PCA Conversations

Greetings from Marin County, California, birthplace of the mountain bike, American Buddhism, and the free-range, grass-fed vegetable. We’re the county just over the Golden Gate Bridge, sandwiched between San Francisco to the south and Sonoma and Napa counties to the north. The Pacific is our western border.

Anyone who has ever traveled to Bay Area wine country from points south has gone through Marin (pronounced Ma-rin, not Mare-in) to get there. In November, Marin’s tourism bureau unveiled plans to brand the county with a new marketing cry: “Marin, just a little out there.” Lots of interpretive possibilities there, most of them accurate.

Marin is breathtakingly beautiful. Though it will pale to the real thing, its harbor inlets, rolling green and yellow hills, and cliff shorelines seem, at the least, like a pencil drawing of what truly renewed earth and new heavens promise to be. One need look no further to know that beauty and aesthetic matter to the Creator God.

To keep it this way, only 20 percent of Marin’s lands will ever be developed commercially or residentially. It’s a giant land preserve (officially an ‘open space district’), home to hundreds of miles of trails, vineyards, cattle farms, lighthouses, and houseboats on the Sausalito Bay. So you can’t just decide to build a new home here. You have to buy one, in a market with a median that hovers just under $1 million. People here stay here.

But don’t be fooled. Marin only appears suburban (and rural)––strictly in geographic terms. Don’t call it a suburb. While it’s a commuting community 25 minutes from San Francisco’s financial center, both socially and relationally Marin is measurably urban. It is cause-driven, affluent, and ever-redefining social progressiveness. Very green, very blue, and very white, if you will. More non-profits and graduate degrees per capita here than any other county in the U.S.

There are many places where you could sit in a coffee shop flanked by a forty-something pre-school parent on your left, a political/social/environmental activist cause junkie on your right, and a millionaire Wharton grad sharing your table. But Marin is a place where this might easily describe not three different people, but one person seated next to you. Stay-at-home parents have Ivy League MBAs and run hedge funds between diaper changes.

Sundays in Marin are for one thing: recreation. Youth sports in the morning and 40-mile bike rides along Pacific Coast Hwy in the afternoon. Marinites work hard and play harder.

About 3% of the county attend worship services of any faith, most of them Buddhist. So you might expect one in a hundred people participating in Christian worship on Sundays. And here even ‘Christian’ can cover a broad swatch of theological fabric. A ‘regular’ at Grace Marin attends worship 2-3 times monthly.

We’re often asked, Are churches in Marin really ‘liberal’? The short answer is Yes. But not for the reasons often expected, such as a particular view on issues like same-gender relationships or voting a democratic ticket. It’s a ‘liberal’ environment, because pastors don’t believe in the resurrection. We’ve been asked by local clergy, “What’s the big deal about Jesus, anyway?”

We’re often asked, Is ministry in Marin really hard? And the short answer is Yes. It’s hard, because to build genuine community requires a constant battle with powerfully opposing forces: the idol of a hyper-scheduled, overly privatized, self-sufficient lifestyle. There’s a desire (cultural requirement?) to appear active, independent, and un-needy.

It’s hard, because becoming a follower of Christ doesn’t mean you know anything about being part of Christ’s body. We’re in relationship with many new and growing believers, but learning what it means to be part of the church is just as much a deliberate process as figuring out what atoning sacrifice means. This means things like corporate worship need to be thoughtfully explained, and things like prayer, confession, and stewardship must be intentionally decoded and de-stereotyped.

It’s hard, because spurring others on toward intimacy with Jesus, that they might find him more beautiful and more believable, is rivaled by workaholism, travel schedules, family pressure, and the swapping of authentic, face-to-face conversation for electronic, abbreviated sound bytes. Seriously, I’m like, OMG.

But show me a place where any of these is untrue. Where is ministry not challenged to build community, make disciples, and develop leaders?

‘Marin, just a little out there.’ In other words, Marin is like no other place and just like every other place at the same time. Want to understand a place? Ask, ‘What are its idols, what are the questions and fears of the people there?’

There are unique challenges in Marin based on the idols and questions folks have that are more pronounced here than perhaps elsewhere. But those idols and questions and fears are branches stemming from the same root that is buried deep in the soil everywhere: self-centeredness. Folks everywhere are prideful; it simply shows itself in different ways.

The gospel always attacks our pride, because we are most unlike our Merciful Savior when we are proud. But the core of an onion is wrapped in many layers and, finally, a skin that can come in many shades. The core––the foundational posture of our hearts––is always there, but getting to it requires skillful and patient and humble peeling away of many layers.

From one place to the next the layers may vary, but the heart issues are always the same. From one place to the next, the ins and outs of ministry may vary, but, thankfully, the gospel’s power to change anyone, anywhere is always the same.

The gospel is not something I have and other people (in Marin, for instance) need. It’s what we all need all the time.

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Andy Pelander is the Associate Pastor of Grace Church of Marin.