Organized religion...And some famous authors...

Well, it's been a few weeks since I've updated this thing...Life has a way of reorganizing my calendar for me, so I've been nowhere close to being the master of my itinerary lately :) I wanted to jot down a few thoughts, though, about a topic I've been thinking a fair amount about, and has coincidentally also gotten some media attention. We just kicked off a new series at Element called The Lowdown...The idea is that there are a bunch of basic questions people have about God and the Church, and the Church needs to be a driving force in dealing with them honestly. This past Sunday, we opened with the age-old "What if I don't buy into organized religion? Can't I just do the spiritual journey thing on my own? Why do I need the Church?" And I, for one, think it's a great question...Why, indeed?

Now, there are a bunch of things that come to mind here, but one of the biggest contributing factors to this question is this - the Church has issues. No surprise there, right? I mean, the church is full of people, and the people have issues; therefore, the Church has issues. Not really rocket science, is it? This past Sunday I talked a bit about a guy named Christopher Hitchens and a woman named Anne Rice. Well-known authors both...One a respected journalist and the other a writer of fiction. Both intelligent people, and for a variety of reasons I've enjoyed and learned from both of them in different ways. The reason they came up this past week, though, is precisely because of the fact that Church has issues. Hitchens is well known for his atheism, and has spoken at length, and written a great deal on why He's doesn't buy into the God thing. Rice considers herself a Christian, but recently made the announcement that she's leaving the Church - not denying Christ, but leaving the people that claim Christ. 

There a number of reasons Hitchens doesn't believe in God, but one of them is a longstanding mistrust of the way the Church has handled itself in interpersonal ways. For him, the fact that Christians (and followers of other religions as well) sometimes display hypocrisy, arrogance, employ coercive tactics, etc., means that these people don't really have anything to offer that's different from what he sees elsewhere. Thus, God Himself has nothing to offer. I realize I'm reducing his arguments down to a fraction of what he has spent years elaborating on, but you get the point, and I don't think Hitchens would argue that I'm misrepresenting him. For Rice, she came to follow God after a long journey that also included embracing atheism, and now 12 years later, is dismissing the church as well. Interesting that two people with very different conclusions on the existence of God conclude the same thing about the community of God. 

But here's the problem I have. Ask anyone you know about the Church, and whether believer or not, pretty darn-near everyone will assent to a slew of problems in the Church. The bottom line is that the Church is full of people, and people can't seem to get their act together, and we all know it. 

But here’s where they make a critical mistake, and where so many of us do when we write off the Church. Since we are all, every last one of us, sinners (meaning that every last one of makes mistakes and often operates in a way that’s not what God says is the way He created us to live), does it make any sense for that to suddenly change when we get together as the Church? If we’re all prone to sin, does putting a bunch of people who are prone to sin together in the same community, magically remove all potential for human stupidity? Of course it doesn’t. But the problem here is that for so many of us, it freaks us out when we see the human side of people in the church. Somewhere in the the thought process, we think about God's claims of changed lives, realize that's not very evident in a great many people, and throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. 

I  hear people say quite often that they've always wanted the church to be more real and more accessible. They say that they've had enough of the shiny veneer, of the idea that you can get all too often in the Church that following God means that life is easy and perfect. The problem is, though, that many of them write off the church as not practicing what it preaches when it is real. The fact is, when we commit to dealing honestly with each other, warts and all, and when we make the statement that we're all screwed-up but God loves us anyway, then people are  attracted by that message. And so they come, and become a part of the community, and then they screw up. And by "They", I mean "all of us".  And when the screw-up happens,  we throw the hypocrite tag around and and in some cases, go so far as to write the church off, as though God somehow promised that a community of people would somehow never act like humans. Someone treats someone badly in the church, and we sadly shake our heads and write off the church. Someone doesn’t perform a church task well or with integrity, and we write the church off. The church doesn’t look or behave exactly how we want it to (as though anything in life does), and we write the church off. And we think we can make the statement that I’m all about God, I just don’t like the people who claim to follow him, so I’m not gonna be around them. 

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?  1 John 4:20

[Anyone who] does not love other believers does not belong to God. 1 John 3:10

If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 1 John 2:4
 

And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters. 1 John 4:21
 

Well, hang on, we say...I don’t hate my brothers and sisters... I just don’t want to be around them, extend them any grace, or be patient with them when they screw up. But that's a problem. Because God loves us anyway, despite our stupidity. Why do we think our  definition of love should be different than that? And here’s where Hitchens and Rice and probably each of us at some point or another just flat-out get this wrong: We’re defining God by the community, rather than the other way around. God is an amazing, perfect God, working through and redeeming imperfect human beings. And to be brutally honest,  we're being pretty darn arrogant when we say that other people aren’t representing God well enough for my standards. Because I guarantee that those standards are situationally different for ourselves. I'll sign off with this...

But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.  1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God's Son, purges all our sin. 1 John 1:7 (Message)

In other words, it’s not just a good idea. It’s not whether or not it happens to fit my comfort zone of what I like in other people. It's not a verse for pastors to pad their sermons with...And it’s certainly not a way for you and I to lay out our own requirements for the kind of community that meets our own flawless standards. As sinful people, we don't get to draw that line. God smashed the line, and loves us anyway. And God says, if you love me, then you love my people, and you be with them...

“If God gives you a watch, are you honoring Him more by asking Him what time it is or by simply consulting the watch?” - A.W. Tozer

I love this quote. I like the way Tozer thinks, anyway, but this quote in particular strikes a chord deep inside me. Tozer's reflecting on the idea that God gives us the tools, gives us the ability, to do the things He asks us to do. The problem for many of us is that we don't recognize that He's done so, and so we continue to ask God for clarity on something He's already made crystal clear.  This is particularly true, I think, when it comes to the whole process of figuring out what God wants us to spend our time doing, whether right now or in the future. Jon Acuff brought this up in his book "Stuff Christians Like", which I highly recommend :) In it, he talks about someone being asked to stick around for a few minutes after a church service and help stack chairs. The person being asked then responds with "I'll pray about it." Pretty spiritual response, isn't it? I mean, it's hard to argue with. Who could take issue with someone wanting to submit everything they do to God in prayer? The problem is, as Acuff points out, it's just stacking chairs, and someone needs your help. Do we really think Jesus is going to say no? Can you picture Him saying "Sorry, pal, I know this person needs your help, and I know this would just take a few minutes, but I really think you'd be better off doing something else. The future of your relationship with God depends on this; why don't you go dig into something a little more obviously spiritual, and let this guy fend for himself? He probably didn't plan ahead enough, anyway." Or "That's not your spiritual gift...Your gift is something entirely different, so I think your time is better spent doing that. I've shaped someone else specifically to stack chairs - Let them do it." 

     Kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Yet, as Tozer points out, there are times when the choice is obvious, and yet we allow ourselves to fall prey to this very thing. I think I'm safe in saying that when someone truly needs your help, you're not being disobedient to God by lending a hand. On the contrary, the book of Philippians makes the statement that we're to consider others more important than ourselves. In Tozer terms, the watch says it's time to pitch in and make a difference for someone by investing in them - It's entirely too easy to "over-spiritualize" this, and let opportunity after opportunity fly by to translate love into action, while we pursue whether or not God wants us to do this. I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't commit major decisions to God in prayer; not at all. But we do know that we're called to love, and that God doesn't call us to be all about ourselves. In fact, He specifically calls us to NOT be all about ourselves. Who needs your help right now? When what you want collides with what someone in your life needs, what wins? Uncomfortable though this may to hear (and it's certainly  a sobering thought for me, given how much I like NOT having to sacrifice), God's direction for my life and yours is not at odds with serving the people around us. That IS God's direction for us. I pray that we (and certainly I) understand this more and more, and that more importantly, understanding translates into action. I think that just might change the world.

Aerosmith, Plumbers, and the Pope...

Ever had something stuck in your head for what feels like absolutely FOREVER? I distinctly remember a two-week span when I was in high school when I had the Aerosmith song "Dude Looks Like A Lady" playing on repeat in my brain. I'm not sure what that particular song says about me that my brain latched onto to it with both hands, but it was a miserable fourteen days, I can tell you. No matter what else I listened to or did, that song was rattling along as the soundtrack to my miserable existence, until one day it was just gone. Who knows what it was replaced by...One of the many constructive things seventeen-year-old guys think about.

But I'm going through something similar right now, and I have been for the past couple of months. Fortunately, it's a concept, not a song. Two straight months of ANY song, let alone Aerosmith, would doubtless have me in a straightjacket...But the concept is this (and if you've been around me over the past couple of months, you've probably had to hear about it. For that, I'm sorry. I'm not very good at not talking to everyone within earshot about what I'm currently thinking...): How do we bring the incredible reality of God into the ordinary, the mundane, the everyday world? In other words, how do we change our perspective, so that we don't see the human life we have to deal with and the God life we want to deal with, as mutually exclusive? A few weeks after this started to occupy  much of my thought process, I was given a book called The Insider, written by Jim Petersen and Mike Shamy. Coincidentally, it's subtitled "bringing the kingdom of God into your everyday world." In it, they point to the beginning of what Paul writes in the book of Ephesians:

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan. Ephesians 1:3-10 (NLT)

They follow up this passage with this thought: "This paragraph is filled with vital information. God has purposes. He has a plan and right now He is in the midst of working it out. This is not an emergency rescue operation that God is performing, a sort of "Plan B" after things went wrong. This plan was in place before God created anything at all! We also learn that at the center of this plan is the creation of a people, and that the cost of getting them would be the blood of His Son. In summary, this passage tells us that life has to do with a people and a cross."
 
To be it slightly differently, the God parts of life aren't hanging around somewhere, high above the human moments, waiting for just the right moments to be seen. The God moments are right smack in the middle of the human moments. The famous Jewish Theologian, Martin Buber, puts it this way:
"The critical religious experiences of man do not take place in a sphere in which creative energy operates without contradiction, but in a sphere in which evil and good, despair and hope, the power of rebirth, dwell side by side. The divine force which man actually encounters in life does not hover above the demonic, but penetrates it."
 
The work of God is done through His people, with all of the baggage that people represent. The work of God is not intended to be done through only a certain kind of person, who dots the i's correctly and warms the church pew the right way. Your every interaction, my every activity, whether as plumber, pastor, or painter, has the tremendous potential to advance God's cause, to be indifferent to it, or to actively lead people away from it. And I might add, to be indifferent to it long enough IS to actively lead people away from it.
 
It's really about recognizing that every place we find ourselves is ripe for an honest telling of the God story. Not necessarily the plan of salvation, and not even necessarily by speaking. By honestly being who God has created us to be be, infusing all of life's vital work with the essence of God. To be ready, as 1 Peter says, to give an answer to those who ask. To be just as ready to listen instead of talk, do instead of demanding to be served, treating people around us like they really do matter to God Himself. In this way, every last one of us becomes an artist in the whole painting of life. We don't have to wish we had a part to play, or a gift to use. You have, and you do. God is in the mundane, and he uses the ordinary. As Benedict XVI said so eloquently upon taking the office of Pope: "[I am] a simple, humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with insufficient instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help, let us move forward."

There, now, if a Protestant, a Jew, and a Catholic can all agree on something, maybe it's worth thinking about :) Let's do it...
Peace to you all...

Hope, Miley Cyrus, and infected wounds...

As we've been going through this series at Element called "Anatomy of a Life With God", I've been reminded every week as I've been preparing for Sunday about a basic truth in my life, which is this: Every morning when the alarm clock shatters my deep sleep and pries me away from my dream (which was a strange little surrealist number last night about searching for my contact lenses in a strange house...I don't even wear contacts. Weird. A psychologist would have a field day with me), I feel like I have hope. For real. There's something about facing the day that feels somehow limitless, like I can see a whole bunch of possibilities, an incredible variety of ways my day could go. Even when the day's schedule is packed, and there's not much room to be flexible, it still feels to me like my day is wide open to see what God can do with it. I know, it sounds all "motivational-speaker-ish" to say something like that, but I really feel like it's true. That's become an aspect of my own Life With God. I really do feel an almost intense feeling of excitement when I think about my day. Of course, this isn't always true, but it's true quite often, and the difference is, it rarely used to be true at all.

                                                                                                                                                For quite a while in my life, If I had something written on the calendar for some point in the future, such as a night out with friends on Friday, or a Miley Cyrus concert next Tuesday (Just kidding about the Miley Cyrus part. She wasn't around during this time in my life. Then, it was Hanson. Remember "Mmmbop"? Of course you do.), then I had something to be stoked about. But the daily grind was pretty much just that, a grind. Somewhat  unpleasant...Mostly something to be endured...And I used to look at people who were happy more often than not with some degree of suspicion. What are you so cheerful about? Don't you realize that reality's no laughing matter? Even this idea of joy, this notion that God can change my outlook seemed weird...Almost as though I had to pretend that life wasn't often grim, bury my fingers in my ears, and chant repeatedly, à la Bob Wiley: "I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful..."

                                                                                                                                                But something changed for me several years ago, in a kind of unlikely way, and though it didn't happen overnight, my perspective on my day changed, and with it, my perspective on God. I worked for a while in a Research and Development lab for a company that came up with innovative ways to treat hard-to-heal wounds. As you can imagine, many of the case studies we did were done with patients who were facing difficult times. Now, one issue you have to contend with in dealing with an open wound that won't heal is the issue of moisture management. I don't mean to be gross here, but a wound heals best when it has a certain amount of moisture present. Too dry, and it won't heal. Too moist, and it's prone to infection, among other issues. I remember one patient in particular - She had tried many different things with very little success, and was extremely depressed. Her outlook was essentially that that her day held no more hope than the previous, because she felt like she had tried everything, and the wound still kept getting infected. Until one of our team started treating her wound differently, and brought her infection issue under control. Within a couple of days, the infection was gone, and the wound started showing healthy tissue. And though it took time, eventually the wound healed completely. I remember being told about this case and thinking, "What an incredible relief it must be to know that you're finally on the right path, physically speaking. That can't help but affect your outlook on life. You'd finally feel like you had hope." And as I thought that through, more and more, I started finally adding up the numbers in my own life. I felt like I knew God and had a relationship with Him. And if that was true, and God is who He claims to be, then I had the hope that I was on the right path. And if I was on the right path in the area in which I was struggling the most, then shouldn't that give me some hope for my daily life? Why so bitter about life all the time? The problem was that I was viewing my relationship with God as an event on the calendar in the future, so life was, at best, to be endured until then. I had to actually choose to let Him affect my outlook on life.

Psalm 34:4 (NLT) says this:

"I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears."

I believe that's true in my life. But I also believe that I had to let Him free me...I run into people all the time who can tell me everything there is to know about the nature of God, and yet live, essentially, without hope. I know what that's like. My prayer for us all is from Romans 15:13 (NLT): "I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."

And just as we're looking at the fingerprint of God on these people throughout the Bible in our "Anatomy" series, I would dearly love for people to be able to look at our lives for the same kind of thing. That our lives would be evidence of a living God - moving, breathing, and changing lives. Giving hope where there once was none. I don't know much, but I do know this, and I write this as one who's been changed...

Of Healing, Truth and The Church...

A couple of weeks ago I made the confession that I'm a music junkie. Not a real shocking revelation to those of you who know me, but I felt better just saying the words...There's power in confession :) And last night, I had my fix delivered in an incredible, intense, and seriously life-affirming kind of way. Through the generosity of a couple of good friends, I had the privilege of seeing Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller live. I won't bore you with the details, since I know for some of you there's only thing more mind-numbing than talking about music, and that's reading about it...Suffice it to say that on a musical level, it was an artistic statement of rare power and beauty, and I was pretty much on the proverbial ninth cloud all the way through the show. Lyrically, though, I was stunned. Patty's latest album is very gospel-oriented, and I really don't think I've been to many church worship services in my life that moved on the level this show did. This song, in particular...It's called Little Fire:
My friend, come stand beside me
Lately, I'm feeling so lost
A flood came and washed the stones of the path away
And a hot sun turned the mud to dust

Calling the sheep in for the evening
There's a voice, calls above the howling wind
It says comes rest beside my little fire
We'll ride out the storm that's coming in

My friend, you know me and my family
You've seen us wandering through these times
You've seen us in weakness and in power
You've seen us forgetful and unkind

All that I want is one who knows me
A kind hand on my face when I weep
And I'd give back these things I know are meaningless
For a little fire beside me when I sleep


As I was sitting there, it struck me that this is pretty spot-on description of what the Church could, and should be. Instead of simply being the primary place where our spiritual learning happens, the community of Jesus is charged with the task of taking care of people. And not just the people we like. And sometimes in uncomfortable ways. I love the idea that the Church is refuge from the howling wind. That we can be free to be weak, and still be loved. What a great thing to be the fire in each others' lives...Thanks, Patty for the words. Thanks, God, for the reason to write them...I pray we would truly be each others' little fire.
Peace...

Perspective, part 1

People who look through keyholes are apt to get the idea that most things are keyhole shaped.  ~Author Unknown

Ever find yourself thinking about how something is, and realize that you're upset or frustrated with someone else for not really getting it? It doesn't really matter in what area - It could be in a relationship, a job, a political discussion, a church...We see things a certain way, and it's sometimes pretty bizarre to us when others don't necessarily see it that way. A few years ago, I was working in a church on the west coast, and I was having a conversation with someone about how much it seemed like God was moving in the church at that time. He looked at me kind of quizzically, and said the following: "I feel like you're trying to convince me that God is moving, because I just don't see it." After talking for a while longer, something became apparent. He and his circle of friends were seeing a pretty high degree of difficulty in life at that particular time, and to Him, God seemed kind of absent. And his conclusion was that God must be kind of absent from other people's lives as well. We've all been guilty of this at some point - however close we feel to God at a certain time, we can project the same thing onto others, and think that that's how it must be for other people as well. This can lead to being cynical when someone else feels particularly close to God, or feels like whatever God is doing is really worth celebrating, because we can feel they must not be looking at things realistically, or logically. In our "me-centered" approach to life, looking at things "logically" means seeing them the same way we are at that moment. 

This is a particularly difficult thing in the church, which is (or should be) completely centered around God and His movement. It can get pretty tough when it seems like our perspectives on God's movement don't really line up. The beautiful thing is, though, that that's precisely one of the reasons God created us for community. When I feel distant from God, and you testify that God is doing awesome things in your life, I can have my hope jumpstarted. When I feel particularly encouraged, and you feel down, I can help you understand that God is closer than you think. The trick is to understand that part of community is lending each other perspective...We can, and should, be people who don't let opportunities go by to let each other know what God's doing in our lives. You never know how powerfully God will use that in someone else. And it heads cynicism off at the pass, as well. It's harder to be cynical when we get confronted by the goodness of God everyday...I'm so grateful for each of you, in my immediate church community and those who are a part of my life from afar - Through you, I get to see God do things in ways I might never have understood if I'm judging Him based solely on how I feel at the moment! Through each of you, I see Him in new and amazing ways every day! These past few months have been a phenomenal lesson for me on perspective, and I don't think I'll ever be the same! Peace...

What the heck does God want, anyway?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the decision-making process, in a blog entry called "Making Decisions, Or Not..." This led to some really great (and ongoing) conversations with some of you about the decision-making process, something I've gotten more and more fascinated with. This process was really sparked several years ago after reading a book called "Decision Making and the Will of God", by Garry Friesen. The book provided a great jumping-off point for thinking through some things I had really been struggling with for a while - namely, how much does God want to be  involved in the "minor" details of our lives? I mean, it's a given that God wants us to pray, and to ask Him for guidance. And most of us, if we identify ourselves as followers of Jesus, do that, at least in the major decisions. Should I marry this girl or guy, or not? Should I move a thousand miles away and change careers? Should we buy this house? Should we have kids? Should Tom Cruise be technically classified as a "midget"? You know, the important stuff...

But chances are that most of us aren't dealing with life-changing decisions on a daily basis. Most of us get up in the morning, accomplish what we need to, or least try to, and then go to bed, and start the same process again the next day. And hopefully somewhere in there we share a laugh or two, match our outfits well enough to not invite public ridicule, stay on the right side of the law, and avoid food-poisoning (trust me on this last one - if there's food-poisoning to be had, I'll find it. It's just one of the many services I provide :) In other words, there's a degree of sameness that characterizes many of our days. We've got to do many of the same things, day after day. The question is, how pleasing are we being to God in those things? Is God involved in those seemingly mundane, insignificant things? Does He even want to be?

A few days ago I was reminded of this quote from Anne Lamott: "You can tell you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."  I think the same goes for a lot of things in our lives. You can tell you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God magically wants you to be making all the decisions that you're comfortable making. Interesting, isn't it, that when we look at it honestly (and we sometimes need a little objective outside help in looking at it honestly), that God's will tends to look an awful lot like what we want. Everything becomes a sign from God that supports our actions and thought process if that's what we've decided we want to do. Now certainly, God's will is not automatically opposed to our own. One of the ideas the Garry Friesen book discusses is the notion that walking in God's wisdom, really knowing Him and striving to follow Him, means that my desires begin to line up more and more with God's will. I believe that's true, and I believe it's an idea well-worth teaching in the Christian community today. Most, if not all of us, though, have found ourselves making daily decisions about things based almost solely on what the comfortable thing is, or what our natural inclination is. I probably don't need to tell you that the comfortable or natural isn't always a good indicator of what's pleasing to God. Think through the last few decisions you've made, big, small, and medium sized. Huge, and seemingly not that important. Is God's reputation important to you in making those decisions? Is your integrity important? Have you, as Philippians 2 describes, treated others as more important than yourself? Or do you find that most of them are simply what made you comfortable at the time? Do you find yourself justifying the decisions with God language, because you know people won't argue with you if you say God was present in the decision?

If you see yourself in any of that, welcome to humanity! We've all done it, we've all watched people do it, and we'll all do it again. The exciting part is that God knows that we're prone to this kind of "me-first" based decision making, and He's all about helping us make a shift to a "God-based" process. It doesn't happen overnight, and it's not the easiest thing ever; after all, it does involve fighting your own natural tendencies, which are pretty stubborn. But the Bible is full of amazing verses and passages about how our lives really can reflect who God is...We really can learn to do and be all about the will of God in the big and small of our daily lives - in other words, God can change our natural inclinations to reflect His desires for us. That, by itself, is God's will for us! Let's take this journey together, sharpening each other, and holding each other to this...Anything less is just, well, less than God intends for us...Peace to you all!