A lot is currently being said about marriage these days due to the recent publication of two books on marriage by two famous (and/or infamous) pastors. I won’t link to one of them because I just don’t think it would be helpful, but I will link to the other one because (while I haven’t read it) I imagine it’s probably helpful in some ways because I really respect the author.

But, over the years I have developed a some thoughts that I (and others it seems) have found helpful when it comes to the vocation of marriage. Now, I don’t fancy myself an complete expert when it comes to being married, just ask my wife. But, in the midst of our struggles the following thoughts have aided us in putting our marriage, and all that goes with it, within a helpful mission-centered framework (how’s that for a catchy phrase?).

I think for us to begin talking about marriage we have to go back to the creation. Most people do too so this isn’t anything new. But, I want to take a bit of a different look at the image of God and it’s implications for our vocation as individuals and more importantly, together as a couple.

In Genesis 1 we read, “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. On the 5th day he created mankind and said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Okay, again I am not telling each of you anything new. You, me, all of us are created in the image of God. Of course, there are many different implications to being made in the image of God. The most obvious is that we are His beloved creation, worth more to Him than we can ever imagine. Worth so much that God chose to become man himself, walk among us in the dirt and suffer death on the cross. This is an amazing beautiful truth that I am not sure we will ever really comprehend.

But there is another side to being made in the image of God that I think we can sometimes miss. If being his beloved children shows us who’s we are, this second piece speaks of who we are to be as his children.

In order to understand this side better, it might be helpful to use a alternative word to “image.” Perhaps the greek version of the word is more helpful. That is “eikon.” (All this “eikon” talk is stolen taken straight from Scot McKnight’s book Embracing Grace)

For many of us, the word “eikon” brings some more tangible ideas. Some of us may associate this with religious icons, or pop icons (like Michael Jackson) and those of us who spend our time in front of computers will associate this with the little images that we click on to open up applications like our web browser or wordprocessor.

In each of these cases, the icon is not the object of focus. Rather, what these icons point to is the thing that is important. A religious icon serves the purpose of pointing the worshipper to God. A computer icon serves the purpose of pointing to, or being a shortcut to a computer application.

As beings who are created in the image of God, we serve a similar purpose and role in this world. We are not meant to be God, but rather we are meant to point to God. We are not meant to be the creator, but we are meant to point to the Creator. Following the computer line of thought, if you double click on us, that is, if you look at our lives, you should see God. (Cheesy, I know, but it works right?)

But, here’s the thing: Image bearing doesn’t stop with at people being individuals. 

The Bible continues in Genesis and says that the man and woman are to become one flesh… Two become one. And because of this, in a very real sense, the married couple makes one eikon of God. 

I think the implications of this are huge.

When we look at marriage in our culture there are many different definition of success. A good job, a family, a great sex life, beautiful grandkids, a wealthy retirement and other culturally-based goals.

But, I believe that according to the Bible, the mark of a successful marriage is when two people come together and their lives continually point others to God.

This then is our vocation: To join our lives together and spend the rest of them pointing others to God. So, my wife and I judge our marriage based on how well we point others to God. As God called Israel to be blessed and be a blessing, as God calls the church to be blessed and be a blessing… So God calls the two of us to come together as one, not only to be blessed but to be a blessing and point others to God.

We raise kids with this goal, we neighbor with this goal, we argue (yikes) with this goal, we shop with this goal, we spend money with this goal, we date with this goal, we live in community with this goal, we do everything with the goal of being a shared eikon of God.

If we wake up when we’re 80 and we can say, by the grace of God, we’ve done this. I’ll be happy.

(I’m raising awareness/money for Lemonade International by running the 2011 Chicago Marathon. You can help education and feed the children of La Limonada by donating here).

About a year and a half ago a friend of mine, Katie Nolan, was lost on Mt. Hood. She and her two friends who were hiking with her died on the mountain as they were caught in a storm.  While I had not talked with Katie for about a year or so (last I saw her was at a wedding) she had been a good friend of ours. She and my wife played volleyball together and she was an integral part of the formation of our church community just as we were getting our feet wet with what it means to be a church for the sake of others. She always pushed us to care for others outside our community in such beautiful (and difficult) ways. She was one of those people who never seemed settled in herself.  I am sure there are different reasons for this that I did not know of but I think a major part of it was that she did not close her eyes to the pain around her – and it affected her.  It was a holy unsettledness that I think more of us should have.

Before she died she had been planning on running the Philadelphia Marathon with some of our friends. With her not being able to do that a number of us decided that we would run in her memory. I was one of those who decided to do that but I quickly realized that there was little chance I would be able to train for a full marathon so I settled for the half-marathon in Philly instead. Call my a baby if you want but at that time I thought running was a horrible form of torture.

I never thought I’d be a runner. I always felt sorry for those poor people running down the road looking all tired. I mean, who runs for fun? But, to my surprise that race completely hooked me. I loved almost every mile of it. Miles 10-12 totally sucked because I hadn’t properly trained for it but the finish was so awesome.  It was then that I decided that I would try to actually do a marathon in 2011.

I decided quickly that I wanted to have my first marathon be in Chicago since that’s where I grew up and I’ve heard its an amazing experience. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that its a very flat course either.

I’ve since learned that running is a time when I do some of my best thinking. I don’t run with music so its easy for my mind to wander into all sorts of things. I love the quiet and the solitude of being out on the road all alone.

It was during one of my early training runs that I decided that I didn’t want to just run for myself.

So, on October 9th I’ll be running 26.2 miles for the beautiful people of La Limonada in Guatemala City.  A little over three years ago we adopted a beautiful, spunky and creative little boy from Guatemala and since then we’ve had a special place in our heart for the people in his birth country. Two years ago I met Bill Cummings at a conference and was introduced to his organization Lemonade International.  Lemonade Intl. supports two schools in La Limonada, Central America’s largest slum – home to between 65,000 and 100,000 people living in a cycle of extreme poverty.

All this to say, I’m running this marathon to raise awareness and money for this community. I designed a shirt for the event so that everyone I pass (hopefully its a lot of people!) will learn about it. (The pic at the top of this post is the shirt).

I’d be honored if you would sponsor me for my race and you can do that at my Lemonade Stand on Lemonade International’s website here.

Or, you can do me one better – start your own lemonade stand!

At one point our conversation turned to our individualized, isolated society here in North America and how we struggle to really connect with people well.  In the midst of this conversation, something interesting happened. Instead of talking about all that we had that the people in the ghetto didn’t, it was flipped. All the sudden we were talking about what they had that we didn’t.

Tita, the director of the project there in Guatemala, couldn’t comprehend our struggle. As we talked she seemed to have a deep sense of sorrow for us that we struggled with this. To her, community is absolutely vital and a natural part of her life as her culture is much more naturally communal. She couldn’t imagine why we would want to lead lives that were naturally disconnected and isolated.

It is amazing how easily we have normalized individualism and isolation isn’t it?

What ways are you seeking to “un-normalize” our culture’s natural isolatedness?

In all my years of interacting with pastors, teachers and leaders I have never met anyone who got into a pulpit on a regular basis and said “I think I am going to preach a one-sided gospel.”

In reality, none of us are preaching a fully holistic gospel, are we?

Obviously I don’t think so, or I wouldn’t have asked the question.

I believe this is one of the reasons we need to continually be in dialogue with the entire body of Christ, Christians from all walks of life.

We must know and learn from Christians from different racial, ethic and socio-economic backgrounds and even Christians from urban, suburban and rural contexts.

It is in these conversations and friendships where we can begin to see a more holistic view of the gospel.

So, here we go:

Two easy steps to preaching a more holistic gospel:

• 1) Admit that you don’t.
• 2) Stop only hanging out with people just like you.

See, told you it would be easy….

La Limonada is known to have the 4th highest murder rate in the world. There is a saying in Guatemala City that “even Santa Claus doesn’t visit La Limonada.” I have shared with a few Guatemalan friends from here in the States that we visited there last summer and their response was “and you are not dead?!”

By all accounts La Limonada is a hopeless place. But, by God’s account, it is a place where He is making beauty out of ashes. A Guatemalan woman named Tita has been serving this community since 1994. She is amazing. We like to call her the Mother Teresa of Central America. She has earned it. You can read the rest of the story here and more about the Ghetto here.

My journey towards this point started before we ever heard of Lemonade International. In 2005 my wife and I started the process of adopting our son from Guatemala.

That experience has made us passionate about our son’s home country. It was in the fall of 2009 that I met Bill Cummings at one of the IdeaCamp conferences. Bill was (and still is) serving as the director of Lemonade International. When I heard he was at the conference I made a mutual friend introduce us. You might say it was friendship at first sight. At least it was for me. Bill can tell if I creeped him out at all. I think within 10 minutes I offered to redesign his website as a gift to his organization (that website was finally launched last November). It was then that I also shared with Bill about how our church was interested in a sustainable long-term cross-cultural partnership with an organization that did not need us, but could benefit from an intentional partnership.

Fast forward 8 months and I had the privilege of leading an amazing team of 13 people from my church on a week of service in La Limonada. Our goal was to figure out if La Limonada was the place that God was calling us to invest long term.

Our week there confirmed that it is to this community that God has called us. We are now on a journey of discovering how we can come alongside the people of La Limonada to help bring hope to a fairly hopeless place.

I was honored when Bill asked me to serve on the board. It is my prayer that I will be able to use the gifts that God has given me to humbly serve and support the amazing people who are working in the Ghetto everyday with some of the most beautiful children in the world.

You are probably asking yourself, “Self, how can I also get involved?”

Well, I am glad you asked!

I would be honored if you would join me in making a donation of $50 to the work in La Limonada today (I am not usually into talking about how much I give and when, but I want you to know I am asking you to do something I just did myself).

But wait, there is more! I have a friend who has promised to give $5 for every person who gives as a result of this post. So, if you give, be sure to mention my post in the notes section of the online giving.

You can do that online easily right here.

Far too often suburbia has been seen as antithetical to being missional. The assumption seemed to be that if you wanted to be a legit missional voice or person you had to be talking about and living in the city. Now, I get the importance of the city, especially from a cultural standpoint. But the suburbs are home to millions and millions of Christians. We can’t afford to ignore the challenges that they face when it comes to responding to the call of the gospel.

A few years ago I wrote a paper on this topic called “The Gospel and the God-forsaken: The Challenge of the Missional Church in Suburban America.” It was writing this paper that really got me passionate about this topic. The fact that this post has been viewed 13,392 times (as of today) and has received 52 comments has been quite encouraging. No, not because it makes me feel good and important, but more because it helps me know that I am not alone in this journey. This is a vitally important topic. And thankfully, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Along the way I’ve met quite a few people (virtually and in person) who have become excellent voices and dialogue partners for this topic. I am never surprised to discover that there are much smarter and more faithful people than me living out and thinking through the challenges we face as suburban Christians.

In an effort to give more and more voices to the conversation, I’ve decided to move my thoughts on this topic to a different website then my personal blog. This topic deserves a wider audience and more contributors.

A while ago I purchased the domain: www.missionalinsuburbia.com.  I sat on it for a while, but for the last year the blog has been co-written with me by my friend Michael Wallenmeyer.  Michael is a pastor at an ELCA church in suburban New Jersey (how much more God-forsaken can it get?!) and his church is in the thick of working out what it means to be missional in their suburban context.

Michael will be driving the conversation at the site and I’ll be putting my two-cents in when I have something to say. I want to encourage you to go there and join the conversation. Add it to your RSS feed.  If you would like to be a contributor, use the contact form and we’ll work with you on posting your thoughts.

Thanks to the so many of you who have helped this conversation forward.

As for the future of my personal blog? I’ve become more and more passionate about issues around missional leadership and community. I’m hoping that my blog can point my readers towards resources and thoughts that help us be better leaders and community members, whether this is inside of or outside of the church.

So my new subtitle: Field Notes on Missional Leadership and Community Systems

Help End Local Poverty Haiti Trips, 2010 from Help End Local Poverty on Vimeo.

True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom.

Love thy neighbor is not a piece of advice it’s a command.

And that means in the global village that we’re going to have to start loving a whole lot more people, that’s what that means… his truth is marching on…

…because where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.

And to those in the church who still stand in judgement on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment, because whatever thoughts we have about God or who he is or whether He even exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor.

The poor are where God lives.

God is in the slums in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.

God is where the opportunity is lost where lives are shattered.

God is with the mother who has infected the child that will take both of their lives.

God is under the rubble and the cries we hear during war time.

God, my friends, is with the poor and god is with us if we are with them.

This is not a burden this is an adventure and don’t let anyone tell you that it cannot be done.

We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty.

Why?

Because they don’t close our eyes to the screwed up world they see around them everyday.

They see news about the situation in Haiti and they don’t change the channel.

They hear that human slavery is at an all-time high and they don’t pretend that it isn’t true.

They see children in deep poverty, dying, everyday and they don’t close their eyes.

All this is too much for them to take.

And it screws them up, for the better.

Well-rounded individuals are over rated.

They are well rounded because they have found a way to ignore all the pain, injustice and crap that they see everyday.

I don’t want to be well-rounded.

Do We Have to Spend Money to Have Fun?