SMITCHing

Spiritual Starvation

2011-12-24T16:41:00.000-08:00

For Christmas 2011, my pastor spoke about the significance of the manger. It's mentioned three times in Luke's Gospel, and he made the point that this repetition is meant to focus us in that image. A place where the hungry are fed.

He also pointed out that Bethlehem means "house of bread". So we have another intersection to the idea of feeding the hungry. Why did God choose these places: a small town called the House of Bread and a feed trough?

Could it be that He understood our hunger? That all of the things which promise to satisfy us will ultimately leave us empty, except for one. Jesus. Who came to offer Himself unreservedly to us.

The story of Jesus birth in Luke's account foreshadows John's record of Jesus own claim that he is the Bread of Life, and the only one who can satisfy our deepest hunger.

Kinetic Prayer

2011-12-01T08:35:00.001-08:00

Richard Foster, in his excellent book on prayer, offers a refreshing look at an all too familiar topic. What struck me was the multi-faceted way in which he examined prayer. I had always thought of prayer as me talking to God about stuff. Simple? Yes. Stupid? Maybe, but my approach was certainly not exhaustive of the subject, as I learned from Foster.

Since reading his book, I've stumbled on a new form of prayer that I've never seen before, at least not in a Christian context. Kinetic prayer.

Never heard of it? Me neither until I made it up. After I Googled it, I realized the term may have existed prior to my "ah ha!", but I at least can add a little meaning to it.

My wife practices kinetic prayer. In fact, I think she may have invented it. We attend a larger church with a big auditorium filled with about 1200-1300 folks at a given service. In the back of the room, dead center, is our tech booth: a small structure that houses sound, lighting and presentation equipment, along with the people who operate it. It also provides a little bit of space for those who serve together in the media arts to hang out. My wife loves to be part of that community, standing in the back of the booth and praying over the church while we worship.

You might be saying, "So what?" Here's where kinetic prayer comes in. She's a dancer, choreographer and dance instructor by trade, so her language, her vocabulary, includes movement. She uses movement to communicate in the same way that the average person uses words. And she "talks" to God that way. I call it knietic prayer.

If you were to see her in the booth, you'd see someone with their eyes closed singing with the other people in worship, but you'd also see her moving with flowing gestures that somehow seem to go with music and singing. I thought she was just dancing, but she said no, that she was praying for the people in the congregation.

Okay. So if the words she sings are from the song, how's the prayer happening? It's kinetic, embedded in the language of her movement.

I don't get it, but I bet God does.

I love that woman! After 30 years of marriage, she still surprises me.

Trading Descarte for Google

2011-11-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

With his famous, "I think, therefore I am.", Descarte changed the intellectual landscape of Western Civilization. No longer was the Church the sole arbiter of truth. No longer did divine revelation constitute the source of truth. Instead, skepticism had begun its reign.

It's been a long run. From the intellectual salons of Enlightenment Europe to the "show me" attitude of 21st century Missourians, we trust only that which we can verify. Doubt is our guard, and he keeps us from error.

Yesterday, I began to wonder if his rule is crumbling.

I attended New Wine, New Wineskins conference entitled Worship in the Matrix. The event focused on the intersection of worship and technology. The featured speaker was a fine scholar from Calvin College, Quentin Schultze. He gave a plenary talk on the influence of technology in our society and its impact on the church. It was funny, informative, and deeply disturbing.

At the heart of his talk was the assumption that the tech revolution is changing us fundamentally, for better or for worse. And I remember at one point taking a note that turned into the title for this post. Let me give you an example. I'm a Boomer (born between 1946-1964), and my kids are Millennials (or Gen Y, if you like). I like having my data on my own computer. They could care less where their data resides as long as they can get to it in the Cloud. I'm naturally skeptical of anything I get form the Net. They assume Wikkipedia and Google are completely reliable, or nearly so. As university students, they can't understand the skepticism among their teachers, who regularly reject those two seminal web sites as legitimate sources.

My kids have traded skepticism for certainty. It's not the certainty of pre-moderns, but a confidence in group intellect and Web 2.0 crowd-sourcing.

I doubt[1] Descarte had any idea where his axiomatic sentence would take us. And I'm positive my kid's generation has no idea where their certainty is leading them.

[1] Pun intended :-)

Fully Known

2011-10-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month my church kicked off a conference we're hosting for the North Pacific District of the Foursquare Church. The theme is Fully Known, with keynote presentations by a group of guys who run a ministry called True Faced. They've created a powerful story about knowing and being fully known. It sings of grace, and authenticity born of a hatred for two-faced living that traps people in self-protective lies. Their assertion? There's no true freedom apart from God's relational Gospel of grace. They were brought to that conviction by the failure of an autonomous sin-management theology.

Those terms, "relational Gospel of grace" and "autonomous sin-management theology", probably require some explanation. The team from TrueFaced sees a relational Gospel of grace as grounded in the inter-trinitarian life of God where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an intimacy and transparency in love that is the model for all relationships. This requires an extraordinary degree of grace between humans. We must bear with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2) in order to foster a relationship of trust that makes it safe for others to let themselves be known by others. Conversely, a theology of sin management holds to a semi-autonomous exercise of spiritual power (a view of grace, not as relational connection, but as enablement) with the goal of becoming more holy. One must strive to be acceptable to God and others, papering over anything that is less than perfect. The TrueFaced team's assumption is that most people react to this sin-management imperative by masking pain and failure.

When I heard one the the three, John Lynch, speak last night I was struck by his ability as a story-teller. He's a very gifted communicator. In fact, I've rarely heard better apart from a professionally trained actor. He has that rare ability to transport an audience to a place he creates out of thin air with only his voice and a story.

As I listened to him, I remembered Paul's encouragement to the Corinthians:

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12

And I wondered how truly true faced we can be?

Presence

2011-10-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a service at a small church plant in Berkley, Emeryville actually. The pastor didn't preach, but gave a talk on the church's core values, during which he referenced seeking God's Presence. It coincided with recent discussions in my own church about the very same topics: values and the Presence of God.

I began to think about valuing God's Presence, and I really like that particular phrase. Christians often talk of seeking God's Presence, as if it's possible to withdraw from it. But David writes distinctly about that impossibility in Psalm 139, when he asks:

"Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?"

It's a good question. It also indicates a theology of Presence that says God is always present to us. The only distance we ever experience from an omnipresent God is relational. It makes sense when you read the Scriptures, which say that he isn't far from those who seek Him, and we generally chase after what, or who, we want.

So the real question isn't where is God, but what do we want? An existential experience of God is directly related to our desire for Him.

Theology of Art

2011-08-12T09:11:00.001-07:00

I'm blessed to have very talented artists for friends. One in particular, Cindy Kenny, recently appeared in a video adaptation of a Christian drama entitled "The Stool". You can see it here, but I'll offer a brief synopsis before commenting.

A beautiful and vivacious young woman approaches a young man on stage holding a stool out in front of her. She presents it as a gift to the young man, who is cast as Jesus. He's honored, but tells her that whoever sits on that stool gets to make all the decisions. He asks if that's what she really wants.

She enthusiastically agrees, telling "Jesus" that she really wants him to make all the decisions for her. He agrees and sits down on the stool. The woman is then joined consecutively by two friends who invite her to participate with them in something. The first friend wants to do something bad, and then the second wants to do something good. Jesus says "no" to the bad invitation and "yes" to the good, but the woman consistently countermands his directives, physically displacing him on the stool while she interacts with each friend. After being confronted by Jesus, who at one point says that he's, "...one cheeking it here", she finally takes the stool back.

It's comedic and compelling. It's also chock full of theology.

On the face of it, the video presents our relationship with Jesus as one of competing wills. Either he will direct things, implementing his will through us, or we will thwart him, displacing his will with our own. This is classic theism: a self-concerned god with whom our connection is will-to-will, making life an endless struggle to submit our will to his. In this view, grace, which comes by faith in Christ, is reduced to an enabling quality that overcomes the wild weakness of our will. As our lives calm down and passions cool, we become ever more sedately submissive and grow closer to God as a result.

There's only one problem with that view. It fails to engage the wildly passionate God who is love. It fails to account for a love so extreme that a Father would send his Eternal Son to a Cross in order to redeem estranged lovers. It fails completely to grasp the loving devotion of a Son, who's overriding delight is to please his Father, even to the point of stretching himself out on that Cross. and it fails to regard the sweet ministry of the Holy Spirit who communicates the deep love of God, between Father and Son, as well as to the lovers they take to themselves.

When faced with the passionate embrace of John 17, classic theism pales. The enabled will, stoically submitting itself, gives way to a tender heart where a loving desire for God overcomes the competing loves of self and sin.

What's beautiful about the video is that the classic theism presented is so clearly a veneer. In the proclamation of performance a passionate Gospel is preached and we see how desire overcomes desire. It is not that this woman's will is too weak to submit, it is that her love of self and sin so obviously overcomes the genuine offer of love from Christ. Despite her own protest to the contrary, she clearly doesn't want (notice this is a term that connotes desire) Jesus to "have her stool." Any voluntary exercise of her will is motivated by her strongest desire. The sweetness of Christ's love is simply not attractive enough for her.

One might ask, "how did you get that from the video?" The drama is highly relational, and 90% of communication in a relationship is non-verbal. Consequently, one has to look below the dialog to the subtext, and that is what the dramatic artist can show us. Even when the script is written from the theological viewpoint that our relationship with God is one of competing wills, the actors cannot help but reflect, through the intuitive nuances of their performance, the more compelling truth that God is a lover and we are made to respond to His love.

They show us their hearts. They show us God's. Thank you Cindy and company.

Good and Happy

2011-07-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

I want to be happy. I also want my wife and children to be happy. In that sense I'm like every other father out there. Except maybe for one.

God is a Father, and He seems far more interested in us being good. Like His Son.

This view flies in the face of contemporary preaching in a movement dubbed "the Prosperity Gospel" that centers itself on the conviction that God is chiefly concerned with our happiness. He doesn't want us to be sick, or poor, or touched by any of life's troubles. He wants us to be healthy, well-off, happy King's kids.

All we need are the right tools. We need to have our minds changed about God, and we need to learn how to properly use "faith". In this view, faith become s a lever that activates God. He responds like an indulgent father by giving us whatever we ask for, and we become semi-autonomous initiators of God's blessings. We can "name it and claim it" in an ever self-indulgent pursuit of happiness.

If this were only an errant view outside of mainstream Evangelicalism, it would merely be a curiosity. But it is a deeply influential movement that infects the Western Church to varying degrees.

God, our Father, on the other hand, invites us to a relationship where our captive hearts respond to him with increasing likeness to His Son. If we love Him, we obey His commandments and the ones who obey Him are the ones who love Him. Love is the only spiritual barometer. Those who love much take on a burnish that reflects the image of the incarnate God, Jesus Christ. Any true similarity, holiness if you will, is always an outgrowth of loving devotion to Christ. (John 14)

In another sharp contrast to the "Name It and Claim It" Gospel, Paul writes about suffering and it's consequences in Romans chapter 5. He seems to be appealing to his reader's gumption. He's encouraging them to "stick to it" when things get rough. He assumes the readers will "glory in their suffering", knowing that when they persevere, they will see character develop (in other words, goodness), and also character's fruit, which is hope. At first glance it seems like he's rooting the formation of goodness in the believer's willful response to difficult circumstance. BTW: Paul's not talking about losing one's home to the bank, he's referring to losing one's life and livelihood to persecution.

Many people stop with this consideration of the passage, thinking that goodness is formed in us by our response to suffering, but Paul does not leave us there. Having introduced hope as the ultimate fruit of suffering, he tells us that hope will not disappoint because God has poured His love out into our hearts by His Holy Spirit, who is given to us. Paul sees our response to suffering as relational. The perseverance, character, and hope he writes about all find their source in the direct disclosure of God's lovingkindness to us by the Holy Spirit. Paul contrasts God—who makes us good by giving of Himself and His love—with suffering. Our response is rooted in our relationship.

Any Christian lives a winsome, hope-filled life in Christ because of a heart captivated by God's consuming love. Any and all circumstances pale in comparison, even those which we might think of as leading to happiness. The source of goodness in life (and ultimately happiness) is God Himself. He alone is enough, though we lack everything else.

When we love God and are assured of His love for us, we increasingly live and love like Jesus. We begin to look more and more like our Savior, who is wholly good.

Gumby Jesus

2011-05-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll admit it. I like Gumby. Not the snarling angry Gumby played by Eddie Murphy, but the infinitely positionable toy Gumby. The Gumby of Saturday morning cartoons. You could make him do almost anything. He was revolutionary. When other dolls—sorry, action figures—had only a severely limited range of motion, Gumby could do anything you wanted him to. At least until the wire armature inside him disintegrated from metal fatigue. He was yours, mine, any one's to do with as they pleased.

I was reminded of Gumby while talking with a friend recently. Martin French is an incredibly talented illustrator and the Chair of the Illustration department at PNCA, and we've been friends for more than 30 years. He recently painted the image you see on the left. It's entitled Slave King. You can see his post about the art here.

We were discussing people's reaction to his painting, and he mentioned one in particular. The person said they didn't like the image because it portrayed Jesus as too strong. This person isn't a Christian, but they are attracted to the idea of a meek, mild, and vastly tolerant Jesus. This individual didn't like the fact that a slave could come to serve the ones He created, full of the very life and power that created them. If I had to guess, I'd say they'd be entirely comfortable with a Jesus who was more like Ben Kingsley in Gandhi. A designer Jesus. Made to order. Their very own Gumby Jesus.

This is modern example of an ancient reaction to God's offering of Himself, and it's not limited to unbelievers. In the book of Jeremiah, we read a particularly damning account of those who reject the living God in favor of a god they've fashioned.

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me,

the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water.

The passage mentions two related evils. The first is forsaking God, who offers Himself freely, anticipating the day when He will do so humbly in Jesus Christ. But that's not good enough. The people to whom He offers Himself say, in effect, "No thanks. We've got a much better idea of what god should be like." This is the second evil, fashioning a replacement for the One they've forsaken, treating God like a jilted, cuckolded lover. And this disdainful treatment of God is a dominant theme throughout Jeremiah.

While God's patience is long-suffering, it's not infinite. Eventually, He declares that His offer of love must solicit one of two possible responses: embrace or emnity.

That's what I love about Martin's painting. It makes the same offer. He captures the powerful life of God in the figure above—latent to an extent, yet barely contained within the bounds of flesh. All while he also shows us a figure who comes not only with power, but also with the humble desire to serve rooted in unimaginable love. He shows us the same God the Scriptures do, and it's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

Those who find this portrait of Jesus attractive will always be dismayed that others would rather play with Gumby.

Rob Bellaporium

2011-03-28T07:22:00.000-07:00

A lot of really smart, well-trained folks are spending loads of time on Bell. Here's a good compilation of salient conversation about Love Wins. Credit to Rick McKinley for the link via Twitter.

Bell Blurb #2

2011-03-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

In chapters two and three of his new book Love Wins A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Rob Bell get's into two out of his three promised topics. He tackles heaven first. Probably a good choice.

Bell immediately begins to question popular evangelical notions of heaven as a literal place. He makes his exegesis accessible, something he's particularly good at. Anyone who is really interested in what the Scriptures mean, can sympathize with Bell's desire to question more recently accepted interpretations of what the Bible tells us of heaven and hell.

The author is careful to offer much of his critique as leading questions, and I'm left with the resulting sense that he's constantly screwing up his face and asking, "WTF?" while writing this book. Is that bad? Is he wrong for doing that? No. He's doing exactly what Martin Luther and other early Reformers did. He's asking questions arising from his study of Scripture. He's responding to the pressures of unprecedented change happening in culture all around him. He's doing theology at the point of a pastoral spear, trying to answer the deepest cries of the human heart: Will I be okay? Will it all be okay, or it this it? Does God love me, or are the Kansas baptist crazies right, and He hates most everyone?

As I wrote that last paragraph, I could almost hear the lament of the Evangelical crowd that now oppose Bell . But their outcry is premature. Whatever comes of this book—and regardless, I appreciate Bell's courage because he's not dodging the tough questions—his work will be judged like that of all Christian writers who stand in a 2000 year tradition beginning with the Apostles. The vast majority of popular contemporary Christian writing will pass from the scene without causing much of a ripple in the Church. Randy Alcorn wrote a safe, middle of the road, majority evangelical view book when he published Heaven. He sold a few books. Mostly because it was an affirmation of recent theology, as reflected most popularly in the Left Behind franchise (which sold a LOT of books). As Bell tries to demonstrate, the Bible leaves a lot of room for views other than those of Alcorn or LaHaye.

Long after Bell's book, along with the others, are forgotten, the Bible will remain.

And it's Bell's continual return to Scripture that makes me think his critics too easily write off his work as an assault on the rock of established Christian doctrine (read: modern Evangelical notions of orthodoxy). But those same critics will with the same breath blast Bell and tolerate veneration of C.S. Lewis, who in his fantasy novella, The Great Divorce, takes on many of the same issues as Love Wins. Read them in concert and you will be struck by the similarities between both authors' handling of heaven, hell, and each person's final state. It's because they're swimming the the same stream, one that runs just as far through church history as that of more recent, popularized theological notions of eschatology.

BTW: just in case I might have confused you. I don't think Rob Bell's work will have the impact of Luther's. It's simply their pastoral motivation that compares. I also do not think he's an Apostle, with a capital "a". He's a small "a" like the rest of us. And I do really like C.S. Lewis, just like any decent Christian would.

Moving on to chapter three, Bell gives hell a similar treatment: setting up his exegesis with a series of leading questions, looking at select passages (yes, here the alert reader will notice he's a bit sneaky in his choice of texts, as he has been to some lesser degree with heaven), and ultimately offering a fresh take on the subject. The symmetry is satisfying.

But Bell is hard to nail down. With a healthy dose of post-modern "humility", he's happy to live with open questions. That's one of the qualities of his writing that I suspect most frustrates his critics. They desperately want him to put a stake in the ground and declare, "Yes, yes, I am a universalist! God help me, I am!" Or they want him to say, "I've finally come to my senses, and I'm convinced all of you Reformed Double-Predestinarian theologians have it nailed!"

But he doesn't do that. All he seems willing to say for certain is the heaven is real, but maybe not as plastic and pre-packaged as some have presented it. Hell is real, and that reality is horrific. And in the final analysis, the difference between one's experiencing heaven or hell is the relationship one has with God through Jesus.

His emphasis on experience, as well as his handling of the possibility of the super-rational collapse of linear time, is as deliciously post-modern as his embrace of dialectic tension. But I'd expect nothing less from the hippest hipster Christian (sorry, Ed Young).

I have to say here that I like Rob Bell. I like people who ask God the really, really tough questions, and ultimately look for answers in the Scripture without ignoring the full range of teaching the Bible fosters, something which has enriched the Church for the last couple of millennia. Frankly, I'm tired of pop theology that's as thin as the veneers on some TV preacher's teeth.

But I'm not tired of this book. I'm just not sure if I like it yet.

Bell Blurb #1

2011-03-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I snagged the digital edition of Rob Bell's new book Love Wins A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person You Ever Lived. I love buying books for less than half of what they used to cost. And Bell's a star, so there's also that I'm-a-famous-author-now premium you pay for books like his in print.

I plan to post about it here, responding chapter-by-chapter to what I'm reading.

Having read his first book, Velvet Elvis, I'll admit that my tastes don't really run in Bell's direction, but I was intrigued enough by advance publicity to read his latest.

The advance promotions stirred up a significant controversy among leading evangelicals. For example, John Piper upon hearing of the publisher's promotions tweeted "Farewell Rob Bell". Before any of the most critical leaders had had a chance read it, they were sure that Bell had finally put his cards on the table and come out of the closet as a universalist. Maybe. I'm two chapters in, and that's not clear yet.

What is clear is that this author know his audience, and it's not John Piper. Bell writes for two types of readers. First, he's writing for those who aren't of the Christian Faith. Those who have made a conscious or implicit decision about Christianity and its claims and found it wanting. These aren't drug addicts, pimps, or axe murders. These are people who we would describe as decent folk. People we'd be happy to have as neighbors, who have rejected Christianity because of what they believe it teaches, specifically about a loving God and the eternal fate of people.

I think this is his primary audience, but I think he has a second group in mind: younger evangelicals who have grown up in the church, but were never given the opportunity to ask the hard questions. Before they became adults, these people were wrapped in a gauzy certainty that kept the tough questions at bay. They could never ask provocative questions without enduring the pressure to conform to evangelical culture, which is something altogether different from evangelical faith.

The irony is striking. Their questions were silenced by the dogmatics that grew out of centuries-old Christians asking the very same questions.

And that's exactly how Bell begins his book, with tough questions. He's not afraid to ask them of himself and his reader. He starts the book with a story about Gandhi that leads him to the questions, "Gandhi's in Hell? Really? You know this for sure?"

The question was presented nakedly in the book's promotions, and was enough by itself to bring down charges of heresy and universalism on Bell's head. But it underscores a larger question the book poses: what does Jesus say about Heaven, Hell, and the fate of everyone who ever lived?

I wish I had his answer right now, but you read a book from front to back, so I honestly don't know yet where Rob Bell is going to take me.

In chapter one, he simply sets the table without serving the meal. That begins in chapter two. He's certainly whet my appetite though.

Ummmm

2011-01-18T06:09:00.000-08:00

While I appreciate the naive idealism, this makes me a little nervous.

Even a cursory look at western history would show that mash-ups of politics and religion do not have a track record of ending well.

Surprising Love

2011-01-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure I have a new friend, and like all of my other friends. I love him.

The weird part is, I've never spent more than a few hours with him in over a year. Not since the day we met.

I've been thinking a lot about why I love him and why I consider him a friend. Usually I make friends in a more typical manner. I meet someone. There are qualities about them that attract me. We hang out, get to know each other, and a mutual bond of affection forms which strengthens over time.

This one's different. I first met Russell at a Thanksgiving "after party" hosted by a mutual friend. A group of us gathered at Mark's place after our respective family dinners to hang out and play games like Apples and Apples and Catch Phrase. I had never met Russell before, but Mark's a hospitable guy and it's not unusual for his friends from different circles to meet one another at an impromptu game night. Of the dozen or so folks who were there, three or four were people I was meeting for the first time.

I noticed Russell right away. He seemed a little smitten by the two beautiful Chinese students who were there. He was generous in his sharing of the mutual delight we had in each others presence (a key and very attractive feature when one attends a game party at Mark's place). He played the game with wit and gusto, and I found myself liking him without really knowing him.

We didn't get a chance to talk much beyond a polite introduction and some pleasantries, so when I next talked with Mark, I asked about Russell. Mark said that they had been friends for years, and that Russell was very special to him. He told me of Russell's talents as classical pianist, and the circumstance that led to their friendship. He also told me, without violating any confidences, that, unlike Mark and I, Russell was not a Christian. In fact, he was pretty solidly opposed to the faith because he had been deeply wounded by some who called themselves Christians.

This surprised me because I saw in Russell a joy and vulnerability I'd come to associate with Christians, especially those I met through Mark. Since Russell lived about 1000 miles from Portland, I searched on Facebook, found him, and sent a friend request. To my delight, he accepted. I found myself wanting to be his friend.

This kind of instant attraction has only happened to me a few times. And it's usually led to the most intimate and enduring relationships I'm blessed with. The first time was with Jesus, who both fascinated and terrified me simultaneously. It's a bit of a mind-bender when the God of the Universe taps you on the shoulder and says, in effect, let's hang out. There were those few girls who captured my heart before I met the one for me, my wife. I think those early encounters might fall under the category of "chemical romance" though. And then there were those few men who I count as dear friends, brothers of other mothers. Mark's one of those. I think Russell might be too.

On Facebook, I discovered that he was all I thought and more. I found him to be a writer of rare honesty, insight, and wit. He posted a lot, and I enjoyed not only his posts, but the repartee he shared with his other readers. At some point, I'm not exactly sure when, I felt like Russell was my friend. Or at least, I felt like I was his. The way he shared his life online let me inside a little and I was attracted to what I saw.

Now Russell's moved to Portland, where I live, and we have the opportunity to hang out. I'm really looking forward to that. He's also been involved in a very lively conversation with God. I'm particularly excited by that because he's been so very transparent about it on his blog.

Through what he's written, Russell challenges me get back to that place where I first fell in love with Jesus. Before I got encrusted with so much christian culture. Please understand that I don't consider orthodox theology, or the written witness of Scripture to be christian culture. I think they're both vitally important to the capture of our hearts by God. I'm talking about the language and culture that stimulates the I'm-in-the-club-and-you're-not attitude so sharply opposed by Jesus in his disputes with certain Pharisees. Russell's helping me see that all of our efforts at an exclusive micro-culture are just pitiful attempts at self-justification, which is rooted in self-worship and ultimately self-love. I see the hypocrisy in my own life (and to some extent in my church) that begs repentance. And I repent.

Thanks, Russell. You're a good friend.

Amusement and Glee

2010-12-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

The Fox Broadcasting series Glee is hit, and as one who makes a living keeping a finger on the pulse of pop culture, I'm familiar with the show. For those less so, it features a remarkably talented cast of young performers who are all triple threats: they can act, sing, and dance. The show's story lines always incorporate impressive production numbers, renderings of Broadway show tunes, classic Billboard hits, and current chart-topping Pop.

On the face of it, the show is entertaining as the fictional high school glee club members— who are all high school archetypes—navigate the rapids of an Ohio high school, replete with social cliques, fleeting love-sick pairings, and petty power struggles. It's also preachy. For example, one of the characters, Curt, is openly gay, as is the show's creator. Story lines repeatedly return to Curt's struggle to assert his identity, find acceptance, and ultimately love. In resolving the dramatic conflict, episodes usually present an ethical view point that can best be described as progressive.

The show draws heavily on creator Ryan Murphy's own experience with high school show choir angst. Fair enough, it's his show, and the more deeply textured the archetypical characters are, the more the audience will care about them; the more they'll want to watch the show; the more the producers will make lots of money from the network and its advertisers.

But I don't want a morality play when I watch popular comedy on television. I really don't. When the creators of popular entertainment attempt to offer me something deep and challenging, it makes me long for something like I Love Lucy, something designed simply to offer amusement.

The word itself belies any attempt at depth. it is the opposite of musing, of thinking deeply about something. It is a-muse-ment, or "not" muse-ment, if you will.

On the other hand, I want that challenge when I go to church. I want to be called to muse more about Christ and His love for us. What I don't want at church is amusement, but that is often what is offered to western evangelicals.

Case in point, or Northpoint, as it were. The Atlanta mega church began its December 5th service with this.

North Point's iBand from North Point Web on Vimeo.

If you follow the link to one of the worship leaders' blogs, you can read about the massive effort required to produce a seven minute service intro. Like most people, I smiled and laughed when I viewed the performance. I enjoyed it, but after reading the blog, I had a similar reaction to that voiced by my pastor, "Okay, we can build orphanages in Haiti, or we can do stuff like that..."

He's definitely no stick-in-the-mud and likes a good laugh as well as anyone, but he's got a point. And it nudges us in the direction of a larger question: how much amusement is too much in our churches? Especially large and wealthy churches. What does that iBand have to do next time around, upping the ante to stimulate the same delighted response? Would the church have responded just as enthusiastically to a simple reading of Isaiah 9:1-7? Would they tell their friends and neighbors about the epic Bible passage they heard in church that day? Would they invite them the following week, with a sense of anticipation about which text will be read next? Would a posted video of the passage being read garner hundreds of thousands of views, as the iBand surely will?

Probably not. So the question remains: in our quest to pull people into the church, are we doing a disservice by employing amusing tactics? Do we cheapen worship by investing it with such overt entertainment? Are we putting some unintentional distance between those in the pew (excuse me, theater-style seats with convenient cup-holders) and the very thing that's designed to bring them to Christ: the full-orbed, unabashed, and well-studied preaching of Christ?

Even more so, are we impeding one of the the stated purposes of the church: to equip the saints for the work of ministry?

Or maybe I'm just taking the whole thing too seriously. Maybe we're just innocently having a good time together. After all, we're just like everybody else, aren't we?

Shorter Attention Spans, or Competing Appetites

2010-05-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Recently on Pastors.com, Rick Warren offered a strategy for keeping congregations involved in a sermon when they display increasingly shorter attention spans. His advice is practical and probably would work in most churches. Therein lies the problem. He writes:

"In an upcoming book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,writer Michael Carr suggests the Internet is shrinking our attention spans. It’s not a new argument. And it’s not universally agreed upon either. But even President Obama recently got into the debate saying information can become a distraction because of our fascination with “iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations.”

But regardless of why, most people would agree that attention spans are shrinking. That means the people you and I preach to each week are less likely to sit and focus as long as congregations could a generation ago. We can complain about it and we can let it frustrate us. But we can’t change it.

Yet, that doesn’t mean we have to preach shorter and shorter sermons. That sounds counterintuitive, right? Shorter attention spans should mean shorter sermons. But for years I’ve been preaching an average of 45 minutes per sermon. I’d preach longer if it wouldn’t cause parking chaos at Saddleback!

That’s why I use what I call sermon features, which are special segments you add into your sermon to capture the attention of your listeners. I’ve found you can hold people’s attention much longer when you interweave a variety of features into your sermon."

I don't know Rick Warren, but I remember meeting him when Saddleback had just reached mega-church status—with about a 1000 people meeting weekly in a rented high school gym. My wife and I lived in southern Orange County and a couple who befriended us attended Saddleback. They invited us to visit a few times. Rick preached clearly, biblically, and with a very engaging style. I liked him a lot. I still do.

But I think he's wrong in this post, and I think the solution to the problem he describes cannot be based on tacit acceptance of the cultural phenomenon he describes—increasingly shorter attention spans. The problem with Rick's solution is his implicit surrender to his observation, and the assumption that Christians share a lack of appetite for any preaching of considerable length that is not laced with entertaining features.

I believe the shorter attention spans he describes are indicative of something much worse: a lack of appetite for God and His Word. A good friend summed up his theological position by citing a Hagar cartoon. After tying one on at the local tavern, Hagar is questioned by his wife in mid-hangover why he repeated drinks and suffers. He replies that we do what we want to do. In other words, our heart's affections determine out actions, and any psychological experience of choosing is rooted in love. We may love honor more than life and perform heroically. Or we may love football more than God's Word and be itching to get to our big screen when a sermon runs long.

The Bible bears witness to this when it speaks of the heart as the wellspring of our lives. So we are commanded to love God with all that we are, wherein anything else we do that is pleasing to Him will issue from that love. Jesus offers support for this in the Sermon on the Mount where He gives us a description of the realized Kingdom. He ups the ante on sin significantly, tethering it to our heart's affections. For example, if I longingly dwell in my heart on a woman, lusting after her, then I have commit adultery, not just considered it. Jesus teaches that the motivations of the heart are prior to, and supersede, any behavior. And those motivations don't simply relate to those behaviors we associate with sin.

He also makes it clear that if I do religious things in order to accrue status, then I already have my heart's desire, my "reward". But, if I do these things in secret—within the context of intimate communion with my Father in order to please Him—then the One who sees in secret will reward me. Giving, praying, fasting—all of these can be done well outwardly and amount to little more then prideful adornments without the right motivation of the heart .

So I take Jesus, when He speaks of the tares growing up with the wheat, to mean that those who attend church do so for competing motives. The tares care little for God, and the wheat love God. They have an appetite for Him and His Word. The competing motives bear witness, not to a universal cultural drift that impacts God-lovers and God-haters alike, but to differing appetites, or affections, of the heart, that separate posers from true children of God.

Will the cultural accommodations Warren suggests result in congregations less itchy for the door, who appear more "engaged"? Absolutely. But are they really drawn to the things of God or simply more entertained? If you have $300 million and the CGI artistry of James Cameron or Peter Jackson, you can get people to sit and pay attention for several hours on end, but you won't change their hearts. Only the Spirit, birthing a living faith in Christ through the preaching of his Word can do that.

And if you think my comparison of Warren's solution and the directors mentioned above is unfair, I ask you: how do they differ at all, except in how they are resourced?

So what are we to do? How do we attack the problem Warren accurately describes? Head on. It is not the length of preaching, or even it's abundance or lack of features, that's at issue. I believe it is the depth of preaching that is lacking. A friend of mine blogs on this very topic, and his views are well worth considering. In one post he references "thin-blooded" sermons, quoting Michael Quicke. The idea is that one can preach attractive, even exegetically defensible sermons that do little to stimulate the christian community because they are individualistic and confined to personal spirituality. In short, they fail to challenge those in the pew as a whole.

But what of a grand call to follow Christ by taking up one's Cross and dying to self, bearing one another's burdens in love? What about challenging "thick-blooded" sermons that tend to empty pews because they are rich with the polarizing call that the church must be the church in the World and the offense of the Cross? If those kinds of sermons were preached regularly—attended by features or not—we may well see a wholesale retreat of tares, but we'll also enjoy a wonderful harvest of wheat. The fields are white, but sadly the workers are few.

Lavish Worship

2010-04-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

This is a repost of a blog entry that first appeared on Spreading Goodness, and then again on the Beaverton Foursquare Worship blog. I'd highly recommend both.

My wife and I were recently privileged to spend several hours in unstructured worship along with 30 or 40 Stanford students. Our eldest daughter is a junior at the university and, along with a few dozen others, spends Saturday nights in worship modeled after the International House of Prayer.

The group began as a small gathering in a dorm room. They simple preferred to spend time together in God’s presence to a standard college Saturday evening. These few found more joy spending time with Christ than they ever did spending time taxing a tap at the local fraternity. Before long they had attracted others and outgrew the dorm room, arranging for space in the student union.

That doesn’t surprise me. The time we shared with them was tender, refreshing, and encouraging. It was also remarkable to see students who bear such intense academic pressure offer themselves so freely and lavishly to Christ. Their generous desire to wait on the Lord invited His presence with a sweetness and immediacy that I’ve rarely experienced.

We sang choruses together, prayed softly in groups and individually, all while a sincere and modestly talented worship leader led us quietly, sometimes simply playing instrumentally. We sang corporately, but during the instrumental interludes a few people read from the Scriptures, offering only a minimum of commentary. There was a leader, but that role was reduced to non-hierarchical facilitation. I was struck by the contrast between that evening and the worship that characterized a typical Sunday morning at my own church.

It is important for you to know that I love my church. It is full of people captivated by the love of God in Christ. Their outward expression of that love is both regular and concrete. As a result, the church is exemplary in its commitment to God’s Word, evangelism, and profound good works. Even so, it is a large church, beholden to the logistics of shuttling thousands of people through three services and over-burdened parking lots. These demands make it exceedingly difficult to afford the lavish gift of time that came so easily to those Stanford students. And I believe in some sense our worship is the poorer for it. I cannot stand apart from my church in this critique. I serve part-time as a pastor and have some measure of influence. In short, I am part of the problem.

I want to be part of the solution though. But if we are to recapture a lost sense of extravagance in worship, we need to look first at the Scriptures to discover what lavish worship means—if anything—and how we might move towards it. If we define worship as a complete giving over to God of anything in loving adoration with the intent of ministering to Him, several examples come to mind.

In Mark 14 we see the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume. She interrupts a meal and anoints Jesus, breaking a jar filled with extraordinarily expensive perfume in the process. This story reminds us that lavish worship involves a certain abandon. It is, by definition, unreasonable. Anyone seeking to reasonably maximize available resources has to steer clear of more lavish worship. Much like those who chided the woman, saying that her treasure could have been sold to help the poor, there are some in the contemporary church who are so attuned to the practical demands of church enterprise that lavish worship seems a non-essential luxury. It would simply be too unreasonable. These pragmatists share practical sensibilities with the woman’s critics.

And yet, Jesus immediately tells the woman’s detractors to leave her alone. He further challenges their self-righteousness and lack of attentiveness to Himself. He compliments her, saying, “…wherever the Gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Mark places this passage immediately before his account of Judas’ agreement to betray Jesus, so we cannot escape the foreshadowing of the Lord’s Passion in this account of the anointing. But neither can we escape the appropriateness of the unreasonable, extravagant, and lavish ministry by this woman to the One she loved before all others.

Lavish worship is not only associated with expense though. It is also related to time. When we consider the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10, we see that lavish worship involves offering the Lord plenty of unstructured time. Often this passage is taught with respect to priorities, where we are encouraged to give to God “first”. Martha is bustling about attending to the necessities of entertaining a household full of guests while Mary is simply sitting at Jesus feet. Upon Martha’s objection, Jesus compliments Mary saying that while Martha is worried about so many things, only one thing is really necessary—and that Mary has chosen the better portion, something that cannot be taken from her.

The implication teased out by most teachers is that Martha is not wrong, but that Mary has her priorities straight. But ordering one’s priorities is not simply a question of sequence or even “quality” as it has come to mean in our overtaxed culture. It is also a quantitative question. We cannot simply give God the first 15 minutes of each day and legitimately call it a priority just because God happens to be the first on a list of activities. Again, lavish worship requires a generous expenditure of resources—in Mary’s case that resource is time offered without reserve in the face of other priorities.

These are only two brief stories that help to illustrate the point, but it would not be difficult to find others. The real question is this: in the face of God’s extravagant self-giving in Christ, why do we offer so little of ourselves in response?

I cannot speak for others, but in my case it is competing loves. I find things other than spending time with God all too attractive, and even those things that are not inherently attractive often capture my heart because of the status or advantage they offer. And I am not alone. The priorities and concerns of those who first heard Jesus words in His Sermon on the Mount are mirrored in his teaching: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”. They were obviously taken with many other things that seemed so much more important.

It is also all too alluring to seek Christ for the benefits that accrue to us when we’re in His vicinity. In John chapter 6 those who had once eaten their fill seek Jesus again. They ask Him to do another miracle, to feed them once more. He tells them that He is the bread of life. He is it. He is what they need, what they’ve always needed. He is the One Whom they should seek with all their hearts.

His words to them are also His words to me, so may I be quick to lavish a warm response on my Lord.

Devotion?

2010-02-14T06:57:00.000-08:00

Tested and Proven | Men of Integrity

While I appreciate the heart behind this, the devotional is incredibly Cartesian. The thesis? I believe God when He proves that what He promises is proven true in my life. God's in the docket and I'm the judge. What a stark contrast to Jesus, who when faced with the ultimate temptation to prove God true, declined by quoting Scripture: "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."

Do we find Christ attractive?

2010-01-29T15:23:00.000-08:00

I work part time at a large church designing a lot of creative elements for worship gatherings and the promotion of various ministries. The rest of the time, I design communications for my clients. I appreciate the chance to use my talents on behalf of the church, but it always raises a question for me: as Christians, do we find Christ attractive?

What fuels the demand for my services at the church is the underlying assumption that a very simple presentation of Jesus as given by His Word is somewhat lacking. We need more programs, more ministry that meets peoples felt needs, and more attractive promotional communications so that everyone knows what we offer. After all, who could possibly be interested in a simple unadorned presentation of Jesus after watching something like Avatar, or having every "felt need" indulged at the local mall?

In support of more attractive programming and communications, some argue that people aren't tired of Jesus, or the Gospel, they're simply tired of old-school presentations. We need to spice it up a bit in the church. Give people an experience that will move them—hopefully towards Christ. We need to understand all of the complex needs that drive these consumers and meet them. Marketing pros do that, and it sure looks effective.

I once had a leader whom I respect greatly offer me an analogy in defense of intentionally attractive programming. He described how he and his wife would prepare to receive guests for dinner. They would clean the house, carefully plan a wonderful evening that included their guests' favorite foods, and they would cater to every need as attentive hosts. The story made me crave an invitation to dinner from them, but it left me unconvinced.

The church isn't a home we invite guest to for dinner. It's a living incarnation of Jesus Christ. It is attractive, or not, as Christ is attractive, or not. The church gathers to worship Christ, and be equipped to do the work of ministry, so when it disperses again into the surrounding community it is a living proclamation of Christ. It is not a dinner party. Or at least it shouldn't be.

Can our gatherings be celebratory? Yes. Is it reasonable for large church with many resources to provide for social needs? Of course, in fact it's required. But all of these a secondary to the purpose written above. I think we have it backwards. We don't need to make church attractive.

The work of evangelizing a community happens best out in the community. The fact that market research shows that many people come to Christ after coming to church is often used as an argument for making church more attractive and seeker-sensitive. But is it compelling? How many more would come to the Cross if we invited others into our lives instead of simply inviting them to church? What if we saw the church as "out there" instead of "in here".

What if we really trusted the Holy Spirit offering Christ through us as the most attractive presentation? What if we really believed He is the most beautiful one in all creation?

Robert Crumb Does Genesis

2009-11-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Robert Crumb's illustrated rendering of the Bible's first 50 chapters carries an "adult supervision recommended for minors" warning. Long in the works, it's now finally available. Crumb is notorious for his quirky, sexually-charged eye, and is considered by many to be the godfather of underground comics. He's also probably familiar to a host of ex-hippies who converted to Christianity during the Jesus Movement of the 60's and 70's—many of whom are now respectable, middle-aged Evangelicals.

Crumb admits that he doesn't believe the Bible is God's word, but acknowledges the power of it's stories. He follows in a long line of illustrators drawn to the text, from Albrecht Durer to Barry Moser. In fact, there were illustrators wanting to show us what the stories might have looked like as soon as it became possible to mass-produce the Scriptures in print.

It makes me wonder why artists, particularly those who aren't of the faith, continue to return to the Bible as a source of inspiration. Is it simply because therein lie great stories which take up the eternal and ubiquitous dramatic conflict of humanity? Or is it something more?

The Bible is internally consistent in its claim to be authoritative—God's Word. It also claims that those who approach it without extreme skepticism will find God to be a good communicator, but this is a metaphysical promise. It flies in the face of critical scholarship that seeks to undermine the reliability and authority of the Scriptures. Yet the text persists. And even thrives. People from all socioeconomic strata and cultural roots are still attracted to the Christian Scriptures. One has to ask why—and given the subject of this post, a follow-up question: are artists among the first to recognize something about the Bible that the rest of us are slower to grasp?

I believe all artists are drawn to the Bible in the same way—by way of the heart. God does not speak to us primarily mind-to-mind, but heart-to-heart. We fall in love with God, who is admittedly jealous and is up front about the exclusivity of the relationship He offers us. So, we either embrace him or we hate him, often with cold indifference.

In Psalm 2 God says, "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry." It's a pointed reminder that our relationship with God is affective before all else—a sure and exclusive love described as refuge in this psalm. Some might be quick to observe that Psalm 2 is messianic and emphasizes God's sovereign power. They would be right, but the contrasting union of love and wrath in verse 12 is all the more striking as a result. Ezekiel 16 is equally shocking as God describes His cuckolding by a people He deeply loves.

Populist atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins would have us believe that intelligence, rationalism, and it's resulting radical skepticism are the cure for an ignorant emotionally-charged embrace of the faith. But what of those Christians who are intelligent enough to grasp the power of the atheist's arguments, yet still have a living, loving faith? These intellectuals are more akin to the artist than the skeptic. They understand that the heart leads the head. (BTW: You can read the blog of one such Christian here, where he writes often about the heart.)

But what is the heart exactly? Theologically speaking, the heart is the seat of human affections—our loves, hates, and fears. But wait a minute, those are emotions and modern science teaches us that emotions are generated by chemical reactions in the brain. One must take a different tack with a theological anthropology. The heart is not a physical space within a given body, but is a conceptual entity—like mind as opposed to brain. Nor is it the seat of emotions as distinct from the affections. Take the affection love for example. I love my wife, but within that larger context I am alternatively amused, angry, or surprised by her. I experience a range of emotions within this larger and infinitely more nuanced relational bond called love.

And so it is with God, who offers himself to us in the loving person of Jesus Christ. In response we might experience shame, confusion, delight, rapture, or even rage. His is a polarizing offer. It is the stuff of all great love stories where the principle characters begin the love-hate dance that ultimately consummates in their union. I think artists understand quicker than the rest of us that God's approach is by way of the heart. Even if their own response leads them to ridicule the One who made them.

A Gelding God

2009-11-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

I read the blog of a good friend today. Spreading Goodness is written by Ron Frost. In his most recent post, he makes an important point about God's essential nature in relationship to His attributes, or as Ron writes, His perfections.

Ron also makes an interesting observation about theologians.

"...the Fall will still account for a human bias towards domesticating God and his word: of making God into a resource for human self-love."

I was struck by the correspondence between this statement and a recent conversation I had with a number of pastors. They were bemoaning the lack of Bible reading among those they serve. And when their charges did read it, many tended to disregard the pressure Scripture asserted on their selfish pursuits. As a result, they became autonomous self-justifying theologians. A conversation like this is not uncommon.

"I know God wants me to be happy, and I'm not right now."

"But you realize of course that arguably the Bible only allows divorce—and it is strictly an allowance—based on hardness of heart as evidenced by an adulterous betrayal. Do you want to see that hardness of heart remedied? Both yours and your spouses?"

"You don't know what it's like. I can't believe that God wants me to be unhappy. Now that I've found my true soul mate, He will forgive me, restore me, and bless my marriage."

"But God always blesses marriage. Including the one you're already in. He says He hates divorce, and as harsh as that may sound, do you think you can trust Him to be faithful to you. Can you trust Him to fix your marriage before it ends? Perhaps an even better question is: do you want Him to fix it?"

"But the God I know wouldn't want me to go through any more of the pain and anguish I've suffered!"

"Let me understand this. You haven't been abused in any way, but your marriage has been very emotionally difficult: disconnected, cold, argumentative, with no intimacy. Right?"

"Yes."

"And so you've met someone else. Someone who offers you all of what you've been missing. making the pain of your current marriage even harder to bear, right?"

"Exactly."

"And you're certain this new person is a gift from God, Who wants you, more than anything, to be happy. Yes?"

"Now you're finally understanding..."

"But that's not the God of Scripture. Who's told us so clearly in His Word what His plan for marriage is."

"Well, I don't know about that, but my god wouldn't be cruel and ask me to stay in this marriage when I finally have a chance to be happy."

The issue doesn't have to be marriage. It could be addiction, or dishonesty, or heretical views. Name your favorite debate and we can plug-and-play with the above conversation, but the rhythm will always be the same.

"God says in His Word..."

"Yeah, but..."

The anecdotal evidence in favor of our unlimited ability for self-justification is impressive. Self-justification is another expression of the autonomous self-love Ron writes about in this same post. That self-interest is an expression of autonomy that results in our embracing a neutered god, not the awe-inspiring God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—Who came to us definitively in Christ. When we approach god on our own terms, with autonomous self-interest as a motive, we do not meet the triune relational God of the Bible. Instead, we find our very own Golden Calf.

New and Improved!!

2009-10-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

New is powerful. New is seductive. New promises something more. Old is, well, old.

There's an old saying—sorry, I couldn't resist that transition—in advertising: The only thing more adaptable than the cockroach is the consumer. It encapsulates the idea that "new" is the holy grail of marketing. New markets. New products. New ideas. Marketing professionals seek these because we so readily tire of "old", and "new" is the only thing that can separate us from more of our money.

Too bad. Old can be very, very good. Wine, brandy, and friends come to mind. As does Christianity. It's an ancient faith. Perhaps not as old as Judaism or Hinduism, but very old nonetheless. For thousands of years creeds—very basic outlines of the Christian faith—have united Jesus' followers. For example, consider the Apostle's and the Nicene creeds. These are simple statements of faith that have served the church for centuries. But in the contemporary evangelical church, they are given little attention. That's largely because they're so old, along with the liturgies and ancient devotional practices that seem so dated nowadays. In their place we now have relevance, which can degenerate into an argument for newness.

A desire for the church to be "relevant" can be a good thing. German theologian and cultural critic Helmut Thielicke observed, "The Gospel must be repeatedly forwarded to a new address because the recipient is repeatedly changing places of residence." His wry observation underscores the need for relevance, which in the best sense is an imperative for presenting the Gospel, once and for all delivered to the saints, in a way that is understandable to a given culture.

Unfortunately, a push for relevance often degenerates into attempts to satisfy an appetite for something new. We no longer have church. We have gatherings. We no longer sing hymns. We sing choruses. We no longer have parishes. We have satellites. Our is the time of the Senior Pastor as CEO. If you google church leadership and you get 571,000 hits. Biblical preaching? 79,000. The missionary bulletin board gives way to the coffee ministry's menu. But according to John Meacham of Newsweek, the church in north America is in decline. Some might be tempted to point out that Newsweek knows something of decline and their assessment may be suspect. But frankly, his article passes the sniff test.

Meanwhile, mega-churches are thriving on a mixture of "new", with slick programming and an abundant offering of christian goods and services. Many of these large congregations are embracing the latest engine for church growth—satellite campuses. This "one-church-many-locations" approach leverages the personal popularity of high-capacity, high-profile leaders, along with technological advances, to extend the influence of a given church.

Even better, it's new.

Jesus did say that you cannot put new wine in old wine skins. The cultural forms of the church will change. The question is then not if, or how, they change, but why they change. If Christianity embraces something new in response to the Spirit's leading, we can all say, "Yes, and amen!" If it embraces "new" in response to consumer-driven cultural preference, we should be saying, "God forbid!" The deepest need in the North American church today is discernment, that we might know the difference between being led by the Spirit and being led by our natural desire for "new and improved".

MMMM, MMMM, MMMM...Subway (Sorry Quiznos)

2009-10-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

Do you ever stop to think how our appetites define us? There's a new series of Subway commercials out where a co-worker, who has obviously returned from a fast-food run, enters the workplace crying out his hungry associates orders.

"Who's got the extra-large opposite-sex-repellent special...the I'm-not-fat-I'm-just-husky combo...?"

The idea behind the spots is that one's fast-food appetite will shape who one is, quite literally. But I think the commercials have it backwards. I think one's identity shapes one's appetites.

The Bible talks about a fundamental change of identity: you who were once enemies of God, now have peace with Him; you were once slaves, but now you are free, etc. It's indicating more than just a change of external circumstances. The Scriptures teach a fundamental change of identity as a function of one's relationship to God.

Something else comes along with this change: new appetites. Or, if you'd rather, new desires. God promises to change our hearts, the repository of our desires, from stone to flesh and blood, a heart warm towards God—and warmed by His love which is poured out in our hearts by His Holy Spirit. New found appetites for God's presence, His Word, and fellowship with His people follow the changed heart. It's not that hot dogs, football, and fast cars lose their savor, but they align behind the stronger desires, the stronger loves, that come with genuine conversion.

Sin becomes an unwelcome interloper. It's not simply the consequences of sin, but sin itself to which we become increasingly allergic. A slave's desire to indulge himself is displaced by a son's desire to please his Father.

As Bobby Grow, in a comment on this post-in-process, observes: ontology always precedes epistemology. We are changed, and then we love...

Bluberries!

2009-07-17T15:32:00.000-07:00

I love summer in Oregon. We always enjoy a crop from a few blueberry plants we have, and thankfully you don't have to be particularly gifted to grow good fruit here. It does very well on its own. But this summer is special. This summer's crop is remarkable.

And it's not just our patch. This year's cherry crop is the most abundant in years. Things are so fat, the birds don't even bother with a suburban harvest like our. And our blueberries just keep getting fatter and sweeter each day.

As I was picking a few, I thought about this fruitfulness. Why this year? I'm not a farmer, but I think it has to do with extremes. We had a very cold wet winter—one that gave us 20" of snow on the valley floor. That hasn't happened in a hundred years. Then Summer came hot and fast. It was the extremes of wet cold and hot dry that stimulated our sweet bounty.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Christian "fruit" is like that. The love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, and self-control is Spirit-born, but the Spirit often uses extremes to ripen His fruit. How hard is it to remain peaceful when all is well? Not to tough, really. But what about when one is "pressed on all sides"? That's when the sweetness comes to the surface.

The wet-colds and hot-dries of life tend to be the circumstances were our fruitfulness is on display....

On the Lighter Side

2009-06-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Lancaster County centers on a centuries old community of Pennsylvania Dutch. Apparently, you gotta watch them closely.

Yes We Can, Leni?

2009-06-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else still hear echoes of Leni Riefenstahl in Will.i.am's February 08 ode to Obama?

Granted, there were overwrought comparison's when the video made its debut, but a lot has changed in the last 14 months. Campaign rhetoric has given way to the hard realities of governance. Citizens of all political persuasions have cause for concern over the breath-taking changes the current administration is making to an America "in crisis." Some fear the change is too much, while for others it's not happening as fast or as extensively as they would like.

But time offers perspective, eventually on the new president's policies and for now on Will.i.am's video. His is a brilliant example of political propaganda in the tradition of Riefenstahl. Do not for a moment think that this makes him a Nazi. I do not doubt the nobility of Will.i.am's intent. Rather, I am interested in the favorable comparison of two unarguably talented artists, and the outcome of their work.

Both were selling hard, well, and with impressive artistry. Both understood the power of film—image and music. Both produced their works in service of a charismatic leader determined to unite a nation behind a great quest. Both are unabashedly nationalistic and idealistic.

They are separated by the leaders they serve—and the evolving techniques of their art—among other considerations. But one cannot escape the similarities in their work: the powerful bond each film created between the leader and those led; the adulation these respective films lavished on Hitler and Obama. Each work stimulated intense feelings of attraction between the intended audiences and the feted leaders.

Will the similarities end with each leader's legacy? The answer has to be yes. Obama is not Hitler as some claim, but one cannot escape certain comparisons. He is a charismatic leader determined to remake his country after a radically progressive vision. The primacy of the State as evidenced in majority ownership of America's major manufacturing and financial corporations is radical, despite the precipitating events. Taking advantage of a "crisis" is radical. Decrying the country's Judeo-christian roots by characterizing the U.S. as a Muslim nation is radical—a noteworthy departure from traditional foreign policy rhetoric. These are but a few examples.

Calling Obama radical is verboten, though. It bucks the meme that he is a moderate pragmatist driven to extremes by unprecedented economic and Geo-political turmoil. I don't buy it, but that doesn't mean I want to denounce our new president. Radical does not mean bad or even wrong. It simply means a significant departure from the status quo. Jesus was radical. America's Founding Fathers were radical. When it comes to loving others and caring for the poor, I want to be radical. Radical is not bad. Radical is simply radical.

And so is Obama. The persona that Will.i.am helped create was a powerful icon. A symbol of all that can be right with America. A populist powerhouse. The American electorate responded to that persona, and elected Senator Obama our 44th president. But a person, not a persona, now sits in the Oval office, and the question becomes: will there be that jarring disconnect between art and reality that so colors Riefenstahl's work, or will Obama live up to Will.i.am's depiction of him? Hopefully, three years hence we'll answer, "Yes he did."

Faith and Reason

2009-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

NPR ran a piece on its web site examining the issue of a celibate Catholic clergy. While the program is interesting, what really caught my attention was a posted comment.

S C (AboutTime) wrote: I felt sad when I heard this story. Here is a man who has dedicated his life to others, who has had a key part of his life stolen from him by the church. When he realizes it, he is ostracized and suspended by the clergy. It is time to realize what faith really is: a disorder that requires treatment. Mon May 11 19:38:36 2009

According to SC, religious faith, and I presume Christian faith in particular, is a disorder requiring treatment. In other words, faith is reduced to cognitive belief in unreality—where a fundamental dichotomy exists between faith and reason. But is SC taking up a fully formed Christian view of faith? Sadly, according to some, he is.

The protestant church at large tends to lend tacit agreement to SC's view, wherein a mind-to-mind connection defines faith. "I believe" is reduced to "I think correctly about doctrines a to z." In some corners of the church this becomes almost mind over matter, where positive confession fueled by a special knowledge creates reality as God gives sovereign power to those who have "renewed minds", and as a result can speak things into existence.

According to more traditional protestant norms, this is at best heterodoxy and perhaps even heresy. But the extremes like this share an interesting commonality with more mainstream theology: God communicates with us mind-to-mind ("Come, let us reason together..."), rationality informs acts of the will empowered by grace, and heart-based relationship via the affections, or if you like emotions, are suspect.

In this rational system, it is easy to conflate faith into correct belief. Evangelism morphs from a presentation of a God who loves to a god who is reasonable. Adherence to dogma is the test of the truly faithful, and a defense of the faith is offered almost entirely in classic apologetic terms.

The Bible offers us a different view of faith, though. One which involves correct belief, but goes far beyond it to embrace a relational trust in the One who is completely trustworthy in His love. This One, revealed in Jesus Christ, is a very good communicator. He offers us Himself, quite literally in the flesh. And for those Christians who have yet to hold him as the Apostles did, He offers Himself to us in Word and Spirit.

But this bond with God in Christ is beyond mere rationality. It isn't irrational as SC asserts above, but it is super-rational. Unless someone's reality construct allows for the possibility of a super-rational, or supernatural, encounter with a living God, then faith and reason will always be at odds.

Art is Serious Business

2009-05-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I was asked to give a talk by New Wine, New Wineskins on art and business at their Created to Create day conference. My first thought was to talk about what it's like to be an artist working mostly for commercial concerns. A talk like that would be easy. A war few stories. Some observations about the utility of art in commercial service. 5-10 minutes for questions. Good to go.

The more I thought about the opportunity, the more I wanted to test drive some of the ideas in my last two posts. There's nothing that compares to presenting ideas to real flesh and blood. You either get affirmative nodding, or the equivalent of a Golden Retriever's "Huh?" head cock. At worst, you get no response, but regardless, you learn something about the stickiness of your ideas.

I presented four ideas stemming from the assertion that art is serious business. First, art is used by business to move trillions of dollars in consumer goods. A full 70% of US GDP is consumer spending on stuff, much of which artists (writers, designers, film makers, etc) who work for marketers convince us that we need.

Second, businesses understand that art speaks to the heart in a non-rational dynamic that fuels desire. Even the most rational among us ultimately does what they do because they want to. I've heard it argued that no one "wants to" take out the garbage. This is often cited as evidence that what really moves us is a rationally directed volition that's infinitely more understandable than squishy things like desire.

But let's consider the example. Suppose I want my wife's approval, or her affections later in the evening. Or, suppose I want to ambush a roommate who was supposed to take out the trash, but didn't. In both examples a stronger desire (for sex or revenge) overcomes my desire to avoid a nasty task like taking out the garbage. It's self-evident that humans are rational creatures who often set aside rationality because they want to. Their, our, actions are most often rooted in the tangled web of desires resident in the deepest part of us—our hearts. Business marketers understand this better than many philosophers and theologians, and they use art to stimulate desire.

My third point was that the Western Evangelical church has largely adopted the same utilitarian use of art exhibited by business. In the words of a young film maker, "We're directing traffic instead of hearts." His point is that the church is using art to direct people to events and products, rather than to Christ. It is a utilitarian view of art that mirrors and supports a utilitarian view of Christian spirituality, wherein Christ is a way to realize our full potential for well-being.

Moving on to my fourth point (more of a conclusion, really), I offered a portion of Francis Shaeffer's quote that we need to move from "a legacy of utilitarian art to an aesthetic of doxology." Art has tremendous potential for stimulating worship, the giving of glory to God in loving communion with Him and others. It doesn't have to happen within the confines of the church. Moreover, it shouldn't. The artist has the advantage of showing us things in an unusual way that is disarming. A way that gets under our "radar" which says, "You've seen this before. Move along." The church is seldom comfortable with this handling of its subjects. Consider Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son. He offers a beautiful visual sermon that is a better exegetical handling of the passage than that of most preachers. His genius is in his meditation on the son who remains and "obeys."

I took a lot of questions after the presentation. I think some of it stuck.

Marketing and Ministry 2: Jesus as a Means

2009-03-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

The image above may raise some eyebrows in the church, but the recent article that it accompanies should give serious pause. In my last post I raised some questions about the relationship between marketing and ministry, offering some preliminary conclusions. The book above is an apt illustration of the problem with that relationship.

Carter and Coleman write on their web site:

"The authors then pull some very simple rhetorical lessons from Jesus’ life that readers can use today. Both Christian and non-Christian leaders in just about any field can improve their ability to communicate effectively by studying the words and methods of history’s greatest communicator."

In other words, Jesus becomes a means to an end. We can make use of him—quite apart from receiving him by faith—for a desired end. Jesus is therefore relevant because he is useful, and we can sell the benefits of following his example. I know nothing of the authors' intent. Nor do I know if they are Christians, but it matters not to the point I wish to make: the crass marketing of Jesus demonstrated by the premise of this book bears a remarkable similarity to the approach many evangelical churches pursue in their marketing—what they might call "outreach."

Google "evangelical church" and you'll see a host of sites that seemingly share a common view of our Savior with the book's authors. Jesus can help you be healthy, successful, and fulfilled. The Bible is full of great principles that will improve your marriage, ensure obedient children, and fend off the uncertainties of modern life. You do have to tease these assertions from clever sermon titles and ministry blurbs, but the promises are there to be sure.

The Scriptures leave little doubt that God is graciously disposed towards his children in Christ, but they also bear witness to a Kingdom reality that is at odds with the many self-directed desires of modern society. Quite apart from what our self-obsession might lead us to believe about "felt needs", God assumes that we have one need that outweighs all others. We need righteousness. Jesus stresses this in his Sermon on the Mount. So our problem then isn't a lousy marriage, rowdy kids, or bad breath. It's sin, in stark contrast to righteousness.

To be sure, Christ met other needs while here on earth. He fed hungry people and healed many, but he also showed a remarkable reluctance when people began to view him as a means to an end. Consider John's Gospel, beginning in chapter 6. Jesus has miraculously fed thousands, and now they want to make him king. As we move through the subsequent narrative, we see two things. Jesus actively frustrates their political overtures, and subsequently the motives of those large crowds are exposed for what they are (John 8)—desires that are radically opposed to God's purpose in Christ.

When we approach the Savior, wanting to claim him as our own in order to get what we want, he resists us. His Spirit points to our real motives, and the fact that we really don't love him. He points to our sin, and our critical need for redemption.

Marketing, on the other hand, assumes we have many other needs besides redemption, all deeply felt and valid. Those desires are good because they motivate commercial responses. Far from being passive exploiters of our innate needs, marketers constantly seek to create new needs, which in turn sell new products designed to meet them.

Given what I've outlined above, is the ministry approach of many modern western Evangelical churches more deeply influenced by God's upside down Kingdom, or by marketing's wizardry?

More on that question later...

Marketing or Ministry?

2009-03-06T16:53:00.001-08:00

Something happened this week that got me thinking about marketing and ministry.

We produced this video at our church to celebrate our Children's Ministry and to support an effort recruiting new volunteers. The response was telling. Generally, the most driven and capable people in leadership were critical of the video. Conversely, those who aren't high-profile, high-capacity people were the most complimentary of it. In short, the video stimulated a curiously polarized reaction.

I began to wonder what might be the reason for the split. It occurred to me that high-capacity, results-oriented leaders are generally more attuned to the finer points of marketing, appreciating its effectiveness at helping them achieve their goals. These folks were much more alert to the problems with this piece—and there are problems which I'd be hard pressed to defend from the perspective of marketing. On the other hand, the humble person in the pew with no such aspirations may actually be more attuned to ministry. These were the ones who looked past the marketing and connected with the ministry presented.

My speculation sets up an interesting set of questions. What is the relationship between marketing and ministry? Is it mutually supportive, or even compatible? How do our attitudes towards marketing, or most precisely our confidence in it, shape our view of ministry? Before we examine these questions, let me say that I think Jesus was a lousy marketer—and thank God he was.

Marketing is about connecting products or services with a targeted consumer in such a way that the consumer desires those products or services more than competitive offerings. Marketers use disciplines like branding, design, advertising, public relations, and product demonstrations to create those connections and, in most cases, even the desire. No one ever came out of the womb wanting an iPhone. Marketing's ministry proponents would probably contend that marketing is morally neutral. If you're marketing something good, then the act itself is good. So why is marketing noticeable set aside in the gospels?

I believe Jesus didn't do marketing as I've defined it. In fact, he employed what I'll call anti-marketing. In John 6 for example, when he had the crowds at the point where they wanted to make him king, he said things that disgusted them. He told them, in effect, that the desires his "product demo" had stimulated in them were not what he had come to satisfy. Instead of bread to eat, he offered them himself. In the most intimate and shocking terms, and he claimed that if they were rightly related to God, then what he offered would be the very thing they most desired. Most of those who heard him then left grumbling (Perhaps to look for another messianic figure who made better use of marketing). They were disillusioned by the obvious chasm between what they wanted—what they believed he would give them—and what he actually offered.

Jesus questioned the humble few who remained—those he had chosen—asking if they were going to leave too. In reply, they asked him to whom they would go since it was he who had the words of eternal life. They weren't dissuaded from following him by the effect his anti-marketing had on the crowds. They were attracted by his offer of himself. They had experienced his ministry intimately, and ultimately it would be their self-effacing word of their testimony (Acts 3:12, 4:13, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 26-31) that would attract others after He had commissioned them to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).

The incident in John 6 is more illustrative than isolated. Consider the parable of the sowers as training for ministry. When Jesus explains it to his disciples, he is preparing them for the relatively small numbers who will genuinely (fruitfully) respond to their preaching. If he were marketing the gospel, he would more likely offer them training designed to maximize the numeric response. Furthermore, in Mark's gospel (1:38 and 43) Jesus is compelled to be more covert by the numeric response to spectacular displays of his power in order that he might preach.

I think the reason Jesus didn't employ the equivalent of modern marketing is because the discipline is specifically designed to stimulate consumerist individualism, something that is ultimately at odds with his kingdom. Returning then to some of the original questions posed above, I'd have to say that there are fundamental incompatibilities between marketing and ministry. Furthermore, a negative view of marketing as a communications tool will have a profound impact on how one ministers the gospel.

More on that in a follow-up post...

Buy Saturn

2009-02-20T17:03:00.000-08:00

Doug Lowell, chief creative at Portland-based ID Branding posted about Saturn's expected independence from GM.

Hallelujah!

I look forward to buying from a once great brand that retails exceptional cars. I look forward to rewarding the courage of Saturn. And I will. As soon as I can afford a new car.

Simple Piety

2009-02-19T10:42:00.000-08:00

I work with a lot of church folks who are trying to promote their latest ministry. Everyone has a different, and they believe better, way for all of us to be better Christians. They usually hold this view because they believe God has given them a vision for ministry, a purpose if you will, that they are destined to fulfill.

So with all of the effort and resources devoted to a variety of sometimes competing visions that God is supposedly giving to His shepherds, why is it that the church (at least the North American Evangelical church) so often seems self-absorbed and powerless? Could it be that the ministry activities designed to fulfill supposedly God-given visions are rooted in something other than Divine guidance? I think so.

I wonder what would happen in the aforementioned Evangelical church if its adherents simply fell in love with Christ and His Word. What if clever marketing and consumer-centric approaches were replaced by the genuine power of the Holy Spirit? What if lives that were deeply marinated in the Word overflowed with selfless concern for the welfare and souls of others?

I'm not naive enough to believe that the Western Evangelical church is the best, and certainly not the only, representation of Christ's church. I am confounded by how little most of the Evangelicals I know actually spend time with God in His Word. They profess a love of Christ, and they are often very faithful when serving in a particular ministry. But activity seems to trump relationship, where those who are most "faithful" often have the least time left over for just being with God.

It makes me wonder what a return to the priorities of a simple piety would birth in my church?

Obama Backlash?

2008-12-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

In an interview given to Britain's Sky News, the UK equivalent to Fox, former New York Govenor and McCain supporter Rudy Giuliani said this about President-Elect Obama:

"Even those who voted against him, like me, say 'We're very thankful this has happened. This is the consolation prize. In having lost in terms of the ideology we wanted, or the person we wanted -- John McCain -- the benefit that we got was an America that can say to the world we've overcome the worst thing in our history.' "If you look at America -- which I believe is a great nation, a beautiful nation, a nation of altruistic goals and very often great altruistic accomplishments -- one of the terrible marks against us is slavery and racism, and I think that's a great thing for America to have overcome."

Although I've heard many African-American leaders express a deep sense of national pride that as a country we've finally elected the first black President. I haven't heard those same leaders go farther, and say that we have "overcome racism." I wonder how long it will be before this tacit disagreement gives rise to some expression of the tension that still exists in our country over the issue of race.

Long time coming

2008-10-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

The post title is linked to an old Art Center classmate's work, Bill Cone's. I remember how well he could always draw. Apparently, he's kept it up.

Nother one...

2008-06-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

Father's Day

2008-06-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

Slide Show or Movie?

2008-03-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that transformative power fills the New Testament. In fact, it fairly saturates it, and we're left with the question: Why the apparent discrepancy between the 21st and the 1st century church? Is the church now weak and sinful to such a degree that it is comparatively ineffective? The same might be asked of the Corinthians after reading Paul's first letter. Or the Ephesians (led by Timothy) after reading of their Lord's warning in John's Revelation.

Hmm, the first-century church, resplendent with transformative power seems a lot like the 21st century church in some quarters: practicing partisanship, embracing personality cults, indulging sexual immorality, and thriving as prideful doctrinaires who are good at religion, but lack any love for Jesus. What are to make of this? The answer lies with the Bible's writers.

The New Testament writers were also editors, and while they reported sin as honestly as they reported the miraculous work of Jesus Christ, their medium demanded editing. John writes this explicitly in his gospel. Luke implies as much in his writings. We're missing all of the in between bits, which are the bits that most readily compress the distance between the first and the 21st century church.

The rub? When we compare our own experience of the church to Scripture, it's like comparing real life to a very carefully edited work. It can make real life look pretty bad, or good, depending on the editorial intent. The danger is in the comparison. Comparing one's experience to Scripture is not the same as good solid exegesis and application.

And it is the lack of good exegesis often leads to a somewhat strident hand-wringing over the Church's ineffectiveness. I respectfully disagree that the contemporary Church is relatively ineffective and irrelevant, and believe that view to be a little short-sighted. The Holy Spirit is still doing remarkable work throughout the world, continuing Christ's ministry. The same Spirit Who enlivened the Church in Acts still works today, and He moves (John 3) where He will. The relative impotence we see in that strain of evangelical churches infected with consumerism is not an argument for the Church's ineffectiveness. Even though it may well be a very good argument for your church's ineffectiveness, or mine, for that matter.

If you disagree, turn off the plasma screen, leave the local mega-church coffee bar, and talk to people—especially about your brothers and sisters in places outside the US. I think you'll be greatly encouraged.

Why do I love Bob Potter so much?

2008-03-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

One of the pastors at my church, Beaverton Foursquare, is suffering from brain cancer. Bob is a Children's Pastors and a member of the senior staff. The doctors have done all they can, sending him home to be with his family and await his passing. I've been down this road a couple of times in the last four or five years. Men like Ron Mehl and Chuck Updike who have shepherded me have also succumbed to cancer, but this one hurts more. I'm not sure exactly why, but I do know that in some way Bob has gotten to me. And that's a good thing.

The Scriptures talk of believers as the fragrance of Christ. With some, you only catch a faint whiff, but with others like Bob, the aroma is unmistakable. When you spent time with him, you knew you were with someone who unashamedly loved the Savior above all else.

I first got to know Bob at a men’s retreat. He might not remember speaking, but his talk had a big impact on me. I was young, maybe 35, or so. Bob shared speaking duties that day with Stone Rose, a PGE worker who gave a stunning testimony of his electrocution and God’s deliverance. Bob’s talk was less dramatic, but it took root more deeply in my heart. Bob spoke simply, and passionately, of God’s faithfulness, his love for Jesus, and the trust that grew from that love.

I was ripe for that heartfelt talk. I had been doing Christianity. Attending church, taking care of my responsibilities, but a passion for God? Not so much. Bob helped change that. I saw a beautiful transparency in his talk that showed me what profound intimacy with Jesus looked like, and I knew I was missing something. My guess is that this pattern repeated itself often as Bob’s sincere love for Christ wrapped others in its embrace.

About ten years after that first retreat, I had another memorable encounter with Bob. Appropriately, it was at another men’s retreat, and we had broken up into small groups for prayer. Our group was Bob, myself and another gentleman. As this third man began to unfold a woeful tale, I found myself getting angry. He wasn’t the victim he was portraying himself to be. It was pretty obvious that many of his troubles were of his own making. I was torn between ripping into him or just keeping silent when Bob spoke. It was as if Jesus were talking to the man. It was clear that the Holy Spirit was ministering to this discouraged Christian in the person of Bob Potter. I was privileged to see the compassion of Christ touch a hurting heart. I saw a real pastor do something remarkable—begin the repair of a human soul. Bob was a living illustration of the One Isaiah’s wrote about when he described the Messiah as one who would not break the bruised reed or snuff out the smoking flax.

Bob is among a handful of people at Beaverton Foursquare who have most impacted me for Christ’s sake. He probably doesn’t even know that, and it might even surprise him. As much as I rejoiced in Ron Mehl’s gift for communicating God’s love from he pulpit, it was men like Bob, living letters written by God Himself, who had a deeper and more personal effect on my life.

There are probably thousands of such stories, of which my “Potterized” men’s retreat tales are only a part. I know there have to be that many because Bob could not help but create them as he spread the goodness of Christ’s love. I pray that those who love Bob will take a few minutes to thank God for the gift of his presence among us. Never have I known someone who so selflessly offered the fruit of the Spirit.

I could go on, but I guess the simplest answer to the question of why I love Bob Potter so much is that he loves Jesus so much. And his love for Christ is like a Holy hug that offers us the invitation to come and join in. I can imagine what that will be like someday—to actually feel that embrace. I’ll see Bob and the Lord, and run up for a good group hug. I’ll have missed Bob, so I’ll look at him and ask how he is. Without a doubt, I’ll hear his signature reply, “Never better!”

Still the Word?

2008-03-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

From a recent NYT article, quoted on The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right:

Ajinbayo Akinsiku wants the world to know Jesus Christ, just not the gentle, blue-eyed Christ of old Hollywood movies and illustrated Bibles.
Mr. Akinsiku says his Son of God is “a samurai stranger who’s come to town, in silhouette,” here to shake things up in a new, much-abridged version of the Bible rooted in manga, the Japanese form of graphic novels.

“We present things in a very brazen way,” said Mr. Akinsiku, who hopes to become an Anglican priest and who is the author of “The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation.” “Christ is a hard guy, seeking revolution and revolt, a tough guy.”

Publishers with an eye for evangelism and for markets have long profited by directing Bibles at niche markets: just-married couples, teenage boys, teenage girls, recovering addicts. Often the lure is cosmetic, like a jazzy new cover.

Sales of graphic novels, too, have grown by double digits in recent years. So it makes sense that a convergence is under way, as graphic novels take up stories from the Bible, often in startling ways. In the last year, several major religious and secular publishing houses have announced or released manga religious stories.

The medium shapes the message. Manga often focuses on action and epic. Much of the Bible, as a result, ends up on the cutting room floor, and what remains is darker.

“It is the end of the Word as we know it, and the end of a certain cultural idea of the Scriptures as a book, as the Book,” Timothy Beal, professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, said of the reworking of the Bible in new forms, including manga. “It opens up new ways of understanding Scripture and ends up breaking the idols a bit.”

While known for characters with big eyes and catwalk poses, manga is also defined by a laconic, cinematic style, with characters often doing more than talking.

In a blurb for the Manga Bible, which is published by Doubleday, the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, is quoted as saying, “It will convey the shock and freshness of the Bible in a unique way.”

No doubt. In the Manga Bible, whose heroes look and sound like skateboarders in Bedouin gear, Noah gets tripped up counting the animals in the Ark: “That’s 11,344 animals? Arggh! I’ve lost count again. I’m going to have to start from scratch!”

Abraham rides a horse out of an explosion to save Lot. Og, king of Bashan, looms like an early Darth Vader. The Sermon on the Mount did not make the book, though, because there was not enough action to it.
The Manga Bible sold 30,000 copies in Great Britain, according to Doubleday. The print run in this country is 15,000, and it sells for $12.95.

Mr. Akinsiku, 42, who uses the pen name Siku, grew up in England and Nigeria in an Anglican family of Nigerian descent. He recently graduated from theology school in London. For years, he has worked as an artist, and a rendering of the Bible was the best way of glorifying God, he said in a telephone interview from London.

While younger adults and teenagers are the most avid consumers of manga, Mr. Akinsiku said he had heard from grandmothers who picked up the book as a gift for their grandchildren. The book is meant to be a first taste of the Bible, which many feel too intimidated to read, Mr. Akinsiku said. Every few pages, a small tab refers to the biblical verses the action covers.

“For the unchurched, the book is to show that this thing, the Bible, is still relevant,” he said, “because it talks about what human beings do when they encounter God.”

Christian thinkers have tried to make the Bible accessible for centuries, scholars said. Stained glass windows related Bible stories when Europe was largely illiterate. New printing technology in the 19th century made it possible to mass-produce Bibles, including illustrated versions, said Peter J. Thuesen, acting chairman of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

As literacy rose (and marketing flowered), individual families bought Bibles. In the 1960s and 1970s, books like the Living Bible and the Way came out, written in vernacular English, although scholars criticize their accuracy.

In the past decade, as consumer products have been directed at niche markets and religious services tailored to different groups, publishers have made more money by creating Bibles to serve certain groups, said Lynn Schofield Clark, director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media at the University of Colorado.

A few years ago, for example, the religious publisher Thomas Nelson issued a Bible for teenage girls called Revolve, which looked like a glossy magazine. It sold 40,000 copies in a month, Ms. Clark said, a staggering number for a Bible.

The goal of the Bibles is not just to win people to Christ, but to particular ways of thinking, said Jason BeDuhn, associate professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University. Mr. Akinsiku said the biblical message he wanted to underscore was justice, especially for the poor.

His book has been criticized by some manga bloggers as too wordy. Mr. Akinsiku said the exposition gave readers a quick understanding of the Bible. His next project is a manga life of Christ. He has 300 pages to lay it out, which means there will be a lot more action, a lot less talking, something like Clint Eastwood in the Galilee.

Consuming Jesus

2008-03-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

In the interests of full disclosure, This post is about a good friend's latest book, Consuming Jesus by Paul Louis Metzger. I studied with Dr. Metzger at Multnomah Biblical Seminary, and in the years since my graduate work there, we've become good friends and partners in the work of the Gospel.

He argues that the divisions of race and class which plague us within North American evangelicalism are deeply ingrained in structures that are largely invisible to the average conservative American Christian. He continues by offering a theological model for overcoming barriers of race and class within the church.

It is a well-sourced, well-written work, that's very accessible to the average pastor or informed lay leader. This is not a study attempting to jump on the latest emergent band wagon, nor is it a rehash of mid 20th century mainline social gospel concerns. It is a relatively short book that tackles a daunting subject with admirable depth. Check it out on amazon.com—or click on the title above, read the reviews, and take the plunge. The read is worth the ride.

Religulous

2008-03-05T07:23:00.000-08:00

Bill Maher's argument is this:

I don't know what happens after I die.
Therefore, you can't know what happens after you die.

Talk about an arrogant, unsupported assertion.

I'll still see the film though, if for no other reason than to be able to affirmatively answer, when discussing his movie, the question, "Have you seen it?"

I'm getting a little weary of "doubters" insisting we play on their non-metaphysical field. Maybe it's time to change the terms of the debate.

This is all so 18th century!

Peaks-n-Valleys

2008-01-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

Up and down. There's an appropriate rhythm to this landscape. Isn't there? Kind of like life.

Waves

2007-12-29T10:28:00.000-08:00

They come, whether we want then to or not. Like sets in the sea, life's milestones roll in on us. First tooth. First fight. Loosing first tooth in first fight. You get the idea. Life's variety offers an odd interplay of the expected and the random. But are the random events really random?

That's a big question, and it goes to the heart of God's providence. Is He there? And if so, is He paying attention? I believe He is.

People who need hope, really need hope, are glad to hear of that, but God's providence is a lesser order question for a lot of us who are pretty satisfied with our lives. We've very little to hope for that isn't narcissistic on the one hand, or pretty accessible on the other. What does someone who has wealth and opportunity that is unimaginable for 95% of the world's population hope for? More of the same? But what if you don't have clean water, or food enough? And what if you have little hope of escaping the poverty and oppression that has you wanting these necessities in the first place?

If that's your lot then a God who shows up in human history; A God who actually does something redemptive is a very attractive proposition. In Christianity, He's more than an abstraction. He has a name. It's Jesus.

The Scriptures tell us that He came as a human being, incarnate, literally "in meat." Why? In the simplest terms, to bridge the infinite gulf between Creator and creation. God wasn't just wholly other, He was now one of us. But the literal apprehension of the Incarnation has even broader implications. It demonstrates the degree to which God has involved Himself in human affairs. It promises that the idea of providence is both rich and meaningful.

The term providence gets bandied about a lot, and there's a lot of misunderstanding about it's importance. No less than John Calvin threw his weight behind the idea. As a pastor of infant Protestants, he was faced with offering assurance to these believers, who were no longer under Rome's umbrella, where salvation was a matter of church communion. It was getting personal. So how did you know if you're in? Calvin's views on providence were stimulated, in part, by a desire to construct a biblical theology that offered assurance of God's good disposition towards His children. Never mind that later reformers, looking for a more systematic approach turned Calvin's work into Calvinism. There's good reading in The Institutes, particularly on this issue of providence.

So what do you think about "waves?"

Christmas

2007-12-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

Our theme this year at Beaverton Foursquare is the Hidden Gift. It's tough coming up with a Christmas theme that's fresh each year, but I think this one fits the bill. It's got a lot of depth. On one level, it talks of the small, unnoticed, ways God touches our lives. They're hidden in the main, since few if any outside the touch ever know of them. Though all we have to do is look. They're right there.

For example, I remember the sheer joy of driving over Cooper Mountain on the way to pick my daughters up from dance class and seeing the brushwork of a winter's sunset played on the cloud cover. I felt as if God had given me a treat to brighten my heart—a little hug from God, if you will. I would turn off the radio, and talk with Him. The interruption a welcome invitation.

Somewhat deeper is the theological impetus behind the theme. The humility and condescension of God, who veiled all of Deity in human flesh. As my pastor said, the Cross cast a shadow over the manger. He's right, of course, but what we see so plainly in retrospect was hidden from Jesus contemporaries, and even the foreshadowing prophecies spoken over the Christ child were "hidden" away in Mary's heart. Certainly, those closest to Him were surprised by Easter's turn of events.

The real question is: Why is He "hidden" from so many today? There's a whole other post brewing there, but maybe we can say that we, His followers, could do a better job of inviting others to know Jesus. I know I could.

It's Been Forever...

2007-10-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's easy to get sucked into blogging. I was blown away looking at my dashboard. If I spent an hour a week on each blog, I'd chew through the better part of a day and a half.

It's time to focus.

I'm thinking I'll post on Sunday@6 and this blog, occasionally lurking on the others.

What happened since my last post?

The stock market went way up and then down some. We were going into a recession, but now we're not. maybe.

My daughters got a little older and a little smarter.

I love my wife more. She's an amazing person.

I did some work, some ministry, taught a little, and failed some at all of the above.

I had a week where I met the most incredible people. One was born with no legs, and more than enough grit to make up for that. He's humble, in the best sense. Confident and winsome. I'm blessed to have met him. Two others are married. Over the years they've adopted 10 children with profound medical and/or social needs: throw-away kids. They also have three natural children for a total of thirteen. Not to mention scores of others that they informally fostered. It was hard, they'd admit, and not for everyone. But they wouldn't trade having done it for anything.

My oldest daughter is learning to hang with Standford's academic demands.

I was sad, and God gave me hope.

One of my best friends decided to move to Hawaii. The other spent a couple of weeks in China.

Hillary looked like a lock, and then again, maybe not.

I still haven't decided who I'm voting for.

I nagged my oldest daughter about registering to vote.

We took care of a friend's dog for a weekend. Bliss.

We discussed getting a dog. Jury's still out.

There's lots more. The kind of stuff that serves as mortar for the bigger bricks in life. A hundred people could've written a blog like this, and probably did. I've no illusions about the uniqueness of this post. I just need to write. Keep the spigot open. Hoping something worth reading will come out.

Yeah.

Loving Mercy

2007-07-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Do you love mercy? In the Scriptures, the word sometimes translated "mercy" can also be rendered "steadfast love." So when I ask, "Do you love mercy?", I really ask, "Do you love love?" Specifically, the love that God offers.

Before you answer too quickly, think about it. Jesus ate with sinners, and it hacked off the religious leaders of His day to no end. These were the guys who should've known better. They should have recognized Him. Some did, but most just couldn't get their arms around Jesus as Messiah.

He touched the untouchable, accepted lavish worship from the sexually immoral, and dared to reckon the Samaritans (at best, considered heretics by religious Jews) among God's beloved. All of that lavish love earned Him derision and eventually death. Some would argue His death came as a political necessity. Sure, He was a radical, but not as a political reformer, as some hold. He simply loved radically. And He was hated for that by the "church" of His day.

Do we still hate Him for that? We, the church? Are we like the Ephesians mentioned in John's Revelation? Long on righteousness, only to be found wanting in our love for Him?

I can't speak for everyone, but I know that sometimes I am guilty of just such a charge.

am i a sieve?

2007-07-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

It's not a terribly attractive image, is it? But it can be very instructive.

A sieve separates desirable elements from unwanted material allowing one to pass and the other to remain. In the case of a liquid that you want to clear of solids, the solids remain behind as unwanted, leaving the liquid to pass through in a pure state.

I want to be a sieve, where the pure love of God poured out in my heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) passes through me to others, leaving behind the still stubborn sin of my flesh. I think this is how Christianity is supposed to work. If you've ever been to a wedding where a Bible verse is read, chances are you have heard 1 Corinthians 13. It is a beautifully descriptive passage that teaches us to do all in love. It says that anything overtly religious (and even admirable) is meaningless is it is not done in love.

I take that to mean that it is entirely possible to be very religious, to demonstrate an outward piety, and to have all of it be less than zero if love isn't the motivating and sustaining quality of such "obedience."

But if I'm a sieve, then God's love passes through me to others carrying none of the taint of self-satisfaction, self-glorification, or self-absorption. The dross of sin is left behind, to be searched out and healed (even killed) by the Spirit's washing of me in the Word. I can truly die to myself, with no worry that the inexhaustible supply of God's love will cease to fill me no matter how my life is poured out for others.

May I live as God invites. Counting my life as lost for Christ's sake. This idea makes my heart swell with desire, but conflicting affections claw at me, inviting a typically selfish response.

Who can save me from this body of death? Praise be to God who has given me Christ, my savior. Amen.

My Hero

2007-06-12T22:29:00.000-07:00

My hero is my dad. He’s not Superman, and he sure isn’t perfect, but he always showed up. He never phoned it in. He never sat on the bench. He was always in the game, and I love him for that.

I learned a lot from my hero. I learned how to change the oil in a ’63 VW Bug. I learned to watch out for the pulling guard on a sweep while playing outside linebacker. I learned that I was a lousy liar, and he had a nose for the truth. I learned that what made you a man wasn’t the strength of your arm, but the rock-solid nature of your character. Even so, my dad had a strong arm.

My dad also taught me with his mistakes. He taught me that the most important words a man can ever say are, “I’m sorry.” Followed immediately by, “I love you.” He showed me what it was like to do the right thing, even when it scares you to death.

My dad is like a lot of dads who never earn the media spotlight because they are just dads, doing what they’re supposed to do. I have no doubt they do it because they love their families. Mine did.

Thanks, Dad. I love you.

Silly or Deep?

2007-06-08T07:13:00.001-07:00

Recently, a friend of mine asked a question on his blog: What if you wish upon a star and later find out that it was a satellite? I answered it this way:

Great question.

It seems to me the question isn't a silly one at all. It's actually really deep: what do we do when mysterious beauty and possibility are replaced by scientific certainty? I could take "scientific certainty" to task for being less scientific and certain than it is, but the more interesting question is what do you do when something, anything, destroys the mysteriously beautiful possibilities in life?

There is a sense in which Jesus is inviting us into those possibilities when he tells us that if we have sufficient faith, we can move a mountain. Most folks get the hyperbole here, but it is still a fascinating statement. Life is full of the possibility-versus-certainty tension. Will I be happy? Will I ever have a family? What if I end up poor? Will riches make me happy? My point is this: it is the questions we engage that make life really interesting.

What is it like to follow Jesus whole-heartedly? Could I really trust him with everything in my life? What if I sold all I had and gave it to the poor? What would happen then? Can I really do all the things he did, and more? Am I trying to keep my life? Will I lose it then? What if I really do let go...?

A scientist with a microscope and a telescope (or satellite) can't answer those kinds of questions. A scientist can't strip them of their beauty and possibility. That's why we're still asking them after all of these years.

How would you answer?

Beaverton Foursquare

2007-05-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks for visiting.

:-)

My Mom

2007-05-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

The following is a letter I wrote for our church’s Mother’s Day bulletin. The person I had in mind when I wrote it was my mom, Shirley, who I love very much. Enjoy, mom.

Dear Mom,

Thank you.

Thank you that I don’t have a broken neck, and that my eye hasn’t been poked out by a popsicle stick. Thank you for being right just because you said so.

Thank you for all the late night prayers that I never knew about. Thank you that my breakfast was still ready and waiting for me after those sleepless nights of prayer. Thank you for the protection of those prayers. I was never run over by a truck, but even if I had been, they would have seen at the hospital that my underwear was clean. You saw to that too.

Thank you for letting me grow up, to get bruised a little along the way no matter how much that hurt you.

Thank you for getting so much “smarter” as I got older.

Thank you for the good food, warm bed, and clean clothes that I took for granted. Thank you for not handing me a bill and showing me the door during my less than grateful teen years. Thank you for being there the first time I got my heart broken. Thank you for making so many things better with a hug and a kiss.

Thank you for loving dad, and all of the rest of us so much.

Thank you for being mom.

Your loving child...Steve

On Writing

2007-05-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

I've been asked three times in as many weeks if I've ever thought of taking up writing.

Yesssssss! But not without the following question coming hard on the heels of my answer, "How?"

I don't find writing hard. I find finding the story hard. For much of my adult life I've written for others as part of designing ads, brochures, Web sites...whatever. The content always originates with someone else, and it is my job to connect their audience in a powerful, relevant, and memorable way with their content.

Apart from this blog and a few stories I made up for my kids, I've written very little that comes straight out of me. I'm not sure what's in there, but I am sure that I'd like to find out. It seems important somehow for me to see what might come to light if I start rummaging around in there a bit.

On the downside: I can't touch type, which I'm sure would get me lynched by a bunch of snooty Portland writers if I tried to join their ranks and they discovered my shame.

I Don't Know

2007-04-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know if we need more gun laws or not. I don't know if the horribly distrubed VT killer should've been stopped by psychologists, psychiatrists, or school administrators. I don't know if the police could have done a better job. I don't know if there's any comfort in the constant stream of recriminations, especially for the families who've lost their loved ones. I don't know if my own life is safe from such a cold and capricious touch. I don't know how to explain evil to someone.

I don't know why others seem so sure of their answers to the difficult questions that always follow such a tragedy.

I do know that what happened Monday was horrible. I do know that it makes me want to pray more earnestly. I do know that God is good, even though life sometimes isn't. These are among the things I am sure of. It's a short list, but an important one.

Hollow as a Chocolate Bunny

2007-04-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Easter is a big deal for Christians.

But it's also a big deal with those that don't share the faith. It's that charming weekend (in some cases, long weekend) that kicks off Spring with lot's of chocolate and squealing kids. It's a commercial holiday that displays an overindulgence and self-satisfaction second only to Christmas.

How did we ever get here? Easter's like the Superbowl for Christians. It's the big game to end all games. Jesus goes toe-to-toe with death and kicks the Grim Reaper's butt. Let's see a chocolate bunny do that.

Couldn't happen. Those bunnies are empty.

2007-03-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

Wow. Stanford.

My daughter just found out she was accepted to the undergrad program, class of 2011.

Amusing Ourelves to Death

2007-03-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Entertaining Church

As a kid, I found the circus, a parade, an episode of Monty Python, or even a half-chewed hunk of bubble gum more captivating than church. A lot has changed since then. If anything, the various ways we can amuse ourselves has grown expotentially. And "church" has worked hard to keep from losing ground.

More's the pity.

Whatever its failings, church used to be church. Distinct from other institutions. Mysterious and, yes, awe-inspiring. Even as the afore-mentioned distracted kid, I can remember gingerly entering a church with a sense of reverence. It was a congregation that still practiced high liturgy, and the feeling came from the church. Not my parents or anyone else. My dad was an agnostic who used to joke that he made it through a liturgical service (or any other for that matter) by counting ceiling tiles. Mom was too busy wrangling four wriggling boys to display even a modicum of reverence. So where did the feeling come from? It came from a sense of otherness that the church oozed.

As that kid, I knew I was in a place that wasn't like any other. The experience assaulted me with a sense of the divine, and I both loathed and loved it.

It's hard to find a church like that today. Even those that still have an architecture and physical space designed to communicate otherness have so accomodated contemporary tastes in order to become "relevent" that they've dulled their distinction from society's more earthbound institutions.

More's the pity.

So what do contemporary churches do? They get with the program. Better sound systems. Bigger, more professional bands. Eye-tickling lighting. They entertain. My question? Is it still church? What makes church obviously different from any other organization—somethiing more than a social club with outstanding production values?

Christ. The Lord of all, and Lover of our souls. As the Church (capital "C", as opposed to "church"), it is our delight to proclaim Christ. To shout the Gospel of God's love for us in Christ. To celebrate the mystery of His coming to save us as one of us. That doesn't sound like entertainment. It sounds like life. The really tough part of answering the question I posed above is not the "what", or the "Who" but the "how." We're still working on that.

More's the pity. Or maybe not.

Desiiiiiiire

2006-10-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

Desire.

One of the basic tenants of a heart-based approach to Christian spiritual formation is this: Desire overcomes desire. For example: Suppose I want to have sex with a girl to whom I'm not married, but I have a holy desire to honor her—and her creator Jesus Christ—because I love Him, and her, more than I desire having illicit sex. As a result, I don't sleep with her. Not because I grit my teeth and decline the physical act despite my desire for her, but because of the stronger and holy desire to honor her and God, my loving Father. Let's consider a more common example. I want to be praised for my brilliance, but because I love—really love God—I want to see Him honored more than I want any glory for myself. Hence, I exhibit a true, heart-motivated humility. Do you see in these examples how holy, God-given desires, or affections, trump the more base and selfish inclinations of the heart?

I can imagine some nodding heads at this point.

Now comes the tough part. Almost all moralistic, behavior-based Christian spirituality says that those broken desires bent on self-aggrandizement and indulgence need to be managed by an act of one's will. They need to be oversome by discipline, rather than other desires. In other words, if you practice doing the right things, your heart will change bringing your behavior into alignment with God's Law. You'll be a "better" Christian (as if there is such a thing). But the Scriptures talk about God giving His children a "new heart." The language is specific and unilateral.

Perhaps this is a good time for a definition. By "heart" I mean the seat of one's affections. That faculty of the soul where our great loves reside. Naturally without Christ, we're inclined to love ourselves, above all, but this self-love is overcome in the Christian, who is given a new heart—new and holy loves—by God, who "pours out His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit." (Romans 5:5)

This line of thought may seem strange to those of us who have been focused on the externals of conformity, in ourselves and others. And all the while God has been looking at our hearts. Seems like I once read something similar somewhere...

"No"

2006-10-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

How many times do you say "no"? It's an interesting question. If we start with the premise that something has to die in order for something else to live, then saying "no" is a very creative act.

I'll give you an example. If I don't consistently say "no" to work, then I sacrifice realtionship, health, even years of life. I die to those things in order that my career might live and flourish. But what happens if I do say "no"? I accomplish less. I don't get noticed. I don't get promoted. My career suffers, and maybe even dies, but if I wisely invest the time I gain by saying "no" in other things of signifigance, then my relationships thrive, my health is good, and I live more fully outside of work. The "death" of one thing makes space for another.

Whenever anybody starts talking about these kinds of issues, the first word that comes up is balance. I think it's a smoke screen. A convenient dodge used by people who desperately hope they can have it all. You can't. Something has to die in order for something else to live.

Look around you. What feeds your gardens? Are the great-great grandparents that sired you still around? There's a rhythmn to life that's more than just natural. It's a powerful reflection of a metaphysical reality. The Christian Scriptures say that God Himself died so that we might live. That blows my mind.

2006-10-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

My daughter's company in SF preforming at Dance West:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nQUEVesWgY

2006-09-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

I've been teaching an advanced illustration class at a local art college. Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is a small school with some very talented faculty and students. My friend, Martin French, is the Illustration Department Chair. He invited me to teach the class.

You can check out Martin's work at martinfrench.com.

The students are smart, enthusiastic, and fun to be with. They need to be more professional, though. Some of them are already working, but everybody needs more skill. They have to want it more, too. There's a couple stars in the class, and a few who have loads of talent, but no discipline. Teaching is going to be a lot like being “dad”.

2006-09-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

A blinking cursor. It'll mock you if you're not careful. It invites you to write something for the sake of writing. Maybe that's okay. Sometimes you just have to write.

Like snow melting, it starts slow and unremarkably. Soon the words come a little easier, accelerating in a slippery way. They rush past just a little faster than meaning finds comfortable. They tease, promising ideas that dissolve at the slightest touch of attention.

Maybe it was the drugs in my youth. The ubiquitous “They” told me this might happen. Legions of carefully contructed synapses—built with such great industry in the first few years of my life—now lie unplugged, coiled, and discarded by a tiny little molecule: THC. Or was it the speedy acid?

The truth? It's fatigue, not drugs. Thinking is hard work. You have to peddle fast to keep up with an active mind, and it's remarkable how a tired body will bind an eager consciousness. Maybe I just need to cowboy-up, and muscle through. Write more. Excercise it. Or is it exorcise it?

2006-09-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

My friend killed himself last night.

He'd been battling depression for a while now. It's been years since he'd been the person I first met who was so joyful and uplifting. I'm not being trite. He was a big strong man, and he could've physically lifted me, but what really lifted me up was his spirit. He relished doing life.

We became friends not long after we met. I was a naive transplant to the Portland metro area from Southern California. It was the early nineties, and I was at the front of a wave of immigrants from SoCal who were returning the favor for the Oregon population's exodus to the south a hundred and fifty years earlier.

My wife and I built a house in a tidy suburb. We had bought a pretty hillside lot, about a half acre full of trash trees, majestic Sugar Maples, and soaring Doug Firs. We kept as many as we could, but the builder still had to fell three or four of the 100 foot giants. It immediately turned me into Paul Bunyon.

The contractor suggested selling the logs, but I insisted that I was going to cut them up for fire wood. He didn't say much, but as I recall he raised an eyebrow before politely stacking half a dozen of the several ton, 40-foot logs on the back corner of our lot. Six months later, in May of '92, we moved in.

After the unpacking was done, I immediately went to the local power tool rental emporium and secured a chain saw the size of a horse's leg. I had never felt so manly (with the possible exception of discovering my first tufts of puberty). Fueled by fannel shirts and gas fumes, I sawed away for hours, and thought that I'd made good progress until I was told you're supposed to saw the logs cross-ways. Over matched, I reluctantly surrended my manhood, er chainsaw, to one very nervous Mrs. Smitchell.

A few months later I met my friend. His kids took dance with mine, and we also found out we attended the same church. Getting acquainted led to getting together, and when we visited their home, it was obvious that they heated it with wood. Some folks might've missed it, but since I now had chainsaw fumes in my blood, I didn't fail to spot the six or seven cords of wood stacked by their barn.

I asked my new friend where he got his wood. He replied that he got a permit from the forestry department each year to go into the Coast Range and cut the timber he needed. Seeing an opportunity to knock at least ten years off the chore of cutting my logs, I asked him if he'd be interested in a supply that's a little closer.

Over the next few months we cut and split the logs, stacking huge piles of split rounds and trucking them out to his place. Our kids helped some and played together alot. Our wives looked out at us and probably wondered if there was any difference between the dads who were working and the kids who were playing. My friend made the work fun. He lifted me up out of a tough chore and by his sheer relish of the work invited me into that joy. We laughed and sweated, as he patiently explained how to split a round, or section a log. It was good.

It reminded me of Gensis where God looked at all that was going on and pronounced it good. It felt like that. Like we could do this forever, and it would always feel this great.

I miss that guy. He hasn't been around for a while. And I can't imagine what must have been going on in his head and his heart to make him do what he did, but I know one thing for sure. My friend didn't kill himself. The person who did that was somebody else. But now that he's gone, I know he's once again my friend because he's with his Lord. And the pain, blackness, and despair that drove him to suicide can't touch him there.

Like David, I get up take a bath, eat, and go on, knowing that I can't bring him back to where I am, but that I will go to where he is someday.

2006-08-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

I got bitched out tonight.

Spiritually anyway, by my 19 year-old daughter. We were going to get some dinner at McMennimen's Pub on the way home from church when she went off. It was righteous anger. The kind that only comes from the deepest desire to see God's people be God's People. The anger wasn't really aimed at me (I was a suitable proxy), but at my church, which I love by the way. But I had to admit that the outward lack of passion for the Lord that cheesed her off does often characterize our fellowship.

It's polite. It's safe. It's comfy, and to her tender spirit, it all appeared so, so wrong.

I admire the fire in her belly. She had tears in her eyes when she asked how folks could sit in their soft suburban pews singing soft choruses, softly, while other people were dying and going to hell. At first I thought she was being a conveniently pissed, disaffected youth, but the more I listened, the more I became convinced that she really was putting pressure on sin. A complacent spirituality that showed none of the robustness of the whip-corded Temple Cleansing.

I was tempted to lecture her from 1 corinthians 12 about the one body, lots of parts. How we all need each other, and those that are fiery need the more sober among us. I would've said it too if her critique hadn't hit so close to home. Seems that there's at least one sober, mature believer that really needed a touch of fire.

2006-07-12T07:24:00.000-07:00

We recently spent a weekend in San Francisco. You should've heard the comments.

"Oh, you're going THERE. What a pit"

"It's the most beautiful city in the world."

And just about everything in between. Evangelicals especially seem to be pretty conflicted about the city, placing it somewhere between Sodom and Hell on the moral continuum. I found the city tolerable in the main, much like any other city, and occasionally brilliant.

2006-07-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Affective Theology

A friend recently asked me to define Affective Theology, and I felt a little like the Supreme Court Justice who reportedly said, in repsonse to a request to define indecency, the he couldn't, but he knew it when he saw it.

I hand off the task to a man of God, much wiser and more articulate than myself, Richard Sibbes, who comments in the following on a number of key categories of Christian spiritual formation from an affective prespective:

"But how or by what means doth Christ give his Spirit to us? This Spirit that is so necessary for us, it is given by the ministry of the gospel, which is the ministry of the Spirit. 'Received ye the Holy Ghost by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith preached?' Gal. iii. 2. When the love of God in Christ, and the benefits by Christ, are laid open in the preaching of the gospel to us, God gives his holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Now God in Christ would save us by a trimphant and abundant love and mercy, and the Spirit of God never goes but where there is a magnifying of the love and mercy of God in Christ; therefore the ministry of the gospel, which only discovers the amity and love of God to mankind, being now reconciled in Christ, it is accompanied with the Spirit is the fruit of God's love as well as Christ. Christ is the first givt, and the Spirit is the second, therefore that part of the word that discovers God's exceeding love to mankind, leaving angels when they were fallen, in their cursed estate, and yet giving his Son to become man, and 'a curse for us:' the discovery of this love and mercy of God, and of his Son Christ to us, is joined with the Spirit. For by the Spirit we see our cursed estate without the love and mercy of God in Christ, and likewise we are convinced of the love of God in Christ, and therupon we love God again, and trust to his mercy, and out of love to him perform all cheerful obedience. Whatsoever we do else, if it be not stirred by the Spirit, apprehending the love of God in Christ, it is but morality. A man shall never go to heaven but by such a disposition and frame and temper of soul as is wrought by the Holy Ghost, persuading the soul first of the love and favour of God in Christ. What are all our performances if they be not out of love to God? and how shall we love God except we be persuaded that he loves us first? Therefore the gospel breeds love in us to God, and hath the Spirit together with it, working a blessed frame of sanctification, whereby we are disposed to every good duty. Therefore if we would have the Spirit of God, let us attend upon the sweet promises of salvation, upon the doctrine of Christ; for together with the knowledge of these things, the Holy Ghost slides and insinuates and infuseth himself into our souls." (Richard Sibbes, "Works of Richard Sibbes:A Description of Christ," Great Britain, The Banner of Truth Trust, 23-24)

2006-06-29T00:24:00.000-07:00

Downwardly Rich

“He’s a success.”

“She’s a winner.”

“He’s got it all.”

These are the words that we most long to hear. Like “I love you.”, they validate, and seduce. There is something deep in each person that longs to be admired by others.

How do I know that? Honestly, I’ve only to look in a mirror, or out a window. This desire is in us, and surrounds us. It’s the water we swim in, and like most fish, we don’t really notice until we’re yanked out of it, do we? Then we can't breathe. We're on alien turf. We're not swimming the way we've been taught—up, and to the right. Everything's changed.

Maybe we can then move in a new direction, to where the real riches lie. Among the least of these.

2006-06-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

The Shortest Trip

We’ve all said it. And if we’ve been parents for more than a year or so, we’ve all heard it:

“Are we there yet?”

My third brother, Scott, held the world’s record for consecutively asking this question during our annual family vacations to Lake George. The trip between our suburban Philadelphia home and the lake lasted about eight hours. Scott’s interrogation ra 7:59:30.

Kids are always in some kind of a damn hurry. They’ve got stuff to do, and it’s all out there somewhere beyond the present. Why walk when you can run? Why think when you can just go for it? From launch pad of infinite youthful immortality everything is possible, and nothing has ever happened. Yet.

I know. I’ve watched it, and I’m convinced that the shortest distance in the universe is that between toilet training and graduation.

2006-06-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

Repost Sunday, March 12, 2006

hurting
Current mood: crappy

The toughest thing about life isn't hurting. The toughest thing is seeing people you care about hurting. Seeing it and knowing there isn't much of anything you can do about it.

God, what I wouldn't give for a magic wand that could take the pain away, but that ain't gonna happen. All that's left is listening and prayer. Not that those are useless. in fact they're more powerful than anything that might feel more actively productive.

I need to embrace that. The reality of attentive prayer.

Activity, just doing SOMETHING holds such attraction, but it's nothing more than tilting at windmills in the end. It's easier to do than to trust, though. Love's tough.

2006-06-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Repost Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Time
Current mood: contemplative

Whoa. When did a week start feeling like a day? I've always has a sense that my experience of time was colored by whatever was filling that time. A forty minute lecture that's boring can feel like 3 hours. Assuming you stay awake. A great touch football game after school? Ten minutes, tops. Even if we played for hours.

The basic rule? If you're doing something fun, time flies. Boring, stupide stuff. Time goes backwards. So, if I'm experiencing time at such an accelerated pace at this point in my life, it must mean I'm having a blast. Uh oh. This is where the axiom breaks down. Cuz I am not ALWAYS having a good time. I'm pretty easy going and generally good-natured, but sometimes things get tough. OR...maybe I am having a blast and don't know it.

Case in point: How often have you heard people talk a bout the "good old days". Alot, yeah? Well, I've noticed that those "good ol days" are always about ten years ago, minimum. So, ten years from now, or twenty, whatever, THESE will be the "good ol days" Hmmmm. Better start enjoying them.

2006-06-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Repost from Tuesday, June 27, 2006

“New Friends ”
Current mood: calm

I met five new friends in just a few days. Three are from Texas, and connected with DTS (Dallas Theological Seminary) by way of graduation or enrollment. And the other two are a young writer from Indianapolis and his lovely wife.

The couple decided to check out Portland after corresponding with friends of ours. The author's name is Pete Gall (his wife's name is Christine), and he's written a book entitled "Gall" It's a spiritual diary of sorts in the mold of Don Miller and Anne LaMotte. Pete's writing exhibits the witty insights and judicious use of explitives that variously characterize Miller and LaMotte.

There's laugh-out-loud funny stuff in his book. And other passages that'll rip the tears from your eyes. I like Pete. I told him when we met that I didn't trust him as a writer when I first started to read "Gall". He was almost too honest, and the brutality of such transparency can be tough on a reader. Even more, he is a very good writer. A copywriter by trade, he made good money manipulating people in the tiny spaces afforded the writers of ads.

The more I read though, the more I trusted him. And getting to hang out with him over the last few days confirmed my trust. Pete and his wife are sweet, honest, lovely Christians. I hope we enjoy a long friendship.

Pete's also an idea magnet. He's alert to ideas and the vessels they live in: people. He's hungry to know what other folks think, how their story is unfolding. That's how he met the other three folks I mentioned. He and his wife got acquianted with the trio at a church during the "hi-how-are-you-can-I-sit-down-now-please?" part of the service. They take these things seriously. I believe that when folks like Pete and his wife ask, "How are you?", they really want to know.

As a result, they discovered that these gals (Donna, Angela, and Laura) are on a quest. "Looking for God in America: A Journey through America Sowing Common Ground." The three women are traveling around the country with borrowed equipment, prayer for daily provision, and little else. They want to produce a documentary based on the random interviews they conduct in cities all across the country. After a spin through the Soutwest and much of Cali, they're heading for Seattle and the Midwest. Pete and I had lunch with them, and the privilege of hearing about their adventures. Check out LookingForGodinAmerica.com.

There's a lot in this world that can get you down. But every so often something of hope and beauty breaks in upon us: a reminder that God really is love, He's alive, and at work among people He loves. Whattablessing!

2006-06-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

a new start.

A blank white page is a terrifying thing.