Once upon a time, a mentor found it necessary to write some pretty firm letters to his friends and proteges in another city:
"You'll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God's master stroke, I didn't try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy. I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did—Jesus crucified.
"I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate—I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it—and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God's Spirit and God's power did it, which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God's power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else."
Then later:
"It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached—different spirit, different message—you put up with him quite nicely. But if you put up with these big-shot "apostles," why can't you put up with simple me? I'm as good as they are. It's true that I don't have their voice, haven't mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I'm talking about. We haven't kept anything back. We let you in on everything.
"I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God's Message to you without asking for something in return, serving you free of charge so that you wouldn't be inconvenienced by me? It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride. Not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the believers from [another country]. I was careful never to be a burden to you, and I never will be, you can count on it. With Christ as my witness, it's a point of honor with me, and I'm not going to keep it quiet just to protect you from what the neighbors will think. It's not that I don't love you; God knows I do. I'm just trying to keep things open and honest between us.
"And I'm not changing my position on this. I'd die before taking your money. I'm giving nobody grounds for lumping me in with those money-grubbing "preachers," vaunting themselves as something special.
The mentor was the apostle Paul, the proteges lived in the Greek city of Corinth. (see 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 and 2 Corinthians 11:4-13, The Message Bible) Corinth was like...us. Cosmopolitan, influential, multicultural, a center of business and power. They liked their visiting evangelists and "special music" people and megachurch preachers, apparently. Paul reminded them that God started them off with his power and presence, not with audio/video/powerpoint flash-bang.
God uses dumb people (that means us, says Paul) to confuse smart people, then and now. Lord, make us stupid.
Lord, forgive me for seeing the spectacular instead of the sacred.
Draw my eyes to you, my ears to your voice;
sharpen my ears to your sound in the stillness, not the fury,
through the voices of the weak, the very young, the plain, the ugly.
Lord, give us new eyes;
communal, not individual,
spiritual, not physical,
seeking, not wandering,
looking instead of glancing.
(Thanks to Chris Cahill of the St. Pete Vineyard for reminding me of Paul's caution to the Americans of his time...)
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A celebration of people who are living out their God-given dreams in all sorts of unconventional ways and places. An exploration of the obstacles to life that we often encounter - some of our own making. A place for stories about people, ideas, culture, history and God.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Adopting the unwanted
Now here's a pastor in South Korea who actually installed a dropbox outside his front door for unwanted infants. (Which turned out to be unpopular with the authorites, oddly enough.)
Lee Jong-rak's position: "This is a facility for the protection of life," reads a hand-scrawled sign outside the drop box. "If you can't take care of your disabled babies, don't throw them away or leave them on the street. Bring them here."
Mother Teresa said, "I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption - by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives."
In the rotunda at the US Holocaust Museum are written the words, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live." There's no shortage of holocausts around us, and sometimes it's a little tiny holocaust right in our own neighborhoods.
Read Lee's story, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, here. Next time you hear the excellent phrase "choose life," think of this guy who's choosing not just life, but the lives no one else wants. And praying for him might be a really good idea, too.
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Lee Jong-rak's position: "This is a facility for the protection of life," reads a hand-scrawled sign outside the drop box. "If you can't take care of your disabled babies, don't throw them away or leave them on the street. Bring them here."
Mother Teresa said, "I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption - by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives."
In the rotunda at the US Holocaust Museum are written the words, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live." There's no shortage of holocausts around us, and sometimes it's a little tiny holocaust right in our own neighborhoods.
Read Lee's story, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, here. Next time you hear the excellent phrase "choose life," think of this guy who's choosing not just life, but the lives no one else wants. And praying for him might be a really good idea, too.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011
So who's encouraging young Christians to do their own new things?
I haven't met anyone yet who's doing this in any systematic (or even non-systematic) way. BUT...
...as unfortunately usual, the business world has an excellent example of mentoring and incubating young peoples' new ideas with attention, experienced and expert advice, and supporting relationships. Oh, and startup money, too.
Wired magazine has an excellent article on the Silicon Valley Y Combinator. Take a look...and imagine, what if we did this instead of all that other prepackaged (here's where you fit) stuff we do in discipleship programs?
We just gotta do this better. Gotta.
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...as unfortunately usual, the business world has an excellent example of mentoring and incubating young peoples' new ideas with attention, experienced and expert advice, and supporting relationships. Oh, and startup money, too.
Wired magazine has an excellent article on the Silicon Valley Y Combinator. Take a look...and imagine, what if we did this instead of all that other prepackaged (here's where you fit) stuff we do in discipleship programs?
We just gotta do this better. Gotta.
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Monday, June 20, 2011
Becoming a Learning Person vs. "Gettin' yer mind right"
I'm all for learning what God says in the bible, listening to the Holy Spirit (who's our teacher; see John 14:26), and learning the cultural and historical setting for all those amazing stories. The whole purpose of that is to better appreciate God and appropriate his guidance and truth into our own lives.
But way too many people have turned the bible alone into a sort of rote Question-and-Answer workbook, with a kind of mean-spirited "THIS. IS. A. TEST." to "get your mind right" attitude. Kind of like in Cool Hand Luke:
But if you read the Gospels, you see dialog, real-world interaction with people and places who understood Jesus' allusions and references to Old Testament scriptures and contemporary Roman, Greek and Jewish cultures. You see tons of questions, and people looking for the right questions to ask. If you read Paul's letters to New Testament churches (Ephesians, Galatians, Corinthians, Phillippians, etc.) you see church-specific guidance coming from their first pastor, Paul.
Most of all, you see grace.
If you read the Old Testament books, you see stories of a particular community's interactions (many of them dysfunctional) with God. All of them give us useful and essential principles illustrated with numerous examples. (See Paul's comments to his protege Timothy, and us, in 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5.)
You don't see a systematic theology; that notion didn't come along until the Enlightenment, over 1600 years after the last books of the bible were written. You especially don't see a Q&A list. Call to "right living," certainly. But it's all by example, with a living Spirit involved. With Him in the game, we can learn to become learners, learn to seek and ask the right questions, find the answers, and in so doing become a kind of Living Word for other people. You don't have to get your mind right. Just invite God to transform your mind...like he said he would, at least if we let him. Now that's some good news.
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But way too many people have turned the bible alone into a sort of rote Question-and-Answer workbook, with a kind of mean-spirited "THIS. IS. A. TEST." to "get your mind right" attitude. Kind of like in Cool Hand Luke:
But if you read the Gospels, you see dialog, real-world interaction with people and places who understood Jesus' allusions and references to Old Testament scriptures and contemporary Roman, Greek and Jewish cultures. You see tons of questions, and people looking for the right questions to ask. If you read Paul's letters to New Testament churches (Ephesians, Galatians, Corinthians, Phillippians, etc.) you see church-specific guidance coming from their first pastor, Paul.
Most of all, you see grace.
If you read the Old Testament books, you see stories of a particular community's interactions (many of them dysfunctional) with God. All of them give us useful and essential principles illustrated with numerous examples. (See Paul's comments to his protege Timothy, and us, in 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5.)
You don't see a systematic theology; that notion didn't come along until the Enlightenment, over 1600 years after the last books of the bible were written. You especially don't see a Q&A list. Call to "right living," certainly. But it's all by example, with a living Spirit involved. With Him in the game, we can learn to become learners, learn to seek and ask the right questions, find the answers, and in so doing become a kind of Living Word for other people. You don't have to get your mind right. Just invite God to transform your mind...like he said he would, at least if we let him. Now that's some good news.
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Thursday, June 16, 2011
Do it Yourself Ministry
Another excellent column, "The DIY Foreign-Aid Revolution," from Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, this one from last fall on DIY doing-good-things. (What I call ministry, God showing up in the world doing good stuff with or without the crdit.)
If you see a cause that needs a champion, go do something. No one will stop you. (Some might try, many from good but misguided intentions.) If someone says, "What you're doing is too small to matter," tell them the starfish story.
A man was walking along the beach where thousands of starfish were stranded overnight. He'd walk a few steps, pick one up, toss it in the ocean, walk a few more steps, pick up another one, and so on. Along came another man, who watched this for a while. He said, "You must be crazy; there are a million starfish on this beach, and you can't make a difference here."
The first man stooped over, picked up another, tossed it into the surf, and replied, "Made a difference to that one."
Kristof followed it up with some practical details about setting up your own NGO, 501(c)(3), or whatever, on his blog, here.
Thank God for a NYT columnist with a heart! And for those people who just can't walk past one more starfish without acting.
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If you see a cause that needs a champion, go do something. No one will stop you. (Some might try, many from good but misguided intentions.) If someone says, "What you're doing is too small to matter," tell them the starfish story.
***
A man was walking along the beach where thousands of starfish were stranded overnight. He'd walk a few steps, pick one up, toss it in the ocean, walk a few more steps, pick up another one, and so on. Along came another man, who watched this for a while. He said, "You must be crazy; there are a million starfish on this beach, and you can't make a difference here."
The first man stooped over, picked up another, tossed it into the surf, and replied, "Made a difference to that one."
***
Kristof followed it up with some practical details about setting up your own NGO, 501(c)(3), or whatever, on his blog, here.
Thank God for a NYT columnist with a heart! And for those people who just can't walk past one more starfish without acting.
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Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Heaven Let Your Light Shine Down - Not a bad prayer...
Sometimes you hear a song on the radio, and it's maybe more than just a song. Sometimes, it's prayer and the doubt that often plagues our prayers. Enjoy.
Give me a word
Give me a sign
Show me where to look
Tell me what will I find (what will I find )
Lay me on the ground
Fly me in the sky
Show me where to look
Tell me what will I find (what will I find )
Yea, Yea, Yea
Oh, heaven let your light shine down (x4)
Love is in the water
Love is in the air
Show me where to go
Tell me will love be there (will love be there )
Teach me how to speak
Teach me how to share
Teach me where to go
Tell me will love be there (will love be there )
Yea, Yea, Yea
Oh, heaven let your light shine down (x4)
I'm going to let it shine (x2)
Heavens little light gonna shine on me
Yea yea heaven's little light gonna shine on me
It's gonna shine, shine on me
It's gonna shine, come on in shine
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Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Playboy Bible?
I stopped in at a garage sale a few months ago and found this assortment of books and magazines on the upfront table:
As you can see, the guy running the garage sale had three Bibles and 5 Playboys for sale. He looked to be in his thirties. Oh and by the way, this was his parents' house, so there were a bunch of their knicknacks out there, too. They were circling around selling stuff, and didn't seem to notice the odd juxtaposition.
Being me, I asked him about it. His answer was a study:
"Well, I like girls, and I like God...I was just putting stuff out, and I started to put them in different places but then I got busy putting other stuff out..."
It's kind of the world we live in. It isn't real pretty, but at least here it was out in the open: a guy with a porn problem who knows there's a God, and he isn't it. He might be in better shape than the every-Sunday Christian with a hidden sin. Like...a lot of us. Jesus, overhearing the Pharisees criticizing who he hung out with, replied, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."
Adam Clarke commented, "...the most inveterate and dangerous disease the soul can be afflicted with [is] to imagine itself whole..."
I hope he moves toward God, or at least lets God move toward him. I liked him, and I'll bet God likes him too. He's just somewhere in the long process of meeting and knowing God. Like me and you.
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As you can see, the guy running the garage sale had three Bibles and 5 Playboys for sale. He looked to be in his thirties. Oh and by the way, this was his parents' house, so there were a bunch of their knicknacks out there, too. They were circling around selling stuff, and didn't seem to notice the odd juxtaposition.
Being me, I asked him about it. His answer was a study:
"Well, I like girls, and I like God...I was just putting stuff out, and I started to put them in different places but then I got busy putting other stuff out..."
It's kind of the world we live in. It isn't real pretty, but at least here it was out in the open: a guy with a porn problem who knows there's a God, and he isn't it. He might be in better shape than the every-Sunday Christian with a hidden sin. Like...a lot of us. Jesus, overhearing the Pharisees criticizing who he hung out with, replied, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."
Adam Clarke commented, "...the most inveterate and dangerous disease the soul can be afflicted with [is] to imagine itself whole..."
I hope he moves toward God, or at least lets God move toward him. I liked him, and I'll bet God likes him too. He's just somewhere in the long process of meeting and knowing God. Like me and you.
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Thursday, June 9, 2011
The Pretender
Jackson Browne was in town a few weeks ago, along with one keyboard and 16 (yes, I counted) acoustic guitars. Many of his songs are poetry and commentary. "The Pretender" is ironic and bitter, indirectly asking "Why are you doing what you're doing? Is it living, or just kind of droning along?"
By the summer of 2005 I was tired of working for the Army. I'd lost whatever respect I'd had for the Pentagon-ish paper soldiers; these people were NOT at war like the real soldiers who were fighting and dying in our nation's wars. They were all pretense and small ambitions, all noise and fart, and no sense. I was tired of coping with a boss who hated his job and avoided it as often as possible. It was time for me to go; the question was, "When, Lord?" It was waiting time.
And then the waiting was over, just like that, when I heard "The Pretender" on the radio while driving into work. I'd served my time, and now I could be free. A boss-lunch, some paperwork and 6 months later, I was early-retired. The Pretending was over; Life abundant began. And the way God showed me the moment was through a simple song by a secular songwriter.
I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen
I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I've been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it's the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen
Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there
Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight
I'm going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each others paint-by-number dreams
And then we'll put out dark glasses on
And we'll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We'll get up and do it again
Get it up again
I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Thought true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender
By the summer of 2005 I was tired of working for the Army. I'd lost whatever respect I'd had for the Pentagon-ish paper soldiers; these people were NOT at war like the real soldiers who were fighting and dying in our nation's wars. They were all pretense and small ambitions, all noise and fart, and no sense. I was tired of coping with a boss who hated his job and avoided it as often as possible. It was time for me to go; the question was, "When, Lord?" It was waiting time.
And then the waiting was over, just like that, when I heard "The Pretender" on the radio while driving into work. I'd served my time, and now I could be free. A boss-lunch, some paperwork and 6 months later, I was early-retired. The Pretending was over; Life abundant began. And the way God showed me the moment was through a simple song by a secular songwriter.
I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen
I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I've been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it's the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen
Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there
Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight
I'm going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each others paint-by-number dreams
And then we'll put out dark glasses on
And we'll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We'll get up and do it again
Get it up again
I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Thought true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Wonder
“Never have a wonder taken for granted.” – H. P. Lovecraft
It seems to me that God would say the same thing to us about the wonders He sends, from the miracle of each breath to the healing of the sick to the unexplainable word of knowledge. But it’s so, so easy to dial into the routine and miss the radical. It’s so, so easy to give people credit for God’s work, and even easier to allow them to claim it unchallenged. After all, who wants to make a scene?
Sometimes, we even proudly strut our lack of childlike wonder. “Oh, yeah, worship was alright this morning. Let’s go to lunch.” “Anybody saved today? Just one...“Any miracles today? Nah, just a few healings.” (see Mark 6:5-6 for when this happened even in Jesus’ ministry)
Wonder is a fragile thing; like addicts, we swiftly gain a tolerance for miracles. The novelty pales after a repetition or two, and passes on to boredom and ignorance while the wonders continue. And of course we cry out for miraculous intervention while surrounded by the very thing we crave. Then when a new work emerges, wonder of wonders! God is in the house!
Meanwhile, God speaks in a still, small voice, from perhaps the unlikeliest of people, a long-dead horror writer, a master of the macabre: “Never have a wonder taken for granted.”
Maybe we could start now. You want a miracle? Inhale. The only thing that separates you from a drooling idiot is a tiny little blood clot in your brain the size of the pencil point. Life is good, life is miraculous, and every day is an opportunity to share the wonder.
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It seems to me that God would say the same thing to us about the wonders He sends, from the miracle of each breath to the healing of the sick to the unexplainable word of knowledge. But it’s so, so easy to dial into the routine and miss the radical. It’s so, so easy to give people credit for God’s work, and even easier to allow them to claim it unchallenged. After all, who wants to make a scene?
Sometimes, we even proudly strut our lack of childlike wonder. “Oh, yeah, worship was alright this morning. Let’s go to lunch.” “Anybody saved today? Just one...“Any miracles today? Nah, just a few healings.” (see Mark 6:5-6 for when this happened even in Jesus’ ministry)
Wonder is a fragile thing; like addicts, we swiftly gain a tolerance for miracles. The novelty pales after a repetition or two, and passes on to boredom and ignorance while the wonders continue. And of course we cry out for miraculous intervention while surrounded by the very thing we crave. Then when a new work emerges, wonder of wonders! God is in the house!
Meanwhile, God speaks in a still, small voice, from perhaps the unlikeliest of people, a long-dead horror writer, a master of the macabre: “Never have a wonder taken for granted.”
Maybe we could start now. You want a miracle? Inhale. The only thing that separates you from a drooling idiot is a tiny little blood clot in your brain the size of the pencil point. Life is good, life is miraculous, and every day is an opportunity to share the wonder.
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