If I am supposed to live a life of "a long obedience in the same direction," I fall miserably short.
Instead, I'm like Jonah: short spurts of obedience, mainly begrudgingly, couched by a series of disobediences, mainly involving self-righteous judgment.
"The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.' But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD."
Jonah 1:1-3
Not much of an introduction... pretty much straight to the point. God told Jonah not to be the deliverer of judgment, but to be a messenger of a merciful (yet stern) warning to Israel's sworn enemy, the violent empire Assyria. And Jonah responded immediately--not verbally, but with his posture--he ran the other way. No way. Not me. If it was a message of judgment, then yes, sign me up. Those people don't deserve anything but divine retribution for what they are doing. Let them reap the fruits of what those idiots continue to sow. Mercy and love be damned. What they need is a good punch in the face, not a slap on the wrist.
And that was my attitude, to a certain extent, toward those in my context. I came, I saw, I judged, and my posture reflected my attitude. To be honest, I'm still tempted to go there. Every time I see pure, unabashed copying of another church. Every time I see excellence held above authenticity. Every time I see strategy in front of relationship, the individual life above the common life, the churched life above the missional life, what we do in God's name above what God is already doing for his name.
And my self-righteousness swells within me. How dare they? Don't they understand? Ministry is serious! It must be protected! It must be pure! We must have a clear understanding of an order of things, lest we let the secondary reign supreme and derail us!
And, subtlely but intentionally, my message turns from a repentant invitation to a crushing (and arrogant) judgment: "If they don't listen to me, then let them be damned. Go ahead and wallow in your anxious drivenness. See where it gets you. See what God thinks of all that."
I'm Jonah. I've made God into an angry zealot, and when He comes to whisper to me that indeed He is not that (or, more accurately, he is not only that), and oh, by the way, go warn those folks to change, because I love them, I respond to him like Jonah--not with words, but with my posture: No.
Some make God into an angry zealot for the sake of religious rules--an easily challenged and discarded cause. But others make God into an angry zealot for the sake of "the glory of His name," or "authentic worship," or other such modern-day Puritanic aims--a cause that is much more difficult to challenge. We desperately seek to turn God's message to people--people whom God pursues to the grave--from a loving warning to a vengeful judgment. But a warning without love is really a judgment in disguise, for pride has yet to be eradicated.
And God knows this. God has been dealing with human pride as long as humans have walked his earth. He must root it out, lest his messengers and ministers deliver a respective message and ministry that proports to be in God's name... but is, in reality, devoid of His power, and even worse, deviated from His aim.
With pride, there is no room for love.
And without love, your message and ministry are worth nothing. Growing or shrinking, unified or fragmented, clear or muddy, without love, it has no eternal substance, becuase it is disconnected from the energizing and effective love of God.
Back to Jonah: God has chosen his messenger, and uses the necessary means (namely: a great fish) to bring Jonah into submission to what he already knew, and yet chose to run from. And when faced with this reality--that God was indeed giving him a second chance to obey, despite his brash disobedience--Jonah repents and embraces the loving warning. And so he goes.
And wouldn't you know it--those people who were beyond repenting, who would never change, who would never get it, who can only understand violence and its consquences--those people heeded God's loving warning. They actually apprehended God's love for them, understood that he chose to warn rather than to judge, saw their sin for what it was, and turned from it.
And Jonah hated that.
Again, I am like Jonah. I have experienced that initial repentance, and have seen my sin in my desire to deliver a judgment rather than a loving warning. And now that I've delievered the loving warning, and now that the recipients are heeding it... I'm a little mad. Maybe even disappointed.
Isn't that sick? It is! It's terrible--a blight on the very mercy on which I rely.
Continue to convict me, Lord. I am unworthy to spread your message. I am sinful beyond comprehension. Let my story not end like that of Jonah's.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Without Love, Pt. 2
Previously in my entry entitled "Without Love, Pt. 1," I came to the conclusion that as we cultivate this interior life founded on and fueled by the gracious love of God--expressed mainly in the death of his wonderful Son Jesus, and mediated by the effective and ongoing work of His Holy Spirit in us--we discover both God's mission in the world and the means to accomplish it.
That's a mouthful. But it can be put simply put. First:
God is real and alive and present and moving. He is moving according to His mission: to eradicate sin from the face of His world by the blood of his Son Jesus, and to establish a new (yet ancient!) way of living under Jesus' kingship among his new subjects--you and me--who have consented to being loved by King Jesus. Second:
We discover this mission--how else?--as we spend time with God. Yep. Turns out that spending time with God isn't really for us; it's for Him. Our own personal benefit from these times of devotion with Him are only a byproduct of discovering and living out His mission. This is what it means to cultivate an interior life with God--to treat Him as a person who communicates, moves, and directs through His Word, His Church, and His Divine Spirit. And third:
GOD DOES NOT STOP HIS COMMUNICATION WITH US AFTER COMMUNICATING HIS MISSION TO US. He does not say: "Go and make disciples of my Son Jesus... any old way you want to." Turns out He has something to say about our means of accomplishing his mission.
And by the way: it's not our mission to accomplish. It's HIS mission that HE will accomplish, with or without us. Yes, He is capable of doing it. He's God, the Author of All that Is. And we would do well to remind ourselves of that daily, and contrary to the temptation to come to the conclusion that the ministry of the Holy Spirit would come to a screeching halt without us.
But back to point #3: God has a lot to say about how we go about making disciples, building community, worshipping, etc. Take Christ's temptation, for example, as treated by Henri Nouwen in
In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. Satan tempted Jesus not on issues of mission, but on issues of means. First, he tempted Jesus to be relevant, i.e., to prove his power by turning stones into bread:
The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
(Matthew 4:3)
Jesus responds by remaining irrelevant, meaning that he did not fall to the temptation to use his own power to manufacture the desired result. He did not seek to take God's rightful place of Sustainer and Provider, and says as much in his response:
Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "
(Matthew 4:4)
So Satan comes at him again, this time tempting Jesus to be spectacular--to prove his own worth to himself and others by his own accomplishments:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" `He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "
(Matthew 4:5-6)
But Jesus refuses, and remains anchored to his humble position as One submitted to God, and one in solidarity as a servant among humanity:
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "
(Matthew 4:7)
Finally, Satan pulls out all the stops and goes to the very thing that caused he himself to fall: the temptation to be powerful. Satan knows that we are capable of paying a lot of lipservice to building God's kingdom, but often our means of accomplishing that goal are such that we are building our own little empire (see entry entitled "Crystal Cathedral;" see also "Lakewood Church"... and if you really wanna dig, even look up "Focus on the Family"), we end up utilizing God's name for our brand. Note Satan's attempt:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
(Matthew 4:8-9)
But Jesus didn't come to become powerful. Jesus' power rested in his humility, submission, and radical obedience to his Father with whom he was intimately connected. He didn't need the power of the world and the influence it offered to accomplish his mission. He just needed 12 guys for three years and a cross. That's it. And he knew it. So Jesus responds:
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' "
(Matthew 4:10)
Jesus didn't strategize about how to "take this message" to the world. Rather, he simply lived it out, even unto his death, all the while teaching about and modeling this life to the twelve who chose to leave their lives and follow him.
Means and mission are intimately connected in Jesus' recorded life. He had to continually clarify his mission as well as continually police the suggested means for accomplishing it (remember the story of the "Sons of Thunder," the mockery of the suggestion to "come down from the cross," and the repeated injunctions of the Pharisees to return to moralism? Means come up an awful lot!)
And the importance of means are not only restricted to the story of Jesus! Remember the story of David, in which he had repeated opportunities to take the life of his murderous pursuer Saul (1 Sam. 24, 26)? He refused to do so on both accounts, in the name of God, putting his faith in the fact that God would remove Saul by His own means when He saw fit. We see the same theme again in 2 Sam. 7, where David seeks to build a temple for God, but God puts a stop to the whole thing... simply because he hadn't directed David to do so.
You see, there is a position that God seeks to occupy--no, that He does occupy. God is primary and preveniant. He acts first, then we do. If our means do not recognize this reality, and (more importantly) if they do not cause others to recognize this reality, then we might be taking people somewhere... but it's not closer to God.
Again: the temptation is to become the Primary Mover in the name of the Primary Mover. But cultivating a love for the Primary Mover will simultaneously cultivate a hatred towards the desire to take His place.
That's a mouthful. But it can be put simply put. First:
God is real and alive and present and moving. He is moving according to His mission: to eradicate sin from the face of His world by the blood of his Son Jesus, and to establish a new (yet ancient!) way of living under Jesus' kingship among his new subjects--you and me--who have consented to being loved by King Jesus. Second:
We discover this mission--how else?--as we spend time with God. Yep. Turns out that spending time with God isn't really for us; it's for Him. Our own personal benefit from these times of devotion with Him are only a byproduct of discovering and living out His mission. This is what it means to cultivate an interior life with God--to treat Him as a person who communicates, moves, and directs through His Word, His Church, and His Divine Spirit. And third:
GOD DOES NOT STOP HIS COMMUNICATION WITH US AFTER COMMUNICATING HIS MISSION TO US. He does not say: "Go and make disciples of my Son Jesus... any old way you want to." Turns out He has something to say about our means of accomplishing his mission.
And by the way: it's not our mission to accomplish. It's HIS mission that HE will accomplish, with or without us. Yes, He is capable of doing it. He's God, the Author of All that Is. And we would do well to remind ourselves of that daily, and contrary to the temptation to come to the conclusion that the ministry of the Holy Spirit would come to a screeching halt without us.
But back to point #3: God has a lot to say about how we go about making disciples, building community, worshipping, etc. Take Christ's temptation, for example, as treated by Henri Nouwen in
In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. Satan tempted Jesus not on issues of mission, but on issues of means. First, he tempted Jesus to be relevant, i.e., to prove his power by turning stones into bread:
The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
(Matthew 4:3)
Jesus responds by remaining irrelevant, meaning that he did not fall to the temptation to use his own power to manufacture the desired result. He did not seek to take God's rightful place of Sustainer and Provider, and says as much in his response:
Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "
(Matthew 4:4)
So Satan comes at him again, this time tempting Jesus to be spectacular--to prove his own worth to himself and others by his own accomplishments:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" `He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "
(Matthew 4:5-6)
But Jesus refuses, and remains anchored to his humble position as One submitted to God, and one in solidarity as a servant among humanity:
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "
(Matthew 4:7)
Finally, Satan pulls out all the stops and goes to the very thing that caused he himself to fall: the temptation to be powerful. Satan knows that we are capable of paying a lot of lipservice to building God's kingdom, but often our means of accomplishing that goal are such that we are building our own little empire (see entry entitled "Crystal Cathedral;" see also "Lakewood Church"... and if you really wanna dig, even look up "Focus on the Family"), we end up utilizing God's name for our brand. Note Satan's attempt:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
(Matthew 4:8-9)
But Jesus didn't come to become powerful. Jesus' power rested in his humility, submission, and radical obedience to his Father with whom he was intimately connected. He didn't need the power of the world and the influence it offered to accomplish his mission. He just needed 12 guys for three years and a cross. That's it. And he knew it. So Jesus responds:
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' "
(Matthew 4:10)
Jesus didn't strategize about how to "take this message" to the world. Rather, he simply lived it out, even unto his death, all the while teaching about and modeling this life to the twelve who chose to leave their lives and follow him.
Means and mission are intimately connected in Jesus' recorded life. He had to continually clarify his mission as well as continually police the suggested means for accomplishing it (remember the story of the "Sons of Thunder," the mockery of the suggestion to "come down from the cross," and the repeated injunctions of the Pharisees to return to moralism? Means come up an awful lot!)
And the importance of means are not only restricted to the story of Jesus! Remember the story of David, in which he had repeated opportunities to take the life of his murderous pursuer Saul (1 Sam. 24, 26)? He refused to do so on both accounts, in the name of God, putting his faith in the fact that God would remove Saul by His own means when He saw fit. We see the same theme again in 2 Sam. 7, where David seeks to build a temple for God, but God puts a stop to the whole thing... simply because he hadn't directed David to do so.
You see, there is a position that God seeks to occupy--no, that He does occupy. God is primary and preveniant. He acts first, then we do. If our means do not recognize this reality, and (more importantly) if they do not cause others to recognize this reality, then we might be taking people somewhere... but it's not closer to God.
Again: the temptation is to become the Primary Mover in the name of the Primary Mover. But cultivating a love for the Primary Mover will simultaneously cultivate a hatred towards the desire to take His place.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Without Love, Pt. 1
It's a staggering statement, really:
"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love."
1 Corinthians 13:1-7, from the Message
I think this passage is staggering for several reasons. First, I am hit over the head with this stark reality: love is not a prerequisite for ministerial success. It isn't... at least, when we understand ministerial success in the most commonly accepted terms: growth and decline.
Now, I wish that love was a prerequisite for a growing, successful ministry--it'd make more sense to me if it was. It'd make more sense to me if the only way a ministry could grow was if it was founded in and flowing out of Christ's love. It'd make more sense to me to use the "love gage" as the indicator of why the "mountains are moving" in your ministry. But in reality, the "love gage" isn't necessarily a reliable indicator... and usually, it's not even the first place that we look.
The (unfortunate) fact of the matter is this: you can be "successful," as it is most commonly understood in Christian ministry, without love. You can speak eloquently and powerfully, motivating and inspiring people in Christian living, without the aid of love. You can accomplish amazing things in church--and even label them with God's name--fueled only by a very human drive to succeed, and without any Divine Charity. Excellent and gripping music, inspiring sermons from the stage, perfectly administrated staff, organized and growing programs, swelling weekend attendance, bigger buildings, and most other church means and ends can all be accomplished without the love of Jesus. Even social action in the lives of "the least of these," a central teaching and commandment of Jesus, can be done without his love.
Loving and the achievement of ministry goals are not equivalent. The reality of ministerial success does not presuppose the reality of love. Right living, in and of itself, does not need or assume love. You can be successful in ministry, by the most commonly accepted definition of the term "success," without being loving.
(Sidenote: that's downright scary, isn't it? Even more frightening is this: sometimes it's very difficult to discern when a church, a ministry, a program, a musical worship set, a prayer, a strategy, or a philosophy is not operating out of Christ's love. And perhaps most frightening is this: even when one is able to discern someone or something that is not operating out of Christ's love, it's very difficult to awaken that someone or something to that fact. More on that later.)
Second, this passage is staggering for the completely opposite reason: Christ's love is not a guarantee of ministerial success. You can be connected to his love and flop at what you have planned. You can embody his love and fail and what you set out to do. It's possible that a loving church can be a declining church. In fact, in today's church culture, it's almost probable--people want to be a part of what is "successful," by most accounts... and if your church is loving but not successful, it's not surprising to see attendance decline as people leave your church for another. One famous evangelical speaker and author puts it this way: "People like to win." But note Jesus' words from John 5:41-44:
“I’m not interested in crowd approval. And do you know why? Because I know you and your crowds. I know that love, especially God’s love, is not on your working agenda. I came with the authority of my Father, and you either dismiss me or avoid me. If another came, acting self-important, you would welcome him with open arms. How do you expect to get anywhere with God when you spend all your time jockeying for position with each other, ranking your rivals and ignoring God? "
The cure for ministerial failure isn't always love; Christ's love may have been there all along. Crowds are fickle, especially the mega-churched types. Love isn't the foundation or shield for successful church endeavors. One does not love so that one can succeed in ministry. One does not love so that one can grow a ministry.
Now, perhaps a purist might say to all of this: "All of this can be resolved if we simply redefine what success in ministry really is." Sounds good, and even righteous... but it's a little naive. You see, it's not wholly wrong to say that something is successful because it is growing and thriving, nor is it wholly wrong to say that something is failing because it is shrinking and losing steam. Growth (or the lack thereof) can be validly used as both a goal and evaluator of ministry success, at least to some degree. There are such things as "measurable goals" in ministry that are not simply constrained to "loving." The use of the terms "success" and failure" can remain attached to many of their commonly understood meanings without fear of necessarily infringing on the need for love.
And that's just the point: the reality of Christ's love and the need for it stands independent of the presence of ministry success and/or failure. Ministerial success and/or failure is a faulty indicator of the reality of Christ's love in the life of the minister, pastor, or lay leader, and vice versa. We need to resist the temptation to come to any sort of reliable conclusion about the state of someone's soul by looking at the state of what they are doing in ministry. We need to stand against the desire to equate (and consequently, to conflate) the two. In turn, we also need to refrain from compartmentalizing the two as well. I mean, it's not as though Christ's love has nothing to do with a person's ministerial success, and it just might be the case that the absence of Christ's love has something to do with someone's failure in ministry. Nevertheless, we should avoid equating the two.
So in light of all of this, and so that this has not all been said in vain, we must ask ourselves: what do we do?
First: we must remember the "why" of God's love--we must keep Jesus' love and the need for it at the forefront of our hearts and minds, and superior to our desire to be "successful" in ministry. We are, and will forever be, in need of God's love. We need God's love for the salvation of our souls. We need God's love for the receiving and living of Jesus' life, energized by the Holy Spirit--theologically refered to as "regeneration," "sanctification," "redemption," "reconciliation," and a host of other "-tions." The effects of this God-life, in its true and eternally transforming nature, can never be manufactured by ministers... though we may portray ourselves as having the ability (and even the responsibility!) to dole it out. We need to intentionally devote ourselves to the spiritual practices and disciplines that remind us of these truths.
An important aspect of this first consideration is this: God is always primary, and we are always secondary. God first moved; now we can move. God first loved; now we can love (1 John 4:19). And not only that, but this: God continues to move; we simply respond (Gal. 5:25). God continues to love us; our love flows from this fountain. Remembering the "why" of God's love reminds us of our place in God's kingdom and kingdom advancement. We don't create something that wasn't already there; we simply live out the Someone Who now lives in us.
How do we "do" this first consideration--how to we remember the "why" of God's love? There are many ways, mostly involving the spiritual disciplines. Read. Contemplate. Meditate. Be silent. Listen. Retreat. Let the Spirit of God burn the Word of God on your heart and impart the life of Jesus to you. And don't simply do these disciplines and practices alone; do them with fellow Jesus-followers (Col. 3:16; 1 Thes. 5:11; Heb. 3:13-14; 10:24-25; 1 Pet. 1:22-23). It is as we do these things, and the things that flow out of them, that we experience true fellowship--koinonia--with one another (Acts 2:42).
As we cultivate this interior life--this way of being that is founded on and flows out of God's love for us--we will become more clearly aware of his mission and his means for accomplishing it.
That bears repeating: as we cultivate this interior life of love, we will become more clearly aware of God mission AND his means for accomplishing it. We don't just discover God's mission and then execute our own cleverly planned means for accomplishing it. We journey with the Spirit to discover both the mission and the means.
Which leads me to part 2.
"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love."
1 Corinthians 13:1-7, from the Message
I think this passage is staggering for several reasons. First, I am hit over the head with this stark reality: love is not a prerequisite for ministerial success. It isn't... at least, when we understand ministerial success in the most commonly accepted terms: growth and decline.
Now, I wish that love was a prerequisite for a growing, successful ministry--it'd make more sense to me if it was. It'd make more sense to me if the only way a ministry could grow was if it was founded in and flowing out of Christ's love. It'd make more sense to me to use the "love gage" as the indicator of why the "mountains are moving" in your ministry. But in reality, the "love gage" isn't necessarily a reliable indicator... and usually, it's not even the first place that we look.
The (unfortunate) fact of the matter is this: you can be "successful," as it is most commonly understood in Christian ministry, without love. You can speak eloquently and powerfully, motivating and inspiring people in Christian living, without the aid of love. You can accomplish amazing things in church--and even label them with God's name--fueled only by a very human drive to succeed, and without any Divine Charity. Excellent and gripping music, inspiring sermons from the stage, perfectly administrated staff, organized and growing programs, swelling weekend attendance, bigger buildings, and most other church means and ends can all be accomplished without the love of Jesus. Even social action in the lives of "the least of these," a central teaching and commandment of Jesus, can be done without his love.
Loving and the achievement of ministry goals are not equivalent. The reality of ministerial success does not presuppose the reality of love. Right living, in and of itself, does not need or assume love. You can be successful in ministry, by the most commonly accepted definition of the term "success," without being loving.
(Sidenote: that's downright scary, isn't it? Even more frightening is this: sometimes it's very difficult to discern when a church, a ministry, a program, a musical worship set, a prayer, a strategy, or a philosophy is not operating out of Christ's love. And perhaps most frightening is this: even when one is able to discern someone or something that is not operating out of Christ's love, it's very difficult to awaken that someone or something to that fact. More on that later.)
Second, this passage is staggering for the completely opposite reason: Christ's love is not a guarantee of ministerial success. You can be connected to his love and flop at what you have planned. You can embody his love and fail and what you set out to do. It's possible that a loving church can be a declining church. In fact, in today's church culture, it's almost probable--people want to be a part of what is "successful," by most accounts... and if your church is loving but not successful, it's not surprising to see attendance decline as people leave your church for another. One famous evangelical speaker and author puts it this way: "People like to win." But note Jesus' words from John 5:41-44:
“I’m not interested in crowd approval. And do you know why? Because I know you and your crowds. I know that love, especially God’s love, is not on your working agenda. I came with the authority of my Father, and you either dismiss me or avoid me. If another came, acting self-important, you would welcome him with open arms. How do you expect to get anywhere with God when you spend all your time jockeying for position with each other, ranking your rivals and ignoring God? "
The cure for ministerial failure isn't always love; Christ's love may have been there all along. Crowds are fickle, especially the mega-churched types. Love isn't the foundation or shield for successful church endeavors. One does not love so that one can succeed in ministry. One does not love so that one can grow a ministry.
Now, perhaps a purist might say to all of this: "All of this can be resolved if we simply redefine what success in ministry really is." Sounds good, and even righteous... but it's a little naive. You see, it's not wholly wrong to say that something is successful because it is growing and thriving, nor is it wholly wrong to say that something is failing because it is shrinking and losing steam. Growth (or the lack thereof) can be validly used as both a goal and evaluator of ministry success, at least to some degree. There are such things as "measurable goals" in ministry that are not simply constrained to "loving." The use of the terms "success" and failure" can remain attached to many of their commonly understood meanings without fear of necessarily infringing on the need for love.
And that's just the point: the reality of Christ's love and the need for it stands independent of the presence of ministry success and/or failure. Ministerial success and/or failure is a faulty indicator of the reality of Christ's love in the life of the minister, pastor, or lay leader, and vice versa. We need to resist the temptation to come to any sort of reliable conclusion about the state of someone's soul by looking at the state of what they are doing in ministry. We need to stand against the desire to equate (and consequently, to conflate) the two. In turn, we also need to refrain from compartmentalizing the two as well. I mean, it's not as though Christ's love has nothing to do with a person's ministerial success, and it just might be the case that the absence of Christ's love has something to do with someone's failure in ministry. Nevertheless, we should avoid equating the two.
So in light of all of this, and so that this has not all been said in vain, we must ask ourselves: what do we do?
First: we must remember the "why" of God's love--we must keep Jesus' love and the need for it at the forefront of our hearts and minds, and superior to our desire to be "successful" in ministry. We are, and will forever be, in need of God's love. We need God's love for the salvation of our souls. We need God's love for the receiving and living of Jesus' life, energized by the Holy Spirit--theologically refered to as "regeneration," "sanctification," "redemption," "reconciliation," and a host of other "-tions." The effects of this God-life, in its true and eternally transforming nature, can never be manufactured by ministers... though we may portray ourselves as having the ability (and even the responsibility!) to dole it out. We need to intentionally devote ourselves to the spiritual practices and disciplines that remind us of these truths.
An important aspect of this first consideration is this: God is always primary, and we are always secondary. God first moved; now we can move. God first loved; now we can love (1 John 4:19). And not only that, but this: God continues to move; we simply respond (Gal. 5:25). God continues to love us; our love flows from this fountain. Remembering the "why" of God's love reminds us of our place in God's kingdom and kingdom advancement. We don't create something that wasn't already there; we simply live out the Someone Who now lives in us.
How do we "do" this first consideration--how to we remember the "why" of God's love? There are many ways, mostly involving the spiritual disciplines. Read. Contemplate. Meditate. Be silent. Listen. Retreat. Let the Spirit of God burn the Word of God on your heart and impart the life of Jesus to you. And don't simply do these disciplines and practices alone; do them with fellow Jesus-followers (Col. 3:16; 1 Thes. 5:11; Heb. 3:13-14; 10:24-25; 1 Pet. 1:22-23). It is as we do these things, and the things that flow out of them, that we experience true fellowship--koinonia--with one another (Acts 2:42).
As we cultivate this interior life--this way of being that is founded on and flows out of God's love for us--we will become more clearly aware of his mission and his means for accomplishing it.
That bears repeating: as we cultivate this interior life of love, we will become more clearly aware of God mission AND his means for accomplishing it. We don't just discover God's mission and then execute our own cleverly planned means for accomplishing it. We journey with the Spirit to discover both the mission and the means.
Which leads me to part 2.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Consciences and Convictions
I recently took a lot of time to respond to an email from someone who had asked: What is the Bible really saying when it talks about "not offending people" and "not causing them to stumble?" I think that this would be a great place to store my response, if only so I don't ever have to create it again:
I think the passage that you're referring to comes from Romans 14. There's also another related passage in 1 Corinthians 8. These passages are probably two of the most misused passages n the New Testament (and this misuse is often referred to as "prooftexting"--incorrectly using a passage of Scripture to prove one's own point of view). In order for us to properly understand it and apply it, we have to understand the context and the flow of Paul's argument. Let's start in Romans.
The context is this: Paul is writing to the Roman church, which is made up of both Jewish and Greek people, with people from both groups on various ends of the faith spectrum--some new, and some mature. Kinda like any local church. So, beginning in verse 1, he states his message: STOP PASSING JUDGMENT ON DISPUTABLE MATTERS. Not "it's your job make a correct judgment in disputable matters" or "judge disputable matters by this set of personal convictions" or "here's how I personally stand on some of the ambiguities in dressing, eating, and drinking... use these as your guidelines." Everything ties back to Paul's command to us: stop considering it your Christian duty to transform disputable matters into "right and wrong" behaviors. Ironically, a lot of times, Christians use this passage in exactly the way that Paul was condemning (vv. 1-4).
What is Paul's reasoning for this command? 1) There is such a thing as personal convictions on disputable matters (vv. 5-6); 2) those convictions need to remain personal--a person should not attempt to make their personal convictions universal (v. 5b; v. 22a; indeed, these convictions inform our consciences--more on that later!); 3) each person is responsible to the Lord, and to Him only, concerning his or her own set of personal convictions on disputable matters (v. 6); and finally 4) we're all saved by Jesus anyways, so regardless of our personal convictions about disputable matters, when it comes down to it, we're all dead without Jesus and alive with him (vv. 9-12). In other words, you aren't "more saved" or in "better standing" because of your own particular set of personal convictions. The strictest of the Christian teetotalers is very much in the same objective standing with Jesus as the most liberal of the Christian social drinkers: each of them is saved only by the grace of Jesus.
Okay, great. But what exactly is Paul talking about when he refers to "stumbling" (v. 20) and even "falling" (v. 21)? Well, in the immediate context (vv. 19-21), Paul is referring to convictions about eating and drinking. Paul talks about a similar theme in 1 Cor. 8, centering completely around food being sacrificed to idols. In both places, he refers to the faith of those who have a set of personal convictions about abstaining from such foods as "weak" (Rom. 14:1-2; 1 Cor. 8:7-12). So, before we can get to the root of what Paul means by stumbling in falling, we must establish: how does Paul extrapolate from a person's set of "abstaining" personal convictions to a judgment about their faith being weak?
Well, if we go back to point #2 in the 'reasoning' paragraph above, we can see the connection between our personal convictions and our consciences. Our personal convictions do not remain static as we mature; they develop as our faith develops (as demonstrated in 1 Cor. 8:4-7). As I grow in my faith, I more clearly see what the actual boundaries of the Christian faith are--for example: the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, salvation by grace through faith, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc. In the same way, I more clearly see what are actually preferences within those boundaries. This distinction in turn helps me to better understand different perspectives, different interpretations, and different expressions which are all acceptable because they fall within the actual boundaries of Christianity... even when I come up against a particular expression of another mature Christian that does not match up with my own.
So, because my personal convictions develop along with my faith, so also does my conscience; I no longer experience conviction about a certain behavior like I once did, because my boundaries concerning what is "Christian" and what is not have been more broadly (yet more accurately) delineated. This is clearly demonstrated in I Cor. 8:4 and then later in 8:7--people who had matured in their faith had come to a knowledge about the real nature of food sacrificed to idols... but people who were not yet mature (who were still brand new!) had not yet come to that knowledge. And this is OK!! In fact, it has to be this way, because that is how people work--they go from infancy to maturity. As we mature in our knowledge, we mature in our convictions, which in turn matures our consciences. In this way, there is a subjectivity to what is sinful--what is sinful for one person to do may not be sinful for another, depending on their maturity level. In these matters, the objective standard is a subjective conscience. If the Spirit is convicting you personally of something, you must personally respond to that conviction, and not base your response on whether or not someone else is being convicted in the same way.
With those last two paragraphs in mind, we can now more accurately see what Paul meant when he was talking about "stumbling" and "falling." These are very serious words indeed; I think the NIV translates the force of the word (it's translate it as "fall" in Rom. 14:21) better than the NASB (which translates it as "stumble" or "to make a misstep"); Paul uses the same word in Romans 9:32 to describe Israel's critical failure to recognize the importance of Christ's saving work in God's plan to save them. As mature believers, by asserting our knowledge and the "free-er", less-strict set of convictions that come about as a result of it, we can actually cause new believers who still have a "weak" or infant faith to fall away! It could be devestating for a new believer who has just been saved out of alcoholism to see a group of his fellow church-goers get a little tipsy at a home gathering. Likewise, it could be fatal for a new believer who has just been redeemed from a depraved, depressed "Emo" style of life to head out to a "Killers" concert with a group of his newfound Christian friends. While it may not be wrong for mature believers to get a little tipsy at home or to go to a Killers concert (and actually, I kinda like "Emo" music), it certainly becomes wrong for them to do so when it concerns the faith of a brother or sister who has yet to mature. Thus, we must heed Paul's warnings in these scenarios (Rom. 14:13-15; 1 Cor. 8:9-13).
And yet, all of this must be done with Paul's first command in mind: mature Christians should not waste their time by deciding whose personal convictions on disputable matters are "right," and whose are "wrong." Those matters must remain disputable, and mature Christians must learn to interact with each other lovingly despite the dispute. Such arguments about disputable matters have no place in a maturing life in Christ. Morever, we should not transform Paul's warning about causing weak, infant believers to stumble into living by the most conservative set of convictions in an effort to avoid offending anyone. In fact, we should stand against those mature Christians who wish to stretch Paul's warning to include their own set of abstentions (see especially Paul's command in Rom. 14:16)!
Rather than focus on what can only be subjectively true for some of us, we should focus on what is objectively true for all of us: we are all dead without Jesus, and alive in him (Rom. 14:9-12; 1 Cor. 8:6).
I think the passage that you're referring to comes from Romans 14. There's also another related passage in 1 Corinthians 8. These passages are probably two of the most misused passages n the New Testament (and this misuse is often referred to as "prooftexting"--incorrectly using a passage of Scripture to prove one's own point of view). In order for us to properly understand it and apply it, we have to understand the context and the flow of Paul's argument. Let's start in Romans.
The context is this: Paul is writing to the Roman church, which is made up of both Jewish and Greek people, with people from both groups on various ends of the faith spectrum--some new, and some mature. Kinda like any local church. So, beginning in verse 1, he states his message: STOP PASSING JUDGMENT ON DISPUTABLE MATTERS. Not "it's your job make a correct judgment in disputable matters" or "judge disputable matters by this set of personal convictions" or "here's how I personally stand on some of the ambiguities in dressing, eating, and drinking... use these as your guidelines." Everything ties back to Paul's command to us: stop considering it your Christian duty to transform disputable matters into "right and wrong" behaviors. Ironically, a lot of times, Christians use this passage in exactly the way that Paul was condemning (vv. 1-4).
What is Paul's reasoning for this command? 1) There is such a thing as personal convictions on disputable matters (vv. 5-6); 2) those convictions need to remain personal--a person should not attempt to make their personal convictions universal (v. 5b; v. 22a; indeed, these convictions inform our consciences--more on that later!); 3) each person is responsible to the Lord, and to Him only, concerning his or her own set of personal convictions on disputable matters (v. 6); and finally 4) we're all saved by Jesus anyways, so regardless of our personal convictions about disputable matters, when it comes down to it, we're all dead without Jesus and alive with him (vv. 9-12). In other words, you aren't "more saved" or in "better standing" because of your own particular set of personal convictions. The strictest of the Christian teetotalers is very much in the same objective standing with Jesus as the most liberal of the Christian social drinkers: each of them is saved only by the grace of Jesus.
Okay, great. But what exactly is Paul talking about when he refers to "stumbling" (v. 20) and even "falling" (v. 21)? Well, in the immediate context (vv. 19-21), Paul is referring to convictions about eating and drinking. Paul talks about a similar theme in 1 Cor. 8, centering completely around food being sacrificed to idols. In both places, he refers to the faith of those who have a set of personal convictions about abstaining from such foods as "weak" (Rom. 14:1-2; 1 Cor. 8:7-12). So, before we can get to the root of what Paul means by stumbling in falling, we must establish: how does Paul extrapolate from a person's set of "abstaining" personal convictions to a judgment about their faith being weak?
Well, if we go back to point #2 in the 'reasoning' paragraph above, we can see the connection between our personal convictions and our consciences. Our personal convictions do not remain static as we mature; they develop as our faith develops (as demonstrated in 1 Cor. 8:4-7). As I grow in my faith, I more clearly see what the actual boundaries of the Christian faith are--for example: the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, salvation by grace through faith, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc. In the same way, I more clearly see what are actually preferences within those boundaries. This distinction in turn helps me to better understand different perspectives, different interpretations, and different expressions which are all acceptable because they fall within the actual boundaries of Christianity... even when I come up against a particular expression of another mature Christian that does not match up with my own.
So, because my personal convictions develop along with my faith, so also does my conscience; I no longer experience conviction about a certain behavior like I once did, because my boundaries concerning what is "Christian" and what is not have been more broadly (yet more accurately) delineated. This is clearly demonstrated in I Cor. 8:4 and then later in 8:7--people who had matured in their faith had come to a knowledge about the real nature of food sacrificed to idols... but people who were not yet mature (who were still brand new!) had not yet come to that knowledge. And this is OK!! In fact, it has to be this way, because that is how people work--they go from infancy to maturity. As we mature in our knowledge, we mature in our convictions, which in turn matures our consciences. In this way, there is a subjectivity to what is sinful--what is sinful for one person to do may not be sinful for another, depending on their maturity level. In these matters, the objective standard is a subjective conscience. If the Spirit is convicting you personally of something, you must personally respond to that conviction, and not base your response on whether or not someone else is being convicted in the same way.
With those last two paragraphs in mind, we can now more accurately see what Paul meant when he was talking about "stumbling" and "falling." These are very serious words indeed; I think the NIV translates the force of the word (it's translate it as "fall" in Rom. 14:21) better than the NASB (which translates it as "stumble" or "to make a misstep"); Paul uses the same word in Romans 9:32 to describe Israel's critical failure to recognize the importance of Christ's saving work in God's plan to save them. As mature believers, by asserting our knowledge and the "free-er", less-strict set of convictions that come about as a result of it, we can actually cause new believers who still have a "weak" or infant faith to fall away! It could be devestating for a new believer who has just been saved out of alcoholism to see a group of his fellow church-goers get a little tipsy at a home gathering. Likewise, it could be fatal for a new believer who has just been redeemed from a depraved, depressed "Emo" style of life to head out to a "Killers" concert with a group of his newfound Christian friends. While it may not be wrong for mature believers to get a little tipsy at home or to go to a Killers concert (and actually, I kinda like "Emo" music), it certainly becomes wrong for them to do so when it concerns the faith of a brother or sister who has yet to mature. Thus, we must heed Paul's warnings in these scenarios (Rom. 14:13-15; 1 Cor. 8:9-13).
And yet, all of this must be done with Paul's first command in mind: mature Christians should not waste their time by deciding whose personal convictions on disputable matters are "right," and whose are "wrong." Those matters must remain disputable, and mature Christians must learn to interact with each other lovingly despite the dispute. Such arguments about disputable matters have no place in a maturing life in Christ. Morever, we should not transform Paul's warning about causing weak, infant believers to stumble into living by the most conservative set of convictions in an effort to avoid offending anyone. In fact, we should stand against those mature Christians who wish to stretch Paul's warning to include their own set of abstentions (see especially Paul's command in Rom. 14:16)!
Rather than focus on what can only be subjectively true for some of us, we should focus on what is objectively true for all of us: we are all dead without Jesus, and alive in him (Rom. 14:9-12; 1 Cor. 8:6).
Sunday, May 20, 2007
God to His Church?
I've been reflecting on this experiential and subjective truth for a little while: for me, it usually takes about 3 years or so before I feel like I have a good handle on where I'm at and what I'm doing and how I fit into it all. It also takes about 3 years or so for people to feel the same way about me: like they have a pretty good handle on who I am, what I am equipped to do, and how I fit. It generally takes about 3 years for a healthy amount of credibility to be built, such that I can operate freely and appropriately.
So after just under a year at my present location, I am hesitant to come to any sort of firm conclusions about this place. Nevertheless, the "data" that I've collected so far pushes me toward 4 initial and interrelated impressions of my current church:
1. We forsake the "now" for the "later." Be it in the name of "planning for growth," or in the name of "being a good steward of where God wants to 'take' us," we are always looking ahead... often times at the expense of what is happening right now. Maybe more accurately, we do not gather data from the "now" and use it to help determine where God is "taking" us.
2. We fail to critique our own culture. Pragmatism and "relevance" are often our main standards; other standards we use to critique what we are doing and who we are submit to those two. Do people seem to be coming? Do they "like" it? Did we like the look and feel? Does it look like what we'd see on TV, or at a big church, or in a magazine? To be sure, these are all fair and necessary considerations... but they should not be primary. They should be secondary. But when they are primary, the result is dissonance. We have given our people as many looks and feels to a weekend worship experience as there are weekends in a year, namely because our standards are anything but static and grounded in long-proven and life-giving goals. When you critique first by pragmatism and relevance, your goals--and not just your expressions of them--will be everchanging.
3. We forsake going on our own journey, and choose instead to imitate where others have gone. This is another fine line, but a line it is indeed. I'm glad that it is possible and that we are encouraged to look at what other churches are doing; we are indeed one church, and it is both edifying and helpful to see what God is doing in other local expressions of his unity. Nevertheless, each local expression is unique, and requires a unique and authentic connection with God and his unique desires for that church's unique setting and people. Again, it's a matter of order--the connection to God and what He has for this local setting should be primary, and all ideas from other churches--no matter how successful they might be in their own respective locations--should be secondary. It might very well be the case that what is considered personal in a city of 5 million is considered impersonal in a community of 150,000. This is just one example of how important it is for local pastors to have a healthy connection to what God's unique heart is for their particular setting, and for those pastors to protect and use it as the standard by which they evaluate and incorporate new ideas.
4. We fail to be present in the moment. Everything is about "the next step." Even in relationships. Most often there is little room for mess or weakness, which means there is little room for vulnerability and authenticity, which means there is little room for real relationship. We are do-ers, and we are driven to succeed, and doggone it, we can't let our weaknesses as people get in the way. Trouble is, we usually lose connection with how God is present in weakness, even working to bring it about, in the hopes of saving our souls as we grow in our awareness of our dependence on him. And so, in the name of soul-saving, we lose our own.
And that's what I think, at this time, God is saying to his church here.
So after just under a year at my present location, I am hesitant to come to any sort of firm conclusions about this place. Nevertheless, the "data" that I've collected so far pushes me toward 4 initial and interrelated impressions of my current church:
1. We forsake the "now" for the "later." Be it in the name of "planning for growth," or in the name of "being a good steward of where God wants to 'take' us," we are always looking ahead... often times at the expense of what is happening right now. Maybe more accurately, we do not gather data from the "now" and use it to help determine where God is "taking" us.
2. We fail to critique our own culture. Pragmatism and "relevance" are often our main standards; other standards we use to critique what we are doing and who we are submit to those two. Do people seem to be coming? Do they "like" it? Did we like the look and feel? Does it look like what we'd see on TV, or at a big church, or in a magazine? To be sure, these are all fair and necessary considerations... but they should not be primary. They should be secondary. But when they are primary, the result is dissonance. We have given our people as many looks and feels to a weekend worship experience as there are weekends in a year, namely because our standards are anything but static and grounded in long-proven and life-giving goals. When you critique first by pragmatism and relevance, your goals--and not just your expressions of them--will be everchanging.
3. We forsake going on our own journey, and choose instead to imitate where others have gone. This is another fine line, but a line it is indeed. I'm glad that it is possible and that we are encouraged to look at what other churches are doing; we are indeed one church, and it is both edifying and helpful to see what God is doing in other local expressions of his unity. Nevertheless, each local expression is unique, and requires a unique and authentic connection with God and his unique desires for that church's unique setting and people. Again, it's a matter of order--the connection to God and what He has for this local setting should be primary, and all ideas from other churches--no matter how successful they might be in their own respective locations--should be secondary. It might very well be the case that what is considered personal in a city of 5 million is considered impersonal in a community of 150,000. This is just one example of how important it is for local pastors to have a healthy connection to what God's unique heart is for their particular setting, and for those pastors to protect and use it as the standard by which they evaluate and incorporate new ideas.
4. We fail to be present in the moment. Everything is about "the next step." Even in relationships. Most often there is little room for mess or weakness, which means there is little room for vulnerability and authenticity, which means there is little room for real relationship. We are do-ers, and we are driven to succeed, and doggone it, we can't let our weaknesses as people get in the way. Trouble is, we usually lose connection with how God is present in weakness, even working to bring it about, in the hopes of saving our souls as we grow in our awareness of our dependence on him. And so, in the name of soul-saving, we lose our own.
And that's what I think, at this time, God is saying to his church here.
Not By Me, But By You
I still wonder: will there ever be a day when I operate fully as a life that proceeds from Yours?
I still wonder: is that our goal? Do we have imprinted onto our hearts and minds what that life looks like?
And I still wonder: am I willing to let Him use me here in the meantime?
Not by me, Lord, but only by You will we begin to fully live life out of Your Life. Break me of my prideful attitude, of my resistant spirit, and my hardened heart toward those who don't seem to "get it." For in hardening my heart, I have lost the very thing You desire to give all of us.
And continue to break me.
I still wonder: is that our goal? Do we have imprinted onto our hearts and minds what that life looks like?
And I still wonder: am I willing to let Him use me here in the meantime?
Not by me, Lord, but only by You will we begin to fully live life out of Your Life. Break me of my prideful attitude, of my resistant spirit, and my hardened heart toward those who don't seem to "get it." For in hardening my heart, I have lost the very thing You desire to give all of us.
And continue to break me.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Putting the World at Risk
"The Christian is a witness to a new reality that is entirely counter to culture. The Christian faith is a proclamation that God's kingdom has arrived in Jesus, a proclamation that puts the world at risk. What Jesus himself proclaimed and we bear witness to is the truth that the sin-soaked, self-centered world is doomed.
Pastors are in charge of keeping the distinction between the world's lies and the gospel's truth clear. No one else occupies this exact niche that looks so inoffensive but is in fact so dangerous to the status quo. We are committed to keeping the proclamation alive and to looking after souls in a soul-denying, soul-trivializing age."
--Eugene Peterson, Unnecessary Pastor
There are three propositions in this short exerpt that jump off of the page and into my world here. First: the Christian is a witness to a new reality that is entirely counter to culture. Second: pastors are in charge of keeping this message distinct from the world in the way that it is by nature distinct from the world. And third: in so doing, we are caring for souls in a world that seeks to deny and trivialize it.
If we don't understand the first proposition, we can not possibly keep our charge to the second and third. Too few of us can apprehend and articulate exactly how the Christian message is entirely counter to our culture. We immediately jump to how the Christian message can fit into our culture, mostly in the name of relevancy. However, the fact of the matter is this: the gospel is relevant, apart from our packaging, by its very nature. We need Jesus. We needed him to die. We need him for his life. This is objectively true, and it is objectively true for all of us and apart from any of us. We don't "make" it true for us; it simply and already "is" true for us.
Yes, but how do we make it true for those who don't yet believe that?
By living it out. By living lives that demonstrate that we recognize this reality. By being people who are present to this reality at all times, whether at work, at play, in conversation, in devotion, in service, in planning... whatever. By living as people who are ever aware that they simply need Jesus, and then watching as the Spirit brings forth His fruit out of that realization, moving us to cooperate with his leading and guiding in our every day, earthy lives.
All of which flies in the face of what the above question presupposes: that it's our job to somehow "make God true" for others, perhaps in the name of "relevancy." However, God is already true for everyone; he is already present and already initiating. He actively desires for everyone to come to a personal knowledge of his saving intentions. For someone to not believe and accept that truth does not make it "not true" for them; it simply means that they are denying objective reality. Denying the truth does not make the truth "the truth no longer." It simply means that the person is in a state of denial.
Again, it's not our job to get someone to quit their denying by using all of the cultural bells and whistles with which they are all too familiar. Our job is simply to be reflections of the reality of a life that is infused by Christ's life and Spirit. It's amazing what the Spirit can do with a life that is simply a good reflection; a life that is very much a Jesus-image.
Perhaps that is one way in which the gospel is so counter to our culture--it proclaims a reality that is apart from our creating, apart from our effort, apart from our striving. It proclaims a kingdom we could never establish, much less build. This message alone is so fear- and anxiety-producing to us as self-made, driven, independent, capitalist, democratic people that even those of us who claim allegiance to or membership in this kingdom fail to comprehend its true nature and full message. And so we fail to comprehend: how can I gather my identity from something I didn't do? What place can I have in something that doesn't depend on me?
Implicit in almost all models that champion relevancy or business strategy is this temptation: it all comes down to me. We fail or succeed because of me, because of my ability to execute, because of my finger on the pulse, because of my anticipation, because of my plan, because of our facility, because of... etc. This is the world's message, and the church has believed and accepted it. And yet, we stand as people who need and will forever need Jesus--who have supposedly believed and accepted him and his message.
The schizophrenia of this state of being--of being people who have accepted and believed two mutually exclusive messages--is alarming. You don't know what to expect from day to day--will we be people who walk, talk, act, work, breathe, relate, pray, preach, sing, strategize, plan, review, and evaluate as people who know first and foremost that they simply need Jesus? Or, will we walk, talk, act, work, breath, relate, pray, preach, sing, strategize, plan, review, and evaluate as people who need to succeed at Jesus' mission for him? Or even still, will we be people who think that the two--simply needing Jesus, and needing to succeed by the world's means--are compatible, and not at all mutually exclusive?
The means of the world deny and trivialize the soul. Performance reviews apart from relationship trivialize the soul. Technology above authenticity denies the soul. Process above people denies the soul. And an unwillingness to wrestle with how these tensions play out in practice--whether it is in the name of busyness, personality, or priorities--trivializes the soul.
There are plenty of "ministry means" that are actually wolves in sheep's clothing.
Pastors are in charge of keeping the distinction between the world's lies and the gospel's truth clear. No one else occupies this exact niche that looks so inoffensive but is in fact so dangerous to the status quo. We are committed to keeping the proclamation alive and to looking after souls in a soul-denying, soul-trivializing age."
--Eugene Peterson, Unnecessary Pastor
There are three propositions in this short exerpt that jump off of the page and into my world here. First: the Christian is a witness to a new reality that is entirely counter to culture. Second: pastors are in charge of keeping this message distinct from the world in the way that it is by nature distinct from the world. And third: in so doing, we are caring for souls in a world that seeks to deny and trivialize it.
If we don't understand the first proposition, we can not possibly keep our charge to the second and third. Too few of us can apprehend and articulate exactly how the Christian message is entirely counter to our culture. We immediately jump to how the Christian message can fit into our culture, mostly in the name of relevancy. However, the fact of the matter is this: the gospel is relevant, apart from our packaging, by its very nature. We need Jesus. We needed him to die. We need him for his life. This is objectively true, and it is objectively true for all of us and apart from any of us. We don't "make" it true for us; it simply and already "is" true for us.
Yes, but how do we make it true for those who don't yet believe that?
By living it out. By living lives that demonstrate that we recognize this reality. By being people who are present to this reality at all times, whether at work, at play, in conversation, in devotion, in service, in planning... whatever. By living as people who are ever aware that they simply need Jesus, and then watching as the Spirit brings forth His fruit out of that realization, moving us to cooperate with his leading and guiding in our every day, earthy lives.
All of which flies in the face of what the above question presupposes: that it's our job to somehow "make God true" for others, perhaps in the name of "relevancy." However, God is already true for everyone; he is already present and already initiating. He actively desires for everyone to come to a personal knowledge of his saving intentions. For someone to not believe and accept that truth does not make it "not true" for them; it simply means that they are denying objective reality. Denying the truth does not make the truth "the truth no longer." It simply means that the person is in a state of denial.
Again, it's not our job to get someone to quit their denying by using all of the cultural bells and whistles with which they are all too familiar. Our job is simply to be reflections of the reality of a life that is infused by Christ's life and Spirit. It's amazing what the Spirit can do with a life that is simply a good reflection; a life that is very much a Jesus-image.
Perhaps that is one way in which the gospel is so counter to our culture--it proclaims a reality that is apart from our creating, apart from our effort, apart from our striving. It proclaims a kingdom we could never establish, much less build. This message alone is so fear- and anxiety-producing to us as self-made, driven, independent, capitalist, democratic people that even those of us who claim allegiance to or membership in this kingdom fail to comprehend its true nature and full message. And so we fail to comprehend: how can I gather my identity from something I didn't do? What place can I have in something that doesn't depend on me?
Implicit in almost all models that champion relevancy or business strategy is this temptation: it all comes down to me. We fail or succeed because of me, because of my ability to execute, because of my finger on the pulse, because of my anticipation, because of my plan, because of our facility, because of... etc. This is the world's message, and the church has believed and accepted it. And yet, we stand as people who need and will forever need Jesus--who have supposedly believed and accepted him and his message.
The schizophrenia of this state of being--of being people who have accepted and believed two mutually exclusive messages--is alarming. You don't know what to expect from day to day--will we be people who walk, talk, act, work, breathe, relate, pray, preach, sing, strategize, plan, review, and evaluate as people who know first and foremost that they simply need Jesus? Or, will we walk, talk, act, work, breath, relate, pray, preach, sing, strategize, plan, review, and evaluate as people who need to succeed at Jesus' mission for him? Or even still, will we be people who think that the two--simply needing Jesus, and needing to succeed by the world's means--are compatible, and not at all mutually exclusive?
The means of the world deny and trivialize the soul. Performance reviews apart from relationship trivialize the soul. Technology above authenticity denies the soul. Process above people denies the soul. And an unwillingness to wrestle with how these tensions play out in practice--whether it is in the name of busyness, personality, or priorities--trivializes the soul.
There are plenty of "ministry means" that are actually wolves in sheep's clothing.
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