Transition and Tension

Transition sucks. I’m in it and I don’t like it ... that phase in the birth process right before the “push” where every part of the mother’s body is preparing to bring little Suzy into the world - but it’s not fun! I was there when Shelley gave birth to my kids and transition sucked for her! It wasn't fun for the kids either. Heads all pointy, (it hurts when a human head is being squeezed by one the strongest muscle groups in the human body!), goop all over them, feeling cold for the first time, struggling for breath … ya, no fun. Now, looking at my awesome kids, I’m thankful for transition.

I'm in transition – have been for the last three years or so. I know because I feel the tension – not only squeezing my head, but that too! Sometimes I feel cold and gooey, and I struggle to breathe. (Wonder what my head will look like when I’m through this particular ‘muscle group?’ It freakin’ hurts!) The tension probably exists because of the distance between what I want and what is right. I can’t know until it’s over. Either I embrace it and try to squeeze every once of learning from it (oh that’s easy!). Or I continue to resist it and let it squeeze the hell out of me! Wait, maybe that’s the purpose of transition. Anyway, resisting is like running from the Borg.

I need certain things to happen; stuff relating to life, my concept of order, ministry realignment; resolution for some of my friends, for my staff, and stuff for my kids. Then there’s the stuff I don’t want, like facing the death of my dreams, feeling the shock of what greatness really is (now that's cold!) and beginning to realize the kind of world my kids are inheriting - not handling that well either. I don’t always get what I want, and sometimes I get what I really don’t want! That blows too, or so it seems. I’ll let you know soon as I know.

It’s the philosophy of the rubber band: it’s all about the tension. If I don’t learn to manage it, something shoots-off in an uncontrolled direction or breaks and can't be repaired. Sucks again. Following Christ seems a lot like that - flesh and spirit always fighting - as Jesus leads me through the tension of transition until I’m eventually remade in His likeness – that’s a birth canal of a whole different kind! I gotta tell ya, I’m squirming! “Rod, just relax! Let the tension of HIS will shape your freedom to choose what is right, not what you want!” Good advice says the brighter side of my brain …now just try and do it!

In transition right now? How's your head feel? I’m just observing, and I have little wisdom, but I think we should probably all just hang on and learn to manage the tension. Maybe something will be born; caused to incubate in our own spirit, brought to life because we struggled with it - and against it (!) - but birth only happens after transition, right?.

We should compare notes more often - you know, swap stories. We could travel together for awhile. We all walk together anyway; really it’s just pride and geography that separate us.

In the Lens

I was sitting in my Starbucks this morning, (I know strange huh?). So in walks a homeless guy, presumably in his early 40’s, though they typically look older than they really are. He lumbers over next to one of those small round tables sets his bag down in the corner and begins fumbling with the stuff in his pocket. He smells the aroma of the coffee store as He looks for change. Out comes some rolled up papers, a wrapper, and a crumpled up dollar bill. He sits down, then stands up and puts it all back into his pocket and heads for the bar. He comes back with nothing – no coffee. He goes to the front door and looks out as if he’s looking for someone. Then he picks up his white plastic bag, goes into the rest room, comes back out and heads to the door. As he walks past a crowd of people he doesn’t know, he waves a little – to look like he knew someone (?) or to be polite, and sauntered out the door leaving me there at my own little round table.

There I sat with my coffee, my little zippered bag, and my journal on the desk in front of me asking God what I’m seeing. I was feeling guilty because I should have got up and offered to buy him an Americano; feeling numb because the homeless are all too frequent these days, and feeling serious, compassion overload for this guy and others like him so that my heart freezes.

I realized that he and I were not as much different as society has made us (comfortably) think. With no disrespect or judgment about why he was in his plight, or if he was “all there,” in our human experience maybe things are really quite relative. Though we’re in different strata of society, something about which I really had no choice, he had a bag, and I had a bag – of things meaningful, necessary and transitory. I carry a backpack with a few books, my lighter, a few pens and my iPod. He carried a bag with maybe an extra shirt, a jacket, an old newspaper, some matches, a little flask of cheep wine, and a list of names and numbers; maybe even a map back home, if he remembered where that used to be or even cared.

We both recognize the levels, and that we’re always in ‘mixed company.’ Both of us want to fit in, and very often don’t. He in some circle - any circle - and me in another circle that I perceive as better than my own. We both wave at people we don’t know sometimes. He felt alone in the crowd, but did his best not to look like it. I sometimes feel the same. We both want to be known. He walked in a world where he went largely unnoticed, and did his best to act normal. I live in a world where many know me, but I don’t know what normal is anymore.

Oh sure, I have more stuff, which makes me no more important than him. I just have more to manage, more to repair and more to throw away. I have more access, more resources, and more influence. Or do I? I always evaluate things from my level of The Matrix, and he from his. He wants more, I want more. He’s attached to his stuff, and I to mine. He has insecurities and I have mine. He wants to feel, and I want to feel. He looks for meaning, and I look for significance. Like chasing the wind, right?

The strangest things happened that very moment. Starbucks Corp. sent a camera team in to the store to capture the action and interview some of the partners. I noticed all the baristas – save two - posture immediately to get in the path of the lens! ‘That’s it,’ says I: no matter who we are or into which strata of society we fit or don’t, or perceive we belong, or don’t - we ALL want to be in the lens. We all want to be noticed. We all want a crowd, and perceive that another crowd might be better than the one we now occupy. We really are alike after all.

The Pavement Always Wins

I ride a motorcycle. My friends ride motorcycles and my sons ride motorcycles - not those sissy, little putt-putt units designed to get 600 miles per gallon. We ride large, fast, pavement eating, all-day-long-large-displacement-move-your-tail-two-wheeled-monsters! OK, I just thought it would be cool just to write that and think of that guy with the LARGE (and fake!) voice that advertises MONSTERJAM at the Tacoma dome…

Now for real, I like to ride and my friends like to ride. We ride every weekend once the wet edge of winter turns to the hopefully sunny weather of spring, through the summer, clear up to Thanksgiving – if there is no snow. I like the speed, the wind, the personal time, and the way the machine just works. I also enjoy how that sport / hobby draws people together in appreciation of God's creative genius seen in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and in the beauty of the different personalities that we experience when we ride as a group. There is one lesson I've learned, that I want to pass along to you: THE PAVEMENT ALWAYS WINS!

Whether you ride or not, maybe you can imagine what it's like when bike and rider crash to the pavement at any rate of speed – the faster the speed, the more dramatic and traumatic the result. I've ridden street bikes since I was senior at Kentridge High School. (Don't ask when that was!) In all my years of riding and hearing all the stories of others losing control, or doing something stupid behind the bars, or being the victim of someone in a car doing something stupid - which is most often the case - I've NEVER heard or seen the pavement bleed! I've never heard it complain or cry! I've never seen the pavement need repair or a long period of convalescence because a motorcycle and rider crashed onto its tender surface! THE PAVEMENT ALWAYS WINS!

So it is with the way of foolishness. The fool is the one who will never admit that THE PAVEMENT ALWAYS WINS! The book of Proverbs is one of the greatest sources of wisdom on the planet. Even those who profess to be of an 'anti-god,' 'no-god' or 'detached creator' theological persuasion can glean miles of wisdom from its pages if they approach it with an open mind. One of the major themes of this little powerful tome is the contrast between the wise person and foolish person. Wise people are humble. Foolish people are arrogant. Wise people like themselves, but they don't coddle themselves like the foolish who engage in varied degrees of narcissism.

Proverbs teaches that wise people think before they act. They seek wise counsel and submit to the laws of the land. They learn to control their anger and their impulses. They value relationships above possessions, and character over appearance. Wise people fear God. One will also learn that foolish people submit only to their own law. They follow other fools. They use and abuse relationships. People are a means to their personal ends. They never see the need for the counsel of others. They engage in anarchy – at least passive anarchy. Their impulses and their anger control them, and they hang out with the same kind of people. They think that pleasure is the goal of life's gifts. AND foolish people act as if there is no God to whom one day they will give account! Long before Solomon wrote and assembled the Proverbs, his father, King David, wrote that, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" (Ps 14:1; 53:1) Now we all act foolish once in awhile, and we will continue to do so at times, but the truly foolish continue in their folly with no thought toward the day when the "pavement" of life will catch up with them.

So, to those who wish to avoid the perils of foolishness and wonder why fools seem to never get what's coming to them, concentrate on your own road. To the others who made it this far - by nature, revelation and experience - I have news for the fool: THE PAVEMENT ALWAYS WINS!

Inside-Out Your Christianity!

Snow! Now I ask myself, "How can the Farmer's Almanac be right considering Al Gore's theory of global warming? Hmmm…" Awe, but that's enough of politics. Most of humanity will admit that life is more a spiritual journey than a political one for sure. Our inner being simply can't be satisfied with externals.

A challenge: compare Jesus, His life and teaching, with what we know of as present day Christianity. You will find that Jesus and "popular Christianity" often do not agree. Take what we call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's account of Jesus' life, in the fifth chapter. It was one of Jesus' earliest mass-meetings – maybe one of the most misunderstood and thus controversial. (I also dare you to compare Jesus' life and teaching to what life is like for those outside Christianity – that would only be fair treatment.)

Jesus began His sermon by saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:2) "Blessed" means happy, fortunate, free from daily worries and cares. Ha! Ever experienced that side of "blessed?" Rarely, if you're like me, that's because we're all trying to get the outside fixed up as a means to lasting happiness. Jesus said it goes the other way – real happiness comes from having our stuff together on the inside with God and real life change results.

From the beginning, Jesus taught that life is to be lived from the inside-out. Whatever 'is' bubbles up from the visceral and makes its way to the visible. Much of the church teaches the exact opposite today. Popular Christianity tends to present the idea that belief starts on the outside and makes its way to the heart. Either by action or by straight-up propaganda, it teaches that if we dress up the outside, good stuff will seep to the center. Sorry, gravity doesn't work that way. "Fake it 'til you make it" theology only works in Church. It begins to erode by the time most people hit the parking lot. True Christian spirituality works from the inside out. It starts almost imperceptibly and slowly builds toward a changed life – a journey that lies within. If I want a truly different life, I've got to allow God to start on the inside. My behavior, morals, and crappy attitudes will change as a result.

The term "spirit" references the intangible but very real part of the person. So the first thing required for an inside-out-life-worth-living is a broken heart! But, there is nothing more contrary to our natural way than to be working toward honest brokenness. Most of us would dearly love to refrain from anything that looks like brokenness because our version of that concept is weakness and lacking value or strength. Again, our thinking is ass-backwards.

The thief on the cross always reminds me that the path of deliverance is an inside work, spirit to Spirit, that makes its way out. The thief, the one who knew he deserved to die, affirmed that Jesus was undeserving of death, called Him Lord, and asked to go with Him to heaven. He had no time to clean up his messed up life or to repair the destruction caused by his lifetime crime spree. He had no time to join a church, no time to read the Bible, no time to develop a disciplined prayer life, no time to get into the media and tell outsiders that they suck. He didn't even have to time to find water and get baptized! Most of these things are good, but they will not, on their own, get one into the kingdom of God unless an inside work has begun by the Spirit of God in the human spirit. The thief only had time for belief and repentance which both take place on the inside. That's all it required for him to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus' own words were, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43) That's the good news.

Christian spirituality is an inside-out faith. Popular Christianity is often presented as "outside-in." We have to "inside-out" our thinking to see this, but it's the truth according to Jesus. To whom do you think we ought to listen: the Person who started true Christianity or those who simply report on it from an American point of view?

Religioneers & Lifebites

Speaking of religioneers … I tell you what: the phrase "lifebites" really ticks off the religioneers out there in the church and in Blogland! 

 

So anyway, what kind of Church uses the phrase "LifeBites" in their advertising? We do. We believe in staring reality right in the face. Denial sucks too! It sucks the Truth out of a person! When we say life bites, religioneers get all pissed and close their ears to what comes after, "God knows, He cares and He restores" because they're so caught up looking for their ticket pad to write me a whopper and throw it down before the throne of God demanding a hearing!

 

Cool! That's Ok. What I want them to know is - now listen: it's not for them! "Lifebites," as a slogan, is for the people who still know that the world sucks! It's for those who haven't had the reality stolen from them by false religion. This spinning world sucks the life from every person unless the REAL Jesus is invited inside to sit down and rule. Life can suck the joy and the purpose from the person. Life on the planet sucks the fiber from our imago die, and denies that we can live on the planet coram-deo and still be accepted by God. Those are the only two Latin phrases I know, and I've always wanted to use them because I think they sound so coooool!! ("Image of God" and "before the face of God" in that order.)  

 

In Matthew 5:10-12, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

 

Jesus said if you want to bring some light into this world, you have to live in such a way that it might bring you persecution - pain for your courage. Ok, so He was talking about the persecution that when endured, would bring eternal joy. And even during the pain – if it's really persecution – one could sense the grace and presence of God at the deepest level. I get that, and I trust that. But is still hurts!!! And life still bites. My fellow religioneers, that's just the way it is on a sin-soaked planet. Get used to it! 

 

In John 16:33, Jesus warned us again that life would hurt: "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Tribulation? Yeah, that can't be good! Sounds like life bites to me! You see, life bites points to the need for redemption found in Jesus Christ, who said, "I have overcome the world." 

 

And Paul the Apostle told Timothy in his pastorate that, "… all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." (2 Tim 3:12) That sounds like life bites to me! There it is again!

 

You know what religioneers need? A good dose of what Jesus really said – a good taste of how Jesus really lived, and a good picture of His heart from the Book He authored. They/we need the perfect reality with which He taught the crowds. By the way, the only people He was ever really pissed at were the religioneers! Some of us oughta stop believing what our teachers tell us and go read IT for ourselves to see if it really says we are to dress up in church in order to please God - and other myths and legends. 

 

When we open the Bible, we gotta stop sifting it for stuff to make our business a success, or compete in the market place, or to help us lose a few pounds. Though many Americans need to do that, we have to open the Bible and ask the living God of the Bible to read our hearts! Then we will be able to face reality with hope, not denial. If we actually read the Bible with humble eyes, we'd even stop thinking it was our option to give an opinion on most subjects. Humble people look to themselves before God first, and then let God look after others. They're just like that.

 

Jesus said, "there will be tribulation …". That's reality folks, and it bites hard at times. And then He said, "But I have overcome the world!" And that's hope. You can stand in poop and live in denial, but I'd rather stand in poop and live in hope.

Religioneers

I think the Church is filled with what I call religioneers. A religioneer is a controller. They substitute true spirituality for pious activity; one who thinks better of oneself because of what one does to please God. This kind of person supports rules that are not in the Bible seducing people into a sense of false guilt, getting them to confess 'sins' that are not even sin. A religioneer is the kind of person Jesus confronted when He accused them of being more concerned about the toothpick in someone else's eye than the tree in their own.

A religioneer is a person who takes comfort in rules, so they have to take little responsibility for their inner life before God. He or she sees themselves as a moral cop to tell others when they are out of line, how they must change, reduce, delete, erase, remove, expunge, or obliterate anything that the moral majority believes must be expunged (I love that word!) from one's life before one can approach God and be good in His sight. Religioneers like to re-engineer their surroundings so that they create an environment that is more clean and pretty, so that God will be welcome.

In Jesus' day, the religioneers had re-engineered the message of God to fit their desire for importance and power. What's pathetic is that they really thought they were doing God a service by keeping the dirty people out of a religious environment! No wonder God's presence isn't felt in our houses of worship any more! There is no dirt! Not the kind Jesus always hung with anyway – you know, tax collectors, sinners, and even prostitutes!

A religioneer is one who likes to paint up the outside, to present a pretty face and thinks that others must 'dress' like him or her. They're the one's that tell us we have to dress up to please God – that we have to dress up whenever we expect Him, like we would for the President of the United States. Bologna! Hey, to follow that line of thinking, since God is always with me, then I better dress up mowing the lawn, and trimming the shrubs! I'd better be ready to get oil on my Armani, because He is just as present working on my motorcycle as Hs is the building in which I worship Him on Sundays. If you believe in a God that only shows up when you're in some building somewhere, then you even have the wrong idea of the Church – it's not a building made with hands. It's a spiritual house made up of individuals changed by Jesus Christ. The first building is our work and the second is His and His will last.

We religioneers like to dress up the outside thinking – just like the ancient Pharisees and Sadducees – that we've cleaned the inside as well! Jesus said hogwash! The work of faith is heart work, not body work. You wanna know a secret? I used to be captured by that cultish clique, but escaped with my life! Thank God! I finally learned that God sees me naked anyway! God sees me from the inside out, not from the outside in! And God changes us from the inside out NOT from the outside in!

Religioneers often criticize stuff that looks real and authentic because they live in a world of denial, hoping that the clock never strikes 12:00 A.M so that they have to lose the glass slipper and the golden carriage, and head back into their own little corner in their own little room where they usually are alone and sad and bored, because they have no real friends. This sounds harsh and I wish it wasn't true! I know it's a real state of being, albeit a fantasy life, because I was THERE!! Don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect, or even good. I'm still purging the ick from my scales, but at least my sight is beginning to clear. By God's grace and because I live and worship among real people, that stupid pain-in-the-tail rod in my eye is beginning to fade!! Life still bites, but God rock! He knows, He cares and He restores.

I Confess!

To all who are angry, hurt, and confused about Jesus and His Church,

I’m a pastor, a guy, a father, a husband, a friend, a person, an American…and a jerk. I have a confession to make: I don’t love people like Jesus did, and like I should as a follower of Jesus. I say I love Jesus, but I haven’t loved you. I’m so terribly ashamed. I don’t expect you to just be happy now, but I have to get this right, with you and with God. I repent. And seek your forgiveness.

To those of you who want to have nothing to do with Jesus, and as well, to those would like to understand more about His life and His purpose, but have not asked, and have now lost interest because of the mess the Church has made the last 2000 years, I apologize for me and mine.

You may not choose to follow Jesus Christ or call Him Lord. You may have no official connection to a church. You may not even know why you’re reading this. You may have no interest at all in Jesus. You may even hate Him. That’s Ok. That could be partly because of “us” so please hear me: I apologize to you for a Church that seems as if she could care less whether you meet the Savior of the world or not. I apologize for a Church that seems not to care if you go to the heaven we preach or the hell we avoid. Sometimes we act like we’d like you to go to hell. We should be ashamed. I am. And I apologize.

I apologize for our self-centeredness and wrong-focus. We’ve told you to obey the commandments of God without the God within to show you the way and to empower you. We’ve tried to make you sing our horribly outdated music, and told you that yours sucked because it was about your life. Or worse, told you it was from Hell. And then we copied some of it and made lots of money! What greed and short-sightedness! I apologize.

When you visited us we’ve told you to give money for our grand building programs, when people in our cities were starving. We’ve tried to make you listen to long and boring sermons, as if you even knew what the Hell we were talking about! We’ve tried to make you throw away your records, your CDs, your movies, and your friends – all as if in doing these things you would be pleasing to Jesus – while all the while teaching that God is not a God to be appeased by our human effort! “For by grace we our saved...” Which is true, but we have none it seems. What hypocrisy. We have sinned against God and against you. Please forgive us.

I apologize for our two-faces. When you’re addicted we call it alcoholism, drug abuse, or substance abuse. When we overindulge, we call it recovery, or a minor set-back, or worse: liberty. For this I apologize. We’ve placed more importance on our comfort than on your eternity, and on our prosperity, than on your need for love and kindness and deliverance from the things you hate, but can’t deny for some reason. We’ve excluded you from our lives and from our fellowship and from our activities because we’ve not wanted to soil ourselves. We have been wrong – dead wrong. And I apologize for me and my family, for me and my church, and for me and my ancestors in the Church. We were wrong, very wrong, and we repent.

My Jesus would have never treated you like this. He would have eaten with you, sat and talked with you, even skipped church to hang with you. He would have loved your simple attempts to be human. He would have come to your Superbowl parties and your birthday parties and your graduation ceremonies. He would have wept at your pain, touched your hurts, been patient with your habits, eaten at your tables. He would have loved you so much that you would have loved Him in return, I know you would have. But now you’re confused and mad. I understand. I’m afraid we – the Church – have painted a very poor resemblance to the real Jesus. I’m so sorry for our wrong portrayal of our Master. I repent to Him and apologize to you.

You see, I’ve forgotten that people touch the heart of Jesus. Whatever touches the heart of Jesus should get my attention and prompt me to action. His passion is to be my passion. His mission is to be my mission. And He loves people – all shapes and sizes, all colors and languages. With His help, I will clean up my act. I will love you. I hope you can see the real Jesus in me someday soon.

Very Sincerely,


Ashamed

Change what?...Why?

I have previously confessed that I am a 100% Jesus freak. I worship Him as LORD, and endeavor to follow Him as Master. I also believe that the Bible is authoritative as the Word of the LORD; and therefore, my basis for authority in life and work. (I know! I’m horribly out of touch and old fashioned!) BUT … this doesn’t mean that I believe or act like my Master calls me to act. I am inconsistent and fail often – daily! However, I refuse to let my failure, whether it comes from bad habits, bad behavior, or bad attitudes cause me to give up on the truth I have chosen to follow. I at least want to remain consistent over the long-haul of life. I choose to blame my inconsistency on ME, rather than that the God I serve has not the power to reign me in when I’m being an inconsistent, inconsiderate jerk! It means I have chosen to exercise my freedom of choice and be an inconsiderate jerk! 

 

I often fail to love people who don’t fit in my little window of appropriate, or relevant, or cool. I get pissed quickly at people who don’t put their shopping carts back at Fred Meyer! And especially irritated at the stupid people who cross the street anywhere and anytime they want to and force traffic to stop. They just saunter by, flipping us off with their eyes, if not for real - as if they have the right to make you and I choose not to run their sorry hide over! I want to roll down my window and yell, “Use the freakin’ cross-walk, idiot! That’s what it’s for! Or I’ll use my front bumper on your sorry butt ‘cuz that’s what it’s for!” 

 

Yet, all the while, I allow myself not to forgive! I allow myself to lust, to engage in greedy, selfish behavior, to lash out in anger over something petty, or to ignore someone who just needs a compassionate greeting, or a kind act to help them get in line at a busy intersection. I sometimes allow myself the supposed right to be impatient at someone I deem undeserving of such forbearance. 

 

Why all this confession? Am I guilt ridden? No, not particularly - now at least! And no, I don’t think organized (or disorganized!) religion has helped the world by blowing the horn of “moralism” in the face of people who need Jesus! But that’s not what this is about. Today, I simply want to take my place in the crowd of humanity stained and drained by rebellion towards God. I want to get in line for some wisdom about how to continue the journey of faith that was long ago begun with more zeal and less wisdom and experience. As 2007 begins I need change, or to continue the process of change with more focus and effort. 

 

Whether you believe in making resolutions at the beginning of a new year or not, it’s an important part of anyone’s human maturity to pick times to evaluate life - how we are living it - how we must change - how we must hold on what is good and forsake our unhealthy, self-destructive, hurtful and morally wrong patterns of behavior, as we head speedily towards the ultimate finish line? I just want to start with myself and focus on myself. That’s a good change for all of us!

The resurgence of talk about resolutions every New Year convinces me that Blaise Pascal said way back in the 16th century was correct: that even people without God, have a vacuum shaped like God within them: “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” Pascal and many others like him have long encouraged us to admit the failure, corruption and emptiness of life, and to let God be THE source, to let God be the substance, so that we can live a long life if possible, and more importantly, a full life.

 

So, I am asking myself a few questions all over again: If no such ‘Pascalian vacuum’ why do I desire to change? Why do I even think about it? Why should I make an effort to change certain behaviors and drag certain habits to the recycle bin? So what if my behavior hurts other people – even the one’s I love? Why is it so terribly hard to change obvious patterns and behaviors? Where can I get wisdom to know how to change? Is there any time when we will have to give an account for our lives? Or, are we sentient beings who have no ultimate sentient source of origin to whom we must face one day? Does anyone doubt that life is short, unpredictable and difficult? Does anyone know the moment they will take their last breath? 

 

My response is that we desire to change because imbedded within us, is the desire to progress. It comes from our Creator-God, who will always give us the power to change, when we chose to - when we see that the paths we’ve chosen haven’t been working for us, and for those we love. That being said, we must go to that Creator-God for the wisdom needed to make change and make it stick. 

We Preach Christ and Sometimes Invite Bono?

"A Communion service driven by the music of singer Bono and his U2 bandmates is catching on at Episcopal churches across the country" claims a recent article on this little movement. (follow link for entire article: http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2006-10-25-u2-churches_x.htm). Our church band has employed U2 music in our worship services for several years now, but leave it to the Episcopals of New York to make it stick! I personally think the U2-charist’ movement, as it's being called, may turn out to be a very cool way to help people connect the reality God and His love to their mundane lives all over again.

 

As we say, "nothing changes unless something changes." Something in the Church has to change, especially the Church in America that has become so issue focused we’ve lost sight of Jesus we say we preach. We need something to cause us to again breathe the fresh air of celebration, focused on God rather than the stifled and stuffy air of everything normal. Maybe a change like this will help some who’ve grown "deaf and numb" in their particular worship circles to pay attention once again? One may think it strange to consider adapting U2 music for use in a worship setting, or even heretical for some reading this. I think change is good if more people consider the activity if their Creator in their lives, or hear the Good News with new ears, as a result. In fact, I think it’s a freakin’ stroke of genius, if not a direct act of the Spirit of God! The risk, of course, is in that Bono and the Edge have become Swami, and Side-kick for many of us music freaks. So, we can easily think we’re worshipping God when we’re simply getting into the emotional river with a very charismatic leader. Caution! We are challenged by Jesus in the Scripture to be Jesus freaks foremost. Remember, that "thou shalt have no other gods before me" thing?  

 

However, we should also remember that God is still after individuals and calling them to a personal relationship with Himself, and that worship is the blessing of reaching up to the One who reached to His wayward creation first. He did this in humble condescension, by jumping into a flesh-suit and suffering the distance from His Father that we will never experience. He ran to us first. His affection demonstrated by the birth, life and death of Jesus, the Son, causes a response in people with a pulse. We celebrate this condescension at Christmas time, if we don’t miss it by the helter-skelter shopping pace in which most engage beginning the last Friday of November!

 

This is really nothing new. Much of our conservative hymnody was the result of someone putting words about God that people could understand, with the music of popular - bar room tunes - known to those who needed Jesus. Martin Luther’s famous "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" (German, Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott for you purists!) is one example. Written for the masses in a popular tune, it was first tolerated with much trepidation from the Church’s deeply rooted religionists, but has since been called "The Battle Hymn of the Reformation!" Can’t you just see people swinging their mugs of German Barley-pop to a paraphrase of Psalm 46? I'm gonna be there! 

 

Maybe God is rewarding the sincerity of those worshipping Him, combined with some very suitable words that direct hearts to YAHWEH again? Maybe the "change is gonna do me good" thing really does work? Whatever the outcome may be, let's not be so myopic as to think that God may not use something outside of a largely dead church to reform Her again! After all, He IS God. And He’s done it before. For those of you who simply can’t be convinced that the lines of worship should be drawn by content, rather than by musical style, and that worship music can emerge from somewhere outside of a stoic church, I'm just going to repeat what a well-know pastor once said to a large audience after they heard that he had prepared a cigar dinner for his leadership staff after they had reached a particular goal: “lighten up!”  In love of course . . .  P/Rod

Careless Speech -- Different Gospel!

The evangelical church has worked very hard on our political agenda. Instead of preaching Jesus, we tell everyone that they can only find Him, have Him and receive His love if they adopt our brand of cultural re-coding. Sometimes our "message" comes across politically, like a fundamentalist right-wing "religioneer." The end result will be Constantine-like: just "herd the poor heathen Geeks into Lake Washington and pronounce them baptized, then we can create an army to go beat the crap out of the rest of the heathens." Only this time, the "heathen geeks" are wiser. When we make a show of arms that looks political, they now know how to beat us in that battle field. Maybe some of us are secretly thinking we can get some good exposure for Christ from a secular media. Are you kidding? They will slaughter you! That's their playground.

 

We deserve some criticism if we push a moral, social, or cultural agenda and not preach Christ and Him crucified. We claim to be the Church, but beat on those who need Jesus! Instead of presenting Jesus foremost, we seem bent to present what we claim to be His calling to the pure life, before the people to whom we preach even have the means to obey Him! When people with influence, again like many we read about in current blog traffic, forget that it's not just what we say, but how we say it, and in what order -- we lose the battle. I'm sad. 

 

Historian Lord Acton (1834-1902) issued epic warnings that political power is the most serious threat to liberty: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Now ironically, it seems that in our context we're beginning to see that those in power without accountability, will render threat to our religious liberty because of a false gospel preached to the masses. 

 

If the world hates me, I want them to hate me because I smell like Jesus, talk like Jesus, live like Jesus, and love like Jesus. Not because I'm yelling out in self-righteousness that they need to get their crap together then God will/might love them, and only then if they adopt my version of women, Church leadership, and male authority. I can respect a man for his opinions, but I don’t have to appreciate how he expresses them. Careless speech renders truth unheard. God’s people beware! I’m convicted.