Christ Seeker

Why the call is important...

Heeding the call of God to "enter the lists" once again and contend for the Jesus Truth in our time is not simply a nice suggestion or just a good idea.  It is absolutely essential because of our propensity as a species for self-destruction.  Consider Scherer's words as he surveys the cultural landscape in the midst of WWII...(words, by the way, that could aptly describe our own time as well!)

"Mankind by exalting himself has finally become the puppet and the pawn of his own success.  The child of nature has triumphed over the child of God and has found in the triumph his own inexorable defeat.  Life in two dimensions has come off with all the garlands, and they are withered.  In its long rebellion against authority, in the violent assertion of its own mastery, it has cleared from the field both God and the human soul, to wander now among the ruins...The civilization which stemmed in Greek philosophy, and towered high in medieval cathedrals, has flowered in department stores.  The ends of life have become the goods of the body.  Existence has been turned into a continuous bank-run; and the bank is now closing.  That, I submit to you, is what crisis means.  It means that when an order has become thoroughly secularized it has committed suicide.  It means that the Kingdom of God is not a by-your-leave or an if-you-please; it is still a Kingdom, and to rebel against it is to pay the price of treason."  (11)

Now that last bit is so much a scare tactic as it is a statement of reality.  A reality without God.  Without God we spiral out of control and to our own destruction.  Without God, we fill the void with drugs, sex, money, possessions, power, you name it.  Anything to satisfy the cravings of the human heart.  And what we really, truly crave is transcendance.  We long for a purpose outside of our own appetites.  But without God we stumble in the darkness, searching in vain for a reason for living.  For something more than simply the weekend party or weekly paycheck or, as is the case for more and more people, basic survival.

Thankfully, God provides.  He doesn't leave us blind, walking in the darkness forever.  He sends us those whom he calls to guide us to the light, to show us the way back to Him.  And so when we talk about answering God's call, what we are really talking about is allowing ourselves to be used by God to bring light and life and joy and meaning and purpose into this world.  So the other day, I am having coffee with this group of men and one of them shares about his prior marriages.  Immediately, I am faced with a choice.  I can go with the flow and let the conversation spiral down into the typical ex-spouse bashing that usually takes place in such situations or I can, through a few honest, heartfelt questions, help the conversation flow in another, more healthy direction where this man can share a bit of what he's learned and how he's changed.  By simply and humbly asking him to share a bit more deeply, this man opened up in some amazing ways and the following morning thanked us for letting him talk about his past so openly.  This is why answering the call to share the love of Jesus with others is so important...

How many people truly have someone in their life with whom they can be transparent?  Someone they can share their struggles, hopes, and dreams?  One in six Americans (according to a recent Gallup poll) struggle with serious depression.  Sociologists like Robert Putnam at Harvard have charted the breakdown of community over the last several decades.  As we struggle through tough economic times, people are turning to drug or alcohol or food abuse to medicate their pain.  Or tragically, they physically take out their frustrations and fears on those closest to them.  What would happen if these people, caught up in such self-destruction, could experience the tangible, incarnated love of Jesus through us?  What a difference we can make...if we just answer God's call.

Not out of guilt.  Not because we "should".  Not because we feel obligated.  Not because "God said so".  But because we authentically want others to experience the joy we have in Jesus Christ.  Because we want those who are not yet part of God's family to trade in the world's "withered garlands" for a crown of glory.  Because we long for them to trade in their flat, two-dimensional existance and exchange it for a life of full, living color lived in three dimensions.  A life defined not by what we do or how much we make or what toys we have or the difficulty of our circumstances or the pain we have experienced but a life defined and shaped solely by God's creative and redemptive purposes.  This is life in the Kingdom of God.  And it is the life God calls us to share. 

We are all called...

Of course, "the voice of the Lord calling laborers into His harvest is as varied as human life itself, as manifold as the endless patterns of the fields and the clouds.  It comes to every living soul by every conceivable channel." (6) 

I want to reflect on two very important ideas when it comes to the issue of calling.  First, there is this myth that "being called" involves some mystical, far out experience.  To be sure, there are times when the Lord speaks very clearly but it doesn't necessarily involve the heavens opening, lightning strikes, thunder claps, and booming voices.  Yes, Damascus road experiences do happen but they are not be taken as the standard way God calls His people to His service.  Scherer points out, "Amos must not be forgotten, with his long brooding on the social injustices of his day.  Isaiah may not be forgotten, with his sudden consciousness in the midst of national catastrophe that the Great God wanted another man.  Jeremiah may not be forgotten, with his reluctant answer to that pressure which had kept growing within him until it seemed the culmination of an age-old purpose...and James and John may not be forgotten, or Matthew and Peter with the face they saw, and the presence that would not let them go, the love that haunted them down the dreary roads and set them apart for the gospel of God." (5)  Yes, God's call comes to us in the midst of life as we live it.  It comes as often as not as a still, small voice somewhere deep inside drawing us out, claiming us for something greater than ourselves.  We doubt it.  We resist it.  We thrust it aside.  We struggle with it.  But in the end, the claim God has on our lives is greater than the claim we have and so we surrender.  And in that surrender we discover life has incredible meaning and depth and purpose.

And let me hasten to add here my second point which is to say that this calling doesn't just come to full-time vocational ministers.  I think of the many teachers I know who experience the thrill of working with students who love to learn and agonize over those students who don't.  I think of the police officer I know who understands and lives the motto, "To serve and protect", to the point of offering his life on an almost daily basis to keep society safe.  I think of the heroes who ran INTO the twin towers even as every instinct for self-preservation cried, "Get out!"  I think of a physician I know who is just as concerned about the spiritual well-being of his patients as he is their physical well-being.  I think of the soldier in the field who fights for freedom and I think of the peace activist back home who is just as committed to the same ideal.  I think of the single mom who works three jobs to make ends meet so that her child can have a better life.  I think of the engineer who works so hard to to create systems and machines to make our world a better place.  I think of the business man or woman who is driven not by profit but by the desire to create jobs for people and produce a product that adds value to our lives.  I think of the relief worker who gives so much of themselves in refugee camps at home and abroad.  I think of a social worker I know who is absolutely overwhelmed by her caseload and yet finds the time to drive supplies around to families in need.  If we have the eyes to see, we begin to understand that no matter what our job title may be, our fundamental vocation is to "keep alive and cogent on this earth that awareness of Almighty God which is the soul's creaturely response to its Creator...to open minds to the splendor that shines forever on the face of human life; to the beauty and the mystery of godliness; to the horses and chariots of fire that range themselves about this beleaguered place...to throw wide the door of every narrow room and let in the mountains and the sea...to hold all hearts everywhere under the creative spell of the Infinite." (6)

So can we once and for all dispense with this notion that our lives are made up of a bunch of hermetically sealed compartments?  As if God's hand does not cross over into "work" or "recreation" or "family" but is somehow relegated to what we do for an hour or so on Sunday morning?  Do we dare to aim higher?  Dream deeper?  See farther?  Can we muster up the courage to take our stand on "the threshold of God's two worlds of sense and spirit, and there, under the quiet hand of the Master of Life, interpret for all that will hear what there is about living that is most firmly true and most deeply real?" (7)  I pray with all my heart we can!

Calling

My favorite book exploring the nature of God's call to preach is For We Have This Treasure by Paul Scherer, a compilation of the Lyman Beecher Lectures delivered in 1943 at Yale Divinity School.  In these acclaimed lectures, Dr. Scherer reflects deeply on the epistles of the Apostle Paul, what he calls "listening in to the experienced genius of a fiery little apostle..." as he unpacks what it means to be a faithful pastor in our time. 

For years now, I have made it my practice to read this book through on an annual basis.  It reminds me and calls me back to the heart of my ministry which is to "relish, this taste and tang of life, with the immemorial figure of a Galilean in the center of it, waging his hungry, stubborn hopes."  And now that I find myself again in a time of transition, of preparation, as I wait for God to move me from one post in His Kingdom to another, I find myself turning again to Dr. Scherer's work. And I offer these reflections with the hope and prayer that perhaps others might find in them the same hope, comfort, peace, and inspiration I have found.

"Our story begins with what the apostle calls my divine commission as a priest of Christ...in the service of God's gospel.  It was this sense of high appointment that undergirded him all his way along.  It sent him back to the stones at Lystra.  It filled him with a passion that turned as at a signal now into some desperate entreaty, now into a hymn of gratitude.  Here is some quick severity, there an eager tenderness.  Over and over again are sentences that pay no attention to grammar, with the words tripping on one another's heels, piling up into a kind of chaos, with the light of God on it, the gallant sunshine of His soul.  If I could only clear these windows of mine to let it through!  Wherever I go, he writes after the trouble he had had with the church at Corinth, God makes my life a constant pageant.  The whole procession of the days - peril, shipwreck, hunger, thirst - moves along some Via Sacra, brilliant and full of color.  Nothing drab about any of it!"  (pg. 4)

One thing I know.  I could not do what I do if I didn't think God Himself had called me to it.  I remember when I first was exploring my call to ministry and I approached the pastor at the church where I had grown up to ask him why he entered the ministry.  I will never forget his response.  "It's a recession proof job."  Now I am sure he said a lot more than that but these words sounded such a deeply discordant note within me that I have never forgotten them.  At the time I remember thinking to myself, "You know, I don't know much, but that can't be right!"  Thankfully, there were other people in my life, most notably my grandfather and the pastor of the church I attended during college, who pointed me to God.  A divine commission, the apostle Paul calls it.  A sense of high appointment, so says Dr. Scherer.  A deep, mysterious, almost unexplainable conviction that burns within the heart.  And this conviction is so compelling that, as one preacher famously remarked, "if you can imagine yourself doing something else...then go and do it." 

To be sure, this call is not for the faint of heart.  This life demands all that we are and more.  On the one hand, we get a front row seat to some of the most wonderful moments in a person's life.  Weddings, childbirth, answered prayers for healing, hope, and restoration.  We get to see people grow in their faith and in their relationships with others.  We get to see monumental acts of mercy and compassion and mission.  We get to see communities uplifted and strengthened as people come together to serve the least and lost in our world.  It is inspiring.  On the other hand, we also get front row seats to tragedy and despair.  Marriages that end in divorce.  Terrible accidents that claim the lives of children or young people.  Jobs lost.  Families displaced.  Cancer.  Death.  Hope turning to despair.  And through it all, we are expected to find words of comfort, words of peace, words that point people again to God. 

Then there is the pressure, because of the culture we live in, to produce.  To get the numbers. Woe be to the preacher under whom attendance lags, or dollars diminish, or buildings crumble.  It may be due to any number of factors but it is often the preacher who wears the bulls-eye during these times.  Or consider the weight of expectations that is put on the preacher personally, or their spouse, or children.  And yet...there is God.  God in the midst of all the chaos of our lives calling us, beckoning us to this grand adventure, "making our lives a constant pageant."  This call sends us back despite the failures, the shipwrecks, the peril, the hardships, the pain, the suffering.  It fills us with hope amidst the despair, turns our mourning into joy, and brings light out of darkness.  It raises us out of the muck and mire of this world so we can see the glory God is slowly, but surely, revealing in all of us.

Indeed, you might be able to say a lot of things about the life of ministry but one thing you cannot do is call it "drab!"  There is nothing mundane, drab, or dull about any of it!  If we have the eyes to see, it is LIFE in full, vibrant colors!  The Jesus LIFE.  The abundant LIFE of God that He promises to us through the Holy Spirit.    

Great Video

Naked before the Lord

One of my favorite books is the Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.  Eustace is one of the main characters and is one of the most spoiled, selfish, arrogant young boys you will ever meet.  In the course of the book, he happens to find a treasure in the cave of a dead dragon.  He excitedly begins to fill his pockets with as much of the treasure as possible, all the while scheming as to how he can get it on board the ship without having to share it with anyone.  After a bit, he ends up falling asleep in the cave.  Much to his surprise, when he awakes, he has become a dragon.  Fast forward a bit and now he has been approached by Aslan, the Christ figure in all the books.  Aslan offers a way for him to be transformed back into a young boy, but it will not be easy...

"The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I dont know if he said any words out loud or not.

I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I jsut stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

The the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was do deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was Ias smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.

After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me - (with his paws?) - Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. and then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

It was over fifteen years ago that I first met Jesus.  And he took me, stripped me of my sin and made me new.  He laid bare my soul and invaded every corner of my being.  No more secrets.  No more hiding.  No more pretense.  And the feeling was indeed "delicious."  For the first time in my life, I felt a freedom I had never known.  I was free from my past.  Free from my sin.  Free from the self-destructive paths I had trod up until that point in my life.  Christ "undressed" and "re-dressed" me, the old Doug had passed away, the new had come. 

If I have learned anything over the past decade and a half of following Jesus, it is that this experience of being laid bare before God is not a one time thing.  It happens over and over in our lives as God takes our different experiences and uses them to make us more like His Son Jesus Christ.  It doesn't matter whether the experiences are positive or negative, full of joy or full of pain, God uses them all to undress and redress our souls. 

Recently, God took me through this process yet again.  He stripped me of my pride, my ego, and the sinful inclinations of my flesh.  He used the consolations and desolations of my life to bring me back to a place of utter dependence, utter reliance, and utter surrender to Him.  And now I am swimming in fresh water, delighting again in the joy I have just being in relationship with my Savior. 

"For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified..." (1 Cor. 2:2)

My Favorite Easter Sermon...

An Easter Sermon by John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.)

Are there any who are devout lovers of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,
“You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below.”
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Looking up!!!

One of my favorite stories in all of Scripture is one from the Old Testament in 2 Kings, chapter six where the Aramean king is trying to defeat Israel.  Over and over again he tries to attack but the king of Israel always seems to know when and where the attacks will happen.  Finally, the Aramean king asks his servants how this can be and they tell him that Elisha the prophet is the one to blame.  He is the one sending the information and so the king turns his armies towards Dothan where Elisha is staying.  They show up and the array is impressive.  So impressive that Elisha's servant is scared to death.  He cannot imagine how they will get out this trap.  But Elisha prays and asks the Lord to open the servant's eyes so he can see what is really going on.  The servant looks up and suddenly sees the chariots and horses of the Lord surrounding the Arameans! 

Look up!  See what God is really doing in the world.  Stand ready and faithful to go on mission with God. That's what this life is all about.  Last evening, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a new friend.  He and I met because he is intrigued by what God is doing through this new church in Sun Prairie.  He attends another church about forty minutes away but has been feeling God's call to be more involved locally.  So we met and I described the vision we have to equip and send out God's people to be missionaries in their workplaces, their homes, their neighborhoods, wherever God has already placed them in life.  He struggled at first but then you could almost see the tumblers fall into place.  Instinctively he knew "church" was more than a building or a worship service.  In his soul, he knew that God had a greater vision for his life than an hour on Sunday morning or a committee meeting during the week.  God wants him on mission.  God wants him reaching out to his unchurched friends with the Good News of the Gospel.  God wants him to be a part of what God is doing in our community and in the world. 

I felt a lot like Elisha last night.  It was very cool to watch the Spirit open this young man's eyes to see the glories He has prepared for us if we will just faithfully follow.  And it reminded me once again that the failure of the institutional church to inspire is my failure.  It is my failure to cast a vision that is worthy of God and worthy of God's mission in the world.  God's people long to be a part of something bigger, something grander than themselves and if we will just release them, challenge them, encourage them, SEND them out, they will surprise us with their passion! 

Thinking out loud...

Recently, I have been involved in a number of conversations in my denominational stream about how we transition from the institutional/traditional/attractional ways of being church to a missional/incarnational way of ordering our life together.  As many have recognized the paradigm shift required is enormous and scary and that has me asking some very real, very difficult questions.  Before I get to those questions, I want to set some ground rules for this conversation because I know how it can stir people's passions, including my own! 

Affirmations:

1. I believe God is at work in the institutional/traditional/attractional (ITA) church. 
2. I believe God is using the ITA church to transform lives and accomplish great things for the sake of His Kingdom.  
3. I believe the spiritual leaders in the ITA church love God with all their hearts and deserve our admiration for how they are pouring their lives out for the sake of the Gospel. 
4. I believe the ITA model is an excellent one for reaching people in a Christendom context.
5. I believe our cultural context is changing...Christendom is failing and we are rapidly plunging into what some have called a post-Christendom world.
6. I believe the changes are massive and impacting every sector of society, including the church.
7. I believe God is at work in the midst of this change, calling forth a new missional/incarnational (MI) paradigm for church.
8. I believe the discovery of this missional/incarnational paradigm will lead to new life and new vitality in the church. 

In addition to these affirmations, it is important to drill down to the main differences between the institutional/traditional/attractional and missional/incarnational paradigms. 

Institutional/Traditional/Attractional Paradigm

• Christology ----- Ecclesiology ----- Missiology (i.e. "the church has a mission")

Missional/Incarnational Paradigm

• Christology ----- Missiology ----- Ecclesiology (i.e. "God's mission has a church")

Now, having laid out the above affirmations and definitions, I want to turn to what I think are some very difficult but very key questions we must ask if we are to move forward into the future God has for us.  My first question is this...

Is it reasonable to believe that churches can actually make this paradigmatic leap?

I have to admit, I am not sure its possible.  I think the gulf may simply be too wide.  I believe this for a few reasons. 

1. Cultural Conditioning: Many of our people have been brought up and/or spent their entire lives in the ITA model.  Their worldview and cultural assumptions have been shaped and formed for the a world (Christendom) that no longer exists and it is simply too frightening to start over. 
2. Historical Lessons: History teaches us that the church struggles mightily during periods of massive paradigmatic change.  Typically, those committed to the new paradigm either have to leave or are asked to leave by those committed to the more traditional way.  For example, consider Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, the Anabaptists, John Wesley, Aimee Semple MacPherson, etc.
3. Emotional Systems: Edwin Friedman and many others have taken family systems theory and applied it to local congregations in recent years. The reality is that emotional systems seek equilibrium and shifting paradigms on this level cuts against that grain in significant ways. 
4. Medium IS the Message: Or to put it another way, the way we structure our life together as a church communicates and conditions us to look at church in a particular way.  Bottom line, if mission continues to flow from central command (i.e. our building or Sunday morning event or pastor/staff) then it is difficult for me to see how we will make the shift from ITA to MI.  At the same time, structuring for MI may be so radical that we will lose the patient (if you'll pardon the extreme analogy) in the process.  Regardless, I do not believe ITA structures lead to MI community. 

Surely there are other reasons I haven't suggested here but these can at least get us started.  I would love to have some pushback or to have someone argue the other side of this question.  Any takers?

Christmas Hope...

For all those who have lost hope this Christmas and who wonder what it's really all about...

Solzhenitsyn

A giant has fallen...

Alexander Solzhenitsyn - 1918-2008

May he rest in the grace and peace of Almighty God!

p.s. Gulag Archipelago should be on everyone's "bucket list!"