A.J. Swoboda

On Why Words Still Matter

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Why I’m Interviewing Kristen Marble?

Two very simple rudimentary reasons. One, I've had the joy of serving as one of her professors at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, in particular, a year-long course on the history of the church. Through two fun semesters, we've dutifully gone through the light and darkness of the history of Christianity. Two, Kristen is brilliant, thoughtful, and a like-minded Jesus-follower. Through a number of exchanges, I've engaged Kristen, her thinking, but perhaps for this interview, most importantly, her home life.

Kristen Marble has been married to her best friend John for over 17 years. Together, with their ten kids and two cats, live in Glendive, Montana, in a 105-year-old former Scandinavian Lutheran church. Their six girls and four boys include three birth kids (ages 6, 9, and 11) and seven internationally adopted from Haiti, Ukraine, and Russia (ages 6, 10, 12, 12, 14, 16, and 19).

Yes, ten kids!

Kristen was raised Moscow, Idaho, and is proud to be a University of Idaho alum with undergrad and graduate degrees in Chemistry, German, and Higher Education Administration. Having lived, studied, and traveled in Europe, she now loves to travel with her family. You'll often find them on the open-road in their Sprinter van heading somewhere interesting. Even the newest members of their family, home only two years, have already been to 21 states and 3 Canadian provinces.

Depending on the time of day, you might find her homeschooling her kids, experimenting with a new recipe, preparing a sermon for the house church she pastors, studying for her MDiv at George Fox, or on a lucky day, stealing a few minutes to read a good book. She is a writer and speaker, and has recently been published by Burnside Writers Collective and Christians for Biblical Equality.

If she could sum up her life, passion for justice and ministry calling with just one word, it would definitely be hope. 

Ultimately, I wanted to interview Kristen about her experience adopting and being a mother to ten children. I suspect some of her insights may have a profound impact on the way we understand God as the adopter of our broken lives.

I've decided to break this interview up into a couple segments. Enjoy the journey.

The Interview: Adoption, the Bible, and Justice (Part I):

Q1: From your experience, how is adoption connected to salvation in the Bible?

A1: The very work and gift of God through the Holy Spirit is our adoption as beloved daughters and sons of him whom we now call, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). Through our huiothesia, we are given all the rights and privileges of a “birth” child, fully lavished in love, and embraced with a new identity as ones who have legally become members of God’s divine family (1 John 3:1-2). It is God who, with great pleasure, has chosen us to be adopted (Eph. 1:4-5). Adoption is clearly a beautiful, biblical image of hope and salvation—and one I can now more fully appreciate having adopted children myself. God’s sacrifice of adoption welcomes us in, redeems our hopeless future, and invites us to go and do likewise.

Q2: How do you see the church of Jesus carrying on this ministry today?

A2: Nine years ago, after much reflection, research and prayer, eager to respond to God’s direction in our lives as a family and as followers of Christ, John and I met with our (former) church pastor. We shared our understanding of the connection between salvation and adoption, God’s heart and the church’s responsibility for the orphan, and our personal calling to adopt an older sibling group from Ukraine.

“That’s a real nice thing to do,” he said, “but it doesn’t have anything to do with the church or Christianity.”

And the conversation ended.

We didn’t agree. We couldn’t agree. We weren’t biblical experts, but James 1:27 is pretty clear. God’s core value of justice is very clear. The expectation for God’s people to be involved in the work of justice is undeniable. In the years since that frustrating meeting, I have seen an amazing growth of awareness and involvement by church and parachurch ministries in adoption, foster care, and global orphan initiatives. Churches are feeding, clothing, educating, and even parenting orphans—children from their own cities and children from around the globe. But much more can be done. Much more needs to be done.

Too many still deny, either outrightly or quietly by ignoring the issue that orphan care and the church should have anything to do with each other. Others, frustrated by what seems to be overwhelming numbers, shrug and ask, “What’s the point?” The point is that God calls us to it. And change can happen. Here’s a simple reality: In rough numbers, there are 110,000 U.S. foster children available for adoption and 300,000 churches. Do the math—it would only take one family from every three churches in the US to “empty” the foster care system!

Reflections?

After reading these first two questions again, I am struck by two things.

First, the legal implications of adoption in the Bible. It strikes me as so powerfully prophetic in our culture to think about a God that not only loves us but literally owns us; taking every element of darkness in our lives upon himself. Beautiful!

Second, the uncomfortability I feel reading the response "that's a real nice thing to do." Not because a pastor would say that. But because I would say that.

My practice of justice is almost always one of convenience. The willingness I can conjur up to do justice can often be subsumed under how little effort it takes. I don't write this, honestly, to be callous about myself. Rather, I think we all might humbly acknowledge an attitude that is similar.

Justice can never be convenient.

Nor is it meant to be. It is God breaking into our status quo with the economy of heaven. This is painful. As you read this, how does your heart respond to the biblical idea of taking upon ourselves the role of being adopters? Is it hard to hear? Does is scare you? What's your response?

We'll be back next week with part two of this interview.

To read more Sevens interviews or read about why they exist, go here.

You can connect further with Kristen at the following:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Kristen.Marble

Twitter: www.twitter.com/KristenMarble

Blog: www.KristenMarble.com

Email: Kristen@KristenMarble.com

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My friend Jeff said this phrase a couple of weeks ago that’s stuck with me. Jeff called it “self-selected content.”

To begin, my Grandpa’d always had this Father Time kind of cool thing going on for him. Like most grandpa’s, he’d always tell me stories about when he was a kid. Epic stories. Even when I didn’t want to hear them. His stories would always come out at the oddest of times. He was a great grandpa like that; telling stories when no one really wanted to hear them for the one hundredth time.

Yes, grandpa, I’ve heard that story before. Yes, today. Yes, yesterday too.

They were still epic stories. Like the ones you’d hear of in fairy tales. Grandpa’s stories would always include walking uphill somehow, treading along in some apocalyptic-sounding snow storm, with barely anything of a coat, and some shoddy pair of shoes that were held together by one tiny little single string. “Kids,” he’d say, “have it lucky these days.”

Sometimes, I didn’t buy it. Like when that funny uncle would do that thing where it looks like he pulls off his thumb. I didn’t buy it like that.

Not that I didn’t trust my grandpa. It just seemed like he was always in a snow storm. Not to mention this his stories were always, it seemed, about walking to school. Apparently, I’d suppose, the big yellow bus didn’t run in his neighborhood. Of course, I discovered, it didn’t. Grandpa grew up in Nowhere, Montana; the land of no yellow buses or JC Pennies. So his stories were always about being on his way to school in slippers, a snow storm, and climbing a some mountain to get there.

I sometimes wonder what stories I’ll tell my grandkids. What would they be about? Never had to walk in a snow storm uphill in shorts or anything like that. What’ll I say? You know when I was a kid, we’d actually have to blow the dust out of the Nintendo to get it to work. How inspiring, right? I’m going to sound like my grandpa. Kids have it lucky these days. I didn’t have Facebook; we passed notes with little boxes that said “yes”, “no”, or “maybe.” I didn’t text; I talked. I didn’t have Netflix; I had a TV with eight channels. I guess grandpa’s are always supposed to sound a little crazy.

When I was a kid, I remember my mom and I would wait all year long for that one day a year ABC would broadcast Wizard of Oz. In a funny sort of way, I’d a massive crush on Dorothy. A secret crush. I still remember Dorothy posing, holding Toto next to the wooden fence, with the looming clouds behind and wind in her hair. Man she was hot. My crush lasted a long time. At least as long as I can remember. My mom suspected it, I’m sure, but she had the character to not make me feel guilty about it. Magical were here curls, rosy cheeks, and cute little dress. So it was always a long year having to wait for the broadcast. We had to wait.

Kids don’t have to wait anymore. The big change from my childhood to now is called Netflix. And Hulu. And illegal websites from Russia where the sounds is always a microsecond behind the video. These things change everything. Because kids no longer have to wait in order to watch what they want. They can watch what they want when they want it. I’m sure my grandkids will think I’m crazy.

My friend Jeff Martin calls this self-selected content. It’s the story of our world world. All of our music is self-selected. We all listen to what we want to listen to when we want to. Gone are the days you’d listen to the radio for that one chance of hearing your favorite tune. Now you can listen to anything anytime. Driving down the road, running, studying; we click on the self-selected music. We watch self-selected shows, read self-selected books, have self-selected friends. Because in this therapeutic culture of ours, we are used to having the things we need to medicate our pain right here and right now.

We believe in self-selected messages. We surround ourselves with what we want to hear. Reading books that agree with us, taking classes that interest us, having friends that do what we like to do, and engage in spiritualities that make us feel better about ourselves; or at least tell us what we want to hear.

Seems today like everyone is spiritual. Everyone has their own personalized form of spirituality that tells them what they want to hear. It seems like everyone’s spirituality is catered to their own individual needs and wants. Which, and I don’t want to step on anyone’s cute little spiritual feet here, makes me really uncomfortable. Because if we’re telling ourselves only the things we want to hear and believe the things that only we want to believe, what if we’re all wrong?

Jesus was not a self-selected God.

He didn’t fit what people wanted in a Messiah. He spoke things people didn’t want to hear. He healed people others wanted to remain unhealed. And He gave hope to people who had none. Jesus did for everyone what they couldn’t select to do for themselves.

Jesus is still doing this stuff.

This is why, and I’m convinced, people don’t like Jesus. Because He actually says stuff to our souls that we don’t like or want to hear. Jesus isn’t therapeutic like that. He rarely says or does anything just to make us feel better. Unlike others, He’s actually willing to step on the toes of humanity. For our ultimate good.

This is why I like church. Especially when I go to one I don’t pastor. On the rare Sunday morning I’m free, I’ll go to some other church. It’s so freeing. Because I don’t pick the Scripture. And I didn’t pick the songs. And I don’t pick who I sit next to. It is one of the few holy places in my life where I am not self-selecting everything about spiritual life. And I need that.

And so do you.

To be a Christ-follower is to willingly choose to being open to not having a life surrounded by self-selected content. The crazy, un-selected, life. Adventurously, these disciples choose to be open to the God who doesn’t do everything we want but is real because any god that does everything we want can’t be real.

That god is simply our stomach.

C.S. Lewis once said: “I am so thankful God hasn’t answered all my prayers or else I’d be in a whole heap of trouble.” His point was powerful. What we want is rarely, if ever, what is best for us. Disciples need to be reminded of this.

A real life, and a real God, are allowed to be free. To be who they are. Therefore, if people are given permission to come to church as we are, than Jesus has the same permission. “Come as you are, Jesus. We need you.”

In a self-selected world, Jesus is God-selected content.

Thankfully, for people like us, He won’t do everything we want. And will tell us stories we don’t necessarily want or think we need to hear.

Just like my grandpa.

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I’ve been considering quite a bit about what I’m calling “life innovation.” Let me explain this concept as I am seeing it.

A business theorist by the name of Clayton Christensen wrote a quiet little book a number of years ago about innovation and invention called The Inventor’s Dilemma.[1] In it, he argues that there are two kinds of innovation—what he terms sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. The first, sustaining innovation, is any invention or creation that ultimately improves an already existent line of products or creations but doesn’t make them obsolete or useless. A sterling example of this would be an iPhone. Christensen would tell us that an iPhone is a sustaining innovation because it doesn’t put all phone businesses out of business. It doesn’t end phone business. An iPhone improves phones thus perpetuating the phone business.

On the other hand, Christensen says there’s another kind of innovation; what he calls a disruptive innovation. This is an invention that makes something else obsolete. This kind of invention puts other inventions out of business. We could turn, for instance, to the story of a guy named Craig who casually codes a website (“Craig’s List”) that almost single-handedly destroys both the newspaper and real estate businesses by cutting off ad revenue and removing the middle man in the home sales market. Inventions like this are very disruptive.

Ultimately, Christiansen argues, sustaining innovations improve what we already have while disruptive innovations make our current way of life almost completely obsolete.

Jesus was a disruptive savior. His ultimate goal didn’t appear to center on improvement of our current lives. Rather, Jesus appears to deem our deathly lives entirely obsolete by beckoning us into entirely new lives existence of a life guided by the Spirit of God. Conversion to the story of Jesus isn’t one of an improved life; it is one of an endlessly unimprovable life that now lies in a funeral home. In baptism, new life springs up from the casket. Perhaps I’m taking it too far (and cliché) here, but conversion is like switching from a PC to Mac—floppy disks are now useless. I could continue.

I’ve oft heard it said: Jesus didn’t come into the world to make wrong people right. Jesus came to make dead people alive.

Conversion is disruptive making certain ways of living completely obsolete.

The change that this disruption brings is what I call “life innovation.” Others call it change. Some call it spiritual growth. The Bible calls it repentance. Insert whatever other word here you want. But you get it.

Life innovation is whatever happens when we are actually transformed through the grace of Christ. The question stirs for me today: what does the disruptive savior have to say to a therapeutic culture like ours? Is it possible for us to see Jesus as much larger than our over-simplification of envisioning him as improving our lives? Even more so, how do we make sense of people who can’t change or never improve? What would a life-long alcoholic have in the Kingdom of God if it was all about improvement? How can we actually see life innovation and be committed to the grace of Jesus?

I’ve two suggestions:

1) Life innovation can only arise out of grace—The real character innovation that I’ve undergone has arisen from profound environments of grace; places where people who love me as I am, communities who make space for me and my frailties, teachers who let me learn even where I am ignorant. Environments where I must change in order to be welcomed have never done the trick. What I’d call legalism can and will never change us because it doesn’t change hearts; just actions. It is behavior modification, not heart innovation. It’s been said that action innovation without heart innovation is pure hubris likely never getting us to where Jesus wants us to be.

2) Innovation for innovation sake can be idolatrous—Brennan Manning speaks to this in his book Lion and Lambs. He suggests that the “spiritual growth” movement, with all its benefits, can lead to a spiritual form of stoicism where spiritual growth is worshipped above all else. I couldn’t agree more with Manning. However, we mustn’t forget the New Testaments theology of being God’s “holy people.” I think here of Ephesians 5 where Paul reminds the churches what it means to be holy. Furthermore his endless reminders that we are the “holy people” of God. However, holiness isn’t something that is attained by work. Rather, holiness is ascribed and our lives an overflow of that reality. We mustn’t think change is change for its own sake. There is a larger goal at hand.

My question for you: how and why (if ever) have you ever seen “life innovation” in your neck of the woods? Where has it taken place and why?

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"As they were looking on, so we too gaze on his wounds as he hangs. We see his blood as he dies. We see the price offered by the redeemer, touch the scars of his resurrection.  He bows his head, as if to kiss you.  His heart is made bare open, as it were, in love to you. His arms are extended that he may embrace you. His whole body is displayed for your redemption. Ponder how great these things are.  Let all this be rightly weighed in your mind: as he was once fixed to the cross in every part of his body for you, so he may now be fixed in every part of your soul."

- St. Augustine (5th Century)