Living in the Present

I’ve been known to ruminate over the past (going over and over past mistakes) and to obsess over the future (plotting out every possible future scenario).  As I’ve written about before, though 2012 is a year of waiting on God, a year of giving up my need to prove my worth by what I can accomplish.  2011 saw the ending of two great endeavors meant to make this world a better place; one had a slow and painful death and one crashed-and-burned, but they both ended.  It’s so tempting to want to jump right back into another world-changing endeavor.  And while I am serving in a couple different ways, church and inner city while also thinking and praying over some future possibilities, most of my energy is focused upon enjoying the moment and finding my identity as God’s child rather than God’s servant.  This is not easy for me to do, but unless I want to drive myself crazy, I have no option but to learn that lesson during this time of waiting.  

With that backdrop, check out the quote I just read from Greg Boyd’s book, “Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now.”  

“How much of your thought life is spent in the past or future, and what is the purpose for this nonpresent thinking? You may be so accustomed to living in the past and future that you find it difficult to notice how much of your thought life is spent there, let alone why you spend so much of your thought life there. But if you are completely honest with yourself, you’ll probably find that most of your past and future orientated thoughts revolve around you and are centered on your attempts to feel worthwhile and significant.

When we live perpetually hungry in the flesh, we spend a great deal of our thought life savoring past experiences or possible future experiences that make us feel worthwhile and significant. We also spend a great deal of time ruminating over past experiences that make us feel less worthwhile and significant. All the while we are strategizing over how to position ourselves to have more of the worth-giving experiences and how to better avoid the worth-detracting experiences.



Most of us are so accustomed to being hungry for Life and living in the past and future that we don’t realize this is what we’re doing. It’s hard for a fish to notice the water it swims in. But the fact of the matter is that we are rarely in the present moment when we’re hungry and chasing after false gods. This is yet another aspect of the grand illusion that entraps us. The very process of trying to acquire Life on our own forces us to miss most of life, for real life is always in the present moment. When we live as though we can acquire Life from things other than God, we inevitably live as though reality wasn’t always in the present moment.

Only a person who is no longer driven by insatiable hunger can consistently live in the present moment, and only a person who has learned how to find Life in the present moment is no longer driven by this insatiable hunger.”

Is God to Blame? Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering

I just finished (less than 3 minutes ago) Greg Boyd's book of the same title as this blog post.
So much good stuff in this book, done with Boyd's typical thorough attention to biblical and philosophical detail, that any attempt to summarize would end with me reproducing the entire book.  But if I were forced to summarize the book, I'd do so with this statement:  "Our all-powerful and all-loving God chose to create a universe in which physical and spiritual beings had the freedom to choose for or against good.  While God does seem to occasionally supernaturally override the laws of this universe he created, God's desire that his creation freely choose to love him means that beings will often choose evil, leaving creation to deal with the fall-out of that evil.  While God may bring good out of evil, God is not the author of evil."

Just for kicks, here's a quote from chapter 7:
"One of the reasons why we like simplistic answers to difficult questions is that we don't like ambiguity.  As Job insightfully saw, much of the abusive theology his friends were hurling at him was motivated by their own fear (Job 6:21).  They hated the way Job's suffering called into question their God-in-box theology and they feared that what happened to Job might happen to them.  Hence, despite all appearances they insisted that the universe was a fair place, that fortune and misfortune are God's just rewards and punishments, and that Job's suffering must be his own fault.
A central point of the book of Job is to denounce this theology.  But this means that the universe is not a fair place.  It means that we ultimately can't know why a righteous person like Job suffers.  And it therefore means coming to terms with our fear of living in a sea of ambiguity."

People want simple answers because they're afraid of ambiguity.  So they will say simple, dumb and hurtful things and hold onto those misguided beliefs.  We learned this first-hand during the whole struggle to become parents.  If we heard "God has a reason" one more time, we were going to punch the person who dared say it.  While the failed attemps at pregnancy and the failed adoptions are almost distant memories compared the joy of being Dawson's mommy and daddy, a wholistic interpretation of scripture reveals that God was not the author, nor the one to blame, for those terrible events.  But he is to be praised for bringing an incredible blessing out of those painful events.  In choosing to create a world with open possibilities inhabited by free moral agents, God has allowed for the possibility of evil such as infertility while at the same time, bringing good out of even the worst circumstances.

In addition to Boyd's great answer (or attempt to answer to the best of the ability of a smart, but non-omniscient dude) to the question "why do bad things happen," Boyd also gives a great rebuttal to the Calvinistic "blueprint" view of the world and to the unfortunate view of Divine Election that comes from a misinterpretation of Romans 9.  You can buy this book cheap on Amazon and it's worth the money just for the last two Calvinist-refuting chapters.

My review of Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins"

Following the pattern occurring all throughout the inter webs, I'm doing my own review of Rob Bell's new book Love Wins. 

Forget any discussion of theology or biblical interpretation, I want to share the most awe-inspiring observation that Rob made in his entire book.  It comes from page 145 of the chapter entitled, "There are Rocks Everywhere."

"Why does my lawn have brown patches where I can't get the grass to grow, while five feet away grass grows through the cracks in the concrete in the driveway, grass much like the grass I wish would grow in those brown patches?"

Folks, it's for that kind of thoughtful viewing of the world around us that I read Rob Bell's books and subscribe to his podcasts. 

Of course, if you'd like a more serious review, you can read the reviews done by Zach Pogemiller and Greg Boyd. 

And here's a review from the president of Fuller Theological Seminary. 

Finally, for those of you reading this blog post that think Rob Bell falls somewhere outside the teachings of orthodox Christianity, well you need do know that there is a call waiting for you - a call on line one of the clue phone!  :)

Leaving Well

People leave churches.  It happens.  Unfortunately, it happens a lot.  While it may be common, it does sometimes put pastors in awkward situations.  When it's the pastor leaving the church, it puts the congregation in an awkward (at best) situation.  A pastor friend of mine was just describing it as a break-up.  We say we'll be friends and we have the best of intentions, and sometimes we do stay friends, but the truth is we used to be so much more than friends.  I think that's a pretty good description.

Sometimes the person's decision to leave is a personal reason, other times it's not.  Either way, I've always taken it personally.  I used to feel kind of guilty or weak for this feeling until I read a blog post from Adam Hamilton in which he said that no matter how many thousands of people call him pastor, he still takes it personally every time someone leaves.  And then I just read this honest and emotional article from Leadership Journal. 

The reasons for and methods of leaving have run the gamut; from people mad that I talked about money in a sermon to people needing a church with a youth group.  I've been on the wrong end of emotional explosions and attacks on my character to people tearfully telling me how much they love us and the church but that they need to make a change.  And of course, there are those who just stop showing up for worship but never bother to tell myself or anyone else.  Those are the awkward ones.  Even the bitterly angry "breakups" eventually get resolved or healing happens, but when people just ditch you without saying anything - those are the ones that cause me to duck down the aisle at Walmart when I see them coming toward me.  I used to try to hunt people down but sometime in the past couple of years, I decided I didn't need to chase people. 

But of all these different experiences, the ones that stick out in my mind are the solid leaders who have left.  The people who were "pulling their weight" so to speak - leading, serving and/or giving in significant ways.  Again, this is all over the spectrum.  Some people who have had significant leadership roles just told me they were done and then basically walked off the job, leaving us scrambling to fill the gap or compensate for that gap.  While I completely understand the desire to simply be done, that's not the healthiest way to transition out of a leadership position.  The most extreme example happened one Sunday after we'd just finished loading up the trailer.  In fact, we'd just locked up the trailer door and were turning to leave when a person who had been serving in a significant role announced that he'd just finished his last Sunday and wouldn't be back.  Geez... that was sudden.

But those unfortunate instances highlight the examples of leaders who have left well.  Those who were willing to finish strong, help train a replacement and work for the well-being of all - despite the personal awkwardness the situation may have caused them.  These people let me know far in advance of their final Sunday that they'd be looking for a church home but followed through on their ministry commitments until a predetermined date.  It's not easy to continue to show up to your leadership position when those you're leading and/or serving know you'll be "breaking up" soon.  Those are the leaders who have inspired me to whenever my turn would come, to leave well. 

Well, sometime in January of this year, I knew my time to leave had come.  It was one of the most incredibly difficult decisions I'd ever made, but I was confident that the timing was right.  Although this may sound overly spiritual, I felt released from my role as pastor of TFC. 

But I had a couple challenges facing me:  1) This is one of my two income sources, so I depend upon the paycheck.  2) Due to Erin's teaching position, we couldn't make a serious change until the end of the school year.  But despite those challenges, I knew it was time for me to leave.  I set a goal of leaving by the end of June but I wasn't exactly sure how to leave well nor whether I'd even have the guts to do so.

The easiest thing would've been to hang on in my pastoral role until the socially acceptable time-frame for a pastor's resignation; usually within two weeks to one month of announcing the resignation.  Basically, just keep going through the motions until submitting a formal resignation at the beginning of June.  This would allow me to keep getting paid through June and to avoid the awkwardness of a "lame duck" pastor.The only problem - that wouldn't have been a very loving nor honest way to treat the congregation.

While I was sharing with my District Superintendent that it was time for me to leave, he challenged me to leave well.  In fact, my DS used the examples of other leaders who have left TFC well in challenging me to do the same.  The fact that I'm the only pastor TFC has ever had was going to make this potential pastor transition different than your average church - meaning I needed to handle it differently than most pastors would do so.  My DS challenged me to not wait until June to share with the Advisory Council that I would be leaving but to tell them way in advance, to best prepare them for my departure as well as give them enough time to figure out the next step for TFC.  While this wasn't going to be a comfortable conversation and it would lead to a potentially awkward few months, I knew my DS was right.  So I had that conversation with the Advisory Council.

Honestly, it couldn't have gone any better.  It certainly was difficult, though.  During that meeting and throughout the next few weeks, the Advisory Council members went through all the stages of grief; shock, denial, anger and acceptance.  Some people shed tears and some balled up their fists in frustration.  But they responded to my vulnerability and honesty with a commitment to leading TFC to the best possible future.  (I'll blog more on that later).  And when it was time for me to share the transition / resignation with the congregation, they stood with me and have helped lead this transition. 

Of course, my worst fears haven't been realized.  It has been awkward, not with the Advisory Council anymore but with some members of the congregation.  But people are also supportive, understanding and trusting of my decision and leadership.  Secondly, I'm going to get paid through June!  While the Advisory Council decided to make this transition happen as quickly as possible, they honored my commitment to stay through June and have decided to pay me for that time period.  If I've done one thing right, it's help TFC manager her finances well, so we'll be passing along quite a bit of money to TFC Midtown.  And it possible that I might be starting a new position July 1st.  But I won't know that for a couple more weeks.  If it happens, believe me, I'll share it here.

While I've certainly made plenty of mistakes while leading TFC, I've always tried to do the right or best thing no matter how difficult or uncomfortable it may have been.  It seems to me in navigating the most difficult time period for our church, I've been able to follow through on what was right, allowing me to leave well.

The Power of Naming

I often point out injustices and/or inconsistencies I see in the world. Sometimes I do so on this blog, sometimes I do so on facebook - which usually creates a lot of heated discussion. At worst, I'm just being a whiner who starts fights. But I've thought there might be a 'best.' Well, according to this blog entry from the Christian Peacemaking Teams, there is a power in whining... I mean, naming.


CPTnet 26 December 2010 *CPT INTERNATIONAL: Oppression is bad, now what?*by Tim Nafziger and Mark van Steenwyk

Both of us have spent time analyzing the way we are part of the dominant culture in the United States. We know that we, as heterosexual, white men, benefit from a system that is racist, sexist, and heterosexist and that we are against oppression. However, we want to move beyond analysis and become allies to people who are not part of the dominant culture. We have been studying literature on the topic, including Anne Bishop’s Becoming an Ally, and have noticed some interesting parallels between the practice of becoming an ally and what Jesus is trying to do in the Sermon on the Mount.Naming the ways we see oppression operating in a group setting is part of becoming an ally. “Naming” is the practice of unveiling a truer narration than the one that identifies only blatant bigotry and chauvinism as the problem.

Naming means noticing when members of the dominant culture are the only ones speaking in a mixed group and pointing it out. It means confessing those times when we have dismissed people because of our unintentional prejudices. It means our honoring the moments when members of an oppressed group name oppression rather than out responding to this naming with defensiveness. It means making sure it isn't the women in a group who have to call out a man for making a sexist remark, intentional or not. It means breaking ranks with other members of the dominant culture. It is risky.

Naming happens when we bring hidden things to light, speak truth in the midst of error, or confess our complicity in systems that devalue others. It is about letting go or unlearning the lies, and binding the reality with our attention, presence, words, and actions. We are moving beyond mere symbolism to real praxis—acting in a way that unveils oppression and co-creates liberation.

Isn't this what Jesus was doing in the Sermon on the Mount? In the Beatitudes, Jesus is Naming the truth, thereby opening the space for a new reality. When he said “Blessed are the poor”, in that moment of Naming, he unveiled lies, and, with his fellow poor, co-created a new reality—a new moment in which previously entrenched realities broke open so that a new future was possible. “Blessed are the poor” is revolution-speak. It is about the in-breaking of God.

Being an ally involves a commitment to move past defensiveness when we are challenged on our own oppression, as unintentional as it may be. If we are open to recognizing our own complicity in oppression, members of the dominant culture (be it heterosexual, white or male) have a lot to gain, both socially and spiritually. Our relationships with those not part of the dominant culture can deepen. And when we are in deeper community with our brothers and sisters, we take a step closer to the vision of the beloved community and our mutual liberation.

Mark van Steenwyk is co-founder of Missio Dei, an Anabaptist intentional community in Minneapolis and a writer, speaker, and grassroots educator.Sources for this article include Ervin Stutzman, Glen Alexander Guyton, Joanna Shenk, Sylvia Morrison and Anne Bishop. This is an excerpt of a longer article.
For the entire post, you can click here.

My Last Book of 2010

Just finished the last book I'll read in 2010.
It was the book, "A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies."
If I quoted the book, you probably wouldn't believe it. The Spaniards made the Nazis look like neighborhood bullies.

Here's the summary from the book jacket.
"A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies' is... the story of the Spanish Domincan Priest Bartolome De Las Casas, who came to the Americas in the 16th Century. Immediately, he was struck by the inhumane ways in which the Native people's were treated by the European explorers and conquerors. Las Casas went on to be a leading opponent of slavery, torture, and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists. [the book] is his personal account, with chapters covering Cuba, Nicaragua, Hispanolia, Guatamala, Venezuela, Florida and many other areas conquered by the Spaniards.
De Las Casas (1484-1566), was a 16th century Spanish Dominican Priest and the first resident bishop of Chiapas. As a settler in the New World he witnessed, and was driven to oppose, the torture and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists and pushed for rights of the natives appealing to the imperial court of Charles V. His stance for the African slaves' rights was later than the one for Native slavery."

What a stud! We really ought to substitute "De Las Casas Day" in place of Columbus Day.

Colbert and Christmas

Christmas Holy Week

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

“if this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition — and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

Tony Campolo demands an apology from former President Bush for the Iraq War

I'm a regular listener of Tony Campolo's podcasts and really appreciate the fact that he takes the teachings of Jesus seriously, through his ministry Red Letter Christianity. Obviously, if you take the teachings of Jesus seriously you're not going to be a very big fan of war, especially wars that don't measure up to the Christian Just War Theory and according to the National Council of Churches, the Iraq war does not fit into Christian Just War Theory.

So here's the direct quote from Tony Campolo's latest podcast, in response to the stat that while there were 1 million Christians in Iraq, now there are less than 200,000. Those 2000,000 are still leaving, in response to the recent attacks on Christians.

"It's about time that George Bush and Tony Blair issue a statement of repentance. We went in there, lives have been lost by the thousands, yeah, hundreds of thousands. Billions, yeah, trillions of dollars have been spent - for what? For what? The Iraqi situation is much worse today than it was during Sadam Hussien. Nobody is going to question that. The church, for the first time, is being persecuted.
What happened after the invasion was that there was a free election and the Shiites got elected. And you say, 'hurrah, hurrah, hurrah, we've got a democratically elected government.' You don't have a democratically elected government, if in fact you have the rule of the majority. You have a democratic society when the minority is safe. The Shiites have gotten elected. The Sunnis, who have aligned themselves with Al-Queda are attacking like wildfire because they were in control under [Sunni] Sadam Hussein.... Now the Sunnis are attacking the Shiites and this is going to go on and on. And we are responsible.
It's about time that George Bush, instead of writing a book that states, 'I have no regrets over any decisions that I have made' and Tony Blair states, 'I have no regrets, I think we did the right thing.'
You didn't do the right thing. It's about time to stand up and apologize. To go to the United Nations and ask for forgiveness because there can be no reconciliation of warring groups without repentance.
You know, in the US, we all love that verse (2 Chronicles 7:14), "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." It's actually on the Liberty Bell.
I believe it's time to with the Bible. I want repentance and I want restitution. But you've gotta do it the Biblical way."

Preach it, Tony!

And just for good measure, here are two quotes from a book I'm currently reading entitled "Rethinking the Good War" about WWII. It was written by Dr. Laurence Vance, a biblical scholar, history professor and Libertarian party author. "A president who cannot entrust the people with the truth betrays a certain lack of faith in the basic tenets of democracy" (speaking of Roosevelt's covering up of the US' aggressive acts that lead to Japan's preemptive strike in Pearl Harbor, maneuvering of Navy personnel into vulnerable positions and refusal to listen to and eventual firing of the Military leaders warning of the impending and eventually imminent attack).
Finally, "Japan made a preemptive strike against the US just like the US did in Iraq" (referring to WWII vets who still hold a grudge against Japan for Pearl Harbor).

What the heck, here's on more from that book, "Why is it that the 9/11 attacks on America are considered acts of terrorism but a 1,000 plane bombing raid on Tokyo after the dropping of the two atomic bombs isn't?"

"No country, army, or navy air force, terrorist organization, or individual aggresses against the US for no reason. We may not like or agree with the reason, but there is always a good reason, at least in the minds of the attackers. Japan did not attack the US because Japan was 'evil' and America was 'good.' Japan sought to gain control of Southeast Asian resources. The attack on Pearl Harbor would prevent the US Pacific Fleet from interfering. Secretary of War Stimson acknowledged after the war that 'if at any time, the US had been willing to concede to Japan a free hand in China there would have been no war in the Pacific."

Okay, so I got off topic. But what I want to see happen, what I believe Christians have the responsibly to do, is to call the government to accountability while at the same time, not believing the "we're good, they're bad" or "this war is for freedom" rhetoric. We must go beyond the emotional response and blind patriotism to the underlying reasons. As the saying goes, "Truth is the first casualty of war," but followers of Jesus must not let the truth of why we're killing fellow bearers of His image get swept away by our national leaders. While hindsight is 20/20, we can know that Bush was (at worst) lying or (at best) seriously misguiding in ordering the Invasion of Iraq. A couple hundred thousand civilian deaths later, the former president and our entire country owes the Iraqi people an apology.

Church Planting 'how-to' video

Worship or Manipulation?

I'm going to repost a video I shared earlier, because I just heard an interesting discussion regarding the point of the video.



To listen to an interesting discussion regarding worship or manipulation, click on this link. The first 12 minutes of this podcast is spent disussing that difference.

I used to be right with all of that but as you can maybe tell, I've changed my perspective somewhat. Also, God does work through that, clearly. However, I think it's kind of missing the point, too.

How to Argue College Football

This week, I sent a FB message to a good friend from HS asking if he'd be down here for "Farmageddon" this Saturday, since he's an Iowa State graduate and die-hard fan. I said nothing about the complete and total domination that Iowa showed over ISU the previous Saturday but for some reason, this friend decided to start the typical ISU argument, "The only reason Iowa wins games is because they're in the sucky Big Ten and if ISU was in the Big Ten, they'd be just as good."

But I understand how he feels because I'm a fan of a terrible team who is almost an afterthought to a much more popular and successful team in the eastern side of the state. I'm referring, of course, of my allegiance to the Royals.

Anyway, that conversation reminded me of this picture I saw on my favorite sports blog the other day, Black Heart Gold Pants.

Not only is this picture true of college football arguments but I think it's true of most other arguments as well.

The God Journey

I've been reading books by Wayne Jacobsen for quite awhile now, The Shack and So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore are linked on the right side of this blog. But I've just now started listening to Jacobsen's podcast and reading his blog. He has some really powerful and refreshing things to say to the institution we call "the church." I'd encourage you to check out his stuff.

The God Journey

Life is Precious

A little over a month ago, I was listening to Jim Hurd sing a song about adoption from Annie that make me ache with love for my own son. This weekend, Jim will be burying one of his sons. I have no idea the pain the Hurd family must be feeling. After hearing the news last night, I went into Dawson's room and listened to him sleep and fought off tears. Thankfully, the Hurds are a part of a great church in Gardner that can be the presence of Christ as they mourn their loss.

Jim just posted this message on his Facebook account: "What a privilege and honor to get to be with, parent and befriend our Andrew. I couldn't be more proud and I can't love someone more. I miss him so much.
Andrew Celebration and Visitation Services
Friday night 6-9p at Fellowship Bible Church - Open church time to visit with family
Saturday Morning 10a (Place TBD) - Celebration of Andrew's Life."

I just can't imagine, though our God knows the same pain in giving his son over to the cross.

ABC's video

NBC's Video

Please pray for the Hurd's and the Crainshaws.

Consumer Christianity kills Pastors

I just finished reading, for the 2nd time a very powerful book entitled So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore? I'm sure it's strange to see a pastor reading that book. While I don't necessarily agree with all of conclusions of the author, Wayne Jacobson, I can't help but be both convicted and saddened by all the ways the instution of church actually robs the health, life, vitality and passion for God from its adherants.

In talking with Jeren Rowell, my boss before my first-ever review on Monday evening, Jeren once again shared with me his frustrations with what consumerism Christianity does to both pastors and lay people. With every good intentioned and well-meaning pursuits, the consumeristic, program-driven, overscheduled, performance-based North American church is stealing Kingdom life from it's participants. Laypersons are getting burned out as are clergy.

To illustrate this reality, Jeren posted this article on our KC District Pastors Facebook page.
I'll also post the article below. As you read this, keep in mind that this is a New York Times author. If unchurched people can see the problem, why can't we? And to again quote Reggie McNeal in Missional Renaissance, "[The church must be] willing to get over the delusion that the 'success' of the church impresses the world. It does not. It only impresses church people, while making others even more skeptical of the church's true motives."

Congregations Gone Wild
By G. JEFFREY MacDONALD
Published: August 7, 2010



THE American clergy is suffering from burnout, several new studies show. And part of the problem, as researchers have observed, is that pastors work too much. Many of them need vacations, it’s true. But there’s a more fundamental problem that no amount of rest and relaxation can help solve: congregational pressure to forsake one’s highest calling.

The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them. It’s apparent in the theater-style seating and giant projection screens in churches and in mission trips that involve more sightseeing than listening to the local people.

As a result, pastors are constantly forced to choose, as they work through congregants’ daily wish lists in their e-mail and voice mail, between paths of personal integrity and those that portend greater job security. As religion becomes a consumer experience, the clergy become more unhappy and unhealthy.

The trend toward consumer-driven religion has been gaining momentum for half a century. Consider that in 1955 only 15 percent of Americans said they no longer adhered to the faith of their childhood, according to a Gallup poll. By 2008, 44 percent had switched their religious affiliation at least once, or dropped it altogether, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found. Americans now sample, dabble and move on when a religious leader fails to satisfy for any reason.

In this transformation, clergy have seen their job descriptions rewritten. They’re no longer expected to offer moral counsel in pastoral care sessions or to deliver sermons that make the comfortable uneasy. Church leaders who continue such ministerial traditions pay dearly. A few years ago, thousands of parishioners quit Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., and Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Ariz., when their respective preachers refused to bless the congregations’ preferred political agendas and consumerist lifestyles.

I have faced similar pressures myself. In the early 2000s, the advisory committee of my small congregation in Massachusetts told me to keep my sermons to 10 minutes, tell funny stories and leave people feeling great about themselves. The unspoken message in such instructions is clear: give us the comforting, amusing fare we want or we’ll get our spiritual leadership from someone else.

Congregations that make such demands seem not to realize that most clergy don’t sign up to be soothsayers or entertainers. Pastors believe they’re called to shape lives for the better, and that involves helping people learn to do what’s right in life, even when what’s right is also difficult. When they’re being true to their calling, pastors urge Christians to do the hard work of reconciliation with one another before receiving communion. They lead people to share in the suffering of others, including people they would rather ignore, by experiencing tough circumstances — say, in a shelter, a prison or a nursing home — and seeking relief together with those in need. At their courageous best, clergy lead where people aren’t asking to go, because that’s how the range of issues that concern them expands, and how a holy community gets formed.

Ministry is a profession in which the greatest rewards include meaningfulness and integrity. When those fade under pressure from churchgoers who don’t want to be challenged or edified, pastors become candidates for stress and depression.

Clergy need parishioners who understand that the church exists, as it always has, to save souls by elevating people’s values and desires. They need churchgoers to ask for personal challenges, in areas like daily devotions and outreach ministries.

When such an ethic takes root, as it has in generations past, then pastors will cease to feel like the spiritual equivalents of concierges. They’ll again know joy in ministering among people who share their sense of purpose. They might even be on fire again for their calling, rather than on a path to premature burnout.

The Call to Pastor

As you've likely noticed if you've been following this blog, I've been wrestling with and even re-understanding what it means to live out my calling to proclaim the message of Jesus and what a Christian community looks like. I've been working through two very helpful books, Missional Renaissance and Practicing Greatness both by Reggie McNeal.

In one section of Practicing Greatness, McNeal challenges spiritual leaders to identify their calling in life, anchor their lives within that calling and to then be flexible in how they flesh-out that calling. Here's a quote from the chapter entitled "The Discipline of Mission."

"Too many spiritual leaders have locked their call into one particular way of being expressed or pursued. For instance, 'I am called to be a pastor,' is a phrase I hear frequently when leaders are discussing with me their next chapter of life. Then they too often proceed to tell me exactly what kind of church they feel called to and where they want it to be located. I don't easily question a sense of God's call on their life, but reducing it to a preferred place of employment and a particular job description seems somehow to reduce the spiritual depth of genuine call.

I have seen too many leaders on the ropes financially and spiritually due to a shallow understanding of call. They don't know what else to do if God doesn't provide them a way of 'doing ministry' that fits their template....

The call to pastor contains a spiritual dynamism that transcends a vocational career path. Pastoring is a call that can be expressed in many ways, - from leading local congregations to serving as a pastoral counselor to chaplaining military personnel or prison inmates to leading a house church to pastoring pastors. This pastoring may either be paid or volunteer; it may be a career or a bivocational pursuit. The leader with this call is expressing a life mission that is oriented around and arising out of his or her person. How it gets expressed may change over time or depending upon circumstances. The call does not hing on having the title 'pastor' or drawing a salary from a local congregation.

The point of all of this is that I coach spiritual leaders to treat their call more fluently than most of them are inclined to do. They confuse the content of the call with the context of the call and how God might choose for them to live out the call in their lives. They need to be more flexible in this regard will be increasingly important for leaders as the expression of spirituality in North America moves beyond institutional settings into the street and marketplace. The desire to serve people in spiritual leadership will make the same transition. It already is. Each week I run into people who once pursued their call in the church but are now working in some aspect of community or business leadership as a way to express their call to ministry.

Spiritual leaders need to distill the core, the essence, of their call from God. Some key questions might help provide some clues:

1) What people or cause do you feel drawn to?
2) What do you want to help people do or achieve or experience?
3) How do you want to help people?
4) What message do you want to deliver?
5) How do you intend to serve or have an impact on the world?
6) Why did you say yest to God to begin with?

Answers to these questions should help the leader understand more clearly his call and life mission."

Ministry - Job or Vocation?

As I'm struggling to work through the changes that are happening in my understanding of my profession, calling, life mission, etc. it's been helpful to read perspectives on that very issue. Here's a good article from the Out of Ur blog.

July 6, 2010

Is Ministry a Job or Vocation?

And what difference does it make?

by Brandon O'Brien

Eugene Peterson laments in For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts (Baker Books, 2010) that he has been “trying for fifty years now to be a pastor in a culture that doesn’t know the difference between a vocation and a job.” It was a bunch of artists that clued him in on the difference.

Definitions are in order. According to Peterson, a job is “an assignment to do work that can be quantified and evaluated.” Most jobs come with job descriptions, so it “is pretty easy to decide whether a job has been completed or not…whether a job is done well or badly.” This, Peterson argues, is the primary way Americans think of the pastor (and, presumably, that pastors think of themselves). Ministry is “a job that I get paid for, a job that is assigned to me by a denomination, a job that I am expected to do to the satisfaction of my congregation.”

A vocation is not like a job in these respects. The word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, “to call.” Although the term today can refer to any career or occupation (according to Webster), the word (vocatio, I imagine) was coined to describe the priestly calling to service in the church. So vocation=calling. This is how Peterson is using the word, anyway. And the struggle for pastors today, he continues, is to “keep the immediacy and authority of God’s call in my ears when an entire culture, both secular and ecclesial, is giving me a job description.”

During his seminary education in New York City, Peterson worked with a group of artists. They were dancers and poets and sculptors, and they all worked blue-collar jobs as taxi drivers, waiters, and salesmen—whatever they had to do to pay the rent and put food on the table. Soon enough Peterson realized that “none of them were defined by their jobs—they were artists, whether anyone else saw them as artists, and regardless of whether anyone would ever pay them to be artists.” That is to say, being an artist wasn’t a job for them, but a vocation. Their jobs simply kept them alive so they could pursue their vocations. “Their vocation didn’t come from what anyone thought of them or paid them.”

I found this discussion both liberating and convicting. Looking back over the past decade or so, I wonder if the angst I’ve experienced while trying to figure out what to do with my life has stemmed from confusing these two categories.

In my senior year of high school, I “surrendered to the gospel ministry” (that’s what we called it). I sensed a calling to dedicate my life and career to serving Christ through the local church. I immediately understood that vocation in terms of the jobs that commitment made possible or impossible. Before then, I wanted to teach high school English for a living. After, I knew that a call to ministry meant abandoning that career. At the time, the only ministers I knew were senior pastors, youth ministers, and worship leaders. The job description of pastor seemed the best decision.

In college I waffled. I was pastoring a church and didn’t appreciate the identity foisted upon me when people from church introduced me as “Pastor Brandon.” I still felt the sense of vocation, but didn’t like the job. Since then I’ve been trying to figure out what job would be enable me to live out my vocation.

The trouble is, I’m not sure I could tell you in a sentence what I feel called to. I have several jobs: editor, writer, college instructor, doctoral student (not paid for it, but it sure is work). None of those things are “ministry” in the strictest sense. Yet I feel “called” to ministry still, and there are parts of each of my jobs that satisfy my sense of calling. But it sure would be nice to answer the question, “What do you do?” with a sentence that doesn’t begin, “Well, it’s complicated…”

Jobs pay the bills; vocations may or may not. I suspect bi-vocational pastors, as they’re called, must have a deeper sense of vocation than the rest of us. So many men and women who feel called to the ministry drop out when they can’t find a job at a church that’s big enough to pay their rent and student loans because we tend to think of ministry as the job that will put food on our tables. I admire the men and women who do what they have to for a living so they can do what they are called to do for the kingdom.

—Brandon O’Brien is a contributing editor for Leadership and author of The Strategically Small Church (Bethany House, 2010)

Invasion of the mounties

Imagine this hypothetical situation, if you will.

What if our neighbors to the north, "Oh, Canada..." began to experience a maple syrup shortage. Now we're all aware of Canada's dependence upon maple sugar, their economic survival depends upon an un-interrupted maple sugar flow. Sure, prices at the grocery store fluctuate over time but bottles and bottles of maple syrup are always available in the "maple syrup" aisle. But we all know that hockey players burn a lot of calories, so they need a lot of maple syrup. And if their supply began to run low, as this hypothetical proposes, they'd need to look elsewhere for maple syrup supplies.

This supply would make the average Canadian lumberjack very angry, they wouldn't like standing in long lines and paying way-t00-high prices at the check-out aisle, so they'd complain to the government. What if the Canadian government responded by sending a platoon of Mounties across the border and down into Michigan. Now we all know that with the coming of Rich Rodriguez and the spread offense to Michigan, those Wolverines have no fight left in them at all. So the Mounties would have no problem taking over Michigan, placing their favorite governor in office (even asinating the old one if necessary), realigning the county and city governments to make it easier to extract and export maple syrup. If the residents of the Bucknut state began to revolt against the Mounties, the Canadian government would just train the local Michiganders to fight the Bucknuts. Of course, if the Canadian government didn't like how their favorite governor was using this new training, they'd just asinate him and bring in another governor.

But eventually, Michigan wouldn't be enough land area to supply the growing Canadian economy, so the Mounties would be sent further south and west, leading them right into my town of Gardner, KS. But the problem with Kansas is that there aren't as many maple syrup trees, so the mounties would need to control more area. But those horses are tough and who are we Jayhawkers to stop them, so they just convert massive areas of Kansas to "Mountie camps," places where the men can rest and be re-supplied and the horses can graze.

Unfortunately for us Kansans, though the Canadian government has determined that Mountie camps need to be located near the maple tree forests but those forests just so happen to be located near our most holy of sites; Allen field house, the world's largest ball of twine, the beautiful flint hills and the Global Ministries Center of the Church of the Nazarene. But because Mounties are tougher than Jayhawks, we'd be powerless to stop them. They'd set up their camps wherever they want. And if local Kansans rebelled against Canadians enforcing their economic policies, they'd send in a surge of Mounties to trample all who stand in their way. While those trample-sessions did eliminate a lot of "bad guys," they also took out a few innocent bystanders.

What if one of those innocent bystanders was my neighbor's 7 year old son? Here's my poor neighbor; is government is (at least partly) placed there by Canadians, he can't go to the GMC anymore to pay his "tithe plus 3%" to the COTN and he can't even watch the Jayhawks at Allen Field house anymore - all of which has caused his family business to collapse, plunging his family into poverty. He can live with that, but he can't live with the Mounties killing his son and calling it "collateral damage in the effort to protect the Canadian way of life."

So my neighbor may very well decide he's had enough, so he drives up north to the largest supermarket in Toronto and attempt an act of terrorism in the maple syrup aisle. Thankfully, some good-hearted law enforcement officials in Canada would smell that Kansas from a mile away (his Nick Collison jersey being another clue) and stop the act before it could be completed.

Well, this would seriously, and justifiably anger all Canadians. They would demand that the government use a special force of mounties to eliminate all people in Kansas like my neighbor. So the mounties would march into Kansas with an even larger force than the occupation force already in Kansas and when my neighbor refuses to come out of his house, they'd launch a bunch of hockey pucks into his house to make sure he never did such a terrible thing again.

Canadians would cheer the action. The man who shot the hockey pucks would believe he's protecting his family - and in a way, he'd be right. But the average Canadian, even the guy firing the pucks, would be completely unaware of the actions of their own government that prompted my neighbor to attempt such a terrible and evil thing. Most Canadians are good, honest, hard-working people. They serve their community, serve their church, love their family, participate in lumber-jack Olympics and watch 12 on 12 Canadian football with it's 20 yard end zones. All the while completely unaware of how the actions of their very own government was resulting in the oppression and exploitation of under-resourced Kansans and the terrible act of violence committed by my neighbor. They don't buy maple syrup thinking "I'm helping promote a system of oppression and exploitation created by our government, business and market forces." Nope, they're just putting maple syrup on their apple-wood pancakes. They aren't aware of politicians who believe Canada has a right to control the best maple syrup producing areas of the world - even if they're in another country, they're just buying maple syrup.

Unfortunately, hockey pucks aren't always completely accurate and one of them might miss my neighbor's house and land in my son's bedroom, killing my only son. What would that do to me? Honestly, I don't know. I love my son more than life itself and can't imagine how I'd respond. I'm pretty sure I'd be really mad at the Canadians, though.

Or what if that puck flew into my bedroom, killing my wife and me, causing my son to grow up as an orphan? Do you think he'd grow up loving and respecting Canada? Nope, probably not. He might even join the group that influenced my neighbor to blow up Toronto's maple syrup aisle so he could eventually get revenge upon Canada. My son might very well commit a terrible act of his own to protest the presence of Mounties in his native state, resulting in his own house being blown up. But by then, Canada could launch the hockey pucks via satellite, calling them "drones" and bragging that no Canadian goalies risked their lives taking out evil people like my son.

And the system of violence and economic oppression would continue throughout the generations. The only thing to stop this cycle would be 1) Canada finding a substitute for the maple syrup in Kansas 2) Canadians educating themselves on how Canadian policies effect the weak and poor in Kansas or 3) A Roman-esq collapse of the mighty Canadian empire brought on by the spending of trillions of dollars to support the Mountie presence in Kansas. Kansas could take heart in the fact that one day one of those scenarios will become a reality.

"He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." - Jesus

Any connection between the above hypothetical story and the recent terrorism attempt of a Pakestinian/American citizen and the US dropping bombs on insurgent targets in Pakistan is completely coincidental.

“The US cannot win the war on terrorism unless we confront the social and political roots of poverty. It’s very hard to be angry with someone who just fed you, it’s very hard to want to drop a bomb on someone who just built you a village. No nation, no matter how powerful it is, will ever be safe until it has dealt with ‘economic desperation.’” - Colin Powell

I once preached a sermon along these lines, it was from Revelation 17-19 and entitled "The Fall of Babylon." If you were so inclined, you could read or listen to that sermon here.

Church

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

5 years ago, we were getting ready to launch TFC and this video is a perfect picture of what I thought church was all about. My oh my have I changed....
I guess that's why it's called a "journey."

I found this video via Michael Palmer, you can read his thoughts here.

A blog from a pretty smart dude

I just came across a blog from a former professor at seminary, Dan Boone. Dan is currently the president of Trevecca Nazarene University, though while he was teaching adjunct at NTS, he was the pastor of College Church of the Nazarene in Burbannais, Il.

It's my own personal opinion that Dan Boone is quite likely the wisest, most thought-provoking and the most biblically grounded of all the major leaders in our denomination. If you combine my one class with Dan Boone and my other class with his brother-in-law, Andy Johnson, I likely learned about as much in those two classes than all other classes of my 8 years of schooling combined. And to top it off, Dan is a genuinely friendly and approachable guy.

So, here's his blog, enjoy. http://www.drdanboone.com/

Who really needs to die?

"Through Jesus we all have to face the embarassing truth that we are our primary problem, it is we who must die, he teaches, not others.
Our greatest temptation is to try to change other people instead of ourselves. Jesus allowed himself to be transformed and this transformed others. That is the meaning of the necessary death of Jesus."

- Richard Rohr