Stephen Colbert on immigration

Stephen Colbert using his satirical gift before Congress. Well done Stephen, well done.

Inequitites, Part 2

These are reflections on my previous post about some inequities I experienced the other night from about 3 feet away on the Metro coming home from Busch Stadium. It raised some serious questions for me:

What does it mean that there are massive inequities in the world?

Am I supposed to feel "white guilt" for my station in life?

Am I supposed to feel sorry for my African-American brother and his station in life?

What can I even do to address inequities on this scale?

Where I am born and to whom I am born is beyond my control. A large part of what I experienced the other night was due to factors of our birth. We like to think that we are largely self-made people, but that's really a myth of the modern world. While we are certainly responsible for making something of our lives, and this is without a doubt the 'land of opportunity', the material we start with and where we start with it determines more of who we are than we care to admit.

Things don't make a person happy. A cultural myth that is heavily marketed to us is that money+stuff=happiness. Love, relationships, family, warmth: These are all ingredients money can't buy. If you've ever been to a third-world country, you've likely walked away thinking: how can they be so happy?

The American Dream is really a new form of aristocracy. The things we've come to expect out of life are things that for the majority of human history were only available to royalty. It's great that a higher standard of living is available (who wants people to intentionally suffer?), however a short reflection on history will hopefully fill us with gratitude.

Feeling sorry for someone is a waste of energy. Feeling sorry for someone often has the effect of making us feel superior. "Oh, those poor people!", which really can mean "I'm so much better than them. I'm glad I'm not like them." And when we feel superior, we can no longer move to help as a fellow human being. Our help comes tainted with self-righteousness.

Admit the disparity. It doesn't do any good to refuse to acknowledge the inequities. Look them square in the face and say that they are there. Then do something. The inequities would have been even greater if I'd talked about the families I've met in third world countries. Hand-wringing over their existence does nothing. Act.

True living means giving. In God's economy of things, giving is actually a better way of living than receiving. Jesus says it's actually the best way to go about life. The consumerism of our society wants to reverse God's economy and tells us that it is better to receive than to give. In contrast, if we follow Jesus and have, we give. We work for justice. We pay attention to inequities. We live simply so that we can give.

What are your thoughts on the inequities you see in life?

Inequities

Someone gave us four free tickets to last Friday night's Cardinals Game, 13 rows up from the 3rd base dugout valued at $400. An incredible job perk. I did a funeral and the funeral director passed on tickets to me.

He and his wife worked the Cardinals game in concessions, by the grease pit where they could only hear the cheers when the Cardinals routed the Padres 14-4. A job perk, I guess.

*We took our two boys for a fun night out which meant they'd stay up much later than little kids should. It was a special treat that we paid for with grumpiness for two days, but totally worth the experience.

*His two kids were watched, like they are most nights, by someone while their mom and dad worked, staying up much later than little kids should, like they probably do most nights.

*We were all wearing happy, fun Cardinals gear--St Louis Camouflage, as it's called--to get in the spirit of the game.

*They were wearing concessionare, grease-saturated uniforms.

*We rode the Metro down to the stadium because it would be fun for our boys. They loved it.

*They rode the Metro down to the stadium because its there only means of transit, standing for the most part because the train was packed with exhausted fans who were filling all the seats.

*We bought the boys a memento bat each, a hot dog, cotton candy and a root beer. About $40 worth of fun.

*They earned a little more than that for their night's work.

*While on the Metro I stood gingerly in the packed crowd on my right foot I'd recently pierced with a large nail. It still hurt, but my insurance is good and I was able to get the care I needed easily with relatively little cost to me.

*While on the Metro, he had a band-aid on a sore that topped a grotesquely mis-formed set of veins on his left arm. I don't know this for sure, but given his circumstances, I'm going to guess the band-aid was his form of "care." It was what he could get at relatively little cost to him.

*My wife was worn out and beaten down from a week of running after three little ones (a huge job, to be sure).

*His wife was worn out from the constant drain of looking after two little ones, while holding down a fast-food job. I heard her mutter about the strength she needed to carry on in what seemed like an unending future.

I could go on. Tomorrow, I'll reflect on what this all means and specifically what this all means for me as a follower of Jesus.

I'm living into this

"If something hurts you, don't avoid it. Face it, get to the bottom of it, root it out and die to it.
Then resurrection will come."
- Rob Bell

Crying Like a Man

Tim Keel had a great post recently on tears that show up unannounced. It's a beautifully written piece with a lasting quote from Frederick Beuchner, whose way with words is unparalleled.

You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it,
or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it...You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.

Top Reads of 2008

Leaders read.
Innovators read.
John Wesley said you can't grow if you don't read (and when John Wesley speaks, boy do I listen).
Plus, I recieved an education that cost taxpayers a lot of money and for which I personally paid dearly. If I don't read, I waste this investment and may as well be illiterate.

Because I want to be these things (and because I love it), I read.

Here are my top reads for 2008 (in no particular order)::
The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr
Good to Great by Jim Collins
A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in an Age of Anxiety by Edwin Friedman
The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs
Simply Christian by NT Wright
Surprised by Hope by NT Wright
Just Courage by Gary Haugen
Axiom by Bill Hybels
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis
Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom

Here are some books I'm looking forward to in 2009:
Believing in the Future by David Bosch
The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting Churches by Bob Roberts
The Dangerous Act of Worship by Mark Labberton
Lord Jesus Christ by Larry Hurtado

A Classic that Doesn't Dissappoint

A good rule of thumb: If you are trying to grow as a follower Jesus, go for what's old and time-tested, not what someone just thought up and a publisher marketed to you to get you to buy.

One such resource: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. A friend described him as a "klutz who broke everything." In an effort to make something of himself, he left the services of a French Lord and entered the monastery and there became the washer of pots and pans. His simple meditations from the 17th Century on what it means to pray have endured and spoken to many.

Here's what Henri Nouwen wrote in the foreword to a recent edition:

"Although we are busy we experience ourselves as the passive victims of great powers that control us and seem very hard to resist. Life seems like a long series of randomly scattered incidents and accidents over which we have no control."

I'm not sure I've heard a more concise summary of 21st Century life in America. And it's too this sense of fragementation that Brother Lawrence speaks.

I'll post reflections as I read my way through.

Where to order:
Online edition (free)
Amazon.com.

Why There is No Future in the Past

What do you do when things seem to be unraveling? When suddenly or overnight or out of nowhere or without explanation something in your circle of influence runs you over? A child, a marriage, a relationship, an opportunity, a job goes south?

Like it or not, this 'out of the blue' feeling is the reality that when the present isn't effectively managed, it has a way of becoming a past that builds and builds into 'the wave' that now seems ready to sweep away both your present and your future. It's like you're standing on the beach called 'the present' and you get washed away by an unexpected tsunmani called 'the past.'

Can you relate?

The hard to swallow truth is that there usually is no "suddenly." The past is, more often than not, something of our own creation. There are exceptions to that, for sure.

Regardless of who or how the past happened, it often ends up determining your future. "There and then" keeps you from living "here and now." It's not that the future is determined in the sense that we can't escape it no matter what, it's just that our past has become the most influential voice in our present. And so we futilely search for a future in the past.

As a result, we feel helpless against 'the wave.'

Enter the Gospel--the good news--of Jesus. It is the announcement that Jesus has taken the past and overwhelmed and overcome it, calming it's angry waters.

Paul, writer of much of the New Testament says it this way: "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them." Jesus silences the voice of the past and invites us to live here and now in light of God's future; A future full of hope and possibility.

Can you see it?

Repent (ye vile and filthy sinners!)

It's a warm fuzzy word, isn't it? It just makes you want to pour a hot cup of coffee and pull up to a roaring fire.....or not. It's now freighted meaning usually conjurs up such crowd-pleasing images as judgement, condemnation, eternal hellfire and an occasional dash of brimstone just for effect.

And if it is one of Jesus' basic messages: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near." then, uh-oh for Jesus, right?

Well, we need to rescue the word in word, practice and deed because it's absolutely crucial to human flourishing. The word in the original Greek is metanoia, which literally means "with mind" or "with new mind."

In today's language we might say it this way, "he had a paradigm shift." When we say that, we mean he was inside a way of seeing things that caused him to act, feel and live a certain way. Then a window opened and he shifted his position to an entirely new way of seeing things. Everything became clear and subsequently made sense in a whole new way. It was like he was seeing things again for the first time, with an entirely new set of eyes.

So if two people are comitting adultery (I've walked several people through this as a pastor), they are inside a system that has them seeing, feeling and acting as though this foreign object to their marriage will somehow make them happy/give them the thing they think they've always wanted/make them feel a certain way about themselves. If they do not repent, that is, have a paradigm shift, everything they know will be destroyed and the resulting relational shrapnel will literally scatter for years. They will not flourish.

This is just one example, use your imagination and extrapolate it out to any situation. It always holds true. Repentance, properly understood and done, is a fundamental key to human flourishing.

That's why preaching, when it's done well, always invites people to repent--to shift their paradigm. Mark Beeson, leader of a great church, took some notes on preaching for repentance here.

Too often that call for repentance is done in shrill religious-ese. We fail to show people the new paradigm (Jesus' new paradigm was always the Kingdom of God) and so they never give up on their old paradigm. They hear it as "you should stop being like you and be more like me, because I've got it all figured out." That almost never works. I'm not suggesting we can make people repent (we can't), just saying it needs to be given serious and careful consideration (note made to self) every time someone stands up to preach.

One of the best ways I know to do that is through story. A story easily gets past my defenses and gives me a picture of either what I am, or what I can be. I'll post a repentance story tomorrow.

John Wesley Rides Again, part 3 of ?

More thoughts on the life of the great John Wesley, who in the 1700's traveled 250,000 miles on horseback, preached over 25,000 sermons and changed England. His heritage in our day and age includes the Church of the Nazarene, and local, innovative churches like Granger Community Church and the Church of the Resurrection.

• He sacrificed his personal preferences for the sake of the mission: after 33 years of open-air field preaching to the unchurched, confessed that "To this day field preaching is a cross to me. But I know my commission and see no other way of 'preaching the gospel to every creature.' " Doesn't this challenge the status-quo thinking in our day that I should minister "where I am gifted and feel most passionate?" Mission is bigger than preference.
• He thought big. His goal were to "renew the church", "spread scriptural holiness", "reform the nation." All of which he achieved.
• He was a behavorial scientist. Always asking, observing, questioning to understand people--not foist his already developed opinions about what he thought was best on them (ouch!). To that end, he conducted thousands of interviews with people. I would imagine he asked questions like: "What do you need?" "What is the biggest hindrance to your life right now?" "What helps you connect with a sense of the divine?" What are the hurts in your life?" Then he listened.
• He loved the truth: "Let us make a conscience of magnifying or exaggerating any thing. Let us rather speak under, than above, the truth. We, of all men, should be punctual in what we say; that none of our words may fall to the ground."
• He didn't start with the powerful and influential. From his journal: "...preached at Haddington, in Provost D's yard, to a very elegant congregation. But I expect little good will be done here, for we begin at the wrong end: religion must not go from the greatest to the least or the power would appear to be of men."
• He knew about incarnational ministry and being missional before it was a buzz-word: The Wesley's realized that any form of outreach had to "fit" a people's cultural form for them to "hear" the message at all. That said, he and brother Charles met people on their turf and sacrificed their own preferences and upbringing to do so.
• They put the cookies on the bottom shelf: "The most obvious, easy, common words, wherein our meaning can be conveyed, we prefer before others, both on ordinary occasions, and when we speak of the things of God."
• George Hunter says that much of Wesley's strategy can be broken down in these four maxims: (1)Preach and visit in as many places as you can. (2) Go most where they want you most. (3) Start as many classes (small groups) as can be effectively managed. (4) Do not preach where you cannot enroll awakened people into classes (small groups).

Many of these thoughts are from George Hunter's article on John Wesley the Strategist that can be found here.

Tragedy at VT - what to do about evil?

On Monday we hosted the funeral for one of the victim's of the Virginia Tech tragedy on Monday. His family belonged to a church here in the area. Their sanctuary wasn't large enough, so they asked for our help. It was a moving ceremony as 900+ packed the house to honor this promising young man. I'm looking at the program from the funeral and his winsome smile is looking back at me.

There really aren't words for a tragedy of this magnitude, or any magnitude for that matter. So here are some random thoughts on evil in general and this evil in particular.

• "Evil", as Scott Peck's child noticed, "is live spelled backwards." The essence of evil in any form? Taking life. See Scott Peck's chilling work on the psychology of evil: People of the Lie.
• Cho emerged to fit the profile of all the other shooters. Loner, ostracized, unresolved junk from the past. This only shows the dark side of our being made in God's image: Without good relationships, society suffers. Community benefits society.
• John Donne was right: "No man is an island. If one part of Europe falls into the sea, the rest is affected." There are no "isolated", "private" acts. That's an illusion perpetrated by radical individualism and an illusion we all too readily buy.
• Whether or not we suffer is not the issue. A life skill is that we must learn to suffer better. Christians as a rule don't know how to suffer and grieve, which is ironic given that the majority of literature in the Old Testament was written in and to a context of suffering. (And never mind that our savior suffered and told us we would too).
• God is not responsible for suffering. If God were, we would be puppets in some divine play (and I know some think this is so). We are free moral agents--able to choose. This is a reflection of being made in the image of God.
• Tears are the price of love. If we love, we hurt. The two aren't separable.
• We are "but a mist that appears for a while then vanishes" as James, Jesus' brother reminds us.

We Theology

I've been thinking about spiritual growth and how we measure it.

As Americans/Westerners everything is about the individual. Almost all of our efforts in churches are geared toward the individual. The very few matrices/assessments I've seen for spiritual growth are generally geared toward the individual--asking how "you" can grow and measuring how "you" have grown.

Perhaps that is the influence of Descartes (of "I think, therefore I am" fame), but I don't think it is in rhythm with the New Testament and OT, lest I engage in some sort of super-sessionism.

The controlling metaphor, it could be argued, in the NT for Christians is "the body of Christ." Now as I understand it, when my lungs go someplace, my liver usually goes along for the trip. For instance, I am currently in Tulsa, OK wrapping up a wedding. None of my body parts decided to pre-emptively stay home in Richmond. All of me went along.

If that is the case, and it is what Paul was meaning when he used that metaphor, then shouldn't spiritual growth be measured by how WE are growing rather then simply how I am growing?

If I read my Bible, love more, serve more, etc. but we don't all take steps forward, then is spiritual growth in NT terms actually happening? Or I am just on a personal growth plan that essentially says "to hell with everyone else" but has been unwittingly endorsed by the current system of Christianity? Maybe Moses understood this when he told God if his people were going to be cut off, then cut him off too. (See the tail-end of the story in Exodus 32:30-33.) This just doesn't make sense in our individualistic "make-sure-you-yourself-know-where-you-will-spend-eternity" ethos.

Getting it Right

The Church of the Nazarene is rearticulating it's mission in a simple, to the point statement.

I'm downright proud. Resources and reasons for the change can be found here.

1 year, 10 times

Stopped by St Paul's Episcopal Church in downtown Richmond at lunch today. They do a yearly Lenten preaching series where they serve lunch and then invite various preachers to their pulpit. St Pauls is a historic Church. Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee both worshipped there during the Civil War.

Today's guest was Lance Watson from St Paul's Baptist here in town (10,000 or so strong).
My boy can bring it. Makes me sorry to be white. Seriously.

Subject: New wine requires new wineskins.
Some nuggets from his sermon:

"This next year guarantees new problems, new pressures and new possibilities."

"New problems require character.
New pressures require conviction.
New possbilities require courage."

Somewhere in his rising crescendo of a sermon he said this that literally left me breathless:
"Instead of living ten years, many people live the same year 10 times. They have no more compassion, no more joy, no more intelligence, no more enthusiasm, no more excitement, no more goodness. They live the same year, 10 times."

If that ain't enough to think about for a few weeks...

More Good Thinking

More Good Thinking that makes you say, "now why didn't I think of that?" from a pastor of a church in Fort Worth.
A few nuggets to pique your interest:

"In kingdom work, we make a mistake when we start with ecclesiology. We should start with Christology. Our first approach should be "How can we live out the love of Jesus in this society?" It's not "How can we start a church?"

"If my church is primarily about the Sunday event, then doing kingdom work is secondary and actually unnecessary. If the Sunday event and church programming is primary, then I'll spend all my time, money, and energy what happens inside the church.
For so many pastors, church is about what happens on Sunday. Well, I really disagree with that. Church is not supposed to be a Sunday event. It's supposed to be salt and light in the family, in the community, and around the world."

"At our church we say, "Kingdom in, kingdom out." When the kingdom gets inside of you, then missions is not an occasional project you do; you live out your faith constantly for God's kingdom."

"Even if we get people into small groups, how many groups are really turning people into disciples that engage the world for God's kingdom?" (That one is just a kick in the pants for me and my role)

"We Aren't About Weekends"

New Babies

My buddy Josh just had his first baby--a girl, Cadence Joy.
He thinks about the world in good ways, loves God, follows Jesus with passion and will be a great dad.

Photos for the interested are here.

Serendipity on a Subway Platform

I had one of the more pleasant experiences of life the other day. Two friends and I were on a day trip to DC and were between trains on the DC Metro subway platform. It was around the end of the work day, so the platform was crowded with people leaving their jobs, heading home with hearts and minds full of the days activities, both their triumphs and struggles.

Over the dull murmur of muted subway platform conversation, I began to hear the echoes of a quartet. Maybe I picked up on it first because I sang in a quartet for 3 years in college, but it was unmistakable. Four African-American gentleman--all in their late 40's and early 50's--were standing in close proximity mixing tight harmony into the air of the day's burdens and blessings.
And they were good. Really, really good.

Without really thinking about it, the thought crossed my mind "I'll gladly pay a $1 for that kind of joy being added to my day." So I got out my wallet and walked to their begging basket and dropped in my dollar. I don't know if my physical token of appreciation was some sort of necessary catalyst, but something happened.

To say that the mood on the platform was transformed into something glorious and sublime is an understatement. A kind of gentleness and peace swept the place. Body tensions relaxed, smiles began to appear, genuine appreciation wafted through the air. It was a moment of sheer grace. Almost in unison, people began reaching for their wallets. They were responding to grace, and I'm sure the guys made a killing.

From my perspective, I don't know what makes those moments happen, but I know that grace is the Great Reality, existing before and beyond all of our activities and plans and dreams and burdens and struggles. And for whatever reason, that Great Reality became visible for a short while on a subway platform following a long day in the most powerful city in the world.

When We Disagree

I had an email dialogue with a friend about the whole marriage amendment thing that's such a hot button in America right now. We have a lot of people in our congregation that have very strong feelings about the issue and about the Church's involvement in the issue. Not everyone who loves God holds that same position. How do we talk to each other amicably and with love and respect when we disagree? If we can't do it inside the Church, how do we expect to do it with those outside??

This comment gave me significant pause to think about the issue:

It's hard to love people when you're thinking about how wrong they are. Where's the line between righteous indignation and letting anger rule our hearts?"

(One more reason) why we need community

I'm a big fan of Henri Nouwen. I'll read anything he writes because he writes from the heart with piercing insight. This is from his Genesee Diary written during his time in a Trappist monastery. What if our communities had this attitude and spirit about them?

"Today: The feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. During a dialogue...two of the monks remarked in differenct ways that although Thomas did not believe in the resurrection of the Lord, he kept faithful to the community of the apostles. In that community the Lord appeared to him and strengthened his faith. I find this a very profound and consoling thought. In times of doubt or unbelief, the community can 'carry you along,' so to speak; it can even offer on your behalf what you yourself overlook, and can be the context in which you may recognize the Lord again."

This leads me to ask; What if instead of ranting about correct belief, we practiced correct living?

Church: The point

I like it simple. Not simplistic, simple.

I ran across this quote by Rob Bell that for me put the whole church-and-why-I-am-here-on-the-planet-thing in perspective. This was from an interview in a Houston paper about his everything is spiritual tour wrapping up this month.

"We are passionate about people being healed on the inside,
and we are passionate about society being healed on the outside," Bell said.
"We would call that the whole Gospel."