What the Church Needs Now

Back in the early days of this century Christendom ceased… abruptly. We all shrugged wide-eyed, looked at each other and asked, ”Now what?”

With a bloated blogosphere at hand, virtually everyone has weighed in! The problem with all these prognostications is that the ones answering the question often happen to be the ones who brought about this church-plight in the first place!

Don’t get me wrong – we must “figure this thing” in one sense. Kudos to those of us who deign to comment on it. But, more words are not the answer. Condemnation of one another is not the answer. “Better ideas” solve nothing. We do not need simply to pedal harder, “do better.” Neither do we need more exotic and consumer-driven ways and means.

The ways and means of God are tight and tidy.

Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today (Dt 6:4-6).

This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Dt 30:19,20).

No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God (Mic 6:8).

Jesus replied, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments (Mt 22:37,38).”

Yet, fleshing it out is another issue, right? Might we first ask ourselves: How did we get into this fix? I think the answer is both simple and obvious: We have crawled up on the throne and asked God to get down. And, being the gentleman that He is, He moved.
This is yet another chapter in the human story theologians call the Deuteronomic Cycle: Sin-punishment-repentance-restoration.

The answer, let’s admit it, is humility. How complicated are these words from James (4:10) “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor”? Or Isaiah’s words (Is 57:15):

The high and lofty one who lives in eternity,
the Holy One, says this:
“I live in the high and holy place
with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.
I restore the crushed spirit of the humble
and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.”

In the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, there are these words and phrases regarding humility:

(Humility is not) Willful self-disparagement
(Nor are the humble) Guilty, vile, and helpless worms
Inward fasting
Aptness for grace (Luther)
Pure receptivity
Unassuming readiness to accept favor
(Humility) Requires constant self-examination
Trusting the kindness of the giver
I possess nothing I haven’t received
Lowly

Saint Augustine: “If you ask me what is the first precept of the Christian religion I will answer, first, second, and third, Humility.”

In John 13 and Philippians 2, Jesus is our Model, our Exemplar, our Teacher.

God, Keynote Speaker at the opening of the Temple, gave of these bedrock words regarding the ways and means of our faith (2 Chr 7:14):

Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.

We need restoration. We need forgiveness. We need help. We cannot enjoy “restoration” until then. It seems a no-brainer; humility and repentance are the pre-requisites we so desperately need as a body of Christ-followers.

May I pray for us – God’s church.

GOD ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF ALL, GIVER OF HOPE, FORGIVE US, FOR WE HAVE SINNED AND DONE WHAT IS EVIL IN YOUR SIGHT. IT IS AGAINST YOU AND YOU ALONE THAT WE HAVE SINNED AND DONE WHAT IS EVIL IN YOUR SIGHT. PLEASE SHOW US MERCY, SHOW US GRACE, WASH US CLEAN WITH THE FORGIVENESS OF CALVARY. BLOT OUT THE SIN THAT HAS BROUGHT THIS “CHRISTIAN NATION” TO WHERE IT IS… NEARLY APOSTATE. YOU HAVE PROMISED: A BROKEN AND CONTRITE HEART YOU WILL NOT DESPISE.
RENEW IN YOUR CHURCH A CLEAN HEART AND A LOYAL SPIRIT.
BY YOUR GRACE, OPEN OUR GRACE-GIVEN HEARTS AND LIPS TO DECLARE YOUR PRAISE.
LOOK WITH FAVOR ON ZION AND HELP HER; REBUILD THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM.

Will the church survive?

The success, if you will, of the church lies with the few who willfully, yet counter-culturally, see hope in Christ alone, who are willing to answer the call, "Come to Me," and are daring enough to "Be still." I might add those who pray and fast as well.

It is those who let convention and outcome go hang, those who know God enough to trust Him fully for outcome and are confident He will honor their faith.These are the ones who are willing to go years upon years, if necessary, without what the contemporary church calls "results." The future of the church rests on those whose trust is truly radical.

On the Future of the Church

I put the following on my Facebook status recently – my thoughts this summer are full tilt about church:

Leaders won't take the church into a healthy future. Neither will those intent upon "the will of God," nor the ones committed to a "healthy church." The hope for the church lies upon ordinary people who have experienced intimate nearness to God, Himself. Of Peter and John it was said, "They recognized them as having been with Jesus (Acts 4:13)."

A few comments on the future of the church:

 Pastors nowadays are good at evangelism, not helping others cultivate intimacy with God. These “converts” are like seed thrown by the path which will invariably get trampled by today’s culture and die.

 Pastors nowadays are good at running an organization. Churches have organization, but if the leadership is not in tune with the Spirit and deeply committed to personal Godliness, the only product will be fruitless activity, not kingdom building.

 Pastors nowadays are scholarly and good orators. But, if the words are not formed in the crucible of the prayer closet by a heart grown healthy in stillness and solitude ever heeding the Spirit’s direction, then sermons become nothing more than moralistic prattle telling others how to behave. And, God’s kingdom is not built.

 Pastors nowadays are good at telling others about obedience to Jesus. I know of very few that know Jesus – see the difference? We can figure out the implications of this one quite easily.

 The “successful” church will consist of, as Brennan Manning puts it, “bedraggled ragamuffins” whose desperate and primary goal is to plumb the depths of Christ-acceptance. Church people nowadays (who get this honestly from their leader(s) who think they know the love of the Father, but don’t) are driven by guilt or fear that God is gonna getcha! This will not survive the current wave of cultural and godless persecution.

 The healthy church will devote priority energy toward building community, true community – the context for true spiritual growth. (I have defined community elsewhere in my blog).

 The healthy church will hold tradition loosely, careful not to jettison practices just because they have been around for a long time, nor lose the respect for the holiness of God through crazy and novel innovations.

 The church of the future will live by and submit to the authority of God’s Holy Word, the Bible. Scholarship is a must. The right combo is a smart mystic!

 That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

On EXPERIENCING God

The experience of Jesus as Lord, which brings forth the response of faith, varies as widely as the people who encounter it.

Could it be that we “experience” God more than we think or are aware of? We so limit ourselves by our already set ideas of experience.

(Quoting John McKinzie) The basic element seems to be recognition. In Him [Jesus] the obscure is illuminated, the uncertain yields to the certain, insecurity is replaced by a deep sense of security.

Our trust in Jesus grows as we shift from making self-conscious efforts to be good to allowing ourselves to be loved as we are (not as we should be). An inner stillness pervades our being….

Self-absorption fades into self-forgetfulness, as we gaze upon the brightness of the Lord.

Incremental and a slow process for me! I want fireworks, adrenalin and sky-writing. God wants to cuddle with me and warm my heart!

… The personal experience of the glory of Jesus, the shattering encounter with the transcendent/immanent Christ, is the foundation of the faith and the hope that form and inform a life of naked trust.

Oh, how I want everything under the sun but what I really need… HIM!

Like faith and hope, trust cannot be self-generated. I cannot simply will myself to trust. The one thing I need to do I cannot do.

Yet, somewhere along the way, we must practice stillness, solitude and a protracted willingness to listen and obey.

What does lie within my power is paying attention to the faithfulness of Jesus. That’s what I am asked to do: pay attention to Jesus throughout my journey, remembering his kindness (Ps 103:2).

Trust comes from some experience of the other person, an experience not reducible to proof. Most often, it grows in a relationship of mutual love, one in which we have loved, and been loved, by another.

Experience comes from a humble, yet eager, heart.

The story of Job implicitly states that we can endure the unwanted intrusion of evil when we have experienced a theophany – that is, an insight into the reality of God.
Walter Burghardt writes: “Only trust makes evil endurable – trust not because God has offered proof, but because God has shown his face.

Experiencing God seems to be, at its core, an experience of being totally loved and accepted by God and accepting that acceptance.

[Quoting Walter Kasper] “Experiencing God’s love in Jesus Christ means experiencing that one has been unreservedly accepted, approved and infinitely loved, that one can and should accept one’s self and one’s neighbor.”

[Quoting Julian of Norwich] It is God’s will that we receive three things from him as gifts we seek. The first is that we seek willingly and diligently without sloth, as that may be with his grace, joyfully and happily, without unreasonable depression and useless sorrow. The second is that we wait for him steadfastly, out of love, without grumbling and contending against him…. The third is that we have great trust in him, out of complete and true faith, for it is his will that we know his will that we know that he will appear, suddenly and blessedly, to all his lovers.

Experiencing God comes from an existential awareness that I am God’s little boy (girl), that He is my Daddy in the purest and most infinite sense of Daddy-ness!

(From Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning, Chapter 7, “Trusting Jesus” – bold words are my own)

ALL of God's intentions are good (Ephesians 1:9). No matter what we think. The wording in the Greek means that God exercises His will ONLY for a Good Purpose! Do we SEE God that way... all the time? Or is He often aloof, distant, un-caring or even mean? May we seek with relentless passion to have a clear and correct understanding of our GOOD God.

Thou shalt have no bearings!

We live in a country that has outlawed compasses. And, we are now being told that compasses don't exist. And, those of us who cry out with the truth that says compasses DO exist and are vital to our survival as a culture are being shot on sight. Hmmm ... scary!

Aphorism, anyone?

Saying NO to sin means saying YES to the Presence Who takes away our fears. (Isaiah 41:10)

PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

We must expend our greatest energy coming to know with all our heart that we are loved by a God of pure, infinite and unfathomable love. Yes, we obey, trust, worship, serve and witness. But, we have come to think of these things as primary. Not so! Recall the words of C.S. Lewis:

Put first things first and we get second things thrown in; put second things first and we lose both first and second things.

True love, true and pure service and devotion to God, is an outflow, a result, a product of a heart that has been consumed (or is being consumed) in God’s unconditional acceptance. This love is new and admittedly foreign to our experience, mysterious and inexplicable, outrageous and incomprehensible. This love is the zenith of too-good-to-be-true! It is the treasure hidden in the field, the pearl of great price, the Alpha and the Omega!

As you journey life’s days, as you daily serve the God you barely know, may you find a way to allow God to express His love to you. Practice solitude – be alone and quiet long enough that you can clearly hear His voice of love. Also, practice community. He will commonly appear to you in the form of another person, a friend – one who, like you, is on the same journey.

I’m sitting here re-reading George Barna’s Revolution, now 3 years old (a long time in today’s terms). In it he describes this 20 million strong sub-nation of Revolutionaries this way: The have no use for churches that play religion. They eschew ministries that compromise or soft-sell our sinful nature to expand organizational turf. The refuse to follow people in ministry leadership positions who cast a personal vision rather than God’s…. They refuse to donate one more dollar to man-made monuments…. They are embarrassed by language that promises Christian love and holiness but turns out to be all sizzle and no substance.

They are seeking a faith experience that is more robust and awe-inspiring, a spiritual journey that prioritizes transformation at every turn, something worthy of the Creator whom their faith reflects. Revolutionaries zealously pursue an intimate relationship with God, which Jesus Christ promised we could have through Him.

(All this is quoted from pages 13-15).

For God’s sake, let’s give it to ‘em!

COMMUNITY DEFINED

I hear from all points that the church is not doing community. Community is missing from the church and is an essential ingredient to kingdom growth.

Yet, I see churches “committed to” building community… community is even in their name and kingdom growth is not happening to any appreciable extent.

I’m sure I could Google community and find many valuable definitions, characteristics and points to be made about what community is and how to do it.

Here’s mine.

I believe that community is like the wall on which a mosaic is cemented, the fabric on which a cross-stitch is sown. Community is an environment – not un-like the agar in a Petri dish… wholly conducive and pristine for growing the things desired. (Oh, and by the way, you can’t make things grow!)

In our contexts – the world and the church – community is the medium in which kingdom growth occurs most verdantly, freely and purely.

Community is life-on-life intimate relationships among Christ-following believers. It is characterized by, in a word, love.

In Christian community there is sacrifice, investment.

Community comes at a high price.

Community is messy, mysterious and frustratingly unpredictable.

Community is not something that can be forced or hurried.

Strategies and tactics are often of little use in the grand scheme of community. A thorough look at the life of our Community Exemplar – namely, JESUS – and one sees very little “plans” and “process.”

That is because community nearly defies a recipe! (By the way, don’t forsake planning, setting goals, praying for results, making outlines and lists! Recall: The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9)

Jesus chose some friends, allowed them to live with Him, gave them things to do commensurate with their readiness for ministry and then he … kinda just … LIVED. And DIED that others might live.

And his friends – having been in community with Jesus and having grown to trust and obey Him because He had been found to be TRUST-worthy – began to act like Jesus.

Better yet, they began to LIVE like Jesus did. Outsiders “recognized them as having been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13) – community was successful, and the kingdom of God grew.

Ya just gotta get in there and get dirty!

Yet, community is the only environment in which true Kingdom Growth can take place. It is where believers practice new and godly forms of behavior with acceptance, patience and encouragement from others.

It is not simply an act of our will. Yet, we must simply will to be with Jesus. Willing community is skipping a step. Community is only possible in and through those who have experienced the personal acceptance of Jesus (both in solitude and community). Then and only then do Christ-followers have something (namely, love) to give to others.

In sum: For those who want to do and be about community.

1. “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Tim 4:7b). I would suggest this where you decide to do things like pray, be alone with God, listen, fast, read your Bible, go to church, worship and so on. Seek both to learn about all these things and to practice each of them deeply, earnestly and regularly.
2. Pray for God to direct you into a true experience of community – the kind in which you can give and receive true love.
3. Live life with other Christ-followers.
4. Seek others – particularly those outside the faith – with whom you can influence as you live an intentional godly life.

5. Read the New Testament and pattern your life after Jesus’. Find out how He lived, who He chose to hang out with, what He saw as important, what He did, then … go thou and do likewise!

AN EXERCISE IN PRAYER

Find a quiet place where you can be alone.
Get in a comfortable position with your back straight.
Reduce distractions – pictures, things. Don’t turn out the lights.

Sit and relax.
Shut your eyes and focus on as little as possible. Breathe.
Wait until you are aware that you are physically and mentally calming down. This may take a few minutes.

You will be distracted. Deal with each one with repentance – acknowledge each one and return quickly to your task of prayer.
Recall the father’s reaction when the Prodigal Son returned – open arms of acceptance and joy!

Read these words slowly and with a “listening heart.”

This is what the Sovereign Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, says:
“Only in returning to me
and resting in me will you be saved.
In quietness and confidence is your strength.”

So the Lord must wait for you to come to him
so he can show you his love and compassion.
For the Lord is a faithful God.
Blessed are those who wait for his help. Isaiah 30:15,18

Be aware that you are relaxing and focusing.

Take a few moments to tell God Who He is – how wonderful He is.
Use your own words. If it is not too awkward, speak aloud in a soft voice.
Don’t allow negative thoughts to enter your mind about the “quality” of your words to Him.

Read these words slowly and know that in praising God we draw near to Him.

Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!
Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.
Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture
Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
Go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
And his faithfulness continues to each generation. Psalm 100

Confess your sins to God.
Be specific. Start with these words: Read slowly.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Psalm 139:23,24

Have mercy on me, O God,
because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
blot out the stain of my sins.
Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
For I recognize my rebellion;
it haunts me day and night.
Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say,
and your judgment against me is just.
For I was born a sinner—
yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
But you desire honesty from the womb,
teaching me wisdom even there.
Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—now let me rejoice.
Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me. Psalm 51:1-10
But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John 1:9

Know now… try to experience the fact that you are forgiven, clean and pure before God!

Take a couple of moments to thank God. Thank Him for the things in your life that have eternal significance. Be specific.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:10

Wrap up this time of prayer with ASKING.
Ask whatever you want!

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6

Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. James 4:2

Remember the words of Jesus to Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:51):

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO FOR YOU?

God is asking you that! Give Him an answer.

Ask God for a humble heart.
Seek a heart which says,”God, I want what You want for me.”

Maybe start a list of friends to pray for.
Ask God to bring your friends to mind during the day.
Ask God for ways to bless your friends.

Finish your time with the Lord’s Prayer. Concentrate on each and every word.

Tell yourself: Regardless of how I feel right now, this has been a Good Time!

Community as the Hope for the Church

I think I want to chime in again... if that's OK. (I guess that is why we have the delete key.) (SEE BLOG BELOW)

I think often about the church and her future; I can get pretty worked up if the truth be known!

Let me build on a few of broad principles:

1. God, by His very nature (Trinity), is relational (community).
2. That makes you and me - created in the essential image of God - relational, too.
3. (Therefore) Church - whatever else we make of it - is and must be relational.
4. Sin, like drift, provokes in us what I might broadly term anti-relationship.
5. The future of the church lies in her ability to re-capture COMMUNITY.

Eugene Peterson in A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, in his chapter on Community, says, "Another way to avoid community is to turn the church into an institution" (pg. 179).

This is true; in fact, you and I above the age of, say, 30, know very little about church that is not institutional. Therefore, as we try to come together post-Twentieth Century and post-Christian Era, we are entirely likely to build the church AS WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN IT. Getting out of a rut takes lots and lots of strength, courage and perseverance! Otherwise, we'll end up with just another version of the institutional church.

I do not want to harangue on about what I think we oughta do at this point. I do want to make points, if you will, what I see will characterize the church successful.

1. We need to take our lessons from … Jesus.

2. He reached the point of total surrender to His Father. He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (Jn 4:34). Those church-ers will be successful if they look, smell, and taste like Jesus because they have become so intimate with Him and His will. That is the first endeavor.

3. Jesus had three intimate relationships (Peter, James and John), nine in His Sunday School class, and seventy that He taught. His teaching was almost exclusively life-on-life. Jesus simply said to His friends, “Follow Me.” “Come live life with me.” Jesus was intentional and strategic about His relationships. Jesus knew He was worth knowing and being with. Successful church-ers will strategize their lives similarly.

4. Jesus was not hindered by church. Church was a normal part of his weekly life, but His ministry was not hampered because He had to park camels for early worship (what the institutional church calls “service ministry”). I do think Jesus served in the nursery as needed. Servants at heart do that kind of thing!

5. Jesus taught by example. Nowadays we call it “training.” Church-ers will not enlist; they will train, and train by example. Apprenticeship comes to mind at this point.

6. We must presuppose, as Jesus did, that people are ignorant and must be shown how to do relationships. Jesus did not conduct “sign-ups.”

7. Church-ers who get clued into this be-with-Jesus thing (not that complicated, I might add) will do anything and everything possible to obtain holiness. Look no further than Jesus: Jesus disciplined Himself for godliness (Mk 1:35, et. al.). Jesus practiced disciplines the institutional church is downright hostile toward! Like stillness, rest, prayer, and solitude.

8. Church-ers who desire success for the church understand incarnation. We are little Jesuses. That makes us worth knowing. It is good for those who do not know Jesus to be with us! Church-ers will spend a lot of energy simply doing relationships.

9. One caveat: Doing relationships is not the same as having a meeting. It is not the same as what we have come to know as “fellowship,” either! It is costly and dirty; mysterious, unpredictable and protracted, the fruits of which are in God’s hands!

I am not intending to take pot shots at what we know as church. However, we are in a deep rut. May we aspire toward the charge leveled against Peter and John after being arrested for healing a lame beggar by the institutional church leadership:

Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and
understood that they were uneducated and untrained men,
they were amazed, and began to
recognize them as having been with Jesus. Acts 4:13

What Ought We Be Becoming?

This is a response to a conversation the leadership of our church is in regarding the ways and means of church, particularly how to get people un-stuck.

Thanks for including me in this conversation. I perused it earlier in the week and it grabbed me; it is just now that I can sit, pray and write.

The questions we ask and continue to ask are, indeed, from the heart. No question. We all want God to be glorified in and through ourselves, our families and our church. I am convinced we all want to see God's Kingdom built in our community.

I want to challenge our ideas of what that is supposed to look like.

What is the definition of "stuck"? I am afraid the answer is often subjective beyond my comfort: Not enough people are coming to church, not enough people are in small groups, giving is down, shallow faith is rife, people are leaving the church, etc.

All the assessments below notwithstanding (all are "accurate" insofar as I can see, by the way); I think people are not stuck. I think they are right where they want to be.

I am not sure what the remedy is, either. I am not even sure we need to be asking that question, as if: When we discover that "remedy" and DO it, then God is obliged to bless us - make our church healthy, big and growing.

God is the giver of increase (1 Co 3:7). We are to be faithful, evangelize, make disciples, pray, pray for workers, pray for increase, assemble, worship, obey, raise our family "in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord," etc., etc.

I remember J. I. Packer in Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God saying that the evangelist is finished evangelizing not when "he seals the deal" so-to-speak and a convert is made. Evangelism has taken place when we elicit a decision from the one to whom we have just shared.

We must learn to battle in the realm of ideas; ideas we possess and live by that may or may not be God-honoring no matter how Christian they sound!

I think the question might be changed from "What ought we do?" to "Who ought we be becoming?" This question is first and foremost and individual question long before it becomes a corporate one. We are to abide in Christ and He will, through us, bear fruit (Jn 15).

Am I guilty of being with Him? Have I submitted the hours of my day to Him? Is my lifestyle such that if the plug were pulled on Christianity, I would be the laughingstock of the neighborhood for the silly and yet large investment I have made? Read 1 Corinthians 15:19!

Do I know Jesus intimately? Do I smell like Jesus?

Am I seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness? By the way, there it is again: "...And all these things will be added unto you... [by HIM!]."

Richard Rohr in his book Everything Belongs uses the phrase "Don't push the river." You and I are traveling along life's journey in the boat of God's Providence. He "works all things at the counsel of His own will" (Eph 1:11). No doubt you and I are to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" (Ph 2:12), choices matter! But, I think we could adjust our ideas a bit and learn - through our intimate relationship with Jesus - that our charge is to trust and leave the driving to Him.

This is the death to self that the New Testament refers to.

I blame Larry Crabb for the following indictment:

You maneuver; you do not trust. You negotiate, you do not worship. You analyze to gain control over what happens; you do not depend. You seek the Better Life of God's blessings over the Better Hope of God's Presence. (From The Pressure's Off, pg. 8)

Later in the book, Dr. Crabb introduces us to the "Papa Prayer." This is up against our traditional (what Crabb calls the "Old Way") - idea driven - prayer that goes like this:

Change that.

Whatever in my life is causing pain, I ask you to change it. Straighten out my daughter, give me a spouse, restore my health, provide an income.

Use this.

Show me what principles I'm to follow to make that happen. Direct me to the person or resources I need to help make it happen.

Satisfy me.

I long to feel alive, content, fulfilled, and happy. Do whatever it takes to make me feel satisfied with me, with life, and with You. (The Pressure's Off, pg. 209)

Here is the Papa Prayer:

Present yourselves to God as you are.
Attend to where you notice God's presence of absence.
Purge yourselves of whatever, at that moment, might be keeping you from noticing more of God.
Approach God with abandonment and confidence, dedicating yourselves anew to coming to Him to know and enjoy and reveal Him, not to using Him to make your life better. (The Pressure's Off, pg. 211. Incidentally, Crabb's next book, The Papa Prayer elaborates on this simple prayer.)

To the church I say:

Sit with Jesus. Allow Him to calm your soul. Realize when the calm comes that this is normal. Then learn to cultivate stillness, for it is in stillness that we see, hear and touch God.

Live with each other. Ask for the eyes of Jesus when dealing with friends as well as enemies.

Pray with maturity - for forgiveness, for others, for God to advance His Kingdom using you and me.

Then, move out, calmly, into faith-driven obedience. And trust Him.

Eternal and Natural Therapy

Never wait to praise God, when things are just peachy.
Praise Him ever - at sun up, at dusk. Praise Him because He is your own personal God.

Can you praise Him when you are in circumstantial pain?
If so, you are numbered among those who know Him well enough that knowing God is Joy in itself, un-affected by anything ... anything.

If not, your joy is circumstantial, fickle, unpredictable, shifting sand... idolatrous! It is more about you than God.

If not, get there - you can, you know! Repent. Be with Him, think on Him. Imagine Him and His enormous love and care for you.
For you!

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.
Praising is really natural. Complaining is not.
Think on God! Do it a lot, for a long time.
Wrestle against distraction. We've been taught not to listen and think.

Let's recover our natural bent to think long on God.
Eternal and natural therapy for the soul!
You and I were made for this.

God's YES !

Beth (not her real name) has captured my heart. I think she is my alter-ego. I see a ton o’ me in her… not all good, some good.

Recently, as I was listening to a wise friend speaking about God’s YES, I had her very on my mind.

Let’s say, before time began, God “pondered” whom He might create. Among His infinite and perfect thoughts were the names of forthcoming children. Deep in the heart of God, at one divine, sweet moment, God smiled Beth into existence! There was no Oops! God does not goof. Even before Beth actually came to be, she was “fearfully and wonderfully made” by the Master Creator.

Beth is more magnificent that any beautiful sunset. She is more exquisite than the DNA of which she consists. She is gorgeous in the Eyes of God… and that is all that matters.

I don’t think Beth has come to appreciate God’s beauty quite yet. Trouble is, when you and I and … Beth look in the mirror and have negative thoughts, we are audaciously dissin’ God’s sterling handiwork.

God said YES to Beth. Not MAYBE or OH, WHATEVER. HE SAID YES!

Beth is the only Beth there ever was or ever will be. She is one of a kind. She is a prototype of one. She is priceless. I can see God now! Through tears of joy and a quivering, smiling chin, He whispers, “Beth, I love you! I think I’ll give you lots of red hair! Yes, Beth, YES!”

Beth hears lots of NO’s, the loudest of which are her own. God I pray for Beth. Mute the NO’s that have such a negative impact on Beth’s heart. Give her a chance to hear Your YES. Help me say YES to her for You.

On Living in the Present

(From Henri J.M. Nouwen's Here and Now, p. 20)

When we dare to trust that we are never alone but that God is always with us, always cares for us, and always speaks to us, then we can gradually detach ourselves from the voices that make us guilty [dwelling on the past] or anxious [fearing the future] and thus allow ourselves to dwell in the present moment. This is a very hard challenge because radical trust in God is not obvious. Most of us distrust God. Most of us think of God as a fearful, punitive authority or as an empty, powerless nothing. Jesus’ core message was that God is neither a powerless weakling nor a powerful boss, but a lover, whose only desire is to give us what our hearts most desire.

To pray is to listen to that voice of love. That is what obedience is all about. The word “obedience” comes from the Latin word ob-audire, which means to listen with great attentiveness. Without listening, we become “deaf” to the voice of love. The Latin word for deaf is surdus. To be completely deaf is to be absurdus, yes, absurd. When we no longer pray, no longer listen to the voice of love that speaks to us in the moment, our lives become absurd lives in which we are thrown back and forth between the past and the future.

If we could just be, for a few minutes each day, fully where we are, we would indeed discover that we are not alone and that the One who is with us wants only one thing: to give us love.

Wasting Time With God

And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels! EPHESIANS 3:8-10 MSG (italics added)

GOD’S PLAN FOR YOU AND ME IS TO BE SO ENAMORED AND CAPTIVATED WITH THE LOVE GOD HAS FOR US THAT WE UNDERGO A TRANSFORMATION WHEREBY WE ARE SO DIFFERENT, NOTICEABLY AND ATTRACIVELY DIFFERENT, THAT A LOST AND SEARCHING WORLD FLOCKS TO US LIKE FOOTBALL FANS DO SUPER BOWL TICKETS.

The headline reads: CHRISTIANS DIVORCE AT A RATE HIGHER THAN NON-CHRISTIANS! Have we lost our minds?! Have I lost mine?

Why is Tiger Woods the greatest golfer in the world? Because he acts like the greatest golfer in the world, that’s why! His behavior confirms his claims. He is consumed with golf – golf is his passion. His heart is for golf; his life is completely congruent to his claim. He is exactly what he says he is. (Mind you, I doubt if he, himself, has ever clamed such superiority, but you get my drift. And, the fact that he makes no claim is confirmation in and of itself!)

Tiger’s eternal destiny aside, I absolutely admire the man because he is so authentic. He has committed his life to being the best at golf he can be and patterns his life perfectly accordingly.

Now, take out golf and put in Jesus, church, or Christianity. BAM! We get it right in the kisser (or maybe the heart….). Is my life as congruent and consistent as Tiger’s? Is yours? NO. I could go on for days talking about all the ways the church is NOT the church, but neither of us need to be convinced of what we already know so sadly and clearly.

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God (Eph 3:14-19).

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us (Eph 3:20,21).

THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE – you and I have been given the gift of knowing (relationally) the God of the Universe. This is the simplicity of the Gospel. And, the extent to which you and I BATTLE WITH ALL OUR MIGHT against DISTRACTIONS EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY, and simply become still long enough (Psalm 46:10) to know by experience our Loving and Relational God, we will smell like the One we represent, the One Who loves us infinitely, the One Who wants ALL to have this Pleasure.

Hear the words of Jesus:

When he came back to his disciples, he found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, "Can't you stick it out with me a single hour? Stay alert; be in prayer so you don't wander into temptation without even knowing you're in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there's another part that's as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire" (Mt 26:40,41).

We cannot be a church of activity if we have not been first and foremost the church passive, sitting with and enjoying the Presence of Jesus and receiving the spiritual impetus for all the activity. We cannot go out and win the lost if we as individuals have not been impassioned by spending time with Him in secret aloneness. We cannot give away what we have not received.

You and I can become passionate for God, first for Him and then for His mission work. It begins alone in stillness… something of which the devil has robbed us. Just try to spend a scant 10 minutes alone with Him! Our brain shrieks of the stupidity of this “foolishness”! “You coulda been mowing the yard, paying the bills… leading someone to Christ!” What a waste of time stillness is!

Well, it is in this wasting of time with Jesus that you and I hear the voice of God calling us His beloved! It is in times of silence and solitude that we are renewed – capable of letting God be God and not requiring the same of our world and friends.

It is in stillness and solitude that we become passionate for God’s Kingdom work. And, not before then.

To borrow a phrase: JUST DO IT.

Desk Calendar Devotion #3

"I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches" (Ps 119:14). Compare Psalm 1:2. It's all about doing things God's way. When we do, life is smooth (in His eyes), we glorify Him, AND it brings US delight!

Imagine - delight - a part of my daily experience: the same kind of delight we experience when we eat fine chocolate! A non-delight-er is a sourpuss! The image of God in us LOVES to bring Him glory!

Today, Lord, may I unleash the power of Your Spirit in me and BRING delight to You ... AND ME!

Desk Calendar Devotion #2

Matthew 11:28 says, "Come unto Me, and I will give you..., many things to do to serve Me." I don't read it that way.

Ever remember a day just after a great night's sleep? Attitudes were sweet and positive. Work was ... almost ... a pleasure. Tempers were thick and life was enjoyed. Such is life for a believer who truly enters (and relies upon) God's holy Rest.

Might we consider a strategy whereby we prioritize and really DO rest, trusting the salvation of the world to Him. Too often our lives convey the idea that God can't do it without us

Desk Calendar Devotion #1

"And lo, I am with you always...." How do we deal with a God who'll never leave us nor forsake us? Do we act as if He is here (both to love and to judge)? Is God's Presence existential? Can it be organic? May we feel it? Touch it? Know it?

How ever we experience the Presence of God, it is there; it is here! He is Emmanuel - God is with us! Like the "opposite" of His transendence (other-ness), so His Presence is full and forever!

We are guarded by His peace (Ph 4:7), we hope in the surety of His Spirit's righteousness (Eph 1:13; Hb6:12ff). His enduring and encouraging love does, indeed, last forever. Sin begets loneliness, worry, confusions, compulsions, and discouragement.

Might we learn to climb into the lap of our Emmanuel!

God is super-here!