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.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Second Story - Coming soon!
cover design by Dave Malec
So... I'm a little excited about this. I just got the cover back from the designer for the book. Soon the whole thing will be off to the printer. I'm expecting the book will be available in January. Click here for a brief synopsis of the book.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Reflections on Immanuel
"It all makes sense now, of course, 20 years later. At the time though, it was dark. Very dark. I couldn't see then that God was with me. Sure, he said he would be. In the Bible, you know? 'I will never leave you or forsake you?' But it didn't feel like it then. Not at all."
"Even with all the weird things that happened.... This old lady sat down beside me at the bus stop that day. She talked about inane things. Ridiculous things. Like the weather. But when I got up to get on my bus, she grabbed my hand and smiled at me. Quietly, she said, 'God loves you, honey.' On that day, of all days."
"And then that guy at the grocery check-out. He was a little creepy, I have to admit. But his creepiness led him to pay for my groceries. Up til that very minute, I had no idea how I was going to pay for them myself."
"So now I can see it, looking back. God really was with me, even then. He was present. Not the way I expected him to be. Not how I wanted him to be. But he was there."
I gathered today with a small group of Christians in my community to talk about stories and telling stories to express the truths found in Scripture. One of my friends talked to us about "stories that compost" and a process of examining a Bible story and then asking 3 questions:
(1) What did you like about the story?
(2) What bothers you about the story?
(3) What questions do you have about the story?
At the end of that, we all took a few minutes to write a story as a sort of reflection or meditation about the ideas presented in the Bible story. So we looked at Matthew 1 today, about Joseph's response to the news that Jesus was coming and that he should just go ahead and marry Mary. As we talked about the story, we noted how God's presence as Immanuel was a theme that flowed throughout. As I paused to write, that was the overwhelming thought that came to my mind. So I wrote the narrative above as my "story."
There's something about interacting with a story at that level that requires you to internalize the truth of it in a different way. I must have read Matthew 1 25 times before. I have thought about Jesus coming to earth at least once a year around Christmas time. But have I really considered Jesus's presence with us as Immanuel in this way? Have I reflected on his presence with us through his people in the same way? Have I really allowed the story of God's presence to intersect my own heart and life? Probably not.
There are lots of ways to tell the stories of God. I've talked before about telling our own stories and how God has intersected our own lives. And without taking away from the truth of what actually happened, I think we can also imagine what those ideas might mean in our own lives and the lives of those around us. And we can learn to tell the heart of the story using words and stories that make sense to those around us.
"Even with all the weird things that happened.... This old lady sat down beside me at the bus stop that day. She talked about inane things. Ridiculous things. Like the weather. But when I got up to get on my bus, she grabbed my hand and smiled at me. Quietly, she said, 'God loves you, honey.' On that day, of all days."
"And then that guy at the grocery check-out. He was a little creepy, I have to admit. But his creepiness led him to pay for my groceries. Up til that very minute, I had no idea how I was going to pay for them myself."
"So now I can see it, looking back. God really was with me, even then. He was present. Not the way I expected him to be. Not how I wanted him to be. But he was there."
I gathered today with a small group of Christians in my community to talk about stories and telling stories to express the truths found in Scripture. One of my friends talked to us about "stories that compost" and a process of examining a Bible story and then asking 3 questions:
(1) What did you like about the story?
(2) What bothers you about the story?
(3) What questions do you have about the story?
At the end of that, we all took a few minutes to write a story as a sort of reflection or meditation about the ideas presented in the Bible story. So we looked at Matthew 1 today, about Joseph's response to the news that Jesus was coming and that he should just go ahead and marry Mary. As we talked about the story, we noted how God's presence as Immanuel was a theme that flowed throughout. As I paused to write, that was the overwhelming thought that came to my mind. So I wrote the narrative above as my "story."
There's something about interacting with a story at that level that requires you to internalize the truth of it in a different way. I must have read Matthew 1 25 times before. I have thought about Jesus coming to earth at least once a year around Christmas time. But have I really considered Jesus's presence with us as Immanuel in this way? Have I reflected on his presence with us through his people in the same way? Have I really allowed the story of God's presence to intersect my own heart and life? Probably not.
There are lots of ways to tell the stories of God. I've talked before about telling our own stories and how God has intersected our own lives. And without taking away from the truth of what actually happened, I think we can also imagine what those ideas might mean in our own lives and the lives of those around us. And we can learn to tell the heart of the story using words and stories that make sense to those around us.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Introducing . . . storying
In a slight change of pace, I really wanted to take a couple of minutes and recommend a great resource to you. About a year and a half ago, I stumbled on the idea of storying from Michael Novelli. His website is here.
The basic idea is that it's a really powerful thing within a community to return to the power of the story of the Bible. The Bible was written in narrative form, but so often we break it up and analyze it into tiny, bite-size pieces. It's really easy to misinterpret. It's also really easy to sort of contain God if we can categorize and analyze things to the point where they all make sense.
Last year a small group of people met in my house about twice a month to story through the Old Testament. I was immediately captured by the stories. I was confronted by the character of God in those stories, who was so much bigger than I'd remembered. We had great conversations about the stories and about what they challenged us to do in our own lives.
As I've learned to recognize emotional barriers to faith in my life and in the lives of those around me, this idea of story has really jumped out at me as a way to engage with those barriers. Through story, we can introduce ourselves and our friends to the person of God rather than just ideas about God. And those stories have the power to transform. They challenge our preconceived notions and ideas, and they force us to engage with God in a different way than if we just talk about him in the abstract. I would highly recommend this resource.
The basic idea is that it's a really powerful thing within a community to return to the power of the story of the Bible. The Bible was written in narrative form, but so often we break it up and analyze it into tiny, bite-size pieces. It's really easy to misinterpret. It's also really easy to sort of contain God if we can categorize and analyze things to the point where they all make sense.
Last year a small group of people met in my house about twice a month to story through the Old Testament. I was immediately captured by the stories. I was confronted by the character of God in those stories, who was so much bigger than I'd remembered. We had great conversations about the stories and about what they challenged us to do in our own lives.
As I've learned to recognize emotional barriers to faith in my life and in the lives of those around me, this idea of story has really jumped out at me as a way to engage with those barriers. Through story, we can introduce ourselves and our friends to the person of God rather than just ideas about God. And those stories have the power to transform. They challenge our preconceived notions and ideas, and they force us to engage with God in a different way than if we just talk about him in the abstract. I would highly recommend this resource.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Love one another
"I don't really care what people think about predestination or baptism or salvation. The church doesn't know how to love. I think we should be focused on that."
Regardless of what you think about the theology of this statement, it's something to consider. One of the biggest issues people have with the church is how it treats people. One of the biggest issues I have with the church is how it treats people.
In John 13:35, Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Is it really a surprise, then, that people use the question of love to evaluate the truth of the church's or individuals' beliefs?
This seems to be one of the most common barriers to faith. What we do is so much more important than what we say. That doesn't mean that we don't need to put words around what we believe. It simply means that what we do has the power to authenticate or detract from what we say we believe.
I don't think that I'm saying anything new here. But it's amazing how disconnected what we say we believe and what we actually do has the ability to become. In some ways, our faith communities contribute to this by creating the expectation that spirituality happens on Sunday and doesn't affect the rest of the week.
What does it actually mean to love the people around us? What does it mean to love the "least of these" or our most vulnerable populations?
I once saw a news show about Rick Warren's wife. She was explaining her humanitarian work in Africa, and she was able to share the story of how she became interested in this work. It was amazing. After seeing so much skepticism in the media about the things that Christians say and do, this interviewer was basically speechless. She couldn't make fun of what Kay Warren was doing. She couldn't despise it. She had to respect it because it was making a real difference in a real way.
As I participate in this church planting team and as we prepare to become the kind of community that we hope to be, this is something that we have been talking about a lot. How do we create a culture of love and care? How does your community intentionally love one another and the world?
Regardless of what you think about the theology of this statement, it's something to consider. One of the biggest issues people have with the church is how it treats people. One of the biggest issues I have with the church is how it treats people.
In John 13:35, Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Is it really a surprise, then, that people use the question of love to evaluate the truth of the church's or individuals' beliefs?
This seems to be one of the most common barriers to faith. What we do is so much more important than what we say. That doesn't mean that we don't need to put words around what we believe. It simply means that what we do has the power to authenticate or detract from what we say we believe.
I don't think that I'm saying anything new here. But it's amazing how disconnected what we say we believe and what we actually do has the ability to become. In some ways, our faith communities contribute to this by creating the expectation that spirituality happens on Sunday and doesn't affect the rest of the week.
What does it actually mean to love the people around us? What does it mean to love the "least of these" or our most vulnerable populations?
I once saw a news show about Rick Warren's wife. She was explaining her humanitarian work in Africa, and she was able to share the story of how she became interested in this work. It was amazing. After seeing so much skepticism in the media about the things that Christians say and do, this interviewer was basically speechless. She couldn't make fun of what Kay Warren was doing. She couldn't despise it. She had to respect it because it was making a real difference in a real way.
As I participate in this church planting team and as we prepare to become the kind of community that we hope to be, this is something that we have been talking about a lot. How do we create a culture of love and care? How does your community intentionally love one another and the world?
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Listening for stories
So I watched this clip this morning about "The Danger of a Single Story." It got me thinking about things on several levels, particularly having lived cross-culturally. It resonated with my own experience.
And I got to thinking that being willing to hear all stories about a person or a people is so important about making human connections. Sociologists talk about stereotyping as a sort of short cut for survival and communication. We look at people, we size them up, and then we act according to what we expect will work. But to truly know someone, we have to be willing to listen to their stories - all of them - positive, negative, neutral. We have to take the time to hear people and to know what makes them tick.
We do this with our children, right? We spend a lot of time trying to understand them, to draw them out, to walk with them through joys and pains in life. We do this with our friends. We hear their stories, we tell our own to build relationship and connection or to encourage and challenge.
Learning to seek out and engage peoples' stories has really helped me in relationships. I'm an introvert. I somewhat hate talking to "strangers," meeting new people, and trying to figure out their cultural and personal expectations of me (as a Third-Culture Kid, I think that's normal, actually). But I find myself engrossed in the stories of other peoples' lives. And I find that when I truly listen to a person's stories - all of them - I'm able to find points of connection with almost everyone I meet.
This idea has great relevance to how I talk about faith. The single story that I was taught about sharing faith is that the church has the solution to the human problem of pain, suffering, evil, sin. Armed with a tract, I was to leave the safety of the church, go out into the streets, and impart that solution to the people I met. The stereotype is that the world out there is broken and needs what I have to say. That's really the only story I ever heard.
Over the last years though, I have begun to live out of who I am, and I have begun to listen to the stories of the people around me. Instead of seeing them as the stereotypical people who "need Jesus," I have seen them as people with many, many stories of joys and pains, desires and setbacks, hopes and fears. And I have engaged with those things at a human level, sometimes sharing my own story, sometimes sharing a Bible story, and sometimes just sitting without words. This is what it means to me now to share faith--it's to walk with people making genuine connections to them and their many stories.
Reading this blog, you may get the impression that all I ever talk about is faith. But the reality is that I spend a lot more time in my relationships listening to other people or building natural human connections based on shared interests or discussions about ideas. Though faith is central to my life and is always on my mind, I only talk about it when it's relevant to the current story that we're discussing.
The idea of sharing faith doesn't have to be a horrible, scary thing. It doesn't have to mean the imposition of my beliefs on other people. It doesn't have to mean uncomfortable conversations with people. If I truly believe that I am in the world to love and care for the people around me, and if I am doing that by hearing peoples' stories and engaging with them in a natural way, then talking about my own faith and my own perspective becomes really natural too.
And I got to thinking that being willing to hear all stories about a person or a people is so important about making human connections. Sociologists talk about stereotyping as a sort of short cut for survival and communication. We look at people, we size them up, and then we act according to what we expect will work. But to truly know someone, we have to be willing to listen to their stories - all of them - positive, negative, neutral. We have to take the time to hear people and to know what makes them tick.
We do this with our children, right? We spend a lot of time trying to understand them, to draw them out, to walk with them through joys and pains in life. We do this with our friends. We hear their stories, we tell our own to build relationship and connection or to encourage and challenge.
Learning to seek out and engage peoples' stories has really helped me in relationships. I'm an introvert. I somewhat hate talking to "strangers," meeting new people, and trying to figure out their cultural and personal expectations of me (as a Third-Culture Kid, I think that's normal, actually). But I find myself engrossed in the stories of other peoples' lives. And I find that when I truly listen to a person's stories - all of them - I'm able to find points of connection with almost everyone I meet.
This idea has great relevance to how I talk about faith. The single story that I was taught about sharing faith is that the church has the solution to the human problem of pain, suffering, evil, sin. Armed with a tract, I was to leave the safety of the church, go out into the streets, and impart that solution to the people I met. The stereotype is that the world out there is broken and needs what I have to say. That's really the only story I ever heard.
Over the last years though, I have begun to live out of who I am, and I have begun to listen to the stories of the people around me. Instead of seeing them as the stereotypical people who "need Jesus," I have seen them as people with many, many stories of joys and pains, desires and setbacks, hopes and fears. And I have engaged with those things at a human level, sometimes sharing my own story, sometimes sharing a Bible story, and sometimes just sitting without words. This is what it means to me now to share faith--it's to walk with people making genuine connections to them and their many stories.
Reading this blog, you may get the impression that all I ever talk about is faith. But the reality is that I spend a lot more time in my relationships listening to other people or building natural human connections based on shared interests or discussions about ideas. Though faith is central to my life and is always on my mind, I only talk about it when it's relevant to the current story that we're discussing.
The idea of sharing faith doesn't have to be a horrible, scary thing. It doesn't have to mean the imposition of my beliefs on other people. It doesn't have to mean uncomfortable conversations with people. If I truly believe that I am in the world to love and care for the people around me, and if I am doing that by hearing peoples' stories and engaging with them in a natural way, then talking about my own faith and my own perspective becomes really natural too.
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