Christ In Y'all

Update your link

2009-10-05T13:20:00.004-04:00

In case you still haven't done it, please update your bookmarks and/or links to catch my blog at its new location:

http://christinyall.wordpress.com

Thanks!

New Book Look, New Blog Location

2009-08-18T17:52:00.005-04:00

Two announcements for anyone following what I post these days:

1. New book revision on the way! I've had plenty to think about the last few months, so of course there's lots to write about. The new version of Christ In Y'all is about 40 pages longer, has a new chapter, and represents an updated version of how I'm thinking about things these days. Check out the cover design Brad Thomas came up with for me:

Pretty cool, huh? Looks professional now. A bit less homemade :-)

2. I'm moving my blog to WordPress, so from now on you'll need to access this blog from this site:

ChristInYall.WordPress.com

First Day of School, First Broken Arm

2009-08-08T20:21:00.006-04:00

The three older girls had their first day of school this week. So here's our annual first day of school pic:

We also went to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta to get a for-real cast put on Dorothy's broken arm. We decided Dora needed a cast, too. So now she's got one (you have to look close!) That Dorothy still loves her tongue!

You have to admit, she does look really cute walking around with that tiny little sling. People everywhere involuntarily say "aawwwww" wherever she goes.

Long Evening at the Carter House

2009-08-03T22:22:00.006-04:00

Our toddler, Dorothy, gives me fits these days because she's always on the verge of something dangerous. I'm not even sure how she worked this one out, but she got up on our piano bench when our backs were turned and she fell off, apparently twisting her arm and breaking it.

Her sisters were pretty concerned as we hauled her off to the doctor and then to the emergency room. But thankfully their grandparents had just arrived in town, so we had help with the older three while April and I were at the hospital.

It was a tough evening, but all's well that ends well. Dorothy got some supper (at 9:30pm!) and sat with Grandmama watching her new favorite show, Dora.

I'm going to sleep.

Ohio Trip 12: Four Meetings and an Epiphany

2009-07-31T13:35:00.017-04:00

Day Nine of my trip gave me the opportunity to attend for different meetings of Grace Gathering.

MEETING 1

Corporate worship at Grace Gathering (GG) happens on Sunday morning in a multi-purpose gym/meeting hall with concert-style lighting, commercial grade carpet, and tons of round tables for gathering around during the service. And while the praise band led worship from the stage, the pastor spoke from the middle of the floor, which I thought was great. There's an unspoken message communicated in the arrangement of a room, and having the preacher address the congregation like this really says something.

Chris's message was about using a variety of forms of expression for worship. It was interactive. It began with a call for people to share personalized Psalms they had written the week before, and three people took advantage of the open mic to read theirs to the whole congregation. I loved that. My only disappointment was that he cut it off after only three. I wanted to hear many more. But I guess he had a lot more to say, and only so much time to say it. After he spoke about raising hands or clapping during worship, we sang a song and did what he suggested. After he spoke about laying prostrate before God in worship, we spread out and did just that. I thought that was pretty well done. He encouraged all who were in attendance to go home to their home churches and try putting these forms into practice. Clearly there was fundamental integration between the equipping ministry of the teaching pastor and the work-it-out-in-real-life function of the house church here at GG. As my hosts, the Heckleys, told me, the HC setting "gets trumpeted" from the pulpit (or gym floor) every week. And that's what it takes. The guy up front's gotta believe in it, or it just won't fly.

MEETING 2

After "big church" (as we called it growing up) I had the pleasure of joining one of the small groups for their meeting in one of the rooms at the church building. Because this group specializes in ministering to people with special needs, they use the church's handicap-accessible facilities for their meetings. Today they were having a party, and I had a good time. One new friend wandered in looking for some company and found a room full of accepting folks. Since he had lost his wife several months ago, he was clearly still hurting and looking for some fellowship and encouragement. He seemed to have found it the moment he walked in. I was touched by that.

I was also touched by the warmth and encouragement of the group as prayer concerns and updates were offered. The fellowship and community-knitting was evident to me, an it was like water for my soul. We prayed for one another, ate some pizza, and played Mad Gabs and laughed a lot. It was a good party, with some very sweet people. I'm glad Scott recommended visiting them.

MEETING 3

Immediately after that the leaders of all the HC's at GG got together to talk about their progress in the transition from "attractional" to "incarnational" (those aren't their words, I borrowed them from somewhere else). I was glad to sit in on this meeting as well, because I got to see some of the downside to this task. There was some notable discouragement apparent in the group, as many of them were struggling to transfer ownership of the small group from the leaders to the rest of the Body. This is where the rubber meets the road, and it takes some outstanding ministry to change folks from passive spectators to active participants in the work of the church.

My suspicion is that it takes a heavy dose of high, deep revelation from the gospel to make this transition happen well, and I just didn't hang around long enough to figure out if that has been a part of their experience. Let me digress from the leaders' meeting for a second to explain what I mean:

The Rest of the Gospel

The way I see it, the gospel is not just a short story, with four or five bullet points telling you how to "get saved" and go to heaven. The gospel, as I understand it, is a much larger story that begins with God seeking to establish a family on Earth whom He will inhabit, and through whom He express Himself in visible, tangible ways. This is what Christ came to accomplish, and it doesn't stop when you get saved--it's only just begun.

I think that larger story, when grasped and communicated in all its vast richness, FUELS the mission of the church in such a way that your methodology becomes so much less important then what drives the activity of the church. More to the point, I think a church can major on pragmatic goals, structures, methods, and measurements, and never really hit that "sweet spot" that I'm talking about.

When you hit a golf ball right, it makes this beautiful "click" noise, and you have to feel it to know exactly what I'm talking about. That's what happens when the ball and the club come together the right way. All the golf lessons in the world won't fix your game until you discover what hitting on that "sweet spot" feels like.

It's kind of like that. When a group of people really SEE what it means to be in Christ and for Him to be in them, as a them, it changes everything. It opens up a world of ministry that wouldn't make sense in any other context. Folks have to see what it means to be the Body of Christ. It's like an epiphany. You mind shifts and suddenly you look at the church in a totally new way.

Folks at GG (and Apex and anywhere else) will have to be struck by this realization. Something has to click in place in their minds before the church really "gets it" and becomes what she was meant to be. I've known this for a long time. But what's new to me at the moment is the possibility that our actions may sometimes precede our thinking just as readily as the other way around. I was taught that belief always precedes action, and that you have to change how people think before you can change how they behave. Nowadays I'm not so dogmatic about this. I'm beginning to wonder if it's just as likely that you can initiate new behavior and watch it gradually lead to a changed way of thinking. In other words, belief and behavior are symbiotic, just like the different corners of the triangle from the last post. Sometimes one precedes the other, but sometimes it's the other way around. I dunno. Just something I'm processing these days.

The upshot of all this is that I still think churches need a significant amount of ministry from its leaders in order to equip them to do the work of the church (see Ephesians 4:11-16). I still think that ministry needs to be heavily soaked in the "bigger Christ" and the "bigger cross" that I wrote about in Christ In Y'all. But then, that's why you write a book, isn't it? Because you believe in something?

MEETING 4

My visit with GG ended with a visit to one last HC, this time at the home of Brad and Heather Thomas. This group felt more familiar to me than so many previous ones this week because these were all young families with small kids. Their logistical struggles were similar to ours (what do you do with/for all these kids?!). But this group felt like they are still figuring out what they're about, in a way. The leaders of this group still hold the reins, and they've got a long way to go for that to no longer be the case.

What encouraged me most about this is that they know this is their objective. They discussed that shift in functioning from the leadership to the rest of the Body, and that means they're light years ahead of so many other churches who don't even know that's their goal. There's a significant hurdle to jump when it comes to this transfer of leadership and it remains to be seen whether it can be done on this scale all at once.

Which is easier: Starting small, with a single small group, building in the distributed leadership from the beginning and building outward from the first group, or taking a medium-sized church (with several hundred people) and rolling out a transition plan for all of them en masse? The latter would take some serious patience, humility, and a very slow pace in order to be done well.

And the former? Well not everybody has the luxury of starting from scratch, or the gifting for it. I sure see some benefit to being a part of a larger support network from the beginning. Starting small from scratch means starting with precious few resources. Maybe it's a different story in the midst of a nation-wide revival (e.g. Xenos in the Jesus Movement), but what about right now? What about in the South, where more people trust the validity of an established church than some fly-by-night rogue folks starting their own thing?

Like I said, still processing...

On a personal note, I enjoyed hanging out some with Brad Thomas, who reminds me of me in a lot of ways. Only he's got real design skills, and designs logos for a living. So I asked him to come up with a new cover design for my book (and this blog). I've wanted that since the very beginning, and now it looks like the Lord provided somebody to fill that need. Woohoo! You should see a way cooler book redesign soon, so stay tuned. I'll also be revising the book in order to account for some of the shift in my thinking over the last year or two. I hope to have it ready in time to send to the next House Church conference in Dallas.

There's so much more that can be said upon reflection about this trip. It'll take me a while to unpack and digest all that I saw and heard along the way. But I'll try to tie it all together a little in the final post in this series.

In the meantime, I leave you with a couple of photos I snapped on my way out of Indiana early Monday morning.

Ohio Trip 11: Ft. Wayne, Indiana

2009-07-30T17:38:00.021-04:00

Welcome to Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where the corn is as high as an elephant's eye...

My final church to visit was Grace Gathering, a traditional community church still early in the process of transitioning to the home church model. Unlike the last three churches, who seemed to be "winging it" for the most part, Grace Gathering is following a model borrowed form a famously innovative church called St. Thom's in Sheffield, England. These guys have really done their homework. I spent part of an evening chatting with Scott Jester, the House Church (HC) coordinator for the church, and he caught me up on the story:

While Grace Gathering (GG) has long been into tweaking their organizational structure (previously they divided up into several mini-congregations), their foray into the house church model followed on the heels of a visit to England in order to learn from St. Thom's. Both Scott and Chris Norman, GG's teaching pastor, spent a good bit of time researching models and ideologies in order to find the right fit for their church. Once again, I am reminded that this kind of transition requires that the "up front" people buy into this vision or else it won't fly at all.

And like Apex in Dayton, these folks found that the transitional period unavoidably leads to a thinning out of the congregation. Some folks like just sitting in a pew, thank you, very much! They don't want to be thrown into a living room where they're suddenly expected to function in some way other than taking up space. Perhaps the stories of Apex and GG warn us that churches need lots of "transitional ministry," where the newer, decentralized model gets an extensive introduction, and where fundamental mindsets about church get challenged "from the pulpit" as it were. But again, that throws a good bit of responsibility back on the leaders, who will likely be improvising so much that they wish they had a script or an outline to follow once in a while.

I think both churches (Apex and Grace Gathering) illustrate the importance of getting help from other people (or groups) who have already implemented some of this decentralization themselves. Apex has gleaned some from Xenos and from the previous HC experience of a couple of their elders. Grace Gathering very studiously sought out examples, models, and even consultants who specialize in helping churches do this kind of thing. This transition is NOT EASY. It's messy, and you'll quite certainly lose folks in the process. But counting nickels and noses can't be too important to you if you're going this route, so maybe folks know to expect that already.

When numerical growth necessitated that GG build a new meeting facility, they kept it minimalistic. Their building consists primarily of a single meeting hall (which is actually a gym with indoor/outdoor carpet and a stage) attached to an inviting coffee house-style foyer, plus a few smaller meeting rooms for smaller groups and kids programs. One medium-sized room houses the kids worship meeting, and there's a cool little den with some video games hooked up to an LCD projector.

Grace Gathering borrows heavily form St. Thom's conceptual world, tossing around phrases like "low control, high accountability," plotting their course according to four stages of growth (which I found pretty instructive as well), and perhaps most helpful of all, borrowing Mike Breen's triangular UP, IN, and OUT visual in order to balance out the priorities of the church. As long as nobody sues me for it, I'll be stealing these things myself, thank you!

Each home church that forms within their network is expected to develop a "missional focus"--a ministry to a specific target like troubled teens, or low-income immigrants, or a food bank. And in time most of them do. Following the advice of Kent Hunter (aka The Church Doctor) a while back they decided to group their HC's together according to missional focus. So now there is a cluster of churches ministering to the needs of a sizable local Burmese population, another cluster serving with Angel Food ministry, and another working with a local youth center, etc. This way, the separate groups don't feel quite so isolated in their ministries and they can draw strength from each other's numbers. Pretty cool idea, I think.

As fabulous as all this looks on paper, I still have some reservations about how they're going about it all. I'll need to save that for another post. But for now, I have to compliment my hosts, Todd and Sue Heckley, for their entertaining conversation and their warm hospitality.

And for letting me come stay a couple of nights in their home, which was just a few hundred yards from the church campus (very convenient!).

Ohio Trip 10: Reflecting on Columbus

2009-07-27T19:43:00.023-04:00

One of the things I look for when I visit a group is the effect it has on a person after a decade or more. I'm not particularly interested in how great things look after a year or two. How does a person fare after 10-12 years in a church? That's something worth noting. That's also why my ears perked up when a member of Xenos asked Ajith Fernando about how to maintain lifelong relationships when your home groups reconstruct and reproduce every three to four years (as they do with Xenos).

This commitment to duplication/multiplication is largely responsible for Xenos' enormous size and successfulness (they've got over 4000 members, most of whom are regularly plugged into 270 house churches!). But something is lost when you keep multiplying so many times over again. As this sister admitted to me later, you can only connect at such a deep level so many times before you can't really do it so well anymore. You become close to people over a period of years only to have them redistributed in order to start a new group with a new set of people. And with schedules as busy as they have, there's not really any space left for maintaining relationships outside of your most immediate relational commitments.

Consider, for example, a sample Xenos member's weekly commitments: You and your spouse meet with a house church one night a week, but you also lead a group of college students in their house meeting another night. You attend a "central teaching" once a week at the main campus along with the rest of the house churches in your "sphere" (cluster). Your children attend different central teachings and home groups, though, and since one is a high school student and the other is an elementary student, they keep two different gathering schedules, too.

But that's not all. Since a good "xenoid" also disciples people, you've also got a weekly meeting with at least one younger believer for prayer, counsel, and teaching. You will likely also meet occasionally with others who are discipling folks in what are known as "workers' meetings." Add to that one purely social outreach event a month and a prayer meeting or two and BAM! You're burnt out in a few years. It just seems a bit over the top to me. And since those groups regularly subdivide as a matter of principal, I can see how lifelong relationships would be really hard to maintain. And one of Ajith's main points was that the church should be providing a witness that's counter-cultural, resisting the fragmented, frenzied style of life to which we've all become so accustomed. Needless to say, that sister's question caught my attention and confirmed a lurking suspicion.

To be fair, I should admit that some seem to be managing this kind of busy-ness with grace and competence. My young hosts, Jim and Lisa, seemed quite contented with their commitments and spoke highly of the lifestyle in which they have lived for several years. When I asked them about burn out, they countered that a life of giving yourself over for others tends to be replenished by the Lord so that there's always enough of you to go around. Once again, I found that both encouraging and challenging. I only want to see how families with several kids balance this kind of schedule without losing something in the process.

***************

I believe it was Mike Breen (more on him in a later post) who developed the triangular conceptual framework for church life. You see an adapted version in the image below.

We have three dimensions in which we travel, or three directions: UP, IN, and OUT. UP refers to our worship, IN refers to our fellowship within the Body of Christ, and OUT refers to our outreach and our interaction with the world around us. Apex calls these Gathering (IN), Growing (UP), and Going (OUT). They're both useful frameworks, so I'll be adopting the basic idea for a while.

My contention is that every church seems to choose one of these three dimensions to emphasize. The other two merely serve the third and at least one is bound to suffer as a result. My group has always stressed the UP direction at the expense of the other two, especially the OUT dimension. I believe Xenos stresses the OUT at the expense of the IN. I see the potential for alot of burn-out among members of a church which neglects deep and lasting peer relationships in the interest of always growing, duplicating, expanding the kingdom.

Maybe I'm way off here. I'm significantly open to that possibility at this juncture of my life. But I might as well admit my bias. I suppose time will tell if I'm off or not.

The way I'm thinking about it, those three aspects of the life of the church are symbiotic, and need to be in balance with one another. Without the UP, you lose the motivation for both the IN and the OUT. Without the IN, you burn out chasing the OUT and the UP. And without the OUT, the IN becomes stagnant and the UP weakens, too. They feed one another.

Well, anyway, the conference ended on a good note, with an encouraging message from Gary DeLashmutt, one of the lead pastors of Xenos. He spoke about keeping Joy in your life, which felt like a perfect message for the moment somehow. Maybe I'll write more about that another time. It tracked for me personally because I'm in a place of needing to rediscover the joy of knowing God, perhaps as it so naturally comes in introducing people to Him for the first time (or maybe even re-introducing people who forgot that there's more of Him to know). And it tracks for Xenos because, as I've supposed already, the emotional side of life may be missing from their experience these days. Either way, Gary is highly spoken of among those I spoke with, and he didn't disappoint.

After the last meeting let out (around 10pm!) a group of college students who ordinarily meet with my hosts, Jim and Lisa Long, showed up. Incidentally, Jim and Lisa were very kind and helpful to me during my stay in Columbus, and I hope to keep in touch them over time. It's too bad I didn't get time to visit one of their "ministry houses," which at Xenos is how students are grouped together, like church-organized dorms. College ministry (and student ministry in general) is a big part of the life of this church, so that was on my to-visit list. But I only had so much time...

I had a good time hanging out with them that evening, especially since we spent way too much time engaging in one of my favorite pastimes: quoting movie lines from every conceivable genre until your eyelids get too heavy to keep it up.

If I ever get to come back to Xenos again, I'll be sure to visit at a time when I can sit in on more home church meetings, since that's what I came for. But the conference was challenging, and thought-provoking. Well worth my time.

Ohio Trip 9: Urban Concern

2009-07-27T17:19:00.014-04:00

The second day of the Xenos conference began with a talk from a former teacher of the church, Lee Campbell, on suffering in the book of Job. He did a great job of pointing out how Job's friends didn't have a bad encouragement plan to begin with--they just flubbed it up after they got very far into it, and they had some bad theology in there, too.

What struck me most was that they invested a good bit of their time and resources to spend time with Job in his loss, even to the point of sitting with him a whole week without saying a word. Lee explained that rabbinic tradition calls this "sitting shiva" (sitting a week). It's significant because it simply involves moving with the sufferer, being with them and feeling what he/she feels, because that's what is needed more than advice or platitudes (which Job's friends couldn't resist offering later). When C.S. Lewis lost his wife, he said he wanted most to be around lots of people who would just "leave him alone". I think I get that. Anyway, it was a great talk, and you can download it for free here.

The rest of the day took a decidedly urban-missional direction for me. I had signed up to tour Xenos' urban mission over lunch, and it was an encouraging tour to take. Nearly 20 years ago some folks from Xenos took an interest in ministering to a poor urban neighborhood close to the Ohio State University campus. Today there are house churches, after-school programs, and an easily affordable Christian school in that neighborhood. The Harambee School, financed jointly by Xenos and by government grants, serves to educate about 100 kids from K-5th grade. And while other schools in the area can only get about 20% of their kids to pass the state tests, Harambee's kids are passing at a rate of 67%. That's pretty fantastic! They must be doing really good work.

On the tour we heard from James Brown, the director of the larger urban mission, and Alex Steinman, the principal of the school. They explained how the church engages the neighborhood holistically, not merely babysitting kids for a few hours each day, but ministering to entire families, entering into their lives where they live. Families invest huge chunks of time, many of them permanently moving into the neighborhood. Over time they've built lasting relationships with area residents, including the crack dealers on whose turf they're treading. Ironically, they seem to get a warmer reception from the thugs than they do from the local churches, who hardly give them any help in their work (most of those churches are comprised of members who commute from far away). Somehow that's funny and disgusting at the same time.

Back at the conference, I attended a workshop entitled "Untying the Urban Knot." Lisa Gintz told us of her own relocation to a poor urban segment of town, and of the subsequent validation of her ministry that produced in the eyes of the residents. She, too, found that the local criminals warmed to her presence so that now her house is the safest place on the block. The drug lords warn their underlings not to touch her place because they like her, and they trust her. When asked by conference-goers if she felt safe there, she replied, "The safest place in the world to be is in the middle of God's will." Well put. And she's definitely earned the right to speak about urban ministry.

The gist of her presentation was that building incarnational relationships is the only way to truly impact a community. It takes years to earn the trust of people who have learned so much distrust. And it takes years to learn how to relate to people from a culture so different from your own. One helpful bit of advice she gave was to start by reaching out to people within your own culture before you make the leap to people in a significantly different one. We tend to romanticize "ministry to the needy," so there's quite a revolving door in urban ministry. People come dreamy-eyed and last for a year or two then give up. They too often come solo, too, and that's a recipe for burnout as well.

In the end I was encouraged and challenged to see and hear from those who have built their lives around giving to others. None of them struck me as highly religious or legalistic about it, but seemed genuinely and organically compelled to be doing what they're doing.

There were other workshops that day, but I've written enough for now. Next, I'll briefly tell about the conclusion to the summer institute and the home group that gathered afterwards, then I'll move on to the last church I visited: Grace Gathering.

Ohio Trip 8: Xenos' Summer Institute

2009-07-24T20:50:00.011-04:00

I attended two afternoon breakout sessions on the first full day of the Xenos Summer Institute. The talk which one of the session leaders gave confirmed a suspicion of mine: Xenos heavily emphasizes doctrinal education (which is intellectual), personal discipleship, evangelism, and service (those are volitional), but appears to offer little which engages the affective side of the human self. Internally speaking, they resist the more subjective, mystical expressions of devotion which so characterize the fellowship to which I belong. And externally speaking, they don't make much place for emotional expressions of praise or worship, either in big gatherings or in most small group settings.

I suspect this is due in part to a split which happened about 15 years ago. Those who left represented the more emotionally charged element within the group. In the process, Xenos lost their gifted worship leaders, plus a ton of people who followed them out to the local Vineyard. I don't think they've ever found a comfortable way to re-introduce singing into the gatherings of the church. At this point in time, you will likely attend one of their "central teachings" (large gathering) and your home church (small gathering) without ever joining together in song with your fellow believers. That strikes most folks (including myself) as a pretty lopsided way of going about things.

The breakout session leader encouraged us to develop consistent devotional lives, committing to regular times of prayer, reading, and fellowship with God. He reminded us all how helpful songs can be in engaging our hearts to the Lord's presence. I heartily agree ;-) His words about involving the affective side of our selves echoed the very same things that I shared with Dennis over lunch. So that was fun to hear.

The other workshop I attended the first day laid out Xenos' approach to discipleship. It became evident during my stay in Columbus that discipleship is big at Xenos. They do it in pairs or small groups so much that practically everyone is either "discipling" someone or is being discipled by someone (or both at the same time!). One of the college students introduced two guys to me by saying "that guy over there is my disciple, and that other guy over there is my discipler." That's a little weird to me. But then many "xenoids" roll their eyes at talking that way about it. Either way, they're very committed to meeting with each other as mentors, counseling one another on issues of character development, doctrine, and service. To talk to a member of Xenos is to, at some point in the conversation, be counseled and exhorted towards a more committed walk with God. They seem to wear that comfortably.

They're also very Bible-centered as a people. They talk an awful lot about "getting into the Word" like it's, well, central in a way that I'm persuaded it's not supposed to be. I would argue that the Bible itself even warns us against being "bibliocentric." But there's not space left for that talk in today's post.

Perhaps one other talk merits mention here. The main speaker for the plenary sessions was Ajith Fernando, director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka. He's an internationally popular writer and a great speaker. He spoke on "Joy and Pain," and how these two things go together when you commit your life to investing in the lives of others. It was good stuff, and I think it was very well received.

I also think he may have thrown in a corrective word or two for either the church immediately before him or else American churches in general. He warned against an overemphasis on results. Americans are pragmatists, and he admitted that this brings certain benefits. But he also reminded us all (many of whom are active in ministries of so many kinds) that we must be faithful to our callings without making the output our chief gauge in that regard. Sometimes a person pours his or her life out for decades only to have someone else reap the harvest later on. But the Lord is getting what he wants, how he wants it.

I think we all need that reminder, although I see such a heavy leaning towards pragmatism at Xenos that it turns me off just a little. The leaders invest scads of time and energy studying other groups to see what works and what doesn't. My host, Jim, told me of how the leaders take a group of young people on church tours around the country in order to see how other groups are doing church. Granted, that's exactly what I'm doing, too, even as I write. But there's a focus on results-- measurements and percentages--and their findings get thrown around a good bit in conversation. All that makes me suspicious that something's off, something I encountered in one or two other groups this week (more on that another time).

That covers everything from the first day of the conference. The second day challenged me perhaps more than the first...

Ohio Trip 7: A Thought-Provoking Lunch

2009-07-24T17:22:00.007-04:00

Every year in July, Xenos Fellowship in Columbus hosts a large Summer Institute. People come from all over the country (with quite a few from other countries) to hear challenging messages from internationally known speakers and to attend workshops on church life in the Xenos style. They've got lots of information to share, both practical and visionary. One of the coolest things about that, besides how incredibly well organized it is, is that they upload all their talks onto their website for free download within days of the conclusion of the conference. They seem quite content to have ideas and resources stolen and used frequently by anyone. That's refreshing.

Also refreshing was the fact that it was so easy to get lunch with Dennis McCallum, the founder of this huge network of churches. During the first day's lunch break he wandered out into the foyer of the main building and stood around, apparently hunting people to share lunch with. Despite the fact that he didn't know me from Adam, when I told him I'd like to chat with him at some point he treated me to lunch right then and there. He took me to Skyline Chili (chili is really big in Ohio, apparently) and we compared notes about a handful of events going back to the founding days of their church, when a band of ex-Campus Crusade leaders helped foment a sizable student movement across the country (all during the dynamic days of the Jesus Movement). Some of the same people who got involved in the earliest days of that group were also responsible for the group which evolved into Xenos in Columbus. All this was relevant to me because the church I'm a part of was patterned after a kind of prototype church which gathered about the same time in Santa Barbara. And both of those groups received ministry from the same band of ex-Campus Crusaders. I believe Dennis said that the founder of my church group spoke at one point to his group waaay back during those early days. Small world, huh?

After that I picked his brain a little about the end game of the church--what's its ultimate purpose? For Dennis, winning the lost clearly occupies first place. The way he sees it, all of the multi-layered aspects of his church network, from the smallest discipleship unit to the house church on up to the central teaching meetings which they put together, the main task of the church is sharing the gospel with people. I believe Dennis would say that "sharing the gospel" applies as naturally to believers as it does to unbelievers (he would agree with me that the gospel is way bigger than just "how to get to heaven when you die"). So in one sense outreach and inreach don't have to be so separated. But Dennis' burden is that churches fail far more on the outreach part than they do on the inreach. Can't say I disagree, I suppose. Now I'd be quick to add that if churches aren't getting the whole gospel then their inward movement (i.e. fellowship, community building) will suffer, and does suffer. But he's right, too. We lose touch with folks "on the outside."

Something dawned on me recently and it's connected to this very idea: When a church never gets new believers, it suffers for lack of the joy which comes from being introduced to the One Who Saves. After enough years go by, we lose touch with what it means to "get saved." We may encounter it some through our children. But there should be more. And I've witnessed this week a certain zest and enthusiasm, even among seasoned old veterans of the church, which seem to have issued from staying engaged in the work of introducing people to the Lord. Among people who are into "organic," simple church life, you are more likely to find people who go about that in more natural ways (when compared with the programmatic methods taught in so many traditional churches and parachurch groups) It feels like I encountered that a good bit this week.

Back at the conference, the first breakout session I attended was on starting spiritual conversations. It was a talk on how to develop the habit of really listening and talking to people in order to build relationships through which the gospel may (one day) be shared. He stressed how unhelpful (and ultimately ineffective) it is to shove verses or the plan of salvation down the throats of people you just met. He encouraged us to cultivate a habit of making ourselves available for relationship building, which of course presupposes that we're even thinking in that direction in the first place! For me, that was the take-away. One way to summarize this whole trip is to say that I was challenged to consider making outreach a part of my life again, finding some way to reclaim it from its more legalistic, guilt-driven modalities that I drop kicked years ago.

Grace-driven, relational, organic evangelism...that's what I'd like to learn more about and see modeled.

More on the first conference day in the next post.

Ohio Trip 6: Fruitful Tensions

2009-07-23T18:58:00.012-04:00

Before visiting my next home group Wednesday, I ate lunch with the teaching pastor and the executive pastor of Apex, along with one of the elders overseeing some of their house churches. They had just come from a meeting in which they were hammering out a strategy for presenting their story at the National House Church Conference hosted in Dallas by House2House about a month from now. Their greatest challenge, as I understand it, is to find a common mind among the two very different mentalities within their "hybrid" fellowship. Some of them feel more at home in the traditional, centralized, top-down model of ministry as seen in the Sunday morning worship service. These folks would like to see a uniform training process implemented for all their house church leaders (like Xenos in Columbus has always used). But others see that as too controlled, not "organic" enough. The "decentralized" camp resists systematized, uniform procedures and wants more freedom for organic development among the house churches. It would seem that these strange bedfellows are cooperating for now, which is an encouragement to me. I heard someone call this a "fruitful tension." It fits.

After lunch I visited with the elder who first called for Apex to transition to the house church model, Rennes Bowers. Everyone should have at least one encouraging, paternal brother like Rennes to talk with. He's an interesting brother with an interesting story. A fireman by trade (Captain of his company), Rennes (rhymes with Guinness) has simple/organic church roots going back to the Jesus Movement. In fact, if I understand correctly, he's the brother who introduced Jon Zens to house church way back in the early 70's. And what a champion of organic church Jon became! Along with Robert Banks, he's one of the most established scholars we have.

Rennes was very encouraging to me about my writing, and boy do I need cheerleaders at this point! My take on things tracks really well with his since we've had so many of the same influences. He also had some really helpful things to offer--some perspective balancing words of wisdom that I needed to hear.

For example, my conceptual model of the Christian life is so lopsidedly mystical at this point that I hardly see outreach or evangelism in the New Testament when I read it. But somehow it struck me right when I heard Rennes talk about how Jesus first gathered people to himself, then sent them out again to share what they had received. Rennes' own heart has always been geared towards others and he has obviously spent most of his adult years sharing Jesus with so many that it comes naturally to him. That was encouraging for me to see and hear.

At dinner time, somewhere between 12-15 college students from Wright State showed up for the home church meeting. We sat at two long tables, lined up end-to-end, and ate some delicious beer-soaked "brats" (which I've never had before). During the meal, as Rennes has taught them to do, they shared "Jesus stories," one by one. Jesus stories are instances of encounter with God during the last week (or month or whatever) in which you get to either share Christ's love with someone who needed it, or otherwise you saw God at work somewhere, maybe even in your own life. I think everyone there shared at least one, with many of them sharing a couple.

I was touched by their sincere openness to God's leading in their daily lives. Here was no theoretical chit-chat about loving God or loving one another. This was experiential. It takes me a few days for anything significant to sink in, and with each day that passes I find myself affected more and more by their example, and by Rennes' modeling of spiritual parenting. I think I'm beginning to see some of what it was I set out to find this week.

When the meal concluded we passed around a loaf of bread and some juice, and Rennes asked me to share some about the symbolism of the one loaf. Another young brother shared about the blood of Jesus. We also prayed for one another and for the people we encountered in our Jesus stories. I liked that. After we cleaned up from dinner, we relocated downstairs to the finished basement for the rest of the meeting. Rennes read out a passage from 1 Corinthians 12 and the group discussed what it meant to be Christ's body, with differing gifts in a community. Students shared about things they understood and experienced as parts of the Body of Christ, and they shared prayer concerns and prayed for one another for a good while.

Another neat thing Rennes does is to place a giant OSU pillow in the middle of the room. When the group wants to pray for a specific need that someone in the group has, he'll get that individual to kneel down on the pillow in the middle of the room while everyone else gathers around and places their hands on him or her. This reminded me of how our group demonstrates its solidarity by standing together when we sing, like a big huddle or group hug. We call it "clumping," or as our British brothers once called it, "coagulating" :-)

I think I enjoyed this meeting the most because it was the most "open" and participatory one of them all. For the record, I'm losing my confidence that leaderless meetings are THE correct way to meet. For instance, when most of the folks in the room are young or maybe new believers (or some of them aren't believers at all), more leadership is needed. But in the end I'm still sold on meetings where most people share at least something during the meeting.

I'm sure I also enjoyed the meeting because I just love being with college students. There's something ideal to me about people in that stage of life, with just the right mix of open, eager receptivity and a developing sense of unique identity. Gotta get back around college students again somehow!

On another personal note, I'm growing in my appreciation for layering of maturity levels in a church. Put another way, I need people ahead of me in the Lord to who I can go for counsel, and I need people for who I can serve that function as well. People ahead of me and people behind me. That's the best way to live.

As I think back to the sweetest phase of church life that I can recall, it was when we had a group of college students regularly driving down (an hour and a half!) to be with us. It's not that we were doing any deliberate "discipling' or anything like what folks in these hybrids are so committed to doing. We just got to spend good quality time with them, and it felt like life was shared--maybe mentoring happened despite our laissez-faire approach to things.

Well, this post is long enough.

Thursday and Friday were conference days. I'll talk about them in the next few posts.

Ohio Trip 5: A Sweet House Church

2009-07-21T10:25:00.012-04:00

On Tuesday I said goodbye to my Cincinnati hosts and drove to Columbus to meet with one of Xenos Fellowship's 270 home churches scattered all over Columbus. This is indeed a unique church -- and they know it. Individuals and churches have been coming to them for years hoping to glean some helpful tips on how to reproduce what these folks have done. Pretty soon they figure out it's not exactly duplicatable.

Basically their story goes like this: In the early days of the Jesus Movement, a couple of pot-smoking hippies at Ohio State University got saved and, with some help from various Campus Crusade guys they began meeting with other pot smokin' hippies and got them saved, too. One house church became two, then four, then a dozen, and so on throughout the 70's. Heavily emphasizing Bible study and evangelism among unbelieving OSU students, they got big enough to need some centralized support structures. That's a pretty organic way of doing it, by the way! Two of the leaders went off to seminary and came back armed with advanced degrees and a passion for research, study, and an unusual mix of non-conformist idealism and no-nonsense pragmatism.

I really could spend all day explaining the intricate, multi-layered structures and practices but that's not really what I came to learn about. I came looking for fruit. And I'd have to say that I found a good bit. The "wineskin" felt strange in places (as it did to many people who were attending a conference this church was putting on), but the wine was recognizable and real. Attending the conference going on that week was far less important to me than visiting house churches which their network had birthed. Which brings me back to Tuesday night.

Scott and Liz Sweet hosted the evening's meeting at their house. Most of this group of maybe 20 adults have been a part of Xenos (pronounced zee-nahs) since the 80's, with one or two going back to the very beginning in the 70's. By now, these seasoned "xenoids" (as some call themselves) have birthed multiple home churches, redistributing leadership several times over. This collection of people resulted most recently from the merging of a couple of groups which had lost people for various reasons (including the creation of a new group somewhere else, I believe).

One of the ladies led the discussion, breaking us up into smaller groups and instructing us to read and discuss various biblical passages which spoke of work and rest. I had to laugh because that was exactly the same thing I talked about in my church group just a couple of weeks earlier. In fact, it felt like she was using my outline for the first 10 minutes of the lesson! Pretty wild. After the lesson was over, we ate and chatted for a good hour and a half. By then it was pretty late and the wine they had passed around was beginning to convince us it was time to go to sleep.

I believe Xenos' home churches follow this same basic meeting format under most circumstances. Half an hour or so of "hanging out" followed by a lesson (led by different teachers in the group at different times), then you eat and drink and hang out some more until everyone's ready to go home.

Upon visiting a Xenos group, you will quickly notice several things. I'll write about some of them later, but for now I'll mention that their general temperament is very casual and non-religious, even a little rough around the edges, and that's no accident. The leaders of Xenos have always stressed fully inhabiting the surrounding culture, avoiding the explicitly immoral behaviors which often go with it. So they have a fair share of smokers, drinkers, cussers, and all-around party folk. That's the way they like it. They exist to be a comfortable place for people in the world to come in contact with the gospel, and they are very successful in winning unbelievers to the faith.

A well-known Baptist seminary professor wrote a book about successful churches and devoted some of his attention to this church, since they boast of something like 40% of their new members as conversions to the faith. Most churches, they are quick to point out, just "win" people who are already Christians. Pretty good point, I have to admit. I don't think a single person in my church group became a Christian through the efforts of the group. And all those megachurches who still experience growth in this era of declining church membership are just getting "transfer" growth themselves.

I've got more to say about my time in Columbus, including a conversation with Xenos' founder, Dennis McCallum. But I used the next day to visit another group from Apex in Dayton. So I'll blog about that next...

In the meantime, here are my gracious young hosts, Jim and Lisa Long, of Xenos.

Ohio Trip 4: An International House Church

2009-07-19T11:33:00.009-04:00

Sunday afternoon I spent some time getting to know another one of the elders from Apex in Dayton. Jim Schindler is a retired business man who was tapped by the young pastor at Apex to be an elder early in the church's history. Jim had been a respected member of the mother church out of which Apex was planted. He also was the brother who traveled overseas and discovered the effectiveness of the house church model in international missions. Now an advocate of house church for American churches, he invests a good deal of time cultivating relationships with international students (online and in person). He and his wife have built relationships with several international students in the Dayton area, resulting in a small regular gathering of them in his home.

When evening came, we met around the dining room table for a Bible study which Jim led, since together with his wife he was their senior by several decades. There were students from India, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. One international student skyped in from a trip in North Dakota (see the laptop on the table). This meeting was more clearly "led" by an individual than the one I participated in earlier that day in Cincinnati. Given the relative youth and level of maturity in the faith among the students I suppose this makes sense. One of the students is a Hindu and another is a Muslim.

We read through and discussed a chapter of Matthew's gospel and answered questions asked by those present. After a brief prayer our hosts produced a serving tray with a hamburger bun and small dixie cups full of juice. We ate and drank these and then got up and ate dinner together. At the end of the dinner, we shared a going away cake for on of the students who was leaving the next day for India. Her parents had arranged a marriage and she was going to start a new life with a man she barely knows (!). That was bittersweet. I was inspired by the diversity of the group, and by the ability that this group showed in reaching out to unbelievers from other faiths. The host couple shows a genuine calling to minister to this population of their church. That was encouraging.

Pretty exhausted from two days of solid travel and meetings in two different cities, I returned to my futon and slept like a rock. Day three (or four, if you count the first night, too) was a day off from meetings. Time to process and chill out for a while, 'cause the next few days were full indeed.

Ohio Trip 3: Vineyard Central, a Liturgical House Church

2009-07-18T13:50:00.011-04:00

Sunday morning I (along with my hosts Scott and Angela) visited a unique community of house churches who call themselves Vineyard Central. Apparently they originated as a church plant from "The" Vineyard, but that hardly seems to characterize them at this point. This group of believers, like the one which I am a part of, chose to buy houses close together--in the same neighborhood. They are a "neighborhood church" as a friend once called it, like my group. This church, however, chose to inhabit a poor, urban section in the heart of their city. They did this because they felt a calling to establish a presence in that community, and they appear to be doing just that. Amazingly, there are around 80 of them in the neighborhood, with some still moving in!

It's pretty raw, authentic, incarnational living. I could tell from their interactions with their neighbors that they are at work doing what they set out to do: building relationships with those in their neighborhood, maintaining community gardens, helping out people in need, and (formerly) operating a cool coffeehouse as a point of entry for people in the community (sadly, economic times being what they are, the coffeehouse may have gone the way of the do-do). It's messy work, fraught with the costs of giving your lives over for the sake of needy people. But they struck me as a very hospitable, giving, accepting group of people. Their house churches meet weekly while the whole group only assembles together about once a month.

Another unique thing about this group is that they are liturgical. They are "low church" in the sense that they are a clergyless, decentralized and informal assembly who show up in t-shirts and jeans, meeting primarily in their homes. But they read from "the lectionary," pray the creeds, and pray "the hours." After someone reads a portion of the Bible, he or she says "the word of the Lord" and everybody responds in unison with "thanks be to God." Haven't done that since my teen years when I used to visit an Episcopalian youth group.

It's unfortunate for us that we didn't get to be a part of their bigger monthly gathering. On those days, typically coinciding with festivals from the traditional Christian calendar, they all come together in an old catholic church building called Saint Elizabeth's which they purchased and renovated over a decade ago. This morning's meeting, however, happened upstairs in the house across the street. We were greeted warmly, we sang songs recently compiled by one of them on a songsheet, and we read aloud and discussed verses from the lectionary, a standardized grouping of Bible passages used in liturgical churches (Anglican, Catholic, etc). Next someone brought out a plate with a multi-grain bagel and a bowl of wine on it. They passed it around, tearing off a piece of bagel and dipping it in the wine before eating it. Each person passing the communion repeated something like "the body of Christ which was broken for you and blood of Christ shed for your sins" (I couldn't remember the right words so I just passed it on and shrugged). When we finished with that we had a time of prayer, then we ate and chatted with folks for a while.

They were warm, caring people who obviously carry the burden of ministering to their neighborhood in a very incarnational way. The fatigue of some of it showed, as did the resolution to keep giving, keep serving, and to keep meeting and praying for those around them. In the end I found the liturgical worship too foreign to easily enter into. I find it hard to internalize standardized phrases and prayers, no matter how time-tested they may be. But I also think that these folks don't experience those things in the same way I do. For them, it seems living and somehow vibrant. In the end it's all about what's going on inside, isn't it?

For me, reciting rituals easily lends itself to mechanical repetition, disconnected from the heart. But I'm not sure it has to be that way. I suspect some can take those pre-formed prayers and creeds, connecting their hearts to the messages preserved therein, and it becomes living words for them. I bet that works better for first-generation folks than for second or third ones, though. That's my guess, anyway.

Coming out of that meeting I bumped into a completely separate group of people gathered on the front steps of St. Elizabeth's. They were from neighboring cities and were using the neighborhood facilities as a centralized point at which they could all gather for prayer and fellowship. Although they were not really connected with VC, their example seems to have encouraged this group to pursue community in their own way as well. Pretty cool how groups seem to inspire one another along the way. Folks thinking about building deeper community among believers seem to get so much from just seeing other people doing something similar. It's great to steal ideas, too, while you're at it!

When I got done talking with that group, I looked up and saw something growing out of the building above us. Kinda crazy, isn't it? Seemed somehow metaphorical to me of some of the things I've been discovering lately. I'll let you figure it out yourself :-)

Well, that just covers Sunday morning. In my next post, I'll share about the third group that I met that day.

Ohio Trip 2: Apex Community Church in Dayton

2009-07-13T16:36:00.011-04:00

Well, this is really about hunting fruit. It's not about figuring out HOW churches I visit do things. I should explain first about that, since it touches on one of the things I'm learning through this process.

I had some great conversations Saturday with several of the leaders of an exciting, relatively young church called Apex Community Church. In one of those conversations, we discovered that we share the conviction that forms of church are far less important than FRUIT. In other words, how you do church is waaay less of a big deal, and what it produces is what really counts.

Here are some questions I find myself circling around with folks:

1. What is the goal of "doing church"? What's our end? (and don't just say "glorify God," that's way too vague)

2. Can organic, home-based church life coincide harmoniously with a larger, organizationally traditional congregational gathering? Can preachers preach every Sunday (or even less frequently) while still effectively emphasizing that every member is functioning, sharing part of the Body of Christ?

3. Should "mission" be the main thing we're about? Should fellowship with God be the main thing? Or with each other? Or (leading question) is it more likely that these three are meant to be IN BALANCE with one another?

4. My all-time favorite question: What is the church's role in the world? Also, what do we do if it turns out that the New Testament doesn't give us much to go on there? What do we decide then?

On to my report!

Apex was a wonderful experience for me. It was, in fact, the apex of my trip (so far, anyway). I found in this church an attempt at wedding both sides of my own background: organic community based in the house church mixing together with a traditional, congregational worship service every weekend, with a preacher and everything.

Their worship style is familiar to us all by now: contemporary-style praise band cranking out worship tunes under the warm glow of concert lighting--very hip. Only I must say that, while musically very easy to listen to and join in with, this band wasn't as flashy and self-consciously posturing and showy as so many bands like them are. That was refreshing. It probably didn't hurt my experience that so many of the folks that joined us for worship that evening were my age, or even younger. And the people around me were worshiping with passion.

The message delivery by the preacher, Rob, was entertaining and engaging. That by itself doesn't do much for me. But what impressed me was that nothing he said ever rubbed me the wrong way. I can't tell you the last time I was able to sit through a sermon without getting a knot in my stomach over at least something the guy said. But somehow, that never happened. Caught me off guard, in fact. This may be one of those rare instances where a gifted communicator has managed to internalize a theology that's deep, well-thought through, and shaped by grace. There just aren't enough preachers out there that even know what I mean when I say those things.

When Rob spoke about the life of Apex church, it was thoroughly centered in real life, and that life was situated in the context of community. He was speaking to a room full of several hundred people who are, more of them than not, engaged in a house church somewhere around town. That's something not too common at this point in time. I will be eager to see more of how those groups function, because that will make a big difference for me. I visit with one of them tonight (I'll let you know how it goes).

A good part of my afternoon was spent talking with some of the guys in leadership of the church, and what they told me was interesting. These guys are holding together two separate models: organic house church and a traditional, congregational church structure. Their goal is that these churches be, not just "cell groups" following the mandates of the church staff, but fully functioning house churches, performing all of the functions of an independent church: baptism, communion, preaching, teaching, discipline, worship, etc. If that's really what they're after, then they're a rare bunch. I hear that others are trying this out, too, but most don't have what these guys have.

Their story goes something like this: Around eight or nine years ago, this large youth group broke off to form a new church plant (Southern Baptist in affiliation). The emphasis at first was on growing the centralized gatherings--the Sunday morning thing. But the pastor of the church turned to some older brothers in the Lord, men with gray hairs (or none at all in one instance!) for guidance. He set up a plurality of elders which grew from three to maybe six or seven. One of those brothers had 17 years of experience in an organic house church setting. That brother recommended that, in order to adequately provide for the discipleship needs of several hundred folks, they needed to get smaller, not larger. Real discipleship, he argued, happens in an intimate fellowship, not in a centralized gathering. Absolutely right, IMHO.

Then another gray-headed brother had some interaction with foreign missions to Muslim countries and discovered as well that small groups are far better for real growth than large ones. He got sold on the house church model, too. So the young preacher said "okay, let's do it."

Fast forward several years and you find a church (or network of churches, depending on whom you ask) with about 3000 attenders, 1700 of which are connected with any one of about 70 house churches all over Dayton. They're broken up in to six regions, with elders providing guidance over each of the regions, and each house church developing its own leadership on the local level. With the right people at the top, this is a really cool set up.

They've had some help from a handful of helpful writers and teachers, along with some interaction with Xenos, the network in Columbus. Long story short, they're currently managing to hold together two very different ways of looking at church: top-down and bottom-up. It remains to be seen whether these two things can harmoniously coincide. I think it takes a particular kind of folks to pull it off. I'm pretty confident there's not a process that will make this work in just any setting. In the meantime, I think a bunch of churches would like to be a fly on the wall throughout what they're doing.

I visited one of their house churches for international students on Sunday, and I'll write about that tomorrow.

Ohio Trip 1: A House Church in Beaver Creek

2009-07-13T08:07:00.015-04:00

Wow, what a full 24 hours!

I'll have to split this up into a couple of posts...there's too much!

My first night in the Cincinnati area brought me to Beaver Creek, a subdivision of the east side of Dayton, where I met with a small group of folks loosely connected with the Xenos Fellowship of Columbus. This group is one of two or three remote satellites of the main network of churches based about an hour to the northeast.

I had a pleasant time with the folks I met there. The host family was out of town, so some folks were missing (that's the downside to traveling in the summer to meet groups like this, but hey, I'm a school teacher--it's the only time I've got!) It's too bad I missed meeting Clem, one of the group's leaders, cause he's a writer, too. Before I left, they swiped me a copy of his book What Does God Want Me to Do? which I intend to read at some point soon, and maybe comment on as I go.

Betty, our facilitator for the evening, led the discussion, which took us through a passage in Galatians 4. She had some thought-provoking insights into what we read, and the comments and discussion which resulted was substantive and seemed to issue from real experience. I didn't really hear any canned answers like you sometimes get in a meeting like this, and the folks in the group seemed to be genuinely walking the path of wrestling with the meaning of the text and its effect on their lives.

I was encouraged and exhorted to consider how both giving to others and allowing others the opportunity to give are marks of maturity. Just like a parent always has an eye towards shaping their children into contributing members of the kingdom of God, so mature believers consider how they can enable and encourage others to give and function--even if that means allowing them to give to you. Graciously receiving can be so much harder than being on the giving end! That takes a bit more presence of mind, doesn't it? Haven't you struggled before with allowing others to do for you--give to you--without giving in to the compulsion to make it up to them (so you can be "even")? Hmmm. Solid stuff.

So in the end I found the discussion helpful and the conversation afterwards challenging (in a good way). They asked me lots of questions about the church group that I meet with, and had some instructive, helpful suggestions to make which I appreciated.

I'll visit the "mother church" of this group next week and I'm sure I'll have plenty to report as that experience unfolds. In my next post, I'll try to capture the visit I had with the next group, Apex. But int he meantime...

O. M. G.

Anyone who has ever traveled between Dayton and Cincinnati knows about the Touchdown Jesus (see below).

This baby is a 60 foot tall, gargantuan monument to religious excess (IMHO) like I've rarely seen. It's HUGE. Makes you almost run off the road trying to take it in. Sheesh.

Bless their hearts ;-)

Hunting Fruit

2009-07-11T09:49:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I embarked on a journey to visit four very different churches, each of them vibrant in different ways. All four of them have a handful of things in common: First of all, they each identify themselves as a network of house churches, a church of churches if you will. These meetings keep to a simple, organic style patterned after the primitive Christianity of two thousand years ago (filtered as it may be for us today through the lenses of the Jesus movement of the late 60s and early 70s). Each of these churches also maintains a larger gathering in which all of its constituent groups come together for regular worship, prayer, teaching, fellowship, and outreach. Finally, each of them actively pursues ways in which it can contribute to its local (or global) community, sharing grace with those around them, particularly with those less fortunate and marginalized. As one church puts it, they juggle inward movement (intimate fellowship), upward movement (corporate worship), and outward movement (mission/outreach). I kinda like that framework.

I am travelling to four cities and meeting with almost a dozen different small groups in order to learn from them. I've got tons of questions and I'm eager to catch their perspective on things. I want to catch a sense of their group personalities, their meeting styles, their quirks, and their passions. I want the kind of information you can only get from visiting in person. In case you didn't know, you can't really tell what a church is like from a website.

I suppose most of all I am hunting fruit. I want to personally sample the outcome of each of these churches' way of life, discovering for myself what it produces in the lives of its members. I know it's hard to do in such a short time, but hey, I'm usin' what I got.

You don't get many opportunities like this, so I intend to make the most of it. I plan on posting pictures and reports about each group I meet along the way, so stay tuned and WATCH THIS SPACE for the next couple of weeks.

Maybe we'll all learn something in the process.

Meantime, thanks to my gracious hosts, the Kurkians, for my stay with them in Cincinnati!

Star Trek for Today

2009-05-18T13:58:00.006-04:00

Watching movies must be my all-time favorite hobby, not least because they help me think. I don't even have to agree with a movie in order to like it. I just want it to ask good questions and attempt to answer them with some intelligence. For attention-deficient people like me, movies do what books and plays did for previous generations.

Don't get me wrong: the medium has its limits. I recently read Twilight before I saw the movie, and the book was way better. Two-hour movies can't always capture everything, like subtle character development or the passage of time. But movies serve as insightful windows into the thoughts and dreams of the cultures that produce them.

Consider the long stream of Star Trek episodes and movies, which saw their latest installment this month, borne out of the prolific minds of J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof (the producers of LOST). Like any franchise that survives a succession of decades, Star Trek tells us a lot about the changes that have taken place since the series began.

Stanley Grenz argued that the replacement of Spock (from the late 60's) with Data (in the early 90's) illustrates the shift in our cultural values from the former generation to the next one. Spock was a purely rational being (even if he was half-human), a cool, objective bystander to the human condition, who judged Kirk's dilemmas from his unaffected left-brain perspective. (Incidentally, some have also noted how the moody Dr. McCoy personified the other half.) Data, on the other hand, is not so purely logical (despite the fact that he is just an android). In fact, he seems preoccupied with becoming human, as if he is on a perpetual search of self. Grenz explains that this mirrors the shift from modernism to post-modernism. Spock represented the fully matured product of the Enlightenment, which taught us to trust Reason and pursue Science as the solution to every problem that life can throw our way.

But then Science failed us. The closer we looked into the make-up of our universe the more our neat categories crumbled and dissolved into uncertainties. Now mystery permeates all we do, just as Data is always mystified by events and by the choices of the strange creatures around him. Data represents the postmodern recasting of Spock, Grenz says, and he represents a sea change in our ideals. I would have to agree.

In fact, Zachary Quinto's 2009 version of Spock does much the same thing, except with perhaps even more boldness. Now we've become so skeptical of Reason that we feel the need to rewrite the canon, making even Spock himself as susceptible to subjective bias as anyone else. In Abram's movie, Spock is romantically involved with Uhura (who could blame him?), something unthinkable in Leonard Nimoy's earlier incarnation. Quinto's Spock is flappable and sensitive to insults (don't talk about my momma!). Therefore he is no more infallible at the helm than any of us would be. Fascinating.

But perhaps most obvious of all (to me) is that James T. Kirk's history has been rewritten. Previously, as the story goes, Kirk became captain of the Enterprise with his own father proudly looking on. But this 2009 retelling of the story goes back and writes the father out of our hero's life. A Romulan bad guy goes back in time and kills Kirk's father just as the young Jim is being born. Now Kirk grows up unruly, undisciplined, thrill-seeking his way through Iowa with no father to tell him which way is up. This is the kind of protagonist that the child of today can identify with. He's brash, irreverent, impulsive, sex-crazed, and yes, fatherless. Makes perfect sense, really.

The new Star Trek brilliantly goes where no prequel has gone before: It alters the space-time continuum, creating an alternate reality in which characters' stories can now be rewritten at the complete discretion of the producers. That's a masterful stroke, really. I trust the newer incarnation of Star Trek will thrill fanboys as much as the new Batman movies do the comic book crowd. I wish all reboots were in their league, but alas.

At any rate, there's my observation for the day. The new Captain Kirk fits our generation as well as the new Spock does. We no longer worship rationality as we once did, and we no longer identify with well-adjusted heroes. But then again, what comic book hero didn't lose his parents at some point in his childhood?

Like I said, fascinating.

Family Resemblance

2009-05-12T14:04:00.009-04:00

My good buddy Bill Heroman, a dedicated biblioblogger, forwarded me an insightful article written by Ken Schenck, a New Testament professor at Indiana Wesleyan University. In it, Schenck argues against seeking to establish, recover, or reinvent The Ideal Church. He does an excellent job.

He begins by explaining how Plato taught that, behind every real-life occurrence of anything, there is an ideal "form" (or Idea) of that thing. For Plato, that required an alternative world underneath this one in which reside all the ideal forms of everything (horses, buildings, people, love, etc). From that worldview, it was an easy step for many philosophers-turned-Christian to equate Plato's forms with the apostle Paul's "spiritual realm." In fact, the two are synonymous for many thinkers even today. Somehow this notion leads us to search for the IDEAL New Testament church, and it leads us to imitate it as best as we can.

But Schenck warns that this is a misguided quest, because even the New Testament provides us with no such example of THE ideal church. There are only actual churches, varied and flawed in many diverse ways. I'll contend that they had some similar characteristics which we are to emulate. But we are not to imitate them in every particular. Schenck illustrates it this way:

Over the centuries, thinkers have improved on Plato's theory of ideas, I believe. For example, how do you recognize a member of my family, the Schenck family? Certainly there is DNA for those in my family who are not spouses or adopted. But is there some essence of a Schenck, an ideal Schenck?

Certainly a number of us Schencks (not me of course) are quite free to share their opinions on things rather outspokenly--and not always with enough prior thought. Certainly many of us like to eat. A good number of Schencks have, shall we say, robust figures that perhaps betray a Dutch heritage filled with lots of bread and mashed potatoes. Some of us have biggish noses and others big ears. Some of my cousins at least seem rather tall to me.

But there is no ideal Schenck. Apart from DNA, there is no common set of characteristics we all share--particularly those who have married into this assortment of Schencks. There is no Platonic Schenck, just a loose set of Schencky characteristics and family resemblances. [2] Some of us have some of them, and some of us have others. But none of us have all of them. [emphasis added]

Well put. In the same way, there is no ideal New Testament church to imitate. Just some "New Testamenty" characteristics which bind together churches birthed by the same Spirit of God. They are infinitely diverse and complex in their particular expression.

Much like the human face. People often tell me that three of my daughters look just like me (the fourth takes after my wife's family). They meet the first one and say, "She looks just like you." Then they meet the second, who looks different, and say "Wait, that one looks like you, too, but in a different way." Then they meet the third, who looks plenty different from the first two, and they exclaim, "Now that one really DOES look like you!" All three different, yet somehow each looks like me in different ways.

That's what being the church is like. We are a family that expresses the life of our Father, but we are diverse in how we do it. And that's okay. We may not be okay with it, but I'm growing more and more suspicious that the Father sees it differently. Oh, sure, there are things that clearly don't express who He is, and we should steer clear of those things: Self-interest, self-preservation, spite, pride, etc. None of those things look like Him. If we allow those things to grow unchecked within ourselves, we end up looking like we aren't even His.

But showing ourselves to be His involves showing His love, His mercy, and His compassion more than it involves meeting a certain way, structuring our leadership in a certain way, or even understanding the Bible in a certain way. These kinds of things usually occupy our search for the IDEAL church, but have little to do with really living out who we are called to be.

God is highly creative, and His work in this world is appropriately fresh and creative as well. So don't be too stuck on the HOW part. If you want to see the church lived out "as it should be," then look around and see how He's actually doing it today, in our midst. Where do you witness those tell-tale traits of His presence? Where do you see the fruit of the Spirit showing up? What's going on there? Maybe that's what He's up to right now. And isn't that always where we meet Him? In the real-life "now"?

It was 19 years ago today that the Father called me into His family, and I'd have to say that this notion represents the newest discovery that I've made over these (almost) two decades. Right now I'm learning what it looks like to follow Him in the messiness of reality (instead of in the pristine perfection of my own theology). I hope it all makes sense in print.

New Endorsement for Christ In Y'all

2009-05-11T15:05:00.001-04:00

Hey, if the Jedi Master himself liked it, shouldn't you pick up your copy today?

Learning to Move On

2009-05-08T10:58:00.014-04:00

Most of the students I teach are black. Incidentally, they never refer to themselves as "African-American," so I'll dispense with the political correctness for the time being (even if they are really more brown than black). Working with them has given me a new perspective on why the students I work with act the way they do. I'll illustrate with two stories.

This morning during class an administrator brought one of my students a disciplinary form, asking her to sign it (indicating that the reasons for her suspension had been clearly expressed in her hearing). The student responded by crumpling up the paper and tossing it behind her before the administrator had even turned to leave the room. This is pretty typical behavior where I work. After the administrator left, the student announced to all who would listen: "My momma told me don't never sign nothin' the school give you!" Several of her friends voiced their agreement. "That's the same thing my momma told me," another girl offered. With parents harboring such deep distrust of our teachers and administrators, it's no wonder we witness so much disrespect for our school's policies.

A couple of years ago I was teaching a group of students who were all labeled with "behavior disorders." One day I asked them: Which is worse, robbing a store at gunpoint, or telling the cops who did it? They unanimously asserted that the snitch was the real criminal. I told them that was pretty messed up but they just shrugged their shoulders and said "that's just how it is." Evidently these kids, who were constantly having run-ins with both school officials and law enforcement, were taught that siding with authority is the cardinal sin. And what's even crazier, they apparently learned this from the adults who raised them.

One day it finally occurred to me: Multiple generations of blacks in the U.S., particularly in the South, grew up with racially unjust laws and corrupt law enforcement. When your local law enforcement is run by white supremacist segregationalists, you learn not the trust your authority figures. And you pass that distrust down to your progeny, and they pass it down to theirs. Now that equal opportunity is the rule of law, we've still got generations of convention to reverse, and it's not happening quickly enough.

I'm watching black men and women try to discipline black students who were taught to distrust all authority, and it's only reinforcing their social inequity. These kids are throwing away a free education and turning to crime so that yet another generation will grow up disadvantaged. If only their parents could acknowledge that the world has changed, or at least that they can no longer blame all their troubles on other people, things would change for them.

Maybe that's why black churches are turning out most of the successful (law abiding) folks. They are preaching an alternative message. They are preaching personal empowerment. They are preaching prosperity through optimism and faith in God. And of course, in the best circumstances they are also investing in their communities, mentoring, and modeling responsibility to their young men and women.

I will occasionally make a crack about the prosperity gospel. I believe it misrepresents the message of pretty much every New Testament author, and it ignores the daily impact of the cross of Christ in the life of a believer. But I can see the benefit of all this optimism, too. I see great value in turning away from blame, racial defeatism, and of course violence and crime. These churches are teaching their members to MOVE ON. Look upward. Trust Him from whom your help comes. More power to them.

Leadership, Part Two

2009-05-03T16:46:00.009-04:00

In the last post, I asserted that leadership in the body of Christ is organically grown, and that the authority it wields is spiritual rather than official. Perhaps the simplest way to restate my point is to say that local leadership roles in a church should be home-grown, and should mirror the ongoing spiritual vitality of the people in question. Leadership is not a static thing, and it changes according to the needs of a group. For example, a person who leads in one group may not find he or she has the same role in the next. It's a fluid thing.

But today I'm thinking about how leadership is still totally necessary for a group of people, however they come upon it. I find this needs to be stated out loud because those of us who are into "organic leadership" tend to entertain the notion that a church can get by without leaders at all. Or perhaps some of us like to believe that leadership happens so fluidly that it never rests on any one or two or three individuals in a church for more than a few seconds at a time.

Poppycock. I've been in an organic, simple, home church now for nine years and I can tell you that churches need leaders. They need brothers (and sisters!) to whom they can look when things get really nasty. They need stable folks who can redirect things onto a healthy path when things get sidetracked. A church needs men and women who don't freak out about everything, who don't twist the truth to fit their own preferences, and who genuinely look out for the needs of other people rather than merely their own. In other words, there really are characteristics of a followable leader, and we should know what they are.

If each person in the church carries the same weight in every discussion, then the group will too easily be swayed by those who don't know what they're talking about. Yet somehow we entertain this romantic notion that everyone leads equally. Perhaps we do this because we love democracy so much in this country. We don't like anyone telling us what we should do, and we don't like the idea that someone might know better than we do. Hurts our pride. But there really are people who should be listened to more than others. These are called leaders. And we need them in a fellowship of fallen people.

What happens if a group of people never recognizes leadership? Then people who should not be followed will determine the direction of the group. Somehow, in the end, people without those qualities which describe a leader will have their way, and the group will suffer. Churches which are suspicious of authority and leadership eventually must learn what it looks like for God's kind of leadership to show up.

Side note: Did you know it's hard to write a well-thought-through blog post while your 18 month old is fussing at you? Turns out it is. I hope this is all still making sense.

So what counts most in leadership? What kind of person should a church be looking for amongst themselves?

My answer is: A person of character.

Yes, you say, but what is character? What does that mean? First of all, it does NOT mean simply that they can speak well, or convincingly. Being articulate is nice, and it's useful for a group to have people that can talk, but how central is that, really? I suppose your leaders should be able to unify a group of people, and being able to think clearly, objectively, and being able to articulate what you're thinking is useful for that end. But the character of that person is crucial. Useful things like intelligence and charisma must never eclipse character.

Most people like to be led by people who are smart. They like to follow someone who can write a good book, or deliver stirring speeches in front of crowds of people (e.g. megachurch pastors). But these are not the real reasons to follow a person. Successful preachers, writers, and entertainers (think of actors, musicians, artists) often have really crummy character under the hood. And in the end they will make decisions that are not good for a group. They wow us with their elocution, or their charm, but that's not what we really need. So what DOES character mean, then?

Character is comprised of un-sexy things like commitment, stability, perseverance, and humility. People of character take genuine interest in the needs of other people, not merely their own needs. They take responsibilities seriously, and they follow through with what they say they will do. They have integrity--they do not say one thing but do another. In fact, as it turns out, what they say matters far less than WHAT THEY DO. At long last, I think this is what I'm getting at. We tend to watch people's mouths. But we should be looking somewhere else.

When I played football, my coaches taught us that you should never watch the ball carrier's shoulder pads. If you want to know which way they're going next, you watch their hips. The hips don't lie. A good ball carrier will juke and jive and fake you out. But a good tackler watches the hips. They tell you what's up.

Same thing here. Watch one another's actions. Pay attention to how each other lives. Notice those people who make wise decisions, who cultivate healthy relationships, and who do what they say. Follow those people. That's what leadership is about, and we need it dearly.

Leadership, Part One

2009-04-30T10:36:00.013-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about leadership. What does good leadership look like in a simple/organic/home church? The best thinking that I have heard on that subject always stresses the need for organically developed leadership. What does that mean, and what keeps it from happening more often?

First of all, the vast majority of churches have a "program" mentality. I recently read a really good article about developing house churches, and it does a good job of showing what organic growth of house churches could look like, in this case if approached from a traditional church starting point. Towards the end, the article illustrates how growth in the Kingdom of God happens relationally, not programmatically. You don't start with a plan, then execute it in the same way that you would execute a business plan or a teacher's lesson plan. Growth in the church has to happen along lines you can't predict ahead of time. Your plans have to flex constantly, adapting to the changing relationships as they develop.

Individuals develop organically, too, which is why leadership must be as Watchman Nee called spiritual and not official. According to Nee, spiritual authority in the church waxes and wanes according to the activity of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals in the church. Official authority sits on a person for life, or at least for a predetermined length of time, regardless of the Lord's activity in the heart of that individual. Ideally of course, you would like the two kinds of authority to coincide. But it doesn't always.

Men (or women) with official authority must be followed simply because they have that office, that title, that role. You follow them because they are over you, like in a chain of command. Jesus said leadership would not be like that in his kingdom. That's how "the Gentiles" do it. They lord it over people. But it's not to be so among us.

A person exhibiting spiritual authority is followed to the extent that he or she is expressing the will of God at any given moment. To the extent that he/she is speaking by the Spirit, his or her word has weight. But spiritual authority can fade, because people are not that consistent. We stumble sometimes, and the Lord provides other voices to take up the slack. A community that is learning to hear and recognize the voice of the Lord knows this to be true, and they know how to listen out for that voice.

Granted, I believe that mature individuals in the church learn to listen for that voice and respond to it quickly, so that this kind of leadership/influence comes to characterize their lives. That is how it should be. Churches should learn to recognize those individuals and listen to what they have to say (more on that in the next post). But they aren't always right, and no one should be afforded so much power that they must be always followed, no matter what.

Ironically, Watchman Nee himself went back on this notion from time to time. In direct contradiction to his own words, he had a habit of encouraging believers to submit to older believers as unto the Lord, even if they are wrong. In the Normal Christian Life he told a story in which an older brother was clearly in the wrong, but Nee's mentor (Sister Barber) told him to submit to the older brother anyway. Under the circumstances, Nee says, submitting to erroneous leadership is justified. The older brother can be wrong, but you are right in submitting to him, so it's all good.

Dennis McCallum over at Xenos Fellowship suggests that Nee may have picked up this quirk from his own Chinese cultural background:

Confucius taught that parents were never wrong, and that even when they were, one should obey them.

I think he's right. I would add that the Plymouth Brethren influence on him probably reinforced a "top heavy" view of authority, in direct contradiction to his notion of spiritual vs. official authority. I think maybe his gut told him one thing but his environment told him the opposite. I don't know.

But this only illustrates my point. Is Watchman Nee an authority on simple/organic/house church leadership? Yes, to whatever extent he is articulating dependence upon the Spirit for that leadership. If his upbringing nudged him away from that notion from time to time, we can overlook it. The idea still rings true, IMHO.

More on this soon...

Error by Overstatement

2009-04-24T11:27:00.005-04:00

"Lighten up, Francis."
--Sergeant Hulka, in Stripes

Some people are just wound up really tight. Whenever they come to believe something, they clutch it with both hands and never let go. I guess some people are just hardwired with the temperament of a zealot. Do you know anyone like that? They dive headlong into what they do, consequences be damned, with fervor growing upon each encounter of resistance.

Passion is good of course. But this carries with it a kind of oblivion, a single-minded insensitivity to extenuating factors. I also readily observe that we men are the ones who suffer from this problem the most. I read once that men have fewer connectors between their left and right brain hemispheres. Maybe that makes us more tunnel-visioned. I don't know. But I do know that the following imbalance happens most among groups that don't value the input of women:

I keep bumping into folks who believe in house church, like I do, but they are dogmatic about it. They don't merely believe house church is biblical, or that it is an effective way to do church in our contemporary society. No, they believe it is commanded by God. They don't merely argue that home-based communities are ideal. They go five steps further to say that no other way of being church is valid.

Now, I'm someone who left behind my own denominational tradition to pursue meeting with other Christians in homes. In my case, that required a significant social risk. In a way, this simple/organic/home church thing is my life. I'd even call it a calling. But I've got enough education to question my own biases. And when I read the passages that validate our way of meeting, I don't see the same things that some other people see. I don't see prescription. I clearly see description.

Why am I making this point? Well, it's not because I just want to nitpick. I think something important is lost when we overstate a biblical notion. There's such a thing as error by overemphasis, and some of us are swimming in it.

First Corinthians 14 does not command that we meet in an open, participatory style. On the contrary, it chastens a group for being overly participatory, overly chaotic. If you really look at the surrounding text, you'll see that Paul was trying to correct them because they were all talking on top of each other. It's like everybody had to be heard, regardless of what really edified the whole fellowship. That's a pretty selfish way to function in a meeting. Some people talk because they don't know how to stop. Paul was giving them some guidelines about how to express all that they had to say in an orderly way.

This passage impresses us today because we have the opposite problem to the Corinthians. In our (traditional) churches, only one guy does just about all the talking! That's the only way traditional churches know how to do it. And I consider that a problem. But I also consider it a problem that we house church folks don't acknowledge that the first century church had variety in how they met, too. More to the point, I believe there is validity to a multitude of ways of meeting today. Let's not be so one-sided.

We're reacting against entrenched tradition. So I get the impetus to be extreme. But we undermine our own credibility when we teach that open, participatory meetings are the only New Testament way to do church. So give it a rest, will ya?

Lighten up.

Loving the Church

2009-03-31T11:17:00.007-04:00

Scot McKnight's blog directed my attention to this post by Tim Keel yesterday. In it he quotes a passage written by Carlo Carretto:

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you!
You have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you!
I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity.

I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.

No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely.
And where should I go?

Keel says:

Anyone who has sought to live out their life of faith in the midst of a particular community, who has sought to be a Jesus-person with other Jesus-people, knows both the highs and the lows of true, as opposed to idealized, community.

True that. Those of us who pursue the ideal Christian community, especially out of a reconstruction of the New Testament story, tend to build up an ideal image in our heads. Then when we live out the reality of our dreams, we discover that real life is much messier, much less "glorious" than we had hoped. And it's not just because of all those fallen people you have to deal with, either. Part of the problem is you.

Thus we find ourselves pursuing the life of the church and failing at it left and right. But you know what? That's the way it is all over. Just ask around. Nobody's getting it all right. Most of us can only get one part or another down at a time. Maybe the best we can do is to be faithful to that facet of God's purpose that we know we've been called to, and to be as open as possible to His work in others who follow a slightly different mission, but all by the same grace and the same Spirit.

I'm becoming more and more aware that we need one another. Not only within the local community, but within the larger community of the whole Body of Christ.

I need the input and challenge that comes from rubbing shoulders with Christians outside of my own little group.

I need the input of Christians from other parts of the country, and from other countries of the world.

I even need the input of Christians from other points in time. Those whose time passed centuries ago still have things to teach me, and I intend to hear what they have to say..

I think growth in Christ over time should make you more open to the larger Body of Christ, not less. That, I think, is part of loving the Church, too.

How God Loves

2009-03-18T11:10:00.004-04:00

Earlier this month, an article made the rounds on the web explaining what it feels like to be both a practicing Christian and a non-practicing homosexual. It's pretty good, and it set off a fair amount of online discussion. I'm not looking to explain my understanding of this hot-button issue here. I already wrote a really long article about it a long time ago. Wesley Hills, who writes as a Christian who is gay, tells of the loneliness that comes from being different from so many around him. What struck me most in his article was the following passage:

I know well-meaning Christians who often remind me, “God’s love for you is better than any love you might find in a human relationship.” While I believe this is true in an ultimate and profound sense, putting it this way seems to set up a false dichotomy. A statement more in sync with the drift of the New Testament might go something like this: “God’s love for us is expressed and experienced mainly through the medium of human relationships.”

That last statement really stuck with me. I've seen that false dichotomy before. And he's right: I don't feel God's love in a vacuum. Separated from actual relationships with people, my relationship with God can be entirely "in my head." Now don't get me wrong...I know Him on my own, too. But my relationship with Him needs anchors--contact points with the world around me. And I find that comes most often through people.

I know, objectively speaking, that God is present, that He is involved in my life, and that He cares for me. But I am not merely an intellectual being (despite how my blog may make me sound sometimes!). I also FEEL. And I feel His love through the love of other people. And truth be told, the only truths that really change you are the truths that make you feel something. That's not existentialism, by the way, it's just a fact. We can "believe" all kinds of things without them really affecting us, changing us. But when something really moves us, we really change.

This made me think a bit about how God's care for those around me gets communicated through me. It's a humbling thought, really. For example, my children will gain part of their image of God through what I teach them about God, objectively speaking. But the most lasting impressions of Him will come from how I treat them. How I love them. If they grow up feeling the care and love of their father, they will find it much easier to see how their heavenly Father loves them, too.

In truth, the same thing goes for all my other relationships. It's true for my wife, for my friends and extended family, and for the brothers and sisters in my church community. When I stop and consider it, I mean really stop. And consider. This thought adds such weight and meaning to even the simplest moments with others. I am becoming a vehicle for the love of God, right there in the middle of every day, boring stuff. Pretty cool.

Freudian Slippers

2009-03-14T09:52:00.008-04:00

Now that's just hilarious. When you wiggle your toes, it looks like he's sticking his tongue out. I just may have to get me a pair of these someday.

Speaking of Freudian things...I finished reading The Watchmen this week, so now I can be an educated viewer when I go see the movie. I've never seen so much Freudian thought integrated into a plot! And since I didn't come across this series when I was younger, I don't expect to be indignant about changes like some folks seem to be. For example, I won't be sorry to see the giant squid thing disappear from the storyline. That was just over the top. Alan Moore has some serious issues (no pun intended).

I also realized after reading Watchmen just how much the creators of The Incredibles must have been influenced by this story. Whole lotta striking similarities, but without the nihilistic darkness and gore. I'll stick with The Incredibles, thank you.

Chicken Little Takes a Deep Breath

2009-03-02T12:53:00.009-05:00

News broke this morning that AIG lost $62 Billion in the last quarter of 2008. That's a staggering amount of money to lose in three months! It's even more meaningful when you consider how that quarter began: It began with the government bailing them out, to the tune of $85 Billion, taking over about 80% ownership of their stock. Apparently, bailouts aren't as effective as some people seem to hope they will be. But then again, I'm pretty sure the experts themselves never claimed they were fixing anything with all the money they're shoveling around. They've only stated that these measures are being taken in order to slow down the collapse to a survivable speed.

I remember back in July of 2007 when the DOW hit the 14,000 mark. Today it dipped back into the 6000's range for the first time since the last "hard landing" of 1997 (which happened because of a currency collapse that started in Thailand, of all places). That means our stock market has lost more than half its value in less than two years. As a history teacher who has done lessons on the Great Depression several times, I have to say that a lot of this stuff sounds really familiar. Of course, I hope I'm wrong and things are going to level off soon and the bad news will wane over the next few months. Speaking for myself, I would have a hard time learning to live like "The Greatest Generation" did. But then again, we are a pretty adaptable species, aren't we?

I remember quietly panicking exactly 10 years ago because I had become convinced that "the masses" would withdraw all their money for fear that the Y2K bug would wreck everything. I even remember teaching a Sunday School lesson about it (God forgive me!). Well, my intentions were good, but I overestimated the extent of the problem and I underestimated human ingenuity in the face of a crisis.

So I think I know better, now. I learned from that situation that my imagination can get away from me sometimes, and I need to watch that. I also learned that people are really resourceful, when they need to be. Maybe that's a residual effect of being created in the image of God. He is infinitely creative, and we share in that to some degree. So I won't worry like the heathen do ;-) I know the larger story, and I know that, in the end, it all turns out good.

Sex and Food

2009-02-26T10:41:00.008-05:00

I must confess that I enjoy reading George Will's columns, which labels me a right-leaning archaism for some, I'm sure. Of course, he sends me to a dictionary on a regular basis, but I always come away feeling like I've learned something. He probably represents a dying breed of conservative, a kind of old-school intellectual who isn't phased much by the turning of the tides. That makes him a contrary voice in the midst of an increasingly superficial world of commentary (that goes for the left AND the right, IMHO). Personally, I can't say for sure whether his Jeffersonian ideals will really work in a global, urban, online society, but it's food for thought, anyway.

Speaking of food, in his most recent article, he cites an essay by Mary Eberstadt which describes popular American culture as "puritanical about food, and licentious about sex." She chronicles the shift in moral standards from the 50's to now, comparing our attitudes towards food and sex. As she points out, the typical American housewife of the 1950's had no problem serving red meat, with starchy, high carb sides (cooked with lots of butter and refined sugar), and relatively few fresh or organic items to her family. But she believed a man and woman should be married in order to have sex, and that outside of that context sex was wrong.

Compare that to today. The average young woman today has considerably stronger views about what kinds of foods she should and shouldn't keep in her house, while her views on sexuality and marriage have probably become remarkably more permissive and open-ended. This gives us a fascinating window into what these two different cultures, separated by five decades, consider to be important in life.

I attribute this shift to our loss of a transcendental reference. In a world that is philosophically materialistic, this life is all you've got. Therefore your body's needs become king. Today we will expend TONS of energy working on our bodies, watching what we eat, hitting the gym, going under the knife, trying to turn back the hands of the clock anyway we can. Repressing sexual urges, on the other hand, is seen as unnatural, and therefore prudish. Traditional family structures seem irrelevant in a world where there is no authoritative tradition, and authoritative tradition presupposes that Someone (other than you) has the right to be in charge.

George Will describes himself as an agnostic, so I don't imagine he would see our problems the same way. But I believe we agree that the breakdown of the family structure has brought on such a smorgasbord of ailments (which our schools, prisons, and legislatures are supposed to somehow fix) that without a reversal in that trend we will not see our society get any better. We can learn to eat whole foods. But when will we learn to practice whole sex? Sex involves the whole person (well, human sex does anyway) and expresses an intimacy and trust that matches the commitment of a lifelong marital bond. Maybe after enough time has passed, or maybe enough research has been done, even the "materialists" will agree with us that some kinds of physical intimacy are better than others, just like with food. Maybe not.

Sad Songs (Say So Much)

2009-02-20T09:09:00.003-05:00

Have you noticed how strong of an aversion we Christians have to expressing sadness? The same thing can be said for doubt, fear, and anger (well, certain groups of Christians seem to thrive on anger, so maybe that one deserves an asterisk). I think we feel that it's wrong to express negative emotions, because what kind of message will that send about God's children? We don't want to discourage one another, and we don't want to have a bad testimony in the world.

But we're meant to feel. We're meant to be affected by the things around us.

Jesus wept.

Pete Scazzero, in his Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, points out that "Two-thirds of the psalms are laments, complaints to God"(p.143). Yet when I look at the songs that I have written for my church group (we write our own songs), I find that most of mine express the same tone. They're not all that way, mind you. I wrote a couple that are prayerful and meditative. A couple are grandiose and declarative. A couple are just plain fun.

But what about the sad songs?

As Elton John once said, "Sad songs, they say so much."

Indeed they do. Our lives with the Lord sometimes take us into the valley of the shadow of death. And when they do, He is there, too. We need songs that express that, because someday you'll be back there again, and when that time comes it will be of tremendous help to you to have put expression to what you experienced the first time.

King David seems downright bipolar sometimes. Just read a Psalm. His emotions ranged the whole gamut of feelings from elation and exaltation to sorrow, grief, guilt, and despair. And yet those songs became the hymnody of a nation. Wow. Apparently nations need sad songs, too. Sad songs that take you through that valley and show you that there is life and light on the other side. Or maybe those songs just need to be there when you get there so that you won't feel so alone. Maybe the Lord inhabits those songs in those moments when you need His presence most. Maybe in those dark hours, He will come to you in a song. A sad song.

So go on and write sad songs. Put words and music to every emotion that the Lord takes us through...we need them all. They're all a part of His work in us, and we should treat them as such. Don't hide your weakness, your failing, your sorrows. Hiding them is often an act of pride. We don't want to appear like we don't have it all together.

In a dark time in my life, I once wrote a song to the tune of "Uninvited," a song in minor key by Alanis Morissette. I never sang it in a meeting. But maybe I should have. Maybe I'll pull it out again someday. Maybe not ;-)

Don't Become Ingrown

2009-02-18T12:42:00.006-05:00

Everyone should have the opportunity to hear people with different viewpoints from time to time. I think it's an essential part of a healthy thought life. I think it's crucial to your mental well-being. And sure, I know that we all have to regularly rub elbows with co-workers or neighbors who may be worlds apart from us ideologically. But conversation at the end of the driveway or around the water cooler is easily turned off, and often too trivial to really impact the core things we care about.

We've all been busy for several years now, building online communities where birds of a feather can flock together. And I don't want to knock it...I can't think of a better, quicker way to find folks with interests similar to your own. I can think of a thousand benefits to virtual community. But I'm also noticing a down side: Becoming Ingrown.

Of course, the internet isn't the only place this happens. Real-life, flesh-and-blood communities fall into this ditch, too. Churches, clubs, support groups, and even families reinforce their own way of looking at things--which isn't entirely a bad thing. But I think it's terribly important that someone within those communities stay interactive with the larger world outside...for the sake of everyone else within.

I feel like I've gained so much from interacting with people who don't see things the same way as I do, and I wouldn't trade their input for anything. It keeps me balanced. For example, years before I became a part of the church/community in which I live, I read up on their detractors. I collected critiques of what they were doing, and thought about those critiques a good bit. I wrestled with the arguments both for and against what I was headed into. In fact, I still do that today. Just in the past week, I've spent a good bit of time processing criticism from people who think differently from me on things I hold very dear. I do this, even now, because it keeps me from becoming too narrow-minded, too certain of what I know, too confident in my own knowledge. And I think that ultimately benefits those around me.

It's mentally exhausting sometimes, I have to admit. I don't think everyone can sustain this kind of thing at the same level. Maybe some folks are better suited to this kind of exercise than others. But it's still a useful activity. Groups like the one I'm in can draw immense benefit from such a thing.

So if you see someone close to you asking scary questions, analyzing things you think shouldn't even have to be analyzed, stop for a moment and consider that we need folks like these. We need people who can interact with the wider world, who can evaluate things that most of us simply take for granted. They're a necessary part of a healthy community.

All Who Are Weary

2009-02-04T12:07:00.004-05:00

The brother who started the church that I'm a part of always encouraged us to take breaks when we need them. Spiritual life grows in seasons, he taught us, and you cannot make Life flow when it is not in season. That would be like trying to make new leaves in the dead of winter. And because we are not under the delusion that a person has to be "on" all the time, we give each other permission to rest from time to time. Let the soil of our hearts lie fallow for a while until the Life returns and is ready to produce its fruit once again.

Everything in God's creation works that way. Hardly ANYTHING in Man's creation works that way. We like things to be available all the time. Switch on your lights. Crank up the heat. TiVo that show and watch it whenever you want. We hate waiting for anything, and seasons seem to have meaning only in sports and fashion. For most things, we expect constant performance. Not so with the Lord.

So I'm taking a few weeks off of church meetings. The saints I meet with give me no brow-beatings because they, too, understand that God works in seasons. Sometimes you need to rest. Regroup. Recharge. Recenter. Rediscover that you know the Lord whether you are with other believers or by your self. Everyone needs this once in a while. I wish preachers had this luxury. What a difference it would make in the quality of the ministry that they bring!

Since I won't be flapping my gums much in front of the folks that live around me (my church lives close together by design), I guess I'll be writing more! Just a couple short posts after saying that writing well and living well don't always go together :-)

Groundhog Day

2009-02-02T11:41:00.005-05:00

Love this movie. Probably my favorite of all time. I heard that when this movie came out, there were so many papers written about it that a French philosophical conference had to begin turning them away. The protagonist (Phil) undergoes a transformation through a series of attempts to find meaning in the midst of a ceaselessly repetitive life. First he tries hedonism (no tomorrow = no consequences), then he tries altruism (hedonism was empty so I'll try to make my life count for something), and then he descends into nihilism (what's the point, just end it all). Finally he pursues love (which fails at first, too) and breaks out of the cycle. In a way, it's an allegory about the evolution of (Western) philosophy. I'll leave it to you to figure out how that can be. It's also a kind of Buddhist version of the book of Ecclesiastes. Bit of trivia: The director's wife is a devout Buddhist.

Incidentally, I originally wrote a completely different blog, but decided that some things are too sensitive to share in the heat of the moment. You've got to let them cool a bit. Blogs are tempting things, but they scatter your thoughts to the four winds, and care has to be used. These little square letters under my finger tips are dangerous things. I want to write some about emotionally healthy spirituality. But like so many things I'd like to share right now, they have to wait their turn.

In the meantime, I'll be plopping down on the couch once again this year to watch Groundhog Day. Can't really explain why it means something to me on a personal level, but somehow it does. Maybe some day I'll figure it out.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

2009-01-26T12:06:00.004-05:00

I'll be writing a bit on a couple of books in the coming weeks (I think). Sometimes putting your own thoughts into writing doesn't work, at least not for mass consumption on this boundary-less blogosphere. So I'm going to comment some on stuff I've been reading. It's been a while since I've come across any books that struck a chord inside of me. Thankfully, I've come across a couple in the last few weeks, and I intend to write about them.

The first one is entitled Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and it's written by Pete Scazzero. I like this book because its basic premise encircles some issues I'm dealing with in my life right now. He states the premise one the front cover: "It is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature." That kind of blanket statement almost forces you to disprove it as quickly as possible. But while I would have taken issue with it years ago, I'm coming around to accepting its basic point.

More on that soon.

Why I Like Obama

2009-01-22T08:27:00.007-05:00

I didn't vote for Obama (I didn't vote for McCain, either, by the way). Obama has more optimism about the government's ability to solve the problems of the world than I do. But I'm not terribly troubled about his political views reversing trends that have been in place for the last several years. On the contrary, I've been fairly displeased with the gradual increase of the power of the executive branch over the last eight years. I also feel that we could do a much better job of diplomacy among countries with ideologies that are different from ours.

But this article here touches on the real reason I'm actually quite pleased to have Obama in office. I teach high school, and three fourths of my students are African-American. By my lights, they and their families are perpetually struggling with life for a lack of positive male role models. They idolize people like Tupak, or Lil' Wayne, or maybe the occasional NBA player. Nobody who would show a young man how to treat a woman, or hold down a steady, unglamorous job.

But now we have a man in office who clearly displays love for his wife and his children. He demonstrates a deep respect for thinking through things, listening to people whose views are different from your own, and shows a remarkable ability to articulate complex ideas with unusual clarity. He represents a new ideal for young black men who want to mean something to the world. And he didn't get there by packing heat, wearing the right flag on his $500 jeans, or selling CD's. He doesn't boast about how many women he can objectify, or how free he is from the rule of law. He is in every way just the opposite.

So I'm pretty pleased. Not so much with socialized health care, or protectionist economic policy. But I'm pretty happy with the man. And maybe that means more than we think.

Takin' Care of Business

2008-12-03T11:38:00.003-05:00

I'm listening to a book on CD right now, entitled Next, by the late Michael Crichton. The characters are a little thin, but I always find his stuff entertaining. I also continue to be amazed at how consistently people are either good at writing about life, or else they are good at living it. It's pretty unusual to find anyone good at both.

Crichton, who succumbed to throat cancer and passed away about a month ago, was a pretty intelligent writer. He stayed up on his scientific thinking and did a good job spinning fantastic tales about the impending dangers of irresponsible scientific tinkering. He also enjoyed taking pot shots at pet topics like environmenatlism, political correctness, religion, and anti-smoking activists (he smoked for years until the birth of his only child a few years ago). Listening to this particular book, I have noticed a pretty strong tendency to objectify women, and discovered a pretty consistent portrayal of marriage as an inconvenient arrangement. I mean nobody in this book is happily married. I was not surprised to find that he went through FIVE wives in his lifetime.

Which brings me to my point. People are usually either good at living life, or writing about it, but seldom are they good at both.

I have written nothing for months. Guess why? I'm pretty busy living life. Being a dad. Being a husband. Being a brother, son, teacher, coach, etc.

You should only write when you've got something to say. The rest of the time is good for doing the things that are right in front of you, needing your faithfulness and care.

So now you know what I'm up to :-)

Out on a Limb

2008-09-15T14:52:00.004-04:00

Did you hear the one about the Catholic, the Presbyterian, the Greek Orthodox, the Anglican, the Pentecostal, the Methodist, and the Anabaptist?

Sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke, doesn't it?

Imagine for a moment that these seven folks walked into the same room to be confronted with a series of questions:

"Do you believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God?

"YES!" they all reply in unison.

"Do you believe that he died on a cross for the sins of humanity?"

"YES!" they all shout together again.

"Do you believe that he rose again on the third day and ascended to the right hand of the Father?"

"YES!" they shout, with at least one pump of the fist and a "Hallelujah!"

Then the inquistor asks, "What do you believe about church government?"

A brief silence, followed by a passionate shouting match.

What's the moral to this story?

There are things that the church universal has affirmed for centuries, things about the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, the forgiveness of sins, and the supremacy of the name of Jesus above all other names, on heaven and on earth. This is the "mere christanity" of C.S. Lewis, Richard Baxter, and St. Vincent of Lerins. These are central tenets of our faith.

But matters of praxis, like church goverment, ministry models, and worship style do NOT fall into that category. Those are matters on which the historical church has held widely varying views. I am not comfortable straying from the majority of the Christian community when it comes to those things about which there has been essential agreement. But matters of practice are a different story.

Liturgy vs. Open, participatory meetings. Episcopal government vs. Congregational. Guitars vs. Organs. House church vs. Steeple-topped sanctuary. For these things, there is no clear and authoritative consensus.

So here will be, out on this limb, along with possibly millions of Anabaptists, Baptists, Waldensians, Moravians, Priscillianists, Bogomils, Cathars, Albigensians, and who knows how many others across the centuries. With (seriously) all due respect for the faith of our fathers, I'm pretty comfortable out on this limb. It's a big, strong Tree.

Reimagining the Trinity

2008-09-12T18:28:00.011-04:00

In my last blog I commented, "Sadly, my experience tells me that intellect and education often displace that simplicity in Christ which characterized His [Jesus'] earliest followers." I must second that emotion one more time here, because so many of the disagreements I'm reading between Ben Witherington and Frank Viola remind me of old battles I fought in seminary. No one ever won those battles, and each party always went away convinced that its own view was the correct one at every turn.

One caveat for this current online conversation: I have to agree with Frank that Ben waaaay too often "uses the rhetoric of absolute certainty" when he offers his views on even the most non-settled interpretational issue. A scholar of his caliber should know better.

IMHO, I think Frank did a good job of responding to most of the key sticking points in Witherington's review of Reimagining Church. I saw one or two smaller points where Frank and Ben were speaking such different languages, and using such different sources, that I don't think the dialogue really moved one direction or the other. I'll name them later. But first, I gotta agree with Frank on some things.

Hierarchy and the Trinity. I distinctly remember completing an assignment about this while I was at Reformed Theological Seminary. I was to read and critique an article by a Greek Orthodox theologian, demonstrating how the traditional Protestant and Reformed concept of God is the right one. But a funny thing happened on the way to the word processor--I decided that the Greek guy's view made more sense. I don't think my professor liked my conclusion.

His basic premise was that personhood is best defined by communion--being with another. It initially sounded to me like modern existentialism, but he demonstrated how Eastern theologians thought that way a very long time ago. Interacting with someone outside of my own theological world made me realize just how much my "Western" categories of thought are just that--Western. We think about everything--our selves, even God-- ultimately in terms of substances. But even a brief glance into the relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit will make us realize that our categories have their limitations.

Witherington has been teaching Methodists for the past 13 years, and has been an ordained minister for much longer than that. Frank is right in observing that Witherington peers into the New Testament through "clerical glasses" which cause him to see hierarchy everywhere. He sees it in every facet of the early Church's story. He even sees hierarchy in the Trinity. But there's another way of looking at the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Greeks called it perichoresis, or mutual enfolding. They spoke about it as a dance. I've written on that before, and I think it's beautiful. Not only beautiful, but true to the tenor of Jesus' words in the gospels.

I didn't really mean to get off on this for very long... so I'll move on to one other related thing, then close for today.

Union with Christ. Witherington's comments about our union with Christ sound like echoes of what one of my professors at Reformed always said. My professor explained that our union with Christ is a spiritual union, and not a real union.

Huh?

I thought he was smoking something. A couple of us raised our hands and asked him to explain what he meant by that. How could spiritual and real mean different things? He used a pretty lame river illustration, and then an even lamer Batman's-grappling-hook simile to illustrate how we don't really become one with Christ, we just become connected to Him in some vague way. Somehow all those arresting statements in the NT are meant to be read, he said, in a "sermonic genre." We wondered if he made that phrase up on the spot. Frankly, it sounded like baloney. Still does.

Witherington actually says, "The body of Christ is not Christ." He says that twice. Then again he says, "The body belongs to the Lord, but it is not the Lord." If you'll go ready 1 Corinthinans 12:12 you'll see that Witherington has just dismissed one of the most important, fundamental truths of the New Testament: The church's oneness with Christ.

If you punched me on the shoulder, would you think me strange for saying "Why did you punch me?" Would you reply that my body is not the same thing as me? Talk about being soaked in Western philosophy! This kind of dualism fits well within Platonism. But it's pretty foreign to the Christian faith. This goes to show you how hard it is for "the wise and prudent" to grasp things that God seems to enjoy showing to "babes."

Being truly ONE with Christ, so that He is both IN you and you are IN Him, certainly doesn't make any rational sense. Heck, claiming that God is three and yet one doesn't make sense either! But we believe it just the same. We can't always explain it to everyone's satisfaction. But that's why they're called mysteries. We won't get very far trying to hammer out an intellectually satisfying vocabulary around these matters. We confess them along with the same Spirit who inspired their declaration in the first place. But no number of graduate degrees will make this stuff any easier to comprehend.

Brother Ben, it's time to become like a little child again. It's a freeing place to be :-)

Reimagining Church

2008-09-09T22:39:00.006-04:00

Ben Witherington has posted a robust critique of Frank Viola's Reimagining Church on his blog, and it is voluminous to say the least. Seminary professors astound me with their ability to write quickly and substantively. The same goes for professors at other levels, like Scot McKnight. Four blog posts a day is really impressive, Scot.

Despite feeling in way over my head, I'm going to wade into the pool and post a few responses to Witherington's blog. I do this because Frank's basic premises and mine are essentially the same on more things than I can enumerate. Critiques of his views are critiques of my own. And Witherington (henceforth BW3) has levelled some strong points in that direction. So here goes.

1. Anti-intellectualism. For obvious reasons, BW3 holds to a high view of education. It comes as no surprise to hear him say "the better Biblically equipped the person, the more the Spirit can do with them... it makes a person far more useful to the Lord..." Sadly, my experience tells me that intellect and education often displace that simplicity in Christ which characterized His earliest followers. It was the well-educated, religious professionals who found it the most difficult to receive Jesus' instruction. As a seminary grad myself, I see the dilemma we're in: We need to see beyond our own contexts into the contexts that birthed the Scriptures. But we must then work all the more to combat the subtle influence of pride that seeps into us after we have gained all our knowledge. I'm not much for anti-intellectualism myself. But there's a balance that needs to be found here.

2. Arguments from Silence. BW3 concedes, sort of, that Paul's letters to churches don't explicitly spell out how local leaders are to deal with the problems that they are facing. Many would argue that this shows that entire churches, not merely special individuals, dealt with crises as they came up. But BW3 asserts:"It is far more likely that Paul addressed church leaders in a separate letter." Can you name a single one? The inappropriately named "pastorals" don't count, because Timothy and Titus were not pastors (i.e. they weren't local leadership). They were apostolic workers responsible for the oversight of local leaders. And the letter to Philemon related to a specific issue in Philemon's hosehold, not to a churchwide issue. What do we have left, then? Only letters to churches. The evidence we actually have (rather than the evidence we may have expected to find) demonstrates Paul appealing to whole churches in order to deal with their issues.

3. Description vs. Prescription. BW3 warns of "mistaking description for prescription especially on the basis of Acts." He then does that very thing by citing the Jerusalem council of Acts 15 in order to model NT leadership by apostles and elders rather than the congregation as a whole. Apparently the church in Jerusalem was pretty comfortable with decision making by decree. But should that be normative for us? Couldn't we just as easily argue that a Jewish church born into a Second Temple context came by heavy-handed eldership naturally? Must we today adopt such a culturally-conditioned methodology for our own time and place?

Did even Paul agree with that? After reading Galatians 1-2, I'd say his posture towards Jerusalem's authority was far less accommodating than we might be led to believe after reading Acts. Even if you hold to the view that the letter to the Galatians predates the council meeting, Paul's atittude towards Jeusalem is clear. After clarifying how infrequently he felt the need to consult with "those who were of high reputation," he asserts that they "contributed nothing to me" (2:6) Does that sound like someone who likes top-down authority? I would argue that Paul and James represent two very different approaches to authority. That very diversity prefigures the confict of viewpoints represented by Witherington and Viola.

BW3 frequently argues that the early church met in homes strictly because of widespread persecution. (Incidentally, my reading of history has not validated the claim that Roman persecution was universal across the empire. There were periods of time and large pockets of peace which could have given early believers opportunity to build special buildings, but they didn't.) He asserts that we must not lift what was normal for their context and drop it into our own in an uncritical manner. I would argue the same thing about the hierarchical nature of the Jewish churches in the first (and perhaps even) second centuries.

Two more things for now:

4. Everybody's not the Same. BW3 reads into Frank's viewpoint the presupposition that "all Christians can assume all leadership functions at one time or another." I don't think this accurately reflects Frank's actual view. This is essentially a straw man, right Frank?

5. It's the System, Stupid. Another straw man is the assumption that "pastors behaving badly" are primarily to blame for people like us holding our viewpoints. But the problem is the system itself. Like Frank says on his blog, "it's the system, stupid" (I'm sure he's not impugning Witherington, of course. It's just a Clintonism).

I didn't leave because the system was being operated by the wrong people. I left because it occurred to me that the system itself actually discourages the kind of inverted pyramid that BW3 so eloquently champions. In my experience, when good people with good hearts weekly ascend the pulpit, they don't realize how inevitably they are perpetuating a passivity in their congregations.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

2008-09-03T11:45:00.008-04:00

Okay. I'm officially on the bandwagon now. As much as I hate bangwagons, I must confess:

I loved The Shack.

It's rare thing for me to experience a book, rather than simply read it. But that's what happened for me. Driving 1800 miles down and back on I-20 this Labor Day weekend gave me lots of time to listen to a book on CD. It was a fantastic way to enter into a story, and enter I did.

The struggles and questions of the main character became mine, at least on some level, and the face-to-face fellowship with God became mine in the process. I find myself, after hearing this story, envisioning God in the daily details of my life in a way that I haven't done in a long, long time.

I got to hear the author, Paul Young, speak this weekend at a conference on house church-ing. It turns out that his closest church affiliation falls into that not-so-big category. His perspective on things was refreshing, to say the least. And his talk on the meaning of the story of Eden was second to none. I want a copy of that recording as soon as I can get it.

But most of all, I'm thankful for this book. It has the ability to usher the reader into the presence of God in a way that I've never found in a book before. It may go up there with The Pursuit of God in my list of all-time favorites.

Check it out, if you haven't yet.

Early Will I Seek You

2008-08-27T10:47:00.004-04:00

My church group did something this past week that we haven't done in a long time.

We rose before the sun came up to meet together for prayer. And we did it every day for a week.

It strengthens you in a deep place to see your brothers and sisters rise and meet together before the rest of the world wakes up.

Well, maybe not the WHOLE world. I saw a video today of Morgan Spurlock's Thirty Days documentary, where he tosses a Christian from West Virginia into a practicing Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan for a month. One of the first things we see is a flabbergasted guest witnessing the 5:30am prayer time that Muslims around the world observe. He was impressed. Most Christians can't imagine having a reason to rise so early just to pray.

But there's something about mornings. Just as the manna came down first thing in the morning, and you had to gather it right then, so there is something that happens in the morning inside your own soul. There is an opportunity to gather up your insides and place them in the presence of God. There is a chance to be with Him in a way that will be hard to accomplish for the rest of the day.

Don't get me wrong: His presence can be known the rest of the day, too. His presence can be "practiced" anywhere and anytime. He goes with us wherever we go. But when it's still dark outside, and the kids are still snoozing, the world around you is, as the Celts would say, thinner. It's easier to focus your attention and speak with the Lord.

And another thing I noticed: After a week of rising and doing this with my church, I find it much easier to refocus my attention back to the Lord at all the other times, too.

It's like your spirit is getting exercise.

I'm sure this is old news to people who have been doing this for years. But I'm one of those people that has to experience something myself or else I don't really believe it.

Now if I can just remember it.

I'll still have four energetic little angels at home that need my attention whenever I've got a free moment. And work and projects still demand so much of my attention that my spirit isn't getting nearly enough "exercise." But I see the value of what I'm missing, and that's a start.

I feel no condemnation about whether or not I'm using this discovery enough--guilt is a very inefficient motivator, you know. Makes you spin your wheels for little benefit. But with renewed mind, I will set my face in this direction:

Early will I Seek You.

Becoming a Nobody

2008-08-19T10:30:00.004-04:00

The church I'm a part of has been reading through John's Gospel together for the last couple of months. I'm always impressed by the Lord's ability to breathe life into the Scriptures time and again when His people come to Him with expectant hearts. It seems that every week someone different brings something from his or her experience that matches what we're reading at the time.

What struck me this past weekend was how Jesus' disciples were getting worked up about his announcement that he was leaving them. They were troubled for a lot of reasons. But I'm becoming increasingly aware of one reason in particular that I would not have understood in the past.

After he leaves, how would they become important people in God's kingdom? Each one of them wanted to sit at his right hand when he came into power. Each one wanted to be somebody special. And Jesus was their ticket to greatness.

I have observed that this ulterior motive runs underneath more than anyone can see on the surface. I have also observed that God is not very fond of this mentality. He rather ruthlessly eliminates your chances of being something great... IF you're lucky!

The thing is, sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes He DOES make someone great. I suspect one of two things is happening there. Either that individual has earned His trust through years of testing and "education" at His hand, or else he/she has no such experience and He is just giving him/her what he/she deserves. A rather empty trophy and 15 minutes of fame. But when the lights fade and the cameras turn off, nothing is left but a stinging awareness that only God is great. Human greatness is an oxymoron.

He that will gain his life must first lose it. Trust that He will do what is right.

I'm So Ashamed

2008-04-29T20:27:00.003-04:00

I've been a baaaad blogger.

Four kids is a lot. In particular, the baby is knocking our schedule upside down and inside out. When I get to sleep, I actually dream of sleeping.

Exactly how full do I feel my life is right now? Let me recount a story a friend sent me:

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes." The professor then produced two glasses of water from under the table and poured their contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

The story goes on and has a moral, but that's not why I like it. I identify with this story because my life feels like that jar right after the water gets poured in. Baby number four, who is cute as a button by the way, is the water. Not much space left for blogging. But I'm going to try to pick it back up and begin writing again.

Keep in touch.

New Year's Baptism

2008-01-09T22:27:00.000-05:00

Wow. It's been a while since my last post. Three months ago I posted that my wife had our FOURTH little girl. That was the last thing I could write for a while (whew!).

Since that time, our house church had a baptism. Since we meet in a home, we had to find a source of water bigger than a bathtub. I would love to have done it at a local river, but New Year's Day brings pretty chilly water.

I've included a four-and-a-half-minute clip from the baptism below which just includes the part where I baptize my two oldest girls.

There were more baptisms to come after that, and maybe I'll post those later. In the meantime, this is my first foray into the world of YouTube posting, so call it an experiment.

It was an honor to welcome my daughters into the bigger family.

Meet Dorothy

2007-10-19T16:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Jasmin for bringing to my attention that I haven't blogged about the new baby yet. On September 24, April had Dorothy Abigail Carter, weighing in at about 9 lbs, about 19 1/4 inches long, and a very good eater.

The three big sisters are pretty excited about having a living, breathing, wiggly little baby doll to play with.

Of course, our schedules are wacked out now, since one of us hasn't yet learned that daytime is for being awake and nighttime is for sleeping. But what can you do?

Don't answer that... we've done this before and we know the whole gamut of opinions about how to parent a newborn. Incidentally, if you've ever had a child before, you've probably learned that experts on child rearing come out of the woodwork when you share even the slightest detail about your child's needs. Everybody seems to think that, since they've had a child, they know exactly what you should do with yours.

But every child is a little bit different. The rules are just too fluid. So the next time you feel the urge to pontificate on the finer points of childcare, just bite your lip.

We're all doing pretty good, by the way. Happy to have four healthy, beautiful children. When they become teenagers, you'll find me on the front porch with a shotgun...

Living a Parable

2007-10-07T12:20:00.000-04:00

Reading along further in The Greatest Story, I come to Luke 8/Mark 4 where Jesus tells the story of a sower who throws seed out into all kinds of different soils. Only one kind of soil actually produces much fruit, while the rest meet with failure for different reasons.

I can easily recognize my own history in each of the soils:

I have been the roadside soil, where the words of God have bounced off of me and done no good whatsoever. When I was a child I heard some pretty clear preaching from some genuinely evangelistic folks. Somehow it did nothing for me for many years.

I have also been the rocky soil, which received the word and showed an impulse towards God, followed by a complete obliviousness to his presence. I recall a time as a young boy when I was deeply moved by an experience at an Episcopalian camp. I came home and built a little makeshift altar out of sticks and wept and prayed and sang to the Lord. I never wanted to lose that feeling. I think I was twelve or thirteen. Didn't last long, though. Didn't take root. My adolescence quickly crowded out any spiritual inclinations and I went back to "normal."

I'm pretty sure I know what it's like to be the third soil, too. The older I get, the more I know what it's like to have the worries of the world and the lust for things choking out all spiritual fruitfulness.

Come to think of it, I suspect this is why the kind of church life I have been pursuing for the last several years has such a hard time taking root in American soil. I suspect that we of all people are the most distracted by our own affluence. We are easily stupefied by our glittering shopping malls and digital entertainment. Our clothes, our I-phones and I-pods, our YouTube, our cable TV, our soft drinks and chocolate, our sex-and-violence drenched television shows. It's no wonder we have a hard time seeing truly deep works of God among us.

I say all this with a heavy heart, because I don't feel any of this strongly enough to give it all up. I kinda like my stuff. I get some relaxation out of it all after a hard day of trying to educate unwilling adolescents. These things grab us because they offer a measure of peace and pleasure.

So what do we do about all of this? Well, this parable makes me wonder how these soils became so different from one another. I have always felt that the main difference between each of these soils is that of preparation. Each one of them had been through different situations leading up to the planting of the seeds. One had no preparation at all. Another maybe had some once, but that was a long time ago. The one that bore fruit was the one that had been worked by someone into fit soil. Weeds had been removed; rocks had been sifted out. Probably some careful tending preceded this planting so that this one place would be ready to receive this seed and make good use of it.

I think the same things works for us. The times in my life when I have received His words with an open heart were the times preceded by some preliminary work on His part. He skillfuly choreographed a number of things which led me to the place that I was ready to hear what He had to say, and respond with willing and enduring authenticity. Some of what happened was unpleasant. I imagine tilling soil would hurt the soil if it had feelings.

So that's what I'm expecting. I hunger and thirst for his righteousness, and I will never be satisfied with anything less. I have tasted of His goodness, and I'll never be totally okay with substitutes. But He tends to arrange things so that our hunger moves to center stage. He tends to take the shine off of all the other things that would draw us, and then we turn to our true source of life and remember why we are here in the first place.

For my part, I'm going to try to spend some time listening to my insides, remembering the hunger that is there, and the need that I have to find Him and hear His voice inside me.

Most of all, I need to hear the sound of that voice. That is what we all need. It all comes down to that.

More on that soon...

I Desire Mercy

2007-08-25T18:11:00.000-04:00

Moment of confession: My spirit has been numb for a while. I'm pretty sure I know some of the reasons why, too. Your spirit, like your body or your mind, has to be used, and it has to be fed. I haven't done much of either lately, though. I haven't made time for it, and this is the result. I guess you reap what you sow.

But lately I find myself regaining an appetite for the Lord. I don't mean that I want to read more theology or debate more with people about epistemology or christology or anthropology (sorry, guys!) . It's just not where I am right now. I'm rediscovering my need to have actual interaction with my Maker. My insides don't work right without that.

I'm reading the gospels lately, particularly a blending of them entitled The Greatest Story. I love this book, because it mixes together all four gospels, without the clutter of verse references next to every line (never fear, theologues; if you glance over to the margin you can find the source references for each section). This way it all reads as one story, instead of four. In reading this time, I find myself asking more pointedly than ever before: What is this Man like? I want to meet him again and know him better.

I must also admit that my reading of the gospels (this time) is coming on the heels of my having read The Secret Message of Jesus, by Brian MacLaren. In all honesty, I don't share all the same burdens that he does, yet I always find him to be thought-provoking. Nothing he writes is parroted or un-thought-through. I like that.

Today I read two stories from Matthew 19. In the first one, Jesus and his disciples were walking through a field, picking heads of wheat and eating them right off the stalk. When the pharisees chided them for breaking the Sabbath, Jesus retorted with "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." His words fell on deaf ears, of course, because sacrifice was what his detractors were all about.

(That's what the text says, guys. I don't care what the Dead Sea Scrolls make it look like. The gospels are clear about who angered Jesus the most, and what their issues were) They were all about "doing it right." I think any of us can honestly identify with that from time to time. But what matters most to him is that we care for one another. That's snapshot number one of his heart. He is all about mercy.

The next story exposes the superficiality of the religious mind. As Jesus set out to heal a man who had a crippled hand, his detractors once again prepared to blow the whistle on him. They asked him a question designed to trap him: Is it legal to heal on the Sabbath?

What a question! Is it legal? How can you even ask if it's okay to heal someone? To make matters worse, their implied answer must have been "no," otherwise it wouldn't have been much of a trap.

Well, Jesus turned the tables on them and asked a totally different question: Is the Sabbath for saving life, or destroying it? They had no answer to that question because it wasn't one of the questions they learned to answer.

Behold the religious mind. It is not capable of thinking for itself. It cannot answer new questions. All it can do is move within the grooves already cut for it. It does not go to the root of righteousness. It can only stand outside of it, mimicking what it sees on the surface. True holiness, true righteousness, issues from a deeper place than that.

Let us love one another, because that's what he is like. He is mercy. So now are we.

KJV

2007-08-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

Forgive me the plagiarism of quoting a brother in my church, but I thought his rendering of several verses in Galatians was excellent. It's a dynamic paraphrase, in the spirit of The Living Bible, only I'm calling this the Kyle Justice Version (KJV). Wherever the Law is mentioned, he was to insert something about that thing that has become "Law" in our day:

"No one is made right with God by trying to be a good Christian." Gal. 2:16

"In fact, trying to please God is an impossible task. When I quit trying, then I really began to live." Gal. 2:19

"If I could have pleased God by trying hard enough, then Christ's death would have been unnecessary." Gal. 2:21

"See your Lord on the Cross and think about it for a moment. Did you receive the Spirit by trying hard or by simply trusting Him? Do you really believe that you can improve on what the Spirit began in you? Does God continue to bless you because of His grace or because of your determined effort?" Gal. 3:1-5

"Trying to live the Christian life is a miserable curse. Christ removed this curse from us by swallowing it up on the Cross. Now, by simply believing and trusting Him, we have an invitation to enjoy every spiritual blessing with all the saints." Gal. 3:13-14

"But I will say this about trying to be a good Christian. It will sooner or later drive you closer to Christ and to your brothers and sisters. You will finally give up trying and find peace and rest in His Body. At last, in utter freedom and full assurance of your place in God's family, you will cry out, 'Abba! Father! I am your beloved son!'" Gal. 3:24-29; 4:6

"Christ has truly and completely set us free, so stop trying to please God by doing all the right things. Let the Spirit lead the way. He alone can live the Christian life." Gal. 5:1,18

Thanks for sharing, Kyle.

Following Jesus

2007-08-11T16:54:00.000-04:00

Something occurred to me in the shower the other morning. I don't know about you, but I often get my clearest thoughts while showering.

Jesus' earliest followers discovered that following Him involved moving around... alot. The guy hardly ever stayed put. When you think about it, it's not surprising that following someone means actually following Him. For those original men and women, it meant traipsing around Galilee and Judea and getting into all sorts of unexpected situations.

But is it really any different for us? We don't wander Palestine on foot, following an itinerant preacher up and down dusty roads. But as I really try to know the Lord Jesus well, I find that He never stagnates because He never sits still. The way I knew Him in the past remains precious to me, but I know in my heart that there's always more. There are more places He wants to take me. There are more sides to Him that I can know. But I should expect a journey into the unfamiliar.

I know that there's something in human nature that craves the familiar. The controlled. The predictable. I've got that in me, too. But imagine living in a vast and beautiful territory for years without ever leaving a one square mile plot. What a waste that would be. That's what God is like. He means for us to discover those valleys and mountains, rivers, and deserts (ever read Hind's Feet on High Places?).

So that's where I am at present. I think from time to time I am sensing a call to go on a hunt to find where the Lord is going to express Himself today. Maybe it will be in a dangerous place. Maybe a quiet place. Maybe even a place I've been before, but never with Him. I dunno. But I know that nothing else will satisfy my hunger for adventure.

Ahh, Summer...

2007-07-27T09:14:00.000-04:00

Number 253 fun thing to do in the summer:

Silly string fight.

I don't exactly know how we ended up with six cans of silly string this summer, but after doing an extreme makeover of our entire storage system in our house, we ended up with something fun to do.

You can't tell from the picture, but I actually WON this fight. The girls took off their stringy bits before snapping this shot. The game ended with a Decorate-the-Daddy party.

Man, these summers go fast. I logged 5,000 miles driving this summer. Our trusty Dodge Caravan had to make four trips to Mississippi and one to West Virginia. Whew! In the meantime we enclosed our carport and made a new living room/meeting room. I'll blog about that later, cause I'm just sure that's what you've really logged on to read about today ;-)

Till then, I hope you're summer's going well, and I'll try to write more and catch up soon.

Father Abraham... had many sons...

2007-07-08T22:26:00.000-04:00

It's amazing to me that more film makers haven't picked up the story of Abraham. He is the founding father of the three largest world religions, yet I couldn't find a single movie about him anywhere last week. I had been asked to share about his story for last night's meeting, but I couldn't scrape together anything visual. So I did what you would have done. I went out and got an Abraham costume.

I discovered three things during this process.

1. My Arabic accent really sounds more Russian than anything else. Like a Russian who clears his throat alot when pronouncing his H's.

2. Abraham knew God apart from the Law, since the Law didn't come until hundreds of years later. And...

3. He misinterpreted God's plans as often and as badly as I do.

I always feel better when I read Abraham's story, or any of his kids for that matter. They were so screwed up. But God blessed them anyway. He showed so much patience. Despite their doubt. Despite their conniving. Despite their attempting to wiggle their way out of hard stuff. He kept them to His own plans and Life resulted.

I need that kind of grace.

Oh yeah, I also learned that spirit gum is not something you buy at a National Booksellers Convention. It's the sticky gooey stuff you paste to your face to hold on your beard.

Hearing God

2007-06-08T16:45:00.000-04:00

Just a little excerpt from a book that I hope to publish someday:

Having Him “in us” means that we can hear that voice and know Him when He speaks. In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) He often said “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” In John’s gospel he put it this way: “My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me.” This happens because we have His Spirit inside, and we have His ears. When He speaks, we respond. It doesn’t even require a great deal of thought. It was a major discovery for me when I realized that I often hear His voice and respond without even thinking about it. The best way I know to describe what I discovered is with another story from my college days.

The dormitory I lived in for all four years of college had community bathrooms. You know the kind I mean: All the showers were in the same big room, all the sinks shared one long counter top, and all the toilets were lined up along the opposite wall, separated by fiber glass stalls. The walls and the floor were covered with bathroom tiles so that every sound you made reverberated for several seconds. This, of course, inspired a lot of singing.

One day I remember singing Elvis’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” I discovered that I could hit the exact frequency of the fiber glass stalls, making them vibrate with my voice. It was on the word “can’t,” and when I sang that note the stalls all shook so that it sounded like a large truck was driving by outside. I had found the stalls’ wavelength, and they shook.

Hearing God’s voice is like that. Your spirit, which is now one with His Spirit, matches the “frequency” of God’s own voice. When He speaks, everything inside you can’t help but respond to His leading. It doesn’t even require analysis – you just follow. Maybe His voice comes in the conversation of a brother or a sister in Christ. Maybe it will show up in a song on the radio, in a line in a movie, or even in your own thoughts.

Whatever the vehicle, the effect is the same: You just know that what was said was right. It’s like something inside you rises up and bonds to what you hear and you know that you must follow that word. It becomes a part of you and you own it. This is how you will find that you hear His voice. It seldom comes as a dramatic event. Many times His voice comes simply, disguised in the every day things; but you follow it, just the same.

This is what His life in you usually looks like. He seldom “appears” in a dramatic flash of light in front of your eyes. That’s not His usual way. Instead, He quietly works on you from the inside out, changing your desires to match His own over time. His best work is understated. I think that some people are expecting to occasionally fall into some kind of trance. They want God to undeniably manifest Himself within them, like they’re being possessed or something. But that’s not how it happened with Jesus.

Remember how He said, “I’ve been with you all this time and yet you haven’t come to know Me, Phillip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” I’m sure Phillip was confused at that point, wondering if He just heard from the Father or the Son. It didn’t look or sound any different from His usual conversations with Him. But Jesus went on to explain it this way: “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father living in Me is doing His works.” The indwelling of His Father looked just like normal living.

That's how it looks for us, too.

Four is a nice round number

2007-05-16T20:58:00.000-04:00

This little peanut right here...

...makes Carter girl number four.

Wow.

Lord help me.

And Lord thank you for healthy pregnancies.

Pretending to be righteous

2007-05-11T09:41:00.000-04:00

C.S. Lewis wrote this about the "Lord's Prayer":

Its very first words are Our Father. Do you now see what those words mean? They mean quite frankly that you are putting yourself in the place of a son of God. To put it bluntly, you are dressing up as Christ...
...Why? What is the good of pretending to be what you are not? Well, even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There is the bad kind, where the pretence is there instead of a real thing...
...But there is also a good kind, where the pretence leads up to the real thing... Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already. That is why children's games are so important. They are always pretending to be grown-ups--playing soldiers, playing shop...

Lewis keeps this in perspective as he continues his explanation. He goes on to say that this game works only if you are already becoming what you are pretending to be. Those children will indeed grow up to be soldiers and shopkeepers, because they already have it in them.

Lewis says that putting on the New Man works for us because we have caught the "good infection." We are becoming imbued with the life of the Son of God. Like when Anastasia pretended to be herself until one day she realized she wasn't pretending. We are truly becoming something we never could have become if not for the indwelling life of God's Spirit.

First we learn that we cannot do what God requires of us. We cannot achieve the heights to which He calls us. We are fallen people who strive for self-promotion and self-protection in everything we attempt. His ways are higher than ours.

But then we realize that this wholly other-than-us has come to dwell within us, making us His very own progeny. That changes everything. We can hardly imagine what we are becoming, but we do know that we are somehow becoming like Him. (Just check out 1 John 3:2 and 4:17)

From time to time I find myself wanting to do thing that are not consistent with who I am. Who I was, maybe, but not who I am. Certainly not who I am becoming. Sometimes I stop myself and remember that I am meant for so much better. Like Piper says, we can learn to prefer righteousness. I really think we can. We will paradoxically encounter our own fallenness in the process a thousand times over again. But these moments remind us that the new life that we claim does not originate with ourselves. It's an alien righteousness, come to inhabit this earth in subtle ways until that time comes when the fullness of who He is can be revealed.

So don't forget that we are meant for higher things. Why miss out on the foretaste of something so incredible? Becoming a son of God! There's no higher fortune on this tiny little planet.

A long walk off a short pier... backwards

2007-04-25T08:58:00.000-04:00

I think the brothers in my church might never forgive me if I post another blog before acknowledging that I fell in a lake Saturday evening. Mister Coordinated here, I tried to untangle my fishing pole from a thorn bush by walking backwards on a pier that stopped way too quickly for my taste.

We hadn't even been at the lake for three minutes before I had personally tested the depths of the water. As I took the last step backward and found nothing but air, I think I decided to focus all my mental energy, not on regaining my rapidly disappearing balance, but on keeping a careful hold on the sharp metal hook between two fingers of my left hand, lest I share the fate of the poor cricket at the end of it. After feeling the brown lake water swallow me whole--shoes, jeans, shirt, fishing pole and all, I emerged from the water with that shiny little weapon still pinched between my fingers. I figure I get a little credit for that, right?

It was a fun weekend. On Saturday, five of us went camping on some land owned by a brother (thanks Jerry!). We hiked around his place (almost a square mile in area) and hung out and talked and made a camp fire (it got pretty cold after dark). Jerry hooked us up with bamboo poles so we could go fishing by his house later. We probably caught 15-20 fish, but they were relatively small and would have taken way too long to clean and cook, so we threw them back. Nice-size steaks waited for us back at the campsite, and they were delicious.

Jeremy learned that every one of us snores, and I learned that Justin has an uncanny ability to keep mental track of the time. On the way home, both of them learned that I can talk for at least an hour straight about the philosophy behind the Matrix and Groundhog Day. I'd be interested to hear what each of the other brothers learned over the course of our trip.

We oughtta do stuff like this more often.

The Renewing of a Mind

2007-04-18T11:44:00.000-04:00

Score one more for the fellowship of the saints.

I went to a meeting of the brothers in my church last night with a viewpoint about something. I came out of that meeting with a totally different viewpoint. My belief about the issue (doesn't matter what it was) didn't fundamentally change. But my viewpoint, the way I looked at it, changed. How did that happen?

I spent days leading up to that meeting unintentionally hashing and rehashing the issue in my head. I probably had a dozen imaginary conversations (you know you do that, too!) in which I hammered out what I thought about this thing. Without intending to get worked up about anything, I was stuck on this thing and kinda dreaded going to that meeting.

Then my brothers welcomed my comments. They gave me a safe place (that sounds so "Oprah") to say what I needed to say, and they responded to it. Every one of them. In my group, that's not very many, but they were 100% functioning. I'm sure that for them it seemed like a small discussion about something minor, but inside me I was battling all kinds of demons and ideologies. So for me it was very needed. It was precious. When the meeting was over, I had gained one of the most valuable things I could have received at that moment: A different way of looking at something.

There are always multiple levels to things, you know? Life is complex, so single-mindedness just doesn't work. But that's what comes natural to me, because I'm a male.

Did you know that a male has only half as many connections between the two halves of his brain as a woman has? The net effect is that women can multitask better than men. I also think it enables them to see two sides to issues better than men. We have "tunnel vision" sometimes because it's how we're wired. We take one thought and crown it king. All other thoughts must bow in humble submission to the one thought that we have enthroned. In the end we take everything to its extreme position and call that "truth." We are principle-driven.

But then I step into a room of other men called to the same calling. We deal with each other's differing ideas and we seek the Lord together until we find that our independent little minds have found a way to transcend themselves. We realize that we may not be seeing everything, and we see how much we need the input of the rest of the body in order to do what we do. It's like the eye realizing that the nose has information that may help. I need my brothers for this very thing.

So thanks, brothers.

Person in progress

2007-04-13T12:06:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the pause in posts. Sometimes you're too busy living life to stop and write about it. I figure in the end no one loses when that happens.

Having finally finished the initial drafts of a book, I finally regained the time to start reading again. When I get free time now, I'm reading through any one of the myriad of books that friends insist I must read sometime. Making my way through them, I am reminded of how difficult it can be to expand a mind that has fallen into a groove.

I remember being in a place where I was constantly learning things. And I don't mean just information. I mean that my mind was being changed. That's not mere assimilation or accommodation of knowledge, it's an alteration of the way I think. It's exhausting but exhilarating. Like the familiar world around you suddenly becomes new again, charged with attraction and interest.

I remember days like that when I was younger. I don't have them as much anymore. I suppose that's good in some ways and bad in others. It's good because a mind that's constantly shifting and reforming can hardly hold anything in at all. Like my astute wife asked one of her high school teachers one day: "Is it possible for your mind to be so open that your brains fall out?" I think so.

But it can also be a bad thing to have a permanently fixed mental map of everything, because that means that you've quit learning. I really can't imagine how that can be a good thing. I hope I'm still learning, still curious, even when my hair is all white.

Maybe the important things get settled first, then the details change over time. Every now and then you have to renovate something structural in your mind, but for the most part you keep the same foundations. Never mind the fact that it's out of fashion these days to speak of philosophical or theological "foundations." Metaphors break down at some point or another, but I think this one still has its merits.

What I'm trying to say is that we should always be people in progress. We should never decide that we've arrived and that we have nothing important left to learn. I mean that for just about every area of life. But in particular I'm thinking about my spiritual life and the life of my church.

I think we should always allow ourselves permission to not have it all figured out. I think that we must experiment... try new things out once in a while. Maybe even "play" with things a little bit.

Little children learn by play. They learn by discovery, sometimes even unstructured exploration. They're not supposed to already know "the right way" to do everything. So they play at it for a while and try out different things. Toys, playgrounds, dress-up clothes... really everything becomes a playground for someone who's still learning what things are and how they work.

I think that's the way we are with spiritual things. Sure, some things are steady constants. We already know we need fellowship with each other, and communion with God, and faith, etc. But the way we work these things out is filled with potential for discovery. Let's never fall into the trap of thinking we've got it all figured out. Let's never become hardened in our own traditions, even while maintaining those things that we know bring life and reflect His nature.

And please allow me the freedom to not have all the answers, either. I tend to blog my thoughts on things that matter to me, and often I speak in answers as much as in questions (Who wants to read a blog full of nothing but unanswered questions?). But I can't promise that I'll always write that way. I'm discovering that I've still got plenty of loose ends in my own mind about some things.

What kind of things? Alright, I'll list the biggest one for now:

What is the church's role in the world?

I think I know what Paul thought about that. And for now it's still what I think about it. But I find myself needing to ask if there were questions that Paul didn't answer because his circumstances didn't require him to ask them. Like how does the Church function within a democracy? Or how do you plant a church in an area already saturated with Christian culture and symbols? That's just a sample. We're gonna have to discover some things for ourselves using what we already know as our guide.

So forgive me if I sound contradictory for a while. I'm a work in progress.

Two Trees

2007-03-26T14:30:00.000-04:00

Here's my C.S. Lewis quote for the day:

Human beings are not [separate]. They look separate because you see them walking about separately. But then, we are so made that we can see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course it would look different....

If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would not look like a lot of separate things dotted about. It would look like one single growing thing--rather like a very complicated tree...

Once again, I thought this occurred to me on my own. Then I went and picked up my copy of Mere Christianity and realized that Lewis wrote about it long before I ever thought of it. Come to think of it, I'm sure read it there first, then thought that it was my idea. Nothing new under the sun.

It's true, though. There are in fact two trees growing around us today. One of them is rotting. The other has healing in its leaves.

Two humanities growing side by side, even intertwining, like two vines growing together. At times they seem like the same tree. But they are very different from one another. One produces death and one produces life. Sounds like a story we learned once, doesn't it?

If we could interview the leaves of these trees and ask them, "How do you make your fruit?" They would reply that they don't know. They don't have a method. There are no classes that teach them how to be what they are. All they do is just remain in the vine. Just being a part of their respective trees makes them do what they do.

Remain in me, and you will bear much fruit.

I don't know for sure what it looks like to remain in Him. But in practical terms, I've got a notion that it has to do with being in the Church. I don't mean that just being there finishes the job. There's more to it. There's a conscious practice of attending to His presence in our lives. But even that works better when surrounded by others of the same stock. Remaining in Him must have something to do with making the Church your home. It is Him.

I need the Church.

Carpe Deus

2007-03-15T12:57:00.000-04:00

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
—Ferris Bueller

Just a little stop-and-smell-the-roses thought for the day:

My wife and I were chatting the other day. She mentioned how easy it has become for us to ignore when good things happen.

It sounds sick and twisted once you say it out loud. But it's true. I find it easy to dwell on bad things happening to me. For some reason I don't like to dwell on things going well.

Maybe I'm worried that it will be gone so fast that it'll hurt too much, so I just won't enjoy it very much to begin with. But that's just crazy if you think about it. More than that, I wonder if it gets in the way of something my Father is trying to do.

Ecclesiastes 7:14 says "When times are good, be happy."

Who'd have thought we would have to be told to be happy when things go right? That verse goes on to say that when times are bad we should consider that God made both kinds of times. Both circumstances work to accomplish what He is doing in my life.

I've spent years getting used to the idea that suffering is from God. I've been drinking as deeply as I can from the well of God's sovereignty. I find it to be a comfort in times of trial and pain. When life sucks it helps to know that God is in it, and that He's up to something ultimately good.

I've gotten so accustomed to reminding myself of this when tough times come. I've forgotten that the same thing is true of good times.

You come across a windfall ($). Or you get that job you wanted. Or you get a positive job review just when you thought you were probably the world's worst employee. Or your whole family is healthy and happy. Or... whatever. How often do you stop and ENJOY the good things God has sent your way?

If you don't, maybe they're wasted moments. Maybe something of God's beauty and care get missed by us when we don't savor the times He comes to us as pleasure, or joy, or excitement, or success. Aren't these moments instances of our Father in heaven caring for our needs? Must we ignore them simply because we are afraid to enjoy them too much? The more I think about it, the more I realize that this would be a waste.

How would you like it if you did something for someone--something that would make their life a little better or a little easier--only to have them ignore it because they were too concerned with whatever the next challenge ahead of them will be? Wouldn't that be rude?

I like the idea that I have a responsibility to enjoy the good things that God sends my way. I will decide to celebrate the successes He brings me, because I think this brings joy to Him.

By the way, I'm having a pretty good day.

My Ball and Chain

2007-03-09T16:43:00.000-05:00

I live with someone who makes my life really difficult. I've known this person for a very long time, and I've gotta say that sometimes I wish I could get a break. This person is always making mistakes that I have to pay for. Some days I feel like I spend the whole day just cleaning up the messes this person leaves behind.

This thorn in my side has caused me to lose my job in the past. I fear sometimes that this individual will be a bad influence on the people around me, too. I know it seems obvious that I should probably stay away from anyone as bad as all this. But I'm stuck with him. This person is me.

Some people seem incapable of seeing when they are to blame for things going bad. They somehow never see their own faults. I don't get people like that. I feel like I understand lots of different kinds of people. But I've never been able to understand people who don't occasionally struggle with self-loathing. I can identify more with the great theologian, Pink, who said:

Every day I fight a war against the mirror
I can't take the person starin' back at me
I'm a hazard to myself.
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy
It's bad when you annoy yourself
So irritating
Don't wanna be my friend no more
I wanna be somebody else

At least now I know there are other people out there who feel the same way.

Ready for a brighter note?

I believe God can save me... even from me.

I've recently decided that I will not lie down and succumb to this wave of angst. I believe the Spirit that I have received is capable of doing better than that. I refuse to give up on being free of this ball and chain, because I've seen the Lord rescue me before. I choose to trust that He will do it again. Day after day, I will come to Him and believe that He is bigger than this person that I live with.

It will be a long struggle--one that I will fight for the rest of my life. I know that. But I think I'm finally realizing that He intends to make something out of this mess that is me. He will not quit, so neither will I.

Almost sounds kinda hopeful, doesn't it?

The Dancing God

2007-02-26T10:43:00.000-05:00

Once again, I find that C.S. Lewis put his finger on things that I didn't realize he had.

The words "God is Love" have no real meaning unless that one person contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love.

I came across this idea first in the writings of Norman Grubb. I'm sure the realization didn't originate with either of these two British gents.

What both of them are saying is that if God is Love, then He must be plural. He must be a community of at least two. One person alone cannot be Love, because there must be an object for His affection other than Himself. As it turns out, our scriptures describe three persons of God. The Father and the Son we understand (sort of). But this third Person evades description. Trying to describe our God strains our language beyond what it can handle, because even our concept of a "person" leaves some things unexplained here. Lewis goes on to say:

God is not a static thing--not even a person--but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance. The union between the Father and the Son is such a live concrete thing that this union itself is also a Person.

A dance. Now that's beautiful. My apologies to all the old school Southern Baptists out there. But this is a truly charming and illustrative image. So much of my confusion cleared up once this idea got a hold of me.

It works for understanding the union of the Trinity, as my theology professors once pointed out. When they said it, they had to use a fancy Latin word for it (circumincessio) so that they wouldn't feel irreverent. Everything feels more legitimate once it's put in Latin, you know. Circumincessio indicates a kind of mutual enfolding which expands and contracts, so that they are one, and two, and one again. As if one Latin term doesn't cut it, my professors felt the need to bolster this concept with a second, Greek term (perichoresis), which essentially means the same thing. But now it's in both Latin and Greek, so it's gotta be okay to believe, right?

But the Dance extends beyond the inner relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Jesus said that we would come to know the same kind of relationship (it's at the end of John 17, I'm not making this up). We are becoming one with God in the same way that He is already one with Himself (!)

If you think about it, this explains a lot. I have always gotten confused about whether I am separate from God or one with Him. Sometimes I pray to Him. Other times I feel like He is praying through me. But which is right? Which is better?

It's a dance. You get what I'm saying? Watch two people dancing. They are two, then they are one. Then they are two again. Back and forth. Around and around. In front of, behind, between, above, below, apart, and together again. It's beautiful, isn't it? When two are joined in a dance, something arises between them that is more than simply the sum of two parts.

And that is what's happening with us and God. Christ is in us, then He is above us. He is our every breath and heartbeat, then we turn and address Him as if He were with us instead of in us. We are meant to enjoy and preserve both. Sometimes we lose consciousness of His separateness from us, because we are so one. But then He comes to us and gets our attention as if He were introducing some side of Himself that we've never seen before.

There will always be more. His dance has spins and steps you've never seen. But always He brings us back into who He is, so that folks looking on will hardly be able to tell where He ends and we begin.

It's a Dance.

A Really Good Meeting

2007-02-20T14:56:00.000-05:00

Do you know what it looks like when the body of Christ builds itself up in love? Have you ever seen the church grow (in quality, not necessarily in quantity) by what each joint and ligament supplies? Well I saw it happen this past weekend and I wanna tell you about it.

The brothers in our church recently received invitations to attend a get-together done by the sisters in our fellowship. The invitations themselves were fantastic, with little burnt-looking edges and nice lettering. They gave us our invitations after treating us to an amusing skit, featuring camouflaged scouts surveying the promised land in the days of Joshua and Caleb. They gushed as they reported the size of the grapes in the new land and encouraged us to see for ourselves what the Lord has given us in that land. Because we're not new at this, each of us in the room understood that the land was always a picture of Christ. It was an object lesson in finding our every need fulfilled in Christ. They were speaking of land, milk, and honey, but we knew they were really talking about the Lord.

Then Saturday night we showed up at the appointed time to a home that was partially hidden behind a veil. Our beautiful greeters made sure we noticed that the veil had been ripped open, so that we could go in and see what awaited us inside. We were hungry and ready to see what was in store for us.

Before we went in, each of us was given a new name which would be ours for the remainder of the night. Those who greeted us inside knew our new names and seated us in front of well-made placecards with our new names on them. One of us became Righteousness, another Sanctification. One of us was Truth, and another Glory. Each name sounded far better than we deserved but they persisted in calling us those names for the duration of the evening.

We sat under a beautifully-lit canopy (inside the house!) , eating a deliciously grilled meal on fine china. We were served wine (optional) and cheese and bread and steak and fish and rice and vegetables. Each of us had on his plate exactly what he would have ordered if he had been asked, only none of us had to ask. The brother across the table from me, himself a vegan, had tofu instead of meat along with his veggies. The meal itself was exquisite and it just kept coming until we were FULL.

All throughout the meal, we were serenaded by the lovely women of our fellowship. They sang a selection of our songs which speak of Christ as our food, and of Him as our fertile land. They even rewrote a song that had needed a good rewrite for some time, and it was beautiful! A blog just won't do it justice, so you'll have to just imagine why we were moved to tears as we ate. We had several choices for dessert (mine was very chocolatey) and they were delicious.

They served us like we were royalty and spoke such encouraging words of how they see us in the Lord. Now let me assure you, each of us has had one reason or another to think poorly of himself over the last year or so. Our intentions have always been good, but we would not have to work hard to catalogue the ways in which each of us feels that we have failed as brothers in the church. There are so many things that we wish we did, but never seem to pull off.

But this night, we were spoken to as men who had fulfilled every expectation. They reminded us that we no longer judge one another according to the flesh, and they set about demonstrating for us what that looks and sounds like. They read out what they had written about each of us, calling us by name, and we sat and (a few of us) cried as we heard such high things said of us by our precious sisters. They ministered to us. I don't know any other way to put it. We feasted on their words and their love. We basked in their music and their warmth.

I think it was a healing time for some of us, if not all of us. Thank you, sisters, for your example of how to love the Lord and His church. You are a precious gift.

The Imitation of Christ...(not)

2007-02-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

Since I am not greatly bothered by movies that are "dark," I happen to like a movie called The Game, starring Michael Douglas. In this movie, a mysterious business establishment provides their clients with carefully-staged situations that push them to their personal limits. It's called "The Game," and it freaks Douglas out. It's like they know everything he is going to do before he does it. Before the game begins, they study their clients so thoroughly that they can predict with astounding accuracy what they will do under any imaginable circumstance. In a sense, they can control every detail of his or her life for a time, but without ever actually tampering with their ability to choose what they will.

Phillip Yancey once said that a master chess player can determine the outcome of a match by knowing his opponent so well that he can anticipate his next move. Yancey suggests that this may help explain how a God who is technically "supposed to" avoid tampering with our free wills could make all things work according to His will anyway. He's smart enough to know exactly what we would do in any situation, and therefore can lead us where He will without actually "making" us do anything.

Of course, the whole "foreknowledge" thing is just a human idea anyway, since time means little to a God who is both Alpha and Omega. He could just as well be working backwards from the end. All of our causal relationships (that's causal, not casual) presuppose time. This thing happens first, so then this thing happens next. But what if you lived life backwards, like Merlin on The Sword in the Stone? You'd get mixed up about what "causes" what after all.

But I suppose, to some degree, God's timelessness helps us understand how He can do what he does. If you've ever seen Groundhog Day, you may remember the scene where Phil can tell Rita everything about everyone in Punxsutawney.

Rita: Is this some kind of trick?

Phil: Maybe the real God uses tricks. Maybe He's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long, He knows everything.

I love it. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. And it's not dark. Phil uses his knowledge of people to accomplish just about everything he can imagine. That's a powerful position to be in.

But we've got more than a God who can just predict our every move. We have a God who comes to indwell us. Like my wife who has a little someone indwelling her right now :-) (Carter #4) Over time it gets difficult to say what's happening because she wants it and what's happening because the baby wants it. The two are mixed together for a time so that whatever happens to one happens to the other. She's not just being "indwelt;" their lives are joined together. It's really a beautiful thing.

Now for my C.S. Lewis quote of the day:

You see, we are now trying to understand, and to separate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together.... But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it.

It won't stop us from trying to explain it though. As Norman Grubb used to say, we've got God within and without. That pretty much puts Him on the throne.

And it should caution us against trying too hard to figure out whether our actions are our own or God's. In the end, they both look the same. They even feel the same most of the time. About the only difference is that Life results from His activity in and through us. If Life comes out of what we did, you can bet He was hiding in there somewhere.

With all due respect to Thomas a Kempis, never mind the imitation of Christ. This is better than that... It's Christ's imitation of you.

Rumors of Another World

2007-02-05T10:44:00.000-05:00

Here's my Lewis quote for the day:

A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

I like Phillip Yancey's writing because it's laced with the same idea. I've got a book by him called I Was Just Wondering, in which he comments on how strange it is that we are uncomfortable with so many things that are natural to all living creatures. Things like nakedness, dying, sex, and defecation strike us as funny. In fact, take away those four things and you'll eliminate 97% of all jokes and curse words. Yancey asks, "Why is that?" He explains what he calls the theology of dirty jokes.

Can you imagine a cow being embarrassed about "relieving itself" out in the field in front of the other cows? Only people would show shame over something like that. I laughed when Sam the Eagle on the Muppet Show realized for the first time that he was naked. I was probably six years old, but I got the irony. So why is it that only human beings blush at these things?

Yancey suggests that maybe we feel uncomfortable about our own excrement because we somehow feel that we were made for better things. Somehow the creatures we were created to be shouldn't produce something like that. And somehow we were never meant to feel nakedness, or witness death. So we make light of it. We cut jokes about it. We find each of these things intrinsically funny, because irony is the root of all humor.

Yeah, I think they're on to something.

Nothing New

2007-02-01T10:19:00.000-05:00

There really is nothing new under the sun. Every time I think I've said something clever, or maybe even something that nobody's thought of before, I come across someone who beat me to it. Truth is, I probably got it from them and just forgot. Flipping through my well-marked copy of Mere Christianity, I keep spotting statements by Lewis that I thought were my ideas. Or maybe I just forgot that he seems to have discovered the same things that the rest of us have been discovering.

I've just finished writing the first draft of a book (which I hope to title Christ in Y'all). And since I'm kind of "writing-ed out" for now, I think for the next few days I'd like to post some Lewis quotes that I've come across. Today I think I'll start with this one:

"...the very moment you wake up each morning...All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day." (Beyond Personality, chapter 8)

Walter Hooper tells a story that in 1954, Bob Jones, founder of the fundamentalist university by the same name, once met Lewis and had a long private conversation. When asked later for his opinion of Lewis, Jones is said to have replied, "That man smokes a pipe, and that man drinks liquor — but I do believe he’s a Christian."

That man was high-church, too. But I like 'im.

Brief Pause

2007-01-12T12:33:00.000-05:00

I promise I will write again someday.

I'm trying to learn what it looks like to be a responsible teacher, and whatever that is, I know it involves not spending all my spare time in front of the computer.

I've been squeezing a good bit of writing into my holidays, but they're all going into a book. So stay tuned and someday I'll be announcing a book (assuming I can find somebody that wants to publish it).

Once I get back on top of my work, I'll be able to scribble again. I'm sure the world will survive until then.

Becoming a child again

2006-11-26T21:38:00.000-05:00

When I was in college I used to imagine that each day of my life rolled out from God's mind like a scripted scene in an extended-length movie. All the events of the day, down to each line spoken by each person, were planned and placed exactly where God intended. I saw my life as an intricately woven play written by God. This charged each moment with purpose and meaning, and I learned to refer to him internally as things were happening since He was the one sending it all in the first place.

I don't remember when or why I stopped thinking that way. Maybe it felt so egocentric--everything happening in the whole world arranged just for my advancement in His grace. How "me-centered" is that? Or perhaps I was afraid that thinking that way would cause me to relinquish responsibility for my actions. If the Lord brought it, then there's nothing I can do in response, right? I don't know which, if either, of these things led me to drop my little daydream. But somewhere along the line I did.

I'm getting the notion lately that I need to recover this perspective once again. I can't even say for sure if it's right, although I can quote a bunch of biblical passages that hint that it is. My favorite is when David said that every day of his life was written out like a book before one of them came to be. When Job lost everything he cared about by both nature and by human conquest, God alone received credit for what happened. And when Jesus hung on the cross before a screaming mob of his own people, he turned to His Father and asked why His Father was forsaking Him. Apparently folks in the Bible share something like this view in which everything that happens is from the hand of God.

But we're too sophisticated for that, right? I mean, we live in the twenty-first century now, and we understand that things happen by random chance. We don't need to invoke God when something dramatic happens, right? Aren't we a little too old for that?

I think I want to go back to being young. And naive. I'm thinking about going back to a time when I had a simple outlook on life, and saw each day as a gift from my Father. That caused me to see Him intimately involved in every second, present beside me (or within me, or me in Him) no matter what was going on. That worked pretty well for me, and I'm not convinced I should have ever dropped that viewpoint.

Is it technically true? I don't really know. Part of me doubts. Part of me sees that as childish, like God's got nothing more important to deal with than my petty little life experiences. But then again, I've got a strong biblical precedent for this very thing. Anyway, God can multi-task, right? Can't He simultaneously weave billions of stories intricately together like a vast tapestry?

If He had all the time in the world, He could do it. If time stood still for Him, He could fill every life that has ever been lived with all the events He desires, and each one could connect with billions of other lives in ways we little humans could scarce understand. If I could think like God, I might not even see this as a challenge.

Maybe the folks who don't see each moment as the product of God's creative mind are the ones who are thinking too simplistically. Maybe it's those whose minds are "stuck in time" who have it wrong. They tend to think that God was involved at the beginning, but since then things have managed to operate on their own. But what if God didn't just create the beginning? What if, when He created, He made everything, including today? What if, when He created, He simultaneously painted a picture of all of history from beginning to end, crafting each stroke and each event down to the falling of a single sparrow?

Now that would make me feel very close to him at this moment. Right now He's telling a story--your story--and it involves reading this blog right now. Man, that would make Him really close. Right there with you. Don't you think?

Heroes

2006-10-27T11:35:00.000-04:00

I think we need heroes.

Total depravity of man notwithstanding, I'm beginning to believe that there is a need for highlighting the times we get it right. Watching my children grow up, and watching the kids that I teach struggle with which way is up, I'm starting to see the absolute necessity of role models.

When I was a kid, I first wanted to be Superman. I wanted to deflect bullets, see through walls, fly, and melt things with my eyes. I mean, who wouldn't? I even remember eating Cheerios at breakfast for months because I saw Superman eating Cheerios on a commercial once. I don't even like Cheerios! But if he ate them, then dadgummit, I'm eating Cheerios!

Next I wanted to be Indiana Jones. I made a whip and tried my darnedest to find a fedora. I still wear a leather jacket from time to time, and wouldn't you know it, I even seriously considered becoming an archaeologist at one point in my life. Only now it's biblical archaeology. As a child, I didn't quite understand what his occupation was, but whatever it was, I wanted in on it.

My last great childhood fantasy was to become Luke Skywalker. I wanted to be deeper than anyone else and move things just by thinking (obviously I came in on Star Wars during Luke's later days--in his earlier days he was quite the whiny dweeb). I wanted to wear the cool outfit and weild a sword that glows and makes that cool "fshfshwoowoop!" sound. I wasn't old enough to dig Leia in that outfit in Return of the Jedi yet, but I wanted to be the guy that understood things going on around me better than anyone else; and to me, that was the coolest thing of all about the Jedi. I wanted to be one.

The kids that I teach have heroes, too. Only they're all criminals, like Tupac Shakur. They want to dress like thugs, wear grills like thugs, and sag their pants and curse out every authority figure just like their heroes do. They're doing a pretty good imitation of the gangsta. And I don't just mean the black kids, either. I mean the white ones, too. They all seem to be imitating guys with rap sheets a mile long. Their heroes end up in jail, and eventually get shot by their rivals. And these are the guys that so many of my students want to emulate. They'll defend them at the drop of a hat, too.

Where did Michael Jordan go? What happened to the days when these kids wanted to be like somebody that had his head on straight? When did they stop aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, presidents, and professional athletes? Those heroes all had something honorable and praiseworthy about them. The perpetual adolescents that have replaced them seem hellbent on doing just the opposite of everything that the generation before them tried to grasp.

Somewhere along the way I think the world became too cynical to really admire heroes. Too many leaders have screwed up and left us wondering whether or not people should even try to become something better. Today's Superman (played by Brandon Routh) is younger, less sure of himself, and has gotten Lois Lane knocked up (pardon the expression). Even our modern reproductions of fairy tales have to insert characters hounded by their own flaws and shortcomings. We say it makes us feel better because we don't feel as far behind. And the truth is, I'm all for a realistic picture of human beings the way we are.

But we need our heroes. Without them we don't even know what we're shooting for. Human beings learn by imitation. We need to see lived out in front of us what it's supposed to look like to be a person. During those moments when the right stuff shows itself, we need to draw attention to that so that we know what we're going for.

I think a church like mine is sometimes hindered by the same problem. We have been so disillusioned by the phony-ness of most traditional Christianity that we run the opposite direction. In our quest for authenticity, we convince ourselves that we should never expect the righteousness of God to show up in ourselves. The folks I meet with maintain a really strong view of the fall of man, and they have been personally encouraged by the realization that "the Christian Life" as we know it is an impossible task. The truth is, I wish more folks could get that idea registered deep into their own minds. So much of what most Christians chase would become useless to them and they just might start pursuing things that really matter. We could all use a good lesson about the impotence of the human flesh when it comes to living like God.

But the other side to that coin is that the Spirit that was put into us by God's grace is capable of doing so much more than we think. I have a notion that He is even capable of causing us to rise above our deeply-engrained selfishness to love one another even as He loves. I know this because a.) He said that He would do that, and b.) I'm pretty sure I've seen it happen from time to time. But now even when it does happen, I seem to have taught myself to see only the hidden selfish motives underneath every good deed. Now that I am capable of doing this without even consciously trying, I'm starting to wonder if this habit is doing more harm than good.

Paul often spoke of following his example. He also spoke of making note of certain kinds of people. When someone adopted a lifestyle contrary to the gospel, Paul encouraged the saints to mark that in their minds. On the other hand, when someone gave his life over to the Lord and the Church, exemplifying the character of Christ, he noted that, too. He asked them to give honor to those whose lives inspired it. He did this because he knows that human beings learn by imitation. We have to see it done before our own eyes. And we need someone to point it out when a lifestyle worth imitating comes around.

The catholics have their saints for a reason. The world has superheroes for the same reason. I think that we could benefit from a few heroes of our own.

Gimme a Break

2006-10-06T13:33:00.000-04:00

It's no wonder folks today have a hard time listening to religious people. Half the time we seem way too confident about what we think, while at other times we seem to arbitrarily change what we think.

Confidence is not in vogue these days, and some folks have a triple dose of it. Consider for example the groups that make the veins in their necks bulge when they tirade against Harry Potter, only to turn around and speculate about connections between the number 666 and European politics. While I invest years of my life trying to provide my children an intelligible worldview that doesn't divorce faith from curiosity and learning, some of my brothers and sisters in Christ are popping up in a documentary that exposes a sensationalist, propagandizing religion that capitalizes on the malleability of the young. Like the new film Jesus Camp:

www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/jesuscamp/trailer/

While surfing the web this morning I went from that news item to the next one about how the Catholic Church is debating whether or not they should lay to rest the concept of Limbo/Purgatory. Apparently popular Catholic practice has all but elimated this cumbersome halfway house for the dead anyway, and those who are trying to proselytize Africa and Arabia are finding that Islam seems nicer than Christianity when it comes to the eternal fate of unbaptized infants.

Now I'm not advocating for them to keep this strange medieval invention, but I wonder at the inconsistency in their logic for dropping it. If we ask why they want to lose this long-standing tradition they must either reply that, "Well, it wasn't really biblical anyway"(which I highly doubt they'll say) or else they must admit that public opinion has rendered this belief very unpopular. So like the evangelical churches of America, they are considering adopting the same market mentalilty which follows each new trend for all it's worth. Give the consuming public what it wants.

The world is in desperate need of communities of believers that follow Jesus in simplicity and authenticity, and for crying out loud that use a little common sense! I'm holding out hope that even in this crazy place God will grow some folks who can sense their spirits and follow Him without losing touch with their minds. Reason and Faith need not be mutually exclusive commodities, IMHO.

But then, what do I know? I'm just another guy with a keyboard who thinks he's got something worth saying.

Incidentally, here's where I read the article about the impending death of purgatory:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5406552.stm

I gotta stop reading the news.

Osama YoMama

2006-09-25T10:15:00.000-04:00

Kinda funny. I'm not much for Family Guy, but this is kinda funny.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5156309062057571174

Is All of Life Spiritual?

2006-08-13T19:37:00.000-04:00

As a believer, you will have two basic kinds of interaction with the Lord: Quiet, intimate, internal times which are deliberate and focused on Him directly, and active, interactive, outwardly directed times which are more incidental. Both kinds of times are good for fellowshipping with God. In my understanding of these two kinds of times, neither is inherently "more spiritual" than the other, but they are complementary and equally necessary for growth in the Lord. Sometimes our walk is contemplative and other times it's more "vocational" or even social. It's all Him, though. And I don't think there's meant to be a strong distinction between these... they're both ways to know Him. But the point of describing them is that we need both. Without one, the other suffers. Each one gives meaning to the other.

The same basic idea is true in marriage. Sometimes you have intimate times of focused, deliberate attention and affection. Sex comes to mind, of course, particularly since I'm male. But at other times you simply "live with" your mate and do whatever else it is that you do together. Both are a part of your marriage. If you only have one of them the marriage will suffer. Each one is meant to enrich the other. A marriage that's all sex and no "hang out" would be shallow and superficial. On the other hand, a marriage that deliberately avoids physical intimacy would strain the relationship to the point of breaking except for rare circumstances. A healthy marriage has both.

Life in the church is the same way. Sometimes the saints focus their attention inwardly towards the Spirit of Jesus within; these are quiet times of affection and adoration with the Lord inside each of us. Other times their attention is directed outwardly towards the Lord in each other. They hear Him speak and they interact with Him in His many diverse representations. Any and every activity that the church undertakes is endowed with God's Spirit because the Body of Christ is involved.

I used to say simply that "All of life is spiritual." My mentors in the Lord taught me to see it that way, and to say it that way. That has always been the way that I have approched the things of God in my life. But my experience is teaching me something that they never taught me. All of life isn't necessarily, automatically "spiritual." A better way to put it is that "All of life can be spiritual."

A spiritual activity is not defined as something done by your spirit as opposed to by your soul or body. That's too atomistic-- too reductionistic. The question is one of motivation. A "spiritual" activity is defined as anything done by a person who is driven by the Spirit of God in whatever he is doing. It could be balancing your checkbook. It could be playing with a child. It could be mowing a yard, going to work, watching a movie, or reading a book. It's not only while praying or singing or sitting in silence.

It's like asking "What's Christian Music?" The answer is that a Christian song is a song sung by a Christian. Strictly speaking, a song cannot be "Christian." It's not about which words are used. It's not as if a properly arranged group of words constitutes a song being Christian. When a believer writes a song about loving his wife, it's a Christian song because it was written and sung by a Christian. It doesn't even have to explicitly mention God or Jesus. Similarly, a song written by an unbeliever may serve well as a song of praise or adoration towards God when a believer appropriates it for himself (rememeber when Paul said "all things are yours...").

It's the same way with our lives. What makes what we do spiritual is not that we are doing the right set of things/activities that can be universally labelled "spiritual." No, what makes them spiritual is that we are doing whatever we are doing as one "in Christ." Whatever you do in word or in deed, do in the name of the Lord. Life cannot be divided into spiritual parts and non-spiritual parts. Incidentally, I believe this also holds true for the church. We should not try too hard to distinguish "spiritual meetings" from "non-spiritual meetings" of the church. That would produce an artificial division of the things that we do. To appropriate a beautiful phrase, "Can Christ be divided?" The implied answer is No.

All of life can be spiritual. HOWEVER... that does not mean that all of life automatically is! Paul wouldn't have told them to do everything in the name of the Lord if that were so. There are ways in which almost anything a person or a church does can be "unspiritual." Consider this: If even religious observances themselves can be motivated by the flesh, then certainly other things can be, too. How many times have I become sick to my stomach while listening to the prayers of believers who are laboring under the illusion that it's all about their own self-improvement or "empowering"? I see the mark of the human flesh all over that. But this is no less misguided than when a group of free-swinging believers dedicate themselves to following every whim of their own natural cravings simply because they party under the illusion that everything they do is necessarily spiritual and divine in origin.

What I'm trying to say is that there are two opposite ditches to this path that we walk. Those naturally inclined to "spiritual things" sometimes downplay the everyday. They stress the transcendence of God at the expense of His immanence. But others flatten out our lives as if all things we do are equally "of the spirit" simply because believers are doing them. This shows no discernment of the Spirit. No sense of smell.

I look forward to the maturing of our vision, when we can see the pointlessness of running to opposite extremes when it comes to "walking by the spirit." There's so much more to say about this, but I've said enough for now. I hope it makes sense to whoever reads it.

Half the man I used to be

2006-08-09T19:52:00.000-04:00

Man, it's been a long time since I posted anything. I'm still here, I've just been really preoccupied, I guess. I split my time this summer between teaching summer school, exercising, and writing a book! I made it about three quarters of the way through the first draft of the book but then the end of the summer smacked me in the face. Now I'm stuck in teachers' meetings all day and I'm already feeling my fat cells preparing to store up for winter. I'm determined to keep going with the exercise, though, so I can feel a little less like 32 and a little more like, I dunno, 22. Check out the pounds I dropped during the last 6 months...

Some things in my life got a little hard back around Christmas time, and I discovered a great way to relieve stress: Exercise! You can tell from the comparison above just how stressed I must have been. Over the last six months I've dropped 40 pounds.

I got sick back in January (pneumonia) and got to the point where I began to fantasize about breathing deeply. Once I got a little strength back I hopped on the bike my lovely wife got me for Christmas and rode around a bit. Then I started running short distances each day until I got up to a mile, then two, then three, and now as far as four miles in a run (I've never been able to do that!). I've been eating a lot of salads, fruits, and veggies, although I gotta have at least a little chocolate every day, or I get a little moody. Can't deprive myself of all those health benefits from chocolate, you know. Not to mention the seratonin, or whatever's in that stuff. Love it!

Meanwhile, I've been chewing on something else (pun intended) that I feel it's time to post. I hope it means something to somebody out there. So for all five of you people that used to actually read my blog (that is, back when I used to POST stuff on it!), it's my first useful thought suitable for blogging since June. But you'll have to check back next time to read that life-changing gem ;-)

Never Mind?

2006-05-11T19:28:00.000-04:00

I had a conversation the other day with someone who was making the point that we have to use our spirits and not our souls to know things. At one level, I agreed with this person about that. In case you aren't familiar with the distinction, I should clarify that I run in circles where folks distinguish between a person's spirit and his/her soul. The distinction is biblically based, although I see no regularity to how different New Testament writers use these two terms in relation to one another. There are a few instances where the two seem to be equated, and there are other instances where they are spoken of as separate things.

Unfortunately, the Greco-Roman roots of our heritage predispose us to think, like Aristotle, in terms of parts or substances when we turn inward to contemplate the age-old question, "What is Man?" So when we think about the difference between soul and spirit, we think about two separate parts or substances of ourselves (which are not so easily separated from one another) in addition to our physical substance (our bodies). In case you're interested, a person who subdivides human nature into three parts like this is called a "trichotomist." Aren't we all glad there's a name for it!

To illustrate my point, you can check out how some of the greatest writers along this line interpret Hebrews 4:12, where the writer says that the Word of God can penetrate to the division of soul and spirit. Grammatically, this verse simply says that both soul and spirit (i.e. the deepest reaches of our selves) are laid open by the discerning movements of God in our hearts. However, many of my favorite writers have argued at one point or another that this verse teaches that our soul must be separated from our spirit in order for God to do His deeper work in our hearts. Much is made of this separation, and one is left with the impression in the end that our spirits must be active while the rest of ourselves must somehow be uninvolved.

But just try to imagine any meanigful activity within our hearts that does not involve the rest of us. It doesn't actually work that way. Our minds and our emotions and our wills are involved in every interaction between God's Spirit and ours. I'm not saying that they are completely indistinguishable; in fact I'd argue (as I have elsewhere before) that it's important for us to understand some kind of a distinction between our spirits (which are not dependent upon our brains or hormones or other natural faculties) and our souls (which are the product of those things). But believing in a distinction between soul and spirit does not necessitate that we divorce the one from the other as if one were legitimate and the other were not. To do so would unnecessarily restrict life to a fraction of what it should become.

I think our minds, emotions, and wills need to be engaged in our relationships with God and with each other. Personally, I find that if I neglect my mind for long periods of time, I eventually experience a disconnect from which it is difficult to recover. I periodically move into this strange kind of detachment from my own spiritual life, I guess similar to an out of body experience, in which I'm outside of myself looking down upon myself wonder what all the fuss is about. I wonder if anyone else has had a similar problem. What I'm saying is that my mind needs to be engaged in my spiritual life or eventually my spiritual life will grow to become irrelevant to the rest of my life. And that just won't do.

For the record, I still believe that my spirit is the only thing that can access the things of God. My spirit is made to interact with God's Spirit, and my spirit is something over and above my natural faculties (intelligence, passions, determination, and senses). I must never conclude that simply because I have engaged my brain or my emotions I have therefore done a spiritual act. But on the other hand, I cannot conceive of a spiritual activity without the necessary involvement of the rest of me.

So I will follow what I believe is the Lord's guidance into seeking, searching, and questioning things as they arise in my life. I will not suppose that to pursue these things as the drive to do so compels me will somehow draw me away from my spiritual life. On the contrary, I find these things eventually settle me back into the arms of the One that made me a curious person to begin with. He is patient with His children, and He knows what makes us tick. He will use these things to bring us ever closer into the center of Himself.

Radical Inversion

2006-04-20T08:02:00.000-04:00

Okay, so here's a thought for the day. If we learn nothing else from the stories of Jesus' ministry, we learn that Jesus was out to radically reorient the way we think about our religious affections towards God. Case in point: Look at one of the first things he said in his public ministry. In chapter five of Matthew (v.23-24) Jesus said that if you have something unresolved between yourself and a brother you shouldn't bother bringing an offering to God. You should drop your offering right then and there and go be reconciled with your brother. Wow. If you really stop and think about it, that's a radical inversion of our priorities. I'd venture to say that even after all these centuries this instruction from Jesus has never really sunk in.

Think about it for a second. What Jesus is saying here is that our relationships with one another are as essential to worship as is our actual offerings to God. While we habitually place our devotion to God on the highest level and relegate our devotion to one another on a (much) lower plane, Jesus inverts that and suggests that you should resolve your issues with those in the church before you should even consider offering your praise and adoration to the Father.

There are dozens of other places where the New Testament gives us the same inversion of priorities, but I just want to soak in this one for a while. There's something really big being expressed here about our Father. He cares intensely about how His children get along with one another. Jesus said that the world will know that we are children of our Father because of our love for one another. And here we were, all this time, thinking that it was our devotion to God that set us apart. John's first letter to a church is almost exclusively about this one matter: that our love for God is manifested primarily in our love for one another. If you love your Father, you love his children.

So don't let anyone tell you that your relationships with your brothers and sisters in the church should be relegated to a place of secondary importance. That's not how our Father sees it. He will have a house of Love. That is how we will be known. So let's get to it.

Passing the Time

2006-04-11T13:14:00.000-04:00

Yeah, no blogs in a while. Haven't had much to say that's profound lately. Well, there was this one day that I had a really deep thought... but then I lost it. Oh, well.

The fellowship that I'm a part of is taking a break from meeting for a while. When you're not stuck in a ritual (or you're trying to avoid becoming so) you can do that once in a while. This got me to thinking... What can a person do when his or her church is "on a break"?

Top Ten Things to Do When Your Church is on a Break

1. Rest.

2. Write new songs.

3. Read a few good books. Maybe ones you've never read before.

4. Spend time just hanging out with brothers and sisters in the church. Eat together. Watch movies together. Whatever.

5. Read the New Testament.

6. Or don't.

7. Exercise.

8. Spend some time with the Lord, rediscovering your individual relationship with Him.

9. Visit other fellowships and see what's going on there.

10. Got any more suggestions? Post them below!

+++++++++++++++

Another thing you could do is spend way too much time on the internet by installing the StumbleUpon button in Firefox (thanks Jeremy!).

That's how I came upon this:

http://www.f355kit.com/videos/heyyacb.mov

Even the short credits at the end cracked me up.

Fun Game

2006-03-08T08:15:00.000-05:00

Four Jobs I've had:

lifeguard (3x)
waiter (4x)
knife salesman (once... and only once)
night manager for a gas station

Four movies I'd watch over and over again:

Groundhog Day
Star Wars (any of the original three)
Spiderman
Princess Bride

Four Places I've Lived:

Jackson, MS
Cincinnati, OH
Clinton, MS
Atlanta, GA

Four TV shows I love to watch:

Lost
24
Friends
Vh1's I Love the 80's

Four Websites I visit daily:

cnn.com
google.com
weather.com
friends' blogs (Sarah, Johnny, Jeremy, etc)

Four places I've been on Vacation:

Nassau, Bahamas
Cancun, Mexico
New York City (honeymoon)
Intercourse, PA (also honeymoon)

Four foods I love:

Steak
Pizza
Schlotzsky's Club
Steak

Four places I'd rather be:

the beach
French Riviera
In space
In a movie theater

Tagging:

anybody that wants to do this

Soggy blog

2006-02-22T17:56:00.000-05:00

I write today’s entry while still dripping from an unusually enjoyable run around my neighborhood . . . in the pouring rain. I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed each time that I’ve tried to get out and jog the two or so miles around the neighborhood in which I live, but today was different.

Do you remember playing in the rain? You’ve gotta try it sometime. It’s pretty cool.

I imagine when I was a kid I didn’t jump at the opportunity to get all soaked in the rain just for fun. You have to change clothes afterwards and that’s a hassle! Plus there’s all the water in your face and all the mud. But then again I remember football practice in the rain, and I remember that I always loved it. First of all, everyone was slippery enough from the rain that when they hit you it didn’t hurt as much. Then when you hit the ground, it’s soft and mushy. Much more comfortable. Then there’s the excitement of all those fumbles. You never know exactly what’s going to happen next.

But there’s something else about standing (or running, or walking) in the rain… It’s so soothing. There’s something so calming about a steady rain, and it’s no less calming to be standing out in it, listening to the steady chatter of a million raindrops hitting the pavement, the grass, the leaves, and the growing puddles everywhere you look. As I ran today I kept my mind off of the burning in my lungs and legs by watching the bubbly stream of rain water running down the lengths of all the ditches, creeks and low places scattered across the yards around me. The feel of the rain on my clothes reminded me of the relaxing nature of a morning shower. Man, I don’t get out enough.

I don’t think many of us get out enough. We’ve become so indoorish. We feel inconvenienced by heat, cold, rain, and wind. But an amazing thing happens once you decide to step out into it and deliberately enjoy it: You start to really enjoy it! Days like today make me wonder if we weren’t originally supposed to feel more at home in the outdoors.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m a far cry from naturalist, and I like my climate control as much as the next guy. I’m nowhere near as into eating organic foods like everyone around me seems to be, and I don’t remember the last time I recycled something. But I’ve had enough outdoor moments to realize that there’s something about being away from sheetrock, carpet, and plastic. When I’m out in the elements, I find it so much easier to think about things that matter. I even find it easier to talk to God. It feels like there’s less between us.

From time to time we should find ways to get away from it all. We should go out somewhere once in a while to remind ourselves that the things we spend the most time fretting over really don’t matter. Life goes on around us, lots of life. It reminds us that we were made by a God who enjoys life. He made a planet teeming with living things. He covered it with water and sunlight and everything else that it needs to support life. Getting outside and considering the lilies really helps sometimes. It reminds you that you, too, have everything you need for life. All you have to do is take it in. No need to worry if the next day will bring what you need. Worrying didn’t make it come today. So just relax a little. And play in the rain sometime.

sniff I Love My Wife

2006-02-21T14:40:00.000-05:00

Today I'd just like to drop a note out into cyberspace thanking God for my wife. She knew that I was having a really hard time. Some things have hit me that have discouraged me as much as she's seen in the last six years or so. And without needing to know the details of what's got me down, she just offered me the gift of touch. A long embrace, a gentle kiss, and a warm smile.

Then while both of us were working today she sent me a note, reminding me of the lyrics to one of my favorite songs:

I am in the sun, I am in the shade
I am in the light that love has made
I am in the cold, I am in the warm
I am in the center of your storm
I am in the fire, I am in the flood
I am in the marrow and the blood
When you cannot stand...I am

It's from a song by Bebo Norman (and No, it's not pantheistic, so don't even think it!) It's about how my Father is so intimately involved in my life, and in the lives of those around me, that I need not fear that anything is going contrary to his desires.

When Paul says that nothing can separate us from His love (See Romans 8), he doesn't mean that God fights off any intrusion on His work. It means that in all things God is working towards His good goal: the molding of His great family after the pattern of His Son. The big picture is all good, even though the moment feels like it really sucks.

So today I want to openly thank God for my wife loving me so well. He knew that I needed that. And He always takes care of me that way. I should mark that more often.

Thanks, Lord. And thanks, April.

What I Learned From a Muslim Riot

2006-02-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

It’s impressive to see how angry some Muslim communities of the world have become over depictions of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. What’s more amazing for me is to learn that most Muslims believe it is wrong to create ANY depiction of Mohammed for ANY reason. That detail fascinates me.

The ancient Hebrews also had a rule about depictions of Yahweh. As I recall, Moses threw quite a fit about a gold cow once. The rule about making a graven image of Yahweh was due to the fact that Yahweh is invisible, immeasurable, infinite. He is spirit, and to put him into physical form would immediately supplant Him from His rightful place as the only legitimate Object of worship.

But the earliest Christians (who were themselves Jewish) made a bold leap into the unknown by claiming that Jesus Christ was Yahweh Himself come in the flesh. They unapologetically declared that Jesus was “the image of the invisible God,” and “the exact representation” of Him on this earth. Yahweh had always promised that He would one day dwell with His people, and while previous attempts to represent Him in artistic form were forbidden, God’s own representation of Himself was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Like Jesus, Mohammed was a man. A flesh and blood man. I believe that most normal Muslims believe that. Which means that he can be drawn. He can be painted. He can even be cartooned. That’s the risk you put yourself up for when you inhabit human flesh. A man can be caricatured. In fact, the more famous he is, the more likely it is that he WILL be. I’ve seen three disrespectful depictions of Jesus in the last two days. I didn’t like them. I guess I consider them offensive. But I didn’t go burn the national flags of the countries that allowed them to exist! Well, that’s not what I’m trying to write about at this moment. So back to what I was trying to say…

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that followers of Mohammed disallow depictions of him out of respect and homage to him? In their efforts to idealize him they confine him to the unseen realm, so to speak. I suppose that for them to see him represented in visible form would somehow reduce him and dishonor him, robbing him of the worship that they believe he deserves.

Compare this with Jesus, who stated in no uncertain terms that he who has seen him has seen Yahweh. This man stated that he and Yahweh would come and indwell those who believe in him, so that we, too, can become sons and daughters of God. The early Christians embraced this idea and proclaimed that when the church of Jesus gathers they are reassembling Christ himself. They are the body of Christ, inseparable from him in every way. “Little Christs,” they came to be called. Here is a faith that embraces the visible representation of their God.

Talk about running the risk of misrepresentation! Millions of little depictions of Christ running around all over the earth. What was Jesus thinking!? Didn’t he know that he was setting himself up for insult and injury? In particular, what was he thinking when he chose ME to be one of those representations? If I didn’t have the utmost deference for his wisdom, I would question his judgment about this issue. But this only illustrates my point. [Wait, what was my point?… Oh, yeah…] God knew that we could never be satisfied worshiping a God that we couldn’t see. We are flesh and blood and we identify with flesh and blood. So He took on flesh and blood in order to be with us. In so doing He set Himself up for insult, abuse, and misrepresentation. Apparently, he counted the cost and determined that we were worth it. That’s really something. I think I’ll go dwell on that for a little bit. Why don’t you join me?

What About the Kids?

2006-01-31T11:42:00.000-05:00

Sign up for any conference or workshop on "home-churching" anywhere in the country and I guarantee you that you will hear pretty much the same questions asked at every one of them. The first one is almost always the same: What do you do with the kids?

I have mixed feelings about this ubiquitous question. My good feelings come from the fact that I identify with parents who seek to actively integrate their kids into the activities of the church. I happen to think that if a church has any desire to live beyond one generation then it will have to somehow involve the kids at every stage of their development. Somehow they must come to "own" church life as their own, and the Lord must be real to them as they grow up. As my kids are entering grade school, I'm becoming more and more eager to include them in some form, maybe writing songs for them, or occasionally scheduling a kids' meeting (something they've elected to do on their own on a couple of occasions), or simply including them in one of our regular meetings (with some preparation of course).

But there's also something not-so-good underneath the perennial what-do-you-do-with-the-kids question. Too often the church asking the question is operating with a meeting-centered mentality. If you think church=meetings then the kids aren't a part of the church if they're not in the meetings. When the life of the church isn't based in community (i.e. a more comprehensive involvement in each others' lives), then the meetings are all you've got. On the other hand, when "church" means who you are all the time, then you see that the kids are already involved in the life of the church. They spend time together, play together, sometimes eat together. The interact with adults from families other than their own, and that fact alone places them in a priviledged group (Research shows that kids who get regular, positive interaction with adults outside their own nuclear family have a higher chance of success in things like social development, behavioral expectations, etc.)

We "westerners" (products of the European Enlightenment) have always been program-centered. When we think of education, for example, we inevitably picture a classroom situated in rows with an educator perched at the front. Our concept of learning is teacher-centered, lecture-based, and restrictive. But there's another model (a much older model) for learning that happens naturally in a church like ours. It's relational. It's "situational" (anchored in real-life situations as they arise). It involves active learning based in the needs of the kids as they discover them.

Think about it this way: Which kind of learning do you think sticks with a child better: When they hear a biblical principle illustrated during a Sunday School lesson in a classroom, or when a life circumstance motivates the child to ask her mother a question about the right thing to do in that situation? I'd definitely go with the second one. A family and a church community who love the Lord and actively pursue Him in daily life will prepare a child to know Him immeasurably better than years of Sunday School lessons. Even from a standpoint of educational theory, stuff learned in real life situations are generalized into the rest of life more easily than stuff learned in an environment like a classroom, which is too divorced from daily life.

So how you approach this question of "what do you do with the kids" turns out to reveal a good bit about how you see the church and daily life in the Lord. The church isn't about meetings. And knowing the Lord is a relational process, not an intellectual procedure. Knowing Him isn't about memorizing the right things. It's about knowing and loving a Person who also comes to you in the form of your brothers and sisters in Christ. The meeting is when you come together to report your experience of Him to each other. More on that in the next blog, I believe...

What's a Meeting For?

2006-01-30T08:09:00.000-05:00

The brothers in the church where I live have been tossing around this question for a little while. What's the purpose of the gathering of the saints? That question keeps popping up and we seem to be hitting on some similar conclusions each time we come at it. Now, don't get me wrong...there's no consensus about this thing because it's multi-faceted. There's no one simple answer that encompasses the purpose of the meeting of the church. And I'm not about to presume to give any definitive answer on it. But I think we've hit on a few things that it ISN'T about, and a few things that it IS about. So here goes my attempt:

The meeting of the saints ISN'T an end in itself. It's not the reason we exist. As we say in the churches I run with: The church isn't the meetings. The meetings express what the church is. But the church can't be reduced to its meetings. We are the church all the time. Of course, this is so much easier to see when there's some kind of community going on. When you live really close together, for example, the communal aspect of the church is made visible. It's like a family. And a family doesn't become a family by eating supper together. It already is a family. Everything it does is as a family. But because it IS a family, they spend a lot of time together, and they eat together. Likewise the church is the church whatever it does. It doesn't become the church because it does the right thing when it meets. Please don't buy that mentality. The church is so much more than its meetings.

For this reason, "tweaking" our meetings must never become the focus of our attention. If the meetings are bad, the problem isn't with the meetings. The meetings are an expression of the life of the church. If the meetings are flat, or boring, or whatever, it's because the rest of the life of the church is needing more Life. Now I'm not knocking the occasional "how are we doing" talk, where you frankly discuss what's going well and what's not going well (including what happened in the last meeting). We should always be willing to discuss what is helpful to the meeting. For example, if one guy never shuts up, or has to get the first word or the last word on everything shared, it's okay to point that out. If you don't say something it'll never stop. But the mechanics of our meeting should never become the preoccupation of our minds. The meetings are the natural outgrowth of the Life of the church. So manipulating the meeting to effect change in the rest of the life of the church is getting the cart before the horse. The meeting is like a barometer, or a thermometer, rather than a thermostat. It shows how the church is doing. It's not a mechanism for fixing the church's temperature.

I've heard brothers and sisters in other places make this same discovery recently: You can become so caught up in trying to BE the church that you forget that you ALREADY ARE the church. The heart of religion is in trying to get it right. Say it right. Feel it right. Let us never fall into that trap. We're discovering that those of us who have forsaken so many of the traditional Christian trappings will still fall into the very same things we were hoping to escape. It's in human nature. We are always trying to reduce this Life into something clearly definable, easily repeatable. We want a clear measuring stick by which we can judge everything we say and do as a church. But it doesn't work that way. Following that cloud is a bit more unpredictable than that. There's always more to learn. There's always sides to Him that we've barely even touched. He's a vast Ocean of experience, and we're still snorkeling around the shallows of Him.

There's so much more to say here. But I've got to teach a class of reprobates now. Maybe I'll wax eloquent again later.

Human Again

2006-01-17T17:10:00.000-05:00

Feeling a bit better today. It's been over three weeks now since this thing started, and the worst of it was over the weekend. After two days of teaching I coughed so much and so hard that I pulled a back muscle. Then it hurt to move at all for two days. The second of those two days brought a wedding rehearsal that I couldn't miss, followed by a bachelor's party of course!

Needless to say, we looked like a lame bunch of groomsmen indeed. The Best Man had Bronchitis, I had Pneumonia, and even the groom had come down with an awful cough. We made it through, though, and the groom is happily married (it's about time!). It's always awkward to tell people that you're out for a bachelor party when your intentions are to keep it somewhat clean. You get inundated with lascivious suggestions and directions to various strip clubs, and you just have to smile and say, "Gee thanks, now we know."

I saw the doc again today, and he said, "yep, still pneumonia" and prescribed a z-pack (anti-biotic), which incidentally, was my mother's original suggestion three weeks ago when this whole thing started up in the first place. I still sound like a giant seal barking when I cough, and I'd be in traction if it weren't for ibuprofen. Plus I have to take this stuff for my lungs that tastes like bad tequila. But I'll eat cowchips if it'll make me able to take a full breath again.

Today was the first day in a while that I felt human again. And my poor wife. She's been a real trooper. She's so past ready to have her husband back again. I was beginning to worry that he wasn't coming back soon...

Now if we could just get the rest of the church well again.

From blog to bluuuhg!

2006-01-08T19:50:00.000-05:00

I've been sick now for 16 days. It's just ridiculous, you know? The day after I got out for Christmas break I got some chest congestion and fever. Then the family started passing around strep and diarrhea. Then my congestion developed into pneumonia. Give me a break. Fever comes and goes from time to time, and the fluid in my lungs keeps me from breathing normally, and I have to sleep upright if I am to get any sleep.

School starts back tomorrow and I'll be reporting for duty since I don't see much point in lying around the house any longer. Besides, the last thing I want to do is use up my sick days on something as unpleasant as being sick! I need those days for other things (like when my wife or kids get sick, or when I've got a dozen errands to run that cannot be done after school hours).

Yesterday was probably the hardest part. I had to get up at 5:00am and drive an hour and a half to take three teacher's exams that took all day. I am told that before next year special ed teachers (who often teach multiple subjects) have to pass national exams in every subject area they will be teaching. I teach Literature, Geography, Math, Science, and Health. I anticipate teaching History in the future as well, plus I've got two other general content tests to take (and I've already passed two!) So I've got some cash to fork out (each of these tests costs me around $80).

Well, no great inspirational words today. Just illness. It's like Maslow pointed out: the drive for higher things often gets postponed until certain physical needs are taken care of. At least, that's where I am at the moment. I trust I'll find that I still have a spirit once I can breathe again. Until then, Lord.... This too is from You.

Teachers don't get paid enough

2005-12-19T14:56:00.000-05:00

I have six students in my first period Literature class-- or at least I did up until a week ago. Last week I had six students and tomorrow I will have only one. And this is final exam week. I have three students currently on suspension (each for different reasons) and two students were expelled this morning for bringing a gun to school.

They brought a gun to my classroom.

Fortunately, I know that it wasn't meant for me. But I guess that's not the point. A kid who's been picked on one too many times decided it'd be cool to pack heat this morning (it's always the quiet ones you gotta watch). There are no metal detectors at my school, and anyway I teach in a trailer that's next to the parking lot. A little unnerving, I suppose. But in all honesty, I'm pretty sure his intentions were just to look tough in front of his peers.

The funny thing is that this kid (whom I have for half of the school day) realized somebody snitched on him, so he handed it off to the student next to him (Let's call him "Mark"). Mark asked for a restroom pass so that he could ditch the evidence; Only 7-8 minutes later he had still not found a trash can to his liking, so he was still walking around the main school building with it under his shirt! Mark ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. Dumb as a rock, in fact. This morning I had to help him find our country on a world map (He's 16, by the way).

Needless to say, once an administrator tracked him down he was busted, and now both kids are out of school for good. Apparently there IS something you can do to get expelled. I was beginning to wonder.

They just don't pay teachers enough, ya know it?

Learning to Love Seasons

2005-12-14T07:41:00.000-05:00

I grew up in Mississippi, a place that has no clear seasons. Sure, sometimes it's hot and wet or it's cold and wet (though seldom in between). But often it's both in the same day. When I had a paper route as a teenager, I'd have to bundle up for a 30 degree morning even as late as May, knowing that by Noon I'd be wearing short sleeves in order to welcome the 80 degree weather that came later. A typical December day is just as likely to be hot as it is likely to be cold. It's difficult to say what's "seasonable" in Mississippi. Granted, a summer day is mostly hot and a winter day is mostly cold, but seasons just run together in a blur, like God ran his finger across the calendar, smudging the months together. Which I guess is why I never grew up appreciating seasons.

Now I live in North Georgia. Here we have winter separate from autumn, and spring separate from summer. I love it. The leaves actually turn into all their beautiful colors as October rolls along (In MS it's mostly pine trees, which don't turn with the months). Cold days come when they're supposed to. Hot days (mostly) come when they're supposed to. I'm learning to love seasons. There's something so beautiful about change at the appropriate time. Change, yes, but familiar change. Change that's happened before, and will happen again every year about this time, and in much the same way. There's something so comforting about that.

It's the same way with a person's spiritual life. We're supposed to enjoy seasons. All living things go through cycles of up and down, cold and hot, wet and dry. Our spirits are no different. Life in the Church is no different. Of course, we live in a world that fails to grasp the beauty of seasons. We invented things like "climate control" to eliminate seasons where we live and work. We invented light bulbs to eliminate the difference between night and day. It's no wonder we lose sight of the "rhythms of life" as they are called. We think in straight lines while Life moves in cycles. We would do well to stop and learn to appreciate seasons.

Take a church, for instance. There's nothing more natural than a group of people taking a break from their usual routine of meetings to do something else. But even now as you read this something in the back of your mind starts to scream "NO! Don't do it! Everything will be lost! You can never recover from something like that!" Why are we so afraid to embrace seasons? Sometimes the sap in the trees runs upward and outward, producing leaves and fruit and extending the branches. But then the sap reverses direction and goes inward and downward, to quietly build on the root system underneath the ground, where no one can see the difference. But without that time, the tree would never be able to grow beyond its current span. Both seasons are necessary. A person blinded by modernity will fail to grasp this, but it's a natural part of life.

Variety is the spice of life, they say, and life in the Lord is no different. He works in seasons. Right now, in our church, we are enjoying just being together for the holidays. We'll get together and sing some Christmas songs this weekend. Then we'll break from meeting for a couple of weeks while several of us head to other states to visit familiy members. In fact, the last few weeks have been a kind of "slowing down" of activity in the church here. We won't be having any special morning meetings or times together "with the Lord" (as if we could ever NOT be). But that's not a problem. Relax and enjoy the variety. After two or three more weeks, we'll be coming together again and refocusing our hearts and minds on the reason we exist in the first place (to know Him and love Him).

A tract of land cannot be farmed year after year, over and over again with no rest. Once in a while land must lie fallow. Soil needs time to regain its richness, its nutrients. Israel even had a law about taking a break from working the same field year after year. Land needs time to replenish itself. We are no different. So as a wise old man said one time:

Relax and enjoy it.

[P.S. Just a few days after this entry I read this entry written by a dear sister in Arlington TX who is showing us how the Lord carries his children through Winter. All I can say is I thank God for his tangible love through our brothers and sisters.]

Two Trees in the Garden

2005-12-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

I bought a book one time just because I was so captured by the title. It was titled There Were Two Trees in the Garden, and it was by Rick Joyner. It sits on my bookshelf still and I'm sorry to say I still haven't read it after several years of owning it. Maybe I'll get to it someday. But I love the title anyway.

One day recently I was teaching World Literature to a small class of reprobates when I noticed in our Literature book an allusion to the Garden of Eden. The textbook explains that "Adam and Eve [were] forbidden by God to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life in the center of the garden." It goes on to say that they in fact did eat the fruit and were therefore banished from the garden forever. My wife, who grew up faithfully attending a "Bible-believing church" and is herself a minister's daughter, commented that she probably wouldn't have caught the error when she was in high school since so little attention was given to the fact that there were, indeed, two trees in the garden.

But the one with Life in it was the one from which God wanted them to eat. It was that other tree that God warned them not to eat--said it wouldn't be good for them. Folks miss that little detail and consequently miss one of the most important stories of our revealed faith. God had a Life that He wanted to put inside of us, but we were (and are) lured away by something else that appears to offer something very good: The knowledge of good and evil. Whatever that is, of this I'm sure: It sounds really good. Like something you need. But in the end it will only bring death.

Where I live now, there is much talk about those two trees, and about what that forbidden tree was offering. And I've noticed something: We often make much of the fact that the word "knowledge" is in there. I've even heard it called "the tree of knowledge." The implication there is that knowledge is itself somehow a distracting thing. And the truth is, it can be. But I've had just enough Hebrew to know that when the Old Testament says "knowledge," it's practically synonymous with "experience." Adam knew his wife. And Man was invited to know good and evil. I don't think this tree was so much about learning things or becoming too cerebral. It was about pursuing perfection in order to make ourselves right. It was about "doing it right."

This is the basis of all religions, isn't it? Doing it right. All religions (including the Christian religion) share this endeavor: To get it right. Do it right. Say it right. Pray it correctly. Think correctly. Feel correctly. This was what was offered to Mankind in the garden, and only this was strong enough in its appeal to lure them away from the greatest gift ever offered: The Life of God with Us. Well, it remains for us still today to partake of that Life of God with Us. Daily we stand beneath that tree somehow, and daily something inside of you craves that life that comes from the Vine, and daily you can partake. But there will always be this other preoccupation that you will have to deny...this obsession with doing it right.

Should I say that? Should I go there? Should I feel that way? Is it right for me to desire that? Did our meeting go as it should have? Are we doing it right? How are we supposed to... You get my drift. Those that had confrontations with Jesus were always amazed at His disregard for what He was "supposed to do" at so many moments. He just didn't seem to do things the way He was supposed to. Drove those religious men crazy. He even drove the unreligious fishermen crazy with His choices. But what they didn't get was that He was living by another Life. The Life of God with Us. He wasn't chasing the chimera of "doing it right." He was listening to a voice. He was following a Shepherd. He had very little control over what each moment would present for Him to endure, but He trusted that His Father would not lead Him astray. It wasn't about getting it right. It was about following the sound of those footsteps that Man was meant to encounter in the cool of the day. That's what it's still about today.

How does church life work? What should we be doing? We want to get it right, don't we? No, let's not make that our goal. Let's make it our goal to find Him wherever He is, and live there. And whenever He moves, let's get up and go wherever He's going. Let's never get too comfortable in one place, because like Rich Mullins used to say, we're following a homeless man. He rarely stays a long time in one spot. And let's not fret too much about if we're following Him right. As long as we are following Him, it is right.

God is not a Gnostic

2005-11-28T15:49:00.000-05:00

Seeing that my attention span was unusually short, even for me, during Thanksgiving week, I sorted through the piles of books I keep littered around the back seat of my car in search of something that could hold my attention for several days of vacation. I settled upon a book of erotic poetry.

I bet you didn’t see that one coming. Of course, if you knew me well you wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that I spent my Thanksgiving week meditating on such a thing. You may be disappointed to hear that it was a commentary on the Song of Solomon written by Tremper Longman, one of my favorite Old Testament scholars. I suppose it goes without saying that I enjoyed making my way through this book, and I had no trouble finishing it. In the process I was struck by a couple of realizations that I’d like to share:

First, I was floored by the intensity of sexuality in this book of the Bible. Once you get what these folks in the Song are saying, it’ll really get your blood going. Longman approaches the book with a presupposition that I find I can accept wholeheartedly: While both Jewish and Christian expositors have interpreted this book strictly allegorically from the time of the earliest surviving commentaries, it was originally written as an intimate love song—an ode to marital consummation. Because we Christians so enjoy the symbolism of Christ and His Bride woven into the fabric of marriage itself, we are quickly persuaded to jump to an entirely symbolic interpretation of this book of the Bible. But as Longman skillfully argues, there is nothing in the text of the Song itself which would suggest that it was written as anything other than a song about sexual enjoyment. Longman takes the view (and I find that I agree here as well) that this is a collection of love songs, not a linear story of one couple’s relationship. Once you get over the notion that this book can only be of value as an allegory about more “spiritual” things, the need to discover some narrative unity in this book recedes into the background.

As I began making my way through this book with that in mind, the eroticism of the text leapt off the page and grabbed my attention with force. Listen to some of these statements:

“Until the day breaks and the shadows flee—turn, my lover, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bether.” (2:17)

Sounds like a pretty scene, right? Only there is no such place as “Bether.” Never was. So you have to look into the etymology of the word for insight. It turns out that the word “bether” means “to bisect,” so that she seems to be referring to a bisected mountain…you get where I’m going with this…but keep reading. In chapter four, after the man has finished praising her breasts as “twins of a gazelle,” he announces that he will go “to the mountain of myrrh and to the hills of frankincense” (4:6). To what exactly did I previously think he was referring here? I can’t remember anymore. I must have skimmed over it as so much flowery fluff and poetic puffery. Well, I doubt I’ll read it that way ever again.

It only gets more explicit from there. At the end of chapter four, our “young stag” unfolds a potpourri of garden images which teem over with alluring sights and smells as he describes the woman’s physical beauty. He tells her, “You are a garden fountain, a well of a living water, streaming down from Lebanon.” In case you haven’t caught up, he’s not limiting his admiring gaze to the woman’s upper half here. I’m willing to bet you’ve never had a Bible teacher of any stripe inform you that Ancient Near Eastern poets often employed such imagery when admiring a woman’s pelvic region. She responds to his advances thusly: “Let my lover come into his garden and eat its choice fruit” (4:16). The chorus of listeners exults in this passionate interchange and proclaims their approval with one voice: “Eat friends, drink! Be intoxicated, lovers!”(5:1). The next chapter only takes this bold revelry further on.

But I’ll stop now for you to regain your original color, and I’ll leave it to you to dig beyond the symbols and euphemisms into the intended meaning of the last two chapters of the Song of Songs. They’re pretty steamy, and Longman (who is an excellent Hebrew scholar) unpacks those references which the casual reader will miss until it becomes obvious that God wanted a book in the Holy Scriptures which openly celebrates sex! Which brings me to point number two:

We have a Bible that institutionalizes the enjoyment of sex! Do you realize how important that is? It’s no small thing at all. For a faith tradition so rooted in the transcendence of God, the otherness of God, a tribute to sex comes as a shock to the system for those with the nerve to look straight on without averting their eyes. It’s downright embarrassing! If God has a sense of humor (and I’m certain He does) then one of His greatest laughs must have come from including erotic poetry in the scriptural canon of the same religion that brought you monks, nuns, and a celibate priesthood!

Now, lest you think I am picking on only Catholics here, let this also be a check for us Protestants against our own inherent asceticism and Gnostic separation of that which is “spiritual” from that which is not. This danger becomes particularly acute if, like me, you run in circles that stress a difference between “soul” and “spirit.” Sometimes in our zeal we talk as if a human being can be neatly split up into separate and mutually exclusive substances; but that kind of compartmental thinking would sound strange in the ears of the authors of the Bible.

Let us recall how in the Garden of Eden the man and the woman were naked and felt no shame. Their enjoyment of one another was the product of God’s decree that they “be fruitful and multiply.” It was only after they “had their eyes opened” that they saw themselves differently. To this day, only human beings (particularly civilized human beings) show shame when it comes to sex. Consequently, the forbiddenness of this act fuels a trillion-dollar entertainment industry. But look underneath this fixation on sexuality and see that something good is drawing them towards perhaps the most beautiful picture of something eternal that this world has ever seen.

Yes, marriage (and certainly the marriage bed) pictures the relationship between Christ and the Church. But in our effort to see the thing signified we should not miss the enjoyment of the sign itself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go do some gardening…

Education and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

2005-11-01T09:55:00.000-05:00

There is an entropy to the world, where things more easily go from a state of order to a state of disorder. And nowhere is this more obvious than in a public school.

Public education was a great idea, when it started. It's still a great idea, I suppose. But what it has become in places like where I work is a big mess. Kids with peculiar needs are mainstreamed into settings where they cannot get the individual attention that they need. Teens who are entering some of their most formative years are being thrown together with kids of such varying backgrounds and upbringings only to find a gravitation towards the lowest common denominator. The standard of the education suffers because we want "no child left behind," but we end up cheating thousands out of a good education in our efforts to save a dozen who put forth little to no effort in their schoolwork. The curriculum gets dumber and dumber and the behavioral climate gets more and more like a zoo every day. Granted, I work in a school labelled "at risk" by the Federal Government, and I don't get to work with the Advanced Placement students at our school, so my perspective may be more negative than some. But I'm pretty sure most teachers I work with would agree that the tools they and the administrators need to climb out of this hole will never be afforded them. Let me give a couple of illustrations:

I've got a student who comes into my class and cusses me out before I even can say "good morning." He provokes all the students around him until I have to finally write him up for defiance, insubordination, and disrupting class. That piece of paper will eventually be put on a pile along with the others on the adminstrator's desk, and sometime within the next week it will be dealt with (we are not allowed to simply send students to their respective administrators--we are supposed to handle all discipline within the classroom. Using what, I have no idea). The student may receive In-School-Suspension for a couple of days, where he would be thrown in with 30 other students who were each thrown out of their classrooms for similar reasons. But there is such a backlog of students needing this placement that there is a long waiting list to get in.

Let me repeat that. He will not go to ISS for several more days because there is a waiting list to get in. So he will return to my class for the next week, having no immediate consequences for his actions in my classroom. Incidentally, he shows no concern for his grade average remaining in the single digits. How do you think that affects his behavior in my classroom? Eventually he will serve his ISS, but little will come of it. I am obligated by law to make sure he is provided with all the materials and assignments he needs to not fall behind in his classwork. Eventually, if he acts up enough, he will be given a real suspension (OSS-Out of School Suspension). He will stay home for three days and watch TV or whatever. Even then, if his parents request that I give him his work I must provide all of his assignments for the next three days in advance. He will probably never touch the work, but I will have to prepare it all for him anyway.

There's a bigger problem, though. You see, this student has already received suspensions totalling 23 days (we're only 3 months into the school year), and we are restricted by law from suspending him beyond 10 days without holding special "manifestation" meetings for each suspension in order to prove that we have in fact done all that we can to prevent each of the suspensions in question. In other words, after he has received a total of 10 days of OSS, we cannot suspend him anymore until we can arrange manifestation meetings with a committee of important people who will demand that each of us meticulously document everything we have done to prevent this punishment from escalating to its current status. Separate meetings have to be arranged and executed for each suspension period beyond that legal limit of 10 days. What is the student doing during this time? Coming to class as usual, of course. Probably he will be receiving ISS at some point each week due to his continuing behavior, but in each case he will not be able to enter the ISS classroom for a few days because they have no room for more. He will remain in his regular classroom until all this eventually works out, or until he graduates or finally drops out of school, which ever comes first.

I've got another student who literally never comes to class--he skips almost every class every day. He rides the bus every day; he eats in the cafeteria (a free lunch, by the way); he borrows money from friends to raid the snack machines later; then he finds places to go all over campus where somehow he will never be asked what he is doing wandering around. Eventually he will be suspended for skipping class, but you understand now how that will go. He will really just continue coming to school everyday, alternately wandering the halls and walking off campus to buy a snack at the nearby convenience store.

Since he's failing every class and earning no credits whatsoever, one might ask: "Why does he come?" The answer is simple. 1. His mother doesn't want the 17 year old hanging around the house, 2. He doesn't want to get a job, 3. He gets free lunch at school, and 4. Going to school is the only way for him to hook up with his cohorts for whatever it is that they do. More than likely, this young fellow is buying and selling weed to his friends. But somehow no one has caught him doing it. So he will continue coming to school each day, making his "connections" and dodging class most of the time, all on Uncle Sam's dime.

Just so I don't sound inordinantly negative, I stumbled into an AP class the other day and I was amazed to see all of the students dutifully doing their work--without the teacher even being in the room! I thought I had stepped back in time to the day when I went to school and the kids had reason to be motivated to keep on top of their studies. I wanted to just sit and soak up the peacefulness for a few minutes before heading back to my trailer and my students. It was relieving to discover that those students still exist even in a "low-performing" school like this one.

Still though, a former colleague of mine argued that all kids should be home schooled during at least their middle school years. I'm beginning to think he's right.

The God who is There.

2005-10-25T08:38:00.000-04:00

A member of the court of Louis the XIV once wrote Archbishop Fenelon for advice about the distress he felt, due to his occupation, that prevented him from having all of the time alone with the Lord that he wanted. Fenelon wrote him this:

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“Happy then those whom God takes away from their own will to attach to his own! Those whom God is pleased to chain with his own hands are free and happy, as those who chain themselves by their passions are miserable. In this apparent captivity, they can no longer do what they wish. So much the better. They do from morning to night against their inclinations, what God wants them to do. He holds them bound by hand and foot by the lines of his will. He never leaves them a single moment to themselves. He is jealous of this tyrannous “I,” which wants all for itself. He leads relentlessly from vexation to vexation, from importunity to importunity, and makes you accomplish his greatest plans by these conditions of boredom, by childish and idle conversations, of which we are ashamed. He presses the faithful soul, and no longer lets it get its breath. Hardly one annoying person goes away before God sends another to advance his work. We should like to be free to think about God, but we unite ourselves much better with him through his crucifying will, than by consoling ourselves with sweet and loving thoughts of his goodness. We should like to be by ourselves to be more with God. We do not realize that there is no worse way of being with God, than to want to be also by ourselves…

“It is true that we ought to profit by all our free moments to disengage ourselves. Indeed we must before everything else keep some time to relax mind and body in a state of recollection. But for the rest of the day, when the torrent sweeps us away in spite of ourselves, we must let ourselves be carried off with no regret. You will find God in this sweeping away. You will find him in all the more pure a way, because you will not have chosen this way of seeking him.”
(p.16, Christian Perfection)

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This from a man who was best friends with Madame Guyon. You don't get much deeper than these guys. But Fenelon reminds us that, since God is sovereign, you don't have to fear that "life" will interfere with your relationship with God. You are no farther from him in your job or your daily chores than you are when you are alone with him in silence. Both times are needed, mind you. But ultimately one is not better than the other.

That's really good. Because there's a whole lot more of the former than there is of the latter.

Thanks, Francois. I needed that.

It's Amazing What Perspective Can Do

2005-10-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

I work around people who don't get much perspective. When something goes wrong, it's so awful. Life is terrible. They flash with such anger and anxiety about things that just aren't that bad. We heard through the grapevine that something was going to make our jobs harder. Now people are stomping around threatening to quit. Or sue! Wow. Take a breath, man. Get a hobby or something.

I find myself laughing at the things I'm hearing. "Oh, so that's what's going to happen next? HA! Don't you think that's funny?" NO I DON'T, they say back. Oh yeah, I forgot. I often forget that I'm looking at things from a vantage point that everyone else around me isn't necessarily sharing.

When you know there are things so much more important than your lunch break, or your professional development requirements, or your list of duties at your job, it just doesn't rip you up inside like it does other people. Take a deep breath. Go somewhere quiet for a minute. And remember. Remember what's important. Listen to a song or a piece of music that reminds you. Read that thing that always reminds you. Shut everything else out for a second and remember that the world is bigger than the problems of this moment.

The same thing goes for my spiritual life. I can think of a thousand things I can do wrong with that. I know so many wrong turns to take in following God, I even forget that I knew some of them. This is multiplied in an active, functioning community of belivers. So many things I can do and say that will NOT benefit the church. But when I feel myself sweating over whether or not I'm "doing it right," I step back a second. Then I remember:

Oh yeah. I didn't start this thing anyway. I heard my name called out in some deep place inside, and I responded. I've felt that voice so many times, and everytime I've followed it I've found the Lord at the end of it. Every time. Like a sheep that gets afraid in a new place, I only need to wait a minute, and I'll hear it. That voice.

I know that voice. It's never steered me wrong. I have nothing to fear. In His care, even if I stumble and fall, He will restore me. What can separate me from such a One as this?

That's so freeing! I'm ready to jump in there and make a bunch of mistakes! Hot dang! I get to screw up all kinds of things today! Then I get to watch and see how my Shepherd will make it all go exactly the way He wants. What a life!

A New Kind of Family

2005-09-19T10:29:00.000-04:00

Early this morning, a new life was born into the world. Her name is Lilyann and she's a beautiful little girl. I know a lot of little girls were born this morning all over the world, but this one has an advantage over so many others. She was born into a family with roots deeper than you can see.

You see, her parents live amidst a group of people who have been brought together by a common relationship to God. These men and women already had families which are scattered all over the continent; but the family they're a part of now is something more. Little Lilyann doesn't know it yet, but she's one of the luckiest children in the world. Let me illustrate by walking you through the events surrounding her birth.

All weekend, while her mother and father were busy distracting themeselves from the never ending wait for this little girl's arrival, a sister in her church(we'll call her sister number one) was keeping her schedule clear so that she could rush to the side of the mother when that long-awaited moment arrived. The mother wanted a home birth, so this sister knew that she could be right in the middle of the action to encourage and attend to her needs.

The mother's water broke at 10:30pm last night. She told sister number one that it would be a while before she was needed, so she should get some sleep. FAT CHANCE of that! In fact, she tried to get to sleep but it just wasn't happening. She walked over to the mother's house (just a few doors down) and stayed with her all the way through the birth, which happened at 3:40am this morning. The sister called us with the news at about 7:00am. Within minutes the whole church knew (that's about 30 people in our group).

Because sister #1 was busy helping the mother with her new baby, her own children missed the bus for school. No problem. Four doors down there was another family ready to take up the slack, and the husband in that house loaded up the children and drove them to school for her. Now the fun really begins!

Two more doors down is another family poised and ready to help out with the events of the day. Sister number two from that house goes over to stay with the new mother while sister number three (from my house) takes the toddler that belongs to sister number one along with our own toddler to the store. Sister number two stays with the new mother while the new father goes to pick up his mother from the airport (note that she has to fly to get here). Halfway through the day, there will be another shuffling of the children, and honestly I forget which children will be with whom by 3:00pm this afternoon.

All I know is that little Lilyann has been born into a community. This community runs deeper than flesh and bone. Lilyann has entered into a child's wonderland, surrounded by, not only two parents who love her dearly (who are themselves loved dearly by a dozen households), but also by about a dozen children who all live within a few houses of one another. This little girl will have at least a dozen brothers and sisters running in and out of her house over the next 18 years of her life, providing her with a community and an identity which will stick with her for life.

She will be surrounded by people who turn to the Lord for their every need, and who honor his name wherever they go. They will care for her, pray for her, feed her, house her from time to time--everything a family does. So many people to love her. Yeah, I'd say she's a lucky little girl.

Take my hand and walk

2005-09-15T08:30:00.000-04:00

Some songs stick to something really deep inside you. They come back to you at times in your life when you need them, like good friends. They remind you of what you know and where you have been. Like an anchor to your soul. It's one of the reason songs exist. This song is one of those for me:

Take My Hand and Walk (by The Kry)

I know there are times
Your dreams turn to dust
You wonder as you cry
Why it has to hurt so much
Give Me all your sadness
Someday you will know the reason why
With a child-like heart
Simply put your hope in Me

CHORUS:
Take My hand and walk where I lead
Keep your eyes on Me alone
Don't you say why were the old days better
Just because you're scared of the unknown
Take My hand and walk

Don't live in the past
Cause yesterday's gone
Wishing memories would last
You're afraid to carry on
You don't know what's comin'
But you know the One who holds tomorrow
I will be your guide
Take you through the night
You just keep your eyes on Me

(second chourus)
Take my hand and walk where I lead
Keep your eyes on me alone
Don't you say why were the old days better
Just because you're afraid of the unknown
Take my hand and walk where I lead
You will never be alone
Faith is to be sure of what you hope for
And the evidence of things unseen
So take my hand and walk
Just like a child holding daddy's hand
Don't let go of mine
You know you can't stand on your own

(repeat chorus)

Words by Jean-Luc Lajoie and Yves Lajoie
Music by Jean-Luc Lajoie

Half a Lifetime in Christ

2005-05-12T20:11:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it's been 15 years. It was a decade and a half ago today that God woke me up from my spiritual slumber. May 12 for me always ushers in a sea of gratitude to God for shaking me up in the midst of my teenage self-centeredness. If no other day brings this sense, today always does for me. I wake up and take a deep breath and think: The Lord is still with me. That life is still here.

Nothing else I've ever done has lasted so long. Nothing else I do has such sticking power. I remember like it was yesterday when I stepped into the shower on the morning of May 13 and I said to myself, "I wonder how long this resolution will last." I was sure that this would be some sort of self-improvement phase which would wane with the end of the next week. Yet here I am, 15 years later, still trusting Him, still leaning on His words as never before. In fact, my life is more built upon complete trust in Him now than it ever could have been for a 15 year old kid. Every year the stakes get higher and I come to depend on His provision more and more.

The funny thing is, in a lot of ways I'm not all that different from that 15 year old kid. I've still got the same weaknesses (covered a little better now), plus sometimes I am convinced that I've added some new ones. I admit that sometimes this situation discourages me. But then I remember what I've known for some time: that this life is not about me. This life is ultimately about God getting what He is after, and my self-improvement is not the chief end of this process. Sure, some things are changed in me. But that's not what it's about. If you're interested, you can check out this article to see what I'm talking about.

In the meantime, the Lord hasn't let go of me after all this time. And I trust He will be faithful to complete what He's begun in this little life. Thank You, Lord.

Christ In Y'all

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