Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Ryan and I studied Zebras yesterday as part of his homeschooling curriculum.

We learned that Zebras move in families. In each Zebra family, there is one stallion (male). There are also several mares (females) and foals (kids). The stallion mates with each of the mares; they give birth to the foals; they raise the foals together; then they send them out to start new families. So God wired polygamy into creation after all!

What caught my attention is what happens when a threat to the family arises.

When a lion attacks or another Zebra stallion tries to take over, the mares run off to safety with the foals.

The stallion, however, stays behind to fight off the threat. He faces it head on.

Effectively, he puts his life on the line for the sake of the rest of the family.

He doesn’t dash away and let the rest of the family members fend for themselves. He doesn’t use his superior speed to run away from the predator (Zebras can run up to 37 M.P.H!), leaving the younger, slower foals behind.

He stays and protects the family. And if necessary, he loses his life to do it.

This is a great example of leadership in the kingdom of God. Leaders in the kingdom lead not by expecting others to serve them but by laying their lives down for the family of God.

The Zebra stallion epitomizes perfectly the words of Jesus in Mark 10:42-45:

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

What are the obstacles to Zebra-style leadership in your family? Church? Workplace?

Storyline commissioned three Partners in Mission this weekend at our Community Gathering.

Partners in Mission are those who want to make Storyline “their church” by aligning themselves with Storyline’s values (dependence on God; mission; life change; genuine relationships) and practices (mission; confession; devotion; community; generosity).

Partners in Mission prepare for partnership through Storyline DNA (orientation to Storyline) and Lifestyle DNA (a six-week course to equip partners in Storyline’s lifestyle.

What a great way to start the new year!

What does partnership with your community of faith look like?

Reggie McNeal has a new book out that I’d like to recommend called Missional Communities: The Rise of the Post-Congregational Church.

McNeal’s purpose in this book is to describe from high altitude the growing phenomenon in North America he calls “missional communities,” an alternative expression of church in our time.

The phrase “missional communities” suggests the distinctive characteristic of these groups: mission is the organizing principle. They are embedded in a particular neighborhood or network of relationships. They focus on discipleship, hospitality and justice work. They develop a close-knit sense of community around the mission. They are led most often by non-paid leaders. They aim to help searchers find their way into the Christian community.

McNeal submits that these ecclesial expressions are a legitimate form of church and should be embraced as such. They are very different from their congregational counterparts, and yet not necessarily a replacement for them.

After introducing key concepts in the first two chapters, he surveys five recent movements that give evidence to the rise of the “post-congregational church”:

  1. 3 Dimensional Ministries
  2. Soma Communities
  3. Campus Renewal UT
  4. Future Travelers
  5. Mission Houston

Here’s the value I see in McNeal’s book:

  • McNeal writes as a Baby Boomer – someone my parents’ age, many of whom have grown up and lead in congregational forms of church.
  • The book offers a helpful framework: I like the functional comparison of “congregational” form of church and “post-congregational” or “missional community.” It brings clarity to what’s happening in the North American church.
  • The approach is very gracious. The purpose is not to lambast the congregational expression but rather to uphold the missional community as a viable alternative. In fact, many networks of missional communities are nurtured out of the congregational form of church.
  • The stories. I have one friend who has said to me repeatedly: I really think the germinal/organic/missional church approach is the wave of the future, I just want to see it work! Read this book, friend, and see 5 movements that are thriving examples of the missional community approach.
  • It affirms God’s work in Storyline. To be honest, I feel like a church outsider most of the time and downright crazy just a little less of the time because of my work as a missional communities practitioner. What excites me about the five movements studied from all over North America is that it’s very clear that this is not an isolated incident. It is the movement of the Holy Spirit. The examples listed here are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this growing expression of church.

Pick up the book! Share it with others who would benefit from seeing what God is up to in the North American church.

What are we going to do about Christmas?

For the first time, I feel like I’m entering into the debate in a serious way – my own life and family rhythms are on the line. What am I going to do about it? Up to this point, I’ve gone into default mode – I do what my family has always done. Wanting to be more responsible and adult, I’m trying to reflect intentionally on it this year.

The debate has gone something like: should Christmas be observed as a religious holiday or as a cultural holiday?

In other words, is Christmas about Jesus, or is it about a time of celebration and gift-giving with friends and family?

Practically, people respond to the question by observing the Christmas season in a handful of ways:

  1. Observe it as a religious holiday but not as a cultural holiday. Jesus should be stripped away from the commercialization and materialism of the holiday season. Jesus is the (only) reason for the season. E.g., the message of the little movie Charlie Brown’s Christmas. Also anyone who uses the language of “taking back Christmas for Jesus.”
  2. Observe it as a cultural holiday but not as a religious holiday. I grew up with this perspective in Churches of Christ. The line of thinking: a) Jesus wasn’t born on December 25 (which is true); b) Christians don’t worship the baby Jesus; c) Christians remember the life, death and resurrection of Jesus every week in their gatherings; d) So Christians don’t celebrate Christmas the way the rest of the “world” (used often very negatively) does. We did, however, celebrate Santa and presents etc. with the rest of the “world”. I suspect most atheists prefer to celebrate Christmas this way, too. Irony intended.
  3. Observe it as a religious/cultural holiday. This approach rolls it all up into one big holiday ball: we sing Silent Night and Jingle Bells right alongside each other; we talk about both Santa and Jesus; we buy gifts for family and we go to Christmas Eve service to celebrate the incarnation; we even try to talk about how the cultural values around Christmas (e.g., gift-giving) emerge from the story of Jesus. Yet we certainly disapprove (though sometimes succumb to) the extremes of materialism and over-consumption that occur in the broader culture during this holiday. I suspect most Christians fall in this camp.
  4. Observe it as separate religious and cultural holidays. This perspective is new to me. In fact, I just read one writer’s proposal about this approach in an article today in USA Today. She proposes that we don’t try to meld the two together or fight about how we should celebrate either the religious or cultural expression. What if it wasn’t either/or but both/and? What if we just distinguished between the two and practiced them as separate holidays that happen to overlap (and fall on the same day)?
  5. Observe it neither as a cultural or religious holiday. I have friends who eschew the whole season of Christmas as a combination of #1 and #2. The cultural practices are unacceptable expressions of materialism and commercialism. The religious practices are unacceptable because Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas. So they don’t practice either.

Personally, I’m leaning toward #4. For these reasons:

  • As a missionary, I cannot hide from cultural practices but must rather engage them as a way of helping people see God in the midst of them. In my world, there is no secular and sacred divide. All is God’s.
  • As a believer, I cannot say that the cultural expression of Christmas is altogether bad – giving gifts, helping those in need, and spending quality time with friends and family are all quite good things. I can affirm these things without affirming materialism, greed and selfishness.
  • As a believer, I also cannot deny the historic Christian faith and the Christian calendar that’s been around for 1600 years. I’m ready to get past the fact that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25 and that Christmas first emerged in conjunction with a pagan holiday (so did Easter, by the way) and use the Christian calendar (re:Advent and Christmas) as an opportunity to live into the story of Jesus with my family and church. I find tremendous solidarity with the people of God in doing so.
  • I’m concerned about what will happen if my family celebrates Christmas as a religious/cultural holiday. Will my kids ask me questions like: “So are Santa and Jesus cousins?” Or, “So is Jesus Santa’s Helper or is Santa Jesus’ helper?” How do you pull all that off without getting confused yourself?

What do you think? If you’re willing to engage the debate yet another time – share with us how you’re choosing to live out the Christmas season and why. And make sure to be nice about it (as opposed to naughty).

Happy Advent, everyone.

For those of you who didn’t grow up with the Christian calendar – I didn’t either – Advent is the four-week season starting the Sunday after Thanksgiving and culminating on Christmas day. It’s a season of anticipation and waiting for the arrival, or advent, of King Jesus into the world. It is preparation for the incarnation that is celebrated on Christmas.

As a way of teaching our kids about the season of Advent – and also to teach them that Christmas is not primarily about getting a Star Wars lightsaber or a princess doll that burps after feeding – we borrowed a great idea from our friend Summer Newman called the Jesse Tree. You should read her great post about their Jesse Tree last Advent if this interests you.

We set up a little tree on our dinner table with four purple candles around it (a symbol of Jesus’ royalty). Beside it sits a our kids’ Bible and a little box. In the box is a white candle (to be lit on Christmas day), four pieces of candy (because chocolate is delicious), a lighter, an ornament for that day, and a little card with a Bible story and prayer for the day. The daily Bible stories walk through the major moves of God’s story in Scripture that anticipate the arrival of the Messiah. You can see a PDF file of the ornaments and daily prayer cards here.

Each day after dinner during Advent, we’ll open the box together, light the candles, eat some chocolate, read a Bible story that anticipates the birth of Jesus, color and hang an ornament on the tree (each day’s ornament corresponds with the Bible story), and pray together.

I think the Jewish Community is really on to something in the way they train their children in the faith with hands-on spiritual practices. It’s fun and enriching – not just for the kids, but for the parents, too.

What does your family do to prepare for the birth of Jesus in the Advent season? Share your family traditions (so we can copy them)!

  1. an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.

I’m an ambitious person. For whatever reason, I’m driven to succeed. I want to be the best. And not for my own fame or notoriety (primarily) – if I can succeed in church planting and justice work, it will mean that lots of people will be helped and blessed. I want to do well in helping others do well.

Here’s my question for dialogue: is this mentality something to applaud or something to confess?

Many would probably applaud it – what’s not to like about seeking excellence, especially for the benefit of others?

Yet I think there’s something dangerous, insidious and subversive in this kind of ambition, particularly because it can hide behind good deeds.

Ambition for doing good has the potential to be selfishness and pride dressed in holy clothing.

I say this because I know my own heart.

Church planting – a good, people-blessing enterprise – has at times been an idol I’ve put my hope in rather than God. At times I have secretly hoped it would put me on the map, make me a big deal, build my kingdom. (Writing that for all to see helps me to realize how silly it is.)

Paul similarly described some who preached the gospel – a good thing – as doing so out of “selfish ambition” – because they wanted to get him into trouble. (Philippians 2:17).

Elsewhere, when Paul talks about being “ambitious to preach” himself with a noble motive (Romans 15:20, TNIV) – he doesn’t use the same word/idea he did in Philippians 2. Translators decided that “ambition” was the best way to render it. I’m not sure it is, given the way our culture defines the word – as the pursuit of achievement or distinction for oneself. The American brand of ambition seems to be inherently selfish.

So what do we do with ambition for good things? Can ambition be redeemed in the kingdom? 

The words of Jesus come to mind: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:32-33)

Here’s my paraphrase of what Jesus is saying in the terms of this conversation about ambition: Make God your number one ambition. The pagans are ambitious about everything else – food, clothes, careers. But not you. If you seek after God and make it your primary ambition to know him and love him, everything else – food, clothes and careers – will fall into place.

Perhaps there is room in the kingdom for ambition to do good, but only insofar as that ambition is judged, measured and held in check by a primary ambition to know and love God.

What do you think? Please join the dialogue!

Changing Names

Julie read me a beautiful news story a few nights ago about how a health officer in Maharashtra, India, Dr. Bhagwan Pawar, set out to help girls change their names.

Dr. Pawar conducted a survey in his district and discovered that 222 girls had been named “Nakusa,” a Marathi word which means “unwanted” in English.

In an interview with India Real Time, Dr. Pawar said: “In most cases, after the birth of two or more female children, the next one would be named ‘Nakusa’ by the parents.”

Indian culture places high value on male children, so much so that hospitals are legally forbidden to reveal the sex of the child before birth in hopes of preventing gender selective abortions, according to an Associated Press article.

This same article goes on to point out that male children are preferred to females partly because it’s very expensive to give girls away in marriage. Families often go into debt to provide a dowry at their daughter’s wedding, whereas a boy brings a bride and her dowry back to the family.

So people like Dr. Pawar and his team are conducting renaming ceremonies to change girls’ names from “unwanted” to names like ”Vaishali” that mean “prosperous, beautiful and good.”

Can you imagine what it would be like to be named “Unwanted” by your parents?

Imagine hearing the roll called at school, and your name came up every day as “Undesirable.” “Leftover.” “Wish-you-were-a-boy.” “Unloved.”

What an incredible act of justice to let the girls take on new names!

This story reminded me of a story in Hosea 1-2, where the prophet Hosea, under God’s instruction, names his children “Lo-Ruhama” (which means “not loved”) and “Lo-Ammi” (which means “not my people”). Their names were to be a message to the people of Israel that God was upset with them for their disobedience and idolatry. God wanted desperately for Israel to return to him.

And then, in a wonderful act of grace (because Israel, after all, deserved to be called the names given to Hosea’s children – while Hosea’s children and the Indian girls did not), God says (Hosea 2:16-23):

16 “In that day,” declares the LORD,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the LORD.

21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the LORD—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
   and they will say, ‘You are my God.’

Dr. Pawar and his team reflect the love and justice of God in their renaming work.

Guilt. Obligation. A sense of duty. A feeling within that it’s just what Christians are supposed to do. Curiosity. Desperation. Guidance.

All of these answers surfaced in response to this question in our Community Gathering conversation on Sunday.

I attended a Christian liberal arts university where students were encouraged to read through the entire Bible in a year. As incentive for staying the course, those who completed their reading were offered a free steak dinner at the President’s house.

I know the intentions for this approach were noble. The leaders of the University hoped that by reading the vast content of the Bible, students would know more about God and would grow in their relationship with God.

I’m afraid, however, that there are unintended consequences to such an approach to the Bible. I know because I fell victim to them.

Though I never took the President up on his offer, I did decide to read through the Bible the year after I graduated. I bought a One Year Bible, which has daily readings from the Old and New Testament, and decided to make my way through it.

By the summertime, I had fallen about a month behind. I felt terrible about it. I was reminded of my shortcomings every day when I read the dates that accompanied the daily readings in the One Year Bible.

So on my summer vacation (in Destin, Florida!) I spent most of the time trying to catch up. I had to stay the course. I didn’t want to be a failure at Bible reading. I must have read hundreds of chapters of Scripture that week.

Here’s the thing: I don’t recall connecting to God in a significant way during that week. I can’t remember anything about it except that I was so caught up in catching up.

What this revealed to me is that it’s possible to read the Bible and yet miss the God of the Bible.

I was caught up in a paradigm for Bible reading that revolved around completion, information, and volume.

The side effects were:

  • guilt
  • failure
  • boredom
  • setting up those who read the most Bible as an elite class of people
  • and most significantly, missing God.

Jesus critiqued a similar impulse in the religious leaders of his day when he pointed out that they went to the Scriptures to find eternal life but missed that the Scriptures testified about Jesus and thus refused to receive eternal life from him (John 5:39-40). They read the Bible but missed the God of the Bible.

In the John 5 story, Jesus simultaneously points to a different paradigm for Bible reading, one that revolves instead around connection, relationship, communication, and interaction. The Bible serves as a witness that introduces us to God. The Bible is a conversation piece through which we interact with God.

What would it look like to read the Bible in such a paradigm?

  • We’d read less. But we’d read enough to get the gist of a story, text or thought, but no so much that we weren’t able to slow down and listen to God through it. Certainly there are seasons where it’s necessary to read a greater volume of Scripture (e.g., seminary), but even then it’s critical to translate the learning into conversation with God.
  • We’d attend to “heart tugs”. We’d pay attention to verses or phrases that prick our hearts, convict us, comfort us, or challenge us and we’d reflect on them in silence.
  • We’d interact with God about it. We would spend most of our time in dialogue with God about what we’re reading – listening for how we need to grow and change, or sitting peacefully in his presence with the knowledge of who he is.
  • We’d return to those Scriptures again and again. There’s no need to return to passages we’ve read in the completion paradigm – because we’ve completed them! But in a connection paradigm, we can return to them again and again with God to let him form us and shape us.

Dallas Willard says:

Do not try to read a great deal [of Scripture] at once. As Madam Guyon wisely counsels, ‘If you read quickly, it will benefit you little. You will be like a bee that merely skims the surface of the flower. Instead, in this new way of reading with prayer, you must become as the bee who penetrates into the depths of the flower. You plunge deeply within to remove its deepest nectar.’ …It is better in one year to have 10 good verses transferred into the substance of our lives than to have every word of the Bible flash before our eyes.

This kind of Bible reading is far from boring or guilt-inducing. Encountering God through Scripture will keep you coming back again and again.

How does this analysis compare to your own experiences? What motivates you to read the Bible?

The Deep Ground

I had an insightful conversation recently with Randy Harris about the spiritual life.

Randy, giving credit to the work of Martin Laird in Into the Silent Land, described three postures of discipleship.

“The first operates from up here,” Randy said, moving his hand up by his head. “Here we work out of our brilliance, out of our giftedness, out of our understandings.”

I suspect that most young people (twentysomethings down) take this posture in life and discipleship. Perhaps this suspicion is rooted in my own admission that I’ve lived most of my life out of this posture – and, as you’ll see, it’s nothing to be proud of.

“The second [posture] operates from here,” moving his hand back and forth further down by his chest. “Here we work out of a keen awareness of our own brokenness, our limitations, our struggles and turmoil.”

In the past few years habitual patterns of sin (like anger, pride and lust) moved me to this posture of discipleship. It reminds me of the words of a graduate school professor who said that we twentysomething seminarians needed a few more years of struggling with sin so that we could recognize the depth of humanity’s brokenness (and our own).

“There’s a third way that operates from here, ” Randy said as he moved his hand down by his waist in the chair he was sitting in. “We hardly have language to describe this place. So few find it. It is the deep ground of God.”

“What exactly is this deep ground?” I asked.

“It’s God. It’s God in us. It’s your true self. It’s the Holy Spirit. It’s silence. It’s the place where you stare down your brokenness in silence and tell it to back off. It’s the Center.”

He’s right – I’m not sure even how to describe it. But I think it’s the place where we discover God. Where we encounter God. And after the encounter, where we sit in deep peace.

I’ve only touched the edge of the deep ground’s garment in my life – if that.

The key, Randy says, is to find the deep ground of God in contemplation (silence) and then begin to live out of it in every moment of our daily lives. That journey lasts a lifetime.

Laird adds that “union with God not something we are trying to acquire; God is already the ground of our being.” The real issue in finding the deep ground is to realize that “we live, move and have our being in God” – that we, in fact, are already rooted in the deep ground, though not consciously aware of it.

The extent to which we realize we are rooted is God is the extent to which we live out of the deep ground. Such realization is the work of contemplation and silence.

I’m eager to find this deep ground. It’s exciting to think that the deep ground is as deep as God is big, and that I can spend the rest of my life exploring it.

What about you? In what ways do you identify with these three postures of discipleship? Which posture are you currently living out of?

Mike Breen and Steve Cockram, in their book Building a Discipling Culture, describe two fundamental elements of the way Jesus made disciples.

1. Invitation. Jesus was inviting and supportive of his followers. They knew he loved them. They knew he believed in him. He affirms and blesses Peter when Peter acknowledges that he is the Messiah.

2. Challenge. Jesus does not expect that his disciples will stay where they are. He expects them to grow. He calls them out on their B.S. He challenges them. He loves them too much to allow them to stay the same. Jesus calls Peter out – saying “Get behind me Satan!” – when Peter attempts to rebuke him about submitting to death at the hands of religious and political leaders.

Both of these elements are essential to leadership. Breen and Cockram submit that discipleship is subverted when one or both is missing.

Invitation without challenge produces a cruise-ship, chaplain culture. Sin and brokenness hang around without confrontation. Participants fail to make deeper commitments to spiritual growth. “Come just as you are (and stay there).”

Challenge without invitation produces a stressful, discouraging culture. “What we’re doing is not good enough!” “We need to do more!” Participants begin to wonder if the people leading see them as anything more than a means to accomplish an end.

Lack of both invitation and challenge produces apathy. “Who cares? We don’t.”

The sweet spot in leadership and discipleship is a combination of both invitation and challenge. 3DM calls this “Empowered Culture.” “God loves you and so do I” is heard right alongside “God wants more from us; he is calling us deeper.”

It’s a culture in which the role of prophet (challenge) and pastor (invitation) co-exist together in unity.

From Building a Discipling Culture by Breen and Cockram, p. 12

Moment of confession. About two years into our church planting work with Storyline, I realized the culture we had created was High Invitation / Low Challenge – the “Chaplaincy Quadrant.”

In an effort to reach out to our broader community in a non-judgmental way, we avoided most talk of commitment and challenge. Those who seemed particularly interested we invited deeper into community and leadership, but even then without a foundation from which to challenge and “hold their feet to the fire” of spiritual growth. We lacked any sort of communal sense of covenant. We failed to develop a way for participants even to give permission to be challenged in their walk with Jesus.

My leadership coaching was also mostly invitation and seldom challenge. If I could sum up my coaching posture: “Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you and equip you in it. If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, too.”

The results: We began to spin our wheels in mission. A relatively small number of people were actively living out the lifestyle of Jesus. Some not-yet Christians in our community stalled out in their journey toward Jesus. Hospitality and justice work began to sputter.

These results set us on a journey to learn how to form a culture that had a place for both invitation and challenge. We’re now moving – even if gradually – from the cozy culture to the empowered culture. Our newly developed communal lifestyle and coaching groups are the best examples of our movement in this direction.

My coaching posture is evolving into: “What is God saying to you? What are you going to do about it? Go do it!” And if necessary: “Why haven’t you done it?” Breen and Cockram describe it as an environment of “high accountability and low control.”

It’s often assumed that a “Culture of Grace” is devoid of challenge. Such an assumption is a seed of the consumer-Christianity mess in which we find ourselves.  Paul says “we work out our salvation with fear and trembling as God works in us” (Philippians 2:12-13) and that “the grace of God teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness….” (Titus 2:12). Grace is inherently challenging. The grace of God challenges us to respond to it, not in ways that seek to earn favor with God, but in ways that honor the gift that has been given.

What about you? Which quadrant best describes your church culture? Your leadership?

Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 273 other followers