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Former Apple evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, posts an interview with Richard Stearns on his blog. Richard Stearns is the President of World Vision. Stearns has says some good thing regarding poverty and values. Below are a couple of questions and answers:

Question: How can people who do not want to radically change their lives make a difference in the lives of the poor?

Answer: To really change the world, values must change. Consider the civil rights movement. Racial discrimination was once openly accepted in the United States. Today it is unacceptable to our mainstream culture. Very few of us are civil rights activists, but we let our values speak in our work places, our schools and to our elected officials.

Today, we live in a world that tolerates extreme poverty much like racism was tolerated fifty-plus years ago. We can all become people determined to do something to change the world. We can speak up, we can volunteer and we can give. Ending extreme poverty will take money, political and moral will, and a shift in our value system. When enough ordinary people embrace these issues, things will begin to change. Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Question: What are biggest hurdles to alleviating poverty?

Answer: One word: apathy. The very frustrating part is that we actually have the knowledge and the ability to end most extreme poverty. The world just doesn’t care enough to do it. The U.S. government has spent more than $400 billion on the war in Iraq to date.

Our annual humanitarian assistance budget for the whole world is only about $21 billion. We spend less than a half percent of our federal budget on humanitarian assistance and less than two percent of private charitable giving goes to international causes. People and governments make choices based on their priorities. Poverty is still not a high priority for the world.

My friend, JR, has put it all on the table. I’m proud of him and challenged by him. And he’s right. Here’s a little of what he says:

“Here’s the declaration. I intend to give a tremendous amount more of my blogging time and attention to sharing about the life of my church community. Here’s why…

“I, and many others I know and respect, could think, reflect, argue, and scrutinize all that the missional movement means until the cows come home. This is well and good, but the heart of the missional movement, is far more about living and being than it is about explaining and reflecting. Most friends of the missional movement will be familiar with Lesslie Newbigin’s notion of “the church as hermeneutic of the gospel.” More simply put, it is the life of visible and identifiable Christian communities which interprets (notice I didn’t say ought to interpret there – this happens whether we like it or not) the gospel for the world. Therefore, I am of the mindset that the missional movement will be far better served by telling the stories of the lives of missional communities than any other endeavor. This is not mean to disqualify other endeavors, but simply to say that they are indeed secondary.”

JR is absolutely correct when he quotes Lesslie Newbigin. (I just used that quote in a sermon on a similar subject just two weeks ago!) How we live in community interprets and puts feet on the good news that God’s restorative reign has come to earth in Jesus Christ. Our communities’ interpretions are happening whether we like it or not. So what kind of interpretation are we giving the good news?

One way or another, our faith-communities are being and living right here and now. We’re living and being in hospitality, in spiritual formation, in mission and service, and in authentic forgiveness. We’ve got to share the stories good and bad because that’s who we are as we follow Jesus into the implementation of his father’s New Creation in this world.

You can read JR’s full post HERE.

Deb said that about me today. Wow! What a complement.

We were spending a leisurely morning just hanging out and talking. She said, “You know what I like about you? You’re dreamy-eyed about God.”

“Wow! Thank you,” I told her. “That’s weird that you would call me that. Lately, I’ve really been reacting against all the ‘Jesus-is-my-boyfriend’ worship songs and happy-clappy Christianity out there. I mean I consider myself close to Jesus, but not in the same way I used to be. I don’t see him as my ‘lover’ anymore. He’s definitely someone close to me. But he’s my God. He’s my Lord. He’s the leader of a global revolution. I want to be a person who would go wherever and do whatever he tells me. And whenever I think about what he’s doing out there, I’m filled with such awe and respect.”

That’s when the tears began pooling in my eyes.

Deb smiled and said, “See. That’s what I mean.”

Having been a professional pastor for over 14 years, I’m very familiar with creating a church’s “Statement of Faith.” This is that “special” document that outlines a church’s doctrine. It usually outlines each doctrine in a bullet-point format, each point followed by explanation and Bible verses.

Anyone who has visited this blog knows my view on how important God’s Story is to giving our doctrines, theology and practices meaning and trajectory. Truth is an essential core component to Christianity. But God has chosen to make known his Truth through narrative.

A good example is Jesus himself. His teachings and ministry are anchored in both the grand sweeping narrative of God as well as the many smaller stories within Israel’s story. One cannot understand Jesus or what he was accomplishing without understanding the Story that shaped his worldview. He wasn’t a Gnostic that came to communicate special knowledge about a Reality disconnected from this world. The Reality of God’s kingdom that Jesus embodied, demonstrated and announced was entirely anchored in a Story. It was a Story that began with the creation of this good world as it is filled with God’s life, then tragically sags under the burden of brokenness and distortion, and ultimately gazes with longing toward a future time when God, through Israel, would come to judge and restore creation forward toward his God-intended destiny.

Extracted from that Story, Jesus’ words and ministry, especially his death and resurrection, are stripped and bleached of so much richness and vitality.

This is why I was so thrilled when I visited the website of Mars Hill Church in MIchigan. I have enjoyed Rob Bell’s teaching in the past. He’s one of the “popular” pastor/teachers that can articulate the works of theologians like N.T. Wright and others in such a simple, ground-level way.

What thrilled me was that instead of a Statement of Faith, Mars Hill has developed a “Narrative Theology Statement.” It is a hybrid of story and doctrine. Rather than presenting doctrinal points as abstract bullet-points supported by proof-texting, the Narrative Theology Statement embeds statements of belief within God’s Story.

And as you browse the other pages on the Mars Hill website, you can view firsthand how God’s Story provides the appropriate meaning and trajectory for that church’s theology, values and practices. For example check out the values that emerge from immersing themselves in God’s Story.

It’s a great start and I hope other faith-communities follow their example.

Well, today is the National Day of Prayer. And the occasion has caused some of my angst regarding prayer to resurface again.

I love prayer. But I have found that when I pray with many of my evangelical brothers and sisters, my prayers move in a different trajectory and style than theirs. With this in mind, I thoroughly enjoyed and resonate with much of Michael Spencer’s remarks about prayer in his blog post, “My Problem with Prayer.”

There’s a lot I’d like to say about this, but I don’t have the time right now. (I should revisit this subject when my schedule eases up.) Plus Michael does a great job articulating what I think and feel about the subject. So click over to his post and enjoy.

Please click the following link and read about Jay McKinley. And then pray. And if led, do something. This average, normal guy has more faith in his little finger than I probably will ever have in my entire life. I’m staggered by his conviction.

Click HERE to read about Jay.

I came across the blog, Bible Versus, through Real Live Preacher. Bible Versus is the blog of Hugh Elliott, a gay man with AIDS who lives in Los Angeles. He has decided to read through the Bible, starting with the New Testament, and blogging about his experience.

While Hugh does not consider himself a Christian, he does consider himself to be a “christianist.” I’ll let him explain it in his own words from his inaugural post:

“I’m not a practising “christian”. As I recently told the RLP [Real Live Preacher], I consider myself a “christianist”, meaning I believe in the ideals of what this person Jesus Christ taught but not necessarily all the kooky-spooky stuff. My re-examination of the Bible and what it contains will be an often unorthodox, broader minded view of what has been written.”

I think this is going to be a wonderful, challenging and insightful blog. I am looking forward to journeying through what Hugh learns and what I will learn through him.

Allelon has posted a video of a great interview with Ryan Bolger from Fuller Seminary. Bolger co-authored Emerging Churches with Eddie Gibbs. In the video, Bolger shares his journey from the Vineyard movement into the Missional Church movement. He also provides some basic definitions between the Missional Church and the Emerging Church.

So if you want a basic introduction into these two overlapping conversations, check out this video.

With such a crazy schedule lately, I haven’t had time to read deeply. So I’m excited to begin reading Embodying Forgiveness by L. Gregory Jones. The topic of forgiveness has been simmering away in the back of my mind for some time now. It’s very important for me on several levels. Theologically, I believe forgiveness anticipates God’s future new creation when all is finally made right and, in our resurrected bodies and surrounded by God’s glory, we will be able to be forgiven of all things and able to forgive all things. Practically, forgiveness should be the “environment” that surrounds God’s people in all aspects of life. It is the way in which we do the real daily work of implementing what Jesus began, bringing heaven and earth together through our lives. Pastorally, I want to be able to help others practice and embody forgiveness for their own personal well-being as well as participating in God’s reconciling mission on earth. And personally, I want to be a person who naturally embodies forgiveness to everyone for everything. I want to become the kind of person in which forgiveness easily flows from me into every situation.

As I began reading the introduction to Embodying Forgiveness this morning, several key issues caught my attention. First, Jones anchors forgiveness in the Trinitarian nature of God. Second, Jones widens the focus of forgiveness from the absolution of guilt to the reconciliation of brokenness and the restoration of communion. Third, Jones expands forgiveness from an action to a way of life, an expression of the “cruciform life of holiness in which we seek to ‘unlearn’ sin and learn the ways of God.” In this light, Jones views forgiveness as a craft that Christians must spend their lives learning. Fourth, Jones views forgiveness as the sign of the promised eschatological consummation of Creation in God’s kingdom. Not only is forgiveness at home in this world by establishing peace in a broken creation, but it anticipates the future and final reconciliation of all things.

Check out the Inside the Missional Matrix audio files. You won’t be disappointed. Scot McKnight, Todd Hunter, and company did a fantastic job.

Here’s a leadership quote by Todd that I absolutely love:

“Leadership is not judged simply on the accomplishing of tasks, but leadership is judged by the quality of persons and the quality of community that it creates in the accomplishing of tasks.”

I found this over at ChurchRater (which is interesting by itself) at Off The Map.

Keith Drury teaches at Indiana Wesleyan University. He’s compiled a list of 25 characteristics of his students and asks how will these characteristics affect the church if they hold true after his students graduate from college.

You can read the list of characteristics HERE.

There has been a series of posts that have caused quite a stir in the blogosphere. And although I’ve been reading them as they’ve been posted, I intentionally postponed linking to them from here until I could see where it was all going.

Bill Kinnon started everything with his post, The People Formerly Known as The Congregation. In it, Bill communicates his frustration about what it means to be member of the average congregation today — a passive recipient.

Emerging Grace followed it up with The Penguins Formerly Known as the Waddle. Despite the title, Grace’s post is a “part two” to Bill’s. She does a great job communicating emerging convictions regarding the Christian life resulting from the necessary deconstruction of church as the vendor of religious goods and services.

Jamie Arpin-Ricci next contributed The Community Coming to be Known as Missional. This post provides a brilliant reconstruction of what missional living is all about.

Finally, John Frye, author of Jesus the Pastor, contributed part four in this series with The People Formerly Known as The Pastor. As the title suggests, John focuses on those in professional ministry who find themselves caught in the tension and pain of trying to lead communities of faith as defined by our current culture and definitions of success while yearning for the vibrant life of God’s kingdom.

So if you haven’t read these posts yet, take a moment, sit back and enjoy.

1. TPFKATC

2. TPFKATW

3. TCCTBKAM

4. TPFKATP

I’m reading NT Wright’s The Scriptures, The Cross and the Power of God during Holy Week. It is a series of sermons he gave during Holy Week in 2005.

The first sermon he gives expounds the Parable of the Son and the Stone in Matthew 21:33-46. Here’s a lengthy quote that really gripped me this morning:

“The problem upon which Jesus has turned the spotlight, the problem which they didn’t want to acknowledge and which we don’t want to acknowledge, so that Palm Sunday is always in danger of collapsing into sentimental kitsch with its donkey and its palm branches — the problem is that evil isn’t something ‘out there,’ it’s something which has infected all of us, God’s people included; so that if we knew our business we would turn all the more quickly from shouting ‘Hosanna’ to praying for mercy…

This parable is one of the most explicit statements anywhere on Jesus’ lips of his own unique status as one doing the job of a prophet but himself being far more than a prophet, of his own unique role as the one after whom the father has no one else he can send, and of his own unique and shocking vocation to bear in himself the hostility and violence of those to whom he has sent. There is as yet no atonement theology in this parable, except insofar as the parable makes it plain, with its echoes of the scriptures and it evocation of the power of God, that somehow this violent death will itself be part of the plan, the plan not to tell everyone that everything is all right after all but to come to the heart of the place where it’s all wrong and to allow the full force of that wrongness to be worked out, hammered out, in his own body. Somehow, the parable is saying, things must all go horribly wrong in order that things ultimately may be put to rights. The son of God will come himself to the place where evil is doing its worst, even when that place is not out there in the pagan world but in here within the people of God, and takes its violent fury upon himself.”

The place where evil is doing its worst is within the people of God. And our blindness to that evil causes us to shout “Hosanna!” when we should be crying out, “Lord, have mercy!” Surely there IS radical evil in the world. But we can’t simply point a blaming finger at a single political party or a single nation or a single religion. Evil cuts through all of us. And where it does its greatest damage is in God’s people who are blind to this reality. We dupe ourselves when we believe that because we’re on God’s side we are also either immune to evil or have had it purged from us. Or even worse, that it doesn’t matter because Jesus’ righteousness covers up our evil. So we continue to act in destructive ways while singing “Hosanna!” We are no different today than God’s people on that first Palm Sunday.

Here’s Wright’s concluding remarks:

“When Jesus comes to his church, and to his people, today, he comes with the same message, and with the same warning. He comes seeking fruit, the fruit which belongs to his father. And those of us who decide to make the journey from Palm Sunday to Good Friday can never therefore do so in anything other than fear and trembling. We are, says St. Paul, the temples of the living God. God forbid that when the Lord whom we seek comes once again to his temple he should find it necessary once more to come with stories of judgment. May we hear the word, so live within the story, that we find ourselves in six days’ time at the foot of the cross, and in eight days at the empty tomb, and find ourselves saying, ‘This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.'”

Below is a video of an emotional homecoming worth watching.

Antony has a great post. Rather than trying to summarize, I’m posting it in its entirety:

It is sometimes said: “lex orandi, lex credendi,” which roughly translated means something like “the rule of our prayer is the rule of our belief,” or more simply and colloquially: “how we pray shapes how we believe.” This is to say that rather than a proposition shaping the reality of our lived faith, it is a practice that shapes what we actually in reality believe, whatever the propositions may say…. Get that? In his book The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, Robert Louis Wilken puts it like this (bold emphasis in the quote below is mine):

“The repeated celebration of liturgy worked powerfully on the imagination of early Christian thinkers. It brought them into intimate relation with the mystery of Christ, not as a historical memory, but as an indisputable and incontrovertible fact of experience. Leo the Great, bishop of Rome in the fifth century, put it this way: “Everything that the Son of God did and taught for the reconciliation of the world, we know not only as an historical account of things now past, but we also experience them in the power of the works that are present.” Before there were treatises on the Trinity, before there were learned commentaries on the Bible, before there were disputes about the teaching on grace, or essays on the moral life, there was awe and adoration before the exalted Son of God alive and present in the church’s offering of the Eucharist. This truth preceded every effort to understand and nourished every attempt to express in words and concepts what Christians believed.”



The reconciliation of the world, the New Creation inaugurated by Jesus, is not simply an historical event in the past! Surely it is part of God’s Story that defines us. But we also experience it in the present in an equally defining way. The liturgy, prayers, songs, readings, Eucharist, disciplines and community implement the reality of God’s New Creation in our midst in fresh ways.

Thanks, Antony, for posting this.

A friend of mine referenced a paper by Scott Cormode called “Multi-layered Leadership: The Christian Leader as Builder, Shepherd, and Gardener.” I was intrigued by her allusions to the paper so I decided to read it myself. Cormode’s paper is definitely worth reading. I’ll try to summarize his thoughts below followed by a couple of my own comments.

Cormode begins by discussing how Christian leadership has argued between what he calls the Builder model (structural) and Shepherd model (interpersonal) of leadership. However, he contends that the debate between these two models misses the point by making false assumptions about solutions, programs and empowerment. Cormode states that solutions rarely exist for our most important problems, programs often accomplish little and most people don’t want to be empowered.

Although these two models are the most prevalent leadership styles in American Christianity, they actually fail in certain organizational conditions that are quite common to churches. These conditions are what scholars call “ambiguity” and “adaptive change.”

First, ambiguity refers to organizational conditions of unclear goals, uncertain technologies and multiple constituencies. Despite common business wisdom, it is impossible to clarify and measure the ultimate goals of a congregation. Spiritual growth and justice cannot be quantifiably measured. Also, the technologies or means to accomplish a congregation’s goals are not guaranteed to succeed. A perfectly executed program may still fail because of factors outside the congregation’s control. And each congregation consists of multiple constituencies with differing goals and measurements of success. Cormode summarizes, “In short, ambiguity means that a congregation’s most cherished goals are beyond our capacity to understand, its most trusted technologies do not lead to predictable ends, and its various constituencies have conflicting interpretations of success and failure.”

Second, adaptive change are issues that challenge our deeply held beliefs and values that have made us successful and relevant. These challenges cannot be solved through “technology.” Rather, they require people to discern and embrace new roles, new relationships, new values, new behavior and new approaches to work. These challenges require people to change the way they see the world.

A third way of leadership, what Cormode calls the meaning-making Gardener model, is needed. The Gardener model inspires action by making meaning. The leader is the “theological interpreter,” a prophet who points to God. “The Gardener plants vocabulary, sows stories and cultivates theological categories that bear fruit when the congregation uses those words, stories and categories to interpret their world.” When people have a new view of the world, they will take new action. This model relies heavily on stories and rituals.

The Builder views organizations as structures. The Shepherd views organizations as communities. But the Gardener views organizations as cultures. The Gardener helps the congregation construct meaning by properly selecting stories to create an interpretative grid. The Gardener selects stories from Scripture and stories from the congregation’s history to lay beside various aspects of the congregation’s current unfolding story to help them construct meaning about God, themselves and the world. Therefore, the principal work of ministry is cultivating this kind of learning environment.

Cormode then argues that leaders must view all three models as “frames” of reference and learn to work simultaneously in all three. Many circumstance facing congregations have aspects that require the Builder frame to define roles and set a clear plan of action, the Shepherd frame to empower people for nurturing relationships, and the Gardner frame to construct new beliefs, values and meaning that form the core of the congregation’s identity and action.

I think Cormode’s paper has some good strengths as well as significant weaknesses. Probably the greatest strength is his contribution of the “third way” of the Gardener leadership model. I have come to a strong conviction that people need help constructing meaning in their world. This is one reason why I always refer to God’s Story as the backdrop to everything I teach. Personal stories and communal stories must be rooted in and inflated with meaning from the larger narrative revealed in Scripture. As NT Wright has pointed out, many Christians can easily check off their list of doctrines, but incorrectly connect these doctrines into any resemblance of the biblical narrative.

A second strength is Cormode’s insistence that leaders must learn to work in all three frames of leadership simultaneously. Leadership challenges are complex and cannot be addressed by simplistic methods.

However, Cormode’s paper has some weaknesses. I’ll mention three. First, the Gardener’s style of meaning-making can easily turn into manipulation or worse. Stories are powerful. And such power can be used for good or evil. The Gardener must be especially guarded against modernity’s temptation to use stories to promote one’s agenda and power-base and postmodernity’s temptation to deconstruct all stories, and therefore self, into a morass of conflicting forces and impulses. The Gardener must help people construct meaning around Reality. In this light, the Gardener must always be wary of his or her use of such power and must constantly submit himself or herself and the community to God’s larger, grander narrative.

Second, in comparing the three styles, Cormode likens the Builder to Nehemiah and Jethro, the Shepherd to Jesus, and the Gardner to Nathan the prophet. Is Cormode saying that Jesus’ leadership is therefore secondary to the Gardener’s style? First, it could be argued that if Jesus’ style was the Shepherd’s style, it was necessary for his specific historical context. However, I think Cormode misinterprets Jesus’ style altogether. As NT Wright has pointed out, especially in The Challenge of Jesus, Jesus was engaged in retelling God’s and Israel’s story. He was subverting Israel’s long-held and cherished symbols with renewed symbols of his own. He was also climaxing God’s Story, but in a fresh, innovative and completely unexpected way. In fact, I think I could confidently argue that Jesus engaged in the multi-layered leadership that Cormode recommends in his paper’s conclusion.

Third, Cormode’s ideas on leadership doesn’t adequately address Jesus’ redefinition of political power in Mark 10:41-45. Leadership is primarily not about influence or mobilizing people to do something. It is about sacrificially serving others, becoming a slave of all. Cormode’s recommendation of a multi-layered leadership can help Christian leaders become this kind of servant and contribute to Jesus’ redefinition of power. However, it’s my opinion that he doesn’t devote enough space, if any, to this issue in his paper.

My oldest son, Michael, turned 15 today. I’m so proud of him. He’s a great kid young man. We’ve had a busy day of bowling, laser tag, lunch, tennis and movie. I think it was a great way to celebrate a major milestone.

When life becomes crazy and whizzes by at a frantic pace, I need to remind myself about who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing. The introduction to Dallas Willard’s The Great Omission provided the reminder I needed. Here’s a lengthy quote:

“It is a tragic error to think that Jesus was telling us, as he left, to start churches, as that is understood today. From time to time starting a church may be appropriate. But his aim for us is much greater than that. He wants us to establish ‘beachheads’ or bases of operation for the Kingdom of God wherever we are. In this way God’s promise to Abraham — that in him and in his seed all peoples of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3) — is carried forward toward its realization. The outward effect of this life in Christ is perpetual moral revolution, until the purpose of humanity on earth is completed…

“As disciples of Jesus, we today are a part of God’s world project. But realization of that project, it must never be forgotten, is the effect, not the life itself. The mission naturally flows from the life. It is not an afterthought, or something we might overlook or omit as we live the life. The eternal life, from which profound and glorious effects flow, is interactive relationship with God and with his special Son, Jesus, within the abiding ambience of the Holy Spirit. Eternal life is the Kingdom Walk, where, in seamless unity, we ‘Do justice, love kindness, and walk carefully with our God’ (Micah 6:8). We learn to walk this way through apprenticeship to Jesus. His school is always in session.

“We need to emphasize that the Great Omission from the Great Commission is not obedience to Christ, but discipleship, apprenticeship, to him. Through discipleship, obedience will take care of itself, and we will also escape the snares of judgmentalism and legalism, whether directed toward ourselves or toward others.”

Wow! There is a lot of good refocusing material in those paragraphs. Mission is not an afterthought, but neither is it the aim. Mission is the natural flow from the eternal life within a person. As I have written about in previous posts, Christlikeness is the core of God’s life and mission for his people. Christlikeness is God’s New Creation in human form. And our implementation of God’s mission will not occur unless we are filled with and are living God’s life. We must remember that we are sent as Christ was sent — embodying and living God’s life, kingdom and justice.

Many times, discussions of justice and mission seem like “projects of niceness” that can be performed by just about anyone. And generally speaking, sometimes justice does simply start with kindness and compassion. But the kind of restorative, reconciling justice that God’s mission in the world creates requires the energy of God’s eternal life — that interactive relationship with God and Jesus within the abiding presence of the Spirit — and the likeness of Christ that life produces. God’s life produces embodied Christlikeness from which flow mission and justice.

I absolutely love “The Prayer Appointed for the Week” in the Divine Hours for this week:

“Grant that I, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear my cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ my Lord.”

For me, this sums up the journey of Lent — to bask in the light of Jesus’ countenance, to carry the load of the cross into the world, and to be changed increasingly into Jesus’ likeness.

This is one prayer that I’m going to incorporate into my daily rhythm for Lent.

There’s a lot of great posting in blogdom regarding Lent. I’m still an amateur of all things liturgical, so I don’t have any delusions of grandeur about my contributions to this topic. But I’ll give it a shot…

As I’ve been reflecting on Lent this season, the thought that continues to reappear in my thinking is “Lent is about love.” It can become easy to hyper-focus on the disciplines and practices of Lent and miss the forest because of the trees.

During Lent we fast. By the way, I hate the term, “giving something up for Lent” like “I’m giving up chocolate for Lent, ” or “I’m giving up TV for Lent.” We are not “giving things up.” Rather, we are fasting. We are reconfirming our dependence on God and rediscovering him as our source of sustenance. So by fasting, we are feasting on the presence of Christ. And by doing this, as we are reminded in Isaiah 58, we are drawn into God’s heart of justice and reconciliation for the world. In fasting, we learn to love.

During Lent we repent. As we reflect on the state of our inner lives, we come face to face with the darkness that lurks in the shadowy crevices of our lives. The rationalizations. The addictions. The denial. The prejudices. This evil is confronted with the way, truth and life that is Jesus. We are invited to weigh our current state with a life in Christ, then to turn away from our self-destruction and receive forgiveness and to learn a new way. Jesus taught that there is a direct correlation to forgiveness and love. The one who has been forgiven much, loves much. The one who has been forgiven little, loves little. As we journey inward, we expose the evil within and experience God’s forgiveness, which in turn, empowers us to love. In forgiveness, we learn to love.

During Lent we pray. We stand in the place of the world’s hurt and pain, groaning with the world for God’s renewal and justice. In prayer, we are the place where heaven and earth overlap, where earth receives heaven’s comforting kiss. In prayer, we learn to love.

During Lent we give and serve. We are reminded again that we are conduits of God’s love and grace through our time, our resources, our hands, our mouths, our lives. In giving and serving, we learn to love.

During Lent we slow down. We refocus and rediscover a refreshing rhythm of life that allows us to reflect, pray, serve and simply be. We make room for God and people. We learn to live in the moment. We learn to see, to listen, to think, and to feel. In slowing down, we learn to love.

Lent is truly about love.

Several weeks ago, Debbie and I had a conversation about the role and function of a pastor. This began a time of revisiting the concept of pastor. Since then, my weekly meetings with Maria for her field education and a recent conversation with a friend have kept this issue in the front of my mind.

There are so many working models of pastoring. And it’s not my goal to critique them. I simply want to jot down my thoughts on the subject.

Several years ago, I was deeply impacted by John Frye’s book, Jesus the Pastor. I read it during a period of significant deconstruction in my life and ministry and it envisioned me with a fresh way of understanding my calling. Let me share a couple of choice quotes:

“Simply put, pastoring is bringing God to people. A pastor is one who brings God to people by imparting the Word of God (formally and informally) out of the reality of his or her life, which is undergoing authentic and continuous Christlike transformation. Just as in Jesus, the Word must become flesh in the pastor so that the transmission of truth is both exegetically sound and experientially real” (48-49)

“Pastoring is moving out from behind the pulpit into the lives of harassed and helpless people, bringing God to them in the ordinary time and space particulars of their lives… The pastor, having described the map of the soul in preaching, now serves as an ‘up close and personal spiritual guide into that vast inner terrain'” (91)

So here is my working definition of pastoring:

A pastor is one who is with people in order to 1) embody Christ’s life and presence to people, 2) envision people’s imaginations with God’s Story and life in God’s kingdom, and 3) equip people by training them in a way of life in Christ for spiritual formation, community and missional living.

I know there’s more to be said and that each section of the definition can and should be developed further. But at its core, pastoring is about relationships — relationships for embodying Christ, relationships for envisioning imaginations, and relationships for equipping for life in Christ.

This morning, as I prayed through the Divine Hours, I was struck by my internal tension between the morning reading and the morning refrain. The reading was from John 12:23-24:

“Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.'”

This is an important aspect of Jesus’ ministry and of kingdom living — dying in order to produce a greater harvest.

Yet the morning refrain from Psalm 55:22 says:

“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous stumble.”

As I prayed through these Scriptures, I realized how much I’ve viewed my current circumstances as having stumbled. During the last few years, it has been easy for me to look at my circumstances and then read a passage like Psalm 55:22 and say cynically in my heart, “Oh reeeaaaalllllly?”

Deep within, I have interpreted my painful circumstances as God letting me stumble. And since he doesn’t make mistakes, then perhaps I wasn’t righteous in some way. Perhaps this was a result of something I did or had become. Perhaps unbeknownst to me, some kind of failure had caused me to topple out of my life’s calling and passion, leaving me and my family to struggle with so much doubt and uncertainty.

And so I have been wrestling constantly with a vague sense of failure for the last four years. Through it, my consolation has been in the fact that God was using this time to teach me to be a better person and to learn new things. I was encouraged by the fact that at least God could use my stumbling for something good.

But this morning a thin veil was peeled back and a little more light was let in upon my thinking. The last four years have been a time of dying, not stumbling. It has been a time of letting go of false identity, pride, ambitions, dreams, woundedness, false theology and practices, and personal security so that God could take the seed of my life and hopefully produce many more. Seeds in my wife, my children, my friends, and maybe even you.

I realized this morning that who I’m becoming, who I’ve befriended and what I’ve been doing in God’s kingdom wouldn’t have been possible without the kind of dying Jesus alludes to in John 12. And through the pain in this process, God has been faithful. He has sustained me. He has not let me stumble.

So, I’m not stumbling. I’m learning to walk in a new way. I didn’t stumble on the path I was walking. Rather, God has been teaching me to die to the path itself in order to teach me a new path entirely. And with that realization, the cloud of failure is evaporating.

Lent is quickly approaching. If you’re looking for a nice online resource, check out Journey to the Cross. I used this site last year. Its reflections, prayers and music create a wonderful daily experience as you journey through Lent.

Lisa Samson posted this video. It’s about a pastor in Rwanda trying to be Jesus to the many people infected with and dying of AIDS. Lisa asked everyone to watch it, to think about it, to pray about it. It is a moving video and it challenges me to my core. Frankly, I don’t know how God is asking me to respond, but I know he is.

This morning’s reading was from Luke 2:36-38. A phrase that leapt from the text was a description of Anna’s service to God, “She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.”

Luke uses “latreuo,” a Greek word meaning to carry out religious services. The part that captured my imagination was the accompanying phrase, “fasting and praying.” I’m not sure whether Anna’s ministry was fasting and praying or if it was saturated with fasting and praying. But the point is clear, fasting and praying were crucial.

In Romans 12:1, Paul chooses a similar word, “latreia,” to describe our present service to God. Offering our bodies as a living sacrifice is the logical response of gratitude, loyalty and worship to everything Paul has discussed in Romans so far.

And I wonder, should our “latreia” be similar to Anna’s “latreuo?” Should our worship be first and foremost fasting and prayer? Earlier in Romans 8:22-27, Paul discusses our primary role as we live in the overlap of God’s present creation and the birthing of God’s renewed creation. It is prayer. It is groaning with inarticulate words that harmonize with the Spirit’s groaning for God’s new world.

In a world with so many overwhelming problems and filled with images and stories of injustice, pain and despair, prayer and fasting seem counter-intuitive, almost impotent. People are dying and we’re supposed to pray?

But perhaps that question exposes an incorrect perception of reality. If Jesus is truly King and Lord of creation, if he truly has been given all authority in heaven and earth, if he truly sits above every rule, authority, power, dominion and title that can ever be given, then wouldn’t prayer and fasting be the primary and powerful place of our service to God.

Yes, more is needed and God directs his people to step out and be the proper caretakers of his world. And yes, it will involve our whole lives. But that work cannot replace prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting are not the preliminaries before the “real work” begins. Prayer and fasting are the real work, for there we learn to embody and reflect God’s image into our world. Then our other care-taking activities can be fueled, focused, and filled with the necessary character and compassion to join with the Spirit’s project of renewal.

I believe Anna had it correct. Fasting and prayer are the real service, the proper service, the logical expression to the fact that through Jesus, God is faithful to his covenant with Israel and therefore, faithful through that covenant to the world. May we learn to join the world in its pain and join the Spirit in his longing to make all things new.

Here’s a great New Creation quote that I heard this morning in a lecture by N.T. Wright:

“There is no square inch of the cosmos, no split second of created time, which is not desired by God, claimed by God and will one day be filled by God. And God’s creation, therefore, of us in the present — the worldwide family of those who believe the gospel — is the firstfruit and sign of that future.”

This is a great reminder of our future — that what God did for Jesus at his resurrection, God will do for the entire creation. And we will be given renewed, transformed physical bodies to share in that future. Such a future dazzles my imagination. It produces such hope, such motivation, such breath-taking excitement!

And the fact that if anyone is in Christ in the present, that new creation has burst into the present creation and swept that person up into a reality and a responsibility that is awesome. It is more than we are a new creation. It is even more than we embody the new creation in human form. It is that God’s new creation surprises us, bursts upon us, and sweeps us up into God’s life and God’s story. It’s about God and his faithfulness to his creation and his faithfulness to his covenant with Israel.

It’s God who fills not only our future with incredible hope, purpose and expectation, but also our present.

In light of this morning’s post about a scene from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the latest post by Real Live Preacher cracked me up.

This morning’s reading was from Luke 2:22-35. It’s about Simeon, a faithful and Spirit-filled man, who has spent his entire life longing for God’s Messiah. This portion of Scripture is all we know about Simeon. Everyday he held onto God’s promise, not just the covenantal promise of the Messiah, but also the personal promise that he would not die before seeing the Christ. As far as we know, his life was consumed with waiting, watching and anticipating the Messiah. And God blessed his life with his Spirit’s presence.

Then came that fateful day. Simeon is moved by the Spirit to go to the temple courts the same moment that Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to be consecrated. (That fact alone is worth some serious contemplation.)

Can you imagine that moment? Can you imagine the emotions that flood Simeon? An entire lifetime climaxing in that moment when he held the infant. Promises of the past, hopes for the future, faithfulness in the present converging in a moment. That always seems to happen to those around Jesus.

The image at the side was done by Ron DiCianni and is called Simeon’s Moment. It’s one of my favorite portraits. A faithful, old man holding the hope of Israel and the world in his arms and experiencing God’s covenantal and personal faithfulness. I love how DiCianni captures the personal emotions on Simeon’s face while simultaneously unfold the moment’s fuller meaning with the map of the world.

Like my previous post about Sam and Frodo, Luke the Gospel writer and Ron DiCianni retell an age-old story that sweeps me away into something epic.

I just started reading Rick Richardson’s book, Reimagining Evangelism. I’m only in the opening chapter, but I like the direction he’s going and I’m looking forward to working my way through the book.

In the opening chapter, he discusses scenes from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy that give insight into personal evangelism. One scene that he uses from The Two Towers is probably the most moving and encouraging scene from all three movies. I can’t watch it without tears welling up. Richardson has done a great job capturing the scene and dialogue, so I’ll just let him tell it:

“Sam has just saved Frodo from being carried away by an enemy and has pulled Frodo back from the brink of being swallowed up by his addiction to the Ring of Power. And Frodo resents it, is furious. The Ring has gained increasing power over Frodo’s will. He is at a very dark moment in his spiritual journey, and he does something that is terrible. Drawing a knife on his most faithful friend, he comes close to stabbing him for his interference. If you have ever confronted a friend or family member who is being swallowed up by an addiction, you will have some idea of the scene.

Sam, this little hobbit, very simple and down to earth and not often good with words, shines very brightly at this moment in the art of spiritual guidance.

SAM: It’s me. It’s your Sam. Don’t you know your Sam?

[Frodo puts the knife away and falls back.]

FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.

SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights, we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really matter. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was because so much bad happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing. This shadow, even darkness, must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.

FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?

[Sam takes Frodo, helps him to his feet, looks into his eyes and speaks with quiet conviction.]

SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

Dang! I’m tearing up again. I love this scene! When I’m tired, depressed, frustrated or frightened, it helps me recover my place in the story. It reminds me that my life is about something bigger, something grander than myself. I belong to Christ. I’m being renewed back into his image so that I can adequately shoulder my responsibility on this planet as one of God’s image-bearers. And somehow through my small life, I can bring about some good that will contribute to God rebuilding his world.

Jamie Arpin-Ricci has posted a very honest, personal, and vulnerable post on homosexuality. I can boldly say that if you’re going to read any blog today, please read his post. I admire his transparency and courage as he shares his secret. And I admire the many gracious comments in his post.

For a long time now, I have believed that the discussion on this topic has been way too simplistic. I hope what Jamie has shared will contribute to a healthier and more compassionate dialogue between everyone.

I watched the sunrise this morning. It was gorgeous — the sun’s light reflecting off of the clouds in various hues, birds soaring in the air, trees swaying in the gentle breeze, a warm cup of coffee in my hands. It was one of those moments when heaven and earth seemed to overlap and the thin veil between the two dimensions of God’s creation grew transparent.

What astounded me in that moment is that even in its broken state — marred with the ugliness of sin and groaning for its liberation — this creation is filled with such grandeur and beauty. And I was honored to see it, if only for a moment.

It made me think that one day, I will stand, together with my wife, children, friends and the rest of God’s family in God’s renewed world. And with our own renewed eyes, we will gaze upon a freshly restored world where heaven and earth will be completely married and one with each other and flooded with the grandeur of God. And with renewed bodies and minds, we will take on new endeavors that will fully reflect God into this world.

This made me think about a line from 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” On that day, we will see and know fully as we are fully known. We will gaze upon the new heavens and the new earth and know God fully, know each other fully, know creation fully, and even know ourselves fully. And that mode of knowing will be love.

I shall know fully even as I am fully known. How am I known? I am known by the God who is love. And even though I understand those words, I can barely fathom their meaning. The only thing I can relate it to is that moment that virtually every parent has experienced. It’s the moment when you go to check on your sleeping child. There he lays in his bed. And in that moment, no matter what has happened earlier, everything is flushed away by deep and tender love. As you gaze upon your sleeping child, the memories of the past and the dreams of the future converge with the present. You transcend something and somehow you love and know that child more fully than before. Then the mists return and the world becomes hazy again. But you are left with the distinct sense that you have touched and been touched by something deep, rich and mysterious, both otherworldly and still of this world.

Perhaps, in that moment you have tapped ever so slightly into how God knows us and all he has created. It is a knowing that is fully love and a love that fully knows. And one day, we too will know and love fully. And this world will breathe a cosmic sigh of relief knowing it is once again in safe hands.

——————————-

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I read a heartbreaking statistic via Jordon Cooper posted by The Homeless Guy:

In January 2005, 1 out of every 400 Americans is homeless.

I read an article yesterday written by a proponent of the house church movement and it stirred some thoughts I wanted to express. But first I need to clarify, that although my following comments may seem critical of the house church movement, they are not. I currently participate in a house church and find great value and validity for this form of “being the church.” Many of the critiques made by proponents of the house church about the institutional forms of church are valid and need to be addressed. I have experienced them firsthand and bear some scars from those experiences.

What I want to deal with, though, are some underlying assumptions of the what I read in the article and observe in many counter-movements like the house church movement and even in some quarters of the emerging church conversation.

1. There is an over-idealized view of the first-century church. In the article I read, there seems to be the assumption that if we can just get back to the way it was in the first-century, then a lot of our problems can be easily addressed. But when I read the New Testament and some of the original church fathers, the first-century communities seem to face similar problems that we face today — sexual brokenness, racism, greed, pride, lying, gossip, heretical theology, etc.

2. There is a low view of church history. Intimately connected with a hyper-idealized view of the first-century experience is a very low view of church history. I know this is oversimplified, but many modern critiques seem to imply that life in the first-century Christian community was wonderful and that almost immediately following the writing of the New Testament, the Church began a downward plummet. Invariably, the modern church’s problems are traced back to Constantine. To me this implies a couple of things. First, Christ wasn’t acting as the head of his body during large portions of the Church’s history since he obviously didn’t prevent his people from messing things up. Second, it ignores the majority of faithful Christ-followers who lived for Jesus and his mission in the daily details of life throughout the Church’s history.

3. There is a low view of the Bible mistaken as a high regard for the Bible. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to this one since this is how I used to study and teach the Bible. When you approach the Bible as a receptacle of “timeless truths” that are to be extracted and applied, you actually undermine its richness and authority. That’s because you end up treating the Bible in a way it was never meant to be treated. The Bible is a grand narrative, not a rule book, an instruction manual or a systematic theology textbook. It is a Story. And we don’t live in the Old Testament parts of the Story. Jesus climaxed and redefined that portion of the Story in a fresh and unique way. And we are living two thousand years beyond where the New Testament portion of the Story ends. So implementing the renewed creation that Jesus inaugurated must be fresh and relevant for our time, our neighborhood, and our culture.

We’re like the trapeze artist who has launched from the trapeze of the written portion of the New Testament and straining for the trapeze of the renewed creation. Carried by the forward momentum of the first trapeze, we’re suspended in the air looking forward, anticipating and moving closer to second trapeze.

Attempting to extract “timeless truths” and blindly adhering to them is a recipe for disaster. It would be like suddenly turning around in mid-air, trying to grab the first trapeze that is swinging away from us only to miss the second trapeze swinging toward us. Likewise, attempting to go back to the first-century house church or to apply first-century principles may not be the best approach in our 21st century world.

The goal contained in the New Testament portion of the Story that catapults Jesus’ followers into the future is to create apprentices of Jesus (again, the climax of all that came before in the Old Testament) through whom God’s loving, caring, transforming re-creating rule is expressed into the world so that God’s creation is finally renewed through his renewed stewards. In the first-century, Paul chose a model that worked to accomplish this greater goal of forming Christ’s apprentices. In the following centuries, others explored different models with varying levels of success. In the 21st century, we must listen and learn from Jesus’ siblings throughout the Church’s history and then improvise not with “timeless truths” but with “timely wisdom” that has been saturated and fully shaped by God’s Story.

I am not saying there are no truths. But those truths are part of the Story, not above the Story. The Story is true. The characters and movements and twists and turns are true. And we apply the truths of the Story by ourselves being immersed and shaped by the Story, fully able to improvise and act out the continuing truth of the Story as empowered by God’s Spirit in our world.

Last night, our community discussed chapter 2 in McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus. It is challenging to apply Jesus’ way in the public sphere. For so long, we have interpreted Jesus’ words, such as turning the other cheek, as applying only to one’s public life. And even in that case, it’s usually understood as passive “doormat” approach to evil.

Barbara voiced a valid issue: How do we apply turning the other cheek in a situation such as 9/11? Is turning the other cheek simply a passive response? Or is it a transcendent countermove, a third option between passive non-activity and violent retaliation?

This is something I need to explore some more, but I’ve heard that in Jewish culture, turning the other cheek was a much more subversive move than simply offering yourself for further abuse. Here’s what I’ve heard: When a right-handed person slapped someone’s right cheek, it was a slap by the back of the hand. This demonstrated that the “slapper” was above and better than the “slappee.” In other words, it was a insulting and shameful insult. It was putting the “slappee” in his humiliating place. But when the “slappee” offered his other cheek, it forced the “slapper” to slap with his open palm. This was reserved for striking an equal. If this is the case, then turning the other cheek forced the “slapper” to admit that the “slappee” was an equal, overturning the cultural social categories that often bound people.

Quite frankly, I don’t know if this is true or not. There are so many “urban legends” circulating through Christian teaching disguised as “cultural context.” In addition, in Matthew 5:39, “turning the other cheek” is preceded by the general exhortation of “Do not resist an evil person,” which in my opinion is even more challenging than turning the other cheek.

But whether it is the case or not, it makes me wonder if our response to 9/11 specifically and terrorism generally is flawed. We seem so eager to retaliate with bombing and aggression and simply slap the label “justice” on it. But it’s not justice. Don’t misunderstand me. I think those responsible for such horrific acts like 9/11 and other atrocities throughout the world should be held responsible and brought to justice. But biblical justice, the justice God’s people are to be implementing as Jesus’ body, is transforming and restorative justice. And that cannot be accomplished through military means.

What would the mature response have been? I can only wonder. But perhaps an appropriate “turning the other cheek” would have began with asking why would certain groups want to do harm to the U.S. We have got to face the fact that the U.S. is not an innocent victim.

And maybe a better response would have been to pour billions of dollars into global projects rather than into our military machine. If we’re going to go into such debt, shouldn’t it be for the cause of goodness in the world rather than destruction?

And perhaps we should have put more effort into transforming our foreign policy so that our global neighbors realized that aggression toward the U.S. is misplaced. We must also realize that when our leaders use the rhetoric of “democracy and freedom” most non-U.S.ers hear “rampant consumerism, hyper-capitalism and greed.” Maybe more energy should have been put into becoming a force for real transformation among the poor nations. This may sound overly simplistic, but could you imagine what would have happened if our leaders had corporately repented to our global neighbors for our foreign policy and made authentic attempts at becoming a better, transforming global citizen?

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I may be naive. But as a pastor, if someone complained that Jesus’ ways don’t work in the world on a personal level, I would have told them that Jesus’ way is a way of life from God’s future. And by living his life in the here and now, we embed a new and better kind of life in our present world. Such a life on a personal level becomes a seed for transformation. Is it difficult? Sure. Will it cause trouble? Yeah. But it’s how we embody, demonstrate and announce God’s kingdom and character in our world; it’s how we help bring God’s kingdom from heaven to earth; it’s how we form the building blocks of God’s renewed world, a world that Jesus will finally build when he reappears.

So if that’s true on a personal level, wouldn’t it be true at a national level? And that’s one of the tasks of God’s people — to be the prophetic conscience of the nations we live in by embodying it first at the personal and corporate level and then speaking it forth in public all the way up to the national level.

There is evil in the world. Acts of violence such as terrorism are evil. But so is retaliatory violence. And when we use violence to fight violence, then no matter who wins, the final victory goes to violence. And responding in a peaceful “third way” won’t make evil simply disappear. Jesus’ “third way” resulted in his crucifixion. But God is faithful to his people, his world and his ongoing project of renewing everything. He takes such death all the way through the other side into the resurrected life of a brand new world and a brand new way of living. Our vision as God’s people has to be big enough to see that; our prophetic voice has to be loud enough to proclaim it; and our personal and corporate lives must be strong enough to embody it.

But again, to be frank, we can’t call our nations to turn the other cheek if we don’t know how to do it on the personal level. We can’t think through a “third way” at one level without first owning it at the daily personal level that Jesus invites us to follow him into. It has to start there.

Here’s what I do know: in order to deal with all of the ambiguities of our present world and conditions, we must constantly hold onto the vision of God’s future renewed world. And one passage that holds my attention is Revelation 21:3-5:

“No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

It’s a renewed world without the damaging, distorting, deconstructing curse, a renewed world where heaven and earth are finally and fully joined together and God rules and implements his good rule through his renewed human stewards.

The last few weeks have been fairly stressful for my family. And they have come to a head during the last couple of days. There’s nothing like a good stretch of stress to really reveal one’s inward state.

A couple of weeks ago I confided to Mark that since September I’ve been slacking off on my spiritual disciplines. When I was a swimmer a couple of decades ago, there were times when I would just slide through my daily workouts. I wouldn’t push myself. I would just get by, finding a comfortable compromise where I was going through the motions, but not really developing. That is what has been happening the last several months in my personal life. And I knew it would come around to bite me in the butt.

As the winter holidays passed, I sensed a need inside to move deeper into God’s grace through spiritual disciplines. So I’ve been attempting to reconstruct a personal schedule that would accommodate this. Yet despite my renewed efforts, these past few days have demonstrated the consequences of slacking off the last several months.

I was a mess yesterday. I was exhausted, frustrated, and frenzied. All I could think of was trying to get my plan accomplished. And because of that, I treated people selfishly and with little concern for their needs.

Earlier yesterday, Debbie told me that she had been reflecting on Psalm 23 that morning. I thought, “Great idea!” and planned on reflecting on that Psalm through the day. But the last several months had conditioned me in such a way that I was unable to. In just months, I had retrained my mind to NOT automatically reflect on Scripture.

So I went through the day worrying and fretting, filled with anxiety, frustration and anger. When things weren’t working out according to my plan and schedule, I treated people poorly. And when I actually accomplished some of my agenda, I was distressed to discover that I was filled with “peace” because I had gotten my way.

This morning, as I drove away from my house, the first lines of Psalm 23 flashed to mind. That’s when I realized I hadn’t thought about that passage at all yesterday. So I began reciting it:

“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.”

I hadn’t followed my shepherd. So when I needed it most, I was unable to lie down in green pastures or to walk beside quiet waters. My soul is a mess.

Part of the stress these past few days has been car trouble. The “Check Engine” light popped on the dashboard of my car, signaling something significant was wrong under the hood. And it ended up being very costly.

What an appropriate metaphor for what’s been happening to me. Anxiety. Anger. Selfishness. Wrongly placed peace. All of these are “Check Engine” lights demonstrating that there is something significantly wrong under my hood. These are “Check Soul” lights signifying that maintenance and repair are needed immediately.

Fortunately, my Shepherd is an expert at soul restoration… if I follow him. And although I am sorry at my current condition and the consequences it’s had on people around me, I’m glad the warning lights have come on. I don’t dread a costly repair bill. Rather, I sense the invitation to healing, restoration and growth in God’s abundant grace.

I just listened to a lecture that NT Wright gave at Calvin College on January 5, 2007 on his book, Simply Christian. It’s a good lecture. A quote from the lecture that really stood out is from the final section on what Christian apologetics must explore in our postmodern world. Wright states:

“The story which makes most sense in apologetics — in the communication, explanation and defense of the Christian gospel — is the story of communities and persons whose lives are transformed and transforming — transformed in themselves by the power of God through Christ in the Spirit and effecting transformation in the world around.”

This quote ties in deeply with a lecture I heard by Eugene Peterson entitled “Why Spiritual Formation is Not an Option.” In that lecture, Peterson talks about the absolute necessity of marrying the “truth” of Jesus with the “way” of Jesus in order to enter into and share the “life” of Jesus. Without the truth of Jesus lived in the way of Jesus, we become people who do the right thing in the wrong way and inadvertently do more harm than good to the gospel.

In this light, I hold the conviction that Christian apologetics in our postmodern context will have to move beyond the logical presentation of rational propositions and into the realm of incarnational living. Perhaps the real “evidence that demands a verdict” is our personal lives, our church lives and even the political involvement of Christians up to and beyond the national level. Do we really embody and live out what we say we believe at home, at work, in our neighborhood, in our finances, through our purchases, how we vote, how we worship, how we serve, what we drive, what we eat, etc.?

This subjective side of apologetics shouldn’t and can’t replace the objective side. But we have to take very seriously the fact that how we live or at least how we are trying to live speaks much louder than what we proclaim to believe.

This past week has been a nice ending to 2006. Our family enjoyed a simple Christmas with family and then headed to Escondido to house-sit for some friends of ours. In addition to watching their house, we also enjoyed taking care of their dog, Sushi, which our kids loved.

After a few days, we returned home on Debbie’s birthday to celebrate her turning 40 with our faith-community.

And now, here we are on the last day of 2006. It’s been a good year, filled with challenges, blessings and growth. Life with Debbie and my four children is awesome!

I have no idea what 2007 will bring, but I look forward to the continuing journey with my family and friends as we try to embody King Jesus in our world.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. May we all continue to grow as the Light of the World.

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know… his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 1:18-23

Okay, I know this isn’t a Christmas passage or an Advent passage. But I was reading this Scripture this morning and something hit me that I’ve never thought about. Paul is praying that Christians know the extent of God’s power that is available to us. That power is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him above everything.

Up to this moment, the “old tapes” have been rolling in my head and I have understood this reference to God’s power as simply raising Jesus physically from the dead and then taking him to heaven. But this is a reference to the New Creation. The resurrection of the dead was the inaugural event that launched God’s New Age. So Paul is actually referring to God’s power not simply raising a single man from the dead, but the power exerted to launch his future New Creation within the present and enthroning Jesus as King over every principality and power in heaven and earth. That “New Creation” power is “his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

How is that power for us? God’s power has inaugurated and planted God’s New Creation in our present. The center of that reality is Jesus’ enthronement in the heavenly realms. His enthronement is key, especially as it straddles both this age and the one to come. Jesus’ enthronement in the heavenly realms places him over everything for the church, which is his body on earth. In other words, God’s power for us enables God’s people to be the actual embodiment of Jesus’ Kingship on earth as it is in heaven. As we live empowered to be the fullness of King Jesus on earth, we are the continual influence of God’s New Creation within this creation; God’s New Age within this age; the heavenly King’s ambassadors in his outlying colonies on earth.

That’s why everything Paul has said previously in Ephesians 1 is so important. God has blessed his people in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. These blessings flow from the center of that reality in the heavenly realms — Christ’s enthronement — and enable us to be the human embodiment of the New Creation within the old. We are chosen before creation to be God’s holy and blameless stewards, adopted back into God’s family to be his sons/representatives/image-bearers. In order to do this, we have been redeemed and forgiven — rescued from our exile and back into our proper vocation. And he has revealed to us the ultimate context of that vocation, the New Creation in which all things in heaven and earth are brought together and resynchronized under Christ.

That’s why having believed the royal proclamation and good news of Jesus’ Kingship, we are marked with the creative and re-creative breath of God’s New Creation. This is God’s “deposit” guaranteeing our inheritance as stewards of that New Creation by both shaping us and the world around us into greater expressions of that New Creation.

So as we commemorate Jesus’ incarnation this Advent season, we are also challenged to continue his incarnation and to be his body, the corporate embodiment and earthly expression of his eternal kingship until the day he reappears and earth becomes heaven’s perfect mirror.

I was glancing at a Christian management (I do NOT like that phrase) magazine and a title on the cover caught my eye, “Doing God’s Work at 100 mph — On Empty.” Two thoughts immediately flashed in my mind. The first one was, “That’s just wrong!” Anyone trying to “do God’s work” at such high intensity with such drained resources is doing something wrong. I wish someone had the guts to call that kind of stuff what it really is — Sin!

The second thought was, “Okay, I want to see what they have to say.” Trying to give the author the benefit of the doubt, I decided to read the article to see if they discouraged the folly of such a lifestyle and helped managers reassess not only the practical “how,” but the deeper “why” that leads to such burnout.

Let me just say, I was terribly disappointed.

The article was a roundtable between three Christians who were “seasoned managers.” They shared “their very best practices, practical tips and timeless insights.” Here’s their “best” in a nutshell:

1. Get in balance by realizing that God has called us to use our giftedness to do the things he’s appointed us to do.

2. Practice the four D’s — Dump what you can, Delegate to other people, Defer what can wait, and Do what’s left.

3. Meet with a friend twice a month for fellowship and accountability.

4. Examine why we say “Yes” to certain activities and opportunities.

5. Engage in a creative hobby.

I have to be honest. I’m not very familiar with this magazine and the article was pretty short. But this was a “Christian Management” (did I mention how I don’t like that phrase?) magazine and I was hoping for more. Christians, who are managers by occupation, are to embody, demonstrate and announce God’s presence and power in their world as much as anyone else.

How is that possible if the best advice from Christians to other Christians in the management profession is to simply practice what can be found in pretty much any other management magazine? How are these Christians supposed to be different than their non-Christian counterparts?

There was no mention of spiritual formation, lifestyle changes, or spiritual exercises. The article simply assumed that busyness and depletion were the standard fare for the Christian manager. How sad.

Now compare that advice to what Jesus says in Matthew 11:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Now that’s good advice, the kind that will actually make a difference in the world!

Alan posted about this show, One Punk Under God. The first episode is currently free to download at the iTunes Store.

It’s a documentary about Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye as he attempts to plant an alternative church as well as come to grips with the legacy left him by his parents.

I think it’s a good pilot episode and I wish I had the Sundance Channel so I could watch how the story continues to unfold.

I’ve started working on a sermon for Advent, looking at Gabriel’s announcement to Mary and Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1. As I read and reread the story, I’m more aware of how the “first Christmas” was a revolutionary proclamation. Jesus was to be the reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty promised by God in 2 Samuel 7.

Mary, a young woman around 13 to 16 years old, understood what this meant. And it seems her young life was spent in pious preparation for Yahweh’s return. Her psalm of revolution was an “in your face” confrontation with Herod:

“[Yahweh] has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever,

even as he said to our fathers.”

Because she trusted in the covenantal faithfulness of Yahweh and was strengthened by Elizabeth in a “community of miraculous conceptions,” Mary believed the angel. She had confidence that her son would be the new king in Jerusalem, dethroning Herod and ultimately Rome and establishing Yahweh’s restorative justice in Israel and the world.

Oppressive rulers would be toppled from their thrones. Those who enjoyed wealth at the expense of the poor would be driven away empty. And the poor, the hungry, and the oppressed would finally have their day.

Mary didn’t understand how her son would bring this about. She had no way of anticipating how he would fulfill these dreams in completely unexpected ways. And she never could have imagined that Jesus would be enthroned in Jerusalem, but that his throne would be a Roman cross outside the city walls.

As I read yesterday’s gospel reading from Luke 3, I was amazed at how Luke is telling his story. I used to think his references to Roman leaders was simply a technique of anchoring his gospel historically. But in light of Mary’s Magnificat, I also think Luke is giving us a who’s who of those in line for dethronement as Jesus begins his ministry — Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod and his brother, Philip, Lysanias, and the Jewish high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.

In other words, as Jesus moves forward toward his enthronement and the fulfillment of Israel’s (and his mother’s) dream of Yahweh’s justice rolling down like a mighty river on behalf of the poor and oppressed, those who will yield to his kingship will be from the highest ranks of Roman leadership AND Jewish spirituality. All powers and authorities are being called to the carpet and must ultimately yield to King Jesus. No one is innocent and no one is exempt. Evil and injustice isn’t an “us versus them” issue. It cuts a path through every person, every government, every institution, and even every church.

So as we sing songs this Advent season like “Joy to the World, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King,” we must also be aware that our names, our governments, our institutions, our churches, our beloved ideologies and philosophies are on the list for dethronement in order to make way for King Jesus.

And trust me. This really is Good News.

This morning, the first Sunday of Advent, I’m reminded that the Advent season is preparing to celebrate Christ’s Incarnation by anticipating his future Appearing as Judge, bringing God’s restorative justice to the world.

While not speaking on the Advent season specifically, NT Wright, in Evil and the Justice of God, speaks about the individual’s Christian’s role of bringing God’s future New Creation into the present through the demanding task of “forgiving one another.” His words, linked with the poem, “Go,” that I posted about yesterday, form some great reflective material for the Advent season:

“The command to forgive one another, then, is the command to bring into the present what we are promised for the future, namely the fact that in God’s new world all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. It will still be possible for people to refuse forgiveness — both to give it and receive it — but they will no longer have the right or the opportunity thereby to hold God and God’s future world to ransom, to make the moral universe rotate around the fulcrum of their own sulk. And, as with all attempts to bring elements of God’s future world into the present one, the only way is through the appropriate spiritual disciplines. It doesn’t ‘just happen.’ None of us does it, as we say, ‘by nature.’ We need to learn how to do it; and it’s all the more difficult because the church has not been teaching us this lesson. This is where we need to understand, better than we usually have, the biblical account of inaugurated eschatology, of living in the present in the light of the future. Understanding this is difficult to begin with, but it gets easier as you try. Living by it likewise requires hard work: prayer, thought, moral attention to your own state of mind and heart, and moral effort to think and behave in certain ways when ‘what would come naturally’ would be something very different.”

Lord, as we go into your world, participating in your mission of restoration and reconciliation, may we incarnate your forgiveness and in small, but significant ways, usher in your New Creation.

This morning, the first Sunday of Advent, I’m reminded that the Advent season is preparing to celebrate Christ’s Incarnation by anticipating his future Appearing as Judge, bringing God’s restorative justice to the world.

While not speaking on the Advent season specifically, NT Wright, in Evil and the Justice of God, speaks about the individual’s Christian’s role of bringing God’s future New Creation into the present through the demanding task of “forgiving one another.” His words, linked with the poem, “Go,” that I posted about yesterday, form some great reflective material for the Advent season:

“The command to forgive one another, then, is the command to bring into the present what we are promised for the future, namely the fact that in God’s new world all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. It will still be possible for people to refuse forgiveness — both to give it and receive it — but they will no longer have the right or the opportunity thereby to hold God and God’s future world to ransom, to make the moral universe rotate around the fulcrum of their own sulk. And, as with all attempts to bring elements of God’s future world into the present one, the only way is through the appropriate spiritual disciplines. It doesn’t ‘just happen.’ None of us does it, as we say, ‘by nature.’ We need to learn how to do it; and it’s all the more difficult because the church has not been teaching us this lesson. This is where we need to understand, better than we usually have, the biblical account of inaugurated eschatology, of living in the present in the light of the future. Understanding this is difficult to begin with, but it gets easier as you try. Living by it likewise requires hard work: prayer, thought, moral attention to your own state of mind and heart, and moral effort to think and behave in certain ways when ‘what would come naturally’ would be something very different.”

Lord, as we go into your world, participating in your mission of restoration and reconciliation, may we incarnate your forgiveness and in small, but significant ways, usher in your New Creation.

I found this wonderful poem on the Hopeful Imagination blog. It’s a great reflection for the Advent season.

Go

Go out into the world

Go speak truthfully

Go live peacefully

Go walk faithfully

Go give generously

Go share outrageously

Go listen carefully

Go welcome everybody

Go laugh loudly

Go shout passionately

Go pray fervently

Go eat healthily

Go read widely

Go grow deeply

Go forgive wholeheartedly

Go love openly

Go follow humbly

Go show kindness

Go seek wisdom

Go act justly

Go buy fairly

In Evil and the Justice of God, NT Wright states:

“This, by the way, is why genuine Christian theology is itself a redemptive activity. The effort to understand and articulate the way in which the Creator is gloriously right both to have made the world in the first place and to have redeemed it in just this way is itself part of the stewardly vocation of genuine human existence, bringing God’s order into the minds and hearts of others and thereby enabling people both to worship the true God and to serve his continuing purposes.”

Recently, I’ve been thinking about theology more as art than as science, despite the “-ology” at the end of the word. Art is creative. It expresses its creator and invites people to participate by viewing and reflection. In this light, art becomes a communal activity. We observe this in popular forms like movies. Someone at a party may ask, “Have you seen this movie?” and the reply may be, “Oh my gosh, yes! What a great movie!” And a kind of community is formed for that moment. Even if the people involved in the conversation have very different views of the movie, a form of community is formed through the discussion.

Genuine theology has a similar function. And it’s not just the specialized function of those in certain Christian roles. Like art, everyone can participate in some form. Everyone engages in theology — thinking and reflecting about God, his person and his work. And every Christian, redeemed and welcomed into Jesus’ family, should be engaging in Christian theology. As Wright says, it’s part of being an image-bearing steward over creation; it’s part of being genuinely human; it’s part of bringing God’s order into creation by helping others reshape and reimagine Godward reflection and worship properly in their minds and hearts.

This is one of the primary reasons why I love our Thursday night meetings in our faith-community. Everyone takes turns sharing the responsibility of facilitating discussion. And while some do it with “fear and trembling,” it is always a wonderful exercise for the group. We may not always articulate our thoughts clearly. We may not always understand one another. We may not always agree with one another. Yet, virtually every Thursday I leave with some sort of fresh perspective, an ember of Christian reflection stoked into greater heat and brightness by someone else’s contribution. By doing theology together, I think we are doing the tough, but essential work of spurring one another on toward greater love.

I’m almost finished with NT Wright’s newest book, Evil and the Justice of God. It is a great, but frustratingly brief start at addressing the age-old question of the problem of evil. Wright does a wonderful job of using the overarching narrative from Genesis to Revelation to demonstrate how God’s justice has been at work in his world from the very beginning until God finally does for the entire cosmos what he did to Jesus at Easter.Wright emerges from this narrative exhorting Christians to embrace the double task of “implementing the achievement of the cross and anticipating God’s promised future world.” He briefly sketches five tasks that allow Christians to engage in this work within our wider world:1. Prayer2. Holiness3. Politics and empire4. Penal codes5. International disputesI have heard Wright lecture on these areas before, so I was disappointed that only a couple of paragraphs were devoted to each issue. I hope this book is a foretaste of a larger volume that will address these and other issues in greater depth.There were a number of great quotes in this book. A lengthy one that has my mind thinking deals with the Christian’s imagination:“There is such a thing as evil, and it is to be addressed and defeated not by ignoring it on the one hand or by blasting away at it with heavy artillery on the other — even with all the smart bombs currently available, still when the shooting starts hundreds of thousands of civilians get killed — but by addressing it with the message and the methods of the cross.“In order to come anywhere near these goals, we need, as I have said all along, to learn to imagine a world without evil and then to think through the steps by which we might approach that goal, recognizing that we shall never attain it fully during the present age but that we must not, for that reason, acquiesce meekly in the present state of the present world. Once again Romans 12:1-2 comes to mind.“But the Christian imagination — shrunken and starved through the long winter of secularism — needs to be awakened, enlivened and pointed in the right direction. Each of these is important. Christians need to sense permission, from God and from one another, to exercise their imaginations in thinking ahead into God’s new world and into such fresh forms of worship and service as will model and embody aspects of it. We need to have this imagination energized, fed and nourished, so that it is lively and inventive, not sluggishly going around the small circles of a few ideas learned long ago. And the Christian imagination must be disciplined, focused and directed, as with conscience itself, so that it doesn’t simply rush madly about in all directions.”In short, I think as Wright addresses the issues of evil and implementing God’s justice in the world, he has given the contemporary church a new global vision for mission — mission that involves, but also looks beyond evangelizing people in one’s family and neighborhood or engaging in cross-cultural mission trips. The missio dei is nothing less than God saving, transforming and making right his entire creation, beginning with and then working through creation’s stewards.

For those of you who have been following the drama of the past couple of weeks, Buttercup, our pet hamster died. We’ve been holding off buying a new hamster, waiting to find one that would fit our family.We learned that our friend, Jacey, was looking for a family to adopt her hamster, Sam (pictured above). Jacey is a teacher and Sam was her class’ hamster. However, due to one of her student’s allergies, Jacey had to remove Sam from her classroom. She decided it was best if Sam was adopted by a family with kids rather than sit alone at her home. Sam is used to being handled by children, so he fits our family perfectly. We picked up Sam this evening.My kids loved Buttercup deeply. So Sam has some huge paws to fill. But considering how he took to my kids and how my kids took to him, I think he will do just fine.Welcome to the family, Sam!

NT Wright gave the William Belden Nobel Lectures at the Memorial Church of Harvard this past October. The lectures are now available on the Memorial Church’s website. I’ve been looking forward to these lectures since I learned he was scheduled to give them:

“God the Creator: The Gospel in a Gnostic World”

“Jesus the Lord: The Gospel and the New Imperialism”

“Spirit of Truth: The Gospel in a Postmodern World”

I started listening to them today and I’m enjoying them so far.

Also, NT Wright launched his series with a sermon at the Memorial Church called, “Apocalyptic and the Beauty of God.”

And, NT Wright also spoke and performed at Empire Remixed. The audio can be found HERE or HERE.

I just got word that my friend, Steve, successfully defended his doctoral project and will graduate in December. So….

Congratulations, Dr. Steve Summerell! Wooohooo!!!