quilting connection

I spent the weekend working on piecing together a quilt.  It's got 900 pieces and 2 borders.  And no matter how I try, I can't sew a single piece on straight.  But I like quilting because first you cut up pieces of fabric, and then you put them together to make something even more beautiful than you started with.  In a life full of criminal law and other craziness, I need tangible beauty as a part of my everyday life.  And quilting speaks to me of the kind of restoration and reconciliation God is doing in the very broken world around me.

But my friend Mary can think of nothing worse than quilting.  We were actually sitting around a table a couple of weeks ago, talking about how we're connecting with people around us to be light in the world and share our relationships with Jesus, and she actually said something like, "thankfully, I don't have to do something like quilting!"  Instead, she has a monthly book club with some people in her neighborhood where she's intentionally and prayerfully building relationships with people around her.

What struck me in that moment again is how God has created us to be who we are on purpose.  Mary hates quilting, but she loves books, so she uses her love of books to reach out to those around her.  I connect with other women over quilts.  And both of us have opportunities to minister to those around us as we're pursuing the things that we love to do.

That's not to say, of course, that God couldn't (or doesn't) ask us to go beyond who we are.  Sometimes he does.  He asked Moses to speak for a whole nation.  He asked Jonah to go to Ninevah.  But even when you don't have a clear calling from God to do something outrageous, he wants to use you right where you are, right who you are, to reach the people that you're naturally going to want to be around anyway.

What are your interests or hobbies?  Who is in your life who shares these interests that you might be able to hang out with while doing what you love?  How can you pursue a relationship with that person through the activity that you both enjoy?

an innocent man

Today I walked into court with an innocent man who was facing life in prison for something he didn't do.  By the time we got there, we had an offer from the prosecutor--if he'd just plead to this two-year misdemeanor, he'd walk away with no jail time and maybe 18 months of probation.

What's a guy going to do?  Risk trial and face a possible life sentence?  Cop a plea to something that he didn't really do, but that keeps him out of prison and without the horrible stigma of the other conviction?  I know that most of you would like to believe that innocent people never get arrested, and even if they do, never plead to something they didn't do.  But that's just not true.  So many times, I'm standing by a client who's pleading guilty to something, and I wonder if this is the just result.  I wonder if it's the right thing.  I wonder if they really did what they're claiming they did.

Many, many people who are arrested for crimes are guilty of those crimes.  I'd venture to guess that more than 95% of them are.  And most of my clients who are actually guilty are prepared to plead to something.  So mostly my job is just to figure out how to mitigate the damages that they've already caused to their own lives.

But the innocent ones who maintain their innocence all the way through, they have to have a lot of faith in the system.  They have to trust that a jury of their peers would see through the inconsistent testimony of the complaining witnesses and the shoddy investigation and find him not guilty.  They have to trust their attorneys have their best interests at heart and have been working night and day to prepare for their day of reckoning in court.  And maybe they even have to believe that there is a God who cares about justice and who cares about them.

The only reason I can do this job is because I believe that God cares about justice.  And I believe that when I pray that God's kingdom would come and his will would be done on earth, in part I'm praying that his justice would reign even in the midst of this very unjust world.  I hate that my client had to anguish about this case for the last year while the case plodded its way through the court system.  I hate that he had to pay me and my co-counsel to represent him.  I hate that his life will never be the same again because of what he was accused of.

But my client's case was dismissed today, just before the jury would be called in for trial.  This small measure of justice--not full justice, and very late--but this small measure of justice is an imperfect, incomplete picture of the kind of justice we can look forward to in the fullness of time when Christ finally reigns.  I look forward to a day when there will not be suffering but peace, when no one is victimized and no one is falsely accused, and when there is no more brokenness but everyone is healed.

Until then, I will continue to follow Jesus to this place of opportunity to serve the poor and the oppressed by seeking the kind of justice we can find through our broken system.  And all the while, I'll continue to pray that God will bring his kingdom and his true justice right now to the pain and brokenness that I see every day.

Taste and See

"But this is my belief: that at the heart of Christianity is a power that continues to speak and transform us.  As I found to my surprise and alarm, it could speak even to me: not in the sappy, Jesus-and-cookies tone of mild-mannered liberal Christianity, or the blustering, blaming hellfire of the religious right.  What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty.  It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new.  It offers food without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed-up and pious, and then commands everyone to do the same.  It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life.  . . . . Faith, for me, isn't an argument, a catechism, a philosophical "proof."  It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to act. . . . As the Bible says: Taste and see."

Sara Miles, Take this Bread: A radical conversion, pp xvii-xviii.

I started reading this book this week, and I'm looking forward to finishing the story of this woman who encountered God in a way that transformed her life.  Apparently (I haven't gotten to this part yet), she's been working hard on building food pantries for the poor in her world.  But this paragraph really resonated with me because it articulates some things for me about the way of faith, how complicated and unexpected it is sometimes.

What do you think?  Food for thought?

Bubble Creek Canyon

So what do you think of this video?

What do you think motivates Christians to want to live on a compound?  Do you think that's good or bad?

building a boat

Have you ever thought about what it was actually like for Noah?  I mean--all those years when he was building that boat, before it rained--before it had ever rained.  Have you thought about how many trees he had to chop down?  Or about how long it would've taken to make them into boards and let them season?  Or about how he'd have to wake up each day with this renewed commitment to do what he was called to do, even though the progress he was seeing was minimal?  Or about how much faith he had to have in the One who had called him to be so committed to such a colossal project?

Noah's been coming to mind for me a lot this week.  I learned a few days ago that Da[w]bar House (my publishing company) will be a ministry partner at the Big Ticket Festival.  Last year the Big Ticket Festival had 30,000 attenders.  We'll have a tent where we'll be running hourly trainings on storytelling and recognizing and responding to emotional barriers to faith.

This is a colossal project, which, if I had 6 months to prepare for, would not be quite so overwhelming.  But the opportunity to teach and interact with such a large number of people, sharing all the things I've been learning about evangelism and storytelling is a huge opportunity--one that I can't pass up and one that I am so thankful for. 

But it is so. much. work.

2 Thessalonians 3:13 says, "And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right."    And I think there's a reason that Paul felt he needed to encourage the Thessalonians in this way.  Because Paul knew, as anyone who is truly committed to following Jesus wherever he leads knows, that from a human perspective, what God calls us to do is always too big for us to do in our own strength.  It's too much. 

But faith does not jump from calling to execution.  Faith requires someone to be on the ground between the calling and the goal.  And that someone is stretched and challenged to live out faith one day at a time, one small project at a time, until the end is reached and you can look back and see that somehow, God has turned all those tiny little steps into an ark that's big enough to house 2 of every kind of animal and feed them for a year.  Somehow, with God, the sum of all the parts you add is greater than it should be.

Making Paths Straight

Ran across this article today, and I think Melissa Turner Jones is saying many of the things I've been trying to say.  I like her reference to making straight paths and the word picture of helping someone to move their fists so that they can see and encounter Jesus.

The "Talent Society" and the Church

I read an interesting article by David Brooks this week.  The gist of the article is that society has changed from being deeply enmeshed communities to loosely organized and affiliated groups of people.  The author's point was that our more settled social structures often stifled "creative and dynamic people," and at the same time allowed disorganized and disadvantaged people to have supportive community relationships.

Today, he argues, we're living in a totally different world, a "Talent Society."  He says that "the fast flexible and diverse networks allow the ambitious and the gifted to surf through amazing possibilities" and to "construct richer and more varied lives," while the disadvantaged are left adrift without the community they need to feel connected and valued in society.

It made me think about what a challenge and an opportunity the church has to rise up in the midst of this cultural context.

It's the challenge that I've faced as I've worked with my Sunday night storying group.  I've known that part of our struggle of getting together regularly and showing up in each other's lives is because the group is made up of all these talented people.  And our culture teaches us the value of developing our individual talents over just about anything else.  So we show up when it works, when it feels good, when it supports our goals of self-improvement.  So our challenge as people of Jesus is to somehow instill the counter-cultural value of living in true community with other people.  Somehow we have to learn and believe and live that it's more important to serve Jesus and to serve his kingdom purpose than to maximize my own potential.   We need to learn and demonstrate that there is value to serving the community above ourselves.  How exactly to do this, to teach this, and to encourage this within the culture is a constant struggle for me.

But this is also an opportunity for the church.  It's an opportunity for the church to provide a place where people who need the community can find it.  It's an opportunity to use its strength as a remaining bastion of institutional existence in a way that serves the community around it.  It's an opportunity even for the talented ones to learn the joy of serving and sacrifice and seeking others' needs and desires above one's own.  Again, what exactly this looks like is the question.

But if we start by asking these questions, and if we acknowledge that we're bumping up against changing cultural values, we can begin to allow the values that Scripture teaches to direct our approach as we have conversations about how to put it all together.

what are we afraid of, anyway?

The church gives us a lot of reasons not to befriend those outside of the church:  Family comes first and we need to be investing in those God has entrusted to us.  The body of Christ needs what little time and energy we have left over to run its programs, and we call this building up the body.  And then there are all those verses about keeping yourself from being polluted by the world, not being unequally yoked with unbelievers, not being of the world.

Like pretty much anything else, there's a continuum in our churches of how separate we are.  There are some churches where women wear jumpers and head coverings and they have 12 children and they never watch movies or tv.  Somewhere in the middle are the people who show up every time the church doors are open and have no time left over for other relationships.  And then, on the other end of the spectrum, those who go to church on Sundays, or maybe just the big 2 (Christmas & Easter), and who spend all the rest of their time outside the church, living just like the rest of the world does.

In my city, we have a lot of Christian schools.  Christian parents teach their kids early on that they are different--that they need to be different.  They might talk about the need to reach out to the world, but the culture they've created is so different from the world around them that they have little in common with those who don't share it.  And the kids are taught that this difference is supposed to be the very thing that draws people in to wanting to know more about Jesus.  But it seems like there's often also an underlying motivation of fear.  If I send my kids out into the world, or if I go there myself, what might happen to my spiritual life?  What might happen to my kids?  How will we stay pure and holy, people after God's own heart?

But let's imagine for a moment that we put that fear aside.  Let's say that I decided that I was going to live mostly in the world and be loosely affiliated with other followers of Jesus.  And let's say that in my deep desire to love and get to know people... just regular people... I spent so much time with them and got to know them so well that I fell in love with someone who has not given his life to Jesus.  What would happen?

It might be that it could separate me from everything that had always been important to me.  It could be the thing that made me walk away from a calling to ministry and evangelism and writing.  And, like Solomon with his foreign women, it could move my heart from total surrender to God to a position of compromise where I would never reach the potential for impact that he'd instilled in me.

But truly being his friend and walking with him for a while could also be a tremendous opportunity to grow.  It could give me the chance to learn to articulate more about faith and how I live it and what it means to me.  It could test and try the depth of my commitment to God so that once again, I knew for sure that nothing could separate me from him.  It could sharpen my thinking about what I believe and why I believe it.  It could give me opportunities that I never would have otherwise had to look someone in the eye and tell him that he is loved by God and that God wants to free him from bitterness or hopelessness or aimlessness.  It could make me a better person by challenging me to choose to love unconditionally and selflessly.  It could teach me to listen, really listen, to the cry of another person's heart.

The church often takes a very strong stance against loving those outside the church--at least loving in a way that might cost us something.  We'll hand out a list of verses to our people, give a set of cold, hard facts about the perceived or possible consequences.  And we often teach that obedience to God means walking away from situations where we might have to give of ourselves deeply and personally.

But who did Jesus spend his time with when he was on earth?  Why were the religious people always so up in arms about him?  Why did he take time to talk with the Samaritan woman at the well, or to let children come and talk to him?  Why?  What is it about humanity that he saw?

And what risk did he personally take when loving and challenging and walking beside people?

Well, we know he was betrayed by one of his closest friends.  He was ridiculed by the religious leaders.  He was crucified by the people he came to rescue.  He risked everything, and it cost him everything.

If we're really going to love our neighbors, I think we have to be all in.  I don't think we can do it from a position of power, a sense of separateness, or the idea that we have some great knowledge to impart.  No, I think we have to jump in with our whole selves, loving and living beside and investing in the people around us.  In this way, we are invited to abide in Christ in a deeply personal way.  If there is no risk, there is no need for God.  But if we follow Jesus into the trenches, loving people in spite of the mess that our shared humanity creates, he will be there right beside us, loving through us, and challenging us to an ever deepening dependence on him.

So what are we afraid of?

Thoughts on the church and missional living

So there’s a lot of talk within the church leadership culture/community/conversation about making churches and church communities missional.  I’ve heard sermons online about how to make your church more missional, how to teach people to be missional, and about why being missional is so important.  I thought I might be able to add something to the conversation because I haven’t heard anything about what someone who’s living missionally within the world needs from the church.  And make no mistake, we need the church desperately.

So, after about 9 years of living and working in the world while trying to live out a calling to be missionally investing of the lives of my friends and co-workers, here are a few of the things that I need from the church in order to support that missional posture:

1) Prayer.  No spiritual fruit is ever borne without the work of the Holy Spirit, and I am completely and utterly dependent on him to intervene in the lives of the people around me.  Day after day, I get up, go to work, have conversations with people about life, about spiritual things, about problems, about struggles.  There are many things that I pray for my friends about.  There are many needs that they have, spiritual and otherwise.  I need you to pray for me.  I need you to pray for my friends.  The work of the gospel cannot be done without the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

2) Fellowship.  Because I’ve chosen to spend most of my time with people outside the church, who probably don’t believe much of anything that I do, I end up feeling very different and very lonely much of the time.  I need the fellowship of the body to be a place where I can go and feel like I’m a part of something bigger than me.  And that the something bigger is not just an idea or a kingdom that exists somewhere in the future, after I die.  It’s a community of people that is following after Jesus right now.  Ideally, I would love it if I could find some other missional people who are living the same kind of life that I am–who would understand what it’s like to count people who don’t know Jesus as some of my closest friends.  I would love the support and encouragement of that kind of shared understanding.  But even if that’s not possible, just worshiping and talking with others who love Jesus and have given their lives to him is refreshing when most of the time, in my regular life, that kind of commitment is viewed as something strange.

3) Understanding.  I need you to understand why I don’t join the worship team, teach nursery or Sunday school, run a small group, cook food for our gatherings, or work as a youth group sponsor.  Even though I could do all these things, and I could therefore add a great deal to the building up of the body in that way, I need you to understand that I’m called to the world.  So I need you to help me guard that gift and bless me for using my gifts for the church and the body outside of the body.  I need you to understand why I don’t show up at all the social or peripheral activities of the church.  I need you to recognize and celebrate my activities outside the church as just as vital to body life as what I might do if I was helping to support or attending all the programs of the church.

4) Opportunities to invite my friends to meet some of you.  Most of my friends are not at a point where they’re going to jump at the opportunity to go to a church service.  Many of them are not even really interested in going to a church program or a church building.  It sounds boring.  It sounds stuffy.  It sounds religious.  However, there is nothing in the world as powerful as seeing how the community of believers loves each other.  Jesus even said that people would know his disciples by their love.  I need opportunities to invite my friends to meet you and to see how you treat each other.  I need places where those of my friends who come from broken homes or who have been abused and neglected and struggle to have quality relationships can find home and family in a way that it’s never been available to them before.  I need you to be the church to each other, even outside of church time, and I need you to be willing to invite my friends into those relationships.  And when you do, I need you to love my friends as much as you love your friends.

So these are the first 4 things that come to mind.  Do any of my readers have anything to add?  Or for those who are in church leadership, any ideas of how to make these things a reality?

before & after

Within the whole "evangelism" conversation, an argument has been made that, instead of looking to define people as "inside" or "outside" the church, or as "spiritually dead" or "spiritually alive," it may be more helpful to look at orientation toward Jesus or orientation away from him. 

To a point, I think that this is a good idea because following Jesus is a process.  I don't know if anyone ever just wakes up one day and says, "today I think I'll follow Jesus."  Usually there's a whole journey toward Jesus that happens first.  Seeing the process instead of just one point of decision allows us to focus more on walking with people right where they are instead of trying to force a decision before they're ready to make one.  It also allows us the freedom not to have to label people, but just to pray with others and encourage them at whatever point they're at on their spiritual journey.

But.

As I have watched people over the last couple of years move from hostility toward neutrality toward faith toward relationship with Jesus, every time there has been a point where there is a real, distinct, almost measurable change inside of them.  There is a point where it becomes clear to me, as an outside observer, that the Spirit of God is living inside them and that they are now walking with God.

It's one of the most amazing and miraculous transformations that you could ever see.  I can hardly describe what it's like to observe someone going from one day of disconnection from God to the next day of walking with God.  There's an element of softness, of tenderness, of openness.  There is a recognition of their own internal brokennness and need for God to fill them and transform them.  There's a new interest in the stories or words of Scripture.  There's a kind of peace in the person's soul.  And there's a different kind of confidence mixed with humility that comes from belonging to God.

And the more I see that happening in the people around me, the more I want to see others experience it too.  Even though the problems of life don't disappear, and even though life becomes harder in some ways, it seems to me like that internal transformation is a very positive thing for the people being transformed and that they don't want to go back.  Maybe more importantly, that transformation has usually led them to love God and to love other people more completely than they were able to before.

The before & after--they motivate me.  They motivate me to pray without ceasing for the people around me.  They motivate me to choose to be there for people in a holistic way because I want them to experience the love of God in a tangible way.  They motivate me to listen and look for the move of the Spirit in the lives of people around me so I don't miss out on being a part of what he's doing.

what I learned from stories of spiritual transformation

A couple of weekends ago I read an entire book of stories of people who were not followers of Jesus who then became followers of Jesus.  I'm trying to understand more about what that looks like and how people go from spiritual death to spiritual life.  I know that there are things about it that are not fully understandable, but I've only seen it happen 10-15 times.  I wanted more information. 

So as I was reading, I made a list of some of the things that the stories had in common and I thought that I'd list them here.

Prayer.  Every single story referenced Christians who had been praying for the new believer's salvation.  Every single one.  I'm sure that not everyone who is prayed for ends up following Jesus, but it doesn't seem like it ever happens without prayer.

Loving engagement with Christians.  All the stories also had the involvement of Christians who acted in love toward the new believers.  Many times they were sharing life with each other, and many times the Christians asked thought-provoking questions to the new believers.  Sometimes it was attending a church service where the interaction with Christians happened, but often the new believers met these Christians outside of church and didn't attend church at all before becoming followers of Jesus.


Engagement with Scripture.  I think the woman who used to be an atheist said it best.  She had been challenged to read the Bible.  She had read parts of it years before, apparently, but she started reading it again, from the beginning.  She said that as she was reading the Bible, "the Bible read me."  The Holy Spirit is clearly involved with illuminating Scripture, and she was convicted and challenged and invited into relationship with Jesus.

Stories about transformation through Christ.  For one person, the stories of how God had transformed others was the catalyst for that person's own willingness to seek transformation through Christ.

Dreams.  This one didn't happen a lot, but for some people, dreams where Jesus appears and presents an invitation can be a very powerful and life-changing experience.  This happens a lot in countries that are steeped in spiritual darkness or where there appears to be a lot of demonic activity.  The reason I'm mentioning it is because I think it is sometimes a good thing to pray for--that Jesus will appear to someone in a dream.

I'm sure that I could've read a book that would've outlined all these things as "important steps" or "things you can do" to help people get to know Jesus.  But the power for me of reading it in story form is that everyone's story is different.  I don't think there's a set way of going about spiritual transformation.  So much of it depends on the work of the Holy Spirit and where the person is at anyway.  But I do think that there are some things that we can aim for - like praying for others, always acting in love toward people, telling stories about how Christ has transformed us, and introducing people to Scripture at an appropriate time.

praying for discontent?

I've been thinking a lot about Jesus's description of the Spirit's activity when he was talking to Nicodemus.  I keep going back to that word picture of the wind, blowing wherever it pleases.  We can see its evidence, but we can't predict where it's going or what it's going to look like when it gets there.

I've been thinking a lot about that in the context of praying for my friends.  I think that praying for the Spirit to intersect their lives is immensely important.

But the question is, will I recognize the Spirit's movement when it happens?

I wrote here about praying that God would bless people.  I still think that this is important.  But a friend of mine recently challenged me with the idea of praying for people to be discontented, or praying that people will actually see and understand their brokenness--often this can only happen with painful experiences.

I don't like pain.  I don't like the idea of praying that people will be discontented or unhappy with themselves or with their lives.  I don't like the idea that suffering has a place and that sometimes it's exactly what we need in life to make us go deeper with ourselves and with God.

But when I look at my own life, I have to admit that I am who I am because of the difficult times.  I am who I am because God has been with me through those times, but also because those painful times carve out places in my heart and soul that would otherwise be hardened and unreachable.

I want to pray God's blessing on my friends.  I want to pray for God's blessing of spiritual life, above all.  But I think I have to remember that the path to abundant life is always death.  Jesus's first, of course, making life possible.  But then the death of self-surrender.  That has been a painful death for me, and it continues to be as I daily struggle to lay down my life, my desires, my hopes, my dreams.  But it's also a beautiful thing.  And the life that comes from it is always worth the painful process to get there.

So tonight, my dear friends, I'm praying that in your pain and your discontent--in the place where you are right now--the Spirit will be blowing and stirring a craving for spiritual life that can only come through death.

How can you be friends with an atheist?

Another interesting question my friend asked me this weekend was how my Christian friends would respond to me being good friends with an atheist.  He seemed to think that this might cause some controversy.

He's definitely right that in some circles my having a close friend who doesn't even believe in God's existence would be a huge problem.  Thankfully it's not something that my closest friends fear or don't understand.

It makes me wonder though where that controversy comes from.  I definitely have belonged to Christian groups in the past where it would be a big deal.  I think that in part it goes to a person's interpretation of being in the world but not of the world--that desire to be separated and holy and pure.  Is there a fear of contamination or of allowing yourself to be corrupted by the world?  I don't know.  But I can't make that approach fit with what I know about Jesus, who sat with tax collectors and sinners and spent much of his time with the people that religious people despised.  He was in the world but ever calling and inviting people into a deeper and more meaningful life of service and sacrifice.

And so on a daily basis I follow Jesus into the world and seek to love and listen to and serve people the way that I see he did in Scripture.  I can't help but think of this song by Gungor...

I do find Jesus in the prisons and in the streets and with my non-believing friends.  Learning to love and to relate and to listen and to serve calls me ever deeper into being transformed to be like Christ.  Yes, sometimes it's difficult.  Yes, sometimes it is uncomfortable.  Yes, sometimes I put my heart and soul at risk.  But I'm not happy with the antiseptic life that's lived within the walls of a Christian community that will not reach outside of itself.  I have been there too, and I have found that life wanting and more dangerous than anything I have encountered on the outside.

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? 

Letting go of perfection

I got a question from a reader today.  The question is basically how a person can be vulnerable with others, regardless of whether they are believers or not.  This reader grew up in a faith community that had the expectation that a follower of Christ's witness to the world would include something close to perfection.  There are two main things that I want to say in response:

First, I think that the first step to building mutual relationships with people who might not have the same beliefs as you is to take away the distinction you have in your mind between "Christian friends" and "non-Christian" friends. There may be some different values, etc with people who don't believe the same things, but those differences don't have to be a bar to the friendship. I think that you have to view all people as people and have an attitude of learning from and walking with them.  Similarly, I think you should be seeking to positively influence all those around you, regardless of what they currently believe about God.  Sometimes this is difficult because we want to be liked and appreciated, so we tend to present those aspects of ourselves that are most like the people around us.  But I think it's important to recognize that, outside of the church, people rarely judge you for your decisions as long as (1) you aren't hurting anyone, (2) you aren't trying to make them do what you believe is right, and (3) your beliefs and actions are consistent with one another.

Second, I understand the church-induced perception that you have to act in a certain way to be a "witness" to the world.  But in my experience, using this I've-got-it-all-together facade hinders your interpersonal relationships and can de-motivate peopel to seek God out.  We definitely are image-bearers, but the image that we present is not supposed to be perfection--that's impossible. Instead, the standard is humility and vulnerability and dependence on God. The bad choices we make, the bad attitudes we display, the normal human stuff that we do gives us an opportunity to model what true reliance on God to be our help and our salvation looks like. Being real like this also makes being a follower of God achievable, for lack of a better word. We don't want to communicate that following God means that someone has to get their life together before coming to him. And actually taking the time to apologize and be humble about the ways in which we hurt people can be a really powerful way to reach out. You are basically putting the other person in a position of power in the relationship, rather than being the one who has it all together.  This can be a really powerful way to invite someone into your life.

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.

Stories we ignore

Have you ever thought about the stories that we don't allow in church?

The story of the abused child who becomes an adult and now cannot figure out how to feel God's presence in his life.  The story of the homeless man who has no access to a shower and can't figure out how to get his life together enough to be presentable.  The story of the homosexual person who has been told by the church that she doesn't fit, that she isn't right, but she has accepted her sexuality as part of who she is--so now she has to choose between God and her whole identity.  Or what about the story about the person who is sick day after day after day... with no hope of healing in this lifetime?

We don't want to hear the stories that have no answers.  We don't want to hear the stories that don't have redemption in the here and now.  We don't want to be confronted with the stories that push up against our carefully constructed boundaries around truth and right and wrong.  We don't want to have to look at the humanity that is encompassed in these stories and admit that life may not be as simple as we want it to be.  We don't want to acknowledge that sometimes, while we're here, the stories that we live don't end with a fairy tale ending.

We insulate ourselves from pain.  Our middle-to-upper-class culture does this too.  We pay for the best medical care, we pay to put our kids in the best schools, we pay to live in nice neighborhoods with the goal of preventing any of the pain and hardship that is normal in the rest of the world.  We sanitize our lives.  And when we fail to do that, we are not welcome in church.  Well... we can show up if we're willing and able to present a sanitized version of our lives that presents our complete and utter faith in the goodness of God.

There is no space for lament--for the acknowledgement that life is not what it ought to be, that life is not what we want it to be.  There is no room to rail against God asking questions about where he is and what he is doing and why he has left us alone in this agony.  There is no room to cry out.  It makes people uncomfortable.  So they answer with pat answers and simplify and spiritualize the agony so that it once again reflects the sanitized and controllable boundaries that we're comfortable with.  If we can understand and contain it, then we can predict it.  And if we can predict it, then maybe we can prevent it in our own lives.

We do such a disservice to ourselves and our communities by ignoring the real stories of people's lives.  Sooner or later, every person is confronted with pain, agony, abandonment, frustration, disappointment, tragedy, or grief.  By and large, the church is not safe for these people.  So people are left with the option of presenting a facade or actually beginning to spiritualize and contain their own pain.  Either that, or they leave the church.

What if instead we accepted people right where they are?  What if the message was that we would sit with people in their pain?  What if we didn't allow agony to disgust, embarrass, or frighten us?  What if we were willing to just love and walk alongside and cry out in agony along with our brothers and sisters?  What if we could make church a safe place to share any story?  What if there was no judgment and no expectation for the person to have a perfect life?  What if we were all actually vulnerable about the things that were going wrong in our own lives, so that it would be safe for others to share too?

What if?

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?

A night for rejoicing

So I just had a friend tell me that the way I loved, accepted, listened to, and didn't judge her made a huge difference in the way she now views God.  There was a time, not so long ago, when she struggled to hear God's voice in her life because of the rejection, judgment, and hypocrisy of the church and the Christians in her life.  And I got to be a part of the softening process.  I got to be a part of the process of seeing her drop some of her barriers and truly surrender to God.

What an amazing thing.  I can't even tell you how awesome it is to invest in someone, to love someone, to walk beside someone, and then to actually have that make a difference.  It's the best thing in the world.

So much of ministry and outreach seems thankless.  There are so many times when all you get back is hostility, or even worse, apathy.  There are so many times when it seems like nothing that you say or do makes a difference at all.

But sometimes for someone everything changes, and you can actually see what you've been investing in.

Fantastic.  Much rejoicing in the house this evening.