Who have you been with?

There is an old adage for pastors I learned when I was in seminary

"People don't care how much you know
Until they know how much you care."

I get it
"Pastor,
Caring comes before preaching."

But, that's not how I see many of my colleagues interpreting that statement.

It looks more like this:
"Care for your congregation just enough so that they won't get too upset when you talk over their heads with a vocabulary you learned while getting your masters or doctorate degrees."

I know one pastor who told her congregation from the pulpit that she was smarter than they were because she went to _______ University and _______ Seminary.

Usually it is more subtle than that.

I recently came to the epiphany that
Mostly
The congregations I have served and led have not cared how much I know.
Not one person in any of my congregations has ever asked to see my report cards.
Not one.
Ever.

They don't care how much I know.
I think what they mostly care about when I step to the pulpit
is
Have I been with the risen Christ this week
And will I share it?

I believe that there is a tremendous hunger in our congregations
and in the world at large
to be with people
and to hear from people
who have been with the risen Christ
and who will share that experience
not just with words
but through attitude
and outlook
and living in general.

So, I might reword that old adage to say
"People don't care how much you know
until they see who you have been with."

My plan from now on
when I approach the pulpit
is to say
if only to myself
"I have been with the risen Christ this week
and it has made an impact on my life
and I want to share it with you."

For all believers
I want to encourage you to try that same thing
when you go to work
when you go to school
when you work out at the club
when you hang out with friends.

I am absolutely
100% convinced
with all that I am
that there is a tremendous thirst
in our congregations
and in the world
to be with
and to hear from
people who have been with and
whose lives have been changed by
the risen Christ.

But, don't take my word for it.

Take a good look around your school
your office
your church.

Any hope there?
Any joy there?
Any passion there?

If you have been with the risen Christ
then you have living water
and the world
my friends
is parched.

Stephen Hawking and the Faith Imperative: or Christians and the brightest physicist may have more in common than you thought

I was in college when I read Stephen Hawkings book, "A Brief History of Time."
I thought Hawkings was brilliant and his book very accessible
I still do.

I was watching a documentary yesterday (made in 2008) that was updating Hawkings' work twenty-five or so years later. It was talking about the "M Theory" and "The String Theory" and other theories that are trying to get at a "theory of everything."

In other words: one theory to explain all that happens in the universe.

It was about ten years ago that I was introduced to Quantum Physics and The String Theory by a wonderful friend of mine who was on a journey to find God and that maybe God was more than our finite human constructs.

Now, I don't pretend to get everything about Quantum Physics or The String Theory. But, I do have a small general knowledge of those subjects.
Enough to be intrigued and curious.

So, I watched the show.

What you have to know is that physicists believe that prior to the Big Bang, the universe was a tight, little, dense, symmetrical dot of matter; and that in the nano-seconds following the explosion the forces that shape and work in the universe came into being.

Including gravity.

Gravity gives physicists all kinds of headaches
Because it seems weaker than all of the other forces.

How do you explain that?

Physicists, like Hawking, have spent their whole careers trying.

Let's digress for a moment.

We have been taught that science is about verifiable fact and religion is about faith in Someone who cannot be verified or observed scientifically and so the twain shall not, indeed cannot, meet.

In fact, I have been put off more than once by arrogant people who claim that my faith is silly, naive, ignorant and irresponsible blather because it cannot be scientifically proven or verified.

So, imagine my surprise when I hear Stephen Hawking say that they "hope to one day find the symmetry in the universe that they believe is there but have never observed."

Believe

but
never
observed.

Believe.

The host of the documentary went on to say that physicists have a lot of great theories
which exist
only
on paper.

So,
Physicists have spent a lifetime
constructing a truth that exists only on paper
to try to explain something they believe is there
but they have never observed.

Does that not sound an awful lot like religion?

I have faith in a God I have never seen with my eyes but have experienced in many ways.

Stephen Hawking has faith in mathematics.

I am not knocking his faith.
And, I kind of like having something in common with Stephen Hawking.

Belief
in something
we have never observed.

Tour Guides for Jesus

I am trying to take the advice of my niece who is a prolific blogger - and blog pundit - about setting aside time every month to write my blog. Now I just have to find the time to schedule the time to write my blog.

I'm hopeless.

As you may already know, I am a big fan of Rob Bell, pastor at Mars Hill Church near Grand Rapids. He wrote a book called Velvet Elvis in which he articulated faithful Christian-following in words I could not find in nearly two decades of ministry.

One portion that captured my imagination was his description of being a missionary. He writes, "Missions is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there."

In the past, most Christians have thought of missions and being a missionary is to take God where God is not. I agree with Rob Bell when he writes, "Some people actually believe that God is absent from a place until they get there."

But, that would be a really flawed understanding of missions.

The essential flaw in that thinking is to think that we need to take God anywhere, and that there is a place in this universe - let alone on this earth - where God is not present.

Missions is more about starting where people are an pointing out where God is present and working in their lives. Missionaries are, then, kind of tour guides for Jesus.

Again I quote from Rob Bell: "Tour guides are people who see depth and texture an connection where others don't. That is why the best teachers are masters of the obvious. They see the same things we do, but they are aware of so much more. And when they point it out, it changes the way we see everything."

The best tour guides tell us how a color or brush stroke can tell us more about the artist, or how the style of architecture can tell us more about the architect.

I like the "Tour Guide" image for missions and missionaries. It makes more sense to me and is better theology.

I am leading my congregation to think of themselves as missioners
As tour guides for Jesus
Who go to the people they know are living without a relationship with God
Without hope
And pointing out to their friends where God is present and working in their lives.

But, missioners do more then just point out God.
They live as a Christ-follower would live in that culture.
Missioners aren't interested in changing the culture, or even necessarily changing the person
I am pretty sure that's God's job, not ours.

Missioners don't need to take on the false beliefs of the culture, or the practices of the culture that run counter to a Christ-centered life.

Instead, the missioner lives as a living example of how a Christ-followers looks in that culture.

So, a missioner in the culture of sports
Would live as a faithful Christ-follower in the sports culture.
A missioner to the medical community
Would live as a faithful Christ-follower in the medical culture.
The same is true of missioners in the office
Or missioners in the youth culture,
Or missioners in the local community.

We are not talking about changing culture
Or confronting culture
Or even transforming culture.
We are talking about being a living example
To people
Who have adopted a set of beliefs,
Behaviors
And assumptions about Who God is and is not
And connecting some of the dots
And, maybe, change the way they see
God
Themselves
Their present
Their past and
Their future.

My New Year's resolution - I will try harder at updating my blog more often. In fact, my goal is to update it monthly. That will probably mean more stuff about what's going on at Flushing United Methodist Church than my thoughts on particular subjects and issues.

I have a lot of respect for the bloggers that can write daily blogs that are well-thought out, interesting and make me think.

This month, my thing is untransformed Christians and missonal disciples.

First, untransformed Christians.

Last summer I preached a sermon series called, More Like Jesus. The idea was that people don't need Christians to be perfect, they just need us to be more like Jesus. The way we got at that was by looking at some of the criticisms for the church and Christians and Christianity by non-believers. (i.e. Christian are judgemental, ignorant, etc...)

As I have reflected more on those criticisms I have come to decide that the majority of the criticisms come from encounters with untransformed Christians.

Untransformed Christians are people who have either stopped growing in spiritual maturity, or never grew in spiritual maturity; or they are folks who have chosen not to allow a certain part of their lives to be transformed by the grace of God.

Please understand, I am not judging as to whether these folks have faith in Jesus Christ or have had a salvation/conversion/new birth experience. I am saying that there are folks who have a relationship at some level with Jesus Christ so that they call themselves Christian, and yet they have either not allowed God's grace and power to transform them or they have stopped allowing God's grace to transform them.

I know tat there are still bit of my life that I have have not completely surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. And, I know that there are times when I mess up - BIG time and small time. But, I hope that when I do mess up, I have the grace and courage not to try and excuse my mess up, but admit it, make amends and move on.

I am REALLY glad that mistakes don't have to be the final word and that God does not disown us when we mess up.

So, what do we do about untransformed Christians? Nothing. Let God deal with that. God is more than big enough. Rather, I want to make sure I am growing in my relationship with Jesus Christ and that I allow God to transform every aspect of my life so that I can be the man, husband, father, pastor, brother, etc...that God redeemed me to be.

Maybe, then, my life can be a better and more attractive testimony to God's love and power than the untransformed Christian.

Now, about missional disciples.

Personally, I think the church needs a new paradigm for Christ-followers.

In fact, I rarely us the word disciple much to describe followers of Jesus Christ.

"Disciple" carries too much negative (and sometimes ambiguous) baggage.

Many churches call the members of their congregation, "ministers." And, that is Biblically true. But, culturally the term "minister" has been gone through so many changes that it has lost teeth.

My main objection is that the term minister does not carry with it a sense of faith sharing or evangelism (talk about a scary word today). I strongly believe that ALL Christ-followers should share their faith verbally in some way. (yes, I wrote verbally! We at Flushing UMC do a great job sharing our collective faith through missions and ministry, but no so much at verbally. That, I am certain, is due more to my leadership than anything else. I intend to change that.)

So, I think we need to embrace a new paradigm for Christ-followers.

The one that makes the most sense to me is being a missionary or a missioner. To me a missionary is one who goes to another (different) culture to bring the message of hope in Jesus Christ and to incarnate or embody the love of God in Jesus Christ. A missioner is one who does the same thing only with people of the same or similar culture.

So a missioner not only does ministry, but also intentionally looks for ways to share the good news that God has given us in Jesus.

This month we at Flushing UMC are looking at the foundations for being missioners through a series of messages called, The Missionary God. You can check out our website for those sermons.

I like what Rob Bell says about being missionaries.

I'll share that next time.

The Particular Trap

I was almost caught in it today -

The Particular Trap.

I took the bait and heard the snap. But, then I saw it for what it was and chose to let myself out.

The Particular Trap; it is when I make universals out of particulars. It's generalizing. I find when I get caught in this trap I get really ugly or really down.

Let me tell you what happened.

I was surfing YouTube, looking for something else and I came across a video by Rob Bell. Since I like Rob Bell I thought I'd see what else was on YouTube related to Rob Bell.

[Full disclosure #1: I like Rob Bell. I have never met him. I resonate with much of his theology. I loved his books Velvet Elvis and Sex God. I didn't think his latest book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, was as good as the other two. Just last Sunday I used one of his Nooma videos in worship, and I have quoted from him in a few sermons. I have worshipped at Bell's church. But, if I lived in Grand Rapids, I probably wouldn't worship regularly at Mars Hill for personal reasons.]

So, I look up Rob Bell on YouTube and got dozens of videos about his work. One was a nearly three hour vitriolic diatribe by a radio talk-show guy blasting Rob Bell in a segment called "Rob Bell Isn't a Christian." In another video a pastor showed one of Bell's Nooma videos and then spent the rest of his sermon taking apart Bell's theology in that video. There were more along the same lines - pastors and speakers trashing Bell's theology and his work. Another radio host (I didn't know you could put radio clips on YouTube) predicted that "very soon you will hear that 'it is okay to be a Christian and a homosexual' coming out of Mars Hill."

[Full Disclosure #2: I really have a strong response when people talk as if they believe that entrance to heaven depends on a perfect score on both the oral and written components of a theological exam. Don't even get me started.]

It's not that I take the blasting of Rob Bell personally. I just feel bad for Bell - who, if he is healthy, isn't even paying attention to these criticisms.

Then I got to thinking about the critics - see full disclosure #2. And I got to thinking that if this is how the church is, then it is on a fast and troubling spiral downward. Then I got to thinking about how I am losing faith in the church - and that's when I heard the snap of the trap shutting down.

I was making a generalization about the church from a relatively small number of people. These folks are part of the church of Jesus Christ, but they are NOT the church of Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ does not waste time criticizing people who don't theologically agree with them because there are waaay too many people in the world who are hungry and afraid and wounded and neglected and oppressed to argue theology. Besides, the church gets enough criticism from non-Christians (some of it legitimate); we don't need to sling mud inside the family.

The Particular Trap. It perpetuates things like racism and sexism and ageism and all of the other isms that ensnare humanity and keep us from being the people that God created and redeemed us to be. Sometimes I can see the Particular Trap a mile away, and then, like today, I only see it when I hear the snap shut.

Thank God I heard the snap.

I share this with you because I want to remain alert and I want you to remain alert as well. I suspect that I am not the only one who gets caught by The Particular Trap. I am pretty sure that a lot of people get caught in that trap.

But, maybe I am generalizing again.

There is Not Always a Good Reason

Okay, I am going to write something that may shock you.

I no longer believe that everything happens for a reason - at least not in the way that most Christians think.

Certainly everything happens for a reason - someone made a decision. But, to often we attribute events and circumstances to God that I don't believe belong in God's lap.

For instance, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast all kinds of people were trying to make sense of that event - including some prominent Christian leaders. Some Christians claimed it was God's punishment on New Orleans for the sin of the French Quarter or gambling.

Really?

Then why was the French Quarter still standing and the first district to open up after Katrina? Did God miss the target? Did God not whip up a strong enough hurricane? Why were the casinos the second to open up and had their best year ever because people had nothing to do in New Orleans except gamble?

After terrorist rammed airplanes and their passengers into the World Trade Center in 2001, some Christian leaders claimed it was God's punishment on America for our tolerance of homosexuality. Where did they get that one??? I was unaware that everyone who died were either homosexual or pro-homosexual or that the World Trade Center was in any way connected with homosexuality - except, perhaps in some freaky Freudian way.

Last year Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter was killed in an accident when her older brother ran her over. It was tremendously tragic. People told the Chapman family that this event "happened for a reason."

What reason???

What they meant, of course, is that God created the circumstances by which the daughter ran out behind the vehicle at the same time her brother was backing up. An SUV is much heavier than a five-year-old and thus killed her - for some reason that only God knows.

Is that how God works??? Is that in the nature of God to kill a little girl with a car, or to displace thousands of people by a hurricane or to kill thousands of people through terrorists to teach us a lesson or prove a point???

Does cancer happen for a reason? Does most of the things that happen to people that they didn't choose into happen for a reason???

In one way they do. Someone made a choice. The reason some people get lung cancer is because they smoke four packs a day. The reason thousands of people died on September 11th is because some angry, radical, fringe zealots made a decision. The reason that hurricanes happen is because of atmospheric conditions.

Sometimes, a variety of unrelated circumstances converge with very tragic outcomes. It's called chaos theory.

Back to God.

When people look into the eyes of someone who just lost their daughter, or father; or just found out they have breast cancer or they lost their job, and they say "This happened for a reason;" let's not be quick to blame it on God.

Over and over again in the Bible I read how people make really bad decisions that wind up with very tragic outcomes and God works with those choices and within those outcomes to bring about some kind of good for people. Over and over I read in the Bible how chaos happens in life and God is there among us trying to bring as much good as possible.

So, in the traditional sense, I don't believe that everything happens for a reason. But, I do believe that God works in ALL things (the stuff we chose into and the stuff we didn't) to bring about the most good possible. (see Romans 8:28)

So, instead of blaming God and asking those unanswerable "why" questions, I am encouraging people to turn to God and trust God is at work in all things to bring about good in our lives.

There's not always a good reason. But, there is ALWAYS a good God.

Among and With

Counter: against, to act in opposition, in an opposite or wrong direction.


Counter cultural: a culture with values and mores that run counter to those of established society.


I was reading the blog of Rev. Dan Dick, the new Director of Connectional Ministries of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church. In a June, 2009 blog, Rev. Dicks was writing three questions we really need to face in our pursuit of growing God's church,

They are:

• Do we prefer style over substance?


• Are we more concerned with image over identity?


• Is being popular more important than being prophetic?

I have to admit, as one who tried to keep up with and implement much of the Church Growth Movement's rules and principles and best practices - I was more concerned with style and image and popularity.

Man, was that a treadmill.

No matter what I tried, no matter how hard I worked at it, the "key principle" or "the practice that will put you over the top" was always just one more step away, always the next rung up the ladder, always just around the next corner. (Plus, I am pretty sure I am not handsome enough, sharp enough, or cool enough to be one of those rock star pastors.)

Then Rev. Dicks wrote about being counter cultural. Now, in the best sense of that word, the church is always counter cultural, meaning that we, as followers of Jesus Christ, have different values and priorities and pursuits than those of the cultures that surround us. But, when counter cultural is lifted up as running in opposition to culture, that's when the conversation needs to start.

Now, it is a no brainer to me, and I trust to you, that if the culture is into human trafficking, then the church needs to work in opposition to that. When the culture is into harming children or the vulnerable or the powerless, then the church needs to work in opposition.

But, if we are to be a missionary church, if we are to see ourselves as missionaries in a mission field, then we don't need to stand in opposition to nor even separate ourselves from the cultures that surround us. That would be counterproductive.

Missionaries live among and with another culture. Missionaries learn the language and customs of their host culture. In many ways, missionaries "adopt" their host culture. Missionaries then look for ways to make connections between the host culture and God and God's grace and power and love and mercy. All the while, the missionary lives as as a faithful Christian to show how an indigenous Christian would live. Missionaries don't adopt all of the values of their host culture, but live Christian values among and with that culture.

No trying to "fix" people. No trying to conform the host culture to some alien standards or political or economic systems.

Being a missionary is about substance and identity and being prophetic in the Biblical sense of that word.

I am starting to see myself more as a lead missionary than a pastor. I am starting to lead my congregation to see themselves more as missionaries in the cultures to which they belong.

So, when churches brag about being "culturally relevant" and "image is everything" or when they brag about being "counter cultural" and "revolutionary" -

I am suspicious.