life

You've filled my plate with the practice of humility toward self and love toward others. What need do I have to perform miracles?

I've not mastered my tongue, and the world of my thoughts needs constant discernment and correction. Should I desire to have marvelous and exciting experiences?

When I read the stories of Jesus, what do I do with his teachings? With his miracles? What forms me?

We want to learn his prayer that moves mountains, but not the one we need: "not my will, but yours be done."

What is the proper expression of the life of a Christ-follower? What are our expectations?

Do we have a misguided longing for the ostentatious, the impressive, and the gratifying? Will we wreck spiritually on the rocks of what appears grand, while missing that to which we've been called?

I wonder.

New Worship

Monday morning.

First task on Mondays is to write contemplations for the week. Today writing those went very quickly . . . so thought I would take a moment to post.

I think yesterday we discovered a new way to worship . . . starter kits, CD's, seminars, and instrucitonal books and vidoes ought to be available soon . . .

Seriously, Chuck had this great idea of worshiping our way through a book of the Bible. So we read all of Ephesians, and worshiped as a community through the letter. When Paul prayed, we prayed. When he reminded us of our unity with God, we broke bread and shared in the cup. When he wrote about singing psalms and spiritual songs, we sang. When he told us to pray on all occasions with all type of prayers and requests, everyone had an opportunity to pray.

I am always amazed at the creativity of my fellow travelers . . . and thankful to be in a fellowship of believers where we are free from human constrictions to be able to try whatever might edify.

This was definitely a way of worshiping in a gathering that we will try again.

Opps!

Obviously we corrupted Tyler . . . he'll never be able to minister in a "real" church again. How will he ever finish his MDiv and interview to be a professional minister at some "nice" church? How will he get invited to speak at all the big venues if he's as screwed up as we are?

Our apologies to everyone who had high hopes for Tyler becoming the next superstar preacher.

I'm here alone . . .

The usual suspects are absent.

Bill's at the VA this morning.
Gordon is on his way to Decatur for some business appointments.
Tyler and Lindsey have gone after a summer of being co-conspirators.
The Thursday morning study group wasn't here . . . guess most weren't able to make it.
Steve is working at his mother's.
Tom won't be back until the weekend.
Bill even gave away his pet snake (the one I was hoping to raise to sufficient size to have that snake-handling service everyone is anticipating) to one of the kids from the apartments.

I'm sitting here alone . . . which doesn't happen often. Listening to Bob Marley and waiting on an email so I can start on the powerpoint for Sunday.

Thinking I might as well read a little of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis and enjoy the break.

I am starting some regular prayer time on Monday with Father William Wilson.

Planning some prayertime tonight with our family as Aaron and Adrienne start a new school year tomorrow.

Being alone to reflect for a bit is good. God is good. Life is good. Having fellow-travelers is good.

Worship Assemblies

Some ways of looking at the Sunday morning worship assembly:

1) Since God is very exacting and demanding in how he wants to be worshipped, it is of utmost importance that we get it right and please him so his wrath does not descend on us. Every Sunday is an exercise in appeasing (pleasing) God.

2) Being a good and faithful Christian means attending each and every Sunday to fulfill the requirements so one stays "saved." Each Sunday is an act of self-preservation through punching a card.

3) Sunday mornings are the time to share God's message with a lost and dying world, so we need an event that communicates in the language and context of 'the lost' so they will be attracted and taught as well. Sunday is a time for attracting seekers on their terms.

4) Sunday mornings are another moment in a lifestyle of following Jesus, neither more or less important, but a significant moment because of the gathering of believers. Sunday is an assembly time for believers that reflects their daily walks and feeds those journeys as well.

I know there are more options, and variations for viewing the Sunday assembly, than just these four, but these will serve to illustrate my thoughts.

I don't like the first because it is worship out of fear and a flawed view of God. I don't agree with the second because it is self-serving and ultimately empty. It has no daily-life dimension.

The third, though popular in many churches today, strips Christian worship of anything distinctly Christian if it is also not culturally popular. It is consumer-oriented worship; pop-culture worship for a pop-culture world (or whatever worship for whatever world).

Of course the fourth option is the one I prefer. Sunday isn't more important than other days, but it is an important event - to get together with others. We don't focus on appeasing God . . . we share in whatever has to do with our faith and our journeys. Because it is not elevated to a more important time than other times, we are free to do whatever is helpful to our daily walks.

Sunday mornings are not a time to please God, nor to please people. No order is arranged to satisfy God, nor is something planned to satisfy people's desires. Our gatherings should be meaningful and speak to our daily experiences - giving us opportunities to reflect on what has happened in our daily lives, and to prepare us for what will happen as we walk daily with Jesus.

The 'evangelistic' dimension comes not in having a very comfortable 'relevant' worship experience which is a vehicle for communicating a 'how to be saved' message, but in speaking boldly and authenically about life as lived in faith. As believers gather to have real conversation about real life and faith, the Good News is inherent in that discussion.

Rather than assemblies stripped of anything unfamiliar to a person unacquainted with Christianity, our assemblies ought to contain testimony to our faith . . . no matter how foreign that might seem to some. I heard the rationale for a new church start-up in the 80's where the celebration of communion was relegated to Sunday night small groups because the Sunday morning assembly wasn't to have anything that might make the unbeliever uncomfortable. The logic is sound if one's goal is consumer-friendly Christianity.

I hope we continue to spend time planning our worship gatherings, not to appease God, not to entertain or attract people, but to deal authenically in whatever way possible with how faith and life in our world intersect. We are free to be rich in Christian meaning and free to be adaptive to ways of communicating with no other goal than to be truthful about how to live in the Kingdom of God.

Catching Up

For anyone interested - here's what's been happening:

I survived a week without my laptop (while it was repaired) and was made acutely aware of how much of what I do depends on it.

Went to a Taize prayer service last night and was thoroughly blessed. For me it was a perfect sense of peace and quietness.

Been listening to Peter Gabriel lately - and Matisyahu "Youth" today. Nothing like a hasidic reggae/rapper to give a change of pace.

Have thoroughly enjoyed working with Lindsey and Tyler - our student ministers this summer - and am going to miss them greatly. Fortunately Lindsey is in school here, so she will still be around!

Our "monastic" community is growing - and I need to begin a practice of daily prayer with the brothers. We might need to work out our own version of Benedict's Rule.

I think we are closer to God . . . and further from religiosity than ever before.

How we come across to others . . .

Zidane, the French soccer superstar, lost his cool in the World Cup Final and got ejected from the game. I found an interesting post about that incident here by a Yahoo writer on health.

I've read a few pieces by this writer before, and there is a holistic spirituality in what he writes - but always, as in this article, he takes his wisdom from eastern sources.

Actually, I have no problem with his sources. I think everything he quotes is true. The wisdom is real wisdom about human nature and life. It's Truth.

It also just strikes me how different it sounds when this writer gives a Zen proverb, and how if a Christian writer were to pen a similar piece it would sound when that writer would quote scripture. I'm guessing here, but I suspect that the "Christian" writer would be heard differently.

The writer from a Christian perspective would be suspected of being authoritative and exclusive - of trying to make a definitive, deny-all-other-truths truth statement. I think many people see Christianity in that way - not helpful, but belligerent. Someone who doesn't play well with others, who only wants his own way. Who dictates and never listens.

I think many would see a "Christian" article to be subtlely calling for a conversion, to accept the Christian view. Of being implicitly "against" other views.

I doubt that anyone would read the article by this writer and think that he's out to convert his readers to Buddism or Hinduism. It's non-threatening, non-confrontational, because it seems like he's just trying to help. He seems to be helping people understand the problems of anger, and help them live differently. Actually, that approach may result in readers becoming very interested in Zen proverbs and the teachings of Hindu gurus.

I want my faith to come across that way . . . that I am simply trying to help. I hope that when I share the wisdom of scripture I don't seem confrontational, but open and helpful.

Which all makes me think about how Jesus came across when he was teaching . . .

Friday

Somehow, by an act of God's grace, everything seems to be getting done that needed to happen today. You have no idea how unlikely this seemed at 7:30 this morning. And it's only 12:30!

Statements of Belief

Any statement of what I actually believe would simply be a snapshot of a moment on this journey of seeking God. It might be useful for helping someone put me in a convenient pigeonhole . . . and it might be helpful for my own personal reflection. But to make a belief statement of "here I stand" might also tend to hold me back from where I need to stand.

God knows where I need to be standing. Sometimes I know where I am standing. I am never certain how much those two places overlap or share space.

I would like to have a statement of what I aspire to believe, rather than a statement of what I currently believe. Something like . . . I hope to believe in the mysteries of God, of Christ, of faith, of the Holy Spirit, of the resurrection, of baptism, of the second coming of Christ, of the Church, of righteous living . . . of loving God first.

But all these are mysteries in that to God they are fully known, and to me they are partially known. I don't even know how much (25%, 50%, or 80%?) I actually know.

I want to believe in all that God is, and stand firm on the pursuit of Him. I stand hopefully and humbly on my understanding of any of the mysteries of God. It seems that what we Christians share in common are not statements of belief as much as aspirations of belief. When I see others in terms of what they hope to believe rather than what they actually might articulate as belief today or tomorrow, I can certainly be gracious.

Being gracious is good. I hope to stand firmly in my belief in graciousness.

This is it!

Organizationally we may be suspected of incompetence, doctrinally we may be too diverse to qualify for "sound in the faith", we can certainly be accused of lacking a distinct vision for the "enterprise" (that's what one church consultant told me pastors should do - build an enterprise), and we don't always seem to attract the right kind of people . . . but this email today about the ladies' get-together last night is what being Christian means:

I wanted to thank you for a great evening. I've never been with that large a group of women who exchanged differing views and ideas with as much grace and respect, kindness and consideration and just good 'ole laughter as you all exhibited last night. From my perspective God was glorified.

God was definitely glorified - because love, kindness, gentleness, mercy, patience, joy, goodness, forgiveness, humility, grace, and respect were evidently present within that gathering last night! This is godliness. This is what it means to follow Christ.

Some might counter that this is not a zero-sum game. That we could embody all the first things I mentioned and still have the fruit of the Spirit, as in what I remarked was evidently shared last night.

Perhaps.

I do tend to think that choices must be made. Emphasis has to be put in certain places, and not in others. Some values have to take precedence - and I do believe that institutional efficiency often is at odds with loving community. Maybe we can't have it all. Maybe structured efficiency is somehow less than merciful, patient, and gracious - and so when cultivated hinders the others' growth.

Could it be that a distinct "entrepreneurial" vision will at some level undermine respectful, diverse, and kind dialogue? Could it subvert the practice of loving my neighbor? It just might be that we can't have both as equal emphases.

Maybe.

A Visitor's Comments

This last Sunday was Corpus Christi - the feast focusing on the Body of Christ. The morning's worship centered on the meaning of Holy Communion.

I'm going to post an email that I received from a fellow-believer who joined us for worship last Sunday morning. The PCUSA general assembly was here in Birmingham last week, and three adventurous Presbyterians decided to find an emergent-like place to worship . . . and our website scored the best . . . so they came to worship with us.

I hesitate to post this because he says some complimentary things about me . . . and it's not because I am so humble that I usually don't usually share this type of stuff, but because pride is such dangerous enemy. The truth is I would love to share things like this for all the wrong reasons!

But while I'm confessing this to hedge against being self-promoting, not sharing it would keep others of you who share in this congregation from being encouraged and blessed. What I find in his comments is a testimony to God's work - that someone can come among us and they do see what I hope we are living out. This is a glory to God . . . he is helping us to live the life of community and faith that we hear Jesus talking about.

So here is his email to me on Monday - note particularly the insightful postscript about how a dismembered world is being re-membered in holy communion.
-------------------

Greg,

You had to go off to other responsibilities and we were mobbed by more of your members (that we found out weren't really members, since you don't have members), so I didn't get to speak with you after the service. [I was the one you didn't put to work.] I want you to know that the moment of transformation you described in your sermon/message/whatever YOU would call it happened for me. I told my new friends that you gave me ideas for about six communion meditations. (If those were "random" thoughts, I would like to hear you speak when you are really focused.)

I know the service was not about you, and it was designed to make that very clear, but I think you should know how very deeply the experience touched me, in mind, heart and spirit. Both sides of my brain and that part of me that is beyond thought were thoroughly engaged.

Your community is well named. I felt like I was among people seeking to live as disciples and who exhibit what true fellowship in Christ is about.

It was not MY design that brought the three of us Presbyterians together in the first place, surely not my effort that discovered your fellowhip, nor my inclination to drive to the other side of town; but God knew what needed to happen, and I am grateful.

Maybe even some of us stodgy Presbyterians can trim our sails to this move of the Spirit. Thank you for showing us what can be.

Grace and peace,
(name omitted)

PS: one communion idea your sermon triggered: If the opposite of remember is not forget, can the opposite of remember be dis-member? It is in re-membering that what is torn apart by the world is brought back together in Christ.

Theology and Children

I am reading some of Children Matter. I say "some" to be honest, because I am much more of a scimmer who jumps around and gets the gist, then a reader who starts at the beginning and goes to the end.

Sunday morning after next I am supposed to help a reading group discuss the chapter on Theology and Children. The authors talk about three distinct traditions - though certianly not the only ones - sacramental, covenantal, and conversional and how each tradition tends to handle the spiritual formation of children.

Which of course makes one think about one's own experience. The churches I grew up in were definitely "conversional" - children aren't Christians until they convert. The trick was, of course, to get us to convert in that narrow window of "old enough to make a personal decision, but still young enough to not be into full-blown adolescent rebellion."

Ten to twelve seemed to work well. Much beyond that, and many didn't seem to convert - having already having decided to blow off as uncool any type of repentance. If you miss that window, I guess it often means waiting until they are somewhere into college years or later. But college age seems more like a time when kids who didn't grow up Christian turn to it, rather than those who did, but opted out, come back. They usually seem to do so later.

Anyway - makes me think, and realize how different my children's experience has been from mine. I don't think they ever had the idea they weren't Christian and needed to convert, but more like they've always been Christian and took another step, a personal one, in continuing in that direction.

I just don't think they grew up with as much fear of hell (and of God) as I did. I count that a blessing. Which puts me somewhere more in a sacramental/convenantal world in practice with my own children.

Questions About Being Church

God is love. That is clear. God's love is the condition of the inter-relationship of three distinct persons who are one. Even if this is a mystery, it is still clearly the case. When only one thing is what we choose to say about God, love - the dynamic of the trinitarian existence - is what we would name.

What does it mean for us to be the church of this God? If we were to try and deduce the nature of God from churches that we see today, what would we conclude? What would be the outstanding and striking characteristic?

If people were trying to deduce what is important to God from what is important to us, what would their view of God be?

Like it or not, some value trumps other values. Choices have to be made. Those choices are not always between good and bad or holy and evil. Often they are between better and best; between high and highest. What does it mean for love to trump everything else?

What happens when we are church because of love, and through love? What happens when love is the first and greatest concern, the agenda that has first priority? What would we have to be like as church for people to conclude by looking at us that love is the chief characteristic of our God?

What would be important, and what would not be important?

Religion Test

I just tried taking a religion test but couldn't make it through to the end. The choices were lousy, limited, and cliche. I wanted to find out how suitable I am for Christianity - but they didn't say anything about what "failure to complete" might mean.

It would not have been very valid anyway since I was having to fudge too many times in choosing one of their limited possibilities. The "Christian" answer was usually obvious but many times I cringed at the characterization it inferred.

I guess one thing it does say: I'm not a Christian in terms of the test-makers' definition.

Living true in Love

Last night in our discussion we looked at the familar statement in Ephesians 4:15 commonly rendered in English translations as: "speaking the truth in love".

Naturally, we have often read the English as if the instruction is about preaching or proclaiming truth, with "love" being the way we go about telling others the truth. In other words, we need to tell others what is true, but do it lovingly. The "truth" in this reading of the verse comes down to facts, information, or doctrines. That is what we've heard this verse saying.

But the original Greek has a whole different meaning. The Greek uses a verb form for truth, in essence saying something untranslatable into English - truing in love. The Pulpit Commentary remarks that this word is hardly translatable in English - "it implies being true as well as speaking the truth and following the truth. Truth is the element in which we are to live, move, and have our being."

Rather than being about telling truth in a loving way to others, it is about us being true in love. It's why Paul then talks about the body of Christ building itself up in love - rather than truth.

The focus is not propositional truth statements told in a loving way, but love lived in a true way.

Through it all Tim brought up the concept of truing a tire, which is shaving rubber off an uneven tire until it is perfectly round again. We couldn't think of another English use of true as a verb - but this one works well.

We are to be trued in love.

Then we will be like Jesus, who is truth - not just has it or spoke it, but is truth.

Being true in love.

Holy Communion

I grew up in a Christian tradition that observed the Lord's Supper frequently, but from where I now stand, didn't do it well or with much meaning. We were doing it because we were supposed to . . . and dutifully partook and tried to think the right thoughts in order to please (appease) God. Our thinking didn't go much beyond "we were commanded to do this, so here we are."

Andrew Jones shares a bit of his dialogue with some others in a post when he says:

"so let me get this straight. after examining the last supper of Jesus and the historical accounts of the early church, you have come up with a communion service that: - excludes children, swaps a full meal for a sample, avoids any technology, forbids joy or laughter, happens in a hall with men on a stage, dispenses with conversation, has no wine whatsoever . . and you think that is more biblical? more godly?"

I have the same question - how'd we get here? How can we with a straight face claim that what we have done is anything like the early Christ-follwers? Face it . . . we can't.

However, try to make holy meal more meal-like and authenic and you'll find out how uncomfortable many would be if they were transported back to one of the early churches. Actually, I really don't want a codified observance in any format. It's not like I believe that we must make it more like the original meal. I just wonder what's the problem if we do?

Monday I was sharing a meal with a Roman Catholic brother who expressed his confidence that the Eucharist, in the western tradition, would continued to be celebrated a 1000 years from now. I don't doubt that. I actually enjoy such a solemn, content laden, personally formative, and God-is-present observance.

What I don't get is why it has to be that way. The early Christians didn't have a formal, lengthy, prescribed celebration. They also didn't have a pinch of cracker and sip of Welch's.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not favoring a mode. I am wondering why we've become committed to modes, one way or the other. Give me formal and reverential. Then give me informal and conversational. Tell me when to stand, kneel, and sit. Next, let me do whatever I want. Let's have a full meal, and then let's have a pinch and sip.

No longer being a "patternist" in my thinking, I don't believe that we must celebrate communion in the exact mode of the earliest believers, but I also do not want to become exclusivistic about any later traditions associated with this sacrament. Those modes are not sacred unless we believe some era of the historical church after the first century achieved a level of perfection not realized among the apostles and their congregants.

This irreverant (be warned) satire on evangelism is too true.

Finding Direction in the Missio Dei

A God-is-Distant Beginning
For me, and some others with similar journeys, we started out with a very removed God. He worked closely with his people in "Bible times" - miracles, prophecies, inspiration, and direct guidance - but in our day had drawn back, no longer doing anything "supernatural." Fortunately, God had left us a manual, the Bible, which we were to follow carefully, mining it for clues about how to please him by doing the right things.

Obviously, though we wouldn't have said that God was an impersonal force, practically our interaction with God was very impersonal because all we had was the Bible. We lived with and by a set of documents. God was passive and an observer while we worked hard to please him according to the instructions he'd given.

A God-is-Near Discovery
Something world-changing happened when I was found by the reality of a near God, who was not only known distantly through texts, but immediately by his continued work and presence. Obviously, I didn't throw away my Bible. I did, though, need to discover how to live within the presence of God, interacting moment by moment.

Now I can change my verbs to present tense - and I am still learning how to live with God as a person. This is not easy, because besides the old view I had, there are other ideas about what it means for God to be real and active in our world, and for us to shape our lives to his reality.

A God-is-Leading-Me View
See, some would tell me that since God is living, active, and present - I can expect constant and daily guidance in everything. Walking in the Spirit means taking every matter to God and looking for divine help - answers, direction, or whatever is needed. Being a spiritual person means being in touch with God's voice, and his word is personalized to me and directs me each moment to do His Will. We learn to hear God's voice and to faithfully respond.

In it's best aspects, this view takes seriously God's involvement in our world and encourages constant reliance on Him. I am to think of God always, and trust Him for everything. That is good.

One of the possible problems with this approach is the assumption that there is personalized divine direction for everything. Will God tell me specifically which car to buy? I don't mean does he establish principles of moderation, of propriety, of extravagance, and of stewardship under which I look for how to be godly in my decision, but will God pick the Toyota over the Ford for me directly? Am I to look for a sign of God's leading when I am in the dealership?

It may sound as if I am making fun of this view, but I am not. These are real, practical questions for how I am to expect God's Presence to shape me. These are faithful questions. Do I look for specific, addressed-to-my-question answers?

An associated problem is how to know whether I am getting that direction from God, or is my "impulse" coming from somewhere else? It can become too easy to be certain that all my urgings are from God. If I adopt this approach, at least let me be hesitant with my "readings" of God's Will lest certitude close me off from God's direction which may not always come from within me. A good question is whether God's direction is regularly or only occasionally a matter of an "inner" message laid on the heart.

A God-is-at Work View
I actually like another understanding of God's immediate action and presence, and a different expectation of what it means for me to receive direction - and this is the Missio Dei, or Mission of God. This is a different starting point: God is at work with his purpose or mission, rather than God is at work guiding me. Let me try to unpack the difference.

Starting from the Missio Dei we would say that God is not distant, but as throughout history, intimately involved in his creation. God is near and active. What God is doing is completing his work. His constant activity is not attending to me (answering my questions, directing each decision) but attending to his purpose. This doesn't mean I have no direction. It doesn't mean God is leaving me out. On the contrary, my work is to join God in his mission! He has shown us what is good . . . act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.

I do have constant direction from God, but it is not centered on me and my questions about this or that in life, but centered on Him and his purpose. My direction is not what car to buy, but how to be about God's purpose. Ultimately, with this view, I do have to bring my purchase of a car under God's direction. I do not expect God to make something happen to direct me to the right car dealership, and choose the "right" model, but I do have to ask how my choices might be in harmony or out of harmony with God's purposes.

The spiritual life, walking in the Spirit, or however you want to describe this God-centered life . . . is not learning to be a "sign-reader" of all God's personalized messages to me, but how to conform myself to what God is really doing. God is not attending to me; I am learning to attend to Him. There is a world of difference here.

We wrestled in prayer this morning . . . and God delivered. Malevolent presence was replaced by comfort and peace.

Weekend Update . . .

Had a great time in Dothan, AL yesterday with Christians of The Journey. Two of us went to spend Sunday with them, and were blessed by their gracious hospitality and encouraged by their community and focus.

I told them that it reminded me of being in Africa - where every Sunday was a 2-4 hour drive to a church to teach, discuss, and reconnect with Christians I hadn't seen in a while.

We get to experience the same in reverse next weekend, as Christians who've started a house church in Auburn travel here and we'll have some time to sit down and discuss how God leads in being his people in our respective situations.

Should be a blessing!