Telling the Story?

The gospel of Luke has always drawn my attention. Perhaps it stems from the 

radical edge of the gospel from Jesus' proclamation in Luke 4 of the "year of the Lord's favor" to his positive treatment of women to his concern for the poor. Yesterday I decided to start again on Luke's gospel taking time to read and study it closely. In the first few chapters there is the wonderful unfolding of the story--rich with hope and wonder. But I also noticed something else that I want to keep my eye on as I continue, namely, the story is never kept quiet, it is always shared with others. The angel appearing to Zechariah is told to the crowd outside. The birth of John the Baptist leads to the telling of the story in the hill country of Judea. The birth of Christ is proclaimed by the angels to the shepherds and the shepherds to people they come into contact with. In these opening acts of the story, the story is contagious, people have to tell others what they have seen and heard. 

The opening of Luke is a stealth call to share the story. A stealth call that becomes a clear call in Acts 1. "So when they had come together, they asked him, 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:6–8 ESV)

All of this reminds me of something far back in history, back to one of the early acts in God's story. From the beginning of God's story there is the call to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This command is given first to Adam and Eve and then to Noah. Noah and his descendants are doing a pretty good job of this as we read in Genesis 10, but in Genesis 11 they stop spreading and decide to build a tower (ziggurat) and take control of their own destiny, making God their servant. Rather than allowing them to stop their spread through the earth God comes and confuses their language and compels them to follow his command.

Here's my connection: in Acts 1.8 the call is to be witnesses. While this is Christ's command, the church seems slow in doing it--unlike the eager tellers in Luke's gospel. They keep themselves centered around Jerusalem. It takes the death of Stephen and the outbreak of persecution to get them to move into the world. (Acts 8.1 "And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.") Is it possible that there is a dual connection here? The first connection is that fill the earth is now includes the command to make disciples of all nations. The second connection is that when we refuse to get out and bring the gospel that God finds ways to compel us to do so.

So here is a question: Are we telling the story or do you see God finding ways to compel us to tell the story?

TGIF (Monday, Monday)

The TGIF (Thank Goodness it’s Friday) idea is not one that rings true for pastors. Friday is that moment of reality that Sunday is soon to be here. For some of us we are prepared, sermon written, and pretty much everything is in place. For others of us who work best under pressure we are getting ready for the pressure cooker of Saturday research and message writing. But whichever camp we fall into Friday is the precursor to busyness, not its end.

While Friday is a precursor to busyness somewhere in our rhythm there needs to be that TGIF moment. The time when we look and say that there is a time (as mentioned in the previous blog post) to stop running, to start breathing we have to trust God. 

Something that can make us a bit uncomfortable, especially as established and new church pastors is recognizing the reason a lot of us keep running, even on the day when God says it’s OK to stop: the reason is we don’t think that our small part of the world can get along without us for a day, that it can’t get along without the work that we do, the efforts we make. We don’t trust that God can get his work done (this is not revealed in what we say, but what we do), if we really take the one day off in seven that he himself has given us.  Until we trust that God can really get that work done, that God’s kingdom will not fall apart if what needs to get done gets done a day later or even two--because we’ve taken God at his word and taken a sabbath.  Until we trust God we’ll keep running on the day he tells us to breathe.  In the Old Testament book of Jeremiah there are some words that might help us here, to take God at his word.   “⁵This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.  ⁶He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. ⁷“But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.   ⁸He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”  (Jeremiah 17.5-8 NIV)  

One last thing about Sabbath (there are more, but for this blog, one more). On the Sabbath we get to be like God.  During the other six days of the week we get to be like God, we show we are made in the image of God, by working just as he worked six days to create the world.   On the seventh day we get to show we are like God, that we are created in the image of God by resting.   Here’s what we should t know about God resting.  When God rests it means he looks over his creation, sees that it is good and he enjoys it. So when we are like God on sabbath we have the doors opened to enjoy God’s creation.  To enjoy the wonder of it, to enjoy the beauty of it, to enjoy the fascinating pieces of it.  On this one day in seven God invites us to take a breath and immerse ourselves in his creation, immerse ourselves in creation in a way that renews and refreshes us. Enjoying creation in its fullness comes with taste, smell, sight, sound, and touch. On your sabbath, take the time to enjoy the last one: touch. For many of us we fail to not only stop and smell the roses but also to touch the roses (carefully!). Steve Jobs understood the importance of this in when Apple products were created. They not only had to look beautiful, they had to feel beautiful.  If you have an iPhone and never pulled it out of its protective plastic case and felt the lines and materials, you’ve not fully appreciated all that went into creating the iPhone.  By the same token, if we never stop and touch God’s creation we have not fully enjoyed the work of the creator.

TGIF.  What is the rhythm of your life where a moment comes and you say, TGIF?

Monday, Monday

For a certain number of pastors Monday is their Sunday. A time when they catch their breath, try to do a bit of revival, and re-center their lives. Personally, I rarely take Monday off. I think that Rick Warren got it right when he said that he didn’t take Monday off because it was the day he was most wiped out, “Why,” asked Warren, “would I take the day off when I feel the worst?”

No matter where we end up on this one the truth is that for a lot of church planters and a lot of pastors taking even one day off in seven seems like the impossible. There is always one more thing to be done, one more call to make, one more…you can fill in the blank.

One of the wonderful gifts that God gives in this world of always one more thing to do is the command (sometimes we do like to be told to do things) to take one day off in seven. To have a Sabbath. Here’s what it says in Genesis 2. ²By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.  Genesis 2.2-3 NIV The seventh day--God takes off on the seventh day, rests on it.  And as he does so he gives us this gift that just like him we get to pause, catch our breath once a week.

But to get to this place of catching our breath we have to have to own some things about ourselves and God.  On this Monday morning one of those things (another coming in the Friday posting). First thing we learn about Sabbath is this, it is God’s permission to us to admit that we are not infinite, that we can not do it all.  But more than that, Sabbath is a time to says, “You know what, it’s not a sin that I’m limited, it’s OK that I can’t do it all.”  

Do you ever get that feeling from people that really you are supposed to be able to do it all? I love those studies that tell us that we are supposed so spend so much time working out, so much time studying, so much time improving this part of our life or that part of our life, and when you get all done, you discover that if you did it all it would take about 36 hours a day to do everything the experts tell us we are supposed to do, not to mention you’re supposed to get about eight hours of sleep a night.   Once every week, God gives us this gift, it’s the gift of admitting the truth, that we are limited, finite people.  That as those people life is going too fast and we need to breathe. 

Not only do we need to breathe, God tells us that we have to breathe. Have you ever seen one of those movies where someone is frantic, running from place to place, looking for something or someone, trying to get something done and another character comes alongside of them, and says, “I just need you to breathe, take in a deep breath, take a few deep breaths, Ok, got it, now, let’s talk, what’s going on.” That’s kind of how it is when we do Sabbath, God looks at us and says, I just need you to breathe, take in a few deep breaths, slow down, Ok, got it?  Now let’s talk—what’s going on.

On this Monday can you admit you are not infinite? Can you admit it not just by saying it but by taking time to breathe? 

Candy or Bricks

When I was growing up and doing Sunday school I remember going to other churches and seeing the cool prizes you could get for perfect attendance and for memorizing scripture.  To be honest, I always felt a bit bummed that we didn’t get those things in my church. 

As I grew up however, I began to wonder about these ways of getting kids to places and getting them to memorize. Shouldn’t the reward be in line with the action? If we are memorizing, for instance, Micah 6.8,  “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic 6:8 ESV), shouldn’t there be a connection to the joy of justice, kindness, and a humble walk?  Or to do a play on Paul from his letter to the Corinthians (see 2 Corinthians 6.14-16), “What does getting a plastic race car have to do with justice?” Without the entire argument about what the car is made of, its origins of manufacture etc. which is lost on most kids, I’m guessing the answer is, “very little”.

In that light I was pleased Sunday morning. I was at our church (EverGreen Ministries) and during the announcements we were told that our kids were memorizing scripture in their classes (a good thing).  However, rather than getting candy or a plastic race car for their efforts every verse memorized was raising money to build an orphanage. The driving force of memorization was mission. The very act of memorizing took the focus off of the child and onto God’s mission in the world (“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27 ESV)

So here’s what I’m wondering: How much of what we do in our teaching and discipling of our kids thinks about how to focus them on God’s mission rather than on themselves? When we work with our kids do we think about offering them candy to get them to be places, memorize the text and all the rest or do we offer them bricks--that build both orphanages and their faith.

By the way if you want to think more deeply about this issue the book What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of the Market” is a great primer.

What's Going on in 1 Corinthians 11

Every once in a while someone asks me about the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 that deals with the Lord's supper. There is that verse that can is very disquieting, 1Cor. 11:27 "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself." What does one do with this verse and who can dares to take communion in the light of eating and drinking judgment on yourself, after all, even the most committed and faithful of us never gets the faith completely right. Knowing this I've talked to some from very conservative traditions who have never taken communion for fear that they will eat and drink judgment on themselves.

So how do we take these verses? The first is we have to take them in context. The problem in Corinth is that people are coming to the Lord's Supper and focusing only on themselves while ignoring the needs of the body of Christ (the church). The rich are coming, eating, and getting drunk while the poor, who have to work first, come to the worship service hoping to get their one good meal of the week and find the food gone and their "fellow" Christians fully sated. What this tells us is that the people in Corinth are missing out on the body of Christ in two ways. The first way is they are missing the reality that Christ has sacrificed his body, given his body so that they can be reconciled to God. In the supper they come face-to-face with this wonder and it should floor them in such a way that they desire to imitate the sacrificial heart of Christ. As Christ's heart was broken for their need so their hearts should be broken for the needs of those in their community who are poor. As Paul will say in 2 Corinthians 8 concerning the need to give to the poor, 2Cor. 8:9 "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that sthough he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." The second way they miss the reality of the body of Christ is that the church is the body of Christ and they are dishonoring this body when the rich ignore the needs of the poor in their community.

The important thing to get here is that "not discerning the body of Christ" is not that these people didn't know who Jesus was or didn't understand that the bread represented his body (that's easy to get, a couple of seconds of instruction and a person can tell you the bread represents the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ), no the problem is much deeper than that: these people didn't get that bread in their hand was a call to be like Jesus, to act in a Christ-like, self-sacrificing manner for others in the community. We would say that these people didn't get depth of the second greatest commandment, "love your neighbor as yourself" or as John will says in 1 John 4.19 "We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

At one level this levels a lot of people who come with confidence to the table and declare they get that the bread is the body of Christ. These people are not discerning the depth of what Paul is after. He's not looking for some intellectual assent (certainly he wants us to believe rightly, but right belief doesn't get us into the core of his desire), he is looking for a people whose hearts are breaking over the poor, the struggling, and broken in their midst. He is looking for people who really to love their neighbor as themselves and as they take the bread are overwhelmed with a God who loved them, so overwhelmed they can't help but bring his love to others, can't help but be those who though they are rich become poor for the sake of others.

Each of us who have come to the table know that we are basically lousy at this becoming poor deal. We are self-absorbed, watching out for ourselves, we want people to care for us because we deserve it. But it is just here that the table does two things: first it confronts us with the body of Christ and we are laid low with our failure to love others; Second, it reminds us that the table is both a place where we see the grace of God in the bread and the cup and a place where the only way we can come it by God's grace. We come asking his forgiveness for failing to discern the body of Christ. For fail to discern it we do, over and over again. The simply truth is that without grace we can't get to the table for our failure to discern the body plagues us. The failure to act in a Christ-like, sacrificial manner walks with us like an unwanted shadow.

But this raises another question. As I mentioned earlier, it is easy to understand that the bread is the body and the wine is the blood of Christ. This concept of the bread is a call to see the sacrifice of Christ and to act in accord with that sacrifice is a harder thing to grasp. It is harder to think through the implications of whether I am loving my neighbor as myself, if my life really does reflect becoming poor so that others may become rich. Given how difficult this can be who can take part in the supper? Can a 30 year old downs syndrome person take part in the supper? Can an 80 year old who has alzheimer's? Can a 50 year old who has never been overly self-reflective come to the table? Can a 10 year old who knows they love Jesus but can't wrap their mind around the fullness of what it means to discern the body?

My take is that the supper is open to all of these people. Open not because they get the fullness of what it means to discern the body (after all, which one of us does, which of us really gets the fullness of Christ's sacrifice and then has it so impact our lives that it shapes and molds every move we make?), but because rightly taught and led they, and indeed all of us, can discern the body at the level of understanding that God has given us at any particular moment in our lives. God does not asks that down's syndrome child or the person with Alzheimer's to be more than they are, only to be what he has made them to be. With a child or a 50 year old we want to help them think more deeply, grow more in discerning the body, but we don't withhold the gift and grace of the supper from them until they get it all right. We withhold the supper only if they don't believe or for a child, if the community and particularly the parents discerns the child is not yet ready--so their faith is a mere mimic of the parent's and doesn't yet have a voice of its own or if it's clear the child wants to take part because taking part looks cool or their faith is childish rather than child-like.

But it seems to me that we have less to worry about children failing to discern the body i.e. knowing that because Jesus loves them they need to love others, than we do with adults failing to discern the body since many of us as we have become adults have also put up our guard against loving others and have far less willingness to become poor so that others might become rich.

The bottom line for both children and adults is that we come to the table only by God's grace and each time we hold the bread in our hand we both celebrate that grace and are reminded how much we need it because we look so little like Christ who on the night he was betrayed took bread and said..

Momentum

Last week the Church Planting Teams of the CRC and RCA came together for two days of "meetings".  Some of you may be aware that the CRC and RCA are working together to catalyze mission in North America.  About two years ago the Church Multiplication Initiative was started. In the last 24 months there have been 10 regional areas (called Kingdom Enterprise Zones) that have been established to build sustainable church multiplication systems and to begin new churches. We never imagined that this would be the reality back in February 2010.

It is out of the multiplication effort that our "meetings" last week were birthed.  We have discovered that we can do more together and that we are better together. 

As you have noticed every time the word "meetings" comes up there are quotation marks. The reason is these "meetings" were not what some (certainly no one reading the blog, of course) would think of when two denominational teams get together. There was excitement, dreaming, casting vision, looking to ways to deepen joint church multiplication, and the beginning of a wonderful picture of our future together. In short, there was powerful, Spirit-charged momentum. 

In the coming weeks we will share those dreams and visions with you in more detail, for now celebrate with us and pray for the momentum. It is an exciting time to be part of the joint work of CPDLT and the RCA's Church Multiplication Team.

   Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:1–2 ESV)

On Being Safe and Culturally Insignificant

 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.  (John 17:14–19 ESV)

Planting churches and revitalizing churches calls us to move outside the four walls and into the world. Moving into the world, however, presents more than a few challenges. I was looking back at some work I'd done in the book of Proverbs and came across the following words. I don't remember if I wrote them or if they came from another source, nevertheless they reflect a reality that many of us struggle with as we get outside the four walls.

"On the surface, cultural separation masks itself as a form of godliness, but a closer look reveals an enterprise driven more by self-preservation than anything. We may bemoan a moral decline in the country. Our actual concern, if truth be known, is not to see a vital Christianity flourish, but rather to secure a more orderly and less violent society in which to live out our comfortable and self-satisfied lives. In other words, we want a safer world. We are not as concerned about the salvation of those in the world as much as we want them to behave better around us for our comfort.

This is where so much of our current attitude and approach to the world differs from God’s will as expressed in the prayer of Jesus in John 17. We want to be safe in a safer world; God wants us safe in an unsafe world. We want to protect ourselves by removing ourselves from danger; God wants to protect us in the middle of danger. These differences may seem insignificant on the surface, but in fact they are huge, involving entirely different worldviews and ramifications.

This theory of safety through removing ourselves from the world could be one of the most dangerous doctrines to invade the church in recent years. It is now thought to be more spiritual to be safe from the world than to interact with it.

What would it look like if we traded in a doctrine of safety for a doctrine of engaging the world? What impact would it have on the way we do ministry, teach children, call adults to discipleship, and live out the gospel?"