The discovering of God’s will for one’s life is a conversation that is common place amongst believers. Many a verse is offered up as guidance and much of the trajectory of people’s choices and intentions arise from a highly personalized sense of how God directs. Is it possible that we will find a deeper sense of the authentic self when we look at our futures through the lense of those around us or in proximity to our awareness? Could the actual needs of our friends, our family, our community and our world be offering a path to follow?
As the self wanes in its exaltedness, the possibility of relationships and purposes outside the highly introverted sense of choice come to the fore. We begin to actually find meaning & direction by being in relationships. We find our self in the selves of others and in the projections they place upon us. We see the glory of others and this glory causes us to dream and plan for a better world. Our plans, however, begin to take place with those directly in our presence. There is no future home. There is now.
Joanne Vance, a visual artist said the following about her life and work. “The essence of my work is humanity; how we value ourselves and are valued. This goes far beyond brush and canvas. It is my aim to blur the distinction between my life and my work so the two become inextricably linked. Hopefully my life will become my art…maybe eve vice versa.” She goes on to say...” I am an artist, mother, and wife, not in any particular order. I am interested in people, family values, fidelity, integrity and hope. I am passionate about touching the lives of people who feel undervalued and irrelevant, not for my gain but for theirs. Obviously, with that sort of ethic, come great rewards anyway, so it’s a winning situation.”
What causes some human beings to offer up their lives as a gift of service while others make an art form out of self aggrandizement? Is it possible that the template for self discovery and expression as reflected in Western European societies is not merely sub biblical but antithetical to the very story Jesus offered?
Give and it shall be given. You are not your own. Pick up your cross daily. Die to yourself. Serve. These are all parts of our Christian story. Yet for many of us a competing ethos has crowded out our ability to incorporate those truths into our idea of the self and our life direction and work. We have been formed deeply by a narrative that ties so much of our worth around our paycheck, our status and our productivity as defined by economics.We are busy building barns and fences.
Upon closer scrutiny we may find that much of our intentionality about the way we engage life direction depends upon the maximization of our abilities to acquire, spend and protect. Getting, spending and hording now overwhelmingly replace other activities and our very souls become reflections of the consumer that we have become. More always trumps better. Or, we make sure that we have control over the acquisitions and are the sole administrator of the estate we have acquired.
To acquire involves our presence. If life direction is the acquisition of personal wealth then the wealth of others, community and the world becomes of secondary importance if important at all. Wealth (the good kind) in this case is the perception of development of the assets and opportunities afforded us by seeing life direction through the needs and presence of others. This kind of wealth is generally not on our radar. Why? There is an untested consensus in the West that more is always better. There is an unquestioned complicity that individuals must first take care of themselves before they can take care of others.
There is a well known financial guru who teaches in many ways that the biblical mandate for financial stewardship is to first get “your house” in order and THEN help others. As I have watched this man’s disciples of sorts go out into the world I find that they never get their house in order because no one has ever tested the foundational philosophies around what their house should look like. No one is asking them what their life direction is about. It is assumed that the mandate of a society built around financial independence is sacrosanct. It need not be questioned. It is just the “way things are.”
When the needs of others become the possible voice of God, we listen differently. We begin to see their needs not as burdens to bear but opportunities to share. In the sharing we deepen our own humanity and begin to have solidarity with others around their deepest most human parts and not the superficial issues of acquired wealth and status.
The incarnation is more than a theological concept. It is the story and posture of a God who decided that the sharing of Himself was His deepest desire. As love, what else could He do but offer His very best? When we continue to see life direction through the needs of others, the story of the Incarnation is written again in our hearts. The very nature of the world turns towards restoration and redemption. The Kingdom of God is manifest on earth as it is in heaven. We become a gloriously rich community able to see the very Godhead in each other’s neediness. This is a gift. "There is enough when we share." - Jim Wallis
Friday, August 29, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Community as Dowser (The Divine Diviner)
In recent years my wife and I have worked with a large village in
Christ's statement as to His status as the living water is a metaphor many of us in the West have highly spiritualized. In
We in the States take water for granted. We do not need to think about what might come from quenching our thirst. We can drink up without fear. Ironically our access to unlimited sources of water is in some ways another metaphor for the over abundance we have in Western societies. We no longer grasp the conditions that many face throughout the world and in that lack of awareness a strange thing happens to the very water we drink. It begins to bring small doses of bacteria that begin to saturate our soul. These small organisms enter our soul and slowly over time alter the very way our bodies and souls engage the world.
Taking this metaphor further I offer up this scenario. Is it possible that because we take one of life’s most vital life sources for granted, we then take the provider of this gift for granted? What is the by product of taking God for granted and how did we get here?
As I enter full fledged middle age I find that discovering spiritual wells is getting harder and harder. Ironically it is not due to my lack of thirst but my awareness as to how I hunt for water. My water dowser (a term people in the backwoods use for one looking for a place to dig a well), has been taken for granted due to the culture in which I thirst. I have dug my well deep into this world and now my soul thirsts for water of a certain kind. My tongue thirsts for increase and growth. I have lived my life from an economic perspective that says I can sell the water that is a gift. My life is available to the highest bidder. This has all been unwitting as I did not know the God of success was enshrined in my heart, in my thirst. I discovered the source of my thirst when I began to discover that I saw myself through this lense of worth, merit and accomplishment. I am what I do. I am what I earn. I am where I live. I am what I have. I am who I know and I know people of power and prestige.
Of late my thirst has begun to change and the very refreshment my soul used to find refreshing now has a strange and even dis-settling taste. I have come to see that my ability to create wealth for myself and others is an elixir that no longer washes over my soul with any sense of refreshment. As I enter middle age I begin to see that life in indeed filled with mortality and limitation and that my thirst for unlimited access to water is not the way the universe works. The water my soul has taken for granted is a myth. I can drink of this water but it is really sugary soda pop or some saccharine version of living water. My tongue did not know the difference but now my heart has begun to inform my bodily appetites and my thirst is changing. I can no longer satiate my thirst with liquids that indeed are filled with salt thus making my thirst a never ending returning to the very things that are making my thirst unquenchable.
Lately I think I heard the Spirit say, “Dig here.” In my heart I am thinking, “What, dig here? There is no water to be found in this location.” As I reluctantly stopped my incessant search for water at the wrong well I began to discover something about the water the Spirit offers. His water is not just for me. He wants to build wells for the village. He desires that this water be accessible to anyone - the just and the unjust. He says the rain falls on all. He seems indiscriminant as to how He offers us this living water. Now my thirst is quenched in the shift in my intentionality as to my digging. Whereas in the past I may have dug for myself, for my own edification, my own personal wealth and thirst, now I have begun to dig with & for others. We are digging. We are dowsing together. We stop and pause and ask corporately, "Is there water here?”We acknowledge together our need of this living water. We are all thirsty beyond our ability to attain anything in this life. The thirst, the real deep down thirst comes in our common humanity. When we begin to see that under our clothes, past our accomplishments, past our marks we have made in this world, we are all the same. This search for water is a communal search and the place of the well must serve many. It is not for my personal private thirst.
I thirst along with others. I dig along with others. I am digging the well along with others. In
I want to offer access to the well to anyone and all. I want to coalesce my searching for water in isolation and bring the process under the community and make it a search together. Help me this day to be a good dowser. Help us as a community of thirst to be a place were people know they can get their deepest thirst quenched. Help us God dig deep into You for the sake of one another.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Longing inside Community
The Risks of Dreaming the Impractical
We all have aspirations. We all have dreams and goals. But I am convinced that too much talk about life as though it were controllable if one only figured out all the steps, has inadvertently made dreams perfunctory excursions of the soul. I say perfunctory in that they now lack the enchantment and hopefulness that are really at the foundation of the soul. Who and what are we at our very depths but dreams? When these dreams are bantered about as though easily formed and easily accomplished, they lose their intrinsic glow. They lose their ability to offer hope. The loss of hope is a terrible thing. At this point the resignation allows for much of the fallenness of this world to berate and attack our soul and we are passive and quiet. We have no sense of childlike expectation.
The soul obeys out of expectation. This posture is not merely wishes and plans but is the very basis of trust in the world. When we lose our trust nothing has clarity. Nothing has substance for all is reflected in its fallen state. We only see the specter of what is not. To dream and anticipate is to trust beyond common sense.
We are taught from very early on that certain behaviors are sensible while others are not. I am convinced that if Jesus were to show up in Western advanced countries today he would appear like some wild eyed misfit and most of His teachings would be considered unrealistic, unusable if not downright useless.
So much of what animates our deepest parts is birthed and nurtured in hope. When that possibility is shot down through feasibility studies, cynicism birthed from our own unwillingness to admit we have lost our dreams, or a lack of conversation with the community, gatherings take on a selfish tone. Ironically, real dreams of hope always involve the whole. They involve the whole because individuals are willing to reveal their deepest most seemingly idealistic imaginings to others risking ridicule. When we have the courage to be children in front of one another we find that our authentic self begins to speak. We say what we believe the world should actually be like. Now the conversation begins. Now we must begin to trust for these heartfelt disclosures are the only thing really holding up our soul. This is the foundation below the foundation. This is the air our very being breathes.
Recently in our community the discussion reflected on how we are all learning how to love. The only way that action is poured out in our community is when we see two things – our lack and our hope. To allow our deepest needs to become apparent is to risk loosing our hope. What if our needs are unmet? What if no one cares? What if I am left alone? All these doubts and suspicions are equally real. They reflect the experience we have had to date when it comes to trusting other human beings. So why trust again? Why allow for our hopes to be rekindled? Because it is who we are.
When we choose to stop longing for the “really real” we become cynical, angry, busy, full of self, overly religious, and despairing. I have had to fight this last one for many months. When all hope seems to be lost where does one go? Where do I go? To those who I sense love me. This is dangerous for now I am really opening up my deepest desire. That deepest desire is to belong.
We live in times where belonging is often based around money earned, position in life, power, who one knows, and many other things that keep our selves set apart. For this community to go deeper into the longing we must go deeper into the impracticality of our dreams. We must go deeper into the sorrow of each person who is losing that power as we speak. We must have the courage to look at one another and carry that darkness for one another. We must say, “Let me long with you.” “Let me hallucinate the divine possibilities of obeying our Savior together and build a highly inept community and village. Let them say (about us) that they are crazy in love with one another and offer up all they have when they have so little. Is that not the miracle of the loaves and fishes? Let our longing cause us to share our loaves and fishes today and usher in the unworkable, unreasonable, impractical, beautiful Kingdom where everything belongs.
We all have aspirations. We all have dreams and goals. But I am convinced that too much talk about life as though it were controllable if one only figured out all the steps, has inadvertently made dreams perfunctory excursions of the soul. I say perfunctory in that they now lack the enchantment and hopefulness that are really at the foundation of the soul. Who and what are we at our very depths but dreams? When these dreams are bantered about as though easily formed and easily accomplished, they lose their intrinsic glow. They lose their ability to offer hope. The loss of hope is a terrible thing. At this point the resignation allows for much of the fallenness of this world to berate and attack our soul and we are passive and quiet. We have no sense of childlike expectation.
The soul obeys out of expectation. This posture is not merely wishes and plans but is the very basis of trust in the world. When we lose our trust nothing has clarity. Nothing has substance for all is reflected in its fallen state. We only see the specter of what is not. To dream and anticipate is to trust beyond common sense.
We are taught from very early on that certain behaviors are sensible while others are not. I am convinced that if Jesus were to show up in Western advanced countries today he would appear like some wild eyed misfit and most of His teachings would be considered unrealistic, unusable if not downright useless.
So much of what animates our deepest parts is birthed and nurtured in hope. When that possibility is shot down through feasibility studies, cynicism birthed from our own unwillingness to admit we have lost our dreams, or a lack of conversation with the community, gatherings take on a selfish tone. Ironically, real dreams of hope always involve the whole. They involve the whole because individuals are willing to reveal their deepest most seemingly idealistic imaginings to others risking ridicule. When we have the courage to be children in front of one another we find that our authentic self begins to speak. We say what we believe the world should actually be like. Now the conversation begins. Now we must begin to trust for these heartfelt disclosures are the only thing really holding up our soul. This is the foundation below the foundation. This is the air our very being breathes.
Recently in our community the discussion reflected on how we are all learning how to love. The only way that action is poured out in our community is when we see two things – our lack and our hope. To allow our deepest needs to become apparent is to risk loosing our hope. What if our needs are unmet? What if no one cares? What if I am left alone? All these doubts and suspicions are equally real. They reflect the experience we have had to date when it comes to trusting other human beings. So why trust again? Why allow for our hopes to be rekindled? Because it is who we are.
When we choose to stop longing for the “really real” we become cynical, angry, busy, full of self, overly religious, and despairing. I have had to fight this last one for many months. When all hope seems to be lost where does one go? Where do I go? To those who I sense love me. This is dangerous for now I am really opening up my deepest desire. That deepest desire is to belong.
We live in times where belonging is often based around money earned, position in life, power, who one knows, and many other things that keep our selves set apart. For this community to go deeper into the longing we must go deeper into the impracticality of our dreams. We must go deeper into the sorrow of each person who is losing that power as we speak. We must have the courage to look at one another and carry that darkness for one another. We must say, “Let me long with you.” “Let me hallucinate the divine possibilities of obeying our Savior together and build a highly inept community and village. Let them say (about us) that they are crazy in love with one another and offer up all they have when they have so little. Is that not the miracle of the loaves and fishes? Let our longing cause us to share our loaves and fishes today and usher in the unworkable, unreasonable, impractical, beautiful Kingdom where everything belongs.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Kingdom & the Church
It has been a number of years since I would consider my relationship with “the Church” as a healthy one. Whether is was attending a mega Church with unbelievable speakers and programs or a tiny church plant begging people to be involved in the worship gathering, the entire enterprise just seemed to be a necessary evil. To ascribe that word to the Church reveals the depths of my confusion and ambivalence. I longed for something more and I was told that Church attendance and involvement were part of the fulfillment of that longing. So….I attended church with great consistency, commitment and focused attention on all I could do to maximize that experience.
Church for me was the gathering, the building, the programs, the offering of the leaders to me as a congregant. I never felt good about being called a member or congregant. It seemed corporate at best or just anonymous at worst. Growing up as a preacher’s kid, church attendance was obligatory. If attendance represented any one’s closeness to God I was nearly glorified by the age of 10 attending meetings sometimes four and five times a week. Maybe it was this highly trained routine that was placed deep within my habitual response to life that made my need for a “church fix” so strong.
Unfortunately the church as a gathering, a program, and building really disappointed me. In fact, it nearly destroyed my life and marriage. I was attending one of the nation’s larger churches and striving diligently to be used by the full time staff on some level. However, there were few slots open for my gifts and the expectation was that my commitment was really going to be manifest by my attendance , my compliance and yes, even my full enjoyment of what was going on at the church. The unspoken assumption was that if I was really desiring to be a humble servant I would understand how hard it was to “run” a church and fit in when I could and be the guy who spoke for leaders.
Now I realize the manipulation of someone who asks for my compliance as if it were servanthood and sees any questioning as rebellion or just rocking the boat. As a preacher’s kid I was very willing and able to co dependently oblige anyone who was in leadership. I wanted them to like me, to tell me how much I was needed, even if all they needed from me was to sit and attend, sing, pray corporately, and support through my tithes and offerings.
Any sense of deviations from the “plan” handed down from on high was tantamount to setting the church up for a spilt. So you ate all your questions, all your concerns, and even your own needs as all your relationships centered on supporting the status quo. There were groups of people who were cheer leaders for the leaders. They would always have a smile on their faces, always have a good word, and always make sure that any complaints were always followed up with “ but the leaders are doing the best job they can do.” I was the “nice guy.” I knew the hearts of the leaders (in some cases I did and in others I did not) so I wanted to smooth over any conflicts and quickly move on to the work of the church which these men (mostly men) knew way before I ever even had these things on my heart and mind. I was passive and compliant and thus able to be supportive of any and all programs that came down the pike.
This statement that leaders were doing the best they can do of course had some truth to it. I do not think I ever met any leaders who got up in the morning and said “Today I am going to take advantage of the flock. Today I am going to push my own agenda regardless of whether it is in the best interest of the family of God or not.” Of course no one says that so trying to get to the core of the issue from the idea that leaders are purposely avoiding truth or duping their people is just not the point.
So what is the point? The real challenge in discovering “the point” is that when you spend the majority of your spiritual life giving away your own personal sense of God’s voice, when you mistake compliance and complicity for unity, then you are a sitting duck for church abuse.In recent years a number of authors have addressed the issues surrounding church abuse. It is clear that there are certain churches and certain leaders who would undeniably be convicted of the crime of abuse. Most churches, however, are not abusing people as much as they are ignoring them. This ascribing of the people in the church to those outside the scope of leadership and God’s voice is in part, part of the problem. It may be just as much of a crime to ignore someone as to misuse them.
Why do many in leadership ignore their flock or offer up simplistic programs to keep them busy and in some case diverted? I think it goes back to a foundational misunderstanding as to what happens in the process of seeking truth and living life. Somehow we have created the misnomer that when Church is “working” all conflicts, all misunderstandings, all conundrums and potential heresies will not only be put to rest, they will not even rear their ugly head. Is this unrealistic and naive or is it so wrong Satan uses it to keep people from discovering deeper truths and more substantial ways of living the Gospel?
How does a group of people hear from God? How does God speak and how might we know if it is God or just humankind hoping to speak for God? Evangelicals have made God an easy mark when it comes to speaking for Him. Christian publishing houses are full of books that probably should have never been written. This may seem a presumptuous thing to say but the shear amount of books claiming to know the heart & mind of God are part of the reason those “outside” the Church regard the whole process as ludicrous. I am not suggesting that the Church attempt to explain itself to those outside its ranks on all issues of truth. It is the presumptuous claim and posture of being God’s spokespersons often void of any brokenness or humility to which most are reacting. In fact, often times the posture of arrogance and smugness is interpreted as standing up for the truth.
As one of the “insiders” as it were, I know that most of the time this posture is actually far from the actual hearts of those wanting to share their faith and message. This posture in some ways is created by the need to placate the “religious” literalist in their midst who want to make sure all things are in order and all things are said according to some scripted rhetoric. No one really knows where the scripts originated or who actually scribed its contents but there are those spokespersons for this exactitude that are guardians over the Spirit of God and those with whom He might mistakenly share His life if the guardians are not vigilant.
The sarcasm here is really more irony. It appears that those claiming to know the voice of God with such clarity and precision are often those who seem to be the least able to offer up His supposedly most dominant character trait-love. As many are attempting to explore the machinations surrounding building community it is clear that one of the elephants sitting in the middle of the room is the deep mistrust and distance Christians have between one another when it comes to discerning the truth. Where does this mistrust and demeanor of suspicion come from? Why do we seem to fluctuate between surrendered obeisance and outright rebellion and cynicism on the other?
We are children of the modern. Part of our DNA is to question. We have been taught from early on in our educational experience that the self and its unveiling only arrive through formidable extrication from tradition and authority. Thus, deep within our ways of knowing we may appear to comply but this compliance is buying us something or we would not bow our knee. In the case of religion it is our fear of being shunned or of being one of the “outsiders.” Thus when we come into the organized Church we bring with us the competing responses of a willingness to cooperate and an underlying distancing that will only go so far and in truth, will bale if the going gets a little to rough. Rough here may mean forgiving, committing to relationships even when it has ceased to “assist” us personally. Is it possible that it is easier to set up a system where unity and community are built around a degree of intellectual assent rather than a deep deep commitment to live out our lives with one another? ( i.e. The Kingdom)
One of the strongholds I believe many have encountered in the dialogue about forming a church plant is just how messy all this talk of community might get when they actually start to live out our lives with one another. Your sin, your brokenness is going to cost me. It will spill out all over me and my family. You greed, your pride, your sloth, your fears come with the package. I cannot separate your need of a Savior with your joyous gifts that you may freely bestow on me as well. I get the beautiful brokenness in community and I really feel more comfortable with the old Church model. Give me programs. Give me technique and list of things to do and be. Write it out on the wall. Make teaching more like parenting rather than a journey we take together. Make loving more about what we share in common (what many of us call friendship) and less about sitting with you even when your sin has now brought me to me knees along with you. (An aside- marriage is often wrought with this reality)
This is what I am frightened of. This is what I want to avoid. I do not want to get hurt. I do not want to be a part of something that might turn sour. I would rather dip my finger in the luke warm water of organized religion than the nitty gritty world of life and the Kingdom that are so big I am frightened in its shadow.
It makes sense to me that I run from pain and hurt. Who in their right mind would willingly step into the path of a careening automobile driving headlong into their midst. This ironically is the underbelly of every and all churches. We are dangerous. We are a group of wounded people poised to either do damage or bring relief to sorrow and suffering. Most of the time it is both. I want to faucet that gives only pure water. I want the community that is risk free. I want the church that has made all the hard decisions for me and all I have to do is “buy” into the program and comply. Thus, much of the compliance that I complained about above, I have had a hand in creating. I am the man!
What do I do?
Like many rants, as some point we must empty our inner outrage only to discover the very hypocrisy of which we observe is equally in our own heart. I must repent Father. I am the one afraid of moving out into this space where You are my only source. I want the protection of formality and structure even if it is not forming anything in me of worth. Please help me walk in the fullness of Your Spirit and hear and listen to You. I am not sure if I would even know the voice of God sometimes. I know I must learn to listen together. Listen in love.
This is it. This is the sacred task.
Listening
Listening
Loving
Loving
Listening
Listening
Loving
Loving
What are You saying Father?.
Speak to us.
Church for me was the gathering, the building, the programs, the offering of the leaders to me as a congregant. I never felt good about being called a member or congregant. It seemed corporate at best or just anonymous at worst. Growing up as a preacher’s kid, church attendance was obligatory. If attendance represented any one’s closeness to God I was nearly glorified by the age of 10 attending meetings sometimes four and five times a week. Maybe it was this highly trained routine that was placed deep within my habitual response to life that made my need for a “church fix” so strong.
Unfortunately the church as a gathering, a program, and building really disappointed me. In fact, it nearly destroyed my life and marriage. I was attending one of the nation’s larger churches and striving diligently to be used by the full time staff on some level. However, there were few slots open for my gifts and the expectation was that my commitment was really going to be manifest by my attendance , my compliance and yes, even my full enjoyment of what was going on at the church. The unspoken assumption was that if I was really desiring to be a humble servant I would understand how hard it was to “run” a church and fit in when I could and be the guy who spoke for leaders.
Now I realize the manipulation of someone who asks for my compliance as if it were servanthood and sees any questioning as rebellion or just rocking the boat. As a preacher’s kid I was very willing and able to co dependently oblige anyone who was in leadership. I wanted them to like me, to tell me how much I was needed, even if all they needed from me was to sit and attend, sing, pray corporately, and support through my tithes and offerings.
Any sense of deviations from the “plan” handed down from on high was tantamount to setting the church up for a spilt. So you ate all your questions, all your concerns, and even your own needs as all your relationships centered on supporting the status quo. There were groups of people who were cheer leaders for the leaders. They would always have a smile on their faces, always have a good word, and always make sure that any complaints were always followed up with “ but the leaders are doing the best job they can do.” I was the “nice guy.” I knew the hearts of the leaders (in some cases I did and in others I did not) so I wanted to smooth over any conflicts and quickly move on to the work of the church which these men (mostly men) knew way before I ever even had these things on my heart and mind. I was passive and compliant and thus able to be supportive of any and all programs that came down the pike.
This statement that leaders were doing the best they can do of course had some truth to it. I do not think I ever met any leaders who got up in the morning and said “Today I am going to take advantage of the flock. Today I am going to push my own agenda regardless of whether it is in the best interest of the family of God or not.” Of course no one says that so trying to get to the core of the issue from the idea that leaders are purposely avoiding truth or duping their people is just not the point.
So what is the point? The real challenge in discovering “the point” is that when you spend the majority of your spiritual life giving away your own personal sense of God’s voice, when you mistake compliance and complicity for unity, then you are a sitting duck for church abuse.In recent years a number of authors have addressed the issues surrounding church abuse. It is clear that there are certain churches and certain leaders who would undeniably be convicted of the crime of abuse. Most churches, however, are not abusing people as much as they are ignoring them. This ascribing of the people in the church to those outside the scope of leadership and God’s voice is in part, part of the problem. It may be just as much of a crime to ignore someone as to misuse them.
Why do many in leadership ignore their flock or offer up simplistic programs to keep them busy and in some case diverted? I think it goes back to a foundational misunderstanding as to what happens in the process of seeking truth and living life. Somehow we have created the misnomer that when Church is “working” all conflicts, all misunderstandings, all conundrums and potential heresies will not only be put to rest, they will not even rear their ugly head. Is this unrealistic and naive or is it so wrong Satan uses it to keep people from discovering deeper truths and more substantial ways of living the Gospel?
How does a group of people hear from God? How does God speak and how might we know if it is God or just humankind hoping to speak for God? Evangelicals have made God an easy mark when it comes to speaking for Him. Christian publishing houses are full of books that probably should have never been written. This may seem a presumptuous thing to say but the shear amount of books claiming to know the heart & mind of God are part of the reason those “outside” the Church regard the whole process as ludicrous. I am not suggesting that the Church attempt to explain itself to those outside its ranks on all issues of truth. It is the presumptuous claim and posture of being God’s spokespersons often void of any brokenness or humility to which most are reacting. In fact, often times the posture of arrogance and smugness is interpreted as standing up for the truth.
As one of the “insiders” as it were, I know that most of the time this posture is actually far from the actual hearts of those wanting to share their faith and message. This posture in some ways is created by the need to placate the “religious” literalist in their midst who want to make sure all things are in order and all things are said according to some scripted rhetoric. No one really knows where the scripts originated or who actually scribed its contents but there are those spokespersons for this exactitude that are guardians over the Spirit of God and those with whom He might mistakenly share His life if the guardians are not vigilant.
The sarcasm here is really more irony. It appears that those claiming to know the voice of God with such clarity and precision are often those who seem to be the least able to offer up His supposedly most dominant character trait-love. As many are attempting to explore the machinations surrounding building community it is clear that one of the elephants sitting in the middle of the room is the deep mistrust and distance Christians have between one another when it comes to discerning the truth. Where does this mistrust and demeanor of suspicion come from? Why do we seem to fluctuate between surrendered obeisance and outright rebellion and cynicism on the other?
We are children of the modern. Part of our DNA is to question. We have been taught from early on in our educational experience that the self and its unveiling only arrive through formidable extrication from tradition and authority. Thus, deep within our ways of knowing we may appear to comply but this compliance is buying us something or we would not bow our knee. In the case of religion it is our fear of being shunned or of being one of the “outsiders.” Thus when we come into the organized Church we bring with us the competing responses of a willingness to cooperate and an underlying distancing that will only go so far and in truth, will bale if the going gets a little to rough. Rough here may mean forgiving, committing to relationships even when it has ceased to “assist” us personally. Is it possible that it is easier to set up a system where unity and community are built around a degree of intellectual assent rather than a deep deep commitment to live out our lives with one another? ( i.e. The Kingdom)
One of the strongholds I believe many have encountered in the dialogue about forming a church plant is just how messy all this talk of community might get when they actually start to live out our lives with one another. Your sin, your brokenness is going to cost me. It will spill out all over me and my family. You greed, your pride, your sloth, your fears come with the package. I cannot separate your need of a Savior with your joyous gifts that you may freely bestow on me as well. I get the beautiful brokenness in community and I really feel more comfortable with the old Church model. Give me programs. Give me technique and list of things to do and be. Write it out on the wall. Make teaching more like parenting rather than a journey we take together. Make loving more about what we share in common (what many of us call friendship) and less about sitting with you even when your sin has now brought me to me knees along with you. (An aside- marriage is often wrought with this reality)
This is what I am frightened of. This is what I want to avoid. I do not want to get hurt. I do not want to be a part of something that might turn sour. I would rather dip my finger in the luke warm water of organized religion than the nitty gritty world of life and the Kingdom that are so big I am frightened in its shadow.
It makes sense to me that I run from pain and hurt. Who in their right mind would willingly step into the path of a careening automobile driving headlong into their midst. This ironically is the underbelly of every and all churches. We are dangerous. We are a group of wounded people poised to either do damage or bring relief to sorrow and suffering. Most of the time it is both. I want to faucet that gives only pure water. I want the community that is risk free. I want the church that has made all the hard decisions for me and all I have to do is “buy” into the program and comply. Thus, much of the compliance that I complained about above, I have had a hand in creating. I am the man!
What do I do?
Like many rants, as some point we must empty our inner outrage only to discover the very hypocrisy of which we observe is equally in our own heart. I must repent Father. I am the one afraid of moving out into this space where You are my only source. I want the protection of formality and structure even if it is not forming anything in me of worth. Please help me walk in the fullness of Your Spirit and hear and listen to You. I am not sure if I would even know the voice of God sometimes. I know I must learn to listen together. Listen in love.
This is it. This is the sacred task.
Listening
Listening
Loving
Loving
Listening
Listening
Loving
Loving
What are You saying Father?.
Speak to us.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Replace Your Career with Your Life
Years of modern philosophical constructs surrounding our description of life have now made the soul a commodity to be maximized. The work of our hands and hearts have now become mechanisms for profiteering and our deepest nature is up for sale. It is said that the average person will have over five careers in their life time. These are not just new jobs but actually changes in how one configures their life around vocation and job issues. It is clear that for those who define themselves primarily or narrowly around the weight a job title or position offers may indeed find themselves without an identity. Rapid shifts in global economies now make career planning and company loyalty a crap shoot at best and a game of voodoo darts at worst. It is as if we are ask to define ourselves around a vapor and then wonder why we feel so adrift and without a core self.
To replace our career with our life involves a significant reorientation surrounding how we name and embody our decisions in life. In decades past it was expected that one would move to wherever their company ask them to re locate. It was also clear that retirement in the company you started out in or engaged in one’s 20’s very well might be where you ended up. Our parents and grandparents experienced this phenomenon. This kind of experience is nearly laughable at this point. However, people are not laughing. They are hunkering down even more into the soil of career as a source of identity but are doing so with a much more self aggrandizing sense about the search. If companies are going to be ruthless then so will employees. Loyalty to company goals and ideals is a thing of the past.
This kind of loyalty came natural to post WW I & II veterans who knew how to obey and hungered for a better world. The promises of industrialism and now technology and big business were tantamount to earlier forms of manifest destiny which brought Pilgrims to American shores and caused many to suffer for a better world in the here and now.
Unfortunately that better world was built upon an erroneous understanding as to the worth of the human soul. Not all things can carry with them a price tag. Much of life is gift plain and simple. In many ancient cultures, the idea of gift is written into the manner in which people groups communicate their worth and respect for one another. As we lose the concept of gift and the blessing of its exchanging, we begin to grow cynical as we then begin to wonder why no one sees our intrinsic worth.
As we replace our career with our life it is clear that the word ”our” is essential in this redefining. To find ourselves we must indeed work out that process in & with a set apart group of people who likewise desire to gift their lives to others. Could it be that the very nature of life transcends career and the degree to which we set the depth of our being down into this soil is the degree to which we are tossed about by every wind of change? We live in the climate and milieu of technological capitalism. This is a pervasive ambient presence that permeates all we do. From i-Pods to Game Boys, we are all hooked up to some form of leisure technology that feeds our interests and need for fun. This way of being means that we are constantly looking for things to buy to fulfill us. We consume not just for certain goods like milk and bread but clothing and music that reflect our deepest reflections on how we believe the world should or does operate. Thus, our consumer purchases become one of the few ways we can express ourselves. To replace our career with our life we must redefine our very purposes on this planet. Are we here merely to produce and consume? Is the most important thing about this life the material world and all its benefits? To make this shift we must move ourselves out of the center and place ourselves into a new hub and new center. That pivot point is community.
To replace our career with our life involves a significant reorientation surrounding how we name and embody our decisions in life. In decades past it was expected that one would move to wherever their company ask them to re locate. It was also clear that retirement in the company you started out in or engaged in one’s 20’s very well might be where you ended up. Our parents and grandparents experienced this phenomenon. This kind of experience is nearly laughable at this point. However, people are not laughing. They are hunkering down even more into the soil of career as a source of identity but are doing so with a much more self aggrandizing sense about the search. If companies are going to be ruthless then so will employees. Loyalty to company goals and ideals is a thing of the past.
This kind of loyalty came natural to post WW I & II veterans who knew how to obey and hungered for a better world. The promises of industrialism and now technology and big business were tantamount to earlier forms of manifest destiny which brought Pilgrims to American shores and caused many to suffer for a better world in the here and now.
Unfortunately that better world was built upon an erroneous understanding as to the worth of the human soul. Not all things can carry with them a price tag. Much of life is gift plain and simple. In many ancient cultures, the idea of gift is written into the manner in which people groups communicate their worth and respect for one another. As we lose the concept of gift and the blessing of its exchanging, we begin to grow cynical as we then begin to wonder why no one sees our intrinsic worth.
As we replace our career with our life it is clear that the word ”our” is essential in this redefining. To find ourselves we must indeed work out that process in & with a set apart group of people who likewise desire to gift their lives to others. Could it be that the very nature of life transcends career and the degree to which we set the depth of our being down into this soil is the degree to which we are tossed about by every wind of change? We live in the climate and milieu of technological capitalism. This is a pervasive ambient presence that permeates all we do. From i-Pods to Game Boys, we are all hooked up to some form of leisure technology that feeds our interests and need for fun. This way of being means that we are constantly looking for things to buy to fulfill us. We consume not just for certain goods like milk and bread but clothing and music that reflect our deepest reflections on how we believe the world should or does operate. Thus, our consumer purchases become one of the few ways we can express ourselves. To replace our career with our life we must redefine our very purposes on this planet. Are we here merely to produce and consume? Is the most important thing about this life the material world and all its benefits? To make this shift we must move ourselves out of the center and place ourselves into a new hub and new center. That pivot point is community.
Make Community the Center
Hundreds of years of autocratic governments, monarchies and despots made the search for the worth of the individual sensible and essential. The life of a serf in millennia past was hard and cruel. In these centuries past community was a central part of individual’s lives but kings, rulers, and sovereigns cared little for any one person. Thinkers, spiritual leaders and indeed our very Lord presented new ways of being that honored the self and in many ways salvation itself is the Father’s way of telling us our worth to Him. Ironically, as the emergence of the worth of the self and the power of the individual began to permeate Western European thought, we began to see primarily during the Enlightenment, a shifting away from the re defined sense of the self’s worth to the power and status of the self over all else. The self, or the individual now held precedence over all else and could trump the impact of other social ties and entities from the family, to the state & to the Church. At the risk of a laborious history lesson, the point here is that years of communally formed individuals were now being eroded in part due to the abuses of past autocratic leaders and rulers.
Fast forward centuries and we now live in times where the self is exalted, goes unquestioned, and is assumed to be the center of humanity’s search for meaning and worth. TV programs like Oprah Winfrey even go one step further and offer up the search for the self’s core as the ultimate purpose of human endeavors on this planet. We are here to discover ourselves and reveal to others our specialness through expression and demonstration. We are here to see ourselves blossom as individuals.The shift from self as center to community as center is difficult and wrought with challenges. Utopian dreams have fostered many well meaning communities that have gone on to be more abusive and autocratic than the one’s from which they were supposedly delivering its members. There are reasons Enlightenment thinkers fostered such thoughtful and powerful ideas as democracy and the worth of the individual. In the shadow of 20th century’s therapeutic deepening of the idea of self and the technology’s ability to fulfill most of our deepest longings, we now live in a time where the power of self absorption and narcissism are dangerous and spiritually unhealthy.Even much of American Evangelicalism has fallen into the Gospel of self worship as it has made God’s will equal to one’s personal goals and dreams and prayer and personalizing of God’s activities here on earth in the form of a personal shopper for His people. God wants us to be blessed and prosper right? We can laugh at this on some level but the erosion of community as a discerning force and a friendly and loving place in which to work out one’s life is truly sorrowful.
We are in darker times than the Church would want to admit. Ironically, those who do not believe are often much more willing to articulate the dark underbelly of where world cultures are going as we continue to exalt the self and all its proclivities as the center of the universe. In fact, it is the duplicity of secular culture that makes the cynicism run so thick and even cause believers to doubt the world can be a better place. Pundits warn us of this slide into hyper narcissism and yet the very context of the sharing involves some form of commercial exploitation. Everyone sees the greed. We are just waiting for someone else to lay down their stuff first.
When community is the center there is sufficiency and even abundance.. Jim Wallis said, “when we share, there is enough.” Could this reorientation of our lives around the sufficiency of the whole versus the ultimacy of the individual help us discover the abundance we are all so looking for? The abundance may not be enough to build high walls of protection around our lives such that no one or hard times can get to us. Much of the saving and retirement plans of many of my aging boomers are really forms of Christian survivalism. They are going to make sure they have to depend on no one. This posture of course cannot be sequestered only in the area of finances and fiscal protection. This posture becomes a pervasive knee jerk mannerism of our very soul. We all become calculating expedient neighbors waiting for the other to go down so we can buy their stuff at a rummage sale.
Signs of the times are always hard to read and the Church has been one of the main purveyors of dooms day projections. However, we are in challenging times of transition. Would it not behoove us to reorient ourselves to a new way of living? One that was much more reflective of the heavenly enclave into which we be inaugurated at some point in eternity? There is more to this story you know.
Fast forward centuries and we now live in times where the self is exalted, goes unquestioned, and is assumed to be the center of humanity’s search for meaning and worth. TV programs like Oprah Winfrey even go one step further and offer up the search for the self’s core as the ultimate purpose of human endeavors on this planet. We are here to discover ourselves and reveal to others our specialness through expression and demonstration. We are here to see ourselves blossom as individuals.The shift from self as center to community as center is difficult and wrought with challenges. Utopian dreams have fostered many well meaning communities that have gone on to be more abusive and autocratic than the one’s from which they were supposedly delivering its members. There are reasons Enlightenment thinkers fostered such thoughtful and powerful ideas as democracy and the worth of the individual. In the shadow of 20th century’s therapeutic deepening of the idea of self and the technology’s ability to fulfill most of our deepest longings, we now live in a time where the power of self absorption and narcissism are dangerous and spiritually unhealthy.Even much of American Evangelicalism has fallen into the Gospel of self worship as it has made God’s will equal to one’s personal goals and dreams and prayer and personalizing of God’s activities here on earth in the form of a personal shopper for His people. God wants us to be blessed and prosper right? We can laugh at this on some level but the erosion of community as a discerning force and a friendly and loving place in which to work out one’s life is truly sorrowful.
We are in darker times than the Church would want to admit. Ironically, those who do not believe are often much more willing to articulate the dark underbelly of where world cultures are going as we continue to exalt the self and all its proclivities as the center of the universe. In fact, it is the duplicity of secular culture that makes the cynicism run so thick and even cause believers to doubt the world can be a better place. Pundits warn us of this slide into hyper narcissism and yet the very context of the sharing involves some form of commercial exploitation. Everyone sees the greed. We are just waiting for someone else to lay down their stuff first.
When community is the center there is sufficiency and even abundance.. Jim Wallis said, “when we share, there is enough.” Could this reorientation of our lives around the sufficiency of the whole versus the ultimacy of the individual help us discover the abundance we are all so looking for? The abundance may not be enough to build high walls of protection around our lives such that no one or hard times can get to us. Much of the saving and retirement plans of many of my aging boomers are really forms of Christian survivalism. They are going to make sure they have to depend on no one. This posture of course cannot be sequestered only in the area of finances and fiscal protection. This posture becomes a pervasive knee jerk mannerism of our very soul. We all become calculating expedient neighbors waiting for the other to go down so we can buy their stuff at a rummage sale.
Signs of the times are always hard to read and the Church has been one of the main purveyors of dooms day projections. However, we are in challenging times of transition. Would it not behoove us to reorient ourselves to a new way of living? One that was much more reflective of the heavenly enclave into which we be inaugurated at some point in eternity? There is more to this story you know.
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