justice and with our limp and know that we’re not alone. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Most sincerely…
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For Emergent Village …
For Tony Jones …
For Everything Must Change …