Jonathan Martin

I am not among the 800 billion people who’ve read Stieg Larsson’s bestselling trilogy.  But I did see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo just after Christmas.  Since I don’t live on an igloo in Antarctica, I was aware that it would be a dark thriller.  For better or for worse (I am a pastor and all), I enjoy such a thriller every once in a while.  I think David Fincher is a brilliant director.  I loved Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score on The Social Network, and had already listened to their rattling but beautiful score for The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo before going and duly enjoyed it.  I very much like Daniel Craig as an actor, and I’m thrilled when Christopher Plummer gets good work in his advanced age.  The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo also had, quite frankly, the coolest and best-edited trailer I had ever seen.  So I had a number of reasons to be excited even having not read the books.

Watching the film turned out to be an unsettling experience for me.  I actually sat down and composed some thoughts a couple days after viewing it, but never quite felt like my thoughts were clear enough to share publicly.  On the heels of my last post, which had me thinking all the more about how I am to love my sisters and mothers in the faith (and in the world), as well as a conversation with a friend in our church who ministers to victims of sexual abuse, I felt like finally expressing them.

For those that aren’t familiar with the story (SPOILER ALERT): Fairly early in the film, we get a graphic scene where the lead character Lisbeth is sexually abused on screen for the first time.  It was intense and uncomfortable to watch, but I assumed it set up who this character is and what makes her tick.  Then came the second scene in which she is sexually abused.  Her abuser chains her to the bed and gags her.  The door to the bedroom is slammed shut, and the camera slowly fades from the door as she howls in terror.  I expected this would establish the pattern of abuse and we are moving onto another scene—until a jolting shot takes you back inside the bedroom for a lingering, terrifying anal rape sequence.  This is all of course part of the back story of how Lisbeth will team up with a journalist to find a serial killer.

I did not doubt that the intention in the film is to depict these as reprehensible acts.  But through the lingering lens of the camera, there was something that felt disturbingly voyeuristic about the entire experience.  Keep in mind, this is hardly Schindler’s List.  For me, this felt like a popcorn thriller, an edgy nihilistic whodunit that, plot wise at least, exists at the intersection of Agatha Christie with the Dan Brown, John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell, not high art.  It was fairly muddled procedurally as a thriller.  If its intended to be social commentary (and I’m basing this exclusively on this film adaptation), that strikes me as disingenuous.  I’m not certain that a story this superficial really gets to masquerade as subversive truth telling.  The very presence of this kind of explicit sexual violence in a movie this relatively unsubstantial trivializes the issues it would attempt to “expose.”  I am aware that in this era of so-called “torture porn” (Saw, Hostel, etc.), this may not be the worst thing movie audiences have been subjected to.  But I wonder if it does in fact mark a shift for a film with that level of sexual violence to make it into the main artery of American culture.  This is not a niche story where greasy fan boys who do little but watch horror movies and play video games come to the theater.  This is a near-universal cultural phenomenon.

I have no problem with the fact that sexual abuse is a plot device, part of what makes this character who and what she is.  While it wouldn’t be a redemptive story regardless, there is room to discern different kinds of stories that are unpleasant to us.  Some of which, not unlike many I read in the Old Testament, will unsettle us or revolt us or make us say “I would never want to be like that,” or make us care more deeply about the plight of a discarded person.  My problem is specifically with this: I think the level of explicit, graphic sexual violence on display in the film, regardless of the intention, serves the function of both fetishizing and minimizing rape—an awfully horrific scene for a movie with the weight of cotton candy.  I am amazed at our inability to differentiate between what art sets out to do and what it actually does.  In the same way that I think that the Church needs the reminder that means are not neutral, that is to say how we convey the message of the gospel is as substantive as the message itself, and indeed in most cases is the message—the manner in which a story is told/presented matters as much as the intended message.

I later heard that the author of the books, Stieg Larsson, had apparently witnessed a rape early in life that he never got over, and that part of what motivated him was a desire to address sexual violence constructively.  If there is anything smart or novel about Girl with a Dragon Tattoo however, it didn’t translate on screen for me.  (Again, I can’t speak intelligently to the novel)  It was only afterward that I was able to go back and read press and listen to interviews, to find that there have apparently always been split reactions to the novel and the preceding Swedish film.  Some felt that in print Larsson was successful in highlighting sexual violence in his native Sweden where many of the stories of victims had been suppressed.  Some have judged that regardless of his intentions, the use of such graphic sexual violence in such an otherwise fairly conventional crime novel unravels any positive effect he could have hoped for (and that the sexual violence then plays out as misogynistic fantasy even in print).   There are others who claim the books handle the sensitive subject matter well enough, that it is in fact the translation to film that is the problem.  Both the Swedish film and the recent US adaptation have ran into similar criticism–that the films leave less to the imagination than the novel.  (While this piece in The Guardian was focused on the earlier film adaptation, it’s a good summary of the diverse reactions to both the novel and the problems with film adaptation)

But I do not write this to give a drive-by survey of pop culture as a distant bystander, but as a pastor grappling with how we handle these issues as the Church.  I think a lot of Christians are afraid to have any of their pop culture interests called into question.  We do not wish to return to an over-simplistic moralism that suggests that anything with strong content cannot have redemptive value.   We do not wish to make too much out of one particular film or initiate a tail-chasing “how far is too far” conversation that lends itself towards new legalism.  For my part, I have no judgment towards brothers and sisters who disagree with me about the film (and am very aware that I have tastes in my own movie-watching that other believers would find offensive.)

But while I have no desire to make too much out of the film per se, I do think it’s an interesting moment in our culture that raises broader questions about ethics and entertainment we desperately need to engage.  Sometimes I’m concerned that in the Western church we aren’t capable of having an informed enough conversation about such matters at all.  The rather vapid, uncritical moralism of the past (if it’s got a dirty word or a sex scene it must be from hell) has been largely replaced with vapid, uncritical laissez-faire moralism in which the morality of our entertainment is not seriously called into question.  It is possible for redemptive stories to be told that are in fact quite explicit, it does not follow that all explicitly told stories are redemptive.

It is not that I don’t think we should be open, discerning students of popular culture who are able to engage difficult content in a meaningful way.  It is that I don’t think we are frankly smart enough to be open students of popular culture who are able to engage difficult content with discernment.  The baseline of being able to discern popular culture in a broad, comprehensive manner is that we maintain enough detachment from the broader culture to see it what it is.  Most Christians in America, quite frankly watch more than they read.  And in the most broad oversimplification I’ve ever written: I don’t think you can discern media at all if you watch more than you read (and I’m not just talking about the Bible here).  We are often not robust enough intellectually or formed deeply enough spiritually to even think about the higher stakes.

We do not want the church to be known primarily for what it does not do or does not watch.  That would be a failure of Christian witness.  We do not want to be known as people who define holiness as prudishness.  We do not want to be the sorts of people who are unable to look eyeball to eyeball with deep human pain and brokenness with compassion and empathy, in real life or popular culture.  We need not run from everything that is sordid or difficult or complex, because that is where the gospel is most at home.

Conversely, what does separate Christians from the world is a relentless tenderness toward human bodies.  We consider the care for all earthly bodies to be directly under our jurisdiction because we believe God inhabited a human body, meaning there is nothing more holy than human anatomy.  God tabernacled in flesh, then decreed that that our very bodies would be the temple of the Holy Spirit.  It is why Christians, while we need not be squeamish, must in turn be protective of fragile bodies.  A body taking shape in a womb, a body rotting in a prison.  The body of a screaming baby and the body of an incontinent senior citizen.  A body in west Charlotte and  a body in Afghanistan.  It is the birthright of the church to show the world what it means to cherish, value and care for human bodies on an unprecedented level, since we believe both that human beings are made in the image of God and that God touched the ground in human form.  We know holiness when we see it, because the most holy people touch and regard other bodies with the greatest tenderness.

I have not yet gotten over the heartbreak I experienced when I read Chris Hedges’ Empire of Illusion, which has the most chilling (and accurate) critique of the effect pornography (and more open depictions of sexual violence) are having on our culture. These concerns are not simply academic.  It is difficult for me to separate the mainstream appeal of a film like Girl with a Dragon Tattoo from the very untrivial real stories of sexual violence I hear as a local pastor.  It is not that I think that everyone who watches a film like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are going to go out and become serial rapists.  But rather that I think the popularization of such films calls for a robust, prophetic witness for tenderness that can only come from the people of God.

It has never worked out well for us to attempt to bury our heads in the sand and ignore the darkness or the violence all around us.  I am not proposing that.  I am not proposing a return to a Puritanical refusal to engage with anything that we find unsettling or disrupting.  What I am wondering though, is what effect a prophetic witness for tenderness could have in the world we live in.  What if we were known not for squeamishness towards broken bodies, but a protectiveness of them that not only means that we bind up the wounded—but that pushes back at “entertainment” that does not honor those bodies?  It is true that many of our former markers of holiness have been arbitrary and unhelpful.  But is it not also true that holiness does in fact demand markers and distinctions?

Without retreating into a new legalism, I think we should be able to say collectively as the people of God that we care enough about these issues—that we care enough about broken bodies—that we exercise discernment when it comes to how sexual violence is represented on screen.  That we are attentive not only to what is intended but what is actually depicted.  If in fact someone else found the film unsettled them in a way that caused them to be more attentive to these matters, then I celebrate that.  But my larger concern is that in this culture of death, as accustomed as we are to a non-stop onslaught of visual stimulation, that it is possible to walk away from a film like The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and not feel anything.  That there is no amount of bodily degradation left for us to see that could not be objectively, and perhaps coldly, judged only the merit of whether or not we were sufficiently entertained without any thought to the broader ethics of what we have seen, how it affects us, and how it might affect those around us.

I heard Elie Wiesel speak in Charlotte a few years ago at an event where he re-visited his famous quote: “The opposite of love is not hate, its indifference.  The opposite of faith is not heresy, its indifference.  And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference.”  The holiness that sets God’s people apart from the world is that we are consumed with the tenderness of God for broken bodies.  If we become so satiated by entertainment as to become indifferent to the real horrors inflicted around us, what else do we have to offer the world?

I hope that title isn’t misleading.  In truth, it would take a book-length work to document all the reasons why Mark Driscoll is wrong about women in church leadership.  These are only a few of them.

Since this kind of response is uncharacteristic for me (at least digitally), let me give a little context for my thoughts first.  Last year, I contributed a chapter to a book for Dr. Raymond F. Culpepper called The Great Commission Connection.  I was asked to write about the connection between the great commission and media, with a special emphasis on social media.  In it I wrote at length about not only the promise, but the peril of social media, especially with the ability to so quickly speak destructive words within the Body of Christ without safeguards of Biblical accountability.  I tried to address this constructively in the broader construct of a theology of online life.  To quote myself:

When we have such powerful tools at our disposal, making it possible for us to broadcast our every thought and whim to the world with such ease, the key to using media in our mission may lie as much in our restraint as in our creativity.  Within a matter of seconds, I have the capability to share my opinions about any conceivable topic or issue with the world in a matter of seconds.  But just because I can, doesn’t mean that I should…

I try to heed my own counsel and be cautious about what issues I do in fact choose to address in this kind of format.  I share that to give a bit of context to what I did this week—when I fired a rather uncharacteristically angry tweet about the “pompous” recent remarks by Seattle megachurch pastor and neo-reformed guru Mark Driscoll.   While there is much about Driscoll’s ministry to admire and appreciate, I have taken exception on many occasions in the last decade over remarks he made about gender issues (in general) and women in ministry in particular.  And I have, for the most part, remained silent—as healthy diversity in the body of Christ should be tolerated and I don’t relish the idea of “calling out” other pastors or church leaders.

For my part, I am about as ecumenical as they come.  From my studies at Duke, where I focused on constructive dialog with Catholic Moral Theology from a Pentecostal perspective, to my relationships on the ground (here in Charlotte just this week I’ve spent a lot of time at Elevation Church celebrating a city-wide revival with my dear friend Steven Furtick), I think I model a kingdom-first unity in both my life and my preaching.  I also attempt to be a very gracious, civil voice in a world that is so unaccustomed to civility these days.

Given such a preface, it might seem like I am setting up for an apology.  But alas I am actually writing my non-apology.  I don’t think I should swing at every pitch.  But I don’t feel bad in the least about the pitch I swung at this week.  I’m swinging a little harder with this post.  I have no problem being charitable to brothers and sisters with whom I have deep disagreement with, even on issues I hold to be sacred.  I never engage in gossip or innuendo about other leaders.  Even in the case of extreme sin and moral failure, I have nothing but compassion to those in leadership who fall and fail—and am ever aware of the depth of my own need for grace.

But I don’t like bullies, and I don’t like bullying remarks.  And for as easily as I find it to be compassionate to the failings of leaders, there is such a thing as justice.  For me, when oppressed and/or marginalized groups within the body of Christ are maligned, you stand up every single time and you tell the truth.  That’s what preachers do—we stand on behalf of people who are bullied.

I don’t think Pastor Mark intended to bully in this recent interview.  But I think that is what he did.  And given the consistent pattern of commentary (and subsequent apologies, and subsequent occasions for him to say what he really thinks all over again), I don’t find this to be a one-off fluke.  You can listen to the entire unedited interview here.  The sections that I took exception to are printed here (while dealing only with this section, I find it to be an accurate depiction of the tone and spirit of the interview), in which Driscoll suggests that the church led by the interviewer’s wife is ineffective in evangelism, church growth and discipleship (as well as somehow unable to deal with complex sexual issues because it is led by a woman).  It would seem perhaps such a church would, for Driscoll, be unable to be blessed by God.  In a staggering display of arrogance, he compares his own numbers at Mars Hill to that of this smaller UK church and says, regarding the gender of their pastor, “You look at your results, you look at my results, and you look at the variable that’s most obvious.”  For Driscoll, churches that have female leaders inevitably embrace a sort of bland liberal tolerance in which lives are not transformed by the gospel.

The big question from everybody has been “have you listened to the whole interview? Have you heard Mark’s side?”  The answers are yes and yes (Mark’s blog response is here).  Though given the history of these kinds of remarks, including in his own teaching and blogs, I fail to understand why it is that whenever he says very plainly what he thinks there is always this tiresome backlash from people just who say he is “just taken out of context.”  Pastor Mark claims the interviewer was combative.  I don’t agree with that characterization.  I thought the interview was indeed tough, but fair.  Given his history regarding sex and gender issues, I don’t think it was off limits in the least to bring up some of those remarks in context of discussing his new book on sex and marriage–it all seemed in-bounds to me.  But you can listen and judge for yourself.  Even if the interview was antagonistic, I still don’t see how you get around the fact that his essential response to women in leadership absolutely reflects his consistent beliefs on those issues.

To be clear, my reason for taking this on has nothing to do with Mark Driscoll personally, per se.  I have been just as passionate about defending women in ministry inside my own tradition.  (Those are other stories for another time—I just think its important to note that this is an issue dear to my heart in general that I have spoken to consistently, as opposed to just being a bandwagon critic of Driscoll’s.  People within my tradition know my, um, reputation for speaking to these matters well enough)  I am very aware of how my reformed brothers interpret some key texts on the role of women in the church differently than I do.  The argument that Mark lays out implicitly here, however, is not so much from Scripture but his own culturally conditioned assessment of the role of women in leadership.  I come from a very different cultural context that tells a very different story, so I will limit my remarks to that today (though the Biblical debate is one I would love to have anytime).

As a third generation Pentecostal preacher who has been and continues to be shaped significantly by women in ministry, this time I had enough.  Within my tradition, which is theologically very conservative, we have never had prohibitions about women in leadership.  From the beginning, we have believed that the Spirit given on the day of Pentecost causes both “sons and daughters to prophesy.”  We had women pastors and leaders while at the same time forbidding our congregants for many years to wear make-up or jewelry, go to the movies, swimming pools or beaches; play cards or play sports.  Women were not allowed to wear pants or wear their hair short, men could not wear their hair long or wear shorts.  And yet in all of this—women were fully authorized to preach, teach, marry, bury, baptize and serve communion.

We did this all in a tradition that had an extraordinarily high view of the Bible (I would argue a much higher and even more terrifying understanding of the Word of God than the fundamentalists).  We did it because we did not interpret the apostle Paul’s teachings on the role of women in leadership the way many Protestant traditions had.  We did it because we believed there was in fact serious evidence in the New Testament that women were in fact leaders in the early church.  We did it because we had a dynamic belief that what happened on the day of Pentecost set us ablaze with tongues of fire and altered our perception of reality.  Now there was neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.  We did it because we no longer believed that institutional structures were the source of authority in the Church, but the Spirit of God that moves on both male and female alike to preach and prophesy.

We had no connections to liberal social movements, but were demonstrating racial equality in pockets all around the world years before the modern civil rights movement.  We weren’t demythologizing the Bible or playing down the blood or the cross of Jesus or the judgment of God (as Mark’s logic would suggest these are interrelated with the ordination of women as pastors).  There was a new social order coming in not through politicians or seminarians or professors, but from ordinary people who were taking the Bible and the Spirit seriously.

Today, depending on whose statistics you use (and the rapid growth of the gospel in places like Latin America, Africa and China right now make it hard to keep track with the explosive growth), but around one in three Christians in the world are part of the global Pentecostal movement, with staggering growth in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  And now more than ever before, female pastors and leaders are bringing the gospel empowered by the Spirit into the most volatile parts of the world—to remarkable results.

Such is the case with my spiritual grandmother, Sister Margaret Gaines, whose work in the Palestinian community of Aboud has brought the kingdom of God into the Middle East with devastating effectiveness.  Still today, the Muslim clerics in the area send their children to the school she founded even though they know they will learn about Jesus, because the legacy of Sister Gaines so changed the character of the village.  (One leading cleric said “Sister Margaret changed the character of our entire community” when she left)  She led both a church and school there, and even served as the Regional Overseer for the Church of God in the Middle East.  After 50 years of missionary service, health problems forced her to retire to her home of Pell City, Alabama.  But in the last year, at 80 years old and never married, she came out of retirement to pastor a Church of God of about 20 people that was about to get shut down. I was there a few weeks ago to help her dedicate their new worship space, and saw how among poor rural people she is doing just what she did in her Arab community—loving the marginalized and the oppressed, teaching them the gospel of Jesus and growing them in the faith.  It’s a thing of beauty.

Now given Pastor Mark’s rubric for success, I guess none of this would count.  Her church does not have 12,000 people.  She does not have a popular podcast, and her books have not sold as many as yours.  She does not have a “bold” reputation for sophomoric remarks from the pulpit or witty one-line smack-downs to her critics.  I don’t think she’s delivered edgy talks about masturbation or the morality or lack thereof of oral or anal sex in Christian marriage.  She has had the audacity to lead both men and women, not only as a woman, but as a single woman.  (how relevant could she be?)  Perhaps this is evidence, per Mark’s logic in the interview, that God isn’t blessing what she’s doing?  She is after all only leading a congregation of twenty at this point.

The reason I can’t let Driscoll off the hook here is that he does in fact travel the world (as he notes in the interview).  While I’m not convinced that any of the insufferably know-it-all current crop of neo-reformers are nearly as smart as you they think they are, I find it hard to believe that he has not noticed that most women in ministry on the ground are not, in fact, mainline Protestant liberals who are embracing some leftist agenda, but fire-breathing Pentecostal females who are preaching the whole gospel with other-worldly boldness.  Or is the neo-Reformed movement so elitist and self-congratulatory at this point, that this escapes their attention?  I don’t mind you differing with me about the role of women in leadership.  For heaven’s sake, my academic work has been all about constructive dialog between Pentecostals and Catholics—who has a more traditional understanding of gender roles in ministry leadership than they?  Yet they don’t seem to hold these views nearly as, shall we say, pretentiously.  And at this point I’ve heard so much grating “we deserve a merit badge because we don’t ordain women” rhetoric in these circles that the act is getting a bit tired for me.

If numbers is going to be the judge though, I’ll play by those rules.  How about the many Latin American and African female mega-church pastors out there?  Or my dear friend Pastor Roselen, a Brazilian woman who got kicked out of her Catholic convent for speaking in tongues and went on to start the largest evangelical church in Milan, Italy?  I celebrate the unique work Driscoll is doing in Seattle, where he loves to remind us that he is making disciples in the most liberal city in America.  I might suggest it is no small feat to have a thriving Pentecostal church with explosive growth in the fashion capital of the world, a city far more cosmopolitan, liberal and secular than Seattle. In 2013, she is hosting a massive city-wide revival and celebration where Christian leaders from all over the world will come and celebrate what God is doing in Italy.  And yet in all of this, her fiercest opposition has not come from her intensely secular culture, but from area church leaders who look down on her as a woman.  From Margaret to Roselen down to many other female evangelical and Pentecostal pastors I know serving around the world right now, there is more than enough opposition from the devil, the world and yes in some cases still the church without additional discouragement from people like Driscoll.

You can only be so offended at me for this.  I am, after all, just trying to be the kind of man Mark Driscoll wants me to be—confident, secure, comfortable showing some healthy testosterone.  Mark has taught us it is good and right for men in general and male Christian leaders in particular to have balls.  Well I do, and since I do I have no problem saying that the boorish, middle school remarks have gone far enough.  I respect his right to interpret Scripture differently than I do when it comes to issues of women in church leadership.  But I find the suggestion that churches that are led by women are either blanketly liberal, intrinsically cursed by God and/or unable to grow or win lives to Jesus to be not only false but slanderous.  There is no way he doesn’t know better at this point.

Mark Driscoll is now 41 years old.  He’s got an enormous platform, and sometimes he stewards it quite well.  I agree with his frequent assessment (reiterated in the interview) about the phenomenon of prolonged adolescence among males, that many young men in our culture are stunted by their obsession with pornography and video games and unable to step into the responsibility of adulthood. I applaud the way he is challenging young men to rise beyond these cultural expectations.

I just think that in this area of leadership, it’s time for him to take his own advice and grow up.

I was recently asked to contribute to a feature article for a forthcoming issue of Engage Leadership Journal on “Creating an Influential Church Image.” Several pastors are contributing for a variety of perspectives.  It’s a short piece, but I think it gets to the heart of the unique message and approach we believe God has given us at Renovatus.  So here’s an advance preview:

The dominant message most churches have heard in the last twenty years is that we need to create an excellent image—and of course there is something to that.  At Renovatus, we strive to do things well, from graphic design to web presence.  But what is often missed in our efforts to reach people that are over-marketed to is their increased suspicion that we are trying to sell them a used car.  In such an environment, where people are becoming increasingly suspect of slick methodologies and want to see all the way underneath the hood, there is a need not just for an excellent image, but an authentic image.

At Renovatus, our goal is that there be no discrepancy between who we really are and who we proclaim ourselves to be.  Since the Church is both beautiful and broken, we do not pretend to be less broken than we actually are (or less beautiful, for that matter).  The tagline for our church from the beginning is that we are for “liars, dreamers, and misfits,” an apt description of the odd assortment of characters caught up in the story of redemption from Genesis to now.  We do not oversell ourselves.  We promise only what we know we can deliver—an authentic Christian community of people deeply devoted to following Jesus in our day-to-day lives, fully aware of our deep brokenness.  We are desperately dependent on God and on each other.  As a church established on the baseline that we are all in deep need of God’s renovating grace, we feel that we can in fact promise to provide a safe place for people to confess their sins, praying for one another that we may be healed (James 5.16).

The Church of the present is attempting to catch up with the culture in terms of presenting herself attractively to the world.  The Church of the future is one that presents herself as she really is—broken, wounded, and desperate—but desperately beloved.

I am generally not a fan of any sort of thinking about God that is too deterministic.  I don’t tend to think that God scripts everything in advance and then just leaves us to run through the paces.  It is not just that those systems don’t appeal to me, but that they are deeply at odds with my own understanding of Scripture.  I grew up so intensely wrapped up in the narratives of the Old Testament, where the relationship between God and his people in the world seemed so open and dynamic: the way not only that God’s creation responds to Him, but that God responds to His creation.  I’ve also grown to dislike it when various notions of God’s providence or sovereignty make people feel like they are left out–or they at least wonder if they are the sort of person who might be left out, the sort of person who just drew the cosmic short straw and are stuck with a destiny not of their choosing.

I maintain all of that, and yet cannot ignore the sort of inevitability of grace I see in my life and the lives of people around me.  I don’t believe God chooses some and not others for salvation–that for me is a wrong understanding of the word “election,” which I will not go into here today.  For me it is very much possible to reject that sort of elite pre-determinism and yet still recognize the vast, conspiratorial nature of grace to bring about good in our lives against ridiculous odds. God’s intentions to bless his sons and daughters is an overwhelming thing, even given our most clever attempts to escape Him.  I don’t know that I think grace is irresistible (that it literally cannot be resisted), but that grace absolutely is inevitable.  That the grace of God when released moves with fearsome velocity towards happiness, peace and blessing–towards our good.  That grace that is not gentle but hard and substantive, less like a wind or breeze and more like a midwestern tornado.

I’ve lived much of my life in fear that I was destined to mess everything up.  And while I don’t doubt my capacity to create a mess, in light of the sheer scope of God’s grace and mercy at work in my life, I may not be big enough to derail things as much as I once thought.  Who I am to stop a cyclone of love?  I’m a big guy, but I don’t think I’m big enough to stop the beauty of God.  In this way, I am diminutive compared to the swirling grace and destiny that surrounds me.

Thus, in our staff meeting today, my text was not from Scripture but from Tolkien’s The Hobbit:

“Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

Yesterday I launched a new series at Renovatus on Jacob called “The Blessing.” Based on the overwhelming responses we’re receiving so far, I think the whole notion of wrestling at night seemed to connect with where a lot of our people are.  I actually wrote a short piece about Jacob’s angelic royal rumble a few weeks ago, not in context of the series but more as a devotional meditation.  I wanted to share it again with you today for those of you that want/need to go a little deeper into this enigmatic but powerful story of night wrestling. 

“Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’

But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’”–Genesis 32.26

It’s one of the most enigmatic passages in the Bible.

Jacob has a mysterious encounter with an angel.  He wants a blessing from him.  In order to get it, he wrestles with the angel all night long.  When the dawn breaks, Jacob has the blessing he was looking for–but he’s also got a dislocated hip.  He clung on through a tumultuous dark night of the soul, and he got was he looking for.  But he walked away with a permanent limp.

I’m more convinced than ever before of the generosity of God, of the ways He delights to give good gifts to His children.  But if you walk away with a blessing, blessing won’t be the only thing that marks you.  There is still the dried blood and unsightly bruises that come from the long night of wrestling.  Gifts come without strings attached, but that’s not to say they come without consequences.  It’s why so many people will happily go through their lives keeping the greatest blessings at an arm’s length.  Because intrinsically we know that blessing is on the other side of struggle, that blessing is on the other side of the dark night.

If that makes you want to stay home, you’re in good company.   Many strong and competent people have chosen the path of least resistance, deciding it is better to walk away without bruises or broken bones.  They have pragmatically decided it is better to keep the safer blessings they have rather than taking the risk of having to stare down God, the devil and themselves.  And make no mistake–the dark night of the soul will involve wrestling with all three.  In the midst of it, you really don’t know if you are going to make it to sun-up.

It sounds so sterile and truncated to narrate the tale even now: “Jacob wrestled with an angel all night.” It sounds so straight forward, so uncomplicated.  But how could wrestling with angels be uncomplicated?  Night complicates most everything to begin with.  And don’t you know how long a night can feel?  The way that time seems to slow down at night?  In the middle of the night, temperatures shoot up while hope plummets.  If it feels like our lives are in perpetual fast forward sometimes, sleepless nights feel like an endless instant replay–where it is fear and regret that are in slow motion.  Given all of that, it is difficult for me to judge anybody to harshly for wanting to avoid something as terrible as having to stare down God and their own demons.  I understand all too well the desire to avoid bruising.

And yet there still is the reality of blessing, the promise that lies on the other side.  That if you just don’t let go–for it is not necessary to win, only to not lose hold of the one you’re wrestling with–that the blessing is as extravagant as the night is long.  That the bliss is as sweet as the night is painful.  Blessedness is a feast that can only be tasted by those who’ve first tasted the acerbic taste of their own blood in their mouth.

When you’ve been wrestling all night for a blessing, it may be difficult to say that you would do it all over again when the dawn breaks.  But to say that you’re glad you didn’t let go and you hung on for dear life is not the same thing as saying you’d volunteer for it again.  You are glad you didn’t let go.  You can’t escape the truth that the sacredness of your own life has been enhanced not only by the blessing, but even by the wrestling itself.

The truth is, blessings that don’t come with bruises–victory that doesn’t come with a limp as a trophy–will neither be particular sweet nor memorable.  Granted, there is the soreness inherent in a night of wrestling.  It is true that long after the night is over, the slightest movement may trigger the familiar pain.  But with the wince of the wound also comes the visceral reminder of blessedness.  What a fascinating phenomenon: that every time Jacob stepped awkwardly, you couldn’t tell if he was wincing or smiling–and maybe he was doing both.  Because every step would now have the message of blessedness and belovedness implicit in it.  To have that message contained in your joints may well be worth a thousand of years of long nights.

In short, if you have no limp then you likely have no blessing.  Or at the very least without a limp you are unaware of the blessings you have, which is likely just as bad.  I am at this point far more inclined to think that walking with a limp but knowing the blessing is decisively better than walking whole without the blessing.

If you are in the long night of wrestling, there are neither strategy nor steps I could give you to end it faster.  But strategy is not needed–perseverance is.  You wouldn’t remember steps if I gave them to you, not when the night gets dark and long enough.  But you can remember this much: don’t stop until the sun is up.  You can remember that the reason for the wrestling is not because God is out to kill you, but that He’s really wanted to bless you all along.  You don’t have to do anything to earn the blessing–you cannot be strong or powerful enough.  You just have to stay in the ring, and the dawn that creeps up when the wrestling is over will take care of the rest.

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”  Psalm 30.5

 My blog may well be too erratic to have any sort of “best of.”  

And of course I am not generally a topical sort of writer. But when I penned some thoughts on the church’s response to the death of Osama Bin Laden, I hit a nerve. I have neither before nor since had anywhere near this level of reaction to anything I’ve written–from all kinds of people all over the world.  Some broke my heart–like the man who said he would have become a Christian a long time ago if he knew there were Christians who thought this way.  Or the man whose father was an Iranian terrorist, but is now an evangelist in the US–and how devastated he had been by the reaction of fellow believers to the developing story.  And of course, some were positively scathing.  So I’m revisiting these posts here in full, Osamagate Parts 1 and 2. My sense is that even though we are well past this particular news story, we are nowhere near beyond the broader questions all of this raised for the church and the world.  

On Sunday nights, I go to bed about the same time as your average 6-year old. I was reading myself to sleep by 9pm after preaching Revelation all weekend, and thus didn’t hear anything about the death of Osama Bin Laden until Monday morning. And in true 21^st century fashion…I actually found out via social media. A self-proclaimed news junkie, hearing major news by way of Facebook and Twitter first felt a bit like a personal defeat, but no matter.

Of course by the time I was reading all of this, there was a bit of stir already within the Christian community as to what extent it is appropriate to celebrate anybody’s death, even a profoundly evil, murderous man. I did not read anything where anybody I knew personally said anything indicative of “real Christians are all pacifists, Bin Laden should not have been killed, this is a terrible thing, this is a sad day for the world.” What I did read—consistently from people from the Renovatus community especially, was reluctance about the idea of celebrating Bin Laden’s death with glee and dancing. Folks who felt that literally screaming and shouting over any death felt unsettling, even eerie to their Christian convictions. These were not soft-headed, soft-hearted, buy the world a Coke and sing Kumbaya hippie kinds of responses (No “all we need is love, people.”) From a Christian perspective, Bin Laden was not only a troubled and sociopathic individual but a lost human being headed for divine judgment. I can’t imagine much of anybody who did not breathe a sigh of relief that to see the legacy of evil of this man cut short. I can’t imagine much of anybody who isn’t glad to see some level of closure to the ongoing saga relatives of people who died on 9/11 have endured. I felt the relief, I felt the closure.

But to express in some measure that the Christian response should at the very least be somewhat measured and sober in tone, acknowledging that the entire cycle of violence Bin Laden symbolizes is a product of a deeply broken world…to acknowledge that the job of the Church is to love our enemies into the kingdom rather than rejoice over them giddily because of the cross of Christ, is apparently controversial. I must confess to being perplexed by this. And of course when Christians appeal to Scripture in some capacity, the trump card is immediately played: How would YOU feel if your mom was killed on 9/11? Other variations of this response whenever Christians attempt to talk about how we ought to respond to violence in the world demonstrate remarkable, er, creativity, along the lines of: “what if your grandmother was gang raped—what would you do?” “If your family was chopped into tiny pieces and someone burned down their house and then urinated on the ashes—WHAT WOULD YOU DO?! WHAT WOULD YOU DO?!” (There is always an implicit “BOOM,” at the end of this question—like I’m dropping the mike on you, sissy.)

Let’s be very clear: I have a REAL temper, and I am not saying this in a life-relating, I’m really just one of the boys preacher kind of way…I am telling you the truth. I have felt like resorting to violence in matters so mundane as being cut off in traffic while attempting to merge onto 277, or trying to talk to Christians who resort to quandary ethics from 1974 in conversations about morality instead of deeply engaging Scripture in a meaningful way. Given such weakness, I make no claims as to what I would or would not do if “the worst thing” happened in my life. God help me.

But of course I am a follower of Jesus, which means my job is to reflect in a disciplined way on the implications of the cross of Christ for how I view the world in any and all circumstances. Thus how I feel or don’t feel, what I would do or not do, is not the ultimate question. The question is, what does a cross-shaped life call for? What does it look like, in the words of Revelation, “follow the lamb wherever he goes?”

In this day and age, to believe both that the cross of Christ is the atoning sacrifice for sin and the only way of salvation AND that the cross of Christ provides the example for how I conduct myself in the world is apparently odd indeed. Because only conservatives care about salvation and only liberals care about following the lived example of Jesus. If I hear one more variation of this false choice from one more person, I am going to slap the living—no I won’t, I am going to have to return to the cross again.

So let’s talk Scripture. Yes, there are many passages in the Old Testament that celebrate the demise of an enemy—and people worked their Strong’s concordance for the first time perhaps in many moons to find them yesterday. David celebrates even the babies of his enemies having their heads dashed against the rocks. There are many examples of raw, authentic prayer where David lashes out at his enemies. The Israelites celebrated when Goliath’s head was cut off. On the other hand, there are many OT references floating around since yesterday like Ezekiel: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33.11)

An impossible scenario, right? We just keep playing Bible arm-wrestling and whoever can line up the most texts wins–we will out proof text each other. You’ve got your references, I’ve got mine—we are post-modern people and we will pick the texts we like the most. Hippie Christians vs. UFC Christians, whoever makes it out of the steel cage. The problem of course with all of this is that the full expression of God in humanity is in the person of Jesus Christ. His teachings, contrary to a lot of popular fundamentalist study Bibles, are meant to be applied seriously. The Sermon on the Mount is the magna carta of the kingdom of God, not a list of suggestions, idealistic teachings about the millential reign, or a mere attempt to demonstrate that “nobody can really follow the law anyway.” The cross of Jesus Christ judges and relativises the way we think about violence and power, and sets the agenda and the posture for any and all Christians of all generations: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Do I think you need to feel bad for having a desire for justice, a desire for closure, or for feeling good that a bad man won’t be able to bring death and destruction to this world anymore? No. Do I think it is okay to rejoice or glory in any human’s death? No. This side of the cross, we only get to glory in one death. This is not a peculiar position, a doctrinal quirk, a novel way of looking at things. This is what the world looks like for people who believe the world definitively changed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what it looks like to take the cross seriously and to bring every other thought and emotion under its shadow.

I wouldn’t bother to write about this at all if I simply thought that this was all about this one evil character and this was a one-off affair. The problem is, I am convinced this is part of a larger trend in American Christianity, where the kingdom is being divided from the cross, the theology of the crucified God (as pertains to salvation) is being detached from the example of the crucified God (as it pertains to daily life), where the Church is being divided into “conservative” and “liberal” instead of the only categories that exits in God’s economy: faithful or unfaithful. I am convinced that we aren’t doing a good job of blessing our enemies, and I’m not talking about Bin Laden. There is an increasingly pious justification for an us vs. them posture that is about conquering the enemies of the cross rather than laying down our lives for them. And that, not some genetically engineered Russian in a Left Behind book, is the spirit of antichrist.

When those in the Church think their brothers and sisters are weak, sentimental and soft for taking the words and example of the head of the Church seriously, the movement is in trouble. The people I know who are living out our command to be peacemakers in volatile parts of the Middle East, unarmed save for the gospel, are the most courageous people I’ve ever met. If you follow the logic far enough of where a lot of people are trending, you would almost get the idea that people like them or even Jesus Himself was a weakling for allowing His life to be taken instead of calling down the angels of heaven. When the reality is, the cross of Jesus redefined what strength and courage means forever—we conquer by sacrifice. This is not just for Jesus—we too will overcome the evil one only by “the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, loving not our own lives even into death.”

For the last 2,000 years, we haven’t been living in an Old Testament battle epic against the Amalekites, we’ve been living in the kingdom of the one who told Peter to put away the sword. We are indeed at war, but it is not with flesh and blood but principalities and powers, cosmic forces of darkness in high places (Ephesians 6). We do indeed taunt an enemy, but that enemy is death and hell—the foes that Jesus disarmed, stripped and publicly ridiculed in front of the whole universe through His death (Colossians 2.15). This is not advanced Christian theology—this is gospel 101. The terror of the Son of love dying on the cross is more terrible than any act ever perpetrated by any terrorist, and indeed the sting of all other earthly terrors has been swept up in this death. The worst thing that could ever happen in human history has already happened—and God already conquered by resurrection. The death and resurrection has already changed the world, and all other lives and deaths are only a footnote to that. I think I’m on the verge of writing in tongues, if such a thing were possible.

But I’ve said more than I meant to, because the truth is I was deeply encouraged by the responses I read from the Renovatus community. Sometimes we might be tempted to wonder if it is possible to craft a whole community around the gospel in such a deep and thoroughgoing way that an entire congregation is conditioned in a counter-cultural way, so that the very inclinations of their hearts have been altered. Can such a thing happen? Is it possible for a Christian community to be odd in the world again? Is it possible for God’s people to set apart by a holiness that is incomprehensible to the world again? Could the gospel become odd in a land saturated with religion?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

For a taste of this, I offer without names remarkably consistent comments/quotes offered up by the Renovatus community and friends of the Renovatus community. They spread like wildfire without any instigation or commentary from me. I’m proud of them. There is diversity in nuance among these responses, but the common threads are pretty clear. I’m thankful for your peculiarity, Renovatus:

I will never celebrate the death of an enemy. I will not dance like a fool at the so-called “justice” of it. I mourn for the deaths both at his hands and ours. Maybe this is a sign that the Christ in me is greater than the fear that permeates our culture and world.

I mourn the people lost on 9/11 and will never ever forget that horrible day. my heart still aches to think about it. but another man’s death doesn’t make me want to celebrate at all.

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

I am proud of friends and family in the military, who sacrifice so much in obedience to politics they have no control over, who do their best to protect us and keep our borders safe. I grieve for a world that is lost and look with hope towards a world that will be. The death that really changed the world happened over 2,000 years ago.

There was only one man’s death that changed everything, and we celebrated that a week ago. (Or lack of death, really!)

Maybe I am a complete weirdo, but even though I am glad that Osama bin Laden is gone as a threat, and even though I think this kind of military action is sometimes necessary, it is hard for me to celebrate the death of any man, especially in light of what eternity may mean. It’s more sobering to me than a moment of celebration.

I celebrate justice and not death. I also support our troops and they deserve the honor.

Sorry guys, but I just can’t get excited about people dying, regardless of who they were or what they did.

Does it not strike anybody else as kind of disgusting for a crowd of kids in D.C. to be singing the “Na Na Na Na” song right now?

I mourn the loss of a strong life-force today, a misdirected boy who grew into a destructive man. Who can celebrate at the death of a lost human?

As a Christian I believe in justice but it deeply saddens me that we can become excited over a dead man (Osama Bin Laden) who never accepted Jesus as Savior.

Osama bin Laden is dead. And I am glad justice has been met. But as a Christian, I cannot rejoice over the death of my enemy. Be careful Church.

It’s a dangerous thing when humans get an appetite for blood. I’m happy for the relief this will bring to the military families that have sacrificed so much, but I don’t want to ever be on the side yelling “Crucify Him!” My bloodlust is satisfied at the table of Eucharist, and I am thankful for the mercy shown to me. I have not received the justice I deserve, thank God.

Part Two:

I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive responses I’ve received about yesterday’s piece on what I labeled (with tongue firmly in cheek) as “the Christian response to Osamagate.” I’ve heard wonderful things from folks from all over the country who felt it struck a chord with them, and for that I am grateful and humbled. Well at least, there was mostly positive feedback. I heard that a good friend of mine linked the story to an unofficial message board that some folks in my native denomination use to talk about church, culture and, um, other stuff for which I would have no category. I know a number of folks who have participated in some level of something akin to dialogue on this site over the years whom I love and honor respect, and consistently speak words that inspire and provoke the Church. So I don’t want to take away from that. That said, I have generally stayed away from the forum because I historically found the level of discourse to be devastatingly stupid—to the point to where I actually felt myself getting dumber when I would look at it. I am open, of course, to changing my opinion about such things. But I glanced over at a few of the responses last night and got a great chuckle, as the boys did not fail to disappoint.

In response to the entry, the responses included “Perhaps you guys should plan a memorial service and a day of remembrance for your fallen hero” and “You are right…we have misjudged Osama…he has done no wrong.” I was impressed by the nuanced, articulate responses which so incisively cut to the chase and engaged the blog piece, which clearly stated that “Osama is awesome and we should, like, totally not hate on him—peace and love!” That was PRECISELY what I said. It would be tempting to say that they didn’t read the piece, but that would be unfair…as such responses don’t show evidence of people who read at all. But this one response from my drive-by caught my eye: “if you’re going to advance theological positions like this you have a connected obligation to break them down into practical application, beginning to end. With respect I’d like to ask you to start with 9/11 and go from there with practical application of this theology and specific things the US should have done in response. I don’t intend to disagree or argue, I just want to see how it works because I can’t envision it.” Okay, that remark is not dumb at all. Practical application of this theology and specific things we can do? I’ll be your huckleberry. But only in context of the strategy of the Church—which is all I addressed to begin with.

As I grow deeper in my convictions regarding the vocation of the Church to be cross-shaped peacemakers, I do in fact find the most common objection to be: “this stuff is just not practical.” Especially given the number of people who are just counting down to Armageddon and waiting for the fireworks to begin, such work can even seem like an impediment to the return of Christ. (More on that tomorrow) But of course, “what do you really do with this” is a perfectly good question, an important question.

For starters? I don’t recall making any judgments or suggestions about what any governments of any nations should or should not have done about anything. I would be in over my head. I wrote to the Church about the Church’s posture towards the world. Yesterday’s post was about not allowing ourselves to get caught up in the spirit of the age, keeping the posture of our hearts in line with that of Jesus Himself to His own enemies. Since there is no atrocity in human history, from crusades to holocaust to 9/11, that were any worse than human beings killing God, and yet His response was “Father forgive them for they no not what they do,” I felt that Christians should be careful that we keep our hearts in check. There are many other potential Bin Ladens in the world, and we have to avoid a root of bitterness that would keep us from doing our job well. There can be no enemy in the world that we do not love.

As to how it is done? Well, my whole adult ministry has been lived under the influence of my spiritual grandmother, Sister Margaret Gaines, who showed me firsthand how one life lived faithfully in a Palestinian village can change the temperature of one small part of the world—how the gospel can be lived with grace and truth to Muslim neighbors. (The more people enlighten me, the more I regret all the time I’ve spent being shaped by her tears and stories—there are so many e-mail forwards I could be circulating, inflammatory news commentators I could be listening to, and message boards I could be posting on! I feel so naïve now.) There is enough I could share about her life as strategy that I could write a book about it.

Unlike Sister Gaines, I don’t feel called to become a full-time missionary to the Middle East, but at Renovatus we’ve adopted Beirut as our international mission. Coming off my second trip there in the last two years just two weeks ago today, I saw God do astonishing things there. As you may know, the US has upped the travel advisory and stated that no US citizen should travel there right now. With all the upheaval in the region and the growing presence of Hezbollah there, a lot of people discouraged us from going. But we went—and I’m so glad we did.

Last time I preached in Beirut, I preached in a large open-air celebration in downtown Beirut. The believers have such a good relationship with the Muslims in that area, they allowed us to preach in the center of the city right in front of the largest Mosque in Lebanon. It was remarkable—we saw so many come to Christ. This time, we were in a large indoor theater, where again saw many come to saving faith. I couldn’t believe the level of openness and receptivity to the Gospel. One of the most moving stories was when a Muslim woman came down to the invitation in tears, wearing a burqa. Given her family situation, she could not bring herself to invite Christ into her life that night. But she wept as she asked us to pray for her. She said while I was preaching, she felt something she had never felt—and she used words that were not in the sermon at all: “I feel like I need to be cleansed from the inside out!” That has haunted me for weeks.

Additionally, the local believers in Beirut—who have really had to struggle with the whole media spectacle over the US pastor burning a Quran (which has greatly hindered their relations with Muslims there)—worked it out for us to visit some key political leaders. We met with the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Lebanon (as you probably know, Saudi Arabia is still closed to the Gospel). We told him that the actions of that pastor does not reflect the heart that American Christians have for the Muslim world and that we loved their people. Remarkably, we were able to embrace him and pray for him in the name of Jesus Christ. (this pic is from that visit)

We ended up sharing the same sentiments with the head of the Lebanese military court and praying with him. Totally unexpected, we were invited to the Presidential Palace to meet with the President of Lebanon himself, where we were also able to share our love for their people as representatives of the body of Christ in America. We were able to pray over Him as well. All the major Arab news outlets picked up the story and footage was broadcast all over the Middle East. (Pic is our team from Renovatus and our Lebanese friends with the President in the Presidential Palace)

Nothing we did was remotely noble or heroic—it was a 10-day trip just to support an amazing work God is doing on the ground there with or without any of us. The heroes are the ones who are navigating these tensions on a daily basis and living faithful lives in front of their Muslim neighbors. But as a practical strategy, I can propose these ideas from my time in places like Beirut and Aboud:

1. Get to know a Muslim and love and serve them really, really well.

2. If and when you do get such an opportunity, don’t say insulting or condemning things about their religion. Listen a lot, serve with humility and without agenda, and when the Holy Spirit gives you the opportunity—share how the love of Jesus has transformed your life.

3. If you have the means, travel to the Middle East where you can get connected with local believers there and learn about what they are doing firsthand. If you can’t do that, find a work you can support with both prayer and finances.

“You mean that is all?” I know, it doesn’t seem impressive as a strategy, does it? Alas, I feel like I’m giving antiquated and outdated ideas at best. Sure, the courage of a handful of faithful people seemed to turn the world upside down (in the phrase of Luke in Acts) in the first century, but that’s when the world was safe for Christians. They didn’t have to deal with enemies of the cross or people who wanted to harm them, and are thus an inadequate model for us. Going to people you do not know armed with nothing but the power of the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ had pretty mixed results at best. I mean really, what did the stuff this Paul person did in Rome ever really accomplish? And that whole thing of Philip going to the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8—it was just one Christian living out his calling in relationship to one guy! People act like one redemptive relationship could turn around a whole continent or something.

Today’s complicated world calls for new strategies. Instead of being careful to make sure the tone, tenor and content of our message to the world is full of love, compassion and blessing even and especially to those who would harm us, we should embrace the kingdom tools of fear, suspicion, anger and inflammatory rhetoric. Given the clear failure of the early Church of wearing down their enemies with relentless love, we’ve got to get into the 21^st century. After all, we’ve got Armageddon to rehearse for! No more talk of this idealistic cross business. This is a time for pragmatism, not fairy tales.

But wait a second…the question addressed how a nation should have responded after 9/11. How would this theology have played out there? How should I know? I never said anything about how nations should deal with other nations, I wrote about how the Church should be the Church—how we have to be careful not to harden our hearts in rejoicing over the death of our enemies so we will keep a spirit of love and sacrifice towards them; how we must be obsessed with loving them instead of beating them. That is the only thing I’ve got a strategy for, and somehow I think the stakes are significantly higher in this discussion than any nationalistic strategy. It seems to me the most important thing the Church can do for the world is to be really good at being the Church. And if that doesn’t work out…sorry, I’ve got nothing.

But perhaps it seemed I neglected the post 9/11 side of the question… That’s because nothing that happened on 9/11 changed anything about the Church’s strategy. We’ve only had one strategy since (depending on whose calendar you are using, give or take a year) around the year 33, and we cannot alter it no matter what beautiful or terrible things happen to the world around us. Practical strategy post 9/11? I do have one thing. We have to take off our shoes when we go through airport security now, so post 9/11, I might recommend you leave for the airport a little earlier than you did pre 9/11 when you are on your way to go see what the Spirit of God is up to in the Middle East.

My disclaimer about my book list is that they are not all written in 2011, this is simply a way to reflect on what I’ve read this year regardless of when the titles were written.  To narrow things down a bit, I’m doing only non-fiction that has really shaped me this year.

On the fiction front, I will say in brief that my international travel to places like Beirut and Kenya early this year gave me the opportunity to finally read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series this year, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Over the Christmas break, I got to finish King’s 11/22/63, which might be the most sheer fun read of the year for me.  John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany completely astounded me.  In its spiritual power, I would put it on an elite shelf of novels like Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Frederick Buechner’s Godric, two of my favorite books.

Also worth mentioning is that I’ve discovered some wonderful new study resources this year.  During my Revelation series, I was able to snag an advance copy of the forthcoming commentary from my dear friend and teacher Dr. John Christopher Thomas of the Pentecostal Theological Seminary.  It’s a remarkable work (and it was such an honor for us to have him at Renovatus this year to share his work with us directly.)  The commentary will be out in 2012, and I’ll let you know as soon as it hits.  His wonderful commentary on John’s epistles (from the Pentecostal Commentary series) was also enormously helpful this year.  I also revisited Richard Bauckham’s beautiful Revelation commentary this year as well, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, and fell in love with it all over again.

So that’s a snapshot of the fiction and commentaries. But without further ado, my four favorite books read in 2011:

1.  Alone Together: Why We Expect More of Technology and Less From Each Other by Sherry Turkle

Every once in a while, it feels like God Himself drops a book in my life that alters my perspective on society/culture in a defining way.  Last year, that book was Chris Hedges’ Empire of Illusion.  This year it was Alone Together, from MIT Professor and psychologist Sherry Turkle.  I had not grasped the extent to which our technology is changing our brains until now.  Nor did I understand the extent to which the technology that is meant to bring us together is actually driving us further apart.  While it has no explicit frame of reference for church, the implications of this book for religious life in general and Christian communities in particular are enormous.  Her book has been especially helpful in how I will frame my forthcoming book Prototype in cultural context.  I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

2.  Preacher King: Martin Luther King and the Word that Moved America by Richard Lischer

First of all, Duke professor Richard Lischer is a freakishly good writer (as demonstrated by his marvelous memoir of his early life as a rural pastor, Open Secrets, which I adore).  His treatment of King’s preaching is utterly unique in the large canon of work devoted to King, and fascinating on so many levels.   I’m quite passionate in my study of preaching as a craft and discipline.  And I can honestly say no book has shaped/challenged/informed my own understanding of preaching as much as this one.  Lischer argues that since most treatments of King’s preaching are based on his published manuscripts, they have been toned down and flattened from their black context (stripped of colloqualisms, emotion, and power).  Thus he works directly off extensive audio of King’s preaching previously ignored.  While it’s a book about his preaching, the insight into King’s life and thought are just enormous—I think it has to be on the same shelf as the most definitive MLK biographies even for those who are not as interested in preaching per se as I am.  But that said, I’ve told every preacher I know that they simply must read it, and I continue to.

3.  The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning

If you’ve read any of Manning’s work before, nothing in this book will necessarily strike you as new.  Maybe it was all I’ve learned this year about the Fatherhood and maddening love of God, maybe it was just that the stories Manning tells this go round are uniquely powerful—but this one just hit me right between the eyes.  It’s a slim volume, can be read in a couple of hours, but potent.

4.  Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle

Those closest to me can attest that I don’t cry easily.  But man, this book tore me to pieces.  Boyle, a Catholic priest in the most violent, gang-ridden district of Los Angeles, is also the founder of Homeboy Industries, which places gang members in legitimate jobs. It’s chock full of beautiful stories of people coming awake to the love of God, discovering their belovedness smack dab in the middle of their brokenness.  The whole book is so full of the power and scandal that is the love of Jesus that I almost want to say, if you want to know what I believe about the nature of the gospel—read this.  Given the context, the language is raw, but I can’t imagine anybody walking away from this book and the profanity being what they talk about.

It has become a bit of a tradition for me to blog a list of top ten movies at the end of every year.  I don’t know that anybody is particularly interested in what pastors think about movies.  You might say that I should stick to what I know.  But my dirty little secret is that I might know as much about movies as I do about theology, for better or for worse.  And with such compelling films with explicit faith themes as Of Gods and Men and Tree of Life out in 2011, there’s even more intersection than usual between my vocational and leisure interests.

So here it is, my non-authoritative but definitive lists of top ten films of 2011.  Here are my disclaimers: Since I’m not a full-time movie critic, there’s a lot of films that probably would warrant real consideration that I just haven’t gotten around to.  That list would include Hugo, The Artist (which just came to Charlotte), The Descendants, and one of the year’s most anticipated movies for me personally, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which is still only in major cities.  I think my love for documentaries might muddy the waters a bit, but again not being a full-time movie critic I wouldn’t have enough docs to warrant a separate list.  So know in advance I’m collapsing apples and oranges into the same place.

So here we go:

1.     Of Gods and Men

It’s a good year to be a preacher and filmgoer.  For me, the elegant French Of God and Men from Director Xavier Beauvois sits on top of a highly elite list of the most beautiful spiritual films of all-time (that for me would include such luminaries as The Mission and The Apostle).  Based on a true story, it chronicles the lives of monks in Algeria who must decide whether or not to stay or flee from their small village under the threat of violence from Muslim extremists.  Very rarely does this kind of 100 proof gospel make it into the artistic bloodstream in the US.  Not only do you have a powerful embodiment of the non-violent way of the cross and  blistering images of divine love in context of human terror, but an equally vivid depiction of the very human doubts and fears that plague even great people of faith.  The scene where the actions of the terrorists are juxtaposed with the liturgy of Christmas Eve is jaw-dropping.  The extended sequence celebrate their own version of the last supper with the music of “Swan Lake” playing behind them, lingering on the wrinkles of their haunted faces, is one of the most powerful sequences in the history of cinema.

  2.    Tree of Life

Either you love it or you hate it.  There is no in-between for Terrence Malik’s sweeping magnum opus, not only among critics but among my most immediate friends.  No summary of Tree of Life could do it justice, but it is in essence the story of Jack O’Brien, played as an adult by Sean Penn, as the eldest son of a troubled Texas family.  Brad Pitt gives possibly the best performance of his career and certainly my favorite male performance of 2011 as his rigid but complex father.  But the story on the surface is only a tiny fraction of the film’s enormous ambition, which dares to place these small fragile lives in cosmic perspective.  It is as much a poem or even a prayer than it is a film.  There were many audiences who famously walked out during one of the film’s more artistic sequences.  For my part, I found the film to be as straight forward as many found it to be obtuse.  Visually and emotionally, it’s just stunning.  I stayed in the theater at the Manor so I could hopefully be done crying when the credits were done.  I do not think Malik, for as overtly spiritual as the film is, intends anything evangelistic, but I can only tell you that I could have given an altar call when the movie was over.

3.     Midnight in Paris

It’s one of Woody Allen’s best late career films by a country mile.  A romantic comedy set in Paris, this time Allen applies the same sort of reverent attention to detail he normally gives to New York.  The central conceit of the film would be criminal to give away, so I’ll avoid saying too much about the plot.  What’s interesting about this utterly charming movie is that it is both penultimate Allen in that it does all the things he has always done best—in its absurdity, charm, high brow wit, and Owen Wilson channeling Allen himself as the lead—and yet may be the most accessible entry yet to those who are not Allen  fans.  When we left the theater, I said the reason I go to the movies at all is in hope of a film with this much magic.  It’s gorgeous, and I can’t think of a single kind of person in my life who would not enjoy it.

4.     Into the Abyss

Werner Herzog’s talents as a filmmaker and documentarian are practically superhuman, as attested to the fact that I am placing two of his documentaries on the list from the same year.  This time he’s exploring a triple homicide case in Conroe, Texas, raising the question of both why people kill and why a state kills. It features remarkable footage of 28-year old Michael Perry just days away form execution.  He gives as much time to the families of victims though, which is what this makes his treatment of the death penalty even-handed and not overly preachy.  His conversation with a state executioner who’s overseen over 100 Texas executions was worth the price of admission.  And always attentive to the faith issues raised, I was overwhelmed by the articulate, humble passion of the Death row chaplain on display in the film’s first 10 minutes.  It’s haunting. 

5.     Take Shelter

Take Shelter is a film that works on a lot of different levels.  Because it so well captures the sense of heightened paranoia that is the marker of our cultural milieu, it works as a sort of eerily relevant metaphor for our times.  But it works equally well on a superficial level.  While too serious to be considered a popcorn thriller, the sense of dread, foreboding and suspense is Hithcock on steroids.  On a technical and visceral plane, I can’t think of any other film that so successfully makes you feel the anxiety of the lead character (played to perfection by Michael Shannon in easily one of the year’s best performances) as he has terrifying visions of a forthcoming apocalypse.

6.     Page One: Inside the New York Times

It’s a sprawling, fascinating story with a whole host of fascinating characters, and really a number of different storylines.  For all the ways it is well crafted though, what elevates the film’s importance is how well it functions as a broader depiction of where and how we are making the full transition into the digital age, and how both individuals and institutions attempt to move forward without leaving the best bits of the past behind.  That might sound heavier than I mean it to, as the truth is the movie is brisk, fast-paced and a lot of fun to watch.

7.     Tabloid

Errol Morris is one of the great storytellers of our time, across any medium.  I’ve had a great time delving into the backlog of his great documentaries this year.  But none have been as fun (or as salacious-while a doc, so note some of the content is strong) as this bizarre account of former Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney, accused of kidnapping her former Mormon lover and manacling to a bed for a weekend of passion in England.  From there forward, she stole tabloid headlines, from battling the kidnapping charge to, years later–appearing in the press for having her dog cloned?!  Morris never patronizes his eccentric subjects, though McKinney may be his most eccentric yet.  Tabloid is bitingly funny, deeply strange, and brilliantly told.

8.     Margin Call

This may well be the best movie you haven’t seen in 2011.  Despite a heavyweight cast including Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci , the most poignant film related to the 2008 financial crisis seems still oddly under radar.  That’s unfortunate, because it packs a wallop.  The ever-reliable Spacey gives one of his most nuanced, well-rounded and memorable performances in years (bordering on Oscar worthy).   It’s provocative in its account of Wall Street greed and corruption, and certainly is a film with a lot to say.  And yet for as sickening as we might find some of the things we see on screen, the characters are so rich and so human that it hardly feels like a mere statement.  Hardly an action thriller, the palpable suspense of it’s 12-hour construct (set just hours before the Wall Street crisis broke) and real pathos is noteworthy.

9.     Ides of March

I may have an undue bias towards Ides of March, since this is the kind of understated political drama (and quintessential Fall release) that I am always going to be game for.  Both Clooney and Gosling (in a remarkable year) are exceptional, with a killer supporting cast featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Marisa Tomei.  It’s a great outing for Clooney as director, as it really the pacing that ultimately makes this slow burner work so well.

10.  Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I could have flipped a coin between the really solid Moneyball (go Aaron Sorkin!) and a second Herzog documentary for the same list on the same year.  But ultimately, the lyrical quality and reverence of Cave of Forgotten of Dreams make it such a unique theatrical experience I could not help but include it here.  For all the hate out there for big studio, gimmicky 3-D, here’s an elegant use of the technology that almost singlehandedly redeems the medium.  My only complaint being, as it is well documented that new 3-D projectors are significantly less bright than any of their counterparts, the lack of vivid color when I saw this in Colorado this summer was almost criminal. But its undeniably beautiful.

Honorable mentions:

Thor (a much better addition to the Marvel Comics film canon than this year’s Captain America, in my opinion), the excellent documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (which I have recommended to preachers for its implicit critique on what the stage/spotlight does to a performer), Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol  (first-rate thriller and wildly inventive action sequences), X-Men First Class (some of the most fun I’ve had at the movies this year), and on the same tier: both Source Code and Adjustment Bureau (both perhaps imperfect but highly entertaining sci-fi genre entries).

I will resume my day job now (well, after I post favorite albums and books in the coming days!)

This is the time of year when we celebrate the mystery of God embodied, of the word made flesh.  The scandal of incarnation is still the defining feature of the Christian gospel.  In that spirit, while it was not written for Christmas per se, I have loved this little prayer from Stanley Hauerwas’ Discerning Time. He actually wrote it for a wedding between two graduate students.  But as it so well captures the mystery of our embodied God, it has become a sort of Christmas meditation for me.  After all, the fact that God took on flesh means so much for how we love “our bodily friends across generations.” In Hauerwas’ words, the incarnation of Jesus helps deliver us from our tendencies to “body denying silliness.”  I hope you like it:

Lustily you love us, Mary-born Lord.  Embodied, you would not

Have us be etherealized spirits.  Rather, we find that we are bodies

All the way down.  But, are our bodies the picture of the soul?  That

You have taken on our flesh surely entails that whatever more we

May be, the “more” is not more than our bodies.  But, our bodies

Beacon death…and love.  Without bodies, we could not desire

One another or you, but those same bodies become pain-filled

And wrinkled.  How extraordinary!  I am growing old.  In fact, I

May already be old.  I somehow had not noticed.  Save me from

The silliness, the body-denying silliness, to which the old are

Tempted.  Help me, help us, behold bodily friends across

Generations, so that we might be for the world confident lovers

Who can say, “Until death do us part.” 

Amen.

This is a piece I wrote for a publication called The Evangel a few years ago.  It has the unique distinction among things I wrote a few years ago as being one I still more or less like.  I was reflecting on these same sentiments earlier today (Christmas Eve), the marvel of the unobtrusive birth of a child turning the world on its ear with little fanfare at the time.  The way the birth is not only blessing but in a sense judgment on all of our notions of human power.  I hope it speaks to you. 

The significance of Jesus being born into human history is so overwhelming that when we reflect on the Christmas narrative, the scene in the manger eclipses everything else.  It is easy to imagine the whole world standing still for a few hours as God-in-flesh was birthed in a manger—like time stopped and all the earth seemed to revolve around this cataclysmic event.

But the world didn’t stop spinning, it went right on with its business, and in the grand scheme of things it was barely a decent cell group that perceived that anything out of the ordinary was going on.  The greatest event in humanity’s history occurred—God’s Son entered the realm of time and space, and this magnificent arrival took place in a real context.  Luke frames that for us right at the start: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…”  So the story begins–not just a spiritual one–but a cultural story and a political story, a story that deconstructs everything about human notions of power and authority.

The Christmas occurrence is not just about Bethlehem, it is about everything and everybody.  It is about “principalities and powers”—New Testament language not only for demons, but for earthly powers.  The Son of God was born into a people, an ethnicity, a government, a planet—full of greed, pain, oppression, and constant struggles for “power,” whether religious or bureaucratic or militaristic.  The arrival has implications for all of those things, and for all of the people who aspire to them.

For the marginalized and the outcasts, it meant the world had turned upside down in their favor.  The birth of Jesus into poverty and stench was a subversive event that called into question everything that was assumed about the way the world had always worked.  For thousands of years, it seemed the pendulum of power mostly swung towards the wealthy, the powerful, the elite, the advantaged, the attractive, and the strong.  The Christ child born into putrid circumstances signaled the end of all of that, and offered a sneak preview of the proclamation that was to come through Jesus as an adult.  That is, that God’s kingdom has arrived, the God movement is here, and all the has-beens, poor, grief-stricken, and otherwise infamous sinners are going to get the breaks now.

They weren’t the only ones the story applied to.  The implications were as tangible for Caesar Augustus and Herod as they were for the misfits!  But Incarnation had a very different meaning for them.  For them it meant, “Your days are numbered, your authority is false, your power is negligible.”  For the powers of the age, Jesus’ age, Incarnation was a word of judgment—it said “Time’s almost up” to all want-to-be and would-be authorities.

We will celebrate this event all over again this year, and rightly so.  We will focus on the manger, drink some eggnog, and enjoy the serenity of the scene of wise men kneeling meekly at the feet of a burping baby on a Hallmark card.  We will sing old songs that will nourish us as gently and contentedly as Mary’s milk was to the tiny baby.  But we also will do this in a specific context, and the Incarnation will have as much to say to our culture and to our powers as it did in the original event.

Will the peace and safety of the scene keep us from seeing the world turned on its ear?  Will we understand that this event still calls the world, and certainly the powers, into question?  We could name our powers, but there isn’t space here.  Ask about them, and we always find that they are called legion, for they are many.  Consumerism, military might, advertising, media—their power is called into question in light of the Christ child.  Preachers and pontiffs, film stars and fundamentalists, republicans and rock stars—line them all up in their fineries, and see the colors drain out of the whole lot of them in comparison to the glorious child.  So small, so humble, so helpless—and yet the most powerful life form ever to take a drag of oxygen in our atmosphere.  God had arrived, and He changed all the rules of power.  Luke two preaches the sermon of the beatitudes before Jesus was able to control his vocal chords.  The Word was flesh and blood before speech could be uttered; the illustration came long before the text.

The trouble is, it didn’t look like anything changed to the powers.  Augustus kept on Ceaser-ing, and Herod kept on maneuvering.  Sure the Christ event wasn’t entirely under Herod’s radar, but by the time he finished slaughtering innocent children it affected him more like a rock skipping across a lake than a tidal wave about to hit the mainland.  The world went on about its business, as did the people who inhabit it, as certainly did the people who run it.  Nothing changed on the surface—the papers didn’t even mention anything about angels teaching worship choruses to sheep herders.

Yet things had changed, and the word of judgment had been spoken whether the powers accepted it or not.  The jury isn’t out anymore, the verdict has been rendered: God is definitively on the side of the powerless, the humble, and the needy.  Get on board with Him and you will be alright, oppose the weak ones who bear His affection and you will step in front of a cosmic train.

The signs of this reality are no more conspicuous now than they were then.  The Gap will be a big winner this holiday season, not Jesus.  But just as surely as Herod, Augustus, Jews and Romans were all stripped of their glory in light of the Christ child, so will all other authorities.  Everything and everybody who ever has had or will have any claim on power will face the truth that before Jesus, all powers are brought low and all the low are brought high.  Believing the Gospel means I believe that this Jesus and the truths He brought with Him have won the day, whether I see it or not.

The first advent taught us that the pendulum has swung to the humble in Jesus, the second advent will prove it before all.  The call of the Christmas story is to accept the rule of the Servant-King before the results are made public, and to receive His reign with gladness and simplicity.  For those that do, the scandalous truth of the narrative is that the powers are already disarmed—they just don’t know it yet.

Since I just signed my first book Prototype with Tyndale, it will of course be a while before its actual release, and therefore subject to plenty of changes.  I by no means want to overdo posting excerpts of it here, but wanted to pass along one short passage from chapter one that I think really captures the intimate vibe I hope the book will create.  I want it to be an intensely personal book to read and experience, which means I hope both to allow the reader well beyond the veil of my own heart and make it behind the veil of their own.  I think this little section speaks to that desire–I hope it connects with you!  From chapter one:

By now you know a little about me.  But before I move on, I’ve got a few questions for you:

What is your name? 

Where did you come from? 

Where are you going? 

Who are you…really? 

I apologize for being so forward.  I know we’ve barely met.  I don’t mean to be intrusive.  But if you read books the way most people do, this is already a pretty intimate thing we are doing.  Best as I can tell, people read books most often in bedrooms and bathrooms, the spaces we are most likely to have our defenses down.  We read in tight places, cramped into uncomfortably small seats on overcrowded airplanes, perhaps enclosed a little more snugly by the false privacy of headphones in our ears.

Since you are statistically likely to be reading this in an intimate space, I thought I would cut the formalities if that’s okay with you.  Let’s skip the appetizers and the foreplay.  Because while this is a book about God and a book with a lot of me in it, this really is a book about you.  It’s a book about what you hope for, what you are afraid of, who you are and who you might become. It’s a book about identity and a book about your future.  I’m not squeamish about you reading this in the bedroom or the bathroom, because it’s a book about being human in all the ways that Jesus was and said we could become.

I know it’s a little early for us to disrobe our souls, but your life is too important for me to waste time on social graces.  If we are going to say anything truthful about God, surely we have to tell the truth about ourselves first.   So I’ll ask the question again: Who are you?  And what is your name?  For Christ’s sake, please don’t answer me like this is a facebook profile.  As in, “Here is where I went to college, here are my favorite movies, here are my favorite bands.  I like to fish, to hunt, to play video games, to go scuba diving, to listen to Jay-Z.”  I didn’t ask you about your hobbies.  You are more than the sum total of your interests.

I asked who you are. 

I don’t think I’m overstating the case when I say that most of us live in a perpetual identity crisis.  We have access to an unprecedented amount of voices competing for our attention, voices telling us who we are and who we ought to be.  It’s why I think most of us fumble like its our first middle school dance when we are asked a question as direct as “who are you?” It’s not just that it’s an intrusive question, or that its difficult to sum up who we are within a few sentences.  I think most of the time, we honestly don’t know.

But what if it were possible to know who we are…really? What if it were possible to hear the name we had before the world was made?  What if it were possible to be so really and truly and fully alive—so fully human—that no matter what might happen to us, we would have no reason to be afraid?

Preachers speak about God for a living.  But to actually believe that you speak for God is another matter entirely.  People who believe such an absurd and seemingly self-aggrandizing thing are usually a little crazy—it’s a necessary part of the job description.  For those of us that believe such a thing is possible, there’s a word used to describe the phenomenon of the Spirit of God descending on a human to proclaim a message through human lips: “the anointing.”  I used to try to avoid this word because of its overuse in my particular tradition.  But it has a rich history, not only in the practice of anointing with oil in the Old Testament or anointing for healing in the New Testament, but a particular use in the epistles of John to describe the empowerment of God’s Spirit.

In the past year, I have learned a lot about the promise and the peril of God’s anointing.  I have no qualms about sharing any of it with you, save the fact that my way of talking about it might seem a bit mystical.  But when you are talking about the hand and unction of God resting on human vessels, however mundane the vessels might be and however foolish an act preaching may be, it is a mystical act.  So I will risk talking about the anointing as a mysterious, fearsome thing because it is the only way I experience it or know how to speak of it.

The anointing of God is a power that His Spirit gives, but it cannot be confused with the Spirit.  The anointing is a gift and attribute of God, but it cannot be collapsed into God Himself.  The gifts and calling of God, according to Scripture, are without repentance.  God gives them and does not take them back, regardless of a person’s maturity or immaturity, obedience or disobedience.  This is helpful to know, because otherwise operating in the anointing can be confused with having God’s absolute approval and endorsement of any sort of behavior.  I am ever aware of the fact that operating in the anointing of God does not necessarily mean I am walking in intimacy with God.

Perhaps the strangest and most difficult dynamic to describe in all of this is learning that the anointing can be a dangerous thing.  My friend Jim likes to tell me, “If you aren’t careful, the anointing will run off and kill you.”  I have to remind myself of this on a regular basis, and work really hard at being an authentic human being between the times I feel powerfully used (or anointed) by God.  It is the only way to keep my sanity.

Jim’s words always make me think of a favorite passage in Frederick Buechner’s novel about Jacob, Son of Laughter.  In an especially vivid chapter describing what it meant for Jacob to steal his father’s blessing away from his brother, Jacob says that for all of the years of estrangement from his brother and father, for all the long years he was a slave to Laban, “The blessing was more terrible still.”  In this crucial passage, you can substitute the word “blessing” with the word “anointing” and know just about everything I believe to be true about what it to have a gift of divine speech:

When the camel you’re riding with runs wild, nothing will stop it.  You cling to its neck.  You wrench at its beard and long lip.  You cry into its soft ear for mercy.  You threaten vengeance.  Either you hurl yourself to death from its pitching back or you ride out its madness to the end.

It was not I who ran off with my father’s blessing.  It was my father’s blessing that ran off with me.  Often since then I have cried mercy with the sand in my teeth.  I have cried ick-kh-kh to make it fall with a sob to its ungainly knees to let me dismount at last.  Its hind parts are crusted with urine as it races forward.  Its long-legged, hump-swaying gait is clumsy and scattered like rags in the wind.  I bury my face in its musky pelt.  The blessing will take me where it will take me.  It is beautiful and it is appalling.  It races through the barren hills to an end of its own.

I by no means think that only preachers understand the anointing of God.  There are other gifts that are both blessing and curse.  In any and every case, gifts are not signs of God’s approval or disapproval, they are neutral and thus can be handled appropriately or inappropriately, with care or with cavalier disregard.  Understanding the anointing in this way both guards the recipient of the gift (i.e. the preacher) from pride, and those who are beneficiaries of the gift (the listener) from overly idolizing the preacher.

To keep the anointing from running off and killing me, there are only a few things I know to do.  Keeping close, real friends who are not so blinded by the gift as to not see me is one of them.  Laughter, particularly at my own expense, is equally critical.  There is nothing more toxic for anointed people than to take themselves too seriously.  And finally, to speak honestly of the highs and lows of walking in the anointing, to tell the whole truth of it, is absolutely necessary.  It allows me to celebrate the beauty and mystery of being used by God and the real power I experience in those moments, without detaching them from my own brokenness.  I am both more powerful and more fragile than I could ever possibly conceive.  That is what it is to be anointed—given a gift you can steward but cannot control, a gift that neither enhances nor destroys your humanity.

Whatever it is that you’ve been anointed by God to say or to do, hold it delicately and do not hold onto it too tightly.  For God’s anointing is first and foremost gift, and handling it well demands that you handle it loosely.

After a lot of conversations, meetings, deliberation and prayer…I’m thrilled to announce that I agreed to sign with Tyndale House Publishers today for my first book, Prototype (tentatively subtitled a guide for liars, dreamers and misfits to become human)!

With the help of my tremendous agent, David van Diest, we’ve been exploring our options for awhile.  But ultimately, Tyndale won me over with their heart for ministry, their sense of community and mission, their creativity, and their belief in the message of my book.  Okay and to be truthful…their deep dish Chicago pizza may have pushed me all the way over.  I’m excited about working with Jan Long Harris and the team there!

There is so much God has done in us through Renovatus, and it feels like the time is right to release that message into the kingdom and the culture on another level.  I couldn’t be more thrilled about partnering with Tyndale to bring this big message–this new way of being human, to the world.  I’ll certainly be eager to share more about the forthcoming book.  But in the meantime, here’s a small taste of what’s ahead:

“Who are you…really?”

 It’s the most difficult, intrusive question we will ever be asked.  Though we live in a world of relentless self-expression, so few of us know who we really are.  We know our hobbies and interests—the kind of stuff you put in a facebook profile.  As in, “Here is where I went to college, here are my favorite movies, here are my favorite bands.  I like to fish, to hunt, to play video games, to go scuba diving, to listen to Jay-Z.”  But the question is not “what are your hobbies?”  We are more than the sum total of our interests.  The question is a more primal one: “who are you?” 

 Its not overstating the case to say that most of us live in a perpetual identity crisis.  We have access to an unprecedented amount of voices competing for our attention, voices telling us who we are and who we ought to be.  It’s why most of us fumble like its our first middle school dance when we are asked a question as direct as “who are you?” It’s not just that it’s an intrusive question, or that it’s difficult to sum up who we are within a few sentences.  I think most of the time, we honestly don’t know. 

 But what if it were possible to know who we are…really?  What if it were possible to hear the name we had before the world was made?  What if it were possible to be so really and truly and fully alive—so fully human—that no matter what might happen to us, we would have no reason to be afraid? 

 The premise of this book is that Jesus came as the prototype for a whole new way of being human; that is in fact possible to become human in all the ways He was and said we could become.  It is possible to break away from the relentlessly monotonous trappings of modern life and become someone else. Curiously enough, in becoming something you’ve never been, you may find that you end up being more yourself than you were before. It is possible to find your place in the resistance movement of liars, dreamers and misfits that are re-shaping the cosmos and overthrowing the world.

 It is the assumption of this book that resurrection life wants to come barreling down on you, that God’s future wants to break into your present, and that you can live a life of such alien gentleness that people around you might actually become a little afraid of what’s happening to you.

Step-by-step, Prototype explores what it would mean to become somebody else. Not to become superhuman, just fully human in all of the ways Jesus said we could. We see how we could learn how to depend on others in authentic human relationships in a world where we are so cut off from authentic communication. We see how we could learn how to touch and receive touch in a world where we are profoundly alone and isolated. We learn the practices that the earliest Christians believed would help us grow and develop in this new way of being human. We learn how life-altering resurrection power is revealed to us in shockingly mundane places and situations.

I’ll certainly keep you updated as to what’s coming in the months ahead-thanks so much for your support, friends! It’s an exciting time.

I wanted to share a personal treasure with you.

Stanley Hauerwas, professor at Duke Divinity and an important influence in my life and ministry, released his memoir in May, Hannah’s Child from Eerdman’s. When he was still working on it, he allowed me to read a copy of the rough draft. In that version, he had a lengthy section where he described his experience of coming to Renovatus in 2008. It didn’t make that final draft of the book–but in all honesty, having that in Microsoft Word on my computer is one of my greatest treasures. I had no idea until I read it how much his visit to Renovatus meant to him. And since I have been so marked by his work, his response was unbelievably powerful for me.

I have told friends and family about it, but few have read it. But I’ve been thinking for awhile of putting it here for the benefit of the Renovatians. I thought it would encourage you to read what he felt and experienced in his time here. But this is just between us, okay ? The text is as follows:

The good news, moreover, is even as I grow older the young seem attracted to the work to be done. The work they think needs to be done, moreover, they think has at least been partly indicated by my work. I give as an example Jonathan Martin. Jonathan is a student in the Divinity School who pastors a church in Charlotte, North Carolina with the unlikely name of “Renovatus.” The name is even more unlikely because Renovatus is a church of the denomination in the Pentecostal tradition of the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee. Pentecostals are not known for Latinizing the names of their churches. For those who might be curious, the designation Cleveland, Tennessee is necessary because without that geographic locator the church might be confused with the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana. The Church of God, Anderson, Indiana is not a Pentecostal church.

I was not sure what to make of Jonathan on our first encounter. What are you supposed to think about a pastor from the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee who thinks it is crucial for his work that he be able to take my course in Catholic Moral Theology? I have the view that the ecclesial convictions that shape the understanding of the church in Pentecostal churches share much with Roman Catholicism, but that is a view peculiar to me. I do not expect members of the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee to share that view. But Jonathan was so sure it was a course he needed. I let him in.

Having grown tired of taking students through the debates between the conservatives and liberals in Catholic moral theology, I decided to have students in the course actually read Thomas. So I began with Pinckaers’, Sources of Christian Ethics, to give them a background to read Thomas. I set the course up to climax with McCabe’s work. Jonathan seemed to drink up everything we read and, in particular, McCabe. What a strange world. A Pentecostal studying at a Methodist seminary located in the center of a very secular university writes a paper utilizing the understanding of language, developed by one of the most interesting Catholic moral theologians of our time, to illumine the apocalyptic character of the work of the Holy Spirit. Is God great or what? I could not help but be drawn to such an interesting young man.

Renovatus is a “church plant” that meets in a public school in downtown Charlotte. Jonathan had a number of his people read the commentary I had written on Matthew. He asked if it might be possible for me to come to the church one Sunday during the summer to respond to questions his congregation might have. I am always ready to reinforce the idea that it is a good thing to buy and hopefully even read one of my books, so I was happy to accept Jonathan’s invitation.

I did not know what to expect. The church meets in an auditorium. A band, a quite good band, plays on the stage. The service consists primarily of prayer and singing. The words of the hymns are projected on a screen. The way the people at Renovatus worship is a long way from the Church of the Holy Family. How they worship at Renovatus is not my style. But these people were so genuine I almost forgot my feelings of not knowing how to join them fully as they praised God.

We then came to the point of the service set aside for me to respond to questions. Before I began Jonathan read some remarks he had prepared to introduce me. I was stunned. He got it all just right. It is a moment you think, “I can die and go to heaven.” That this Pentecostal in Charlotte, North Carolina so clearly “gets it” means others now know how to go on. The end seems really to have come giving us a new beginning. This is what he said:

I am a third generation Pentecostal preacher. My grandfather grew up just a couple minutes away in a little house on North Davidson Street and attended Duncan Memorial Methodist as a child. He didn’t become a Christian until well into his 20’s. He had met a pretty girl named Nellie who said she wouldn’t date sinner boys. Next thing you know he was converted in the sweaty fervor of the 15^th Street Church of God, and his life was never the same. A Charlotte police officer, he came into the station one day and turned in his badge and gun, saying he had been called to preach—though he hadn’t yet booked a single revival.

He has been dead for 27 years now, and I am a product of the same tent revival kind of fervor, planting a church with an extraordinary group of folks here in Charlotte 2 and half years ago. I am thankful for my heritage, thankful for all I have been taught. But found myself lacking in many ways to articulate what it is we most deeply believe about the church (pretty important to establish as a young church planter). I have found myself spending countless hours reading the work of a Methodist theologian from Duke University’s Divinity School. And as the product of a renewal movement—I have found myself renewed, like no other time in my adult life, from the remarkable work of this theologian. How does one make sense of this?

After grappling plenty with how to explain the significance of Stanley Hauerwas for myself and this young church, I was almost agitated to see this influence explained so concisely by Samuel Wells in his book on the theological ethics of Hauerwas, Transforming Fate Into Destiny. Where I was born the son of a Pentecostal preacher in Lincolnton, NC, Wells, now the dean of Duke chapel, was born in England and became a fourth generation Anglican preacher. The impact of Hauerwas’ work so mirrored my own it took me aback. Let me read a section from his introduction:

“Since my father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all Anglican clergymen, few expressed surprise when I sensed a call to join the family business. As I began to work out the implications of this vocation, I realized that I had lost confidence in the capacity of the church to follow Christ today.

The loss of confidence was expressed in three ways. First, in an obsession with apologetics: I became one of those whose concern to see all come to faith had, in MacIntyre’s phrase, given the world less and less in which to disbelieve. Second, in an uncritical commitment to social action: since the Church was not bringing the kingdom, I sought to join anyone who looked like they might be. Third, in a quest for personal experience: the habits of the Church seemed to hamper as much as help my soul’s search for a direct experience with the living God.

When I read Stanley Hauerwas’ The Peaceable Kingdom I realized what had happened. Reading Hauerwas made me see that God genuinely intended the Church: and that the resources for its renewal lay in the habits and practices it had neglected. The theology that I hoped would help me change others had succeeded in changing me…I have written this book because I believe that the writings of Stanley Hauerwas offer the Church an invitation to renew its confidence and restore a true sense of identity.”

That is exactly the trajectory I found myself on. First in hoping to become an educated Bible thumper, a fundamentalist who could intellectually wrestle people into the faith. As a good Charlotte boy, where our greatest export is Nature Boy Ric Flair, I think I had something in mind of a spiritual/intellectual figure-four leglock that could force the infidels to submit to belief. Finding these approaches (“Ten ways to prove the Bible is true without ever using a Scripture”) ultimately unsatisfying, I too became restless with the apathy and indifference of the church to transform the world through acts of justice. Uncritically then, let’s just find something good to do and get busy—without any context or framework to make “good works” intelligible. Finally, I came to believe that any shortcomings in my faith were surely do an impoverished experience—so being a disciple became a matter of chasing down the Spirit, running frantically and chaotically from one campmeeting or revival to another trying to hunt down God.

For Stanley Hauerwas, being a Christian is not a matter of believing the right ideas or propositions about God, nor a matter of simply being nice to the neighbors and co-workers, nor chasing down the thunder and lightning of Mt. Sinai (the place where Moses met God). For Hauerwas, to become a Christian is to learn the practices of a faithful community, what he would call a community of character, from a people committed to worship Jesus Christ in all things. This is a truthful community, a disciplined community that has a shared tradition, a faithful story that guides them and ultimately transforms them into people of virtue.

The language of virtue in Hauerwas’ work has captivated me. Growing up in the church tradition that I did, they taught me that God didn’t just want to deliver us from self-destructive behavior, didn’t just want to save us from sin, but that God wanted to change “your want to.” If I remembered that sanctification language at all, I think it was with a bit of condescension. For Hauerwas, that is exactly what this truthful community will teach us how to do—to live lives of virtue and holiness that come from the inside-out. But this is not an abstract or mystical act. It is as real, sweaty, earthy and practical as learning how to lay brick, a craft Hauerwas learned from his own father. Through learning the practices of a faithful community committed to follow Jesus together, disciples become so deeply embedded into the story of the community that it becomes their own story, that their practices become their own practices, its language becomes their own language.

This church so elegantly and yet so plainly described by Stanley Hauerwas is not a conservative fundamentalist church that has taught us to retreat from an evil world into the “soul,” where the primary objective becomes the conversion of the inner self. Nor is this church the activist church, who would blandly reduce the gospel to nothing more than calling the world to social change through acts of kindness, without any context or story to make those acts intelligible.

This church is a radical alternative to both the left and to the right, a church “that exists today as resident aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief.” It is a living, breathing visible community of faith, a particular people with a particular story, the church that is in itself God’s gift of new language to the world. This is the church that has understood that salvation is not static, but life on the road. This church, to quote from one of my favorite essays of Hauerwas’, a moving theological reflection on Richard Adams’ classic Watership Down, is a “story-formed community.” Like the rabbits of Watership Down, Christians depend on a narrative to be guided. As the rabbits learned to rely on the oft-repeated story of their famous prince, this Christian community “depends on the narrative of a prince who was defenseless against those who would rule it with violence. He had a power, however, which the world knew not. For he insisted that we could form our lives together by trusting in truth and love to banish the fears that create enmity and discord. To be sure, we have been unfaithful to this story, but that is not reason to think it is an unrealistic demand. Rather it means we must challenge ourselves to be the kind of community where such a story can be told and manifested by a people formed in accordance with it.”

You know, I think I finally figured out how a Pentecostal preacher’s kid could resonate so much with the theological project of a Methodist bricklayer’s son from Texas. Men and women like my grandfather read the book of Acts in the New Testament, and were seized by this vision of what it meant to be the church, empowered to be Christ-like disciples full of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. They read these ancient words from Acts 2 about the sound of a rushing mighty wind, they read about tongues of fire that descended onto the early believers. They read about the gift of new languages, a gift that both captivated the crowds but also confounded them—they saw these disciples spilling out of the upper room, their speech and behavior so affected that they assumed they were drunk. The gift of God’s new language was at first unintelligible to the world because it came in such a violent, catastrophic, we might say apocalyptic way.

As Peter got up to preach the first sermon of the Spirit-empowered church, he said “These men are not drunk as you suppose, seeing as it is only the third hour of the day. They have been filled with the Holy Ghost.” Peter saw this as a fulfillment of an apocalyptic promise from Joel chapter 2, which envisioned a time when “sons and daughters will prophesy, old men dream dreams and young men see visions, male and female bondslaves speak the word of God.” The same text that promised this lovely vision is couched in violent, apocalyptic language—the text that promised dreams and visions also anticipated “blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke, the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come.” Joel’s prophecy, re-interpreted in and through the Spirit, was nothing less than that the Spirit would bring a new way of existence by disrupting our time. That’s what an apocalypse does, it disrupts time—a phrase Dr. Hauerwas is fond of.

And if there is anybody who knows what it is to have time disrupted by Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has been used both to bear witness to God’s new language to the world called church…and also a man who has provoked crowds and brought controversy and bewilderment, it is Stanley Hauerwas. He is not drunk as you suppose. Like those early disciples and like my grandfather, his time has been disrupted by the Spirit of God. And he continues to call us to put down our badges and our guns to speak the word of God. About as subtle as the apocalyptic imagery of Joel, he has been stirring up the holy imaginations of sons and daughters of the church, young and old, to dream dreams and see visions. I don’t know if this is good news to you or not, Dr. Hauerwas—but it turns out you are quite Pentecostal.

It is my honor to welcome to Renovatus a faithful witness to the peaceable kingdom of Jesus Christ—Stanley Hauerwas.

Hearing Jonathan narrate his life through the story he had learned from me could not help but remind me all that has happened in my life because I am Hannah’s child. It has been more than fifty years since I said to Brother Zimmerman I would do what God wanted me to do. That declaration has brought me to places I did not know existed, or could have even imagined might exist, when I made that fateful commitment at Pleasant Mound Methodist Church. Even more important I have been drawn into the lives of others who have enriched my life beyond my wildest expectations.

I was writing Hannah’s Child when I came to Renovatus. I was flooded with gratitude for the life I have been given as I listened to Jonathan. I am from the working classes. I had a mother and father who loved me and God enough to make it possible for me to leave their world. I went to college to be mentored by a man as if I were his son. I have been sustained by academic institutions without which the narrative of church life Jonathan finds so hopeful would not have been made articulate—at least by me. I have been surrounded by friends who have upheld me through hard and good times. I have been officially and unofficially a member of churches where I have, however hauntingly, learned to pray. I have been given good work to do. I have a son and a wife who love me.

I know quite well that many find stories like mine (and Jonathan’s) bizarre. Even worse, some under the influence of modern accounts of what makes us human may think that our lives can be explained. We come from classes that could not know enough to know being Christian makes no sense. Christianity makes no sense intellectually. What about science? Christianity makes no sense economically. You really are not to want “more?” It makes no sense socially. Christians do seem to come from the “not well connected.” Those shaped by such explanatory modes assume, given the story I have told, they can understand why some of us are Christian. We are Christians because given “where we came from” being a Christian worked out pretty well for us.

Courage is one of the great virtues to aspire to in antiquity.  And while I’m certain courage looks differently for people of the cross than other folks, I still think it’s an awfully good one to aim for.

I have never done anything particularly courageous.  That is not false humility nor fishing for compliments.  I flatly do not live the kind of life that requires a great deal of courage, and I can objectively acknowledge that.  I’m okay with that because I think most of the acts of heroism God calls for are small acts of faithfulness.  But who doesn’t want to seize the moment to do a truly courageous thing?

Since I talk for a living more or less, about the only thing courageous I know how to do in my work is to tell the truth.  I think it’s immature to use words recklessly–Jesus Himself was called the Word of God, and He’s also the one who said that every idle word we speak would be subject to judgement.  Words are sacred trusts.  So I don’t look for opportunities to use them for battle.  But it has of course always been the case that speaking the truth as best you know how will get you into trouble.

One such moment in my decidedly non-courageous middle class life was when I gave a speech on the Church of God General Assembly floor that caused a near-riot.  I am a big believer in women in ministry,  from my understanding of Scripture, my experience of great women of God, and my Pentecostal tradition (which apparently many within the tradition don’t understand or appreciate).  I don’t feel like recounting the whole thing, as I’ve done it elsewhere.  But needless to say my words were fiery and the reaction was harsh.  From it came one of my favorite little compliments, however, and I hope you don’t think me crass for passing it along in this context.  One of the guys on our executive council looked over to another as I was told later and said, “MAN! That guy has got some balls!”  Thankfully in his case, this was meant favorably and not merely to imply impertinence.

There have been plenty of times at home where telling the truth as best as I know how has caused me to take some heat. I’m thinking about the people we lost over 2008′s Politics of Jesus preaching series, where I told the truth about how our allegiance to God’s kingdom has to transcend any and all other alliances.  It wasn’t partisan, but apparently there are still plenty of folks who care more about their vision of America as a nation-state than they do seeing God’s kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  I was okay with that.  And by no means did I make everybody happy with my recent series on Revelation, as I had occasion to remember recently.  It was one of the more thorough, accurate and text-honoring pulpit studies I know of, even though it goes against a lot of the more recent (and flagrantly unbiblical) “wisdom” on Revelation that’s been circulated.  Totally okay with that too.

But again, I’m a middle class white guy.  I’m not persecuted, or even close enough to persecution to understand it.  So there is nothing heroic in any of this.  I have enough of a prophetic streak that I love the idea of standing up against bullies, and from time to time I get to do that.  Those days the work is kind of cool, I must admit.  But the more I get to know about God and myself, what I’m learning is that the most courageous and difficult speech I must exercise is not so much in telling off the powers that be as telling on the powers in me.  It is far easier to tell the truth about somebody else or something else rather than the truth of my real life.

Even as I’ve read as of late biographies of great prophetic leaders who spoke out on God’s behalf against worldly injustice, telling the raw truth of where and how they were struggling to live out the gospel themselves always seems to be a difficult thing.  And of course to a point, we are given a message that is bigger than our own lives, and there is wisdom in not making it more about us than it is.  On the other hand–telling the truth about where we are and where we’re not, how the gospel is transforming us and how it has not yet transformed us, is perhaps the most courageous thing most of us can do.  (That’s not just for preachers either.)

I think these days that if my voice is not going to ring hollow in the times and places where I have to speak out about ______ (fill in the blank), it can’t be credible if I’m not willing to speak out against the lies in me.  Or equally, to expose the places I see God’s light at work in the world, to bear witness to the light as he is exposing it in me.  The temptation is to allow there to be just a little bit of distance between myself and the texts I’m preaching and where I’m living–even just a crack.  This may not sound like a big deal to you, but closing the distance between the two takes pretty much all the courage I can muster.

There won’t be many minutes that will pass until you have the opportunity to do something heroic with your story, to be courageous enough to tell what God is doing and/or where you are struggling.  I think if God can trust us to exercise enough courage to do that faithfully, He can trust us with other courageous things down the line.

Since Sarah and Kevin DeShields have been instrumental to Renovatus worship since our launch in 2006, it might seem odd to call this one of the most significant developments of 2010. One might even be tempted (as I often am) to quote the prophet/theologian LL Cool J: “Don’t call it a comeback/I’ve been here for years.” But the fact is, the chief Renovatus psalmist, our worship Laureate, has found her voice in a new way this year, and its been defining for our ministry.

At Renovatus, we’ve never lacked in quality, dedicated, anointed musicians and worship leaders. Every single one of them is plugged into community at Renovatus. Every single one of them represents not just skill, but dedication to Jesus in daily life that has been tested in the trenches of life together. From day one, they have modeled to the Renovatus community worship as a lifestyle and not a set list. From the early days when Grant Hopkins led to the strong leadership of my wife Amanda in recent years, I have always been proud of this ministry. But as Amanda and I have sought to simplify our lives and roles, we felt confident that it was in fact Sarah who bore the weight of God’s ultimate destiny for worship arts at Renovatus. It’s not the relative novelty of her Scottish brogue in the deep South, angelic vocals or lyrical elegance that makes Sarah what she is (though none of that hurts!), but rather her ability to draw people gently and deeply into the presence of God.

As Sarah stepped into her role as Worship Arts Pastor this year, she hasn’t so much developed new talents as new confidence. As the face and voice of the Renovatus worship experience, Sarah’s ownership of her role has helped the whole community finds its voice in a new way. She’s shaping the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs; shaping a culture; documenting a collective journey; forming a legacy and dare I say it (allowing pause for appalled Gen X rebel Christians)–a tradition. While Sarah pastors this ministry, her and Kevin form a remarkable team. I think of Kevin and Sarah as the Over the Rhine of Renovatus, even though their styles have little in common: like that husband and wife combo, Sarah is the central front person while Kevin is the chief architect of Renovatus’ sound. Or are they Bono and the Edge? Nobody in Charlotte is as capable of Kevin DeShields to create ambiance out of a guitar–he could be a gunslinger if he wanted, but instead has become a master of texture, a man who can change the temperature of any room in less than a minute.

Never has their joint brilliance been more evident than in the rollicking folk foot-stomper they wrote during our series on “The Land,” debuted this summer, which captured everything about our experience of spiritual and geographical grounding in mood as much as lyric. And then there’s Sarah’s breathtaking “Mary’s song,” written for the 5th anniversary production of The Birth–the most magical modern Christmas song I’ve heard. The way the DeShields have stepped into their calling as helped Renovatus come into her own more fully.

I’ve never been fond of the trite “new church” language of “We are not your grandmother’s church.” I can be charitable enough to understand the sentiment–it’s often a way of saying we have a culture and style that will be outside your expectations of institutional religion. But even given that, I hate the phrase–it is rotten eccleisiology. If we are any Church at all, then we are our grandmother’s Church. If there is no continuity between us and our fathers and mothers in the Lord, we are probably in deep trouble. The sense of rootlessness and individuality of our culture–the ruthless attempt of social and technological forces to convince us that we can be story-less people who are making it up as we go, is a posture not for the gospel to adapt to but to oppose. A pivotal line of the Renovatus Manifesto says “We ARE your grandmother’s Church. And your great-grandmother’s Church. And your great-great grandmother’s Church!”

2010 has been a year where we have come to understand more deeply that we have to know where we’ve come from if we are to know where we are going. We spent the first half of the year in a series called “Orthodoxy,” mining the riches of the Apostles’ Creed. Like Paul did for a young pastor named Timothy, we have been reminded that our faith is not a private possession but a gift from a godly mother and grandmother. Already, our community has been marked by our adopted 78 year-old grandmother Margaret Gaines (the very first guest speaker we ever had at Renovatus–quite strategically). Already our community has been marked by the life and legacy of Sister Nellie Martin, my biological grandmother, who died long before Renovatus ever began but whose work lives on (since her fingerprints are all over my life and ministry). But this year, we got a little help from our friends–actually, from some more grandparents in the Lord.

There were 3 in particular who came to Renovatus and made our connection with the Church’s story richer and deeper–Geoffrey Wainwright, Rickie Moore, and Jacqui Smith. Geoffrey Wainwright, an elder statesman of the Church and one of the most influential Methodist voices of the last century, was a professor of mine at Duke. If he felt out of his element speaking in the old movie theater at Eastland Mall to a bunch of allegedly new-fangled young Pentecostals, he didn’t show it. As he preached with shirt and tie and traditional Methodist liturgical garments, he was stylistically the anti-Jonathan (i.e. he was still, calm, dignified, and preached less than 30 minutes). But how he refreshed us with his life and witness, both in his wonderful message and the cherished time we spent with he and his wife that weekend.

The second was Dr. Rickie Moore, a former professor of mine at the Church of God Theological Seminary and current chair of the theology department at Lee University in Cleveland, TN. A mentor and friend who has shaped my story over the last 10 years, Moore came and preached my favorite sermon delivered at Renovatus in 2010, given with scholarly precision and prophetic clarity. Not only does he embody our value of the elder generation speaking into the younger, but he spoke into it directly–helping us to understand our journey (specifically to Little Rock) in light of God’s greater design to bring generations together. It was a defining Word that summarized and confirmed much of what God had been speaking in a very clear, tangible way.

The third was my rambunctious other adopted Grandma, International Evangelist Jacqueline Smith. I suppose her style was as different for Renovatus than Dr. Wainwright’s was, albeit in the opposite direction. Bold, pointed, and full of Holy Ghost attitude, she brought the Word and she brought the fire. And she brought another part of our tradition and heritage that we deeply need, the contours of African-American Pentecostalism, in a beautiful way. Specifically, the night she ministered for Pastor Teddy and Dust was one of the most poignant personal experiences of God’s presence I had this year.

Each of these 3 grandparents in God brought us closer to the desperately needed character of our grandmother’s Church by their obedience to the Holy Spirit. Because of their investment in Renovatus, we learned how to carry their legacy with greater care and greater unction.

To revisit Geoffrey Wainwright’s sermon on Pentecost and the Apostles’ Creed, the finale of our Orthodoxy series, click here.

To revisit Rickie Moore’s message, The Land: Generations, click here.

To revisit Jacqui Smith’s entry in the Your Grandmother’s Church series, Trust in God, click here.

Our year at Eastland Mall was extraordinary in every way. In a move that we thought would only provoke people to point and laugh (and we would have been fine with that), it was our transition to the former theater of Charlotte’s most notorious piece of property that captured the imagination of our city. Not only did every news outlet from the Charlotte Observer to Creative Loafing to every major local tv outlet cover our time there, we were more importantly able to connect with the wonderful community of East Charlotte in a lasting way.

We made the transition to Eastland in 2009, but it was the first half of 2010 where we shared our most memorable experiences in that space. One was our first baptism service there. We were at the tail end of the Orthodoxy series, reflecting every week on the significance of the Apostles’ Creed in the early baptismal rite of the Church. In the early days, led naked into a river or pool of water at midnight before Easter, candidates would affirm the creed before spitting in the direction of Satan and his minions. After sometimes years of training in the ways of Jesus and the Church, they could now be plunged into a watery grave–and raised up with resurrection life. There is something about that act that always reduces me to rubble–the fact that I hold in my arms an actual body that will one day be raised in the resurrection of the body and transformed into the likeness of Christ Himself.

But there was NOTHING like performing this most holy sacrament at Eastland Mall. In the disreputable mall, in the center of what our former mayor called a “corridor of crap”…there where so much prejudice and fear were poured out into one building as a scapegoat for deeper problems in our city, people were being baptized. Identities were being forged in the place where false labels were constantly assigned. Lives were being renewed where lives were supposed to be destroyed. People were coming to life where a guy what shot dead in the food court a few years before. You want to talk about the sweetness of God Almighty? It was all over that baptismal service at Eastland, where so much of the gospel was wrapped up in a real-life parable for the world to see and for us to marvel at. From our wonderful season at Eastland, it was a defining moment.

In May of 2010, we had another defining experience when we took a step of faith to have a Sunday morning healing service. You heard me correctly. Our Church, which has its roots in the Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition but is not exactly the most expected place for prayer lines (at least at that point), devoted a whole Sunday to the ministry of laying on of hands to the sick and broken. It was stretching for those that weren’t accustomed to such an experience. And it was also life-altering for our entire ministry.

Claiming to believe that Jesus actually healed broken bodies and actually rose from the dead makes you strange enough. But claiming to believe that Jesus still heals through our human touch, the hands of Christ through our own broken bodies makes you dangerous. This was a year where we got less bashful about our belief in the very tangible power of the Holy Spirit, and began to trust God for supernatural displays of His power. And we haven’t backed away from that conviction–it has only grown inside us. Like baptism, there was something uniquely powerful about this kind of body ministry taking place in that abandoned theater, dense with the smell of fast food Chinese from the food court and the sweat of sons and daughters looking for a miracle.

To revisit my message from the healing service, “The Healer,” click here.

Don’t hit the fast forward button on me just yet.

You might be tempted to skip ahead, thinking that the reason it was defining to get kicked out of Eastland was that it led to us landing at Little Rock. And of course that is true enough–but the transition into “the land” (spiritually and geographically) is a separate miracle with its own space. I need you to know that the actual experience of getting kicked out of Eastland along with the rest of the tenants when ownership fell into financial crisis was a defining moment in and of itself.

I was with my friend and protege Justin Lane, happy as a lark at a theology conference at Wheaton with N.T. Wright, when I got the call from Tracey. The papers had just been served, and we would have to be out in 2 months. Just like that, the end of an era was upon us. What would we do? I cut the conference short, catching an early flight back to Charlotte from Chicago on Sunday to come and preach on what was supposed to be a rare Sunday off. And what kind of word, precisely, do you deliver? Especially when so much energy and effort had been spent into carving out our place in the community at Eastland for the last year–all with the eyes of the city watching every move.

I’ll tell you what I did: I preached my head off. I preached with the confidence of a man who has seen God slay the lion and bear, now facing a mere giant. It wasn’t my own strength or power–it was the unmistakable presence of the Holy Spirit resting on me. There was no act that day as I pronounced the faithfulness of God with even greater fervor than usual–I trusted Him from my very bones. And so did Renovatus Church. No fretting, no pouting, but trusting. And as it turned out, the kicking out was as full of grace as the entering in had been. When the cameras showed up, we testified to the faithfulness of God. When we didn’t know where we would go next, we hosted a meeting between the displaced merchants of Eastland and city leaders, trying to serve them as they tried to figure out their next move. We never had any greater opportunity to bear witness to our city than we did when the doors were shutting on the 35-year old landmark.

It built our faith. It built our confidence in God. It caused us to let go of our reputation altogether, and understand that we aren’t calling any of the shots in His kingdom. It made us lean and mean, agile and tough in our calling.

When I came back to Charlotte and announced the news that Sunday, that’s when the whirlwind started. It was Renovatus that broke the news to the Observer and thus to the city first. It was on our terms and in our way (see I’ve watched a lot of West Wing…good training in how to manage a potential PR crisis!). From there, we watched God do some of His best work through an abrupt ending. And soon enough, we would see Him bring about a new beginning.

When I was in 5th grade at Paw Creek Christian Academy in 1988, how could I have ever dreamed that I would come back to pastor in that building 22 years later?

I grew up in Pawtucket, the neighborhood almost across the street from the Church. I spent almost my whole life within a short parameter around it, between home and Wilson Middle School and West Mecklenburg High School, and the Church of God Campground on Wilkinson Blvd. My senior year at West Meck, I was the student body president. We were taking quite the drubbing in the press that year (as we did most years among CMS schools), and I had a chip on my shoulder about it. At 18, I was an advocate for the community in West Charlotte. Little did I know there was something ominously prophetic about all of that.

Fast forward to the late 90′s, and Pastor Chuck Davis, himself a West Charlotte native and a West Meck grad, was leading a beautiful congregation at that same property, no longer Paw Creek (since they left around 1990) but now Central at Little Rock. A man of prayer and humility, Pastor Chuck was praying for Renovatus from when he first heard of its existence. He felt God dealing with his heart about inviting Renovatus to Little Rock, merging as one body for the sake of the kingdom. Because of his obedience and sacrifice, we went from being kicked out of a lease at the most scandalized property in our town to our new home! I am ever grateful for the father’s heart Pastor Chuck demonstrates for Renovatus. I am ever grateful for the humbling support of the Church of God and our administrative Bishop at the time, Jerry Chitwood, who believed in this vision and supported it strongly.

The prospect of a permanent base and location had not even been on our radar. It was an absolute miracle.

As God continues to work mightily on our behalf at Little Rock, it feels like it’s been our home for a thousand years. It’s been such a natural, easy transition as to almost defy belief. I have run out of words for my wonder at God’s capacity to bring our lives full circle. There is something so holy about everything we are seeing him do here right now, I desperately just don’t want to mess it up. Yet at the same time, we hardly feel that this beautiful home gives us room to settle in, but rather a base from which to prosecute our mission with greater faith and boldness than ever. That’s why we are launching the Renovatus worship experience in Fort Mill in March—we believe all this transition has been training for us to reach more of our city.

There has been so much to celebrate in 2010. But without a doubt, the move to Little Rock has been THE most defining experience of Renovatus this year. It brings me back to my days rejoicing around the altar in old school Pentecostal campmeetings, singing the simple little anthem “Look what the Lord has done!” I’ve been feeling that song in a whole new way these past 6 months.

I know, I know. It sounds really pretentious when your Church puts out a document called a manifesto. But that ship sailed a long time ago when we named this Renovatus. After you Latinize your name, you never get to worry about being pretentious again!

When the Renovatus Manifesto debuted in November of 2010, it wasn’t entirely new. Everything that we stated was already true about the character and direction of our Church, but I don’t think we had ever captured it with this degree of clarity. I didn’t set out to write a doctrinal statement–there is a reason we recite the Apostles’ Creed every Sunday: we are pretty certain it can’t be improved upon. But I do believe passionately that there is a very particular call for each local Christian community, and that is absolutely crucial that everybody within the community understands the precise nature of that calling.

When we released the Renovatus manifesto, we nailed it to the door. These are not negotiable–they are the defining characteristics of Renovatus as a movement. Anything we owned partially or haphazardly before, we are owning up to fully now. This is our culture. It captures the shape of our past and the character of our future.

This is what it is to be Renovatus:

We are a people under renovation.

We are in an ongoing process of growth, change and development. We will own up to where we are, but we won’t stay here.

We are a community of liars, dreamers and misfits.

We are a house of mercy. We will advocate for broken and marginalized people everywhere, inside and outside the Church.

We are people from the future.

We act in fearless conviction that the rules have changed and that we are partnering with God to make that change visible. We will not be reactionary to anything or anyone, because the apocalyptic even of resurrection has already transformed the world.

We ARE your grandmother’s church. And your great-grandmother’s church. And your great-great-grandmother’s church.

We embrace continuity with the Church’s past. We seek intergenerational and cultural diversity. We will harness the classic spiritual practices and truths that transcend time and place. We are a local representation of a timeless community.

We will practice the liturgy and the primal shout.

We will incite worship that engages both intellect and emotion, believing that the head and heart are to be integrated and not divorced.

We will build altars in the world.

We will collect and tell stories. We will celebrate and honor the people, places and things that God chooses to use.

We will reach out without dumbing down.

We will challenge you to think hard about God, Church and culture. We will not treat you like a consumer, but as a co-conspirator in the re-imagining of the world.

We will embrace flesh and blood.

We believe life in the Spirit has to be lived in a body. We celebrate the Eucharist as the full expression of God’s use of flesh to accomplish His purposes. Our own bodies are now broken with His for the sake of the world.

We are not looking to escape the world, but to re-make it.

We believe the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it. We anticipate His kingdom coming and His will be ding done on earth as it is in heaven. We will not be done re-making the world until the final restoration of creation.

It’s not quite as easy to rank my top books of the year, since it is fairly rare that I am reading brand new releases. Unlike music and movies, my reading list stays backlogged and doesn’t change as much for year to year. But as proper 2010 releases go, I’ve got 2 clear favorites.

For non-fiction, I don’t think Stanley Hauerwas’ lovely memoir, Hannah’s Child, can be topped. Named “America’s best theologian” by Time magazine, he is best known for his provocative critiques of American democracy and modern liberalism, his articulate commitment to Christian non-violence, and his robust ecclesiology (indeed I don’t think anybody has thought as long or as tough about what it is to be the Church than Hauerwas). Paired with his pacifism is trademark rough and tumble rhetoric—he is known for putting his views in the most inflammatory way possible.

So it always comes as a surprise to outsiders that students of Hauerwas (like myself) will as often as not use the “sweet” to describe the incendiary Duke professor. Nobody in my academic life has been more kind, generous or supportive than Hauerwas. His genuine interest in his students is well-known around Duke Divinity. Beloved by his students and colleagues, Hauerwas has been under pressure to write an autobiography for years. Approaching 70, he finally released it—and it was well worth the wait. While all theology is of course always autobiography, the portrait of Hauerwas in Hannah’s Child was even more candid than I had hoped. And while I love what he has written for both the academy and the Church over the years, his prose has never been more elegant than it is here. Even if you haven’t read any Hauerwas before…I’d say go ahead and start here. It’s a wonderful, painfully honest memoir, a beautiful glimpse into the life of one of the great theologians of our time. (Earlier this year, I posted an entry with some of his thoughts on Renovatus from an earlier draft of the book. You can access it here.)

My favorite novel of 2010 is Anne Tyler’s delicate Noah’s Compass. I first read Tyler’s Saint Maybe when I was in seminary (it remains my favorite), and have since been working my way slowly through her catalog. Readers of Tyler know that her work is subtle, but substantial. Noah’s Compass is insightful both as a reflection on the nature of memory and simply a rich character study of a 60 year old man, Liam Pennywell, who has been fired from his teaching job at a private boys’ school in Baltimore. After being attacked in his apartment, Liam loses his memory of the experience, setting him on a journey to recover the lost time and to re-evaluate his life. It’s written with Tyler’s usual grace.

If I were able to expand from books written in 2010 into reading experiences of 2010, the playing field would open up considerably. This was the year I finally picked up Barbara Brown Taylor (on the recommendation of my friend Josh Rice—it was a good trade, since I first turned him onto Frederick Buechner), and I fell in love with both Leaving Church (here’s an entry I wrote soon after reading it) and An Altar in the World. These were easily 2 of the freshest pieces of spiritual writing I’ve read in years.

This was also the year I discovered the Catholic novelist Ron Hansen. Nathan Rouse and myself attended a screening of The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford at the Buechner Institute. He wrote the novel it was based on, and was on hand for a Q and A afterward. I was intrigued enough to pick up 3 of his books from there—Mariette in Ecstasy, Atticus and Exiles. All 3 knocked me out in a different way. Atticus is the place I would say to start, as it is easily now one of my favorite novels (up there close to Marilynne Robinson’s delightful Gilead), but they are all beautiful books. He is that rare author who is deeply informed by his faith in a profound way, without it overwhelming or overriding his capacity as a storyteller.

Finally, this was the year where I was able to spend a soul-shaping week of silence at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Trappist, KY, the monastery most famous for being home to Thomas Merton for his adult career. I have long enjoyed reading Merton, but just never got around to reading his most famous work, The Seven Storey Mountain, his autobiographical account of his conversion to Catholicism. Going to prayer 7 times a day with a Monks but otherwise with my head and schedule cleared, I read it from start to finish in less than 3 days. To read his arresting conversion narrative in such a short span of time, just a few steps away from Merton’s grave, was one of the monumental reading experiences of my life. (For an entry I wrote describing my week at the Abbey at length, click here)

Okay, I really am otherwise done with my endless end-of-year lists. And given my relatively erratic blogging, I’m not sure if I really get to do a top ten list of blog entries. Last year we transitioned the blog from the Renovatus site to here. From either site, there really was one entry that was shared more than any other. It was from my series of letters, and this was in many ways my most transparent entry. I’m still feeling it as much in the new year as I did last year, so I thought I would post it one more time. I really can’t think of any better way to start a new year than with repentance.

To the ravaged bride (somewhere in America),

I could pretend that I don’t love you anymore. I could yell and scream and break things. I could walk out dramatically like you and I are on a movie set, and say something pious as I slam the door. I could manufacture looks of disgust, or better yet I could turn my eyes away. But you know me too well, don’t you? You know that even when I’m petty or enraged, even when I lash out at you with self-righteousness indignation (is there any other kind?)—you always have my heart. Even when you are in tatters, your gown ripped and your make-up smeared, a clownish parody of what you once were—you are still beautiful.

So I write you less as a scorned lover, and more as a heartsick old fool, wearing my displaced affections like medals. And I want to talk to you with the detached wisdom of a professor or the elegant rhythm of a poet, but I always end up stammering when I’m close to you. Why bother to go through the machinations of fury and distance when you see through me every time? You see me wearing my rage and my confidence like a silly fake mustache, a failed disguise for my broken heart.

So I’m writing you today, honest to God trying to avoid bravado and forced swagger, knowing that I am in you and you are in me. I want to write you off, I want to cut you down to size. I want to tell you that you cannot be the bride Christ came to save, to tell you that you missed Him already and that He’s moved on to a more authentic love. But I know that you are still the bride, and I know He hasn’t moved on from you. So I’m stuck here, chained to the radiator, loving you under part compulsion and part real tenderness.

You’re still seductively pretty. But for the life of me I can’t figure out what’s happened to you, to your charm and courage and grace under pressure. There’s a mad and hopelessly wonderful jungle around your house, full of danger and opportunity. Why are you trying to burn it down? You used to know that when the people around you were at their angriest and everybody was looking for someone to stone—you would just go walking through them with no weapon but your own fragrant perfume. You didn’t just charm, you disarmed—you could walk through a room and make it go silent save for the clang of swords dropping to the ground. You brought tenderness into the war zone and wine to the party. What happened to you to make you start acting like them—screaming and demanding and posturing?

You still look the same from a distance, but up close I know something is bad wrong.. Something is different this time around. I don’t know who you are. Whenever I’m at denominational meetings, and we are trying to find somebody to blame for our sinking ship…I don’t just see the individuals. I see you in all of your collective horror. I’ve seen your outrage at political rallies, festivities that talk about “values“ without words like “kingdom” or “cross.” I heard your protests when “they” started infringing on our territory (Muslims and Mexicans and lions and tigers and bears), and you felt like you needed to stand up to them instead of laying down your life for them. I noticed when your rhetoric went from “good news” to yet another kind of paranoid propaganda.

Let’s not be coy here, honey. We’ve lived together for too long, and we know each others secrets and habits and fears. We share ideas and we share clothes, we drink from the same cup, for Christ’s sake. But didn’t you think anybody would notice that your knuckles started getting bloodier than your palms? That the blood on your hands was theirs and not yours?

It’s not that I don’t think you’ve still got answers to give. It’s not that the world outside needs you any less. But right now the chemo seems more toxic than the cancer, baby. We came here to this place to lay down our lives, but the corpses in the back yard are more from our swords than from our crosses.

Do you think me naïve? You think I don’t know there is an enemy to fight? On the contrary, lover, I’ve seen the monsters under the bed. I know that there is a force of evil in the world that is greater than the sum of its parts. I know we’ve got dragons to slay. It’s just that they don’t scare me.

It’s too late in the night to speak falsely now, so I’ll risk more honesty than can be afforded on an average Sunday: I know the world is a volatile, dangerous place. There is a part of me, cold and scientific, that expects the world to blow itself up. It’s not prophecy, baby, it’s pure arithmetic. We are endlessly creative in finding new ways to conquer and destroy. The more people learn to manipulate chemicals and machines, the worse our chances get.

But if I’m honest, that doesn’t really scare me either. If more war breaks out tomorrow and the rockets red glare becomes nuclear and dirty bombs are bursting in air, and half the creation is maimed—I still believe that the creative power of divine love would rise from the ashes. God already died. Terrorism is not nearly so frightening as blood and water gushing from the side of the creator, and even that terror of terrors was swept up in resurrection life. I am not afraid of the horrible things human beings might do to me or do to one another.

But I am afraid of you—still the most powerful thing in the universe, still the world’s great hope. You are still the Church, honey. Nobody has the power to create or destroy quite like you. Sometimes we have seen the world around us exploding, and when we do we groan with the creation for the restoration that is to come. But what if you go up in flames? What if the salt loses its saltiness? What if you take the oil from your own lamp, once chaste and patient virgin, and throw it on someone else’s face—and strike the match? The apostle said that the weapons of your warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God. But you’ve been firing them in the dense fog, you don’t who or what you are aiming at. You’ve been flailing punches instead of turning the other cheek.

God help us, you’ve been beating your plowshares into swords.

You know I’m no cynic—I’ve loved you too long for that. This is love animated by grief. I still believe in you despite all of your vices. You can still dazzle me. You can still dazzle the world, bride of God. But things are feeling as insane in here as they are out there, honey. And I don’t know what else to do except to remind you of the time you were lovely.

Sincerely,

Jonathan

I am still reeling from the experience we had at Renovatus yesterday, debuting Taboo by opening tough issues of sexual abuse, violence, and past wounds. While walking with unusual boldness against our enemy who trembles beneath me, I speak with fragility of such a sacred, holy experience. It is frightful and altogether wonderful to see so much pain unleashed in the direction of the wounded healer.

As I reflect deeper on the wounds of abuse that mar the body of Christ (as I shared yesterday, statistically every bit as much as the rest of the world), I am drawn again to Toni Morrison’s haunting novel, The Bluest Eye. Next to the horrifyingly elegant prose of Isaiah 53 we read yesterday, there is no more eloquent witness to the wounds that can be inflicted on human bodies.

There is nothing redemptive about the suffering inflicted on the young girl Pecola, the central character of Morrison’s 1965 novel. In the foreword, Morrison describes a childhood encounter with a friend in elementary school, who, though African-American, told her of her desire to have blue eyes. She was repulsed by this unnatural image, and puzzled by a world that could make a daughter of God despise the way that she was made. This memory evolved into a novel about a girl named Pecola who is ultimately “smashed” by everyone in her world.

The dismantling of this innocent girl makes us yearn for someone to blame, somewhere to dump our rage. But Morrison won’t have it. She refuses to demonize any of these characters, even (and perhaps especially) her father Cholly, who sexually abuses her. Cholly himself suffered a rape of sorts as a young teenager, when white men with flashlights stumbled on him in the woods having his first tryst with a young girl his age. In a grueling scene, they laugh and force him to continue to “perform” in front of them while they yell obscenities.

All of these characters remain rounded and complex because Morrison will not let us get away with blaming any one character. She wants us to see that none of them are innocent in the dismantling of Pecola. They are all complicit, in some form, in the smashing of Pecola. Within our culture where we give no place for the stories of the abused, instead contributing to a culture of silence and shame, perhaps we also are complicit. Perhaps in our inability to stare squarely at the terror of 1 in 3 women physically or sexually abused around us, even in the household of faith, choosing instead to live in a dream world—we are also complicit.

By the time we reach the end of the novel, Pecola’s friend and our narrator Claudia paints a heart-rending picture of Pecola, collapsed now from all the smashing. Her body survives; her sanity does not. Note the intentional interplay with Isaiah 53 language here:

And the years folded up like pocket handkerchiefs. Sammy left town long ago; Cholly died in the workhouse; Mrs. Breedlove still does housework. And Pecola is somewhere in that little brown house she and her mother moved into on the edge of town, where you can see her even now, once in a while. The birdlike gestures are worn away to a mere picking and plucking her way between the tire rims and the sunflowers, between Coke bottles and milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the world–which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us–all who knew her–felt so wholesome after we cleansed ourselves on her. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used–to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely liscensed; were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect, we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.

We mourn for the Pecolas among us, de-humanized and “smashed” as Jesus was in Isaiah 53. We repent of our neglect of their stories of pain and humiliation, and any part we have played in perpetuating their pain. We remember again the wounded healer, whose wounds are the source of such great healing for all of our own.

For those who have been abused and discarded, it is important to note that while Jesus did bear the weight of all the sin and shame of humanity…while He is the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the word”…while it is the blood of Jesus that mysteriously removes both transgression and guilt…know that the conspiracy of the cross was an act of love by Father, Son and Spirit. Not an eternal good cop bad cop, the Father out of control with rage and contempt eager to strike us down—and the Son standing up to Him like a battered wife, pleading to take the blows on our behalf. What awful imagery we often give to those who have been abused, already suspicious of either flesh or deity that would bear the name “father.” It was the divine dance of love between Father and Son that allowed Jesus to hang on the cross, taking all of our sorrows into himself along with the spear that pierced His side.

We behold the scars of our brothers and sisters, those who have been despised and rejected of men, acquainted with grief. We refuse to hide our faces from those that we once did not recognize or esteem. We turn together towards the wounded healer, the one who reconciles the victim and the victimizer at the foot of the cross. We behold the one who was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.

By his stripes…we are healed.

A couple of months ago, I was having coffee with my friend Andrew Smith, who pastors a great church here in Charlotte called the Gathering. Running a couple of minutes behind, I walked in and he was already seated. After exchanging quick pleasantries, I told him I wouldgrab a drink myself and be right back. As soon as I was seated, this is what he asked me:

“So first things, first. What’s happened to you?”

“Happened to me—what do you mean?”

“The way you carry yourself—the way you walk, the way you speak, it’s all different from when I saw you last. I want to know what happened.”

He had sized me up correctly, and we hadn’t talked for 2 minutes. So I proceeded to tell the long story of this last season of my life—what has happened, what is happening. The journey from being Clark Kent to being the piece of work I am now. That is another story for another time. But the point was, Andrew felt like he was being reintroduced to his friend, and he was not wrong.

That was after 6 months. And as for you, dear reader, I don’t know when we spoke last. I would anticipate a lot of you know something about Renovatus Church and may therefore know something about where I’ve been and what God has been doing. But then again, perhaps you just happened to Google some combination of “RenovatusPentecostalComicBooksStanleyHauerwasStephenKingLargeHairyManToeFungusOrthodoxy” and you were led here. God bless Google, and God bless you, however you arrived.

Wherever you come from or however you heard, I’m glad you are here. The great Caleb Loffer did this beautiful redesign of my blog a couple of months ago, and with the intense season I’ve been in (leading a church through opening a new worship experience just out of town, going to Africa and Lebanon in less than 2 months, etc.), I’ve been a little tied up. There has also been the matter of being infatuated with Jesus and my wife and going around the city and the world with angels in my eyes and butterflies in my stomach, learning to receive the gift of every moment (which my friend Aaron Yancey says is what it is to “walk in the Spirit.”) I’ve had a lot of creative things brewing, including some new projects I hope I can share with you soon, but I’ve been having too much fun living the adventure to write about the adventure.

But at long last, I’m settling in with much to share in the coming days, so I hope you will check back (stuff like leadership lessons from the Miami Heat, music to write sermons by, and my perspective on the event I dubbed RobBellGate). But in case we aren’t well acquainted, or in case you were acquainted with my counterpart who might schmooze you just a little or at least pull a punch or two, I thought it would only be polite to tell you a little bit about myself. It might make you a little less likely to be disappointed or bothered by something that might come out later. I prefer to minimize surprises on both of our parts.

I would say that I hope it doesn’t come off narcissistic, but then again both preaching and blogging are narcissistic activities and I do them both. Besides, when you plant a church and call it something Latin, there is no point in hoping you don’t come off pretentious. That ship sailed long ago.

So in the spirit of making friends…hello. My name is Jonathan Martin.

I am a lover of God. I don’t cry at almost anything tragic or sad, but the faithfulness of God reduces me tears easily. He has been inexplicably good to me.

I love a woman named Amanda. She is more interesting than anybody I’ve ever known, and I know a lot of interesting people. I prefer her company to anyone else’s.

We do not have kids. We have a dog that I love more than most people except my family.

I love the people at Renovatus Church. They got me saved and taught me how to be a Christian.

100% of my identity and value is wrapped up in my identity in Christ—nothing else, nobody else.

I read a lot. About anything and everything that interests me. If you try to peg me by what I read, you will probably be confused. Thankfully, I am not confused, so no matter.

My belief in the Trinity in general and the Holy Spirit in particular shapes me in a particular way that people often call Pentecostal, thought technically the whole Church is Pentecostal because the Spirit is given to the whole Church.

I disdain fear-mongers, no matter what adjective you put in front of the term.

I am prone to quote church fathers and hip-hop, but I’m not a hipster. You know this because I defuse hipster accusations so easily with self-deprecating charm and rapier wit.

I hope to hug Bono. I am much bigger than Bono, so I think it would make a cool picture.

I would like to evangelize the Beastie Boys, because anybody capable of such beats has to be salvageable and saveable.

I lost 40 pounds not long ago.

I love being able to help create a community that is safe for liars, dreamer and misfits.

I believe that God has a plan for Arab/Palestinian people just as much as he does Jewish people/Israeli people, and He loves them the same. And that the Church should be in the process of peacemaking and not mere side-taking.

I don’t believe that many of the most verbose and authoritative “theologians” on the internet have read any books beyond 70 pages or would be competent to put together a 15-piece jigsaw puzzle.

I believe women are empowered to preach the gospel and lead because the Spirit of God upset the order of the world in the resurrection of Jesus.

As a pastor I love people promiscuously in that I love a lot of people really intensely. That also makes me a bad friend sometimes, because I easily love beyond my capacity to maintain relationship.

But I love people purely because my love is not based on need.

As a matter of fact, I love you—with no strings attached. I am capable of loving you because I don’t need you or need you too much or need you to like me. I love you enough, dear reader, to not care too much about what you think. And thus I am free to tell you the truth as I see it.

My name is Jonathan Martin. It’s a pleasure to meet you even though its felt a little one-way so far. I hope you’ll stop in tomorrow. Bring me some milk and cookies, and I’ll be happy to dispense more information.

I love the NBA. I’ve been infatuated with this scrappy, selfless veteran line-up of Boston Celtics for the last few years. I want to love the Charlotte Bobcats and I’m trying—but this season they traded away their best player for something like a bag of cornmeal and a six-pack (perhaps there was a low rung pick in a perfectly uninteresting draft, but who can remember?). I do not love the Miami Heat, and will be delighted to see the Celtics KO them in 6 games in the second round of the playoffs (That’s prophecy baby—test me and see). But while I join most of America in hating on the Heat, I also learn about leadership and ministry from them.

As you recall, LeBron James raised the ire of not only the city of Cleveland but the free world when he defected from the capital of underdog blue collar sports to join Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and the Miami Heat. There was so much spectacle around LeBron’s “Decision” and the arena rock antics of the new Miami big three that public opinion turned nasty overnight. So the most celebrated, popular player in the NBA became Darth Vader, the Heat became the Empire, and they were treated like Nazis in every away game of 2011. When they faltered through the regular season and James and Wade displayed roughly the same chemistry of Screech and Lisa from TV’s Saved by the Bell, America loved it. Facing external and internal pressure to become an NBA dynasty in a matter of weeks, the caterpillar didn’t immediately become a butterfly—but then late season became a mutant butterfly with blood dripping from its fangs. The newly hated Heat didn’t get squeamish, they got badder. They started embracing the role of villains instead of complaining about it. In the words of a recent Sports Illustraed column by Ian Thomsen, “a full season of public berating has both hardened and liberated them.”

While I am unlikely even at 6’5 to dunk a basketball unless you put a bag of chocolate chip cookies on the rim, I relate to the Heat these days. I don’t know why I feel comfortable sharing this with you on the 2^nd day of the new blog, but somehow I just feel safe with you, dear reader, and eager to share my heart. You see I was born with a rare genetic disorder called OnlyChildClarkKentBoyScoutNeedToPlease, an under reported disease that effects somewhere between a dozen and millions of people around the world. Symptoms include chronic niceness, regular constipation of actual feelings and nauseating sweetness. I used to confuse this disorder with what we in Christendom call “Christ-likeness” or even “anointing.”

Not to be misunderstood, the primary antidote for this disorder is abiding in Christ, prayer as natural as breathing and finding identity in the one who loved me and gave Himself for me. But there is no question that part of what God has used these last few years in my path to freedom has been a healthy dose of “berating that has both hardened and liberated me.” This is tricky to narrate, since that same remedy can cause church leaders to become bitter and cynical rather than free and strong. The treatment is as dangerous as the disease if the abiding part isn’t taken seriously. But it can work beautifully if taken in proper dosage and proper perspective.

I’m no martyr. I’ve not faced anything in my life worth complaining about compared to the afflictions faced by brothers and sisters around the world. But broadly speaking, here’s the highlight reel of transformation: The more I started operating in my calling, I started making the occasional enemy—all around the same time. I gave a speech at our denominational general assembly about women in ministry, where I said by way of example that the fact that my spiritual grandmother, Margaret Gaines, had been able to serve as regional overseer for our Church in the Middle East and could not serve on her local church council in America was hypocrisy. I had two ministers interrupt the speech asking our general overseer to censure me, people cheer and yell against me, and one brother who hollered out “somebody needs to hit that guy with a chair.” It was not “persecution,” but it was a turning point.

Around the same time, I preached a series at our church called “the Politics of Jesus.” It was election time, and the Church was wound up believing that we were about to either elect the messiah or the antichrist. I felt strongly moved to remind the body that as followers of Jesus, we believe He is already the King of the world. And thus our hopes should not either be realized or crushed by who got elected, because we have to live out the gospel of the kingdom everyday. I didn’t want anybody to be deceived into thinking that God’s only concern was what they did in the voting booth, when we have to live each moment for Him. So the whole series we talked about what it meant to live in such a way as to demonstrate that we really believe that Jesus is King. We talked about how, whatever you believe about what the governments of the nations should or should not do to help the poor and needy, WE AS THE CHURCH MUST care for those who are marginalized AND preach the gospel to them as the Church—being the Church is our primary task. To reinforce this, I brought in the aforementioned grandmother in the Lord one Sunday, Margaret Gaines, to talk to our Church about how God used her to change a Palestinian village in Aboud through the love of Christ. One Sunday morning in the series, we actually had the entire Church participate in a foot washing service to demonstrate that THIS is how Jesus has called us to change the world, through our humble service in His name. It was completely non-partisan and kingdom focused in every way—as my friends who have to come to Christ from all sides of the political spectrum from far right to far left affirmed repeatedly during the series. (Although in all fairness, it should be said that these individuals are all of the sort who engage in elitist practices like “reading” and “thinking” and “civil conversation”) We believed we couldn’t afford to let electoral politics become so consuming as to forget our mission to serve Jesus and the world in daily life.

Not controversial stuff—except for people who hear the word “politics” and believe that if you aren’t telling them who to vote for that you aren’t in the will of God. As we talked about how justice in Biblical terms means that the Church serves folks in need all around us no matter what governments do (and in doing so share the gospel of Christ), a preacher who I loved and admired deeply at least seemed to take a thinly veiled pot shot at me in a sermon (or so I perceived it, fairly or not—perhaps I was just being defensive and I think that’s important to say). “We’ve got preachers in this town talking about things like politics and justice,” he said. “I’m here to tell you IT’S ALL SIN, you should only be lifting up the blood-stained banner of Jesus Christ.” Whether or not I should have internalized this…I was heartbroken.

Silly or not, I felt baffled and hurt. I thought lifting up the blood stained banner of Jesus Christ in preaching salvation by the cross and giving a cup of cold water in his name was part and parcel of the same calling and should be integrated instead of separated. And if I would have had perhaps listened to Glenn Beck, himself part of a cultish offshoot of Christianity, instead of trying to define the word “justice” by using the words of this silly old Isaiah person back then, perhaps I would have known better to use the word justice in a deeply Biblical way—relating to how God’s people and not the world care for the widows, orphans and oppressed in their midst.

It was also the same year that I was mysteriously uninvited from a speaking event for the first and only time in my life. Again, I was baffled. Now I’m not only a pleaser but fanatical about Christian orthodoxy. I don’t want to say I’m one of the most orthodox preachers on the scene because that would seem pretentious, but I’ll put it this way: fragments of an early copy of the Apostles’ creed were once found in a stool sample I gave. At Renovatus we like to say that “We ARE your grandmother’s church. And your great grandmother’s church, and your great, great grandmother’s church.” We are quite intense about having continuity both with the historic church through the centuries as well as our fathers and mothers within this Pentecostal tradition of mine. So beyond stuff like foot washing, we recite the creed and the Lord’s prayer every week, and we keep worship and preaching of the gospel WAY out front in everything we do. That’s core to who we are and what we believe.

That’s the long way of saying I wasn’t use to wearing the black hat, and I was unnerved to be a villain to anybody then. But things were shifting. Since then I’ve had other important experiences—like being betrayed and dishonored by people I trusted deeply. I’ve had occasions to look certain people in the eye and say, “I really don’t think this is the right church for you. You need to go.”

And what I’ve learned is this—the very best thing that a Church in general and a leadership team in particular can experience is getting booed and jeered when you are playing in Philly against the 76ers on the road. When your team is tight and focused and on mission, when the preaching and goals are clear, adversity makes you lean and depend on each other more. The identity of the team is forged in the fires of adversity. Pastors and church leaders—unpopular decisions can be the mechanism God uses to set you and your church free. Your people don’t want you to agree with them nearly as much as you think they do. They want a strong, decisive man or woman of God who they can see has been with Jesus lead with the authority only God’s presence can bring. When you make a call they don’t necessarily like, they will respect you. You will be set free from the tyranny of public opinion by the terror of Sinai.

I’m not saying you should be controversial for the sake of being controversial—that’s immaturity. I’m not saying you should shock and awe for the sake of being edgy—that’s juvenile. I’m not saying you should go picking fights or trying to make trouble—that’s foolishness. What I am saying is that when you are faithful to what God tells you to do and you face some opposition, it will build you up and build unity on your team. As it was for Gideon, you will find out who is called to the battle with you and who might be called back to the house (in which case you better bless and not curse them).

What I am saying is that these days when the voices of opposition get loud and angry, I don’t get discouraged or depressed.

I get a triple double.

Settling down after nearly bursting blood vessels in my head open from preaching on Easter, I was getting ready for bed Sunday night when I saw the headline on the internet: “Donald Trump gets surprise endorsement from Franklin Graham?” Admittedly, I did a double take. As you are probably aware of by now, ABC news aired an interview with Graham Sunday as an “Easter special” that has drummed up a bit of controversy. Graham’s comments on the “birther” accusations surrounding President Obama, as well as the exchange about the authenticity of his faith, raised eyebrows. But more surprising to many was his relatively positive evaluation of Donald Trump, stating that while he initially thought his potential bid for the White House was “a joke…the more I hear from him the more he makes sense.” When asked point blank if he would consider backing him, Graham said he would consider it.

Many were surprised to see the story unfold on Easter. Even given Franklin Graham’s tendency to speak his mind, it was largely deemed an altogether “un-Graham” like move to speak publicly at all about preferences in one party’s primary. Aside from that, the prospect of Graham endorsing Trump in particular struck a lot of folks as odd, as he is, well, Donald Trump. Since then, Graham has expressed that he was not trying to upstage the Easter event with politics, as the interview was recorded a week before. He also has claimed that he only attempted to answer the questions asked him casually and honestly, not endorse a candidate per se. Whatever you think about his remarks, I do not doubt his heart or intentions in the matter—I believe Franklin Graham is sincere and passionate in his desire to spread the gospel.

As a fellow brother in Christ and a fellow Charlottean, I have no interest in scrutinizing Graham any further publicly anymore than he is already in the national media—that is not helpful to the body of Christ, and not why I bring any of this up. I will say unequivocally that I am thankful for his leadership of Samaritan’s Purse, an organization that has consistently demonstrated to the world and the Church that it is a false choice to pick between preaching the gospel and serving the world’s most marginalized people. Whatever you think of Graham’s sometimes controversial remarks, I think it should also be noted that he is one of the few evangelical leaders I know who has described “the war on AIDS” as one of the major crises facing the Church today. Whether or not he is not deemed to be as diplomatic as his father in his role as an ambassador of the gospel, the worst Franklin Graham has been accused of is not having rhetoric that lives up to his great work…and there are worse things to be accused of in a world where so many make pious claims without pious activity to back it up. Not many people are accused of practicing better than they preach. A number of folks from Renovatus work at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association here in town—so we have great relationships there, and I have had the honor of speaking to the staff for devotions multiple times over the last few years. So to be clear, this is not intended to be a referendum on Franklin Graham and certainly not on any of the political implications here.

The reason I am fascinated by this particular story is that I find myself repeatedly having to think long and hard about the way not only Christian leaders and celebrities relate their convictions to the world, but all the rest of us. Given the new realities of social media, it is not just the famous and influential who live with microphones and cameras on all the time recording our every thought—that’s everybody now. In a world of such unprecedented access to so much information about our daily lives, the game has changed. I believe Franklin Graham when he says it was not his intention to talk about politics at all in that interview, and certainly not to create a media firestorm on Easter Sunday. He maintains that he just answered the question. Let’s put aside for a moment how you or I would have answered the question. Doesn’t it feel like that in our unprecedented connectivity, any and every political/social/religious perspective is constantly being shoved under our noses for us to comment on? Which pitches do we swing at? Which ones do we let slide by? Most all of us value candor and authenticity to a point. But at what point do we have to deflect some of the questions that are posed to us, or even reject the premise of the question? Or do we have an obligation to always answer?

It is not mine to determine for Franklin Graham of all people what issues he should or should not speak to. I can tell you that for my own part, I find myself, reluctantly and counter intuitively, rejecting the premises of a lot of questions I get posed these days, especially in public. There are some issues, including some controversial ones, that I may be inclined to speak to because they matter or I deem them to be directly relevant to my calling. Then there are some things I feel relatively strongly about—and yet feel like they are not mine to address publicly. I sympathize deeply with Franklin Graham in that I’m the kind of person that wants to give an extremely candid response to any and every question I get, anytime and anyplace—though my flavor and issues are perhaps different.

A few months ago, I wrote a chapter for a book called The Great Commission Connection (a compilation put together by Dr. Raymond Culpepper, General Overseer of the Church of God) on “The Great Commission and Social Media” dealing with this very dynamic. I wanted to share this excerpt of it with you, written 6 months ago, not as a way of responding to Graham per se, but rather as seizing the moment for us all to think a bit more strategically and intentionally about where/how/if we share some of our opinions with the world in a digital age. Because it was written specifically to a denominational audience, I am writing to a Pentecostal context—but I think it can be applied much broader. No matter who you are, in this digital age you have a platform. I pray God will use this to help you pray and reflect deeply on how you use it. What are you going to do with the influence you’ve been given–whatever the scale? (By the way, I did not intend for these first few entries to be novels. It seems I am an LP kind of guy more than EP—but I felt like it was important not to divide this up as to not be taken out of context.)

From the book:

… the common thread in each of these stories is that each of these young leaders demonstrate remarkable intentionality in how they use media. Each of them are reflective, thoughtful, and even reverent about how they use these alternately wonderful and dangerous new tools. And if there is any danger I see in appropriating these tools in a Pentecostal context, it is that we might attempt to use their methods without exercising their caution.

Because we are often so eager to embrace fresh ways we see the Spirit at work in the world, we Pentecostals are sometimes quick to dive into new expressions of Great Commission work without thinking strategically. If you have ever seen a Mel Brooks comedy, you know that he hurls a hundred goofy jokes a minute at the screen and hopes a couple of them will stick with the viewer. That is a precise analogy for how many of us experiment with our ministries. Given the new realities of technology in our world, this is a toxic practice for the Church.

When we have such powerful tools at our disposal, making it possible for us to broadcast our every thought and whim to the world with such ease, the key to using media in our mission may lie as much in our restraint as in our creativity. Within a matter of seconds, I have the capability to share my opinions about any conceivable topic or issue with the world in a matter of seconds. But just because I can, doesn’t mean that I should.

In a recent reading of Daniel, especially the court stories of the first six chapters, I was struck that Daniel and his friends didn’t resist when they were assigned new Babylonian names. I can’t think of a more sinister attempt to erase a person’s history and culture than to re-name them. It was a flagrant effort to try to re-program these young Hebrew men, erasing their faith and their heritage and embedding them with the king’s propaganda. On the other hand, when the edict is given for everybody to bow before the golden statue, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego famously resist—and God shows up to their rescue. Why did they refuse to speak out in the first case but speak out so dramatically in the second?

The simple take-away from this contrasting narrative is this: you can’t swing at every pitch. There may be times and places where God’s people have to take a hard, unpopular stand, one that will cost a friendship, a job, money, or even our very lives. But they don’t come along every day. We have to have the wisdom and discernment to know when to put up a fight, and when to walk away.

The principle is especially for those of us who would dare to utilize these new tools for the sake of fulfilling the Great Commission. For those of us who are in some level of ministry leadership, used to speaking into people’s lives with a certain mantle of authority, an occupational hazard of our task is that we become very opinionated about most everything. And having opinions is not inherently a bad thing. Sharing them in a cavalier manner, on the other hand, can be devastating in our attempts to use media to help make disciples.

We should not hesitate to share our convictions out of a fear of rejection. But we should be calculated about when and how we share our convictions through media. It’s not about shying away when we feel that God has given us something bold to say, but about having a proper sense of weight to our calling and to our words. Let me reiterate: these new storytelling tools at our disposal are indeed quite powerful. It is imperative that we are measured and thoughtful about how we use them!

The fact that we may have strong convictions about a variety of issues does not mean it is wise or necessary to speak to all of them, just because we have a new platform. If we swing at every pitch, we aren’t going to have the credibility required to be taken seriously when God really does call us to boldly use media to proclaim His message.

I don’t feel the need to give my opinion on every single controversial topic I see debated through every form of social media. My commitment to pursue the Great Commission above every other assignment in my life means I gave up that right. I don’t need to give my opinion about every political or eccliesiastical dispute. The very worse thing I could do is prowl around on online forums (or offline forums, for that matter), and go around weighing on every issue I’ve ever thought about in the shower. I am neither a pope nor a president. I bear witness to the gospel in the world, and I bear witness to a handful of convictions that are critical to me within the Church.

Now I know this runs contrary to our instincts, since these new platforms are so addictive and after all, we have SO much insight to share about SO MANY THINGS. Without intending harm, let me suggest that none of us are so enlightened that the world or the Church can’t live without us having to stake out a position on everything and everybody.

If we are to be taken seriously in this age of constant access, we’ve got to be willing to be quiet sometimes. I know it seems unfair. We see people who share everything they ever think about every issue on twitter or on a blog. And I’ll be the first to admit, there are times I wish I could be that guy, going around saying whatever I think and letting the chips fall where they may. But part of the price of my calling as an ambassador of the gospel is that I must choose my battles wisely. What God has given me to say and do is far too important for my witness to be compromised by sharing too much too often.

You can make a totally credible argument that it would have been as important for the Hebrew boys to protest their new names as it was to refuse bowing down to the statue. But they didn’t. If they would have been big-mouthed critics who needed to be heard every time they felt the weight of Babylon bearing down on them, they would have only been historical footnote. But because they didn’t swing at every pitch, they were able to take a big stand in a defining moment—and the rest is history. Even before the Great Commission was given, they used their platform to bear witness to the faithfulness of God before an entire empire. If you know when to pull your punches, you are exponentially more likely to find the weight of heaven with you when you have to throw them.

God has provided us with many new tools to use as we continue our mission of making disciples of all the nations. For the sake of Christ and the sake of His kingdom, use them! But for the sake of Christ and the sake of His kingdom—use them well, use them wisely, use them cautiously. The urgency of our task and the power of our tools are far too great for anything less.

The most crucial task is that we use these tools to share our stories, stories of sin and redemption, of death and resurrection. The complexities of technology can all too easily distract us from the essential simplicity of our work. Like those early Pentecostal pioneers, we find ourselves in the midst of a testimony service, only on a grander and more dangerous scale. In this global conversation, we are surrounded by stories that horrify and stories that inspire. We overhear testimonies to erotic love, testimonies to corporate greed, testimonies to political systems, testimonies to weight loss products. In the context of this swirling maze of testimonies, how peculiar and how wonderful it is to hear a story of being saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost.

Jesus was not only a storyteller, He was himself a story. In the words of Frederick Buechner, “Jesus is the Word made flesh, the truth narrated in bone and bowel, space and time. That is the story He is.” Against the temptation to utilize technology for escapist fiction or a more sophisticated soapbox, media gives us a platform from which to join our mothers and fathers in the Lord in sharing our redemption stories. In the clutter of so many meaningless stories, there is a new audience for a story as odd and wonderful as our own.

Yesterday, I sent this out to all community life group leaders, staff and elders of Renovatus. As the blog is taking on a more “leadershipy” vibe (I make up many new words), I thought it might be an interesting glimpse into how we approach complex theological issues with our community and the tone I try to set. But on the other hand, it could be of interest to those of you who are just open to approaching Revelation in a fresh way. At any rate, I decided there is nothing in this address to leaders I would be bothered for anybody in our Church to read, so here goes:

Incredible Community Life Group Leaders (and staff, and elders, also incredible!),

I would love to write you all specific epistles (non canonical and non authoritative, of course) like the seven letters to the seven churches to celebrate the uniqueness and beauty of your individual groups. I continue to say, publicly and privately, how blessed I am to have such tremendous leaders in the trenches of pastoral work with us–leading the people of God into a life of discipleship and service in such tangible ways. I am ever thankful for you all.

I am writing you today to share my heart regarding our forthcoming series, “The End of the World as We Know It,” starting this Saturday and Sunday along with our new service schedule. The holy imagination of St. John has been stoking my fire for many years, one of my chief resources from which to draw adoration, comfort and hope in a volatile world. I have long been nourished by John’s vivid language and incisive words in my personal life, but have never preached directly on his visions at Renovatus. On the plus side…everybody seems really excited. On the other side…many of my friends keep coming up to me like I’m General Custer rushing to my death. “Diving into Revelation on Sunday mornings? We love you Pastor. Good luck with that.” I think I know what they mean. Over the centuries of Christian tradition, even the greatest of theologians and saints have differed on how exactly to interpret John’s dazzling but sometimes terrifying book. And beyond the images themselves, the great G.K. Chesterton famously quipped, “though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.” The world of interpretation fueled by Revelation is complex indeed.

I am fully aware that within any church community, there are a lot of different backgrounds/experiences that shape how people read the text. I am aware that these readings often differ sharply. I am aware mine will be different than many others. I am not in the least bit intimidated, bothered or frightened by this. If there is any area of Scriptural interpretation where a variety of views should be tolerated, it is in that of eschatology (the study of last things). I am especially sensitive to this because I myself differ from many of the folks I first learned Revelation under–and yet regard them as some of the greatest and most holy men and women of God I’ve ever known, the first people I would call on if I was sick (as I will share Sunday). While I will be plainspoken in my approach and probably still a little cantankerous towards what I see as a money-making enterprise built around speculative and misleading scenarios, I could not be more open-hearted towards brothers and sisters who hold different views from my own.

So I’m giving you a sneak preview so number one you aren’t surprised, and number two you can be prepared for how to lead your group discussions well in the days ahead. It is true that since many people have different “keys” that they feel are unique or significant to them, studies on Revelation can be prime for debate or even knock down drag out argument. But that is not the tone we are going to set. We are going to be looking at the major themes of Revelation and the extraordinarily practical, pastoral implications of this enigmatic book on our lives. It’s going to be full of life application. These aren’t going to be lectures on weekends, they will be Spirit-filled sermons that make people love Jesus more and incite supernatural encounters with God. We won’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. This is first and foremost “The Revelation of Jesus Christ,” and because of the reality of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is still being revealed in all of his stunning glory, beauty and terror to all who have eyes to see–or in the case of the seven letters to the seven churches, “those who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.”

So where are we going? We will see the central question that drives Revelation–”who is really Lord over the world?” We will talk about one of the most overlooked but most important themes of Revelation–that it is a book about worship, rivaling Psalms as perhaps the most remarkable book about worship in the Bible. Who is God going to speak to? People who, like John, feel isolated, alone and exiled–people who have experienced terrible things, living in a world where they feel they have no control. To those dear saints of God feeling left for dead on Patmos, there is still an opportunity like John “to be in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,” where they get a personal encounter of the slaughtered lamb, the one riding a white horse known as “faithful and true.” This will be for men and women who have been in Church but have “lost their first love,” who need to “repent and do their first works over.” This will be for men and women who are already being swept up into the idols of Babylon, living and dying by its economic system instead of trusting in God for their provision, to place their trust in the one who will rule and is ruling already over all principalities and powers. If that doesn’t sound good to you, I question whether or not you have a pulse

You need to know up front I am not doing a chart and graph kind of series, as I don’t personally see Revelation as a chart and graph kind of book. I make no apologies for that. I do not think all of Revelation’s images are in chronological order–I read some as different perspectives on some of the same scenes. I do not personally think of Revelation EITHER primarily as a detailed timeline of future events NOR just a historical book written in code about the problems of the early Church in Rome–but as a book given from heaven’s perspective that speaks profoundly to the Church’s past, present, and future. I do not personally subscribe to the popular teaching of dispensationalism, wherein the 7 churches are considered symbols of 7 church ages and John is considered a representative of the “caught up” Church in Revelation 4.1. I do not take this view because I do not see markers within the text that indicate to me that they are to be read as symbols. I take John and the seven churches very literally. There are some images in Revelation I do not believe to be literal but highly symbolic–based in the imagery established by Daniel and other apocalyptic writers. In interpreting those images, I will try to be very faithful to the language of Revelation itself, reading it on its own terms–as I believe that to be the key to reading Revelation well.

I DO believe that Jesus Christ will physically return soon, that His return is imminent, and that His return should endue our work and witness with both hope and urgency. I have studied these themes intensely on both an academic and deeply pastoral, devotional level, and am frankly not likely to change my mind about much of that anytime soon My aim in this series is not to do a verse-by-verse study (that would take years), but to give a really helpful “aerial view” of Revelation’s most prominent themes.

If you either a, don’t agree with any of that or b, don’t know what to think about any of that–it is totally okay. This is actually not going to be a combative series. After the first half of the message Sunday, where I do feel the need to express why I am approaching the text as I am and not other ways, it’s off to the races trying to communicate the beauty and splendor of Jesus in every sermon. I do not require everyone to agree with me.

But since there can only be one coach, I do call the plays and I do set the agenda. So I ask for your help in this regard: It is highly possible and perhaps probable that you might have folks in your group who are really passionate about their own approach to the text, which is cool. But I need you to help me keep the discussions as centered as possible around what I’m actually preaching–helping them to put what they hear into practice instead of just having theological debate. I promise, it will be real life and relevant. The idea that we sit around in our groups and have heated debate about pre, mid or post trib or get overly intense about the exact nuances of the 144,000 would make me want to actually poke my eyeball out with a plastic spork. I will be gentle and clear in setting up the parameters, just need you to help me keep it within those parameters. I don’t mean to sound too bold here, but even if folks quibble with me on some interpretive matters, I will be really surprised if most everybody doesn’t get knocked out by what they are going to hear and encounter. It’s going to be that rich. I just want to keep it as focused and on task as possible.

So let’s go get them, shall we? We have a beast to defeat and a dragon to slay. And among our CLG’s, I know for a fact I’ve got an army of overcomers who will be victorious because “of the blood of the lamb and the word of your testimony, loving not your own lives even unto death.”

Grace and Peace,

Jonathan

I have not claimed to write anything under the influence before. A product of a tradition I dearly cherish, I am nonetheless deeply suspicious of self-aggrandizing claims of “prophecy.” I have found that often when people say that they are somehow drunk in the Spirit, it provides a delightful cover for saying whatever you want to say but yet distancing yourself entirely from any sort of criticism or backlash, “it’s not my fault…this is God talking through me.” Perhaps this is a way of saying I am a cynic.

At any rate—I feel like I am, in fact, drunk on the Spirit. I feel that I am writing under the influence of the Other, the one Jesus called the Comforter. It is scary to post anything online while I am in such a state. I know as C.S. Lewis said, sometimes you can write something down too soon as a way of getting it out of your system so you don’t have to really process or live out what God is saying to you. But today is not that day.

One of the most definitive things the Lord ever said to me (in a deep, inward way) was that the reason I have been reluctant to acknowledge the greatness and scope of His calling on my life was not because I am an especially humble person…but rather that I’m aware that acknowledging the power of His call on my life would force me to held accountable to the greatness of it. I have heard this before, and I hear it again today, Lord Jesus.

So without overstatement, understatement, or a great deal of explanation, I am sharing what God gave me by the hot hand of the Holy Spirit in my office today. I have no desire to be cryptic or to “appear prophetic.” I simply feel that I must post this somewhere, somehow, as an altar of stones to this moment and to this Word. May the measure of whether or not I have heard from God or not be defined by my words and actions in the days ahead, and nothing else.

In front of family, friends, and most importantly the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, this is my public proclamation that I do in fact hear you, Lord. I acknowledge your voice, I understand what you are saying, I know what this is supposed to mean for me.

I get it. And by God’s grace…I will not go back. I have burned the ships, inwardly and outwardly.

There is no going back now. My reputation be damned. May the name of Jesus Christ alone be exalted in my life.

The word of God from Jeremiah 1.4-10, as applied by the third member of the Trinity to my life and ministry on the afternoon of May 2, 2011.

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
⁵ ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
⁶Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ ⁷But the Lord said to me,
‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.’
⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.
¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.’

On Sunday nights, I go to bed about the same time as your average 6-year old. I was reading myself to sleep by 9pm after preaching Revelation all weekend, and thus didn’t hear anything about the death of Osama Bin Laden until Monday morning. And in true 21^st century fashion…I actually found out via social media. A self-proclaimed news junkie, hearing major news by way of Facebook and Twitter first felt a bit like a personal defeat, but no matter.

Of course by the time I was reading all of this, there was a bit of stir already within the Christian community as to what extent it is appropriate to celebrate anybody’s death, even a profoundly evil, murderous man. I did not read anything where anybody I knew personally said anything indicative of “real Christians are all pacifists, Bin Laden should not have been killed, this is a terrible thing, this is a sad day for the world.” What I did read—consistently from people from the Renovatus community especially, was reluctance about the idea of celebrating Bin Laden’s death with glee and dancing. Folks who felt that literally screaming and shouting over any death felt unsettling, even eerie to their Christian convictions. These were not soft-headed, soft-hearted, buy the world a Coke and sing Kumbaya hippie kinds of responses (No “all we need is love, people.”) From a Christian perspective, Bin Laden was not only a troubled and sociopathic individual but a lost human being headed for divine judgment. I can’t imagine much of anybody who did not breathe a sigh of relief that to see the legacy of evil of this man cut short. I can’t imagine much of anybody who isn’t glad to see some level of closure to the ongoing saga relatives of people who died on 9/11 have endured. I felt the relief, I felt the closure.

But to express in some measure that the Christian response should at the very least be somewhat measured and sober in tone, acknowledging that the entire cycle of violence Bin Laden symbolizes is a product of a deeply broken world…to acknowledge that the job of the Church is to love our enemies into the kingdom rather than rejoice over them giddily because of the cross of Christ, is apparently controversial. I must confess to being perplexed by this. And of course when Christians appeal to Scripture in some capacity, the trump card is immediately played: How would YOU feel if your mom was killed on 9/11? Other variations of this response whenever Christians attempt to talk about how we ought to respond to violence in the world demonstrate remarkable, er, creativity, along the lines of: “what if your grandmother was gang raped—what would you do?” “If your family was chopped into tiny pieces and someone burned down their house and then urinated on the ashes—WHAT WOULD YOU DO?! WHAT WOULD YOU DO?!” (There is always an implicit “BOOM,” at the end of this question—like I’m dropping the mike on you, sissy.)

Let’s be very clear: I have a REAL temper, and I am not saying this in a life-relating, I’m really just one of the boys preacher kind of way…I am telling you the truth. I have felt like resorting to violence in matters so mundane as being cut off in traffic while attempting to merge onto 277, or trying to talk to Christians who resort to quandary ethics from 1974 in conversations about morality instead of deeply engaging Scripture in a meaningful way. Given such weakness, I make no claims as to what I would or would not do if “the worst thing” happened in my life. God help me.

But of course I am a follower of Jesus, which means my job is to reflect in a disciplined way on the implications of the cross of Christ for how I view the world in any and all circumstances. Thus how I feel or don’t feel, what I would do or not do, is not the ultimate question. The question is, what does a cross-shaped life call for? What does it look like, in the words of Revelation, “follow the lamb wherever he goes?”

In this day and age, to believe both that the cross of Christ is the atoning sacrifice for sin and the only way of salvation AND that the cross of Christ provides the example for how I conduct myself in the world is apparently odd indeed. Because only conservatives care about salvation and only liberals care about following the lived example of Jesus. If I hear one more variation of this false choice from one more person, I am going to slap the living—no I won’t, I am going to have to return to the cross again.

So let’s talk Scripture. Yes, there are many passages in the Old Testament that celebrate the demise of an enemy—and people worked their Strong’s concordance for the first time perhaps in many moons to find them yesterday. David celebrates even the babies of his enemies having their heads dashed against the rocks. There are many examples of raw, authentic prayer where David lashes out at his enemies. The Israelites celebrated when Goliath’s head was cut off. On the other hand, there are many OT references floating around since yesterday like Ezekiel: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33.11)

An impossible scenario, right? We just keep playing Bible arm-wrestling and whoever can line up the most texts wins–we will out proof text each other. You’ve got your references, I’ve got mine—we are post-modern people and we will pick the texts we like the most. Hippie Christians vs. UFC Christians, whoever makes it out of the steel cage. The problem of course with all of this is that the full expression of God in humanity is in the person of Jesus Christ. His teachings, contrary to a lot of popular fundamentalist study Bibles, are meant to be applied seriously. The Sermon on the Mount is the magna carta of the kingdom of God, not a list of suggestions, idealistic teachings about the millential reign, or a mere attempt to demonstrate that “nobody can really follow the law anyway.” The cross of Jesus Christ judges and relativises the way we think about violence and power, and sets the agenda and the posture for any and all Christians of all generations: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Do I think you need to feel bad for having a desire for justice, a desire for closure, or for feeling good that a bad man won’t be able to bring death and destruction to this world anymore? No. Do I think it is okay to rejoice or glory in any human’s death? No. This side of the cross, we only get to glory in one death. This is not a peculiar position, a doctrinal quirk, a novel way of looking at things. This is what the world looks like for people who believe the world definitively changed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what it looks like to take the cross seriously and to bring every other thought and emotion under its shadow.

I wouldn’t bother to write about this at all if I simply thought that this was all about this one evil character and this was a one-off affair. The problem is, I am convinced this is part of a larger trend in American Christianity, where the kingdom is being divided from the cross, the theology of the crucified God (as pertains to salvation) is being detached from the example of the crucified God (as it pertains to daily life), where the Church is being divided into “conservative” and “liberal” instead of the only categories that exits in God’s economy: faithful or unfaithful. I am convinced that we aren’t doing a good job of blessing our enemies, and I’m not talking about Bin Laden. There is an increasingly pious justification for an us vs. them posture that is about conquering the enemies of the cross rather than laying down our lives for them. And that, not some genetically engineered Russian in a Left Behind book, is the spirit of antichrist.

When those in the Church think their brothers and sisters are weak, sentimental and soft for taking the words and example of the head of the Church seriously, the movement is in trouble. The people I know who are living out our command to be peacemakers in volatile parts of the Middle East, unarmed save for the gospel, are the most courageous people I’ve ever met. If you follow the logic far enough of where a lot of people are trending, you would almost get the idea that people like them or even Jesus Himself was a weakling for allowing His life to be taken instead of calling down the angels of heaven. When the reality is, the cross of Jesus redefined what strength and courage means forever—we conquer by sacrifice. This is not just for Jesus—we too will overcome the evil one only by “the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, loving not our own lives even into death.”

For the last 2,000 years, we haven’t been living in an Old Testament battle epic against the Amalekites, we’ve been living in the kingdom of the one who told Peter to put away the sword. We are indeed at war, but it is not with flesh and blood but principalities and powers, cosmic forces of darkness in high places (Ephesians 6). We do indeed taunt an enemy, but that enemy is death and hell—the foes that Jesus disarmed, stripped and publicly ridiculed in front of the whole universe through His death (Colossians 2.15). This is not advanced Christian theology—this is gospel 101. The terror of the Son of love dying on the cross is more terrible than any act ever perpetrated by any terrorist, and indeed the sting of all other earthly terrors has been swept up in this death. The worst thing that could ever happen in human history has already happened—and God already conquered by resurrection. The death and resurrection has already changed the world, and all other lives and deaths are only a footnote to that. I think I’m on the verge of writing in tongues, if such a thing were possible.

But I’ve said more than I meant to, because the truth is I was deeply encouraged by the responses I read from the Renovatus community. Sometimes we might be tempted to wonder if it is possible to craft a whole community around the gospel in such a deep and thoroughgoing way that an entire congregation is conditioned in a counter-cultural way, so that the very inclinations of their hearts have been altered. Can such a thing happen? Is it possible for a Christian community to be odd in the world again? Is it possible for God’s people to set apart by a holiness that is incomprehensible to the world again? Could the gospel become odd in a land saturated with religion?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

For a taste of this, I offer without names remarkably consistent comments/quotes offered up by the Renovatus community and friends of the Renovatus community. They spread like wildfire without any instigation or commentary from me. I’m proud of them. There is diversity in nuance among these responses, but the common threads are pretty clear. I’m thankful for your peculiarity, Renovatus:

I will never celebrate the death of an enemy. I will not dance like a fool at the so-called “justice” of it. I mourn for the deaths both at his hands and ours. Maybe this is a sign that the Christ in me is greater than the fear that permeates our culture and world.

I mourn the people lost on 9/11 and will never ever forget that horrible day. my heart still aches to think about it. but another man’s death doesn’t make me want to celebrate at all.

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

I am proud of friends and family in the military, who sacrifice so much in obedience to politics they have no control over, who do their best to protect us and keep our borders safe. I grieve for a world that is lost and look with hope towards a world that will be. The death that really changed the world happened over 2,000 years ago.

There was only one man’s death that changed everything, and we celebrated that a week ago. (Or lack of death, really!)

Maybe I am a complete weirdo, but even though I am glad that Osama bin Laden is gone as a threat, and even though I think this kind of military action is sometimes necessary, it is hard for me to celebrate the death of any man, especially in light of what eternity may mean. It’s more sobering to me than a moment of celebration.

I celebrate justice and not death. I also support our troops and they deserve the honor.

Sorry guys, but I just can’t get excited about people dying, regardless of who they were or what they did.

Does it not strike anybody else as kind of disgusting for a crowd of kids in D.C. to be singing the “Na Na Na Na” song right now?

I mourn the loss of a strong life-force today, a misdirected boy who grew into a destructive man. Who can celebrate at the death of a lost human?

As a Christian I believe in justice but it deeply saddens me that we can become excited over a dead man (Osama Bin Laden) who never accepted Jesus as Savior.

Osama bin Laden is dead. And I am glad justice has been met. But as a Christian, I cannot rejoice over the death of my enemy. Be careful Church.

It’s a dangerous thing when humans get an appetite for blood. I’m happy for the relief this will bring to the military families that have sacrificed so much, but I don’t want to ever be on the side yelling “Crucify Him!” My bloodlust is satisfied at the table of Eucharist, and I am thankful for the mercy shown to me. I have not received the justice I deserve, thank God.

(Note: This picture is of people raising their hands to receive Christ in Beirut, Lebanon 2 weeks ago)

I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive responses I’ve received about yesterday’s piece on what I labeled (with tongue firmly in cheek) as “the Christian response to Osamagate.” I’ve heard wonderful things from folks from all over the country who felt it struck a chord with them, and for that I am grateful and humbled. Well at least, there was mostly positive feedback. I heard that a good friend of mine linked the story to an unofficial message board that some folks in my native denomination use to talk about church, culture and, um, other stuff for which I would have no category. I know a number of folks who have participated in some level of something akin to dialogue on this site over the years whom I love and honor respect, and consistently speak words that inspire and provoke the Church. So I don’t want to take away from that. That said, I have generally stayed away from the forum because I historically found the level of discourse to be devastatingly stupid—to the point to where I actually felt myself getting dumber when I would look at it. I am open, of course, to changing my opinion about such things. But I glanced over at a few of the responses last night and got a great chuckle, as the boys did not fail to disappoint.

In response to the entry, the responses included “Perhaps you guys should plan a memorial service and a day of remembrance for your fallen hero” and “You are right…we have misjudged Osama…he has done no wrong.” I was impressed by the nuanced, articulate responses which so incisively cut to the chase and engaged the blog piece, which clearly stated that “Osama is awesome and we should, like, totally not hate on him—peace and love!” That was PRECISELY what I said. It would be tempting to say that they didn’t read the piece, but that would be unfair…as such responses don’t show evidence of people who read at all. But this one response from my drive-by caught my eye: “if you’re going to advance theological positions like this you have a connected obligation to break them down into practical application, beginning to end. With respect I’d like to ask you to start with 9/11 and go from there with practical application of this theology and specific things the US should have done in response. I don’t intend to disagree or argue, I just want to see how it works because I can’t envision it.” Okay, that remark is not dumb at all. Practical application of this theology and specific things we can do? I’ll be your huckleberry. But only in context of the strategy of the Church—which is all I addressed to begin with.

As I grow deeper in my convictions regarding the vocation of the Church to be cross-shaped peacemakers, I do in fact find the most common objection to be: “this stuff is just not practical.” Especially given the number of people who are just counting down to Armageddon and waiting for the fireworks to begin, such work can even seem like an impediment to the return of Christ. (More on that tomorrow) But of course, “what do you really do with this” is a perfectly good question, an important question.

For starters? I don’t recall making any judgments or suggestions about what any governments of any nations should or should not have done about anything. I would be in over my head. I wrote to the Church about the Church’s posture towards the world. Yesterday’s post was about not allowing ourselves to get caught up in the spirit of the age, keeping the posture of our hearts in line with that of Jesus Himself to His own enemies. Since there is no atrocity in human history, from crusades to holocaust to 9/11, that were any worse than human beings killing God, and yet His response was “Father forgive them for they no not what they do,” I felt that Christians should be careful that we keep our hearts in check. There are many other potential Bin Ladens in the world, and we have to avoid a root of bitterness that would keep us from doing our job well. There can be no enemy in the world that we do not love.

As to how it is done? Well, my whole adult ministry has been lived under the influence of my spiritual grandmother, Sister Margaret Gaines, who showed me firsthand how one life lived faithfully in a Palestinian village can change the temperature of one small part of the world—how the gospel can be lived with grace and truth to Muslim neighbors. (The more people enlighten me, the more I regret all the time I’ve spent being shaped by her tears and stories—there are so many e-mail forwards I could be circulating, inflammatory news commentators I could be listening to, and message boards I could be posting on! I feel so naïve now.) There is enough I could share about her life as strategy that I could write a book about it.

Unlike Sister Gaines, I don’t feel called to become a full-time missionary to the Middle East, but at Renovatus we’ve adopted Beirut as our international mission. Coming off my second trip there in the last two years just two weeks ago today, I saw God do astonishing things there. As you may know, the US has upped the travel advisory and stated that no US citizen should travel there right now. With all the upheaval in the region and the growing presence of Hezbollah there, a lot of people discouraged us from going. But we went—and I’m so glad we did.

Last time I preached in Beirut, I preached in a large open-air celebration in downtown Beirut. The believers have such a good relationship with the Muslims in that area, they allowed us to preach in the center of the city right in front of the largest Mosque in Lebanon. It was remarkable—we saw so many come to Christ. This time, we were in a large indoor theater, where again saw many come to saving faith. I couldn’t believe the level of openness and receptivity to the Gospel. One of the most moving stories was when a Muslim woman came down to the invitation in tears, wearing a burqa. Given her family situation, she could not bring herself to invite Christ into her life that night. But she wept as she asked us to pray for her. She said while I was preaching, she felt something she had never felt—and she used words that were not in the sermon at all: “I feel like I need to be cleansed from the inside out!” That has haunted me for weeks.

Additionally, the local believers in Beirut—who have really had to struggle with the whole media spectacle over the US pastor burning a Quran (which has greatly hindered their relations with Muslims there)—worked it out for us to visit some key political leaders. We met with the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Lebanon (as you probably know, Saudi Arabia is still closed to the Gospel). We told him that the actions of that pastor does not reflect the heart that American Christians have for the Muslim world and that we loved their people. Remarkably, we were able to embrace him and pray for him in the name of Jesus Christ. (this pic is from that visit)

We ended up sharing the same sentiments with the head of the Lebanese military court and praying with him. Totally unexpected, we were invited to the Presidential Palace to meet with the President of Lebanon himself, where we were also able to share our love for their people as representatives of the body of Christ in America. We were able to pray over Him as well. All the major Arab news outlets picked up the story and footage was broadcast all over the Middle East. (Pic is our team from Renovatus and our Lebanese friends with the President in the Presidential Palace)

Nothing we did was remotely noble or heroic—it was a 10-day trip just to support an amazing work God is doing on the ground there with or without any of us. The heroes are the ones who are navigating these tensions on a daily basis and living faithful lives in front of their Muslim neighbors. But as a practical strategy, I can propose these ideas from my time in places like Beirut and Aboud:

1. Get to know a Muslim and love and serve them really, really well.

2. If and when you do get such an opportunity, don’t say insulting or condemning things about their religion. Listen a lot, serve with humility and without agenda, and when the Holy Spirit gives you the opportunity—share how the love of Jesus has transformed your life.

3. If you have the means, travel to the Middle East where you can get connected with local believers there and learn about what they are doing firsthand. If you can’t do that, find a work you can support with both prayer and finances.

“You mean that is all?” I know, it doesn’t seem impressive as a strategy, does it? Alas, I feel like I’m giving antiquated and outdated ideas at best. Sure, the courage of a handful of faithful people seemed to turn the world upside down (in the phrase of Luke in Acts) in the first century, but that’s when the world was safe for Christians. They didn’t have to deal with enemies of the cross or people who wanted to harm them, and are thus an inadequate model for us. Going to people you do not know armed with nothing but the power of the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ had pretty mixed results at best. I mean really, what did the stuff this Paul person did in Rome ever really accomplish? And that whole thing of Philip going to the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8—it was just one Christian living out his calling in relationship to one guy! People act like one redemptive relationship could turn around a whole continent or something.

Today’s complicated world calls for new strategies. Instead of being careful to make sure the tone, tenor and content of our message to the world is full of love, compassion and blessing even and especially to those who would harm us, we should embrace the kingdom tools of fear, suspicion, anger and inflammatory rhetoric. Given the clear failure of the early Church of wearing down their enemies with relentless love, we’ve got to get into the 21^st century. After all, we’ve got Armageddon to rehearse for! No more talk of this idealistic cross business. This is a time for pragmatism, not fairy tales.

But wait a second…the question addressed how a nation should have responded after 9/11. How would this theology have played out there? How should I know? I never said anything about how nations should deal with other nations, I wrote about how the Church should be the Church—how we have to be careful not to harden our hearts in rejoicing over the death of our enemies so we will keep a spirit of love and sacrifice towards them; how we must be obsessed with loving them instead of beating them. That is the only thing I’ve got a strategy for, and somehow I think the stakes are significantly higher in this discussion than any nationalistic strategy. It seems to me the most important thing the Church can do for the world is to be really good at being the Church. And if that doesn’t work out…sorry, I’ve got nothing.

But perhaps it seemed I neglected the post 9/11 side of the question… That’s because nothing that happened on 9/11 changed anything about the Church’s strategy. We’ve only had one strategy since (depending on whose calendar you are using, give or take a year) around the year 33, and we cannot alter it no matter what beautiful or terrible things happen to the world around us. Practical strategy post 9/11? I do have one thing. We have to take off our shoes when we go through airport security now, so post 9/11, I might recommend you leave for the airport a little earlier than you did pre 9/11 when you are on your way to go see what the Spirit of God is up to in the Middle East.

(PS–the pics from our team below are some other images that represent our ideas about the Church’s strategy in the Middle East, post 9/11)

Disclaimer: I promise, I’m not trying to write about everything controversial in church life in one week. By the time I finish this little series, I think you will see how these themes are deeply related—at least I hope so. The last thing the world needs is another blog about Rob Bell, so please note that is not what this is ultimately about. This is the perfect cocktail of a lot of things happening in our culture with my new preaching series on Revelation…I hope you will hang around.

I came back from Africa just over a month ago, and the world as I knew it was no longer the same. There was military action in Libya. Charlie Sheen was going on tour. And in the most epic news of them all—Rob Bell had written a book. In evangelical circles, it was like the new variation of the Kennedy assassination: “do you know where you were when you found out Rob Bell called traditional views of hell into question?” I can’t think of any story in recent years pertaining to the Church in America that got as much global press as this one.

Because I can be a bit of a theological snob, I insisted on being detached at first. Having only heard Bell speak a few times between online and conferences, I did not feel I had a dog in the race. I am not jealous or bothered for a young evangelical to make the news for staking a theological claim, only sincerely perplexed that it is news for any pastor I know of to make much of any theological claim. Carlton Pearson, an enormously influential African American Pentecostal, adapted explicit universalism (the belief all will be saved in the end) a few years ago, and it did not cause nearly the level of stir as this. I read broadly in church history, so I rarely find myself surprised by much of anybody’s views on heaven, hell or the afterlife. From C.S. Lewis’ well-known The Great Divorce to the provocative Dare We Hope All Men Be Saved by Hans von Balthasar to fundamentalist accounts that make Dante’s inferno read like a Little Golden book and everything in the middle, I feel like I’m aware of most views along that continuum. So the one thing I was certain of was that nothing Bell would say could surprise me.

That wasn’t the only reason I wanted to stay away. I admit to finding conversations about whether or not any particular preacher/theologian is a heretic to be less interesting than a lot of people do. Some of the most helpful books I’ve ever read have been by heretics. Some of the most profound, articulate expressions of Christian faith have been forged by conversations with heretics. A teaching can be wrong and still help bring clarity as to what is true. So when there is a provocative book, I want to know if the conversation can ultimately help the Church grow (whether the teaching itself is affirmed or blatantly rejected as orthodox theology). I must also confess that while I have no reason to take sides with Bell, the early critics of his book (which appeared from the forest before its publication) are from a stream of Christianity I admire but whose current young adherents flatly drive me bananas. Some of the same neo-reformers who came out guns blazing after Bell would barely accept someone like myself (a Pentecostal from the Wesleyan tradition) in their narrow definition of orthodoxy, which can apparently exclude people who hold differences from them on matters from the sovereignty of God (election, predestination, etc.) to women in church leadership (they are not in favor). Many of these folks I have in mind have done a great deal of good for the Church that I honor. They just also seem to rather casually cross the line into douchebaggery with particular ease. This is a way of saying, even if I were to disagree with Bell…I didn’t want to have to agree with these particular critics.

Besides, I reasoned, there are few emergencies in life that will change my book queue. Lives are at stake in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series as best as I can tell, why should I have to put them down? I do not rearrange either my book or Netflix queue hastily—it’s not like my underwear drawer or something. But alas, having enough people within Renovatus ask me questions about it, so I reluctantly read it.

Criticisms and endorsements of Love Wins have been so rampant that I’m not sure my thoughts would be that helpful. Since this is ultimately not about Love Wins primarily anyway, I will keep my remarks on the book itself relatively concise. My summary is this: I think it is unwise to attempt a game-changing, non-fiction treatise on hell and judgment that can be read in a single bowel movement. I agreed with many of Bell’s premises and concerns (crafting a thoughtful, pastoral response to people’s questions about loved ones who died without faith in Christ instead of being smug and callous, not allowing our beliefs about last things to be detached from the here-and-now implications of God’s kingdom in the world, exercising restraint in speaking about the ultimate destination of particular individuals and leaving such matters to God). I do not agree with a significant number of his conclusions, or necessarily even think he made a great case for some of them. I was disappointed by the maddening lack of footnotes (while I understand the desire to write to a popular audience—these are deep waters) and the drive-by treatment of significant texts, as well as the failure to even wrestle seriously with key ideas of divine justice.

I deleted a whole paragraph of review here of hits and misses, simply because I don’t think there is anything much new to be said by way of anybody’s review…except possibly this. What I really want to say, and have wanted to say for weeks, is that at the heart of the book (in terms of its primary concern), I think Bell is rightly bothered by the detachment he sees of the body of Christ from real world suffering as we often retreat into speculation about the world to come. I am ever so sympathetic to this critique. But while Bell is right that our eschatology (belief about last things) is often hindering the mission of the Church in the world rather than furthering it, I think he flatly makes a tactical error in his analysis—Bell seems to think that the reason Christians aren’t more engaged in the “hells of the world” (and having just been in the slums outside Nairobi, I share his heart here) is that they are preoccupied with saving people from a hell yet to come. Coming from a Pentecostal church where people historically take hell and judgment very seriously, I just don’t know that I buy that. For example, most of the Church of God missionaries I know from my context serving in those “hells on earth” to bring the compassion of Christ into dire human suffering have what would probably be called very traditional views of hell. But they are no less consumed with seeing God’s kingdom come there.

On the other hand, I see an enormous connection between the disastrous variety of teaching on the Second Coming of Jesus as THE reason for the problem Bell identifies. To listen to many of us, it is unclear if we even still believe in the resurrection of the body (an essential, defining creedal doctrine) anymore—thus there is precious little continuity between this life and the life to come. Much of our theology is literally so dis-embodied that it resembles the body/spirit division much of the New Testament is written in protest against. There is also a great deal of escapism in our talk of the end. There is little emphasis on the prayer of Jesus Himself that “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (and in fact if you listen to our preaching and teaching close enough, you might think that Jesus himself was wrong to have us to pray for this–it is that severe a misdirected emphasis). There are preposterous books, preposterous hair-dos, and preposterous speculation not on the outskirts but in the main artery of evangelical Christianity.

Hey, you remember that big stink a few years ago when one of the most popular evangelical pastors in America wrote a book where he carried his end-times theology to such an absurd extreme as to suggest that Jesus never claimed or accepted the title of Messiah on earth? That He didn’t really come as the expected anointed one for the Jews—because then Jews would have rejected Him? This pastor has rightly condemned anti-semitism in the Church, and that is good. But the role of Israel as a nation-state is so prominent in his end-times scheme, that he has taken all of this to new heights (or all-time lows). Thus those born into Israel as a nation state now (for this preacher) have a route to God apart from Jesus—two groups of people with two different means of salvation. This all leads to huge implications for how view what is happening in the Middle East. At the end of the day, preachers like him are trying to prepare folks for holy war with the infidels rather than trying to seek God’s peace between ancient enemies–get on the right side of Armageddon more so than live out the clear teachings of Jesus as to how we love the world on His behalf. You don’t remember any of that?

That’s because there was no real stink—barely a yawn at any of this from most evangelicals (and Pentecostals). Nor is there a stink when they make predictions that flagrantly don’t come true, or put out zany books about how the political administration they don’t like MUST somehow usher in the end of days (said with the same authority as they would quote John 3:16), or utterly murder Biblical texts contextually (i.e., Song of Solomon is some sort of code about last days instead of a celebration of erotic love in a marital context). Nor is there a stink when some of these same leaders actively lobby, as has been well documented, to try to get us to war (with Iran for example) because they believe it will fulfill their end-time chart faster. Nor is there a stink when they teach that any and all efforts of contemporary Christians to be peacemakers in a violent world (working for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, for example) are impediments to the return of Christ. Nor is there a stink when evangelical Christians get in bed with a guy like Glenn Beck, who doesn’t share their views on the Trinity, the cross, or most any other core orthodox Christian teaching. “If you share my reactionary alarmist propaganda about the apocalypse, we won’t let a little thing like Mormonism get in the way of you leading us in Amazing Grace on the steps of the capital.” These speculative end-times scenarios (and let me be clear–despite many appeals to Scripture, that whole industry is 95% speculation without real scholarship) are taken FAR MORE SERIOUSLY and far more woodenly than the explicit, direct, clear teachings given by Jesus and the early Christian writers as to how we interact with the world. I am convinced this is why thoughts like I shared earlier this week cans strike people as novel or new–which is disturbing.

Look, I understand a lot of Christian bookstores don’t feel comfortable selling Love Wins on their shelves because it doesn’t line up with their definition of orthodox theology. Fair enough. But have you paid attention to anything else on your shelves, Christian retailers? Since when did we care about Christian orthodoxy when it comes to anybody’s teaching about eschatology? Where have the doctrine police been all this time? Apparently as long as you don’t err on the side of universalism, anything goes. “In our store, we won’t sell Penthouse—we only sell Hustler.” Well done!

The sad thing for me about “RobBellGate” is this: Christians have already been buying into a disturbing polarization between two caricatures—one for people who emphasize the message of salvation through repentance and faith in Christ and one for people who emphasize taking care of the poor and needy/matters of mercy and justice. Of course that is overgeneralized and stupid, but you would be surprised how many people feel that way. Thus many reactions to Love Wins has been something like, “This is why those newfangled evangelicals with their mercy and their justice and their peacemaking and their AIDS in Africa are such a problem; let’s get back to the cross!” And then you’ve got those folks who care about people’s real world suffering feeling like, “we are tired of being pushed around by these doctrine people—this is just about helping the marginalized.” It feels like the conversation is going backwards instead of forwards.

You don’t have to agree with Rob Bell’s views on hell to agree with this simple claim: the world is in a mess largely because we have stopped taking seriously what it means to be the Church in the world. We have officially changed the Lord’s prayer to “Get me out of this dump fast God,” and we are biding time for our spaceship to come. And the prophecy, er, experts are giving us theological resources for all of this.

Left Behind and its ilk have set the agenda for many Christians in recent years. It would be terrible indeed to wake up one morning to find that it was Jesus Himself who got left behind by the Church.

(Big, bombastic claims right? Hang on—part two is still to come. One of the things I hope to demonstrate is that many portrayals of the Second Coming are playing into the triumphant disposition I’ve criticized this week instead of giving an added sense of urgency to our work and witness, as it is supposed to do.)

It is impossible for me to write an unbiased review of anything produced by Starving Artist Productions, the creative brainchild of Nathan Rouse. There are many reasons for this. Nathan has been one of my best friends since our days at Gardner-Webb University, his wife is the executive Pastor at Renovatus, and I am the proud godfather to their daughter Lucy. Nathan has been in the trenches with me in dreaming up the vision for Charlotte that is Renovatus and I’ve been in the trenches with him in dreaming up the vision for Charlotte’s creative community that is Starving Artist.

But there are other reasons why I can’t pretend to do any sort of “objective” treatment of Faith Healer. For a play that features a complicated traveling evangelist/shaman/charlatan/whatever you decide Francis Hardy really is, I’m in too deep cahoots with the character himself. In the delicate, slow-burning portrait of Hardy, as seen through his wife, his PR man/sidekick and ultimately his own eyes, I understand Francis better than I would like to. He’s an ordinary guy, no holier than anybody else, who glides from town to town with his “one-night only” healing services. Perhaps like the U2 song, “He’s a preacher stealing hearts at a traveling show—for the love of money, money, money, money.” Or is he? Do with him what you will; Francis Hardy has a gift. He knows when the gift is going to show up and when it isn’t, but either way the show goes on. When the magic happens, Hardy becomes somebody else. There is a clarity, a focus, a fulfillment that swallows him whole when the gift is in operation. And then a few hours later, he’s back to being Francis again.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t share Hardy’s proclivity to alcohol or rocky marriage, but it still hits close to home. He’s all about the gift, lives for the addictive drug of transcendence he only experiences under the tent. He’s got a wife who’s all about him, as hopeless under Francis’ spell as he is of whatever muse it is that visits him every so often. These three characters have to live with each other day in and day out traveling the country in a van, and in a way it is the performance that holds them together and the performance that holds them apart.

I remember when we took a team to Mexico, partnering with a local church to do a series of outdoor worship services in the heart of Playa Del Carmen. The church publicized the event all over town. When we saw the posters all over the city, I asked my friend Pedro what they said. Translated, he told me they said “Come expect a miracle.” Oh boy. I am no healing evangelist—I just don’t have the hair for it, and maybe not the faith. What do you do when people come to you with the weight of all there darkest fears resting on fragile bodies, many of which were already broken and cripple? Who can bear the terror of that? Who would want to? The fear of looking like a fool, the fear of God not showing up or perhaps the fear that He actually would show up. It’s all there. And while I haven’t added “faith healer” to my bio or resume, I only get more comfortable with the ancient Christian practice of laying hands on the sick and asking God for their healing. I can’t conjure the magic—indeed the Holy Ghost is untamed at times and maybe even elusive. But to know that something mysterious transpires when I touch on Christ’s behalf, to believe that he could touch through me? That’s the delusion of a crazy person, the faith of an extremist, or perhaps both at the same time. I had never seen Brian Friel’s Faith Healer before, but I’m well acquainted with Francis Hardy.

For fans of “The Birth,” the staple Christmas offering Starving Artist is known for so far, they are in for something similar but altogether different. Like “The Birth,” drawn from the pages of the elegant Frederick Buechner, this is a story about faith without the side order of sentimentality or the syrup on top. Like “The Birth,” it is unafraid to explore the underside of faith. Unlike “The Birth” which is ultimately celebratory and hopeful, Faith Healer is significantly darker. That’s not to say that there isn’t real hope and faith present—its there. But even given its beautiful prose and the melodic Irish accents of the characters, it’s a starker piece with more adult themes and content. Like “The Birth,” much of the show rests on the charisma and charm of Rouse himself, who gives a performance that is inviting and interesting in the first half of the show, devastating and commanding in act two. It’s also powered by Christina Whitehouse Scruggs, who delves deep into the heartbreak of Grace Hardy, and an energizing performance of James K. Flynn as Teddy, Hardy’s assistant. An experienced actor considerably older than Rouse and Whitehouse-Suggs, Flynn brings both a road weariness and energy to Teddy that lights up the second half of the show.

Also like “The Birth”, Faith Healer gives a lot to the audience and asks a lot of them in return. But this time it’s not an invitation to worship per se, but an invitation to probe the mysteries of their own faith, their own tragic relationships, their own moments of magic and their own moments of profound failure. It’s an emotional event to be certain, dealing in love and hope and heartbreak in very large doses. It’s light on theology proper insofar that Francis Hardy is selling an experience and not a doctrine—thus it’s a broad meditation on faith and doubt and the long distances in between that anyone can relate to. The performances are courageous, the characters are haunting, and the feelings stirred from a couple hours inside the Duke Theater linger long into the night, where dreams are shaped and faith is alternately born and destroyed. It is the only play I’ve ever attended that left me with the same bittersweet aftertaste of an Ingmar Bergman film.

Faith Healer runs May 4-8 and 11-13 at Duke Energy Theatre, tickets online at www.carolinatix.org

In part one of this piece (here’s a link if you missed it), I gave my take on the fallout of the Rob Bell controversy within the Church. While I was direct about my basic criticisms of the book, I also wanted to be clear that I think Bell is on target in what I believe to be one of his central theses—that our misdirected emphasis with regards to eschatology (the study of last things) is hindering rather than furthering kingdom work in the world (a sad parody of what Christian theology of matters regarding the end should really be).

I also said that I don’t think Bell’s concerns necessitate his conclusions. I don’t think doctrines of divine judgment with regard to hell in particular are keeping people from participating in the kingdom of heaven on earth. But I do think the loss of emphasis on the resurrection of the body and the endless focus on speculative scenarios surrounding the Second Coming of Christ ARE in fact to blame for the problem Bell diagnoses. In the quick and severe criticism to Bell’s book in the evangelical world, this is a constructive alternative that I think we’ve missed. Unfortunately, we can be far quicker on the trigger to simply label and dismiss Bell than to engage what I think are genuine pastoral concerns. In expressing my own criticisms of Love Wins, my goal was not to merely join the chorus of the Bell-bashers but respectfully re-direct the conversation in a fruitful direction.

I have been, in my own little corner of the world, saying these things for a long time. It is tempting to do a long series of posts explaining where and how I think these end-times interpretations go wrong…but alas I am not. Not only would it take me months to say everything I would want to say, I really do desire more so to offer constructive proposals to misguided interpretations rather than simply attack them. If you are interested in any of that, I hope you will tune into the “End of the World as We Know It” series at Renovatus, as that is where I am trying to comprehensively re-frame a lot of our discussions about Biblical texts that drive these issues.

For today, I offer a relatively simple critique: Contemporary end times theology, especially in a North American context, often ignores what is plainly clear about the nature and character of the gospel en route to interpretations that are speculative at best. Thus the commands of Jesus to bless our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use or persecute us, or the call to lay down our lives with Jesus for the sake of the world rather than to try to conquer the world through the world’s means may seem ambiguous, while the end-times graphs and time-lines are said to be clear. Do not be deceived: the posture of God’s heart towards the world as demonstrated through Jesus Christ is not ambiguous. It is why I am willing to use pretentious language in the Osama Bin Laden posts on “the” Christian response—because I refuse to acknowledge that any variation of Christian teaching that does not encompass radical enemy love and a willingness to sacrifice for those we deem as enemies is worthy of the label “Christian.” These are not peripheral matters, these are fundamentals.

While I have an endless supply of criticisms towards a lot of the actual use of Scripture by these interpreters, I think it is worth noting that on a baseline level (even if you tend to be more sympathetic towards those eschatological views than I am), much of it simply does not reflect the tone and tenor of the gospel message. The teaching I have heard about these matters over the years seems to get increasingly triumphant and celebratory—with less of an emphasis on love for those who are outside Christ and more of a “we will show them one day here soon” kind of mentality. Even if you hang on to these kind of scenarios, you need to reflect seriously on whether or not the heart of God towards the world is really reflected in all of this.

I have had held this critique for years, but recently read a different take that deeply disturbed me. In Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, author Daniel Radosh shares his experience of immersing himself in evangelical subculture. There are chapters on everything from Christian music festivals, Christian comedians, Christian fiction, to Christian sex enhancement ministries. His observations are alternately hilarious and/or offensive depending on where you are standing. Being a self-professed “secular Jew,” I assume most any believer will have some fundamental differences with some of Radosh’s assumptions. But even where I differed, I was personally not only not offended but deeply compelled by his often incisive and always witty commentary on American Christian culture. Especially when it comes to end times, where Radosh offers his most important critique of the haughty tone he sees in evangelical culture. I think its worthwhile to hear an “outsider’s” critique.

Radosh contends that the popular Left Behind novels may be as influential to our generations understanding of the end of days as the Scofield Bible was 100 years ago. On a surface level, his critique of the actual writing is often laugh-out loud funny (i.e., reflecting on the names of Left Behind’s protagonists, such as Buck Williams, Rayford Steele, Steve Plank, Bruce Barnes and Dirk Burton, Radosh says “Apparently having a porn star name is enough to keep you from being raptured.”) But the critique quickly becomes more serious—and for me, more heartbreaking. Straight from the book:

Early in the series, The Tribulation Force, as the heroes call themselves, fight most of their battles with the weapon of prayer. Eventually they get guns. Really cool guns. ‘The thin, jagged, spinning bullet bores through anything in its path, gathers the gore around it like grass in a power-mower blade, and turns itself into a larger object of destruction.’ In the fourth book, Buck feels mildly guilty about killing a guard at an abortion clinic, but his partner tells him to shake it off: ‘If you shot an enemy soldier during battle would you turn yourself in?’ In the final volume, a horrified Jesus returns and admonishes the Tribulation Force, ‘Put your swords away, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.’ Just kidding. Actually, what Jesus does is this:

‘Men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood. It was if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin…There innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor, and as those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ.’

Building on such examples, Radosh makes the case that the tone from earlier evangelical accounts of end times seems to be shifting from deep concern/sorrow for those who face coming judgment than their earlier counterparts. Drawing from evangelical blogger Fred Clark, who has written a page-by-page dissection of the first Left Behind book, Radosh says

Clark builds a devastating case that the book’s glaring absence of sympathy for anyone other than its main characters is not just a failure of imagination on the part of the authors but a form of hatred. The heroes of the book, Clark declares, are sociopaths. They are men who arrive at an airport an hour or so after billions of people have vanished without a trace—with countless hundreds or thousands more dead or dying in the wreckages of suddenly pilotless planes—yet who make no attempt to help, or even inquire about the feelings of, a single person they meet. Instead they focus relentlessly on their own travel plans, jobs, and lives.

There is much more to Radosh’s critique, but especially of interest for me was his contrast to the pop apocalypse fiction of the 1972 film A Thief in the Night to its contemporary counterparts. Renovatus folks have heard me tell many times that these were the films that haunted not only my childhood but even my early adult years before some very intense spiritual healing took place in my life. Yet even though there was terror in those b-movies, Radosh claims these films were different in that

the terror inspired by A Thief in the Night was personal, not political. Focusing entirely on a handful of ordinary Americans, the most frightening scenes involve children who mistakenly think they’ve missed the Rapture when they come home to find their parents away. While scaring children may not be the most noble way of spreading the gospel, it’s worth noting that the film’s attitudes toward its unsaved characters is markedly different from those in Left Behind: It feel sorry for them. When people are sent to hell in a Thief in the Night and its sequels, viewers are meant to mourn the loss of their souls, not celebrate their defeat at the hands of the righteous.

(Part three to follow tomorrow)

Radosh goes on to quote the lyrics of the old Larry Norman song, Wish We’d All Been Ready, the film’s theme song, full of anguish for those who would not be ready for Christ’s return:

Children died, the days grew cold,

A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold.

I wish we’d all been ready…

A man and wife asleep in bed,

She hears a noise and turns her head, he’s gone.

I wish we’d all been ready…

There’s no time to change your mind,

The Son has come and you’ve been left behind.

But while these lyrics “provided a title for LaHaye and Jenkins, the rest of the song would seem out of place; there is no sense in the Left Behind books that the authors actually wish we’d all been ready. They’re far more invested in having someone around to get their a—- kicked.” Quoting another journalist, Radosh concludes that this is part of a larger trend in American evangelicalism:

The progression (or regression) is the move from rural towns to the halls of power. It’s the expansion of the evangelical sphere of concern from the very local (my friends, my church) to the national and global (My president, my international policy). It’s a move from a complex view of the individual to an oversimplification that identifies everyone as either good-believer or bad-heatehn. It’s also a change in sentiment towards the unbeliever from sadness, caring and invitation to triumph, judgment and dismissal. It’s a chilling mutation, and has entrenched evangelical Christianity in an antagonism to secular America that borders, at times, on cruelty.

It is that change in sentiment that underwrites most everything that has had my spirit uneasy since 2008, when the tone of political conversations within the broader Church caused me to believe that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. The necessity of the Church’s kingdom mission increasingly feels secondary to “beating the bad guys.” As the Church sizes up her “enemies,” there is often a sense that the opposition is in some way a sign of the end of days. Yet even in the case of actual resistance, I never find myself perplexed at the world for being the world. Conversely, I wonder if the most apocalyptic sign I see around me (negatively speaking) is not any of what I see in the world, but what I see and hear in the Church.

Want to talk about deception in latter times? Interestingly, the New Testament does not limit the idea of an “antichrist” to one global personality, but rather speaks of many antichrists. Thus we have I John 2.18, “Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour.” John also says “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist!” As so much of our current “prophetic” media focuses on speculation of a single antichrist figure somewhere in the sphere of global politics, we are prone to forget that in the days leading to Jesus’ return, there will be many alternatives to the lordship of Jesus that will come bearing His name and claiming His approval. According to Scripture this is a “spirit,” a spiritual force that alters the disposition of actual persons in a way that is contrary to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Could it be that in looking out for “the antichrist” that we have allowed room for other antichrists/the spirit of the antichrist (not speaking of prophecy teachers per se, but rather alternative gospels or a different spirit/disposition that opposes the character and witness of Christ Himself)? That in our desire to “defeat a monster that we have become a monster”?

I would raise the question—if the Church no longer shares the posture of the God who loved the world so much as to give His only begotten Son in sacrifice and humility…if the Church that bears the name of Jesus really believes they can only conquer evil through the world’s swords or the world’s political power…If the Church sees the cross only as the means of salvation and not also the cross they must carry in obedience to Jesus, offering their lives up for the nations…if the Church sees its enemies as people to protest against/condemn/or even defeat rather than wayward sons and daughters we are called to bless and pray for…who needs an antichrist?

You don’t have to have Henry Kissinger, Michael Jackson, Mikhail Gorbachev or Barack Obama bearing the devil’s mark to subvert the mission of God’s people in the world if we’ve already decided the direct teaching and example of Jesus is no longer relevant to His Church. You don’t need a microchip under your hand or forehead to give your life to the beast if you are using the devil’s tools to try and build God’s kingdom. The image of the teenagers left behind from A Thief in the Night I have held since the second grade always struck me as deeply sad. But perhaps not as sad as a technologically savvy Church that has developed more sophisticated strategies than that of its founder. What could possibly be sadder than watching the Church continue to move forward with its work and witness while Jesus gets left behind?

This is the kind of entry where I am required by federal and ecclesiastical law to make disclaimers, so I’ll make them quickly.

There is no question that the gospel is comprised largely of a series of paradoxes. So for example, in our weakness Christ is strong, and through the death of Christ love has conquered. In addition to paradox, there are also certain tensions that are at the heart of life with God. So theologians speak of “the already/not-yet tension” to describe the ways that we are already participating in the kingdom of heaven here and now through Christ, and are yet anticipating His rule and reign being fully realized in the future. We aren’t allowed to resolve these tensions prematurely–to emphasize the already to the exclusion of the not-yet or the not-yet to the neglect of the already. That is a tension that must be maintained.

It is also true that we live in a world where people compulsively and simplistically label the other in ways that are both childish and destructive. Thus you can’t just disagree with the policies of George W. Bush, via Michael Moore his presidency was driven by secret Middle Eastern oil ties. You can’t just disagree with Barack Obama, via Glenn Beck he is a socialist communist Manchurian candidate bent on destroying the free world. You can’t just disagree with something you read in a theology book, you have to discredit the pastor or author’s entire career, condemn their wife and dog and kids, and highlight a shady friend they had in 1983. My comic books have more well-rounded characters than this. For people who see the world in such terms, they need a heaping serving of nuance in their lives.

But on the other hand, in recent years I feel like Christians I know (including myself) are always talking about the “tension.” Like, “I know what Jesus says about this very plainly, but I just think you have to maintain the tension…” or, “I don’t feel good about supporting such and such position, but you know there is this tension between thus and such…” Does anybody know what I mean?

So if you will permit me to burn down my forest of disclaimers, I am weary of “the tension.” I am tired of postmodern angst and fashionably tortured souls; it is no longer 1995 and living in ambiguity does not appeal to me. Much of the rhetoric of “I’m just dealing with the tension between…” is actually a thin veil for, “I know what Jesus would have me do but I’m not going to do it” on one hand, OR “I’m simply allowing myself to be manipulated by guilt.”

For example, when I have been in parts of the world where I saw abject poverty, there was a time when I would have come home and spent days feeling guilty for having a house. How can I own a house in a world with so much suffering? For better or worse, I don’t do any of that anymore. If I really felt like Jesus wanted me to sell my house and all my possessions, I would do it today. But I don’t feel like He is asking that of me. He is asking me to be a good steward of what He’s given me, give generously, and use my platform to speak for those that don’t have a voice. So that is what I am going to do. I’m not “living in the tension.” I’m walking in the Spirit. I will do what the Master says, and if He doesn’t ask a certain thing of me I won’t entertain guilt about it.

Given everything I know about the beauty described in Scripture that comes from walking in the Spirit, I find it hard to believe that God’s intentions for a life with Him is to walk around in constant ambiguity. Walking in the Spirit is God’s radical alternative to the soul-sucking tendency of going around making pro and con lists all the time in your head and simply living indecisively. I believe it is possible to be so in sync with God’s heart and God’s voice as to be utterly and completely ruled by His peace. When you have it, you move forward. When you don’t, you stay where you are.

“Living in the tension” has become the coffeehouse pseudo-intellectual excuse to not give ourselves over to the Spirit who leads us into all truth. If I feel that God has me stirred up or uneasy about something, then I am going to change it. But if I feel stirred up and uneasy and then–through prayer, Scripture and community–discern that I am simply feeling guilt or condemnation, then I’m going to fling that accusation and doubt into the presence of Jesus and walk away. That kind of “tension” can and should be resolved.

Hear my heart today: God doesn’t mean for you to live in constant ambiguity. Perpetual ambiguity is a very unsexy way to live what is supposed to be a colorful and adventurous life with God. Obedience will not always bring absolute certitude, but it will bring clarity. You can know His voice. You can do what He says.

Stop living in the tension–God wants you to walk in the Spirit!

I’m at a meeting at Evangel University in Springfield, MO Springfield for the first of a series of meetings with a small team of diverse leaders to craft a strategy for discipleship/spiritual formation over the next 3-4 years across the Pentecostal/Charismatic world through the Empowered 21 initiative. The task is to articulate a strategy for formation that takes the Spirit seriously…pretty exciting stuff. As part of the Commission on discipleship/spiritual formation for Empowered 21, Cheryl Johns asked us last night to share who and how we were discipled ourselves. It was surprisingly difficult to answer. Growing up a 5^th generation Pentecostal in a minister’s home, I certainly learned most of what I know about God from my family in valuable ways. But since my father’s administrative work involved pulpit ministry all over the country on weekends, I never had the sense of place, the kind of local Church rootedness, that I believe discipleship requires. So to put it in short, I don’t think I experienced real discipleship until I was in my 20’s. My spiritual grandmother, Margaret Gaines, a lifelong missionary to the Palestinian village of Aboud, became the person through whom I wanted to see and interpret the world. Or perhaps more accurately, I saw in her a world I wanted to live in. In Tokens of Trust, Rowan Williams says

Belief in God starts from a sense that we ‘believe in,’ we trust some kinds of people. We have confidence in the way they live, the way they live is the way I want to live, perhaps can imagine myself living in my better or more mature moments. The world they inhabit is one I’d like to live in. Faith has a lot to do with the simple fact that there are trustworthy lives to be seen, that we can see in some believing people a world we’d like to live in. (emphasis mine)

For me that is what discipleship is about—you find someone that makes you say “the world they live in is the way I want to live.” Margaret became that person for me. I suppose now I am more preoccupied than ever with becoming that kind of person for someone else, becoming that kind of person for the Church I serve, the people I love.

As I’ve been preaching on Revelation these last few weeks, St. John has been mentoring me in his ways. I now see that, without subverting the enormous role of community in spiritual formation, it is on Patmos (in the place of exile, isolation, solitude)—the place of knowing God in comfort and terror and seeing colors only found in God’s presence—that is the business of the Pastor. I am increasingly convinced that the best way I can serve my Church is to know Jesus really, really well, so naturally and so completely that to simply be with me is to be ushered into a different world—the world that John saw and Margaret lives in and the Spirit creates.

Not life “caught up” in another realm per se, aware that while John was “in the Spirit” that he touched things, tasted things, saw things, heard things. Many bodies are strewn along the path of mystic escapism, people who failed to see that revelation is less about transport to heaven and more about where heaven and earth collide. In the presence of God, rightly understood, it is not just that we are carried away but rather we become carriers of the divine presence into the world around us. The only chance of becoming so “heavenly minded that we are no earthly good” is if we misunderstand what it is to be heavenly minded. The fact that John was caught up in heavenly reality is precisely why he was able to give explicit, clear, pastoral instruction to the seven churches he knew and loved so well. I don’t want to escape from my community into another world. But I do want to bring another world down on them and down into them, to live a life of unpretentious piety that draws the people around me in life together into the world I’ve been seeing when I am alone.

Okay, so I’ve gone on record with my extreme dislike (hate would be a better word, but I’m feeling generous) of a lot of popular resources on Revelation. But there really is brilliant, beautiful work out there that will help you access the text better. This is a good thing, since accessing the text better means you access John’s world better, and accessing John’s world better means you are then exponentially more likely to land face down next to him in worship. I’m highlighting four such resources, all of which I love for very different reasons. Instead of an exhaustive list, I wanted to focus on unique, important books that represent the best in their respective approaches. For me, these are the best of the book.

First up is the Commentary on Revelation from the Two Horizons series from John Christopher Thomas and Frank Macchia. Sadly, it’s not available to the public as of yet, but I’ve got an advanced copy—and its worth salivating over. Given Thomas and Macchia’s Pentecostal approach, it was guaranteed to be unique. But equally important is that Thomas is one of the best Johannine scholars in the world today, and his reading of Revelation through the lens of the other texts that formed around John (the gospel of John and 1-3 John) make this both original and richly rewarding. It’s a gem that I believe will be a landmark in the field. Renovators will remember Thomas from our Comic Conflict documentary—and I do hope to bring him live sometime during this series. Such a robust scholar with such passion for God and the Church—he’s one of my heroes. If you are looking for a comprehensive, verse-by-verse commentary, I would recommend this forthcoming volume above any other.

Second up is Richard Bauckham’s Theology of the Book of Revelation. Such high impact for such a slim volume, nobody demonstrates the structural beauty of Revelation like Bauckham. I recall reading it for the first time a decade ago on a plane with tears streaming down my face in worship. His ability to narrate the major themes of Revelation, his big picture view of the text, is unparalleled in both scope and clarity. It’s crucial work, absolutely critical to reading Revelation on its own terms, and packs more punch per line than any commentary I’ve read. Worth a slow, deliberate read despite is relatively quick pace.

Third is Eugene Peterson’s Reversed Thunder: St. John and the Praying Imagination. Peterson does the seemingly impossible and recaptures the deeply pastoral implications of John’s vision. It’s a wonder-restoring book, as Peterson’s ever fresh sense of language jars us into the sensory language of Revelation itself. It’s not a commentary and more like a collection of sermons really in that Peterson wants to deliver practical, pastoral wisdom from Revelaton for our daily lives. But I think that’s what John was up to all along. If you need your Biblical imagination reignited, Reversed Thunder is the place to look.

And then finally Robby Waddell’s excellent The Spirit of the Book of Revelation. It’s entirely unique in that it is surprisingly the first attempt to fully develop the role of the Spirit in John’s Apocalypse, despite the enormous role the Spirit plays in the text. His attempt to take the Spirit seriously for once in Revelation studies, as well as his provocative (and compelling) treatment of Revelation 11 as the interpretive key for the book are worth the price of admission.

I pulled the trigger on Old Yeller at 6:55am this morning.

After months of deliberation and angst, I deactivated my facebook account. Without question, there has been no other small decision in the history of decision making to carry such an absurd amount of weight. It was if a simple move to streamline communication in my life carried life and death stakes, at least according to the media circus within my own mind. On the other hand, when small moves take such tremendous effort, it indicates big strongholds–strongholds on the interior that are way bigger than the exterior decision.

So here’s the snapshot of the story: Back in mid-December (when one of my spiritual grandmothers Jacqui Smith was preaching at Renovatus), I really felt like the Holy Spirit spoke to me in that delicate, aching but devastating way: “I need you to listen to me more than you listen to them.” That might seem vague, but I can tell you there was no ambiguity in my head or heart when I heard it. It’s interesting how God can drop one word of revelation into you, and it’s as if there’s a thousand page manuscript with footnotes of instruction that is embedded into the message. Like that one grain of revelation is coded with countless particularities upon arrival, all downloaded in an instant. In this particular case, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that one of the implications was that I had to get off Facebook.

Now it is of course true that I am a student of media and culture, and have from time to time offered critique about social media from some sources that have stimulated me: i.e., Sherry Turkle of MIT’s groundbreaking book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and More From Each Other. I’ve been direct about ways that I feel like we lean on digital forms of communication as an unhealthy substitute for the kind of authentic community God has hard-wired us for. John spoke of the Word of Life that he had “touched and handled.” In fact there are still manifestations of the life of God that can only be touched and handled, not clicked on or attached to a document or contained in 140 characters–especially in the manifestation of God demonstrated in the gift of each other. But I’ve never been a Luddite about such things. For me, it’s always been about defining parameters and boundaries, not that I think these mediums are bad and need to be utterly abandoned.

But I have peculiar complications. Instant feedback is my heroin, my porn, my mistress, my substitute for love and for God. It turns out He has strong opinions about such things. I’m actually quite inclined to think social media provides tremendous opportunity for community, creativity and spirituality. It just turns out that as it is in so many other mediums, God’s tools get employed for the devil’s agenda. Given my bent, constant access means ambiguity instead of focus, paralysis instead of action, the voice of legion rather than the voice of the Spirit. So I’ve been cutting out things and in doing so, it would seem, cutting off limbs. It’s been surprisingly good.

I’m more attentive than ever to my day job of building up people, tearing down ideas and blowing things up. I think I just quit another part-time job today. And I have a feeling that my relationships are going to be a whole let better for it. I’ve been clearing up more time for trysts with God, more time for trysts with Amanda, more time to flirt with my muses. There will still be plenty of time for pushing keys, but I’m more interested in pushing buttons.

The things that I think are a bit less than ideal about Twitter, on the other hand, are why I can and should keep it in play. I concur with the explanation of Twitter from Jon Stewart and company’s Earth the Book, “a service to put narcissists in contact with voyeurs, so they could leave everyone else alone.” It is true that Facebook, used well, can keep people more in community because of its kind of access. (Though of course what we do on any of these platforms are as likely as not to be performance, if we aren’t careful) But for demented me, the attempt to have a little bit of digital community with everybody keeps me from having real community with anybody. Starting with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

These decisions are not just about my own sanity, though that would be fine. For me to do what I do in a way that transforms the world, I have to have more time in the lab making things explode…more time at the table with people that make me spit my drink all over them…more time handling particular bodies so that I might be of better use to everybody. It seems in this fractured world, there is just too much love and mischief to make, and that requires me to limit my inputs. Without boundaries, it seems I’m of no use to anyone in particular.

Does it sound like I got off Facebook in order to save myself? God forbid. It’s much more noble than that. I got off Facebook in order to save you.

Pranee Loffer, in addition to being one of my favorite Renovators, happens to be a miracle worker. Her photography is devastatingly good (better than real life), and if you haven’t checked out her work at Beauty for Ashes you should go to her blog here. Furthermore, you really need to hire her to shoot an event for you–she’s worth every penny.

When I came in tonight, I came across a disc of our first shoot with her–and was delighted to find some pics I actually had not seen before. Amanda, Cybil, and books–what could be more beautiful?

Our current series from Revelation is called The End of the World as We Know It, stealing the REM song title purposefully. And of course the end of the world as we know it may in fact be infinitely more interesting than the actual end of the world. An apocalypse is an unveiling, a revelation. When we have an apocalyptic moment, things are revealed to us that end the tedious linear world we’ve been trapped in and draw us into an altogether different point of view, the aerial perspective of a heavenly throne.

Thus I can say that when I went to see Of Gods and Men with Nathan last night, I had an apocalyptic moment. This current buzz over rapture or end of the world or whatever about May 21st is supposed to be about is not apocalyptic enough for my taste, certainly not as apocalyptic as that which was unveiled in the new film by Xavier Beauvois. Based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of a group of monks in Algeria in 1996, Of Gods and Men may well be the most prophetic, powerful, relevant film of the 21st century–certainly so for the Body of Christ. As a group of extremist Muslim terrorists bring violence and horror to the village where the monks live their simple lives in service to the townsfolk, they are faced with an agonizing decision. To remain in their monastery would seem to mean certain death, to leave would be to abandon their calling. More specifically, in the film’s view, to abandon their witness.

As I sat trance-like in the theater as the story unfolded, it struck me that Of Gods and Men gets to the heart of St. John’s Revelation in ways that so-called apocalyptic evangelical films (from A Thief in the Night to Left Behind) could never do. As these men stare death in the face, the shape, force and scope of everything that is at the forefront of Revelation is spread before us. For Revelation is all about witness. It is the key word, the over arching concept, the narrative theme by which the entire book can and should be understood. It is the faithful witness of Jesus and the faithful witness of His bride in a violent world. It is the people of God who overcome the terror and violence of the world not by utilizing the devil’s tools, but through the blood of the slaughtered lamb. It is call to those who know and love Jesus to conquer through the only means by which God Himself has conquered–by embracing the cross, “loving not their own lives even unto death.” I wish I could pay for every person at Renovatus to see it and count it as part of our Revelation series. Seriously.

If there is an apocalyptic moment in contemporary cinema, it is the slow-burning climatic “Last Supper” sequence where the monks share red wine together while Tchailkovsky’s Grand Theme from Swan Lake plays on an old tape machine from the corner of the room. A secular critic from the UK publication Guardian wrote that “each time I have watched it (the scene), frankly, I have become overwhelmed with an emotion I can’t possibly describe. A friend told me that my face looked like Henry Thomas’s when he sees ET come back to life. I am almost tempted to say that cinema audiences should be required to stand during this sequence, like concertgoers during the Hallelujah chorus in Handel’s Messiah.”

There is more beauty and heartbreak in the French film than is normally allowed in cinema or anywhere else for that matter. There is no horror film that could ever out-haunt Of Gods and Men, as love is far more haunting than terror could ever be. This is a film that grabs a hold of you and doesn’t let you go, driven as it is by the force of the gospel itself. Everything I have learned about what it means to be a Christian from people like Sister Margaret Gaines is on display here. If you are interested in what I believe about the heart of Jesus and the posture of His people to the world–here you go.

I tend to think this is the only shot you’ve got of experiencing anything akin to an actual apocalypse on May 21st, if you watch this film and are willing to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church. I’m done with talk of the end of the world. I’m ready for an apocalypse.

In the last few days, those of us in evangelical/Pentecostal circles have laughed along with most everybody else in the world at Harold Camping’s expense. We’ve laughed at the folly of a notorious doomsday prophet who already has ruined people’s lives with false predictions about the end of the world before, and marveled that there are still people gullible enough to cash in their life savings on such tomfoolery. Okay, I have had a good laugh too. If you follow my Twitter feed, some of the one-liners cranked out from me and my friends have actually been pretty funny. And I’m not even feeling guilty about that. One of the interesting things about our brand of evangelical gallows humor how it unites so many across a diverse spectrum of views within the larger Body of Christ.

But I want to make a claim today that may make you stop laughing for a minute. A large percentage of people in the evangelical world are laughing about Harold Camping and his followers ONLY because he called an exact date, and they are convinced of Jesus’ direct claim that “no man knows the day or the hour” of Christ’s return. But many of those same folks approach matters of eschatology in an eerily similar manner. As long as you don’t go around calling exact dates, they would have no problems with the basic premises of guys like this. The same baseline set of assumptions that underwrite the worldview of the Campings of the world will not be challenged just because he got another one wrong. As it turns out, Harold Camping is not the only one who is waiting for Armageddon.

I carry with me this slim hope that these kinds of incidents could bring the day where Christians begin to question not only the wisdom of speculating about the end of the world, but the kind of textual gymnastics that set up these very systems. But alas, recent history is not on my side. Even if Armageddon does come today, I’m convinced that fundamentalist dispensationalism will be right there with Cher and cockroaches carrying on like usual. Not feeling inclined these days to speak politically, I will be frank: I would like to see the whole system burn down-as it is the source of countless fallacies (I might event suggest heresies) that don’t just threaten abstract doctrines of the Church, but the daily lives of real Christians.

At a meeting at Evangel University last week, I settled into watch the documentary Waiting for Armageddon in the hotel. A couple of days later, I watched it again with Amanda. The film chronicles the lives of ordinary folks who are all in their own way waiting for the world to blow up. They aren’t presented as evil people, they are not somehow equivocated with radical Muslim terrorists. They love their families, work regular jobs, raise their kids in a caring, respectful manner. But as the film progresses, the logical implications of their beliefs are teased out further. They believe that any sort of compromise between Israel and Palestinians will disrupt their end-times chart, they hope that the dome of the rock will be obliterated by a missile…their political efforts attempt to turn prophecy into foreign policy. The further we journey with these folks, the more we see the self-fulfilling nature of such “prophecy;” that not only do we expect the world to end but we feel the need to help God along in the process.

These ideas are not new to me. After all the historic atrocities committed by the Church against Jewish people, I am thankful for the clear condemnation of anti-semitism by these Christians. I certainly think we should support the right of Israel as a nation to exist. I don’t think any of that entails the kind of radicalism demonstrated by people like John Hagee, who are obssessed with supporting a nation-state and fail to care for the plight even of Palestinian Christians. And they certainly aren’t dreaming up ways to love Muslims well in the Middle East or at home, because the gospel of enemy love does not exist for them. There is us and there is them, and we are just making preparations to see those hateful infidels get what they deserve when Jesus comes after them. Most of these scenarios are difficult to even call “interpretations” of Scripture, as so little actual Scripture is engaged on its own terms in this worldview. Scripture, just like Jewish people themselves, is objectified–even they are not loved as humans, but as pawns that can help us see our apocalyptic fantasies fulfilled. And these fringe “interpretations” take clear precedence apparently over everything that the Lord of the Church Himself taught about how His Bride was supposed to demonstrate His love to the world. I wish I could just say that I consider these theories wrong. But at this point, I think they are often sick, depraved, dastardly distortions of the heart of the Father and the love of Jesus for the world. The attitudes of the folks who are waiting for Armageddon don’t stop in the Middle East. They result in the same kind of militant, us vs. them rhetoric against our neighbors who disagree with us at home. (By the way: in case you don’t know, I am not the sort of person that believes that “all religions really say the same thing anyway so let’s just all get along.” I am the sort of person who believes that the first task of the Church is to love those around us deeply and sacrificially, making the gospel of the kingdom irresistible to them.)

I got to chat with my spiritual grandmother Margaret Gaines this week, as some friends of ours are looking to publish her manuscript Small Enough to Stop the Violence. Having lived through the implications of the contemporary Church’s teachings on these things from the opposite side–as a lifelong missionary to a Palestinian village, Margaret speaks directly in the book about the “meddlesome zealotry of the Church” who won’t simply trust matters of the end with the Master. Now 78, she laughed as she told me that she knew she would step into a minefield when it gets published, reminding me of the backlash people like Jimmy Carter experienced for calling attention to the mistreatment of Palestinians. No depth of experience or love for God or love for people gives you a right in evangelical circles to question the script, which has become more sacred even than the Scripture.

Especially as I am teaching through the book of Revelation, I am even more surprised than usual at the amount of speculation (accepted as doctrine on par with John 3.16) that never appears in John’s apocalypse. Revelation holds the promise of rescuing the Church’s imagination, but perhaps we must rescue Revelation from the hands of those who cannot handle it well first. As I shared in my last post, the primary theme of the book is that of witness–the faithful witness of Jesus who defeats the forces of darkness by His sacrificial death, the faithful witness of His Church who shares in His sacrifice for the sake of the salvation of the nations. Don’t skim past that sentence, because I just summarized the book for you. There is no but at the end of that sentence. The literal, wooden application of Revelation that fails to show regard for its shape, structure or context has many convinced that it empowers this sort of “let’s go beat the bad guys” kind of worldview. But that is not what Revelation is about! The other day, I recommended some resources on Revelation and forgot a key one–Richard Hays’ Moral Vision of the New Testament. In his foundational book on ethics, Hays, a very faithful man who annoys conservatives and liberals alike because of his insistence on sticking to the texts on their own terms, demonstrates brilliantly how Revelation is not an endorsement of human violence as a means of bringing about God’s purposes in the world. Rather, Revelation shows how God’s people reject human violence and instead embrace the way of the cross in order to see God’s purposes fulfilled in the world.

I am always fascinated by the fact that people who have heard this other brand of “prophecy” teaching all their lives are so suspicious of different approaches to the text–as if they somehow complicate the Word of God and refuse to believe what God has clearly said. Especially since there is no theological system in contemporary history that contorts and distorts the “plain” meaning of Scripture more than fundamentalist dispensationlism. No wonder you have to be an “expert” to read it that way, given the nonsensical, labyrinthine interpretative moves you have to make to come to those conclusions.

I need to stop prattling on about Of Gods and Men (per my last post), but I’m still so struck by the imagery of that film–where a group of priests refuse to compromise their witness for Christ in the face of certain death at the hands of radical Muslims. They are not starry-eyed idealists, they are men who come to understand full well what it will mean to love violent enemies in their community, and yet choose to stand with other-wordly grace and courage. It’s a more Biblical picture, a more Revelation formed picture, than Left Behind could ever be. I am desperate, in a way that makes my bones physically ache, to see God’s people embrace their role of witness as defined by Revelation rather than as fortune tellers and prophecy fulfillers. This isn’t a peripheral issue. The Church is the only hope of the world, people!!! This stuff matters more than we know.

If this seems offensive in tone, forgive me. But I do believe the times are urgent, and I don’t think we can continue to speak in whispers about these matters. Harold Camping is not just a man who is wrong because he called a wrong date. He is representative of a system that continues to keep the people of God from being the people of God in a desperate world. When the only gospel we are given is the gospel of the cross of Christ, and the gospel we are taught empowers us to look to vanquish our enemies rather than lay down our lives for them, heresy is not too strong a term. The way that many of these teachings are being played out are not wrong, they are destructive.

Am I suggesting that any of these people are insincere, or that they really don’t love God or the Church? God forbid. Forgive me for putting it this crassly–but it just seems that when it comes to matters of the end, even those of us who are good, generous loving people who really have encountered Jesus just seem to lose our minds.

The Harold Camping fiasco last weekend prompted a merciless round of jokes (not least of all from me–and I have stockpiled new ones for October like the proverbial cans of green beans in my apocalyptic fallout shelter). The word prophecy was of course thrown out a lot this week, both in the sense of what Scripture says or doesn’t say about the end of the world, as well as prophecy as defined as a kind of personal insight or perspective on futuristic events. There are of course, a diverse set of definitions for what it is to be a prophet. In the purist sense of the word, a prophet is one who declares the word of God. In Scripture this often carries the connotation of anointed, inspired, powerful speech (more in terms of authority than volume).

Perhaps the best and most beautiful example of prophecy in Scripture comes from Isaiah 61.1-3, which Jesus would reinterpret in light of His own prophetic task: “The spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for them who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” There is no more beautiful nor more potent definition of prophecy than that. And of course prophecy can also carry with it the connotation of speaking truth to power, speaking God’s word from the margins in the way the Old Testament prophets most often did. So a stinging critique of culture or religion from one postured outside that culture’s norms might be called a “prophetic” voice.

Yet in popular vernacular, the words “prophets” and “prophecy” has come to denote any kind of supernaturally inspired, intelligible speech. Thus in traditions like mine, anytime a person offers “a word” to another believer about something they believed God has revealed to them–whether regarding that person’s present struggles, or a word of encouragement or edification, or a word regarding their calling or future–in shorthand any such behavior is identified as a prophecy. I chafe under that definition sometimes because it is truncated, and can thus downplay the biblical realities of divine proclamation and speaking truth to power described earlier. But at the end of the day, I don’t think it is unfair to refer to these activities as prophetic. And while I am leery of self-designated prophets of any stripe, I do not think it is inaccurate to label believers who operate within these gifts as prophets.

Yet not only in cases like that of Camping, where a person has claimed some sort of personal revelation on the end of time, I have been witness to countless abuses under the moniker of prophecy–and nearly always from sincere people. God wants you to quit your job and go do this…and then things don’t pan out. Sorry. God says you are going to have a baby in the next 15 months. Oops, my bad. God says you are going to get rich by 2003 and send missionaries around the world from your abundance. DOH! And then there are those abuses that are not well-meaning missteps, but intentional power plays to manipulate others and give oneself a sense of power or control. If I were honest, I have as many accounts of prophecy gone wild as I do prophecy gone well.

And yet at the end of the day, I cling tenaciously to the idea that God’s people in all times and all places comprise a prophetic community, and that includes real personal insights shared from the Spirit of God in countless ways worthy of the p-word. I don’t know where Renovatus would be (or I would be) if not for the natural, humble and healthy ways people in our body have operated within this gift. In fact, I plan to share this weekend one of the defining prophetic experiences of my life–something that happened this week, hot off the presses.And while there are individuals who function in these gifts with unusual clarity or one might even say anointing, I also believe that every believer has the capacity to function within the sphere of these gifts at some level.

I understand better than anyone why people are inclined to throw the baby out with the bathwater–that is the natural inclination of anyone who has been victimized by prophetic abuse. This point must be conceded: for all the promise that prophecy has to edify and encourage within the local Church, for all the benefits of being attentive to hearing God’s voice in this way–prophecy is maddeningly inefficient. It takes great time, discernment and safeguards within Christian communities for prophecy to operate within a body in a way that brings unity and direction rather than chaos and confusion. Let me say it again: prophecy is not efficient. But are the risks worth it? Not trying to quote Sarah Palin (or Tina Fey’s impression of her), but youbetcha.

In the following posts, I offer what I hope will be some helpful insight into what this might be look like and how it might work.

I shared in part one not only the conflicting definitions of prophecy, but some of the legitimate conflict we experience in the body of Christ over how prophetic gifts should function. As a former professor of mine liked to say, “Abuse leads to no use.” In other words, when a gift is used destructively, there often follows an over correction where the gift is outlawed. That has been especially true in church history with regard to all so-called “supernatural” gifts of the Spirit, going back to the days of the prophet Montanus, whose stark prophetic claims led many to reject the idea of prophecy altogether (outside of that already revealed in Scripture).

I have both witnessed and experienced prophetic abuses in its most severe, destructive forms, and am yet more adamant than ever that despite my ambiguity and even hurt over these experiences: it is a greater risk to ignore the voice of God in this way than to embrace it. One of the chief markers of a follower of Jesus is the ability to hear His voice. In His own words, “My sheep hear my voice.” It is the Spirit of Jesus who will “guide us into all truth,” and while that claim certainly speaks to the Spirit’s ability to guide the disciples to write Scripture, that is not where it ends (with apologies to Frank Turek).

God does not speak in a personal way that will violate the parameters of Scripture, but the idea of a God who has spoken once and for all in this kind of divine revelation and then shut His mouth is as frightening to me as a God who doesn’t speak at all. All around the world, perfectly “ordinary” Christians in ordinary Christian communities are able to hear the word of God, speak the word of God, discern the voice of God. They are not super Christians or “deeper” Christians. Most of those who operate in this kind of rhythm of listening and speaking by the Spirit are not only not self-congratulatory about it–it is such a natural and normal part of their existence they might not even be fully aware of how remarkable it is. And one of the most potent ways that happens is through the gift of each other–one brother or sister lovingly submitted to the Lordship of Jesus and the authority of the local church speaks on the Father’s behalf to another brother or sister.

There are many beautiful dimensions to this idea. For one, the Spirit of God is the great equalizer. As He is no respecter of persons, He speaks to and through whoever He wishes, whenever and however He wishes. Thus even in a radically patriarchal culture, the Spirit upset the power structures of the world in Acts where finally “the sons AND the daughters will prophesy.” Black and whites and Asian and Hispanic–both men and women, speak forth the words of God with equal divine power. The Spirit is able to speak to the lowest and least within any Christian community in terms of worldly power, affluence or success. It is one of the most remarkable functions of the Spirit’s work, and when it is on display among brothers and sisters who operate in love within community, it is breathtaking indeed.

And yet as the creation narrative of Genesis reminds us, there is one who is at work to subvert the elegant handiwork of the Creator, as it has been from the beginning. The most beautiful things God does in Christian community can become the most distorted and grotesque, precisely because they carry the potential for such unrestrained beauty. It is tempting to share some of my harrowing experiences of this here, but I am far too skittish about my own inner reasons for airing such things even in a veiled way. I do not trust my motivations enough to do that, as sharing tales of profound hurt from a public platform so often carries the stench of vengeance. I am not into that. After all, there is no abuse within my own Christian community that I do not ultimately take responsibility for myself as the leader God has placed within it.

So I will skip the details and get to the constructive part. Ecclesiology is the word we use to simply name the theology of the Church, what we think about being the Church. And the problem with so much understanding of prophecy (or lack thereof) is that it is not grounded in Ecclesiology. In fact, I would go so far as to say that any person who claims a prophetic gift or anointing who does not adequately understand the nature of the Church is a danger to themselves and others, however well-intentioned they might be.

Churches thrive when there is divine order. The gift of prophecy (and all other spiritual gifts) are subject to the discernment of the leaders within the Christian community where those gifts function, as I Corinthians 14 clearly indicates. The problem with many “prophets” is that they are their own ultimate sense of authority. They would never admit this, because they would say their authority comes from the Spirit alone, and they must do whatever the Spirit tells them. “I am in submission to God.” And yet submission to God means nothing in the abstract if not expressed in the particular by being submitted to actual persons.

Ironic how people who think they embrace a way of being Church that is innovative or creative define their innovation by being authority-less. As in, “we are in a people of the Spirit–we don’t need stupid titles and man-made structures, we listen to God.” And yet is there anything less creative, less innovative, or more bourgeois than this American idea of autonomy? Strangely enough, this brand of creativity brings us back to the most uncreative lie of democratic societies–that it is possible to live without authority. That there is no higher form of wisdom and discernment than that provided by the autonomous self. What is coded as “I listen only to God” ultimately means nothing but, “whatever I feel or discern is best for me is what I do.” I have better discernment than the community, and set myself outside it as its objective judge–because I hear from God. Without actual authority expressed in an actual community, this lie will be the source of mischief at minimum and utter devastation at its worse.

Those who feel like they operate in prophetic gifts must be subject to authority. Some of the worst mistakes of my ministry have been in extending too much so-called grace to those who re-buffed correction, or at least did not actually take it seriously. If this begs the question, “what about those leaders–who should they be subject to?” That is why I am passionate that there should be some form of authority beyond the local Church, and why I actively seek out spiritual fathers and mothers and actively submit to authorities above me in the Lord. I practice what I preach here. Big-time.

And secondly I would offer this: prophecy should not operate in private within a community. You heard me correctly. Prophecy should never be private. There must be at least one (preferably more) additional witnesses that can verify or invalidate the accuracy of the prophetic word. The worst prophetic abuses I have seen have been from people who generally prophesied in private, thus keeping their experiences outside the light that believers walk in and in the dark where the enemy and division thrive. Prophecy in private means that individual believers can be manipulated and coerced. In the worst of these scenarios, they are even fed visions of so-called greatness that causes them to feel apart from/better than the community–or co-dependent on the prophet rather than the voice of God Himself.

Private prophecy is dangerous. Prophesy submitted to communal discernment is healthy and vibrant (though still complicated–the blessings so far outweigh the complexities we learn how to navigate). Prophesy is like other things that take two to make things go right. Prophecy outside community is like sex outside of marriage–a cherished gift that cannot fully be appreciated or enjoyed outside of covenant love. Prophecy outside communal discernment is a selfish, masturbatory act that brings satisfaction to the “prophet” but ultimately expresses contempt for the people of God. The community brings the safety, parameters and pastoral affection where these gifts can be experimented with, explored and discerned in the context of authority. In the discipline of being subject to one another and subject to leadership, prophetic gifts express love for God’s people rather than self-love.

I don’t know if I qualify as a real fan of Thomas Merton or not. The Catholic monk who rivaled C.S. Lewis as one of the 20th century’s most influential Christian voices has always intrigued me though. For years, I had read Merton only in excerpts. Having converted to Catholicism as a worldly, urbane 20 something and drawn quickly to monastic life, he spent the majority of his adult life at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky. His insight into the role and nature of solitude and silence in the life of the believer, markers of the Trappist order, is a gift to the whole Church and the whole world. At his best, Merton’s fearlessness to wrestle with his own demons and cultivate awareness of the divine whisper produced some of the finest and clearest spiritual writing of the last century. There are sections in books like New Seeds of Contemplation in particular that deeply moved me.

It was of course the autobiography of his conversion, The Seven Storey Mountain, that made him famous. I had never read that classic work until I went on silent retreat last year at the Abbey of Gethsemane. There first and foremost for a time of soul searching and prayer, my secondary objective was to get my head around Merton while I was there. I read Seven Storey Mountain in 3 short days, an experience which gave me something like the headache you get when you eat ice cream too fast. I admired the young Merton I encountered there. I admired his idealism and zero to sixty intensity for Christ and life together with his brothers. I was moved by his profound sense of reverence. Merton wrote quite seriously about how one of the central reasons he wanted to join monastic life was so that he could live day and night in the same building where the host (the communion bread and wine) was housed, a sentiment which I found heartbreakingly beautiful. That palpable sense of reverence and awe, things we never seem to risk having too much of, got hold of me. And yet I enjoyed Seven Storey Mountain as an outsider, not an insider. His was a voice I enjoyed from a distance. That Merton was serious, even humorless, and certainly rigid in his understanding of orthodox Catholicism. While it was intense to read his autobiography staying a few feet away from his grave, it did not change my life. Some of Merton’s classic works, like No Man is an Island, flatly failed to sustain my interest despite numerous attempts to access it.

Coming from the world I come from…among Protestants and Pentecostals, I assume Merton’s legacy is mixed. Only the most obtuse fundamentalist would deny the validity or even divine inspiration behind Merton’s insight into the life of prayer. On the other hand, the ever-seeking Merton spent a lot of time exploring Eastern religion in his later years, and had some difficulties in his personal life that I assume lessen his evangelical street cred, legacy wise (I’m sure Merton would be devastated). Even in his own writing career, Merton is a bit of a moving target–I assume those drawn to certain chapters of his public life would be less inclined towards others. So to that end, I will make a few disclaimers–and not look back again.

I do not feel well versed enough in the Merton canon to know whether or not he did or did not become more inclusive than I would feel comfortable with in terms of Christian orthodoxy. I do know that I have read things in Merton that strike me as problematic. Right now there is great concern that perhaps there is a movement towards a kind of open-ended, bland kind of tolerance threatening key doctrines of the Church. I agree with that, actually. But I also think in this maddening environment of John MacArthurism/Piperism (I’m sure “McCarthyism” is what I really meant to say), there is also an uncritical backlash where there is no room to engage great thinkers of the Church we might disagree with, holding on to that we feel can nourish enough and leaving behind that which does not. I am no more inclined to the latter of those options than I am the former, and am thus quite comfortable to share insights gleaned from a complicated but gifted voice, even though he pushes my own buttons (including in the primary section I will feature here tomorrow).

Moving on…by a happy accident, Amanda picked up Merton’s Raids on the Unspeakable at our favorite used bookstore (Book Buyers on Central ave., in case you were wondering) the other day. Last week I picked it up casually, and was astounded by what I found there. As usual, there were a handful of essays that did little for me. But there were several of the best pieces of contemporary spiritual writing I suppose I’ve ever read.

This was a different, older Merton, one whose voice I could understand better. He seemed alternately more at home in his skin, full of mischief and far less humorless than the young man who wrote Seven Storey Mountain; and yet full of urgency, tired of censoring his thoughts and eager to apply with precision thoughts formed in silence to the real world. The Merton I encountered there was testier, funnier, and more unfettered than I had imagined. Broad in his reading and interested in nearly everything, the restless soul who wrote Raids on the Unspeakable was one I felt kinship with. While I do not possess such gifts, the reckless, prophetic side of Merton that takes no prisoners and stares unblinking at the real problems and the real beauty of his world gives me a glimpse of the man I want to be. There is a restraint to Merton’s earlier work that, even while brilliant, made him feel buttoned up to me even given his honesty. But this is jazz Merton, he’s was making soul music here.

The essays are loosely eschatological though otherwise thematically diverse. His opening essay, “Rain on the Rhinocerus,” is a stunning and eternally relevant critique of technology and the role of the city in driving us away from the rhythms of nature we were given. His prose elegy upon the death of Flannery O’Connor was incisive and fun. His “Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann” where he contends that those that are deemed the most sane by our culture are in fact the ones most likely to end the world is worth the price of admission. And nothing tops the elegance, heartache or heartbreak of “The Time at the End of the World is the Time of No Room,” perhaps the most moving, prophetic Christmas meditation I’ve ever read.

Yet in terms of sheer impact, nothing hit me quite as hard as the last 2 pages of his essay “To Each His Darkness,” where Merton describes the beautiful inconsistency of mercy.

(Part Two to follow tomorrow)

It struck me the other day that while we are all complex beings with diverse experiences, in Scripture it often seems you can sum a person up fundamentally by one scene or experience. Whatever else Abraham was, the moment that God promised to make him the father of many nations dictated the shape and destiny of everything else about his life. From slaying Goliath to presiding at King, it was David’s identity as God-obssessed shepherd in the field that pretty much established what we know him to become (and more importantly who he actually was). So when Abraham was noble or cowardly, his identity as the father too many nations is the ground floor, the lens through which we interpret everything about his life. When David was faithful and when unfaithful, we still see him through the lens of his experience as a boy because it’s what defined him. Moses was comparatively defined by the burning bush.

My life is not nearly so epic, but in these terms I have finally found out who I am: I’m the boy on the bike. I told the story this weekend at Renovatus about the countless hours I spent in my neighborhood in west Charlotte riding around in circles in the cul-de-sac just up from our house. I wasn’t trying to go anywhere in particular and I didn’t feel stuck. It was where I dreamed and created and told stories (sometimes out loud), and as I understand it now, where I came to know God. After the years of the blue and silver Schwinn bike (one speed with foot brakes) I rode between the ages of 8-12, there would be no other bicycles until I was 31 (thus you can understand how easy it would be to forget who you really are). Those memories had been dormant for a long time until the day my friend Jim Driscoll was praying with me last Fall, and in an intense moment, got this very strong image of me riding around in circles on a bike as a boy. He said God wanted to bring that experience back to me—the creativity, the joy, the fun, the dreaming that was embodied in all of that. I knew it was one of the more powerful, resonant prophetic words I had ever received. It reminded me of who I really was.

But unfortunately, that sweet moment faded the way sweet moments tend to do, all until a few days ago when I was riding around in circles on a bike on Seabrook Island (by necessity, because the condo parking lot was the only place lit enough to really see late at night), caught up in the place where angels and the worship of God run into the part of me that thinks entirely in terms of stories, music and outer space. I remembered Jim’s word, and was overcome with God. It wasn’t about remembering who I was anymore, but being who I am in God again.

I shared that over the weekend, but here is the part I did not share: In recent days, I have had many reasons/occasions to ponder the fragility of my life, the fragility of all our lives. It is indeed difficult to keep the childish, delightfully naïeve faith, all earnestness and awkardness and pure trust, that I once had as the boy on the bike. How does one maintain that essential identity, the beloved child of Abba riding his bike in circles—with so many dangers and distractions all around?

I honestly felt like the Lord reminded me of another pivotal story of life aboard the silver and blue Schwinn. In the second grade, when we lived in Kannapolis, NC where my Dad was a pastor at the time, there was a large open lot on a hill beside our house. I rode my bike down that dirt hill almost everyday. There was a bully in the neighborhood, an older boy named Gus, who used to come around and pick on me. One day he came by and started taunting me while I was riding my bike. “Bet you can’t ride your bike down that hill,” he said. “Of course I can, I do it everyday!” I said. “I don’t believe you. Why don’t you prove it to me?” Not wanting to be shown up on my home turf, I nonchalantly rode my bike to the top of the hill, and took off in a flash down the steep incline. Just before I got to the bottom, my bike and my body struck the thin fishing wire Gus had tied between the two large trees on opposite sides of the clearing on the hill. As the wire cut into my skin, I went flying one direction and my bike went flying another. I sailed through the air and hit the ground with a thud, screaming.

Standing just inside our house, my father ran out. First things first, he came to check on me. Given the speed I was going down that hill, there really are no limits to the kind of injury I could have sustained. But besides tearing up the upper half of one leg and wounding my pride, I was not seriously hurt. My Dad proceeded to let Gus have it, and that was the last I saw of him.

Even in my innocence and naivety, knowing what it was to be loved by God and loved by my parents as I passed the days on my bike, it was my first discovery that there are malevolent forces at work in the world that do not respect innocence or pay homage to naivety. It was the first time I ever felt unsafe doing the thing I loved most where I felt at home with God, but it would not be the last. Gus was the first person I can remember bullying me or actively wishing me harm, but he was not the last. That was the first time I ever remember looking at familiar surroundings that had brought comfort, now inclined to check the ground for traps—but it would not be the last.

And yet, what comfort it brings me even now to have the memory of my father, coming to care for me when I was thrown my bike, coming to oppose the bully who tried to hurt me. I was sitting on a plane from Baltimore to Charlotte Saturday, and felt this simple word of revelation and thanksgiving: God, you really have been faithful to the boy on the bike. Still are. I am not ignorant of the fact that there are dangers along the path, some strewn there and some planted there. I am only convinced, perhaps for the first time?–of the trustworthiness of my Father. That I do not have to fear whatever I encounter as I recapture my identity as the boy on the bike, He will be there for me.

Even though I ride through the valley of the shadow of death…

(continued from yesterday)

In a brilliant closing section, Merton describes the consistency of the logical world and the consistency of justice, contrasted to mercy which is always surprising and always overturns our feeble constants. “But mercy breaks into the world of magic and justice and overturns its apparent consistency,” he says. “It is therefore comic…Only mercy can liberate us from the madness of our determination to be consistent–from the awful patterns of lusts, greeds, angers and hatreds which mix us up together like a mass of dough and thrust us all together into the oven.” We become obsessed with many things, become compulsive about many things. But “you cannot become obsessed with mercy!”

In the powerful closing paragraphs, Merton contends:

This is the inner secret of mercy. It is totally incompatible with obsession, with compulsion. It liberates from all the rigid and deterministic structures which magic strives to impose on reality (or which science, the child of magic, tries to impose)!

Mercy is not to be purchased by a set way of acting, by a formal determination to be consistent.

Law is consistent. Grace is “inconsistent.”

The Cross is the sign of contradiction–destroying the seriousness of the Law, of the Empire, of the armies, of blood sacrifice, and of obsession.

But the magicians keep turning the Cross to their own purposes . Yes, it is for them too a sign of contradiction: the awful blasphemy of the religious magician who makes the Cross contradict mercy! This of course is the ultimate temptation of Christianity! To say that Christ has locked all the doors, has given one answer, settled everything and departed, leaving all life enclosed in the frightful consistency of a system outside of which there is seriousness and damnation, inside of which there is the intolerable flippancy of the saved–while nowhere is there any place left for the mystery of the freedom of divine mercy which alone is truly serious, and worthy of being taken seriously.

And that may well be one of the finest, most poignant descriptions of God’s mercy I’ve read.  It is interesting how tyrannical our structures and our judgments really are–and just how violently disruptive really is to the world’s order.  It’s also interesting that no matter how much you grow in love for God or formation in Christ-likeness, mercy never quite comes naturally.  Even living from the depths of God’s goodness, there is always an intentional act to step into the disruption of mercy, as unwelcome as it is to almost any human system.

Because it is one of the most powerful sentences I’ve ever read, I think this line bears repeating: “The Cross is the sign of contradiction–destroying the seriousness of the Law, of the Empire, of the armies, of blood sacrifice, and of obsession.”  I’ve never thought about my own relentless desire to set the record straight when I am wrong or for someone to suffer the consequences when they leave me wounded as an obsession.  But is there any other time in life when the desires of our flesh apart from God’s Spirit rises up with comparable power?  There is no lust in the world as deviant nor as primal as the desire to be right.

Even in a community like Renovatus that is established on the notion of divine mercy (as a “church for people under renovation), the regular disruption of mercy stops just short of becoming routine.  Perhaps because mercy is the one virtue that can never be routinized–it will always require the Holy Spirit. In the most unelegant metaphor of my life, you know when you are on the trail of a certain kind of animal because of the droppings they leave behind (as in “whoa…a horse walked through here not long ago.”)  Whenever I stumble into (and indeed sometimes step into) signs of mercy along the path, however old or fresh, I always know…the Spirit has been through here.

I do not assume that you have any problems with Merton’s description of the disruptive nature of divine mercy.  Although I would imagine that you might take issue with Merton’s language that “this of course is the ultimate temptation of Christianity! To say that Christ has locked all the doors, has given one answer, settled everything and departed, leaving all life enclosed in the frightful consistency of a system outside of which there is seriousness and damnation, inside of which there is the intolerable flippancy of the saved–while nowhere is there any place left for the mystery of the freedom of divine mercy which alone is truly serious, and worthy of being taken seriously.”  This goes back to the tendency towards universality I described yesterday.  I can only offer this: as a person who takes Jesus at His word that He is the way, the truth and the life, I do not believe there are other paths to the Father except through Him.  But whether or not you think Merton builds a bridge too far here, I must also say that my heart leaped at the phrase “the intolerable flippancy of the saved.”

The problem that Merton is driving at is a real one, as much so for an evangelical or a Pentecostal as for any other part of the body of Christ–that many who proclaim the cross of Christ get the message right but the tone wrong.  Or perhaps they get the message right technically in a sermon, but wrong in demonstration.  Thus we proclaim salvation through Christ’s cross, but in turn we contradict our message of God’s unconditional love by forgetting that mercy is what the cross is all about.  This is why I, even in most sane moments, still find myself hopping mad when I see (and you will find evidence of this in recent blogs) Christians who get doctrines of salvation technically right but get the spirit of the doctrine wrong–making the cross into a weapon rather than a means of laying down our lives for the sake of the world.

You don’t have to get anywhere universalism to see that the message and the means are often inconsistent, or that the message and the tone are often inconsistent.  And you certainly don’t have to be a universalist to recognize the “intolerable flippancy of the saved.”  Which is why it is hard for me to hear about divine justice or judgment from people that are emotionally disconnected, smug in their own sense of righteousness and glib in their pronouncements on others.  As I see over and over again in Revelation, in the same way Jesus is the faithful witness who has offered up His very life for the sake of the world, we now follow Him in our own sacrifice, “loving not our own lives even unto death” for the sake of bearing witness to God’s mercy alongside of Him.

Tuesday night, I preached in our Dust service on Matthew 5.9, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” as part of their series on the Beatitudes.  Even as I was speaking, I felt God’s revelation enveloping my own heart, working against the consistency of my judgments with His ever surprising mercy.  For even as one who is able to speak from Scripture (and even what I believe to be a divine unction from the Holy Spirit) on peace and peacemaking, there is still room for notable exceptions in my mind when it comes to people I am “justifiably” offended by.  How easy it is for me to nail the doctrine of mercy with relentless precision, and in doing so not allow the disruption of mercy to terrorize my own heart.

Brother Merton, I feel you.  And today my prayer is to be liberated from any and every form of the tyranny of law, and to be plunged into the bottomless, raging and entirely untamed sea of divine mercy.

I took a short hiatus from the blog last week as I was sick for several days.  I solicited some ideas from friends for a couple of short blog series I’ve been excited about, and am planning to do some more leadership-centric stuff.  Specifically, with my head caught in the rhythms, numbers and symbols of Revelation, they were going to be in “7′s.”  They will still follow, but it is strangely difficult to write about anything right now beyond the immediacy of what God’s Spirit is doing in me.  On one hand, there is such an effortless, tangible grace that I feel like I’m full of ideas and creativity and sophia (wisdom) that comes from another place, as if the Spirit who brooded over the abyss is hovering above my head.  On the other hand, life and ministry right now has such a stark simplicity to it that it feels I have only one thing to say.

The discovery is no more or less profound that this: at 33 years old, I believe for the first time in my life that I am truly, utterly, madly loved by God.  And that knowledge has re-shaped everything else about my life.  In one way, the scenery is the same.  In another way, I feel like I’m still months inside my new skin.

My wife pegged my personality as that of an “otter”, free-spirited and fun-loving.  And of course that is true, I’ve always had a strong dose of fun and mischief.  But I can also say, without overstating the case, I think this is the first time in my adult life that I have been truly and consistently happy.  It almost makes me feel I need to meet everybody in my life again for the first time.  I have had moments of great peace, great clarity, great joy.  I have always had people around me that make my life rich in love and laughter.  Yet I don’t think I realized that despite those fragments of abundant life, that I wasn’t really ever happy.  It’s the kind of thing I don’t think you necessarily know you are missing until you’ve found it.

Happiness, of course, seems a theologically flawed word to contemporary Christians.  In our culture, happiness is often labeled as a fleeting good feeling from temporal pleasure, whereas joy is deep, abiding, and not rooted in circumstance.  Thus we speak in variations of “You can’t always be happy but you can have joy,” or “God doesn’t want you to be happy, He wants you to be holy.”  But I won’t let evangelical Church culture steal my good word.  Happiness, in the ancient sense, as described in the work of great souls like Thomas Aquinas, was no light thing. To be happy was to be fulfilled in the deepest sense of the word, to know your place in God and in the world.  There is no other word for what I am right now, friends–I am happy.  Holiness is wholeness, and wholeness is happiness.

That is not to say that life and ministry are not demanding.  The called life is not easy, and much work is required.  But how happy it is to abide in Christ, to feel Him speaking through me and touching through me with such grace and ease.  How happy the work is, even when you are still plowing, when His yoke is easy and His burden is light!

I am happy because at 33, I now completely believe that I am God’s beloved.  And while I have preached in such a way as to bring many into that reality, that gift is just that–a gift from outside myself that does not originate in me and is not entirely in my control.  I have spoken of the joy of knowing God in this way many times, but was less truthful than I knew.  I remember in the 80′s/90′s there was a Christian comedian named Mike Warnke who, at least in part, faked his testimony of being converted from being some sort of Satanic priest.  My lie was not so sinister, as I was walking in the light I was given.  There were moments, there were times, when I knew what was to be loved by God more than I did before.  But in retrospect, that knowledge was so partial as to almost be negligible.

It feels like I have discovered the secrets of the universe.  It makes it hard to talk about anything else.  So if I was writing about leadership, I would basically just get around to telling you that all my bad leadership decisions came out of not fully realizing the love of the Father, and all of the good ones came out of being secure in it.  If I was writing about basketball or basket weaving, I would probably still be talking about the same things.  Scripture, in all of its complexity and diverse witness, seems shockingly simple now.  The whole thing seems summed up in the invitation of love offered in Revelation 22.17 “The Spirit and the Bride say Come!”  And there are really no stories except stories of people moving closer or at least attempting to move further away from the love of God.  There is no action to be taken except to accept the invitation into God’s Triune love or to reject it, and really everything else that happens from there is a postscript.

What delirious simplicity.  I love my wife, I love my church, I love my friends.  I think my new identity may cause friends old and new to have to learn how to relate to me differently, but that is no matter.  I love to preach, and I can say without the slightest trace of pride that I’ve been preaching the great messages of my life and perhaps a lifetime, because they are so clearly a gift that I do not own nor claim.  All of this, and so much more by way of colors and lights and sounds–from one simple truth: I finally believe God loves me.

No wonder Paul prayed for the Ephesians in 3.18-19 that they ^“may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  There is quite literally nothing else to know.  Or at the very least, when you even begin to comprehend it, nothing else you would find interesting.

The next couple of entries are simple reflections that come from this inside-out transformation.

The most painful discovery of life in my new digs at Chalet Happiness is the revelation of how many relationships are based on need rather than love.  Not being secure in the love of the Father has made me a promiscuous lover of others, and not always in the ravenous affection and curiosity I have for other humans (that’s been there some too) but in the gluttonous desire to fill a place no man can fill.  And when you recognize the ways your own “love” is dependent on whether or how the people around you are doing at filling a black hole of swarming need inside yourself that they could never hope to fulfill, you also become aware of how people are doing it to you.

In a great live version of “One” on the Zoo TV tour, Bono changed the lyric “have you come here to play Jesus/to the lepers in your head?” to “Have you come here to play Jesus…I did.”  And indeed messiah complexes are not the unique property of crusading rock stars and certainly not preachers, but most all of us until we wake up to the love of God.  We are looking for someone to play Jesus for the lepers in our head, and we are playing Jesus for somebody else.

I’m not being cynical here.  My friend Jim Driscoll has helped me, telling me that what people see in me is God and God’s anointing in my preaching.  So when God touches their lives through me, they want to be close to me–because they want to get close to God.  But it’s God there after, and its only natural that they express that toward the man or woman they saw God through.  There is nothing evil about this, and I don’t feel used.

Yet what about the relationships where we are loved insofar as we “need them?”  They get validation because we come to them weak and broken and lost and hurt, because they get to play Jesus to the lepers in our head.  In the most profound indictment found in all of Scripture, the prophet Jeremiah says (in 2.13)

for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.

The broken glass cuts the artery just to read those words again.  Did you hear that?  Put aside your list of sins for a moment and understand that in essence, there are only two.  In the same way that all the commandments can be summed up in whole-hearted love for God and neighbor, all sin can be summed up in this: forsaking the living water and digging cisterns for ourselves that hold no water.  There is more revelation wrapped up in those words than I know how to express.

And yet this is not really an entry about sin.  It is about how you have to learn how to navigate relationships where you used to ask people (unfairly) to fill your broken cistern, now that you are living from the source of living waters.  How to love them without strings of need covering your chest like you’ve been eating messy cheesy pasta.  How to let them love you without letting them fulfill you, since they never could anyway.

With these new discoveries comes a moment of anxiety–especially when you have lived as buttoned up in the world of politeness so often confused for Christ-likeness as I have been: will they still love me once they really get to know me?  Do they love me, both when I was living from broken cisterns but now again that I live from the river of life?  Do they love me, or did they only love the way I made them feel when I was in need?  But even that moment of anxiety is brief, because the revelation of the Father’s love relativises them all!

This is not about not caring anymore about “them” and only caring “what God thinks,” because God in you makes you love them all the more.  However they love you or they do not not love you, now you are liberated to love them completely because your need does not possess them like a violent lover.

I hope you will be patient with me as I learn how to love you better.  And I will certainly be patient with you, as I explain how you can learn to love the man who has everything.

There may be no legalism that enslaves like the endless series of laws you learn to live by when your life is underwritten by a fear of man and a fear of rejection.  The rules you must abide by to curry favor and keep everybody happy at all costs are far more than the 600+ laws Jewish tradition would add to their basic moral code.  Not being able to pull your donkey out of the ditch on the Sabbath is the least of your worries, and the laws given to please men are far more ornate and complex than those given in order to please God.

When you need fame, notoriety, or far more understated simply “notice”…politely put, appreciation, recognition, big or small–I’m calling that the rock star syndrome.  You need the crowd’s approval to make you feel human.  But I have also become aware of another syndrome, surprisingly as legalistic as the slavish code of the rock star–the legalism of the rebel.  If you don’t earn their contempt, you don’t feel alive.  If they aren’t scandalized, you aren’t happy.  You’ve got something to prove to those guys over there.  You need to be the rebel.  Like that classic photo of Johnny Cash flipping off the camera (which really is a fun picture), you’ve got an ax to grind and a point to prove.

And…ultimately the rebel is living in the deathly anxiety of preoccupation with what “they” think as much as anybody else.  I’m amazed at how many of our conversations and concerns center around “I wonder what this person will think about such and such” or “I wonder what that person will think about this…”  I love my denomination, and plan to never leave it. But my, how much we need to know what the others in the fish bowl are thinking of us (or not thinking of us).  I suppose that is not a Church of God thing and it is true of all human structures.

At this point, the unending need of the rebel to show the crowd up is as mysterious as the rock star’s need for the crowd’s approval.  I believe we should be conscious of how our lives and actions affect others, as God designed us for community–we enter relationship with Him as part of a people, and it will always be so.  So I’m not talking about a cavalier recklessness where we aren’t bothered if we cause a brother or sister to stumble.

But there is something so depressing to me about the sycophants who have to obey all the rules and the anarchists who have to break all the rules.  Both are incomplete in the love of God.  Both are still living from broken cisterns that cannot hold water.  Both are incapable of truly courageous action, because courage requires knowing your identity as God’s beloved.  Both are incapable of lasting change, experienced inwardly or outwardly.  Both are living in the past, because these are customs of people who lived before resurrection changed everything.

I want to be part of the people from the future, which is a way of saying I want to be part of the kingdom of God.  So I won’t grovel, I won’t beg, I won’t plead, I won’t raise my middle finger, I won’t work hard to annoy you, I won’t work hard to get you to love me.  I don’t need to be a rock star, and I don’t need to be a rebel.  I’m whole and complete in Christ Jesus, lacking in nothing.  So now I’m free to succeed and free to fail, free to live and free to die.  Because I won’t play by pre-Easter rules in a post-Easter world.

Anybody out there want to join me?

There are many practices to learn about leadership, many dimensions to the craft. But the difference between Christian leaders that are good at what they do and Christians that are not good at what they do is not generally just on the lists of practices, but in this one basic distinction: strong Christian leaders draw their sense of identity and calling only from God, weak Christian leaders draw their sense of identity and calling from somebody else.

When you know who you are in Christ Jesus, you can make tough calls when you need to make them.  You can stand by a tough choice.  But you can also choose not to retaliate, not to overreact, not to prove your point–because you are striving for obedience to God alone.  Relentless focus on God’s voice is what makes you a compelling person with a vision worth following. And that is all.

A leader who does not draw their sense of worth and value from God alone can learn good leadership practices, and still even with a degree of success…and ultimately still not lead well. A person who doesn’t master the practices can make their life harder than it needs to be–but it is proven that people will follow a difficult leader who makes hard, counter-intuitive calls (and may not even be fundamentally likable), even when their technique is not perfect.

You think I’m oversimplifying this, don’t you?  I am not.  It’s the whole ballgame.

I want to be attentive to leadership principles and always have a lot to learn.  But I want to be most attentive to knowing God–not because I’m afraid that if I don’t have my quiet time He will not bless my ministry or let me run off with a hooker from Topeka, but because the pursuit of Him is all that matters.  Get a man or woman drunk on love for God and charging after Him like a rhino, not out of legalism but near blood-lust for the presence of God, and somebody is going to follow…and something good is going to happen.

Moses didn’t have books written by CEO’s who became Christians and started going to Church (and I’m not hating on that), but he proves my point.  I’m glad for resources that help me run a team more smoothly, and I use them.  But I’m a trailblazer who wants to walk across the Red Sea while God holds back the waters, and Jack Welch hasn’t done that.  So knowing God well (which in turn means I’ll know who I am) is ultimately what it’s all about.

Not long ago, I did a post on leadership lessons I gleaned from the Miami Heat on how to embrace being the villain.  And of course like most every other red-blooded American male that doesn’t actually live in Miami, I have no love lost for the Heat.  Yet here I am again thinking about bigger matters than the NBA playoffs and yet inspired by the Heat—or at least in this case, cautioned by the Heat.

As much as I don’t like this team, I give due respect to their abilities.  I picked the Boston Celtics to win it all this year, even after the disaster trade that squandered Kendrick Perkins and left them fatally vulnerable in the middle.  And yet by the end of the regular season, I was convinced the Heat were the best team in the league—even better than the Celtics.  I picked the Celtics to win, but in my heart it was more “hoping” than expecting them to do really do so.  And as much as I love the Dallas Mavericks with their textbook fundamentals and selfless team play, I believed the Heat to be fully capable of beating them.

Everybody keeps talking about LeBron James’ inability to close a game, but did you see him in the Heat-Celtics series?  He was inhuman towards the end of those games.  The LeBron on display in that series was not just a world-class athlete who was stronger and faster than anybody else on the floor, but a cold-blooded killer, a gunslinger, with the lethal instincts of a Jordan or Bryant.  When LeBron becomes that kind of rattlesnake, there is no team in basketball that can beat the Miami Heat.  Not everyone will agree, but I would contend that the Celtics were every bit as fierce of an opponent as the Mavericks, even hobbled by injuries.  And yet the Heat beat the Celtics 4-1 and lost to the Mavericks 4-2.  So what gives?

My pet theory is simple: disposing of the Celtics in a mere 5 games is what did in the Miami Heat.  There was no opponent they hated more, nor feared more.  The Celtics, with their flagship big three, carved them up multiple times in the regular season.  For the Heat, Boston was their Ivan Drago.  Through all the highs and lows and public loathing, they had their sights set on taking down the Celtics.  And when the time came to do it, they came through without hesitation.  It was what they had been training for.

It was the worst-case scenario for Miami.  When they applied that level of energy and effort to their most fearsome opponent, they won too easily.  The series was not nearly as lopsided as a 4-1 count would tell you—those games were epic battles, some of the most enjoyable in recent NBA history.  The Heat realized their full potential in that series.  And therein lies the problem.   They got what they wanted, proved to themselves and their critics they could beat the best in the business, and thus came into the Dallas series with a much more relaxed mentality.  Dwayne Wade’s ribbing of Dirk Nowitzki was juvenile, and they celebrated too much after that first win against Dallas.  But those weren’t the problems but the symptoms—getting what they wanted too early and too easily was the disease that robbed them of their fire.

There have been some things I desperately wanted in my life that I thought should have come earlier.  There have been some Ivan Dragos I wanted to KO as a young man.  But I now see that there has been no more tangible grace in my life than the hand of God that kept me from getting what I wanted to early and too easily.  There are certain kinds of successes, certain kinds of victories that will do you more harm than a thousand losses if you aren’t ready enough or mature enough for them.

So I raise the question to you today:  Maybe there are some areas of your life or ministry where you feel like either you or God (or both) are a little behind schedule, some things you believe should have happened by now.  Have you ever considered the possibility that not getting what you want when you wanted it may have been an act of grace?  And what is it that God is attempting to develop in  you in the meantime?  Instead of asking, “why don’t I have this by now, Lord,” maybe this is the moment to recognize what God has to teach you where you are in this crucial moment. 

There may be some lessons that are easier learned now than in the spotlight of the NBA Finals.

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…respond to my e-mail in a timely manner.

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…call me on a regular enough basis.

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…fulfill all the hopes and dreams I’ve hung on you

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…as long as I can live vicariously through your successes.

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…lean on me for help in your failures so I can feel important.

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…as long as you abide by my script.

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…entertain me constantly and never let me get bored.

I love you, unconditionally.  As long as you…do everything I ask you to do precisely in the way I expect you to do it.

I’ve been told I have a big personality.  The fact that I had to be told this should so my lack of self-awareness on some levels.  Several friends have commented lately that I make people feel like they are the only person in the room when I’m talking to them, that I make people feel loved from every fiber of my being.  And if that is part of my call, it is part of my curse.  Because I also pick up people’s unfulfilled needs like static cling.  I am a hairy Christmas tree, walking around inviting people to place their hopes and dreams on me like gaudy ornaments. My, how those hopes come with strings of expectations, tinsel made of stone, lights strung with ropes that tear into my wrist.

How often we are told we are loved, unconditionally and completely.  Yet how often that “unconditional love” comes with a surprising amount of conditions.  You know this when you strain against the ropes and feel them digging into your flesh.  There is only one who is capable of bearing up under the hopes and fears of other humans, and those hopes and fears were laid on His shoulders in the shape of a cross.  No wonder in the Christmas hymn we sing “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”  In that song, it is an expression adoration and trust.  That same sentiment expressed to any other person is not adoration but cruelty, for we are not messiahs but fragile Christmas trees that will collapse under the weight of such expectations.

I know now, like never before in my life, the unconditional love of my Father.  It does not make me want to see how much I can get by with–legalism and not love asks the question “how far is too far?”  It keeps me close; it keeps me home.  And whenever I wonder out, even just for an hour or two, back into the arms of other lovers with their expectations binding my hands and feet and their embrace strangling rather than holding me, I am driven back ever so quickly to the love of the Father.  The one who says He loves me unconditionally, with no but at the end of the sentence.

When I was in the 7^th grade at Charlotte’s Wilson Middle School, the school system facilitated a poetry contest for students in honor of Martin Luther King day.  Surprisingly, I more or less remember the poem I entered, even though I don’t know that I have an actual copy anywhere (you’d have to check in with my Mom for that).

In a land in a storm

Of fury and hate

Stepped out a man

Who opened a gate

Of freedom and faith

For all mankind.

Though misunderstood,

his faith he would not resign,

Until he showed us the truth,

we did not want to find.

With visions of peace and strength to love,

He showed us the way that came from above.

I feel like I’m missing a section, but it was something like that, anyway.  As you can guess, I didn’t have much of a future as a poet.  Winning 2^nd place in this contest was the height of my, um, career.  I tried writing some poetry in college, and I would assume what I wrote in middle school was better than the self-conscious artiness and white middle class of a 20-year old.

But the poem does bring me back to a time in my life when I was captivated by the dream of Martin Luther King with an ideological purity and simplicity that is difficult to recapture by the time you become an adult.  I wasn’t really all that knowledgeable about King’s life or legacy then, but I knew enough to know that his message was deeply related to the gospel I learned and the Jesus I loved.  When you are in the 7^th grade, it is easy to dream big and dream out loud about the world you want to live in.  Cynicism is the most insidious of demons, and one of the first you have to stare down.  That was a demon I had not yet faced.

This weekend at Renovatus, I told the story of how the Holy Ghost sent me to Memphis.  In the middle of meetings in Colorado Springs, CO and Nashville, TN, a storm in Atlanta forced us to Memphis unexpectedly.  Having a little less than a day to kill in Memphis, we decided to go to the Lorraine Hotel, the site where King was killed, now the National Civil Rights Museum.

Not unlike my experience on the bike I shared awhile back, it was the second time in a narrow span of time where God brought me back full circle to something about my life and calling He actually established much earlier.  I have been to holy sites all over the Middle East and in Rome, but never been as overcome by the presence of God attached to a physical place as I was when we walked up to the Hotel and saw the spot of his death.  As soon as the scene was in view, a sacred hush settled over Amanda and I, and we both began to weep.  I was undone.

Part of what the Spirit had for me there is clearly related to the revelation God’s been given me on Revelation.  After we came into the museum, we intended to take a quick look and be on our way to Nashville.  Our ticket gave us access to the screening of a free film, which we planned to skip.  But when the announcement came over the speaker that the film was about to start, I heard the Holy Ghost (inwardly) tell me to go in no uncertain terms.  I was startled by what I saw.  Getting ready to preach about the two witnesses in Revelation 11, feeling God’s message already burning in my heart, the film was called Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306. The 2009 documentary tells the story of the Rev. Billy Kyles, the last living “witness” to have shared the final hour of King’s life inside the Lorraine Hotel.

I will not linger here, as I told the full story this weekend and you can hear it online.  (You can also watch the astonishingly powerful 32 minute for free here.)  But I didn’t tell this weekend any of my own back story, and what the experience meant in my own narrative.  Ever since, I have been haunted, disturbed and inspired by what I saw of his legacy. The last time I had been re-introduced to King was when I read Charles Marsh’s wonderful The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement to Today, which makes the case brilliantly that King and the civil rights movement cannot be understood apart from its explicit grounding in Christianity and its vivid biblical imagery.  While intellectually I understand that fine, there is no question but there was something about the fire and vision God imparted to me as a poetry-writing 7^th grader from the legacy of Martin Luther King that got lost until the Holy Ghost sent me to Memphis.

So apart from my direct connection of the idea of witness from that experience with my preaching of Revelation 11, I am doing two things here: building an Ebenezer, a monument to a demonstrative experience of God, that I may not forget and that you won’t let me forget; and 2, to tease out some of the thoughts and questions that linger since I came down from that mountain.

(part 2 to follow)

I continue to be baffled by how often people engage in allegedly in-depth Bible study of Revelation without ever engaging a single actual theme from Revelation.  Surely the book’s centerpiece is the idea of witness.  Jesus Christ is presented first and foremost as the faithful witness as the lamb of God.  But then other witnesses appear that are faithful to Jesus Himself, beginning with a man named Antipas.  Revelation 11, the theological cornerstone of the book, tells the story of the two witnesses (which I believe to be representative of the entire Church, as I contended at length this weekend).  Those witnesses are killed by the beast, but like the Lamb Himself, overcome through their own death—as that means they are also participating in the resurrection of Jesus.

That message becomes more explicit from Revelation 12-22, that God’s people conquer precisely when they seem to be overcome by the beast, by their own faithful witness in martyrdom.  They “follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” which means ultimately they must overcome the evil one by the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony—loving not their own lives even unto death.  They too will find their victory over the violence and terror of the world by embracing the cross.

Clearly, Martin Luther King’s story embodies this story—and demonstrates in vivid colors how it is God can overcome principalities and powers through sacrifice and death rather than human might.  On this side of that story, it is easy to acknowledge the heroism of the tale.  But the thing that struck me as I toured in National Civil Rights Museum was how King’s legacy was being shaped prior to his assassination.  Beyond the radical hatred of white supremacy groups, it’s remarkable how much ill will King was stirring up prior to his death across most all demographics.  While in contrast to figures like Malcolm X, King’s rhetoric was always considerably softer and his methods always non-violent, his witness at the time was not just controversial to fringe groups.  Specifically, his outspoken criticism of the Vietnam War and of economic injustice in the African American community bought him many critics.

In our culture, there is a certain amount of room for prophetic voices.  But the two areas where people have always drawn a line when it comes to prophetic speech are their wars and their money.  As Chris Hedges narrates so potently in War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, almost all countries and people groups derive their collective sense of identity through the myths they conjure from their wars.  There is no religious icon, no cross or temple or communion table, as sacred to people as the history they have weaved through their battles.  Today, there are few people who would have any problem in retrospect with anybody questioning the Vietnam War, but not so in King’s own day.

And we are of course even more protective of what we do with our checkbooks than what we do in the bedroom.  The more I read Revelation, the more I understand why we need systems to keep us away from the immediacy of its message.  If Babylon is only a distant yet to come pagan empire or a long forgotten 1^st century depiction of Rome, then we are able to remain safe from Revelation’s blistering economic critique.  Those who are enslaved to the pursuit of riches are either ahead of us or behind us.  Revelation could be about the already or the not-yet, as long as it is not about the present.

Despite the frequent accusations of being a communist or a socialist or worse, King was never poor himself and did not advocate a society in which personal wealth was impossible.  But he identified deeply with the poor, and certainly saw the pursuit of economic justice to be a vital part of his own biblical witness.  As even a cursory reading of the Old Testament prophets would indicate, God’s critique of how the wealthy exploit the poor and the call to rectify those practices is ever present.  This message is a hallmark of the prophetic office.

I’ve wondered in recent days if King would have ever really been considered a hero if he had not been killed, at least in the mainstream.  The guilt of middle class white America was charged after his death among those who would have largely disputed the truth of anything King actually taught. I have some perspective on this because of my relationship with Margaret Gaines, who, as an aging missionary, is greatly honored as an icon but not necessarily listened to.  We like the idea of prophets far more than anything they actually say to us.  And of course in the Church in North America, we have not only bought into but propagated the idea that Jesus is Lord only in some spiritual way, and don’t assume the Lordship of Jesus makes any claims on the “real” world to begin with.

I am happy to be inspired by saints and martyrs, and much less enthusiastic about following their actual example.  And yet a week later, I find myself not just inspired by King but troubled.  If King would have not died, would his ideas have ever been taken seriously?  Is there still an unwritten rule that there are certain topics that preachers just aren’t allowed to talk about in our culture, no matter how much they are stirred up by the Word and by the Spirit?  Will bearing faithful witness ultimately mean that the day will come for me to speak into things that will mean turning people I love against me?  Is it possible to speak prophetically and be received in your own time?

By no means am I inclined to find ways to offer my life arbitrarily out of some sort of martyr complex.  That would be irresponsible.  I know these are answers I don’t have clear answers for, but as it was for Mary, they are things I “ponder in my heart.”  As experiences like these are never coincidental for me, I presume I’ll have what answers I need when the moment is right.  I know that whatever it does mean or will mean for me to be considered a faithful witness, that is what I’m after—and King has inspired me all over again in my pursuit.

It is a dangerous thing to write while under the influence of Revelation 12—15.  It may be a dangerous thing for me to do much of anything under the influence of Revelation 12—15, as it is an intoxicating portion of Scripture.  I went to bed under its spell and got up still there.  Since I’m preaching from Revelation 12 this weekend, I will restrain myself as best I can and save the preaching for the pulpit.

But the great messianic war, where the dragon who is Satan makes war against the male child who is Jesus, makes sense of most every other great story we know in and outside of Scripture, not the least of all the story of Martin Luther King.  Here is this child born into danger, a baby born practically into the jaws of the dragon waiting to wage war against him.  Here is this scandalous vulnerability of God, putting Himself into the path of the ancient primeval serpent as an infant in swaddling clothes.  Here is the dark side of Christmas—that so much hope could be wrapped up in something, in someone, so fragile, so vulnerable.

And yet in this horrifying imagery comes every reason that we have not to be afraid, every reason that King himself was not afraid to face death—it is also the story of how the Child has already defeated the dragon, even though he continues to fight against His followers.  In the film The Witness, Billy Kyles describes the mental state of King preaching his epic mountaintop sermon the night before he was shot.  In words I’ll never forget, he said “That night, he preached himself through the fear of death.”

If all of this seems lofty and abstract…well, it’s really not.  This morning I find myself meditating on a very simple fact.  In the world that I live in, there still seems to be so much to be afraid of.  Every time I face something difficult, every time I anticipate a conflict or a heartache or a hard situation, I am tempted to be afraid—afraid of the unknown, afraid of the unspeakable, afraid of what’s going to happen or what’s going to change.  And yet the message both of Revelation and the message of King’s life itself is that there is no reason for fear, there is no worst case scenario.  Even in death, the child will not be defeated—perhaps especially in death.  The dragon howls and kicks in protest against the love born of God into darkness, but ultimately has no power.

So this morning I’m preaching myself through any and all fears.  There is nothing, there is no one, to be afraid of.  I’m also letting God remind me that just because the call to lead feels heavy or lonely at times, just because at times I must do things I would choose to avoid, doesn’t mean I am not in the center of His will.  Interesting how I can be inspired by a person like King who “loved not his own life even unto death” in such a dramatic way, and yet still insist on avoiding nearly every kind of minor discomfort imaginable.  It’s as if hardship in ministry and leadership is not to be expected.

I am not so stupid as to enjoy suffering on any level—the call to bear faithful witness is not a call to masochism.  But I will tell you this: you face difficult things differently when you’ve already stared down the dragon, and have already seen the defeat in his eyes.

As a pastor, I live at the intersection of two Scriptures with regards to my relationships with people in the body.  Both are from the gospel of Luke:

Why is that you are looking for me?  Did you not know I would be in my Father’s house? Luke 2.49

What among you, if he has a hundred sheep and lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one who is lost until he finds it? Luke 15.4

The first Scripture is when Jesus’ parents discover He is not with them, and go back to find Him still in the temple.  They find him teaching and answering questions, already about His Father’s business.  The second is from Jesus’ teaching about the good shepherd who leaves the 99 to go after the one lost sheep.

Since the very language of “pastor” is shaped by the imagery of shepherding, Luke 15.4 is obviously relevant to pastoral work.  When you are a shepherd, there will be times when you see people that you love falling away from Christian community, and you will have the opportunity to go after them.  You will also have times when people will walk away, and you keep right on doing what you are called to do, accomplishing the Father’s business of proclaiming and teaching the gospel.  “You know where I live, you know what I do, and you know where I’ll be doing it.”  There are times when you keep on offering your life blood’s for the sake of the sheep, and trust God to work in the one gone astray.

It takes great discernment to know when Luke 2.49 is supposed to be your model and when to follow Luke 15.4.  And there are no hard and fast rules.  Sometimes, it is just the right thing to drop what you are doing and leave the sheep that are well to go after the one.  There are also times and places in ministry when uncommitted people act immaturely and indecisively, and you give them the space to roam.  Not cutting them off, not assuming the worst, not getting angry—just doing what you are called to do, knowing that they know where you are and how to get to you when the time is right.

I have a sixth sense, even as the ministry continues to grow, to know who’s there and who’s not on an average weekend.  I’m attentive that way, and, it’s just my gift.  Like the pastoral version of Wolverine, I can sniff people out because I know my sheep.  Here’s the tricky part: you absolutely cannot live your whole life on the chase, because people are always leaving, people are always on the fence, people are always pulling away.  And the worst thing in the world for the churches that we lead is to create a culture where people are too co-dependent on relationships with us.  On the other hand, you can’t become cynical and emotionally distant—because if you are a pastor, even if by necessity the group you are called to directly shepherd is relatively small (leading leaders, etc.)—you are always going to have people for whom you are willing to walk away from the “importance” of your ministry and go after them.

I can’t resolve that tension for you and don’t even strive to resolve it prematurely in me, because that’s why this kind of work requires the Spirit—there are not hard and fast rules for such things.  I write this not in hopes of solving anything so much as naming a dynamic we don’t always have the language to name, as pastors living at the intersection of Luke 2.49 and Luke 15.4.  I don’t think you should feel guilty for when you don’t feel led to drop everything and go after the one because of the work you have to accomplish at the temple.  But neither do I think Luke 2 can become the standard response.  If we are in sync with the heart of the shepherd, there will be a time and a season for both.

Part of the distinction might lie in this: people always need to be in Christian community, but of course walking away from a community is not the same thing as walking away from Jesus Himself.  The question often comes down to this–is the person who is walking away in danger, of shipwrecking their faith or harming themselves?  Or is there a way that this time of wandering might even be the Spirit working in them?  This is why this job doesn’t just require seminary degrees, experience, and/or skill in interpreting the Scriptures.  It requires careful attention to the Master’s voice.

(part two to follow)

The reflections I shared yesterday are not born out of the heart of somebody trying to escape the responsibility to care for the sheep, just one who wants to live with the responsibility with a degree of sanity.  I carry the people I lead on my heart heavily.  Even in this long season where I’ve learned so much about holding onto people and things less tightly, loosening my grip on them so the Spirit can have a greater grip on me, some of this comes down to pure calling.  It is my job to carry the spiritual weight of God’s beloved sons and daughters on my heart.  I claim no other qualifications or credentials in my pastoral work, but this one is a necessity.

So of course I struggle with how to love them and care for them well.  I want to be there, in the ways I can be there and should be there–not creating co-dependence on me (the death nail of any local church and the ultimate inhibitor of any form of growth), nor shirking divine responsibility.  Especially as the church grows and we do multiple services at different locations, all of this must rightly be re-negotiated.  My friend Jim Driscoll always has a way of putting things to me simply.  We were talking about this a while back and he told me I should not feel guilty or condemned when I can’t be there for everyone–just simply really be there when I am there.  That I can handle, and that’s what I try to do.  Not to set up unrealistic expectations for myself or my people, but to be very present when I am in fact present.

A couple of years ago, I read Tony Hendra’s Father Joe: The Man who Saved My Soul, and was deeply moved.  Hendra is an interesting and complicated character himself, a British writer and comedian of sorts who palled around over the years with the Monty Python crew.  By his own admission, he spent many years in a haze of drink and drugs living a self-consumed life.  In recent years, I know allegations have surfaced about his character over those years–and if true, would mean he really did some creepy things.  But it would not affect my opinion of the book, as Father Joe is the character you really want to meet anyway.

It is essentially the story of how over many years, starting with when Hendra was a devout child aspiring to the priesthood on through years of rebellion and narcissism, he never gets over the draw of this man–never gets over the sense of holiness he felt when he was in his presence.  Father Joe was a man who deeply knew God, and no matter how far this man strayed from the path, Father Joe always remained a beacon.  And even when years went between his visits with him, when he came to Father Joe he was always reminded of what is real and true.  Most of all, Father Joe was a tangible marker for him that he was loved by God.

There were multiple scenes in the book that made me weep, both because I have known people like him and because I deeply want to be that kind of person for somebody else.  The semi-twist at the end of the book is that while Hendra assumes that he has some kind of utterly unique relationship with Father Joe, upon his death he finds out there were hundreds of people (including people of great influence in the UK this unpretentious priest never spoke of or name-dropped) who looked to him the same way.  It is a profound story of a father to many prodigal sons, who could not chase them all but always had his porch light on, and was always eager to run off the porch to greet them when they came home.  I should not, cannot, will not live on the hunt for every lost soul, as they are too many forests and just one of me.  But to embody for sons and daughters what it means to come home, to let them know that they can always come home again and that they will never be rejected?  That I can do.  I am after all, what of God’s representatives, and if I don’t take that seriously I should really get out of this business.

I believe in hearing the voice of God.

I believe in hearing His voice through Scripture, through worship gatherings, through dreams, through tongues and interpretations, through the voice of my brothers and sisters–hearing His voice forms that are both personal and communal (though never private).  I pastor a Church that practices these things.  As a lifelong Pentecostal, I don’t need anybody to rehearse to me the dangers of having this kind of dynamic, vibrant understanding of hearing God’s voice.  I have as many cautionary tales and war stories about such things as I do testimonies, some of them devastating and all of them very personal.  But I will also tell you this: I’ve been convinced for a long time that is more dangerous to ignore these dynamic ways that God has always spoken and continues to speak than to live with the threat of abuse.

When things get out of order, when somebody thinks they’ve heard from God and gets it badly wrong–that can be corrected.  But the dangers of not taking seriously that voice through the mysterious and strange ways He speaks are far greater.  So no matter how much wackiness is out there or how much pastoral correction I have to offer, I will forever err on the side of openness.  And if you don’t like this, you won’t like our Church, because it is in this dynamic understanding of God’s voice that Renovatus is most Pentecostal (even though we don’t generally run the aisles, knock anybody down, or swing from the chandeliers in our worship services).

And yet for all of that, there is this other side: that God does not always offer direct counsel on every matter, he offers His wisdom.  And I am beginning to think that while the divine voice of God and the wisdom of God are deeply related and both wrapped up in Christ Jesus Himself, they are not precisely identical.  Here is what I mean: a while back, when I was struggling with a number of decisions, the Lord led me through a beautiful devotional book to Proverbs 2.  This is what the text says:

My child, if you accept my words
and treasure up my commandments within you,
² making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
³ if you indeed cry out for insight,
and raise your voice for understanding;
⁴ if you seek it like silver,
and search for it as for hidden treasures—
⁵ then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
⁶ For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
⁷ he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly,
⁸ guarding the paths of justice
and preserving the way of his faithful ones.
⁹ Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
¹⁰ for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹ prudence will watch over you;
and understanding will guard you.

Though I can recall reading about God’s wisdom from a very young age, I had not contemplated the word for a very long time.  What I felt so clearly that morning was that God was gently prodding me to see that He gives wisdom freely to those who want it, and that rather than giving direct counsel on every decision, we learn to lean on wisdom that is deeply embedded.  The world might think of this as relying on intuition, playing the hunch.  But for those who make themselves available to the wisdom of God planted and watered in them by the Spirit, intuition is not what its about.  The wisdom of God is not irrational, but trans-rational–it transcends human wisdom.  It is supernatural even when it is not demonstrative.  So then we are able not to operate out of self-confidence, but what is a deeply-shaped awareness of God.  And of course there is a way that leaning on this wisdom is as good as getting His direct counsel, because He is the origin of it all.

These things are not mutually exclusive (and they really aren’t “versus” each other!).  When my friend Peter from South Africa prayed over me a few weeks ago, he prayed powerfully and prophetically about the wisdom God was giving me, especially with regards to dealing with people.  Wisdom that would cut through unhealthy traditions, but yet also that God would use to draw mothers and fathers in the Lord back to their children–wisdom that crosses generational lines.  So interestingly enough, there was a direct word from God about the very kind of wisdom I’m describing–which does not mean I will always hear the voice of God explicitly for every situation!  (I hope that makes sense)

Today I’m open to the Spirit of God to tell me anything I need to hear through anybody I need to hear it from.  But I’m also learning to fully trust the wisdom He has placed in me.  I don’t play my hunches or intuition per se, but I do trust that the source of all wisdom resides in me, shapes my thoughts and dreams and desires.

I believe in the divine voice of God that shatters and surprises.  But I also believe in the wisdom of God, the current of truth that runs slowly but powerfully beneath the surface.  I don’t think I’m smart.  At all.  But I do happily receive the gift of His wisdom, which does not originate from me and only brings glory to the Father.

There is a lot that can be said about walking in the Spirit.  A lot about the gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, holiness, passion, boldness, etc.  And also a lot of smoke and mirrors, a lot of random detours around that which is most fundamentally true about a life with God.

And that is simply this: to walk in the Spirit is to offer the Father’s blessing to anybody you meet, anywhere that you go. To offer it freely and without exception.  To bless those that bless you and to bless those that curse you.  To see those that are broken, angry and hurt not through the lens of offense, but understand that all of our brokenness extends from a lack of understanding or receiving the Father’s love.  Including your own.  When I’m inclined to bless, bless, bless, in any and all directions–which is not just my job as a Pastor mind you (though I might content it is the most primal part of my calling, to bless on the Father’s behalf), but of every person that follows Jesus.

To be petty, easily offended, overly mindful of whether or not you are being criticized or accepted by others or unforgiving is the antithesis of walking in the Spirit, the enemy of the Spirit.  And if you throw a “but” into that sentence, you’ve just made it more complicated than the gospel.  The devil’s deceit is to make love complex and hard, the gospel’s liberation is to make love simple and fundamental, a natural extension of the unadulterated love the Father has offered you already.

When I easily fly into a rage in traffic?  Upset at the clerk at a fast food restaurant or grocery store?  Stewing endlessly about a politician?  Sitting around thinking about whether or not I was slighted?  Nursing a wound?  Wallowing in self-pity?  I don’t want life with God to be that practical some days, but it is. In each of those scenarios, I am shamelessly offering myself to the devil and indulging in his propaganda.  When I’m really walking in the Spirit, I’m nearly un-offendable.  When I’m not walking in the Spirit, I can be offended by just about anything.

I don’t care if you are a preacher or a CEO or a coal miner or a librarian.  Do you say you know Jesus?  Then settle for nothing less than walking in the Spirit.  You weren’t set free to go back into bondage.  And the land of offense, the territory of “I’ll be nice to you/I’ll bless you if you bless me” is as much the devil’s playground as a crack house or a brothel.  It’s the most insidious way that Satan enslaves you, and the most insidious way you enslave others.  And if you do it in the name of Jesus, no matter–you are still doing the devil’s work.  Resist slander, resist offense, resist self.

Get in the presence of God.  Right now.  And receive the grace to walk in the Spirit–TODAY.  It is freely offered, and there will be nobody you will set free by your choice to walk in generosity and pure grace to everybody in your life nearly so much as you.

If there was one question that haunted me growing up more than the epic debate of “is it okay to listen to Christian rock n’ roll?”, it was the question of “eternal security.”

For the uninitiated, this is the question of whether or not it is possible as a believer to “lose” your salvation.  Since I have always been preoccupied with matters of sin and salvation (and perhaps even more so damnation), I don’t know if I can adequately communicate the extent of this struggle, or the degree of study that went into, ahem, “figuring it out,” even when I was barely a teenager.  I read Scripture voraciously.  So in addition to the end-times youth camp scare us into following Jesus tactics, a lot of my struggle was directly with the texts themselves.  The section in the gospels where Jesus talks about the “unforgivable sin” of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?  The section in Hebrews 10 that talks about willfully sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth and there now being no sacrifice for such people?  The end of I John that talks about the “sin unto death,” that if committed, we should no longer even pray for a person?  I memorized them verbatim as a child.  Because I needed so desperately to unravel them.

In my Pentecostal tradition, the general understanding was something like this: you hit your thumb with a hammer and say the “s” word–and then Jesus comes back the next moment…you are toast.  On the other side was the Southern Baptists, the only people in the world that might have cared about this question as much as we did, who often taught some variation of “eternal security”–that is, Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and if you mess up after you accept Him He’s got you covered.  After all, the rhetoric goes: “Jesus died for your past, present and future sins.”  I guess you can understand how important this question would be, especially if your own salvation was in question every time you didn’t feel adequately “spiritual.”

There was a big controversy back in the day where my Pastor in the Church of God started preaching a lot about the security of the believer.  While we don’t have a doctrinal statement about this per se, the accusation of preaching eternal security was considered high treason.  I lived smack dab in the middle of my Pastor’s teaching on grace and my tradition’s emphasis on holiness, and saw this all as an unsolvable Rubik’s cube with cosmic implications.

Since I have never said this publicly, I thought today would be a good day in a relatively public forum to share this great insight: I no longer care about such matters.  And I don’t think about it.  At all.  Ever.

My problem with teaching about eternal security, even when I couldn’t articulate it this way, was essentially this: it’s all about God changing your status, in a forensic, judicial way.  God has declared you righteous, so now you are saved no matter what you do.  There is no relational component to that.  But that was also my problem with teaching against said security.  Much of the logic still treated salvation like an object, a football that the running back could either cling to or fumble.  In both scenarios, there is a certain legalism looming around the corner, because the terms were not relational.  You did this thing, now God is obligated to take salvation back from you (also legalistic), or you dropped the football, which has no relational component at all.

While I do think there is a judicial or forensic component to salvation, I think about salvation much more in relational terms now.  What is salvation, if not to mysteriously eat the body of Jesus and drink His blood–to consume the one who cannot be consumed?  If not to abide in Him, and His words abide in you?  Could such a relationship be ended–could I walk away?  I’m Wesleyan enough to say probably yes, because sure–relationships can be ended, people can walk away from those they most love.

But the reason I maintain my much more irresponsible “who cares” is simply this: to know Jesus the way I know Him now, the very idea of sitting around thinking about whether or not it would be possible to leave Him seems appalling and absurd.  Why on earth would I ever want to?  And what kind of demented relationship is it where you always sit around thinking about whether or not it could be dissolved?  Could I divorce my wife?  Technically, by the letter of the law?  Sure.  But the very idea of being separated from her is nauseous to me, and not something I have ever considered for a second.  Why do I have to think about this in context of a relationship that is even more intimate to me?

If you are a fundamentalist, no matter what you think about “eternal security” one way or the other, this is unsatisfactory to you.  Because you need me to make an argument from Scripture.  I know Scriptures about these matters better than I know my name, stuff I wouldn’t forget if I literally forgot who I was. And I will happily, freely tell you that Scripture didn’t put me over one way or the other on this.  Sue me.  The remarkable, shimmering beauty of the love of God just made me stop caring about asking or answering such questions altogether.  I’m too busy loving Jesus to entertain stupid conversations about whether or not I could stop loving Jesus.  This is 100% experiential.  I have no but for the end of that sentence.  Again, sue me.  I don’t always have confidence in what I know theologically (though I’m really kind of astute theologically, thanks for asking), but I have great confidence in who I know, and I do in fact know God deeply.  I don’t claim a lot of answers, but I’ve got a lot of soul.  Which is relevant in these matters.

Is that irresponsible for me to say as a Pastor?  As for anybody else, how on earth can I objectively determine a person’s legal standing before God, whether or not they are saved anyway?  All I can do for the forwardsliders and the backsliders and the pious and the pagans is scream and holler an achingly sweet story of redemption that is my own, and just point people to Jesus.  Anything further is beyond my purview anyway.  I don’t convince people that they are saved (because only the Spirit can bring assurance of salvation) nor do I convince them they are not (because the Spirit convicts people of their sin and need of Jesus).  I’d win every quiz in Sunday School, because the only right answer I’ve got is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus–so I just keep on pointing at Him.

All I can tell you is that if you know Him the way that I do, the very idea of walking away is patently absurd, positively stark raving freaking batcrap insane.   And I don’t spend time in the theoretical when I’ve got a relationship this tangible.  I’ve got too much love for God and too much joy to talk that way these days.

I was meeting with my counselor a couple of days ago  (yes-I go once a month, 3 hours at a time. If you are a preacher and you don’t, you should start now.), and was floored by the consistency of what God has been teaching me this last 6 months or so.  That’s part of the beauty of developing this rhythm–when you evaluate your life in monthly blocks, you get better perspective on patterns and trends.

What I saw clearly is how many times in recent months I have felt called to take a step that was technically small but felt.  With each of those steps, I’ve marveled at how quickly God has responded to these mundane acts of obedience that carried such weight at the time.  Getting off some forms of media and streamlining communication in my life.  Giving up being editor of Youth and Discipleship Leadership, a great honor given to me by my denomination.  Making an open appeal for sacrificial giving last weekend (4th of July weekend!) at Renovatus, not because of a particular need but because God really impressed me that is how He wants to set our people free from financial bondage.

Each of these were counter-intuitive steps, like trying to run through quicksand, because all were counter-intuitive and not what I would otherwise choose to do.  And each act was met with immediate blessing.  One meant freeing up open space for love and creativity, making my ministry fun for perhaps the first time.  One meant opening up critical opportunities I know I’m called to but I otherwise couldn’t have handled.  The last one meant a record obliterating weekend of giving on 4th of July weekend–on an invitation to give which people had not been previously prepared for.  All were uncomfortable, but all brought me an encounter with God.

Each of these were acts of stepping out of the boat to meet Jesus out walking on the water.  Sometimes that means breaking out of what’s comfortable and meeting Jesus in something new, sometimes it means stepping back out of something you just aren’t called to do.  I’m wondering if for some of us, stepping out of something God has NOT called us to do is actually a more difficult form of getting out of the boat than stepping out into something new.  Sometimes God creating something new starts with us cooperating with Him in undoing something, you know?  Both acts require faith and obedience, and both acts yield tangible, beautiful fruit. Sometimes the Spirit compels you to go, sometimes He constrains you from going.  Either way, those small steps of obedience bring big encounters with God.

I drove out of the parking lot at the counseling center with tears in my eyes, listening to a version of Amazing Grace by U2 and the Soweta Gospel Choir.  I had to make a u-turn to get on the interstate, and got behind a junky old minivan with a Church of God bumper sticker, written in Spanish for a local Church.  Every step of obedience and every step back out of obedience has brought something of my own redemption story full circle, so that omen of my heritage was all too fitting.  Then it was not crying, but weeping.

So this weekend when I was preaching about the second beast in Revelation 13, I talked about his work of deception.  The first beast attacks through blunt force, the second through propaganda.  The first one dominates through violence, the second one dominates through seduction.  The first beast comes in through the front door, the second beast comes in through the back door.  And with the emphasis in the text being so clearly on how he does exercises control through economics, that is, through the arena of buying and selling, I felt like I had clear directions that our body needed to resist through sacrificial giving.  So that was the call I gave.

Whether that sounds televangelist-ish or not, it’s what I knew I was supposed to do.  And wow, did God show up big through His people–our biggest offering in history on the weekend of the 4th, with no special project or purpose besides obedience to God’s voice.  And here is what I wanted to tell you today–after Amanda and I gave our sacrificial gift, a number I also felt strongly impressed on… Somebody hacked our debit card info Sunday (the same day!) and ran up an eerily similar amount to our offering in less than 24 hours.  Man, I LOVE THAT.  Because we talked about how sacrificial giving sticks it to the beast, and I was happy to see the beast stirred up.  So let me tell you now–you better believe we are rounding that new check up just for spite/good measure.

I know this might sound like a hybrid of campmeeting preaching and Jay-Z–because I think it actually is a hybrid of campmeeting preaching and Jay Z…but when you get hit by the enemy, you really do have to man up and hit back sometimes and not just say “ow.”  Make a decision to get violent in kingdom terms (which kingdom violence is only against the forces of darkness, never people) and actively retaliate.  I’m not kidding.  That’s what I believe.  You know, turn off the auto tune.  Stop making melodies, make folk want to go out and commit felonies (etc., etc.)  Spiritual attacks are real and spiritual warfare is real.  Which is precisely why you get tougher and more bombastic, not just taking everything lying down.

When I was a kid we sang “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.”  My favorite verse was “if the devil doesn’t like it he can sit on a tack!”  I still sing stuff like that in my car, it just usually has a bass line behind it now.

I’ve come to realize that some of the things that are most characteristic of who I aspire to be and how I aspire to lead may be the very things I’m least likely to blog about. I always miss the things right under my nose, the things that are so embedded that I am not always conscious of them.  Yet these are probably the things that are most important for me to say, so I’ll try to start saying them.

Our church is called “a church for people under renovation,” so vulnerability is a core value for us.  Not a buzz word.  I cling dearly to the idea that there is no such thing as good Christian leadership that doesn’t start from a ground floor of humility and transparency.  As the senior leader in our Church, I’m responsible for setting that tone.  If there is a way to have real Christian community apart from leadership that demonstrates this from the top, I’m not aware of it.

I think its important to make a distinction between vulnerability and self-deprication.  I have no problem with self-depricating wit.  It’s why Tina Fey and Conan O’Brien are two of the funniest people on the planet, because they are so ruthless with themselves in front of us.  But self-deprication will make you popular at parties, whereas real vulnerability could actually bring the party to a grinding halt.  There is a risk involved with actual transparency that simply cannot be completely cleaned up, or else it is no longer transparency and only public relations.  That is not to say that are no boundaries to what we share with whom, or that there is nothing in my life that I don’t share from the stage.  That would be stupid, completely inconsiderate of what is good for the congregation.

But leading and preaching that is most effective involves pulling that zipper down from your neck to your navel and letting your holiness and your brokenness show in equal measure.  And while there are benefits to this that are more or less quantifiable in terms of how it affects the character of a community, I think that’s secondary.  Because the fact is, actual vulnerability attracts the Holy Spirit like a moth attracts flame.  Our humiliation brings the glory of God and the presence of God.  Vulnerability allows the Spirit to crash through the stained glass of piety and manners, bringing divine disruption-even revival.  Vulnerable leaders spread the table for a communion feast where healing, intimacy, and even supernatural gifts flow like wine.

There are a thousand reasons why it’s good for those we lead for us to be vulnerable–they desperately need permission to expose their true selves to God and God’s people, and your example can grant that.  But more importantly, it pleases God, honors God, exalts God.

PS–Anybody in your church or leadership team that can’t handle you being open and transparent?  You don’t need them.

I don’t know that there is anything novel about my approach to preaching.

I’ve grown to accept the fact that my preaching seems to be qualified as “other” in the traditional categories, which is not a way of saying “really cool and unique” so much as me coming to terms with the fact that it may actually be a little weird.  The number of influences that I think I channel are broad.  They are people that would have never hung out at a singles bar and compounds that don’t belong in the same chemistry lab.

I think one of the ongoing struggles perhaps preachers always struggle to define is their relationship to the text.  Or maybe it is better dubbed the relationship of the Spirit to the text.  There are so many ways to approach preaching.  People start with questions like “what are the felt needs of this community?” or “what would make a really interesting series?” or they just start with the assigned text in the Lectionary (nothing wrong with that).  As a good Pentecostal boy, I always want to make sure I leave plenty of room for the Spirit, but I am very comfortable doing that within the context of a preaching series.  If ideas are not reinforced and don’t have an overarching structure, they will be forgotten–and I have never felt like a particular series has constricted me from preaching precisely what I believe the Spirit to be saying to our people on a giving weekend.

There is a general continuum where we tend to either be less attentive than we should be to the Word or less attentive than we need to be to do the Spirit.  Yet they are not in tension, and I don’t really find it a struggle anymore to make sure I’m attentive to both.  Sometimes, I will go in a more topical route-as I did in a series like “People from the Future,” “Cosmic Conflict,” “The Walking Dead,” or “Taboo” series.  My favorites truthfully are the straightforward exegetical series like the one I’m doing on Revelation.

In either scenario, whether I’m working through a book of the Bible or using a particular passage, I’m big on doing my homework.  I can riff as good as the next guy, but I want to really feel like I’ve got my head around what the writer was saying to the original audience. It is generally true that discipline is what really gives you the freedom to improvise well, and I find strangely that the “riffs”/Spirit-led rabbit trail stuff in my sermons flow best out of deep, thoroughgoing study of the Scriptures.  I just don’t think its responsible to ignore the grunt work–although as a guy who does take the Spirit seriously, that by no means my interpretive work is limited to what I feel like the text communicated “then” to early readers (more on that tomorrow, that’s the “Spirit” part).  But that’s where I start.  Pentecostal and Charismatic brothers and sisters: I’m all about the dynamic, lively and interactive ways that God uses Scripture–but don’t get lazy and skip this leg of the journey.  Too much irresponsible exegesis comes from not taking this part seriously enough.

Sometimes people ask me about good sturdy resources.  I’m all over the map for which sources I use commentary wise, and really picky.  I like to use a lot of IVP’s commentaries across various lines and subjects–they are generally well-balanced in terms of academics and application. At the baseline, the IVP Bible background commentaries on the Old and New Testament are great places to start for most any text.

There have been several in the Interpretation series of commentaries from John Knox Press I’ve really enjoyed (Richard Hays’ amazing entry on I Corinthians first and foremost).  The new series of Brazos commentaries have been interesting, as they have theologians who aren’t proper text scholars addressing the texts head on (Stanley Hauerwas on Matthew is my fave there).  I do refer to commentaries from the Anchor Bible and NICOT and NICNT series, which are big, meaty, and really allow you to feast on a text.  On the other hand, those are so academic, so largely detached from direct application–so there is a great deal of translation required.

I generally like anything commentary-wise related to Gordon Fee, John Christopher Thomas, NT Wright, Richard Bauckham, and Walter Brueggemann.  Wright’s For Everyone series is a wonderful stimulus to how to think pastorally about a text.  Thomas’ stuff on I John and forthcoming work on Revelation is terrific.  There is nothing written by Gordon Fee on a New Testament book I would not recommend, the same goes for Walter Brueggeman with the Old Testament.  I avoid anything remotely Dispensational in approach (if you don’t even know that word, count yourself lucky).  I avoid Matthew Henry.  In terms of Study Bibles, I avoid Scofield and Dake.  While I use these more devotionally than I do for sermon prep, I am partial to the Wesley Study Bible and the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible.  Those of you who listen to my sermons there are a whole lot of other things that will go into the crock pot besides commentaries, but in terms of really coming to terms with the text itself, these are great places to start.

While I don’t feel like we have to go nuts every weekend to “feel like we’ve been to Church,” I don’t think anybody hears me long without recognizing that I’m Pentecostal in how I approach preaching.

In the best of Pentecostal preaching, the preacher relates to the Word like a brilliant jazz musician—an improvisational, interactive love affair between the prophet, the instrument of language, and the audience.  It is sensual and urgent in its passion for the Word.   When it is extemporaneous, it works because of the long, disciplined study of the Word that brings true freedom in the pulpit, now enlivened by the Spirit. A man or woman speaks the Word of God as the oracle of God, and it is a cataclysmic, risky event.

I don’t claim that is always how I preach.  But that is always what I go for.  I absolutely do believe that those who take the role of the Spirit seriously (whether or not they come from a Pentecostal or Charismatic tradition) will approach preaching differently from those who don’t.  It requires constant attentiveness to what God is saying is to this particular moment in this particular moment (which is why in preaching 3 times at Renovatus every weekend, I make no pretensions about the fact that those 3 messages with the same baseline content are going to come out very differently).  It requires openness, it requires risk.

If Pentecostal preaching has suffered at times from being too “creative” in how we interpret Scripture, I can tell you there is still a role for creativity.  I start with a text, but you better believe I am open to whatever the Spirit wants to bring to God’s people that day, whether or not it comes within a mile of the text or not.  And as long as it doesn’t violate the general parameters of what is recorded in Scripture, I’ve got no problems whatsoever applying a text or passage to a situation that quite frankly is boldly outside the context of the text as it was written.  You did not read that incorrectly.  When you really believe the Bible is an open, interactive book that is alive and moving, and I’ve got to move with it.  That doesn’t mean I get to make up doctrine as I go along (remember what I said about general parameters).

If you don’t approach preaching that way, you are a fundamentalist and probably sad about other things, not just preaching.  My friend Dr. Cheryl Johns likes to say that fundamentalists ironically don’t have a high enough view of Scripture.  They view Scripture as a fact book or an encyclopedia, but not a living, breathing word of God that can and should scare and even terrify us.

But via yesterday’s blog, I’m a Pentecostal who also believes that the Spirit is at work in my homework.  That I’m supposed to be as “in the Spirit” when I’m doing the grunt work in texts and commentaries as much as on Sunday.  The more I’ve done that, the more confidence I have to “flow in the Spirit” when I’m preaching on Saturday or Sunday.

One cautionary word though: Preaching in the Spirit is NOT the same as saying whatever you bloody feel like saying in any given moment.  I’ve been bothered by Pentecostal preachers who assume anything they are emotional about is Spirit-led.  What this usually means is if I’m mad and wound up, it must be anointed.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  When I’m on a roll and feeling loose and the congregation is loose and open too, that’s when I have to be especially cautious about NOT allowing myself to say something random and harmful in the emotion of the moment, as a way of guarding the sacredness of what the Spirit is doing.  Just because I can say something, or that the crowd is warmed up and it would even go over, doesn’t mean that God is necessarily in it.

Okay, this is going to be a fun one.

I think I have to start with this: I am utterly, completely obsessed with preaching.  Of course I would like to think I am more obsessed with God.  But there is something not only weighty but borderline dangerous about the sense of calling that keeps my blood hot and mind racing ALL THE TIME.  I could never be accused of not taking the pulpit seriously enough.  If anything, I might take it so seriously that it borders on oppression and/or sin.

That might seem funny from a guy who, when at most home in God, radiates an easy confidence in what I’m doing.  But that’s a gift and sign of the Spirit for the moment, and through the week I feel like I’ve got a 60 pound stone on my back (Springsteen reference intended).  I think about preaching in most everything I’m doing. I view most everything that happens in life through the prism of what God might be saying to His people.  The extent of this is ridiculous and absurd, and I am in no mood on a Monday to tell you in detail how crazy that gets.  But trust me–it’s a little weird.  This is where I feel such a kinship with the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah.  I understand having a fire in my bones; I understanding not wanting to speak but having a hole gnawed through your belly if you don’t.  I have never felt like I had a choice in any of this–do with that theologically what you will.

So here’s where music plays such a crucial role for me.  Since music is part of everything in my life that is fun, I need a lot of music to keep myself from being consumed through the intensity of it.  That takes different forms.  When I’m prepping during the week at the computer, I keep ambient music on a lot because I get in the zone better that way.  Sometimes I’ve got so much emotion about the message that I’ve got to have something going that lets a little bit of what’s in me leak out so I don’t explode.  Saturday I was so swept up with the weight and joy of what God was doing, there was no white music I could think of that could articulate any of it.  So I was blaring old Kirk Franklin songs all day while I was prepping.  Amanda comes in and I’m about to run the aisles (um, in my living room) to “Reason Why We Sing.”

But sometimes the intensity is so great, I need music that is more fun than intense.  I need some hip-hop with hardcore attitude and serious swagger, or I need an Edge guitar solo than can take me to heaven.  The further along I get in the preparation process, the more I get away from ambient instrumental music that helps me keep my head clear and more into I’m-going-to-kick-the-devil-in-the-teeth-and-bring-the-word-of-God-like-an-alien-coming-off-a-spaceship music.

The role of music is even more pronounced on game day (defined as whatever day I’m preaching).  I understand that a lot of people need to be coming out of the prayer room from hours of communion with God going into the moment they deliver the message.  That sounds spiritual, and I’ve no problem with it in theory.  But I’ll remind you–I feel like I live in that place a lot of the week–heavy and light at the same time in God’s presence, being with Him and hearing His heart for His people.  The worst thing I can do when it’s time to preach is get MORE intense, because generally by then I’m already near the breaking point (it is not uncommon for me to sleep 2-4 hours the night before preaching.  See what I mean?)

So when the hour gets closer, the party gets to jumping.  I don’t review my notes down to the last minute anymore.  By that time, the word is embedded enough that what I need is not more mental preparation but more ease of spirit to let the message come from the deep place where it’s already living.  On the way to speak, or on Sundays driving between Little Rock and Fort Mill, the sound system in my Volvo is literally at max the whole way.  Amanda has learned to be delightfully indulgent with this practice of mine when she is with me.

So what kind of music prey tell?  That’s the fun part, wildly subjective, and possibly more than you want to know.  But here’s what it looks like for me: Early in prep when I need the ambient mood music, I listen to a lot of Brian Eno.  Not the experimental rock stuff, the keyboard driven floating stuff.  Favorites for sermon prep are the ambient classic Music for Airports, Volume One; Ambient 2: the Plateaux of Mirrors, The Pearl, and my all-time favorite ambient album for any creative task, the beautiful space music of Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundscapes.  If I need a shot of adrenaline in this stage, the epic instrumental rock of Explosions in the Sky may be called on.  Sometimes I listen to a movie score (stuff I shouldn’t say out loud, like Karate Kid Part II or The Neverending Story).  Daniel Lanois’ albums are also go-to favorites at this stage.

On game day, there will be U2 present, and invariably I will play some version of “Where the Streets Have No Name” because it is the most defining spiritual song of my life, what I would want played at my funeral.  Here’s where I will be really nerdy: it’s a different version of Streets depending on what the moment calls for.  My all-time favorites are the live version from Boston on the Elevation Tour (which includes Bono reciting a Psalm to open), the live version from Chicago on the Vertigo tour, the live version from the Super Bowl of 2001 (different Psalm opens this one after MLK intro), or the live version from Arizona from the Rattle and Hum DVD, or the U2 360 version live from the Rose Bowl with Amazing Grace as the intro.  (Those are all video versions–do yourself a favor and watch them)  If I could make people feel something of what I feel when I listen to any version of that song in preaching, no matter what direction–I am a happy man.

More than you wanted to know?  I understand.  I never claimed any of this was normal.

FYI, this blog post was written while listening to the synth pop of M83′s Saturdays=Youth.

In the 1960′s, the concept of the “professional minister” really took off.  Ministers wanted to be taken as seriously as doctors or lawyers.  Even in my tradition, we started dressing slicker and preaching more refined sermons.  The style that came in the years following was almost unbelievably polished.  Scripted sermons, memorized down to the syllable, where by the time you preached you could hit the play button in your head and it could come out exactly the same no matter where you are.

That is pretty much the opposite of what I do.  My metaphors for preaching are more like jazz music and love-making (though not in a weird way, I promise).  But I do see preaching as being just that interactive.  As I covered in the first entry on preaching, I’m all about diligent preparation, and I do believe that putting in your time in the trenches there brings greater fluidity in delivery.  I’m not a “I open my mouth and the Lord will fill it” kind of Pentecostal.  But at the same time, no matter how much I’ve prepared, the same message is going to come out very differently depending on who I’m speaking to.

In preaching 3 times every weekend at Renovatus, this is always the case.  To be attentive to the Spirit involves being attentive to the audience, sensitive to what God is doing in them, what they are receiving or rejecting.  That doesn’t mean being dictated by the audience, either performing for them or pulling back if something gets an icy reception.  But being aware.  I can feel it when I need to punch harder, or nuance differently.  When I’m really resting in God, preaching is like surfing, like riding waves.  I want to be aware of what He’s up to at any given moment, where I need to drill down or let up.

I like it when a congregation preaches with me.  I really dig that, and can roll with it.  If I don’t get a lot of verbal feedback, I’m okay too.  You wouldn’t believe that, because I make comments about it when people are quiet. But that doesn’t mean I’m upset or having a bad time because they aren’t getting down.  Sometimes I do that more when I’m feeling really comfortable, and preaching involves a sort of flirtation.  The point is that I’m in tune with them.  And I do adapt based on what I feel God is doing in the moment.  I could never be that preacher who just hits the play button, and at least for me personally don’t understand the appeal of having a message packaged that tightly.

I do have some funny instincts.  For example, if I do feel like the crowd is not just quiet but perhaps really struggling with something I’m saying, like I’m hitting a wall, I’m inclined to swing exponentially harder.  I don’t know if that’s good.  But if I smell blood in the water, I get more voracious not more timid.  That has gotten me in trouble a time or to, and I don’t claim the Spirit is in that.  I’m telling you how I do it.

But I do think the Spirit is at work in the congregation as much in any given moment as within me, so that requires being attentive and listening even and maybe even especially while I’m speaking.

I think the post title might be misleading, because I’m not sure that I exactly try to find sermon ideas.

I am in fact highly superstitious about such things, and really wait for sermon ideas to find me.  It is rare that I sit down and ask “what could I preach about?” or “what would make an interesting sermon series?”  I’m not saying that would be wrong, but it’s not what I do.  I like to feel hunted down by a sermon idea.  For me, there is something very supernatural about this, although ironically enough the ideas come in the most mundane ways.  Taking a shower, taking a walk, driving my car…I feel like I’m especially able to hear God well during or right after an intense workout.  I’m not a fitness legalist, I just find that working out clears my head in a way that helps me hear God better.  My sense is that often times I am just able to then discern something He’s already been saying that is just easier to receive when I’ve de-cluttered my brain.  Of course I can hear God in a proper designated time of prayer or Bible study.  But normally, the ideas seem to chase me down wherever I am.

That said, there is literally no arena of my life that is off limits as inspiration for a sermon idea or illustration.  I am virtually incapable of shutting off that side of my brain.  So the process is not entirely passive, since there is always an active posture of listening.

I don’t claim my preaching to be great, but I do think it’s hopefully interesting at least in that there are surprises.  I’d like to think that’s because I get genuinely surprised a lot, and I’m always on the lookout for God to speak in an unusual places and unusual ways.  I remember saying one time off the cuff in a sermon, “You look like you are scared of what I’m about to say next.  You are right to look that way, because I don’t know what I’m going to say next.  So the suspense is genuine.”  Now I know that might seem to be about spontaneity in preaching, but that comes out of being spontaneity in living.  I’m never satisfied, I’m always hungry, always thinking and praying and seeking.  I think people would rather follow a leader who is in a dynamic relationship with God than a static leader who claims to have everything figured out already.  Or at least I would.

If I could only give one word of advice to would-be preachers, it would probably be this: Remove every single compartment from your life.  When there are no partitions between any part of who you are and what you do from God Himself, everything becomes fair game for God to use or speak through.  Preachers who are compartmentalized are, ironically enough, both dangerous and boring.  Dangerous because they can easily play the game, and boring because they know what to say no matter what is really going on and are thus predictable.

I recently watched the excellent documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop.  It’s about the 6 months after the former host of the Tonight Show parted ways with NBC and was prohibited from appearing on television, during which he went on a 44-city comedy tour.  O’Brien is a likable figure through the piece, but driven (hence the title).  He seems unable to take a break and addicted to the applause.  Though at times I wondered if O’Brien really behaves that differently from anybody who loves what they do?  He does have some moments of anger and fatigue underneath the cheery surface.  But if they followed you or me around for months with cameras day and night, wouldn’t they catch us any of us in an irritable moment at some point?

At any rate, the film has a lot to say about the life of the performer…which of course translates in my mind to the life of the preacher.  I plan to watch it again with Amanda so we can talk about it together.  There is a huge amount of adrenaline released in preaching, and it is in fact addictive.  The very idea of speaking for God, the sheer absurdity of talking for an hour about anything and believing it can change the world.  It is an intoxicating and odd business.

The biggest struggle often is (and I think you see this in O’Brien, even though there is not some sense of eternal weight to anything he’s saying from the stage), how do I live when those moments of unreality give way to real life?  By unreality, I don’t mean saying things you don’t believe.  But rather that the drama of preaching is a heightened state of reality, where you are more yourself than you’ve ever been and yet not yourself.  Nothing about the rest of your life is quite the same as that sliver of of your life–people aren’t walking around with notebooks listening to you every moment all day.  (At least, they don’t do that with me)  How do you land after such an experience?

The short answer is, well, not to easily.  I used to get depressed after preaching, more so on Monday than right after.  I couldn’t enjoy anything, including the things I always enjoy.  It’s why I ultimately decided to work Mondays and take Fridays as my day off.  If I’m going to be in a bad mood, why not at least be productive while I’m at it?

The truth is, God has done such wonderful things in me that I really do better with the “post game” than I used to.  I don’t get as irritable or depressed.  I am capable of having fun.  I am conscious that even given the heightened reality of preaching, I am the same guy who just preached that way and vice versa.  And I’m very, very comfortable with that these days.  I don’t have identity wrapped up in preaching the way I used to.

There are some concrete things that help, though.  Exercise is one of them.  The other week, I came home and mowed after I got done preaching 3 times.  Counter-intuitive, but a much better come down than laying on the couch unable to sleep but out of my head in this weird in-between haze.  It is especially important to work out Monday morning, even though I always wake up feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck, and normally from bad dreams do (your sub-conscience is pretty active after that kind of public exposure).

Sometimes after I preach, I really need to get away and not be with people to decompress.  Sometimes, I really need to be with people in order to decompress.  That doesn’t always look the same.  The funniest thing, and I’m hoping some preachers will really laugh at this, is how to be at a meal after preaching.  Okay, so you’ve just unzipped yourself from neck to navel and let your innards be on display for an hour (at least that is how I do it).  Now, lunch table conversation.  How about the message?  “It was good.  I really enjoyed it.”  Oh, okay, cool.  I don’t need everybody to build me up all the time, but I’ve just got done talking about things that are more important to me than anything else while naked, and I’m still in that zone.  How am I supposed to now talk about some tv program or funny cat video on youtube or the weather?  I don’t know how to do that.  And anytime I have to act after doing the thing where I act the least (and I am convinced that the voice I have in the pulpit is somehow more honest than the voice I’ve got in my own head), acting interested in something I’m not interested in is harder than preaching that message again would be.

This is why you don’t just need therapy to be a preacher, but to live with a preacher.  Amanda is brilliant at handling me afterwards, and I gladly let myself be handled.  Because I’m something more than and yet less than human when I get done, and like shaft “no one understands me but my woman.”

I’m not sure that even want to parse all my preaching influences to carefully.  I’m afraid some Jon Stewart may even be creeping in there these days, for better or for worse.

But in terms of sheer craftsmanship, the stewardship of words, there is no other preacher who has quite the artistry of Frederick Buechner.  While sermons don’t always translate well into print, his sermon collections are modern masterpieces.  There is a certain kind of symmetry and beauty, a lyrical tightness to them, that I could never capture.  There aren’t many wordsmiths like him out there, capable of capturing such mystery with such restraint.  I wouldn’t even try.  Although I guess in some moments, I wish I could be Buechner with some sawdust on his shoes, Buechner sweating through his tie and sport coat.  Perhaps a hybrid between the author and his fictional creation Leo Bebb, who is more of a tent revivalist and a faith healer.

I love Buechner’s fiction and non-fiction alike.  But if I could only recommend one of his many books to you, it would decidedly be Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Comedy, Tragedy and Fairy Tale.  It is far and away my favorite book on preaching, with no close second.

Last year, my friend Nathan Rouse surprised me with a trip to the Buechner Institute in TN for a conference.  The greater surprise was an unannounced visit by “the Buech” himself (as we affectionately call him), well into his 80′s.  We talked to him in approximately the same spirit as two pre-teen girls who bumping into Justin Bieber.  And yet the most beautiful gift of them all was a framed picture Nathan got me of our encounter with Buechner along with this beautiful passage on preaching from Telling the Truth.  It is one of my great treasures in the world.

How wonderful it is that when I’m working in my office, and anytime I can look over and read these words all over again:

Out of the silence let the only real news come, which is sad news before it is to be glad news and that is fairy tale last of all.

The preacher is not brave enough to be literally silent for long, and since it is his calling to speak the truth with love, even if he were brave enough, he would not be silent for long because we are none of us very good at silence.

It says too much.

So let him use words, but, in addition to using them to explain, expound, exhort, let him use them to evoke, to set us dreaming as well as thinking, to use words at their most prophetic and truthful–the prophets used them to stir in us the memories and longings and intuitions that we starve for without knowing that we starve.  Let him use words which do not only try to give answers to the questions that we ask or ought to ask, but which help us to hear the questions we do not have words for asking and hear the silence that those questions rise out of and the silence that is the answer to those questions.  Drawing on nothing fancier than the poetry of his own life, let him use words and images that help evoke the surface of our lives transparent to the truth that lies deep within them,

which is the wordless truth of who we are and who God is and the gospel of our meeting.

Navigating the modern church culture can be a difficult task.  Years ago as a young couple with a heart for ministry we started out with great hope and vision for all the things God would do in and through  the Church. The high expectations of God doing great things wasn’t a negative character trait  but we were very naive, inexperienced and unprepared for what would meet us along the road.

The  thing about inexperience is that it lets you get into situations that provide you with what you didn’t know you needed to know.  As we were around different churches and ministry organizations we did get to participate in  some truly great things of God.  However as we look back we can  see  the effects of simply being around when imperfect  people make foolish decisions that have destructive consequences.    When we were young and naïve our inexperience with such things lead to disappointments which in the long run brought forth a great amount of disillusionment.

In the natural maturation process we would enter into seasons of trying to gain understanding of what we had encountered–no less disillusioned but attempting to gain wisdom.  However, along with gaining wisdom and understanding our expectations of what would naturally occur within a church or ministry environment were hindered by a sense of hopelessness and heart sickness.

The scripture that comes to mind states “the ways of a man seem good to him but it only leads to death.” In an era steeped with cynicism and disillusionment  a humanistic disdain for things of God seems almost at times the popular motif, that if one doesn’t possess a story of the failures of the church to meet personal need they themselves are seen as culturally irrelevant.  We have only found that giving into those ideas and that way of thinking really do lead to death.    We could seem wise in our own eyes and really we were just steeped neck deep in despair .

We  were in need for God to restore to us His hope for His Bride. Even as we tried on our own to overcome bitterness and anger, our hopes to find fulfillment with a body of people who believed were slim. It wasn’t good enough for the Lord for us to just come to a place where we would experience relief from our pain, He wanted to fully redeem our experience with church and church culture and those that lead it.  The depth of redemption that God wanted to do for us wasn’t something He would do outside of our actual  participation within a community of believers.  In order to restore our hope and even our innocence what He was going to do was going to have to be done within a body.

In our travels and circles of relationships, we would see pockets and glimpses of what we longed to see.  Yet the restoration of deep hope would only come to us as we saw what we desired expressed through a local church body that we could be a part of week after week.  For us this occurred at Renovatus, a place that has great value for church culture to be relevant and vibrant inside and outside the walls of the church building. Upon Renovatus and especially Jonathan, there is an anointing to break off disillusionment from believers who have seen one to many things gone wrong.

We believe that this is something that God longs to do everywhere. As we are seeing Him act upon the community of Renovatus we see the redemption of church culture.  Now we look at our experience and are grateful for the wisdom that has been attained throughout it all, but we have also had our innocence and hope renewed. A man and a community of faith can truly spark a revolution in  culture when, through both liturgy and passion, they take seriously the call to live their lives out together…both the good and the bad, not hiding either one but embracing both weakness and strength, success and failure–changing the essence of the conversation.

Jim and Mims Driscoll direct Stir the Water, a ministry designed to help people grow in their prophetic gifting, and are active members of Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation.

I have been Executive Pastor at Renovatus for all of six months and feel fairly unqualified at this point in my career to impart inspiring leadership lessons.   However, in racking my brain over what to blog about, I realized that what I do have is a lifetime of experience in following.  I also happen to think that concept of followership is an understated precursor to leading well, so maybe it is a good place to start!

My all-time favorite TV show is The West Wing.  Fortunately for me, Pastor Jonathan knows the show well and appreciates (or at least tolerates) the unending references to it that I make on a regular basis.  There is a scene from the show that sums up the roles of the Lead Pastor and the Executive Pastor at Renovatus well, I think, or at least it does for me!  The Deputy Chief of Staff says to the President of the United States in a particularly poignant moment, “You know what the difference is between you and me?  You wanna be the guy.  I wanna be the guy the guy counts on.”

I’ve never aspired to be “The Guy.”  It is of absolutely no interest to me in any context, really.  I always want to be “the guy that the guy counts on.” (This is one of the reasons my current occupation is like living the dream!) I’m guessing growing up as the daughter of a Brigadier General might have played a part in some of this.   Honor and respect were non-negotiable in my house. We placed a high premium on dependability and integrity.   And naturally I developed a profound respect for uniting under one vision, for trusting in a chain of command, for following the leader. Orders are not optional and commands aren’t up for consideration. In the military, these principles literally protect lives and protect the mission. And while it is an imperfect analogy, it still translates into our context of church leadership. Do you take seriously the ministry you have been called to?  Do you recognize the high stakes of what it means to actually be the church?

If so, I implore you: Strive to be the guy that the guy counts on, no matter what your ambition or calling.  Follow your leaders.  Trust in God’s lordship over your own life and over their lives, as well.   They will not lead flawlessly, but extend the same grace given to you when you do not follow flawlessly.

Follow your leaders as they follow Christ (I Cor 11:1).  Follow in such a way that inspires and empowers others to follow you.

Tracey Rouse is Executive Pastor of Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation.

At Renovatus we have a manifesto that defines the mission we are on and the culture we are working to create.  It has become an inspiring compass for our staff and for our church.  (Read it and you will quickly see why!)  Pastor Jonathan crafted it last fall and unveiled it during staff retreat, all while I was out on maternity leave!  And I admit, when I heard through the grapevine that, “We are a people from the future,” was a part of it, I honestly thought it was a joke.  I had no idea what it meant or why such odd sci-fi language had landed in our manifesto.  Luckily, I didn’t have to live in suspense for very long before I was able to get a hold of a copy and read this part:

We are people from the future. We act in fearless conviction that the rules have changed and that we are partnering with God to make that change visible.  We will not be reactionary to anything or anyone, because the apocalyptic event of the resurrection has already transformed the world.

One read was all it took.  Ever since then, I am continually reminded that we really are people from the future.  The rules really have changed.  And leading in light of that idea is really hard sometimes!

It takes a great deal of discipline and faith to refrain from being reactionary-to the staff, to the budget, to volunteers, to gossip, to the bad weather, to the delayed shipping, to critics, to the Lord.  Yet, with a lot of practice and with a lot of help from the Spirit, we learn to press pause.  We learn take a moment to see the whole field, to zoom out of present circumstance and consider a larger context.  We try praying, or at the very least thinking, before speaking.  We give the grace and the benefit of the doubt that we would hope others would give us.  We lead with boldness and humility, conscious of the fact that our knowledge is always limited, but confident that the Father’s is not.  We assume the best.  Not because we are glass half-full, power of positive thinking, bright and shiny people, but because we serve a resurrected Jesus and lead like we really believe it.

Tracey Rouse is Executive Pastor of Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation.

I remember the first time I made a living wage from vocational ministry.  It was actually an internship in Knoxville, TN.  Ironically, most internships do not normally pay for all the blood, sweat and tears required for the role but this one did.  Regardless, it was all I had time for and I wasn’t earning money any other way.  I think because I loved it so much, it was really just the beginning of a path that would lead me to other ministries and inevitably a higher income.  Now this doesn’t mean that I was getting rich.  I went on to live with church members, in their basements, spare rooms and rental properties.  What this did, however, was provide the space and time necessary to truly reflect on why I’m doing what I’m doing and how to do it better.  For that, I’ll be forever grateful.  Eventually, my wife and I were able to purchase our own home with all the pride and accoutrement to accompany it.  Now I had the space and place to retreat into my own creativity and theological reflection.  With an office to accompany this productivity, I might as well have been in the NY Financial District staring down the charging bull and ready to take on the world.  I was a professional.

Unfortunately, instead of climbing the ladder into more ministerial prestige and honor, I pretty much flung myself off the ladder and landed with a loud thud in the dirt below.  Because of many poor choices, my grip had slipped and the world I knew came crashing down around me.  Crumpled and wounded, without a job and not even yet prodigal because there wasn’t any money to spend, I was desperate to reestablish my worth as a man and husband.  In just a few months, we were back in the spare bedroom of a family member.  No office, no private space for creativity or reflection and most importantly, no paycheck.  What’s a seriously wounded person, in need of healing but still thriving for expression to do?  I think it’s in times like these that we are able to finally realize God’s presence, both manifest and surreal.  At least, that’s what happened to me.  I imagine the Father to be like that in Rembrandt’s “Prodigal Son”.  The painting reveals the father’s face but not the son’s, who has buried his shamefully.  Yet, a close look at the face of the father reveals a slight mischief in his crooked smile, a knowing of what has been and what is to come.

For me, what was to come was the backroom of a major retail giant.  I gained employment and even attained a fancy title, ‘Backroom Logistics’.  In reality, it was the loading dock and storeroom for everything from towels to cereal to yoga mats.  My office now had 30 foot ceilings, industrial fans and little laser guns to scan barcodes.  To top it all off, if was open all night long.  You might call that 3rd shift…I called it office hours.  Neat right?  I mean the prestige of it all was off the charts.  It was in this dimly lit space that God decided to make regular appointments with me.  While climbing up ladders, scanning a box, bringing that box down and repeating the process, a rhythm developed that not enabled me to do this quickly but gladly.  I remember one time being in the narrow space of the storeroom aisles, reflecting on all the places I had been and all the things I had done.  The enemy named ‘Pity’ had been creeping slowly and steadily into my thoughts.  I was feeling claustrophobic by all this cardboard.  This was my office.  Suddenly and without warning, the voice of the Father spoke over my pity, his arms wrapped around me and as deep calls to deep I heard these words, “I still love you and I’ve still called you.”

Tears welled up and I had to stop moving.  Shame was overcome with grace and affirmation, not at the hands of flesh but by that of God’s Spirit.  I was reminded after years of professionalism and prestige that God was far more interested in the shape of my heart than the shape of my office.  My audience was no longer dressed fancy and didn’t show up to hear my eloquent speaking.  In fact, we all wore the same uniform of red and khaki.  Yet, I sensed purpose on the horizon.  Over time, slowly and steadily, I regained worth as a man and husband, not so much from what I did but from who I belonged to.  This backroom with it’s dust, machinery and cursing co-workers became my sanctuary.  The corporate ladder I had been climbing was replaced by a literal ladder.  It was my new pulpit.  I had been called to bear witness of Christ to those who wouldn’t dare darken the doors of a church building.  So after all this, can I ask you a simple question?  Where are you today?  In that space you call ‘intimate’ where only you and God co-habitate, what is the Father speaking?  Wherever your “backroom” is, I encourage you to listen and be amazed at the rhythm of grace flowing from our loving Creator.  Your worth as a person doesn’t come from what you do, it comes from who you call Father and your Father in turn call’s you “Loved.”

Jonathan Simmons is the Children’s Ministries Pastor at Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation

In keeping with my pastor’s recent trend of divulging his approach to preaching, I’d like to tackle a similar task that besets all children’s ministry everywhere.  One of the hardest things to decide when coordinating a ministry to families is in choosing what curriculum will be a best fit for your church.  We’re not liturgical in the ‘high church’ sense so while we are informed by the historical church calendar, we don’t build a lectionary rhythm around it.  Also, we haven’t yet tackled the ‘big idea’ approach enough to look one year down the road and say for example, “All children and adults will be looking at ‘Forgiveness’”.  At any rate, I do encourage that.  Also, related to the big idea approach, our pastor has been preaching through the Book of Revelation.  While I unapologetically think it’s some of the best exegetical preaching on the Apocalypse currently available, the material isn’t always easily translatable to children.  For those of who you who do have the chutzpah to tackle Revelation in a children’s ministry context, please share it with me.

Otherwise, since no two churches are alike it’s hard to imagine that one curriculum will fit the needs of every church out there.  The reality is that it won’t. The only way to teach a curriculum that will fit every cultural niche of your faith community is to actually write it.  While this is certainly a rewarding process I akin it to building a car from scratch.  It’s laborious, all the pieces need to fit and the end product may start up fine but break down five miles down the road.  We still do it and I still encourage it but only with the caveat of “Do it with excellence”.  I personally think that long-term curriculum writing is best left to a team with a hybrid specialization in developmental psychology, Koine Greek, media literacy and hip-hop.  So how do we come to the conclusion of what to teach our kids?  Well, it’s ultimately a hybrid of all the above.  To what degree we modify a curriculum ultimately depends on what season we’re in.  Since there’s not one curriculum that will meet our every need, we prayerfully work through what we have before us and make the best of it.  Here’s a snapshot of the process:
We shop for what’s relevant to our community.  Right now, we’re using Heartshapers for preschoolers.  In elementary classes, we just worked through the parables of Jesus for the summer.  I may pick up the curriculum or I may trust another team member to do it.  While I approve what’s being taught, I’m also secure enough to know that my volunteers hear from the Lord too.
Feeling a specific unction for this Fall, we’re writing our elementary curriculum.  August will be all about fishing, September through November will be based on the Renovatus Manifesto and December will be all about Advent.  That’s as far as I’ve gotten, which I’m ok with.  I won’t be the only one writing either.  There’s a team of highly capable and brilliant folks doing that writing as well.  In pedagogical terms, this is establishing scope and sequence.
There are some amazing curriculum’s out there that go years in advance.  Two that I highly recommend are Tru and Orange.  If we were to pick something like that though, we would never go straight word for word.  It’s too important that our adult spaces and kids spaces are in parallel so we’ll often throw in a dash of what mom and dad are learning.
Finally, whatever is being taught, we think critically about it.  Is it applicable to me personally?  Does it jive with historical orthodox Christianity?  Is Jesus Christ the central figure?  In my opinion, too much of what is passed off as doctrine is actually moral deism that asserts character development and behavioral modification over a true encounter with the Living God.

Ultimately, this is a sacred responsibility and only after seeking God through prayer do we embark on the next chapter.  It’s go time, baby.  Psalm 78:1-6 is our battle cry.  What are you passing on to the next generation?

Jonathan Simmons is the Children’s Ministry Pastor at Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation.

I’ve lived most of my life trying to live up to who I thought I should be, as opposed to who I actually am. It seems like a good idea, right… like, “dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” But trying to “dress for the job I want” has been more like me putting on size 10 shoes when I actually wear a size 6.

Being given the opportunity to lead Renovatus’ college and young adult ministry, Dust, with my husband at age 22 wasn’t exactly ideal, only because I felt incredibly ill-equipped to lead a community that I knew at some point would consist of people older than myself. My insecurities were quickly exposed. It felt like that dream you have when you show up to school naked, except it wasn’t a dream…

I had already asked myself all the questions: Am I too young for this? Will people take me seriously? Will this keep our ministry from growing? It is never fun when these questions are answered not only by your insecurities, but in fact by real people. I watched as some of the older students moved in and out of the community because I was “too young.”  Meeting after meeting, I listened as students shared their need for a mentor as I sat right there in front of them offering the very desire of their heart and yet, they didn’t want me… they wanted someone older, “wiser” and with more life experience, and wanted me to play the role of match-maker, not mentor.

So naturally, what does a size 6 do? Try to live up to what everyone else wants. Learn more scripture. Study harder. Find answers. Strive to fill these big “pastoral shoes.” Be older. Be wiser. I felt the need to prove myself… and to whom, exactly? “Am I trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)

I’ve learned much over the past 3 years. The most transforming to how I live and lead being that relational ministry is vital. BUT, you cannot be relational without being vulnerable. Leading from a place of vulnerability welcomes exposure. It is freeing and incredibly powerful to live as a person who is also under renovation. The day that I chucked my size 10 shoes, the more effective I became as a leader and discipler. There is much you can do when you concentrate less on being “spiritual” and more on being Spirit-led. Adopting the John 3:30 mentality… “He must become greater, I must become less.”

Besides, this is all a great adventure, right? Life with God, ministry, leading, following. We are all invited on our own epic journey that begins, continues and ends in the same beautiful place… sonship/daughtership, from which we cry, “Abba, Father.” I am a daughter, first. And learning to lead as a daughter and not just a mother yields the kind of vulnerability that makes it easy to trade in the size 10 shoes for my very ordinary, but perfectly unique and chosen size 6.

Krystle and Teddy Hart are the College/Young Adult Pastors at Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation.

If you work or volunteer for a church or any non-profit organization, you understand that challenge of keeping and motivating volunteers. Unlike a paid job where functions and roles are clearly defined and tied to a financial compensation, leading volunteers is all about relationship and a delicate balance between accountability and appreciation. As a volunteer pastor for Renovatus Community Life group ministry, I have faced this daunting task every day. Along the way, I learned the importance of aligning volunteers with their passion.

When I observed, the best performing volunteers were those who were either passionate about what they were doing or about the cause of the ministry. They would go through great lengths to find time and do things with utmost excellence. They will juggle demanding careers and family life and still find time to do their volunteer work. They will make you look good and thank you for it. There is really no better deal than this.

When I reflect on this role as Community Life Group pastor, I can clearly see how it aligns with my passion for God’s people and more specifically for the body called Renovatus. This is the church that made me believe in church again and I quickly found myself willing to do anything to serve this community. I wasn’t an expert on life groups nor had a particular passion for them. Yet, as I stepped into this role with my wife, we soon discover how well positioned we were to get to know and invest in one of the most amazing people we ever met. These times of deep fellowship with them have given us the extra strength to endure the grueling schedule, the never ending administrative tasks and the rigorous planning required to run the ministry.

In our team, we have also observed how some of our members have truly connected with the mission of the ministry. We have asked one of our leaders to develop a training class for our new leaders as we ourselves were embarking on a steep learning curve on how to lead groups and the ministry. After two meetings, they developed such a great program that at times I want to find excuses for us to do more training just so we can use their class. Understanding this couple’s busy lifestyle, I know that they would not have done this have it not been for a striking alignment between task and passion.

Leaders, discover what you love about your job. Cherish it and keep that in mind at all times. Then, look to those who you lead. Listen for their stories and work so that their tasks can better match their passions. While these two will not always easily match, it is always worth the try. There is no limit to what God can do with an army of volunteers who are passionate about what they do.

Elias and Priscilla Krueger are the Community Life Group Pastors at Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation.

Not like calling equity on the phone, although that’s a funny thought.  Instead, I mean to suggest that there exists a universal evenhandedness or equality of value in every call of God to every person.  Let me back up…

I am the Volunteer Pastor for the Renovatus community here in Charlotte NC.  It is a high honor and privilege to minister to and with this particular group of God’s children.  To oversimplify, my role in our church is to create an open door and path to serving God.  I am tasked with the job of supporting our Lead Pastor’s initiative to get everybody’s hands dirty with the good work of the Kingdom (you have probably heard of our Pastor, Jonathan Martin?  I think he has a blog).  Anyway, we take seriously the idea that the Church is the very real Body of Christ in this world, and therefore we must live that way.  We are working to build a culture among this people that makes us and those around us fully aware that we have a job to do.  We must become witnesses to the good news in word and deed.  We should often let our deeds speak for themselves.  Considering the mistakes of the church in North America and our lack of confession, we must be willing to put our words aside and be a people of action if we ever hope to be listened to again.

So, what should we be doing?  Well, this is a question with two answers.

First, we all have the same general calling as followers of Christ.  It is a universal calling and one easily articulated by anyone who is following.  But, the second way to answer the question of what to do with ourselves, is found when we seek God’s more specific will for our particular Body in our particular context.  And this is the beautiful part with limitless possibilities because God is a constant creator working in the garden of our world pulling up weeds and planting fruit trees!  This can ‘range’ from ministry in the third world to being a greeter at our churches weekend services.

I am guessing that if you grew up around the church, you are nodding your head right now.  You have seen first hand the divisions that are still so prevalent between clergy and laity.  You are fully aware that we still call people like me a ‘minister’, while everyone else is called a ‘member’, ‘attendee’ or ‘churchgoer’.  We still allow the categorization of those who ‘work for the church’ and the ‘consumers’ that just come and receive at, as our Pastor calls it, the buffet of spiritual gluttony.  Leaders are the most guilty of perpetuating this habit by allowing the work of the church to bottle neck with us as we claim expert status.  Of course all are to blame for allowing our call from God to action to sit on the shelf and gather dust like so many other things of importance.  Where did I leave my Bible anyway?

“But, didn’t you claim that all callings are held equal?” you might ask.  Am I really trying to say that in the eyes of God, the calling of MLK or Bonhoeffer is on par with the calling of the lady who makes coffee at my church or the guys who pass the offering plate back and forth?  That the calling of the nursery worker changing diapers is as important as Pastor Jonathan’s call to preach the Word? Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to say (and I am echoing what Pastor has already preached himself)!

Right here is where the rubber meets the road for me as a pastor with Renovatus.  The aforementioned consumerism in our churches is simply not Christian at all.  Jesus made it very clear that we are to do what He did and with the empowerment of His Spirit; He expects us to do even greater things than He accomplished!  But, the greatness of a calling can only be judged by the One who does the calling.  There is simply faithfulness or unfaithfulness.  It is our system of value imposed on God’s people that make faithful servants begin to feel inadequate and insecure.  If God calls you to do something, even something that seems small to you and everyone around you, do it and never look back.  God judges those faithful in the ‘small things’ to be great in His Kingdom!

This is obviously then not a call to small-mindedness or apathy, but a call to faithfulness leaving behind the systems and values that bind the imaginations and hands of God’s children everywhere.  What do I encourage as a leader?  I just want you to get in the game somewhere!  I trust the Spirit to guide you as you grow in Christ.  The Spirit will lead us through seasonal callings and life long callings, simple or complex.

So, I as a leader am charged with helping my Pastor change the culture we find ourselves in for those that call Jesus their master.  I have to keep finding ways to help our people unlearn the hierarchical structures of the world which have too often been encouraged instead of challenged in the church.  I have tried to create a ‘boot camp’ for learning to serve God in our church through the way I have organized our Guest Services Teams.  None of the jobs are rocket science, there is only faithfulness and unfaithfulness.

I have started with the most simple and accessible jobs to get people in our Body ministering. This is not to limit them, but to teach how important simple things are to God’s heart and to start many down the path of service that is often inaccessible in the church.  I pass or fail as a leader based on how well I create opportunities for our people to co-labor with Jesus.  Every Greeter that shakes your hand is showing you the love of God.  Every Care-taking Team member is part of the reconciliation of the world when they clean a toilet for others to use.  You are looking at the face of Jesus when a parking lot attendant from the Safety Team waves you into the lot.  Really!

And some people wonder why I take such ‘little’ things so seriously…

Gabe Donaldson is Volunteer Pastor at Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation.

Nobody who has been around me for any amount of time needs an introduction to my spiritual grandmother, Margaret Gaines.  At Renovatus, we have a saying in our manifesto that “We are your grandmother’s church.”  We take our heritage and the value of continuity in our community of faith very seriously.  Strategically, Margaret was the first guest speaker we ever had at Renovatus, all the way back when we were having Saturday night services at Resurrection Lutheran Church.

Margaret is best known for her many years on the mission field in the small village of Aboud, a Palestinian community she devoted her life to.  She established a wonderful church and school there, which I had the life-changing opportunity to visit with Margaret in 2006.  At 78 years old, Margaret is battling a wide variety of health issues, now back at home in Pell City, Alabama.  But she’s unstoppable.  She took over as interim pastor at a church of about 20 in her town, and is preaching every Sunday!

One of the things that has always struck me as sad about Margaret’s legacy is that while she is very revered within our tradition, I have never felt like we have been particularly attentive to what she actually has to say.  So it is with prophets–we would rather revere them as icons than do what they tell us to do.  While nobody questions she is a deeply holy woman, plenty of people have been nervous about the prospect of her sharing her heart and her stories of injustice to Palestinian Christians.  In evangelical culture in America, there is no higher act of treason (even against God himself, for the John Hagees of the world) than to criticize any policy or position of Israel as a modern-nation state.  But prophets speak the truth, even and perhaps especially when it goes against the grain of religious tradition.  Over 10 years ago, Margaret felt what she described as a prophetic anointing of the Holy Spirit to write down what she had seen and heard.  After years of writing political leaders and gently pleading the case on behalf of her people, she felt the time was right to go public within the Church.

And for over a decade, that manuscript has gathered dust.  She gave me a copy a few years ago, and I have quoted it and pointed to it as often as possible in my writing and speaking.  Last year, I had referenced and quoted part of this work in a blog entry.  When Dr. John Christopher Thomas’ mother saw it on facebook, she told her son somebody had to get this published.  And Dr. Thomas, being a man who has always honored the voices of his fathers and mothers in the Lord (including Margaret’s), decided to do just that.  In addition to being the Clarence J. Abbot Professor of Biblical Studies at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, he is also now directing the Center of Pentecostal Theology.  They are now publishing important works by Pentecostal authors.  He was eager to honor Margaret by finally giving her the platform to speak the message she is most passionate about.

On the back cover, the book is described this way:

Roused to speak by the injustices experienced over many years by Palestinian Christians amongst whom she has lived in the West Bank, long-term missionary Margaret Gaines offers a prophetic word to the Christian community and beyond. In this ‘testimony’, she traces the historical origins and development of the tensions by which this part of the world has been characterized, asking all parties – Muslims, Christians, and Jews – to seek understanding by viewing the grievances of each through the eyes of the other. By envisioning the other as friend instead of enemy she seeks to bring an end to the violence that haunts the country, creating an environment in which peace can take root and thrive. Weaving personal narrative with historical analysis and theological reflection Gaines delivers a prophetic word that, though unsettling to some, offers a distinctively Christian way forward in this troubled land.

It’s an important work that, given the Church climate in North America, is bound to make people angry.  But it’s a book that simply must be read and engaged by sympathizers and critics alike.  It’s message is desperately needed.  One of the things that I love about this slim volume is that Margaret is really able to speak inside the church culture she comes from in a way I’ve not quite seen before.  I’m a full-blooded Pentecostal with perhaps the highest view of the authority of Scripture imaginable, but I’ve long ago forsaken a lot of the fundamentalist systems that have gained traction in our tradition, especially as it pertains to end-times.  Margaret doesn’t stand apart from those systems so much as critique from within them in ways that I think have literally never been done before.  She argues forcefully from the Scripture, weaving her story with historical analysis deftly along the way.

I could say a lot more about this, but I’d rather just prepare the way.  Hers is the voice you need to hear.  Hard copies are available very soon–but today I’m thrilled to tell you that Small Enough to Stop the Violence is available for the first time to the world exclusively through the Kindle edition, for only $5.99!  Stop reading this blog and buy it right now, here.

“O Make Your church, dear Savior, a lamp of purest gold

to bear before the nations Your true light as of old”

-William W. How, 1823-1897

When I started writing last night I took myself on a rant. A blithering, angsty rant about how we have become consumers of worship. That we have adopted the gods of celebrity and placed them in our house. I only got so far, and had to go to bed. Of course it was a restless night, because I have a 4 month old baby who is still not sleeping through the night, but I also just felt restless in my spirit.

Awakening this morning was like breathing a new air. It was like the grace of God was covering me like a blanket, and as I sang to my son in the morning light I felt the gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit saying “I have called you to be a beacon of hope”.

I love the discipline of the Father, because when we are listening well He is gentle with us. I was also reminded about two things: the word from Jesus to the church in Ephesus, where He explains that they had forgotten their first love and if they did not return, He would remove their golden lampstand, their beacon of light unto the world (Revelation 2v2-5). And a word brought to the Renovatus leaders in our early days, from a man who pastors a great church in this city -  “Be known for what you are for, not what you are against”.

It’s so easy to rant and rave about what we see going wrong in the church. The world we know is fallen, but the church is expected to be held to a higher way. And yet she is ravaged from the inside by our own cynicism and fear. My dear church, we are called to be a beacon of hope, that shines with light from within.

Now, oftentimes it is right to speak out against things that are awry in the body of Christ. As leaders we often have the uncomfortable charge of correction. If you are a leader in your church, you know what I mean when I say that leading is both a beautiful and inspiring work to be given, and yet can be very difficult when it comes to true discipling. We encounter rebellion, pride, anger, fear and more within the hearts of those we lead. But when we are honest about the fact that those things have also resided in us and see the hand of the Lord continually taking us from freedom to freedom, we yearn to see the same in those we are in community with. So our correction must be spoken safely under the banner of love.

But I don’t speak of healthy pastoral correction here. I speak of the disgruntled criticism of the church from those who claim to follow the Head. I myself am the queen of these. I fall often into the trap of sensing what grieves the Lord’s heart and turning it into a personal vendetta against a church, a movement, or a single person belonging to Christ. Instead of longing and praying for their freedom, or speaking in the love of Jesus and under the timely prompting of the Holy Spirit, I complain about them with others who would agree, till I feel good, justified, holier than thou.

But we are called to be a beacon of hope. Not just to the world, but to one another. Because when we treat one another with the grace and forgiveness we have been given from God Himself, we ARE the light of the world, we are the hope the world is longing for. We are walking in the love of Christ.

If you are dissatisfied with something in the church, instead of grumbling about it with those who would fuel your critical fire, why not sit in the pews between the liars, dreamers and misfits we call the body of Christ and begin to live the opposite of what troubles your spirit, lest we ourselves align with the “accuser of the brethren”. Embrace the bride in all her imperfections, knowing that Jesus is setting her free day by day, making her perfect through what He has already accomplished for her, undeserving as she may be.

As worship pastor at Renovatus, my charge is not to stand on a platform and point fingers at how worship music has fallen prey to consumerism and idolatry. My charge is to mould a worship experience that does not do the same. To lead Renovatus into a worship that is of Spirit and Truth, that revels in community and song, and connects itself with the history of those who have gone before whilst endeavoring to be a people from the future. We’re not there yet perhaps – the Lord is always showing us where performance, pride and perfectionism exist. But we are to be listening well, and while we are full of cynicism and a critical spirit, we may not be able to hear.

Sarah DeShields is the Worship Pastor at Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation

Our church is called “a church for people under renovation” because we take seriously the idea that any significant relationship with God or the Church must be based on vulnerability. We have to be able to own the truth of our scars and our stories if we hope to experience any level of transformation together.  So of course for us, that means creating the kind of culture where people are encouraged to confess their sins one to another that they may be healed (James 5.16), a culture where people who walk in the exposure of God’s light as He is in the light (I John 1.7).  We are rigidly, dogmatically opposed to religious systems that keep people from being able to share the truth of their stories in a a raw, unvarnished form.

What you have to understand about this approach, where authenticity is not just a buzzword but lived reality, is that it isn’t just about letting your sin show.  It’s not just about letting your struggles and temptations show, though that is part and parcel of the project of living an authentic life in Christ.  It’s also about letting your holiness show.  We believe we are supposed to create the kind of culture where people are not only authentic in expressing their shadow side, but authentic in expressing the brightness of God’s glory within them.

I know what you are thinking.  Didn’t Jesus warn us against superficial acts of piety?  Not trumpeting it when we pray or when we give…praying in the secret place and not letting your left hand know what the right hand is doing?  Yes He did, which is why I’m not talking about superficial acts of piety.  I’m talking about holiness.  When you come down the mountain from being with God like Moses did, there is a glow about your face that you can’t really hide–or at least not for long.  There is a fragrance, a sweetness, a power and authority produced exclusively by the presence of Jesus.  When you try to bury that reality or conceal that brightness, you are being just as inauthentic as the person that refuses to talk about their struggles and sins.

If you are experiencing the reality of Jesus in your life, you can’t hide the presence for fear that someone else will take your brightness as judgment on their darkness.  You can’t conceal your joy for fear someone else will take it as an indictment on their despair.  You can’t hide your light under a bushel.  There is grace and power flowing in radioactive doses flowing from your life when you walk in the Spirit.

I hope you will become the kind of person who is able to be honest about your imperfections and weaknesses.  But if the truth on the baseline of you is that Jesus is alive and active and moving by His Spirit in your life, don’t cover that either.

Let your holiness show.

At this point I guess its no secret that I am a relentless critic of speculative end-times scenarios which distract the Church from its mission.  A series like End of the World as We Know It where we focus on Revelation is of course a forum where that critique comes into play more than usual. Of course after last week’s message, folks know a whole lot about my convictions on these matters.

Awhile back, I had made a passing remark about Christians who spend their time playing “pin the tail on the antichrist.”  So when I got back into the office on Monday, my delightfully creative friend and volunteer Pastor absolutely made not just my day but my year by presenting me with a meticulously crafted ACTUAL Pin the tail on the antichrist game!!!  I have been geeking out over it all week, and just had to share it with you.  We are ready to package it, market it, and get copies out for individuals and groups.  I’m telling you, Pin the tail on the antichrist is what your group needs to take it to the next level.  Finally, you have the tools to identify the man of lawlessness  for yourself!  The suspense is over.

Many, many thanks to Pastor Gabe.  This is BRILLIANT.

With the end of the end of the world series coming this weekend, I will either sadly or mercifully take a break from these issues, depending on how you look at it.

One of my repeated critiques of popular end-times scenarios has been the passive acceptance that we can only expect horror in the Middle East, even the wish fulfillment that things get worse faster.  There is no other word but hate for my feelings about the apathy, indifference and despair these systems have produced among Christians toward their involvement in the reconciliation of the world (obviously not hate towards individuals).  As Margaret Gaines’ book Small Enough to Stop the Violence hits the shelves, I have again stressed my angst at the plight of Palestinian Christians who have been ignored by the Church, as they don’t fit our rigid charts and graphs enough to merit our love or our consideration.

But today I want to address the other side of that issue.  We know that historically, Christians have tragically committed some of the most atrocious acts of injustice in human history towards Jewish people.  The strands of antisemitism in quarters of church history is a blight on our entire story.  Because of the guilt that comes from this, contemporary Christians have been eager to embrace an uncritical, un-nuanced support of the modern nation-state of Israel without exception or qualification.  Alongside this, there is often rhetoric about honoring the roots and heritage of Christian faith as the rationality for this move.  Given the devastating historical record and haunting memories of the holocaust, God’s people want to right the wrongs of our checkered past.

I abhor antisemitism in any and all forms, and of course believe that an adequate understanding of Judaism is the key to understanding Christian faith.  But in the emphasis on loving Jewish people in the modern nation-state of Israel, my problem is not that Christians are expressing their love but that they are not loving well enough.  You see for many of these end-times enthusiasts, they only “love” Jews in Israel insofar that they are pawns on the board of their wish-fulfillment regarding the end.  They want them to be in the right place at the right time to further their own hopes and dreams about the end of days.  That is not the same thing as loving them as human beings.  They are in love with the game of chess they are playing.

To really love Jewish and Arab people alike is to pray and work for peace and reconciliation, not to entertain hopes for violence.  I’m not wanting Christians to love their Jewish neighbors less robustly, but more so.  It just so happens that a lot of the folks that say they love them the most don’t love them as much as they say they do.

Many of you know my “Holy Ghost ipod shuffle” phenomenon theory. I can tell you that I believe the principle also applies to book selection, at least when you are walking in the Spirit.

As Amanda and I were gone on vacation driving along coastal Maine and Canada, we went in as many used bookstores as we could.  It’s my vice.  Interestingly enough, of the hundreds of books I sorted through, only 2 jumped out as “gotta haves:” inexpensive first editions of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Strength to Love (a collection of sermons) and Wendell Berry’s The Hidden Wound.  Both books are in essence about race in America from a Christian perspective, written about 7 years apart.  Both brought me back into a world of ideas I believe in and am passionate about, and yet both did so with a sense of discomfort.

I’m very comfortable with my convictions about race and the gospel, but not altogether sure I’ve ever figured out entirely what to do about them.  Berry’s book is interesting in that he explores the “hidden wound” that racism has left on white people.  The premise can be summarized in these words “If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself…I want to know, as fully and exactly as I can, what the wound is and how much I am suffering from it.  And I want to be cured.”

The unsettling things about reading these books in tandem, being tag-teamed by their haunting beauty, is the sense that the Spirit is stirring me to action in ways I do not yet fully understand.  I think I still tend to fall prey to the common evangelical tendency to focus on the soul/spiritual reality to the exclusion of the body/implications for real life.  And if there is any place where Berry won’t let you off the hook, it is here.  The most moving section of the book for me was when Berry addressed the role of preaching in supporting the institution of slavery:

If a man wanted to remain a preacher he would have to honor that division in the minds of the congregation between earth and heaven, body and soul.  His concern obviously had to be with things heavenly; unless he was a saint or a fool he would leave earthly things to the care of those who stood to benefit from them.

Thus the moral obligation was cleanly excerpted from the religion.  The question of how to best live on the earth, among one’s fellow creatures, was permitted to atrophy, and the churches devoted themselves exclusively and obsessively with the question of salvation…

The mystical aspects of Christianity completely overshadow the moral.  But it is a bogus mysticism, mysticism as wishful magic, a recipe by which to secure the benefits of eternal bliss without having to give up the benefits of temporal vice: corrupt your soul and save it too!

…When the ministers of these churches turned their attention to the world, they did so…violently opposing such ‘sins’ as drinking, failure to attend church, and ‘immorality’–sins of somewhat questionable status in the first place, and which the church found it easy enough both to condemn and to live with, and to the practice of which its condemnation added little more than a certain spice…

Detached from real issues and real evils, the language of religion became abstract, intensely (desperately?) pious, rhetorical, inflated with phony mysticism and joyless passion.  The religious institutions became comfort stations for scribes and publicans and pharisees.  Far from curing the wound of racism, the white man’s Christianity has been its soothing bandage–a bandage masquerading as Sunday clothes, for the wearing of which one expects a certain moral credit.

Of course most everyone now agrees with Berry’s critique–insofar as you limit the conversation to the church’s silent and sometimes explicit consent of slavery and racism historically.  But by no means was this always obvious.  And my sense is that most of our glaring sins are not terribly obvious when you are living in the thick of them.  The most dangerous rebellion is always that which is right under your nose.  I offer no solutions, only a troubling question: where might we still be perpetuating this same body/soul division in the church now?  In what ways are perpetuating sin within our systems, especially towards the poor and weak among us, and yet become so comfortable that we are oblivious to the voice of the Spirit to convict us of them?  Might there still be latent racism lurking beneath the surface of our cheerful verbiage that God still wants to disrupt?  Is the racial unity God is calling His church far more violent, disruptive and ultimately wonderful than we have had the imagination to envision?

“Search me O God, and know my heart…” Psalm 139.23

Still reeling from the Spirit-led, powerfully anointed on-stage conversation with Dr. John Christopher Thomas this morning, and getting ready to go back out for his lecture tonight.  It’s been a remarkable journey through Revelation.  If Bono was leading worship tonight, I wouldn’t be much more excited.

Chris mentioned at Little Rock this morning that given the visual nature of the apocalypse, some of the most compelling portrayals of Revelation have come not through commentaries or sermons but through art and music.  An interesting observation, especially on the heels of a small but important moment I had this weekend.  Tracey Rouse is our Executive Pastor, and her husband Nathan one of my best friends.  He rode with me to Ducktown, TN Friday to speak at a retreat for his brother Josh.  While there, Tracey sent a picture to his phone from their daughter’s storybook Bible.  Lucy, just about to turn 3, is also my goddaughter (and I’m super proud).  Tracey was reading the Bible with her, and came across this image in the section on Revelation.

You can laugh if you want but this picture made me cry.  I would love to have a print of it hanging in my office.  Through all the clutter of charts and graphs and general mayhem in literature on/about the Apocalypse, this simple picture captures the beauty, charm and simple reality of Revelation 21 with elegant simplicity: God’s kingdom is going to come down, everybody.  And it is very, very good news!

Behold–the message of the kingdom coming down:

I do not even claim to be the best writer in my own household.

I find my wife’s art infinitely more interesting than my own.  Last night, she read this piece to me before we went to bed.  I loved it so much. So raw, so funny, and such an accurate depiction of the weird madness that really does come around our house most EVERY weekend.  I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a pastor speak to this phenomenon, though I’m assuming many would resonate with it.  It is indeed taken from the trenches of this very weekend.  I could of course simply steer you to her blog, where I’m happy she is collecting her musings.  But I like this so much, I insisted on stealing it for my own as well.  I hope you enjoy. 

It’s a strange thing to admit, but when I opened my eyes this Sunday morning, the first thought that popped into my head was, “I wished I smoked.”

Being a pastor’s wife tests my spiritual character hourly. As I bemoaned (okay, maybe grumbled) to a dear friend this morning who works on staff at the church, vocational ministry requires not just dedication and excellence to performing well under stressful circumstances at high stakes but doing this while being constantly loving and dedicated to the people with whom you are working. In a secular job, you may well have high stress and big consequences to your work, but there is not the expectation that you need like, let alone LOVE your coworkers. (Christian expectations of neighbor-loving aside, you know what I mean.) Thankfully, I do love all of our staff members at Renovatus and find them easy to both love and work with. So no, its not the company I keep that made me consider turning to nicotine.

When you think of ministry stress, you might think of how difficult it must be sharing in people’s grief, counseling them in the most difficult circumstances of their lives. Or you may think of the schedule, being available almost all the time for emergencies, crises, and meetings. Or you may cite the public nature of the life, the “fishbowl” the pastor’s family inevitably find themselves in. I am what is known as an expressive introvert so these things do wear on me. But no, although these carry their own stress, I knew enough about this job to anticipate these and find a kind of energy from and grace for them. As drained as I may be, I never feel like I need a cigarette after a discipleship meeting or even the rounds of Sunday mingling.

No, the moments like this morning, moments when lips that have literally never touched tobacco mouth something like “I wish I smoked” are more the result of what I have learned to identify as “The Raven.” Those familiar with Poe’s poem will remember the black bird that comes “tapping, tapping, tapping” at the chamber door at midnight to torment the speaker with the kind of annoying disorientation that is only possible at night. You see, it’s not the crisis that takes me down. I’m wired for that. It’s the annoyances. Not just garden variety annoyance though that can be dark enough. With a chance that some of my readers may be completely put off by my forwardness, I am referring to a kind of perpetual maniacal pecking, something like Poe’s raven at the window that comes into the room specifically to spook and annoy you.

For me, the Raven comes at some pretty consistent times. Mainly, as you may guess in a ministry house, on Saturday.

This weekend was fairly normal. After an enjoyable Friday night with family, we were on our way home Saturday when what began as petty bickering turned into an hour long intense marriage analysis (one of those fights where our dog Cybil crawls under something and looks like we’ve been beating her). With that resolved, we find ourselves rushing to be at the Saturday night service at Renovatus Little Rock on time (we make it) and return home to find that our air conditioning has yet again unexplainably stopped working. (The last time it did this was also the weekend. After moving house for two days, my dad found that the a/c had tripped its breaker. Again, no reason was found.) By this point the temperature in the house is reading 80 and the dog is panting and looking at me like I’m an idiot for not doing something. This is at about 11 pm. We settle into bed with a fan when suddenly Jonathan begins to feel itchy and within thirty minutes has broken out in welts on his arms. Afraid more that it might be contagious than compassionate I am now sleepy and must evaluate whether or not I should move into a room without a fan to sleep. I encourage him to take a shower, decide I’m too tired to relocate and probably already have whatever it is anyway, and try to relax instead of worry that Cybil is overheating and that we all probably have scabies. As if I hadn’t heard enough of “Lenore,” Jonathan decides to tell me in this moment that a stressful financial situation we have been dealing with for five months has still not been resolved. In the background, I could almost hear the Raven squawking, “Nevermore!”

Now I realize that everybody has these kinds of trials. In isolation, hey maybe corporately, they are not that big of a deal. But you must understand that I have lost count of the number of times that after a quiet, seemingly safe week, weirdness will strike on a Friday or Saturday night, when our minds are on other things and we’re too tired to think clearly or respond responsibly. And in my spiritual maturity, I say things like, “I wish I were a Wal-mart greeter. How much simpler life would be.” Or in my more worn down states, “I wish I could smoke a cigarette.”

As you, my loving readers, have guessed by now, what I’m longing for in those moments is just a “normal,” some physical action that can symbolize stability, an automatic I can shift into when the gears feel stripped. It’s also in these moments when the spiritual disciplines or lack of them in my life come into sharp focus.

You see the Raven, whichever one is annoying me that week, isn’t the problem. He’s just doing his job which is primarily to discourage me and annoy to the point that I am willing to give up. He can’t destroy me. He can only annoy me. But he can do that until, not unlike the speaker in Poe’s poem, I am so filled with hopelessness, despair, and self-loathing that I give up. He’s going to keep saying “Nevermore” to me. That’s what his Uncle Screwtape told him to do. It’s his assignment. It’s also his “tell.” And I’m thankful for that. And this strategy is most effective when I am alone and fatigued. Alone and fatigued. These are the moments that I want to shut the doors and blinds, smoke a cigarette, remain completely still and quiet and hope the world will just forget I exist. And if I were to fall to this temptation, I would indeed cease to do so.

So today, my parishioners and loved ones will be glad to know that I did not take up smoking. Instead, I went to Renovatus Fort Mill where an incredible community of eccentric and adorably loving people made me more thankful than I have ever been that I am alive and do what I do, where my husband spoke with such passion and cast an amazing vision for the future of this group of pilgrims, where I am was reminded that I have a share in the most important job in existence and I am altering the course of the earth.

But before I go reactionary in the other direction, it does me good to remember that this morning, I wanted to smoke. But rather than listen to the Raven, I will listen to the voices of hope around me, the new voices of my community who never thought they would find a church like this . . . the voice of the Church singing “Strength for Today and Bright Hope For Tomorrow, Blessing all Mine, With Ten Thousand Besides”  . . .the voice of the Spirit, the dove who sings not louder but truer than the Raven, singing of hope and peace, a voice that rings with a constant promise of . . . “Evermore!”

I offer this piece with a simple disclaimer: I don’t think everything I wrote is entirely true.  Well at least, the part where I say I know no identity but that of a preacher.  I really am indeed first and foremost God’s beloved son, and that is the identity that is infinitely deeper than anything related to my calling.  That’s been the biggest lesson of my last year of life and ministry.  But that is not always what I feel.  So I do think this captures quite truthfully what I hope/fear/struggle with about my calling, more truthfully than I could probably ever put it again.  So today I offer it in honor and tribute to all the brave men and women of God who bear up under the weight of the call, hoping it will articulate some of the ambiguity, beauty and tension wrapped up in saying “yes” when God summoned you.

I also offer it with this simple conviction: through the foolishness of preaching, God has chosen to demonstrate the power of the gospel.  From Peter on the day of Pentecost to Martin Luther King preaching in Memphis, TN preaching is still changing the world.  Never forget that, and by all means–keep preaching.  Preach with boldness, preach with vulnerability.  Preach high risk, bloody messages; preach because it matters.  

I am a preacher.

I say this as a confession, hoping that you will offer me the sacrament of reconciliation.  For I might pretend to be many other things, but honesty demands that I come clean on this if we are going to be friends.  And besides, the only person you should be more suspicious of than a preacher is a preacher who pretends to be something other than a preacher.

As preachers we of course put on different clothes and make believe, which comes off not with the whimsy of a child’s imagination but the peculiar madness of grown men and women playing with paper dolls.  We play at being CEO’s or rock stars or life coaches or intellectuals or civic leaders or politicians.  Preachers in drag, preachers at a freak show, step right up and see the bearded lady.  It might be funny at first, like cards or gift calendars where animals are dressed up like people.  Except you stare long enough and then you have to ask yourself…do they really dress up their dog like a professor every day for real?

It is understandable why we would pretend to be something different than what we are, because to put it mildly, preachers have limitations.  We are compared to poets, but we generally lack their precision with language, using words with clumsy brute force as often as not.  We are sometimes called prophets, but we are not generally so courageous, especially since our livelihood generally depends on the people we prophesy to. We are not precisely artists, since we lack the artist’s originality.  The preacher’s job is not to paint new things but to repeat old things.  If we were artists none of us would be Rembrandt; we’d be drawing caricatures in a booth at a mall for $10 a picture.  We re-shuffle a deck of words already given to us, only hoping to play the right card at the right time.  We are of no real use to society, certainly not in the ways that engineers and doctors and teachers are useful to society.

I am a preacher.  That means I didn’t decide to do what I’m doing.  I love God, and can say that without hesitation these days, but don’t preach because I necessarily love God more than anyone else.  And certainly not because I can claim any extraordinary holiness.  Preachers are people who have had holiness lay a claim on them, branded with iron.  People talk about a calling, an inner voice, a quiet whisper, a special peace—“calling” that settles on you like morning dew.  What gets left out most of the time is that calling seizes you like an octopus—you are Captain Nemo in the grips of a sea creature 20,000 leagues below.  (Not all preachers experience calling in this way, mind you, where you are as much manacled by something as you are liberated by something.  Only the interesting ones.)

I am other things besides being a preacher.  But while I don’t think any of us can see all the way to the bottom of ourselves, as best as I can tell I am preacher all the down.  I would like to say I know I am God’s beloved son first, and preach to others that being known as God’s beloved should be the first and truest thing about their identity, the foundation everything else about who they are should be built on.  But I’ll chalk this up to yet another place where my life can’t live up to my preaching, because the truth of being a preacher seems as much at the core of me as anything else.  There is love and there is being known by God, and I try to live from that.  But is it really possible to be a preacher, all the talk of love and grace as true and powerful as it is, and not be a product of terror as well?  Not only captivated by the love of God, but struck with slack jaw horror at the sight of a burning bush somewhere?  Deep down flatly more afraid to not speak for God than to speak for God?

Everybody talks about boundaries and margins and a sense of identity that goes deeper than what you do for God in ministry, and all that is good and well.  But for the preacher, as least for me, there is always this lurking suspicion that some of that is psychobabble seminary bull—-.  Of this one thing I am sure: I experience many things in life—friends and hobbies and interests and songs and stories that go far beyond the act of preaching.  But God knows I experience them all as a preacher would.  I laugh as a preacher, I cry as a preacher, I am moved as a preacher.  I do all these things as a preacher would do, not because that is what I aspire to be but what I really am.

I am a preacher, a preacher who hates the sound of his own voice—except for those days of course where I am in love with the sound of my own voice, and neither is particularly good.  I live under the weight of words.  I carry words in my pockets, words in my satchel, words in my heart.  Words, always the words.  Words as pitiable weapons in a world when there are guns for sale at Wal Mart, words as medicine in a world where prescriptions are all we seem to need.  Carrying my words to places where they are impractical and words to places where they are inept.  Delivering words that make some people look at me with the superstitious fear of a witch doctor, a shaman, the village medicine man who has all the answers—words that make people look like the village idiot, a man out of time, a man that won’t move on with the world.

And I know that words cannot always be the answer….but that sometimes they can, and that words can create galaxies and words can burn cities down.  All this damnation and hope at my disposal, all this absurd power—living under the weight of the words.  I wish that I could live up to the greatness of the words, to have a soul big enough and a life noble enough to be worthy of them.  But don’t you see by now—I’m a preacher?  There is nothing greater than the words, they are the stars that light up the night.  Isn’t Jesus Himself called the Word of God?  Only He could bear up under the weight of so many words, only he could exceed the expectation that words create and surpass the reality of what words signify.

I don’t live up to the words, create the words, own the words.  I gaze at them, I gibber with them.  I consume them, I choke on them, I vomit them.  I am a preacher.  Words are all I’ve got, words will have to be enough.

Somebody asked me if a 6-day creation was literal. And of course I said “who cares?”, since a 6-day creation is the least impressive thing I read in your book of beginnings. But that thing you did when you separated light from darkness and water from sky and land from sea? Now that is really something. So clearly defined, so unambiguous…everything marked and ordered. I really don’t understand how you do that.

That’s all well and good enough I suppose—if that’s what your into. But I’ve been building this cathedral dedicated to St. Complicated. A coward, I retreat into my sanctuary and cower under the stained glass. Down here it’s not so ordered—light from dark and sky from land and land from sea—we don’t have time for that here, and after all we’re on a schedule. Is it really so bad that I mistake my complexity for sophistication? That I am not courageous enough to be simple in the ways you are simple?

The way you love is dazzling in its simplicity; the posture of your heart is stunningly direct. Especially in contrast to my blasphemous additions and amendments and “improvements.” You make it all look so easy— but it strikes me that what you do is quite hard, and so I craft these winding labyrinths for my own protection. And what my edifices lack in elegance, I will make up for by making them more involved, more difficult, more demanding. Convoluted as it might be, I am an artisan, practicing my craft since I could talk. And is there not a place where I could have built enough columns and decorated enough altars for you to say I’ve come too far to come back now—for you to tell me that I as might as well finish this monstrosity the way I started it?

St. Complicated has no wonders that we might vindicate but oh so many signs—I just don’t know what they mean. But he is no less my patron saint. You do understand of course that we are in a building project and it’s a bit late to go changing things now? It would seem that you might set fire to all of this, that you have no regard for what has taken me the better part of my life to build. If only I could explain to you how much comfort my seasoned complexity brings to myself and to others!

We both know this is a sanctuary. We both know there is safety in what I’ve built. You seem rather insistent that most of all its keeping us safe from you. But you may not be taking into account how disruptive you really are and just how many hours I’ve put into the architecture around here.

And I would try to explain it better, but clarity is not exactly my bag. Just take my word for it—it’s complicated.

It was a fairly recent and surprising revelation that I am not very good at having friends.

It was surprising because I try to be polite, kind, and deferential to my friends. Then again, I guess I attempt to be polite, kind, and deferential to a lot of people. I’m an open enough person as to not try to manage my image too tightly these days, friend or no. Sometimes people will tell their preachers that they would like to know what they are “really like” outside of preaching. And I always tell them I’m more myself when I’m preaching than I am in any other time, so you are more likely to really know me through the sermons than you would from coffee (not that I wouldn’t like that).

But as I get older, open as I am about 90% of my life as much to enemies as to friends, I am aware of how guarded I am about the remaining 10%. I am a promiscuous lover of people—that is to say, I don’t just act attentive to whoever I’m talking with, I’m really with them. And I’ve learned the art of being with and being attentive to a lot of people in a very broad rotation. It is the life of the ministry in short, with the ever moving boundaries of work and play and life. I did not know how much I was cheating to live this way. That being available to everybody, sincerely motivated as that might be, gets me out of being available to particular somebodies. Relationships with everybody are easier than with somebody, but makes for a decidedly more lonely existence.

That is especially true within the peculiar confines of pastoral work. I’m not complaining at all, grateful as I am for the life I’ve been given. But I am used to being needed. I am used to people not caring so much about me so much as the gift in me—and I do not begrudge it. One of the delightful things about audaciously claiming to speak for God is that people connect to God in you—they are drawn to you because they are in fact drawn to Him. That’s not sad, that’s beautiful. It’s the privilege of what I get to do.

But knowing another person is also a privilege—being known is another category of privilege. My life is wrapped up in my calling in ways that I cannot and should not entirely mitigate—I am called to use my gifts to serve. But finally I had to decide I would not sacrifice somebody on the altar of everybody.

Compared to ancient cultures, we don’t understand friendship at all. Facebook has single-handedly watered down the word to where it almost seems better to come up with another word to represent the reality the phrase signifies. Friendship means everything and nothing in a digital word. I get it—Google+ gives you circles by which you can quantify and categorize your friends more precisely, and I hear Facebook is providing comparable opportunities. Gotcha.

But into what circle does one place the kind of friendship St Thomas Aquinas described when he said true friendship is based on unselfish love, “the constant, effective desire to do good to one another.” How many relationships like that are sustainable? Or for that matter—desirable? The constant, effective desire to do good to one another is hardly a passive task. Being available to particular persons is demanding and risky, which is why I have generally preferred making myself available to everybody. Everybody will not and flatly cannot demand the kind of affection from me that requires my life to be wrapped up in that of another person. Emotional investment is minimal, and that arrangement is generally permissible in our culture by all sides. And quite frankly, the amount of hurt that goes around from ministry relationships (and maybe all relationships) where we’ve put ourselves out there and got our heart broken doesn’t really seem worth the effort.

But what about friendship that captures you in the real-time drama of someone else’s weeping and rejoicing? What about a friend for whom you would take a bullet, not out of some general Christian ethic or some sense of nobility, but because you genuinely cherish their life more than your own?

A friend for whom, if they were in an accident, you would run all the red lights until you got to them?

It is far easier to insulate myself with many superficial relationships than to embrace the vulnerability required to have that kind of friendship. There is something so terrifying about putting yourself in a position where you are subject to be laughed at or pitied or condescended to or God knows what else, since so few people are allowed access to what’s in your heart. I can’t recall if in the Summa or elsewhere Aquinas ever spoke about the risk of such friendship, but it is considerable.

But in that unselfish love, in that constant effective desire to do good to one another—risk melts away. And in place of all that guardedness and political image management, the only question that remains is: what will do you the most good in this particular moment? For you to be well, for you to be safe from harm as far as I can keep it from you, for you to thrive and be everything you are meant to become—in what way can I support you? In what way can I carry you? In what way can I lay my life down for you? It’s a love without contingencies, a love without constraints, it’s love without a back up plan. Not a crass “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”, not I’ll serve your best interests if you serve mine. But I’ll do good by you and for you—always. Whatever that means and whatever that requires.

We have many mediums now where we can quantify and categorize our friends. And of course relationships from within each of our circles can have appropriate value and meaning.

But it would seem that to have even one friendship like that would be enough to make a man unspeakably rich.

I hope to be a great preacher, a great leader, a great writer. But to be a really good friend? That would really be something.

Do you remember the first time you were ever captivated by the stars?

The first time it happened to me they weren’t exactly stars, which means this may not count.  We went on a field trip to the planetarium in middle school and Crystal, the buxom girl with the braces, sat beside me for the viewing.  Of course I was excited about this.  But when the room lit up and they started going through the constellations, I was amazed enough to forget about her.  Since we were number one city-dwellers and number two pretty much in church all the time in those days, I was mostly only in tune to the kinds of signs and wonders one saw in the midst of a campmeeting service.  These were all indoor wonders.  I was less into seeing nature and beauty or order in the cosmos as signs, and more into seeing crutches get broken.  But this opened me up to something else.

Then to get back outside at night and discover that these spectacular constellations really weren’t the unique property of the planetarium, that in fact these dazzling images came out of hiding every night when the sun went down.  Constellations are a uniquely beautiful thing, glorious patterns amongst the galaxy’s freckles.

That wasn’t the last time I saw something so beautiful in creation that it took my breath away.  Where the order, placement, arrangement  and sheer beauty of a thing just assaults you with wonder.  I’ve found the sky is hardly the only place where you can find constellations.  Anytime you see that kind of beauty, in cosmos or in the person next to you, it’s an occasion for worship.  As of late, I’ve been reminded by constellations decidedly outside the sky that terrestrial beauty gives me as much reason for adoration as the celestial.

I occasionally find myself making slightly disparaging remarks about certain systems of apologetics–various systems people use to defend their faith.  Maybe that is because beauty is enough for me.  I don’t claim all apologetics are altogether without value.  I just think they often answer questions people aren’t really asking anymore.  Or in recent years, I just don’t think a lot of the so-called “new atheism” of the last 10 years or so quite raise robust enough questions to demand an answer.  There are old school atheists that could keep the most devout among us up late at night wrestling, thinking, praying through the challenge.  As the Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart demonstrates in his massive punk-down Atheists Delusions: The Christian Revolution and It’s Fashionable Enemies, we are currently not blessed with a large number of good atheists left to keep us on our toes.  The new ones aren’t serious enough. But I digress.  I’ve just always got my former professor Stanley Hauerwas in the back of my head reminding me that “If you need a system of truth to prop up your belief in Jesus of Nazareth, worship your system.  Because you’re not really worshiping Jesus of Nazareth.”

If I did have to have apologetics to offer, it would always come back to beauty.  Who needs a system in a world with this much beauty?  There is so much of it.  It doesn’t seem like a stretch to believe God raised Jesus from the dead in light of the extraordinary elegance I see around me.  There are more complex and more nuanced ways of saying that, but at the end of the day that is always what it comes down to for me.

I do not diminish the challenges posed to us by the evil, injustice and suffering in the world. But I still can’t get over the constellations.

I threatened to do a “hell house” at Renovatus this year.  You may know about hell houses, initially started by the Fallwell people.  It’s the “Christian” alternative to the haunted house, wherein the object is to scare people into following Jesus.  There was an interesting documentary about them a few years ago.

Now of course my irreverence about such tactics means that if we had done a hell house for Halloween, it would have been a hell house that made fun of hell houses.  My idea for a hell house comes courtesy of the Southern radio duo of John Boy and Billy, whom I listened to for years before becoming all urbane and sophisticated and turning to NPR.  They used to have a Pentecostal Holiness character named the Rev. Billy Ray Collins come on to promote his own haunted house.  You could walk down the hall and see “the woman in the pantsuit—ooooohhh!”  Or you could walk down and see “the man watching the cable television set–ooohhh!”  Being a deep product of the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition, I honor my tradition and thus also feel qualified and comfortable to skewer it.  I thought the sketch was hilarious.

Being as comfortable as I am making fun of my own tradition makes me feel exceedingly comfortable making fun of other people’s traditions, though that does not always go over as well.  I’ve got a lot of contacts among the young new Reformed guys, the folks who are making the world safe for John Calvin (or at least the quote they heard by him from John Piper) and something called “biblical masculinity.”  They are macho.  Just ask them–they will be quick to tell you just how not-gay they are.  So in a rather unheralded tweet, I threw out the other week that “For Halloween this year I’m going as a neo-Reformer.  I’m going to subjugate women and talk smugly about books I’ve barely read.”  I don’t know if they liked it, but C’MON.  If you know any of these cats, you know that was funny.

Halloween is a taboo for many Christians.  Oddly enough, despite growing up in a holiness environment where my mother didn’t wear makeup or jewelry or pants for my early life (she wore dresses–let me be clear about this!), Halloween was not a hangup for us growing up.  It was fine for us to dress up like super heroes (just not ghosts and demons) and get some candy.  For Christians that feel convicted about this whole “devil’s night” business, I can respect that.  Or at least, I respect you as long as you grant me the opportunity to dress like Superman and eat candy on another day of the year.  Preferably Thursdays.  Every week.

Some of us, when warned of the dangers of Halloween, started having celebrations known as “Hallelujah parties” where we dressed like Bible characters.  Once again, totally cool.  Unless of course you are supposed to be dressed up at your elementary school, and your two best buddies dressed up as Darth Vader and Frankenstein’s creature, respectively.  If you then are wearing a “robe” that looks conspicuously like your grandmother’s old housecoat with sandals, claiming to be an obscure character from 2 Kings they’ve never heard of, this does not feel as cool.  And if you find yourself in that scenario, I would recommend you have your lunch money out already in your hand and just hand it over from the bigger kids before they even ask it of you.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”  The Apostle Paul, I Corinthians 13.11

“Young enough to know the right car to drive, old enough not to put rims on it.”  Jay-Z, “Thirtysomething”

By most standards, I’ve lived a privileged life.  Not an extravagant life, but no less a privileged one.  As such, I’m suspicious of myself if I register anything that sounds like a complaint–when I feel like I’m so perpetually stared down by the blessings of God.  I never want to lose perspective on that.

But if I’ve ever not had perspective on anything, it’s not that I see the glass as half-empty.  We did this animal personality test with our staff, and then all happily claimed our representative counterparts.  Mine, unsurprisingly, is an otter–big heart, high spirited, fundamentally optimistic.  I don’t know if that really ever changes much at all or if it should.  I only know that I’m not a young otter anymore–that the mostly blind sort of optimism and naive cheeriness that has marked the first half of my life is probably not making it into the second.  I used to think if you lost your naivety  you’d lost everything, but I’m re-thinking that.  What does it mean to be a seasoned otter, a weathered otter, an otter with a few callouses?  I’m not old, but I’ve often said I’ve been aged in dog years by the church.  And like Jay-Z, well if nothing else I’m “old enough.”

I’m old enough to know unexplainable tragedy strikes without mercy to very good people, as was brought home to me last week at a funeral for a 7-year old girl named Molly we’d all been praying for.

I’m old enough to know what it’s like to have thought I heard God say somethings that either I didn’t really hear Him say, or otherwise feel like I got strung along.

I’m old enough not to trust people who’ve never been heartbroken.

I’m old enough not to believe everything always works out right in the end, no matter what.

I’m old enough not to offer platitudes or words at all to people around me that are suffering, only my presence (and hopefully, God’s).

I’m old enough to believe that loving any person deeply will inevitably lead to a crucifixion in the end.

I’m old enough to think that anybody who claims to know exactly where they’re going or even how they got to where they are is probably wrong.

I’m old enough not to take everything I hear at face value, even and perhaps especially if I was the one to say it.

I’m old enough to understand Hebrews 11.39, “These all died in faith, without having received the promises and having welcomed them from a distance.”

Someone asked a professor of mine once what to do with the verse in the Psalms where David said he had never seen the righteous forsaken or His seed begging for bread, given that there are documented times where God’s people had to beg for bread.  His response was simple.

He said that when David wrote that line, he just wasn’t yet old enough.

This week, the Church of God lost one of its giants.

Dr. Walter P. Atkinson was a renown pastor, preacher, and administrator, a former member of our denominational Executive Committee who served the Church on almost every level.  He was known for his sharp wit, his wholly original sermons, and his inimitable mannerisms.  Well I say they were inimitable—though I certainly spent plenty of time trying to imitate him.  When he got wound up preaching, clearly both enjoying the Lord (as well as what he had just said!), he’d fold his arms and say “Great God” with a voice like James Earl Jones.  That was my personal favorite.  My grandfather loved to hear WPA do that as much as I did—I can see his ears and face turn red just to tell about it right now.  He also had some wonderful quotes that are still in my vernacular to this day: i.e., “Stupid like that doesn’t just sneak up on a person.”

During the years that Dr. Atkinson served as Administrative Bishop for the Church of God in Western North Carolina, I came to know him in a different way.  My father was the State Evangelism and Home Missions Director underneath his leadership, and they became the best of friends.  From the day he arrived, he took an unexpected interest in me.  He was there for almost every major event in my life—including coming to see the Gardner-Webb University production of The Miracle Worker wherein I met one Amanda Keen, the show’s lead (though we were not yet dating at the time.)  I remember during my freshman year of college coming to him concerned about my buddy down the hall who had lost his faith in God and was talking to me about ending his life.  He gave me counsel about anything and everything.  There was really nothing that interested me that didn’t seem to interest him, even though he was leading over 300 churches in our region and working at breakneck speed all the time.

But my favorite memory of Dr. Atkinson was when he asked me to go places to preach with him.  I was still in high school at that point, and had no inkling of a call to vocational ministry.  He would call me at random to ride with him to speak at some church across the state, endlessly indulgent of all of my doubts and questions and curiosities.  I remember one night in particular where he took me with him to a very conservative Church of God where the state was doing a rally.  It was one of those churches where the women still don’t wear make-up or jewelry or pants, the kind of old-line holiness church that made me feel uneasy by default.  He wasn’t of course intimidated by any church or anybody, and that night he preached the house down.  When he was done delivering the sermon, he gave an invitation for people to come forward for prayer.  And as the people flooded to the altar, he did an unexpected thing: he asked me to come alongside him and lay hands on the folks that came down.

I can’t begin to tell you how uncomfortable I was with this arrangement.  The product of a lifelong lover’s quarrel with God, perpetually stuck in a sense of inherent unworthiness, I had no confidence in my ability to pray for others in that way.  I never felt “spiritual enough.”  I remember going to campmeeting services where we had healing evangelists pray for almost everybody in the house, watching one after another “fall out under the power.”  By the time the mutli-hour altar service was over, the place looked like a civil war battlefield with bodies strewn across the auditorium.  That is except for me, bobbing up out of the water amidst the divine chaos, the one guy who didn’t “fall out” or even feel anything much.  My inability to enter into such experiences didn’t make me question the validity of them for others, only to question my own spirituality.  At any rate, I had deep reverence for the crazy-eyed prophets who did that kind of ministry—laying on hands, praying for the sick, exercising seemingly herculean faith.  Dr. Atkinson was one of those men who had the authority and unction to pray for people with holy boldness.   Still very much figuring out my relationship with God and nowhere near knowing anything of God’s call on my own life, I did not aspire to share in this sacred act.

But Walter Atkinson believed in God’s hand on me when I didn’t see it on myself.  And he believed in my capacity to touch God’s throne when I didn’t know if I could touch God at all.  Most mysteriously, he believed there was something at work in me powerful enough that my touch could bring something of God’s power into somebody else’s life.  I doubt the impact of such a thing on the shape of my life at 18 years of age is something I could fully quantify—then or now.  I can only hope that I will impact some confused kid somewhere (whether they go into vocational ministry or not) in the way Walter Atkinson impacted me.

One last thing about this tender man who became one of my grandparents in the faith: I will miss his feisty side.  I think anybody who knew him at all could attest that he could be a polarizing character, because he didn’t treat church leadership like professional politics.  Walter P. Atkinson said whatever he thought most of the time.  While gracious, he wasn’t the kind of man who would shy away from a fight.  He had the kind of integrity that meant he acted in complete accordance with his convictions all of the time.  That meant that while he was admired and respected by so many, he was also capable of making an enemy.  But he loved his enemies as faithfully as he loved his friends.  His legacy reminds me that needing to be liked too much by everybody all the time is probably a criminal offense in church leadership.  What I wouldn’t give for more leaders both as loving and wonderfully cantankerous as Walter P. Atkinson.

I look forward to our reunion in the resurrection of the body, old mentor and friend. You will be dearly missed.

I only have one permanent scar on my body. While it is hardly a major disfigurement, it feels like a mark God gave me.  Not as severe as the limp Jacob got from wrestling with God all night–more like a divine tattoo.

In the 5th grade, I attended Paw Creek Christian Academy (in the very same building where I’m sitting right now behind a desk.)  We decided to give Paw Creek’s private school a try during the heyday of the controversial Rev. Joe Chambers, because it was just up the street from my house and, unbeknownst to my parents, I heard they sold Pepsi products at lunch in the cafeteria (whereas the Free Will Baptist school I went to before didn’t allow sodas at all).  That was my secret motivation for coming here.

It was the only year of my life where I got in trouble in school.  The teacher paddled me one day for cutting up in class.  I remember the school as being entirely safe from corrupting influences like “laughter” or “fun.”  The guys had to play basketball wearing sweatpants in the gym even though it was all same gender in the room, that kind of thing.  School chapel was largely consistent of speculative end-times nonsense.

One day, I was waiting on my Mom to pick me up after school out in front of the main building.  Horsing around, I was jumping back and forth over the small brick wall that mark the grass off from the sidewalk.  Stumbling, I gashed open my shin on a brick.  I don’t recall it as being horribly painful so much as horribly bloody.  It was deep enough to the bone that the bleeding just would not stop.  It probably needed to be stitched up, but I did everything I could to get around going to the hospital.  It didn’t heal well, and became a pretty unsightly scar.  It’s still visible, though in my adult years it became much less so.

So what a mysterious thing it was when God saw fit to drop Renovatus at 1209 Little Rock Rd., right smack in between the house I grew up in and the middle and high school I would later attend here in West Charlotte.  I run a church from a building where my bare butt got smacked, a place where I once bled in the parking lot. That seems oddly appropriate as a pastor now.  Pastoral ministry is inherently bloody, messy work (and any so-called preacher who attempts to do this without getting blood on them really needs to get out of this business).  I presume I’ve picked up scars on my soul more profound than the one on my leg from this same property, because that is what it is to love people well.

It’s a small thing of course, but a way I feel I’ve been marked by God.  In a metaphor destined to make the Joe Chambers of the world tickled pink, it’s not unlike Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar.   I think generally scars are often more than the sum total of tragic memories.  Scars speak of identity, scars speak of calling.  Scars speak of the truth of a man beneath the deception of his clothes.  No wonder when Paul writes to early Christian communities, he is always speaking of the scars he has accumulated from persecution for the sake of Jesus’ name.  The message embedded in our scars, the code encrypted implicitly beneath ruptured skin, is not just of our pain but of God’s faithfulness.  Scars tell the story of who we really and where we really come from, even when we refuse to speak the truth with our eyes or our lips. Like the rings on the interior of a tree, everything you could ever want to know about a person can be read from their scars.

It’s not exactly an icebreaker for a party, and not the level of community we even consciously want.  But if I want to know who you really are, there’s nothing mysterious about how that discovery process will work.  It’s a dangerous and impolite question to ask…but if I really want to know you, I’ll ask you to show me your scars.  And if I really believe I can trust you, I may show you a few of my own.

When Jesus is mixed up in the story of our scars, this need not be an unhappy affair.  Swallowed up in the story of Christ’s resurrection, every scar is absorbed into the visible wounds on His hands and on His feet.  In him, scars aren’t just stories.  Scars are testimonies.

When nothing else in my life (including my words) rings true, then I can always rely on my scars to tell the truth.

I’ve spent my life in places where there is a whole lot of talk about faith.  I’ve got no complaints about that, because faith is a very good thing.  Faith makes the world go round.  There are plenty of reasons to talk about faith, celebrate our faith, build our faith.

Whenever preachers want to talk about faith, we always go to the “hall of faith” found in Hebrews chapter 11.  It’s where the enigmatic author recounts the all-star cast of faith heroes from the Old Testament, all that they believed and all that God did in response to their belief.  It’s a beautiful and moving text.  And yet there is one verse that always has a way of pricking my skin, the upraised nail I’m never quite looking for.  It does nothing to cheapen or lessen the impact of the sweeping statement on faith–it only gives the message depth and texture.  Verse 39 says, “These all died in faith, without having received the promises and having welcomed them from a distance.”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where faith throbs and aches every bit as much as it motivates and inspires.  God keeps His word.  Faith is not empty, as Hebrews tells us it is tough and substantial–you can put your weight down on it.  But you don’t always get to see the fulfillment of the promise.  And you certainly don’t always see the fulfillment on your own schedule.

That’s why its so difficult for us to know how to speak about faith in a way that makes sense.  NPR used to call their Sunday religion show “Speaking of Faith.”  The show is still about religion and ethics, but now they are calling it “On Being.”  I know that given the broad nature of the program across the spectrum of ideas and religion, faith in its former context was used to speak broadly of belief.  I’m not sure what motivated the change.  I can only say that it is harder to speak of anything than it is to speak of faith, that when when we do speak of faith we rarely do it well.

When we speak of faith, we sometimes oversell it.  In my tradition we had the season of: “Name it and claim it, blab it and grab it.”  Think hard enough about what you want–wish hard enough for what you want, and click your heels together three times.  Or send an accompanying check to my ministry.  And we can turn that faith into a pot of gold.  Get your level of faith up to the requisite level, and its automatically done.  God Himself is not even necessary in this process.

But when we speak of faith, we sometimes undersell it.  Faith is optimism.  Faith is seeing the glass half-full instead of half-empty.  Faith is looking at the sunny-side of life.  Faith is believing you can become the next American idol if you believe in yourself really hard.

In both scenarios, faith gets trivialized.  The truth is, faith is weathered and tough.  My image of faith is not of Big Bird on Sesame Street and more like a chain-smoking, scarred old gun fighter.  It’s precisely because faith is so tough that it can take such a tremendous beating.  It’s precisely because its been so assaulted by the elements–chipped at, battered, assailed by nature and by man–that faith is an undefeateable force.

Because when every other virtue is stripped away…when every thing else has been lost–even your own life–faith still remains.  The sort of faith described in Hebrews 11 cannot be undone, even by death.  Because it is faith that says, even I don’t live to see it come to pass with my own eyes–I know that God is still going to do it.

Faith like that is not easy to come by, and if you come by it I don’t suppose it’s easy to hold onto.  Because faith is by nature wild, it will buck you like a bronco, it will make you hold on for dear life.  Real faith is big enough to trample you.  But it’s powerful enough and tenacious enough to outlast you.  If hanging onto faith doesn’t kill you (and maybe even if it does), it will live longer than Methusaleh and bring life into the darkest places of human existence.

Numbers 23.19

God is not a human being, that he should lie,
   or a mortal, that he should change his mind.

Has he promised, and will he not do it?
   Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

I couldn’t wait for my grandmother to come over to our house.

She was the sweetest and strongest lady I ever knew, and I would light up the minute she walked in the door.  As an only child, I guess I’ve always been “blessed” with, um, a big personality–and I couldn’t wait for her to come back to my room for me to put on a show.  There were magic shows.  There were high drama super hero church services, campmeeting on steroids, where Hawkman would sing in a trio with Flash and Robin.  I would preach, and the Green Lantern would get saved.  Or Aquaman would get the Holy Ghost.  I lived for the times she would come over and I could share with her all of the things I held most dear.

After I’d been going on for awhile, she would inevitably speak the words I both loved and dreaded to hear: “Okay Jonathan–I can stay for ten more minutes.“  It was always a bittersweet moment.  It marked the finite nature of the time we had (“only ten more minutes”) and yet felt like I had been given this unexpected bonus (“Hey! I’ve got ten more minutes!”)  Whenever she said it though, I didn’t waste any time in angst about only having ten minutes more.  I lived those last ten minutes out loud for all they were worth.  All the energy, silliness and showmanship I could muster crammed into this tiny window of time, the happy weight that this time was precious time, this was marked time–this was holy time.  I couldn’t afford to waste it.  “Ten more minutes” was time to be more alive than usual, because I was suddenly aware of what a precious commodity our time together really was.  What’s troubling is how often our time is not marked at all–there is nothing sacred about any of hours.  Because our time (especially with those we love) really is a finite, fragile thing, whether we acknowledge it or not.

I think the worst thing that can happen to any of us is to live from one assignment to the next or one place to the next, always watching the clock waiting for the hour to be over.  I of course still have meetings/calls/moments in my life that cannot end quickly enough, I have hours I want to only escape.  But as we age, grow and develop, we also come to feel the magnitude of moments we hope will never end.  Which is why it’s a really good idea to learn how to recognize them and how to live in them–and most of all, not to end them until you absolutely have to.

It is a rare and precious gift when its time to cut the lights off–but you’re given ten more minutes:

I know it’s late and we should all go home–but I can talk for few more minutes. 

I guess we’ve got time for one more song… 

I’ve got an early morning tomorrow, but…

I don’t know who or where or what gives you that kind of childish delight.  I’m only asking that when you are there and in that moment, and you realize there is e-mail to check and phone calls to return and errands that need to be run–make time for ten more minutes.

There is plenty of time that we have mismanaged, there are many minutes we will one day consider misspent.  Those last ten minutes are not likely to be among them.

I am conscious that I’ve publicly and privately lauded The Birth: A Reflective Celebration of the Coming of Christ so loudly and so often that I might seem like a hype man.  The good news is that I have no qualms about being the hype man for The Birth, as I genuinely believe it’s the most unique beautiful and provocative theatrical event in our city.  While it’s going into its sixth year of production, The Birth is still navigating uncharted territory.  It’s still dodging the clichés and kitsch of contemporary Christmas productions, as well as the self-conscious artiness of independent theater.  It’s still avoiding easy categories and still walking the tight rope of profound faith and honest human expression.  The Birth is still working its magic on me, refusing to let me enter the holidays on either sentimental or cynical terms.

Nathan Rouse is the creative life-force behind everything that is The Birth, and his courageous performance only gets more textured with every year.  He conceived the original production from the words of Frederick Buechner’s elegant Magnificent Defeat (Buechner being my favorite living writer!)  The creative team around him has familiar faces this go round (faces of people I love: Shelley Jones, Josh Spence, Rodney Kennerly, and Kate Rouse), but has significant additions: the great local talent James K. Flynn and Renovatus Worship Arts Pastor Sarah DeShields.  (Aside: She’s been brewing up magic of her own in the studio with her new EP, The Pilgrim Way—and I can tell you it’s stunning.  Between Sarah’s album and her role driving the musical portion of The Birth, it feels like a long overdue breakout from our Scottish minstrel.)

While The Birth has never been a direct product of Renovatus Church, it’s the most beautiful artistic representation of the vision we’ve always had for faith and the arts.  So while I don’t claim to be without bias towards Nathan and the cast (they are like biological family to me), I’ll tell you just how powerful I think The Birth is: It makes me a believer in the Christmas story year after year.  Whatever doubts I might accumulate or shadows might dance in my mind, the truth of the incarnation of Jesus is never more tangible than when I walk into the crisp winter air after another performance.  I can believe the word became flesh because the word grabs a hold of my flesh at every show.

I love the fact that The Birth requires no context or church back story to be appreciated on its own terms—as demonstrated in the tremendous response we’ve seen from mediums like Creative Loafing in recent years.  But since I am a pastor and my primary sphere of influence is in the faith community, I am especially passionate about getting local ministry leaders out to the free Pastor’s night preview The Birth is offering this Thursday night, November 17^th, at 6:30 and 8:30pm at Renovatus (1209 Little Rock Rd., Charlotte, NC 28205).  Not only will you have the opportunity to bear witness to the latest incarnation (pun intended) of this remarkable theatrical experience before anybody else, but to participate in a talkback session after the performance I’ll be leading personally.  I’d love to see you there and enter into the magic with you.

Mystery can’t be maneuvered or else it would stop being mystery, but I can tell you that in 5 years of performances I’m always finding new reasons to get the shivers before its over.  If you are a ministry leader, click here for more info/to sign up: http://thebirth.net/pastors/  I can’t wait to see you there!  It’s an event I deeply believe in, and we are honored to host the magic for one night only before the show opens formally at Duke Energy Theater.

At 33, this seems like a good year to be a man–except it seems to be God’s timing in my life to make me into a real boy.

Coming full circle to the kind of joy, imagination and freedom that I experienced in my relationship with God when I was riding my bike in circles at the end of the street has been the theme of this past year.  More concisely, understanding the depth of who I am in God (as opposed to merely what I do for God) has been/continues to be the revelation of my life.  There may be childish things we are supposed to leave behind, but there seems to be boyish things I’ve got to pick back up to be the man I’m supposed to be.  And after all, the kingdom of heaven is available only to children.

When I was a boy who not only knew God but knew that God knew my name, I was good at imagining and creating in my head.  And in many cases, telling those stories out loud when I was on my bike.  My bike was my time machine, where I was able to enter a world where I owned pet robots and saved gorgeous blondes in futuristic jumpsuits from intergalactic danger.  It was a good thing to always be in the center of an adventure–it was a good thing to aspire to be a hero for somebody else.

Of course as we age, we settle for far less than heroism than what we aspire to when we are children. Reality has a way of grinding that out of us.  When you’ve got bills to pay and errands to run, there is not as much time to devote to thinking about how you might save the world.  Or how you might save the girl in distress by doing karate in the back alley, or untying her from the rail road tracks and carrying her over off over your shoulder in just the nick of time.  It is difficult to imagine, by the time we’ve acclimated to real life, to have the faith or imagination left to daydream about doing anything heroic.  We seldom have the time or the creativity we came into the world with, and this almost seems good to us–we are “more practical” now, more pragmatic, more “grown up.”  This is all tragic of course, since realism will pretty much keep you out of the kingdom of God altogether.

The tide of normal is always drawing us out to a sea of noise and distraction that keep us from having to think deeply about who we really are or who we are called to be.  To keep us from dreaming about what we might still become when we grow up.

And yet the kingdom of God compels and the world around us demands that we not settle for a life incapable of inspiring anyone.  It is true that the heroism God calls for will often be through small acts of faithfulness.  But it is also true that small acts of faithfulness change the world.  When we allow space for Sabbath time, silent time, and time spent with people who deeply move us, we can still have the capacity to stir up sacred imagination.  We can gain the divine perspective that allows us to no longer see ourselves as passive spectators to the world we’ve been given, but active participants in the ongoing drama of God’s redemptive work in the world.

It’s a lively, interactive, choose-your-own adventure story we are caught up in, not a static script we’ve been assigned.  But we’ve got to become boys and girls again for God to re-imagine the world through us.

“Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’

But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’”–Genesis 32.26

It’s one of the most enigmatic passages in the Bible.

Jacob has a mysterious encounter with an angel.  He wants a blessing from him.  In order to get it, he wrestles with the angel all night long.  When the dawn breaks, Jacob has the blessing he was looking for–but he’s also got a dislocated hip.  He clung on through a tumultuous dark night of the soul, and he got was he looking for.  But he walked away with a permanent limp.

I’m more convinced than ever before of the generosity of God, of the ways He delights to give good gifts to His children.  But if you walk away with a blessing, blessing won’t be the only thing that marks you.  There is still the dried blood and unsightly bruises that come from the long night of wrestling.  Gifts come without strings attached, but that’s not to say they come without consequences.  It’s why so many people will happily go through their lives keeping the greatest blessings at an arm’s length.  Because intrinsically we know that blessing is on the other side of struggle, that blessing is on the other side of the dark night.

If that makes you want to stay home, you’re in good company.   Many strong and competent people have chosen the path of least resistance, deciding it is better to walk away without bruises or broken bones.  They have pragmatically decided it is better to keep the safer blessings they have rather than taking the risk of having to stare down God, the devil and themselves.  And make no mistake–the dark night of the soul will involve wrestling with all three.  In the midst of it, you really don’t know if you are going to make it to sun-up.

It sounds so sterile and truncated to narrate the tale even now: “Jacob wrestled with an angel all night.” It sounds so straight forward, so uncomplicated.  But how could wrestling with angels be uncomplicated?  Night complicates most everything to begin with.  And don’t you know how long a night can feel?  The way that time seems to slow down at night?  In the middle of the night, temperatures shoot up while hope plummets.  If it feels like our lives are in perpetual fast forward sometimes, sleepless nights feel like an endless instant replay–where it is fear and regret that are in slow motion.  Given all of that, it is difficult for me to judge anybody to harshly for wanting to avoid something as terrible as having to stare down God and their own demons.  I understand all too well the desire to avoid bruising.

And yet there still is the reality of blessing, the promise that lies on the other side.  That if you just don’t let go–for it is not necessary to win, only to not lose hold of the one you’re wrestling with–that the blessing is as extravagant as the night is long.  That the bliss is as sweet as the night is painful.  Blessedness is a feast that can only be tasted by those who’ve first tasted the acerbic taste of their own blood in their mouth.

When you’ve been wrestling all night for a blessing, it may be difficult to say that you would do it all over again when the dawn breaks.  But to say that you’re glad you didn’t let go and you hung on for dear life is not the same thing as saying you’d volunteer for it again.  You are glad you didn’t let go.  You can’t escape the truth that the sacredness of your own life has been enhanced not only by the blessing, but even by the wrestling itself.

The truth is, blessings that don’t come with bruises–victory that doesn’t come with a limp as a trophy–will neither be particular sweet nor memorable.  Granted, there is the soreness inherent in a night of wrestling.  It is true that long after the night is over, the slightest movement may trigger the familiar pain.  But with the wince of the wound also comes the visceral reminder of blessedness.  What a fascinating phenomenon: that every time Jacob stepped awkwardly, you couldn’t tell if he was wincing or smiling–and maybe he was doing both.  Because every step would now have the message of blessedness and belovedness implicit in it.  To have that message contained in your joints may well be worth a thousand of years of long nights.

In short, if you have no limp then you likely have no blessing.  Or at the very least without a limp you are unaware of the blessings you have, which is likely just as bad.  I am at this point far more inclined to think that walking with a limp but knowing the blessing is decisively better than walking whole without the blessing.

If you are in the long night of wrestling, there are neither strategy nor steps I could give you to end it faster.  But strategy is not needed–perseverance is.  You wouldn’t remember steps if I gave them to you, not when the night gets dark and long enough.  But you can remember this much: don’t stop until the sun is up.  You can remember that the reason for the wrestling is not because God is out to kill you, but that He’s really wanted to bless you all along.  You don’t have to do anything to earn the blessing–you cannot be strong or powerful enough.  You just have to stay in the ring, and the dawn that creeps up when the wrestling is over will take care of the rest.

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”  Psalm 30.5

I just finished reading John Irving’s masterpiece A Prayer for Owen Meany, and I have no intentions of getting over it anytime soon.

I am admittedly late to the party on this contemporary classic tale of two boys “bonded forever by childhood, the stunted Owen Meany, whose life is touched by God, and the orphaned Johnny Wheelwright, whose life is touched by Owen.”  It is the most haunting novel I’ve ever read.  I would put it on the same high and holy shelf with Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead (now and always my favorite book across genres) and Frederick Buechner’s Godric.  These books have convinced me, while I am not a fiction writer, that it is impossible to capture the beauty and force of the gospel in non-fiction as powerfully as in fiction.  There is a reason that it was the stories Jesus told (and the story Jesus was) that kept the crowds coming back.  There is a reason that the gospels devote such considerable attention to Jesus’ own practice of storytelling.  There are so many things about the Father Jesus came to reveal that simply could not be told or lectured about–the only medium that would work for God’s heart to be revealed to humans was “let me tell you a story.”

I consider preaching to be sacred work, and I try to perform it with due reverence.  I have felt, and in fact felt it again preaching on the road in Oakland, MD this weekend–the alien presence that is God’s Spirit come upon me and take my words places I could never aspire to take them on my own.  Preaching is foolishness, but it is the foolishness God has chosen to proclaim the gospel.  And yet I am so aware at the end of a book like Owen Meany or Gilead of how inadequate the format is to tell God’s truth with the elegance of a fully-orbed story.  If I felt like I could communicate as much gospel in one sermon as I get in a book like this, I would be tempted to retire tomorrow.

So alas I’m writing under the spell of a powerful witness.  Like all great faith in fiction, A Prayer for Owen Meany mines the depths of our doubts in order to take us to the heights of gospel hope.  Like all great faith in fiction, it has magic and mystery and wonder that cannot be fully accounted for in human language.   It would be a criminal act to share anything here that would spoil Irving’s novel for you; I wouldn’t consider such a thing.  Go buy it today and read it for yourself.

But as it is Thanksgiving and I haven’t had the time nor inclination to post a list of things I’m grateful for or whatever, I did want to at least offer a bit of a Thanksgiving meditation via A Prayer for Owen Meany that requires little context to understand nor significant spoilers to communicate.  It comes late in the novel from the mouth of Johnny Wheelwright.  You don’t need to know anything about the characters referenced to get the sentiment revealed:

…I’ve become the kind of believer that Pastor Merrill used to be.  Doubt one minute, faith the next–sometimes inspired, sometimes in despair.  Canon Campbell taught me to ask myself a question when the latter state settles upon me.  Whom do I know who’s alive whom I love?  Good question–one that can bring you back to life.  These days, I love Dan Needham and the Rev. Katherine Keeting; I know I love them because I worry about them–Dan should lose some weight, Katherine should gain some!

As it is Thanksgiving, the question at hand is “who’s alive whom I love?”  It is indeed a gift that can bring us back to life.  To have people to cherish and people to worry about and people to miss is an unspeakable gift.  God revealed Himself uniquely to us through Jesus of Nazareth, the uniquely begotten Son of Love.  There will only be one of Him.  And yet the miracle of incarnation, even as we now begin to set our sights on Christmas, is that God keeps on making Himself known through flesh and blood.  In the absence of an incarnate Jesus as He was experienced in the gospels, we are given the body of Christ.  More specifically, we are given the gift of bodies, the many people who comprise one body as mysteriously as the three in one God.  As Father, Son and Spirit are one, as are we.

The love and heartache we share with and for each other is evidence of God and evidence of grace.  For each of these gifts in my life today (and by that, I mean people), I bow my knee to give thanks.