Life can turn dark and ugly because of things that I do, or things people do to me, or just because life becomes undone. These shake the foundation and stability of the world as I know it and my dream of what I want it to be. No matter that it is my own neglect, ignorance or sin, or that people of ill intent accuse or lay in wait for me, or that life-threatening disease or natural calamity invade my world, the result is the same – a nightmarish existence that creates darkness and anguish. What control and power I think I have evaporate and life makes little sense. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Change’ Category
Clinging with Both Hands
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010New Look
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Two years ago, while visiting with a friend about producing a newsletter to share thoughts and convictions with friends past and present, he exclaimed – Why a newsletter! Why not a blog? The result of his coaxing and coaching has been mereHope. Two years and many posts later, I am thinking “Why would I ever do a newsletter?” I enjoy blogging, and I hope people actually enjoy reading what I post!
Buffered Self
Friday, October 30th, 2009Everyday, in large and small ways, each of us are making decisions – real decisions with real consequences. No matter how hard we might try to rationalize choices, blame others, see ourselves as victim, or fain ignorance, we make these decisions ourselves and our choices impact the lives of people around us in either cruel or kind ways.
Viva la Revolucion!
Monday, October 26th, 2009A revolution is taking place right before our eyes – a mission revolution. Some might mistake it to be a rebellion against power and authority, but such a characterization would be wrong. A rebellion is an attempt to overthrow and unseat, while a revolution is the act of re-creating or re-forming from the bottom up. Rebellion takes place in the halls of power, revolution takes to the streets. Over coffee at Starbuck, on airplanes returning from Niger, in church offices, and at small gatherings, ‘like-hearted’ pastors and church folk are joining passions and resources into mission collectives.
These Answers
Saturday, October 24th, 2009Even though I am driven by particular questions, I am not without answers. I open my hands toward what I do not know, and at the same time, I stand firmly in what I do know. For example …
Those Questions
Friday, October 23rd, 2009There are a number of questions that I continue to ask, that still drive me. Some of you will wonder what is wrong with me. You ask – Why are you still asking questions? Don’t you have things figured out yet? Well, I keep asking because the given answers just don’t fit or are no longer clear. For example …
Brilliance and Beauty
Friday, October 9th, 2009Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) comments …
Since it is the privilege of the mind to rescue itself from old age, I advise mine to do so as strongly as I can. Let it grow green, let it flourish meanwhile, if it can, like mistletoe on a dead tree. But I fear it is a traitor. It has such a tight brotherly bond with the body that it abandons me at every turn to follow the body in its need. I take it aside and flatter it, I work on it, all for nothing. In vain I try to turn it aside from from this bond, I offer it Seneca and Catullus, and the ladies and the royal dances; if its companion has the colic, it seems to have it too. Even the activities that are peculiarly its own cannot be aroused; they evidently smack of a cold in the head. There is not sprightliness in [the mind's] productions if there is none in the body at the same time. (cited in S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 38)
Heart and Mind
Monday, August 31st, 2009Zeal is well and good, as long as it is tempered with knowledge. We who teach and preach must be careful not to call people to heart-felt commitment and excitement without explaining the need to go on to maturity via careful and adequate instruction. In fact, to challenge people to zeal and not provide the means to grow in their understanding is less than responsible. Too many people begin like a flame only to burn out with the passing of time or when things become difficult. Zeal and knowledge must walk hand-in-hand.
Part of the problem is a common opinion in the church that knowledge destroys or undermines faith. I have heard people say …
“If you study theology, you will loose your passion for God.”
“God looks on the heart more than the mind.”
“Doctrine only confuses a person.”
“Simple faith is the best faith.”
“Knowledge puffs up.
And while many of us would deny such a lopsided opinion, our emphasis on a commitment response in contrast to our lack of attention to and opportunity for discipleship and formation indicates what we really think.
And yet, Jesus clearly makes the point that we are to love God with more than the heart (Luke 10:27). His definition of love of God includes the mind (as well as soul and strength). I believe he did this for several reasons.
- We are more than one-dimensional beings, and thus, truly loving God requires more than an emotional response. Loving God requires more than a partial-person commitment. It demands our whole being.
- The heart can lead us astray. We can actually dishonor God through uninformed actions while all the while acting with fervor and passion. The heart is not to be trusted to act alone.
- An intellectual pursuit of God provides the necessary refinement of our misconceptions and development of our capacity to believe.
- When the circumstances of life become difficult and problems sap our emotions, it is knowledge of who God is and how he acts and the truths of the faith that can sustain us. Feelings wane, emotions come and go, and thus, we need more than a ‘heart-tether’ for faith.
Because it is convenient to measure commitment to God by emotion, passion, or fervor in worship, we assume that if people are not ‘excited’, or continually smiling, or animated in their worship that something is personally wrong with them or there is something lacking in their love for God. Emotions, at best, tell only part of the story, and, at worst, they can be deceptive. In the end, the ultimate proof that we belong to and follow hard after Jesus is our steadfastness and faithfulness to him in the best and worst of situations. Such faithfulness requires our whole person – heart, mind, and soul.
So, we must …
-actively and consistently read the Bible, both Old and New Testaments
-embrace life’s questions and not push them under the table
-avail ourselves of opportunities to gather with other believers in study, conversation, and questioning
-read the opinions of others (books, articles, commentaries)
-ask God to catch our mind up with our heart and vice-versa
If I am to faithfully face the challenges of the present day and be active in my witness of Christ to those around me, I must diligently pursue God in both my zeal and understanding.
Service
Sunday, May 31st, 2009 ”The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”
Mark 10:45
Just as Christ came as a servant, service is the role of the church. And yet, the church is constantly tempted to be a triumphant and victorious community that aligns itself with power, privilege, and place rather than finding itself in the places of service. There is a fine line between the the “victorious Christian life” and the assumption that privilege and rights belong to us irrespective of others. An indicator of when we have crossed that line is when we expect to be served by the powers in society, to be at the head of the table, to be respectable and honored – to be socially advantaged.
History shows that the people of God usually do not voluntarily move toward service. Rather, service is forced on us via humiliation, loss, and exile. Quite possibly the American church is at the brink of such loss. The Christendom arrangement within the American context (particularly in the South) has run its course, and Christianity is being disestablished in school, by government, in polite society, and within the wider popular culture. Many Christian leaders act as though it is still 1950 and that society still cares about what they have to say or is looking for them to determine what is right or wrong. However, the year is 2009 and society is not listening, nor does it care what we think. At best, the wider culture only wants to manipulate and corrupt Christianity for its ends.
The need for the gospel to be at home in its context (contextualization) must be balanced by the necessity of critical self-examination. Christianity becomes un-Christian when its essence is severely diluted by societal forces. Patriotism and gospel, consumerism and gospel, entertainment and gospel, sports and gospel, wealth and gospel are dangerous mixtures that can and will mute the church’s voice and disengage it from mission. Thus, the church constantly needs are reminder; a means to assist it in strking the right balance.
Service is the means through which we remember who Jesus is and are reminded who we are to be. Jesus was in the world, for the world, and serving the world. Our renewal as the people of God will not come through accumulating more power, or recapturing a golden era, or re-inventing ourselves. Rather, renewal comes as we realign our mission to that of the Suffering Servant by taking up a towel, kneeling before the maimed and marginalized-washing feet, dressing wounds, and loving without conditions.
Service is not resignation from or a forfeiting of the church’s role in society. It is the means through which it actually is salt and light, permeating the whole of society. The power of the gospel is made real not in our alliance with the state or in political maneuvers but in our service.
Jesus came to serve; we are called to serve. Either we freely pick up the towel or circumstances may force it on us.
Tough Questions!
Saturday, May 30th, 2009As already noted in previous posts (2008: Oct 19; 2009: Jan 9, 23, Mar 11, 22, Apr 12, May 19), the face of global Christianity has been radically altered. Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West (2008), highlights how the development of Christianity into a non-Western religion has impacted Western Christendom.
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (2001), the church in Europe and North America is losing members at a rate of six thousand members a day (just over 2.2 members a year). The level of apostasy is much higher with regard to churh attendance: roughly 2.7 million church attendees in Europe and North America cease to be practicing Christians every year (an average loss of seventy-six hundred every day). These extraordinary developments are substantiated by numerous reports (114).
How are we to respond to such information? Several options: We can dismiss this information as only academic, statistical mumbo-jumbo, or we can give way to resignation, hand wringing, and despair, or we can pursue the questions which this information provokes.
I believe that integrity and faithfulness demand that we pursue the obvious questions. Such questions as …
- Is this a signal that the church has lost its place of prominence in Western culture, or that faith has been successful translated into new places and fresh expressions?
- Does the decline in church attendance indicate an abdication of faith or that people are doing their faith in different ways and places?
- Where are those who leave going? To new religions, other forms of ’spirituality’, or to the mall?
- Has denominationalism run its course and thus is the blame or cause of the statistical decline?
- Where would the church in Europe and North America be if not for Pentecostalism and Charismatics? If not for Christian immigrants from Africa and Latin America?
- Has the Western church merely succumbed to the long process of secularization and thus just needs to rediscover or rejuvenate its conservative and/or evangelical moorings?
- Is the information a call to re-double our efforts to re-evangelize the homeland, or is it a cause to rethink the nature and purpose of the church within Western culture?
- For what reason and on what basis should we continue sending missionaries to Africa, Latin America, and Asia?
- In what ways should the shift evoke adjustments in our personal and corporate lives?
- In what ways should the shift cause us to rethink faith, church, theology, missions, etc?
Tough questions! Some would say these kinds of questions should not be voiced aloud, less we undermine our evangelical and missionary commitment and resolve. Well, my contention is that to avoid these questions and blissfully continue doing church and missions as if nothing has changed is irresponsible. Faithfulness to the gospel and the mission of God demands that we not dodge, dismiss, or mask difficult or uncomfortable questions. Nor is it acceptable to just keep repeating well-worn answers. The change in world Christianity is massive, complex, and dynamic and thus demands that we make reasoned and intentional adjustments in our thinking, living and loving. Tough questions require an authentic response.