WHAT I MEANT TO SAY...

reason versus faith part 3

2012-02-23T22:57:00.002-05:00

Recommended Resources for BARRIERS:

Reason/Apologetics:
• Mere Christianity: C. S. Lewis
• Reasonable Faith: William Lane Craig
• The Reason for God: Timothy Keller
• Christianity for Modern Pagans: Peter Kreeft
• Can Man Live Without God?: Ravi Zacharias

…two simple “first start” books:
• The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ: Lee Strobel

Science:
• The Language of God: Francis Collins
• Absence of Mind: Marilynne Robinson
• Lost World of Genesis One: John Walton
• Beyond the Cosmos: What Recent Discoveries in Astrophysics Reveal about the Glory and Love of God: Hugh Ross
• www.biologos.org

Evil:
• The Problem of Pain: C. S. Lewis
• Evil and the Justice of God: N. T. Wright
• Screwtape Letters: C. S. Lewis
• The Gift of Pain: Philip Yancey and Paul Brand
• Is God to Blame?: Greg Boyd
• Tim Keller’s 9/11 Anniversary speech: http://davidkpark.wordpress.com/2006/09/26/timothy-keller-transcript-the-problem-of-suffering/

Miracles/supernatural:
• Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: Jack Deere
• Power Evangelism: John Wimber
• Surprised by Hope: N. T. Wright
• Miracles (an apologetic): C. S. Lewis

reason versus faith part 2

2012-02-23T22:51:00.003-05:00

Lately I’d heard several stories of young Christians trotting off to college and getting blown out of their faith because of hearing views that didn’t harmonize with their Sunday-school version of faith. Listen: faith is rigorous, not opposed to reason, and not for the faint-hearted.

And a lot of the time it seems to center on creation and science…which is unfortunate in my mind. It doesn’t have to be that way. Believe it or not, evangelical Christians have different views on the issue.

There are basically four positions that Christians take regarding this issue. I’m indebted to my fellow Vineyard Pastor Ken Wilson in Ann Arbor for this overview…

Young Earth: This position says the earth was created six to ten thousand years ago. Each species was created separately with no common biological root. Once each species was created, it remains fixed. Small changes are allowed, but none so great that they eventually result in two species where there was once only one. Of the four positions, this maintains the maximum disagreement with mainstream science. Evangelicals who hold this position include John MacArthur, Josh McDowell, John Maxwell, and Charles Stanley.

Old Earth: This position says the earth could be as old as mainstream scientists say; the six days of creation in Genesis 1 could be six eras, when each species (though species may be defined flexibly) was separately created, with no descent from common ancestors. The theory of evolution has no merit, except to account for changes within a given species. This position maintains much disagreement with mainstream science, though less than the Young Earth position. A primary writer is Hugh Ross and the evangelical leaders in the U.S. who hold this view are way too many to mention.

Intelligent Design: This position is a relative newcomer to the debate, championed by writers like Philip Johnson. However, it’s difficult to assess this view because it’s advocates hold a wide range of views. Many who hold Young Earth and Old Earth positions advocate this position in public debate. Others, like Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box, leave a lot of room for evolutionary process. Behe articulates what he views as a key weakness in evolutionary theory, what he calls “irreducible complexity.” Some biological structures are so complex that it’s difficult to imagine how an evolutionary process could account for them. There are so many using the language of Intelligent Design these days, but certainly Behe’s position involves less disagreement than the Young Earth and Old Earth positions, but it’s still substantial.

The fourth view is Theistic Evolution: This position says that God, working through evolution, created. Theistic evolution objects to scientists who step beyond their science to say that evolution proves that there cannot be a creator God. These are scientists who claim that since we have in evolution a mechanism that accounts for the diversity of life as we know it, then it follows that there is no creator God, no purpose in creation, and no design, not even in a big picture or theological sense. Theistic evolution says, “That’s just importing atheism into science; nothing in the science itself justifies that conclusion.” Many big guns, even in the field of evolutionary biology, agree. Theistic Evolution has many variations but certainly many who hold it would claim that Genesis is not meant to be read as science. God is very much the author, the text is inspired, reliable and authoritative. It simply isn’t meant to convey a scientific understanding of origins.

There are a growing number of evangelical Christians taking this position. Much in the writings of C.S. Lewis suggests that he held this view. B.B. Warfield, a contributor to Christian fundamentalist movement and a very conservative scholar who championed the “inerrancy” doctrine of Scripture, held to a version of this. Billy Graham is friendly to this view, along with Francis Collins, John Stott, Tim Keller, Peter Enns, to some degree J. I. Packer, and even Pope John Paul II.

I’m not here to tell you which of these views you should adopt, but I am saying there is a wide-range of very respected Christian thinkers, theologians and scientists who do not take a monolithic view on the interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis…and all deeply love Jesus and His atoning work on the cross for us. But for us to have a relevant voice in the culture, we need to be wise.

When Galileo was inquisitioned by the Church for promoting heliocentrism (the earth wasn’t the center of the universe and actually revolved around the sun—not a totally new thought but the Church considered it only a theory), his accusers based their view on scriptures like Psalm 93:1: Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved (NKJV)…and multiple verses about the sun “rising and setting”, proving that the sun moved around planet earth. And since scripture cannot lie, then Galileo must be wrong.

Galileo would write: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.”

Physics professors Loren and Deborah Haarsma of Calvin College write:

“The Galileo incident shows us that the Holy Spirit can sometimes use discoveries of science to prompt us to reexamine our interpretation of Scripture, leading us ultimately to a better understanding of Scripture. We should not neglect this means by which God can teach us new things.”

Or as the proverb says, Wise men and women are always learning, always listening for fresh insights. Proverbs 18:15 (Message Version)

Again, my reason for talking about this is not to convince you of any particular view, but to reconsider the idea that you have to park your brain at the door to become a follower of Jesus. But you may need to do some research. And truth is, all four views have difficulties Biblically…and to varying degrees, scientifically. But you have to think.

I love how Luke, the physician, historian, and someone who took some hellish missionary trips with his friend Paul, writes to a friend to help him in any open questions he might have regarding the truth of Jesus the messiah. Luke would have lived before and after the time of Jesus’ resurrection. His gospel is simply a letter written to his friend Theophilus. Luke writes:

Most honorable Theophilus: Many people have written accounts about the events that took place among us. They used as their source material the reports circulating among us from the early disciples and other eyewitnesses of what God has done in fulfillment of his promises. Having carefully investigated all of these accounts from the beginning, I have decided to write a careful summary for you, to reassure you of the truth of all you were taught. Luke 1:1–4 (New Living Translation)

In other words, “Theophilus, your heart has experienced the reality of God, but you may have some open questions intellectually, or some doubts regarding the historicity of the stories. I’ve taken the time to investigate this thoroughly so that you can trust the reports you’ve heard…”

The reality is: There are honest, real issues that Christians have to wrestle with: Why is there suffering? What is the origin of evil? How can natural calamities happen if God is good? Our most painful questions are usually more along philosophical, moral and theological lines than scientific. That’s simply because science, in general, is designed to answer “how” questions, not “why” questions.

I’ve recently been posting Facebook questions, such as “If Jesus sat across the table from you, what would you ask Him?” All of sudden there were over 160 comments…some funny ones, of course, but many of them were heartbreaking, as in “Why did my baby…” or “Why did my marriage…” or “How come cancer took my mom…”—issues of loss and pain and brokenness.

Another question was: “Total honesty: what barrier keeps you from deeply experiencing God?”—and again very vulnerable comments were posted exposing a longing to know why God did or didn’t do certain things.

And beneath all those comments is an undercurrent of fairness or justice. Something is simply not fair. “That’s not right.” “That’s not just.” The unfairness of life and circumstances was a common theme. That issue was a large part of former atheist C.S. Lewis’ whole problem with God in classic little book: Mere Christianity. He writes:

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

“…In the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist — in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless — I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality — namely my idea of justice — was full of sense. Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

In the end, reason will lead you to the doorway of God, but it won’t take you in. Reason will take you all the way to the door, but it won’t turn the handle. That’s where the actions of grace, repentance and faith must kick in. To experience God, one has to walk through a very small and narrow door that one can only fit through humbly on one’s knees. The only way in is via humility…with just enough self-awareness to say, “Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought I was. Maybe not as clever as I think. Maybe I don’t have all the answers. Maybe I’m more broken than I realize. Maybe there is something more to this life than this life.” Repentance means to change your mind. That’s why the Bible says that a fool says there is no God (Psalm 53:1). It’s the fool who believes he already knows everything, who has such little self-awareness that he can’t see any need. Only a fool would accept the senselessness of the universe as a way to live.

Again, often the problem is not an intellectual one, but a moral one.

The amazing Jewish prophet Isaiah—the prince of prophets in my mind, persecuted for his proclamations—once had a word from God for his people, his tribe. Israel had become so defined by her rebellion against God in the worst religious ways, that God had some gut wrenching things to say to them:

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. Isaiah 1:18

Once that condition is taken care of, then you’ll know God. Or as Jesus put it, “You shall know the truth…and it will set you free.”

[ Part 3 contains some recommended resources ]
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reason versus faith part 1

2012-02-23T22:42:00.011-05:00

Disclaimer: Some people asked me for notes about the talk last weekend; I supposed it stirred some things up. Here’s the bulk of it…in three parts. I warned you.

In this segment of the weekend series Barriers, we tackled Reason versus Faith. The argument goes like this: since the Enlightenment, light-year advances in the sciences, archaeological discoveries of other Ancient Near Eastern texts, the development of brand new fields like psychology, genetics and neuroscience, and the overthrow of the Church as a socio-political power creating a cultural context to question what were absolutes, launched an undercurrent of modernist thought that reflected this idea in the most simplest terms: no rational person can believe in a personal god any more than belief in a tooth fairy. We all know who puts the money under the pillow at night and pockets the little incisor. Religion was seen as a dinosaur, lumbering around with a brain the size of a walnut, doomed to extinction. It was viewed as anti-intellectual, anti-science and antiquated.

In high school and college I laughed at the idea of a god. I was way too smart for that. What’s more, I had felt the sting of so-called good church people who judged me because of the way I dressed and the length of my hair. There were churches I would not have been allowed in. It seemed to me that Christians were mean-spirited, hypocritical, judgmental and frankly backward. Creation could be explained naturally, telescopically we had found no evidence of heaven “out there”, and the supernatural stories of the Yahweh God seemed as unlikely as Zeus. The Bible was filled with contradictions as old as the Scopes Monkey Trial: just look at the opening chapter of Genesis—you have three days and nights before God made the sun…let alone calling the moon a light. And don’t get me started on where Cain found a wife. I had good reasons to be an agnostic at best.

And so in my dismissal of all-things-God, I assumed that morality was a human construct as well and, frankly, sexuality was purely animalistic and finally the Sexual Revolution had dawned on the human race. In my mind, everything was being liberated from restrictions, and certainly medieval ones.

And then a funny thing happened on my way to hell.

I met Jesus.

I’ve told my personal God-story before so there’s no need to rehash it. But what happened was that people inexplicably began popping into my path telling me how their lives had changed by surrendering to Jesus. What I had to admit was that they seemed different in some way than the people I hung out with. What’s more, I couldn’t argue with their personal experience. I had no reason to think they were lying; for one, several of them were family members who radically changed. I could certainly say they were going through a phase (“They’ll get over it…”)…or had joined some cult and been hypnotized…or that the basis for their conversion was no more than mythology. But nevertheless, they had experienced something. That was undeniable.

They had something I didn’t.

The genius author, mathematician, and philosopher Pascal, after he came to Christ in a dramatic way, once described the condition of someone who doesn’t know God like this:

“I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the rest. I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put in this place rather than in another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom, and as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.

“…Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty. And from all this I conclude that I ought to spend all the days of my life without caring to inquire into what must happen to me. Perhaps I might find some solution to my doubts, but I will not take the trouble, nor take a step to seek it; and after treating with scorn those who are concerned with this care, I will go without foresight and without fear to try the great event, and let myself be led carelessly to death, uncertain of the eternity of my future state.”

You would think that just stopping to reflect on life for more than ten minutes would cause us to go on a desperate search for God, but instead, we jam our time with diversions and busy-ness to avoid the despair and angst that naturally comes when you do think about those things.

I had one other problem I had to admit…and hated to confess: I felt deeply and intensely lonely in the universe. British writer G.K. Chesterton famously wrote: “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” I had to admit that the stuff I was drinking, smoking, ingesting and watching was not really filling my heart. I felt like the story in John’s gospel of Jesus and the woman at the well: “If you have water that can make me never thirst again, give it to me!” There seemed to be a big hole in my soul that had me puzzled.

And so I would think and think about this Jesus-thing late at night. And when I finally surrendered my life to Him in a church in Clifton, things started to change remarkably. I began to discover how much God really loved me…that I had a purpose in the universe…that life isn’t all random events...that I could actually experience the Spirit of God in a real way. That was pretty mind-bending.

But a few months into it, the doubts came roaring in. What if I psyched myself into this? What about other religions and their truth-claims? What if the stories of Jesus were made up…or at least exaggerated? What about issues of evolution and the Biblical creation story? How do I deal with doubts?

In other words, I knew I had experienced something real, but I had a lot of intellectual—not to mention practical—questions to be answered. Something had happened to my heart, but my head had real questions. Part of the problem was that I had bought into the atheist mantra that only people with double-digit IQ’s believe in God.

Now here’s what’s funny. Somehow I had overlooked scientists like Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Faraday, Mendel, Planck (the father of quantum theory) and Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project).

Interestingly enough, in a recent study from Rice University, over sixty percent of natural scientists—people in disciplines like physics, chemistry and biology—said they believe in God. That’s much higher than I would have thought. While a separate survey from the University of Chicago revealed that 76 percent of doctors said they believed in God.

And what’s more, I somehow missed brilliant authors like Dante, Shakespeare, Dafoe, Bronte, Hugo, Longfellow, Dickens , Harriet Beecher Stowe, Swift, Wordsworth, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Flannery O'Connor, Graham Greene…and even, uh, John Grisham.

Or artists who believed in God like, DaVinci, Rembrandt, Albrecht Durer, Michelangelo, Cezanne, Delacroix, Renoir, Blake, and Matisse.

And brilliant musicians and composers like Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Charlie Hines, Jim Zartman…not to mention the Fray, Common, Switchfoot, the Civil Wars, Mutemath and Mumford and Sons.

Or what about brilliant philosophers like Hegel, Kant, Kierkegaard, Spinoza, Wittgenstein and Barth?

The only reason I’m mentioning these—and they weren’t all Christians, but did believe in God—is because there’s a “pub theology” that says that smart people don’t believe in God. That’s so arrogant and narrow-minded it’s embarrassing.

And so I prayed that God would put me a place where there were books and I could read and learn (I had earlier tossed away a four-year scholarship to chase a music career). I landed a job at the Public Library downtown and discovered in about the Dewey Decimal 220’s that there were actually brilliant Christian writers and a whole area of study called apologetics that challenged my mind and got me thinking way more sharper to answer ontological and theological questions that had been tearing me apart.

The learning is this: if you have doubts, don’t be afraid of questions, but approach it scientifically…look at the evidence for proof. If you’re going to do serious studious research into Christianity or have questions regarding its validity, don’t just read the pseudo-intellectual agnostic blogs with their interpretations of it, but go to the source material. Find Christians who are smarter and sharper than you and find out what they have to say. I’d have to say that C. S. Lewis saved my life with three books: Mere Christianity, The Problem Of Pain and Miracles.

In other words, feed your faith, not your doubts.

[ Part II continues… ]
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midrash versus therapeutic...and pastoral baggage

2012-01-16T21:04:00.005-05:00

The bulk of this weekend’s message was based on a single chapter from Henry Cloud’s last book Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward. Years ago I was in a small gathering of leaders with Henry as he outlined the three types of people that the wisdom books of the Bible depict: the wise man, the fool and the evil man. I found it fascinating. Necessary Endings reflects Henry’s continued foray into the secular book market and toward more leadership/organizational consulting, so it has no explicit references to scripture. We’ve met a few times on the road and hosted his conference at the Vineyard some years back. His work has been extremely helpful to me, both personally and for research purposes.

But here’s the baggage for me.

As a pastor and communicator, the frustration we can feel in tackling a topical series like Baggage about relational dysfunction is simple: a sermon can easily devolve into a list of helpful, prescriptive ideas that any good counselor or therapist would suggest. There’s obviously nothing wrong with that, but as a spiritual leader I have to make sure I balance that with the Kingdom-message that we are meant for more than self-actualization or attaining emotional health as an end in itself. The more is: humbling ourselves and fitting into God’s story and His work.

Part of a sermon like this past weekend—stripped of it’s Biblical moorings—could be a message heard outside of a church without any reference to the work of the Holy Spirit, or as Joe Boyd and I have conversed about, simply a “self-help” message devoid of any necessary interaction with God. The potential is certainly there.

It’s not surprising, though, that a series like Baggage is typically the more popular ones we offer. After all, most people want to know how to get better, that is, better at being a husband, a friend, a mother, an employee, a human being. After all, it’s our relationships that seem to cause us the most pain. And truth is truth; Proverbs was written way before the Stephen Coveys and Dr. Phils of the world.

Some rabbis use an exegetical style called a midrash. An oversimplified description (forgive me, seminarians) would be storytelling that depends less on the authority of the text and zeroes in on the hearer’s intuitive ability and personal reflection created in the moment by the Spirit of God. There can be a potency in the interpretive story that allows God to give insight beyond the obvious, and may even create an inner tension for the listener that forces a deeper wrestling with the text.

Some contemporary teachers/preachers use a therapeutic or prescriptive model, more common to topical series, filled with advice that’s rooted in scripture. It’s a bit like Proverbs: if you do this, you’re a wise person and life will frankly work better for you. This would have been especially reflective of many of the sermon series in the 1990’s: How to Affair-Proof Your Marriage, Building a Healthy Family, Five Steps to Avoid Burnout, etcetera. Not only were they practical and helpful, but they served as an attractional element for un- or dechurched people, as in: “Hey! Finally a church that has some relevance to my life…”. It moved beyond the altar-call, “get-out-of-this-world” salvation-only emphasis of many evangelical churches and created a context for invitation as well as developing emotionally healthier and more holistic people.

But here's a thought: I think the sermon on the mount—Matthew 5, 6 & 7—is actually a prime example of both approaches: midrash and therapeutic. There are moments of super-pragmatic counsel but it’s wrapped in a powerful Kingdom overview that drives the meta-message. The first twelve verses—the Beatitudes—can create an inner conflict that is powerful.

For you fresh young pastors, teachers and communicators, consider a balance in your speaking. Listen to some teachers who are polar-opposite of your style. Think of the differences between Tim Keller and Andy Stanley; both are wonderfully gifted communicators, but radically different in methodology, pacing and approach. Check out people who are not just different from you tribally and theologically, but communicate in a way that you might even preconceive as irritating.

And wrestle a bit with your own exegetical baggage.
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a Christmas miracle

2011-12-19T01:30:00.010-05:00

True story: During a cold Christmas Eve night in 1914, on one side of a bleak barbed-wire-laced stretch of hell called No Man’s Land, a German soldier began singing a hymn. When the opposing Scottish and French soldiers slowly started singing along, peace broke out for a few brief hours during the first world war as soldiers crossed enemy lines to share photos and exchange stories and liquor.

Now let your imagination get crazy: Jim Wallis and James Dobson have dinner with each other on Christmas Eve night in a restaurant a few blocks from the Washington D.C. mall…

“What can I get you gentlemen to drink?” Their server sported a closely cropped beard framing a gentle smile. He’d been serving for years; too much ‘teeth’ comes off like a salesman and that’s the last thing anyone wants in a restaurant.

James ordered an unsweetened iced tea with limes. Jim asked for a Riesling.

“You know, Jim, if you’re having alcohol, a red would’ve been better for your heart,” James offered. “There’s not much more than sugars and calories with yours.”

“Thanks, doc. But at my age, I have bigger things to worry about than that. Appreciate your concern, though.”

“Hey, the least I can do for a fellow believer! At least, you still are, right?” grinned James slyly.

“Whoa, big guy. Slow down. I have fond remembrances of you. I used to listen to you on the radio when I was young…”

“Ouch, ” winced James.

“…and I have a lot of respect for your parenting advice to young couples,” Jim continued. “I think stats show that dads are more involved in parenting than ever before. You may have had something to do with that. I’m an old guy myself…but with two boys in little league, that’s still pretty good stuff you wrote!”

James smiled. “It was my genuine concern for families—which I still think is the bedrock of society—that led me into questioning government policy.”

Jim practiced a little reflective listening. “So what you’re saying is that a particular ‘concern’ led to your involvement in politics. That’s exactly what happened to me! I felt God was very interested in that, but God’s politics were overwhelmingly concerned for the poor and marginalized, at least in my Bible. When the wealthiest country in the world, who consumes the most resources, has one of the lowest percentages of global giving toward the poor, I knew we Christians had a responsibility to challenge the policies that affect our national budget…let alone our personal consumerism.”

“That may be true, Jim. But the stats also show that the healthiest, most economically stable and generous relational unit is the family…so what better income-generator for a country? Wallerstein’s research showed that where a family has both a mom and dad in the household, children are more emotionally secure, have more potential, are less dependent on government money, and generally more productive. It’s the building block of society. So when the historic concept of marriage is turned on its head, some fracture is inevitable. And if we’re aborting every third baby, we’ve not only devalued God’s word—remember? He said that children were a blessing, even a heritage from Him—but what’s more, we’re devaluing human life itself. No society can flourish like that.”

“Ditto, as your buddy Limbaugh says,” grinned Jim.

“Low blow. But he’s not all wrong. Just, uh, shrill,” laughed James.

The server returned with drinks, recommended the special, and took both orders. “One check or two?” he asked, tossing a glance at both equally, being careful not to assume any power positioning at the table.

Almost on cue, both men pointed at the other and said, “His!” and chuckled. The server smiled again, and set a warm, sliced baguette wrapped in cloth between them. With butter knives in hand, Jim continued where they stopped.

“But James, when you aligned yourself and your ministry so clearly with one political party, it’s assumed you also signed on to all they stand for.”

“I can’t help it if they were the only ones standing up for family values,” said James. “And how is that any different from what you’ve done with your friends on the other side of the aisle?”

Jim gently retorted, “Do you really believe they’re the only ones standing up for family values? Let’s talk about Sanford, Ensign, Pickering, Giuliani…”

“(*cough*) Edwards, Clinton, Spitzer (*cough*),” mugged James.

“Okay, I get it. But my guys were the only ones speaking out against economic disparity,” continued Jim. “Your hyper-individualistic approach to the gospel ignores passages about God’s heart for systemic justice. I mean, what could level the playing field more than Israel’s jubilee mandate?”

“Well, it’s one thing to talk about systems, but get real: data shows that conservatives are personally more generous when it comes to charitable giving,” James said.

“Yeah, but that still doesn’t alleviate a ‘systems’ issue. For heaven’s sake, James, you have to admit that in general conservatives were the drivers of Jim Crow laws. There’s been no greater instigator of economic injustices than racism,” Jim countered.

“Go back a little further in your history, Jim: Lincoln was a Republican,” James responded with a smile.

“But a very different party in the mid-1800’s, don’t you think?” said Jim.

“Whatever.”

“The point is,” commented Jim, “that when the church is only known for two issues, we lose our ability to reach into certain cultures in our society. We’ve got to be bigger than that. And what’s bigger than caring for the poor, speaking out against oppression and corporate colonialism and questioning how much wealth is too much? It’s hard to read the book of James and not feel prophetic in our day.”

“You’re narrowing it down as well, Jim,” said James, sipping his tea. “How do you avoid the sexual ethos of scripture? How do we turn a blind eye to eighty babies aborted every minute in the world? How did we come to label human life so disposable? If ever ‘slippery slopes’ exist, this is one. Or two.”

“Agreed. But on the other hand, how come ‘conservative Christians’ seem to be the first ones to shout for war…or support the death penalty? Doesn’t that strike you as, er, odd?” probed Jim. “Seems to me that doesn’t jibe with ‘Sermon on the Mount’-stuff to me.”

“Is it ‘jibe’ or ‘jive’? I’m never quite sure. And isn’t that really outdated slang?” questioned James, injecting a bit of humor to lower the room temperature. “Look, Jim, it’s an old argument, but I’m pretty sure you’d pick up a baseball bat and defend your wife if a serial rapist broke into your house. There are rational arguments for extrapolating that out nationalistically; Augustine wrestled with ‘just war’ theories just a few centuries after Jesus. My involvement in politics had less to do with which party and more to do with the policies promoted in each party. And eventually, I became convinced it was less the executive or legislative branches that was the problem, and more the judicial powers appointed—not voted, mind you—into lifetime appointments by the party in power. Hey, I practically coined the phrase ‘activist judges’.”

Jim squinted and smiled. “That sword cuts both ways, friend. ‘Activist judges’ in a conservative court essentially reinforced the idea recently that ‘corporations are persons’ and have the same rights as a person. How about that for setting the stage for new levels of corporate political abuse and greed under the guise of personal rights? If a corporation is considered a person, would you have wanted your daughter to marry Lehman Brothers? Ha! Talk about a philosophical ‘slippery slope’! And what’s the bugaboo?—government has always had to regulate Wall Street and corporate overreach and indulgence. You know the scripture: the love of money is the root of all evil.”

“Okay, Jim, maybe we have a different prioritization of values,” James offered. “And certainly different philosophies when it comes to how to play out our scriptural views. I wondered what we could gain if we could find common ground?”

Jim stared at his plate for a moment before speaking. “I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “James Davison Hunter has something to say about how cultures are changed. I have to admit that I like his ‘faithful presence’ concept and tend to agree with him that nowadays the ‘public witness’ of the church has become only a ‘political witness’…and not always for the better. Though even that’s part of my rationale for voicing a different view than yours: so we weren’t branded a one-trick pony. But we’ve been at odds with each other for so long it’s created factions in the Church. And scripture is clear that disunity is disastrous, the whole ‘I’m of Apollos, I’m of Paul’-type thing. How is one more spiritual than the other? I wish we could somehow…”

“I don’t think I can buy Hunter’s slant,” interrupted James. “But I found his caution about power intriguing. His view of ressentiment—the anger, rage or revenge that motivates so much political activism today—as being grounded in a ‘narrative of injury’ or the perception that ‘our side has been wronged’ is truer than I want to admit. It certainly shapes a group’s identity. You hear it when one is attacking the opposition and the response is, ‘Yes, but don’t forget when you were in power, you did…’. All of a sudden, it’s a case of the Hatfields (and I don’t mean Mark!) and McCoys. You hit my guy…I hit yours. It’s kind of like a political Crips and Bloods.”

“Or an East coast - West coast rappers, thing,” suggested Jim.

“Huh?” queried James.

“And I utterly hate how we must appear to ‘outsiders’ of the faith,” Jim added. “For a while, the ‘unsaved’ person with a similar political slant loves us, but the one with differing politics thinks we’re absolutely the devil.”

A folding tray appeared along with their waiter and a younger helper deftly setting steaming food on the table.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” asked the bearded waiter as the other server scurried off. Assured all was well, he began to turn away and suddenly stopped. He leaned into the table slightly and with a whisper asked, “I couldn’t help overhearing part of your conversation. Uh, I’m not really into the whole church-thing, but I wondered: would Jesus fit in this town—D.C.—in any way?”

James and Jim glanced across the table at each other and smiled. Jim answered, “Oh, undoubtedly. He’s well known as a ‘friend of sinners’. What better place than Washington for that?”

“He found me,” laughed James.

The waiter paused, pulled out their check in his apron pocket, and said quietly, “This one’s on the house. Merry Christmas.”

After dinner, James and Jim found themselves on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. A light snow was starting to fall, forming halos around the streetlights. They hugged, exchanging the proverbial three manly pats on the back. After a quick update on their respective families and final goodbyes, they walked off in opposite directions into the night.

And oddly enough, they both began whistling the same hymn.

do people hate me?

2011-12-12T23:20:00.014-05:00

There are many things that Christians are doing in this postmodern era that are exemplary. The renewed call to global, faith-fueled activism spurred by the overwhelming number of texts in scripture regarding God’s heart for the poor and marginalized is hopefully changing the stereotypical negative views of the Church. It was the Roman Emperor Julian who violently hated Christians and irritatingly wrote in a letter that, “These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their (love-feasts), they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes. Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity…”

But I’ve noticed something that slightly troubles me, though. In a culture that places a premium value on tolerance and acceptance (a just reaction to hate-crime violence and shrill web voices), it’s natural to assume that we, as Christians, want to be loved, experienced and viewed as tolerant and accepting people, especially as The Church, the fountainhead of grace. After all, if that’s how the culture defines love, we need to speak in a language they understand. That’s what good missionaries do. And who wants to be experienced as intolerant and unaccepting? Certainly not followers of the Friend of sinners.

Besides, weren’t the people that argued the most with Jesus the religious types? Those were the ones who put God in a box, right? Those were the ones Jesus said travelled over land and sea to find one convert and make him more of a child of hell than themselves. Can you imagine Pharisee hashtags if Twitter existed then?—#killthecultleader.

But before we look down our noses at “religious people” and “church folks” (an easy target since it’s always the people other than us and our little circle of enlightened bloggers and friends), it might be circumspect to consider passages where the “culture” or the “world” is clearly viewed as no friend of the Church...

When an adulterous woman is misogynistically dragged before Jesus (where was the loverboy?), Jesus expressed compassion and zero-condemnation. But He added a postscript: “From now on don’t sin.”

It was Jesus who reminded His followers, “When the world hates you, remember it hated me before it hated you. The world would love you if you belonged to it, but you don’t. I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you.” (John 15:18–19)

To the self-professed sinner—Peter—who was part of Jesus’ inner circle, Jesus snapped, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me.”

It was Gentile Roman military men who mocked Jesus’ kingship and drove the nails and divided up His clothes at the cross.

It was the businessmen and profiteers who wanted to kill Paul in Ephesus. They did it under the guise of pagan religion, but the bottom line was their bottom line (Acts 19:23, 27).

After a new age-type psychic lost her ability to tell fortunes because of an on-the-spot exorcism by Paul, her infuriated Gentile business managers have Paul and Silas arrested, beaten mercilessly and thrown in jail. Follow the money.

Before the brother of Jesus is martyred, he penned this reminder: Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4:4)

It was an exiled John who reminded Jesus freaks: Don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. (1 John 3:13)

Paul was beheaded at the hands of Gentiles. Previously he wrote: Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. (Romans 12:2a Message Version)

In Athens, Greece—ground zero of Western philosophy—it was the Gentile intellectuals and poets who sneered at Paul’s discourse on the resurrection.

It’s the nations of the world who despise God in the apocalypse: “The nations were angry with you, but now the time of your wrath has come.” (Revelation 11:18a)

...In other words, it’s not just the “religious/legalists/fundamentalists” that we may be at odds with.

Here’s the problem: I’m finding myself becoming uncomfortable with how little I’m disliked by people outside of the faith. Okay, I realize I may have some deep interpersonal issues to work out here. And I’m not into creating self-righteous confrontational situations by which I can claim persecution…like your average run-of-the-mill American cult. It’s way too easy to slip into a messianic/persecution complex. Been there, got the t-shirt. Seriously.

But I’m wondering: is my life a fragrance that demands a reaction from different people à la 2 Corinthians 2?—or am I just a nice guy who people generally don’t mind being with? There was a reason that Paul said he was not ashamed of the gospel; it implied that it was something to be scoffed at, to be derided as intellectually silly, as a weakness rather than a position of philosophical strength.

There is a reason why Paul wrote the following words at the risk of appearing super-spiritual or attempting to justify himself: I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the stormy seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be Christians but are not. I have lived with weariness and pain and sleepless nights. Often I have been hungry and thirsty and have gone without food. Often I have shivered with cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. (2 Corinthians 11:26b–27 NLT)

Am I so cozy with my life or the culture and so careful to not come off as one of “those kind-of-Christians” that I’m safe as milk? Why am I not disliked by some? I expect to not be liked by some believers for being, well, whatever. Grace feels threatening to some. But where is my interaction with people outside of the Church that causes them to scoff, derisively laugh, or actively oppose the message of the Cross and resurrection? I made fun of people who believed in God before I became a Christian. Where are those who are making fun of me? I’m afraid I’m too insulated and safe in the current zeitgeist of tolerance and acceptance.

The power of the gospel is the Cross…where mercy and judgment meet in space and time. But there is no sense of mercy without a realization of judgment. And somehow, mysteriously, the Cross shouts a more-than-subliminal message of both.

Why don’t people hate me? At least some? It's got me thinking.
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the tree of life: movie of the year?

2011-11-08T01:37:00.012-05:00

Okay, something off the beaten blog path for me. This has nothing to do with the weekend.

I can’t quite describe the effect the movie The Tree of Life had on me. I’ve been waiting for it to come out on DVD since it came—and went—fairly quickly at select theatres. I have to admit I was a little reticent; I was afraid it was going to be the millennial generation’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sorry, Kubrick fans, but as visually striking as it was in its day, the story and its subliminal themes just didn’t do it for this guy. I find his films too nihilistic, or at least pessimistic, even though 2001 and its closing starchild scene was supposed to be some sort of rebirth. I think. He simply lost me on that one; it felt a little pretentious to me. Still, The Tree of Life seems to be a nod to 2001, borrowing the cinematic feel, philosophical meaning of life questions, a classical music score, and even the same special effects designer.

Here’s the disclaimer: yes, I know the arts are übersubjective and we carbon-based bipeds process them through a complex mix of emotions and tastes at any one moment. At the Cannes Film Festival, the premier drew both applause and boos. A New York Times reviewer gushed: “The sheer beauty of this film is almost overwhelming, but as with other works of religiously minded art, its aesthetic glories are tethered to a humble and exalted purpose, which is to shine the light of the sacred on secular reality.” Others weren’t nearly as kind; Salon dismissed it as “a crazy religious allegory.” It certainly was polarizing.

This one grabbed me in some inexplicable way.

Writer-director and notoriously publicity-shy Terrence Malick is a bit of an acquired taste. His movies are a mashup of philosophical and theological themes. But for me, this one was one of the most insightful presentations of the Bible’s Romans chapter seven sin-struggle I’ve seen…or read.

The movie opens with a quote from Job, the point in the biblical narrative in which God challenges Job’s assumptions of His intentions and character: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth ... when the morning stars sang together?” (Job 38:4,7). The main character deals with a similar Job-like struggle…and I’m sure it wasn’t a screenplay coincidence that his name is Jack O’Brien.

The story is life seen through the eyes of eleven-year-old Jack in a series of flashback memories (Sean Penn plays the grownup version) and life-moment vignettes focusing on the complicated relationship he has with his father (Brad Pitt). His mother represents grace with a quiet authority; the father is the way of nature…the embodiment of Tennyson’s, “…Nature, red in tooth and claw…”.

In the opening scenes, the mother, played by a transcendent Jessica Chastain, narrates in a voice-over, “The nuns taught us there were two ways through life: the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.” (yes, I'm Wesleyan). This establishes the storyline and moral tug-of-war.

Malick even throws in a visually-overwhelming creation narrative that puts the characters' lives in perspective, reflecting the opening verse from Job. It includes a powerful metaphorical depiction of Jack’s birth. Very moving.

But what made the film fascinating and unique for me was the running internal dialogue Jack has with God. Jack is confused and troubled by his father’s strict parenting and dog-eat-dog view of life and argues with God. There is a gradual awakening of his ability to choose the way of grace or of nature…and Jack seems to feel he is becoming trapped like his own father, in a struggle with good and evil.

Years later, he and his parents receive the news that his younger brother has died. We’re not told how (in director Malick’s real life his younger classical guitar-playing brother—as in the movie—committed suicide). As an adult, Jack appears to be a successful but lost soul. Did he choose his father’s way?

Spoiler alert (though the movie is such a discombobulating visual feast, I’m not sure this matters a whole lot):

At the end of the movie, adult Jack has a sudden vision of being in an arid, desert-like place and sees his younger self in the distance calling for him to follow him (become like a child?). He steps through a standalone doorway (Christ?) and begins to walk toward an endless beach seeing all his family members. His mother, seemingly comforted by two young women (symbolic angels?), narrates, “I give you my son.” In what seems to be a reconciling and redemptive moment, Jack snaps out of it and is back in his current architecture job, with a slight smile.

Prior to this scene, as the family is forced to move from their home, packed into their car looking back at the house they’ve always known, Jack’s mother voice-overs: “The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by.”

Though some found it confusing and meandering at nearly two-and-a-half-hours, there were moments in the movie where I felt strangely connected to Jack and deeply empathetic. I don’t normally experience empathy at that level (my wife Anita jokes that I’m missing the empathy gene).

I found the movie drenched in Christian symbolism, even not-so-subtly quoting from Romans and Job.

Maybe it’s just me, but it was the movie of the year for my money. Uh, all of a $1.49 at Drug Mart. But don’t blame me if you hate it and find yourself scratching your head at the end of it, muttering, “Wha...?”

I loved it.
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desperation, rich mullins...and a million years ago

2011-10-31T01:02:00.014-04:00

My friend Beth Lutz sent me a couple of photos from what seems like a million years ago. Beth was Beth Snell before she married my buddy and co-pastor Mark. She sang with an acoustic Christian group way back in the late seventies/early eighties (sorry, Beth) named Zion. Zion was centered around an unknown, piano-hammering young singer-songwriter named Rich Mullins. I was working a minimum wage job downtown in the catacombs of the Public Library and Rich worked a few blocks away in the ticket booth in the Shillito’s parking garage. We’d get together and argue theology—neither one of us really knew much—and wonder why the church had a problem with long hair at the time. He was raised in a conservative religious home, I was raised in a pagan home. Rich was slightly wacky. Maybe that’s what religion does to you, I don’t know. But I think that’s why I liked him.

I had just become a Christian, gotten a civilian job, and had started playing guitar more seriously after being a drummer in bar bands from the time I was fourteen. Remind me to tell you the story sometime of an expletive-ranting bar owner in Kentucky that kept a beer-guzzling live bear in a cage that bit his finger off one night between sets. At the time it seemed, uh, justified somehow. But I digress.

I met another Christian named Paul Niehaus who had a TEAC four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder (I told you this was a long time ago) in his basement with an old upright piano. He and I played guitars together and had started gigging in local coffeehouses in the mid-seventies. At night Rich would come to Paul’s basement and bang furiously on the upright, I’d play my black-oyster pearl Ludwig drums and Paul thumped bass. Paul and I eventually formed an acoustic group with a female singer and female violinist. And then married them. Is music great or what?

Rich formed Zion and then a relative loaned him the money to go to 5th Floor Studios in Cincinnati and record a self-produced album. Rich called and asked if I would play drums on the sessions and of course I said yes. A friend named Tony Ross played bass. Greg McNeilly engineered and went on to engineer all three albums for a band called Prodigal that I had the pleasure of playing with in the early-to-mid-eighties (for some of that retro-80's-blast-from-the-past-rock-goodness, click below...)

Anyway, it was a song from that Zion session called Sing Your Praise to the Lord that made its way to the ears of rising CCM pop star Amy Grant. The rest is early Christian music history.

Rich was signed as songwriter, moved to Nashville and eventually released his own music, later forming and traveling with A Ragamuffin Band. By the early nineties, his songs were picked up by other artists by the boatloads. Awesome God became a signature worship chorus. Rich could have been fairly wealthy, but instead he arranged for a small church he had attended to receive all his money and had them pay him whatever the average income was in America—about $25,000 then. The church gave the rest of the money out to various ministries and needs. Rich never married and started a quasi-monastic order called the “Kid Brothers of St. Frank.” He said he would have been a Catholic monk but was too much of a wimp. When an executive from a record label once asked him if he knew how much money was pouring in from royalties, he simply said, “No…it would just make it that much harder to give away.”

Like most of us, Rich was a complex personality. Deeply desperate for God, a strong sense of justice, more than a little quirky, critically honest and opinionated. Years passed before I saw him again. The last couple of times were at a Bruce Cockburn concert at Bogart’s and then bringing him in to play at the Vineyard on a weekend in the mid-nineties. He died shortly afterward in a tragic car accident on the way to a benefit concert.

In the end, I think it works like this: the more we’re aware of how screwed up we really are, the more desperate we become for Jesus. Maybe it’s the implied message when Jesus forgave the prostitute who washed his feet with her tears: the one who is forgiven much loves much. It certainly creates a desperation for God. We really, really need Him. I mean, who do we think we’re kidding? Perhaps that’s why the Bible says, “The fool has said in his heart: there is no God.” (Ps 14:1)

I think that’s why I absolutely loved Joe Boyd’s message this weekend in the Strong Challenge series. The angle he took with the “Strong Training” segment was the desperation factor: it’s only when we’re really desperate that we get serious about doing anything we can to be near Jesus.

I could use some more of that in my bones.

And I hope there’s a funky old upright piano in the Kingdom Come; it would be good to hear Rich again. He was a desperate man.
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occupy protests

2011-10-17T23:08:00.010-04:00

I’m mesmerized by the Occupy protests, perhaps oddly in the same way I was fascinated by the Tea Party movement, or for that matter, the Arab Spring. It doesn’t help to watch a particularly crazy person snag the media interview on your polarized news source of choice, or to buy into the short-sighted categories and simple labels like communists, ultraconservatives, fundamentalists, socialists, or whatever depending on the movement. But it’s more than sociologically interesting when groups of people begin leveraging social media to tap into a simmering discontent. And then the tipping point comes.

Even apart from the politics and economics (let alone the moral implications), the blending of human nature, discontent and movements is intriguing. The fact is, any protest movement has to be listened to by the sheer fact that it reflects a repository of frustration. Although the voice of Occupy is light-years from being monolithic and seemingly still in a deconstructive phase, it is reflecting one thing clearly: a frustration with economic inequities reflected by the widening gap between the rich and poor.

Tread carefully here: greed and coveting are equally creepy, whether you’re the 99 or the 1 percenter.

We may agree or disagree with the movement’s aims (if they become clarified) or what the solution is—or even whether it elicits a solution (a la “let a free market settle it”)—but the movement is certainly reflecting a perception. And you know the connection between perception and reality.

I came across this fascinating response by a blogger/commentator named Josh Brown featured on APM’s Marketplace website and radio show. Josh is part of the Evil Empire, the “one-percenters”, those being vilified by the Occupy folks: Wall Street traders, bankers and stockbrokers who have been accused of controlling one-third of America’s wealth. He’s an investment advisor at Fusion Analytics in Manhattan. He wrote under the heading of Dear Wall Street, this is why the people are angry:

“In 2008, the American people were told that if they didn't bail out the banks, their way of life would never be the same. In no uncertain terms, our leaders told us anything short of saving these insolvent banks would result in a depression to the American public. We had to do it!

“At our darkest hour we gave these banks every single thing they asked for. We allowed investment banks to borrow money at zero percent interest rate, directly from the Fed. We gave them taxpayer cash right onto their balance sheets. We allowed them to suspend account rules and pretend that the toxic sludge they were carrying was worth 100 cents on the dollar. Anything to stave off insolvency. We left thousands of executives in place at these firms. Nobody went to jail, not a single perp walk. I can't even think of a single example of someone being fired. People resigned with full benefits and pensions, as though it were a job well done.

“The American taxpayer kicked in over a trillion dollars to help make all of this happen. But the banks didn't hold up their end of the bargain. The banks didn't seize this opportunity, this second chance to re-enter society as a constructive agent of commerce. Instead, they went back to business as usual. With $20 billion in bonuses paid during 2009. Another $20 billion in bonuses paid in 2010. And they did this with the profits they earned from zero percent interest rates that actually acted as a tax on the rest of the economy.

“Instead of coming back and working with this economy to get back on its feet, they hired lobbyists by the dozen to fight tooth and nail against any efforts whatsoever to bring common sense regulation to the financial industry. Instead of coming back and working with the people, they hired an army of robosigners to process millions of foreclosures. In many cases, without even having the proper paperwork to evict the homeowners. Instead, the banks announced layoffs in the tens of thousands, so that executives at the top of the pile could maintain their outrageous levels of compensation.

“We bailed out Wall Street to avoid Depression, but three years later, millions of Americans are in a living hell. This is why they're enraged, this why they're assembling, this is why they hate you. Why for the first time in 50 years, the people are coming out in the streets and they're saying, ‘Enough.’”

Interesting.

No matter which side of the fence you were on regarding TARP and the bailout, one thing is for sure: when leaders, whether they be political, economic, cultural or spiritual leaders, become so tone deaf that they can’t hear the pop song, there’s dissonance a’coming. I have to agree with Josh on this one. What were the trustees and boards-of-directors thinking when they karaoked to “Executives Gone Wild”…especially when those at the top were the ones ultimately responsible for tanking their own companies, save for the taxpayer bailout? Of course companies can do whatever they want to with their own money…that’s part of how capitalism works. But how do you miss the obvious PR meta-message? Really?

Miguel De La Torre, associate professor of social ethics at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, writes, “During the booming economy (1990 to 1995) when most corporations reported profit increases of up to 50 percent, the average CEO's pay rose from $1.9 million to $3.2 million, while the average worker, during that same time period, experienced a pay drop from $22,976 to $22,838.”

One of the purposes of the prophets in the Old Testament was to force the people with power and privilege to face the music. It shouldn’t surprise us that there is an over-abundance of warnings given regarding the abuse of power and money. Over and over.

Jeremiah prophesied with the word of God:

“Doom to him who builds palaces but bullies people, who makes a fine house but destroys lives, who cheats his workers and won’t pay them for their work, who says, ‘I’ll build me an elaborate mansion with spacious rooms and fancy windows. I’ll bring in rare and expensive woods and the latest in interior decor.’” Jeremiah 22:13–14 (Message Version)

Through Ezekiel, the Father cried:

“The sin of your sister Sodom was this: She lived with her daughters in the lap of luxury—proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignored the oppressed and the poor. They put on airs and lived obscene lives. And you know what happened: I did away with them.” Ezekiel 16:49–50 (Message Version)

This really isn’t a rip on the rich. Let’s be honest: compared to most of the world, all of us are pretty wealthy. If you’re reading this on your own computer, you’re among the estimated 6-7% elite of the world. But it seems to me that when a sizable group of people begin questioning the gap, someone needs to listen. Perhaps there is something to a “populous prophetic” voice.

The French Revolution is derided or cheered depending on your historical politics. It eventually produced Napoleon. Sheesh—what a megalomaniac. Yet it was the self-consumed French aristocracy and the wealthy, powerful Church clergy who really missed it, and paid dearly with their heads. Literally. Though it’s a dubious Marie Antoinette quote, “Let them eat cake” reflected the tone-deaf response to the populous when, among a barrage of other things, bread prices increased fifty-percent.

All I’m saying is that those at the top have a responsibility to be aware and respond wisely. If I were asked (uh, doubtful) to give a little pastoral advice to CEO’s and execs, it would be this: don’t ignore the rumble; a little self-restraint and self-discipline could go a long, long way.

And we should all reread James—he should get some credit if just for being the brother of Jesus.

I’m just saying.

the prom

2011-09-26T18:03:00.007-04:00

I wish I could say we came up with the idea, but we didn’t. But we sure have enjoyed putting our spin on it. For years the Prom has been a seriously big party for adults with special needs. It’s that simple. And it all happens this Friday.

It’s a funny thing about us Christians: we may talk about being outcasts. Aliens. Sojourners. Peculiar people. Strangers. Those are all Biblical and theological metaphors for those who have taken the advice of Saint Peter in Acts 2: “Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!” (Acts 2:40 Message Version). The man certainly had a way with words.

And by the way, notice in this account that the prescriptive admonition wasn’t a “fire escape”; it wasn’t about hell. It was about escaping from the pathetically miniscule and inward-focused philosophical approaches of this world, the me-first, performance-based, dog-eat-dog ways of thinking about life…the cultural mandates that shape us into narcissistic social-capital consumers, far and away from God’s design. As C. S. Lewis famously remarked:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”

It reads in Acts that about three thousand people got baptized and joined this new little sect of Judaism that claimed to have found the messiah. And about seventy generations later, there are still people claiming to escape their cultural malaise by following the Risen God-Man, Jesus.

And so we’re labeled outcasts. Aliens. Strangers in a strange land. We relate to that because of the light-year distance of our ethics, ideals, motivations and beliefs from the average carbon-based biped caught up in the current zeitgeist. We become different. We think and react differently. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

But what if you were marked in ways that signaled obvious physical and social differences from the norm?

At our original Prom event, one woman told me it was the first time in her life to go somewhere where people didn’t stare at her. Can you imagine a lifetime of that? It’s one thing to feel different; it’s another to know you are recognizably different in ways that others tend to react with pity…or indifference…or condescension…or with a clumsy discomfort. For us spiritual and moral sojourners, marked differently because of the infusion of the Holy Spirit, it should be the most supernaturally natural thing to love and create space for those who must feel like disaffected strangers because of physical and social limitations. It expresses the God who longs for a community, the Father who “sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6).

It’s never too late to volunteer, from simple cleanup duties…to pre-event setup..to being an escort for someone to help make sure they experience everything the Prom has to offer. Just click here...

Come join the party Friday night. It could seriously change your life.

Big God|Big Church

2011-09-04T21:15:00.012-04:00

A bit of a recap…and then a question or two.

One summer when I was a little boy in Augusta, Kentucky (population 1500), my mom sent me to a church on Fourth Street for something called Vacation Bible School. No one in my family was really a Christian. We didn’t know that. We thought we were Christians because we were Americans. And sometimes we went to church.

And we weren’t Catholic.

Catholics were, well, Catholics. If you’re Catholic, don’t get upset. You were probably taught that people like me weren’t going to heaven because we weren’t Catholic. Yes, we were all spiritually dysfunctional; it didn’t matter what label you pasted on it.

If you drive up graveyard hill in Augusta, you’ll find a Protestant cemetery and a Catholic cemetery divided by a single-lane blacktop road. We didn’t talk about religion when we were sucking air…and we certainly didn’t mix things up when we weren’t.

Anyway, mom sent me to this church for Vacation Bible School. I didn’t like the sound of it. I knew that vacation didn’t have anything remotely to do with school. That’s an oxymoron if ever there was one. And then you throw the Bible-word in the middle of it and you have all the excitement of watching Mr. Rogers talk about dental hygiene.

But I went. Once. We colored little mimeographed (don’t ask) drawings of stained glass with waxy Crayola-wannabe crayons. And that was the last time I went. So each day mom sent me to Vacation Bible School, I would leave the house to walk to the church and then promptly head down a side alley to find my buddies and play army all day instead.

Church held zero interest for me. By the sixth grade, my parents no longer made me go. I suppose it wasn’t worth the hassle for them and I’m not so sure they even liked going themselves. But I was set free. To me, church had nothing to offer but sleepy monotone sermons, nothing that had any real connection with my life, and a waste of perfectly good free time on a weekend. And that’s how I felt through high school and my early college experience. Thanks, but no thanks. If it works for you, go for it. But keep it away from me.

And then something otherworldly happened: I met Jesus. Not in a blinding vision, but in the simple personal stories of some fellow musicians—people who looked like me—who had become part of the Jesus Movement back in the day.

Everything changed. I found myself being transformed, challenged and empowered. Suddenly the Bible came alive. And the Jesus I read about there was nothing like how I remembered him in my limited church experience: He was radically different. He upset the religious people, challenged the status quo and even ticked off His own disciples at times. What’s more, He spoke with an authority like no one else I’d ever heard. And He somehow mixed that power and authority with servanthood in a way that was neuron-bending. And what about that apparent “crucifixion-and-coming-back-to-life-again”-thing?—whoa. Could that be true? He became so real to me in ways I couldn’t fully understand. I began changing in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. My friends were puzzled and didn’t know what to say to me. I really didn’t talk about it that much (uh, I think), but in the house I was living with the other musicians in the band, the keyboardist suddenly said, “I’m not living in a house with a Jesus-freak” and moved out.

Truth was: I really liked Jesus. A lot. But I still had some problems with His followers…and this thing called church. At times it seemed so small, so focused on little things and inward. Sometimes it seemed that Christians could be beautifully charitable and then turn around and say something ridiculously racist or insensitive. And why were they so strange on TV with really big hair and makeup applied with a trowel, exchanging plastic crosses for “your love gift of $25”?

And sometimes I wondered why there were churches on every corner…and why did they argue over things that seemed—at least to me—inconsequential and petty?

Then one day I had an epiphany. A revelation from God.

I was one of them.

I was part of this thing called The Church. I was no longer an outsider who could take potshots at those hypocritical, judgmental Christians. Now I was one of them…and attending a church. I didn’t see that coming.

Truth was: my picture of the Big ‘C’ Church was very, very small. And Christianity had vastly changed the culture in ways I was largely unaware. I had a very narrow and plebeian view.

For instance, it was Christianity that helped change the world’s view of women. Greek philosopher Plato wrote that only men are “created directly by the gods and are given souls.” His pupil Aristotle said that women were no more than birth defects. In the footsteps of Greece, the Roman Empire simply didn’t want baby girls and freely practiced infanticide. At an archaeological dig at Ashkelon, archaeologists found one hundred skeletons of week-old infants in the sewers under a Roman bath. They had been flushed in the drains and drowned.

In his book Reasons for God, Tim Keller writes, “It was extremely common in the Greco-Roman world to throw out new female infants to die from exposure, because of the low status of women in society. The church forbade its members to do so. Greco-Roman society saw no value in an unmarried woman, and therefore it was illegal for a widow to go more than two years without remarrying. But Christianity was the first religion to not force widows to marry. They were supported financially and honored within the community so that they were not under great pressure to remarry if they didn't want to.”

He goes on: “...the pagan double standard of allowing married men to have extramarital sex and mistresses was forbidden. In all these ways Christian women enjoyed far greater security and equality than did women in the surrounding culture.”

The fact that Jesus had women who followed Him and were included in His extended circle of disciples and teaching sessions was incredibly shocking to both the Roman and Jewish cultures of His day.

Even more, Christianity was first to methodically argue against slavery. In the early Church, Christians would save their money to buy slaves in order to set them free. It came from the revolutionary notion that all were made equal in Christ; or as the apostle Paul writes in Galatians: You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus . . . There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26, 28). Before we misapply Paul’s writings and accuse him of misogyny, understand the cultural and specific context.

All in all, it was an extremely radical idea for that world, and sadly, the Church hasn’t always lived up to it.

The story of the Good Samaritan that raised the question of who is my neighbor was shocking to say the least. And the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount created a servant culture in the early Church that was absolutely head-tilting. Love your enemies?—you’ve got to be kidding: we’re talking about an oppressive Roman government, right?

And it was the early Christians who stayed in the towns when decimating diseases and plagues struck so they could take care of the sick who were left behind, even when the local physicians would flee. In the fourth century, the Roman emperor Julian—who hated Christianity and wanted to rub it out—wrote angrily to a friend that the Christians “feed not only their poor but ours also.”

Our ways of viewing people and their intrinsic value has been so shaped by Christianity that we don’t even realize it, it is so much a part of our culture. When all the stories of the pagan gods were about them creating people so that they—the gods—may be served, the story of a God who comes to earth in the form of a servant in order to “serve and give his life as a ransom for many” was shocking.

My picture of the Church and its influence was way too small.

But one question still bothered the skeptic in me: What happened?

How did a self-sacrificing passionate movement end up doing crazy things throughout the subsequent centuries? How could it morph into an organizational system that produced factions and sects, an Inquisition, Crusades or Elmer Gantry-styled preachers?

One day Jesus told an unnerving story. He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

Jesus would later say that in the end He Himself would separate the true from the false, the legit from the play-actors…and there would be many who come to Him and say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.’” There was never a connection, a truly humbled and surrendered dependence on Jesus. I find in exceptionally unnerving that Jesus would say He never knew someone.

Or there will be some who say, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?” In a mirror-image statement of His response to those on the right, He says to them, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’”

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father.”

That is a chilling statement. Now ask yourself:

Are you like me in that I didn’t really see this Big Idea called The Church? And how can we take something as spectacular as the Body of Christ and miniaturize it? The good news is that anyone can join this movement—the phenomenal Church that is bringing the Kingdom to earth—but the only way in is to humble yourself under the Lordship of Jesus.

At least, that’s what the earliest Christians would give up life itself for.

“…On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:13–19

leadership: it's obvious when it's not

2011-08-24T23:46:00.005-04:00

Once again I’m sitting in the quonset hut-like building called Terminal 2 at CVG—Cincinnati’s international airport. The claustrophobic shotgun Terminal 2 services Continental, American Airlines and United Airlines. No kidding. CVG is like walking into an apocalyptic movie set: empty, frayed and eerily quiet. This was once a bustling, thriving airport, peaking in the late nineties. 911 obviously didn’t help, but storm clouds were on the horizon before that. The airport Delta built (Literally. They dumped millions into it—apparently a rare move for an airline) was flying high, particularly on a novel idea of short commuter flights until other nearby airports like Dayton and Indianapolis got into the same game. When Delta squeezed other low-cost carriers out of Cincinnati by temporarily lowering its fees until they left and then ramping them back up, CVG became the nation’s most expensive departure ticket. And then the Northwest merger. Northwest already had a huge hub being built in Detroit, so say goodbye to the unprofitable airport curiously built in Kentucky.

Now it just looks sad. Nowhere can you find a flight monitor in Terminal 2. Several of the gate monitors needed to be rebooted. No one from AA is in sight until right before a flight leaves. Good luck trying to find help. Thank God for smartphones. In settings like this, I don’t blame the poor employees who have to walk in and face a flock of frustrated flyers; this is a leadership issue and a supervisory breakdown, from the airlines to airport management. Someone at the top is either uninformed or apathetic. It’s always about leadership.

This morning the news reported a national survey on the “happiness index” of our fifty states. Hawaii scored the top of the happy list. Before you say, “Duh”, the next two were Alaska and North Dakota. Really. I assume some of it had to do with employment opportunities, but apparently the survey measures numerous intangibles.

But get this: the bottom four were Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi and West Virginia. Ohio, thank you, borders two of them.

Last week I took my friends from the U.K. who were staying with me to downtown Cincinnati on a Monday afternoon. She’s a beautiful city when viewed through the downward twisting cut in I-75 heading north from Kentucky, with a tight, shining skyline ringed with hills. But her close-up on a Monday during regular work time was sad. The city seemed abandoned. The once burgeoning Tower Place Mall creeped me out with half of the stores closed. On Race Street, the remnant of a skywalk crosses overhead and suddenly stops in mid-air above a parking lot where a former building—now leveled—once connected. Its stub is covered in warping, splintered plywood. And it’s been that way for years. As we walked up Vine north of Fifth Street in front of Brooks Brothers and Tiffany’s, the sidewalk smelled of urine. Even if we don’t know how to solve the unemployment and homeless issue, doesn’t management care enough to have someone simply hose the sidewalk in the morning? This is good business, regardless of the social issues.

Moreover, in a previous census, Cincinnati proper was listed as the third poorest large city in the country, behind Detroit and Buffalo. What happened? It’s amazing how momentum can suddenly shift and an organization, a sports team, a township, and yes, a church, begins to drift. Organizational guru and author Ichak Adizes in his classic book Corporate Lifecycles lays out organizations life-stages on a Bell curve like this:

According to Adizes, every stage has unique problems that must be solved. That’s normal. But chronic ones can obviously cause it to stall, burn out, or even rush through later lifecycles that set up an early death if not dealt with appropriately, even when everything seems to be charting up-and-to-the-right. Research lead Adizes to this discovery: the organization has a critical need to stay in a state of “Prime” and, interestingly enough, not settle in “Stable”. In his study, Prime is that delicate balance between organizational flexibility and organizational self-control. And in my mind, that’s a leadership responsibility based on good data, sharp teammates, and some intuitive smarts. For us church leaders, add the vital need to keep our prophetic ear to the ground.

As for Cincinnati, it does no good to point fingers or play politics. That’s silly. And Cincinnati’s not even the point of this post. My point is that most chronic problems in any system usually stem from a leadership breakdown somewhere. If you haven’t read Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament, check it out: the ebb and flow of effective leadership shifts the momentum in a heartbeat. The sad history of Israel is laid out warts-and-all. It isn’t pretty.

And as an aside, some of us believe Cincinnati can thrive again. In the Old Testament, God told his people they had a job to do even in the city that had carried them off as prisoners. I would say even more so for us: “Also do good things for the city where I sent you as captives. Pray to the Lord for the city where you are living, because if good things happen in the city, good things will happen to you also.” (Jeremiah 29:7 NCV)

If I might add one more thing at the risk of sounding self-promoting: pray for your leaders. In your city…and in your local church.

I know this leader needs it.

A city without wise leaders will end up in ruin; a city with many wise leaders will be kept safe. (Proverbs 11:14 CEV)
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lady gaga is right…sort of

2011-06-30T15:41:00.001-04:00

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The latest DNA research development is fascinating. As exploration inside “Darwin’s Black Box” carries on, scientists are discovering more and more predispositions to behaviors and abilities, both good and bad. Last month it was reported that a regulating gene for obesity and diabetes was discovered at King’s College in London. Apparently, we inherit the gene from both mom and dad. The cell from our mom regulates our metabolism, while the one from dad is switched off in us at birth. The discovery could be a breakthrough in curing Type 2 diabetes. Amazing.

The so-called “fat gene” has been fodder for late-night comedians for some time. But it now seems that certain people may have a propensity for obesity based on genetics. For those of us tipping the scales on the hefty side, this brought a sort of perverse relief. It at least weighed in, no pun intended, on the nature-versus-nurture debate.

Er, sort of.

It turns out that there may be a delicate interdependent dance between environment, behavior and genes.

Last year, Time magazine did a cover story on the burgeoning field of epigenetics. In the 80’s, a Swedish scientist began studying the long-term effects that earlier famine or feast years had on succeeding generations. The article states the question that prestigious preventive-health specialist Dr. Lars Olov Bygren began asking:

“Could parents' experiences early in their lives somehow change the traits they passed to their offspring? To put it simply, the data suggested that a single winter of overeating as a youngster could initiate a biological chain of events that would lead one's grandchildren to die decades earlier than their peers did. How could this be possible?”

That study and others led to the discovery of epigenes. As the article reports, “…Epigentics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material—the epigenome—that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic "marks" that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.”

Fascinating. Science seems to be saying that nature and nurture are physiologically entwined. Bad behaviors in parents prior to their children’s conception can predispose future kids to certain diseases and even early deaths. It strikes me as more than interesting that the Bible says God visits “the sins of the fathers on the children on the third and the fourth generations…” (Exodus 20:5)

I have little doubt that future genetic—and epigenetic—studies will only reveal more and more our propensity toward certain behaviors. Who knows if kleptomania, overeating, sexual orientation, MPD and more will be uncovered in the intense research of those microscopic three-billion base pairs? So as Lady Gaga sings in her gazillion-seller hyper-catchy pop tome, Born This Way,

“It doesn’t matter if you love him or capital H-I-M,
Just put your paws up ‘cause you were born this way, baby…
…I’m beautiful in my way ‘cause god makes no mistakes,
I’m on the right track baby: I was born this way”

Sounds like you’re destined before you’re even conceived…and to some degree, even by the mere behaviors of your back-to-the-future parents. Is Lady Gaga right?—is it true God makes no mistakes? But what if He wasn’t in the “making” in the most operational sense? Are we to blame God for our cellular predisposition, good or bad? The fact that Gaga’s vocal cords are shaped and stretched a certain way for those powerhouse ultrasonic notes, was that God? Is her self-proclaimed bisexuality from God?

Here’s the big question at the core of Christianity: What if we’re all really, really flawed?

And flawed all the way down to our DNA? Is that a game-changer in any way? My genetics are broken and I have to wear contact lenses: should I blame that on God? But here’s an even deeper question: If behaviors—or to some degree even motivations—are triggered by a predisposed gene and we are born that way, does that make them amoral? Because someone “can’t help it”, does that remove any sense of morality connected with the behavior? And does that mean that we’re not responsible?

I think our brokenness—all the way down to our DNA—is part of what Paul is describing as the flesh. Think about it. Christianity claims that the Spirit of God is in conflict with our natural (genetically predisposed) nature…not because God made us that way, but because we are terrifically broken, all the way down to our genes. The Bible gives us a powerful narrative as to why we’re flawed: a desire—even in a perfect state—to be god rather than be with God. Knowing that we are deeply broken is critical to understanding Christianity; admitting we are deeply broken is the first step to experiencing Christianity.

Call it depravity, call it brokenness, call it sin, but whatever you call it, it separates us from intimately knowing God, apparently because He is perfectly unbroken. You can’t mix oil and water. Or we’re as different as chalk and cheese, as my U.K. friends say.

Just by replacing the words “sinful nature” (or “flesh” in the King James) with “flawed genetics” gives a fresh view to the conflict that Paul expresses in this passage:

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:18–20 (NIV)

It may be that our “war against the flesh” is exactly that: a conflict with what may seem natural to us. But what may seem natural to us might simply be a blindness to how broken we are. All the way down to our genes. And that may mean the only way to know whether any behavior falls in the “healthy” or “unhealthy” category—sin or not sin—is not whether it simply hurts a fellow human being, but whether it hurts the heart of God and His originally perfect design.

Now that is a game-changer. And modern science may be aiding us more that we realize.

When you follow the (natural) desires of your (broken DNA), your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19–21 (New Living Translation…with Workman-phrases in parentheses…)

sos and the next big thing...

2011-06-21T23:17:00.001-04:00

When I wrote this I was sitting in our darkened auditorium watching a thousand middle and high school students worshipping their hearts out with Matt McCoy and a phenomenal band of young musicians…hands raised, bouncing at times, singing at the top of their über-stretched vocal cords. Made me want to cry. A manly cry, of course.

“In my life…be lifted high. In my world…be lifted high. In our love…be lifted high…”

It’s hard to believe, but we’re hosting our 20th Summer Of Service—SOS—this year. It all began with an idea Steve Sjogren had in 1992: thirteen mostly out-of-town students spent a couple of months doing simple outreaches. We housed them in some rental apartments the whole time. We were, of course, in over our heads. Even then.

Now it’s only five days. But five days on steroids. Today I was washing cars for free with an amazing group of young people from Traverse City, Michigan. The very last car was driven by a 20-something woman with a five-year-old boy in tow. She was genuinely stunned by the free wash. As we finished, I asked her if there was anything she would like prayer for. She was suddenly even more surprised. She told us she had some big “life decisions” to make and told us her story. Turns out she was from Poland and soon to return since her au pair gig was finished. The five-year-old was in her charge. She really didn’t want to go back and was not sure what she would do when she did. We prayed. Her eyes filled up. We believed God heard us. And she thanked us again and drove off.

Once more, the wall between the Church and those outside came crashing down for a moment. The Kingdom of God slipped through a thin place and caught us all by surprise. And in a moment of servitude.

Last Saturday I spent three hours doing an outward-focused church leadership training workshop at Tryed Stone-New Beginning Church for my friend Jerry Culbreth. I’m always interested to see how outward-focused principles apply to different church cultures, this one being primarily an African-American congregation. During a Q&A time, someone asked, “Do you think that developing a servant-oriented culture with an emphasis on outreach will be the next wave in the local church?” My response was simple: if it’s not seen as a church-growth mechanism, yes. But I’m always suspicious of the silver bullet theory. We have to think more holistically.

Nevertheless, several years ago in the Outward Focused Life book, I posed a simple question in the introduction:

“There’s something new sneaking into the church, and in a few decades, it will be pervasive. Here’s my Next Big Thing prediction: That churches in America will become less known for their styles, for their tribes, for their proselytizing methods, for their politics, for their clamoring over Christian “rights”, for the things they’re against…and more known for the way they serve. Servanthood will be the defining characteristic of people who are followers of Jesus. The question I regularly ask myself as a pastor in Cincinnati is this: what if the Church (the “Big ‘C’ Church”) in our city was known more for serving than by any other thing?”

I’m more convinced than ever it’s the right question, particularly in the hyper-politicized, shrill-voiced polarized culture we live in now. The believers I spoke to recently at a couple of New Wine Leadership Conferences in the U.K. were more than ready for a servanthood fix (New Wine is a network of churches that are mostly Anglican). It’s not that they were unfamiliar with the idea; it’s that the leaders want to hear reinforcement of what I believe they inherently know. As with most conferences, it’s not so much that you’re bringing completely new information, but rather, a voice of affirmation.

Tomorrow morning at SOS I will again watch a couple dozen chartered school buses pull up to the Vineyard to take a thousand students around the city to practice the art of serving. Maybe this generation will do a better job that we have at presenting the Body of Christ to a lonely and lost world. And tomorrow night we’ll gather and worship Jesus simply, beautifully and with a thoroughly-filled servant-heart…thanking Him for the opportunity to make His name famous through acts of love. I think that’s pretty wise.

The fruit of a righteous person is a tree of life, and a winner of souls is wise. (Proverbs 11:30 God’s Word Translation)

Taken poorly with a droid. I know, I know...

the politics of power

2011-06-13T20:51:00.036-04:00

Although politicians seem to be having a difficult time determining how to pull the U.S. out of its economic malaise, they’re having no problem creating a stimulus for comedy writers. Case in point: Take Congressman Andrew Weiner.

Please.

Apparently 51% of his own constituents think he should stay in office according to one poll. I don’t have a dog in that fight, but I can’t imagine why any voter would put their trust in someone carving out time to take pictures of their package in the House gym. Take morality out of the question: do you want someone that stupid in his or her judgment to represent your concerns? To quote Seth: Really?

This isn’t a left versus right issue. Apparently, lack of judgment plays well on both sides of the aisle. Do I really need to make a list? And this isn’t even a slam on politicians; in the halcyon days of Enron, executives threw outlandish Bacchanalian parties that rivaled the Romans, or least Hefner’s dynasty. Not to mention their execs flashing Enron-logo credit cards in Houston strip clubs, buying $500+ bottles of Cristal and traipsing off to the VIP rooms with strippers in tow. Too bad for shareholders and employees that lost all of their retirement savings in the freefall of Enron. The beat goes on: Rajaratnam, Madoff, Boesky, Milken, and on an on.

Sometimes the smartest guys in the room aren’t the smartest guys in the room.

Last month, Time magazine’s editor-at-large Nancy Gibbs nailed the cover story with her article, Sex. Lies. Arrogance. What Makes Powerful Men Act Like Pigs. The International Monetary Fund president Dominique Strauss-Kahn—and potential next president of France—was arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting a hotel maid in Manhattan. Apparently, there were past “indiscretions” that emerged as well. Gibbs writes:

“A study set to be published in Psychological Science found that the higher men—or women—rose in a business hierarchy, the more likely they were to consider committing adultery. With power comes both the opportunity and confidence . . . and with confidence comes a sense of sexual entitlement.”

I’ve already blogged about the dangers of entitlement in general, but let me touch on power. And it’s not just a problem for politicians, executives and celebrities—they’re simply in the crosshairs of the paparazzi.

People can abuse power in a non-profit organization or on a church board, around a dinner table or in a street gang. Or in a marriage. Face it: power is that mouth-watering addiction to being in charge. Power is abused when it slips into control. The greatest picture we have of power used correctly is God Himself: He created beings with free will who could choose to love and obey Him or not. Try to imagine the Chief of New York’s Finest standing by, with all his available firepower, while his son is nailed to a telephone pole in the Bronx by a petty street gang of thugs.

In Feinberg and Tarrant’s book Why Smart People do Dumb Things, they recount the story of Stew Leonard. Leonard was a smart entrepreneur in Connecticut who turned a family dairy business into a shopping theme park with a petting zoo and singing animatronic animals. Back in the day, Tom Peters, the author of the mega-seller In Search of Excellence, praised Stew for his business acumen and ethics, a model for excellence. Leonard had pictures of himself with movie stars and ex-presidents. Someone got suspicious when Leonard turned up at an airport with a suspicious amount of pocket cash—$75,000. The feds ended up raiding him and discovered a computer program in a hollowed out book that Stew had used to cheat the government out of hundreds of thousand of dollars. Arrogance—a spawn of power—answers to no one.

In the Old Testament, David understood the vanity of power. He had seen a bigger-than-life, impressive king—a head taller than his brothers—become arrogant and unresponsive to God. Saul was replaced by a shepherd boy with a slingshot. Later, David wrote in Psalm 20: Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Problem is: none of us is bulletproof.

Decades later, in the time of year “when kings go off to war”, David, the powerful king of Israel, didn’t. Instead he found himself voyeuristically watching a woman bathe. In an astonishing abuse of power, he had her brought to him and slept with her. He knew her husband Uriah was off fighting the King’s war. There was never any evidence Bathsheba wanted or enjoyed this. After all, how does one refuse a celebrated and powerful king, anointed by God? As a matter of fact, months later she sends a terse message to King David: I’m pregnant.

Eventually David has Uriah surreptitiously killed in battle…and Bathsheba mourns for her loss. David makes her his wife and all doesn’t end happily.

It was an abuse of power. And a generational mess.

Bathsheba was the wife who later gave birth to Solomon who would lead Israel into her glory days, but with a price. Though he humbly asks God for one thing—wisdom (and receives it supernaturally in spades)—he eventually gave in to the entitlement that power temptingly bequeaths, ends up chasing the gods of his many wives and not finishing well.

It’s taken right from the TMZ files of today.

So what’s to be learned for us commoners? Don’t kid yourself: you’re richer and more powerful than you think. You’re more-than-likely reading this on your own computer. And if you own a home and a car and get a cost-of-living increase each year, you’re among the wealthiest 15% in the entire world. If it’s two salaries and two cars, you’re in the top 5% on the blue planet.

You’re not bulletproof. Nor am I. There’s only one way into the Kingdom’s narrow door: humbly, bent over and admitting who you are to the One whom you aren’t: God. And consider the practice regularly; I’ve watched powerful preachers and people-of-God fall like lightning. They stumbled into the lie that they could handle power better than anyone else…and simply by that assessment abused it.

“To whom much is given (perhaps that’s all-inclusive to those of us who have receive His mercy), much is required.”

And get over yourself.
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a personal note on another royal wedding

2011-05-06T03:58:00.005-04:00

I’m writing this from Phoenix after speaking at the Vineyard National Leaders Conference. It’s been a whirlwind of activity recently: our youngest daughter just got married on Friday night, we left two days later for Arizona, we’ll fly home on Friday night and take off for England the next day to speak at three different conferences.

I haven’t really had time to process my feelings about last Friday night with my daughter Katie. Both our girls—if you don’t mind a little bragging—are pretty remarkable. Rachel got married two years ago and lives in Chattanooga. She and her husband Tyler are very involved in leadership at the Chattanooga Vineyard. I’m super-proud of both of them.

Katie lives here in Cincinnati and has married a great guy named James who is on staff with us at Vineyard Cincinnati. Katie has been involved with Student Ministries and currently facilitates worship for a young adult group that James leads.

Weeks ago Katie and I talked about what she wanted to do for the father/daughter dance at her wedding reception. I threw out some ideas but none really grabbed her. She said she would pick one out. As the day got closer, I wondered what she was going to do. At the rehearsal she said it would be a surprise. I wondered if it was some song she liked as a little girl. And then I remembered the N’Sync and Backstreet Boys teenage years and got worried. Oh well…it was her day. It could be a joke-song of sorts.

Then she got me.

When Katie was a little girl, she was never comfortable with sleepovers. I think some of it had to do with her fighting asthma and afraid she might not do well and have an emergency. Whatever the reason, she just didn’t feel comfortable. For her it was really a big fear to overcome. Most of us have something like that. The first few times she tried it, about 11 PM I’d get a call from a parent saying, “I think Katie really wants to come home”…and of course I’d go get her. She would fight the tears back, disappointed with herself.

One day she wanted to go with the other little kids on a two night retreat at the church. When I pulled up, there were lots of other little kids and their parents waiting in line. As we got out of the car, her eyes filled up and she said, “I don’t think I can do this.” And of course no little kid wants other little kids to see them crying. She jumped back in the car and burst into tears. She really wanted to do it but was simply anxious.

I’d been through this before and honestly I felt frustrated. She was at an age where I really thought she should handle this. I started to slip into a controlling mode to tell her I’m not going to do this again and if we turned around and drove all the way back home, that was it—I’m done—and she should be old enough to handle this. Bla bla bla...

But instead, God was merciful and shut my big mouth (which isn’t always the case). And then He gave me something else to offer.

I said, “Katie, I’ll tell you what. I can be a father to you in two ways right now: I can be ‘soft daddy’ and say, ‘Honey, you don’t have to do this. It’s not a big deal; your time will come. Let’s go home.’ Or I can be ‘tough daddy’ and say, ‘Come on, Katie, You’re a big girl; you can do this.’ I’ll be whatever you need right now.”

She looked down at the floor, took a deep breath and said, “I want you to be ‘tough daddy’…”

And so we got out of the car and walked all around the parking lot while I gave her my best Woody Hayes talk without the expletives. “You can do this, Katie! You’re going to have a blast and by the end of this you’re going to wish you could keep staying! It’s not that big of a deal; you’re not that far away. You can call me if you absolutely need to…and I’ll be there. But you can do this—I know you can!”

She hugged my neck and left…and never had another problem. I’m glad I didn’t force anything on her. Control is really not that great of a deal.

And then years later I remember the day she drove to Nashville without really knowing anyone and found a place to live with two other girls for two years and became fearless in so many areas of her life in Jesus, discovering her own faith. Six months after that she took off for Australia, Thailand and Indonesia with Youth With A Mission for nearly a half-year.

And so here we are at the wedding. It was in a one-hundred year old Catholic church that our friends at Vineyard Central bought a few years ago. The room was filled with tables, beaucoup candles, food, wine and old and new friends. After the ceremony and dinner, my buddy and co-worker Alton Alexander announced the father/daughter dance…and said it was a special song that Katie had written and recorded for this night. I was surprised, partly because I’ve always been a cheerleader for Katie’s songwriting, but she had cooled off a bit on writing in the last few years. She gave me that two-hundred watt Katie smile, held my hand, and we danced as she whispered the lyrics in my ear while we both cried…

Dance With Me | Katie Workman

Kiss my heart

Once is not enough

My dreams won’t find me

Without that last touch

I won’t forget

As I drove away

You’re so hard to leave and

I tried to be brave

So dance with me

Dance with me

This will be our song

Taught me to love

Forgive those that hurt

Gave me the freedom

To fall and to learn

Here in this dress

Where everything changed

You opened your hand and

You gave me away

So dance with me

Dance with me

This will be our song

Yeah, pretty well wiped me out.

May they have a long and Spirit-filled marriage.

what i really meant to say. really.

2011-04-15T18:42:00.014-04:00

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Well, this past weekend certainly stirred things up.

Last week I upset a number of people at the Vineyard in a talk that was scheduled months ago on compassionate action and social justice in response to living open lives before Jesus. My feeling is that social justice—or for that matter, any mercy work that we do—is confusing if it isn’t undergirded with empathy. I tend to think incarnational Christianity is rooted in that; that before we wag our fingers and pronounce judgment on individuals or groups, let’s first try slipping into their shoes. At least attempt it. Oddly, it seems way easier to spot the splinter in someone else’s eye while missing the two-by-four in our own. My own ten-year journey in a small group with pastors who are African-American has had a profound effect on how I see American culture.

Anyway, it made some folks hopping mad. In each of the four celebrations, I noticed several people walking out of the auditorium during one particular segment. There’s no way that isn’t painful when you’re speaking, no matter how thick-skinned you are.

After reading and unpacking our text from Mark 6 about the feeding of the five thousand, I returned to a particular thought about the story, specifically how the disciples had not eaten all day either. Here’s the rest of the transcript from one of the celebrations, all in blue. This isn’t a post…it’s practically a book. Sorry. A brief post-furor comment follows the transcript:

…But here’s the deal: this isn’t a story about extreme poverty. These people could return to their homes…very hungry, but they’re not going to starve. But perhaps there’s a bigger story about the heart of God. And perhaps it’s a story of what can happen when we’re hungry along with the people who need to hear Jesus…when they’re hungry, when we feel what they feel. And that’s part of the story of the incarnation. The apostle Paul says in Philippians 2: Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ, who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. And he humbled himself even further, going so far as actually to die a criminal’s death on a cross. (Philippians. 2:5-8 Living Bible)

Jesus had all the power and all the privilege and rights with His Father. They were One in the same. But something remarkable happened because of love. He slipped into the skin of a slave. He knows what we feel because He did the unthinkable: He became one of us. That’s the responsibility of the one who has the power.

I believe that incarnational Christianity is what each one of us is called to do—to slip into the skin of someone else, that we might feel what they feel and see what they see, and so love them to the fullest. That’s the real thing. That’s why it says in 2 Corinthians 8: You know how full of love and kindness Jesus was: though he was so rich, for your sakes he became poor.

What I want to do is engage your sense of empathy. The beauty of what God wants to produce in us is incarnational Christianity. God slipping into the skin of humanity, into the skin of the species that would pin Him to wood like some grade-school insect experiment, that kind of love is nearly impossible to wrap your brain around. But He modeled it, and then says to us, “Just as the Father has sent me into the world, I’m sending you.”

And that’s the idea behind the Biblical concept of social justice. When you feel what someone else feels, it will cause you to set things right if they have been marginalized, discriminated, or hurt in any way by the greed, racism or any other evil in the systems of this world.

Now I’m going to get on my soapbox here, so give me some grace.

One of the things that we try really hard to do here at Vineyard Cincinnati is avoid politics. Personally, I don’t think either of the political parties neatly holds all the truth. What’s more, my job is to introduce you to another government: the Kingdom of God. It’s not a republic, it’s not a democracy, it’s not a socialist structure, or parliamentarian, nor communistic. It’s a dictatorship, or to say it more nicely, a monarchy. You don’t get a vote. What’s more, you are a servant in its governance structure, and the only way you get any power in it is by become the least and the last. My true citizenship is in that Kingdom. It comes before everything else.

As a matter of fact, Jesus said that we were to pursue that government first—and get this—above everything else in life. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have responsibilities in the country we live in and shouldn’t work for justice or be grateful for where we live, but it does mean that it is kept in perspective. We have spiritual brothers and sisters in every country on the earth, and our allegiance to them and the common Kingdom we live in is greater than any nationalism or patriotism.

In the end, my Father is the King over it all, and He’s not an American, He’s not a white European, He’s not even a “Christian”, per se. He’s God, the Creator of an entire universe for His pleasure, who gave His own Son for the redemption of every tribe and nation on the planet. And so I’m careful not to share my personal political persuasion. I’m here to help you find your way into that Kingdom.

Now let me offer the flipside of that. It’s hard to talk about justice—and social justice—without mentioning this next cultural issue. And here’s where it gets dicey.

Last year there was a lot of huffing and puffing, debating and name-calling on the internet about the phrase social justice. It turns out that a popular political commentator said that if you see those words anywhere on your church’s website, “run (away) as fast as you can.” He later backtracked a bit, but largely stuck to his guns. Now let me clarify something: that religious advice came from someone who’s personal religion is founded by a man in New York who wrote an additional book of the Bible based on words he saw written on golden tablets he found that could only be read with special glasses about how Israelites came to America before Jesus and how at one time there were great civilizations with armies and chariots in North America who fought against each other even though there’s never been a single bit of archeological evidence to support it. Not a single bolt from a chariot has been found here.

What a person wants to believe is up to them and I don’t mean to demean anything—we have our own particular idiosyncrasies in Christianity—but those are frankly the factual roots of it.

So how about I as a religious leader stay away from giving you political advice and you avoid religious advice from political commentators? Whatever liberal or conservative, Democratic/Republican/libertarian commentators you want to listen to is your business…and there is definitely a wide range of opinions in this place. But please get your theology from people who are called to shepherd the Body of Christ and your political advice from whomever you want. I think you’ll understand Jesus and the Kingdom of God better. But this idea of justice being linked to societal systems is all over scripture.

In Israel, even with a king and governance structure in place, they were to hold a major event every fifty years where not only were all debts forgiven—and remember, if someone owed you $175,000 and it’s year forty-nine, you’re getting nervous—but any land that had been bought fair-and-square had to be given back to its original owner, even if the previous owner was a lazy slob, never farmed it and got himself in debt. What’s more, all people who were indentured employees because they owed their boss money were set free. Jubilee was a massive social security system—a huge act of social justice and wealth redistribution—that may not seem fair to us free market capitalists but it was vital for Israel…and it reminded them that everything actually belonged to God and He was loaning it to them. It kept them from taking an individualistic approach to their relationship with God and reminded them they—Israel—were a community. I’m not saying it’s possible to emulate that, but I am saying it reveals something about God’s heart.

This idea of community justice is all throughout the scripture. At one point, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah about how religious and moral and observant of religious rules the nation of Judah was, and how they spiritually sought after Him and were a nation that did righteousness…and then during one of their fasts, God suddenly tells them:

“Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like? “This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.” Isaiah 58:5–6 (Message Version)

Let me take you further, all throughout the Old Testament is the concept of shalom. We translate it as peace, and it’s more than the absence of war.

In his book, Not The Way It’s Supposed To Be, author and theologian Cornelius Plantinga describes shalom as “The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight…(it) means universal flourishing…a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied…Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”

It’s God’s justice fully manifested. It’s relational in its roots and not as individualistic in approach as we make it.

Even in the New Testament, the word we translate peace usually comes from the Greek word eirene. It’s in almost every book in the New Testament, and in most cases it refers to relationships. The word is rooted in a Greek verb that means literally to join…as in being glued together. It implies a healthy social fabric where everyone is connected…and no one falls through the cracks.

When we created the Healing Center, that was the hope. That the Kingdom of God would come to people who had no clue. People who would never step into a church because churches aren’t often seen as safe places or somewhere to get help. To them shalom would be introduced…and that broken people would be woven into the fabric of our community…our part of the Body of Christ.

A few months ago I got a remarkable email from someone named Sandra. I don’t know her at all. Apparently, she first came to the Healing Center years ago for some food and married to an undocumented immigrant. After years of physical abuse, she made the scary decision to run away from her husband while six months pregnant with her fourth child. She packed up her kids and took off. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? Can you imagine the fear and uncertainty? Can you empathize with that? Homeless and out of work, she was in a crisis.

She wrote: “Dave, “I thought you would like to know this: in the past year, many things happened: very good things, thanks to the Healing Center and the Vineyard! After being homeless for two years, I got a home for me and my four kids, I found a job, and I went to school. I will be graduating in only six weeks and have a better future for my kids. I also found out my graduation ceremony will be held at the Vineyard in May! Funny! My life makes sense…now I can see a future! I have made some sacrifices and it has not been easy, but with the help I got from the Healing Center, it’s just so much better!

“God has been very good to me and I hope soon to be able to somehow pay it back. It’s hard to volunteer, but I do try, and hope some day to have the money to give more than what I give now…but for now I can say THANKS! My life is better thanks to the people of God who have seen me and not turned their backs! God bless all you do and the hands and feet who serve at the Healing Center and the Vineyard! I am more than ready for what’s next!”

I had never read an email with so many exclamation points.

But I love it that Sandra said, “…thanks to the people of God who have seen me and not turned their backs…” She recognized more was at work than the Vineyard or the Healing Center. She saw it as the people of God who saw me and didn’t turn away. As we say, vineyard, shminyard. What counts is God getting the credit through the mechanism that He wants to redeem the world through: the people of God.

Shaina Horner, who is on our staff at the Healing Center, gave me a little back-story to this in an email:

“Sandra has worked hard to complete her GED and met with a job coach at the HC. Another worker helped her apply to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services for benefits. In the meantime, she began volunteering at the Healing Center and is a great addition. Sandra is a hard worker and a great help in the warehouse. While going to school, she found a job in a nearby daycare where her children could also attend. She worked 30-40 hours per week, and with the help of Food Stamps and Medicaid, was been able to create a fairly stable life for her kids. Last year she took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace course to manage the little money she had. Because of that, she established a $1,000 emergency fund. She regularly tithes 10% to VCC. She also transfers $10/mo into a Savings account for Christmas. She is learning good stewardship and is beginning to make good choices.

“In July she went back to school to become a Medical assistant. With the help of financial aid and continued State benefits, she spent the last 8 months in school with and just finished her 160-hour externship at Lincoln Heights Medical Center…and just applied for a job there.

“In March she applied to Mom’s Hope, a mentoring program for single moms. The investment of a mentor will make a significant difference in her life. She needs someone who can walk alongside her, helping guide and challenge her as she grows.”

A couple of days ago I got an update from Shaina: “Good news! Sandra was offered the full time Medical Assistant job at Lincoln Heights. She starts Monday at 11.50/hr. She is coming to volunteer at the Healing Center on Saturday and will pick up a new pair of scrubs. She is very excited.”

When people come into the Healing Center, we can meet some needs. But in the end, it’s them coming in contact with the Kingdom of God and being woven into the Community of Christ that really changes lives.

Let me close with these two verses from Proverbs. Proverbs is an odd book, isn’t it? It’s contextual…meaning you can read one verse to mean one thing, and the next verse to mean the opposite, is in this classic from Proverbs 26:4 & 5:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

It’s all context, folks.

But the book of Proverbs reads mostly along these lines: here’s what a smart person does…and here’s what an idiot does. It tends to use the terms wise man and fool, but you get the drift. It has a lot to say about the poor, and sometimes things that bring on poverty, such as decrying laziness as in Proverbs 6:10 & 11 (and oddly repeated again in 24:33 & 34): A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.

But poverty is not all individualistic. There are complex and systemic reasons as well. Proverbs addresses our response to that as well in social and theological ways:

You insult your Maker when you exploit the powerless; when you’re kind to the poor, you honor God. Proverbs 14:31 (Message version).

One of the things I like to do when I speak at other places is to invite leaders to stay with my wife and me and immerse them in another church culture, drag them around to my leadership team meetings, stay up late at night to debrief, talk shop and drink a glass of wine. I have team coming from Pennsylvania tonight, as a matter of fact. A couple of weeks ago we had a 26-year-old woman from Switzerland staying with us. She had finished her university work there and was coming to the states for a few weeks to tour around. She stayed with us for about a week. On two of the days she served at the Healing Center on our campus. That night we all sat in the living room and talked. I asked her how it went.

She said, “It was amazing. I cried.” When I asked her why, she essentially said, “When people started coming in and we began serving them, it was like I was serving Jesus Himself.”

Isn’t that interesting? We tend to think when we serve hurting people, we’re bring Jesus to them. But what if it’s the opposite? Or how about when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25, He says to the righteous, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Jesus then says the righteous respond with, “Jesus, when were You hungry? We didn’t see that. Or when where You ever naked? No way! And You were never in prison—what could You have possibly done?”

And that’s when He tells them, “Whatever you did to the least and the last, it was like you did it for me.” Powerful.

We’ve got it backwards. One last verse from Proverbs: The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. Proverbs 29:7 (NIV)

They care about justice, not just charity. They care about what creates poverty, not just kindness for the sake of kindness. Justice demands action, both individualistically and systemically. Let’s pray…

That, my friends, is what made a number of people upset. And at the risk of creating another uproar, I will simply say this: when you touch a person’s idol, you make them very, very angry. Yes, I know that’s simplistic, but test it on yourself.

I’ve certainly been that way.
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the power of your story

2011-03-28T01:42:00.003-04:00

Apologetics is important.

If you’re new to this Christian-thing, apologetics is a genre of writing and speaking that has to do with defending the claims of Christianity. From day one of the launch of the Church in Acts 2, Christians have proclaimed the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and why He deserves our attention. In Peter’s breathtaking speech to his fellow Jews in Acts 2 following the otherworldly outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Peter appeals to recent events that everyone was aware of:

“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus of Nazareth by doing wonderful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. But you followed God’s prearranged plan. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to the cross and murdered him. However, God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life again, for death could not keep him in its grip.” (Acts 2:22–24 NLT)

Peter was appealing to their remembrance of the events of the past few weeks, months and three years. Christianity is rooted in an historical occurrence, mainly, the resurrection of an itinerant preacher, prophet and miracle-worker who behaved as if he were God. Just on one point, think about how absurd it is to go around forgiving people unless it’s a personal affront to you. Otherwise, it’s none of your business, let alone no moral authority to do so. That’s like me forgiving Muammar Gaddafi for the greedy, cruel and self-serving ways he’s treated his own people. I don’t have that right; only the abused do.

Apologetics became even more critical as the resurrection was relegated to a point in history and less of “you all were witnesses to this” (Acts 2:32). And so we have to use a little detective-like, deductive reasoning on what we know as the facts. For instance, what caused the apostles to live their lives in painful loss and eventual martyrdom for what they knew was a cover-up or lie? Or to appeal to a resurrection story which could have easily been proven false? It’s true people have given their lives for what is exposed as a lie, but who gives their life for what they know is a lie? It at least deserves some thought, but I’ve been surprised over the years why Christians appeal so little to reason as a way of understanding and communicating the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Yet over the years, the classic apologetical approach became the way of talking to people about Jesus. Winning the argument was synonymous with “sharing Christ.” For a culture sliding toward a religion-less spirituality and a “your-truth-is-not-my-truth” post-absolutism, the arguments were moot. And even more, the internet created niched cyber-ghettoes that coalesce around particular points of view, often poorly, and without a rational discussion beyond 140-character comments.

My own tribe developed an approach called “power evangelism”. It was a long-lost idea and desperately needed: how can we read the gospels and Acts without a longing for this supernatural apologetic? Something was clearly missing in postmodern evangelicalism. And yet, it quickly shifted from the streets to “circle-the-wagons” conferences and revival meetings resembling sideshow events with sensationalistic healers and prophets attracting burned-out Christians who lost their missional hearts and charismatic groupies traveling from one experience to the next for their Pentecostal fix. No name calling here: I’ve traveled in those groups from time-to-time myself.

Along the way, I myself helped trumpet what we at Vineyard Cincinnati called The New Apologetic: servanthood. Part of that was reactionary. More and more the Church seemed more known for what it was against rather than what it was for. What’s more, in reaction to cultural shifts, it became theologically dangerous and evangelistically naïve to slip into the back pocket of any particular political party because they aligned with “our” values. We Christians are, if anything, “wise as doves and innocent as serpents”, to turn a phrase.

The fact is: we need all these approaches. Different personalities need different methodologies. And there are seasons of life when the people we want to share our faith with become self-aware of their spiritual void. What’s more, none of our approaches work in terms of “sealing the deal” until a person is really ready to hear. He who has ears to hear, let them hear. That’s the business of God.

But there is one more apologetic we’re specifically exploring in this current series called OPEN—it’s your story. Specifically, how did your story and God’s story intersect? That’s an apologetic that can’t be argued with…because your story is simply your story. No one can deny that. They can believe you’re deluded. They can believe you’re confused. They can disbelieve your truthfulness. But they can’t discount that it’s the story you know and you tell because, well, it’s your story.

Can you tell that story with deep personal affection, without embellishment and with reflective humility? Can you healthily describe your current need of Jesus without cliché? Is there a recent time of soul-healing you can communicate that exposes a dependency on Jesus to surprise those who assume you’re a fairly together person? Is there a simple delineation between light and darkness in your life that makes you want to gratefully express how accessible Jesus is?

If not, perhaps it’s time for a tune-up. And that begins on our knees. I’ll join you.

The Apologist’s Evening Prayer

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more

From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts,
even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

C.S. Lewis, Poems (1964)

open

2011-03-07T12:10:00.018-05:00

Recently I had lunch with Clyde Miller. Clyde led me to Jesus nearly thirty-seven years ago. In those days he was pastoring First Christian Assembly of God in Cincinnati where I attended for my first formative four years. My friend Chris Beard is lead pastor there now. Clyde semi-retired, but is very involved in other ministries, vibrant as always and ever the consummate raconteur.

Over delicious coma-inducing giant barbecue sandwiches at Jim Dandy’s, he updated me on what he’s doing. And handed me a small stuffed envelope.

Inside was a series of discipleship booklets he had written. But what I had forgotten was he had asked me to illustrate them…and got me involved in the church as a young twenty-something. A character named Mort became the host for the series. Looking at them now, I had to laugh at Mort carrying a cassette player (and I’m sure I had a similar one that required a couple of D-cell sized batteries!) complete with gigantic headphones with a curly-cord (for those of you who remember telephones that had those).

But I was reminded how obvious it was to all of us that after you encountered Jesus, you used anything at your disposal to tell others about Him and offer the first halting steps of discipleship.

They were on the basics: how to receive Jesus, how to pray, what the Church is, how to read the Bible, and so on.

And then I remembered the cultural context that God came crashing into…way back when.

I surrendered my life to Jesus back when dinosaurs ruled the earth in what was called the Jesus Movement. It was an era when God sidestepped the typical church systems and poured out His Spirit on hippies, druggies, musicians, and countercultural misfits who didn’t fit the social and cultural norms of America in that day. An unpopular war and mandatory military draft was massively protested while tens of thousands of body bags were flown home before the U.S. pulled out as North Vietnamese forces invaded Saigon. A burgeoning Civil Rights movement forced states to face issues of systemic racism and the deep poverty in segregated ghettoes. A series of violent assassinations had rocked the nation. The scientific development of The Pill helped unleash a sexual revolution challenging societal norms and raising questions about traditional male/female roles. Then throw in a sudden influx of eastern religions along with a plethora of cult leaders and it seemed as though nothing was assumed and everything was up for grabs.

In that national cultural upheaval, the Holy Spirit suddenly blew across the country shaking every denomination. Suddenly, long-haired, blue-jeaned, tie-dyed outcasts became unlikely evangelists for the ultimate revolutionist, the One who said in reference to Himself, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? . . . He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” (Matthew 21:42, 44).

Broken people—the very ones that church-people avoided or rejected—were suddenly telling the story of Jesus and how He had transformed their lives. A stenciled picture of a hand with an index finger raised to the sky became the underground logo symbolizing One Way. Jesus was declared as being the Way, the Truth and the Life.

God essentially did an end-run. Anytime the church excludes those in need of grace, God will make His move. And it will come again. Believe me.

Into that backdrop, I stumbled across a few believers who looked like me and who would have had an equally difficult time fitting into the average tidy church. But they beamed the love of Jesus. And when I became a follower of the One who gave His life for me, my life began to change as well. Not overnight. But as weeks turned into months, the awareness of a newly birthed spark of life in my heart met an awakened conscience and the experienced nearness of God. More chunks of my persona were surrendered. I was becoming fully human…the fully human God originally intended.

And it became the most natural thing to tell others about Jesus. It’s simply what you did when you became a follower of Jesus.

I didn’t have all my apologetics sewn up nice and neat (although discovering C. S. Lewis’s writings was life-saving to me personally). I wasn’t the sharpest Crayola in the box. I was still working my way through the Living Bible paraphrase of the New Testament. But I was changing and it seemed right to share that. My life was becoming more real, more open. I was discovering that for those who were like me, who had no clue what the story of the Bible was about except for some clichéd patchworked barroom theology, my life was becoming an open book to be read. I was open to Jesus and others. With each passing year I became less ghostly, more solid. My different personalities that would emerge in various contexts were slowly becoming one.

I was radically changing…and becoming more open.

I want—I need—to revisit that state of mind and heart. I think that’s what excites me about the OPEN journey at the Vineyard—a six-week series designed to help us learn to tell our story, the Jesus-story, and how the two intersect. I’m praying—along with the other churches participating as well—that we have an awakening. And that in our ever-increasing cultural polarization, God would breathe His Spirit across the land…and those who have been rejected would experience the radical rebirth the Cross provides. I want to be OPEN to see, experience and tell that story.

And I don’t want to be quiet.

unbroken

2011-02-27T13:31:00.014-05:00

A few months ago I heard an NPR book reviewer gushing over a book called Unbroken. When it showed up as Time Magazine’s non-fiction book of the year, I downloaded it and began reading. And couldn’t stop. Author Laura Hillenbrand (who wrote the best-seller Seabiscuit) has a terse, matter-of-fact style that is disarming. She spent seven years meticulously researching her subject. After I stayed up all night to finish it, toward the end of the account it took a turn that totally caught me by surprise, taking my breath away with a “Whoa! I didn’t see that coming…” response from me.

It’s a harrowing story of an Italian immigrant named Louis Zamperini, a young hellion growing up in the 1930’s in Torrance, California, who is eventually distracted from troublemaking by his older brother who connected him with the high school track team. Zamperini ran in the Olympic games of 1936 in Berlin. Adolf Hitler requested to meet him and shook his hand.

When World War II broke out, he joined the U.S. Army Air Force. In 1943 his plane went down in the Pacific and survived forty-seven days in a raft circled with sharks until he was picked up by the Japanese. He languished in a prisoner of war camp until the end of the war. In prison, a particularly cruel guard beat him regularly. After his release, he returned to the States and became a raging alcoholic suffering recurring nightmares of his inhumane POW years, emotionally destroying his wife Cynthia. After finding him shaking their squalling newborn, she left him, taking their daughter with her. Louis went on bender after bender, cycling out of control.

As I was reading this part of the book, I could empathize with his private hell and was fearing a sad, dark ending.

SPOILER ALERT! Stop reading here if you don’t want to know how the story ends.

Really. I mean it this time. Stop.

Let’s continue. It didn’t seem fair to me that someone should somehow survive years of horrific warfare and torture only to self-destruct at home. But most of us know that life isn’t always fair as we define "fair". Circumstances, our dysfunctional choices and fallen humanity sure mix a bad cosmic cocktail. Like a train wreck you can’t turn away from, Unbroken was forcing me to turn each page; I understood it to be a secular book about a man’s dark wartime experience, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for pleasant closure.

But in desperation, his harried wife attended the now-famous (in evangelical circles) eight-week long Billy Graham Los Angeles tent revival in 1949, the one that stratospherically launched Graham’s ministry because of William Randolph Hearst’s national coverage of it in his newspapers and magazines. In that setting, Cynthia surrendered her heart to Jesus and begged Louis to join him. After finally relenting and attending with her, he found himself fascinated with Graham’s retelling of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. But when Graham talked about being lost and the claims of salvation, Louis angrily walked out during the invitation. Yet he couldn’t shake it.

Author Hillenbrand describes Graham after weeks of preaching seven days a week and being at the tent from five a.m. to late at night “counseling troubled souls” every day:

“Graham’s weight was dropping, and dark semicircles shadowed his eyes. At times he felt that if he stopped moving, his legs would buckle, so he took to pacing his pulpit to keep himself from keeling over. Once, someone brought a baby to him, and he asked whose child she was. He’d been away from home for so long that he didn’t recognize his own daughter. He longed to end the campaign, but the success of it made him sure that Providence had other wishes.”

Louis returned on another evening. Inexplicably, this time he broke and wept and walked to the front. That night he poured his alcohol down the sink and felt clean for the first time. And oddly, the nightmares stopped. He never looked back. Eventually he forgave all his torturers, even meeting many of them later in Japan.

But I just didn’t see it coming.

As a side note: Louis Zamperini is still living to this day. And still devotedly serving Jesus.

I certainly wasn’t expecting…that. Especially with the phenomenal response it was getting from marketplace book reviewers all over the country. It reminded me that everyone loves a story of redemption, even if faith is included in the story. It is the ultimate “and-they-lived-happily-ever-after” ending, where justice and mercy somehow meet and a life is transformed. I was so moved by the story that after I got past the sheer shock of Louis Zamperini committing his life to Christ in a secular New York Times bestseller, I cried. For joy, for him, for how God somehow redeems the seemingly worst-case scenarios. If there had been a soundtrack, I would have been a puddle of mush.

And then it made me think about art and literature. How did this author tell a story that was received so well and not relegated to the Christian subculture?—a story that includes a page-and-a-half of Graham’s L.A. sermon? In music-world, what makes a group like Mumford and Sons so appealing to the marketplace (Marcus Mumford is the son of John and Eleanor Mumford, leaders of the Vineyard UK movement) and allows them a primetime spot on the Grammys?

But even more puzzling is why I was so surprised. Was it because I was not expecting anything like a "classic salvation story" in that genre? I suppose so. But I want more surprises like that in my own life, my own circles. I want to see the redemptive work of Jesus and the wooing of the Spirit to happen with the people I least expect. And I never want to get so jaded and thick-skinned that I miss those opportunities. And no one—no matter how horrible their background, how hurt and damaged they are, how addicted and in pain they might be, or how much havoc they’ve created for others—are beyond the reach of God’s amazing love and transformative power.

Does it take a secular book for me to really get that?

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. (Isaiah 59:1)
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pastoral confessions (number thirty-seven in a series…)

2011-02-18T18:06:00.009-05:00

I started this flying back from speaking in Houston and then got bogged down with, uh, life. I think it’s time for some pastoral confessions. But I’m going to get to it through the side door of the confessional. Enter the booth with me.

Sometimes I think: I can’t believe I get to do this. By this, I mean be a pastor. Most weekends I get to stand up in front of thousands of people talk about how great Jesus is and why He deserves our unreserved allegiance. I mean, I’m just an ex-drummer from Kentucky. It rarely seizes to amazes me. Honestly.

And I’m not Pollyanna-ish. I don’t always see it that optimistically and it’s not always wonderful all of the time. One survey claims that over seventeen-hundred pastors leave the ministry every month. Ouch. But let’s get real: when I read Paul’s resume in 2 Corinthians 11, I’m reminded that it’s been a long time since I was beaten with rods or left adrift in a heaving ocean overnight (uh, like never). There is very little in America that causes radical discomfort for the Christian leader or, for that matter, the average believer.

But what I do wrestle with are two things. I talked about this at our last all-staff meeting. Once a month we gather the whole staff of over one-hundred people for a little envisioning, some cross-team information sharing, celebrate staff anniversaries, and a few updates. But I had been wrestling with a few of these thoughts.

During the Q&A time at a leadership training session in Florida a few weeks ago, someone asked me, “What do you think leaders should guard against or need to really watch out for?”

The obvious big ones are, of course, sex and money. It’s why we have stringent policies in place at the Vineyard. We’ve all seen too many people crash and burn. I don’t have any meetings with women where there are just two of us, not even in a crowded public place. And I do zero counseling with the opposite sex for a couple of reasons: I’m not a professional counselor and therefore pretty lame at it and second, I need to make sure nothing even suggests a psychosexual connection. As an aside, I think one-on-one counseling is a black hole for pastors; many of us pastors suffer from a messianic-complex and think we can fix anything.

We don’t allow two opposite gender staff members to be in a car, even if it’s just a ride to another building on our campus. Overly cautious? Not in my book. There are all sorts of moral and legal ramifications to be considered, and more importantly, we won’t risk a rumor of impropriety to be leveraged against the Kingdom. You just don’t mess around with that.

And, of course, pastors should never touch the money. Ever. A couple of weekends ago in the last celebration I auctioned off a joke Packers/Steelers t-shirt for the Healing Center. Someone yelled out “$100” and walked from the back row to the stage counting bills from his wallet. I laughed and said, “Stick it in one of the offering boxes. Don’t give it to me!” and threw him the t-shirt. Pastors should stay away from every penny and have their salaries set by boards not made up of their families. We have an independent audit done every year to ensure integrity. Paul covers it nicely in Ephesians: But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. (Ephesians 5:3). I’m not even allowed in the counting room.

But when I think about long-term ministry—that is, ministry over the long haul—there are two other danger zones that I think are more subtle and equally damaging: burnout and entitlement. There’s a burnout that comes from overwork and no margins. The danger with a margin-less lifestyle is when a crisis hits, there’s no emotional energy to deal with it.

But honestly, what I’ve observed pastors burning out over is often the monotony and, dare I say it, boredom of routine. The reality is that so much of our job is the same thing over and over. Big deal, you say—every job has monotonous routines. But I think most people going into ministry have an idealized view of it and most of us got into ministry because we wanted to see lives transformed, to make some kind of difference in our world. But instead, by year eight, it’s…

…setting up the same chairs for the same meetings every week.
…another weekend celebration to plan for—another worship set, another “life-changing” message, another cue-sheet for lighting, another weekend of volunteers not showing up…and knowing that it never ends.
…filing reports that have to be filed every week.
…entering data every week on the same spreadsheet.
…another parishioner upset about something (pick a number…).
…another meeting followed by another meeting followed by another meeting.
…or even in the messy world of people in terms of pastoral care or prayer, it’s another funeral and another wedding and another marriage blowing up and another person with impossibly screwed up finances…or whatever. It never seems to end. There are different faces, but the problems are basically the same and they’re endless. It’s not like being a carpenter and building something and seeing it finished; it seems you’re never done in the “people business”.

The reality is that any job has routine built into it, whether you’re a factory worker or a CEO. But the difference with ministry might be this: people entering it have very different expectations.

And here’s the dark side: because of routine, I think it’s easy for a slow drift toward entitlement…as in “I deserve this _______ (fill in the blank) because…”. Frankly, I think it’s where I see numbers of lead pastors slip into. And I think it’s dangerous.

You can almost hear a bit of this in Peter’s response to Jesus after Jesus totally blows their minds about money…

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”

(The inference here is that prosperity was a sign of God’s blessing, according to Deuteronomy 28. So when Jesus said it was difficult for a rich man to step into the kingdom, this would have been as shocking as someone saying today, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a Spirit-filled evangelical to enter the kingdom…”. No wonder the disciples responded in amazement.)

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!”

(I wonder if Peter wanted to make sure that he was entitled to something because of his sacrifice, as in, “Jesus, that rich guy couldn’t cut it. But look what we’ve done. And you are looking, right?”)

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:23–31)

Jesus responds with a reality check: in the New Community, you’ll have lots of “family” and lots of “places” that can take you in…and one other thing you can count on: persecution. This wasn’t a prosperity promise in the literal sense that we’ll each own hundreds of homes any more than we’ll all have hundreds of mothers in this “present age”. It’s life in the New Community that creates this new kind of prosperity. There’s a certain sense of: be careful what you consider ‘entitlement’…and He’s particularly speaking to those in “the ministry”.

One more thing regarding routine and entitlement. I go through dry seasons where it just seems I have this eight-foot wall with razor wire on top between God and me. But here’s what I’ve discovered.

There’s a whole lot to be said for simple faithfulness, for just putting one foot in front of the other. When I’m not sure I even feel like getting out of bed, it’s time to remind myself: this is not about me. It’s not about how I feel. It’s not about me getting recognition from God or anyone. It’s about faithfulness. It’s about perseverance. It’s about Jesus saying to His disciples during a tough point, “He who endures to the end will be saved.” If one has to endure, that implies there must be long, tough, dry times.

Maybe it’s even about us saying to Him at the end, “Uh, Jesus, when did we see you in prison? When did we see you hungry and we fed You? When did we see you naked and we clothed You?”—inferring that there are huge times in our lives when we have no “awareness” of God and we’re just bumbling along doing what we think is something we should be doing for Jesus and meeting Him without knowing it. And apparently, that’s okay. It’s not always goosebumps. We’ve got to get over that.

Here’s a favorite verse of mine that I quote regularly (which must say something about my state-of-mind!): Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

So for all of us, not just pastors and leaders, remember: When you’re in your worst seasonal spiritual drought, simply put one foot in front of the other and don't look back. In my thirty-seven years of following Jesus, the rainy season eventually comes.
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the justice of community

2011-01-17T01:28:00.007-05:00

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Jesus the Son told His disciples, “The poor you will have with always.” God the Father told Israel, “There will be no poor among you.”

So what’s up with that?

Those two verses caused a bit of turmoil in the camp that I spent some time with: the word-of-faith world. Don’t get me wrong: there were some things I learned there as I sojourned through. But there were also some conundrums.

Part of the problem was how individualistic the theology was presented. A while back, something struck me that was so obvious in the Old Testament…but I had somehow missed it. It’s about that verse in Deuteronomy quoted above. But the revelation sneaked in the through the back door…via the New Testament.

It began with Acts 4 with a passage I had probably read a hundred times:

The group of those who believed were of one heart and mind and no one said that any of his possessions was his own, but everything was held in common.

Let me be honest: that unnerves me. Doesn’t it you? But simply from a common-sense approach, think how inefficient we are as communities of people…even apart from “church”. My neighbor and I were talking one day about how crazy that every family on our street has their our own lawnmower and yet how often did we all cut our grass at the same time. How much cheaper and more efficient it would be if there was one lawnmower we all used?

Luke continues:

With great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was on them all.

In other words, the Holy Spirit was moving in power as they talked about Jesus and—as a result of His resurrection—His being Lord. Then he writes:

For there was no one needy among them, because those who were owners of land or houses were selling them and bringing the proceeds from the sales and placing them at the apostles’ feet. The proceeds were distributed to each, as anyone had need.

Those who had some measure of wealth were selling off real estate and giving the money to the leaders to take care of needy people in their community. These were people who had been radically touched by God. They were all in. They saw themselves as a family, but remember: there were thousands of them. This wasn’t a little commune in the country; there was something profound happening in their midst. And so this letting go of “stuff” was compelling and evident.

But there’s more to the story that can be easily missed…and Luke drops a big clue. He uses the phrase: There was no one needy among them. That’s a phrase taken right out of Deuteronomy 15 in the Old Testament: There should be no needy among you (Deut 15:4).

As I mentioned, I had heard that used in word-of-faith circles—what’s called prosperity teaching—many times. That if we have enough faith—if we confess prosperity enough—we can be wealthy…because God told Israel that if they would obey Him they would be prosperous, and if they didn’t, they would have poverty. We would be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

But here’s what’s interesting: in Deuteronomy 15, that verse is tied to a social justice system that required all Israelites to forgive any debts owed to them every seven years. All debts were wiped out every seven years, creating a new level playing field despite whatever bad investments you had made, bad decisions, or just bad luck. Plus, they were to loan money to each other freely with no interest…even in the sixth year when they knew they wouldn’t get paid back.

And then when they did that, then God says, there should be no needy among you. Isn’t it interesting how community-oriented that was…and how less individualistic in terms of the way we typically teach about prosperity?

It takes a community to raise a disciple. Let’s not kid our little individualistic selves. And as they say on TV, But wait! There’s more…

After every seven times seven years—in the fiftieth year—Israel had a Jubilee year. Not only were all debts forgiven, but any land that had been bought fair-and-square had to be given back to its original owner…and all people who were indentured slaves because of debt were set free from their “owners”. Jubilee was a massive social security system that may not even seem fair to us but it was vital for this community in relationship with God because it reminded them that everything actually belonged to God and He was loaning it to them. It kept them from taking an individualistic approach to their relationship with God and reminded them they—Israel—were a covenant community.

Still tracking with me? Think about this…

When Jesus gives His famous mission-statement in Luke 4 and announces who He really is—Messiah—He quotes from Isaiah 61 that He’s here to bring good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, and proclaim the year of God’s favor. That’s a reference to the year of Jubilee. Everything returns to its rightful owner, including human beings, made in the image of God, and they belong to Him. He’s getting them back for Himself and they would no longer be slaves of the enemy. They’re His property. This is the New Covenant…and they would be the New Covenant Community.

So when Luke writes, There were no needy among them, he’s giving us a clue that these early believers saw themselves as the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, that they were this New Community, and because they were in this together, there will be no needy among them…because they all recognized that everything belonged to God. It was radical.

This wasn’t some socialism. This wasn’t a social service agency to take care of the poor, this was a community in covenant with one another because they were in covenant with God. It’s easy to see how far we’ve drifted, but not so easy to row back to the shore.

One more thing: it made me deeply thankful that God launched The Healing Center when and how He did. It got me thinking about the power of the local church…and the critical purpose of community.

And it all began with the first one in Jerusalem.
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end times, prophecy, revelation…and what the heck is going on in arkansas

2011-01-08T11:49:00.009-05:00

Puhleeze. Thousands of dead birds and fish in Arkansas do not make the Second Coming imminent.

Timing is everything. My wife is launching another round of Beth Moore Bible studies with several hundred people signing up; this one is on the book of Revelation. In John Ortberg’s book, When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box, he writes about his wife and the ministry she had with twenty-somethings and comments, “When you’re that age, you think you are going to live forever. I used to tease her that to draw a lot of people, she only had to teach on three subjects: sex, the end times, and will there be sex in the end times?”

When classes gear up for a study on Revelation, some of us pastors get nervous…because of how passionate, self-assured and dogmatic students can become. I offered my wife a bit of a disclaimer, or at least an open letter to attendees of the classes. And, in some respects, present a “white paper” from Vineyard Cincinnati.

And that’s what follows…

The Book of Revelation (not Revelations) is a fascinating, difficult, exhilarating and, let’s be honest, frustrating book. Probably no other book has been so dissected and misused…and created such debate. Practically every verse can be argued, starting with the very first one: “The revelation of Jesus Christ”—is that a revelation regarding Him or a revelation given through Him? Apparently the Greek suggests that Jesus could be either the subject being revealed or the one doing the revealing.

It is filled with Old Testament imagery: dragons and plagues and signs in the skies. It’s written like other New Testament letters, that is, with salutations and a closing, yet it is the only book that identifies itself as a prophecy. While other letters may contain prophetic elements, Revelation affirms itself as a prophecy.

Let me first start of with a pastoral disclaimer (which is offered by every teacher of Revelation except the ones in denial): there was a time when I had this all figured out. it was three months after I became a Christian and had just read The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey in 1974. I was positive the locusts were helicopters. Now, after thirty-six years of following Jesus, I know very little with absolute certainty except that He’s God, He loves me more than I love Him, He has rescued my life from self-destruction, I will one day be with Him, and He has called me to pastor the Vineyard.

Some time ago a friend asked me if I was a premillennialist, postmillennialist or amillennialist. That has to do with when you place the timing of Jesus’ Second Coming in regard to a one-thousand-year peaceful period on the earth...or if that is an indefinite period of time at all. I told my friend it depends what week you ask me.

Why, you may ask, would we want to study a book that has been so widely interpreted by respected evangelical scholars, all who loved Jesus and upheld the authority of scripture? Why don’t we just study the beatitudes? Let me give you three quick reasons:

1. Because all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (II Timothy 3:16, 17).
2. We learn more about worship and the majesty of Jesus Christ than perhaps any other book.
3. There is a pronounced blessing on those who read or hear it.

There are four classic views, or approaches, to interpreting the revelation. Every one of them has questions, difficulties and problems not easily solved. And take note: far smarter, studious and devoted people than you and me have aligned their neurons and hearts with each one. A little humility in approaching this book is advised.

Historicist Approach: the book of Revelation records the whole of church history. Wycliffe, Knox, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Foxe, Wesley, Whitefield, Finney, Spurgeon all subscribed to this view. For example, the breaking of the seven seals is thought to coincide with barbarian invasions of the western Roman empire. In 1690, Robert Fleming (Scottish Calvinist theologian) was invited to the court of King William III to speak on Bible prophecy. When asked when the rule of the papacy in Europe would fall, he said beginning in 1794 and ending in 1848. In 1794 the French Revolution began and in 1848 the pope was driven from Rome…all according to Revelation, in his interpretation, and its rollout of church history.

Preterist Approach: All was fulfilled shortly after the writing. For example, some of the historical accounts of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. are compelling: “The heap of corpses mounted higher and higher about the altar; a stream of blood flowed down the Temple's steps, and the bodies of those slain at the top slipped to the bottom.” ~Jewish historian Josephus, on the destruction of the Temple. Preterists lean on the literal words of Jesus in Matthew 24:34: “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Some preterists hold out for the final chapters as being in the future.

Futurist Approach: Everything after chapter three is yet to be fulfilled. Futurists often see all of Revelation in a more literal, linear and chronological fashion. Although held by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian (although it could be argued how far into the future they saw it), it came into vogue in the twentieth century particularly with the advent of evangelical dispensational theology. This view was espoused by Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible and theologians like Walvoord and Ryrie. And, of course, Tim LaHaye popularized it in the Left Behind bestsellers.

Idealist/Spiritual Approach: The book of Revelation is filled with spiritual principles and theme; a transcendent drama is revealed. This is not necessarily just a “liberal” theology; the ancient Church Fathers Origen and Augustine largely subscribed to this view. “Revelation is a theological poem presenting the ageless struggle between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. It is a philosophy of history wherein Christian forces are continuously meeting and conquering the demonic forces of evil.” ~Robert Mounce.

To understand Revelation fully we should keep in mind that it is addressed to a particular group of people with particular needs at the time. It is also written in the style of apocalyptic literature, a popular style during John’s time, but fairly obscure now.

“A failure to take full account of this feature has led to some of the most outlandish teachings on this book by some whose rule of interpretation is “literal, unless absurd.” Though this is a good rule when dealing with literature written in a literal genre, it is the exact opposite in the case of apocalyptic literature, where symbolism is the rule, and literalism the exception.” ~Steve Gregg: Revelation; Four Views

For instance, in this style numbers often represent concepts rather than quantitative measurements—seven churches, seals, trumpets, bowls, thunders etc. Fractions of twelve are used. Arguably, one-thousand years could simply mean a very long time where “one hour” (Rev. 17:12) could mean a short, nonspecific time. There were lots of apocalyptic books at the time.

“The problem is raised by the fact that the prophets were little interested in chronology, and the future was always viewed as eminent...the Old Testament prophets blended the near and the distant perspectives so as to form a single canvas...There is in biblical prophecy a tension between the immediate and the distant future; the distant is viewed through the transparency of the immediate. It is true that the early church lived in expectancy of the return of the Lord, and it is the nature of biblical prophecy to make it possible for every generation to live in expectancy of the end.” ~G. E. Ladd

The Vineyard Movement (and Vineyard Cincinnati) doesn’t “officially” hold a particular stance on the four typical views. Because of the varied pastoral/Biblical training of the pastors in this local church, we could have a spirited discussion just among the senior leadership team!

Because of this, we hope you’ll dig in for yourself…and take opportunity to explore the various views with an open heart. Very wise followers of Jesus, theologians and Bible teachers have held different views. And what may happen in the end is we all might have a surprise or two in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Usually prophecies are never fully understood until the event happens…and looking different than what we expect. Case in point: very few recognized Jesus as the Messiah according to prophecy…but through the 20/20 lens of hindsight, it makes sense now.

One thing for sure: worship Jesus, love others, feel an urgency to share the Good News of the Kingdom, and live life as if tomorrow could be the day…and you’ll do well.
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love & marriage

2010-12-29T17:37:00.006-05:00

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I had some folks ask me about the story I told of meeting my wife Anita; they told me they wished so-and-so had been there to hear it. Hmmm. Sounds suspicious. Anyway, as Gilly says, “Sorry.” But here it is if you want to pass it on.

Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I had only been following Jesus for less than two years when I first met Anita. I had come to Christ in what was called the Jesus Movement back in the day: loads of musicians, druggies, hippies and other people from the Island of Misfit Toys were getting blasted by the Holy Spirit and stumbling into traditional churches that didn’t know what to do with these long-haired, confused but spectacularly saved young people.

I was one of them, playing in a bar band and trying to stay alive as a musician, living with a group here in Cincinnati. After I met Jesus, I found myself wanting to tell other people about Him. To me, He was like the best-kept secret that old people had. How come no one had told me about this “born again”-thing before…or about the infilling experience of this mysterious Holy Spirit?

In our culture, if we had drugs, we shared them.

So how come you all kept this for yourselves and made it so inaccessible in social-club churches playing the same music for seventy years that sounded like a funeral service and dressed up like you were going to a job interview when most of us only owned clip-on ties? We were as confused with you as you were with us.

That’s what it seemed like to me as a young twenty-something.

And so because I felt like I needed to tell others about Jesus, my new friend Paul Niehaus and I began playing in coffeehouses and church basements telling other confused young people about what Jesus could do. We figured if He could do that with us, He could do it with anybody. There was a coffeehouse near downtown Covington that was sponsored by a Baptist church who, by the way, enforced a strict no-smoking rule inside the house…so these urban kids—and they happened to mostly be girls—would stand outside and hang in the windows and listen while they smoked. There’s always a way to get around legalism.

After playing a few times there, we decided we needed to diversify and include a girl to sing a little bit and tell her life-transformation story about Jesus. Paul said, “I have a friend who has a friend…”

A little skinny girl with long blond hair showed up and we worked up a few songs with her. Her name was Anita.

Sometime later I began to wonder if she was The One. You know what that means, right? The One. But I had terrific fears about relationships. It seemed to me that the cavalier attitude of my peers and, in my experience, musicians, was unhealthy. This was the time of very few boundaries. All my previous short-lived relationships had been a mix of sentimentality and selfishness. And now I was understanding that relationships were serious to God; you just couldn’t try on someone like a coat and throw it off if you didn’t like it.

What’s more, I didn’t know anyone who had a good marriage. And so for a while I convinced myself that I was made for the Kingdom only and had the gift of singleness. When I told that to Anita, she just laughed and said, “Uh, right.”

Not long afterward, she took off for Europe and lived there for five months. We wrote dozens of letters way back in the day when people used paper and stamps. The next summer I decided to really pursue God and find out if Anita was The One. At this time I was working downtown. It’s hard to find a quiet place in the city to pursue God on your lunch break until I found a great place: Saint Louis Catholic Church on 8th and Walnut.

It was open and so I’d go in several times a week and ask God one simple question: “Is this who I should marry?” I’d sit there and listen and listen…and get nothing. I would say to my Father, “If you’ll just tell me yes or no, that’s all I need. If you say ‘yes’, I’ll ask her tomorrow. If you say ‘no’, I’ll turn around and not look back. Just yes or no.”

And still I’d get nothing.

This routine went on for months. I was getting desperate. By this time, I’m dipping holy water…I’m crossing myself…I’m lighting candles…I’m genuflecting before I slip into the pew. I’ve got to hear God.

One day I’m sitting there, saying the same thing—“God, just tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’”—and that still, small voice popped into my head. I heard the Lord whisper, “Do you think she’d be a good wife?”
I was taken aback and thought, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’d be a great wife. I know her personality, I’ve met her family, I’ve done my homework.”

Then I heard the Spirit impress on my heart, “Do you love her?”

I thought, “Yeah, as best as I understand love, I think I really love her.”

And then—I kid you not—I heard: “Then what’s the problem, Dave?”

I remember thinking, “That’s it? That’s all there is to this? Really? I’m allowed to choose just like that?” And then it hit me: if God had said, “This is The One” and things went south, I could blame Him…just like Adam did in Genesis 3: “The woman You gave me. She’s the one that caused me to sin,” instead of me doing the hard work of making a relationship healthy and owning up to my own crap and what I needed to let God change in me. Many years later—after I became a pastor—I don’t know how many failed marriages I witnessed where the starry-eyed, brain-dead couple had told me, “God told us to get married.”

But honestly, what I was most worried about was my own ability to maintain love. Anyone can fall in love. It’s how you stay in love that seemed to be the issue. It drives me crazy in chick-flicks when a couple meets, their eyes sparkle, we hear some clever repartee, they hit it off…and in the next scene they’re in bed. Anyone can fall in love. Anyone can do that. And anything can have sex when you meet. Just watch your dog.

My problem was: I simply didn’t believe I could love anyone for an extended period of time—and I knew that God took marriage seriously. It was His idea. Everyone I knew seemed to run out of gas after awhile. To me, marriage was like a long road trip on a single tank of love. When the gas runs out, you’re finished. Marriage actually scared me. And as I said, I didn’t know anyone who had a good one.

The problem was, I didn’t understand God’s power…I didn’t understand His kingdom…that His Kingdom would never end. And if Jesus is the King of this Kingdom, and He is in us, or as Paul says, Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)…then there can be no shortage of love.

I was shortchanging God’s ability in me, His fuel. I had imagined love being some quantity that eventually runs out. I was operating with a scarcity mentality. But God never runs out of anything.

Isn’t that the story of Israel in the wilderness and the manna that appeared every morning? Of Elijah and the widow’s jars of flour and oil that never ran empty? Isn’t that the story of the loaves and fishes? Or six jars of water into wine? Even more, the Bible says that God is Love. He cannot run out of Himself. He’s God.

I’m a slow learner.

When Anita later became pregnant with our first child, I worried again that I wouldn’t have enough love for both a wife and a new addition. But when Rachel came out, love simply flowed like a fountain…and has never stopped. And likewise with the next baby, Katie. How crazy of me to limit God based on my own limitations.

Love isn’t science. It really isn’t art. And it’s actually more than a choice. It’s the supernuclear power that drives the universe, that flows from the heart of God toward the crown of His creation—you and me—and is poured inside any who will receive. I just have to tap into it.

Let’s take the limitations off.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:5 .
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it's back. and bigger.

2010-12-02T14:26:00.001-05:00

the problem with thankfulness

2010-11-28T18:31:00.004-05:00

Thinking about thankfulness seems to be the right thing to do at this time of year. But I’m not sure how to balance that in terms of the resources I have. I wrestle with this each time I come back from Nigeria; it’s a little difficult to process the two worlds…I’m so deep into my culture of comfort. I want to be thankful for what I have and I don’t want to feel guilty about what I believe God has given me, but I think there is a third way to look at my resources.

Back in 2005 when I went on the first reconnaissance trip to Nigeria with my friend Emmanuel, one afternoon we drove outside of Jos to a rural village with a tiny church and an even tinier house. Emman wanted me to meet the first pastor he worked under many years earlier. I’ve forgotten his name, but he was quite old. When I asked Emman how old, he could only guess because the pastor himself didn’t know. I found that to be not-so-uncommon among older people there; Emman’s own mother doesn’t know when she was born, day or year. In my hyper-time-sensitive and age-conscious world (as in: “That was so ten-minutes ago…”), I have a hard time wrapping my cerebrum around that.

The pastor was thin as a reed and wore thick black-rimmed glasses. He was so gracious and excited to show me his office and library outside behind the house. It was not much more than a small henhouse, stacked with old dusty magazines and a hanging bare light bulb. I don’t recall seeing many books, if any. These were his references for study.

Back inside his dark and barely furnished house of three simple rooms was a home-made inscription hanging on a wall. I took a picture with his permission.

My head was spinning thinking of my dvd players, my office jammed with books, my house with central air, a two-car garage, a gas fireplace and carpet under my feet.

When I return from Nigeria each time, I find myself thankful to be home for so many of the right reasons: I miss my wife and my kids, the Vineyard, my friends. And then there are the creature comforts: I don’t have to worry about the water or eating anything that’s uncooked. I can take a shower and not a bucket bath. I don’t have to worry about traffic jams on roads with no painted lines (which doesn’t seem to matter anyway) and potholes big enough to swallow VWs and hundreds of motorbike taxis carrying three people and a goat zipping by clipping your car mirrors. I can stop anywhere and get a Diet Pepsi that’s cold and with ice. I don’t think twice about basic infrastructures: I know that there will be electricity all day and not just a few hours; the National Electric Power Authority, or NEPA, was cleverly renamed “Never Enough Power Anytime” by the locals. Recently, it’s become the Power Holding Company of Nigeria—PHCN, now known as “Problem Has Changed Names”. Nigerians have a great sense of humor.

But all those things are really just comforts.

On this trip we went back to visit the pastor’s widow. He died a few years after that first trip. Emman gave her a thousand naira, about seven dollars, and you would have thought it was a lottery win. Most days Emman would leave early in the morning to visit extended family and friends and often come home late at night. And many of those, I’m sure, are similar to the visit to the pastor’s widow.

Which brings me back to an angle of thankfulness that I think I’ve overlooked. I’m embarrassed to reach this point in my life and to have missed the obvious: perhaps the point of gratitude is that we’re thankful we have resources…to give. The early church encouraged fasting so they could give to the poor what they would normally eat. Fasts were centered on thankfulness for the opportunity serve Jesus a la Matthew 25:40.

As Augustine put it: “Let the hungry Christ receive what the fasting Christian receives less of. Let the self-denial of one who undertakes it willingly become the support of the one who has nothing. Let the voluntary want of the person who has plenty become the needed plenty of the person in want.”

When Jesus healed the ten lepers and they walked away to show themselves to the priests, one, a Samaritan, came back crying and gratefully threw himself at Jesus’ feet. Jesus posed three rhetorical questions: “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? Does only this foreigner return to give glory to God?”

There is always an end in mind with the works of Jesus: to bring glory to the Father.

When it comes to the apparent “blessings” of my culture, of course I should be thankful. But the question the Spirit is asking me is: to what end?
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nigeria

2010-11-09T15:06:00.004-05:00

Only have a couple of minutes to post here in Nigeria with limited internet access...

Been speaking a lot: today was a 2½ hour class at the Jos Evangelical Church of West Africa seminary with churchplanters and pastors. The class was “The Church, Society and Ethics”. Whoa. Spoke the day before about missional churches and will speak tomorrow at the chapel. It’s been very interactive along with Kande Wilson (our outreach and missions pastor) and Emmanuel Itapson (our connection with Self-Sustaining Enterprises/Nigeria). We also drove out to see the Paramount Chief of the Rukuba tribe; from his throne (no kidding) he again expressed how grateful his people are and reemphasized how there has been no infant mortality from waterborne diseases in all the villages that have boreholes. The drilling team has drilled about 90 wells in the area. Amazing.

The Global Leadership Summit that we sponsor in Jos has gone amazingly well; over 300 pastors and leaders here. Thursday we’ll tack on a training session and we’ll talk about outward-focused churches. We’ve met so many people; they are like sponges, soaking in leadership development resources. What’s amazing is the unity that it’s brought to the different denominations.

Friday we’ll go to the well commissioning and then leave at 6am on Saturday to drive a few hours northwest to Kaduna to sponsor and help with the summit there. Sunday morning I’ll speak at a church there and then head back down to Jos. Last, a three hour drive back to Abuja to fly home.

The rest of the team has been doing great grunt work…painting, moving concrete blocks, working with the drilling team. Yeah, I know—my stuff sounds like a wuss compared to them. They’re doing great and fully enjoying the experience. I think a few are getting their world rocked…and it’s all good. They all served the pastors at the summit here in Jos. Very cool.

These moments make me thrilled to be a part of the Vineyard. I think everyone should feel that way about their respective church. I hope you do. This adventure with Jesus is never boring. Ever. I can’t think of anything in the universe better than serving the One who has a plan for this big messy world and invites us to join Him.

It’s all good. See you at the Vineyard in a week-and-a-half!

Short updates from Kande here: http://missionsvcc.blogspot.com/

what's on the nightstand

2010-10-26T08:07:00.006-04:00

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Fairly often I’ll have someone ask me what I’m reading. It’s embarrassing that I can only remember what I’m currently slogging through. Then along came my traveling library in the form of a Kindle; I got one just about a year ago. Okay, don’t judge me: I also have an iPad…an extravagant gift some folks gave me. What’s great is the Kindle app on it: all my books transfer. So if you’re familiar with the commercials, I can read in the brightest sunlight...or pitchblack! Ain’t technology wonderful?

I also read a fair amount (okay, a lot) of pop culture websites as well as mainstream magazines from Wired to Fast Company to Time just so I can have a reasonable conversation with people about the world we live in. I also have subscriptions to Christianity Today, Leadership Journal, Relevant, Sojourners and Outreach.

The following is what’s currently on my Kindle and what I’ve read over the last year:

• The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective; Russell D. Moore. Solid book on how critical embracing a Kingdom-theology is along with a recent history of evangelicalism and a Kingdom-orientation. An evangelical, Moore seeks common ground regarding social and political hot buttons.

• Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: a Sociologist Shatters Myths Form the Secular and Christian Media; Bradley R. E. Wright, PhD. Just started reading this and thoroughly enjoying it. For instance, I’ve long been suspicious of Barna and doubted their analysis of their own stats. I think I’m just tired of fear-based messages; perhaps the sky isn’t actually falling.

• To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World; James Davison Hunter. Loved, loved, loved this book! I wish everyone in the Vineyard would read this one. His sharp social-theory commentary and research, particularly on the politicization of the American culture, is spot-on in my opinion. It actually makes me feel good about our particular tribe (despite some convicting moments in the book) and makes me feel that his “faithful presence” approach is in our DNA.

• Mansions of the Heart: Exploring the Seven Stages of Spiritual Growth; R. Thomas Ashbrook. A retooling of Teresa of Avila’s spiritual formation thinking in “Interior Castles”. Teresa was a bit of a mentor to St. John of the Cross (of “Dark Night of the Soul”-fame). Interesting thoughts from a confessed Type-A pastor.

• Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back; Frank Schaeffer. You’ll need to take a shower after this one. Frank (son of evangelical icon Francis Schaeffer) has written a gossipy tell-all that feels like an E Channel documentary filled with f-bombs and irreverent humor. He’s a troubled soul…but no wonder if half of his family history is true.

• The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond; Bill Hybels. Hearing from the Holy Spirit is not the unique domain of classic charismatics! How about a Dutch Reformed pastor? As John Wimber used to say, faith is spelled r-i-s-k…and this book is filled with stories of risky obedience to the promptings of the Spirit. You have to admire the scope and influence Willow Creek has had on the Church. On a personal level, I asked Bill why he invited me to speak at Willow a couple of years ago because, as I told him, “no one knows who the heck I am.” He simply said, “I felt prompted by the Spirit.” He smokes what he sells. Plus, I like any Christian book that has the word “guts” in the title.

• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die; Dan & Chip Heath. Simple theory and practicals on what makes certain concepts/ideas/products memorable. It’s disposable business literature but interesting.

• The Leadership Challenge; James Kouzes & Barry Posner. A true classic. I re-read it periodically. Reminds me of what I want to be when I grow up. Should be on every leader’s must-read list.

• Taking Your Church to the Next Level: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There; Gary McIntosh. Straightforward primer for understanding how both the age and the life-cycles of church creates barriers for growth. You either like this stuff or not. Good intro into this genre.

• The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of The Christian Faith; Tim Keller. Keller’s got some great insights on the prodigal son story; he artfully juxtaposes the problem with running from God and manipulating His love with moral behaviors. Highly recommended for those who are burned out on religion. Love this line: “Both the worldly life of sensual pleasure and the religious life of ethical strictness fail to give the human heart what it is seeking.”

• The Me I Want to Be; John Ortberg. Joe Boyd really liked this book. Just starting it.

• Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time; Sarah Ruden. Loved the premise: a female Quaker scholar of Greco-Roman classic literature decides to study Paul through the cultural context of Paul’s literary peers. She began the study with her personal paradigm of Paul as a misogynistic, sexually repressive egotist who perverted Jesus’ message. After her study, she did a one-eighty. Warning: her colloquial translations of some classics border on mild pornography; it’s an eye-opening experience into ancient culture.

• Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion; Gregory Boyle. A priest tells gritty stories of his gang-intervention ministry (Homeboy Industries) in L.A. County. Hold in tension the raw language and almost over-attempt to be relevantly hip with his incredibly selfless and difficult work with gangs—this guy has done 169 funerals since 1988. Street cred galore.

• The DNA of Relationships; Gary Smalley. Hey, it’s a free download. Haven’t started yet.

• After You Believe; N. T. Wright. This one and Surprised By Hope have been my favorites from Tom Wright. This line alone makes me want to stand up and march: “Jesus came, in fact, to launch God’s new creation, and with it a new way of being human…” (is he listening to old Switchfoot…?) and “Jesus believed and taught that humans in general, including God’s people Israel, had a sickness of heart which all attempts at self-betterment could not touch.”

• The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity; Soon-Chan Rah. Oh yeah. This one will provoke and punch. His case for real cultural diversity and upsetting typical white evangelical assumptions is good for the soul. His picture of evangelical western ‘cultural captivity’ is expressed as individualism, consumerism/materialism and racism. Amen.

• Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands; Nancy Ortberg. Another freebie. Nice, conversational thoughts on leadership/management; reads like it was transcripted from workshops.

• Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home; Richard Foster. I love Foster’s pure, personal and devotional approach to writing. He makes me want to pray without feeling guilty.

• Drive; Daniel Pink. I read this before Pink spoke at the Leadership Summit and was completely intrigued. People got tired of hearing me quote from it. You can get the gist of it in this great little video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

• Myth of a Christian Nation; Gregory A. Boyd. Helpful book for those struggling with (or tired of) the politics of nationalism. Nice introduction on how the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world clash. You may not agree with everything, but I think true conversion to following Christ begins with this mindset.

• Prayer of the Faithful: Understanding and Creatively Leading Corporate Intercessory Prayer; W. C. Huffman. I was looking for something on corporate intercession with a bit of liturgical feel. Not all that helpful for our context, but my favorite quote is this: “When Luther cut back the enormous growth of the medieval mass, his pastoral intincts led him to simplify forms of prayer and song. In limiting the lengthy gradual to two verses, he suggested that those interested could sing the over verses at home. (Take note, all us Vineyard worships leaders!) …(Luther) wrote: ‘In church we do not want to quench the spirit of the faithful with tedium.’”

• Axion: Powerful Leadership Proverbs; Bill Hybels. Always engaging and motivational, you may not agree with every short learning, but it will certainly fire your reflective jets on your own leadership.

• The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church; Alan Hirsch. Just downloaded this last night after reading a few pages at Jason Scott’s house. Piqued my interest and I’m not familiar with Hirsch’s writing.

• Outliers: The Story of Success; Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, he’s ubiquitous. Regardless of what you think of his analysis, dang…he’s a good storyteller. Never boring. And I love that he touches on race issues in such a backdoor way.

• The Apostle Paul and Women in the Church; Don Williams. Don’s a Vineyard scholar. If you’re egalitarian (I am), you’ll enjoy this. Good primer to the problem of women’s roles; for example, he uses the ‘life source’ rather than the ‘lordship’ interpretation of Ephesians 5:23. The cultural book references are a little dated, but the material is well written. Not sure if this would settle any argument or is the ultimate apologetic, but it will get you thinking.

• Mystically Wired: Exploring New Realms in Prayer; Ken Wilson. Ken (our regional overseer) is the best-kept secret in the Vineyard movement. He makes tough ideas, concepts and practices accessible. His personal journey of prayer and wealth of experience in community makes “divine hours” prayer (as an example) not only practical but attractive for us ‘can’t-sit-still’ ADD-driven, prayer-guilted folks.

There you go. Not sure if these are all hearty recommendations for everyone, but it’s been interesting reading for me.
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ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes?

2010-10-23T13:42:00.009-04:00

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Finally have a chance here to post a bit. I wrote part of this in a Belfast airport after having said goodbye to my friend Jason Scott. Jason and his wife Michelle are co-leaders of the Vineyard in Dungannon, Northern Ireland; they planted the church about six years ago and have done a brilliant job with their extremely capable leaders of creating a very cool and energized outward-focused church. My job is to simply offer a bit of encouragement from time to time.

They kindly invited me to speak at a conference called Explore58 for area churches (some from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Ireland and England), primarily on the Church’s response to poverty using Isaiah 58 as the driving text. I’ll blog a bit about that next.

I nearly didn’t get there. The day Anita and I were to drive to Dayton Airport at 3 p.m., I was working with our video guy at the office. My assistant Donna called me with a little problem: my passport was in Washington D.C. I had forgotten that over a month ago we had sent my passport to the Nigerian Embassy in D.C. to get the visa for my trip to Jos in November. The rest of the team had their passports returned but somehow mine wasn’t mailed. She felt terrible. So did I.

Time to panic. Okay, and pray. I know, I know.

We had to cancel my flights to and from Belfast and began making frantic calls to the embassy; thankfully, my Nigerian friend Emmanuel Itapson was phoning as well. In the meantime, we found a flight to D.C. from CVG/Cincinnati but I needed to leave immediately. I called Anita from my office and asked her to pack my bag while I drove home. My coworker and small group buddy Kent met me there to drive me to the airport. Anita still had to fly out of Dayton a few hours later.

We weren’t totally sure if anyone at the embassy would find my passport or if I could even get there in time. Of course, even booking a flight to D.C. with a final destination of Belfast wasn’t simple: they still wanted my passport number at the ticket counter even though that’s what I was trying to get! I nearly missed the flight out. En route, Emmanuel called me and told me he finally got through to someone at the embassy and they told him they were just fifteen minutes away from dropping it in the mail. Whoa.

When I got to D.C., I ran through the terminals to catch a taxi for a nearly one-hour drive to the embassy in hopes of catching someone there. The cabdriver had a thick accent and wore a turban. I asked him where he was from and he told me India. We talked about our families. We talked about our respective homes. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was trying to get to Belfast via the Nigerian Embassy. He drove faster and asked me why. I told him about the conference on poverty and Christians’ response to it…and then gently told him how my life had changed when I met Jesus. He was quiet and respectful. We had a really good God-conversation. We talked about the part of India he was from and I told him of my friend Jason’s work with the Dalits, India’s poorest of the poor. He was familiar with them and informed me he was a Sikh. I asked him how he had chosen to become a Sikh and he said you’re simply born one.

It reminded me of America and how so many people just assume they’re a Christian because they were Protestant or Catholic and went to church. We’re really not that different. I related that idea to him and how I believed God gives each of us the choice to surrender our hearts to Him.

We found the embassy just as it closed and came across a guard who actually had my passport in an envelope! I ran back through the gates for my cabbie friend. We continued our conversation until I had to run to the ticket counter.

I just missed my flight connection. Dang. And I won’t tell you how much the cab ride was.

Turned out I could get a flight to London at 10 p.m. And thirteen hours later, I was closer to Belfast. Then by 2:30 p.m. (BST) the next day, I finally landed at George Best Airport in lovely Northern Ireland.

Without my luggage.

Apparently, it was confused and still in D.C. Not to worry; all I really need was my Macbook, a power supply, and a bottle of contact lens solution. And that travels with me.

The conference went really well. God showed up, hearts were broken for the poor and practical ideas were offered. Along with others, I spoke three times and then on Sunday morning.

A few days later, we left at 8:30 a.m. on a Friday morning to briefly attend a pastors’ breakfast in Lurgan on the way to the airport. At 1 p.m. I was having another God-conversation on the flight to London with an older woman. The door opened for me to tell how Jesus had changed my life. She opened up and related all about twins she had given up for adoption and how they recently reentered her life. She was obviously struggling with it, but periodically would say, “But it doesn’t really bother me,” and then would recount the story all again. She allowed me to pray for her on the plane and teared up.

We got back at 1 a.m. on Friday morning and just in time to be home for our relationship conference with Emerson Eggerichs.

This morning, as I was in a hurry to get to our conference and backing out of the garage, I forgot my daughter Katie was parked in the driveway and sideswiped her car…effectively wrecking two family cars with ease.

Sheesh. It’s never boring…

…always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:20) .
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25 years

2010-10-06T01:17:00.018-04:00

A quarter of a century.

That’s how long the Vineyard has been doing ministry in Greater Cincinnati and beyond. Or at least that’s when we began holding Sunday morning celebrations. Prior to that, there were a few small groups and a Sunday night gathering at a house and later a Kindercare. At one point before 1985, we had a brief stint with an afternoon service in a Junior Achievement building somewhere in Blue Ash if I remember correctly.

But Sunday mornings began in the Hayloft square dance barn on Glensprings Drive off Route 4 where Perkins currently sits. The Hayloft was later relocated to Winton Woods and renamed Parky’s Barn.

We had a grand total of thirty-seven people…including the band.

I’ve only done two other things longer than twenty-five years: follow Jesus…and be married. Interesting: the three things I’ve done the longest were the best decisions I ever made. Or sometimes I think they were made for me in my most Calvinistic moments. Regardless, there wasn’t great clarity involved. I think I was actually pretty nervous making each decision. I’m not sure what that means.

Anyway, let me help you feel old. Or if you’re young, incredulous.

1985 was the year. I was still traveling and playing music in band called Prodigal. We recorded our third album that year in several locations using a 24-track mobile recording truck (hey, it was still state-of-the-art then with two-inch magnetic tape…) from Full Sail Recording in Orlando. And we were still scraping by. But on weekends when I wasn't on the road, Anita and I were at this new little church plant called the Vineyard. I left Prodigal the following year and, very reluctantly (to put it mildly), began leading worship each week as a volunteer. And for the next four years before coming on staff.

In 1985, Gorbachev became President of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union no longer exists. Now it’s only Russia with Medvedev (*cough*-Putin-*cough*) as President.

“Back To the Future” was the big movie with groundbreaking special effects. Have you seen it lately? The effects are as bad as Star Wars.

The first Blockbuster Video store opened in Texas. Try finding one now. It was delisted on the NYSE a few months back and two weeks ago declared bankruptcy. Stocks are at six cents.

In 1985, Coke introduced New Coke. Three months later it was back to Old Coke.

Calvin and Hobbes made their first appearance. Genius. But after ten years, creator Bill Watterson put away his pens.

In 1985 I bought my first computer: a Commodore SX64. A beautiful portable computer that only weighed twenty-three pounds, had a cover that popped off and became the keyboard (complete with attached telephone-type curly cord), and an amazing 5-inch color screen (the first on a “portable”). I ran Dr. T sequencing software (rows and rows of numbers) for the new world of MIDI-controlled instruments (MIDI protocol had only been adopted two years earlier: Spec 1.0). What’s more it had a whopping 170 kilobytes of hard drive storage. Yowza!

To put this in scale, a little classic iPod can hold 167,772,160 kilobytes if my math is correct. And, as you can guess, the Commodore SX64 is no longer around.

A lot of things come and go in twenty-five years.

But the Vineyard is still here.

I don’t know totally what that means, but I’d say that servanthood, kindness, mercy, grace, Holy Spirit power, vision, forgiveness and acceptance never go out of style. Or as Paul the apostle put it: “There are three things that will endure—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”

If we can remember that, I think the next twenty-five will go swimmingly.
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doubt

2010-09-18T13:31:00.011-04:00

A little over ten years ago, vampire-best-seller author (fifty-million plus) Anne Rice returned to her Catholic roots and announced she was a Christian. She followed with several Christian novels. Then this past July, she made headlines when she posted on Facebook:

“Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten ...years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

The next day she posted thoughts about the new $139 Kindle. And then this:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”

There are well-publicized moral issues and doctrinal stances she disagrees with. I understand. And there are difficulties she has with her particular strain of Christianity. I hope, though, she is having some conversations of pastoral depth with someone who cares for her that will challenge her spiritually…because all of us struggle from time to time. C. S. Lewis once wrote:

“Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked very probable.”

A fellow blogger and friend has similarly been openly posting some of his questions with Christians and Christianity. After my post on “whose god is my god?”, Steve Fuller wrote an “open letter” in response. Since our exchanges have been public, I’m sure he won’t mind it reprinted here. His questions caused me to reflect on subjectivity, authority and each person’s dance with God. Here it is in its entirety except for the link to my original post:

Dave Workman is a good dude. He has been my pastor and boss, and although we don't really hang out, I have always considered him a friend. We don't always agree, but I respect his opinion. I trust that he loves God and wants to help others experience a relationship with Jesus.

Dave is the real deal.  

A couple of days ago, Dave wrote a very interesting blog post that got the wheels in my brain turning. I started writing a comment, but I realized my comment was almost as long as his original post. I always feel awkward hijacking someone else's blog, so I decided to link his original message and write my response here…

 …Good thoughts. My central issue with God and religion always comes back to this: Who gets to define God?  

Everything human beings experience is viewed through unique lenses. You and I can read the exact same Bible and experience God very differently. 

 So, you would likely answer, "God gets to define God." But how I experience God is different from every other person on this planet because I filter everything through my unique lifetime of experiences.

  My point is that we all create our own personal gods. Me, you, Tim Keller, Pat Robertson, etc. God is not the exact same being to any of us. He couldn’t possibly be unless we shared a brain and had identical experiences from birth to death.  

For example, there is a pastor in Florida organizing a Koran burning. You and I probably agree that isn't God's will, but that pastor thinks it is. Who is right? My God would never approve. His God does. If I claim to be perfectly in tune with God’s every thought and feeling, wouldn’t that also make me a god?

  The Vineyard places women in central leadership positions. There are lots of churches that don’t appoint female elders/leaders because their interpretation of God and the Bible is different than yours. Who is right? We always seem to find a way to explain away the verses that don’t align with our personal values, but defend the verses that do. That’s convenient.  

Many wise, loving Christians (who read the same Bible) support gay marriage. Others do not. Who is right?  

Is there such a thing as "right," or are we all just using our limited knowledge and experiences to give it our best shot?

  It frightens me when people claim to have discovered THE God (knowing his exact will, knowing his stance on social issues, etc). That's pretty bold. Even if God walked into this room, people would still experience him differently based on personal lenses. Heck, people were all over the place on who Jesus was and what he had come to do two thousand years ago … and they were able to have daily conversations with a flesh and blood human being. We have whispers and a book. (I don’t mean that to sound condescending, but literally, we have voices in our head and a highly contextualized, oft-translated book to help understand God’s heart.)  

So, I would say my God is the same as your God. He's the God we have both created to line up with our lifetime of experiences; the God who magically aligns with our personal ideologies; the God who allows us to sleep better at night.

  But is either of our Gods THE God. Is anyone's? Rather than saying yes or no, I think the better question is, "How could they be without putting ourselves in the position of God?"

  Not trying to give answers here. Or cause problems. Or be a jerk. Simply walking through a season of questioning/doubt that dominates my thinking, and so it helps to process out loud.  

Thanks for the thought-provoking dialogue.

Big wonderments. I know Steve has friends that he’s been wrestling these questions with whom he loves…and who love him. A few days later I responded in a comment on his blog:

Hi Steve,  

Thanks for the kind words. I hope I’m “the real deal”; I have my moments. I started to put a smiley face after that sentence, then I thought, “Should I guy in his fifties use an emoticon?”…after which I decided I wouldn’t if I were actually “the real deal”. From there I stumbled into a self-conscious black hole. Squirrel!  

Let me try to respond to a couple of questions you’ve raised. I’m not an apologist or a particularly smart guy. And, further disclaimer, not a theologian by any stretch. I’m a drummer who reluctantly became a shepherd. The older I get, the less I think I know.

But at the risk of sounding arrogant, I do know God and have a crazy assurance that He considers me a friend. And, honestly, daily that confounds me. From the time I surrendered my life to Jesus thirty-six years ago and through numerous difficult life situations and perplexities, I can say with all my being that I’ve never had a moment where I didn’t think He loved me. Sometimes years went by where He seemed silent, but I never felt unloved. Of course I’m aware that reads subjective and a good psychoanalyst could shrink the daylights out of my neural ruts, but that’s been my experience.  

And so when you ask, “Who gets to define God?”, you’re right: I would answer “God”. And yes, that’s a problem.

  I’m sure that there are more than a handful of celebrities who would prefer to define themselves rather than have the tabloids do it. And if a celebrity were truly humble (irony!), I’m sure during a time of hurtful rumors and p.r. disasters they would prefer that the ones who were most intimate with them would let others know what they were really like.  

Truth is, if I exclude the God-factor, no one really knows me except me. That is, my inner world, my behaviors when no one’s around, my secret fears. But the next closest person would be my wife. She knows me better than anyone over these thirty-two years. Then I would suspect my kids, my mom, and so on. And, of course, they would each have a particular bias based on their life experiences and interactions with me.  

And so I would say that the person who is most intimate with God would be the best “definer” of what God is really like. The question I would ask is: How does one truly find intimacy with God? For me, that’s where Christianity becomes curiously unique among world religions and spiritual experiences.  

It seems to me that the only way to get near God is via humility. That idea resonates through scripture. Humility precludes performance. Humility whispers, “You don’t know jack. Come like a little child.” Prior to becoming a follower of Jesus, my older brother once said to me, “This Christian-thing would be okay if you didn’t have to humble yourself.” And I can’t think of too many things more humbling than receiving a gift when you know you least deserved it. And that’s where the beauty of grace as expressed in Jesus fills the picture for me.

You write: “I would say my God is the same as your God. He's the God we have both created to line up with our lifetime of experiences; the God who magically aligns with our personal ideologies; the God who allows us to sleep better at night.”  

This is where I have to disagree. When Jesus found me playing in a bar band in Clifton and revealed Himself, He definitely did not “lineup with my lifetime of experiences” or my “personal ideologies” nor allowed me to sleep better at night. If I would have designed a god after my own image, he would have slung his cosmic arm around my shoulders, lit up a spliff, and watched some porn with me. Rather, His “ideology” crushed mine into pieces. I was miserable between those two worlds. And up until the time I finally surrendered and stumbled out of the saloon with my hands in the air like an outlaw in a western, He was nothing like I would have preferred. What I seemed to hear was: “Come and die…then perhaps you’ll really live. But let’s see how willing you are to die first.” Every ideology I had was shattered, not to mention my pride.  

Intimacy with God is different from the peripheral issues, such as the example you gave of VCC and women in leadership. Conversely though, I think those who are most intimate with God probably have the best take on the issues, particularly moral ones. How you identify (and trust) those people is the issue. My understanding of scripture is best filtered through the lens of my authentic intimacy with God. And where my intimacy is in question, I lean into the most orthodox interpretation of other Jesus-followers I know and those throughout history. That’s served me well over the years.  

I remember a friend of mine who followed the philosopher Krishnamurti once said to me, “Krishnamurti writes that you cannot trust anyone as a source of spiritual knowledge and authority except for your own self and your own senses.” I asked him, “So why should I believe him?” At some point we will have to lean on an outside authority; when I apprenticed as an electrician at one time in my life, I suppose I could have learned to wire a house myself, but it surely would have been through much pain and I’m not sure I would have lived in it afterwards. It helped to trust a master electrician.  

But humbly attempting to “define God” (which I would prefer “pointing in the direction of”) doesn’t make me God anymore than trying to describe my wife to a stranger makes me her.  

Last, my own answer to my blog post question “Whose god is my god?”, my unequivocal answer is Jesus. He’s my God. I’ll choose Him over anything I could make up in a heartbeat. Yeah, scholars can argue over whether He said this or that or how to interpret His thorny sayings, but once He became God to me, somehow my Big Questions got smaller. They didn’t always go away, but they became smaller somehow…and less important.  

When friends have intellectual issues regarding Christianity, I’ll ask them to at least be fair: read the other side and the people who have higher IQ’s than most of us and somehow reconciled faith and reason. At least be scientific and look at all the evidence, not just the pub-room questions. The pop apologists/Christian philosophers are helpful: Lewis, Keller, Wright, or Zacharias are good. Or go further back and check out Aquinas or Pascal or Tolstoy or Chesterton.

  At times I find it’s not an issue of logic, but some moral difficulties that are being wrestled with. Sometimes that’s internalized; other times externalized. And that’s a whole other question and a much longer topic.  

Please don’t read this as condescending. I’m still figuring out a lot myself. And even though I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Jesus-follower, I’m still living out Jeremiah’s revelation from God: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity…”  

That’s a good promise.

Steve responded kindly:

Dave,  I appreciate the wisdom and kindness in your response.

All I can add to this epic-length post is this: I’m glad we have a Father who pursues us.
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forgiveness

2010-09-13T18:41:00.004-04:00

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The most creative power given to the human spirit is the power to heal the wounds of a past it cannot change. ~Lewis Smedes, The Art of Forgiving

This past weekend I knew a lot of emotion would get stirred up in tackling the issue of forgiveness. I talked about a process which included five stages:

We admit our pain.
We assign true blame.
We give up our right for personal revenge.
We recover the worth of another person.
We begin to feel some compassion toward the person who hurt us.

I don’t think these are neither comprehensive or easy to do. But in the end, it’s a matter of obedience in spite of our need for justice. If I’d had more time, I would have tacked on a few of the mechanics I’ve observed about myself in struggling with forgiveness. For instance…

Practice with some small wins

Remember a few months ago when we did the series Perfect Takes Practice? The whole idea was the more we practice a particular behavior in relating to others, the better we simply get. Same with forgiveness: start small. Begin with some easy ones. Forgive the guy who flipped you off on I-75. Practice forgiving the DMV lady with the attitude. Years ago I was waiting in a long line at a bank with a friend where the teller was clearly not excited about being there and moving painfully slow. I said to my friend, “Doesn’t management here train them that they’re here to serve others?” My friend replied, “Yeah. It’s easy for us to forget that too, isn’t it?” Ouch.

Pray like crazy

Another idea is the obvious: pray, pray, pray. And then pray some more. Remember this one when you’re trying to figure out when to forgive someone who’s deeply hurt you. Timing is everything. I’m suspicious of quick forgivers; I don’t think they’re really in touch with their anger or pain. They may just be in “religious mode”. But don’t wait too long either. Don’t let anger fester into bitterness. Pray. Ask God to help you with the timing. But do something. Pray. Ask God to give you His power to do this. Forgiving a deep wound is like the layers of an onion—you forgive and peel off a layer. Later on, you discover something deeper, and forgiveness is experienced at a greater depth. It’s not really repeating as much as it is deepening.

KISS

One more thing: don’t forget the old acronym KISS: Keep It Short, Sinnerboy. When forgiving someone, don’t turn it into a big production. The less you say, the better; just do it in a truly heartfelt way. And please don’t go to someone who isn’t even aware of hurting you and forgive them; you need different kind of conversation with them first. It seems to me that forgiveness works best when we don’t demand a certain response. If the response doesn’t bring the effect or restoration we hoped to get, then we can just enjoy the personal healing and freedom for our own souls. The prison door has swung open.

In the end, forgiveness is simply the cancellation of a debt. Unforgiveness, it’s been said, is like drinking poison and expecting the other to die.

...Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:13)
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whose god is my god?

2010-09-07T23:40:00.006-04:00

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(Disclaimer: You may draw the following analogy out to other real-life moral challenges. Okay, I warned you.)

It’s only a matter of time and money until child porn is perfectly and realistically computer-generated. There will be some who will hail it as a win for free speech since no child is harmed in its production…and others will mourn it as a sign of a moral collapse.

In the end I think it all depends on who your god is.

Culturally it’s still fairly easy to say that child pornography is immoral. Most find it repugnant. But in the coming years American society will struggle with it for several reasons:

First, we have a love affair with our constitution, particularly freedom of speech. I mean, who really wants the government to define who can say what? I don’t. You don’t. The dilemma is it’s becoming easier to defend constitutional rights and more difficult to define morality. Whose morality? The majority? God’s?—or at least your interpretation of God’s moral laws? In a pluralistic society this gets more complicated. And though some will cry, “You can’t legislate morality”, you’re kidding, right? Don’t we do that everyday with laws that punish anyone who steals or drives thirty-five in a school zone? We believe laws deter bad behavior...or at the very least punishes it.

Second, we have some strong cultural assumptions. For example: what a person does privately—as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else—is nobody’s business, and certainly for those who feel government is infringing more and more in our “personal affairs”. Conservatives and libertarians have a conundrum when they want less government, more constitutionally-driven power, and yet have specific moral imperatives legislated. The constitution is pretty amoral…and if you think power should be decentralized (a la states rights), it’s still an argument of degree: for instance, California is a big state. Someone will still have the power. And if all politics is local, gee, L.A. is pretty humongous…and even Anaheim is no small potatoes. You can get off the grid and make your own tofu, but if there’s more that a few of you on that ponderosa in Montana, some governance structure will develop. It wasn’t pretty in Lord of the Flies.

Third, here comes the issue: what if child porn is created via someone’s graphic card? Years ago the Supreme Court determined, in effect, that child pornography wasn’t criminalized if it was virtual, that is, if no actual children were involved. Apparently, zeroes-and-ones are okay. It should be no surprise that the only moral imperative we seem to have is: “as-long-as-it-doesn’t-hurt-anybody”. Somehow we keep forgetting Somebody in that “anybody”. Uh, like God.

Two years ago, the Court upheld a federal statute criminalizing soliciting or pandering child pornography. But since it had already ruled that virtual child pornography was protected by the constitution, what became illegal two years ago was if the panderer was fraudulently passing off the virtual pornography as real. So underage Sims getting it on is illegal to post if you’re trying to pass it off as real human children. Gee, you think that’ll be a problem as CGI gets more realistic?

Two of the justices dissented. David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg felt their concerns were still not addressed. They didn’t object to making it a crime to mislead others by offering material that actually didn’t exist; that’s merely fraud. We all know that is wrong. But Souter reminded the Court that possession of pornographic images that do not depict real children is constitutionally protected, and offering them should not be a crime. He said, “If the act can effectively eliminate the real-child requirement when a proposal relates to extant material, a class of protected speech will disappear.”

Sheesh. I’ll leave that to the lawyers to parse.

But I know where I have to wrestle with this stuff. In some ways, it’s not just a moral issue for me; it’s a matter of obedience. My God sent His Son to die for me. That’s the bottom line. I was a moral mess, a lonely self-absorbed screwed-up young guy who God found facedown in a “no-one’s-going-to-tell-me-how-to-live” gutter. A myopic mix of bravado and fears. A hot mess of nurture and nature-gone-wild. As the blind man in John 9 remarked while interrogated and harassed by religious leaders, “One thing I do know: I was blind but now I see!” Or at least in the words of Forrest, “I’m not a smart man. But I know what love is.”

My love for God has to be greater than my love for my personal view of life. And oddly, it has to be greater than my love for man. We have to be cautious of turning love into god. God is love…and not the other way around. Anthropomorphizing God into an old man with a long beard is just as silly as nebulously viewing Him as some amorphous force floating around.

But mysteriously, the more I love God, the more deeply I love people. It’s funny: when I think conversely of Jesus’s statement in Luke 7:47, it would read, “He who has been forgiven much, loves much.” The more in touch I am with the extent of my Father’s love for me and the expanse of His forgiveness of me, the more I can legitimately love others. Take away His grace, and I’m left adrift to define love in silly ways.

And so regardless of where the laws waft, I know the God I serve. And I don’t argue anymore with what He describes in His book as to what offends Him, what breaks His heart. If it breaks His, I want it to break mine…regardless if it doesn’t seem to hurt others.

There are numbers of different things that our culture says shouldn’t bother me as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else and done in the privacy of a bedroom. Of course that’s true from a culture-current legal perspective; I wouldn’t want someone telling me what I should or shouldn’t do if I believed it was morally permissible for me. But now I know I have to internalize it and weigh it all with what wounds the heart of God. As I’ve said before, imagine defacing a gorgeous, centuries-old work of art because you didn’t like the way the artist painted the picture, repainting with your own flourishes, how you think it should look, and ignoring the artist’s original design. Try to imagine how the artist would feel.

Before we champion particular behaviors, it might be wise to consider what the Master Artist has to say about those who were painted in His image. I believe we need to think a little more deeply than pub theology.

And much of this will be determined by whose god is your god.
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firestarter safety

2010-08-25T00:54:00.008-04:00

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Dallas thinking about the weekend (Firestarters) and what I wish I could have said. Because of our quest for the elusive fifty-five minute celebration (trying to cram in three celebration start times between 9 and 11:45 on Sunday is a challenge), sometimes there simply isn’t time to unpack a particular point. I would have liked to talk a little more about the idea of safety in relationships. It wasn’t critical to the main thrust of the message, but it left some things unsaid.

I mentioned that many of us at VCC came from messy family systems with varieties of dysfunctions that make us nervous about any real depth of relationship. But in this New Family that God was forming, there should be a sense of safety. Otherwise, we can’t admit our failures or shame without fear of judgment or rejection. Without safety, there’s no real intimacy or depth of relationship.

Months ago I was both amused and sad when I got an email with “Bless me, Father…” in the subject line. It began with:

“I have a confession. I have been at the Vineyard for years. I still am not a Republican. Is there a Growth and Healing group for me? I'm being obstinate here, but I was there in the conservative church in the early to mid-60's. The MLK video triggered some flashbacks. I admit I don't understand the attraction of the right wing for evangelicals. I also know that even discussing political issues can painfully divide churches. I don't even admit my political views to my small group, who know more about my dirty secrets than anyone else. My casual friends know I voted for Obama, but my small group leader said they thought it possible that Obama is the Anti-Christ. They really said that, and they’re one of the most caring and sincere people I know.”

Obviously, some tongue-in-cheek, but between the lines is real pain. They went on to write:

“Sometimes hesitate to invite my liberal friends. I still crave acceptance from other people and I'm afraid to leave my particular ‘closet’.”

Regardless of your personal politics, that seems sad to me that they don’t feel safe in their group. As many of you know, the Vineyard works really hard to be apolitical; the staff is a mix of backgrounds, sensitivities and politics. What’s more, because of our high value for recovery ministries and the power of redemptive, restorative and reconciliatory relationships, we deeply understand the need for safety, transparency and vulnerability in order to be whole people. I find it fascinating, though, that because of our politicized and polarized culture, someone can feel free enough to expose their deepest secrets but scared of admitting a particular political slant even in passing…for fear of rejection and reprisal.

Jesus told His disciples that people would know they belonged to Him because of their love for each other. The kicker?—they were a diverse group of personalities with extremely different political views and socio-economic backgrounds. But God’s New Family would reflect His Kingdom…and the evident power of the Holy Spirit to tear down walls that separate us—whether they are walls of ethnicity, race, politics, education, gender or whatever. Or as the apostle Paul would say, In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. (Galatians 3:28 Message Version).

And so when we invite outsiders to our gatherings, there is an obvious message that goes beyond words and slogans. Imagine a spiritual family that includes men and women, the wealthy and the under-resourced, Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, singles and married, young and old, all broken and bruised…all in the process of healing and reconciliation. What do you think that would communicate? I believe people are longing to belong to a real family.

There was a long history of racism and hostility between Jews and Gentiles in the Roman Empire. It had sociopolitical and religious roots…those are two strikes right away. In the second half of chapter two in Paul’s Ephesian letter, he doesn’t sweep any of this under the rug but fully exposes it. And at the same time, he doesn’t avoid the chosen status the Jews had in their covenant with God, and that those outside of that covenant were truly lost and apart from intimacy with God.

But Paul understands that a new covenant has been made, a covenant that makes the old one obsolete, as the author of Hebrews writes (Hebrews 8:13). God is doing something radical in the human race…and Paul outlines it further in Ephesians 2:

For Christ himself has made peace between us Jews and you Gentiles by making us all one people. He has broken down the wall of hostility that used to separate us. By his death he ended the whole system of Jewish law that excluded the Gentiles. His purpose was to make peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new person from the two groups. (Ephesians 2:14–15 New Living Translation)

Safety is critical if we really want to grow as Christ-followers. How are you on the safety scale with others? Are you a safe place, a city of refuge?
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choices

2010-08-02T16:07:00.008-04:00

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Maybe in my old age I’m getting wistful, but lately I’ve been thinking a bit about choices I’ve made over the years. And why some of them have been repetitive… good and bad. Especially in light of our series Perfect Takes Practice that Joe Boyd wrapped up this weekend.

Just prior to his death, Moses addressed the nation of Israel. They were about to enter into some real estate that God had promised years before. Moses knew that the only way they would be successful in settling it would be if they continually chose to live for God and follow His ways. Sadly, he also knew prophetically they would not. And so with a philosophical “Whatever...”, he gives them a simple encouragement regarding their choices:

“… I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Oh, that you would choose life; that you and your children might live! Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey him and to cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days.” Deuteronomy 30:19, 20 Living Bible

A few verses earlier he put it even more succinctly. To paraphrase, “Because you are made in God’s image, you have this remarkable ability to choose between life and prosperity or death and destruction.” Living our lives for God and the resulting wholeness is a continual string of choices. Moses is simply saying that a full life is largely about choices.

C. S. Lewis made a classic comment about this in his little book Mere Christianity that has stuck with me for decades:

“…every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”

With that in mind, consider the absolutely PC-less comment Jesus made to a hurting man in Jerusalem:

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda (Bethesda means “the house of kindness”) and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" John 5:1-6.

Excuse me, but shouldn’t that have been obvious? Really? After all, wasn’t the man at the “healing waters” of the House of Kindness?

Get the picture: There could have been hundreds of people lying about this natural spring waiting to be healed. The rumor was that the water rippled ever so often when a supernatural being touched it…and the first ones in would get healed. When Jesus arrived, he headed for one person in particular, a man disabled for nearly forty years. His muscles would have atrophied to the bone. It’s obvious what’s wrong, but there was something deeper. And so Jesus gets to the core of the problem with a simple question: “Do you want to get well?” There is a flash of divine psychoanalysis. “You need to be whole. Do you want to be whole?”

As harsh as this may sound, many of us have problems that we don’t want to get rid of. There are varieties of Biblical ways to get rid of them: restitution, forgiveness, confession, repentance and so on. All of them require being painfully honest. I feel on a regular basis that God asks me, “Do you really want to get well?” There are those of us who will not—do not want—to be healed of our emotional stuff. Our identity may be wrapped up in our problem. “I have a right to feel like this…this person hurt me deeply…this employer stiffed me…” It gives us an excuse for certain behaviors. Some of us would have very little to talk about if it wasn’t for it.

When I was a little kid, if I got sick enough to stay home from school, mom had a routine. For some reason, Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and a laxative were always involved. It didn’t matter if you fell off the playground slide and your collarbone poked through your skin, you had to take laxative. For mom, it was like “digestive bloodletting”. But she also had this wonderful tradition of going to the corner drugstore and buying a comic book for me to read while she worked if I was sick at home. Sometimes I’d just act sick to get a new comic book, in spite of the laxative.

For some of us, that becomes a way of life. A pattern for identity that we carry throughout our adult lives. I’ve learned there’s always a question whispered behind the choices I make. And those questions reveal more about the Real Me and the choices I make than anything else. Further, those questions expose the depth of wholeness I actually desire with my Father.

And despite how we may want to redefine heaven and hell, it seems they still have more to do with our choices than we dare to admit.

I think many of us would find it easier to blame God.
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so why didn’t you talk about divorce?

2010-07-13T11:37:00.006-04:00

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Although this series has been an overview of the Sermon on the Mount as it relates to the kingdom of God, there are some specific lines in Jesus’s message that provoke more than a little concern. One of them is his comment about divorce. There was no way to talk about that without spending an entire weekend (at least) on the subject and that would have sidetracked the main point of this particular series.

The stickler verse is this:

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’? But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31–32) Seems obvious, right? But actually, Bible scholars are all over the map on this issue of divorce and remarriage. I think if we read some key passages in context, it makes a lot more sense. There’s no way you can walk through this minefield without making somebody mad. I’ve been accused of being too soft on this by some and too dogmatic by others.

One of the most oft-stated points made by conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists is this: God hates divorce. In a well-quoted passage in Malachi 2, it reads: “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel… “ Malachi 2:16a. Please notice He didn’t say He hated divorced people. You might say to your kids, “I hate lying! I don’t like it when you lie to me!” But that doesn’t mean you hate your kids, it simply means you hate lying.

Now let me give you a big shocker you never hear preachers talk about: God Himself is divorced. At a point in Israel’s history, He became so angry with Israel’s unfaithfulness to Him, with their lusting after other lovers, other gods, other attractions to give themselves to, that He tells Jeremiah, “I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries…” Jeremiah 3:8a.

Are those scriptures at odds with each other?

Let’s start from the beginning. First, divorce and permission to remarry was not an issue under the Law of Moses—they were assumed one and the same. It reads in Deuteronomy 24: “Suppose a man marries a woman but later discovers something about her that is shameful. So he writes her a letter (or certificate) of divorce, gives it to her, and sends her away. If she then leaves and marries another man and the second husband also divorces her or dies, the former husband may not marry her again, for she has been defiled. Deuteronomy 24:1-4a (New Living Translation).

A letter of divorce meant that the marriage was a complete dissolution and remarriage was a part of the package. It was assumed there would be a remarriage. There was no forbidding of remarriage except in only one case: after marrying a second husband, a woman could not remarry her first husband if she divorced again (Uh, that’s not a problem for most divorced couples I know…). That was the only law against remarriage for divorced people. So when Paul, in a controversial passage in Romans 7, talks about a woman being bound to her husband as long as he lived, that she was not released unless he died, he was well aware of the Mosaic Law. As a matter of fact, he writes “I am speaking to those who know the law...” He was not talking about the reality of legal divorce and remarriage—he’s talking about a woman who is married and then marries another man while still married to the first. No one in Israel would call a legally divorced, remarried man or woman an adulterer; that was unheard of.

Now the tricky issue under Mosaic Law was defining the cause for divorce—ambiguously described as the wife “having found no favor in his eyes,” because he found “something unclean about her.” The interpretation of unclean could be anything from her being a bad housekeeper, to talking too loudly in her house, to the husband just finding someone prettier. This loose interpretation is the reason Jesus is cornered by some Pharisees in Matthew 19 and posed with the question “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?”

Remember, the question is not whether they can remarry; that’s not the issue--but on what grounds can they legally divorce? In Jesus’s time there were two debating schools of thought: one camp centered around Rabbi Hillel (who lived about a hundred years before Christ). He said you could divorce for any cause.

The other school was Rabbi Shammai who said only for fornication. This was a hotly debated topic...and divorce was rampant in Palestine. Remember the woman at the well who had been married five times? She was not the exception of that culture. He says to her “Go get your husband.” She says, “I don’t have one” and He prophetically responds with “Correct! Matter of fact, you’ve had five husbands and you’re not married to the guy you’re shacking up with now.” He seemed to recognized the legality of the fact that she had been married to five husbands and was now with a man who was not her husband.

When Matthew records this in chapter 5, he puts it in a context that gives us the key to understanding this. In Matthew 5 (and please read the whole chapter to get this), Jesus compares the Law of Moses to a higher calling: life in Him and the “Now-and-Not-Yet Kingdom-lifestyle”. Remember, Jesus said He didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

He was raising the stakes of what it meant to live under a Law of Love. Jesus was speaking in a style I call comparative hyperbole. He says “You have heard that it was said…” . . . “But I say…” (Matthew 5:21 to 43). He then uses a rhetorical overstatement to make his point in comparison to the Law of Moses—which was considered the standard for righteousness. He raises what real holiness would look like—it had more to do with heart motives than behaviors.

Again, Jesus said He didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it—and the law plainly allowed for divorce and remarriage. Let’s put one other thing into this mix: for any of you who have looked at divorced and remarried people as some second-class citizens of the Kingdom, I can only hope that you have never called anyone a jerk, because you’re guilty of hell, according to Jesus just a few verses earlier in Matthew 5. Someone cuts you off the expressway and you think they’re a dipstick, dust off your Triptik to hell. Or if you’ve ever been angry with a relative, you’ve just committed murder. Or I certainly hope I that you’ve never even thought about someone in a sexual way—you’ve already committed adultery. And adulterers and murderers are put to death under the laws of Moses. Or if for any reason you’ve lusted after something, make sure you pluck your right eye out. Or if you ever have to go to court and get slapped with a lawsuit, please give them a lot more money than they sue you for.

That’s the context that Jesus speaks on divorce here.

In those passages, Jesus is raising the stakes for the ideal marriage. Again, catch the overdriven language of what He’s saying: call somebody a jerk, you go to hell. Divorce your wife, you make her and yourself commit adultery. He ends this chapter with “Be perfect, just like your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Quick reality check: by a show of hands, how many of you blog-readers are perfect? Thank you. That is why we need Jesus Christ. Jesus is saying: those who live in perfect love will never divorce. And…they will never call someone a fool, they will never even glance at someone lustfully, they will never say “yes” when they’re not sure, and they will always love their enemies. They will always be perfect.

“Dave, you’re being sarcastic; are you saying don’t pay any attention to this stuff?—it’s not possible to live like that so don’t even mess with it?” Of course not. These are the words of God in the flesh. I’d better listen to them. I must abide in Jesus to walk in love. But with the understanding that if I’m honest I will more than likely fail, and will once again fall upon the grace of the Lord Jesus. If He is not able to forgive, then I am not able to live. That’s the reality.

Jesus is not just placing restrictions on people; Jesus takes us higher to the perfect law of love. Instead of asking “What’s the bottom line for divorce?” we should be asking “What’s the real power and significance of marriage?”

God designed marriage to be the most intimate human relationship possible. You’ve probably heard Christian teachers say, and I have said it myself, that “divorce is not in my vocabulary.” But let’s get real. The truth is, none of us went to the altar with divorce in our minds; that was an issue for other people who were “not in love like us.”

I’ve written these words before, but “God designed marriage to be the most intimate friendship imaginable. When the New Testament speaks of a man cleaving to his wife, it’s based on the same Greek word used for glue. It is the bringing together of two substances to make a new one. Jesus is saying that we need to enter this covenant with a measure of awe, a reverent fear and responsibility to God. The reason why we get married with clergy represented is because we are witnessing before God and asking Him to join us together and the heavyweight words that He speaks are ‘If I join you together, then don’t let any mere mortal tear you asunder’.”

The Apostle Paul writes: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:31-32.

Did you read between the lines there?—marriage has an incredible mission. It becomes the visible representation of the kind of intimacy and love Jesus desires for His bride—the Church. Marriage is the only thing on the planet that comes close to picturing the power, beauty and intimacy of God’s covenant with His followers. Get this and you’ll never see it the same again: Marriage is bigger than the personal fulfillment it should bring to each other. It has a task and a vision beyond that.

The world is looking for models of love and longevity and integrity. It is important to me to make sure my marriage is healthy because many people would be affected by its failure: not just me, not just my wife, not just my kids. And it’s not just so it looks good—that’s hypocritical. But whether it is good.

When you have invested your life in the Kingdom of God, when Jesus becomes the center of your life, everything takes on a higher significance. If your marriage doesn’t have a vision bigger than itself, you’re bound for trouble. That is why the Bible says it’s so critical that we marry other passionate followers of Jesus, that we’re not yoked with unbelievers. It’s saying: If you love Jesus, marry someone else who loves Him more than you do and is completely surrendered to Him. Otherwise there is no common vision other that trying to make each other happy. That’s not big enough to last.

The problem is: we live in a world of fallen creatures, with painful histories and emotional baggage, and trickiest of all, free will. But remember: God’s grace is very wide. I only know of one unforgivable sin, and this one isn’t it. We are the “not-yet-together” people. By faith we receive the catalytic and dynamic power of God, but we’re transparent about that process.
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perfect takes practice

2010-07-05T19:29:00.008-04:00

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“But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” ~Jesus

In this series we began called Perfect Takes Practice, I mentioned an idea that Malcolm Gladwell posits in his fascinating book, Outliers: The Story of Success. He upsets the typical ways we think how success happens, from culture to education to race to social class. In the book, Gladwell introduces the 10,000 Hours Rule. He writes of a study done at an elite music university in Berlin by a psychologist named Ericsson.

Ericsson divided all of the violin students into three groups. The first group were the “stars”…those who had the potential to become world-class soloists. The second group was judged to be merely “good” and in the third were students who never intended to become professionals but wanted to become music teachers in the public schools.

Every student had started learning at the same age, about five years old. They all practiced around the same amount of hours. Then Gladwell writes:

“But when the students were around the age of eight, real difference started to emerge. The students who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen, and up and up, until by the age of twenty they were practicing—that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better—well over thirty hours a week. In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.”

They did the same research with pianists as well. Same result. Neurologist Daniel Levitin found the same thing with “…basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters . . . chess players, (and) master criminals.” It takes an average of 10,000 hours for the brain “to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

Fascinating.

Gladwell even uses the Beatles as an example. By the time they came to America back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, they had played in the gritty strip clubs of Hamburg, Germany seven days a week, eight hours a night, and two-hundred-seventy nights in just a year-and-a-half.

In an interview before he died, John Lennon said, “In Liverpool, we’d only ever done one-hour (shows), and we just used to do our best numbers, the same ones, at every one. In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours, so we really had to find a new way of playing.”

Before they became successful in America, they had been playing together for seven years and “performed live an estimated twelve hundred times.” Most bands never do that their entire careers.

They hit the 10,000 Hours Rule. Practice, practice, practice.

What we discover in the Matthew 5-7 is the practice of surrendering to the King and His Kingdom-way of living. As a follower of Jesus I’ve learned that God is way more interested in my heart than my GPS location—where I’m “supposed to be” and “supposed to be doing”. God probes my core motivations to force me to admit if I’m living by the “dog-eat-dog, me-first, power-at-all-cost, I have to be right, recognized and rewarded” way of living in this world…or if I’m riding the first wave of this ocean of faith, hope and love that is pouring over the planet from God: the Kingdom Come.

What would happen if we began to actually practice Matthew 5-7? What if we fully became citizens of this new kingdom? What would happen if after 10,000 hours of following Jesus in the way He describes, we discovered that this is more that “good advice”? Would that make us more complete, perfect in terms of what God is doing in us in the moment?

This is light years past average day-to-day living. It is here that Jesus exposes the difference between people who say they love God, and people who really love God and know Him. I'm forced once again to face how my actions reveal my heart or God's heart.

Take mercy, for instance, as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount.

Expressing mercy is the ultimate risk-taking venture—X games for the soul. C. S. Lewis wrote that “Pilate (the Roman governor who condemned Jesus to crucifixion) was merciful till it became risky.” It would be nice if Jesus would have given us a select group of people to be merciful to…but He doesn't leave us that luxury. He simply says, “Love your enemies…and do good to them.”

I believe that if we were to actually practice what Jesus says, our personalities would begin a transformation. And by the way, Jesus didn't preface this with any exceptions. He didn't say, “I know some of you have come from dysfunctional families, so just do the best you can.” He actually tells them to be “complete, or perfected, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Teleios is the Greek word meaning completeness, wholeness, perfection—like God. It's not restrictive; rather, it’s liberating…it gives us life. If we come from dysfunctional backgrounds (and who hasn’t?), it is all the more reason to live this life-giving challenge. If I want to be well, I must.

Perfect takes practice.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24)

where's bloggo?

2010-06-18T00:54:00.006-04:00

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Hello blog. I’ve been away for awhile. Okay, a long, long while.

I think I‘ve been going through one of my deconstruction phases where I question how valuable certain activities are. But instead of just questioning, I shut down for a while. Ditto for Facebook.

Back in the day when I actually used paper (I’ve been nearly paperless for years; my last holdout was books. After getting a Kindle 2 last year, I haven’t bought a tree-based book since; magazines are still an issue due to a graphic-geekness addiction I can’t shake off. Give me two more iterations of iPads, and I’ll be a good little consumer), I would periodically end up with neatly ordered piles of papers on my desk like mini-skyscrapers. I had a couple of filing cabinets, but they were filled. There was an intuitive methodology to my stacks, but it had one major flaw: I’m a neat-freak when it comes to workspace. Clutter distracts me. It paralyzes me. I can’t explain how it disrupts my mental feng shui. For me, it feels exactly like trying to sleep when I have a dozen issues swirling around in my head that have to be dealt with…and the only way I can sleep—and by the way, prayer doesn’t help me—is to actually get out of bed, flip my Macbook on, and exorcise them to my “to do” list. The insomnia mysteriously fades away.

Anyway, one day in utter frustration because of the piles on my desk, I retrieved a huge shopping bag, placed it on the floor at one end of my desk, and with a simple sweep of my arm, pushed everything over the edge into the bag and carried it to the trash. I felt liberated. Free.

Obviously there are some flaws to this system. Duh.

But my theory was, if no one screamed within the next week or so, it must not have been that important. I even had a scriptural basis for my action:

Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, (Jesus) stayed where he was two more days. . . . On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. (John 11:6, 17 NIV)

Okay, so it’s a different context…and there was a warrant out for Him in Jerusalem…plus He’s the Son of God and already said this was going to express the glory of God in the end. But gee, other than that, He seemed to take an unhurried, uncluttered approach to the whole thing. He didn’t seem frantic and overloaded. So maybe it’s a weak scriptural position, but it did make me feel better.

Anyway, no one screamed…and I developed a new way of regularly shaking the proverbial Etch-A-Sketch upside-down. It was the Workman Shopping Bag Office Management System®. Stephen Covey, step aside; a new sheriff’s in town: I discovered the eighth habit.

And I felt better.

That was many moons ago. But now we live in this fabulous world of zeroes-and-ones and laptops. After developing a simple but effective virtual filing system and demanding that I don’t want anything given or sent to me if it’s not digitized, I have achieved a Zen-like state of clutterlessness. And, of course, I regularly back up, both at home and at my office. And don’t even get me started on the beauty of various search functions.

Anyway, part of being away was a wonderment if I was a contributor to The Clutter…you know, that seemingly endless stream of information and chatter that batters us daily. So when I shut down my little blog, nary a scream was heard. Okay, one query…to which I embarrassingly didn’t respond. But I wondered if my little contribution to the blogosphere was just creating a pile on someone else’s virtual desktop or, even more inwardly-focused, if it was just adding another pile to mine.

I’m honestly not fishing for affirmation here. Really.

Here’s what I’m struggling with: it’s not just the clutter, it’s the dilemma of choosing what to look at. I think the most difficult thing we swim in daily without an awareness of the wetness is the innumerable little choices we make every hour. When my friend Emmanuel first came to America from Jos, Nigeria, he was paralyzed the first time he walked into a supermarket to simply buy some tea, facing shelf after shelf of selections and types of teas. He said it took him weeks to get the courage to go back. Simply listening to music on my iTunes requires effort to choose from the hundreds of artists there; and my collection is miniscule compared to my friends. I think there’s a reason why twenty-somethings are being stereotyped as non-committal—perhaps they have been enculturated, immersed and overwhelmed in a tsunami of choices and don’t even realize they’re keeping their options open simply because they can. It’s the water they swim in.

The hot new algorithmic engines are the software services that make choices for you based on your history of surfing and selections. Netflix recommends movies to me. Google advises me on news stories. Pandora chooses my radio listening. Amazon recommends products. Kindle offers books based on my likings. YouTube suggests videos. In The Art of Choosing, author Sheena Iyengar writes that fifteen years ago there were a half-million consumer goods for sale in America. Today, Amazon itself offers twenty-four million.

Think of a person in the first century. Heck, even one just a hundred years ago. The exponential increase in the amount of information that necessitates choice-making is bewildering. It’s been estimated that a single issue of the New York Times contains more information than a seventeenth-century Englishman would have in a lifetime. I think it hugely impacts our culture’s approach to choosing to follow Jesus; it’s obvious how critical the wooing of the Holy Spirit is in that process.

Anyway, if you’re still reading this, I’m actually a bit discombobulated that you would choose to do that. I’m still wrestling with whether I want to keep adding to the pile…and if I'm part of the solution or part of the problem.

How do you handle The Noise?
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jubilee twenty-ten

2010-04-22T23:41:00.009-04:00

This weekend we launched the Jubilee 2010 series. We’ve come to the end of our three-year pledges for the Luke 4 Challenge.

Things have been going remarkably well…and believe it or not, that usually makes me nervous. I’m the type of personality that thinks, as my mom in Kentucky used to say, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”. Okay, so it’s not like we’re hatching anything, but I think I tend to get a little concerned when things are going well. Sheesh. Chock it up as another one of my dysfunctions.

What’s more, I tend to get nervous about celebrating things. It’s part of a “small town”-mentality that’s imprinted growing up in the Mayberry-world of Augusta, Kentucky: don’t get all uppity. And don’t blow your own horn. That would be okay if you knew how to play a horn, but as we’ve said around VCC for years, “We’re not that smart. This has to be God.”

In the six Easter celebrations, we had over 10,300 people show up. But better, about 1200 of them decided to recommit their lives to Jesus and, along with Discoveryland, about 300 more gave their hearts to Jesus for the first time. That’s pretty amazing. Then the following weekend Wess Stafford spoke. Wess is the president of Compassion International and spoke at the Leadership Summit last year. His team brought some children to sponsor and nearly six-hundred were picked up. That’s fairly amazing too.

Things are going, uh, swimmingly. So I’m nervous.

And now we’ve come to the time when we should celebrate the outcomes of the Luke 4 Challenge. The Healing Center has only been opened less than two years and yet offering forty unique services for over three-thousand people a month through five-hundred volunteers and a dozen staff members. Or the Student Union experiencing sixty-percent growth with six-hundred students each week and soon to open one of the largest indoor skate parks within a hundred miles. Or the sixty-five wells drilled around Jos, Nigeria, providing clean accessible water for over 35,000 people. Only God can pull this stuff off. And I’m pretty sure it’s not because of some “great faith” on our part.

But even listing these things seems weird, no matter how simply intended for Vineyard folks to be able to celebrate. It can feel like “blowing your own horn”. I’ve long felt the tension between these two verses:

“Take care! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired, because then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)…and…“In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:16 NLT)

Yeah, I can exegete them and get some clarity, but these verses slice deep into our psyches and motivations. Tricky stuff. Even writing about this feels odd.

But I think the thing I do like to celebrate is when a creative idea of grace pops up.

At the close of the Luke 4 Challenge, it turns out we ended with about a four-million-dollar gap. Though 12.8 million was pledged, the recession that soon followed wiped a number of families out, many lost their jobs and others saw their income shrink significantly. At this point, a little over ten million came in (wow!), but with an 11% overrun in projected cost, we find ourselves in a gap.

So as we launched into the celebration of Jubilee 2010, thrilled with what God has done, we sensed Him leading us this way: the Jubilee in Israel (intended to be celebrated every fifty years) was an outrageous act of justice and mercy—all land was given back to the original owners, all debts were forgiven and all slaves were set free. Or as it says in Leviticus 25:11: proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants (that verse is actually inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia).

And that’s what got us: let’s totally forgive anyone’s Luke 4 Challenge debt. Here’s what I said in the celebration:

“If you were one of those folks who weren’t able to complete your Luke 4 Challenge commitment—no matter what the reason was—I want you to know that all sense of indebtedness is wiped away. It’s okay. Really. You’re free from it, no kidding. I want you to be able to really celebrate without any sense of guilt or condemnation or whatever. Okay? I’m serious. It’s the Jubilee at the Vineyard: you are free from your pledge; it’s all expunged. No one is second-guessing you. I want you to be able to walk in here with absolutely no guilt and just have fun in celebrating what’s happened: Guilt-free. Is that clear or do I need to say it again? It’s Jubilee 2010!”

I had numbers of people Facebook me and tell me how liberating that was. One woman stopped me between celebrations and started crying; she went through a divorce two years ago and was unable to complete her pledge. She told me she felt guilty every time we did a Luke 4 update. She wanted to celebrate but felt ashamed and like a failure. Then she asked me, “Did you really mean what you said?” 

Absolutely.

And since about two-thousand people have come to VCC after we started the Luke 4 Challenge, we’re praying that many will pick up the slack…as well as folks who didn’t jump in the first time and veterans who want to be part of it again. New pledges just through the end of 2010 and then we’re over. I want everyone to have the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

I love real freedom. And I especially love extending it to others.

It’s Jubilee 2010. Let’s party in Graceland!

easter at the vineyard

2010-03-26T10:19:00.005-04:00

You don't want to miss this.  

Bring some friends who are wrestling with the “God-question”; I guarantee they'll have some great conversation with you later. Then just listen and say, “All I know is that Jesus changed my life. Hang with us for awhile and see for yourself.”  

Celebrations are on Saturday at 5 and 6:30pm, Sunday at 8:45, 10:15, 11:45am and 1:15pm.

  It's going to be awesome...because many, many people will make the choice to follow Jesus.  

And for a quieter, more contemplative time, join us for our Good Friday Evening on April 2 at 7pm. Joe Boyd will be creatively telling us the story as we share in communion together.  

Can't wait to see you!  

between two kingdoms

2010-03-15T11:16:00.005-04:00

I’m so proud of Joe. His first book, Between Two Kingdoms, was just released. Even though he had given me a pdf earlier, there’s something about holding an actual book (with a very cool cover) when you’re reading a fantasy novel, so I just finished it last night.

For those of you who haven’t met Joe, he’s the real deal. Over the last two-and-a-half years, we’ve become fast friends…and I can’t imagine doing ministry without him. With that, I’d like to give my ringing endorsement of BTK:

Joe Boyd has written a page-turner in this fast-paced fantasy of a Dark Prince’s shadowy rule over a land where the True King is slowly being forgotten and usurped. With masterful storytelling and deft cliffhangers closing each chapter, readers are easily drawn into this sharply-imagined novel. A clever plot device poses the inhabitants of the real Prince’s Upper Kingdom as eternally seven-years old, making their risky life-and-death mission into the Lower Kingdom a more powerful allegory. Lovers of fantasies from C. S. Lewis to J. K. Rowling rejoice: a new author has delivered the goods! And with a parable that will rattle your view of “real” life.

There you have it. And have fun devouring Joe’s book.

the vineyard

2010-03-01T11:32:00.007-05:00

I’m sitting in a hotel room in San Antonio thinking about my tribe. I’m here because of a national Vineyard leadership gathering. I would guess that most people who attend Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati aren’t all that aware we’re part of a larger community of churches called Vineyard USA, a movement of about six-hundred churches. I think I find an element of safety and accountability in being a part of something more than just an association of churches. Don’t get me wrong: I totally love the idea of associations of like-minded churches who are similar in mission and vision.

But something’s missing in that.

I’m trying to think through the role of authority in ecclesiology beyond the local church. It wasn’t always easy for me to even acquiesce to local church authority structures. Being an aging baby boomer who wore black arm bands in high school to express solidarity against the Vietnam war (I ended up with a high number in the draft lottery) and who argued with the school board to repeal its ‘no hair touching the collar” dress code (we won), I struggled with authority and the often myopic (in my young eyes) stances of leaders.

Then I became a believer. And I really began a transformation in my thinking.

Once you surrender your will to God, there is no question of who has the authority: He’s got it all. But that also plays out in the Church, Christ’s body. An ecclesiological governance was so developed in the early church that the writer of Hebrews insists:

Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you. (Hebrews 13:17 TNIV)

Even more so, Paul asserts his own authority throughout his letters to different pastors. His instructions to Timothy and Titus have more than a simple mentoring feel to them. He instructs Titus to appoint pastors for local churches in Crete, implying levels of a leadership hierarchy across the whole Church. But in our American Protestant cultures, we are fiercely independent and autonomous.

In the end, I find myself wanting to be in systems of leadership…and I find it difficult to believe we can have accountability in leadership without real authority structures. I may not totally agree with everything my tribe does, but it seems healthy to learn to live out submission in “real life” beyond the spiritualized idea of “just me and Jesus”. And it seems disingenuous that we senior pastors want that in our local church but have little desire for it in our relationships with larger church systems and relationships.

I think the Roman Catholics got it right on this one.

real freedom

2010-02-21T10:59:00.005-05:00

It's not too late to get in a FREE* group...or form your own. Easy enough to do online: just click here.

Processing with some other people what God is going to do in you through this journey is crucial. The free-est person who ever walked on this dustball of a planet, promises freedom to all who will follow Him. What does that mean to you? What does it mean to your friends and the people who are taking this journey with you? In expressing our vulnerability we give grace to others. Let’s walk it together.

i'm listening

2010-02-09T23:22:00.004-05:00

Sorry, but this doesn’t have anything to do with the weekend. And it’s a bit long. Put your feet up…but not if you’re at work.

When C. S. Lewis’ wife died, he kept a journal of the dark world his heart and mind were thrust into. It was first published under a pseudonym. After his death three years later, A Grief Observed was released with his name. It was revealing. The Great Apologist of Christianity was adrift, unmoored by his emotions, swept along currents that caused him to question all that had anchored his life. He opens with these vulnerable words:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.”

He would later expose his most unnerving thought:

“Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away.”

As time passed, Lewis rediscovered the presence of God. Not in a supernatural blast of power, but as his soul eventually quieted, the peace of God slipped in almost unnoticed at first.

I can’t say enough about how profound the latest blog post from Angie Matthews is. Angie is the wife of Charlie Matthews who suddenly passed away after acute respiratory failure. My friend Charlie was only in his thirties and excited about leading the Mason Vineyard on the north side of Cincinnati. Angie and her two kids are forging their way through a brave new world.

Here’s the tough thing for many of us Americans to process, yet it shouts out through all of scripture: Suffering, regardless of how it comes or through whom it comes or even why it comes, does something in us that nothing else can. It reorients us to another level of truth. Call it unfair, discriminating or cruel, but suffering can have an effect that nothing else can.

I know an older, deeply devoted believer who can be righteously indignant, sometimes prophetic, sometimes moralistic, sometimes difficult to be around because how easily they can dismiss others, perhaps understandably so at times (remember when the psalmist is so angered at the injustice and cruelty of those persecuting his own people that he screams, “How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock”?). But when this person is going through difficult times, interestingly they become softer, less judgmental, and though noticeably unsure of the depth of their faith, more merciful and gracious to others. As an observer of human nature, it’s absolutely fascinating to me.

Anyway, Angie’s slant on truth is beautifully insightful. Listen to a piece of it:

“Perhaps life is not so much an education in the truth, as if learning was the primary activity, but more a gradual acclimation to the truth, contingent on acceptance and sacrifice. Each experience is an opportunity (and option) to gradually focus our vision, such that the line between what is acceptable and unacceptable given the truth is easier to discern. That is not to say that the particulars of life are ever black and white, or that there is always one most right choice in the complex scenarios in which we find ourselves. However, it does seem to apply to how we live, what we value, and to the purpose we pursue…”

“…Suppose my husband dies despite the pleading prayers of hundreds of God’s people. Suppose my kids must grow up without their father. Suppose all my plans for the future must be rewritten. Suppose I feel lost and alone, disappointed, discouraged. Suppose I don’t want to get up, day after day, and face a reality I did not choose. Suppose I do not understand any of it- nor is any explanation likely forthcoming. I frantically look for some gray area to which I can retreat and feel justified in my anger and despair. How can I be sure God is with me? I can’t know that redemption will come. Maybe I was wrong about God. Maybe I am wrong about a lot of things. Maybe I am a fool to think that there is more to this than meets the eye.

“But then I blink back the tears and try to make out the truth again. It was there before, somewhere in this mess it is still here. The fuzzy edges retreat a little. I see I am no longer hiding in a gray area, but standing quite clearly outside the truth. I could cross my eyes, blur my vision, ignore the truth and stay right where I am. Otherwise I have to get moving, headed in the right direction, back toward the truth. Why are my feet so reluctant to move? Why is it so much more appealing to lay down, close my eyes, and sleep? Am I afraid that making this choice now will deny me the option of blaming God should similar, or far worse, circumstances befall me in the future? Yes. Maybe if I hold that little bit back from God (stay just in the edge of the gray) He will think twice about allowing more tragedy and potentially losing me for good. Maybe I can manipulate Him into protecting me. Maybe I am in control. Maybe I know best.

“Maybe I’m a fool after all.”

While few among us would choose to suffer, what we do when—not if—suffering happens will either cause us to surrender to shallowness or give our souls more depth. And I suspect that depth is never to be hoarded. I, for one, am going to lean into listening when someone who deeply loves Jesus finds herself on a desert journey and is willing to reflect on it. Sometimes I just prattle or shut down when I am hurting; but others among us reflect and thus change the worlds of those who listen.

I’m listening.

Angie Matthews' blog is here.

what would paul do?

2010-01-31T17:29:00.007-05:00

Okay, I know, I know. It creeps me out too. But it's difficult to overlook Paul in the roll call of tour guides for the spiritual destiny of this planet.

Paul could have easily developed his own personality cult. Hands down. Instead, it drove him crazy when people said, “I follow Apollos…I follow Paul”. I have a feeling that some televangelists and Christian personalities with grandiose organizations named after themselves—“The So-and-So International Ministry”—would cause Paul embarrassment for the Body of Christ. And while no single personality so shaped the embryonic theology and ecclesiology of the Church, Paul consistently pointed to Jesus as the One deserving focus and worship, even giving his own body for Him…after having it beaten and abused for decades. It’s as if the reward he personally experienced was greater than any debt he felt owed to the One who gave His body for him. At times self-deprecating, maddening and puzzling, it’s hard to ignore the spiritual chutzpah and risk it took to write to the contentious Corinthian church, “Imitate me…just as I also imitate Christ.”

It’s a little sad seeing this current series end. This series came out of a planning season a year ago. It’s necessary for us to chart out series that far in advance so that in an increasingly complex multilayered staff we can plan to take advantage of options and next steps to get the most bang for the buck. And even with spending fourteen weeks in Acts (not counting the Christmas break), Paul’s journeys warrant more attention. But time marches on and we have other issues to cover.

Though there is one overarching thing it’s left me with.

A couple of times in my pastoring VCC I’ve gone on multiple-weeks fasts. I’m not a “fast-er” by nature (uh, that’s dumb…who is?). I like to eat. No, love to eat. I remember once when I felt God wanted us to do a series on the poor for six weeks. I was scared silly, convinced that we’d run everyone off. Who wants to come to church to get depressed and feel guilty? That’s what families are for. I’m just kidding. Sort of.

Regardless, it’s nearly always good advice to do the thing that you at least think God told you to do, if your heart is in a healthy place. And so we launched into a six-week series on poverty with my friend Andy Ransdell (now leading LifePoint Vineyard in Monroe, Ohio) sharing the teaching duties. As we began, I sensed God wanting me to fast. And so for three weeks I had zero food, just water, tea and watered-down orange juice; I was—er, am—too cheap to buy gallons of it, and I was drinking a lot of fluids. It was at the end of that series that we introduced the Healing Center concept.

A year later we started the Luke 4 Challenge to raise millions of dollars to create the Healing Center, the Student Union and the water project in Jos, Nigeria. Once again I felt compelled to fast. When I told my wife, she asked, “For how long?” I told her I think until God says to stop. Little did I know it would last over three weeks of no food at all. On the Sunday we had the commitments come in, Anita and I headed to Nashville after the last celebration to see our daughter…and I felt I was done. We stopped at a Frisch’s in Louisville and I had my first food: a bowl of vegetable soup.

In these two cases, I fasted because of two things: I was desperate to see God move at VCC…and I was passionate about what we were doing.

In Acts 23, we find this same kind of desperation and passion applied…but in a dark way:

The next morning the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. More than forty men were involved in this plot. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, "We have taken a solemn oath not to eat anything until we have killed Paul. Now then, you and the Sanhedrin petition the commander to bring him before you on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about his case. We are ready to kill him before he gets here."

Can you imagine having forty men strategizing your murder? And so determined and passionate about it that they vow to fast until the job is done? Whoa. Religion can do some strange things…as we know in our current global troubles. And any leader that has a contract on him is doing something different. Just reading about that event in Paul’s life causes me to think about my own in different ways, in more outward-focused ways. Earlier while in Caesarea, a legit prophet takes Paul’s belt, ties his own hands and feet with it and says, “The Holy Spirit says, if you go to Jerusalem, the owner of this belt will be tied up and handed over to the Gentiles.” The people there saw this and pleaded with Paul not to go. Paul told them, “Why are you making this hard for me and breaking my heart? I’m not only ready to go to jail, I’m ready to die for Jesus.”

That’s powerful. Not only is he getting a premonition by the Spirit of what’s coming, he sees no reason to avoid it. This guy is on a mission.

I wonder if I’ll ever become that mission-oriented? Would I do that? When one becomes so focused away from their own safety or concerns that they can genuinely respond like that, it challenges me to want to get to know them…and to imitate them at some level.

And I hope that I can genuinely and honestly say at some point in my life, “Imitate me.”

father and child

2010-01-20T01:59:00.002-05:00

I wonder why we think God is not as good of a father as we are?

This weekend Dustin Smith, our Senior High ministry worship leader, led worship in the big room. Charlie Hines (who, along with Jim Zartman, leads worship at VCC) had planned this weekend to introduce Dustin to the wider church. A few weeks ago, my youngest daughter Katie (it’s hard to believe she’s going to be twenty-two shortly) asked to do a worship internship with the Student Union. After her five-month stint with YWAM in Australia, Thailand and Indonesia, she came back with a different slant on her music. Prior to that, her two years in Nashville had kind of cooled down her music aspirations. She went there primarily to connect with other singer/songwriters and, I think, to get out of Cincinnati and individuate. Finding your own voice is part of growing up…and when your dad has an amplified one, it’s probably a bit tougher. But even more, she discovered her own faith…and her own brokenness before God.

It’s not that Katie didn’t enjoy worship. Katie and her sister Rachel have always loved to worship. Some of my fondest memories were hanging over the balcony rail watching the two of them dance during a jam-packed SOS worship jam through their junior and senior high years. Or seeing them lift their hands to God during intimate worship songs. I remember being at a national Vineyard conference in Anaheim in 2001 that had a separate youth conference simultaneously in a huge tent on the parking lot. During one of the evening sessions in the main auditorium, Matt Redman was leading worship and on the first song, all the students were released from outside and came running into the front of the stage singing and dancing. I spontaneously started crying once I spotted Rachel and Katie in the crowd, worshiping with all their hearts. I thought, “Does it get any better than this?” Now as a 23-year old married woman, Rachel sings with the worship band at the Chattanooga Vineyard and helps lead the outreach ministry.

As a former worship leader for many years, I would sometimes look out at a crowd of people and see someone standing there with arms crossed, boredly staring straight ahead, and know they were more than likely dealing with intimacy issues. Not just with God, but with other relationships. Call me crazy, but I think it’s interconnected. I don’t believe it’s a style issue or whether someone likes to sing or not. But to be a believer and in a crowd of people who are actively worshiping God and not give any body language or zero indication of a desire to express love to God strikes me as oddly self-absorbed or at worst, voyeuristic.

Katie never saw herself leading worship, even point-blank telling me years ago, “I’d never want to be a worship leader!” As she learned guitar in high school, she enjoyed writing her own songs about her emotional highs and lows, relationships…and God. But while on her third world mission trip, once the leaders discovered she played guitar, they told her she had to lead worship…they needed her. That’s when Katie’s proverbial paradigm shifted.

Dustin has taken her under his wing and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are spent at the Student Union along with Saturday nights and Sunday mornings in the senior high celebrations. As an aside, it’s a freebie…internships are unpaid. And one of the things I’m totally weird about is anything that smells like favoritism. Many years ago I remember telling our then-current student ministry pastor, “Never ever show any partiality to my kids. Ever. I’m not kidding.” And I always thought it was weird when pastors turned the leading of their churches over to their kid. Anything that smells nepotistic creeps me out. It’s a heartbeat away from fostering an entitlement-mentality.

Anyway, watching Katie singing and playing her heart out to God was a bit overwhelming to me. I’m not sure how to describe what I felt…or even why I felt the way I did. Saturday night during the ending of the last song, I stood in the wings backstage and watched. When Katie finished, she put her guitar down, walked over and just hugged me. No words needed to be said, but just in case she didn’t know, I told her how proud I was…and then told myself to not lose it. What is it about your kids that so affects you when you see them making attempts to please God? I don’t think there’s anything like it. It’s oddly moving.

And it’s the moment. Whether she ever leads another worship song or decides to go in some completely different direction, it is this moment that I’ll remember twenty years from now. And doing my best to keep it together in the wings.

Which gets me back to the opening question: Do I really believe I’m a better dad than God?

Really?

At the risk of sounding irreverent, I wonder how many times He has stood in the wings with His chest puffed and thrilled to the core because one of His kids has made an attempt, however small, to honor Him in some way? I wonder if His flaming eyes have ever been quenched by tears of pride while watching one of His children do something in the moment that reflected the simplest desire to please Him? Do I truly think that God is devoid of emotion and only responds stoically to expected demands? Have I ever meditated on what it means to be made in His image?

If I did it would force me to answer this question: in times of anxiety and sleepless nights, do I really think I’m a better dad than God?

If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better? Matthew 7:9–11 (The Message)

the blind side

2010-01-04T01:32:00.016-05:00

Twenty-ten, here we come.

On New Year’s Eve night we did what a lot of old people do: we went to a movie. After a great meal with some friends, we headed to the Rave to see The Blind Side with everyone’s favorite biker girl, Sandra Bullock (and who would have guessed that Faith Hill’s husband was turning into a real actor?).

The hit film is based on the true story of Baltimore Raven Michael Oher’s “rags-to-NFL” journey and has taken in a hefty $209 million and change. It’s a heartwarming story, but it leaves me a little flummoxed. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a feel-good, inspirational movie. Quentin Tarantino it’s not. And it’s dealing with real issues: racism, social classes and poverty. But here’s the deal: the audience was totally white…and will always be. Uh, big deal, Dave. Did you see who went to Narnia?

But here’s what makes me uncomfortable: the subtext is racial reconciliation, yet I wouldn’t invite any of my African-American friends to see it. It’s one more movie about white people rescuing hopeless and helpless black people. I know it’s done earnestly, but if you’re reading this and you’re white, try putting yourself in someone else’s shoes that has years of generational cultural minority baggage and abuse: how would you feel? Would you take your kid to see it? Sometimes the meta-message is bigger than the intended meaning.

And that’s the funny thing about the level of reconciliation that’s needed in the Church between the races. One would think that this movie is about the main character (Sandra Bullock, unlike the book it’s based on) having her perception of African-Americans turned upside-down. She responds to her friend’s statement, “You’re changing that boy’s life,” with “No, he’s changing mine.”

So why would I be uncomfortable inviting my friends to see it? That alone should give me a clue to part of the problem

Reconciliation is the core of Christianity: God reconciling us to Himself. He did this by slipping into the skin and sympathizing with the weaknesses of those who were powerless. That’s the incarnation. Paul sums it up in the hallmark scripture we used during the Christmas series: Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ, who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. And he humbled himself even further, going so far as actually to die a criminal’s death on a cross. (Philippians. 2:5-8 Living Bible)

Jesus had all the power and all the privilege and rights with His Father, they were one in the same. But something remarkable happened because of love. He slipped into the skin of a slave. He knows what it’s like because He did the unthinkable: He became one of us. That’s the responsibility of the one with the power.

Incarnational Christianity is what I believe each one of us is called to do—to slip into the skin of someone else, to feel what they feel and see what they see, and so love them to the fullest. That’s the real thing. That’s why it says in 2 Corinthians: You know how full of love and kindness our Lord Jesus was: though he was so very rich, yet to help you he became so very poor…. (2 Corinthians 8:9a Living Bible). It goes beyond the power of empathy. In the early centuries, it was the Christians that stayed behind in natural disasters, famines and diseases to take care of the ones left behind.

Here’s the theological principle: Reconciliation is the responsibility of the people in power. Understand this: in the Kingdom of God, African-American believers must extend forgiveness to me, their white brother. King Jesus demands it. But there’s something vitally missing in that for me. If I don’t ask for forgiveness and show fruits of repentance by seeking systemic and individual justice, then I’m going to miss the transformational power of love in my life. It is always the responsibility of the people of privilege and power to seek reconciliation, not the other way around. That’s what Jesus did: left the privileges of heaven to reconcile the world to Himself, became a servant.

That’s incarnational Christianity. It’s all about real love. And when I make any attempt to see the world through my black brother’s eyes, then I let go of all claims, defenses and power, and become one with him…reconciled.

Years ago after one of our large scale outreaches, we reconvened in the Atrium with about a hundred of us to tell stories of what happened. I noticed one African-American couple with their little boy of about six or seven years old in a sea of white faces. The second person on the microphone told how excited they were to “talk to a black homeless guy”. She was earnest and sincere. But as I stood there, I wondered what was going on in the head of the husband of the couple who had brought their little son to do an outreach: Would he have to process what was said? Was the meta-message here that what this church does is help “black people” and the people who do that are white? And even more, if you want to grow up and be a leader here, you really need to be white…because that’s how it looked that afternoon. I wondered what it must be like to be a black father who wants to raise his child to be proud of his culture and his heritage, love the heart of the church he’s in, but have to wrestle with what’s between the lines of every conversation and communiqué.

Reconciliation is a little more complex than we who have the power probably think. And as my friend Ray McMillian once said, “I can’t take another foot washing.”

So isn’t reconciliation what Sandra Bullock did in the movie? Yes. But stop and think: the theatre is filled with white people. Maybe if we thought about that more—and the “why” behind it—it would do more for reconciliation than anything.

viral messages

2009-12-28T18:05:00.016-05:00

This weekend was an out-of-body experience. I was so glad when the last celebration was over. I know I don’t have the gift of martyrdom; I was whining to anyone who asked me how I was doing.

On Friday, Christmas Day, I started feeling like a truck ran over me and my throat began to hurt. Saturday morning I was sure there were tire tracks down the front of me and I was having a tough time swallowing. Anita, being the good wife she is, said, “Don’t be a guy. Go see a nurse.” and sent me to a place called “The Little Clinic” in Kroger’s.

Huh?

I had never heard of it, but she convinced me that it would be the quickest way to go, especially since I still had a message to write…and to speak that night. So on my way to the office, I swung by “The Little Clinic”.

Turns out that they can do a strep test quickly, no appointments are needed, and you can pick up a bottle of sauvignon blanc, brick cheese and Wheat Thins on your way out. Now this is healthcare that works.

The nurse asked me all the typical questions about any exiting body fluids and so on. My head felt like I was in a fog, so I made up stuff when she asked my medical history. She swabbed my throat, checked my blood pressure, stuck that thing in my ear (a major technological advancement over every other method of temperature-taking), listened to my lungs and my heart, looked in my mouth and said, “’Ewwww! That’s really red,” then said it wasn’t strep: “See, only two lines instead of three on this, uh, thing.”

I told her thanks because of what I do in my job: talk a lot. She asked me what I did and I told her I was a pastor. Turns out she goes to what she described as a “oneness” church. I told her I had some friends in the UPC (United Pentecostal Church) denomination. These are folks who believe Jesus is God…but they’re not Trinitarians. It’s complicated.

Then she asked me what church I belonged to. I told her and she said she had heard of it. Then she asked me what I spoke about last weekend and I honestly couldn’t remember…so I said, “Uh, God.” Okay, chalk it up to head fog, raw throat distraction or viral brain freeze, but that’s pretty embarrassing.

Anyone who regularly speaks wrestles with retention, or “how people learn”. I think that’s why we tell people that this thing that happens on the weekend is not “real church”. “Real church” happens in the framework of community and serving/wooing/healing those outside of the community.

That’s why it’s so important that churches become activistic. Any kind of “doing” connected with input is processed and integrated far better. Years ago the “Learning Pyramid” was promoted by National Training Laboratories and then discredited mostly because of unproven percentage stats (and a dude named Thalheimer who was on a crusade), but I think many educators would agree conceptually with it, though argue about context. Regardless, it’s interesting and from my experience, true. The short version is: people learn and retain information way, way better with “practice by doing” and “teach others/immediate use” than by listening to a lecture or reading.

That’s the reason we never wanted to be just a “come-and-see” church, but a “go-and-do” one as well. For instance, we never wanted ministry to the underresourced and marginalized to simply be a “drop-off-your-offering-for-the-poor”-type thing. We have to personally rub shoulders with the poor to understand the heart of God. Or as we’ve said many, many times: we need the poor more than they need us.

I don’t think we really understand—or integrate the message of the Kingdom—until we begin doing what the Father is doing. I have no doubt that there are too many people sitting in churches that really don’t get it, but it may be that they have done very little of what God says we’re to do, and that ranges from relationship issues (eg. forgiveness) to compassionate service to healing the sick to whatever Jesus did…and does. That’s when real learning kicks in. Or as Jesus put it, “Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance—isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills.” (Matthew 7:21 The Message).

That verse alone should have the capacity to freak us out, but I’m not so sure that’s the intention. It could be that Jesus was way ahead of the National Training Laboratories folks: we learn best by doing and showing others how to do it.

Anyway, I was back at “The Little Clinic” today. This time whining for amoxicillin.