Stop this handbasket I want to get off

A local pastor friend of mine exhorted his congregation to “Turn off FOX News; its making you paranoid.” While it may be great counsel, it is important to recognize FOX News is only one of numerous voices making us paranoid as it relates to Christians living in our current culture and society.

In the Church today looking forward, far too many of us have come to believe and accept our ticket to ride a certain hand basket on its way to a certain destination. Yes! The times are changing at the pace of the Internet, and our culture and society are increasingly opposed to the values and lifestyle of the follower of Jesus, but I see great hope for what will develop, by necessity, because of these realities. There are many reasons to exchange your ticket for a more hopeful future.

1. This is nothing new God’s people have always had to live among a dominant culture that does not affirm their values, lifestyle, or their claim to One Truth. This is nothing new. It may feel new to us who have been believers through a more comfortable time, but we cannot disregard the reality John reminds us of; “this world and its desires are passing away” (1 John 2:17). We will not and cannot turn the world around, and we cannot pretend that this opposition is anything new. We stand on a the shoulders of history in this reality.

2. The Value of the Local Church Do not entirely believe the statistics that portray a declining church in America. Understand that correct statistics misinterpreted are false statistics. The Church is still and will continue to be quite large. The question will be whether its impact will be strong in the coming generations. Its impact will be stymied if all of its talent, time, energy, and resources continue to be used outside its walls instead of through it. The next generation needs a reason and a reminder to fall in love with the local church. We cannot continue to separate from “religious institutions” and wonder why they are not lasting.

3. Higher Call To Discomfort As circumstances grow less comfortable for the believer, it becomes more impossible for the Christian to simply float in and out and up and down on the waves of the culture. The tide is changing so rapidly, the future generation will be stronger believers because they will have to be. The Christian will be increasingly marginalized in our culture, but that means the true believers will be exactly that; TRUE valiant believers. The days of lukewarm comfortable Jesus following are swiftly drawing to a close. That is good news!

4. Vision Is Unheard; not Unspoken Young Christians want to be part of the visioning to bring about new life and new energy to the Church. The future is coming at us faster than ever before, and keeping up will require the Christian to be as fast. There are young Christians prepared to do this with a commitment to truth. They are listening to the same things in the media, which says our future is doomed. When we believe this perception, we devalue the voice of young Christians who are prepared to stand valiantly in this culture.

5. Discipleship Is Key When you look at the Chinese Church, you will not actually see anything. The Chinese Church is growing by droves in a country where Christianity is criminal. By necessity this underground Church is incredibly committed and unwavering. As American Christians are increasingly marginalized, one-on-one discipleship is going to be more and more vital in the spread of Christianity here.

6. The God-card Ultimately, we must always trust in a sovereign God over and above whatever happens in our culture. I would close with the hope we all ought to have forever. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:9-10)

The opposite of love is not hate; it is fear, and love drives out fear. We are not given the spirit of fear. As we look to the future, we have no reason to fear if we have truly had an experience of the loving God who will remains sovereign, regardless of the paranoia you hear on television.

Sinking boat holes

Over and over again we hear our culture, our country, and our world compared to a particular hand-basket on a journey. We are caught in this crazy battle to see how we ought to be engaged with the culture or whether we even should be engaged with our culture in any capacity. We watch FOXNews to solidify our paranoia and anger. We lash out against a culture who left us years ago. We are concerned that this culture is sinking, and sinking fast.

What strikes about realizing we are sinking is that too many people are content to shoot holes in a sinking ship...that we are in.

We drastically misunderstand what it means to be "in the world but not of it", when we think we can actually escape the world, much less when we seek to attack and shoot holes in it. At some point, it may be helpful to place ourselves specifically into that metaphor I have laid out.

If I were in a sinking boat, regardless of how disgusting that boat may be, I am not going to be content to sit within it firing holes to expedite the process. I may even try to do what I can to redeem, repair, and restore as many of the cracks that I can.

Throw up first

I am teaching a workshop on the creative process in March at The Worship Conference. I am having similar feelings as I do when given opportunities to teach God's Word; who am I to teach this? All is grace!

Same as intimate connection with God, moments and periods of creativity are exactly that; moments! [Tweet That] We all have times when God seems as distant as our creativity. As a follower of Jesus, I believe the two are intimately connected. I am my most creative when I am most connected to the heart of God.

There are practical steps to take for jumpstarting that intimacy, and there are practical steps for jumpstarting your creativity. I will communicate those in my workshop in March, but one I will communicate in a great quote I just came across.

"Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon." - Raymond Chandler

DEEP: a word for the year

Last year, I chose a word to focus on instead of setting a list of goals or resolutions I would not have followed through on. Last year, that word was "restoration". This year, that word is "DEEP".

I learned a valuable lesson when I spoke at a small Christian college in the United States (You can thank me later for narrowing it down for you.) This lesson may well apply to most Christian colleges, universities or churches you visit. I learned never to stand before a crowd containing students, faculty, and administrators of a Christian college or university and state that you are about to “go really deep”. If you ever find yourself before a crowd matching this description, and these words are on the tip of your tongue, bite really hard. I do not mean to use an ambiguous cliché, I mean to quite literally bite your tongue. Perhaps biting it will keep the words ‘go really deep’ from exiting your tongue through the small opening that is your mouth and setting you up for a situation very reminiscent of…oooh??…the Titanic! Slow sinking at first followed by a plunge toward the end! I would say that is a pretty accurate depiction of how it felt. As I was introduced, I made my way up on stage, took the mic in hand and said "Once I get started, I am going to take us real deep real quickly. Is that okay with everyone?” This was the puncture, which started the leak in the ship that day. I talked about the masks we wear in Christian culture and how they often cover up our wounds, which can only heal with exposure.Conversations about our wounds and healing appear deep to me, but I was clearly mistaken. I later realized the problem was not fully in our definitions of ‘deep’ but in my lacking clarification. I should have clarified, “deep in what?’

Two hours had not gone by before I received comments in passing. “I thought you were going to go deep!” “You were not very easy to follow.” “You may need to work on your points a bit more…but good job though.” I received a few emails as well with their fair share of, what should I call it? Feedback? “PC, you and I both know your theology is very weak.” “How can you call yourself an expert or theologian?” (This one is particularly comical, because I would never dream of calling myself either.) “You said at the very beginning of your talk that you were going to ‘go deep’ and you never did that once.” “I checked out the college you went to and…blah, blah, blah…something bad about my Alma Matter…blah, blah.” Notice how the disconnected emails were a bit more abrasive.

PLEASE allow me to make a few things clear right away. It is fully my intention this year to expose things I have seen and done. These things may be offensive and cutting. You may expect my thoughts and writing to be irreverent and theologically shallow. I give my personal guarantee the words you read will be ‘deep’, but deep to an honest place in my heart and not into the recesses of exegesis and five detailed points.

It is promising you will read things that will make theologians sick and scholars angry. It is likely that Armenians and Calvinists alike will be gravely frustrated. I am an equal opportunity annoyance. This will be a collage of stories and reflections that have impacted my life and faith, and of these two things I consider myself an expert. I am not a professional scholar or renowned theologian, but I am an educated and trained expert on the topic of my life and faith. It is my hope you will enjoy what you read. I hope I am entertaining, witty and dessert to your brain. But most importantly I hope my exposed life and faith stirs something within you that has been left unattended or forgotten. I hope my reflections are refreshing even if at times refreshment comes cathartically. So are we clear? For the sake of my inbox, I hope so.

Random Friday thoughts fo'ya

What about this?  Maybe we need to read the story of Zacchaeus with the realization that this is a, man who desperately wants to see Jesus.  This is a desperate sinner who longs to see Jesus but can't.  The reason he can't see Jesus is because in the way are all the crowds of Jesus-followers.  These are a lot of people who already see Jesus and perhaps they are blocking out the sinner and despised tax collector.  They don't even notice the incredibly needy sinner just behind them who wants desperately to come to Jesus.  These people likely already knew Jesus was the Messiah.  That's why they followed him, but in the midst of it they left Zacchaeus to the side....the one who desperately needed and even WANTED to see and know Jesus. Isn't it interesting that one thing changed since the time of Jesus in that it used to be the sinners, whores, and drunks that came running to the compassion of Jesus and the Christian elite who hated Christ?  So what has changed now that it is the lost who hate Christ and even the mention of Christ?  What changed?  The compassion of Christ?  I'm leaning on no.

Okay, you're right! Prove it!

THE PROBLEM, though, is that our culture has moved on without us. We are still behind yelling about how we are right and everyone else is wrong. Our culture is ahead of us, and we stubbornly stay behind. Our culture, today, calls for action. Our culture and our world needs experiential proof. Now the word "proof" may spark our old attention, but we need to begin seeing "proof" very differently than we always have before.

We have exhausted ourselves at proving we are right and they are wrong, but we are only going to reach our culture today....NOW...when we learn to prove our Christian motives to love and serve when we actually go out in the world to love and serve.

Our world and culture no longer hear our words of "proof" for the right and wrong of Christianity; it has moved forward and awaits us to prove we are Christians by actually BEING Christians in the world around us.

Cannonball wound ointment and ministry tension

Brian Regan has a bit about going to the doctor and being given a small handout about how to get the ailment for which he was going to the doctor.

"I know how to get it!"

He exaggerates it as though he were going into the doctor with a cannonball wound and getting a pamphlet describing how to get cannonball wounds.

"I have a cannonball wound! Do you have a tube of cannonball wound ointment?"

Am I the only one who feels like they are not super-sure of what to do in an area or ministry they were once knew exactly what to do?

Ministry has me in a place right now where I am saturated with information about the culture I am reaching, but all the information is heavy on the problem and light to lacking on the solution.

My heart is a bit weighed down with a sense of confusion and burden. It is as though my mind is full of the statistics about this generation, this culture, this demographic. I have an ear to ground, and I hear far more than the local church hears, yes, but I feel like I am without  solutions to the ailments. I feel, in this, a lot of pressure built up in my heart as it fills with more and more insight to the problems and descriptions without the release of solutions and steps for change.

It would seem enough pressure builds without release explosion is impending. (and I'm not even sure I know what that would look like either)

I am in the doctor's office with a wounded heart for a generation reading pamphlet after pamphlet about the generation my heart hurts for.

Something has to change, and I am always willing and ready for change, but...

what do you do when you simply do not know what changes need to be made?