Tag Archives: development

How to become a fifty year old Christian — 2017

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, , , ,

The speech travelled with me around our network in 2017. This version was for Marlton Pike. 

How does one get to be a 50-year-old Christian? We always say a 50-year-old-Christian is our goal in our work of redemption– since if someone makes it that far, they are probably out of the woods. All week we have been thinking about Jesus going through the suffering of being in the wilderness as a thirty-something. But each decade has it’s own perils. We find ourselves in a new wilderness being tempted in surprising ways all along the way of Jesus.

What if you are a twentysomething? I loved watching the precious little story called Brooklyn. A twenty something Irish woman moves to New York and meets a twentysomething Italian man. Every scene is like being a twentysomething. The wonder and tragedy of new things. Discovering. Being wrong about yourself and others. Learning. Confused. Passionate. Brave. How does one end up at 30 holding hands with Jesus?

What if you are a 40-something?  I also loved watching The Revenant. It was a wonderful  parable. But I also liked being surprised by Leonardo DiCaprio who I never really liked beyond What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. But there he was in his early 40’s, showing courage, showing depth, showing some mature acting — like he looked at himself and realized there was more to life than being a movie star. He said a very fortysomething thing in an interview in Variety:

“I knew this was going to be somewhat of a silent performance; that’s part of what was exciting. But more than anything, I think I learned a lot about being an actor on this movie. It has a lot to do with trust. Trusting the people you’re working with, giving yourself over to a unique process, and trusting that if the people you’re working with are committed like Alejandro, you can focus on being in the moment and rely on your instincts and trust the journey.”

With such major interior things to face in our 40’s and all the temptation to just become your craft, how does one find Jesus and not just oneself in the silence?

That’s the question for tonight.  But I felt God was telling me that not only do I need to look to the long term, even while waiting for my life to end right now, I need to look out for others. Faith is an every day, long term journey. It is an ongoing relationship that develops like the seasons.

So when we look at each other tonight, I think we should try to develop an outlook that asks: where is this person going? How does this beloved person get to 50 or 60 or death with their faith intact? Whether they are the youngest child or a 40 something with a lot of responsibility — they are on the Way of Jesus, they may have just got on the road or just gotten back on the road. How do they get to the end? Or in our organic terms, how to they get to the water of faith, where they are swimming in an ocean of grace with confidence? How do they endure all the temptations and suffering and stay planted in the love of God?

Since I have already been a little kid and made it past fifty with my faith still growing, I want to tell you about how I got there. The telling is not just for nostalgia. This is more of my testimony about how I managed to have a lively faith when I hit fifty. Actually, I think I probably just got started when I hit fifty and that feels good. So I am going to give you one thing from each of my five first decades that I think was significantly helpful along the way of Jesus.

0-10 – blessed with affirmation.

So start at the beginning of my faith. I think I was unusually blessed as a child. By the time I was six or so, I think I had learned enough lessons about Jesus to sustain me my whole life. My parents dropped me off at the Baptist church to go to the 5-6 year olds class without ever making their own connection, but I did.

My family never taught me one thing about God, never mentioned Jesus at home at all. Their own spiritual life was taboo, another secret like so many they had. But one Christmas, my mother and father gave me a present that was not from Santa, but had their name on it. It was a nicer Bible, and more importantly, in the Bible was a bookmark, a gold-looking chain of the Ten Commandments — a bit like this one from E-Bay but much better in my memory. It was a treasure. I never used it as a bookmark. I hid it from my sister like it was gold. And I treasure that rare affirmation of my faith to this day.

That is one thing that will get you to fifty as a Christian: The child in you receives affirmation for their faith. We come to Jesus as a child whether we are young or not. If it did not get to you in kindergarten, you’ll have to go there somehow and be touched with the assurance that the little-child-you-are can fit with God. You belong and you are loved. So touch that child in you. Touch the child in each other. Tell them they can have faith in Jesus  and God is with them.

10-19  blessed with an identity

The next decade of my life was filled with facts, fears, fun and all the stuff adolescents get into. Some of you here are in the middle of that right now – we have ten to twenty year olds here, in this meeting. One of those people lives with me who I love very much. It is an exciting time of life. If you don’t know what you are doing, that is normal. Hang on to Jesus and he will get you through.

For me, personally, I had to learn the facts of faith and make a decision about them in the middle of some very poor examples of church. The Christians I knew did a lot of fighting. Their bad example often made me wonder what I was into. But I had met God as a child and that was hard to shake. You can imagine how hard it is for people without the affirmation I got as a child when they get next to adults who are not faithful – who fight, divorce, sin. Here they are trying to decide what identities to put on, how to make love, what jobs to do, whether they are worth anything, and their parents and other adults do the weirdest stuff.

Somehow, I not only got some intellectual facts about Jesus — I did some reading and listening, I also got some personal experience of praying and feeling like the Holy Spirit was with me. That was crucial. By the time I was escaping my little town and my dysfunctional family to go to college, I decided that the main fact about me was that I was a Christian. For me, entering my dorm hall and introducing myself to a whole new world was a chance to come out as a full-on Christian. I used the little note board on my door to put a card up with my theme verse: “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”

I was going through that door Jesus opened. My inner world looked to me a bit like the picture, here. But I had latched on to a  great teenager verse. You can get an eighteen year old to die for the country, too. Somehow, Jesus became my commander. Help young people know the facts of faith and make a decision about them. And don’t despise that demanding, critical, clueless teen in yourself or others.

Taking on the identity of a Christian as a teen was a crucial launch pad for the rest of my life. By the time I was twenty, the next thirty years were already in motion. That is one of the reasons we need to be a church for the next generation. Our friends at Rutgers are making the decisions that will decide who they are at fifty. Will they be following Christ or following their passion, like Leonardo DiCaprio? Will they be following the economy like their schools have been training them to do? Will they be Americans first and Christians privately? Before they can clearly think about it, the road is already opening up before them. Is it the broad way that leads to destruction or the narrow way that leads to life?

The child needs some affirmation for their faith.

The teen needs to act on the facts and choose to identify with Jesus.

Among many things, the twentysomething needs to find a place to belong, especially if they are going to keep following Jesus.

20-29 blessed with community

In my twenties, I stumbled on to something that was surprisingly life saving: intentional community. Not only did I marry a great believer, who has been organizing me for good ever since, I ended up living in an Acts 2 community. It kind of happened naturally, as well as being inspired by Acts 2. A group of us spent a lot of time together because we all worked in a burgeoning youth ministry. We got tired of commuting to our relationships, we said, so we started moving in together.

Here is the first house we lived in. It still looks terrible. I planted that tree. Before long there was a statement of formation and twenty people in three houses, welcoming in Cambodian refugees and unwed mothers. Our focus came to be hunger. We decided to live simply so others could simply live. It worked great. And it made me face up to myself every day.

Being a part of the community made me a visibly serious person – mostly to myself. It made me disciplined for righteousness. I got habits of the heart solidified. I am still simplicity-minded. Still communal in nature. Still adept at welcoming in the stranger. I learned that all just by being together with people who were on the same track, praying and working together with Jesus.

There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. If you are going to make it to fifty and beyond, you will have to do it together with the others. A great spouse is good, but you need to be a part of the body and the body needs to be part of you.

30-39 Blessed with integrity

The twenties are great. People will try anything. Hopefully they try it with Jesus. Thirties, not so easy. I had young children. Plus I had some screws that had always been loose that finally started coming out altogether. In your thirties you develop psychologically and relationally, or you try to stay a twenty-something as long a possible. I always connect that difficult process to Joseph in Genesis who must have been about thirty when his earnest mentality and natural charisma propelled him into the management of Potiphar’s household. He is confronted with a big choice — “Should I have sex with Potiphar’s wife, who wants me, or not?” He decides not to do it, which ultimately lands him in prison. But his reasoning is basically, “That’s just not me. I am not going to surrender my righteousness for an orgasm, or anything else.” To get to fifty with your faith, it takes acting like that. Integrity.

The thirties have a lot of decisions like that. Who am I going to be? How will my family function? How do I make a living? What does all of this serve? All these requirements cause a lot of us some huge new understanding. I had some really foggy months psychologically, relationally, with my choices, in our marriage, in my thirties. But things started to come clear.

One thing for me is that I had to realize that not all my desires were going to be met. Also, my ideal future might not materialize. What’s more, not every direction I felt like going was possible. Even more, I’m not that great; I have problems to solve. I settled into: I am connected and I am responsible and that is good even when it does not feel good. Fortunately, I already had some faith built up. The hope God gave me really was like an anchor for my soul. If you are in your thirties, stay the course on the way of Jesus and don’t get drawn into bed with a lot of people who don’t follow God. Hang on to your integrity. And help someone else in the same turmoil.

40-49 blessed with something to do that is worthy of my best

The 40’s may be one of the most tempting ages of all. A lot of people veer off the way of Jesus then. Their childhood faith, if they had any, doesn’t satisfy. Their twentysomething convictions seem juvenile. Their thirtysomething development may seem unfinished or unsatisfying. They start bumping up against their limitations, for sure. They really need to know God. You may have gotten to forty and realized that a lot of what you have built so far has been in service of a substitute dream and you are just too proud to change or too lazy. So by the time you are fifty, nothing is there. This is very common scenario, so beware.

When I got into my forties, I had already taken a leap out of my past that totally revolutionized me. I really grew up a lot in my late thirties when I moved to PA and took the leadership of a struggling traditional church. Being that kind of pastor, in essentially a foreign land, created a huge learning curve. I soon realized that the move was just a first step and felt moved to try my best.

This is a big thing I learned in that decade about how to get to the end: I need to do the best I can with the best God had given me. I need to respond to what I have been given. I faced a temptation: I could pile all I had into succeeding at something or I could labor in obscurity and possible failure while following Jesus. That’s when Gwen and I decided to move to Philadelphia and see if there was a circle of hope here. There was.

The turmoil and challenge of the thirties, the good hard work of the forties is a great prep for the launch pad of the fifties. At least that is what I learned. I wish someone had encouraged me, since I mostly learned in the school of hard knocks. It is good to be fifty and faithful. It is kind of like the last couple of stations on the factory that is making RVs I used to work in. It started with a chassis and now we can drive the spiritual car. There will still be glitches to fix, but it will probably get us to the end.

Destiny

Our destiny is to swim in an ocean of grace, free and joyful, like some big spiritual whale singing songs to God that echo is the depths. We need to imagine ourselves getting there. I want to give you a moment to do that. Whether you are 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50 and beyond, imagine yourself where God is taking you — not so much the place, but the condition, the feelings, the stature, the faith. What is it like for you to be fifty or more and faithful to what Jesus has called you?

Just as our previous ages are always with us, so is our age to come, because the Holy Spirit is with us. So rest in the great love, that grace. Where are you going?

*********************

Today is William Wilberforce Day! Honor his conviction and world-changing action at The Transhistorical Body. 

The basic motivation that keeps us going.

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, , , ,

I noticed an uptick in my motivation this morning. My zip contrasted with the nagging zapped feeling several of my clients reported.

My energy was also right on the heels of a client’s sense of victory over the issue that drove him to therapy: his lack of motivation. It is sort of a mystery why some of us change and others struggle. I sometimes feel like I am surfing the tempest more than channeling the stream, myself.

8 Reasons Why You Feel Unmotivated – Psych2Go

Why are we unmotivated?

So, I started a little research project on motivation. I was intrigued (OK, appalled) by one of the first articles Google supplied (there are hundreds). It was from a website called Medical News Today, which looks like it is based in Great Britain (it uses an “s” for organize) but exists mainly on the internet. It is led by fortysomethings (apparently) who may be interested in making hay on the web. They boast 85,000 readers.

I want to improve upon their teaching on motivation. But first let me complain about it: What makes people lose motivation?

Like most articles for professionals now, this one starts with a summary so you can decide whether you want to read for another 5 minutes. Here is theirs:

A person may experience a temporary lack of motivation when they are overwhelmed, stressed, or burnt out. However, a sense of apathy, or lack of interest in doing anything, can be a symptom of something more severe.

Lost motivation could indicate a mental health disorder, such as depression or schizophrenia. It may also occur in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

I can only hope my more tenderhearted/anxious/traumatized clients do not read this article and worry, “Oh no, I have Parkinson’s!” Apart from scaring people, the only thing the writers have to suggest is the common idea that lack of motivation comes from being “overwhelmed, stressed, or burnt out.”

But, of course, people may be overwhelmed, stressed, or burned out because they are unmotivated. I think there are medically trained people who do not just look in their textbook for symptoms but also have some sense of deeper places: light and dark, known and unknown, obsessed about and shunned – all the things that motivate people!

I think “overwhelmed, stressed, or burnt out” is usually applied to the workplace. There, people need to stay motivated to do all sorts of semi-interesting things in semi-conflictive relationships. I think the article is probably looking there for readers, since that is where the money is — one has to keep the workforce working, somehow! Being burned out is a real condition, especially in the workplace. But I have usually thought the designation feels superficial. Identifying burnout rarely resonates with anything beyond a certain track in the frontal lobe.

What fuels lack of motivation?

Instead of plowing through Google I decided to bring to mind my clients who are concerned about or afraid of their lack of motivation. I jotted down about thirty reasons that seem to cause it or fuel it in them.

While I think they might just be going through what humans always go through, I also think they might be like canaries in the coal mine for humanity as it barrels unconsciously into the next era of troubles. They might be the ones who can’t respond to superficial diagnoses by doctors handing out ill-attended-to medications. They might be the people who can’t cope because what they experience should not exist in the first place. They might be honestly shutting down in the face of something that can’t be conquered by indomitable will or a positive view of human potential.

For the sake of dialogue, I boiled my brainstorm down to four big elements that de-motivate people I know or leave them listless and looking for wind in their sails. By listing these things, I think you might see your own condition. Even more, I hope you will take heart in my conclusions.

Why are some people unmotivated?

They are addicted.

Addiction colonizes motivation (“colonises” for Brits).

These are my acquaintances’ addictions: Marijuana/alcohol/street drugs/nicotine, their “meds” (some of which are crucial, of course, but some probably aren’t), TikTok (and anyplace there is a “reel”), online games and gambling, porn, food or trying to control food.

Long before they met me, most of them knew they were medicating their lack of motivation with substances, prescribed or not. Many suspected they were vainly searching for how to avoid that lack, or get around it, by using the predatory offerings advertised in online markets.

They are trapped

They feel like they can’t change.

Their living situation is or feels unchangeable. The leaders of the nation, workplace, or association are terrible, and they don’t know where to turn. They are married and parents (or one or the other) and it does not feel good.  The weather is frightening. They are aging and their bodies feels more like a cage than an ally.

Feeling trapped and thinking one has to be responsible to survive or escape leads many people to shut down. It is too much.

They have been or are being abused

The terrible past is present.

They were bullied, neglected, stunted, injured, especially in their childhood, and every similar circumstance triggers their deeply-installed reactivity. They were betrayed loved ones and it challenged their sense of worth. They are in or on the other side of power struggles that sapped their energy. Society has no morals so they live in fear. Huge corporations and bureaucracies demand a lot of energy to get basic necessities or to avoid jail.

I am amazed at the courage people demonstrate as they come up against forces that threaten to destroy them. They face truly overwhelming things; I often feel overwhelmed vicariously.

They are immature

They missed a developmental onramp.

Their parents did not or could not provide the love they needed as a young child or help them through the crucial teens and twenties. They are run around by negative, often secret, self-talk: “You are a loser. You are damaged. You are unlovable. You are stupid. You are unwanted. You are a bother. You must not let them know you or you will be abused or cast off.” They believe the myth which says it is all up to them. They just need to believe in themselves. Never give up. Do it right or don’t do it at all, etc. They are alone.

In the U.S. The “invisible hand” generally does not value adult development or wisdom.  I am surprised at how much knowledge people have but how unable they are to feel it or do something with it. Instead of growing into who they know they are and doing what it takes to embody their true selves, they shrink back. They give in to their resistance. They blame or criticize others and perfect many other defensive behaviors.

Any one of these realities will undermine one’s motivation. You probably saw what you were up against as your were reading them and maybe even did that thing you do when you are faced with what needs to change and grow. One client had to say “No porn.” Another had to resist “blanking out.” Another had to tell themselves, “Turn away from that damning voice!” Another had to resist dismissing all I said because they could not trust it, or me. The deeper things that undermine our motivation are not simple or easy. I rather resent the article I read for implying, “If you aren’t handling this you might be schizophrenic.”

The basic motivation

I love and hate that heading. I love it because I know life surges from a basic, common fountain and we can all drink it. I hate it because it implies that something is basic in the sense that you’re a dummy if you haven’t achieved it yet or it is basic equipment and you are missing the part. Motivation is not a one-size-fits-all dialogue. It is about the deeper, mysterious parts of us that are not easily measured.

For instance, several clients lately have expressed beautiful looks at their inner life and felt enthused about what they could do and intended to do. They even felt some joy. But they immediately, almost automatically, followed up their joy with a set of observations about themselves and why they would not or should not change: “That’s not me.” Or “I remember when my ex-wife told me she never loved me.” Or “How will I ever find time for this?” Or “I’m not very good at self care; I’ve failed before many times.” Or “I never truly stop my addictions.” Or “It will all work until my husband comes home.” They often don’t know they are contradicting that other “sunshiny” self! Their inner dialogue is just rolling along.

Beyond the Horizon | Dark Life Note
Click the pic to meet Vadimka Rassokhin making music for the soul in Izhevsk, Russia

I have told a couple of people who have introduced faith into their development that they may need something more than just their own capacity. The love of God, the truth of God, the Spirit of God, the prayers of Jesus may be what they find when they stop trying to avoid hitting bottom. Beyond the parameters of their top and bottom, that uncontrollable control system, is the kingdom of God.

I think surrendering to the reality that God is with me is highly motivating. I experience it every day and throughout most of the day, even when I deal with Comcast (like I did last week, AGAIN). Refusing the grace of God, not being beloved, contradicting the Lord when she sees you worthy of his relationship is the sin that keeps us pushing a rock up a hill and seeing it flatten us every day.

Better to feel it like the Psalmist:

we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place  — Psalm 66:12 (and James Taylor, NPR)

What if God really is on your side? What if you are created beautifully? What if you are loved? What if the future holds possibilities? When such questions take root and hope starts building a narrative, a new story tends to overwhelm the other one that tells the old, enervating tales of being alone, in charge, or impossible.

Slow resurrection breeds deeply rooted hope

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , , ,

My God, my God, this scene is long

Remember Game of Thrones? About 6 years ago Jon Snow got resurrected.

I can’t make sense of the well-blended pastiche of Western Culture that is GOT. But I can tell you John Snow’s resurrection was quite a media event. It was such a common topic SNL made fun of it (in an unfunny skit). The point of the skit is that the scene was incredibly slow.

The resurrection scene was so laborious and long that it was kind of boring, especially since you knew if they started it they were going to finish it. “Just get on with it and let’s do dragons!”

Resurrection is so much the essential Christian event, having it rendered on TV made me queasy. But I think many church people could relate to a laborious drama leading to resurrection: “Lent then Holy Week?!” Most people decided a long time ago that processs is just too much. “Just get on with it and get to the resurrection!”

One of my favorite quotes from Paul Tournier’s book, Creative Suffering, is “All liberating growth takes time.” I think it makes sense that Lent is long. We are not instantly ready for resurrection. It has to grow on us — and in us.

But I can feel it when people say, “It seems like my whole life is Lent and there are only random moments of resurrection!” The whole Christian year, even, feels like that — we have an incarnation day and a resurrection day, then a whole lot of trouble in between. It just does not seem right.

Slow resurrection

Hearing that kind of complaint in myself and others, I tried to listen to it hard. I came to another question: What if the suffering is not long, it is the resurrection that is slow? What if we just need to reframe the issue? Are we really bored? Or are we just resistant to the creative suffering we need to endure to develop. Like Tournier implies, it takes time. What if our slow resurrection is a good journey after all?

It did take a couple of days for Jesus to get to resurrection himself, after all.

The church doesn’t teach this much any more, but the “harrowing of hell” was an exciting topic for centuries during the early days of the church. The story goes like this. Between his death on the cross and his resurrection, Jesus used the “keys of death and Hades” he holds (Revelation 1:18) to free righteous people from the past who were waiting for the Messiah. The Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus “descended into the lower parts of the earth” (Ephesians 4:9) – the lower parts were understood to be the “abode of the dead,” a place Greeks called “Hades.” The Apostle Peter tells us that Jesus “preached to the dead” (1 Peter 4:6) and “to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:18). Their “Lent” was long!

On Holy Saturday – the day before Jesus’ resurrection, the scene of Jesus descending into Hades (or Hell) was often vividly described in the old days. Jesus unlocks the door to Hades to announce his victory over death, Satan, and all the powers of Hell. He then releases Adam and Eve and all the “just” who were waiting for their redemption. A number of paintings and icons, especially from the Eastern churches, depict the scene. Christus Victor!

Descent to Hell, by Duccio in 1308-11

If you feel like your resurrection is taking too long, welcome to humanity. But I hope you can see that Jesus came to find you and walk with you on your long jounrey a long time ago. He is with you in the time between your death by sin and your entrance into the fullness of your resurrection life. He has descended to your level, too.

We’d prefer it to be instant, like everything else.

When I was in the Baptist church as a child, we highly anticipated the song we would sing every Easter: Up From the Grave He Arose, we called it. The tune for that line felt very dramatic and everyone sang it loud, which was exciting.

It is an instant song, “Well then, up from the grave he arose. Just like that!” As if Mary ran and told the disciples, “I was just weeping by the tomb and up from the grave he arose!” It kind of implies we ought to be rising up just like that too. I think some of us have. But for the rest of us, our partner doesn’t look at us and say, “Well, will you look at that, you rose!” We may, in fact, be more resurrected than we were last year, but sometimes it feels like the same damned things keep happening. That’s slow.

We may think, “Why is this scene so slow! Let’s pep this up. Make something happen; I am at the end of my attention span!” At least quit talking and sing a song! Singing Up From the Grave He Arose can still revive my interest. I’m glad Easter comes to keep me engaged in my own process of getting a life.

By the way, my childhood song has a worldwide following. I wish the Indians below did not look like they had been recently colonized, but I still find their sincerity irresistible.

I have to say these regular Americans singing it are much more my wavelength. This is how you should sing the old song, IMO.

Development takes time

All liberating growth takes time. My psychotherapy and spiritual direction clients are experiencing slow resurrection. It is always amazing to watch a loved one dip their toes into their mental and spiritual health and then be drawn into deep currents of love and hope. The writer of Ted Lasso and Shrinking recently had an interview on NPR in which he talked about his own slow resurrection of sorts. It is happening everywhere, right now, and is happening in many of you reading this.

Resurrection is more a relentless growing. Hope is not instantly accrued. I think the Apostle Paul is sharing his own experience when he says:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5

Hope takes time. Sharing the glory of God develops. But when that grace has taken root and been nurtured, it has a way of sinking in. Resurrection is like the roots of the best kind of weed trees growing through our concrete defenses, finding a path to dirt and water through stones, harrowing parts of us that just need more light and air.

When we think of “harrowing,” we often think of some traumatic experience: “Saw III was harrowing!” But the word comes from a herding practice. Harrowing is removing dead thatch, which lifts vegetation up and levels mole hills. So we’re saying, Saw III really stirred me up and flattened me!” The process allows the turf to breathe and water to penetrate. It reduces disease by exposing fungi and bacteria to sunlight which is essential for the health of the pasture. Like Jesus was stirring up hell, his Spirit is harrowing us and bringing light to our darkness.

In the quote above, Paul is encouraging people in a young church in very uncertain times to stick with it. Turn toward sureness, not certainty. Turn toward being assured — saying, “Sure,” not being right. Be watched over. Stand in the grace and turn into the hope of the fulness of glory that is already here and yet to come. Learn to trust it.

If we go into every day turning toward hope, I think each day can surprise us with resurrection: “Thank you God. Up from the grave I arose. Up from the grave she arose. My God! There is hope for everyone!” I have spent a couple of hard years learning that lesson, again. I keep talking about Mahalia Jackson singing about how God sent the angel and said, “Touch her.” And she sang, “I rose up this morning and I want to thank God!”

Each day may seem like it is long: arguing with a mate, being abused or discriminated against, failing, feeling ashamed or disappointing, fearful. It can all feel SO long! But each morning we rise up! Hope can be reborn and strengthened! Jesus is risen!

Will people grow up before the church gets wrecked?: Eliza’s question and Janet’s answer

A life in the Spirit, The Mission, , , , ,
Eliza wins the Pulitzer

A few days ago I was talking to Eliza Griswold. She is writing a book about Circle of Hope — along with other churches on our wavelength and the future of the Church in general. She was recording me.

When we got to the part about turmoil in our church (there is a little), which makes for a better book, after all,  and turmoil in the larger Church (there is quite a bit), I looked at the phone for a second. “Am I going to say something dumb?”

I took a deep breath. Our turmoil is all for the best. Most of the controversies we face are about causes that should cause turmoil. Some of them are either over the tipping point or about to go over the tipping point into full scale change, which would be worth a lot of trouble. For instance, a school in Virginia just got a name change from Robert E. Lee to John Lewis last week – so things could be looking up (and I mean looking “as God sees things” in the case of that school, not IMO).

Eliza lamented in her inquisitive way about some of the strident discourse she was hearing in our church. It scared her, since she is well acquainted with church controversy. She tagged the young ones as responsible for most of it, I think (I didn’t record her). And the phrase “social justice warriors” seems like it was used, although I’m not sure either of us said it. The angry-sounding, division-threatening dialogue made her wonder if we would even survive! So she wanted to hear what an old head like me would say about it.

I told her (I guess she could check the tape about this) I thought old people should be the last to judge the young. My job is to help everyone get into a sustainable stage in their faith so they are not run over by the deceitful world – otherwise, what is the point of walking with Jesus for 50 years — so young people can look dumb in comparison? People don’t start where they end up, even if they think where they are now is a fine achievement. I want to affirm their achievements and help them get into what is next, since none of us is going to stop developing, in one way or another. It was something like that.

Janet Hagberg and her inspiring books

Janet Hagberg

Janet Hagberg is all about development and she has been influencing me again, lately.

When I was in my twenties I heard Janet Hagberg speak. As I recall, she was testing out some material she was collecting for how to implement James Fowler’s seminal work on the Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. Later on I read Hagberg’s book Real Power and it made so much difference to me, I basically installed it in Circle of Hope. I was so impressed with Real Power, I went back and read James Fowler, the basis, which was tough but productive sledding. After that, I laced the “stages of faith” into most of my thinking about growing in faith: I put it in workshops, I blogged about it, and I engineered a version of it, with the pastors, that became the outline for the  Way of Jesus site – when you go to it you’ll see me ready to talk about the stages of faith right there on the intro page.

Just lately, I found a book that had been languishing on my selves for a long time, undiscovered, until I took it out of a packing box to reshelve it. It was Hagberg’s book The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith. God drew her into a deeper rendition of Real Power later on in life. Real Power was for the corporate world; and though spirituality is present, it isn’t focused on Jesus, per se. The Critical Journey is for Jesus followers (and anyone who wants to follow along with them). I think she might say this book “ruined her life” – at least it “ruined” the previous life that was headed for success in the corporate world.

Instead, Hagberg became a spiritual director and a mentor to many disciples. Last week I wrote to her with a question about the spiritual stages inventory in her book and she wrote back! That was unexpected, as it always is for me when a hero notices me. (That desire to be seen might be why I always get so choked up when cast members in the Disney parade break ranks to come over and wish my grandchild a “magical birthday”). I am pondering whether to accept her invitation to travel with a small group she is forming for next year as a means for spiritual development.

 

Time to grow and time for social action

I was fresh from reading The Critical Journey when I sat in the heat with Eliza (who has a Wikipedia page BTW). And she was wondering about what twentysomethings would do to the church. I started formulating my feelings into a theory in their defense.

I think young people should get involved with the power struggles of the world to express their undeserved powerlessness (stage one) and fully explore the energizing experiences of exercising power in stage two. Many derisively-labeled “social justice warriors” are criticized for being one-way know-it-alls who will cancel someone who does not agree with them. People do dumb stuff at every stage of life. I think stage two people often act like they know it all because they just learned a huge amount of meaningful material that is forming their future. Unlike a lot of burned out old people, they think life is important and they are going to make something out of it. Any twenty-something who is not on some bandwagon in the name of great causes should catch up. Their cohort is fueling some wonderful development in themselves and the world, whether they know what they are doing or not!

The observations of the stages of faith usually place most twentysomethings in stage two of their adult development, as humans, but also as people of faith.

  • One of the main characteristics of people in stage two (whenever they get there) is finding meaning in belonging. They may like a denominational way of being the church, but they are more likely to attach to a local church, and even within that church they are most likely to find a small group of people to whom they belong. Pastors may not like this, but that’s how people are. The group shapes our identity, we find power in association with others.
  • No one comes out fully formed, so in stage two people connect to a leader, a system or a cause, sometimes many before they zero in. The sense of enlightenment from sharing the leader’s/author’s/system’s wisdom is intoxicating. The same experience can be found by having a cause be the leader and not a person. A sense of being right, now that they have found the right stuff, often breeds a feeling of security –- which can sometimes come off as too secure, and exclusive of others who aren’t at the same place, or stage.

Calling something a stage implies that we are moving through it. Thus Hagberg calls our development a critical “journey.” People can get stuck in stage two for a number of reasons. The major reasons are

  • They get rigid: legalistic and moralistic. When someone complains about getting taken out by a “my way or the highway” SJW I can acknowledge the danger of people acting that way, but I am just so happy they have gotten far enough in life to find something outside themselves to care about! Audacity is underrated.
  • A sense of belonging can end up with being part of a closed, paranoid, “us against them” group. America, in general seems to have regressed into this trap,
  • A group can end up not being as attractive as expected so people can keep switching groups and doing the same thing over and over. They don’t move forward, just move around.
  • People who have been injured in groups, especially in churches, can spend a lifetime searching for a group that won’t hurt them. They need to move inward — that was the invitation when the leader, group or theory proved faulty, instead they blame the group and move on to have a similar experience, quite often, in the next one.

How does one avoid getting stuck in stage 2 or get unstuck? Moving on usually means becoming a producer instead of a product. When it comes to life in Christ, that movement is sort of inevitable. People joke that if you have a good idea in Circle of Hope, you’ll probably end up in charge of it. That’s not necessarily so, but maybe it should be. We formed cells and teams so people could be in charge of something and grow up in faith. Jesus wants friends, not slaves who only do what they’re told. In Ephesians 4 Paul tells us not to be infants, but grow up into Christ!

A lot of us find this need for development satisfied at work and in our own family. That’s where we take on responsibility and produce something – like offspring, a mortgage and profits for the company. The movement from Stage 2 to 3 in the Spirit is deeper. Women risk to be valuable. So-called minorities insist they matter and deserve a voice in  the dialogue. Young people seek responsibility the old guard thinks they don’t deserve. We discover our gifts and are moved to enact them. We rejoice in the fact that we can develop and become all we are called to be.

I rejoice. I vividly remember being in stage two. At that time in my life, a 70something elder in the church I was serving took me aside one day and said, “Rod, you have great ideas, but you have terrible PR.” He went on. I listened to him. But I essentially thought, “The hell with PR! I don’t see Jesus taking cues from his media advisors!” I was right, but I later realized that I wanted to build something, not spend my life rebelling against what someone else built. I got some new skills, eventually. I’m still grateful for people like Janet Hagberg and that fed-up elder who cared enough to open up the possibility of development in critical ways — in both the positive and negative senses of that word.

The Development Pastor at One Year

Building community,

I wrote about Rachel at one month. I got excited about Julie and Jerome at one month. But I have not said too much about myself as I have been moving through this interesting transition year. Someone wondered why. So here I am. I’m almost a year into being the “Development Pastor.” I’m telling some of my own story.

My new role feels a bit like my village was raided and we needed to move — it is more of a transition than I expected! It is life-changing, but it is also life-affirming, in the sense that a lot of what God gave me along the way is like a tool chest for this new territory.

No, I did not retire

I went to the General Conference of the Brethren in Christ in July (like I have every other year for decades) and must have been asked twenty times, “How is retirement?” I’m shaking my head as I write. Retirement?!

I might have said, “I wish retirement!” (since 60somethings supposedly thirst for it), but I don’t wish.

My new role in the church is less hands on and supposedly less time (not yet, really), but it is no less an occupation to which I feel called and fully deployed. I actually started another part-time profession when I began to apply my new doctorate to psychotherapy in Circle Counseling’s new digs at 1226 S. Broad St. So I won’t be retiring any time soon.

That is odd.

It is odd for the founding pastor of a church to step away and let his descendants take over. Usually, they wheel him out in a coffin or wheel him into a fancy office where he can keep looking like he presides over everything. Or, if that doesn’t work out, he just disappears and leaves the future of the church to “whatever.” I think many people think disappearing is more normal than transitioning to another role in the body—fired, tired or expired, you are supposed to go.

But last week Gwen and I sat in our usual spot at the South Broad Sunday meeting — we still like it right up front. But that is as close to “up front” as I got. I have been asked several times if taking a back seat feels sad for me. I must miss giving speeches. Or worse, I must feel disappeared, since, in the past, people came to see me like I was an episode of The Big Bang Theory and now there is a crime drama at that time so they are into crime drama and forgot The Big Bang. A lot of pastors do disappear when they are not in front every week. It is actually sort of pastor protocol for them to not infect the career of their successors. Instead, I was sitting next to Rachel last week.

I don’t miss it that much.  I never really thought being “up front” was the heart of my leadership, anyway —  I never found myself in the footlights, I guess. And Circle of Hope is more of a tribe than a production company, anyway, so I grew into another role. That feels right to me. I am still a member of the tribe; I’m just doing something else that fits where I am and where we are now. I suppose it does seem odd that our employees are not mere interchangeable parts we could order out of a catalog, but that’s how we are.

What do you do now?

One of the Coordinators asked this question the other day even though I report to them every week. I think I have been predictable so long it is unnerving to let me change, “If you are not that, what could you possibly be?” Sometimes I feel like that too. We’re all getting a handle on it. I think of what I do now as all about the future.  Circle of Hope has an amazing identity and a wonderful community. I am all about developing us to take who we are and move it into the future God is laying out for us as a whole church. We are a much bigger deal than we used to be and we have a bigger responsibility to develop and use what we have been given. I think the world and the church needs us to be deep, conscientious and strong.

The three big titles in the description of what I do are Formation, Teaching, and Development.

  • Formation is about spiritual and psychological health – I try to give the church tools (like Daily Prayer and the Way of Jesus), but mostly this is about personal counseling, mentoring and spiritual direction.
  • Teaching is more obvious – sometimes I am back up front, but all over the church in the Sunday meetings and training times. I invent and organize Gifts for Growing (like the 30something Retreat and Doing Theology coming up). I write like this.
  • Development is the largest area right now – we have new systems to use to build our institution and we have new needs to face as we grow. I’m into developing all the systems and facing the needs. I help the Leadership Team grow (that’s my main team). I often deal with conflict and goal setting. I help with the practical matters of moving over the edge into new territory. Somebody noticed that it was nice to have “your very own older person” around — things happen when you are out on the edge.

What is our edge?

What the church has done with me and how we are multiplying a congregation right now is so remarkable people have a hard time understanding it. I love how we can take risks and let the Spirit empower us and save us. If you are not excited about that, I think you ought to be. You are edgy. But there are further places to move.

I think we are going to go against the grain of the Northeast’s spiritual devolution and keep church planting. Plus, like our Map says this year, I think we are going to create a mutuality web that is the antidote to the soul-crushing individualism being written into law in the United States. What’s more, I think our new ideas for “good business” are going to start a very practical expression of our creativity. Those are the first things that come to mind.

What about teens? What about urban parenting? What about school care? What about finding a voice for alternativity? What about art? Climate change? There is a lot going on, and there should be. It is a challenging era to be a Jesus follower and we have been given a lot to contribute to the Lord’s cause.

What gives you strength?

I’ve had several conversations that pointed this out to me this week. I realized that my capacity is all learned. I have some native ability to do what I do, of course. But most of what I need has been an acquisition, a gift received, not an inner discovery.

  • Simplicity – My money is a tool. My success does not define me. Life is what I am living. I stick with my calling.
  • Centered prayer – Silence and contemplation are essential. Being with Jesus all day is a joy.
  • Teaming – I don’t do anything alone. Relationships of love are how the best things get done. I am a covenant member of the body of Christ.
  • Focus on goals – I like getting things done and I will risk failure to do them. I try to keep it simple and determine to do what I can actually accomplish. I am not a perfectionist. Thinking and acting ahead is important.
  • Reading widely (and yes FB and Twitter) – Nothing much is new under the sun, I may just not know it yet. I think the art of repurposing is more important than invention most of the time. Humility and foolishness lead to good things; I listen from that vantage point.

What will be new?

I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable after writing all this about myself. Presuming that someone is interested in me is not in my inner script. But I got to the end of it so the curious would feel more secure about what is happening in their church. It is odd. The new me is kind of odd, I guess. But I hope the change is very good. I am not sure what will happen, but a few things are coming into focus:

  • I hope my next ten years are full of children: spiritual children, grandchildren, and other people’s children.
  • I am going to enjoy letting go of our “2nd act” structures, once they can all walk —many of our innovations are still babies.
  • I intend to do more psychotherapy and spiritual direction.
  • I already write more.
  • I expect to teach more in the Hallowood Institute Gwen is founding, as well as throughout Circle of Hope.
  • I will apply myself to whatever I am given by God as I have always tried to do.
  • And, of course, Circle of Hope will be new. It is changing right now before our very eyes. Like I said, I actually feel a bit uprooted from the pleasant valley we used to live in. But I look forward to what will become of this much larger place into which we have entered. Much of it is unexplored, but what I have seen is beautiful! I look forward to what it becomes in much the same way I wonder if the baby’s eyes will stay blue — it is yet to be revealed but a sweet anticipation.

New development: The practical beginning of the “second act”

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Development is hard. For instance: The crew and I, led by the devoted foreman Ben Blei, are in the last throes of finishing the project down the street at 1226 S. Broad. All the details we missed are becoming evident. All the last-minute demands to meet the deadlines are irritating us. Relationships that need to work, but don’t work that well, are becoming obvious. Our limitations are also becoming obvious. There are a lot of problems associated with developing an old abandoned building. There are good reasons people don’t take on big projects like that.

As I was writing that line, someone emailed and told me they were as good as an abandoned building and God started developing them! But they had some good reasons why they did not want to get with that program: details, demands, relationship issues, limitations, etc, etc. It is exciting whenever I hear about someone who is in the throes of developing faith! Because the main development project people resist taking on is themselves.

That kinds of sums up the focus of my new job. I’m now the “development pastor.” It is a big idea for a job description, in that I am going to get practical about how we get from here to there as the whole church, Circle of Hope. But it is also a very small idea, in that I am going to have more time to be devoted to individuals, especially the leaders, as they move into their future in Christ.

I am excited. I even renamed this blog to make that clear!

I need to develop and I want to help others develop

That’s probably the same as you – we’re on the same team after all. I just get to lead in it. We all need to develop — we’re doing it one way of another. I want to follow Christ into my fullness.

To develop in Christ means one has some kind of experiential knowledge of spiritual things that moves them to action — not just book knowledge, or secondhand knowledge or even Circle of Hope knowledge. You know God and that relationship is developing. I first learned this when I finally read the Bible and saw in Romans 8 that people who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. In all our talk about our “second act” we have been devoted to risking that the people of our church will be led by the Spirit: we’re trusting Christ to be at work in all of us; we’re trusting each other to keep developing as people in Christ and to resist settling into some placeholder life.

The last time I spoke in a Sunday meeting I offered three basic things we all need to hold on to if we are going to keep developing as individuals in Christ and keep developing as the Lord’s church. Let me briefly list them again.

  • Take incarnation seriously

The finite manifests the infinite, the physical is the doorway to the spiritual — like Jesus the incarnate Son of God is our way to eternity. This is the way to that. There are not sacred and profane places or moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places and moments. Christ in YOU is the hope of glory. Christ in US makes us the incarnation of the Lord in the here and now. To develop, take that honor seriously. You and we are important, no matter what voice inside or big power from outside tells us.

love will always be key to our development

  • Practice remaining in Love

Only love “in here” can enjoy love “out there.” Fear, constriction and resentment make us blind and need to be overcome. People cooperating with their development let their inner darkness and fear rest in Christ. God’s gift of love in Jesus makes that possible. There is no law or moral code that makes you better than remaining in Love. Stay there no matter how many times someone wants you to prove the validity of what you know in your heart by the data, or they try to make you love the empty container of the law without the content of the Creator. “Remain in my love,” the Lord says – then you will develop.

  • Stay close to the cracks in everything

Jesus says, “The last will be first and the first last.” Paul says, “When I am weak I am strong.” It feels upside down. But when we stay close to this seemingly irrational crack in normality, we begin to see Jesus — out there on the edge of what looks like an abyss to us. He is always about to fall over the cliff into what people think is nuts or impossible. We need to stay close to that. This is the hardest for me and most of us because it means we need to stay close to our own suffering. We need to be one of “the poor in spirit” who are blessed. We need to notice our own cracks and not cosmetically alter them. Living with Jesus on the edge, where things are cracked and paying attention to our own cracks in health and relationships is the mother of spiritual development.

development area

We need to develop as a church in mission and I want to help

Our ambitious map for 2015 is full of what’s next. It is so packed, we will probably need to extend it beyond a year! It is a very practical doc but very focused on heaven. We are redesigning ourselves to match what God is telling us and changing to meet people where they are at now. I hope you share my estimation of us: we have what the world needs; we are the next church finding its way in a changing world. As believers with a beachhead in the megalopolis, we are incredibly well-positioned to be used by God — and we are being used.

I have already been at work helping us to refine who we are so we can move into who we are called to be now. We planted new admin at the Hub. We redeployed our pastors to “get out there” and not be a four-headed unit with too much responsibility. We deepened our reformed Leadership Team and turned the Imaginarium into a rolling Council meeting. We are retooling how we use our two corporations: Circle of Hope Inc and Circle Venture to let us relate to the powers in useful ways. We installed Rachel as a new pastor and released me to think bigger and act smaller. We are getting together the masterminds (and we have them) to imagine how we can be large and personal, prophetic and empathetic, active and contemplative, dispersed and focused, attentive and inclusive, communitarian and missional.

All my experience leads me to this moment of development, I think. While it is hard for me to change from being the day-to-day pastor of a congregation, I am excited for this new moment of opportunity. I have some good years of service ahead of me! Even more exciting, I think, is to be a part of Circle of Hope, now — when devoted, reconciling, ambitious brothers and sisters in Christ are moving into their second act and trusting God to do something even greater.

What if I don’t feel God anymore?: Ewan McGregor on spiritual development

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, , , ,

The film, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, is parable about gaining faith. It helps us answer a question people sometimes surreptitiously ask: “What if I don’t feel God anymore?” What if I feel like a mundane Christian destined for mediocrity? What if what excited me doesn’t anymore? What if I am trying to feel God and it is not working?

Ewan McGregor’s development parable

In the film, Ewan McGregor plays a surly bureaucrat from the fish and game department who is unsatisfied with his life and his wife, and emotionally cut off from relationships with his colleagues. When his life is invaded by a charismatic, visionary sheik and the sheik’s wealth-managing, sexy assistant, things begin to transform. For one thing, Ewan’s love of salmon fishing ends up being a metaphor for his own change.

The movie is a somewhat odd story about getting salmon to thrive and reproduce in the Yemeni desert. At one crucial point, they have created a lake and a fish ladder and they have stocked the lake with farm-bred salmon (because the wild fish were too precious for enthusiasts to part with). The farm-bred fish are like Ewan McGregor: staid and stuck in a holding tank. Ewan has sat in his cubicle for a long time not really doing anything; he has sat in his depressing marriage not having children and not really making love. The question about these farm-bred salmon is: will they swim upstream, as salmon instinctively must do to reproduce?

As with all good parables, you are already asking the question: “Will I?” What about my development?

will they develop?They tensely watch from the dam and are sure their whole, huge experiment is a bust. But right when they are ready to give up, one salmon leaps out of the water and soon all of them are turning around and getting up the ladder and up the stream. Excitement ensues.

But then something horrible happens. Just like Ewan experienced in the middle of his new project when his wife decided to leave him, some person who thinks the sheik is a liberal threat to Yemeni culture blows up the dam and most of the fish are left high and dry. Just a little creek is left of the water project. They are sure all is lost. Ewan does not know what to do. But as he despondently looks over the project, one lone, surviving fish leaps in the air. They were not all killed! A lot died, but something new hung on. Their previous idea for the water project was still in pieces, but a new and better result sprang up from ruins of their work.

Ewan felt like a dried up scientist destined for the mundane. He tried something new and it didn’t work just right and he did not know what to do. Something unexpected took place as a result of him taking some initiative. He endured the loss of what was and entered into what is next.

If you don’t feel God, that is probably what is happening to you.

First of all, no one can really answer the questions, “What if I don’t feel God anymore?” because you are precious you. One size does not fit all when it comes to faith.

Second of all, I have some ideas about what might be going on. Don’t give up!

1)  Your childhood faith might be wearing out. It usually needs to move from head to heart.

I use the running the bases chart to talk about how we know God. It implies that we are always developing. That is a good thing, even though it includes feeling the uncertainty of moving further and the loss of standing safely on a base. The “game” is ongoing.

A lot of Christians only get to first base when it comes to understanding God. They have kind of a teenager faith. Many people come to faith when they are teenagers and they never get much farther than their original understanding. If you don’t experience the presence of God, maybe God moved on and you stopped following!

Old feelings pass away, but deeper feelings are in store. Spiritual “feelings” that are deeper than the reactions we learned in childhood are being developed in our much larger and deeper new eternal family.

2) You are going through a change of season and you need some new disciplines.

Just think about what is the center of having a “first base” faith in Jesus: knowing the Bible. It is quite a feat to achieve a basic understanding of what Jesus is talking about, much more to feel secure about the way you are going to do the word.  It takes a lot of concentration to just get started. It might be tempting to stay on the first base of faith, or second, or wherever you are, even though that season of development is over.

In the case of reading the Bible, spiritual development can’t stay at the level of merely understanding concepts. For instance, the Bible leads us to the basic disciplines of meditation and prayer. From reading the Bible we gain a collection of basic approaches to laying a personal, spiritual foundation that must accompany our reading. Meditating on the Bible saturates us with the truth and love that is revealed. We’re not just reading the words, we are responding to God and forming our relationship.

If that relationship does not keep changing and growing, something is stuck. In a new season we are called to run the bases at a deeper level. Our original idea of what they meant, as good as it might have been, turns out to have something deeper behind it.

3) You are experiencing psychological development

In our relationships with God we are always working on basic trust. We develop in the Spirit a lot like children develop in their families. Rather than milk we need solid food. Eventually, we need to develop agency. We have to endure losses and become adult. What doesn’t kill us helps us grow, it is said, and that is mostly true.

If you are wondering why you don’t feel God, it could be depression or anxiety talking. These symptoms are “friends” that alert us to deeper things happening in our souls. They may not feel like friends, but they are signposts of change. The uncomfortable feelings we often prefer to avoid are actually important to our spiritual development. The destruction of dams we thought should never be blown up often results in something better we never could have predicted.

Close relationships and young marriages often go through a lot of anger and hurt as the partners push one another to develop. When children are added to a family they push people farther. Losing one’s job or losing a loved one calls us to become deeper, to trust God. We need to listen to our anger, listen to the sadness and other feelings behind it and find out what it developing. Let’s not merely fight, flee or freeze in a self-defeating way, our typical way, the old way. Jesus is a new way.

Thinking over a parable, reading this blog post, relating to what is said, trying to stay open to God (even if you think your relationship is in a holding tank that feels less than fresh), are all ways to start moving in a new direction. You have spiritual instincts that are always ready to kick in. Let them leap.

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Exodus 15: God’s changeless love, intervention and development

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We had a couple of perennial questions arise at our cell last week. We were reading Exodus 15, which is a great paean to victory. God intervenes on behalf of the escaping Israelites and drowns Pharaoh’s army in the sea — the women dance and sing.

When certain Old Testament tales are considered, three questions regularly arise:

1) You are always talking about love. The God of the Old Testament hardly looks universally loving. What’s with that?
2) A big change seems to have taken place between the Old and New Testaments, what am I to think about God and the Bible?
3) I’ve been taught that God never changes. If God has actually developed a new kind of love, isn’t that wrong?

Lately, it seems like I have become audacious enough to attempt answers to giant questions in a blog post. This is another of those attempts. I won’t get too far, but I want to stay in the dialogue.

Let’s talk about God’s love

What people call love these days is often social tolerance (“Love me, love Slovenia”) or consumer preference (“I love Cheetos. I am part of the Frito Lay community”). People think God loves like they do  and then get mad at him for being out of line. Given the way a lot of people think about “love” these days, when God intervenes in anyone’s life with any kind of judgment or strategy that seems WAY out of line.  So Exodus causes problems.

Intervention looks like intolerance. People might ask: “Why would God be on Israel’s side?  If the Pharaoh’s soldiers were just doing their jobs, why would God kill them for it?” Their questions are based on a “democratic” idea that love is protecting someone’s right to be themselves.

Intervention looks like a denial of choice.  People might ask, “Why would God get in the middle of people making their choices and be so domineering?”  Their questions are asked assuming everyone is a consumer following the invisible hand of the marketplace, not the personal hand of God.

We’re all about expertise and politcs, these days, but God’s passion for the redemption and health of creation is more complex than social and economic theories. His love is not subject to such theories. But that doesn’t mean we can’t understand him; God’s purposes are hardly secret. God is well known and her plans for humanity have even been written down for about 3000 years. His invitation to love has been consistent. Should she violate the most recent philosophy that has arisen to oppose him or debunk her, that would not be unusual.

If your issue is, specifically, how God’s love and Old Testament violence goes together, a nice piece on what God is doing in relation to all the violence in the Bible can be found here. 

God in the Old and New Testament

Merely comparing and contrasting pieces of the Bible, is not listening very carefully to the Holy Spirit; it is more like Sesame St. characters trying to teach us that “one of these things is not like the other.” I think it is much better to think of the scripture in more relational terms. We should think of God as a parent, like Jesus does, not as an abstraction, like modern science might  (or like Greek philosophy, for that matter).  Then it is easier to understand how the scripture relates to us.

God is not a static thing, and human understanding of how to relate to God is a growing experience. Creation was designed to grow and change, and God is responding accordingly. The scripture notes all that movement and variation. Talking to different eras of the world, as scripture does, is like talking to different cultures today — Nigeria is not Thailand, but believers are having a fine time with God in both places. What’s more, you are probably reading this paragraph with a different emphasis than someone else. If we wrote down all the different emphases, that wouldn’t mean that I, the writer, were accordingly different.  What is consistent, among many things,  from the beginning to the end in the Bible, is the theme of being freed from slavery to people, to sin and to death. That goal is fulfilled in Jesus — there is not a difference, but there is a development.

God is love. But God’s goals are not necessarily for everyone to feel loved. The creation is tested by sin and is facing death.  The goal is salvation. The need is redemption. We may often be like toddlers who need basic convincing we are safe; I think the Lord is all for that. But we are designed to grow up into our fullness as embodied spirits, which includes seeing history as God sees it and finding our place in it. Seeing the Testaments as a flat study in character development rather than a testament of God’s work over thousands of years of history is too tiny. Testing the material to see whether God can be trusted, rather than seeing how God has shown his passion for us again and again, is too small.

Does God change?

Clark Pinnock wrote a controversial book not long ago that I liked. He debunked the Greekified notion that God is Aristotle’s “unmoved mover.” Instead he posited that God’s covenant with us made him the most-moved mover.  Relating to God as if he were an element on the periodic table is strange.

God’s character and goals are consistent. He actively, personally holds the universe together. He can and will create and end time as we know it. She has developed in relationship with us as a species as we have developed. He changed the universe when we were created, which changed his experience, as well. Reducing God to a predictable, changeless definition, rather than a living, generative Spirit, may be comforting in some small way, but it is not true enough.

These thoughts probably don’t go far enough, but I am convinced the Holy Spirit of God will enlighten us if we keep in dialogue with God and his people. In our Men’s meeting last night, we were talking about what wisdom we might have to offer to the next generation. We had a lot to think about. But one thing was for sure — this generation is passionately engaged with principles that are not revealed as God’s way; they are fairly ignorant about God’s cross-bound love. No matter how inadequate we feel to speak back to the onslaught of antichrist thinking, we need to stay in the dialogue, and pray. God will amplify what little wisdom we have. I hope this little bit helps with the development.

Development: Will we help or hurt the Philly region?

Building community, , , , ,

Development happens. Sometimes it is for the good. Much of the time it is the same old injustice in new clothes. Regardless, the church needs to develop along with it.

All weekend I talked about development — and I am not just talking about the in-town retreat the Leadership Team held with the discerning group to map out 2011 for Circle of Hope! No, I live in the Philadelphia region and we talk about development all the time: what’s happening in the casino district in Fishtown — the amazing speculation going on from Washington to Wharton in Point Breeze — the big ideas happening in southwest Germantown exemplified by the Kroc Center and the eviction notices given  to the people in the tower at Queen Lane — the changes on 52nd St. with the influx of new home owners pushing out from University City. What’s more: south of Temple is not what it used to be! — the Riverfront Prison site in Camden might get used well! — the South St. bridge reopened! It is exciting.

Church development

I was talking to a new friend in the Kimball St. Garden this weekend who said visiting St. Peter’s in Rome was the straw that broke the camel’s back of his faith. He gave it up when he saw that piece of church “development.” I understood. When I was there a few years ago I asked God for an earthquake to take care of what must be the worst piece of advertising for Jesus in history. God becomes a baby to meet us person to person and the church advertises him with an overwhelming building designed to make you feel small and powerless in the presence of God (and the pope)!

In most of Philly’s neighborhoods there are further shrines to the church’s pride and power housing congregations who are trying to figure out how to stay afloat and become useful in their developing neighborhoods. I told the man I was getting to know that he could come see us in our room over a check-cashing store if he ever felt like experiencing an alternative. He said he might show up. But I am not too heartened that Circle of Hope’s big contribution might be to provide a corrective for something done in 1626! We have our own development to consider!

This weekend we were considering our development in our developing region, and it wasn’t that easy. The pastors put out some ideas that seemed to come from the best parts of our discernment process including slight changes to our basic identity statements. We needed a lot of dialogue! Change is not easy! There were two ideas aired, in particular, that must feel like tearing down the Queen Lane public housing tower feels for some people. They want it gone, but they aren’t sure it doesn’t mean something important is going to be lost.

Being a developer

I guess I am like a “developer,” God help me. I don’t need change for change’s sake, but I think things can improve. When it comes to developing Circle of Hope, for instance, I think we should admit that we are diverse in race, class, background and location and stop talking about ourselves as if we are trying to become that. We became that. We can always become more, but we became that. Now let’s keep the heart of who we are and move on to what is next. Personally, I am not going to give up on any aspect of the work of reconciliation until I die. I want to keep overcoming the racist divides of our country (as were easily seen in the last election when Obama got his white backlash, even if no one will admit that), and I will keep being a proactive peacemaker (the need for such was also evident after the election when not one candidate on election eve mentioned the war in Afghanistan as a big deal to them). I think reconciliation is basic Christianity and I am not aspiring to it, I am it. I think we worked reconciliation into our DNA; we have it in our proverbs and mission teams. Let’s not talk about doing it as if it is still in question. Lets be it.

For another less tangible thing, I think we, as Circle of Hope, should admit that we met all our goals for development as an institution and now we should act like we are developed. We are four congregations, nearly 50 cells, four pastors, lead by  20-person leadership team, served by three staff people. We have two profitable thrift stores and a counseling center. We have compassion teams that many people consider radical. We need to get our minds around that and imagine what is next as that new entity. Let’s express ourselves as who we are now and stop dragging ourselves back into some nostalgic small thing. For anyone who just tuned in, we are just about what we were dreaming about becoming when we were a small thing. Let’s have the dreams of what a Circle of Hope that exists now would dream! This requires some maturity, of course. It is easier to just keep doing whatever was happening before. The people getting pushed out of North Philly into the lower Northeast and out of West Philly and South Philly into Southwest are just moving with the flow. They don’t create much flow. A lot of churches in town (like some churches on the street with BW) seem to be holding on as long as they can to what used to be great as the world changes around them. We were not created for that.

I am not up for not developing. Jesus is the source of a renewed imagination. Jesus continually renews our strength so we can face what is, now. I think he finds it exciting to work for redemption in the latest thing that has developed with the latest church he has developed. Let’s keep up.