A Bona Fide Healing

At the Saturday night tent revival the preacher announces,

"Anyone with 'needs' to be prayed over, come forward, to the front at the altar."

Leroy gets in line, and when it's his turn, the preacher asks:

"Leroy, what do you want me to pray about for you?"

Leroy replies: "Preacher, I need you to pray for help with my hearing."

The preacher puts one finger in Leroy's ear, and he places the other hand on top of Leroy's head and prays and prays and prays, he prays a blue streak for Leroy.






After a few minutes, the Preacher removes his hands, stands back and asks,

"Leroy how is your hearing now?"










Leroy says, "I don't know, Reverend, it ain't 'til next Wednesday."

The New Atheists

United to God

There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prizes which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?

Broken Tomato Cages pt II

The tomato cage parable is one that applies to many situations, but most certainly to any social movement as these tend to institutionalize.

Specifically, we are talking about the Church.

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Christians are oft guilty of focusing on the external trappings of Christianity, while neglecting the life of the Spirit. We plant tomato cages instead of tending to the living plants in the garden...

What do you do when this happens?

One possible solution is to simply break the tomato cages. When the tomato cages of institutional church are broken, then we might actually start trying to grow tomato plants again, or better yet, realize that, while the garden is still full of life, it is not tomatoes in the garden, but rather God has planted other good things for us to tend!

Until the cages are broken, we will talk endlessly about perfecting the technology of the tomato cage, continuing to live in the distraction of misplaced purpose, misunderstood mission, and misdiagnosed strategy.

Looking back...

So I was just revisiting some of my blogs from days gone by and wondering am I still that woman? Do my passions still ignite around the life of Jesus, am I still living within the convictions of my youth, has life weathered the idealism out of me? I would say that I am more weathered, less sure of some things and more sure of others, and probably in need of a little refocusing!

I think that I am more weathered cause I have had a few more kids, (which weathers the body and the soul, more like refines I guess). I have partnered with the man of my dreams to pioneer something which can define beauty and ugliness, joy and pain and we love it in ways I never dreamed even in all the idealism. I have had some ups that have left me assured that there is nothing else to live my life for, and some downs that have given me glimpses of a very tender, compassionate and constant Jesus. I feel like my armor is a little more dented but not nearly dented enough to say I have completely abandoned my life for Christ's.

This path has allowed me to look into the depths of my soul and be both overjoyed at the hand of God moving there but also sad that there is still so much more work to do.

I am coming out of a season that has probably shaken my idea of who I am, and allowed me to see the weakness that I had never really seen. It has also allowed me to see God clearer and grasp his character more, and it was his strength that showed up when my failed.

I am seeing how over the past few years of "serving God" there has been challenges to my character that I have let pass instead of standing up to them. I am now seeing the fruit of serving myself at times instead of Christ, I can be more short tempered with those I love, more prideful and less humble and just plain concerned with things that don't matter.

A long time ago our Pastor challenged us to "give up the right to be right" with those around us and in our lives, so I think it is time to revisit a humbling process. Essentially Jesus is the only one who can change my heart but I can atleast practice till he does and give him room to move.

Also I see how in this last season I have been so wrapped up in my situation, that it feels like it sucked me in deeper. I feel like where true healing and restoration happens is when we are side by side with Jesus laboring for what He and the Father are doing. So I guess I don't feel like I need to take a break to refocus or rest a little but rather I guess I need to get back on the horse. Jesus longs to love Buffalo and so do I.....done refocusing!!!

I guess as we work towards redemption all around us it happens in us.....
I was thinking that the disciples became disciples working with Jesus side by side and the same it true for us....

Broken Tomato Cages pt I

A wonderful metaphor that I have had rattling around the innards of my skull lately is the tomato cage. It is a structure that is very useful. If you have ever planted a tomato plant, you know what happens as the plant grows bigger. The weight of the fruit, and of the plant itself, is too much for it to bear. Its own weight causes it to fall over, which damages the plant, and the tomatoes, which defeats the purpose of planting them! So you put a metal cage around it to help it stay upright. The cage provides support for the plant and allows it to continue its growth far beyond its self-sufficiency without the additional structure.

What has been insightful for me to think on is this: a picture of a gardener putting tomato cages into her garden, but she has no tomato plants! Instead she is putting tomato cages around herbs, carrots, and lettuce, the cages have no point! She continues to focus on the cages themselves and neglecting the plants in the process; the cages have become their own end, they are no longer the means to other ends. She then brags to other gardeners about her marvelous cages, she begins to hold workshops on 'How to Install Tomato Cages,' and markets her own brand of cage.

New Friends

One of the people I met briefly at the Society of Vineyard Scholars conference is hosting a post-conference dialogue on his blog. His name is Jason Coker and he is the planter of a Vineyard Church in southern California. I have really enjoyed interacting with him online. Click on the title link to read my paper abstract, and a brief interview he did with me.

Yes, He Matters!

"Now, in fact Jesus and his words have never belonged to the categories of dogma or law, and to read them as if they did is simply to miss them. They are essentially subversive of established arrangements and ways of thinking. That is clear from the way they first entered the world, their initial effects, and how they are preserved in the New Testament writings and live on in his people. He himself described his words as “spirit and life” (John 6:63). They invade our “real” world with a reality even more real than it is, which explains why human beings then and now have to protect themselves against them.

He and his early associates overwhelmed the ancient world because they brought into it a stream of life at its deepest, along with the best information possible on the most important matters."

Dallas Willard

Does He Matter?

"Very few people today find Jesus interesting as a person or of vital relevance to the course of their actual lives. He is not generally regarded as a real-life personality who deals with real-life issues but is thought to be concerned with some feathery realm other than the one we must deal with, and must deal with now.

He is automatically seen as... (fitting) only within the categories of dogma and law. Dogma is what you have to believe, whether you believe it or not. And law is what you must do, whether it is good for you or not. What we have to believe or do now, by contrast, is real life, bursting with interesting, frightening and relevant things and people."

Dallas Willard

Equipping the Saints

THE CENTRALITY OF EQUIPPING

"It was He who gave some to prepare God's people..."

I take it as my basic working assumption that this is one of the essential functions of leadership.

(I hesitate to say the essential function because I know I will get pushed back on that, but in my regular daily life, I operate on the assumption that it is in fact the essential function of Christian leadership.)




THE PROCESS OF EQUIPPING

"...so that the body of Christ may be built up..."

We must learn a lesson from Barnabas. He stood up for Saul, vouched for him and his faith, invited him along to see what God was doing in Antioch, included him in his own apostolic ministry. It was Barnabas' invitation to Antioch in Acts 11 that leads to Paul's vocation in Acts 13. Barnabas' influence on the life of the Church was never more indispensable, never more valuable, than when he was less concerned with his own influence on the Church and more concerned with Paul's.

This is the relational investment of one disciple to another; a master carpenter once said to an apprentice, "the goal is for you to be a better carpenter than I am."




THE CONTENT OF EQUIPPING

"...attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

We are to equip and empower others to participate in the Divine Nature, connecting to God in prayer and scripture, worship and sacraments.

"...the whole body, joined and held together..."

We are to equip and empower others to share in the common life of the People of God, connecting to each other in service, fellowship, and pastoral care.

" ...as each part does its work."

We are to equip and empower others to personify the Mission of God, connecting to the world in service, justice, and evangelism.

This is the basic day-to-day life of the people of God in terms of spiritual practices, essential character, and overarching purpose.




THE RE-IMAGINING OF EQUIPPING

In my estimation there are two critiques we must take to heart in our praxis as equipping leaders. 1) We are equipping people to lead our church instead of equipping people to be like Christ. 2) Our focus on leadership development leads us to ignore the very people who need to be equipped and empowered for those who can 'get the job done' already.

1) Church or Kingdom

We must declare that we are not merely equipping for church work, but equipping for Kingdom work (of course these should be identical, but anyone who has read even a paragraph of church history is not so naive). I often fall into the ubiquitous temptation to treat the Church like my project, and so equipping leaders becomes myopically focused solely on those tasks and responsibilities that build my church organization.

I recently met with a local Christian business man, John, who is five years into a housing initiative in our neighborhood; he is the head of a para-church organization. I brought along a woman from our church, Lavern, who is an urban planner for a secular organization in the city. It was great to have all three perspectives at the same table, and we conversed for some time on the need for all three to work together. In reality, the Church already is all three, I just did't get that immediately because I am too used to thinking organizationally instead of organically.

Too few of us would be willing to get behind John's parachurch initiative, or Lavern's occupation in a secular organization, but it is exactly this that we must do! We must learn from them, and more pointedly, equip them, and others like them, to do their Kingdom work. We still label everything 'sacred or secular,' and 'ministry or regular life;' their should be no distinction, and we should equip for Urban Planning, just as we do for Church Planting or Worship Leading.

To be an equipping leader is to get behind people, instead of getting behind projects. The temptation is to get the person in front of me to leverage everything on behalf of my project, fitting the right people into the right slots in my church, instead I need to leverage everything to help the person in front of me grow into Christ; they need to be the end, not the means.

2) The Importance of Disaster

We are fearful of failure. We bore easy at mediocre performance. We abhor ugliness. This is a major impediment to the equipping process!

The discipleship process employed by Jesus looks a lot more like little kids being tossed into the deep end of the pool! Sure the life guard is there to resuscitate them, but there is a lot of yelling and splashing, coughing and hacking. But they have to splash and cough if they are going to learn to swim! Learning is a lot like doing... actually, learning is exactly like doing, except its uglier.

An individual was asked to be the worship leader of a medium sized church. This person was a talented musician, but struggled vocally. On occasions this person opened songs in one key instrumentally, and a different key vocally. Ouch! Why would the pastor do such a thing? People probably left the church over the decision!

My own sending pastor routinely gave me opportunities to 're-create' his church. Not because I had expertise, but precisely because I lacked it! Failure is necessary. If there is no failure, then we are not equipping and empowering those who need it. My pastor was keenly aware of the consumer itch that Christians have; he knew all too well that allowing myself and others to play games with his church would probably have adverse effects on the size of the congregation. He was even more keenly aware that his calling was to his fledgling disciples, even though that meant leaving that itch unscratched...

Originality

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

C. S. Lewis

Frustration

Frustration is a sign of something! For me, it is usually a symptom that I am not living the way I claim to desire to live.

Note to self:

Are you frustrated with where you are at?

Live with discipline and you will not have to live with frustration!

A Sneaking Platonism

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilization-these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner-no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

C. S. Lewis

Prosperity

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

C. S. Lewis

More Prosperity

The only problem is, scripture actually does speak of God's Kingdom in terms of material blessing!!!

Certainly more than merely wealth and health, but definitely including health and wealth.

The prosperity preachers have that part right; God does indeed want you to 'overcome' and to erase all tears, to provide food and drink at no cost, etc.

The problem is not in the preaching of a prosperity from God but in an inaccurate eschatology (forgetting the Kingdom is both now and not yet), in an awkward theology (portraying a God who both condemns greed and rewards it), in a short sighted perspective on suffering (unaware of the fruit of God's discipline), and in a skewed understanding of discipleship and spiritual formation (our desires are not in need of transformation, and can simply be pursued 'as is')

Pray

"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."

Karl Barth

Prosperity in the Kingdom

I have to repent!

A friend of mine helped me to realize something. I am wrong to disparage the 'prosperity gospel.'

Prosperity is exactly what the Kingdom promises! Scripture prophecies:

No more pain!
No more crying!
No more weakness or corruption!
No more curse!
No more hunger!
No more war!
No more lack!
No more disease!
No more sin!

We have authority to rule over the earth!

Prosperity is too weak a word for this!

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Let us be clear, the real problem with the prosperity gospel as we see it today is not in the promise of prosperity!

...rather, it is in the failure to realize where we are in the story.

The Kingdom is both now, and not yet. Life in the Kingdom will be prosperous! But that prosperity is still future. We taste the first fruits now, but the fullness of times is yet to come.

The problem is not in the claim to abundance!

...rather it is in the failure to kiss the Cross.

The Resurrection comes after the Crucifixion. Scripture is clear; we must die in order to live. We must suffer first, and then prosper.

What Would It Take?

"Give me one hundred men who love only God with all their heart and hate only sin with all their heart, and we will shake the gates of hell and bring in the kingdom of God in one generation."

John Wesley

Philip Yancey

A story is told about a group of English theologians discussing the Gospel.

They were trying to define what it was about Christianity that was different than all other religions. To begin they talked about resurrection but other religions also deal with this, they brought up the death of God but other religions have within them a god who dies, they were in the midst of trying to determine the attribute that made Christianity unique when C. S. Lewis entered the room. He asked what the discussion was about, they told him. Lewis answered, “That’s easy, it’s grace.”

Philip Yancey

Hype?