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Some of my missionary friends, for whom I work for at Asian Access, have put together a cute video called, “The Incarnationals.” It demonstrates that a missional life is really about living an incarnational life.

You can watch it here.

Or you can subscribe to their podcast, which is called “Japan Stories,” at the iTunes Store here.

Today my oldest turns 14! I’m so happy for him. He’s quickly leaving childhood and moving into adolescence. And I like who he’s growing into. He’s one of the most compassionate and kindest kids I know. I love you, Michael! Happy 14th Birthday!

Many of you might know that I’m a Mac-lover. I work in a PC world, but I love my 17-inch Powerbook in all of its OS X goodness.

Some of you may also know that last week, a couple of really smart computer people in California were able to boot Windows XP on one of the new iMacs with the Intel processor (and win $12,000 for their achievement). You can view the video here.

Well, Joy of Tech has a funny cartoon about this entire episode. Check it out here.

During Lent this year, I’ve been memorizing and reflecting on Isaiah 58. I have to confess that fasting is one of my weakest spiritual exercises. I completely relate to the exhortations in the first part of the chapter. Whether it’s a one-day fast from eating or a forty-day fast from specific foods and activities, I find myself battling with discomfort and grumpiness. Quite frankly, I can be a real jerk. It’s interesting how much of my darker self — something I can usually manage most of the time — comes bubbling to the surface more easily during fasts. I’m more impatient, angrier and generally more selfish. By not having my way in specific areas during a fast, I find myself demanding my way in other areas.

I knew this about myself going into Lent, which is why I wanted to reflect heavily on Isaiah 58. I wanted to feast on this passage about fasting. And I’ve found it to be a time of needed correction and repentance.

But I’m also stumped by portions of Isaiah 58. Yahweh challenges Israel’s fasting, “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?”

This is how I view fasting — a time of personal spiritual discipline. But God expands the imagination with these words, “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”

God’s preferred fasting is one that actually brings justice and rightness to the world! It is a kind of fasting that enables us to “share [our] food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when [we] see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from [our] own flesh and blood?” It is a kind of fasting that enables people to “do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk” and to “spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed.”

And the question that reverberates in my head is “How?” My level of fasting is so inward, simply making me aware of how selfish I am. My kind of fasting seems to back-flush all the crap in my inner life to the surface so that it spills out in a rancid mess upon my immediate world. But the fasting Yawheh expects results in the outward breaking of injustice, releasing the oppressed, feeding the hungry, and providing for the needy. And I don’t know how. I’m not the kind of person right now in whom the fruits of my fasting yields goodness and rightness to the world.

But Jesus is. Isaiah 58 draws my reflections to Jesus’ time of fasting. He embodies Yahweh’s preferred fast. Although the New Testament doesn’t mention Jesus fasting before or after his 40 days in the wilderness, I have to assume he had a strong history of fasting. No one can launch into such a demanding and “successful” time of fasting without having years of training in this area.

My recent reflections have revealed to me that I’ve viewed Jesus’ fast as an optional extension to his life and ministry. But lately as I ask myself the question, “Would Jesus’ ministry have been complete without that specific occasion of fasting?” I keep coming to the answer, “No.” It’s like asking “Would Jesus’ ministry have been complete without his baptism, filling of the Spirit, teaching, crucifixion or resurrection?” No. This forty-day fast was an essential part of the fullness of God in and through him.

It’s not coincidental that Jesus embarks on an extended fast in the wilderness immediately following his baptism and immediately preceding his Nazareth proclamation. In Nazareth, before he actually begins his public ministry, Jesus not only quotes Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” but then declares, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Either he was endowed with a healthy dose of self-confidence or something has already happened. Although I think Jesus confidently understood who he was and what he was to uniquely accomplish, I think he stated that Isaiah 61 was fulfilled because of something he had already done.

I believe Jesus’ forty-day fast, embodied the “Isaiah 58” fast. Somehow, Jesus’ time of fasting loosed the chains of injustice, set the oppressed free and broke every yoke. Jesus entered his fast having already reconstituted the identity of God’s people around himself through the symbol of baptism and having been empowered by God’s Spirit to engage in the restorative mission God originally intended to occur through his people. As such, he enters the wilderness. In fact, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness.

The wilderness is Satan’s domain, the desolation into which the scapegoat was driven, carrying the Israel’s sins. By entering the wilderness, Jesus steps into the deepest and darkest place of humanity’s failure and enslavement to evil. In contrast to the original humans fumbling in the beauty and goodness of God’s garden, Jesus enters the barrenness, despair and misery of fallen humanity in the midst of Satan’s territory, picks up where the original humans failed, and stands firm against Satan’s assault.

In the opening chapters of creation, Satan was able to dehumanize humanity. We all devolved from people intended to uniquely bear God’s image in the world into subhumans who continue to inflict dehumanizing acts upon ourselves and each other. But Jesus’ embodiment of Yahweh’s preferred fast won back our humanity. He went toe-to-toe with Satan and emerged victorious. By embodying Isaiah 58, Jesus fulfills Isaiah 61. Embodying Isaiah 58 enabled him to embark on a public ministry that was the practical outworking of who he was as God’s reconstituted people and what he accomplished in the wilderness as the representative of God’s people.

So as I attempt to follow Jesus into his life, character and ministry, I must also learn to follow him into his fasting. Fasting as God intends includes, but far transcends merely being a spiritual discipline. As Isaiah declares, it is essential in participating in God’s mission in the world, both shattering injustice and despair and spending our lives in behalf of the hungry and oppressed.

As the last portion of Isaiah 58 states, proper fasting reconfigures my life from doing as I please to delighting in and honoring God’s redemptive Sabbath. As my life is reconfigured around God, as now exemplified as having the mind of Christ, I then find my joy in the Lord.

As part of my Lenten reflections this year, I’m reading through a five-part lecture by N.T. Wright entitled, “Evil and the Justice of God.” I don’t think one can reflect on Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection without staring evil in the face. That momentous three-day event was God’s answer to all the evil in the world.

In the sci-fi horror movie Aliens, the young girl, Newt, asks Ripley, “Why do parents tell their kids that monsters don’t exist?” Monsters do exist. They stare back at us when we look in the mirror. They scream and howl from our magazines, our T.V.s, our radios, our corporations, and even our churches. Unless we come to terms with this painful reality, we will never fully comprehend the cross and empty tomb.

As we peer upon the cross and tomb, we must also realize that they are not God’s explanation about evil. They don’t answer humanity’s questions about evil’s origin. They don’t attempt to dissect evil. They do one thing. They are God’s great “NO!” to evil. They are the Creator and Covenant God’s climactic response to evil in his good world. It is both horrifying and beautiful because God’s way of dealing with evil is to let it run its full course upon this one innocent man — Israel’s representative and therefore, humanity’s and creation’s representative.

I love how N.T. Wright describes it as only he can:

“The evangelists tell, through each of the small stories and minor characters which make this narrative so rich, something of what the event means, much as the minor scenes in a Shakespeare play enable the audience to draw out the full meaning of the central plot. Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus for burial; Simon of Cyrene carries the cross; Barrabas goes free; one brigand curses, the other repents; bystanders mock, soldiers gamble, a centurion stops for a moment in his tracks. Jesus on his cross towers over the whole scene as Israel in person, as YHWH in person, as the point where the evil of the world does all that it can and where the creator of the world does all that he can. Jesus suffers the full consequences of evil, evil from the political, social, cultural, personal, moral and religious angles all rolled into one, evil in the downward spiral hurtling toward the pit of destruction and despair. and he does so precisely as the act of redemption, of taking that downward fall and exhausting it, so that there may be new creation, new covenant, forgiveness, freedom and hope.

“The gospels thus tell the story of Jesus, in particular the story of how he went to his death, as the story of how cosmic and global evil, in its suprapersonal as well as personal forms, are met by the sovereign, saving love of Israel’s God, YHWH, the creator of the world. This, the evangelists are saying to us, is what ‘the kingdom of God’ means: neither ‘going to heaven when you die’ nor ‘a new way of ordering earthly political reality,’ but something which includes and thoroughly transcends both. What the gospels offer is not a philosophical explanation of evil, what it is or why it’s there, but the story of an event in which the living God deals with it.”

Whew! The last few weeks have been pretty hectic. My good friend Steve asked me to preach the last three Sundays at the worship service. The first talk is posted here if anyone is interested in listening.

I am very grateful that the hurriedness of the last few weeks will be giving way to a more reflective time for Lent. I know that will take conscious effort, but I’m willing to make the effort.

Being Ash Wednesday, a lot of blogs are featuring reflections and prayer. Andy posted a prayer by Walter Brueggemann that resonated with the state of my inner world so I wanted to share it:

The pushing and shoving of the world is endless

We are pushed and shoved.

And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving

in our great anxiety.

And in the middle of that

you have set down your beloved suffering son

who was like a sheep led to slaughter

who opened not his mouth.

We seem not able,

so we ask you to create space in our life

where we may ponder his suffering

and your summons for us to suffer with him,

suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness.

So we pray for your church in these Lenten days,

when we are driven to denial –

not to notice suffering,

not to engage it,

not to acknowledge it.

So be that way of truth among us

that we should not deceive ourselves.

That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain.

We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live.

Amen.

Len posted quotes from and a link to an interview with Eugene Peterson, discussing U2. Being a fan of both, I really enjoyed it. It’s long, but good. Check it out.

I suffer from time pathologies. There I said it. It’s out in the open. For those who aren’t sure what time pathologies are, let me lay down some definitions.

Time Pressure — the perception that there is insufficient time to accomplish a specific task, which leads to subsequent feelings of anxiety and tension.

Time Urgency — the frequent experience of time pressure with a corresponding conviction that one needs to hurry or speed up the rate at which one is doing things. This is fueled by the rationale, “I must work faster to get everything done.”

Hurried Sickness — severe and chronic feelings of time urgency that have brought about changes affecting personality and lifestyle. It is a continuous struggle to accomplish or achieve more and more in less and less time.

Time Pathologies — the toxic continuum of disordered behaviors, perceptions and states running the gamut from mild time urgency to severe hurried sickness.

I just finished listening to Eugene Peterson speak on time on Regent Radio. I need to go back and listen to it again and again. He says he is taking the creation story of Genesis 1 very seriously. For him, it has become very instructional to living in God’s life. Here are a some of thoughts that emerge from his lecture.

There is a significant connection between the creation account and the Ten Commandments — keeping the Sabbath. The natural rhythm of God’s creative work is linked to how he expects his people to live. The Sabbath is special time, fulfilled time. God rested after creating. Humans enter into God’s re-creative work (Israel’s vocation) through the Sabbath. Or to get really geeky, the Sabbath is the temporal portal to God’s kingdom. It’s this special time, fulfilled time (kairos) that infects ordinary time (chronos).

Too often, we have it backwards. We try to participate in God’s work, hurrying and scurrying until we are exhausted and burned-out. Then we take time off and call it Sabbath. But time-off is utilitarian. It’s just another form of getting our agenda accomplished, whether that agenda is accomplishing tasks alternative to our work or simply relaxing. Sabbath is different. It is access into God’s kingdom.

When our lives are saturated in the unhurried rhythms of worship and reflection that are inherent of Sabbath-time, then we can engage in all the rhythms of our lives in ordinary time with God’s life. Sabbath, as a way of life, becomes the foundation for the vocation of God’s people — implementing the new creation.

Scot McKnight has been reviewing the book Gracious Christianity by Douglas Jacobsen and Ben Sawatsky. From what he’s written about so far, I really want to read this book.

The most recent installment of McKnight’s review focuses on the chapter about living in the reality and power of the Holy Spirit. It sounds like very good stuff.

McKnight quotes the authors regarding the gifts of the Spirit that connects with some stuff I was saying in my last post about reconstructing an authentic and viable pneumatology. The authors state that the gifts of the Spirit are “gifts given to the world through a person rather than as gifts specifically given to a person.” Wow! That’s exactly where my thinking has been going recently.

And I think you can only land at this place when you begin with the truth that the Spirit is the creating Spirit, the source of life. Nothing in life is separated from the Spirit as he sustains everything.

And he is also the consummating Spirit. In his sustaining, he is also renewing everything forward toward God’s full design.

Therefore, as we learn to participate with God in nurturing further and greater goodness in his good, but damaged world, the Spirit works through us, shaping us further into the likeness of Christ in character and power. Christ-likeness is the New Creation in human form. And as such, our lives and all the Spirit is doing in and through our lives, are given to the world as part of God’s plan to heal and transform the cosmos.

I got to hang out with my buddy, Alan, for lunch on Sunday. It was a nice time talking about theology, church and life. One of the things that came up was how much our theology has changed.

Over the last several years, I seem to have deconstructed and, to varying degrees, reconstructed most areas of my theology. [Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying I’m “there.” I’m just further along on this journey than I was several years ago.] However, our conversation on Sunday made me realize how much my pneumatology hasn’t really been reconstructed yet.

In my past, I have been fairly open to the Spirit. I loved what I learned and experienced from John Wimber and the Vineyard. I also enjoyed some facets of the Toronto Blessing that swept through the Vineyard when I was involved. Despite some of the controversy, my wife and I enjoyed significant healing during that time. But along with the good experiences and theology, there also came the bad. I saw and experienced too much abuse along with the Spirit’s authentic work.

So, in all the areas of theological reconstruction that I’m experiencing, I feel like my pneumatology has become stunted. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m too burned from the excess and abuse. Or if it’s because I can’t find an adequate model that fits my newly formed theology. Or if it’s because of something else.

But here’s where I’m at from a “big picture” perspective. I believe the Spirit is the creating Spirit, breathing God’s life into his creation. I also believe the Spirit is the consummating Spirit. Although created good, the world was not created complete. So the same Spirit who participated in the world’s beginning, is also in the process of drawing the world forward toward God’s designs.

I also believe that Jesus was anointed by the creating and consummating Spirit to be the climax of Israel’s story — to vanquish evil, to renew God’s people, and to launch the New Creation. From this I believe that the Church is blessed with the continuing presence of the Spirit to implement what Jesus began. By the Spirit — the powerful and renewing breath and love of God — we are to continue overcoming evil with good, renewing God’s people and implementing the New Creation through our personal and communal lives.

What I’ve begun praying about is for God to show me how this looks on the ground. I don’t want to relegate the Spirit’s presence and work to Christian meetings as I have in the past. I really believe the Spirit needs room to work out on the streets in authentic relationships, evangelism and social justice. But he does his work out on the streets as those whom he fills go into the streets.

So in this light, where do manifestations such as tongues, prophecy, knowledge, and healing fit? Does ministering in the Spirit have to look as “weird” as it has in the past? Does it require hours of laying hands on people to see him actually move? People in Jesus’ ministry seemed astonished by the power and authority of his words and deeds, not by any weirdness.

As we work with God’s grace to become like Jesus in character, we shouldn’t forget we are also working with God’s grace to become like Jesus in power. The same Spirit who nourishes love, joy, peace, patience, etc., also brings healing, deliverance, justice, and powerful confrontations between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. And both the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit are for the sake of the world.

Come, Holy Spirit.

I’m reading through N.T. Wright’s The Crown and the Fire. It’s a great devotional book on the cross and the Spirit. Here’s a quote that I’m spending some time thinking about. This quote is especially relevant in light of a three-part sermon series I’m preparing in Romans 12. Listen to Wright’s words:

“Consider what happens normally in the world. When we are cursed, we curse back, if only in our hearts. When we are hated, we pass the hate on; we keep it, so to speak, in circulation. Someone is mean to me, so I take out my feelings on someone else, probably someone weaker than me…

“But the divine way is different. Jesus takes temptation, hatred, curses — the bitterness of a bitter world — and he absorbs it into himself on the cross. Jesus, pronounced guilty as a blasphemer for claiming to be the Son of God, demonstrates on the cross that he was speaking the truth, by doing what only the Son of God could do — loving his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end, the bitter end. And this pattern, acted out uniquely on the cross, becomes then for us, by the Spirit of Jesus working within us, the pattern we are commanded to live out, as we give back good for evil, blessing for curse, prayer for persecution. One might say that this is the vocation of the Church: to take the sadness of the world and give back no anger; the sorrow of the world, and give back no bitterness; the pain of the world, and not sink into self-pity; but to return forgiveness and love, blessing and joy. That is what Jesus was doing on Calvary. He drew on to himself the sin of the ages, the rebellion of the world and humankind, the hatred, pain, anger, and frustration of the world, so that the world and humankind might be healed, might be rid of it all.”

As I’ve been reflecting on Romans 12, Wright’s words help me unpack the poignancy of Paul’s phrase, “Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” I am always to give back good for evil. This, and all that comes before it in the chapter, is only possible if I take to heart Romans 12:1-2. It’s in true worship (offering myself as a sacrifice to God) and in true formation (being transformed by the renewing of mind) that I become more like Christ. As I die to myself (sacrifice), I truly come alive in God (renewing of my mind).

And in this Christ-likeness, I then have his abundant life and love that allow me to take up the vocation of his people. I can implement what he launched — the transforming presence of the New Creation — by absorbing the pain, damage and sorrow of this creation into God’s abundant life at work in me.

This adds further meaning to Jesus’ invitation to carry my cross. The cross isn’t just a personal invitation to die, but also a personal invitation to continue in the vocation of Jesus’ cross — to take on the world’s pain and to return it with God’s life and love.

I know it’s over a week since Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But I came across this today in Marjorie Thompson’s Soul Feast. It is the rule of life that King developed to guide the nonviolent protests of the civil rights movement. Thompson states, “His rule emphasized the spiritual principles and inner attitudes undergirding one’s actions.” And every demonstrator had to agree to this rule:

+ Meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus

+ Remember always that the nonviolent movement in Birmingham seeks justice and reconciliation, not victory.

+ Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.

+ Pray daily to be used by God in order that all might be free.

+ Sacrifice personal wishes in order that all might be free.

+ Observe with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.

+ Seek to perform regular service for others and the world.

+ Refrain from violence of fist, tongue or heart.

+ Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.

+ Follow the directions of the movement and the captains of a demonstration.

In a day and age where few people live by any intentional rule of life, I admire King even more. He had the wisdom and courage to form a theocentric rule of life. He seems to have understood that any lasting societal change only comes from a theocentric vision of life.

I went out to switch the laundry and saw the sunset. Absolutely beautiful! Within a couple of minutes, it was gone. It reminded me that moments of beauty can surprise us and quickly disappear. I’m grateful to have had this special moment and to have been able to capture it.

I confessed to the guys at our accountability meeting on Sunday that one of the points of anxiety that still lingers since leaving professional ministry is that I am one year shy of 40 and without any hint of a career. I tend to be a focused individual. So when I received what I felt was a calling into professional ministry years ago, I pursued it with everything I had. I envisioned myself as a pastor for the rest of my working life.

But now, I feel I am answering a new call not to be in professional ministry. And I honestly don’t know if this is a temporary or permanent thing. Now almost three years since leaving professional ministry, I still have no idea if this is short-term, long-term or permanent. Until recently, the unknown has caused weekly bouts of mild depression and an internal compulsion to get back into ministry. But toward the end of last year, I discovered that both ailments are gone.

I guess I’m learning how to be a bit more content with where I am. That has meant putting forth a lot of effort into learning how to trust God with such a huge unknown in my life. So when I read a quote by Henri Nouwen this afternoon, I realized this is exactly where I’ve needed to grow and in fact am growing:

“Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, ‘How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?’ There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.”

So this year, I am planning on learning what Nouwen calls “the art of living” — enjoying what I can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. I’m going to enjoy my wife, kids and friends more this year. I’m going to enjoy both my precious faith-community and my frequent excursions into the established church. I’m going to enjoy my friends and role at work. I’m going to enjoy my wedding video partnership, especially the new people I will meet and the new opportunities for creative expression it will offer me. And I will enjoy creating a lot more this year through music, writing, photo and video.

I think I’m through feeling like I’m in survival mode and will finally get on with learning how to live and minister in deeper and more authentic ways.

God has given me just enough light. And I’m learning it truly is enough to enjoy life.

Len has a great post on leadership. Leadership in this new world must primarily be a vocation of contemplation and not activity. I love this quote:

“The greatest hope of influencing change is not our compulsive activity to shape a world different than the one we know, but to become the change we seek. That means becoming still.. risking the quiet and empty spaces… It means facing our own fears that there will be no one to offer approval.. no voice in the silence.. no one to clap us on the backs to say ‘well done.'”

Len’s post reminded me of a great quote by the late Henri Nouwen:

“There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another’s wounds. Let’s remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness.”

I wanted to welcome the New Year with a quote by N.T. Wright from his new book, Paul: In Fresh Perspective:

“The church must live as a sign of the kingdom yet to come, but since that kingdom is characterized by justice, peace and joy in the Spirit (Romans 14:17), it cannot be inaugurated in the present by violence and hatred.”

Happy 2006! May this year witness Jesus’ people inaugurating his kingdom in justice, peace and joy.

On December 19, 2004, I awoke around 5 am from an extremely vivid dream with a profound sense of sorrow and mourning. As I went throughout the house praying for my sleeping wife and children, a thought flashed through my mind — “This year will be a year of ‘good-bye’s.'” I don’t know if this was a prophetic message or what? But for an entire year, I don’t think a week passed without reflecting on this phrase.

I remember journaling my fears and anxieties when I first experienced this dream and the subsequent feelings it evoked. Would I be saying good-bye to someone I love? To my faith-community? To my dream of pastoring again? To my current job and friends at Asian Access? To my business partnership with my two closest friends? Would we be moving as a family? As I went through the people in my life that I could potentially say “good-bye” to, I realized how much “good-bye” would hurt. The years of 2003 and 2004 had already felt like I was recovering from devastating loss. It was difficult imagining losing more. A few months later, I discovered I had extremely high blood pressure. This brought my own health and mortality to the front of my thoughts. Would I be saying good-bye to my health or my family?

It is now a year since that dream. And in many ways, it has been a year of good-bye’s. I’ve had to say good-bye to two friends at my job. I’ve had to say good-bye to close friends in our faith-community as they decided it was time to pursue different goals. I’ve had to say a sorrowful good-bye to my oldest son’s childhood as he has entered young adulthood. I’ve had to say good-bye, and help my family say good-bye, to Debbie’s Uncle J.D., who died on Thanksgiving.

And a bit more difficult to describe, I feel I’ve said good-bye to internal stuff that had accumulated over years of professional ministry and the situations that led up to my leaving professional ministry. The inner compulsions for pastoral success are not as strong as they used to be. I’ve discovered that I have laid down dreams of being a significant influencer, a successful pastor, theologian, author, speaker or some other professional spiritual leader. The feelings of failure for leaving ministry and of being a “statistic” are fading away. I am more content simply being me. And at an even deeper level, I don’t feel wounded anymore. The regular bouts of mild depression have also faded away.

In the midst of the loss, there is a sharpening clarity. As a family, we were presented with a couple of potential opportunities to move from our local area in order to accept a senior pastor position. But in the midst of this, God spoke very clearly that we were to stay close to our family and friends. God showed Debbie and me that our relationships with our families and our dear friends in our community and neighborhood were of the utmost value. And I am so glad we decided to listen to God’s wisdom.

I’m glad that our children were able to spend quality time with Uncle J.D. before he died. They saw a side of him that many people didn’t. They will always have cherished memories of him. And I think they will value being part of people’s lives who are typically marginalized in society because of age or illness.

Also, by staying local, my two older kids have been able to participate in a Jr. high school youth group at a friend’s church. Debbie and I wanted our kids to be part of a peer-group that would allow them to worship, learn and serve with kids their age. This has allowed our family to enjoy corporate worship on occasional Sundays, something we have missed the last couple of years.

I have also fallen in deeper love with my friends at Asian Access. I love working with them. They are such a wonderful group of people to work alongside, each person uniquely and consistently modeling Christ day in and day out. And they have valued and utilized my pastoral experience and gifting. The last two years have been very healing for me.

I have also enjoyed this year in our wedding video business. Mark and David are great guys to work with and our product and service have matured this year. I am even more proud and excited of what we offer.

Finally, this year has developed deeper friendships in our faith-community. I don’t think I have ever had such close friends while being in professional ministry. Every week, I watch my kids interacting with our community’s members. My friends are their friends! For me, this is priceless. For example, this past Thursday, we had a Christmas party. I was so thrilled to watch my kids participating as equal members of the group. This is just one of many examples during this past year.

And I am looking forward to a new year of opportunities to care for one another, follow Christ together and serve our world in small and simple ways.

So, 2005 has been a year of good-bye’s. But with some of the pain has also come much-needed personal clarity, further healing and an ever-deepening love for those in our lives.

Scot McKnight has written a fine article called, “What Is the Gospel?” I believe his ideas work as a practical complement to N.T. Wright’s historical work on the Gospel.

N.T. Wright states that the core of the gospel, especially for Paul, is the royal proclamation that Jesus is Israel’s Messiah and by direct implication, he is Lord of the world. As such, he has climaxed Israel’s story, reconfiguring God’s people around himself.

McKnight’s article provides a dimension of contemporary relevance as he highlights the common distortions of the gospel and then moves to discuss a fuller, more biblical perspective of God’s good news. I wanted to highlight a few points that I found worth pondering.

First, the gospel is a story and not a formula. The royal proclamation that Jesus is truly Israel’s long-awaited Messiah is part of a gigantic story that begins with the creation account and moves forever forward to the new creation. And like any brilliant story, it engulfs our personal stories within it, carrying us along and shaping us as our stories unfold.

Second, retellings of the gospel must always take into account the fact that humans are created in God’s image but distorted by sin. Therefore we are capable of both majestic goodness and miserable meanness. Both realities must be held in two hands. The gospel is not simply about forgiveness from abstract sin or teaching us how to unleash our inherent potential. Rather, the gospel is about the restoration of human beings forward into the image of God.

That last sentence raises an important sub-issue. The gospel is not about restoring us back to a pre-Fall Edenic condition. Like any story, we cannot not go backward — only forward. So the restoration that is inherent in the gospel story is a restoration forward to a new creation and a new humanity in the image of God. We are moving forward into something startling fresh and unimagined, yet also startling familiar and recognizable; something simultaneously brand new and ancient.

Third, the glimpses we have of God’s future renewed creation help us see both what to anticipate in our future and how to live in our present. So the gospel has one foot planted in the present and one foot planted in the future — the future envisioning us for life in the present. And the glimpses into our future reveal that God’s new world will be populated by redeemed humanity as a worshipping fellowship. The Revelation especially, depicts humanity crowded together (intimate fellowship) around God’s throne in expressive and intimate worship. (Fortunately, we will also be healed of any claustrophobia we may currently experience.) This provides us with the general template for dealing with present-day issues with an inaugurated and anticipated eschatology. How does my life in Christ today build in my relationships, community and world toward this future vision of redeemed humanity living in harmony with God, one another and creation?

Finally, the fuller, biblical expression of the Gospel reorients the task of evangelism. Evangelism shifts from the old model of “how to get people in” to a progressive model of “helping people participate in God’s work.” McKnight likens the old way of evangelism to a birth certificate or marriage certificate — say this prayer in order to get in or to get the necessary assurance that you’re in. The new way of evangelism is more about helping people to live after they’ve been born or helping people to be married after the wedding. In other words, evangelism is helping people to fall in love with God, people and creation and then to participate in God’s renewing project on the earth.

I personally think, that in many expressions, evangelism will be more about working with people of different life-orientations on the common project of God’s renewing work in the earth and less of working on people as projects themselves, trying to convince them to adopt our perspective and join our churches. In other words, Jesus will be embodied and present as we befriend one another in a common mission rather than viewing other people as the mission. This will remove the “we-have-it-and-they-need-it” perspective that hinders much of evangelism today. This is primary reason why I love what Jim Henderson and friends are doing with Off The Map. They are putting real feet on evangelism.

I think McKnight’s article is a great reflection for Advent. What better way to celebrate Christ’s arrival into our damaged world as the renewing fullness and embodiment of God and to anticipate his return to consummate God’s new creation than to reflect on what this Good News truly means for us and our world.

I had the privilege of preaching at a friend’s church this past Sunday. I used a movie clip as an illustration of the inherent joy of Advent. The clip was from It Could Happen To You. Nicolas Cage plays a police officer who buys a lottery ticket for his wife. After purchasing the ticket, he buys coffee at a local diner. Upon paying his bill, he realizes that he doesn’t have enough for the tip. So he tells the waitress (played by Bridget Fonda) that he will return the following day with either double the tip or half of the lottery, if he wins.

Well, you can imagine what happens that night. Yup. Four million dollars. He wrestles all night with his promise.

The clip I showed was the moment he tells the waitress the good news that she now possesses two million dollars. It’s an emotional scene and I believe it’s a living parable of Advent and New Creation.

But the one line that has been ringing in my head today comes when Fonda stops celebrating for a moment and asks, “Why are you doing this?” Cage looks at her and, almost in a whisper, says, “A promise is a promise.”

That’s Jesus! Light and hope breaking into our darkness and despair. Creation renewed. Covenant climaxed. New humanity. New identity. New life. God being most faithful when we have been most faithless.

A promise is a promise.

Several streams have converged in my thinking this week. I was listening to the lecture series, “The Challenge of Jesus,” given by N.T. Wright. He made a remark that sparked some imagination in me. He said that a lot of New Testament theology focuses on the fact that with Jesus’ resurrection, we have entered the “Last Days.” For me, a lot of my foundational understanding about God’s kingdom has been shaped by the idea of the “Now and Not Yet,” popularized by George Ladd. But Wright went on to say that as true as that is, Jesus’ resurrection has simultaneously launched us into the “First Days” of God’s new creation coming on earth.

This is startlingly true! We are living in the overlap of two ages. We live on the fault-line of two gigantic tectonic plates that are rubbing and shifting against one another. And God’s people must live naturally with the resulting quakes that rock our attempts to embody Christ on earth.

One of the quakes (or streams of thoughts, to return to my original metaphor) is the issue of the death penalty, brought back to the front of our nation’s consciousness by Tookie Williams’ execution several days ago. We live in a society that is completely defined by, and therefore, embodies our present evil age. As such, God has granted human government the authority to wield the sword of justice in order to maintain societal order within this present evil age (Romans 13:1ff).

But God’s people are also completely reconfigured around Jesus, who has climaxed God’s grand story within himself and has inaugurated God’s renewed creation in the midst of this present one. So although we began our lives in this present age, our new lives in Christ reconfigure us around an eschatological anticipation of God’s coming age, already begun in our midst.

This is why I value N.T. Wright’s hermeneutic of a five-act play in approaching Scripture (another stream of thought this week). Christ was the fourth act, climaxing and fulfilling God’s story in himself. We and the early Church of the New Testament live in the fifth act. Therefore, we cannot read and apply the story of the first three acts unthinkingly in our attempts to live in the fifth act. That would be like speaking the dialogue of a previous act within the present one. It doesn’t make sense to the story. Our dialogue in our present act will have continuity with the previous dialogue, but will also be fresh and relevant to the current flow of the story.

So in the specific issue of the death penalty, human government has the authority to impose its attempts at justice to maintain order. And within the context of this present evil age, there will be times when government will deem the death penalty as just. (Interestingly, a lot of talk of justice I hear nowadays is actually more about sanctioned revenge. But that’s another issue for another time.) But, as God’s future-oriented people, we cannot singularly embrace this value. Although we can recognize a government’s responsibility to establish justice in its given context, we must also recognize that God’s people do not live solely in that context.

Nor can we argue simply from Old Testament texts to support one value or another. For example, we do not live by the “eye for an eye” justice of the Old Testament. We no longer live in that act of the play. Rather, we must replace an “eye for an eye” with “a ransom for many” as climaxed in the fourth act and launching us into the fifth. It is here that the tectonic plates shift and quake. From the perspective of the “Last Days,” government is just. But from the perspective of the “First Days,” mercy truly triumphs over judgment. So our application must be nuanced and wise since both ages overlap.

At this point in God’s story, we live with one foot in the present and one foot in the future. It’s like owning one of those clocks that display the time in our current location, but also the time in another part of the world. Our internal clocks are similar — one set to our present time zone, but another set to the time zone of God’s new creation. Therefore, we must realign our being, thinking, valuing and living, always moving toward the vision of God’s restoration forward (not backward) to his future world. The glorious vision of a God-saturated renewed creation that is populated by a redeemed society of humanity, who is reconciled to God, one another and creation, must continuously reshape and renew our imaginations and form the core of our incarnational identity and lives.

Ryan Bolger graciously participated in an interview for the company I work for. I’m bummed that I couldn’t be there to hear him. However, he has blogged some of his responses to the interview. If his blog is any indication, then the footage our company got is suh-weet!

Here’s a quote from Ryan’s blog:

A2: From your vantage point, what trend(s) do you see developing for the future of missions during this 21st century?

RB: Just as some of the best missionaries served and facilitated the development of local theologies overseas, 21st century missionaries in the West need to facilitate self-theologizing communities rather than impose 16th century responses to current questions. I see less a focus on the church service and more on the mission. These will be ‘activist’ communities — no spectators allowed. Churches will become more like highly committed monastic communities. The producer/consumer dualism of clergy/laity will become less obvious. Churches will not adhere to the sacred/secular split — they will all areas of reality as spiritual — even social justice work.

Man, this gets me going! I still dream of being part of a community like this — self-theologizing, activist, highly committed monastic communities where all areas of reality, including social justice work, are spiritual.

After 2 1/2 years, I know more than ever before that this kind of incarnational community doesn’t develop overnight. (I think if it does, then it’s probably not authentic.) Incarnation into the human embodiment of God’s new creation takes a lot of time, intentional communion with Jesus and subsequently, major deconstruction of our lives so that we can be renewed into Christ’s likeness.

And I’m just thrilled to be along for the ride with good friends.

The issue of the death penalty has returned to the forefront of most American’s minds with the execution of Tookie Williams last night. Scot McKnight offers a well-thought post on the death penalty. Here’s a piece of what he says:

“My view is that the death penalty is just, especially in American jurisprudence, but Christians should oppose the death penalty.”

This isn’t double-talk, but the recognition that although our legal system may be just, Jesus deconstructs legal systems based singularly on justice. Rather, God’s kingdom mingles justice and redemption. And that is what God’s people must embody upon the earth.

N.T. Wright’s book, The Last Word, reminds me of a fireworks show. Through the course of the show, particular bursts evoke “oooh’s” and “aaah’s” from the crowd. But the show usually ends with a crescendo that moves the audience to cheers and applause.

I felt that way as I read the last chapter of The Last Word. I think Wright paves the way for a solid understanding of Scripture’s authority. Following are the opening paragraphs from that chapter:

“We urgently need an integrated view of the dense and complex phrase ‘the authority of scripture.’ Such an integrated view needs to highlight the role of the Spirit as the powerful, transformative agent. It needs to keep as its central focus the goal of God’s Kingdom, inaugurated by Jesus on earth as in heaven and one day to be completed under that same rubric. It must envisage the church as characterized, at the very heart of its life, by prayerful listening to, strenuous wrestling with, humble obedience before, and powerful proclamation of scripture, particularly, in the ministries of its authorized leaders. The following sections constitute suggestions on this theme.

“Within this, scripture has a more particular role in relation to the gospel’s challenge to individual human beings. The gospel by which individuals come to personal faith, and so to that radical transformation of life spoken of so often in the New Testament, is the personalizing of the larger challenge just mentioned: the call to every child, woman and man to submit in faith to the lordship of the crucified and risen Jesus and so to become, through baptism and membership in the body of Christ, a living, breathing anticipation of the final new creation itself (see Galatians 6:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17).”

N.T. Wright, The Last Word

Ryan Bolger, from Fuller Seminary, has a great summary of an article by Miroslav Volf entitled “Leaving Jesus Behind.” Both Bolger’s summary and Volf’s article are worth reading and thinking about.

Here’s a portion from Bolger’s summary:

“Both groups [the religious right and religious left] abandon the gospel in advocacy of their politics. The irony is that if either of these groups embraced the life described in the gospels, Jesus would exceed the left’s demand for social justice and the right’s demands for ‘right’ living.”

Danny’s comments in my last post got me thinking a bit about my past. I became a Christian after high school through the ministry of a very popular fundamentalist movement. The church I attended was a large church, centered around a popular pastor and his Bible teaching. In fact, Bible teaching was the centerpiece of the church. Worship was the prelude to 45-90 minutes of verse-by-verse exposition. Children were not allowed in the service in order to minimize the risk of distraction from the teaching. And if anyone needed to leave the sanctuary to use the bathroom, they were not readmitted and had to observe the remainder of the service from the foyer.

Yet, this church, and its larger movement, built a lasting foundation in my life for the Bible. They taught me to love the Bible, to respect its authority, to read it, to study it. But it also came with a price. When I entered Bible college after only a year or two after conversion, I discovered that I knew more Bible than most of my fellow students. But that knowledge was accompanied with a subtle arrogance. And even worse, there was contempt for anyone who disagreed with the interpretation I had been taught and embraced. I remember the first time in class, when my professor gently confronted me about my use of the label “liberal” in regards to other denominations. I’m ashamed to say that my internal response was to label him a “liberal” as well.

Over the years, and through painful circumstances, my approach to the Bible has changed significantly. Yet, not my love for it. This is why I love guys like N.T. Wright who also love the Bible, yet aren’t afraid to scrutinize its teachings and historicity. I resonate with statements such as:

“To affirm ‘the authority of scripture’ is precisely not to say, ‘We know what scripture means and don’t need to raise any more questions.’ It is always a way of saying that the church in each generation must make fresh and rejuvenated efforts to understand scripture more fully and live by it more thoroughly, even if that means cutting across cherished traditions. This applies not least when the traditions in question refer to themselves as ‘biblical.'”

N.T. Wright, The Last Word

A while ago, I had the opportunity to visit another church from the movement that I mentioned earlier. After worship, the pastor led us corporately in prayer in preparation for his study. He prayed something that shocked me. It went something like, “Father, open our hearts to receive your word. We worship you and we worship your word.” Wow!

Now I realize he could have been referring to Christ, the Living Word. But the context of his entire prayer was preparing us to for the Bible study and he kept using “word” in reference to the Bible. And this movement does worship the word, i.e. the Bible.

Is that wrong? Can one love the Bible too much?

I’m currently reading N.T. Wright’s The Last Word. It’s a great book and I hope when I have a bit more time, to process some of the ideas that I’m reading on this blog. But I wanted to share a cool quote by Wright in regards to much of the fundamentalist thinking in North America. He says:

“There is a great gulf fixed between those who want to prove the historicity of everything reported in the Bible in order to demonstrate that the Bible is ‘true’ after all and those who, committed to living under the authority of the scripture, remain open to what scripture itself actually teaches and emphasizes. Which is the bottom line: ‘proving the Bible to be true’ (often with the effect of say, ‘So we can go on thinking what we’ve always thought’), or taking it so seriously that we allow it to tell us things we’d never heard before and didn’t particularly want to hear?”

The quote reminds me of some of the discussion going on regarding the attempts to define the Emerging Church. The Evangelical Church is looking to the Emerging members to define itself theologically across the doctrinal bullet points that it holds dear. However, the Emerging conversation, although theologically sound, seems more focused on praxis — following Jesus in real life — more than defining itself by what it purports to believe. This is a significant difference between how the two groups view the “authority of Scripture.” Both hold the Scripture in high value and authority. But how that authority is understood and plays out, in my opinion, will take the two groups in different trajectories.

Jordon Cooper celebrates the relaunch of his podcast site with six lectures given by Mike Frost in Australia. He talks about a holistic, incarnational approach to being the church rather than the dualistic, attractional model used by most churches. Very inspiring stuff! Thank you, Jordon, for this rich resource.

I’m usually in a coffeehouse every morning by around 5:30. This is my usual place to read, pray, etc. My usual haunt was Starbucks… until today. A friend of mine just opened a new It’s A Grind Coffee House down the street from my home. It has good flavored coffee AND free WiFi. So here I am blogging from her new store!

Through another blog, I came across a link to the sermon that the Archbishop of York gave at his Inauguration on 11/30/05. The following is a great quote:

“The scandal of the church is that the Christ-event is no longer life-changing, it has become life-enhancing. We’ve lost the power and joy that makes real disciples, and we’ve become consumers of religion and not disciples of Jesus Christ. You see, the call to corporate discipleship is a call to God’s promised glory. For Christ did for us that which we couldn’t do for ourselves.“

I’ve mentioned before that I work for a great company called Asian Access. Part of our ministry at Asian Access is to support missionaries in Japan. Our Kansai Team has put together a great video showing the fun and ministry of Asian Access missionaries in Japan.

You can go to the iTunes Music Store to subscribe to the team’s podcast, called Japan Stories. You can also go there to see their video, called “Just A Little Crazy” (28MB in iPod format).

Click here to go to Japan Stories on iTunes.

Check out the Peanuts cartoon at Dan Kimball’s blog. Snoopy is too profound!

It’s 7:20 on a Saturday morning. And here I am with Michael and Danielle, sitting in line in front of a new Apple Store at the Brea Mall. The grand opening is at 10. But the first 1000 people get a free T-Shirt. We were up at five to beat the crowds… all six people! Yup, six people. I had heard all the stories of lines wrapping around the mall. But it seems either the crowd has learned its collective lesson or there isn’t as much interest in Apple Store grand openings like there used to be.

Oh well. At least it gives me a chance to hang out with a couple of my kids who are early-risers AND get a free T-Shirt. I know, all of your are jealous!

UPDATE:

Well, it’s now 10:45 and I’m back at home. It was a pretty cool experience. By the store’s opening at 10 am, the line was GINORMOUS!! It snaked around the mall. And my kids and I were numbers 7, 8 & 9. BoooYaaah!

After counting down from 10, we were ushered into the store with loud music and “high-fives” by the employees. Everything was brand spanking new and full of Apple goodness. Very cool! But as much as I love Apple and its products, I was bored after about 10 minutes. When we left and walked through the mall to our car, the line went on and on and on…

Oh did I mention that I got a cool shirt packaged in an ultra-cool box. Yeah, Baby!

Alan Creech points to this remarkable post by Michael Spencer expressing his apologies and regret to his family for entering professional ministry. Whether you agree with him or not, it is worth reading. And please, please, please, listen to his heart. Here’s a bit of his post:

“The first thing I want to say to Denise, Noel and Clay is how much I regret the day I walked forward and said I believed God was “calling” me to be a preacher. There was no one to guide me, and no one to talk to me. There was no one to help me reconsider. No one told me the first thing about preparation, education, money or the life of a minister. I had no models- just a few heroes- and no one to help me see the real-world substance of my choice. I walked that aisle with good intentions, zeal, a love for God, a desire to be useful and a bunch of other things… I regret it so much today that my bones hurt to think about it. Why wasn’t there someone, somewhere who could have talked to me about my life? Why wasn’t there someone in my family, or at my school or at my church, who could have told me that I could be an english teacher and a preacher? Why didn’t someone tell me what it meant to be the pastor of a church? There were so many options, but I never knew them. I simply plunged ahead.”

Scot McKnight has a great post on the Sermon on the Mount. He states that the Sermon on the Mount is the actual summons of Jesus himself for those who want to follow him and not a secondary, advanced ethics for people after they accept Jesus.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from his post:

“Here’s the point for my post today. The SoM has to be understood as Matthew’s presentation of who Jesus is, what he teaches, and what he calls people to be and to do. This is not secondary teaching for the fully committed after they have chosen to “accept” Jesus, but it is what must be understood as the very summons of Jesus itself. In other words, this is Jesus’ evangelistic summons.”

“The SoM is more than the ethics that follow conversion: the SoM is the summons of Jesus himself for those who want to follow him. This is not second-layer stuff but entry stuff; this is not a lesson in ethics but a radical summons to surrender. Indeed, it is ethics and discipleship, but that is because one cannot have conversion or following Jesus without ethics and discipleship.”

John Frye has begun a blog series on Jesus as the first emergent pastor. His first blog is a good read and sets a nice course for the discussion. I’m looking forward to more stuff soon.

It looks like Jason Evans got to share at the Generous Orthodoxy Conference this week. Very cool! Jason’s a great guy and doing great things.

Justin Baeder, among many others, is blogging notes from the conference. There’s some really good stuff that’s worth checking out, including notes from Jason’s talk.

For me, Dallas Willard is one of those people who hits it out of the park virtually every time he steps to the plate. Relevant Magazine has a good interview with him regarding the issues of the seduction of technology and authentic community. Here’s a couple of quotes:

On the seduction of technology:

“Well, I deal daily with college students and I have seen the seduction of technology. We live in a world where technology lifts mankind into a false sense of power and as a result my students have a feeling that if they can do something they should. They feel that they can go here, go there, shut that out, do what they want to, and that is the most seductive aspect to technology: it creates a false sense of intimacy and a false sense of sense of self.”

And on authentic community:

“That’s an expression of [this generation’s] loneliness. But most of them don’t know what community means because community means assuming responsibility for other people and that means paying attention and not following your own will but submitting your will and giving up the world of intimacy and power you have in the little consumer world that you have created. They are lonely and they hurt. They don’t know why that they think community might solve that, but when they look community in the face and realize that it means raw, skin to skin contact with other people for whom you have become responsible…that’s when they back away.”

Jordan Cooper posts this really great quote by Ryan Bolger:

“A focus on the church service as connecting point perpetuates the idea that following Jesus is about going to church. The community’s life takes the form of American congregational religion rather than the fluid practices of the gospel, and this emphasis presents quite a barrier to the ‘seeker’ outside, as they need to be converted to the values of American religious congregationalism before they can come to faith. Thus, virtually all of those who are attracted to the relevant service were raised in church or are currently going to another church — they are not the never-churched. In contrast, a missional congregation connects with those outside the faith by, well, connecting with those outside of the community in their world. Connecting happens not in a ‘come to us’ CHURCH service, but through ‘go and dwell’ church SERVICE, i.e. service in the community — living alternative lives.”

Okay, I want to be careful with what I say here, because I don’t know all of the information and this topic is a hornet’s nest. But I came across this article through Greg’s blog and it frustrated me.

It seems a 14-year old student was expelled from her Christian High School a couple of weeks ago because the school officials discovered that her parents are lesbians. The Superintendent wrote a letter of explanation to the girl’s biological mother stating that according to school policy, at least one parent may not engage in practices that are “immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian lifestyle, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship.”

Hmmmm…. I guess what upsets me more than anything is how conservative evangelicalism isolates those few “choice” sins that “those people” commit. At the risk of being flippant, I’m tired of my fellow brothers and sister crying out, “Oh my gosh! Those people are having illegal sex!” or “Those people believe in evolution! We’ve got to stop them!”

I know the Bible has stuff to say about these topics. But it also has stuff to say about other behaviors that are “immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian lifestyle.” Stuff like anger, lust, rage, pride, lying, ill-treatment of the poor, rampant consumerism, injustice, abuse of our earth’s resources (yes, that stuff is in the Bible too), etc.

What do you think would have happened if the school expelled a student from a Christian family, whose parents spent thousands of excessive dollars at Walmart, Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond to furnish their half-million dollar home, drove a gas-guzzling SUV, voted against healthcare, overate, gossiped, and refused to forgive their alcoholic dad? Yeah, we know what would have happened. The school officials would have been called legalistic and accused of getting too involved in the family’s personal business. There probably would have been a lawsuit as well (and that’s mentioned in the Bible too).

I don’t know anything about the family whose daughter was expelled. But they did one thing that made me proud of them. They decided not to fight the ruling. Good for them. They took the high-road. I don’t know their hearts, but compared to everyone involved, their action seems to reflect Jesus the most. And I hope he totally blesses them for it.

As a person who enjoys teaching, perhaps the most frustrating thing I experience is when a person has a confused look on their face when I’ve finished communicating. When that happens, I’m not frustrated at them, but at myself for not doing my job adequately.

Well, I seem to be witnessing that confused look more frequently. And it’s stirring a very uncomfortable feeling inside.

When I was back in professional ministry, I would spend a lot of time crafting my teaching, whether it was for small groups or for Sunday sermons. I’m a conceptually-oriented person, so I tend to enjoy theories and concepts. But I also know that people are wired differently. So I would spend considerable time trying to discover creative and fresh ways to communicate concepts. (This is something I learned from Rick Warren and I’ve always admired his ability to do this.) I would use pithy one-sentence summaries, movie clips, stories, object lessons and a variety of other methods to help people hear God’s Word.

But since leaving professional ministry, I haven’t been making the time to practice what I would call the discipline of pastoral communication. Part of the reason is the lack of time in my life. Part of the reason is I don’t really teach anymore since our community’s time is discussion-based. And quite frankly, part of the reason is my own pride.

Over the last couple of years, I have maintained my discipline of study, consuming volumes of theology books. As a conceptual person, this is a fairly easy task for me. But I haven’t counterbalanced that discipline with the discipline of pastoral communication. Instead, I would just write or speak what I was learning without spending the necessary time to craft for the people around me. So now, what naturally comes out of me are mostly concepts and technical language. This is usually followed by confused looks. Then when I try to explain, I find myself really struggling for words. This is usually followed by more confused looks. I have a friend who has told me, “Jason, whenever you open your mouth, a dissertation comes out.”

I know the problem is on my side. The people around me are extremely smart people. I know it’s me and not them.

The awareness of my laziness has been reinforced lately by a sermon series by Brian McLaren called “What is the Emerging Church?” This guy is a master communicator. John Frye has called him a “pastoral artist.” Brian has the ability to communicate extremely complex ideas so simply and naturally. What takes me paragraphs to explain, Brian does in a couple of sentences or with a simple metaphor. It’s amazing to experience.

As a pastoral communicator, I’m out of shape and flabby. And like recommitting to return to the gym, I know the road to fitness will be somewhat uncomfortable and painful. But it’s something I’ve got to do.