The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”

From Mere Christianity in Book IV – Beyond Personality: Or First Steps In The Doctrine Of The Trinity

David Bosch outlines five important characteristics of the church’s relationship to the world in his landmark book “Transforming Mission.”  This stuff is so fantastic (and I think important) that I am just going to copy what he wrote here.  Also, if you haven’t read this book. Get it and spend the next three years slowing reading through it. It’s that good.

1. The church cannot be viewed as the ground of mission, it cannot be considered the goal of mission either – certainly not the only goal. The church should continually be aware of its provisional character.
2. The church is not the kingdom of God. The church is “on earth the seed and the beginning of that kingdom” and “the sign and instrument of the reign of God that is to come. The church can be a credible sacrament of salvation for the world only with it displays to humanity a glimmer of God’s imminent reign – a kingdom of reconciliation, peace and new life. In the here and now, that reign comes whensoever Christ overcomes the power of evil.  This happens most visibly in the church but also happens in society, since Christ is Lord of the whole world as well.
3. The church’s missionary involvement suggest more than calling individuals into the church as a waiting room for the hereafter…there is a convergence between liberating individuals and peoples in history and proclaiming the final coming of God’s reign.  In this perspective, the church is the “people of God in world occurrence” (Barth) and the community for the world.
4. The church is to be viewed as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, as a movement of the Spirit towards the world en route to the future. When we view the church as a community of the Holy Spirit we identify it preeminently as missionary community, since the Spirit is the go-between God.
5. If the church attempts to sever itself from involvement in the world and if its structures are such that they thwart any possibility of rendering a relevant service to the world, such structures have to be recognized as heretical. The church’s offices, orders, and institutions should be organized in such a manner that they serve society and do not separate the believer from the historical.  Its life and work are intimately bound up with God’s cosmic-historical plan for the salvation of the world.  We are called, therefore, to be “kingdom people” and not “church people.” Because of its integral relatedness to the world, the church may never function as a fearful border guard, but always as one who brings good tidings.

I think this stuff #5 on the church and its connection to history is extremely important.  Karl Barth in volume 4.3.2 in his Church Dogmatics spends a lot of time talking about the “gospel in world occurrence” and its really, really good stuff.  Heady, but good.  I think we tend to separate world history from the church and that’s a grave mistake.  We talk about salvation history, often in opposition to, world history.  I believe the scriptures are talking about salvation history as world history.  God is working in and through history to bring it to completion and it’s through Christ that God is accomplishing this.  I think far too often we accidental forget that God is not working alongside or in opposition to history, but in history.

Eugene Peterson’s latest book, Practice Resurrection is fantastic.  I don’t know how else to say it.  An excerpt,

“Church is the appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines: death of nations, death of civilization, death of marriage, death of careers, obituaries without end.  Death by war, death by murder, death by accident, death by starvation. Death by electric chair, injection and hanging. The practice of resurrection is an intentional, deliberate decision to believe and partciate in resurrection life, life out of death, life that trumps death, life that is the last word. Jesus Life…”

He goes on the point out that the church is far from the utopian dream that many of us have when it comes to church and says,

“Romantic crusader and consumer representations of the church get in the way of recognizing the church for what it actually is.  If we permit – or worse  promote – dreamy or deceptive distortions of teh Holy Spirit creation, we interfere with participation in the real thing.  The church we want becomes the enemy of the church we have.”

Eugene has an incredible and important prophetic voice for the church today.  Simply out, this book is worth getting and reading.

In my sermon this week, on the parable of the Foolish Rich Man, I referenced this quote from Tom Sine’s book, The New Conspirators. I absolutely loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who is wondering what kinds of things are going on in some awesome Christian communities these days.

Tom writes,

“If our view of the Good Life is focused on accumulating consumer goods and experiences for ourselves, instead of looking for opportunities to make a difference in the lives of others, we could totally miss what this journey is really all about. We are indeed called to live under God’s rule, practicing economic generosity and justice-making with all that God has entrusted us.

We are invited to join so many who have gone before in discovering that the good life of God is to be found not in seeking life but in losing our lives in service to God and to others.”
- Tom Sine

“The initial locus and primary focus of [pastors] work is in their offices. Time-management studies again and again have confirmed that pastors invest a large percentage of their time in their offices – in meetings, in doing administrative work, and in taking care of administrative details…Pastors continue to spend so much time their offices because it is a familiar and habitual behavior pattern that has been nurtured and reinforced for many, many years. And the foundation underlying that behavior pattern is an understanding of the nature of leadership that is no longer helpful.”

- Kennon Callahan, Effective Church Leadership

Of course. I wrote this post from my office (which is actually a starbucks).

I’ve been working with someone in our church to take a long hard look at the culture and practices of we’ve developed in our church around the issue of spiritual formation, spiritual direction and discipleship. In this, I’ve been doign some reading about how other denominations and traditions have approached this topic throughout the history of the church. One book that has been immensely helpful is Gary Moon and David Benner’s book Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls. In this book, they give an overview of how spiritual direction is approached from different traditions.

One thing that has surprised me has been how almost every tradition has a strong emphasis on some form of confession. Now, this probably shouldn’t have surprised me. But, its no secret that evangelicals are not known to place a high emphasis on confession as a regular practice in the Christian life. Perhaps we think we will become catholic or something. But, while it was talked about on some level, it was not and has not been something strongly emphasized. This is true for us at The Well. We don’t, not talk about confession. But I am realizing we aren’t intentional enough about it.

David Fitch in his book The Great Giveway writes about this a bit in his chapter on spiritual formation. This is a long quote, but i think he hits the nail on the head…

“But we cannot do therapy like this sitting in the pew. Because evangelicals are so sermon-centric, we are tempted to think that good therapy happens by taking good notes in the pew. But ironically, the more we concentrate on good biblical instruction as central to the Christian life, the less we talk to each other about our lives and especially about sin. MOst of our small group processes are either inductive Bible studies or involved more intense, scholarly study of the bible that never deals with the emotional and character issues that are destroying our lives. It is a testament to how unsafe the church has become for sinners that we rarely discuss with each other our sin and failures and seek the healing of the HOly Spirit. Rarely do we have confession and repentance in our small groups. We need to find safe places where we can share our lives, confess our sins, receive scriptural wisdom, and be prayed for. To do this, we cannot just get together and simply share our sins and quote bible verses at each other. We must retrieve from therapy the needed skills to practice biblical confession and bring it under the lordship of Christ. This is the utmost of importance to the future of spiritual formation in the evangelical church.” (195)

Eat this Book

I’ve been slowly working through his recent book, Eat This Book and I’m really enjoying it. He writes,

“Barth insists that we do not read this book and the subsequent writings that are shaped by it in order to find how how to get God into our lives, get him to participate in our lives. No. We open this book and find that page after page it takes us off guard, surprises us, and draws us into its reality, pulls us into participation with God in his terms.”

Peterson (and Barth) hit on something that has completely changed the way I approach Scripture…

Been really enjoying the book The Monkey and the Fish by Dave Gibbons. It’s one of those books that I will pass on to a few people and simply say “see, this is what I’ve been trying to talk about.”

In chapter 5 he goes through three questions that are helpful for pastors and leaders (and churches) to ask as they look for answers to the mission and vision of their church.

The first question is: “Where is Nazarath?”

Now, this might seem like a strange question (it did to me at first). But when you begin to answer it, its very insightful. In the Bible, the question is asked about Jesus, “Can anything good come from Nazarath?” Dave gives another way of asking this question, “Can anything good come from that place on the other side of the railroad tracks?”

He goes on to ask a very, very helpful question…

“Where is the other side of the tracks in your city or region? In other words, who are the marginalized or the outsiders near you, people whom you feel pain for?”

I don’t think this is not a question that most churches ask seriously. Even those churches who do ask that question often don’t know what to do about the answer. He references further the passage in I Corinthians where Paul writes, “few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose things this world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise…” (114)

Now, I’ve read that passage 100 times. And something struck me right between the eyes. This isn’t necessarily true of my church. My community is not necessarily made up of a bunch of people who society would consider foolish or outsiders. While we aren’t all that impressive and we are foolish in our own way, we definitely aren’t people who the world would consider from the wrong side of the tracks. Of course, we can’t help that on some level. I’m not about to turn people away from the church when they are seriously seeking God.

I hope and pray that more people “from the wrong side of the tracks” would find Jesus in our community. Of course, that always creates a challenge…

“so who in your community is the outsider, the misjudged, the misunderstood? Maybe the one who seems the weakest? Who are the strangers and the friendless? Focusing on them as a church may mean you won’t grow fast. And you may lose some people. But your church will be fulfilling the most beautiful expression of who God is…” (115)

The second and third questions will come later…

I turned 32 today. Not sure what to think about that. But I can confess that one begins to think more intentionally about life the older one gets. Of course, its not like I am old. There are plenty of you reading this who are much older than me!

Recently, I read a post from Bob Hyatt where he noted the following quote.

“There is something deeply spiritual about honoring the limitations of our lives and the boundaries of what God has given us to do as leaders. Narcissistic leaders are always looking beyond their sphere of influence with visions of grandiosity far out of proportion to what is actually being given. Living within our limits means living within the finiteness of who we are as individuals and as a community- the limits of time and space, the limits of our physical, emotional, relational and spiritual capacities, the limits of our stage of life… and the limits of the calling God has given. It means doing this and not that. It means doing this much and not more.”
- Ruth Haley Barton

This is a good word for someone like me who has many “visions of grandiosity” and is convinced that I can change the world someday. I am realizing that, while vision and dreaming is important, I must also be very present to what is in front of me. That is my family, my job(s), my neighbor, my community, my friends and even the personal soul care.

So, while I still have dreams of changing the world, I am more fully aware of how its got to start in the daily and the normal parts of my life.

“How we spend our day is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”
- Annie Dilard

And finally, another good word from Robert Benson in the book A Good Life.

“It is tempting sometimes, or at least it seems so to me, to think of my work here on earth in rather large and grandiose ways. It may be that writers are the only ones who suffer from such a thing, but I am not sure that is so.

I like to think of my work in terms of building the kingdom and spreading the gospel. It is not a bad thing for us to step back and try to see how the labor of our hands and hearts and minds fits within the grand scheme of things. In fact, it is the proper thing to do so.

But it is also right that we recognize that a goodly portion of the things we do can seem mundane and ordinary are the very places where we are likely to live out the gospel.

Our days and our lives are more often filled with little chances to show our love to others than they are filled with great and grand opportunities. It is in those little things that we are given to do and to say and to be what we must do the work of building the kingdom.”

What are you doing today?

Who are you being today?

What are you saying today?

From Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics v.4.3.2 – The Doctrine of Reconciliation

To sum up, we may say there is committed to it the gospel, I.e. The good, glad tidings of Jesus Christ, of the real act and true revelation of the goodness in which God has willed to make and has in fact made Himself the God of man and man His man.  This great Yes is its cause.  It has no other task besides this. (page 800)