Previous Post – What Is The Church? Discernment & Discipline

In the previous post we explored what it meant to be a community of discernment and discipline, positing an alternative community and leadership structure over and against the more coercive power structures of hierarchical systems.  Further, we saw that it produces communities of humility and confession that represent a missional witness to a watching world.  In this next post, we will engage what it means to participate in Eucharist (or Communion or the Lord’s Supper).  Yoder calls this practice as the disciples breaking bread together.

As a child, when we sat in church during a communion service, I would hear Jesus’s words to “do this in remembrance of me”.  While I knew that He said this while sitting at a table (albeit, all of them sitting crowded on one side), I presumed that He leading His disciples in the familiar practice that was happening in front of me.  In time, I learned that centuries of ritual, conflict, culture and tradition stood between my communion experience and the table where Jesus broke break with His disciples.

The change started when I began to understand the Passover feast (which we do not have the time to explore here).  What stood out to me about this practice (along with many other Jewish traditions) was that this deeply sacred meal was integrated into the context of life and home, not set apart as a ritual largely set apart from life.  The need to “sacramentalize” the so-called mundane aspects of life became very clear.  However, even then, because of how Jesus’s followers went on to engage in this practice, it was clear that Jesus was not simply calling us to remember Him during Passover (which is only an annual event).

Instead, Jesus was calling His followers to remember Him when we came together as His people to share a meal together.  Yoder wrote in an essay:

“Our history of centuries of speculation and controversy about what happens to bread and wine when a certain special person speaks certain special Latin words over them obscured from our memory for a long time the fact that the primary  meaning of the Eucharistic gathering in the Gospel and Acts is economic. It was the fulfillment of the promise of the Magnificat that the rich would give up their advantages and the poor would be well fed. Luke’s report probably is intended to signal the fulfillment of the mandate of Deuteronomy that “there should be no poor among you.”

In our western culture, food (and meals) are far less significant, often nothing more than entertainment.  Thus, the idea of pulling Communion out of the ritual of the church worship context and incorporating it into a common meal would seem to diminish its sacredness.  Instead, we are called to rediscover and reinvest the sacred into the shared meal.  In fact, the way church gathers should arguably reorganize around this central act of worship, where hospitality return as an essential practice of the faith.

At Little Flowers Community, the shared meal is the central act of worship in our church.  Each brings what they can for a very eclectic collection of food that we share freely with one another.  Rich, poor, mentally ill or social awkward- all of us come together in the round, explicitly for our shared love for and devotion to Jesus, and celebrate Him through “feasting”.

However, the intimacy, celebration and unity that is displayed in that shared meal is a deeply attractive experience.  As people outside of the church meet us, see that intimacy, participate in our common meal, they taste and see the goodness of God.  They are not drawn by the piety of the group, but rather by the genuine love and community.  Communion, then, becomes a beautiful invitation (and opportunity) for people to begin to enter into the redemptive work of Christ.

And what better way to demonstrate the fullness of the redemptive work than Communion?  As we remember Christ’s sacrifice, we celebrate the hope of reconciliation with God.  Further, as the means of that reconciliation is to die to self and to be resurrected together as His Body, it also opens the door for genuine relationship with one another.  In this love of God and others, we can truly discover the fullness of life as individuals, uniquely known and love by God and others.  Even the redemption of creation is celebrated as the bread and wine- substance of the earth itself- is the medium by which we enact this work of restoration.

For many, participating in Communion is a private piety between the individual and God.  Has that been your experience?  Has that changed?  If so why?

What does Communion mean to you and your community?

Previous Post – What Is The Church? Exploring Body Politics

The terms “discernment” and “discipline” can seem daunting- especially the latter of the two.  However, I believe that these challenges are not largely due to the nature of these practices themselves, but due to the way they are used within Christian contexts that utilize systems of coercion and authoritarianism typical of Christendom expressions.  Therefore, if we can try to somewhat extricate ourselves from those dynamics, what would these dynamic disciplines look like?

Yoder brings these two together through use of Matthew 18:15-20, which reads:

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

In this text we see the connection between correction within the Body of Christ and practice of community discernment, namely that the community is called to discern together the will and way of following Christ, even (and perhaps especially) with respect to sin in the community.

First, we must recognize that the primary posture of correction in this text is one of resolution, restoration and reconciliation.  While this might seem an obvious emphasis, in practice the church all too commonly allows punitive values to become primary in the purpose and process of discipline.  While punishment is valid and often necessary, even it should be practiced with the design and intent to bring restoration to both the wrong-doer, the recipients of their wrong and the community as a whole.

The mutuality of the process means that, unlike the systems of justice we see in the world, we do not isolate the wrong doer from either the process of correction or as a means of punishment (except as last resort). While we rightly seek to protect the victims, the pattern of reconciliation manifested in Christ’s death and resurrection calls for the radical participation of everyone in the healing process.  This must be done with great care, compassion and wisdom.  This is a guiding understanding, not a rule.  There are certainly exceptions to how it is exercised.  However, when it possible, the humility and grace displayed in the context of community stands as a powerful beckon of hope to a watching world.  This is, in part, what makes Alcoholics Anonymous so widely respected.

However, even more fundamental in this text is the presupposed politic of the people of God.  When the intervention of others was necessary in the process of restorative correction, Jesus taught to widen the circle to include others in the community, then further to include the whole community.  While we will get into the pragmatics of how this works, we must not miss the implications: no hierarchy or formal leadership was pursued in this process of discipline.  Or rather, the authority that it was brought to was the authority Christ intended, the discerning community.

At Little Flowers Community, we seek to make decision together as a community.  For us, this often means resisting two impulses.  On the one side, we resist the urge to expediate these processes through either retreating into democracy, instead working through the difficult process of consensus through discernment.  On the other, we resist the urge to relegate our responsibility by leaving it in the hands of a hierarchical authority structure.  This does not mean that there are not leaders.  We often often submit (through discernment) to the authority of those whose gifting best equips them to help us navigate a given situation.  Their authority is never absolute and it is not positional.  Therefore, my role as pastor in the community gives me more authority only insofar as my gifting is being expressed within the context of the larger community of differently gifted, yet equal leaders.

Further, the level of trust and commitment in our church means that many of us also submit to the wisdom of the discerning community even when making important personal decisions.  We recognize that the mutuality discussed above extends to the whole of our lives.  This flies in the face of the individualism and “rights” mentalities of our culture (which we wrestle with as much as anyone else), but has also produced a way of sharing life together- in essence, living Christ together in the fullness of who we are.

How is church discipline handled in your church community?  Is it primarily punitive or restorative?

How does your community make decisions

UPDATE: Here are a couple of quotes by Yoder that I think flesh this out a bit more:

“There is no distinction between major offenses and minor ones: Any offense is forgivable, but none is trivial”

While this might sound obvious, the fact is that we often screen out issues of reconciliation through a grid in which we dismiss smaller issues as unimportant.  However, in the guise of being quietly forgiving, we are simply avoiding the discomfort of participating in the mundane work of redemption.

“The intention is not to protect the church’s reputation or to teach onlookers the seriousness of sin, but only to serve the offender’s own well-being by restoring her or him to the community.”

These are all too often the primary motivations for church discipline.  The inverse of the above quote is that, towards the end of the offenders restoration, the community must be willing to sully it’s perceived reputation and to suffer the misunderstanding and indignation of the “older brother” Christians within the community.

Previous Post – Blessed Are The Shalom-Maker

So many of the online discussion that I have been engaging in this week seem to landing somewhat on the same question: What is the Church?  In a comment in one of those discussions, David Fitch pointed to John Howard Yoder’s answer to this question in his book “Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World”.  The five practices Yoder cites are:

• Binding & Loosing (Discernment & Discipline)
  
• Disciples Break Bread Together (Eucharist)
  
• Baptism & the New Community (Baptism)
• The Fullness of Christ (Multiplicity of Gifts)
• The Rule of Paul (Open Meeting)

In the next few weeks, I hope to blog through these practices.  While I will obviously be citing Yoder, I hope to give more emphasis to these practices within our own context of Little Flowers Community.  My hope is that it will provide a generative space for conversation about living these practices rather than simply engaging them as a set of theoretical ideas or ideals.

So while I hope to do my first post today or tomorrow, let’s start with some questions:

What do you think of the 5 practices listed (understanding that I have not qualified them at all)?  Would you exclude any of them?

What practices are essential (not just good) that are not listed above?  Why include them?

Previous Post – When Mission Becomes An Idol

This past week has been a very generative week for online discussion here, especially around the conversation that David Fitch, Wendy McCaig & I have been having about David’s proposed Luke 10 Project.  (Wendy posted here & here, I posted here)  Today, David responded to Wendy in a post called “I Love Asset-Based Community Development but it’s not the Church”.  He sums up his point here:

“I affirm asset based community development as God’s work, but I personally place more emphasis on planting local communities of Mission where people gather to witness to “the Kingdom” (it’s my calling, while still applauding those called to ABCD). Through the humble gospel presence of communities of Christ, we participate in what God is already doing in our local context to bring the Kingdom into visibility.”

I am with David on this.  A wholesale adoption of ABCD can muddle the mission of the church in a local context.  David does not accuse Wendy of this (and I think Wendy would largely accept David’s cautions about ABCD), but as I have said previously, I am not sure the division between these two dynamics needs to be so pronounced.  This is where I think a better understanding and engagement of shalom is critical.  ABCD is to shalom what activism is to justice- important expressions, but not to be mistaken for the fullest or primary models.

In Matthew 5:9, Jesus states, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be call sons of God”.  For Jesus, the peace he is referring to is all-encompassing, including health, harmony and justice that even extended to his enemies- in short, he is talking about shalom.  John Driver defines shalom like this:

“It meant well-being, or health, or salvation in its fullest sense, material as well as spiritual. It described the situation of well-being which resulted from authentically whole (healed) relationships among people, as well as between persons and God. According to the Old Testament prophets, shalom reigned in Israel when there was social justice, when the cause of the poor and the weak was vindicated, when there was equal opportunity for all, in short, when the people enjoyed salvation according to the intention of God expressed in his covenant.”

With this, Jesus puts to rest the notion that his people are called to only (or even primarily) the spiritual needs of the world, to “save souls.” Shalom destroys the false dichotomy between the so-called social gospel and spiritual gospel, leaving instead the fullness of God’s truly good news for all of creation. An emphasis on either end of the spectrum that excludes or minimizes the other misses the heart of the true gospel. We must resist the temptation to reduce or simplify the gospel in order to make it more accessible or acceptable; we must seek to embrace it in this fullness.

Therefore, shalom provides the paradigm in which the tensions that David names can find resolution and expression.  As church communities embrace their vocations as makers of shalom, grounded on the source that shalom (and not merely out of altruism or spiritual activism, though both have a place), we will begin to enter into the mutual transformation with our neighbours and our neighbourhood in ways that reflect the present and coming kingdom.

Does this paradigm help bring the two perspectives that Wendy & Dave present?  Does this further complicate matters?  What do you think?

Previous Post – Church Planting: Missional Voyageurs

As I consider the Church in the West today, there is much to be excited about and much to be concerned about.  Community is one topic for which I am both excited and concerned.  I am excited to see an increased awareness of the essential place of community within our faith (and the gospel), especially given the strong individualism that forms our context.  However, I am also concerned because I see so many people longing for true community, yet not connecting with it like I think they should and can.

When people see that the title of my new book is called “The Cost of Community”, they often presume it will be about values, principles and practices for building genuine community.  It is a fair assumption, as I often write and lecture on the topic of community, focusing on just that- values, principles and practices.  However, in my book, the topic of community is not that explicitly engaged.  Instead, community is the fruit of the more central theme- being transformed together by Christ through following Him in life and death.

The title of this article is “Community: Neither Means Nor End”.  It encapsulates two common, yet unhealthy trends around community that I see Christians fall into all too often.  The obvious danger of making community a primary end in itself is that we elevate the community above the purpose that community was created for.  On the flip side, seeing community as merely a means to an end makes it merely utilitarian.  Instead, we need to discover that community is a sacramental product of the work of Christ in our fallen world.

It is very easy for us to fall into the trap where community becomes a means to an end.  Community is about relationships and few of us want relationships to be utilized as a tool to achieve an end, no matter how noble that end might be.  Seeing community as an end in itself often risks idolizing and ideologizing community above Christ, even when we are intentionally a Christian community.  I am not suggesting that community does not produce good ends.  Nor am I saying that community is not a significant part of the end that Christ has in mind.  Rather, I am saying that when we make community the primary means or the primary end, we are missing the mark.

Instead, community is the fruit borne of the work of God in creation.  It is the product of redemption, restoring through Christ the image of God that we reflect by His Spirit.  Community is a witness of the work of the gospel and an expression of the kingdom, but it should not be mistaken for the fullness of either.  This is why my book focuses explicitly on the life and teachings of Jesus, the life He invites us into together for His kingdom and His glory.  Community is an inevitable and essential result of God’s work, inexpressibly valuable, but only insofar as it reflects the greater beauty of the Three-In-One.

This conviction, that community is neither primarily a means nor an end, should not be seen as me reducing communities importance.  Rather, it is because I so deeply love community and see its essential place and purpose in the gospeling work of the kingdom that I do not want us to threaten it by making it what it is not.

What is community to you?  What place does it have in the gospel and the kingdom?

For those of you who have been following our Chiara House project, we’ve found ourselves stalled by city bureaucracy.  It is deeply frustrating, especially since it is not due to anything we’ve done, but purely dysfunctional systems.  However, while the building awaits the renovation process, the work on every other level continues.  Check out the following video:

If you want to help us get the word out, there are also a couple of other shorter videos:

Previous Post – Following Jesus Together

One of the things I love most about the blogosphere is the way it has allowed me to connect with Christians from all over the world.  Specifically, I have been encouraged by the stories and friendships of pastors and church planters who, like our community, have forged a less “traditional” path.  One such person is my good friend, Bryan Dormaier, who is part of Christian Associates and is working out of Portland.

Bryan is part of a community called Sacred Roots.  I think it is so important to hear each others stories, to be encouraged, inspired and challenged by one another.  This is one such community I’ve been encouraged, inspired & challenged by.  I know you will too.  Here is a video about their community:

Portland, Oregon from Christian Associates on Vimeo.

Previous Post – An Invitation To Presence

In my last post in this series, I ended with some quick thoughts on leadership:

The primary goal of leaders in this process is free people.  In other words, through identifying their gifts and strengths, give them the freedom (even require it of them) to step out as individuals and smaller groups.  Facilitate and mobilize, but do not overly organize and dictate.  Informal (and non-formal) groups of people can have surprising impact where programmed, affiliated groups often do not.

This push back against traditional conceptions of leadership is easier said than done.  It is too easy for some to blame controlling leadership for this (and they/we bear a fair share of the responsibility for it), when it truth, it is often the wider community who hold the expectation for such model.  Even when people strongly articulate a mutual community responsibility, in practice we all too often default back into the same patterns.  So what can leaders do- and I affirm that we need leaders- to help create a faith community of genuine members who will go on to participate in the transformation of their neighbourhoods?

Ultimately, we want ever person in our faith community to be convinced that they are equally responsible for the quality of community life and participation in mission.  And yes, even equally responsible as the pastor, whether she/he is paid or not.  This means people who are demonstratively committed to the community and the mission.  Sadly, the word “demonstratively” is necessary, as most people would say they are committed to their church, but that doesn’t always translate into necessary action and sacrifice.

We all have really good excuses why we can’t be more active in the church- family, work, school, etc.  We will often do our best to compensate through giving tithes or volunteering occasionally- both good things in and of themselves.  However, both tithing and volunteerism are inadequate as primary means of participating in community and mission.  Giving money to missions or charities, while necessary, can become something of evangelical indulgences.  And Christ needs disciples, not volunteers.  We cannot delegate our responsibilities of being members of Christ’s Body.

Therefore, a key role for church leadership is to help people become these kinds of members together.  This will inevitably require refusal to enable (or worse, encourage) the kinds of half-measures mentioned above.  The culture of consumerism- so deeply linked to the culture of fear- has “discipled” us into the bondage of entitlement.  Notice how often we frame participation in God’s mission as “exciting opportunity” (which it is), when in truth it should be seen as base-line responsibility?  Incentive-based motivation might get action, but it breeds an entitlement where people believe they deserve it.  Guilt and coercion can also be “effective”, but also produces fruit according to its nature.

So how, then, can we disciple people into this higher level of commitment, to help them become true members of a true community- one which will transform their neighbourhood for the kingdom of God?

I will explore this in the next part of the series, looking for part of the answer in developing a true sense of place.

Previous Post – Churches that Transform Neighbourhoods – 1

“More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

“My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets.  It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress.

“But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own and to let them know with words, handshakes and hugs that you do not simply like them- but truly love them.” – Henri Nouwen, ¡Gracias!

These words have always been a deeply important for me, not only as a reminder of how easily distracted I can became in the work of ministry, but more so as a vision of the kind of person I want to be and the kind of community I want to be a part of.  While it has not always been easy, I believe that Little Flowers Community is becoming this kind of family.

Our community is a small, inner city church plant made of up of amazing people from the neighbourhood (and a few from outside of it).  Predominately young women in their early twenties, Little Flowers has also become a place where people can come to feel welcomed, safe and loved.  We’ve worked hard at being a community where people know they are not judged, yet loved enough not to have their brokenness and sin ignored.  Because of this, many of the people who come to us are deeply wounded- the addicted, the abused, the rejected, the exploited.  People rejected as sluts, fags and retards.  And we really do love each other, sharing life, faith & mission out of our shared brokenness.

That can sound beautiful- and it is!- even romantic- which it is not!  I would not want to give up what we have.  And yet, what we have is threatened.  We are a small, young group of Christians that needs the wider Body of Christ.  Yes, we need your prayers, your volunteerism and your support.  These things are invaluable to us!  Of course we appreciate your financial contributions, your affirmation of our zeal and the honour to come and share our work with your communities.  It has meant the world to us!

It is just not enough.

More than anything, we need you.

We need you to be present with us.  We want to know as a friend and neighbourhood.  We need to break bread with you, not just once a month (or even once a week).  We want to hear your stories and have you hear ours.  We want to see you smile when you see us coming,  We want to know you with such familiarity that greeting with anything other than a hug would seem distant.

Again, please don’t miss the depth of this because of the romanticism or sentiment.  The long term health and sustainability of Little Flowers Community depends on people like you choosing to share life with us in deep and meaningful ways.  That is no small thing, because, as the quote above suggests, it is all too easy to fill our lives with “good things” to the point where we haven’t the time for such relationships.  It requires divestment and relinquishment.  It demands intentionality and choice.

The costs that such relationships require do not end there.  It will mean, for some, to leave other communities for the sake of joining our.  It might mean moving homes, schools and neighbourhoods to really, truly be present.  I want to make this clear because we are not asking for casual volunteers or occasional visitors.  We want you to “pitch your tent among us”.  This isn’t about sheep stealing, but about a community in great need, yet a community that has much to offer as well.  This is a Macedonian Call.

I love my community, but I am also afraid for it.  While there is much we can do (and are doing) as a community to mature and grow, we are also deeply convinced that what God wants for us next is something outside of our control.  The ball is no longer in our court.  So we extend the invitation.  We eagerly await your reply.  Know that this question is not rhetorical:

Will you join us?

Previous Post – Book Cover Contest Update

Last year, after a spree of violence in our inner city neighbourhood, myself & another local pastor decided that we needed to help facilitate better connection between the Christians who lived and worshiped in our area.  And so was born the Christian Collective – West End.  Once a month we get together for informal times of prayer, discussion, networking & friendship.  Little did we realize how quickly it would develop and how meaningful it would become to all of us.

It is not uncommon for these kinds of unexpected successes to happen outside the norm of our regular church programs and efforts.  It is my hope to share in this series some of the lessons we’ve learned in our neighbourhood (and others) about how churches can become meaningful agents of real change- kingdom builders- in their own neighbourhoods.

In the process of getting people involved in our Chiara House project, we’ve found ourselves benefiting a great deal from entrepreneurial Christians who’ve worked in the business world for years.  Many have commented to us at how excited they were to be asked to use their skills and experience for the kingdom, rather than just writing cheques- the typical expectation their receive from church projects.

As we look into our churches to assess the strengths and gifts that exist, we need to be careful to “pre-screen” people through the narrow lens of those typical expectations.  Don’t get me wrong, we need to be more aware of the dynamics spiritual and missional giftings in our people, but we also need to look at other gifts and skills through the kingdom lenses and see the possibility of what could be.

Part of the danger here is that the church is fairly adept at identifying (if not always effectively utilizing) gifts that serve the church within its own context.  We also need to look for those people who demonstrate the gifts that help build bridges between our churches and our neighbourhoods.  Often these people are seen in the exact opposite way- fringe people who might not fit our typical expectations- either because we see them as “counter-church” (as many tattooed and copiously pierced Christians have experienced) or because their strengths are too “secular” or “mundane” (as many Christian lawyers and engineers have experienced).  The point is this: we need to learn to see with new lenses to best assess the strengths and gifts that exist within our churches, gift that will take us out into our neighbourhoods in meaningful ways.

Those churches that do this often hit another snag at this stage.  Out of deeply well intentioned motives, they begin to look for the needs in the neighbourhood- crime, lack of day care, need for homework clubs, etc.- all important challenges with great opportunities.  However, when we begin to engage our neighbourhoods, if we begin with “fixing problems” we make two mistakes.  First, we can unintentionally communicate a superiority and/or paternalism to our neighbours.  The church in our culture doesn’t have a good enough reputation in the world to pull off that kind of authority- at least not yet.

The second mistake is define our community’s identity by what isn’t working, rather than discovering and celebrating what is.  In other words, just as we spent the time and energy to have new lenses with which to identify the strengths and gifts within the church, we now must come (as humble students) to discover the strengths and gifts within the neighbourhood.  Who are the community elders?  Who do the locals trust?  What has worked?  What has been tried, but failed?

When we begin with a community’s strengths before considering its failings, we choose to look at it through the lenses of God’s kingdom, seeing with redemptive imagination.  When we consider the strengths and beauty already present, what would the kingdom look like in your neighbourhood?  (Of course, this requires that we understand what the kingdom is in the first place, but that’s another topic altogether).  All too often, when churches consider how to “reach out” to their neighbourhood, they start with vision casting.  The well-intentioned mistake is that we are projecting from within our context expectations that might not be relevant.  Instead, we need to look for the signs of the Holy Spirit already at work and join in.

We have seen this process work, helping build incredible connections into our neighbourhood.  However, we did not realize what it would cost us.  In addition to the work, both physical and spiritual, we also were confronted with increased challenges.  Faced with the hard realities of these two worlds meeting (and if we are honest, we must admit that they are all too often very different worlds indeed), Christians will begin to feel anxious, uncertainty, even threatened.  The hard questions that such a process requires of us can make us feel like we are on a path towards a slippery slope of compromise.  While we (of course) need to be cautious, we also have to realize this reality and prepare people that such experiences are natural (ask any cross-cultural missionary).  This is the necessary and exciting reality of transformation- both in the community and in the church!

Finally, the biggest challenge in this process is one of leadership.  Anyone in church leadership knows that Christians are all too willing to turn to the professional leaders to make all the decisions, give all the direction and even do most of the work (and we all too often let them!).  This will limit, if not kill, the chance of this process succeeding.  The primary goal of leaders in this process is free people.  In other words, through identifying their gifts and strengths, give them the freedom (even require it of them) to step out as individuals and smaller groups.  Facilitate and mobilize, but do not overly organize and dictate.  Informal (and non-formal) groups of people can have surprising impact where programmed, affiliated groups often do not.

Again, this is the first in what I hope is several posts on churches that transform neighbourhoods.  For now, I’d like to hear from you:

What questions do you have about this?  What have you seen work?  What hasn’t?  Let us know!