oh to be strong!

Okay, the picture has nothing to do with what I want to say. I just think it's adorable! And it reflects one of my hobbies-paddling. Winter is the time to dream and plan about summer paddling.

Last night I watched "We Are Marshall" with my family. Initially I kinda rolled my eyes at another sports movie with some hero strong leader type bringing a team to victory and teaching great lessons. However, I really enjoyed this movie and found it tugging at my own desires to be a stronger person. A leader! Someone with a clear sense of calling and direction that no one or nothing can shake. I reflect on my own personality (in fact, many times, I don't even have to reflect as my personality stares me in the face all too often) and find it to be so weak many times. I can easily vacillate in the winds of others ideas and approval/disapproval like the little boat in the picture would likley do in the slightest of breezes.

Some times, I simply feel that God has made me with my shifting personality and that through it I can minister to people in ways that "strong leader" types may not be able to do. But then I experience things that stir up these desires in me to be "stronger". To be visionary. To be wise. To have deep conviction.

Thinking about this last night again, I began to journal. As I clicked away on the keyboard spewing my feelings out as digits on the screen, I began to wonder and be impressed that maybe God has made me the way I am, but also has put these desires and longings in me to be a stronger person too. I sensed that if I ever became a stronger leader, it would be through something that God developes in me (possibly through greater life experience), not something I grit my teeth striving to achieve.

So, again I rest momentarily in the peace of realizing that God has made me the way I am and is continuing to grow me more and more. Who knows what He will do with/through me down the road.

Huh! Maybe the little picture does relate to these thoughts?

aaaaaaahhhhhhh! eeeeeehhhhhh! gggggrrrrrrr!

My intention is that this blog would be reflections that I have as a result of reading and listening to other's thoughts (i.e. books, articles, podcasts, etc.). Well, today the thoughts of my children, among many, often ended up sounding like aaaaaaahhhhhhh!, eeeeeehhhhhh!, or ggggrrrrrrr! as they delightfully peeled open their gifts. Later I went outdoors with them and built a sled run up behind the house. After multiple trips up the hill to get the trail packed down with laborioulsy slow runs, the sounds mentioned above began again to be free flowing. (The kids weren't the only ones making such utterances as I clearly contributed my own share of shrieking "noise".)

This reminds me of how it says in Scripture something to the effect, "The Holy Spirit interprets our groanings as prayers." Maybe prayer is more about what's said in the heart than what's said with the lips?

I wonder how such conclusions about prayer could affect group prayer?

Simplicity of a child.....

This has nothing to do with reading any books lately.  (I can't wait to have some quiet reading time again.  But, right now, it's time to be actively enjoying my family in various activities).  It's simply a funny family experience.  

Yesterday, while traveling in the van, my wife and I were talking with a friend who was riding with us.  We were talking, at one point, about the age old husband/wife sleeping temperature dilemma-cold wife and warm husband.  I was explaining about one recent night, while tossing and turning to fall asleep, my wife would nudge closer to me every time I moved so that she could stay warm.  

After this discussion, my 7 year old son piped up from the back seat.  "So, Mommy follows Daddy all over the bed cause' he's hot"?  

The Kingdom of God belongs to a child, eh?

Read, Search, or Run?

I'm leaving for Christmas/New Years and will be returning with a stack not nearly so large as this one. Santa Amazon has delivered nearly a dozen new (to me) books that will get placed in my own "to read" pile. I'll still be blogging through the Holidays, but just not as much.

By the way, what does the above picture make you want to do?

Jesus -- THE WAY

I'm just beginning to read Diana Butler Bass's new book, Christianity for the Rest of Us-How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith. As I get further into it, or complete it, I'll try to give my overall description and perspective on it.

But for now, I was intrigued by an analogy Diana gives of a GPS/Mapquest system to the way we sometimes approach finding our way to God. She's come to enjoy the specific directions of this technology-go 1.3 miles, turn right on ????, go another 2.7 miles, turn left on ????, etc. The GPS simply gives you the "best" route to take, and you've just gotta follow it. But, there's something a GPS can't do. It has no idea what's really happening on the streets (traffic jams, rush hour, construction, accident scenes, etc.). One time, while trying to get home, Diana and her husband ran into construction and were going nowhere fast. Her husband asked her to pull out the old fashioned paper map. Then, by utilizing map reading skills, down to earth street signs, an awareness of what was actually happening on various streets, and some creative willingness to try a different route, they were able to successfully arrive home in shorter order than the "right way" described by the GPS.

Sometimes I feel that Christianity (human nature) portrays itself more as a GPS. It portrays a "right" way of doing things for all people and all times. Do or die. Believe what we believe, do what we do, understand as we understand, be one of us, and then you'll find Heaven in the next life.

But, what if Jesus (through the Holy Spirit's mysterious ways) isn't always leading people to the Christian religious destination? Maybe He's taking each on a unique journey that navigates the realities of the way that person sees the world and God (taking into account why such perspectives exist-i.e myriads of positive/negative real life experiences)? Realities that may garner such labels as atheist, New Age, Muslim, liberal, conservative, disgruntled with religion, and the list could be infinite.

Could Jesus' statement ("I am the way, the truth, and the life") refer to how He is the WAY (early Christians were referred to as followers of The Way), as in a wise intuitive Guide that leads His followers on the best route (for each individually) to His Father's heart for finding abundant and eternal life-starting now?

Could it be that Jesus is leading people even if they don't recognize or acknowledge Him by name?

the tension remains.........at least for now

For a while now I've been on a journey of understanding the whole concept of church as something entirely different than buildings, bylaws, doctrines, meetings, human authority, activities, and budgets. I'm seeing it (or at least wanting to) increasingly as a community of God/Jesus followers and seekers that are led and drawn by the mysterious Holy Spirit. A living organism way bigger than the confines of human institution. Something ultimately out of the control of humanity. A community that can be witnessed in a relationship of 2 people here and 50 people there. A "coincidental" meeting somewhere in a grocery store, or a committed gathering of religious club folks (both of these scenarios possibly equally authentic representations of God's true church).

But then there are nagging questions echoing in the background like this one, "Is this idea really true?" Furthermore, Jesus ministry did seem to be characterized by working within both the secular and religious culture of the day. Jesus worked within human institution to connect with people, and yet he was seemingly so unboxed or guided by it.

I long to be free from church being defined by the stuff that we typically do in religious institutions and for it to be a much greater relational community experience. But then I remember the value of rituals (holiday celebrations, etc.) in other areas of life. The way they can become environments for relationships to begin and grow. I think about how, to some people, age old religious rituals and practices seem to enhance their relationship with God and each other. But, then again, there are still those who feel the practices and rituals become substitutes and actually take away from greater relational possibilities with God and humanity.

Do rituals and institutions (organized religion) get in the way of the ultimate goal of growing deeper relationships or do they enhance them? Or is this simply a question that is answered differently from person to person? Or is it a paradoxical reality that both perspectives are true? Is it a call to live in the world (secular and religious), but ultimately be of neither?

And so, the tension remains.........at least for now!

One of My Bibles

These were the pages I was slowly advancing through last night in preparation for another fire fighting test. This manual has over 700 pages of material that, hopefully, in the next year or so I will have covered entirely. Some of the reading is tediously slow going, but most of it interests me so much that, when I take the time to study, I really enjoy it.

I think back to my first training session with the fire department nearly 2 years ago. The deputy chief sauntered in and dropped several of these behemoths on the table for us "probies" (probationary firefirefighters). He informed us that these were our bibles. From now on we would eat and sleep this stuff.

Because I am enjoying firefighting so much, am very grateful to be a member of the fire department, and can't wait to hear my pager go and be on route to a call, I have no problem with studying this "bible". I actually enjoy it! However, I didn't join the department to read this book. I joined to be a firefighter. This "bible" just happens to be one of the sources that's profitable for instruction and correction in the field of fire fighting.

I think this has some application to the spiritual life and the Christian Bible. Sometimes the way Christians talk and act almost gives the impression that our purpose for being a Christian is to read the Bible. But is it really? I think it's to be a follower of Jesus, and the Bible just happens to be one of the tools/resources given to inspire and guide us in this journey.

DIRTY--word or heart?

“It's your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words.” (Matthew 12:34, The Message)

Eugene Peterson has such profound ways of paraphrasing Biblical text sometimes!

I discovered this verse while reading a post about cussing Christians on Pam Hogewiede's blog. While this topic could easily spark heated debate about the morality of "clean" language, I was intrigued by some of the insights on Pam's post.

Here are some of my musings.

• Words have power, yet, they only have the power that we give them. In and of themselves, words are just neutral digits, morally speaking.
• If only I could learn to hear the real message of people's hearts behind their words?
• The coarse language people use may not always be the exact meaning of their hearts. Many times, coarse words are common cultural expressions for heart feelings that we all have, Christian and non-Christian alike.
• Would Jesus have ever found a piece of coarse language on His lips? (Let's not forget the crowd He hung out with a lot)
• Could "accepted" language ever be dirtier than coarse language?
  

Pam writes in her blog, "Mark Twain said it this way, 'The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way.'"

Well, how's that to stir up one's "pure" mind on the first day of a brand new week?

Am I promoting coarse language? I don't think so! Just wrestling with an issue that I'm faced with and have been wondering about.

A concluding prayer: May my heart be filled with love so that whatever words I use, they will be tools carrying blessing to others.

White Space

Again, I'll remind you that last month I went to Off the Map in Seattle (Are you getting tired of hearing about Off the Map yet? Maybe you should just plan to attend with me next year! ha ha) I attended a little workshop entitled Sacred Accidents while I was there.

The presenter, Earl Creps, talked about the idea that often some of the greatest stuff, spiritual and/or otherwise, in one's life can be the result of just stumbling into it. He cited the famous invention of Insulin or the amazing success of Intel as examples.

In the spiritual world, Christians talk a lot about the power of God, yet how do we often operate? Take away our prayers before and after events, and what really looks different about what's going on in many spiritual communities from any other business or social organization? It appears that most institutional work that gets done is the result of humans intentionally making stuff happen.

Earl pointed out a tension to live by in the Spiritual world-making it happen vs. letting it happen. Maybe Christian leadership is being a steward and recognizer of those times when we're ambushed by Godly activity. When God interrupts our lives! Maybe the purpose of intentionality in leadership is to create what Earl calls, white space. Space in time, place, heart, etc. for God to have room to work.

What if we were to focus on creating white space and approached ALL of life expectant that God is already at work? We are just watching to see where He is going to show up next. We became stewards saying, "Hey, did you just see what happened? That was a God thing!"

I wonder what places, both in and outside of our spiritual communities, might we see God at work?

Overlapping Lives

A bit ago I posted about a podcast where I heard Anne Lamott speaking during an interview. Near the end of the interview, she's talking about how much she enjoys listening to a particular extreme conservative (Anne is very, very liberal), not because she agrees with much of what He says, but because she feels he has good insights and it keeps her mind in a good place while navigating the stress of traffic in her car.

She mentions a saying from her AA group, "Take what you like and leave the rest."

She also says, "I can listen to anyone who really, really loves Jesus and loves the Bible."

Then, her final insight is to describe her relationship with the person interviewing her (who appreciates her very much, but has very different opinions about life in many areas) as a set of Olympic circles. Circles represent people, and the places where we overlap can be many, if not greater, than where we don't. I think the Olympic circles are a beautiful picture of the unity that Jesus prayed for His disciples to experience. Our differences don't have to dissolve when we love each other, but maybe love helps us discover how many places our lives really do overlap?

Have a Mighty Christmas

Last Christmas I picked up a book by Ace Collins, author of More Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. (oops! gotta go to the sanctuary-something's calling-not sure if it's God or not?.... Okay, I'm back! Sorry, no great revelations this time.) Yesterday, I did a Google search on Ace Collins and came up with an article from his other book, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas, about the origins of the song, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".

He tells how the lively song, carefully detailing the story of the birth of Jesus, was written by peasants in reaction to the "dead" church music of the day-that day being in the 1500's. Of particular interest to me was the meaning of the line, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". Today's attempt at describing it might be something like, God give you happy gentlemen rest. While not a bad thought, it doesn't necessarily make much sense in the context of the times, who wrote the song, and the words of the song. However, if we translate the song title back from yesteryear's meaning to today's, it's quite different.

God Rest (keep or make) Ye (you-uh, you could figure this one out right?) Merry (great or mighty), (yeah, there originally was a comma after Merry) Gentlemen.

God Make You Mighty, Gentlemen. Written by folks who were not great or mighty. Written about a story that was great and mighty. Written as a reminder that God's love makes us great and mighty in His eyes.

Maybe you'll not be able to say, Merry Christmas , without thinking twice about the different meanings of merry.

Maybe I should try saying Mighty Christmas to someone and see what they say.

God in the Bathroom

Over the last while I've felt like preaching a sermon called "Bathroom Sanctuary". Some of the coolest stuff happens in bathrooms (also some of the worst depending on how you look at it). For me, it's a safe retreat from the demands of life (or a response to the "demands of life", again, depending on how you look at it). It's a place where reality happens. There's not much pretending in the bathroom. What is-is! I do what needs to be done (answering nature calls) and reveal what I really look like and, because of that, most humans don't want to be around me at that point in time, nor do I want them around! But, in the bathroom sanctuary of all that revealing reality, I find it a place where God can be very present. As I experience some of life's simplest, yet greatest joys (warm cleansing water in the shower or "relief" on the throne) I find worship (gratitude) happening towards God. I find it a place to reflect. I find it a place to let God be a part of my life. I also find it a place to grumble. A place to struggle. A place to be with just me and God!

Listening to a podcast, with author Anne Lamott (I'll share about her books sometime), I was interested to hear her talk about how the bathroom is a great place for her to be with God also. For her, it's a place to be "in the present", which as she said, "is where God is". I thought that was very neat. God's not running from present reality. He's deeply immersed in it.

For me (at least at times), the bathroom better fits the description of a Godly sanctuary than a religious clubhouse main meeting room.

Messy, The Workshop of the Spiritual Life

Lately I've been attempting to fulfill the request of my 5 year old daughter to create a Polly Pocket/Littlest Pet Shop/Pony (these are brand names for little girl toys in case you're wondering) house for her. Flying by the seat of my pants, listening to her instructions, and using what old materials I have lying around, I've come up with what you see in the picture so far. Dust in my hair, sticky fingers, tools everywhere-the shop and I are becoming an increasing mess while the little house is actually starting to take some shape.

Michael Yaconelli, in his book Messy Spirituality, has a chapter entitled, "Messy, The Workshop of the Spiritual Life". In it he talks about how after 45 years of trying to follow Jesus, he keeps "losing Him in the crowded busyness of life". He says further, "Right now the only consistency in my life is my inconsistency".

Michael questions how he has any right to write a book about spirituality when (as he describes further) his life seems so "unspiritual" much of the time. That is of course if we define spirituality as praying all the time, never getting rattled, consistent Bible reading, having some inside track on God, and possessing special powers. In short, the life of a monk!

However, if indeed spirituality is a relationship where we discover God in the raw realities of our lives, then maybe the scandalous truth is that anyone can be spiritual. "Maybe ...all of us are in some condition of not-togetherness, even those of us who are trying to be godly. Maybe we're all a mess, not only sinful messy but inconsistent messy, up-and-down messy, in-and-out messy, now-I-believe-now-I-don't messy, I-get-it-now-I-don't-get-it messy, I-understand-uh-now-I-don't-understand messy." If many of the Biblical stories are any example of true spirituality, then Micheal believes he does in fact have a right to write on such a topic.

Maybe in our frustrating awkward messy lives, God comes to roll up His sleeves, set up shop, and begin shaping and molding our relationship with Him.

POWER

I wonder if this is what a Biblical "Elder" looks like?

This book is old news for many. I read it about a year ago and was captivated. This is the story of a student and his teacher. Initially, Mitch Albom was a student of Morrie Schwartz in a New England university in the 70's. The real story of this book, however, is about Mitch and Morrie a number of years later in Morrie's home during the last days of his life dying from Lou Gehrig's disease, a brutal neurological deterioration.

The lessons were no longer pontifications to a classroom, but sharing from a lifetime wealth of experience to a friend on such topics as:

• World views
  
• Feeling sorry for one's self
• Regrets
• Death
• Family
  
• Emotions
• Fear of aging
• Money
• Love
• Marriage
• Culture
• Forgiveness
• Etc.

Once a week for many Tuesdays Mitch would travel to Morrie's to spend time with him conversing on the above topics. Much was learned from what Morrie said and from simply watching Morrie navigate the realities of dying while truly LIVING as he went through the experience. Some of the descriptions are graphic, some are funny, some are gross, some are deep, some are light-but all are REAL! Refreshingly real!

I wonder if this is what Biblical eldership is meant to be (in contrast to being an institutional authority/manager)? Senior members of the family of God (or at least those farther down the path than others) inviting/allowing younger members to come alongside them and experience their lives in all their reality. Then, younger ones who naturally look up to the older ones, can soak in the wealthy wisdom of a lifetime of love for God.

I naturally long to become financially successful. However, I think a deeper desire of mine (at least sometimes) is to become wealthy in experience and wisdom no matter what happens to me financially. To be something like Morrie, when all is stripped away having a deep wealth that no one can rob that will carry me to whatever my end may be.

Somebodies and Nobodies

Sometime during the last year I read a book entitled "Divine Nobodies-Shedding religion to find God and the unlikely people who help you". The author, Jim Palmer, shares his story of being a very successful religious "club leader", climbing the club status ladder, all in the name of doing the Lord's work. However, when his marriage fell apart and he found himself without a "ministry job", he began to learn about God in fresh ways, not from any deep philosophical self-help seminars, but from some very ordinary people.

People like:

• a waffle house waitress
• a jazz drummer
• a Hip-Hop enthusiast
• the kids of a family
• an auto mechanic
• a gay friend (not a condoning of the lifestyle)
  
• a family suffering tragic loss
• a swim teacher from the "wrong" political party
• a catholic priest
• a tire salesman
• etc.

For now I'll leave the lessons learned for you to check out in the book (no I'm not getting a financial benefit from that statement-I don't even know the author). One of the big takeaways for me was the idea that maybe God not only cares about "nobodies", He loves to use them. In fact, don't we see Jesus spending a great deal of time with the nobodies? Did He not point out great spiritual lessons from their lives.

It seems that society (uh-ah my very own heart) naturally glamorizes the "somebodies" of the world as the ones to learn from and revere. The interesting thing is that it takes a pyramid of nobodies supporting a somebody to make them a somebody.

Maybe God has got some beautiful things to teach/show us about Himself if we'd peel our eyes off the "somebodies" and start noticing the "nobodies". And if we can't do our own peeling, He's got interesting ways to help with heart-eye-peeling.

Cleaning Up Language

Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings in their podcast It's Not About Church deal, in part, with this idea of how we sometimes need to clean up language. In case you're wondering, they're not talking about refraining from dirty swear words. They're talking about our tendency to use a term to define one thing when it really defines another. The term in question here is CHURCH.

How many times have we heard or said, "I'm going to church today" or "I don't go to church" or "why did that person leave church?" or "why doesn't that person go to church anymore?"?

Is church something we can go to? Is it someplace? Does it really happen only at certain times?

When we look at Jesus' life, how much did He talk about church? Not much, except to say something like He would be the one to build it and that hell couldn't overpower it. However, He talked lots about following Him as a disciple/apprentice and learning to relate better with others.

Church originally meant something like being called out. Called out to follow Jesus and His way of life. Paul called the community of Jesus followers a body, with Jesus as the head. Jesus also said things like wherever a couple of people gather that love Him, He's there. The word church, I think, more rightly refers to that family of Jesus followers, the world over, that connect in myriads of Spirit inspired ways in a thousand different places and times.

What we often call "church" in our society refers more to the religious club, as some have called it. Just because a person associates with or doesn't associate with the club, does not mean they're not a part of the church, God's Spirit lead family.

Maybe we need to clean up our language by using the word church to refer only to that beautiful family of God that knows no human boundaries or walls. Then, we can use something like the term club to refer to the groups that gather to practice spirituality in certain ways. They have clubhouses, not churches. They have club bylaws, not church membership standards. They have club rituals, not necessarily sacred practices. They have events that may or may not consist of true worship and spiritual growth.

And let's be clear. Clubs are not a bad thing necessarily. However, Jesus didn't come to call us to join a club. He came to join us to Himself and His followers AND the world around us. We can be an active part of the body of Christ (Church) whether we participate in religious clubs (formerly know as churches) or not. Following the Spirit's leading, we will find ourselves in contact with the Church (Family/Body) of Jesus Christ both in and out of religious clubs.

P.S. What do you think might be a non-offensive term for the clubs that we often call churches? Please post any ideas to the comment section for this post!

Worship-Industry product or soul response?

Celebrating the Beauty of All God's Kids

Last month at Off The Map I was introduced to Richard Twiss. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, don't pass it up! He's got a great sense of humor and a powerful message.

Anyway, meeting him challenged me to come home, pull his book off my shelf, and read it. I had One Church Many Tribes for nearly 2 years before reading it. (Yeah, I buy lots of books and some wait awhile before I get to reading them. I think God has a special time for when I should be reading any given piece of literature.)

For me, the blessing of this book has been to push past my prejudices, stereotypes, and view of the problems within the First Nations culture in our society and to begin to see their beauty and value as equal members of the family of God. It makes me want to learn more about them.

He points out how, typically, Christianity has focused on evangelizing the Native Americans in a way that says, "to be Christian means to be 'white' and western in cultural style and practice." He illustrates in a variety of ways how their culture, although not perfect (like the rest of the world's cultures-white included), has great potential to glorify God and to reach out to a whole variety of other cultural groups with the Gospel.

In short, this book is a call to Christian unity while "Following Jesus the Way God Made You!", as the subtitle of the books says. It's a real eye opener towards both the injustices suffered by the Native Americans and the beautiful way God has created them to be!

What if we celebrated the beauty of ALL God's kids? (rich, poor, stylish, unstylish, successful, unsuccessful, educated, uneducated, all colors, with problems, sane, not so sane, ..............etc.)

What did Jesus come to talk about?

Fun book with a good question!

I just picked this book up last month when I was down in Seattle attending the "Off The Map" conference organized by Jim Henderson.

The book is the result of Jim finding an atheist, Matt Casper, who would be willing to attend 10 or so churches around the US and write about their experiences together, both from the Christian's point of view and the atheist's. The project was admittedly not an academic project, but more of a down to earth first impressions evaluation. For me it proved to be light, funny, insightful, and yet very serious at times as these guys traversed the country taking in everything from the largest mega churches to a small home gathering (Casper only on the house church).

The biggest thought that I've taken away from it is a question that kept haunting Matt Casper, the atheist. Referring to the primary thing that many churches seem to do and value (church service "shows"), he asked, "Is this what Jesus asked you guys to do?"

I enjoyed the book so much that I read it to my wife who sincerely enjoyed it. She doesn't usually like "information" books, as she herself puts it. However, this one being more focused on narrative, was right up her alley.

I too have to wonder if organized religion's focus on manufactured worship experiences, programmed fellowship and service, propositional sales styled evangelism, and bullet pointed spiritual growth plans are really what Jesus had in mind? How did He achieve these 5 purposes that Rick Warren has identified?

I could wax (may not eloquently) on concerning my thoughts on this. But for now I'll conclude with the above questions as they will probably give you some idea in and of themselves where my thoughts are tending.

Okay then, let's just start...

If I waited for the perfect time to start....well you know what the rest of that sentence should be.

I'm starting this blog largely as a personal discipline. Of course I'd love for it (truth be told I really want it to) to become something lots of people like and benefit from. I read a fair number of books and then look back and realize, "only some do I seem to remember much about". I have felt for a while that maybe I would benefit from journaling my experiences with the books I read. Also, when I read a good book, I long to share it with as many people as possible. Maybe this will be an avenue for doing just that.

In upcoming posts I'll begin listing some of the books I've read in recent years. I may share some experiences from some, or I may simply save that for a reread on some at which time I'll journal more on the book.

From now on I hope to allow you to peer into the tunnel that I as a bookworm am burrowing and see what it looks like from my experience. I'm very aware that part of the reason I'm on a "burrowing" journey is out of a passion to find something. I'm searching to find deeper purpose, meaning, and understanding in life. I'm trusting that God's Spirit is guiding and using this experience to lead me deeper in my relationship with Him.

Hope you enjoy the "tunneling" with me and that we don't get stuck!