2008 Resolution #3

#3 Drink more I’m growing to love the gift of wine and all of its complexities, its history, the process of development, its beauty in the glass and the joy it brings to a gathering of good friends. I plan to take pleasure in more of it in 2008. Now why would I recommend this? The spirit of this resolution is to face what we fear. I was raised on a spirituality of fear, especially when it came to any kind of pleasure. The party line was summed up in statements like, ‘If I never take that first drink, I’ll never become an alcoholic!” The line of reasoning made sense, to a point, until I realize that the foundation of the logic was built on fear. Why go through life being afraid? It’s such a terrible way to live. Moderation is much more preferable than fear. The former tempers its actions on understanding; the latter does so out of ignorance. I’d rather protect myself through self-control than being afraid. I resolve to deepen the pleasures of my faith by rejecting fear and embracing love. Fear assumes I won’t do the best thing when faced with the choice. Love believes otherwise.

2008 Resolution #2

#2 Gain more weight. Face it. You’ve tried every year to commit to some form of weight loss idea and it never works. Why not take a new approach this time around? Why not go in the other direction? Pig out. Gorge yourself. Tie on the feedbag. Here’s what I mean. A problem for most of us is that we don’t wait to eat until we’re hungry. We eat more as a habit or as an idea. Whoever said we needed three meals a day and that lunch should be around noon? Why is food a prime mode of chewing away the hours in a long car ride? We eat, but we may not be sure why. That’s why this year I propose that if we haven’t figured out why we keep eating when we’re not hungry, that we go ahead eat UNTIL we’re hungry. Eat, eat and eat until it become evident what we are really craving. I don’t believe people are as dumb as they are simply shortsighted. Eating a big bag of Fritos in the car on the way home may make sense in the moment. You’re tired, cranky, bored and doggonnit, why not pound down those chips? But not an hour later when your gut feels like crap, you wonder, “What was I thinking?” The soul craves for that which the body does not understand, yet the soul often looks to the body for its answers. By giving the body everything it craves, maybe, just maybe, the soul will finally realize that the satisfaction it wants will never be found in simple relief.

New Year’s Resolutions for 2008

#1 Read the Bible less. Sure, it sounds heretical, but let me explain. Familiarity is the enemy of all things good. Why are family arguments the worst? It’s because family are the people with which we are most familiar. You don’t extend them the same grace you do other people. You are nicer to people on the street, perfect strangers, than you are to your own kind. Think about it. You’ve read the Bible everyday for who knows how long. Do you think during that time you may have become too familiar with it? By being so close to it, you may have missed something about its true essence, and maybe a fast from it might do you some good. I’m not talking about rejecting it, or not believing in it anymore. Just step away from the habitual practice of it. We may boast about how much and how often we read the Bible and how consistent we are in doing so, but when you read this challenge to slow it down a bit, what is your reaction? I would guess one reason you would say you can’t do it is you’ve made a commitment to do so. I would suggest you make sure that it really is a discipline and not a new law. Another reason might be fear. What would happen to me if I read the Bible one day a week this year? I’ve always been told that sin would keep me from the Book, or the Book would keep me from sin, so if I backed off from my daily indulgence of it, aren’t I just inviting wrongdoing into my life? You and I have more information available to us than any generation ever before, and that includes Bible information. This year, stop glutting yourself with more and more and more teaching, books and doctrine. Slow down and think about what you already know. Meditate on what you’ve already been given. Learn to relax and listen. Don’t be so uptight. Your stress of worry over slipping into sin may be worse for you than missing a day in Psalms and Proverbs.

Sun and Moon

This morning, out on the wall, I love what I see. To the west of my home is the setting full moon, about 20 degrees above the horizon as it makes way for the morning sun to take center stage. The beams of light were so bright pouring into the living room through the slats of the mini blinds, it made me wonder if a car was in the driveway. Light has a beautiful way of ignoring the darkness. Every story has two sides. Every incident can be spun two different directions. Take a walk down the bookstore aisle marked Current Affairs and I find no less than 20 books about President Bush, how he is either the worst or toughest president in American history. Look further and you will find the same division about Hillary Clinton or John Kerry or the Republicans or Democrats and so on. Just pick what position you want to reinforce and you can find a book or radio talk show to support your view. The same is true for the Church As We Know It. For every publication you find in defense of Christianity, you can find a counterpoint that explains why the Christian faith is equivalent to Hilter in its wrongful impact on the world. So who is right and who is wrong? How do you know who to trust? Who is telling the truth? The moon was my reminder this morning on my morning watch. Light can actually be more noticeable when there is less of it around. How often do we take the high sun for granted, but you and I will stop the car to watch the sun go down over the water. Is the Church as We Know It becoming irrelevant? Is a sense of common morality a thing of the past? Is our country moving toward economic crisis? Is our world burning up by global warming and dependence on oil? Maybe yes, maybe no. These questions all have different answers, depending on your sources. But hope for me this morning is, regardless of whether the future looks bleak or not, this is something I can trust. There will always be room for light to shine. Darkness will never be stronger than Light. It can never get so dark that light has no effect. In fact, that might be when it’s most noticeable.

We have this many in...

When you make a severe life change as I have in order to search out the Church of the Future, you must be prepared to face doubt. How do you know if you’ve done the right thing or not? When will I know if I succeeded or not? These are common questions a Future Pastor will eventually ask. Our usual proof of success is in the results. Did I accomplish what I set out to do? Did I find what I was looking for? But what if results don’t show you what you want to see or give you what you’d like to brag about? If I were attempting to plant a model of The Church As We Know It, I would likely want to tell you how many are in attendance, how many groups we have going, and how many people we baptized this year. These are the Big 3 in my tradition. So when asked about how my efforts are going in my search for the Church of the Future, my knee-jerk response is to go back to my roots and try and give an answer the inquirer might understand. It’s so much easier to say we have this many coming on Sunday than to try and describe the road of faith I have traveled in the last three years. It’s easier to describe what I am doing than to tell you what I am becoming. Each of these has its own measuring stick to gauge with, and even though the measuring stick for the latter is still the same (you’re still looking at becoming more loving, joyful, peaceful and so on), it seems to come up short more often now that you are paying more attention to it. So, Future Pastor, this is the reality of the road ahead if you plan to stay on it for the long haul. The way is difficult and unfamiliar, and it leads you far away from the place you are most comfortable. But it is the way of faith and faith will always lead you down paths where you can’t use your eyes, your most powerful and precious sense.

One of these things is not like the other...

There is a process I am moving through I would refer to as congruence. This is another word for making sure things match. There have been quite a few pieces turned up in my faith journey that appear juxtaposed to the rest. Now that I have more freedom to ask why, I find some intriguing considerations. People who put their faith in Jesus are constantly reminded that you are to be “in” the world, but not “of” it. The understood meaning behind this talking point is that heaven is your real home, and you should in turn not embrace earthly values as you stand in the queue waiting for your number to be called to enter that destination. What came with this, at least in my experience, were all kinds of dichotomies, usually in the form of determining what is sacred and what is secular. This is where the genre of Christian Music came from. Rock music was secular, therefore a sacred alternative was needed, so we came up with something acceptable, regardless of how inferior it may have been. What made things worse was the delineation between the now permissible Christian music and the emerging slice known as worship music. It wasn’t enough to have your own category of tunes you could listen to without guilt, now you had something new to worry about. Now you had to ask, is the music worship or is it entertainment? My favorite time to observe this tension was when you went to a concert by a musical act known for their popular “worship” songs. The majority of the show would be jamming along until suddenly the sound of grinding gears makes you realize that we are coming to an abrupt halt. The leader of the group inserts what amounts to an apology for his self-centeredness and turns the show into a scene from The Church As We Know It. And most of the audience seems to understand what is taking place and moves right along with the current. Why did I feel like I was the only one in the crowd that didn’t get it? I guess I could have felt good that I got two shows for the price of one, but in that case it didn’t seem necessary. I believe the Church of the Future will be less about creating tidy boundaries like those labeled “worship music” and “other acceptable forms of music,” and more about seamless living. Eventually these constructs will not even make sense because freedom from law leads to security in faith. If beauty is found outside the border lines, the Church of the Future won’t realize that it once had to first be sanctioned.

I hate God

I love bookstores, but often feel a bit of frustration at a place like Barnes & Noble because it reinforces the adage, “so many books, so little time,” but that’s not the point of this post. I’m perusing the table in the center aisle, the one with the placard that reads, “Thought Provoking,” and see that it is covered with books written by atheists. Always interested in what people are thinking, I read the index and dust covers of several. I found a common theme. People who debate the existence of God seem to always bring up how much evil has been done in his/her/its name. They cite the crusades as case in point, that religion does nothing but provide a structure for power disguised as righteous superiority. I might agree with that, to a degree. But for every bad act, the other guy can always find a good one that can be used to counter it. It leads to a vicious cycle of argument that never seems to go anywhere. In fact, one of my favorite Christian porn stars on the radio was comparing the crusades to the holocaust and other mass killings. His logic was that atheists over time have killed far more people than Christians. I’m not sure where he was going with that, but he seemed to think that was good rationale for the existence of God. This is why I believe even more now than ever, that a belief in God is an act of faith for which I alone am held accountable. God exists or doesn’t, regardless of what the human race has done under the banner of His cause. When I recently got hit by a drunk driver at 4:45 in the morning it didn’t change my view of alcohol because she misused and abused it. The young woman had a choice to do with it as she willed. I could easily form an opinion about it based on what she did with the said substance, but her poor choices need not create a definition for me to live by. Faith must find its roots deeper than just in my neighbor’s yard.

Random Acts of Redemption

I got bumped from my flight back from San Antonio this weekend due to severe overbooking by the airline. There were several very unhappy customers as a result, including one man on the far end of the ticket counter who ended up in tears. After arguing to a point of futility, I gave in to the inevitability that I was not going to get on that plane for which I had a ticket. After being rescheduled for the next day, I resigned to the row of seats in the waiting area near the revolving doors to wait on my friend to swing back around and pick me up. As I sat, I saw the man who was tearfully pleading his case eventually do the same thing. He dragged himself over in my direction to regroup and wait it out. I commented, “Rough day, huh?” He proceeded to give me his story. He was starting his brand new job on Monday morning and was afraid of how this would look to the new boss, and to top it off he ended with, “And all I’ve got is a buck to my name.” By this time, my buddy had arrived and I needed to leave, so I pulled out a twenty and offered to bless him in that way. As with most random acts of kindness like that, he was not really sure how to react, but I insisted and persisted, and said, “Let me help make some good in your otherwise crappy day.” Mission accomplished. In situations like this, why is it we always seem to want an explanation for the circumstances in which we find ourselves? When I get bumped from a plane, it’s usually not enough to think that the plane was full and I was just one of the unlucky ones that got hosed. I need a motive, a cause or a purpose for the incident. I want to think that God had something in mind for making me miss my flight. I don’t try to answer that question much anymore. I don’t believe bad things happen so we can do something good. It’s more like when bad things happen, what are my choices in the matter? I don’t believe the reason I missed my plane was so God could arrange me to give that dude twenty bucks. Maybe it was, I’m just not that certain about it. Bottom line, however, is this: I found myself in a cruddy situation and yet still had a choice in how to respond. Redemption doesn’t always need to have reason.

Why you should quit the ministry.

Maybe this title is a little harsh. I guess I should say this post is about why I quit the ministry and why I’m glad I did. You can do whatever you want and should only act on a sense of faith. This is the only thing that matters. What I think is nothing compared to walking by faith. Do any of these statements sound familiar: “_______ is a hard city/town/state/region/country/people group to bring the gospel to.” “The soil is hard here.” “People aren’t responsive to the gospel on my campus." Ministry is hard work. Some of this has to do with the nature of working with people. It’s not like you’re making widgets for a buck and selling them for ten and demand out weighs supply. Folks have choices, a past, needs and quirks. These dynamics are impossible to control. You can only deal with what you face. But on top of that you have spiritual factors. Receptivity, resistance, and unseen opposition, to name a few. These are equally impossible to exert influence over. When I first started my work with university students, I had an encounter I will never forget. I was sitting in a prayer group when a man pulls out his bible and began reading from Zechariah. He got to the phrase in chapter 8 that said, “…let us go with you, because we’ve heard that God is with you.” At that point I broke down, sobbing, for who knows how long. It felt like an hour, could have been five minutes. I have no idea. Why did I have that kind of out of the blue reaction to an obscure Old Testament reference? Upon reflection, the only thing that made sense was that this is what I wanted my life to be about. This is what I thought my contribution in ministry would be. It’s what I believed would be the vehicle of the good news. Not a tract or an illustration on a napkin, but instead seeing it carried along by people among whom God was real and obvious. Nowhere in my spiritual development did anyone ever share this idea with me. Instead, the Gospel was dependent on me to share a Summary of the Story in five minutes or less. Soon after that I committed myself to praying for awakening. I invited other colleagues to join with me to ask God to do the kind of thing spoken of in Zechariah 8. We prayed together for at least 10 years. Nothing even came close to what we envisioned. Eventually I grew discouraged, ready to give up. I started entertaining other vocational options. I started feeling like a fool. Had I given my best years and effort to a pipe dream? It took about four years, but during that time I came to believe that I hadn’t wasted my life. I was free to change vocations, but I was not at liberty to discard the vision that was handed to me. I may reach my grave and never see that kind of spiritual movement, but that fulfillment was never to be my goal. Mine was to live by faith, always moving toward that dream. So I left the vocational ministry, opened a business, and got something of my soul back in the process. I was like The Farmer who was committed to his land, and every day of the year hitched his plow to the ox and tried plowing his drought hardened field. Faithful to the task, yet it was cripplingly discouraging. He always wanted to be a farmer, but the work was too much to bear. Without rain, his work was hopeless. He talked to other farmers who were doing the same thing, daily scraping the crusty surface of dirt, with a dust cloud being the only evidence of labor. They told him to stay the course, that a good farmer never quits. “This is hard work, son, what did you expect?” So he got an idea. The Farmer believed rain would one day return, so instead of tearing up his back and his plow on a hard field, he spent his time on other tasks. He started enlisting a handful of city kids, a few young non-farmers, people who had no preconceived notion of how to farm. He shared his vision of the eventual rainstorm that would come and soften the soil and make it capable of plowing again, and that when this happened, he was going to need some help. He showed these few how to build a plow and make it sharp so once the rain came, they would be ready to go. I will always be The Farmer, and just because I’m not in the same university field I once was is no indication that I have given up. I’m just in a better position to wait for rain now.

Jesus and the Mob

I’m not a pacifist. Jesus told us that if we choose to live according to the sword, we would have to be willing to accept that we will die in the same way. If we adopt a way of living that includes killing, we can’t expect to escape the same fate. The more people I knock off, the more will want to return the favor. In a round about way, this is why I’m intrigued by mob movies. It befuddles me to consider how people in the mafia go about their business. All in a normal day you might whack someone for not paying back a loan, break another guy’s kneecaps for looking at your sister wrong, and then go home and tuck your kids in bed. How would you ever rest? Your job assures that you have your share of enemies, all of which want the same fate for you. Our freedom handed to us by Jesus means that we have a choice of how to live and how to die. I have to accept others liberty to live by the war metaphor. If you believe we are at war against the ACLU, that’s your prerogative. You will have to die by the same weapons you wield. If I’m an asshole, it shouldn’t surprise me when I get treated like one.

Did I win, Part 2

Borrowing lingo from war and applying it toward an effort to bring about any kind of social change is a tricky line to walk. I’m not even comfortable when sports announcers refer to a rivalry game as “all out war,” say nothing about when The Church As We Know It tosses out the term in reference to bringing about social change. War is about killing and destroying forces that threaten a way of life, and doing it in such a way that the enemy will think twice about ever doing it again. For The Church As We Know It to proclaim war against those who do not hold to biblical morality seems a bit contradictory. The Church As We Know It may have liked the authority it owned over culture back in the 40’s, but did that time period have anything to do with faith? The reason I can’t adopt the language of war is that I don’t believe our culture threatens anything about the wellbeing of The Church of the Future. The life of faith is about things unseen. Since people are a visible part of my culture, I don’t feel the need to kill them. Disagree, maybe, but not declare war because they hold different morality. If Truth is stronger than Deceit, and if Darkness will never, ever comprehend or master Light, as a person of faith, do I ever really need to feel threatened?

Did I win?

I’m mistakenly listening to Christian porn yesterday and heard a guy admonishing all Christians to take a stand against the ACLU and all the current attacks against biblical morality that is so rampant in our culture today. Among his pleas was a request for funds to stay on the air so he and his outfit could continue to be armed for the battle that lie ahead. The last thing I remember before I changed the channel for a needed reprieve was, “Now is the time for all bible believing people to rise up and not be silent!” To many minds in The Church As We Know It, his type of cause makes perfect sense, which is another reason I don’t feel like I fit anymore. If I could have a pint with the guy, I have a number of questions I wish could be addressed, such as “If this is a battle, what does winning look like?” And to continue with the war imagery, what or who is the enemy? If I am to enlist with you, what do we hope to accomplish? Is this a winnable war and how long do you think it will take? What do I do if you find out some of my friends are the enemy? Am I required to shoot them too? If we keep with the war metaphor, I’m afraid the Church As We Know It will be guilty of casting its pearls before swine. It will be like pouring gravel in the feed trough. Pearls may be precious to the farmer, but they cannot be eaten by pigs or any other livestock for that matter. So if the animals don’t eat, whose fault is it? Maybe we need a better metaphor? Images are easier to remember than words, which is why we use them, but there comes a time when the image doesn’t quite communicate like it used to. Culture changes, so does language. We must adapt how we speak if we are to be understood, and isn’t this the goal of any good communicator?

Emotionally Reading the Text

I have started a practice that has revolutionized the way I read the Scripture. It is something my seminary training did not teach me, but I would add it to my schedule of classes if I ever started my own school. I would call this class, Emotionally Reading the Text. It doesn’t take the place of understanding the sitz em lebem, but it might help a person see the way in which the Scripture was handed to them. This is why you and I can read the same verse and one of us feel comforted and the other shackled. I did a quick search in the New Testament and found a few occurrences where Jesus told people not to doubt. This time, instead of first going to the root meaning of the word, or getting out a parsing guide, I ask myself, if Jesus were speaking these words to me, what tone of voice would he be using? In each and every case, he was pissed at me. During my formative years, I didn’t know a single soul who ever spoke of doubt in any terms other than shameful ones. The assumption was that if you doubt, you are basically disqualified from the possibility of having any kind of spiritual influence. I can recall asking a speaker one time about how I can get better at praying and not doubting My question obviously annoyed him, because his terse answer snapped back like a green peach switch, “It’s your choice, either believe or don’t.” And he walked off. The exchange left me, an influential student, flustered, concluding I must be a bad person. I think this insecurity is why I have a tendency to read Jesus’ words with the same sense of shame. Other leaders were not kind, and since they were his spokesmen, why should he be any different? If men I tried to please were always irritated at my lack of belief, it only made sense that Jesus would be even more so. Shedding light on the emotion we place on the text can expose the doubt that wants to overshadow faith.

Origin

Since the post on doubt seemed to resonate, I thought I would continue the thread by trying to describe in simple terms the things that hold my faith together. Each of these gets buffeted with their fair share of doubt, but these are the sign posts that keep pointing me in the same direction. If I may add, to any readers that may disagree with my position, please don’t read this as an attempt to proselytize you or change your mind or push my religion. See this as a forty-something guy trying to figure out a way to make sense of the life that he is living and what to do with what has been given to him. Walk with me a little ways before trying to refute. That’s all I ask. I’m no philosopher or scientist, but the one deep question I cannot get past is, “How did we get here?” Some would say by chance or evolution or some mathematical randomness, but these kinds of explanations take too much trust for me to embrace. These raise more unanswered questions for me than I am comfortable living with. It makes more sense to me to believe that Something created us and all the floating orbs that we see and specifically the blue and green one we move in. The universe is too vast and too complex for me to make the leap into embracing zillions of years of tiny incremental changes from single cell organisms to the current ability to cure disease and put a man on the moon. That may be easy for you, but I can’t get there. For some minds, there are huge barriers to starting with this belief. The idea of origin seated in a Divine location cannot be tested empirically or scientifically; therefore that belief must be rejected. I’m OK with that. Science needs to play by its own rules. But personally I still find this terribly limiting, because I am cutting myself off from a body of information that won’t fit in my test tube. Science has answered a lot of questions for us, but it also has left many unanswered, and I don’t want science to be my salvation. Nor do I want religion to be my salvation It has to come back to faith. What am I willing to stake my life on? Like you, everyday I have to get up in the morning. And as I sit on the edge of the bed, feeling the stiffness of aging joints and muscles, this is when I become most philosophical. Why not just lay back down and go back to sleep? To gather a paycheck at that point is adequate motivation some of the time, but more and more it seems a little small juxtaposed against the mysteries that appear as if they are standing at the foot of the bed. By faith, I hold on to the idea that I was created on purpose, that my starting point wasn’t just due to a molecular lottery. Doubts still exist. Questions still arise. Books have been written against it. College profs will forever make fun of it, but I figured out long ago that they don’t get to make my decisions. That’s my privilege.

What would Jesus say...

Glenn prompted the idea for this post. =================== Your eyes betray you. I can see the weight hidden behind them. This is the one common weakness all people share. A man can’t see his own face. Sure, you can look in a mirror and see the wrinkles or gray hair, but even that is a mere reflection. Only another person can peer into your countenance and see the real thing. Remember that I am among those who know. You have taken on quite a challenge, embarking on this quest for the unknown, unseen future you have in mind so clearly. There are many questions I see behind your eyes, but only one that really stands out that I’d like to address. It’s that one question that overarches everything. It’s the one thing that is tied to the weight that lies within. And rest assured that you are not the only one asking that question. Over the course of history, there are more men and women than you can count who have been in the exact same place as you. At your questions lies the essence of what I am all about. It involves the one thing that I am looking for in people like yourself. Will you make it? Will you get to your destination, or will someone else inherit what you have worked so hard to build? Or even worse, will all your effort dissolve into nothing? Never forget, son, that without this question you could not exhibit faith. I know many who led you over the years left you with a sense that they had no doubts and were 100% sure about everything, including what they knew to be true about Me, but trust Me, they don’t have it all right either. What most people seem to forget about faith is that it is not about the things seen. Never has and never will. And faith is what I am looking for when I return. It can’t be faith if there were guarantees like you want them. If you made a decision to trust me just because some guy told you his story of how he stepped out in faith and all his debts got paid and how all his problems got solved, you’re no longer choosing to walk by faith. You only want what he got. You want a short sighted solution, not a life of faith. Don’t get me wrong, I can still be trusted, but to do so requires that there always be a sense of doubt. Doubt is the handmaiden of faith. You will always see the two together, sort of like the way you see Fear lurking around Courage. If you see one but not the other, you can be assured that the other is just around the corner. Watchman, rest in this thought today as you enjoy your Sabbath. I know what you want from me and I’m not going to give it to you. But you’ve already given me what I’ve asked. You want certainty. I want faith. Let that sink in while you get another cup of coffee. Sounds like the newpaper has arrived.

10-20-30 years ago

The idea for this post was prompted from a tag, a term new to me, but I figured what it meant pretty quickly. Ten years ago: I was at the height of my involvement and contribution in what we might look back and call the worship movement. I had several opportunities to share thoughts, ideas, songs and leadership on college campuses in the Midwest. The Passion student movement was just beginning, for which I was around to see it get off the ground. I had a great band of musicians around me, a great set of friends. My outlook on life was extremely hopeful. I loved what I was doing and where I found myself. Twenty years ago: Just starting graduate school in Marin County, CA. Many of my friends inquired about my decision to move so far west. “Why not go to school closer to home?” I told them that I had been to Fort Worth and San Francisco and the choice seemed like a no-brainer. It was there that I met my wife, but it took me a few months before I got the courage to even consider the thought that she might have interest in me. I termed her “OML,” Outta My League. But thanks to the dean at my school, he pulled the blinders off my eyes and helped me see what I couldn’t. We were later married two and a half years later. Thirty years ago: I made one of the biggest decisions of my life 30 years ago, the choice to not play high school football. If you are from a small town in the southern United States, you may be familiar with the cultural importance for a young man to prove himself on the athletic field. At that young age, there was something inside me that said I don’t need to be involved in sports to be validated as somebody. I listened to that voice and followed the advice. Little did I know that 30 years later, I would be faced with that same theme in leaving behind the Church As We Know It in search of The Church Of The Future.

Fast Food

I don’t know if this idea is due to the new industry I find myself in, but I’ve stumbled across a parallel between the world of food and the religious culture I was formed in. Our restaurant is nothing special, yet many of our clients are treating it like it’s the newest trend in dining. All we are doing is making food fresh, in our store, and treating people like friends. For those of you who don’t realize, much of the food you eat at a common restaurant franchise or fast food establishment comes in frozen on a truck, shipped in from a warehouse or central kitchen somewhere. There’s even a popular bakery café chain who boasts of fresh baked bread (I’m sure you’re familiar with it) receives their dough frozen and only bakes it in their store. The reason for this is efficiency. When the bottom line is profit, a company doesn’t really need to pay attention to other elements like taste, quality, ethics, or community improvement. If the product is selling, who cares how it is made? If all you want is a quick meal, does it matter if it took 3 days to get to your town by semi truck? For some reason, I had this same kind of thinking toward the message that Jesus brought for us. I believed that the only thing that really mattered was if you believed that message or not. Here, the bottom line was not profit. Instead it was souls saved. Consequently, I missed the importance of other components of the message, namely, the part about living the Life to the full. It’s a great feeling when customers tell me they love what we are doing with our restaurant and can’t wait to tell their friends about us. What have we done to elicit this response? My guess is this; we are attempting to rescue food from the fast, efficient world in which it has been relegated, and in which it doesn’t belong. As we do so, it seems some people understand what we’re up to. This brings me to my point. Is the same true for the Bread of Life? Has Jesus and His Message been copied, duplicated and franchised into a tasteless, unhealthy yet efficient product? And have its consumers become so familiar with this type of product that it has no idea there can be anything else? I’m convinced that leaders of the Church of The Future will do well to rescue the Story from its limitations of its culture. How that is done is up to you to decide.

Need

I read a lot of blogs written by people who have issue with The Church As We Know It. Some have experiences that mirror mine, while others are very different. Stories span the spectrum, from severe spiritual abuse to severe boredom. The common point, however, is that there seems be something in each of these stories that indicate something deeply wanted from The Church As We Know It. Right or wrong, there is desire for a return on the investment in relationship. Uncovering this fact was a good therapeutic point for me in understanding my angst toward The Church As We Know It. James simply states that our conflicts all stem from our desires that battle within us. We want something and can’t have it. I eventually figured out what I wanted and could not have. I longed for permission, but did not get it. Just tell me it’s OK to pursue what was on my heart and I’ll move on. But there was more. I longed for validation. Don’t just tell me “OK, you can do this.” I long to hear that my idea is good. Give me your stamp of approval. But there was more. I longed for blessing. Don’t just tell me “OK, you can do this.” Don’t just say it’s a good thing. Tell me it would be tragic if I didn’t pursue the idea. But there was more. I longed for a name. Don’t just tell me “OK, you can do this.” Don’t just say it’s a good thing. Don’t just tell me it would be tragic if I didn’t pursue the idea. Give me a name; your name. Tell the world I belong to you. It took years to finally believe that what I was wanting and what I was asking for was not bad. In fact, I still long to be validated, blessed and named. The difference now is letting the desires be just that; desire. Instead, I turned them into demands, and I took them to The Church As We Know It for fulfillment. I can’t determine whether or not my desires will come to pass, but I can decide to keep them alive or not.

Speak up, I can't hear you

It is my belief that the key to growing and learning, especially in the realm of faith, is not in gaining the right information, but in asking the right questions. Without the right question, how do I know where to put the right answer? Too bad many of us were taught to fear the question and not invite it. One question I ask often is, “Are we in a season of God’s silence?” I’m intrigued by the period of time between the Old & New Testaments referred to as “The Silent Years.” 400 years without record of what God might have been up to. Faith evidently managed to stay alive, but not much indication of what else. What was it like to live during that time? Were people of faith during The Silent Years aware that God was silent? Did they talk themselves into believing that what they were experiencing was as good as it gets? Did they eventually lower their standards for the miraculous, no longer looking for something that only God could do and start calling lesser actions great? I think I am less apt to credit God on certain outcomes now that really seem like good fundraising or just good leadership. I was at a wedding yesterday held in a brand new church facility. All around the building there were signs and posters referring to how God provided miraculously for the money to build the new structure. People seemed genuinely excited that God was doing something on their behalf. I don’t want to rain on that parade. Trust me, I’m not trying to be cynical, or even disbelieving. I am not a pessimist. I only want to make sure I am giving credit where credit is due. If God is doing miracles today, you’d think it would attract a little more attention, you know, kind of like Jesus did when he turned water into wine, or stuck a new set of eyeballs back in a guy’s skull. To me, there is a danger of not acknowledging that God just might be silent. We run the risk of forgetting what it’s like when He actually does do something great. I’m glad that Faith will flourish, even in the darkest, most silent of times.

Perspective

I don’t claim to be an expert on anything, especially in the area of leadership, but I have learned a few things along the way, some of them in the last two months. Here’s what I’m finding. Depending on who or what you read, you will find exhaustive work has been done on the subject of leadership and which qualities are required to be a good leader. It won’t take long to peruse the shelves of a Barnes & Noble or public library and find a book or research study out there to support your belief in charisma or vision or dedication as the most important leadership quality. But there is one quality I would vote as number one today. For any leader, perspective is indispensable. Take this simple drawing for example.

You likely learned about this drawing in grade school art class, when you were taught how to draw a horizontal line a third of the way down the page followed by two angled lines down from the center of that line, creating the basis for drawing a road toward the horizon. Your teacher referred to this as perspective. Perspective is a means of seeing, even though the picture may not be complete yet.

It’s the reason you are a leader. You are drawing the picture. Your people need you to keep reminding them that they are not looking at a stickman without a head, or a tall teeter totter or a letter K lying on its side. They need you to keep saying, “It’s a road.” To do this, you as the leader must keep yourself convinced that it’s a road.

It’s easy to lose perspective as a leader. Fatigue, conflict, and even success can cloud the mind and distort the original picture. Charisma and personality are fine qualities, but a charismatic personality without perspective is destined to be an ineffective leader.