“Sometimes we hear our friends talk in moony, romantic terms of the early church.  ‘We need to get back to being just like the early church.’  Heaven help us.  These churches were a mess, and Paul wrote his letters to them to try to clean up the mess.” (Peterson, Practice Resurrection)

“If we permit- or worse, promote- dreamy of deceptive distortions of the Holy Spirit creation [the church], we interfere with participation in the real thing.  The church we want becomes the enemy of the church we have.  It is significant that there is not a single instance in the biblical revelation of a congregation of God’s people given to us in romantic, crusader, or consumer terms.  There are no “successful” congregations in Scripture or in the history of the church” (Peterson, Practice Resurrection)

At times in my life, I have lost trust in the church, rejected it, walked away from it, written against it, critiqued it, worked for it, gotten paid by it, bashed it, loved it, planted it, cultivated it, and more.

Over this time, I realize that my understanding of the church is extremely important.  Too often, I looked to the church with with unfair expectations that lacked a biblical grounding.  Church, I thought, was supposed to be perfect, meet most of my wants and needs, be centered in Christ without any entanglement in sin, deeply spiritual, and generally idyllic.  When it failed to meet these criteria, I was left with 2 options:  1) criticize and critique it (and thereby, I would often remove or distance myself from that tangible community); 2) romanticize and  mystify it (i.e. remove the theological dream of the church from its tangible reality).  Over time, neither of these options satisfied.

Don’t misunderstand me- engaging in critical thought on the church and embracing the mystery of the church are both important.  However, these things cannot be separated from the tangible, living-breathing, social and local, worshiping community.  For so long, I struggled with this tangible, living-breathing reality called the church.  It had too many warts and hang ups.  Truth is, it was easier to critique the imperfect bride of Christ than to be part of it.  If I privatized my faith, dabbling in occasional conversation with family and friends, I did not have to do the hard work of becoming part of the “body of Christ”.   I reasoned, as a believer, I was part of the mystical body of Christ while refusing to engage in the tangible body of Christ.  But biblically and historically, God’s people have always been a social and tangible reality in the world- warts and all.

It has been in the context of the church, the real, living-breathing community, that my faith has been sharpened the most.  Reading books, talking to friends, writing blogs, listening to sermons are all great and helpful.  But they easy.  They engage my heart and mind, but not my humanity.  It is in the context of the church, I am challenged with difficult people, actual arguments, differing personalities, real needs, and so on.  This context, better than any other I know, helps me to grow up in Christ- taking up my cross, submitting my my brothers and sisters, encouraging and being encouraged in the faith, forgiving and being forgiven, etc.

I admit, that I also find my workplace, the neighborhood, “the world” as a context for growing up in Christ.  This is important both for my maturity in Christ and the mission of God in the world.  And there are many Christians and churches, who in avoiding the world, seriously hinder their faith and neglect God’s mission.   But this is the church scattered, it is not the body gathered around the Christ’s body.   I have certainly learned that I cannot be the church alone.   It is both too easy and too difficult.  Mostly, it is not God’s intention.

“I want to look at what we have, what the church is right now, and ask, DO you think that maybe this is exactly what God intended when he created the church?  Maybe the church as we have it provides the very conditions and proper company congenial for growing up in Christ, for becoming mature, for arriving at the measure of the stature of Christ.  Maybe God knows what he is doing, giving us church, this church.”  (Peterson, Practicing Resurrection)

If pastors only carry moral sayings in their pockets and go through the parish sticking them, like gummed labels, on the victims of the week, there will be no good pastor work; they must learn how to be gospel storytellers…  The storytelling pastor differs from the moralizing pastor in the same way that a responsible physicial differs from a clerk in a drugstore.  When and ill person goes to a physician, the physician “takes a history” before offering a diagnosis and writing a prescription.  THe presumption is that everything that a person has experienced is relevant to the illness and must be taken into account if there is going to be healing.  The clerk in the drugstore simply sells a patient medicine off the shelf- one thing for headaches, another for heartburn, another for indigestion- without regard for the particular details of a person’s pain. – Eugene Peterson

Things Worth Saying

I cannot ignore that I’ve been wrong before

But I must wonder if my blunders

Limit what I speak to being weak

It seems these days that we do not say

Much of anything, that can bring

Hope.

or Truth

or Light

This is our plight, failure to fight

To plead, to speak, to stand for what is right

Am I out of touch saying so much?

Is it wrong to believe, or dare to conceive…

That things are true.

To speak with confidence that there are things worth saying

To share truth with people that’s well worth weighing

Am I allowed the courage to preach that God is real

Speak to souls that He can heal

Give them truth that they can feel

Dare to risk that things are true

Bet my life on them and all I do

And stand to tell the world too.

Top 5 Reasons I Do Not Blog

1) I Got Things To Do. I am often confused on how pastors, especially missional pastors, have so much time to blog. I find it difficult to justify having an “active” blog and working to get a lot of readers. It seems like there are so many other things to do that are better uses of my time.
2) Narcissism. I love reading blogs, and benefit from many of them. However, I have talked with a few folks who talk about their blog like it is the kingdom of God. (Some of these people actually look at companies who track how many people click on the blog, as if it is a contest). This is a little too egotistical for my liking.
3) Face to Face. Blogs have become communal spaces on the internet. While this is pretty cool, I have always been a face to face kind of guy. I would much rather grab a cup of coffee or a beer with some friends than spend a few hours have conversations via blog -dom. I do not want to spend my life in front of a computer.
4) I am Not that Interesting. Quite honestly, I often times don’t think I have anything really worth saying.
5) Ponder These Things In Your Heart. Not everything I think, or write, needs to be published for the world to see. I have already made the mistake of taking issues I have been working through, and put them on public display. I also think that blogging can replace prayer, and cause intimacy with God to suffer.

Top 5 Reasons I Should Blog More

1) Writing is a Good Discipline. I say I am busy. And I am. But if I consider how much time I waste (esp on the computer), I certainly could discipline myself to write. And I do believe that writing is a good mental and spiritual discipline.
2) Giving Back. I benefit from reading blogs. They have been great forms of learning and discussion. I reckon blogging is a good way to give back and bless people who also benefit from reading.
3) Monday Through Saturday. Our church is pretty intent on being the church Monday through Saturday (and not being Sunday focused). However, it is often difficult to connect with people during the week. Blogs, I reckon, can be communal spaces to connect with friends when we are not actually together.
4) Learning is Ultimately Communal. We learn best in community.
5) I Pay for this Site. Granted, it is not much. But still.

WORDS

Words a Billion, all’s the same
Speech without Silence is a loosing game
Words without substance a crying shame
Noise the problem, Noise to blame

Words a million, nothing changing
Same old words, rearranging
Same old static without meaning
Billions listening, searching, gleaning

Thousands of words none worth keeping
Thousands sown but none worth reaping
All the poets crying, weeping
At the words, we’ve been cheapening

Hundreds of words I’ve heard before
The repetition beginning to bore
The words most speak I just ignore
Cause I cannot take it anymore

What just occurred to me is how absurd
The noise my ears have endured
A prophet spoke up last night in the sea of words
But I am not sure if anyone heard

His Word

All the words that we’ve squandered
Makes me stop and begin to ponder
Where did all the prophet’s wander
And their words of which I’m fonder

Millions listening, searching, gleaning
For that One Word filled with meaning
As the masses keep on talking
Oblivious to the truth I’m stalking

Words a billion, you can have them son
I’ve played with them all and had my fun
I’ve had my time and now I’m done
Cause I’ve found my Word, and I just need One

Billions of words I’ve heard
In this world that’s broken, blurred
But only one has cured and stirred
The human heart, and endured

One Word, resurrected from the violence
Bathed in love and truth and silence
That’s the word I hear and speak
Of the billions, the One we seek

God does not call us to love the world. He does not command us to love everyone. (yes, I just said that) God, the Bible says, loves the world. God loves everyone.

But the second greatest commandment is to “love our neighbor.”

The question, for thousands of years has been, “who is my neighbor?” Jesus himself got asked this question. And yes, Jesus greatly expanded who we are to think of as our “neighbor”- pagans, enemies, the poor, the unclean, etc.

But I would like to ask a different question. Not, “who is our neighbor?” But, “why neighbor?” Why not just command us to love the world, love everyone? If that is the nature of God, why not command us to do the same?

We do not have the capacity to love the world, to love everyone. God does. But we do not. The command to love our neighbor is a profound statement about what our love is to be like. Our neighbors are the people that God has placed in our lives. They are real, and tangible, and close. They have names. They are our family, friends, co-workers, and literally neighbors.

I think we have made a huge mistake in expanding the word neighbor to mean “everyone.” When we do this, we turn our love into an emotion without much content. Love becomes a feeling we are supposed to have, but a feeling that is incapable of changing the world. I believe that God called us to a much more powerful and tangible kind of love.

God calls us to love our neighbors. To love the people he has placed in our life… but to love them well. This is a tangible sort of love, expressed in action- time, meals, visits, phone calls, prayers, play, shared experiences, and so much more.

God does not call us to love the world. But He has called us to love our neighbors- the people He has placed in our life. But He has called us to love them well.

Our energy is not meant to be spent on trying to love more and more people. Rather, it is best spent on loving the people in our live better- in a way that changes things.

So my mom described my life to me on the phone last night… she was telling me about the sermon at her church from Sunday.  It was on over-committing and busyness.

BUSY stands for Being Under Satan’s Yoke

When we are busy, we become:

1) Out of Shape: Physically

2) Out of Sorts: Emotionally

3) Out of Touch: Relationally

4) Out of Balance: Spiritually

That sounds just about right.  I am learning right now about needing margins and boundries in my life.  And I am learning that I have to say “no” not only to bad things in my life, but good opportunities as well.  Let’s see how I do

Tis’ the Season

It is the season of stress, busyness, chaos, and the pressure to buy a bunch of things you do not need.  I guess this is always true of American lifestyle, but it is certainly heightened in the month of December.  I was reminded of this while driving TO Thanksgiving with my wife, seeing tents lined up outside shopping centers.  How sad that people were choosing to get a good spot in line to buy something over spending the day with family and friends.  You cannot tell me that consumerism does not shape our souls.

Here are some thoughts that I think might make you holiday season deeper:

1) Give presence, not presents. Giving gifts to loved ones is not a bad thing.  But remember then greatest gift you can give to people is your time and love.  It is sadly ironic that we give so many presents over the holidays, but spend such little quality time with the people we give gifts to.  Love is better measured by how much time you spend with someone, not how much money you spend on them.

2)  Do things that energize you, not drain you. Most people get to the end of their holiday season exhausted.  This is because they give in to the pressure to say “yes” to everything.  Most of the activities around the holidays drain people.  Say no to the things that drain you so you can say yes to the meaningful things.  Find your salvation in quietness and rest (which holidays can provide).  And when you are rested, you will enjoy the relational part of the holidays more.

3)  Remember God. I will be frank: the holiday season in our culture has nothing to do with God.  In fact, it is remembering God that will give you the strength to resist the holiday season.  Prayer, presence, remembering Jesus, are the spiritual practices that allow us to resist the holiday practices of shopping, busyness, and freaking out about all the things we “need to do” to have a good holiday season.

I truly hope you all have a deep, rich, and restful holiday season.  May it be filled with the love of God and the love of people!

Some would say I was on my way

To becoming a city hipster

Cellphone calls and Upscale Malls

Drowning the Wild’s Whisper

I cannot lie, its hard to deny

That my skin was growing thin

For I had my fill of the winter chill

And like to sin by staying in

Now the city streets and tasty eats

Don’t make a man the devil

But walking cement trails often fail

To remind us world’s not level

City scrapers and exhaust vapors

Witness Eden’s fall

Cause the city’s view isn’t the hue

That God dreamed up at all

You forget these things when comfort brings

The world to your front door

Computer screens and movie scenes

Can leave a man no reason to explore

But pixel lights and screensaver sights

Were beginning to appall

Because the winter chill now had a thrill

That whispered when it called

For in my soul there was a hole

That only the wild could fill

So I made my pack and placed on my back

And set out for the Holy Hills

There is a truth out there for those that care

That only the wanders know

It’s the wisdom of the trees carried by the breeze

Spoken in the places most never go

And I was on my way with plans to stay

To the places I once well knew

And the air was crisper with the Wild’s whisper

And salvation was closer too

And just around where there was no sound

Except the chorus of nature’s song

At an elevation atop creation

After the trail was long gone

Where the air was frost and I was lost

And the night was dark and risky

I found my goal and set down my soul

And poured a glass of whiskey

The hike did tire so I built my fire

And sat tight to fire’s flame

And as I sat there tranced as the embers danced

(I pondered from where I came)

Things had gotten blurry in the city hurry

And my soul was hard to find

But as the wind swirled and flames twirled

The wild’s whisper did remind

And in the night I gained my sight

And got what I came for

Cause my ears heard the wild’s word

And it spoke right to my core

Then I saw the moon wink as I finished my drink

And all my stirrings began to cease

So I laid down my head and went to bed

And slept in perfect peace

At morning light the sun was bright

And it painted the horizon gold

And the whisper spoke and I awoke

And I’ll tell you what it told

City goals take many souls

Because they forget the wild’s call

But truth in the trees carried by the breeze

Whispers salvation for us all

On August 1st I resigned from my position on staff at a local church.  This was the 4th church I have been “on staff” (getting paid to perform a ministry job).  There are many benefits, comforts, and good things about being on a paid church staff position.  However, from experience and talking to others, it has a dark side.  As a friend said recently, the danger becomes when we only read our Bible or pray, as a part of what we are hired to do.  As most pastors know, reading scripture to prepare a teaching is not always the same thing as reading scripture to hear God’s voice and to grow in the faith.

Which brings me to the past 2 months…

I did not realize how refreshing it would be to continue in ministry (and following God’s call) with no paycheck attached to it.  In many ways, this is a very trying time.  I am unemployed, Natalie is working to keep us afloat, the process will be slow, fund raising is just starting.  I am learning to walk by faith in new ways.  I would not say that our sacrifices have been overly dramatic (we are blessed).  But there is a very significant difference in ministering as a job (with pay and benefits), versus ministring out of calling (with no pay and at personal sacrifice).

My point is not all that profound.  It is simply re-energizing to work hard at something solely because God has called me to this thing.   As I have experienced and others have confided in me, those who get paid to minister usually are called, but often confuse their calling at times with job responsibilities.  Sometimes it gets so bad, that some of us minister solely because it is a job that pays the bills and we can do it (superficially).

I wonder how many ministers/pastors would continue to do their daily work if the paychecks stopped.  Are these pastors ministering out of calling, or job responsibilities?  (this has all sorts of implications when brought into Jesus’ teaching on the good shepard verus the hired hand).

For me, I got confused along the way.  Somewhere in the last couple of years, I started doing a job versus obeying a call.  And I am grateful that after the paychecks stopped and the job ended, the call was still there.  The call will always be there.  And I will have to obey and follow it whether there is pay or not.  Of course, I pray there is.  And I know I am called by the One Who Provides.