"Living the questions runs counter to the mainstream of Christian ministry that wants to impart knowledge to understand, skills to control, and power to conquer. In spiritual listening, we encounter a God who cannot be fully understood, we discover realities that cannot be controlled, and we realize that our hope is hidden not in the possession of power but in the confession of weakness."
~Henri Nouwen; Spiritual Direction
It's was 8:15 on Sunday morning. I was finishing a glass of
orange juice and bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats while watching the
televised service from a church here in Columbus, GA. The pastor was preaching a message about prayer. Every
few minutes the camera would pan in such a way as to show the faces of band
members and choir members behind him. Occasionally they showed a shot of
the people in the congregation. Here's the dichotomy that struck me.
The preacher is talking about the most amazing, powerful, transcendent
conversation that can happen in all of the cosmos. Yet the faces of
the people around him are blank and bored, betraying that the minds
behind the faces are occupied with a hundred other things of life. I
can somewhat understand the faces as I listen to the sermon of droll
jokes and worn-out cliches. But beyond that, they are the faces of men
and women who have lost the wonder of a conversation with God.
I can relate.
Several days ago I wrote a post called, Tolerance, Taste, and Spirituality in which I express some of the same feelings of boredom which really are the result of a loss of wonder. It's easy to lose that wonder when we reduce our relationship with God down to church attendance, ten or twelve "worship" songs, a purely intellectual pursuit of the Divine, and a political agenda every four years.
A while back Lynn picked up a book from the Library written by Ravi Zacharias called "Recapture the Wonder." I finally picked it up one night, read the introduction, and ended up taking it to bed with me where I found it difficult to put down. In the first chapter he talks about the transition from childhood to adulthood and how much of the enchantment of our childhood vanishes with age. The difficulties of life strip us of any hope in there being anything beautiful, mystical, and transcendent in our existence. Knowledge tends to leave us convinced that most of what we found fabulously mystical as children is, in fact, logically explainable.
Of all places and all peoples on earth where there should be a very real, on-going, experience of that which is mystical and transcendent, should it not be among the people who have been raised to new life by the one who was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God in Heaven?" Shouldn't our times together, as those people, be times in which the drab and painful here-and-now is mysteriously swallowed up in the unexplainable, illogical, yet more-than-real life of a Kingdom not of this world?
How do we recapture this wonder, this reality that life as we know it is a mere echo of that which is real life? How do we embrace this life, yet see past the foggy mist of our perceived reality to anchor ourselves in that which is truly real?
We were probably about 11 or 12 years old, my friend Steve and I.
He lived on a large, older farm just across the field from me. A few
yards from the door to his house was a storm cellar. It was a large,
cylindrical, concrete cellar with steps leading down into it and a
small round opening in the top about 3 feet in diameter. One day after
the testosterone surges of puberty began to wreak havoc with our common
sense we decided to see how good we would be as stunt men. I don't
remember who went first, but I do remember that we took turns doing
this over and over for much of the day.
Here was the idea. We retrieved some empty paper grain sacks - dozens of them - from the barn and filled the storm cellar with them leaving only a small corner clear on the opposite side of the steps. The stunt man would then go down into that corner and the other person would close both the opening to the steps and the hatch in the ceiling. Heavy pieces of tin were used to close these exits and large concrete blocks were piled on top of the tin. The stunt man would then light the bags on fire and then, surrounded by flames, attempt to escape through either the stairwell opening or the hatch in the ceiling.
This was only one of many stupid things that as a kid I filled my days with. It was exciting; the risk, the danger, the rush of cheating death, and the bragging rights with which to impress the little girls of the neighborhood who naively mistook our obvious lack of cerebral function for bravado.
I'm much less adventurous today. At 40 years old I'm not quite as excited about setting myself on fire and seeing if I can survive, or car surfing on the hardtop while my slightly inebriated friend simulates waves by wildly jerking the steering wheel back and forth at 30 or 40 miles per hour.
In some ways I really miss that adventurous spirit, but at the same time I've matured enough to recognize that there is a fine line between admirable risk-taking and pure stupidity. Today, I want to recapture the boldness to chase my dreams with abandon while at the same time guarding myself against pure stupidity. And you know...sometimes those lines are a bit blurry.
In a post from a blog long, long ago and far, far away, I talked about the things that cause our dreams to die and one of the things I mentioned was the fear of failure. As I fought my way through the flames of that storm cellar, I didn't give a thought to failure. I knew I could make it. The fear of losing my balance and rolling off the top of the car didn't keep me from enjoying the adrenaline rush of riding the "waves." But now, as I've aged...as I've experienced heartache, pain, and disappointment...as I've seen suffering and death up close and personal, I know that in reality things won't always turn out the way you hope they will.
The truth is that risk can be either rewarding or costly. The questions then become, "Will you allow the potential cost to keep you from pursuing your dreams? Or will you risk everything for the possibility that your dreams will become reality?"
We need to consider a few things. Before we even begin thinking about the chances of success or the risk of failure we need to come to some degree of certainty that the dream we are pursuing is God's dream for our life. If we have reasonable certainty that the dream we are pursuing has been inspired by God, and we are eager to chase that dream with our heart and mind fixed on God and His purposes in the dream, then I think we need to reevaluate our definitions of success and failure and come to the place of understanding that when our heart is fixed on God and we are pursuing his dream for our life success and failure aren't necessarily measured by the visible outcomes.
Listen to the first half of Psalm 1. "Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with scoffers. But they delight in doing everything the Lord wants; day and night they think about his law. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season without fail. Their leaves never wither, and in all they do, they prosper."
Did you catch that last part? "In all they do, they prosper." That sounds like inevitable, measurable success...right? But that can't be true. Things don't always go as we planned when we began chasing the dream. Projects fail, budgets aren't always met, pregnancies don't always go well. How do we reconcile the very real disappointments we face when chasing our dreams with this promise from Psalm 1 that in everything we do we'll prosper?
I believe God defines success and failure differently than we do and like I said earlier, it has very little to do with outward, visible outcomes. I'm convinced that as we chase our dreams, God defines success and failure more by what happens IN us than what happens THROUGH us.
When we experience what outwardly appears to be failure, I believe God then invites us to ask these questions:
"Through this event, did I sense God with me?"
"As a result of this event, is God's grace more real to me?"
"While going through this, did I discover things about myself that need to be changed to make me stronger, wiser, and more dependent on God?"
Regardless of the visible outcomes of chasing our dreams, if we can answer yes to those three questions, then we have experienced success...the "prosperity" that God speaks of in Psalm 1. You see, when God gives us dreams to pursue with our life, it's not so much about us accomplishing a task "for God" as it is God accomplishing in our hearts, minds, and souls the very thing that Jesus died and rose again to make possible; the restoration and discovery of who we were created to be as His beloved son or daughter.
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them."
Me: "Yes Lord. I desperately recognize my need for you. Your presence in my life is as the air I breath. Without you I am among the walking, wandering dead."
God: "I bless those who mourn, for they will be comforted."
Me: "Yes Lord. My life has been punctuated with grief. I have taken my seat of mourning at the bedside of illness and death. My heart has beat out a rythmn of sorrow while watching another heart fall silent. Irreparable regrets from days gone by and seemingly unattainable hopes for days yet to come conspire to imprison me behind a veil of darkness and shadow. I receive your comfort Lord. From you comes the brilliant radiance of a joy not of this world."
God: "I bless those who are gentle and lowly, for the whole earth will belong to them."
Me: "But Lord, I am not this man. I am not gentle. Words of harsh judgement come much more freely than words of kindness. I most eagerly pursue my own way, my own path, with my own strength - strength that I don't really have. Pride and arrogance have been my guideposts, marking my way for me. How shall I be one to whom the whole earth will belong?"
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, just as you have done. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to you!"
God: "I bless those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, for they will receive it in full."
Me: "But Lord, again I fall short. I hunger and thirst for comfort. I hunger and thirst for pleasure. I hunger and thirst for status. I hunger and thirst for power. I hunger and thirst for possessions. I hunger and thirst to satisfy my hunger and thirst. Though I long to know your righteousness, that longing is so easily swallowed up by my cheaper longing for lesser desires. How shall I be one who is filled by your righteousness when my hunger pangs are so few?"
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, just as you have done. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to you!"
God: "I bless those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
Me: "Lord, I despair in my mercilessness. I cannot weep with those who weep, for I prefer to appear strong. Before I share my food with the hungry I make sure that I myself am well fed. The stranger will be given a drink of cool water, as long as my cistern remains full when he leaves. I turn from the sick out of fear of joining them in their sickness. My heart is a stone, heavy and burdensome. How shall I be one who will receive your mercy when there is heard only silence while listening for the voices of those who have received mercy from me?"
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, just as you have done. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to you!"
God: "God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God."
Me: Lord, my heart is carried about by the winds of lesser desires and divided loyalties. I awake in the morning longing to walk in the way of Jesus, yet fall asleep at the end of a path I have blazed for myself. My devotion to your Kingdom is as a flag standing alone on a hill being blown wherever the wind may blow it. How shall I be the one to see you when I have allowed my heart to be parceled out to so many others?
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, just as you have done. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to you!"
God: "I bless those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God."
Me: "Then Lord, I cannot be called your child. My work, though heavy and burdensome, is done to satisfy my desires and accumulate my possessions. I have neither the time nor the energy to be a peacemaker - to seek out and step into conflict and suffering with your peace in hand. How shall I be called your child when my work is done to satisfy my desires rather than to carry your peace into a broken world?"
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, just as you have done. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to you!"
God: "I will bless you when you are mocked and persecuted and lied about because you are my follower. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted, too."
Me: "But Lord, most often I'm not sure anyone would know that I'm your follower. If I am the light of the world, then that light seldom reaches outside of the basket under which it is hidden. If, as your child, I am like a city on a hill then I have provided so few directions to that city. I am too often silent when the world around me requires courageously spoken words. I am too often busy playing with toys in the sand when there are grand voyages to be taken. I recline at the table of gluttony while around me brothers and sisters die bravely in warfare for the Kingdom. Where is my happiness in valor? Where is my gladness in sacrifice? How shall I be one to receive any reward when I run from suffering for your name?
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, just as you have done. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to you!"
Me: "Lord, I am slow of learning."
God: "I blesss those who realize their need for me, just as you have done. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to you!" Because you have so freely expressed to me your great weakness and your great need, the Kingdom of Heaven already belongs to you! And because the Kingdom of Heaven already belongs to you, I will flood you with gentleness that you may be gentle. I will purify your heart and turn you to the singular purpose of knowing me and being known by me. Because the Kingdom of Heaven already belongs to you, I will cause your life to be a fragrance of peace wherever you walk and you will become the embodiment of selflessness, valor, and sacrifice all for the good of others and for the glory of your God."
Me: "Wonderful Lord!" What must I do? How do I now make all of this come to pass?"
God: "I bless those who realize their need for me, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them."
~Inspired by my wife's insight into Matthew 5
If you lost everything, how long would it take you to get something to
eat, find a place to stay, and get some work? Brazilian crazy pastor,
Claudio Oliver, offers up a definition of poverty. Follow this link to watch the six minute video and, perhaps, have your idea of poverty challenged a bit. Maybe after watching the clip you'll come away with some fresh ideas about how to alleviate the poverty around you.
One of the things that has so caught my attention recently as I investigate the spirituality of the ancient Celtic followers of Christ is their belief that the experience of God's presence and nature is not limited to the ecclesiastical setting, but can be found in all of life and all of creation.
I've always kind of known this. Even before I was a follower of Christ, Romans 1:20 was true for me.
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made..."
I've always held an awe of creation. As a child I was fascinated with space and had books and posters about astronomy that I would read over and over again. Growing up I used to love to get on my bike, or motorcycle and ride far out into the country where I would be surrounded by woods, open fields, and pastures filled with lazily wandering cows. There was an unexplainable peace that would come over me while in those settings.
When I was pastoring I planned an annual 3-day retreat which I would spend at a place called "The Hermitage" in Rushville, Illinois. It was a house owned by the church and surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods. Between praying the morning and evening prayers in the small chapel my days were spent fasting, reading, silence, and journeying through the woods. I always experienced life-shaping communion with God during those journeys. One of my first sermons in our newly planted church emerged from this time and was entitled, "Two Creeks Converged in the Woods." God used a walk through the woods to provide a prophetic word to our church that turned out to be incredibly profound over the years we were there.
The rain forests, mountains, Altiplano, and pampas lands of Bolivia have for the past six years of short-term trips communicated to me a divine presence that far outweighs the misery so many there experience in day-to-day life. In those settings I can see, in Pelagius' words, the "narrow shafts of divine light piercing the thin veil that separates Heaven from Earth."
In his book, "Listening for the Heartbeat of God," J. Philip Newell has much to say about the Celtic experience of God's presence in creation and through the power of imagination. I'll share some of the quotes with you.
"This may be difficult for most of us to comprehend today, but within the major traditions of Western Christianity we have been influenced by aspects of this Calvinist and Augustinian stream of spirituality that denies an essential goodness at the heart of every person. There is much in the Western tradition that has discouraged us from believing and hoping that, even in the midst of terrible wrong and evil, deeper still, buried maybe, at the core of every human being is the image of God."
"Alexander John Scott (also considered by the Reformers to be heretic) described the believers of Scotland as listening for God in all things, 'in the growth of the tree, in the rising of the morning sun, in the stars at night, and in the moon.' In their 'inmost being,' he said, they knew of a type of communion with the uncreated at the heart of creation. It was of supreme importance to perceive the interweaving of the spiritual and the material, of heaven and earth, time and eternity 'from year to year, from month to month, from hour to hour.'"
"Always, said Scott, 'there is the greatness that lies within and beneath the common.' Everywhere, therefore, we can glimpse signs of the presence of God's life in and among us, for God, he believe, is 'the Being on which all being rests.'"
"The Spirit of God, Scott said, is 'impregnated' throughout the whole of creation. Where there is life and goodness, there is God. God exists wherever there is love and creativity. Scott was critical of the Church's Sabbatarianism, because it taught that only one day of the week is holy, instead of seeing that the whole of life is sacred, every day, every hour, every moment."
"Just as an infant comes to know his mother through form and color, scent and sound, so we come to a knowledge of God through the universe (Romans 1)."
"The gift of the imagination, which in a child is still uninhibited, allows creation to be a lens through which we may fleetingly bring into focus aspects of the eternal."
"Creation is essentially a theophany, a showing or revealing of God's Soul to our souls."
"Scott urged us to hold a Bible in one hand but also to study God 'in that other volume', namely, the great and holy book of creation."
"Again, the emphasis that comes across in Celtic spirituality and in this particular expression of it is that spirituality is not about looking away from life but more deeply into it, not about denying the human but about releasing our truest selves, and that the life of our truest self partakes of the very substance of God's life, the One Self that is at the heart of all selves. In Christ, the perfect image of God, we see our truest self."
As followers of Christ I think one of the things that needs to be "refreshed" is our understanding of the Biblical principles of dealing with money as a community of faith.
Here is one story from a site linked on the sidebar called Relational Tithe. It's a great story that I think beautifully illustrates the heart of God regarding money, the hurting, the poor, and the church. Enjoy.
Ok, let me tell you a story that just happened a few minutes ago.
A young man, dying with cancer who runs an HIV/AIDS home a couple of days ago gave his $200 check to a woman who's electricy was going to be turned off leaving him $8 to live on. Fast forward 2 days and he recieves a $7000 check for back gov. support. He prays for where to tithe thinking the reasonable choices- churches, AIDS home etc then he knows that the tithe needs to go to Bryant Russo, tagged the Homeless Evangelist. The $700 tithe is the exact amount he needed to fix his Veggie Bus.
The Bride, WV, and Bryant, this past weekend had touched the community with free bands, free food, free health products, free clothes etc giving all the access to the HIV/AIDS home. The tithe was only one relationship away - We have tons of these stories.
A few evenings ago I was watching the local news and saw a story about a church here in my area that was in the process of going to court to take legal action in firing the pastor who, according to them, wasn't doing his job. In describing his lack of performance they cited that attendance was dropping.
Being a former pastor, I had a visceral reaction to that statement. I thought to myself, "It is up to the members of that local body to be salt and light in their world, to be the 'priesthood of believers,' leading people to Christ, and making disciples. A falling attendance problem (as if "attendance" is the end all, be all of being the church) is just as much a member problem as it is a pastor problem...if not more."
Last night I was mowing the lawn and, for some reason, began thinking about that church again. This time my visceral reaction leaned the other direction. I reminded myself of the thoughts I had earlier in the week and then took it a step further. The role of a pastor, according to Ephesians 4:12 is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. The pastor in question had been leading the church for 20 years. So yes, perhaps it is a pastor problem as well. The congregation members calling for his ouster believe he deserves to go because he isn't growing the church. If there is a legitimate complaint against the pastor, these members should understand that it's not that he hasn't grown the church, it's that he apparently hasn't equipped God's people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. For a mature body of believers will understand their role in God's redemptive mission.
All of this springs from a couple of the most lethal toxins in Americanized Christianity: Clergy/Body separation, and the loss of missional understanding. Many in the American system believe that church is a place you go to in order to have trained religious professionals do ministry to you. This is a perversion of Christ's intention. We ARE church. We don't GO TO church. We don't DO church. We ARE church. And as the church every one of us is responsible for living our lives in such ways that those around us are drawn into their own pursuit of God. We live in this way through lives of purity and integrity and through an active participation in God's redemptive mission to the world around us. As for the leaders among us? They aren't called to dispense to us religious goods and services while keeping our institutions numerically and fiscally prosperous. They are there to equip and encourage us to introduce our world to the kindness of God.
In the past week I've been contacted by two different authors offering to send me free copies of their books to read and then write a review. One of the perks of being a renowned, celebrated blogger with three faithful readers.
The first offer was made by Dave Schmelzer, the author of Not the Religious Type. You can visit his website here. I received the book a few days ago and, honestly, I haven't been able to put it down. Not only is Dave a fantastic writer technically speaking, but he has a way of approaching his topic in a winsome and humorous way. I'll be writing a full review in the days ahead.
The second offer came from Frank Viola, the author of Reimagining Church. You can visit his website here. I enjoyed reading his last work, co-authored with George Barna, entitled Pagan Christianity. However, that book (which you can find in the bookstore on the resources page) leaves you feeling a little lost and hopeless in regards to church, wondering where you should go next. I think this book will take us into the "next." I'll write a full review of it as well after I've received and read it.
Thank you Dave and Frank. I appreciate the work you do as instruments of God's voice to those of us on the sojourn.
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