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?

business as ministry?

I'm super excited that next week is the Lausanne Consultation for Younger North American Leaders.  120 of us are getting together to discuss the Lausanne Covenant and the Cape Town Commitment.  We'll be splitting up into smaller working groups and discussing some of the major ideas in the Commitment.  The working group I'm assigned to is all about ministry in the marketplace.

I'm pretty passionate about this idea as I have seen over the course of the last few years that people aren't falling all over themselves to enter the church doors.  And there seems to be a huge disconnect between the church and the rest of the world.  At the same time, there are tons of people who go to church and who love Jesus who are also planted in the rest of the world doing the regular work thing that most people do.  The percentage of pastors and "ministers" is small compared to the number of people out there.  And although pastors can have a really important place in society, there is nothing that compares to the potential that exists for lay ministers make the gospel accessible and relateable to the rest of the world.

So my primary thoughts these last years as I've accepted my own calling to be in the world as a criminal defense attorney has been how to take what I'm learning about approach and strategy and struggle to other lay people who have a heart to minister to their co-workers and friends.  I'd love to see so much more dialogue about what struggles we have and how we're seeing God work.  I've found a dearth of community out there to discuss my own experiences with, and I've been kind of blindly feeling my way along.  One of my visions for this blog has been to allow this to be a place where at least some of those questions can be asked about and discussed.

So as I was reading the Cape Town Commitment, I was drawn to the part where they talk about marketplace ministry.  I also read one of papers that was written in preparation for that meeting that was all about marketplace ministry.  And it challenged me to begin to think about marketplace ministry in a different way.  It challenged me to think about creating a business environment that reflects the values of the gospel so as to invite people--workers, clients, etc--into that environment to experience the fruit of the Spirit before ever inviting them to meet Jesus.

I've really been thinking about this and have begun to ask God if that's something that he wants of me.  Am I uniquely and strategically placed to create a law firm that would be a different kind of law firm?  Could I or should I start to plan on inviting other people in to join me in this strangely-valued practice that is bringing me such joy and fulfillment?  Is that a way that God could use me to bring blessing to the world?

I don't know.  But I'm looking forward to speaking with others next week about what they've experienced and how they've seen the power of the Gospel and the Spirit penetrating their work environment, and I'm excited to ask God to show me whether he's longing to use me in that way.

So my question for you today is, have you ever been a part of a business or work environment that, although not employing all Christ-followers still brings the Shalom and Spirit of Christ to the world?  What was that like?  What were some of the challenges?  I'd love to hear...

Alone, we cannot...

So I have the privilege of being a part of this awesome thing called the Lausanne Movement.  It started a long, long time ago when a bunch of world Christians got together and put together a commitment to world missions and evangelization.  Then, in 1989, another generation met together in Manila to build on that commitment for that generation.  In 2010, our generation of missions leaders from all over the world met together in South Africa to recommit to those principles and evaluate where the global church is at in fulfilling the mission and to put that mission in the language of today.

This summer, I get to join a group of 120 leaders from North American in Madison, Wisconsin to discuss just what that looks like in our lives.  So I spent this weekend reading over the Cape Town Commitment.  It is comprehensive in fleshing out just what the call to follow Christ and to share him with the world looks like.  And I could hear the voices from hundreds of cultures as they confessed the parts of the commitment that the global church has neglected and gave us vision on where to go from here.

But I was also overwhelmed.  The world is huge.  Its problems are huge.  It is almost impossible to even imagine being a part of transforming and reconciling the world to Christ.  At the same time, I was encouraged.  Because I saw how big the church is that we are a part of... it's truly a global church on this global mission, and we are not doing it in our own power.  We are doing it in the name of Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It brings me back to something that God's been teaching me this year.  I started attending Berkly just over a year ago, after several years with a rather tenuous connection to church bodies.  I would attend off and on, I actually was part of a church planting team for a while, but mostly I've been following the call of Jesus on my life into the world, and I haven't always had a church community that values those things.  So I've spent a lot of time the last couple of years laboring alone.

What's been so beautiful about Berkley is that I've seen in my own life the power of the body.  It's a weekly encouragement to me to enter worship on a Sunday morning and remember that I'm not the only person who loves and follows Jesus (or even just believes that he exists).  I've seen how my experiences and my passions are contributing to the body something that no one else is.  At the same time, I get the benefit of all of the other people in the body who are bringing their gifts to share with the rest of us.  They are providing things in my life that I cannot provide or find for myself.

I felt a little bit like that when reading the Cape Town Commitment this weekend.  As I read the overwhelming call to action for the church, I also remembered that each church body and each individual in the body is gifted and called to be a part of it--to bring their personalities and resources and energy and weaknesses into that global mission--and that somehow Jesus can take each of our contributions and make it so much more than it is.  Truly, it's impossible for me as an individual to hope to live out all of those principles.  But I am a part of something bigger.  And my job is to bring what I have to offer, turn it over to Jesus, and listen humbly to the passions and callings of those around me.  I need to help them and support them and encourage them and pray for them.  And I need to receive help and prayer and support and encouragement from them.

So as we consider the way that our gospel has not truly reflected the whole gospel of Jesus--the spiritual, physical, and social aspects--I hope that you will remember this.  You are gifted and called to reach people and to do things that no one else can do.  Find those things.  Do those things.  And do everything you can to encourage the others in your church body around you to find those things and do those things in their lives to.

Together, with our hands and hearts joined together, we can absolutely fulfill the mission that God has given his church.   Alone, we cannot.

yep... still on vacation

Here's an interesting post from Jennifer Fulwiler, a woman who's a relatively recent convert to Catholicism.  Though she doesn't use the same language I do to describe and identify barriers to faith, she's definitely recognized that there's more to it than rational questions.  For her, indeed, there were major emotional barriers that made the process of choosing to follow Jesus harder.

But what I find so encouraging is that the emotional barriers didn't hold her back forever, any more than whatever intellectual questions she had.  She doesn't describe how she worked through them in this post, but she clearly came to the point where she was able to trust Jesus even if it would mess up the way she'd organized and understood her whole life up to that point.

I also have to say that I agree with her number 4 on her list of finding God in 5 steps... She calls this step "Do the Experiment," and she encourages you to live for a time as though you believed that God exists.  There's only so much a person can know about God intellectually.  As with any relationship, you can't really know someone until you start relating to God.  You can know about him based on things you've heard and read, but that's just like learning about the person across the room from the person standing by you.  There are so many limits to what you can know about him... and you can't really know him until you meet him.  So this is something I occasionally suggest to a friend who is seeking to discern if God is real and who he is.

What do you think of the "Sinner's prayer?"

Wow!  2 days in a row... I must be on vacation! :)  Actually, my "vacation" was cut short about 9:00 a.m. today when I had to make a run to court and then spent the rest of the day on a last-minute case.   But what can I say... I love my job...

So anyway, here's an interesting post by Scot McKnight about what to invite people to instead of the sinner's prayer.  Although he says and I agree that the good old sinner's prayer is effective and the right thing sometimes, I do remember so often when I was working at summer camp so long ago thinking that it felt just a bit empty when separated from all that is the Gospel.  I mean, Jesus invites us to relationship, to a long journey of walking with him and living in step with the Spirit.  He invites us to be a part of his desire and plan to transform the world through the power of Jesus Christ.  Confessing sins and "accepting Christ" is a step, but it's just one.  There is so much more to living life with the Eternal One.   

How do you describe the process of faith when you're talking about it with your friends?

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?

Questions of the Heart

I taught a workshop last weekend about how to talk about faith in everyday life.  During the workshop, we were talking about different barriers to faith, and I was encouraging people to think about sharing stories from their own lives and from the Bible rather than giving "answers" to peoples' questions.  This post explains a little about why I think that's such an important idea within today's culture.

As an example, we were talking about a person whose barrier to faith is whether God is good.  So I gave a little hypothetical about a person who attended some kind of church event with the nicest person in the whole wide world who was also an agnostic or atheist.  At this event, the person and her friend were told that they were going to hell if they didn't believe in Jesus.  And the person, for years, looked back with incredulity at that situation.  How could her friend, (and her mom too) who were nicer and better than any other people in the whole world, including lots of "Christians," be going to hell?

How would you respond if this story came out in a conversation with one of your friends?  Would you quote from Scripture that Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me"?  Or how about the verses that say "there is none righteous, no not one" and "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord"?

Those were the types of answers that I was getting from the participants at the workshop.  And while those "answers" are not "wrong," I'm not sure they actually reach the heart of the person who is struggling with this issue.  There may be an intellectual question about whether those verses are actually true, but even if the person believed Jesus's statement and Paul's explanation about salvation, there's still an emotional barrier to faith there.  There's still the haunting question about how a good God could send good people to hell.  So does believing that the good friend and the good mother are in hell mean that God is not good?  How could a person serve a God like that?  What is this God really like?  Angry, capricious, judgmental, egomaniac?  If so, no thanks...

So how does one go about answering a question of the heart?

In my experience, the best way to do that is to tell stories from your own life and from Scripture that might begin to challenge the way someone looks at that question, or one that show how you worked through that question in your own faith journey, or that invite the person to meet and experience Jesus.


So what stories from your own life might be relevant to this question?  What stories from Scripture?  How might you go about inviting this person with this question to meet Jesus?

Here's one way I might respond to the question.