Show up against TERROR!

What in the world is going on?

The same people who are horrified at the rhetoric surrounding Islamic terrorists, and Syrian refugees, are now bringing us... ?

...their own horrifying rhetoric that paints whole people groups as terrorists because of the actions of a few of its members!

I vote we "Show up Against People who can't Think for Themselves" and reject the rhetoric of fear, hate, and prejudice on all sides that the politicians are using to divide us.

I vote we begin to tone the rhetoric down on all fronts.  If you are a liberal, it is your job to tell your fellow liberals to stop the craziness.  If you are a conservative, it is your responsibility to tell your fellow conservatives to put an end to the divisiveness.  Lets engage in thoughtful conversation and productive action.  If you really can't resist the urge to be provocative try engaging in friendship with your enemies.

Just Do SOMETHING!?!

I heard an interview on the radio recently.

The woman was a scriptwriter or a playwright (not sure which, maybe both) who had recently written a story about life in impoverished American ghettoes.  She talked some about the genesis of her new work, and she talked some about the characters and the story itself.  She talked even more about the realities of life in America's impoverished inner cities.

I was, of course, interested.  She was talking about where I live, and what I care about.  We live in a neighborhood where most kids grow up seeing violence, addiction, and illegal activity as normal parts of everyday life.  Our neighborhood is improving, but you can still find needles on the ground in front of the school, you can still see the prostitutes walking the main thoroughfare, there are still young men standing at the corners making more money in an afternoon than a roofing job pays in a week, and you can still hear gunshots in the night.

Then she began to talk about why she wrote it and what she hoped it might accomplish.

"I hope it will motivate people to do something, give some money, change how you vote, just DO SOMETHING."

I was a little frustrated.  In her defense, she is a playwright; an artist, not an activist, or an advocate, or even a scholar, but I would have hoped for a more educated response than this.  Throwing money at our problems, and giving power to professional blowhards (regardless of their political stripes), will never serve to accomplish anything helpful.  In point of fact, one of the largest contributing factors to the perpetuation of American poverty is precisely our unreflective need to just do something.

Helping the less fortunate by giving money and voting for certain politicians is actually an abdication of our personal responsibility to engage in helping our fellow man.  Not to mention it's counter productive.  Don't get me wrong, throwing money and votes around works well if our goal is to make ourselves feel better, it just doesn't change anything for those in need.  Indeed free money is often the reason why better solutions fail.

What is needed is personal engagement.  Instead of throwing money at the latest cause, while simultaneously climbing up the social ladder, try climbing down the ladder instead.

Perverted

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Upton Sinclair

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Upton Sinclair wrote one of the most influential works of literature in the history of the United States of America.  His novel The Jungle was catalytic in the passage of the Food and Drug Act.  Indeed, the act passed into law only four months after the book was published.  Sinclair was pushed into the spotlight as a national figure for his work.

The book detailed the lives of immigrants in America, many of whom worked in the meat processing industry; at the time, a horrifyingly disgusting and dangerous workplace environment.  Sinclair wrote the book as an intended expose on the plight of the poor and immigrant in our country, and the exploitive way the rich were treating them.  The American public responded to Sinclair's book with great uproar, but not in the way Sinclair had hoped…

He is quoted as saying, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

One of the most gruesome episodes in the novel, (a worker falling into a lard-rendering vat, instantly dead, and unable to be removed), served not, as one might think, to provoke changes in worker safety, but to protect the purity of American lard by the immediate passage of federal legislation.

Safety and Danger in the Church

We baptized several people on Sunday.

One of them was my son.

It was glorious!

People shared briefly of their decision to follow Christ, to be washed clean in His death, and remade in His resurrection.  And then Pastor Cap and I plunged them into a feeding trough full of water!

At the baptism of the first adult, I saw gallons of water slosh over the side and onto the floor, water went everywhere.  I thought, "well, its too late to stop it now, people are here to get baptized, and we will just clean up the mess later."  …and then we kept right at it!

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Afterwards I got to thinking about the mess of the baptism, and what that says about the church as a whole.

So often we expect the church to be safe in all of the wrong kinds of ways.  We don't want anyone to come in and bring any of the world in with them.  We don't want anyone to come in who doesn't fit, who isn't tidy, who doesn't play by our rules.  In short, we want our faith community to be comfortable for us.  May our church never be this safe.

But what that ends up producing is a church culture that promotes hypocrisy, secrecy, and emotional isolation.  If no messy people are allowed into the circle of christians, then we can't let anyone know about our own messiness.  We have created a club for perfect people, and that is a very dangerous thing for a church to become.  Dangerous in all of the wrong sorts of ways.  May our church never be this dangerous.

Instead the church is supposed to be a safe place for messy people to let their messiness get dealt with.  People are supposed to bring the world with them right into our community.  The church is supposed to be a safe place for dark secrets to be exposed, it supposed to be a safe place for bad habits to be dealt with, its supposed to be a safe place for vulnerable wounds to be exposed and healed.  May our church always be this safe.

The church is supposed to be dangerous too.  Dangerous in the same way a show at Marine World is dangerous; you might get wet!  Dangerous to our comfort, dangerous to our ego, dangerous to our need for control and our desire for gratification.  Celebration is always a danger to decorum; just as worship is a danger to pride, fellowship is a danger to wealth, and glory is a danger to apathy.  May our church always be this dangerous.

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It wasn't just the water that was a little 'messy.'

We joined together with another congregation during the service.  Both congregations had members to baptize, so we celebrated the unity of faith in 'one baptism' as proclaimed by St Paul.  This meant we got to hear preaching that was different than normal, got to see baptisms performed in ways that were uncomfortable for some of us, and heard things said that we didn't all agree with.

I have to say, I was blessed to see the way people entered into the mess, cleaning up the water, engaging in relationships across dividing lines, and celebrating the beauty and potency of the Spirit's work in the lives of the saints.  This is a picture of how the church is supposed to be safe in the right ways, and dangerous in the right ways...

Christian Prostitution

If you watch the first video, make sure you watch the second one too, its kinda the main point.  The song he is talking about is the third video.

Flat Earthers and Biblical Interpretation

I had my first encounter with a real live flat earther…

…ok, not exactly.  But I did have a conversation with someone who is related to one.

My friend sent me a paper written from a flat-earth perspective and I thought I would post some of my response here:

As for the Biblical interpretation…

All I can say is that the paper is an example of what not to do with scripture. Taking metaphors/idioms and using them literally makes for good comedy, (I've got my eye on you) but it is a way to confuse things horribly in serious study. The person who wrote this paper hasn't thought through how their exegetical approach would carry out with other biblical passages.

For example, would Jesus' teaching in Matthew 10:16 require us to eat grass, walk around on four legs, and say "bahhh?" Or are we allowed to take Jesus' words as a metaphor? Again, I am quite confident that the author of this paper loves God, and reveres scripture, but I imagine that they don't take Jesus command (recorded in Luke 10:37) as a requirement to put wounded people on our donkeys and take them to the closest inn.

All that I would want is that the same lenses we wear when we read these two passages should also be worn when we attempt to understand what scripture might teach us about cosmology. Specifically, we should read God's book with the intention of understanding God's message. We rightly understand Matthew 10:16 to be Jesus' attempt to encourage humility, peacefulness, and innocence in the face of evil; we rightly understand Luke 10:37 as Jesus' attempt to encourage human compassion that trumps personal convenience and racial animosity.

We ought to also understand that scripture does not intend to speak to a physical model of the construction of the universe. The passages quoted in the paper are not God's attempt to teach us about the relationship between the sun, stars, heavens, planets, and our earth. They ARE intended to speak to the grandeur of God, or his sovereignty, or the mystery and beauty of the creation, or the destruction that is wrought when God's wrath is poured out on evil.

To 'read the Bible literally' is to take the Bible for what it is, not turn it into something else. Where the Bible is law, we must understand it the way we understand laws; where the Bible is prophecy, we must read it the way prophecy is read; where it is song lyrics, we must interpret them the way we interpret song lyrics; where it is narrative, we must understand it as a story. No one would take the jacket from a CD and use it as an argument about the curvature of the earth, so we ought not to do so with the Psalter...

Love Your Neighbor

A friend and I visited a neighboring City.  We ended up staying at a hostel and got to have some really exciting spiritual conversations with the host.  He was not a person who had committed to the Kingdom, but was clearly interested in Jesus, and was open to spiritual things.  We sat on the porch enjoying a beer, and some really deep conversations.  Over our time in the hostel we were able to pray with him, and to invite him to the Christian fellowship we had connections to in that City.  It was really quite a blessing to have that experience, although I have no idea what has happened to him in the time since our visit.

...but here is where the story gets sad.

We found out during our stay there, that there was a Christian 'discipleship house' immediately next door to the hostel.  Unfortunately, we found this out because at some point in our conversation with our host he commented, "you aren't like the other Christians."  Of course we asked him to clarify what he meant by this.

He replied, "there is a christian house next door, and we tried to get to know them, but they told us that they aren't allowed to talk to us.  I think they are afraid we will rub off on them."

A litany of emotions flooded through me... anger, frustration, confusion, depression, compassion, hope, despair.  How could it be possible that a house full of committed followers of Christ could live next door to this man for so long, but it took two men coming from Buffalo to share the love of God with him?

"Authenticity" Eroding Effort

You will never do anything of significance with your life that won't require you to engage in activities that feel insignificant while you are doing them.

If you are only willing to do that which 'feels' significant, which 'feels' valuable, or which naturally flows out of the core of your being, you will never go anywhere, much less to those places you dream about.  The feelings you have when dreaming are not the same feelings you will have when working to accomplish your dreams.  Fantasizing about a faraway land is not the same thing as journeying there.  If you are not willing to labor in the journey, you will not accomplish the dream.

Radical

"Often times people will tweak the existing model and think that this makes them radical."

Shannon Callan

The Millennial Generation: a Rock in the Path

In 1 Corinthians 1:23 St Paul refers to Jesus as a 'stumbling block.'   A stone that is in the way.  Something to trip over.  Something to prevent you from your headlong pursuit of your own way.  Something to impede your progress.

Not exactly flattering terms for our Savior.

The American Church is facing an interesting problem.  It's dying.  In short, the younger generation wants nothing to do with it.  This is true of those raised in church, and its true of those raised outside of it.   The church is growing largely irrelevant to the culture of America.   Some of us are seeing this trend and growing morose and resigned to our impending doom, others are growing more shrill and frenzied in an attempt to forestall it.   I suggest the radical middle; a different way of doing and being church that actually makes sense to the next generation.  In short, I suggest that we listen to those people who have rejected us, and we learn from them.  I think they have a lot to teach us about how to live in the Kingdom of God.

In fact, what I would say about the 'Millennial Generation,' (specifically those raised in the church) is that it would be most helpful to think of them as 'third culture' people.  For example, Ara was raised in a home that was culturally and linguistically Greek, but went out into a world that was culturally and linguistically American.   This led her to become increasingly adept at navigating both cultures, while becoming increasingly uncomfortable in both, and ultimately led to a crisis of identity.  Not knowing who she was, hating one or both cultures, and even rejecting one or both cultures. Eventually, instead of trying to be Greek, or American, Ara figured out how to be Ara.

I observe that there is a group of people in the church (but probably not in fellowship) going through the same kind of struggle.  The difference being, they don't have the convenient cultural markers of language, food, etc. to distinguish between the two cultures they are navigating.  In short, very few people understand that this is a cross-cultural situation, including the people going through it.

Many are familiar with the conversations around the 'emerging church' and 'post-modern cultural shifts.'  This is, essentially, all I am describing.  The church and the christian home are one culture, the rest of society is another.  The Millennials are learning to navigate both cultures, but have a hard time articulating the disconnect between the two worlds.

Indeed the church doesn't see it either.  It is too simple to dismiss as 'worldliness.'  After all, the church isn't supposed to live the way the world does!  But that isn't what I am describing here.  If American culture truly is shifting into postmodernity right before our very eyes, then this situation is fundamentally not about rejecting worldliness in the church, but rather it is about learning how to be missionally sensitive to our culture.  We would find it strange if Congolese missionaries came to America and refused to worship in English because they didn't want to let the world into their church.

So, what are we talking about here?  What is this difference in culture?

There are many, but one of the key cultural markers of the Millennial Generation is the priority that is placed on the perception of authenticity.  (Emphasis on perception!)  The more slick the production, the more off-putting it is.  (Of course, advertisers are aware of this, and have long since learned to take advantage of this by simply changing their production techniques… but that is another story.)  When someone approaches a Millennial in an over-priced suit, with well-groomed mannerisms, a gleaming smile, and a perfect sales pitch, it doesn't matter if the product is a cheap gym membership, a great financial opportunity, or spiritual bliss, the Millennial feels for his/her wallet and slowly backs away...

"You can't trust a man with perfect teeth."  This is something that makes great sense to Millennials who prefer a matte finish to a high gloss (metaphorically speaking).

But who can blame them, they are inundated with sales-pitches and advertising slogans and they can smell an ulterior motive coming a mile away.  This means that many of the tools the church learned in the last 50 years are actually repulsive to people in their 20's not because of their content, but simply because of the glossy sheen.

It would be easy to discount the Millennials.   They won't just 'get on board' and 'get with the program.'  Indeed, they have become for us 'something to trip over, something to impede our progress.'

I would suggest, however, that they actually have quite a lot to offer us in our mission to reach the culture around us with the Good News that Jesus is King.

"Hiding behind the task..."

I had a friend use this phrase in a meeting the other day. It struck me as very insightful...

He was referring to the way we often use a task to divert us from the goal of the task.  The goal is difficult, and we don't want to be seen as failing to accomplish it, the goal requires more effort, so we don't shoot for the goal.  We hide behind the task.

Bureaucratic red tape is usually an example of this.  'Getting the form filled out correctly' ends up being a way that the 'public servant' can cover his own butt without ever actually serving the public.

This is the fundamental problem with religion; we use the prayers, songs, events, acts of abstinence, and acts of service as ways of distracting ourselves from the more important reality.  The act of worshipping God can be the thing we use to prevent God from getting to close to our hearts.  Conversation about God's will can be a way of diverting us from doing God's will.  Obedience to God's previously revealed will can become a diversion from seeking God's presently revealed will...

...and nothing bother's Jesus more than this.  It is for this reason that He turned over tables, insulted the church leaders of His day, and ultimately got Himself killed.

Millenials

I had the good fortune to hang out with a group of pastors and listen to Christena Cleveland yesterday.

One of her side comments was about the tendency among the millennial generation to confuse intentionality for a lack of authenticity.  I thought this very perceptive.  The yearning for authenticity is a generally good thing, however, if we won't do something unless it 'feels right' or comes from a place of deep yearning within us, then how will we ever engage in spiritual formation?  How will we ever learn something new?  How will we ever confront the evil in our own hearts?

What Results?

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."

Winston Churchill

Drink the Water?

I have a friend who works in water treatment for the City of Buffalo.  This persons job is to help provide clean water to the people of our City.  So the question is, do they drink tap-water?

They know what's in it!  They know where it comes from!  Their job is to tell people its safe to drink!

So the question is, do they drink the water?

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This is, of course, a wonderful parable...

...there once was a City that got its drinking water from a particular man.  This man had become rich selling the water, but he wouldn't touch the water himself...

The question is most easily applicable to us as followers of Jesus.  When we encourage others to 'drink the water,' are we hypocrites?  Are we embracing the teachings of Jesus in our own life?  Do we live in community?  Are we learning to love our enemies?  Are we growing in our love for God?  Are we learning a life of joy and celebration?  Are we sacrificially generous?  Are we engaged in friendships with non-Christians?  Are we learning how to throw great parties?  Are we mentoring others in the ways of Jesus?

...are we indeed His followers?

Do we love Him, and His wisdom, or do we love the idea of Him?

Do we drink the water?

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My friend, does drink the tap water...

Jesus First

What is a Christian?

A student of Jesus

Who is Jesus and how do we know?

Jesus is defined by the activity of the Spirit and the testimony of the Word.

How do we interpret the Word, and understand the Spirit's leading?

Community and Tradition

What do we learn from the traditions of the Church?

We learn about specific creeds and deeds.

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In general, there is nothing wrong with the way we answer each of these particular questions.  The problem comes when we have answered the first question with the second, third, and fourth answers.

Why Tents are Best: Sojourning as a Prime Ministry Strategy

We like the phrase 'soft architecture' not least because it brings to mind edible structures, but primarily because of the functionality implied.  Christianity is a missionary religion.  In many ways our faith was birthed in a syncretic impulse, taking fundamentally Jewish concepts, commitments, and creeds and translating them into a plethora of non-Jewish cultural paradigms.  As such we must stay flexible with our practices.

We are committed to a person, not a tradition; to a grand strategy, not a particular set of practices; to a community, not an institution.*  This necessitates that our fundamental posture towards life and ministry must be that of a pervasive flexibility.  We must constantly be learning, re-evaluating, listening, and re-organizing.

In short, we are sojourners; our philosophy of life must be nomadic, we cannot afford to built permanent structures, because then we will be committed to maintaining THEM instead of what is central.  This applies to everything we do; worship styles, preaching styles, small group ministries, children's ministry; as well as things like how we pray, what books we read, where we spend our money, and how we organize our time; it even applies to where we work, how we raise our children, and the theological commitments we have made.

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*This, of course, doesn't need to imply that traditions, practices, or institutions are evil, or even avoidable, merely that they aren't primary.  Indeed, they should only be implemented insofar as they aid the pursuit of what IS primary; Jesus, Mission, and Church.

The Inevitability of Institutionalization

"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."

"...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."

Jerry Pournelle

Perfect Imperfection!

"These christian-themed entertainment venues need to stop using the word "church" - it clearly confuses people."

This was a comment on the event documented in the Youtube video below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJDqVx3RlzI

Medium and Message

Sunday?

I am unsure of myself...

Some of the things we do take so much effort. We don't mind the effort if something fruitful happens because of it.... but what about when there isn't much positive result?

This is a constant concern when it comes to some of the things we do as a church. Even more specifically, corporate worship gatherings. It just seems like it isn't all that important to people. ...is it?

It takes quite a lot of effort to make a Church service happen. Setting up, and tearing down; selecting music, practicing it, playing all of the various instruments, setting up the PowerPoint so others can sing along, running the sound board and the projector; preparing lessons for the kids, teaching the lessons, training people to teach; preparing a sermon and preaching it...

But what is the fruit of all of this effort? Dozens of hours of labor that involves at least a dozen people to pull off, and what is the result? Do other people value this? Is God honored? Are people committed to participate, or even show up?

Here is where I am unsure of myself. Is this question only arising because of my own self pity? ...my own sense of personal worth? ...my own ego? Is it just that I don't like preaching to a sparse house?

If this is true, then shame on me. ...but being as honest with myself as I can, I don't actually think those things are what causes me to ask these questions.

What I want to know is this: Is all of this effort producing the results that we all say we want? If not, why are we continuing to spend all of this time, energy, and money? If it is producing results, is it possible that we could produce the same results at the cost of significantly less resources? In short, why do we have a worship gathering if people don't value it? Why do we have a worship gathering if it isn't causing our church, and the neighborhood, to draw near to Jesus, His people, and His purposes?