Does God ever give up on anybody?

I went to listen to a well-respected Christian leader a couple of years ago.  He talked about "fools" who have basically rejected God's authority in their lives.  And he used that term on purpose, because, after all, Psalm 14:1 says that "a fool says in his heart there is no God."  As he discussed this category of people, he basically said that it wasn't worth his time to pursue them and try to bridge to them for the purpose of being light in their lives.  He reasoned that God sometimes gives people over to their desires and allows them to live without his presence because they've chosen to reject him. 

I hear other speakers on this topic encourage people to share their faith in whatever way they can, and then give them permission to “shake the dust off their feet” and walk away.  Maybe they’re not one of “the elect.”  And haven’t we done our part once we say the words?

And I see still others, lay people, struggling with this concept too.  I see them building a relationship which then culminates in just inviting someone to a church service or an outreach event.  And if the person invited says no, often they walk away from that relationship.  It’s too awkward to continue pursuit.  Or really, there’s nothing that can be done.

Like Abraham in the story of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, a part of my heart wants to cry out against giving up.  I want to appeal to God’s mercy and cry out to God to save them, even though they say in their hearts that there is no God, or they reject his authority in their lives.  Because I believe that there’s a part of conversion that comes from the work of the Holy Spirit.  And because we were all dead in our trespasses and sins until God saved us.  If he hadn’t reached out and pursued me when I was rejecting him and rebelling against him, I would be in the same boat.

At the end of the day, I think I generally go forward believing that God is a God of mercy and grace.  It is within his character to rescue and restore and redeem all people—even those who most stubbornly oppose him.  And I know that, if they really have chosen to reject God consciously, the only time they may sense his presence in the world is when they sense the Holy Spirit in me.  I’ve been commanded and invited to pursue others with love and grace and mercy in the name of Christ.  Who am I to decide that it’s time to give up on them?

And so I pray and I struggle and I cry tears of compassion and of heartbreak for the abundant life with the Eternal One that they are missing out on right now.  I invite Jesus to touch their lives through me and apart from me.  And I never stop hoping for the day when they will see the face of Jesus and surrender their hearts to him.

Are you being Jesus to anyone who has intentionally rejected him?  What are your struggles with this?  What are you praying that God will do?  How can the church help and support you in this endeavor?

Reflections on Rembrandt

Today I had the awesome opportunity to see a whole lot of work by Rembrandt, and much of it was focused on portraits of Jesus and drawings or paintings of Jesus in action as described in the narratives of Scripture.  It's hard to express how moving it was for me to spend some time with his work. 

This was my favorite drawing that I saw (in person!) today.  There were a lot of paintings and drawings that were much more clear and much more detailed.  But this one captured some of the emotion and ambiance that I imagined when I wrote about that story for my storying group.

As I wandered from drawing to painting to drawing, I was struck by the fact that my desire to write these stories for today's audiences is not a new thing.  I think people have been doing similar things for years and years and years... sometimes in words, like the plays I recently read by Dorothy Sayers about the life of Christ.  But sometimes in paintings like Rembrandt's or other artists.  Almost since the time Jesus died and rose again, people have been trying to figure out ways to communicate the meaning of Jesus's life and death on earth.  The act of painting (for Rembrandt) and the act of writing (for me) are like slow and reflective meditations that are trying to grasp the depth and height and breadth of who Jesus is and how his life and death on earth impacted the world and those around him.

I think it gave me a sense of belonging.  I belong to a community of faith that goes so, so far back and that will continue long after I am gone.  Sometimes for me it seems like I am doing something that is not normal with retelling these stories from Scripture.  Even though I feel like everything I've written is well-grounded in research, I have taken a lot of poetic license that springs from my own imagination of how things might have been.  After today, I'm so glad to know that I'm not the only one who has taken the time and effort to imagine these things.

In reality, I never really regretted taking that license because the act of meditation through imagination has changed me.  The stories in Scripture have the power to challenge and encourage and push me to grow in a way that straightforward words of doctrine or truth never will.  But I am very happy to know that, in addition to being meaningful to me, it puts me in company with people like Rembrandt.

Aching visionaries

A long, long time ago, when I was just learning to walk with God, I prayed that God would give me eyes to see people as he saw them.  Amy Grant's song "Father's Eyes" comes to mind, as it was during that era and I can remember singing along with her on my cassette player. 

When I prayed that, I didn't realize that what I was asking would be so hard.  I didn't realize that I would spend my life working with some of the most broken people in the world, and that as a result of my prayer, I would be facing them and their brokenness without the hardness and cynicism that would otherwise protect my heart.

I went away for the weekend to spend some time thinking, praying, and mourning.  I'm still grieving my father's death of course, but I think the process of mourning has brought out all of these other things that I see on a daily basis that are so, so sad.  And sometimes that sadness overwhelms me.

For example, I met with a couple of people in the county jail this morning.  One of the men is someone who is in the throes of alcoholism and is in such deep denial about it that he doesn't see how it's utterly destroyed his family and has landed him in his legal troubles.  He is blissfully unaware, while those who love him are sitting with their lives in shambles, trying to pick up the pieces.  Another is a man who, for the first time in his life, suffered a psychotic break and is now living with a mental illness that he doesn't even want to acknowledge let alone treat with the medications that could help him.

So many times in the last few years I've wondered if what I'm doing is worth it.  Is it worth my time and my energy and the heartbreak and the mourning?  Is it worth it to see the darkness up close rather than being able to live pretending that it doesn't exist?

In the end, I always tell myself that it is.  I think about Jesus's parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, and think that in Jesus's world, it is worth it.  That every moment I spend listening to, praying for, caring for, and serving the poor and the prisoners is somehow bringing about his kingdom on earth.

Jesus also said that blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted.  A book I read this weekend expounded on that blessing like this:

"Who then are the mourners?  The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God's new day, who ache with all their being for that day's coming, and who break out into tears when confronted by its absence. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm of peace there is no one blind and who ache whenever they see someone unseeing.  They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one hungry and who ache whenever they see someone starving.  They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one falsely accused and who ache whenever they see someone imprisoned unjustly.  They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one who fails to see God and who ache whenever they see someone unbelieving.  They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one who suffers oppression and who ache whenever they see someone beat down.  They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one without dignity and who ache whenever they see someone treated with indignity.  They are the ones who realize that in God's realm of peace there is neither death nor tears and who ache whenever they see someone crying tears over death.  The mourners are aching visionaries.

"Such people Jesus blesses; he hails them, he praises them, he salutes them.  And he gives them the promise that the new day for whose absence they ache will come.  They will be comforted."  Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son, pp 85-86.

Are you an aching visionary?  Do you see the world as it could be and as it will be?  Do you long for that day?  Do you invite God to show you all the broken places of the world that don't reflect the perfection and goodness that he intended?

It's a powerful thing, I think, to mourn.  If it doesn't kill you, it'll make you long for the day when there will be no more mourning, sickness, death, selfishness, or brokenness.  And sometimes, that longing can give you the motivation to get out there and start making a difference now, working to bring about God's kingdom vision of loving God and loving others to earth.

Is sin a dirty word?

I have to admit that I don't like to talk about sin.  It feels like that's connected to the idea of judgment--so if I talk about sin then I also have to identify sin in your life and then we have to have that conversation.

But I also have to admit that I have been thinking an awful lot lately about the consequences of sin.  Because I have to live with them.  And right now those consequences are so clear that they're unavoidable.

I'm talking about my dad's death, of course--death being the ultimate consequence of sin.  Reading the stories of God, death is actually a gift from God.  Can you imagine what life would be like if God had allowed a sinful people to eat from the tree of life and live eternally with sin ruling over us?  That's not any kind of life, and it's not the kind of life I would hope to have.  But still, there is something inherently wrong with death, something inherently not-good about it.

But it's more than that.  I see how it separates me from other people too.  I see how my own shame at my sin creates a desire to avoid intimacy--to avoid being known.  I see how I sometimes deal with that by living out of an image of myself rather than out of my actual self.  I see how my sinful acts hurt other people--when I speak out in anger or when I choose selfishness over giving to others.  I see how different belief systems and worldviews and approaches to life make it almost impossible to walk beside people in life--even people that I actually like and want to spent time with.

So I can't deny that sin is real, that its consequences are real, and that ultimately it hurts both me and others in the way I would most wish to avoid.  Sometimes I call this idea brokenness, but I could just as easily label it sin.

When talking about faith, I actually don't think that the topic of sin is such a bad place to start.  I don't know a single person who hasn't experienced some of the consequences of sin.  I don't know anyone who doesn't wish or hope for something better in the future.

And what my faith tells me, what I've learned and seen within my relationship with God, is that there is hope.  Jesus conquered death by raising himself and others from the dead, showing that he also has the power to forgive sins and heal brokenness.  And the most amazing thing is that we don't have to wait until death to see at least some of the results of that healing.  Jesus wants to begin the process of restoration and healing right now.  He longs to, through the Holy Spirit, show us how to live above that brokenness.  Though he's not going to bring my dad back, and I have to wait for eternity to experience the restoration of that relationship, I can learn not to allow my shame to separate me from others.  I can submit my heart and my choices to the leading of the Spirit, and through him, I can choose to say no to sin and avoid hurting other people.  I can begin to live a life of reconciliation and restoration.

And that gives me hope, at least enough to walk into another day.

a prayer for my friends

Oh God,

There are some times when the groanings of my spirit on behalf of my friends who don't know you or haven't experienced your presence or haven't surrendered their hearts and souls into your care are more than I can express in words.  I long to see your Spirit move in their hearts and lives, awakening their spirits to your unfailing love and faithfulness.  Like a four-year-old child with a single focus, I beg and plead that you will reveal yourself to them--through your Word, through nature, through stories about Jesus and what he does in people's lives today, and through the true love and repentance of the Christ-followers who are in their lives.

I know that your steadfast love and pursuit of people does not fail.  I know that your heart is broken at the brokenness of the world and at the separation of people from you and from each other because of sin.  I know that you desire that all people will know you and walk with you for eternity.

Come Holy Spirit.  Come.

Without you transforming me from the inside out, everything I say about you is suspect.  Without you illuminating your Word, the words written on those pages are just like any other words.  Without you breathing life into the souls of men, we are blind to see who you are and why we should care.  Without you being present in our lives, we have no way to experience life with Jesus in the here and now.  All is lost, unless you show up.

Come, Holy Spirit.

the world is not right

Today was one of those days for me when the not-rightness of the world is all that I could see.  You know--like the inability to bridge a gap in relationships, the reality that some prosecutors care very little about justice, the seeming distance between God and so many people, or the fact that my father died and my mom has to move all her stuff into storage until she figures out what to do next...  I could go on...

So I went to Lake Michigan and sat under the stars and listened to the crashing waves.  I prayed and cried out to God about all the things that I see are broken.  I remembered the story about Jesus, when he cried about Lazarus's death before he raised them from the dead, and about how many believe that he was crying about the same brokenness that I see.  I prayed for the Spirit to move in my life and the lives of my dear, precious friends.  I lamented my losses and the state of the world. 

And then I worshiped God.  I sang my cousin's song into the wind.  I sang I Will Rise and thought about what it means that Jesus conquered death and that someday there will be no more pain and no more suffering.  And I thought about faith and how sometimes it seems so fragile--transparent, even--like it might all just be in your imagination.  But also about how it really makes a difference in my life on days like today.

I went to the beach in a state of grief and conflict and unrest.  I lamented and prayed and worshiped God.  And I left at peace.  Circumstances are not different, but my perspective is.  I know that I am held and protected by my Father.  I know that one day, all things will be made right.  Even now, things are being made right a little bit at a time as spiritual death is conquered and people are being transformed.  God is good, and his lovingkindness lasts forever.

faith in the unseen

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

This is how Hebrews 11 starts out--the great faith chapter, going through person after person who had faith in an invisible God and did the crazy things that he asked them to do.  Chapter 12 then explains that all of these stories are supposed to encourage us so that we will not grow weary and lose heart.

I find myself going back to Hebrews 11 over and over for just that reason.  There were so many times in the last few years, living by faith, that I have been weary and at the verge of losing heart.  There are still so many times when I question whether it is worthwhile to walk by faith in the way that I have been.  Is it worth quitting a prestigious job so that I can work for myself and have all this time to do ministry?  Is it worth living in a blue-collar neighborhood to be close to the people I'm serving as a court-appointed defense attorney?  Is there really an invisible kingdom of God being built--that city that Hebrews 11 says whose builder and maker is God--and am I really a part of it?  Is our Sunday night group really, really building into people and making a difference in their lives in a positive way?  Are all the things I've sacrificed or put off experiencing in life worth sacrificing to do and be the things that I've been doing and being?  Were all the sacrifices my dad made to be in ministry all his life really worth it?

It's just all so intangible.  There are moments when I can see--where I can actually see what is going on and that God is moving and that people's lives are being changed.  But those moments are so fleeting.  And in between them I don't have anything to hold on to but faith in the One who I believe is working and moving.  But he is also intangible.

I used to be a quilter... so even though I couldn't see any tangible changes in the world or the people around me, at least I could see a quilt coming together.  Somehow that made it better, if only for a moment.  This week I posted a couple of pictures in my bathroom that some of the Sunday night folks drew in response to our Sunday night questions.  I'm thinking that maybe seeing those every day will remind me that people really are growing and changing in a positive way because of God and how he's using me in their lives.  But it's a struggle.  It's been such a struggle.

How do you deal with that intangibility of walking by faith?

Wrestling with God

I wish I could predict who is going to meet Jesus and fall in love with him.  I wish I understood how that process works.  I wish that I could tap God on the shoulder and jump up and down and point to people who I know who need him and who I so desperately want to know him and that that would make something happen.

I wish I could understand how the Holy Spirit works to convict and prepare hearts.  When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus at night about spiritual rebirth, he talked about how the wind blows wherever it pleases--you can see evidence of it but you can't see it and he seemed to be saying that you can't predict it and you can't control it.

I'd normally say that the right idea is to sense where the Spirit is already moving and to work with him there.  Most of the time I'm working to figure out what God has already been doing and I'm just trying to make myself available to be a part of his process of communication with a person about who he is and what he cares about.

But there are times in the stories of the Bible when people have tried to change God's mind.  Moses begged God not to destroy his people.  Abraham begged God not to destroy Lot's city.  Jesus told the story about the woman who asks for something over and over again and finally it is given to her.  What part do we play in asking God to move in certain people's lives?  Are his works dependent in some way on who we love and how we love them and how we pester him to intervene in their lives?

I actually do believe that, in other areas at least, when God's people go into a place we take his presence with us.  So the fact that I'm working as a lawyer in an imperfect justice system, praying that God's justice will be done, might bring God's justice to a place where it otherwise might not show up.  Sometimes, I might be the catalyst for what he wants to do and I might provide the opportunity for him to act and move through me to accomplish what he longs to.

Today I am wrestling with God.  I am begging and pleading and pestering.  I am trying to understand.  I know that his heart is that all will know him.  I know that he will not interfere with a person's free will to choose him or not.  I know that the Spirit does work to bring a person to the point of being able to choose him.  I don't know how it all works together.  So I am praying.

After my dad's death, I think I am longing to see the transformative and creative and restorative power of God at work.  I do believe that Jesus conquered the grave with his death, and I do believe that in the end, all things will be made right.  But they are not right.  A good man has left the world and has left a void.  A man who followed after God's heart is gone.  Who will take his place?  Who will walk the sacrificial walk that he did to bring the message of the Gospel to people far and wide?  If death is Satan's temporary victory, then I want to see God restoring and reconciling and making things right--not just someday in the future, but now.  I want to see people go from darkness to life with the Eternal One.  I believe that's what God is in the business of doing.  I believe that we're here to be a part of that.  So that's what I am pleading for.

Will you pray with me, that the Spirit of God in its unpredictable way will be freed to blow among the people I know and who I am walking with and who I am praying for?  Will you pray that God will show up?  Will you pray that in all my fragility and vulnerability God will work and guide and give opportunities and protect?  I can't wrestle alone.

Preparing to share...

I've been working on formulating the story of my whole spiritual life to share with a friend who considers himself an atheist this weekend.  I am very much looking forward to the discussion--both to sharing my own story and listening to his.  But it's different than sharing with anyone I've talked to before.  Most of the people I have known in the past have had some sort of religious experience or position.  It's somewhat intimidating to think of sharing with someone who doesn't share even the basic assumption that there is a God in the universe.

I mean, how can I explain why I've done the things I've done?  How do I explain how I've interacted with God?  How can I explain that I sense God leading me to do certain things at certain times?  How can I explain what a relationship with an invisible God looks and feels like?

I think it's really important to share my struggles with God over the years.  I think it's important to be honest about the questions I've had and the questions I still have.  I think I have to own my doubts and my issues and my fears and my frustrations.  I think it's important that I don't pretend that I have all the answers--because I don't.

It kind of has me wondering though--what's the core of this whole relationship-with-God thing?  What is the most important thing to communicate about it?  I know that I don't have to take responsibility for presenting God in a certain kind of light--he's God and he can defend his own honor.  But I don't want my own human questions and frustrations to get in the way.

I've done the preparation of thinking through my journey and the spiritual signposts along the way.  I've thought through the major events of my life, spiritually and otherwise.  Now I'm simply praying that when I describe my life and what I perceive as God's interactions with me, God will be able to speak through me.  And I'm praying that I'll be able to hear his questions and objections with a humble and loving spirit.

It's such an amazing gift to have friends like him and to have the opportunity to share so deeply from my heart.  If you're reading, I hope you'll pray with me, that the Spirit will lead and guide and be present in our interaction.  If he doesn't mind, I'll try to debrief the convo afterward here.

marching to the beat of a different drum

I've talked before about how I believe that doing what I call the works of God helps to authenticate the message of God.  I would count things like taking care of orphans and widows, loving neighbors and enemies, living within a community of people dedicated to loving and serving one another and the world as works of God.  In my own life, I would also see working hard to help the community find justice and protect people from oppression as something that falls right in line with God's character of loving justice, which also serves to authenticate the message of God.

So I haven't been surprised when, as I have conversations about spirituality and my own relationship with God that these are the things that people who are not Christians appreciate about the way I live my life.  I have not been surprised that they sometimes want to communicate a deep respect for those activities and the kind of person that God has made me.  Now they would never put those words around it of course--they usually give me the credit instead of God.  But that always gives me the opportunity to share that it really is God working in me that allows me to do what I do even in the midst of struggle or even when I don't see the results that I would want to.

What's been surprising to me is actually that I'm finding more affirmation and acceptance and even love from people outside the church than I ever did from those inside.  The person I am becoming because of God's transformative power in my life is inherently attractive to many people outside of the church.  They want to spend time with me.  It's kind of shocking, particularly in light of how on the fringes I always felt within a church community.

And the funny thing is that my values and activities and actions don't necessarily match the people's who appreciate who I am.  I am still very much living counter-culturally and marching to the beat of my own drum, as it were.  I suppose the reality is that I'm also living counter-culturally to the culture of the general West Michigan church.  But inside the church that life creates controversy or discomfort.  Outside it appears to be intriguing and somewhat attractive.  I wonder why that is.

On culture and the assimilation of new believers into the church

I've been feeling the need to talk about culture again.  I think I've written about it before, but it's come to the forefront of my mind as I read through the church planting strategy of the denomination that I've affiliated with and as I think about what I'm doing and where I'm going from here.

I find myself outside of the church, sort of.  I'm loosely affiliated with a church planting group, but I'm way more committed to the people I know in the world than I am to a church group.  I think there are a lot of reasons for this, and I'm not sure that they're important.

I'm also a just-for-fun observer and analyzer of cultures.  I moved overseas with my family when I was 13, and I spent a lot of time trying to piece together what was different there and why it was different.  Along the way I found the freedom to adopt the values and beliefs that I want to rather than being stuck with what I grew up in because I could actually see the different cultures and the different options available to me.  I tried to allow the character and person of God to inform my choices about those things, but that was it.  I didn't really feel any particular affinity to the American or the Baptist or the Presbyterian ways of doing things or believing.  So anyway, I still love looking at culture, identifying cultural values, observing conflicts as cultural clashes, etc.

So I've been walking with these people for several years now who have been outside of the church.  When we started hanging out, some of them were hostile toward God.  Most of them were hostile to the church.  I have lived beside them, pursued them, invited them to give to my life and meet some of my needs, and we have developed true and deep friendships.  I have also seen many of them move from hostility toward God and the church to a true openness to God.  I have seen God working and moving, and I have seen several take a defining step into the kingdom of God.

Now I'm struggling with what to do with them.  I mean, I feel a responsibility as a follower of Christ to invest in the people around me at a spiritual level.  I guess you could say that I have a passion to pastor people and to encourage people to grow in their ability and desire to relate to God.  So at this point, there's a question... many of my friends are now choosing and trying to follow God.  They want to know him better, they want to follow him, they are beginning to love Jesus.

If I introduce them into a church culture, what's going to happen is that they're going to get caught up in adapting to the culture of the church.  They're going to learn (before the Spirit convicts them) of all the things that they're doing that don't conform to the way of Christ, and they're going to start adapting to the culture around them before they've truly internalized or had a chance to figure out what things are really biblical.  Some of them might make the transition well, and within 3 years they'll have left behind all their relationships outside of the church, and like most church members in the area, will have no relationships left with people who don't know Jesus.  Their ability to participate in the mission of God to draw all men and women to himself will then be truncated and will never reach its full potential.  If they make the transition poorly, they'll end up walking away from the church disillusioned.  Right now, those are the only two possibilities I see here on the ground.

So what do I do? 

I just had the chance to speak at a chapel seminary, and afterward, a professor asked me what the church could do for people like me.  And I don't know the answer to that.  I know that I can't be the only Christian in a person's life.  I know that I can't be the evangelist and pastor and theologian and minister.  I know that one of the costs for me of being bivocational and living in the world as a minister is that I have very little time.  And when I'm not working or ministering I'm so exhausted that I don't have the ability to find like-minded individuals or work to fight to get a church behind what I'm doing.  I just can't.  If I have to choose between the church and investing in my friends outside the church, I will choose my friends every time.

What I do know is that I am seeing God work and move among the people I live with each day.  I do know that he desires to see them cared for holistically - not just spiritually.  My question for the church is whether you are read and willing to let go of some of your culture so that there is a place for my friends.  My question is whether you're willing to set people like me free to do what we're doing, but still somehow being committed to supporting us.  We need the church.  Desperately.

What are we going to do? 

Adventures in evangelism training

So I was transported back in time this weekend as I hung out with some church folks (not my church) who spent some time talking about evangelism.  It was a very interesting and somewhat discouraging transportation into a culture that I intentionally left behind a while back.

There were some bright spots - or one, at least - when one of the speakers talked about his relational evangelism.  There was a glimmer there of the unconditional love and pursuit of relationship because of how much God loves every person.  We also talked through James Cheung's process of sharing.  What I find interesting about that is that the only time I can imagine busting that out is if I'm specifically asked what it means to be a Christian.  But faith conversations seem to really go in bits and pieces over a long period of time, and almost never have I had the opportunity to just share a little pre-fab explanation.

But the most discouraging part of the weekend was talking with someone who is currently working on a college campus as an evangelist.  The only thing that he could see was valuable was an actual gospel "presentation" that apparently he uses when he walks up to strangers and starts a spiritual conversation.  When I asked him what he thought about emotional barriers to faith, he simply brushed that thought aside, as apparently he does to every objection someone has to the "gospel message".  Hard core, man.

By the end of the weekend I was basically speechless.  I couldn't even imagine where to start dialogue.  It puts some perspective on a 20 minute talk I'll be giving at a seminary this week... Helps me to see where church people might be coming from.  I feel like I've been away so long that I'd forgotten.

So yeah.  Interesting.  I wish we'd spent more time talking about how to have spiritual conversations in everyday life.  We spent a lot on theory and there wasn't much practicality.  But I guess the practical is just a passion of mine.  And it assumes that people actually already value spiritual conversations in everyday life.  Perhaps they don't.

Day in the life

Have you ever had the chance to sit with an almost-believer and explain the big-picture story of God?

It's truly amazing.  It's one of the coolest things you'll ever do.  It's one of the most fulfilling things that I've ever done.

I had a conversation like that today.  I also had a major victory in court today.

I used to feel like I had to choose between the two.  Did I want to be in ministry?  Or did I want to be a great attorney?  Did I want to give my time to teaching, encouraging, and discipling people?  Or did I want to give my time to advocating for those who can't advocate for themselves?

There are a lot of challenges that come with being a minister in the marketplace.  There is the constant pull of many different things from many different directions.  There's the pesky concern about whether you're going to make enough money this month to cover the bills that causes you to take one more case than  you want to just so you have it covered, and the case ends up taking up all your time for months on end.  There's the reality that you don't quite fit in the church or in the world.

But there are some awesome and amazing things that come with being a minister in the marketplace.  There are the unexpected and blessed conversations with a friend whom you've invested in for years.  There are the days when someone asks you how you integrate your faith into your whole life.  There are the times when you get to be there when someone takes that final step into the kingdom of God.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm in the right place.  Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choices or if I should've tried harder to find a different place in the legal world.  But honestly, today I'm full of joy and peace, knowing that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.  I would not trade those conversations for anything in the world.  Not even the things that I think I want most.

Cosmic Struggle

I should probably mention the spiritual warfare that goes with being someone who is seeking to live and share the story of God in the world.

Ephesians 6:12 says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. " (NIV)

I struggle to put words around what that means, and I know that it's not a good idea to spiritualize every bad or good thing that happens in life.  Some things just happen or are natural consequences of the choices we make.  But I can't deny that there is an element of spiritual oppression that has followed me since I took on the project of writing Second Story and, now, since I decided to do a storying group again. 

It's hitting me very strongly right now, actually.  Every old emotional barrier that has kept me from God in the past is resurfacing.  Every human hurt or pain that has been a companion through my life is showing itself so strongly that it can't be ignored.  Most of all, I feel completely and utterly alone.

According to a friend who has seen some amazing movements of God in the lives of many groups of people, there is a sort of pattern to how movements of the Spirit of God go.  It starts with a person or a group of people reaching out to those around them, being present in the lives of huge numbers of people.  The amount of time and the frequency with which they can be with the same people over and over affects how quickly things go from there.  And then there is a time of stillness, where it seems like every word and action is being done in a vacuum and nothing will ever happen - God will never show up.   And then there is intense spiritual oppression that accompanies spiritual interest by a certain number of those people.  How long this goes on, I'm not really sure.  And then finally, the Spirit is unleashed and there is fruit - in fact, there is so much fruit and so much momentum that the darkness can no longer hold it back.

I'm taking her word for it.  I was in the vacuum for many years.  Now we're definitely to the spiritual interest/spiritual oppression part of things.  I am trusting and hoping and praying that a time of abundant fruitfulness is coming.

In the meantime, my question has been how to deal with the spiritual battle that's being waged around me.  It's too much.  The passage in Ephesians talks about the sword of the Spirit (the word of God) and the belt of truth and all that.  I kind of understand what that means, and I kind of don't.  It does help to be able to name those barriers and those human hurts and to invite God into them.  I know that worshiping God in spite of those things has the power to dispel some of the darkness.  I also know that, for me, artistic expression can be very helpful.  So those are the things that I've been trying.  If you have other ideas, though, I'd love to hear them...

Persevering in love

It's exhausting, loving people unconditionally.  I don't know if you've ever tried before - honestly made an effort to walk alongside people, loving them without expectations...

And the sacrifice!  My word.  Laying down your life, your hopes, your dreams and just giving.  It's painful.  It carves out places in you that you didn't even know existed.  It leaves a dull ache at the center of your soul.

So why walk that road?  There are lots of reasons why.  Because unconditional love has the power to bring healing.  Because unconditional love demonstrates how much God love us.  Because unconditional love forms the basis for relationships that can sustain the hardships of life.  Because unconditional love allows us to walk with people who have the stories that we'd rather ignore or pretend do not exist.

The real question is how to persevere in the face of exhaustion.  The only answer that I have to that is somehow relying on the covenant love of God, who keeps his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.  Meditating on that and choosing to love based on how God has loved and treated me as well as crying out to God to give me strength is the only way I know to keep going.

So that's what I'm doing tonight.  I'd kind of like to give up instead.

Is there still a place for evangelists?

Let me start by saying that I'm uncomfortable with the label "evangelist."  The word has so many negative connotations in our culture that I'm hesitant to use it.  Add to that the fact that I believe that all followers of God are called to be salt and light in the world, which means that I don't like drawing a distinction between someone who is "an evangelist" and someone who is not.

But the reality is that there are some people who are more passionate about walking with others spiritually.  And some people are very clearly called to leading and discipling within the body of those who regularly meet together as followers of Jesus (yes, the Church).  So assuming that there is a similar calling to evangelism, I think that I have that.  I didn't know about it at first.  Maybe I should have, when I was attending a Christian college and nearly suffocated living within the Christian bubble.  It was all I could do to force myself to finish instead of running off to some other part of the globe doing some kind of mission or relief work.  As it is, I lived for a long time with a vague sense of dissatisfaction that I couldn't pinpoint or get rid of until I stopped hanging out with only people who believed the same things I did.

Anyway, I can't deny that the thing that brings me the greatest joy in life is being able to walk with people as they move from hostility toward God to a point of surrendering their hearts and lives to him.  Let me note that I don't see it as my job to move someone from one point to another.  It's very much being sensitive to the things that I perceive God is doing in someone's heart and life and being there to walk with them, to help them identify God's movement in their lives, and to help direct them to the right resources.  So much of what I do is listening and asking  questions.  That, and praying day and night for God to break through the darkness.

I struggle though, to know where to fit into the church.  Where does someone whose calling and passion lies outside the church fit into what is so often an institution that is primarily concerned with its own existence?  The greatest problem is that my world looks so different than the world of your average churchgoer.  I don't even know how to connect.  In my mind, I know that we are necessary to one another - I need that body as much as that body needs me.  But I struggle to find my place.  I feel like I'm always running against the grain.

This becomes even more difficult when you realize that anyone whose calling is to evangelism is actually already under a ton of spiritual oppression.  So often it's felt like I'm battling on two fronts.  And if I have to choose where I'm going to put my spiritual energy, it's going to be fighting the darkness that's in the world rather than the darkness that sometimes surrounds the institution of the church.

So this is a problem that I don't have an answer to.  Do you have a place and a role for the evangelists in your body?  Do you know if there are people in your church who feel like they belong more in the world than at church on Sunday?  If so, what are you doing to affirm their place?

Here's where I'm headed...

So here's a little bit more of the back story of how I got to be where I am...

I love the church.  I believe very strongly in the need for fellowship and attachment to the body.  I haven't had that much over the last few years, and it's put me in a really vulnerable position.  But I also have a strong calling as a minister of reconciliation in the world.  I don't always know how to balance those things.  About the time when I started feeling like I had to fight the spiritual battle on 2 fronts - against the church and against spiritual forces of evil in the world - was when I stopped being as committed to church as I'd grown up being.  About 10 years ago, my church at that time taught me that sometimes the church can stand between its people and doing the work of God.  The institution of the church is something that I still struggle with and have a hard time trusting because I've seen in the past how it's hurt people, and how it stopped me from doing something I believed God called me to do.

What I currently view as my calling in the church was dropped in my lap when my friend asked me to write a book for her.  This calling to be somewhat of a spokesperson between 2 worlds - the world of the church and the world of the "world" so to speak.  I have all of the appropriate skills and giftings and experience for this.  Growing up with a theologian as a father and in the church, I know the language that's necessary.  I know the issues that church people have with post-modern and post-christian culture.  But I also see the other side of things and have a healthy distrust of institutions myself.  I share modern and post-modern values in a weird concoction that is also mixed in with Asian and American values - it's a mixture that probably exists almost no where else.  I resisted this calling for a long time.  I didn't believe I could do it.  I didn't want to do it.  I didn't want to give up what had become a comfortable place in the world as just a nice Christian who loved people one by one and probably would never be around to see the harvest of lives transformed because of how transitional my community is and how nonconfrontational I am.  I am great at being the person to help a person get rid of the hostility, but I had given up on being around to be able to walk with people through the actual gates of faith and transformation.

And yet here I am and several of my friends are on the threshold, and I see now that I have to make the transition here too.  I have to be one (hopefully among many others who are doing this around the nation) to learn to translate the truths of Scripture and of early spiritual formation and discipleship and figure out how to communicate those things in today's world.  I'm burdened not only to discover this for myself but also to develop resources that can be given away to provide for the church at large.  I don't know this, but I think it's very possible that I could spend a lot of time teaching and training this stuff once I figure it out.

So that's what I'm doing right now--developing resources, trying them out, and then posting them here and providing them on my website.  I'm in the uncomfortable position of trying to develop something that fits with culture as it is now (read non-linear/story-based) and then put it into linear/modern-thinking form so that it can be taught and learned.  It would be much more natural and culturally appropriate to teach it one person at a time so that it could be caught rather than abstracted so that it can go further and wider.  Only time will tell whether we'll be successful or not, but I can't shake the feeling that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

My current project is to develop a short series of narratives to use in storying that will show what some of the key encounters with Jesus from the Bible looked like and how they changed the lives of the people who encountered him.  I'll start posting the first of those soon.

Rest

Rest is not something I do well.  I don't know if it goes back to the modeling of my parents, my own personality, or my sometimes desire to escape the difficult things in life, but I work a lot.  A lot.

With the submission of the book to the printer, I suddenly found that a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I left as quickly as I could to go back to that place where God met me 2 years ago through the story Till we Have Faces.  This time, my only job was to rest.  With tears in my eyes, I gave myself permission to just be.

And rest, I did.  There is something special about that place.  Perhaps it is the prayers that, for 25 years, have been lifted up for all those who would come.  Perhaps it is the willingness of those who come to put aside everything for a moment to listen for the voice of God.

I was able to think and pray through some important things.  I was able to again pray that God would take the book wherever and to whomever he wants it to go.  I was able to pray about my future and the things that I am holding deeply within my heart.

I also read through my journal for the past year.  Wow.  The journey that the book has taken to get where it is is something that I cannot even describe.  After years of preparation, the first draft took just a month and a half to get on paper.  July 7 was the day I really started writing.  My community has gone through some intense suffering too--lightning strike, sickness, car accidents, death of those close to us.  There were times when we all felt a little like Frodo, trying just to get the ring to where it was supposed to go.  So many times, I did not know how I was going to make it another day, or take just one more step on the journey. That we made it is a testament to how God has been with us.

Stories that transform

It amazes me how much stories get inside people.

I grew up reading books by Michael Phillips.  He had this whole series about a girl named Corrie Belle Hollister.  Every year or so, another book would come out.  She'd be another year older, and so would I.  Her spiritual journey affected mine.

It sounds a little scary, that some fictional character, who doesn't even have a relationship with God, who can't believe anything because she's not real, could affect my spiritual formation so much.  But there's no denying that that's what happened.  I look back on those books now and on all the books I read by Michael Phillips, and I see how much what I believe and how I live was formed by what I read.

So I wrote a book.  It could have been a nonfiction book.  My community has a lot to say about emotional barriers to faith and how to engage those in a natural way.  But as we talked about how to communicate the ideas, we realized that the only way the ideas would make sense is if they were played out in people's lives.  Ideas in the abstract are just ideas.  Ideas that are modeled, even by fictional character, have the potential to change us if we let them.

And I've had a small group of people reading and giving feedback.  And every single one of them said that the book was transformative in their lives.  That's the power of story.  And I'm amazed.  As a piece of literature, the book leaves a lot to be desired.  I could spend another 2-3 years developing the characters and the setting and making the point of the book more subtle.  But as a story that has the potential to model and transform, it's good enough--it does its job.

So it's on its way.  This coming week I'll finalize all the details, and next week it will be sent to the printer.  Shortly after that, it'll be available for purchase on Amazon.  It seems unreal, this journey of writing.  I think I thought that some day I would be a writer.  I just didn't expect it to happen quite this soon.

Gospel within culture

My family moved overseas when I was 13 years old.  It's kind of an awkward time to move to another country.  It's the time in our culture where we are trying to figure out who we are going to become and what's important to us.  It's the time when we learn how to relate to other people outside of our families.  It's the time when we're trying to form an identity that's separate from our parents.

So, at 13, I picked up and moved to the fine country of Singapore.  It's very different than the United States.  The biggest difference I saw that goes to the core of how we relate to one another is that, in the United States, we are primarily individuals.  In Asia, you are primarily part of a bigger community--you are defined based on your relationship to your family, then the greater community, and then your nation.  When making decisions, the family and the community are given greater care than the individual's desires.  There were other things I noticed--like the fact that all the light switches were upside down, or that communication is much more indirect so that no individual is ever blamed for anything.  So "the glass got broken" rather than "Henry broke the glass."

I was a pretty observant kid, so I spent a lot of time watching how people interacted and trying to figure it out.  Although I didn't find the language to describe the differences in culture until my college sociology class, I definitely noticed.  I remember thinking about their governmental system and realizing that democracy was not the only way to go.  I mean, they had a pretty successful country, and they don't have the same form of government as we do.

It was about that time when I realized a couple of things:  (1) Culture affects everything we see and understand about what is around us; (2) There are good and bad things about every culture; (3) I could actually choose my own values and way of life based on something other than my culture, namely, what I believed was biblical or that flows out of the character of God.

I began to critically evaluate the teen magazines coming from the US and the messages they sent about what I was supposed to care about (clothes, boys, appearance, etc).  I began to think about what I actually wanted my life to look like and the values I wanted to use to measure my choices.  And I chose.  Because of my life experience, I was able to have a much more proactive role in my own personal development than I probably would have if we'd lived in the US all my life.

Those three principles have a huge effect on where I'm at today and why I'm doing and talking about what I am.  There's a whole lot of momentum in the Christian world right now to reject what the modern church sees as the cultural imperfections of the post-modern, post-Christian culture.  There even seems to be the expectation that, for people to truly come to faith in God, they have to leave behind their postmodern culture and go back to a rational, modern way of living and believing.

But every culture has positives and negatives.  There is a concern for social justice and the environment that exists in today's culture that did not exist when I was growing up.  Reading the stories of the Bible, those two things seem to be pretty important to God.  There's also an inherent distrust in material possessions that I'm not sure existed before.  Where we're at now is not all bad.

And what I learned from living overseas is that cultural changes are difficult.  They take a long time.  They go to the core of people's beliefs about life and their own identities.  I think that all culture should be challenged and evaluated in light of the character of God.  But practically speaking, to some extent we have to work within the context that we're in.  And that's really what my heart is.  My heart is to ask the question "how do we reach and communicate the heart of the gospel within today's culture?"  God can change culture - but he's only going to be able to do that as people's hearts who are within that culture are changed and conformed to his image.

Within the month, Second Story, a fictional story about that question will be released by Da[w]bar House Press.  It'll be available on Amazon and hopefully through some local bookstores.  I really want to spark conversation about how we can effectively communicate the gospel to people today, right now, in this culture.  More information about the book is available on my website.