SOUND THE SHOFAR!

2007-03-01T08:11:00.000-05:00

THIS WEEK'S SHOW. "What's happening this week at church?" Sometimes what I mean by that question is, "Is this one of those weeks when I shouldn't invite someone to come and visit, or is this going to be a 'good show'?"

Most modernist evangelical churches build their assemblies around the sermon topic. That is what they put on the church sign, hoping that people will come ready to learn about that lesson. Other times, they might list the outside evangelist or guest artist, in hopes of letting people know, "If you've been thinking about attending this church, this might be the time when you want to come."

I must confess that the same is true at our little emerging church. If I am thinking about inviting someone to come with me, I am tempted to look and find out who is teaching this week, what is the topic, or who's leading worship this week.

If I fall into that pattern, then I have made the same terrible mistake as my modernist friends: I have mistakenly thought that "the show" is what my friend most needs to see. I want him to see something, well, impressive.

I think the better way to prepare my friend is to say, "On any given Sunday, you will see at our little church what God considers to be the most Beautiful Thing in the World: the Body of Christ functioning." I could further explain, "I have no idea what to expect, because the Holy Spirit has control over the assembly, but I can tell you that most likely you will hear some God stories, you will see people actively give honor and glory to Jesus Christ, you will learn some lessons that the Lord has impressed unpon some of our people, and you will see people pray for one another. You might see healings or miracles, and you might see nothing that looks impressive, but what you will see, my friend, is the Bride of Christ, adorning herself for the great marriage feast, and it is stunningly beautiful in the eyes of the Groom."

In truth, God sees His Bride every Sunday, in every church, no matter the style or structure. but the more clearly I see what He seeks, the more I will know whether we are "succeeding" or not. Selah.

2007-02-15T10:15:00.000-05:00

BECOMING COMMUNITY (Foundational Study #2)

the early followers of Jesus in Jerusalem (Acts 2, 4) committed themselves to several things, and i long to be part of a church with that kind of zealous community.

they were committed to the apostles' doctrine. hungry for a word from God, and with all of this truth about Jesus being new to them, every day they were somehow learning to piece it all together from the Old Testament writings and the stories that the apostles remembered about Jesus. so at Christ's Community, we try to have room for at least one message, more often two or three, and we provide suggested daily readings from the lectionary, encourage people to participate in blogs and email, to listen to sermons, and to make use of the abundant resources at our fingertips. what if every conversation revolved around talking about Jesus?

they were devoted to the fellowship. every day they were eating meals together in their homes, they were exercizing extended hospitality to one another, and they were giving to anyone in need. in fact, they were together (in close proximity) every day, they were sharing all things in common, as the weeks went on they realized that they were draining their resources, and so they were selling their possessions and goods (extra fields and whatnot) to meet others' needs. they were meeting daily in the temple courts (large group) and sharing meals in their homes. amazing! our church is trying to follow that kind of model by being a network of house churches, where ministry is done deeper with a few, rather than scattered among the many. what if every day we were living as if we were a healthy extended family?

they continued steadfastly in the breaking of the Loaf. more than eating meals, they were remembering Jesus every day by having Holy Communion together. He was the center of their gatherings, not just on Sundays, but every day. cciph is trying to embrace the Table as a central part of our gathering each week by having each house church prepare and lead in the time of the Lord's Supper, encouraging creativity and a certain highlight of the Meal when we meet. what if every meal in every house somehow remembered Jesus as its "dessert?"

they committed themselves to the prayers. as Israelites, they knew well the memorized prayers of the synagogue, which they had been saying two or three times every day even before they knew Christ. how much more were they devoted now to saying not only those ritual prayers, but to saturating every day with conversation with the Lord. they were way beyond required token prayers in those days; they were experiencing miracles in answered prayers, and they were living in conversation with the Almighty. we are also trying as a church to have that kind of commitment in our assemblies; that's why we meet for nearly two hours every week, because we want to take the time for extended prayers about the will of God all over the world. we pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters, for physical needs, for governments, for other churches, for God's kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth. what if every conversation flowed freely in and out of prayer?

can we sustain that kind of commitment for weeks, months, and even years? yes, i believe we can, one day at a time. that's what i long to be a part of, and to that end i will dedicate my life. amen.

2007-01-02T22:15:00.000-05:00

THE BALLAD OF CHRISTOPHER BAUER
Now listen up children and I will tell
Of the night I stormed the gates of hell
To do battle with the devil himself
And see who came out stronger

It was just another late night stint
But I was sick and tired of my besetting sin
And decided this time that lose or win
I’d live with this no longer

Now I’m smarter and stronger than any man’s son
So I strolled right up to those gates of flame
To stand toe to toe with ol’ Satan himself
And take him for a ride

So I banged on the gate and sounding tough
I said, “Lucifer! You might think you’re rough
But let’s see if you’re just man enough
To have me whip your hide!”

Well just like that buddy he was there
His putrid smell was everywhere
He smiled and said, “Then let’s clear the air
Cause I’ve been waiting for you.”

I didn’t like the way he smiled
Or the way he talked, or the way he smelled
And I knew right then the powers of hell
Were stronger than I figured

Well he threw a left when I threw a right
And sparks flew out where our fists collided
And fires sprang up on every side
As we began our rumble

I tell you he was smart and strong and mean
He fought like no one I had ever seen
And it wasn’t long before I could see
That I was in big trouble

This fight wasn’t for turf or pride
It was for my very soul inside
And I could see the stakes were far too high
If this fight would go against me

He seemed to know my every move
He was ten times stronger and twice as smooth
And there was nothing now that I could do
To stop him or to trick him

Then he picked me up and he spun me round
And like a child’s toy he threw me down
And then he pinned me to the ground
With the weight of forty thousand men

As he sat on me and crushed my chest
I gasped for one last final breath
He choked me while I tasted death
And the devil started talking:

He said, “Remember back in ‘59
When you had your first taste of cheap wine
Well I knew right then that you were mine
And I because your rightful father.

“And since that day I’ve added sins
With sex and pride and greed and shame
And you should know by now you’d never win
This game has long been over.

“I’m here to take you down with me
You’re going to spend eternity
In torment with my angels and me
In pain that lasts forever.

“I think you underestimated me
And somehow you just didn’t see
That I own you, you belong to me
And you don’t have an answer.”

I knew right then that he was right
That though he was the father of lies
He owned my soul and had my life
And I was his forever.

It was over then, I was out of breath
As I was being crushed to death
I whispered, “Jesus save me by your
blood!”

And the devil he leapt up off of me.
He screamed, “Don’t you ever use that name
Don’t speak of the blood the Lamb of God
Or I’ll crush you first and take you down
I swear I’ll make you sorry!”

But by then I knew that dude was done
That by God’s grace the battle was won
And Satan can’t stand against the Son
And he would have to flee

So I stopped trying to fight him by myself
And I spoke the Name, I claimed the blood
And you should have seen that devil run
Back to the place reserved for him.

I said, “Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the End
My Savior the Messiah, My Redeemer and my Friend
The Wonderful the Counselor Almighty God is He
Yeshua Ha’Meshiah, He is the Coming King
Lion of Judah, Lamb of God, Atoning Sacrifice
Prince of Peace, King of kings, Lord of lords, The Light

And that was the night of my deliverance
When I fought and lost but Jesus won
And since that day I wear the name
That is above all others

He leads me in the paths of right
He makes me choose to walk in light
And I know I have eternal life
And I no longer live in fear

For I can claim his holiness
My guilt is paid, my sin is gone
I don’t do the things I used to do
Cause I have a new heart

And life is different since that day
I’m born again, I’m here to say
All things are new, and I am clean
I got a brand new start

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost
Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost
Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost
Amen!

2007-01-02T22:13:00.000-05:00

Doing the Father's Business
so, how do i know whether i am in the center of God's will, doing exactly what He wants?
God's will is not doing what i WANT to do. just because i like it doesn't mean i am called to do it.
God's will is not doing what i am GIFTED to do. just because i have the talent doesn't mean i am called to use it.
God's will is not doing what OTHERS ASK of me. i am not called to passively respond to every need, just because it is urgent.
in each of these cases, i often feel conflicted. i suppose that conflicted feelings are an indication of conflict, usually the conflict between what the Holy Spirit is calling me to do and what i commit myself to do. as the Nouwen article says, i think the only way to discern is to listen in silence to the call of God, and then do exactly what brings a sense of "rightness" and joy that is discerned in those moments.
i feel a bit of resolution over my busyness. but walking in it is not as easy as writing about the principles.
speak, Lord, for your servant is listening....

Can You Drink the Cup?

2007-01-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

"Action . . . can help us to claim and celebrate our true self. But . . . we need discipline, because the world in which we live says: 'Do this, do that, go here, go there, meet him, meet her.' Busyness has become a sign of importance. Having much to do, many places to go, and countless people to meet gives us status and even fame. However, being busy can lead us away from our true vocation and prevent us from drinking our cup.
"It is not easy to distinguish between doing what we are called to do and doing what we want to do. Our many wants can easily distract us from our true action. True action leads us to the fulfillment of our vocation. . . . The most prestigious position in society can be an expression of obedience to our call as well as a sign of our refusal to hear that call, and the least prestigious position, too, can be a response to our vocation as well as a way to avoid it.
"Drinking our cup involves carefully choosing those actions which lead us closer to complete emptying of it, so that at the end of our lives we can say with Jesus: 'It is fulfilled' (John 19:30). That indeed, is the paradox: we fulfill life by emptying it. In Jesus' own words: 'Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.' (Matt. 10:39)
"When we are committed to do God's will and not our own we soon discover that much of what we do doesn't need to be done by us. What we are called to do are actions that bring us true joy and peace. Just as leaving friends for the sake of the Gospel will bring us friends, so too will letting go of actions not in accord with our call.
"Actions that lead to overwork, exhaustion, and burnout can't praise and glorify God. What God calls us to do we can do and do well. When we listen in silence to God's voice and speak with our friends in trust we will know what we are called to do, and we will do it with a grateful heart."
-Henri Nouwen (submitted by Michael Wilson)

2006-12-24T23:25:00.000-05:00

“That the Great Angel-Blinding Light” (Richard Crayshaw c.1640)

That the Great Angel-blinding Light should shrink His blaze to shine in a poor shepherd's eye
That the unmeasure'd God so low should sink as prisoner in a few poor rags to lie
That from His mother's breast He milk should drink Who feeds with nectar heaven's fair family
That a vile manger His low bed should prove Who in a throne of stars thunders above;
Let our overwhelming wonder be.

That He whom the sun serves should fainly peep through clouds of Infant Flesh!
That He, the olde Eternal Word should be a Child, and weep;
That He who made the fire, should fear the cold,
That Heaven's High Majesty His court should keepe in a clay cottage, by each blast control'd;
Let our overwhelming wonder be.
Let our overwhelming wonder be.

That Glorious Self should serve our griefs and fears,
And free eternity submit to years,
Let our overwhelming wonder be.
Let our overwhelming wonder be.
Let our overwhelming wonder be.

2006-12-18T23:57:00.000-05:00

Worship as Evangelism
maybe this whole 1 Corinthians 14 thing really does work, after all. maybe if our worship is sincere and deep, in spirit and in truth, and if we lift up Christ, then He will draw people to Himself. here is a note from a friend who brought a foreign exchange student to Friday's concert:

"Nicole has a Jewish dad and a Catholic mom. She goes to a Hebrew school and considers herself Jewish,although does not really practice it. When we were sitting in the concert, I felt that it was a good timefor God to speak to her heart. Although we've taken them to church, it's been teaching, not worship(Sunday School). So this is the first worship service we've taken her to.

"Today at lunch, she brought up the subject of Jesus, and talking about the concert. She said she was singing the songs even though she didn't believe them. She said she was asking God what He wanted her to believe. I told her that was exactly the right thing to do. He will tell her. It also gave me opportunity to tell her that the prophesies in the Old Testament, are fulfilled by Jesus.

"Anyway, I thought you might like to know what part you played in planting and watering the seed in her life.As with our Mongolian student, we may not see the fruit right away, but I'm confident that the seed,with good water and fertilizer, will grow."

i think we can focus so much on being culturally relevant that we spend more time quoting movies and other pop culture references, trying to be on the bleeding edge of relevance, that we miss out on the pure beauty of the Gospel of Jesus.

2006-12-18T23:56:00.000-05:00

Peace on Earth
At His birth, the angels said, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, goodwill to men.” And so from the beginning, angels proclaimed the Gospel message. The message is that God is glorified through Jesus, and that He came to bring peace on earth, and to reconcile men to God.

Many men have come before and since Jesus, all with a goal of world conquest. Nebuchadnezzar, Tammerlane, Attila, Alexander, Mohammed, Napolean, Hitler, Stalin and others have all come with warfare as their means of achieving world peace. Kind of backwards, isn’t it? Waging war to bring peace. But Jesus stands alone as One who came to bring peace on earth through personal sacrifice and love. Peace on earth has always been central to Jesus’ mission in this world.

It is no coincidence that many of our songs refer to reconciliation and peace, because when we reflect on God coming to earth as a baby, and we hear the song of the angels, we are moved to join in that song.

And so, during the days of Abolition, such lines were written as,
“Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother.” (O Holy Night, 1847)
“Then in despair I bowed my head. ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said. ‘For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.’” (I Heard the Bells, 1864)

A century later, songwriters were still writing about racial reconciliation because of Christmas.
“Some children see Him lily white . . . bronzed and brown . . . almond-eyed . . . dark as they . . . like theirs, but bright, with heavenly grace. ‘Tis love that’s born tonight.” (Some Children See Him, 1954)

And still today, we sing. After all, “Christmas is a time to love.” Let us pray that the angels’ song will at last be realized in our generation.

2006-11-18T00:27:00.000-05:00

THE FIRST POSTMODERNIST?

Remember the parable of the three servants and the talents? This morning, I awoke reflecting on the details of the third servant. That third dude is the world's first postmodern Christian, in that he brings up the first insight that all of us have faced who have gone through the postmodern angst.

After Mr. Five Talents and Mr. Two Talents have worked hard and received their rewards, this guy comes to his master with a complaint as his excuse. He says something like:

"I was afraid, because You are a harsh Man. You harvest where You didn't plant. You gather crops You didn't cultivate. If I may, let me say that You aren't fair.

"So instead of working as Your steward, I buried Your stuff and lived my own life for the last year. Because I can't trust You, here's what's Yours, no more and no less."

He nailed it on the head, I think. My postmodern friend might have gone on to say: "Someone who doesn't smoke a day of her life gets lung cancer. Good people die young. Evil prospers. I pray for healing, and it's a crap shoot as to whether or not it will work. I share the Gospel until I'm blue in the face, but never get a result, and somebody else comes to a program and responds immediately. And by the way, can't You stop terrorism? or tornadoes? or Democrats, for crying out loud?! There simply is no justice, or at least not enough. If You are so good, how come there is so much evil? Either You don't care, or You can't do anything about it. And so I conclude You to be harsh. I can't devote myself to work for You when I can't predict whether or not it will do me any good. That's all I got, but I don't think it's my fault."

What especially then blows me away is the master's response. He never contradicts the servant! In effect, He answers, "So you knew that I take other people's stuff, that I am not fair, and that I allow a certain randomness to the world that makes you afraid so that you can't trust Me? I won't deny it. But if your tiny little postmodern faith won't allow you to work with your whole heart, at least you could have put the money in the bank and let other people do the work.

"You know what that makes you? Wicked. And lazy. Stop hiding behind the timid and doubting mask, and let me call it straight. You use your doubt of My character as an excuse for living a selfish life. You despised My generous gift to you (or do you forget that a talent of silver is worth many thousands of dollars? Did you think I owed you that gift?), and you pursued your own little goals."

"So now, take that valuable gift from this wicked, lazy man whom I trusted, and give it to the one who was faithful. Because faith is what gets rewarded. And faith is in things you can't see and prove. The first servant chose to see Me as someone worth serving, and he has found that he gets to keep everything that he thought he was earning for Me! Now we see who is generous, and who is harsh!"

A modernist believes God is good by ignoring the obvious evidence that the world sucks (pardon my strong word here). A postmodernist sees clearly that the world sucks. But the faithful postmodernist chooses to plunge into the abyss of doubt and act as if God is good, anyway.

As someone has said, maybe it's faith when you just don't know for sure.

2006-10-14T15:41:00.000-05:00

OUR CORE VALUES SUMMARIZED

We treasure all that God is and treasure all that God treasures. God seems to treasure relationships most of all: relationships with his children, among his children, and with those who are not yet his children. It’s all about relationships. And so, we pursue Real Faith, live as Real Family, and seek to become Real Friends.

We pursue Real Faith. You might say that we are a people who have lost our religion. Or, you might say that we are pilgrims who are discovering what it means to dance with Jesus. We are not interested in Christianity, in the sense of an organized religion. Religiosity, with its abuses of power, its systematic legalism, and its dry formality, holds little for a real faith. But we gladly receive the grace of God offered by the blood of Christ, and we are learning what it means to be in vital relationship with the One who seeks us out. And so we glorify God by serving the Lord, believing that every act is a spiritual act of worship.

We live as Real Family. All believers are brothers and sisters, living in the same household with one Father. So we look to the family as a model for our relationships with one another. We live without formal titles, we are simple and organic in our structure, we are generous individuals who are committed to radical hospitality, we live together in community, striving to be as wide as the Kingdom of God itself. As a group, we have limited programs, and no formal membership.

We seek to become Real Friends. Our relationships with God and with one another in turn affect our relationships with our neighbors. This results in strong neighborly relationships in which we strive to become persons of peace who seek justice and righteousness in our society and bring beauty into the city. We practice what might be called respectful evangelism that is non-manipulative and honed to the needs of each individual. We declare that we are not afraid of the city; the city is where many people live, and that means that God loves the city.

From these three core values grow 13 guiding principles. Calling; Organic; Hospitality; Life-to-Life; Diversity; Relationships; Lifestyle; Intergenerational; Cooperation; A Body; Repentance; Urban; Counter-Cultural; Creativity and Beauty.

2006-09-26T11:58:00.000-05:00

WHERE'S THE FRONT DOOR?

Where is the "front door" to our church? For most organized evangelical churches, the front door is the Sunday morning assembly. That's where the church is on "company behavior," welcoming newcomers with the best music and preaching as they have. Those people are often referred to as "seekers," or the "unchurched," and the gathering is carefully constructed to welcome new people into the fold.

I recently heard the title for the worship leader (excuse me, it's usually called a "program director" these days) in a new seeker-oriented church: the "Front Porch Facilitator." That person's position entirely revolves around making new people feel welcome, crafting the entry way in all ways, from visual images to music to printed materials. Putting a professional up front is an effective way for the American church to set an environment of hospitality.

But we have chosen on purpose to NOT have our Sunday assemblies serve as our "front door." Our main assemblies are simply times set aside for "the whole church" to "come together," as seems to have been the practice of the New Testament church. Sometimes our gatherings are untidy, informal and not for the faint of heart (as when we spend more time praying than singing or preaching combined).

Okay, so if Sunday morning is not our front door, what IS our front door? We are purposely designed to have our homes serve as our front doors. When we gather in a house, that should be the welcoming place to exercise hospitality, both individually and as a house church. We want our house churches to serve as that first exposure to church life. As the saying goes, "Back door friends are the best friends."

But wait a minute. The church building is not really our front door, but neither are our houses themselves. Our real Front Door is intentionally JESUS. He said, "I am the gate for the sheep. . . . Whoever enters through me will be saved." Whether we show Jesus in our main assemblies on Sunday morning, or we gather in homes to break bread and share our lives, the center, the essence, of what we do, is all about Jesus, the Messiah. We want to model his life, say his words, and point to his glory in all that we do. And through our radical commitment to him, the world will enter through the Front Door that is worth entering! Amen.

2006-09-06T20:54:00.000-05:00

FOLLOWING HIS LEAD

I think that ministry is more a matter of following the directions of my Navigator than it is trying to read and follow a map. With a map, I can see the goal of where I am heading, and can see what the roads should look like (or, at least, what they looked like when the map was made). But with a Navigator, there are responses to unforeseen changes in plans and even side adventures along the way!

The Book of Acts would rightly be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit. The book is really about Him and His navigations of the early church. Consider chapters 10 and 11 as one example.

Cornelius is not a Jew, but he prays and loves God. One day God comes to him in a vision and tells him to find a man (Simon, called Peter) who is staying at someone's house (Simon the tanner) in another city. He sends three trusted men. In the meantime, God talks to Peter at exactly the right time (the next day). Peter sees a vision three times in which he is told to eat unclean animals. He is still scratching his head about what that means when the three (Gentile) men come his door. Suddenly he realizes that the vision was about people, not about food or animals, and he willingly goes to the home of the Gentile, Cornelius. The next day they arrive and Peter is willing to enter Cornelius' house, which he never would have done just two days before. As Peter begins to explain about his vision and his realization that no man is unclean, the Holy Spirit falls on all those in the house, accompanied by tongues and great joy. Peter responds by allowing them to be baptized, and in the next chapter Peter defends his actions based on these experiences. The whole church rejoices.

Imagine how different it would have been had Peter been following a different roadmap. Maybe one day he is reading his Bible, and it becomes clear to him that God always intended for the Gentiles to come into the Kingdom. He talks it over with the other apostles, and they agree. Some start a new Gentile Outreach Ministry. They print brochures and send out mailers and have a huge Gentile launch.

What would have happened to the church? I guarantee it would have split, and there would have been a Jewish church and a competing Gentile church. It would have split because it was not as undeniably the leading of God to go this new, unpredictable direction.

How beautiful when leadership listens and follows the move of God, not running ahead or falling behind. And how beautiful when the people follow, trusting those who are in the lead.

2006-09-02T11:13:00.000-05:00

WHAT IS PRAYER?
Prayer is a subject that brings an interesting response in me. First is guilt. If I am to pray without ceasing, then I know that I fall far short of doing that. I suspect that most people assume that other people pray far more than they do.

What if we turn it around, and explore the wonders of this privilege of having the Ear of the Almighty One? What if we realize that each time we talk with God, we have His undivided attention? What if we become friends with our Father?

Prayer is a mystery, to be sure. In recent years, I have come to a new understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in prayer, and how God’s sovereignty comes into play. I think that God gives us His own leading as to what to pray, and then glorifies himself when he answers those prayers. It is a beautiful mystery of cooperation between the all-sufficient God and His precious creation.

The story of Cornelius illustrates the idea. Cornelius is a God-fearing man who prays often, and God sends an angel in a vision to let him know that his prayers have been heard. He gives Cornelius the name and address of a stranger named Simon Peter. In the meantime, God is giving Peter a perfectly-timed vision of his own. Through this amazing series of leadings, God carries out a major plan in bringing salvation to Cornelius and the Kingdom to the Gentiles.

There are times when someone’s prayer seems to actually change the mind of God. Moses pleads with God to spare the rebellious nation of Israel, and God relents from His apparent plan to destroy them. Yet, we know that even in this instance, it was God’s ultimate will to spare Israel. So even in His anger, God guides Moses to intercede on behalf of His people so that they will be preserved.

In this sense, prayer is the process of walking in the Spirit, or of being in the center of God’s will. We sense what God is up to and we agree with Him. Then He answers our prayer in accordance with His will. And the wonderful, mysterious relationship of God and mankind is put in motion again. Amen!

2006-08-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

THE GLORIES OF CHRIST
When we reach the end of the desert, we find peace. Not the uneasy peace of a cease-fire or the ignorant peace of sleep, but the shalom of Yeshua. It is the peace that passes understanding that Jesus talked about, the peace that knows that it knows that all is well and that God is on His throne and that I am in the center of His will, doing what He asks with the strength that He provides. And it is good.

Having been with Christ to the cross gives us the blessing of joining Him in the resurrection. And that is the abundant life that Jesus talked about, the life that is not hurt at all by the second death.

Jesus told us to rejoice when we are unjustly persecuted. He said that His joy would remain in us if we abide in Him. He was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit when His disciples began to "get it" as He taught. We can know that joy, as well.

When love for God begins to truly mark my life, then that is all that is left when the dregs of my humanity are swept away. And I love Him with all of my heart, and all of my mind, and all of my soul, and all of my strength. What's more, I learn to love my neighbor as myself.

Peace. Life. Joy. Love. Sounds like a welcome oasis to me.

2006-08-13T02:32:00.000-05:00

SIMPLE CHURCH.
House church.
Small group.
Organic church.
Free church.
Whatever you call it, the concept is to let go of controlling the Kingdom of God and let Jesus build His church, as He promised He would do. This is our goal, it is my priority, and it is all that we are about. All around the world, from China to Iran to Canada to Columbia, and even in the United States, the Lord is doing amazing things in the house church movement. I think part of what excites me about this move of God is the purity of motive and level of trust involved. Motives are purer when no one gains professionally from the growth of a church, when there is no power to be had. In the organized church, the pew sitters trust the staff and leaders, but in a simple church, everyone has to trust everyone. Plus, this kind of church is the only kind there was in the New Testament era! And it was enough for them.
When the church was young, she was free.

2006-07-29T14:21:00.000-05:00

LESSONS IN THE DESERT.
[All of these concepts are personal reflections and paraphrases from Gene Edwards’ book, The Inward Journey.]
When I awoke, I was, I confess, in a desert.
How did I get here? Did I come here on my own, or was I thrust here against my will? I still am not sure.
But I am, as I say, in a very deserted place. Unbearably dry, hot, barren—deserted by all human life. I am, indeed, alone, in private personal suffering.
It is, I acknowledge, a wilderness. Indescribably unfriendly, unwelcoming, dangerous to the soul. I am, indeed, surrounded by danger, in battle for my very life against a raging wildness within.
I recognize this place. It is the wilderness of Judea, less than 10 miles east of Jerusalem. When the westerly winds blow into Israel from the Mediterranean, they dump their moisture on the Judean mountains, and then sweep down into the valley that contains the Dead Sea, creating a blast furnace that tortures and kills everything. How could I walk from Jerusalem and be in such a desolate place in just an hour? I can almost see the city from down in this valley, and yet I am so desperately alone.
Wait! Perhaps not so very alone. Who is that, over there? Stumbling over rocks, exhausted from hunger, on the brink of insanity. He seems to be speaking to someone—no, arguing with an enemy—though I see no one there. Through gritted teeth, He quotes the Bible: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He groans and climbs unsteadily up a hill, and this time He shouts, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God!” He collapses in tears. What internal agony must He be experiencing right now? I might never know, except that He and I are in the same desert, perhaps led by the same Hand. Suddenly, He leaps back to His feet and turns and screams to no one visible: “Away! Leave me, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only!’” Dropping again to His knees in exhaustion, I see a new look on this tortured man’s face. It is the look of joy. Of peace. Resolution. Whatever intense battle he has faced in the wilderness, he has won—at least for today.

Suddenly he is gone. His desert time is over, perhaps, but I am alone again, wrestling with something or someone that I can’t see. Did I imagine the whole thing? Am I the only one to experience these desperate feelings, or has someone else been here?
Someone else? Yes, over there. And old man, covered with the sores of some excruciating skin disease, with torn clothes, sits in rubble and scrapes his boils with a stone while he groans in agony. Yet, he seems to have that same peaceful, other-worldly, victorious look in his eyes. I run to him, hoping that he will not disappear before I find some answers.
“Old man!” I cry, “You are suffering, are you not?”
“Oh, yes. Trust me. I am indescribable pain. I have lost all my wealth, all ten of my children, and my health, all in one day. I am truly in misery.”
“Yet, if you are suffering so, you look so at peace.”
“Yes, I am at peace. I have never seen so clearly or been so blessed.”
“If I may ask, what did you see, old man? What did you learn?”
“I saw—Him. The Lord Almighty, the Maker.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“That I am not Him.”
“That’s it?”
“It is more than enough.”

And he was gone. I turned around and saw that I was alone again, naturally. Dryness and death was all around me, within me, upon me.
Then I heard a voice. A young man. Singing. Praises to God. Over there, behind that ridge. A small stream runs underground from Jerusalem through the wilderness and comes out here, bringing a little oasis of bamboo and reeds, and a little waterfall before dumping into the Dead Sea. This is the oasis called En Gedi, and hidden somewhere in all this growth is the youngest of seven brothers, a shepherd and musician by background, a one-hit warrior, and a man anointed as the next king of Israel. It is David, and in this wilderness he sings praise.
“How did you get here,” I ask.
“King Saul tried to kill me, so I am hiding here.”
“But you are the king of Israel!”
“Anointed as king, but not yet enthroned. There is a big difference, you know.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About thirteen years. Of course, not always in this oasis. Usually I have been in more austere settings out there, where you came from.”
“How long will you remain?”
“I can’t predict that. All I can do is to take what I am given, and wait on the Lord.”
“But you are . . .”
“Yes, the king. I know. We’ve already covered that.”
“Why don’t you raise up an army and take your place on the throne?”
“And go against the Lord’s anointed, Saul? No, thanks. God will do whatever he does whenever he does it. He keeps the score, not I.”
“But how can you sing in this God-forsaken wilderness? Aren’t you the sweet psalmist of Israel?”
“Son, did you know that I have written twice as many psalms here in this so-called ‘God-forsaken’ wilderness as I will ever write in a palace? Think about that before you judge which place is better for the spirit.”
There was a noise nearby, and King David, the mighty warrior of Israel, shot back into the undergrowth like a spooked rabbit, and was gone.

I turned to see the source of the noise, a kind of shuffling dragging sound of a log over stones. It was the first man that I had seen. He was back in the desert again, outside of Jerusalem, this time carrying—a cross.
I wanted to ask my own questions: Why am I here? Is this some sort of punishment? When do I leave? Isn’t it more blessed to be blessed than it is to be tested? There were a hundred other questions in my mind. But somehow asking them seemed unimportant now, as I watched Jesus being nailed to the cross and lifted up on it. And as he hung, he said strange things, like “My God, why have you forsaken me?” and, “Father, forgive them” and, “It is finished.”
I couldn’t remember what my questions were anymore. Somehow I had seen Him. And it was enough. For a moment, I saw clearly. The answers were not contained in my questions, anyway. The answer is—Him. Jesus. Slain in the desert before the foundations of the earth.
I guess I was not—am not—so very alone, after all.
I was joining Jacob, permanently lame from wrestling with an angel that he could not see, who worshiped while leaning on his staff. He was renamed Israel by God himself because of his experience with God in the wilderness.
I was joining Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his own brothers, and then unjustly imprisoned for years. His desert experience prepared him to be the second-highest official in all of Egypt, and to save the lives of people all through his region, especially including his own brothers who had betrayed him.
I was joining the three men in Babylon who refused to bow down to the golden idol, and were cast into the fiery furnace. Rather than preventing them from entering the furnace, God joined them in it.
In fact, being here in the desert, I join the list of saints and martyrs through the centuries; that great cloud of witnesses who together testify that faith is not based on what you see, but on what you hold onto in the night, in the wild, and in the storm. God is not surprised by the desert. He is not powerless in the wilderness. He is the Sovereign One, the Lord of the heavens and the earth. Far too often, He does not explain His purposes or His actions. But He is always here. He is Emmanuel.

Question: Have you ever been through a desert season? I don’t just mean a spiritually dry time, or a depressed time triggered by unhappy circumstances. I mean an extended time when God was absent, when you felt abandoned, when you were empty inside. Has God led you into the wilderness? If so, what was it like? What secrets did God teach you in the desert? Have you left the desert yet? If so, how did you get back out?

The thing, the exquisitely maddening thing, about God is that He so seldom explains Himself. Even when—especially when—we are in the desert, the Lord is silent in answer to our cries. What’s he up to? You never know. And the weirdest part is, maybe that’s the point.
When I am in the desert, I am forced to see myself for what I truly am. In pleasant pastures, I can spend my energies on testimonies of praise and focus my attention on what I eat and drink, what I wear, how religious I am, my reputation, intellectual studies and theology, self-control and religiosity, ambitions and goals and projects and ministry career—in short, on my outer shell. I can afford to live a soulish life when I dwell in the garden. But my comfortable habits and foods are stripped away in the wilderness, and I am left to wrestle with the very center of me while I am chewing on locusts and washing them down with wild honey. It is deep to deep, my spirit and God’s, doing business in the desert. There is really no other way for God to get me to stop long enough to see the mess in the center.
In truth, “human life, regardless of the way it manifests itself, really isn’t all that obedient to the project of being divinely absorbed.”
“Isn’t that wonderful?” (Edwards, The Inward Journey, 41).
A long reflection on the cross gives me a glimpse of what God is doing in the desert. When I see what the Father did to the Son, teaching him obedience through what he suffered, abandoning his own self for our sake, then I realize that he is willing to pay any outward price to gain inner and eternal benefits. I survey the Garden (the prayer, the sweat, the resolve), the betrayal, the injustice, the scourging, the mocking, the cross, the blood, the spear, the forsaking, the death, and the burial, and something very deep inside me catches something. And much as I would like to think otherwise, I realize that God cannot teach me the same things by blessing me and answering my every prayer. He must deliver to me a wound just as surely as he had to do it to his own Son.
Listen: there was a reason that Anthony and the other Desert Fathers chose to go to the most wasted places on the planet in order to do spiritual battle. What is it that is awakening in my deepest part here in the wasteland? Is it humility? As my self-sufficiency dies, is that God’s Spirit living in me? In my suffering am I beginning to see beyond this world and commune deeply with the Lord? In my having no answers, is the silent God planting a tiny grain of faith? Does it take a desert to do this deepest work in me? Am I becoming absorbed with God?

There was a time when I wanted to be known as a really smart person. I wanted perfect grades, and human respect. I don’t know, some sort of need for parental approval that focused on being admired by others. I pursued more degrees and a bigger vocabulary, and I was a know-it-all about any and everything. God made my intellect, but I know that was not what he wanted me to do with it. Strike one.
I learned that the Lord was more interested in what I do than in what I know. So I studied and memorized my Bible, meditated on Scripture, and set for my life certain disciplines. Secretly I wanted to be admired for my amazing self-discipline, but outwardly I tried to project a personality of humility. Strike two.
Then I discovered that it’s not what I know or what I do that makes me a good Christian It’s what I feel. God fashioned in me a heart of compassion and made me tender. I tried to have mercy on people. But then I realized that much of my mercy was because I feared people, had no boundaries and wanted respect. Strike three.
God doesn’t want thinkers or doers or feelers. All three of those qualities are elements of the soul (mind, will and emotions). But God is looking to dig deeper into me than my mind, my will or my emotions. He wants me to be mighty in spirit. And when he rebuilds me from the inside out, I forget about my precious reputation, seeking rather the heart of God.
There is a problem with the prosperity Gospel. It focuses on things of the body and soul, but not on the spirit. So what fruit does the prosperity Gospel yield? It yields people who are focused on their health, their finances, their ease of life, trappings of outward success. In short, they focus on avoiding the desert! Anything to keep from physical or emotional or intellectual suffering! The prosperity Gospel has no chance of delivering me from myself; rather, it feeds my fleshly nature even more.
Gene Edwards writes, “Most of us are either extremely sinful or extremely religious. Or both! And further, I suspect that neither one of those states pleases God more than the other. Neither impresses him. What he does in us impresses him!” (p. 53)
That’s why Hebrews 11 is full of icky details. “Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.” What’s that all about? Sometimes we get the good stuff in our lives, and sometimes we get none of it, but that’s why they call it “faith.” Otherwise, they’d call it “sight.”

Does true maturity ever arise from anything other than pain? I know that the Bible says that the goodness of God [can] lead us to repentance, but I also know that in my life, and in those characters from the Bible, God seems to mostly use a cross to shape His character in our lives. So maybe I’ll ask this: what percentage of your spiritual growth do you perceive to have come in sunshine, versus the amount that came in pain?

The truth is, God uses the cross to shape me into the image of Christ. It is not pleasant, but it is right. Through the cross, God puts to death my giddy false joy by making my flippant easy answers ring hollow when they don’t work for me anymore. He uses painful means to squash my overweening pride when I realize I am not as talented as I imagined and that I have truer friends than I deserve. And in turn the cross even erases my morose self-pity—yes, even my cross must go to the cross, as I place my cross syndrome on the cross—you know, that tendency to be quick to claim myself to be suffering for the cause of Christ. I offend and irritate people, and then imagine myself to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness. I selfishly misspend my money and then think myself to be sacrificially giving when I feel the financial squeeze as I tithe to the Lord. I am quick to call something a cross, because that automatically makes me a martyr.
“There is something that will never die except for the jabbing pains of adversity. If you resist, if you hold on to that deep self-centered place, ever guarding it, making sure that it is not invaded even by the hand of God, then something in you will go unchanged and unbroken throughout all of your life upon this earth. An altar, a throne room, an inner sanctuary where self is worshiped will never be cast down. Be sure . . . one day the Lord will lift the hand of protection from you, and out of love he will say, ‘Now I will allow this one to suffer.’ On that day you will begin to fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. Those sufferings had purpose in his earthly life; they will just as certainly have purpose in yours.” (65)
I have been for most of my life a “professional minister.” Because of that, the cross is especially essential for me. Professional ministers tend to be people with extraordinary gifts—personable, persuasive, positive, prophetic—and likely to be proud. Satan certainly wants a crack at neutralizing such a person, and God wants to refine and use him or her. But take note, Satan introduces temptations and trials, but he does not and cannot introduce the cross. So what does the Sovereign Lord do to refine such a powerful person? He takes him to the desert, or he nails her to the cross. Usually, the testing comes in that worker’s area of greatest strength. And when the testing comes, it shows whether the Christian worker is only a “professional Christian” or a true disciple.
The challenge, of course, is to discern whether this is a temptation or distraction sent by Satan, or whether it is a cross sent by God. I must resist the devil, but submit to the Lord. It is a mistake to think that every blessing is from God, and every difficult thing is from Satan. And when the challenge comes, of course, my fleshly temptation is to do what comes naturally. I resist. I protect myself. I lash out. I defend. My ugly side arises, and I don’t notice it because I am in the midst of a personal crisis which I am merely trying to survive. But if this cross is from God (and it is), then my response should be the same as my Lord’s response. I must receive it, trust God, learn obedience through what I suffer, forgive my enemies, and die. Die to my strength, to my dream, to my fears, to my career. Only if I die can I be resurrected.
Lord, have you sent me here to refine me? What is left of me in this lonely place? All that I thought I could rely on to feel good about my eternal state is being challenged. I am so tired of being so arrogant, and yet I hate being humiliated. For years, I have been able to charm and sing and play my way into positions of favor. And so I have a conflict of interests, that when I have the appearance of being a holy man, I win twice—I am paid, and I am respected. So, what now? Am I to the place where I can say that I have everything I need here in your presence? Or do I then stand up, take five steps away from this sacred place, and start right back to my selfish goals of pursuing my personal goals of my professional ministry?

A desert. A cross. Paul described a thorn in his flesh. Jesus is a cornerstone, and either I fall on him and am broken, or He falls on me and I am crushed. John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize with fire, would winnow out the wicked and call all to repent. Jesus said that the Kingdom advances strongly and that only strong men take hold of it. Are all of these concepts related? I suspect that they are. The proud are brought low and the humble inherit the earth. The first are last and the last are first. My area of greatest strength crumbles underneath me, and I am left empty and desolate, broken and spilled out, humbled and dead to myself.
It is devastating to me to have my dearest friends leave the church. It leaves me empty when people who agree with my ministry philosophy reject my ministry when it is lived out. I, the arrogant know-it-all of ministry, am left alone to sort through my ideals, my popularity, my skills and find that I am empty. As a teacher, students reject me, administrators overlook me, and I, the honor student, fail at my chosen career. At home, all my perfect parenting theories crumble in the light of overwhelming need. I fail in the relationships that are most important to me. Those who know me best respect me least, and I have no reason to get up and try again. I have finally arrived at the place of brokenness, where I realize that there is no good in me.
I came here once before. As a young teenager, I came to the place of realization that I was a sinner in the hands of God, but that God loves me and that Jesus died for me. I was overwhelmed by grace and I repented and gave my empty, rotten life to Jesus. He forgave me, filled me, set my feet on solid rock, and put a new song in my mouth. And I was born again.
But this time, I am lingering longer in the desert. My theology isn’t providing me with the instant fix, the way it did the first time. I am already forgiven, but I have somehow been allowed to come back to this place, even with my Christian theology, to revisit the wilderness. What will my response be this time?
This is the place where many followers of Christ give up. When easy answers, feel-good solutions and pious platitudes no longer work, many decide to take the nearest exit ramp and head back to civilization. I have seen it far too many times to not recognize the pattern. “Touch one of those truly basic personality flaws in a believer’s life and you will encounter a surprising amount of resistance from an otherwise very dedicated Christian.” (76) How will my own faith respond? Today, I think I’d rather be a martyr. I think I could gloriously die in front of witnesses, a quick and brave death for Jesus. Just don’t ask my wife how I did at living sacrificially for my family.

I suppose the key to getting through the desert intact is realizing that God is in control, even of the cross, even of the desert. I and my friends in the ministry have this strong tendency to attribute anything that opposes our little will and our little kingdom as being the devil. But Jesus is Lord of the heavens and the earth, Lord of the Sabbath and of the weak days. He is even Lord ultimately over even Lucifer, and nothing can happen in my life without His permission. He sends the desert, still He wants only my good. So the sooner I realize that the desert is for my benefit, the sooner I can go about learning to cooperate with God’s plan for it.
God takes me into a season of the desert. He is a God of seasons, and His desire is to make me seasonless, or rather, a man for all seasons, who moves forward through it all. This is not a day in the park or a weekend in jail; it is a season. I see how seasons work in nature, so it is not surprising that I am called to go through seasons of the spirit, as well. Then, as Paul said, I can be prepared in season and out of season.
“A church cannot always be up. A people who try to ever be in an upward state of rejoicing will one day have a lot of catching up to do on the down side. An always ‘up’ church is in for some of the most positive nervous breakdowns the world has ever seen.
“The Christian and the Lord’s body both need rain and sunshine, cold and heat, wind and doldrums. Seasons of joy and seasons of sorrow. Times when the Lord is so real it seems any activity you undertake is a spiritual experience.” (114)

And what is his goal? To make me like Christ. And how was Christ? Unjustly suffering, yet without sin. “There has to come a place where virtually nothing done to you, regardless of how unjust it is, can hurt your feelings.” (78) I was the one who foolishly prayed for the Lord to conform me fully into the image of Christ. Now that he has begun to do that work, I think it is unjust. Of course it is unjust! There are things that only unjust suffering can teach me. Am I willing to learn those things?
In my early twenties, I was pretty radically committed to follow Christ, whenever, wherever, whatever He called me to. But something happened over the next decade or so. I got comfortable, craved security, and closed myself to adventuring for the Kingdom. Partly to serve my growing family, and partly to preserve my chosen career—that’s right, service to Christ became a career to me—I settled down to life in the city. No longer was I willing to meet Christ in the wilderness, so maybe he had to take me out here against my will. Like Abraham, I am called to leave civilization and live in a tent, looking for something beyond this life for my security. Rather than accumulating money, stuff, and respect, Jesus calls me to empty myself of all of it—everything—to prepare myself for eternity with nothing—nothing but him.
Here is the mystery of my life: I have gathered with God’s people week after week, I have even led them in worship literally thousands of times, and yet some deep parts of me have remained virtually untouched by the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying power. Others who know me well (thank God for real church life!) can see my flaws and sins clearly, but I am remain unchanged. In love I have been confronted with myself, and I have failed to see what others have tried to hint to me. And so I am taken here, to the woodshed, to lovingly learn from the hand of my Daddy. He custom fits a cross, just for me.
How many ways can others tell me, “Ken, you are arrogant and unteachable. You are self-centered and lazy. You fear your reputation more than you fear God’s,” and have it not soak in? I am tempted to run and hide, to lapse into self-pity and depression, or to move on to the next church, where it will take some time before people know me so well. It has to hurt, or I will never listen!
And so, goal number one is survival in the wilderness. That is plenty for starters. There I weep and groan in anguish, but I survive. But the ultimate goal, the final goal, is to learn not to become bitter, no matter what happens, but to come to a place of peace and joy in the midst of myself. To learn one ounce of humility through yet another failure starts me down the right path to the place where eventually my spirit becomes stronger than my soul.
“There is always the danger, if you have not grown up your entire Christian life in a moderated nonfanatical experience of church life, that what you are calling your spirit is really nothing more than a distorted soul.
“Time, plus the cross. Plus church life. Plus a lot more time. Then throw in a great deal of personal, firsthand encounters with Christ. Stir. Then some more time, and a lot more of the cross working on your positive nature and your negative nature. Eventually the spirit will gain the upper hand.” (122)
When we really live church life the way that God intended, we are finding that we are the most suffering, most fragile, most dysfunctional Christians I have ever known. No, maybe we are the first Christian I have ever really begun to know, and because of that, I am discovering many layers of struggle and pain. Gene Edwards suggests that we should put a sign in our homes: “Church life may be hazardous to your health.”(147)
But when we know each other well, there is another benefit to our fellowship. That is that the ones who suffer first are able to comfort those who suffer after them. When I have allowed myself to be broken, without bitterness, I can share with those who come after me how God has enabled me to overcome. And I discover that my wilderness experience is not for me alone. I suffer for the whole body. (2 Timothy 2:10) I recognize that virtually every piece of wisdom, every moment of good advice, is born from my own lessons learned during suffering.
“The young Christian college student who walked in here ten years ago to gather with a group of other believers sitting on the floor of a large living room was a Christian capable of hurting others so deeply and being so insensitive in the doing of it. The person who sits here in that same room today is not very quick to cry, very slow to correct, very good at comforting and encouraging others, very poor at passing judgment and finding fault.
“Do you think it was the books he read? Do you think it was the messages he heard? No. It was the chilly nights of the spirit that brought this change.” (160)
Amazingly, the Bible says that Jesus did not complete his sufferings. It is for his contemporary body to continue to fill up what is left. One of us will be ridiculed, another will suffer disease, another rejection, and still another unjust death. But it is assigned to his church to suffer as our Head has suffered. When we ask, “Why?” we will always receive the same answer: silence. And that is part of the suffering, part of the desert. He is making a Bride, spotless and without wrinkle, but I am not that bride alone. We are. So, for the sake of the body, I suffer alone, because, well, I can never know why, but somehow for the sake of the whole church.
A few of us even are given the calling to enter into something even darker. John of the Cross called it the Dark Night of the Soul. It is so deep, you might describe it as the moment when Jesus was forsaken by his Father on the cross. Of course, I will never be a sin bearer, but I might be called to be so alone, so very forsaken, that there is nothing. I will never know why I am so absolutely forsaken in this life. This, too, is a grace from God.
While I might experience such a dark night of rejection from the Father, just as Jesus had that Friday afternoon, I have no guarantee of when I might experience my resurrection. Jesus was three days in the tomb before he was made alive again. Joseph was some years in slavery, even in prison, before he was elevated to a position of power and prestige. Jacob was on the run from his brother for fourteen years before they were reconciled. David spent at least as much time running from Saul before he was established in the palace. I guess I’m saying that I might be crucified on Friday, and it could be years before Sunday morning comes. But I believe that Sunday will come. And as Job says, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.” (Job 19:25-26) I can say with Jesus, “Let this cup pass from me . . . yet not my will but yours be done.” I can agree with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.” (13:15)
And so I stay in the desert, patient for a season, however long it might last, knowing that the Lord himself has led me into this wilderness, has fashioned this cross specifically for me, and that he will use my experience to bless his bride in the end.

2006-07-28T01:59:00.000-05:00

WHY STEP BACK?
"Temporary success in a city has caused many a Christian worker to begin right there to build an empire. Instead he should have built the church of Jesus Christ. Many a Christian worker has raised up a work that perhaps was worthy to be called "church life" or "body life." Once built, problems developed. He fought tooth, tongue, and nail to preserve his work. Why? I wonder. Why fight to preserve it? It will stand if it is Christ. If part of it stands, and that part is really Christ, then having nothing but that little part surviving is far better than a large work that has to be held together by reason, logic, theology, fear, accusation, doctrine, or whatever. In my judgment, the worker might seriously consider stepping back, even out--dying to his work, letting the fire fall on that work, and seeing just how much of it can survive."

Gene Edwards, The Inward Journey, p. 69.

2006-07-24T21:49:00.000-05:00

THE LEGACY OF TOM POWELL

Tom Powell and his family have blessed many of us at cciph for some three years now. What do you suppose will be their greatest legacy? Here are some that strike me; maybe you would like to contribute more:

1. Family life. Having eight children, all with bright eyes and spiritual sensitivity and individual names and personalities. That sets a standard for many of us to realize that, yes, family is important, and it is worth it. Whatever my idealistic standards might have been, the Powells have gone beyond it and stand as a testimony of success in family life. The very fact that the first thing I think of about Tom is his family says volumes about his priorities.
2. Living by faith. They have lived on less than most people make, choose to have no insurance, and seldom go to the doctor, birthed six of their children at home. Somehow, Tom and Kerri have been in agreement, and the Lord has miraculously taken care of them. Now they long for a free church, with all the benefits and disadvantages that a free church implies. Again, whatever level of faith I have pales in comparison, and I realize that I can, with confidence, go further, because I see faith lived out in the Powells.
3. Humility and service. Tom moves easily among and poor and disadvantaged, blows no trumpets, draws no attention to self, and thinks only of service to others. Nothing is beneath his dignity, and no one knows about most of what he does. He avoids the temptation to bring up his sacrifices in casual conversation, for he does not do things out of false humility. He is the real deal, and he calls me higher (lower) in service to others. He served as pastor of this church for two years and was never given, nor did he ever claim, an official title or office. He had the authority handed to him, if he had wanted it, but he never took the mantle of The Man.
4. Spiritual wisdom. Tom really hears from God. He listens to prophets and dreams, he digs for insight in Scripture, and he pays attention to Providential details. When he speaks, he brings out insights that come from having been with God in the secret places. When I need wise counsel, Tom is one of the first people to come to mind, and I listen to Tom because I know that he hears from God.

More personally, I find myself to be losing a man whom I view as a brother or close relative. I feel like I grew up with him, and I think I did grow up with him these last couple of years. My greatest regret in Tom's leaving Cincy is that our children will not continue to grow up together. The Powell home was a safe refuge for Anthony, an island of peace in the midst of the unsafe city, and that leaves a terrible hole in my family and in my heart. I know that we will keep in touch, and I will enjoy watching from a distance as the Lord blesses the Powell family. Godspeed, Tom. I love you.

2006-07-17T21:37:00.000-05:00

BEING A SENDING CHURCH

Daniel and I had the privilege of visiting New Life Community Church this past Sunday. There, the worship leader for that church, Mark Boys, was sent out with much love to move to Chicago. They also prayed for and sent off a young lady from the church who had been there for six years. Pastor Mike said, "We are a sending church."

I related to his words. We have seen more than our share of "sending." And we are preparing to send more, with the Powells and the Richardsons relocating soon.

And I thought of Antioch. Antioch was a first-century "sending church." The Bible tells us that they were the first true Gentile church, a lovely mix of multiple ethnicities and many house churches throughout the city. Non-biblical sources tell us that they especially flourished among the poor and in the worst neighborhoods. They were a very successful network of house churches. And yet they sent away two of their five prophets and teachers, and they were constantly sending people away in that time of transience and persecution. That church served as a model church for churches all through Asia.

The more they "sent," the more the word was spread. And God was glorified, not just in Antioch, but throughout the world. Amen.

2006-07-09T22:41:00.000-05:00

Morpheus' Proposal
This morning, we handed out paper cups, each with a red and a blue jelly bean in it. Here is what I said:

“After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. . . . Remember, all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more. . . . Follow me.”

If you take the red pill, this is what you are saying: "I am taking charge of my own spirituality. I will have real faith that is my own, and I will be Christ's alone."

If you take the red pill, you are saying, "I am committing myself to being vulnerable in true community. I will be part of a real family, bound together by the blood of the Lamb."

If you choose the red pill, you are saying, "I am opening my heart and my home to be a full-time missionary. I will be a real friend to my neighbors, as the Lord leads me."

Or, choose the blue pill, and you can wake up and forget this message as you go back to the Normal Christian Life as a comfortable American. The choice is yours.

I took the red pill. No turning back.

Follow me.

2006-07-04T13:33:00.000-05:00

WHAT DOES THE SPIRIT DO?

The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is guiding the church and each of its members. He makes His will known through checking our movement, giving visions and dreams, interpretations, words of revelation or instruction or prophecy or tongues. Sometimes, the leaders sense what seems good to the Holy Spirit and to them, and they make a decision accordingly.

He also works wonders in our midst, at least on occasion. Jesus left the wilderness in the “power” of the Spirit. The Spirit interprets our prayers according to the Father’s will. The power of the Lord Jesus is (or at least can be, depending on how you read it) among us when we gather.

Jesus said that his disciples need not worry in advance about what to say when they are brought before the authorities, for it would be given to them at the right time just what to say. That advice may or may not be for us today (God is not necessarily dishonored by planning in advance!), but we can see His words fulfilled when Stephen stood before the council in Acts 6:15.

What does the Spirit say? When we are discerning spirits, we can know from Scripture that the Holy Spirit says certain things: Jesus is Lord. Jesus has come in the flesh. Baptized followers of Jesus are God’s children.

There are many spirits. All but one of them is a false spirit, and many of them can disguise themselves as angels of light. So we must always be discerning.

You must have Jesus to have the Spirit. Got Jesus?

2006-07-04T13:32:00.000-05:00

HOW TO WIN AND KEEP A WOMAN.

Let me try an earthly illustration. As a young man, I met this girl named Ellen and thought she was everything I ever wanted in my life. So I bought and read a book called How to Win and Keep a Woman. It said that four times a year I must buy her flowers. Once a week I must take her out on a date. I should call her at least once a day to touch base, and the book provided a rotating list of what to say to make her think that she was important to me. There was a chapter on techniques for romancing her, formulas for determining if she was happy enough, and what to do about it if she wasn’t, and advice on manners and listening techniques. I studied all those things—over one hundred ideas in all—and to this day I strive to follow the advice of the book How to Win and Keep a Woman. Of course, I don’t keep most of those things most days, and I constantly feel guilty because I’m not doing enough. But I try.

You may have guessed that there is no such book, How to Win and Keep a Woman. If I do any of the things that I do, it is so much better if those actions arise out of a heart of love rather than a list of do’s. There is no romance in following a list of rules. But there is joy in loving a woman to death. I am guided by love, not rules, and the actions arise from the relationship. So it is with the Holy Spirit.

2006-07-04T13:28:00.000-05:00

LIVING SPIRITUALLY.

When we live spiritually, we live in constant communication with God’s Spirit, and we are guided by Him, in step with Him, led by Him, and walking in Him. So, the Spirit uses Scripture, but is not limited to Bible study. If we are saturated with Scripture, we have given our spirits a vocabulary with which God can speak to us, and a measure by which to test the spirits. But He also prompts, checks, empowers and speaks to our spirits.

When we live in the flesh, we hear from ourselves, that is, from our flesh, from our bodies, our minds, our wills, our emotions, and yield the fruit of the fleshly life. When our lives are “fleshly,” our lifestyle is marked by striving, frustration, burnout, self-promotion, selfish ambition, shallowness, anxiety about money, and a need to control. We are marked by the fruit described in Galatians 5:13-21, which includes a legalistic spirit, divisiveness, discord, jealousy, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, as well as more obvious sins of immorality.

On the other hand, when our lives are in step with the Spirit, our lives are marked by everyday miracles of Divine providence. We have overwhelming peace and contentment, freshness, a desire to promote the life and ministry of others, humility, depth, trust in God’s adequate provision, and letting go and letting God do His thing. The fruit of our lives is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Which list best describes you? If you are walking in the Spirit, you may even be mistaken for a drunkard at times, because you are no longer concerned about protecting your carefully-honed dignity. Somehow, being filled with the Spirit is a joyous experience of wild abandonment, not just an intellectual exercise or theoretical game!

The central point of both of these passages is this: We cannot be good enough to please God. We don’t have it in us. And there are plenty of ways that we can try to do enough good things, keep enough laws, and outwardly control our behavior through our bodies, our wills, our emotions, or our intellects. But all of them will fail.

On the other hand, when we give up and say yes to the Lord and receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, then we are not “good enough” because of our work. We simply receive grace. And yet when we have the Holy Spirit living in us, guiding as captain of our ship, we find, surprisingly, that we are becoming good!

2006-07-04T13:21:00.000-05:00

CHARISPHOBICS AND CHARISMANIACS

You might say there are two extremes that people fall into when they talk about walking in the Spirit. On the one hand, the Holy Spirit is seen as an almost mechanistic, or purely theoretical, non-experiential being. He secretly regenerates us when we are baptized, and He indwells us, but we cannot feel Him or know Him, except for reading and knowing our Bibles. This is the tradition in which I grew up. It is a reactionary position, trying to avoid the abuses of the charismaniacs. You might call it the charisphobic position. When you read your Bible, you have the Holy Spirit. Period.

A variation of that camp is the mechanistic liturgical camp. The Holy Spirit is the symbol of anointing oil, or a candle, or the Eucharist, or the recited prayer. It is based on the doctrine of objective efficacy, which says that whether or not I have faith, if the right act is done and the right words are said, we can be sure that the Holy Spirit was present and doing His work.

A charisphobic position seems to be safe, because it protects us from abuses of the charismaniacs, but it is ungodly, fleshly and unspiritual. Charisphobics have what Paul described as a form of godliness, but such people deny its power. There may as well not be a Holy Spirit in the daily life of a charisphobic.

On the other side of the spectrum are the charismaniacs. These people have a very subjective, pietistic, and experiential view of things of the Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit is the moment of true regeneration for them, and it may or may not have anything to do with water baptism. The Spirit works through continued revelation, giving the same signs and wonders and wishing to communicate as much today as He did 2000 years ago. Daily He leads in a mysterious, to some, nearly audible voice.

Charismaniacs see it as a satanic attack when their car won’t start. They wake up in the morning and say, “Jesus, do you want me to go to work today, or not?” They listen so much for God’s voice that they are of no earthly good. I had a friend who said he heard audibly from God. One of the things God told him is to sell his car in order to buy a sound system, and then to rent a car in order to get around. After two weeks, he couldn’t afford to return the car, because he didn’t have enough money, so he kept it and prayed for God to supply what He had promised. He bought the sound system to do a concert, and God told him to hold it outdoors. So by faith he obeyed, in spite of the weather report, and all that equipment he had bought got rained on. Now I'll ask you: Do you think that was God’s voice he was hearing?

In my own life, I grew up in the charisphobic tradition, and then my pendulum swung the other way to become something of a charismaniac myself. Having discovered that God still wants to communicate with us today, I tried to obey the Bible and constantly walk in the Spirit, doing nothing in the flesh.

I heard testimonies from people that they were on their way home and heard a prompting to turn left at a particular street and walk up to a house and give the stranger who lived there a large amount of money, and that person had just been praying for God to supply a genuine need in that exact amount. I wanted to be open to moments like that.

There was a time when I was on my way home, and I felt led to pick up a hitchhiker. I took that person home and shared Jesus with him on the way. And though my grandmother had made dinner for us and she had to wait almost an hour with cold and dried out hamburger patties, I excitedly told her about my experience. The next day, I’m driving home and asking, “Which way do I turn at this intersection, Lord? Left, right, straight? I’m waiting on you to tell me. Are you saying left? No, right? Save gas and follow the normal path?”

My epiphany came one morning when I was listening for the Spirit’s voice after showering. I stood in front of the antiperspirants, a spray kind and a stick kind, asking the Lord which one I should use today. The spray, you know, destroys the ozone layer. So maybe use the stick. But if I never use the spray, it will rust and the fluorocarbons will be released anyway. So maybe I should go ahead and finish this can first. What are you saying, Lord? One under each arm? Suddenly the light dawned: God was not in the business of dictating to me what kind of antiperspirant to use. If he were speaking to me, he would say, “Just put something on so you don’t stink and get out there and do My work!”

I was using the Holy Spirit as an excuse for being indecisive, which I have a tendency to be, if you didn’t notice. I think I’m indecisive, anyway. Maybe not so much as some people. Well, in some areas I do okay, but often I am more comfortable having circumstance, or the Voice of God Himself tell me what to do, rather than make a decision that could be wrong.

I am convinced that the Spirit works today in some mysterious, indefinable, but experiential way today, but finding a balance has been a challenge for me.

2006-07-04T13:19:00.000-05:00

LIVING INSIDE OUT

There are two ways to live life, and if we want to please God, we can try either path.

The first, and most common, is OUTSIDE IN. By controlling the outer shell of our lives we think that we can control our behavior. Eventually, we hope that by controlling our outward behavior, it will soak into our spirits. We know this method well: it’s how we were raised, right? We started with laws and fences and outward controls. That’s how God started with humans, too. He gave us the Law.

But no one can ever really control himself or herself so well on the outside that it ever really soaks in deep enough to please God and take us to perfection. A religious spirit tells us that it is possible to be good enough, and we often fall into a legalistic pattern of trying to please God in the flesh, but the Bible tells us over and over that it simply can’t be done. A Religious Spirit cannot please God. While an outward focus can create some pockets of morality, and virtually every religion in the world follows an outside in focus, it will do you no good eternally.

The second way of living is INSIDE OUT, and it is the way that is taught over and over in the New Testament. When the Holy Spirit lives inside me, and I simply listen to his voice and obey him, he leads me into right doctrine, right living, and right attitudes. I let go of trying to change my outward behavior—if I could just quit that addictive habit, or I am going to start “acting” (notice that word) nicer to people, or I’m going to be more disciplined in some area of my life. Instead, I relax, I listen, I join in on the Sabbath rest, I say yes to Jesus, and I live in peace.

Looking at someone on the outside, you can’t immediately tell whether they are living outside in or inside out lives. Either way, they might say “No” to that second cookie, or read their Bibles and spend two hours in prayer. Sometimes, we can’t even tell ourselves whether it was the Holy Spirit or our sense of guilt and compulsion that made us do or not do something. But over the long haul, outside in living yields certain fruits, and none of them are good. And over the long haul, inside out living yields a beautiful harvest of traits, and all of them are good.

2006-07-04T13:14:00.000-05:00

WHAT IF . . .

Let’s play What if for a minute: If the Lord were to remove His Holy Spirit from the church, I wonder how long it would be before anyone noticed? This is totally hypothetical, because we have the promise that God would not do so, but if the Spirit were removed, what would be different?

I’d like to think that it would go like this for me: In my planning, I would be very distressed; the song list would not be coming together, I’d feel out of sorts, abandoned and empty; that I’d have no idea how to proceed. I could create a song list that “works,” in that the keys, the themes and the tempos all work together, but something wasn’t right about it. Then, I’d like to think that I would arrive for practice with the worship team, and say, “I don’t know what’s wrong; I have heard nothing from the Lord. I need your help.” I’d like to think that they would get on their knees and pray, desperate to know what was wrong; and finding no solution, that we would all come before the congregation empty, and have no music. I’d like to imagine that you in turn would be out of sorts, hopeless and powerless and surprised that we just hadn’t “gotten through” with our prayers and their other acts of worship. We need the Holy Spirit to worship acceptably.

What I fear, though, is that all would go on as usual in most of our churches. The songs would be chosen based on how they fit the theme and how well they flowed together musically. The musicians would rehearse and learn their music just like normal. The congregation would experience the same thing they always experience—a fine, well-organized service with a good teaching from the Bible, and comfortable routines. Sunday morning and all’s well. Worship planning, worship leading, and worship in the flesh.

Of course, my hypothetical illustration so far only pertains to our worship assemblies. But it should apply to all of life.

What a terrible, condemning thought, that we would not even notice if the Spirit were missing! Or that we have a hard time in this hypothetical example even imagining what we, in fact, rely on the Spirit to do! May we repent of doing in the flesh what should only be done in the Spirit. So, let’s explore what it means and doesn’t mean to walk in the Spirit, rather than walking in the flesh.

2006-06-30T08:53:00.000-05:00

THE TEST.

Paul said that every man's work will be tested by fire. Every man's work. Sometimes that testing is a time of falling away and discouragement, as when church attendance sags and people start to become critical and worn out. Sometimes the testing comes from outside persecution, and a man's work becomes scattered and some fall away. Sometimes testing is a new wind of doctrine that causes followers of Christ to waver in their faith, being blown back and forth in the wind, or it is a false teacher or immoral leader within the flock. But every man's work will be tested. What will be left after the test?

Moses experienced a testing in the wilderness at Meriba. Moses' sister had just died, and on top of his grief, Moses heard the people complaining (again) about having no water to drink. His first reaction was right: he fell on his face before the Lord and asked what to do. God told him to speak to the rock and water would come out.

But Moses was human, and all those months of complaint and tension and stress were getting to him. When he gathered around the rock with all the people, he did more than just speak to the rock. He yelled at them, and said that he (notice who) would have to bring them water from the rock, and then he struck the rock with the rod of God--twice. Sure enough, the water came out (it worked), and the people all drank and stopped complaining (for the moment).

But Moses did wrong. He did not show God to be holy in front of the people. He performed the "miracle" himself. He claimed the power and did the act, rather than letting God do all the work.

Moses' work was tested by fire, and this time, Moses did not pass the test. As a result, he was not able to enter into the Promised Land with the people. The people made it over Jordan, but not Moses.

Every new church plant will grow up into a mature church, which will be the bride of Christ. What kind of materials are used to build that church will determine how the church makes it through the fire. And the reaction of the leaders when the fire comes will determine what kind of reward they will receive when the test is done.

I believe that the first great test of fire for cciph was two years ago when we lost key people and there was a change in leadership. Now we are going through a second test. Falling on our faces before God is the first correct response. What will be next? Will we be tested by fire and find that we built with the best materials? Will we react in such a way that we let the Lord show himself to be holy?

2006-06-28T22:24:00.000-05:00

AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY.

I am tired of American Christianity, as lived out in the vast majority of churches. I think that after multiple generations of competitive churches, looking to be the most seeker-friendly, we have created a watered-down version of discipleship that is but a shadow of what God wants. And church services cater to that kind of “Normal” Christian life in America.

The cynical side of me sees that most American Christians want to come (if they want to come at all) for no more than 70 minutes of time for what is called worship. In that amount of time, they want to have a short set of great, uplifting music, a practical, encouraging message, pray a little, have a sense of personal spiritual growth, have the feeling that all is well in the church and that people are coming to Christ, and then they want to go home. Once a week, they want to be involved in a significant program, in the sense that they want to feel like they are making as much difference as possible in as short a time as possible. They might spend only an hour doing that program, but they touch maybe 50 or 100 peoples’ lives in that hour. And so with a clear conscience they can mentally “count” those 50 or 100 people as the ones they have a ministry with. Then they can go home and live their lives watching TV, managing their personal things, and generally living in the flesh, and they genuinely feel that they are in good standing with the Lord’s work.

If on Sundays they had to come prepared by, say, interceding for two hours, and they were expected to bring a song or a word for the body, if they were made uncomfortable to go across the room and discuss a difficult topic or lay hands on someone or in other ways minister to people, most American Christians (notice it is unique to American culture) would choose to go elsewhere. In short, they want to not to have to “work” at their worship.

And while a program that touches dozens of lives in an hour is certainly significant, and there are many worthwhile programs to do, it would be unfair to say that a believer is actually “discipling” 100 other people. To really do life together with other people, as Jesus did with his disciples, requires getting messy, and most of us simply don’t have the time for it.

To put it another way, American Christians feel good about their mission involvement if they tithe to the local church (which has a strong missions program), and if they give $32 a month to Compassion. They even put the picture of their sponsored child on their refrigerator and genuinely pray a little for that child from time to time. Those who are really radically committed to missions use their vacations to go on short-term missions trips, where they help to run a VBS or to build a church building, orphanage or house. And, again, with that much commitment, we can go on with our lives with a clear conscience, knowing that we are well above average in our commitment to mission.

What I am talking about, however, is everyone in a church becoming a missionary. Full time, immersing yourself into the culture and the neighbors and the needs around you. Being missional in every interaction and sacrificially committed to the neighborhood you live in. Purposely living well beneath your means, choosing to live in a needy neighborhood and to invest your life in those persons of peace who come around on a daily basis. And more.

I’m tired of the “Normal Christian Life” as we have come to know it in the United States, and I long for something radically different. Will anyone join me in that quest? So far, a few have. Several have come for a time and then have given up to go back to their NCL bubbles. That’s okay. The Suburban American Christian Life isn’t sinful. But it’s not what I long for. What I’m talking about is messy. It is not a neat and tidy outreach program, where I sweep in and bless some lives and go back to my home. There is no going back. There is only immersion.

2006-06-27T07:57:00.000-05:00

THE LORD'S ANOINTED ONE.
Moses is considered to be a great leader of Israel, and yet in his generation Moses seemed to be almost constantly opposed. After all, Moses led the people out of Egypt and into a wilderness, and tried to bring them into the land of Canaan. This was new and hostile territory for all of them, and they had no Bible or Commandments already established. There had to be a tremendous amount of trust in Moses.

The Bible describes Moses as the humblest man of his generation. Just a couple of chapters earlier, he had established 70 leaders who all received some of the spirit that was on him, and they all prophesied. Moses declared that he would like it if all of Israel were to prophesy. He was willing and even anxious to share leadership.

But in Numbers 16 Korah incites a rebellion with 250 other leaders, "all members of the assembly." They claim that Moses and Aaron have gone too far! They say, "Everyone in Israel has been set apart by the Lord, and he is with all of us. What right do you have to act as though you are greater than anyone else among all these people of the Lord?"

Moses' response is to throw himself down on the ground, and to invite everyone to come into the Lord's Presence the next day, each with a bowl of incense. He allowed God to be the one to determine who His anointed one(s) would be.

Of course, God clearly chose Moses and Aaron, and he destroyed Korah and all the others, then sent a plague among the Israelites who had sided with Korah.

Lessons for me: Never touch the Lord's anointed. Ever. And never claim to be His anointed without God's own confirmation.

2006-06-26T23:48:00.000-05:00

RECASTING THE VISION

The elders had an encouraging discussion last Friday. We are in this season of prayer, asking the Lord for what happens next when the Powells leave. So we asked, "What has God showed you so far?" Most of us have prayed long enough to see the problem a bit, but as we discussed the bits of impressions we have about our roles in the solution, we found ourselves revisiting old ground.

When a bell cracks, it cannot be repaired and still keep its tone. It must be melted down and re-cast. The same mold is used, and the same metal is used, but when the bell is recast, it becomes new again, just like the old one. That is a fresh vision that we seem to be rediscovering.

So, we may have some new wrinkles. We may even go in some radically new directions. But we seem to all have the strong impression that our foundational principles were right, and we want to revisit them again.

"Thank You, Lord, that You do not abandon us in our weakness. We ask You to re-ignite our flame, to re-energize our souls, to renew our walk with You, and to refresh us in our weariness. We trust You to do this, because we know it to be Your will in Jesus Christ. Amen."

2006-06-23T08:42:00.000-05:00

IS GOD ABLE?

God sent representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel into the land of Canaan to discover two things: What kind of land is it? and What kind of warriors live there?

What did God want them to come back and say? I'm sure it is just what Caleb said: The land is beautiful (especially in contrast with this wilderness), and the people are huge but we can conquer them if God is with us.

Of course, what ten of the scouts said was, "The land is beautiful, but we can't possibly conquer those people. They are huge and scary."

Seeing a humanly impossible situation should strengthen faith and resolve. But of course, the people all follow the report of the ten. They even plot to stone Moses and Joshua and choose a new "leader" who will take them back to Egypt.

God is leading us through a desert wilderness right now. If we send scouts to pray and search out Price Hill, with what kind of report would they return? Would it be a negative report, like, "This community has great potential, but the crime element is too strong"? Or would those scouts see through Caleb's eyes: "There is much darkness, but if God calls us here, He will overcome the darkness. Let's move forward!"

2006-06-22T22:14:00.000-05:00

THE GOD WHO SPEAKS.

While we are in the prayer room, or in other ways spending extended time in earnest prayer, what is God saying to us?

How does God speak to me?

In Numbers 12, God says that even to his prophets he speaks in riddles, such as visions and dreams. God sometimes gives me dreams, and I have a sanctified imagination, I suppose, so I can relate to the OT prophets.

But with Moses He would speak face to face, as with a friend. Even so, Moses was deeply affected and afraid when he saw something of God. I'm not so sure what to make of this for my life.

Of course, God speaks today through His Word, which is largely contained in the Bible. That is a non-experiential source of communication, you might say, but those words can be trusted as from God, and they provide a great way for me to know the kind of things God might say, if He were to speak to me face to face, as with a friend.

In these last days (which have lasted 2000 years now), God has spoken to us through His Son. "We" beheld his glory, our eyes saw him, our hands touched him, and He became one of us--Emmanuel. That's powerful. What's more, Jesus rose from death and lives today. But that is only of theoretical help to me, because I have no promise that Jesus talks to me today.

However, Jesus promised his disciples that he would send another counselor, the Holy Spirit. Now we're getting somewhere.

This is a tricky subject, because it is so personal and subjective. There are plenty of people out there who are deranged but claim that God spoke to them. But just because there are false spirits doesn't mean that I should reject every spirit. Rather, I am told to discern the spirits to see if they are from God. If it is the Spirit of God, then I am to listen and obey.

If that Spirit indwells me, if I walk in step with the Spirit, if I am filled with the Spirit, if I do not despise prophecies and do not forbid speaking in tongues, if I do not quench or grieve the Spirit, and if I heed the Spirit, I believe that, on a very experiential level, I can hear God's voice and respond to His direct communication.

While we are in the prayer room, or in other ways spending extended time in earnest prayer, what is God saying to us? I want to invite anyone to comment or to send a blog.

What have you heard from God in the last week or two?

2006-06-20T23:41:00.000-05:00

UNHOLY COMPLAINERS.

They are in every church. People who are kind of on the outside edge of the body who find things to complain about. They were in Israel during the Exodus, too. For some reason that encourages me.

In this case (Numbers 11), they complain about their hardships, and God destroys several of them with fire at Taberah. Then "the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began" to complain. (Notice how the people on the outer edge influence the central people.) Their complaint was that they "only" had manna to eat every day. Never mind that this was a daily miracle that God performed for them, that it tasted good and was flexible for making several kinds of dishes (bamanna bread, manna burgers, manna waffles, etc.). They pined for the variety of Egypt--where they had been slaves, for crying out loud!

Before I click my tongue in disbelief at their ungrateful response, I suppose I should do some inventory. When God provides miraculously day after day, do I begin to despise the apparent smallness of it all? Do I crave what I used to have when I lived in the world? "At least I was happy and had a clear conscience back then." Oh, no. It was awful! It was slavery! This is miraculous!

So God sends them quail. Lots of quail. And they get sick and puke the quail out their nostrils (that's what it says), and some of them die, and the rest are so sick they wish they would die, too.

So maybe the Bible isn't exciting enough. Maybe the straight life is too restrictive. Maybe prayer is too dull and takes too much work. Maybe. But if so, I have learned nothing from history.

2006-06-20T23:28:00.000-05:00

EVERYONE PROPHESIES.
Moses is leading the people of Israel through the wilderness, and the people are mostly complaining and suing one another. Not exactly a picnic. In exhaustion and frustration, Moses says to the Lord, "What did I do to deserve the burden of a people like this? . . . I can't carry all these people by myself! The load is far too heavy!"

God's answer is to set His Spirit upon 70 of the leaders of Israel. And these men all prophesied.

Was Moses threatened by these men and their inspired messages? Did he feel the power seeping through his fingers as he lost control of his leadership position? Was he afraid that he would not be needed anymore? No, Moses was the most humble man of his generation. He said, "Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them all."

One of our weaknesses as a church is that we don't have a single prophet to lead, teach and motivate us. But that perceived weakness is by design, to become our greatest strength. Our long-term goal is for "all the Lord's people" to become prophets. (Or, as Paul says it, "two or three prophets should speak, and the rest of you should weigh carefully what is being said.")

Oh, that puts a different kind of pressure on folks who attend on Sundays, doesn't it? All of us share the responsbility to have heard from the Lord during the week. And when we do, then our assemblies are filled with supernatural power of the presence of God. When we don't hear from the Lord during the week, our assemblies are dull, lacking in direction, and ineffective.

I don't want to give up the dream. I want to be totally dependent on God to "show up" on Sundays.

How do we do this? As I pray, some ideas begin to form in my spirit.

2006-06-18T22:51:00.000-05:00

HOME-BASED HOSPITALITY MINISTRY. Some years ago, the Read family decided on a mission statement. The center of that statement was that our priority is home-based hospitality ministry. There are so many worthwhile programs to throw myself into, that I often revisit my ministry philosophy. Is home-based hospitality ministry the most effective?

Most weeks, I can FEEL like I am being much more effective when I touch 100 other lives for one hour a week, rather than gambling to pour all of me into my wife and children and those to whom we can minister as a family. We seem to say no to so many good broad ministries by this choice, and our church has lost many good families because they are looking for "a church that's more outreach oriented," meaning more programs.

How many lives might we have touched had we worked at summer camps every summer for the last 25 years, for example? But then it occurred to me today: both Daniel and Cora are working full-time all summer this year, and Becky has done that for two summers, as well. Becky will be a dorm mom for Solid Rock, and works at handi-camp often. Katie has worked as a swimming instructor to special needs children for three years. Add all that involvement up, and in the last five years, Ellen and I have had more impact in camps than we would have had over the last twenty.

I think of what Jesus said about his disciples doing "greater works" than He did Himself. There may be other layers to His meaning, but maybe it's at least partly because our Lord poured Himself into eleven lives, and now there were eleven men, not just one, to do the work. We have invested ourselves primarily in our children and their contacts, and I feel affirmed here on Father's Day that we made the right choice. Light touches of the masses pale in comparison to deep life change in a few.

So, what's next for Ellen and me? We could jump into pastoral work, or we could volunteer to create or do outreach programs, but this is not the season for us to work too much outside of the home. If you see the kind of traffic we have in and out of our home, you will realize that we have our hands more than full already.

So, we will stay the course. I will focus on being home as much as reasonable, focus on disciplining the younger boys, and reach out to their friends. The time has come for a Sunday baseball league; perhaps the time has also come for another Backyard Bible Club. This summer I would like to host a men's camping retreat. But that's about it. And I will have to trust that in the end, when we look back on a lifetime of service for Christ, we will be satisfied that we have made the right choices.

2006-06-15T11:46:00.000-05:00

LIFECHANGE EVANGELISM
How do we evangelize? Some churches send out teams, or go door to door. Some have big events to draw a crowd and then preach the Gospel to those who come. Some train counselors and have altar calls.

I notice how Jesus did things. He meets a man possessed by several demons. No one can control this man, not even with chains; he is out of control. After he meets Jesus and Jesus addresses his central problem (which is always spiritual), he is self-controlled. Jesus tells the man to go back to his family and tell them what God has done. The next time Jesus comes to that region, crowds flock to meet Him. The man was a powerful evangelist because his life was powerfully changed.

Next, Jesus is sleeping in the boat on the lake, and other boats are out there, too. A furious storm arises, Jesus speaks to the wind a waves, and all is calm. The disciples are amazed because Jesus has power over the forces of nature. (All authority in heaven and earth includes the wind and the waves.)

Next, Jesus meets a man whose daughter is on the verge of death. All hope seems to be lost when word comes that the little girl is dead, but Jesus goes anyway, and when He speaks to her she gets up! Then he tells the parents not to speak about it. Of course, they don't follow that advice very well!

I realize that when I see Jesus in power, and when my life is changed by that power, then I don't have to be an eloquent speaker, or a trained counselor, or an organized administrator. My life itself becomes my most powerful witnessing tool.

If Jesus makes no change in me, it doesn't matter what manipulative or guilt-driven techniques I use to convert others; no one wants what I have to give. On the other hand, if Jesus radically and miraculously changes me, others will ask what makes the difference; and all I need to say is, "Let me be clear: Jesus made the difference!" Amen.

2006-06-13T22:41:00.000-05:00

PRAISE AND INTERCESSION

Psalm 89 is one of those psalms that covers the whole gamut of faith and emotion. Maybe it captures the essence of praise and intercession better than any modern prayer.

Ethan the Ezrahite writes it, and he opens with exhuberant, faith-filled praise.
5 The heavens praise your wonders, O LORD,
your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.

Then he rehearses the unbreakable covenant relationship that God had with David.
35 Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness—
and I will not lie to David-
36 that his line will continue forever
and his throne endure before me like the sun;
37 it will be established forever like the moon,
the faithful witness in the sky."
Selah

Suddenly he shifts mood to cry out to God that the blessed promises to Israel are not coming true.
38 But you have rejected, you have spurned,
you have been very angry with your anointed one. . . .
46 How long, O LORD ? Will you hide yourself forever?
How long will your wrath burn like fire? . . .
49 O Lord, where is your former great love,
which in your faithfulness you swore to David?

Finally, he returns to praise.
52 Praise be to the LORD forever!
Amen and Amen.

How like Ethan I am! One second I am speaking God's praise, and in the next I don't believe a thing He says. A psalm like this one gives me permission to be human when I talk to God. Because reality tells me that life is a mix of good and bad, faith and doubt, yes and no, the present imperfect and the future perfect. I can just relax and say what's on my heart, as Ethan did.

"Thank You, LORD, that You accept me and my prayers just as we are, good, bad and ugly. I praise You and I doubt You, and You can sort through it all by the Holy Spirit's interpretations. Jesus, as Son of Man, maybe You even had those moments in the Garden. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Amen."

2006-06-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

TOO DANGEROUS?

Have you ever wondered?

Perhaps this neighborhood is beyond redemption.
Perhaps the building too expensive.
Perhaps it has become too dangerous to be in that building.
Perhaps it takes too much work.
Perhaps this is a group of people that just can't work together.
Perhaps Jesus would tell his disciples to shake the dust from their shoes and leave.
Perhaps Jesus would have not been able to do many miracles here because of the unbelief.
Perhaps fear is stronger than love, darkness and stronger than light, and Satan will win in the end.
Perhaps.
But I don't think so.
I think that where there is an unsafe place, there are unsaved people.
I think that the building is a gift from God, and He wants to provide.
I think that perfect love casts out fear, light overcomes darkness, and Jesus will win in the end.
What do you think?

2006-06-10T13:18:00.000-05:00

MARKS OF THE SPIRIT

How do I know whether the Holy Spirit is leading me? Are there any marks by which I know whether it is just "me" living my life in the flesh, or it is "God" living His life through me? Yes, there are some clear indicators.

In the prayer room, one of the areas is filled with symbols of the Holy Spirit. Fruit, Scripture written on cards, a comfortable seat, a comforter, and five pillows with these words or symbols: Faith, Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. That is fruit that comes into my life when it is guided by the Holy Spirit.

There are different spirits that can influence my life. If I am listening to and following the leading of the wrong ones, my life becomes marked by doubt or presumption, by discouragement and despair, by selfishness and anger, by moodiness and depression, and by criticalness and argumentation. I might maintain a public image, but my inner life becomes less and less . . . what's the word? Holy.

I guess that's why He's called the Holy Spirit.

2006-06-09T01:01:00.000-05:00

JESUS WRITES US A LETTER

The prayer time on Thursday afternoon was wonderful. During that time, I was reminded that the Lord had impressed upon me that, of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, CCiPH was the sixth church, Philadelphia. Here is His word to them:

"To the angel of the church in Philadelphia, write:
This is the message from the one who is holy and true.
He is the one who has the key of David.
He opens doors, and no one can shut them,
He shuts doors, and no one can open them.

"I know all the things you do,
and I have opened a door for you that no one can shut.
You have little strength,
yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me.
Look! I will force those who belong to Satan--
those liars who say they are Jews but are not--
to come and bow down at your feet.
They will acknowledge that you are the ones I love.

"Because you have obeyed my command to persevere,
I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world
to test those who belong to this world.
Look, I am coming quickly.
Hold on to what you have,
so that no one will take away your crown.
All who are victorious will become pillars in the Temple of my God,
and they will never have to leave it.
And I will write my God's name on them,
and they will be citizens in the city of my God--
the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven from my God.
And they will have my new name inscribed upon them.

Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit
and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches." (Rev. 3:7-13)

Some of these words take on even more import to me now.

2006-06-08T08:25:00.000-05:00

WHAT TIME IS IT?

"There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to rebuild.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to lose.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak up.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace." (Eccl. 3:1-8)

With the Powells being called to west central Ohio, what is the "time" for cciph? What "time" is it for me? These are the questions we bring before the Lord in prayer in the coming weeks. What kind of season will this next one be?

I am tempted to start through the list and highlight some of those words, but feel checked in my spirit to do so until I have spent time spreading this passage out before the Lord in concentrated prayer. I want Him to be the one to impress on me what season it is for my life, not my own emotions or plans or logic.

"LORD, where from here? What time is it? Teach me to number my days, that I may apply myself to a heart of wisdom. Do so with Fatherly grace, through the sacrifice of the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

2006-06-07T00:11:00.000-05:00

SATANIC ATTACK

"His tail dragged down one third of the stars, which he threw to the earth. He stood before the woman as she was about to give birth to her child, ready to devour the baby as soon as it was born. . . . And when the dragon realized that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the child. . . . Then the dragon tried to drown the woman . . . Then the dragon became angry at the woman, and he declard war against the rest of her children--all who keep God's commandments and confess that they belong to Jesus." (Rev. 12:4-17)

Satan sought to destroy Jesus. When he failed, he went after Israel, and after any followers of Jesus. This is not just a metaphor or a nice story; it is warfare. Satan's forces are vanquished at the shout of praise, and so the enemy of our souls will do anything he can to stop true praise, and especially to hear that Wonderful Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When CCiPH started, three notable women were powerful intercessors. They had a dream of establishing a prayer room, which would become a house of prayer. But shortly after it was started, Jodi's husband moved to Waynesfield, Bethany's husband died, and Pam's neck was broken. The prayer room has largely been unused. Coincidence?

What's more, I know Tom Powell to be a man of prayer, and now he is called to go to the same area as Jodi and Jay. Who will step up to take his place as an intercessor and a worshiper when he is gone?

Arise! Let us rebuild the tabernacle of David in our generation! Let us march into war, armed with the testimony of our Lord Jesus.

2006-06-06T09:26:00.000-05:00

WHAT DO WE DO WITHOUT THE POWELLS?

We have often used Acts 13:1-5 as a model for ministry. There, we find five of the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch worshiping the Lord and fasting. That's when the Holy Spirit told them to dedicate Barnabas and Saul for the work to which He had called them. Two of the five were called away! Notice what the Spirit called them to do--NOT to confirm the calling, but to dedicate them. Barnabas and Saul had heard the calling, but the task of the other three was to further fast and pray, and then to lay hands on them and send them on their way. This is what our leadership team is being called to do now.

Tom and his family have clearly heard a call from the Lord to move back to Tom's hometown and start a church there. It has been confirmed by virtually all members of the family. So, what now, for those of us who are left? Perhaps more of us are being called away, as well. Ben and Cindy Mathis have found a church near their house, where they and their extended family feel called. There will probably be others, as well.

The church began in the city of Jerusalem, and within a year or two (the first seven chapters of Acts), there were thousands of believers in that city. Then came chapter 8:1 "A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem, and all the believers except the apostles fled into Judea and Samaria." Imagine how the church staff must have felt about this. We have twenty-thousand people one Sunday, and the next week there are only forty. Life as we now know it is coming to an end. The church of Jerusalem is dead.

But read verse 4: "But the believers who had fled Jerusalem went everywhere preaching the Good News about Jesus." The church multiplied all over the known world, not because of human plans, but because God is sovereign over even persecution. Had it not been for that wave of persecution, who knows how history (and my own salvation) might have been affected?

"LORD, this is a crisis and an opportunity for us. I come to you with earnestness, seeking your face anew, wanting to hear from You. I will watch. I will pray. I will listen. I will stay. Let me speak. Let me learn. I repent. I return. Amen."

2006-06-06T09:23:00.000-05:00

2006-06-05T21:22:00.000-05:00

PRAY UNTIL

God did amazing things in the early church. But prayer is the prelude to all that God was doing. They had been together for ten days, praying, when the Day of Pentecost changed everything. And in those wonderful first days in Jerusalem, when miracles were taking place and they were devoting themselves to so much, in the midst of the description is this detail: "all the believers met together constantly . . . They worshiped togehter at the Temple each day . . . and each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved." Meeting together for worship and prayer was a key ingredient to daily conversions. I think I am beginning to see a glimpse of why that is true. Prayer changes things. Starting with the one who prays.

Here's what God has been showing me in the last week: If I pray for a time, God reveals the core of a problem to me. I am tempted to stop at that point, and to try to fix things myself. But I must continue to pray until God shows me my role in the solution to the problem. It is not enough for me to merely realize there is a problem if I have not heard from God what I am to do about it.

When I advocate remaining in prayer, I don't mean that if I pray for an hour I see the problem, and if I stay for two hours I see the solution. What I mean is that sometimes I see a situation from God's perspective, but it might be months or years before He tells me that I am to be a part of the solution. I mean that in having a few token minutes of prayer, many churches are still full of opinions and infighting, but in the early church, they prayed with "one voice" (Acts 4:24), fully submitted to God's sovereignty, even in the toughest of circumstances, and God answered powerfully.

What do I do until God tells me to move? I pray. Should I tell someone else about what I think? No. I pray. What if God reveals someone's secret sin to me? If the Lord hasn't also revealed to me what my role is in restoring that person, all I do is pray. If I think I have seen what God sees about some other country, do I immediately send postcards or money or buy a plane ticket or call my congressman? No. I pray. And I wait until He tells me whether I am to be a player in the solution.

This is the secret life of the true intercessor. All true intercessors know what I am talking about, because they live it every day. They have dreams and revelations often, they weep and cry out to God, and then they keep silent and keep the unity until God sends them. An intercessor intercedes. And prayer is much harder than action. You can pray in the flesh, at least for short seasons. But spending much time in fasting and prayer turning our eyes upon Jesus will tend to make the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

I think there is a promise here. Unity is a mark of a praying church, just as surely as love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is peace.

"LORD, teach me to pray. No more tokens or polite nods in the direction of prayer, but in true, sacrificial intercession. Show me things in the secret places, and then tell me when it is time to shout them from the housetops. I ask you in the name of the One who taught us to pray. Amen."

2006-06-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

PRAYER AND BROKENNESS

What is the key to experiencing revival? What is the key to finding your mission? What is the key to avoiding burnout? What is the key to extravagant worship? What is the key to effective evangelism? What is the key to changing this church to be all that God intends us to be?

Prayer. and brokenness.

I think it is time to regroup and to re-invent what this church is all about. Paul says that every man's work will be tested by fire--every man's work. That includes ours. How is ours being tested? By apathy, discontent, confusion, weariness and lack of direction. We are all tempted to bail at such times. This is a testing by fire.

I am convinced that we have done some things wisely and well, and that we have not done others so well. We are relational, flexible, open and many other good things. But we are proud, self-congratulating, full of excuses, selfish and tired. Moreover, I am arrogant in my unteachable visionary-ness. And in an effort to keep everyone together who names the name of Christ, we have opened the door so far that some who do not consider Christ to be divine have influenced us. Love and unity are essential, but so is correct doctrine, and Jesus is where we must draw the line.

What is the answer? Fasting and prayer. Focused, extended worship. Bathing every gathering in prayer. Bathing the neighborhood in prayer. Should we make our building a place where round-the-clock prayer takes place? That was an early vision. No matter what, it is time to get on our knees and become desperate for God.

"LORD, if You do not go with us, we will not leave this place. Take us with You, and we in turn will take You with us. In the name of Jesus. Amen."

2006-05-28T16:15:00.000-05:00

BEING MISSIONAL
Why are we here? I mean, why is the body of cciph in this building and in Price Hill? But more importantly and personally, I mean, why are you here, and why am I here? Why this neighborhood? Why this planet? Why this time in history? Why the circumstances of your life right now?

There are as many “right” answers as there are people. But I suspect most of us have not found the “right” personal answer. As a collective body, can we agree on one overriding, powerful, consuming mission that gives us all direction and drive and purpose?

I don’t’ suppose there has been a week in the last three years that I have reflected on and wrestled with this question, in various ways. But I still don’t have a snappy, definitive answer, boiled down into a slogan or formula.

We are here to glorify God, and worship is our highest priority. We are here to be light in a dark place, and prayer is our highest priority. We are here to be faithful to the point of death, and teaching is our highest priority. We are here to love one another, and relationships are our highest priority. We are here to rescue people from hell, and evangelism is our highest priority. Which one is most correct? All of the above, and much more?

I’m not sure that the early church had a snappy slogan to rally themselves. They just had Jesus, and He radically changed their lives and gave them purpose and meaning. They didn’t need slogans, logos, programs or teams. Can we accomplish that same single-minded purpose and calling? We must.

2006-05-28T16:13:00.000-05:00

NOTHING IS UNCLEAN

In Leviticus 11, God spent much time telling the sons of Aaron what animals are unclean. The clean animals the Israelites were free to eat, but unclean ones are not to be touched (at least by the Levites) or eaten. In fact, an unclean animal that dies on something holy makes the holy thing unclean, at least for a time. Unclean was a powerful concept.

Then comes the passage in Acts 10, when Peter is given a vision. The end of the vision is this statement from God: “Do not call anything unclean that I have made clean.” The immediate context God made clear: Peter may enter the home of Cornelius, and the Gentiles may receive the Gospel. Extended out, God made it clear that they did not have to become circumcised, ever, to be God’s people.

I was thinking, “What is the difference between everything that was formerly unclean being clean now, and everything formerly clean being unclean now?” In other words, everything now is holy, everything is clean, rather than nothing being holy, there being no sacred, nothing being clean.

Because everyone is clean, there is no distinction at all among people—Jews, Gentiles, Arabs, terrorists, people with AIDS, slave owners, outcasts, slaves, the educated, the homeless—all are now clean! That doesn’t mean that all are saved, and it doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as “clean” anymore, in the sense that there is no consecration or dedication to the Lord. But what it means is that anyone can receive the Gospel, and no one is left out.

“LORD, I thank You that while I was unclean, lost in sin and selfishness, You did not regard me to be unclean and unworthy of Your speaking to me. Jesus is the one who went outside the camp, the one who became sin for me, so that I could be washed, I could be purified, I could be cleansed of all guilt. You spoke, and when You spoke, You called me, and when You called me, I answered, I awoke, the chains fell off, and You washed me, You purified me, You made me holy, set apart for You. Hallelujah! Amen!”

2006-05-10T00:23:00.000-05:00

A DEEP-SEATED SENSE OF FAILURE

I had a long and uncomfortable dream the other night. In my dream, first I was confronted for failing as a husband and father. Someone else told me that I was a disorganized and uncaring teacher. Then someone else accused me of starting our church without proper reliance on the Lord. And further, that we were not following up to find out why people were leaving. The next day, someone who had visited on a Sunday a few weeks ago said that we should have followed up to invite them back. It felt to me like my dream was continuing, only this time I was awake.

Apparently, I am haunted these days by a deep-seated sense of failure. Coming off of a time of sabbatical, I knew that this semester would be a busy one, but here at the end of it, I find myself losing on every front. I am not home enough, because I'm doing too many things at school. Yet, I am not doing enough at school. And in the midst of running too fast and too long, I hardly do anything with the church. It's not that I'm a slacker, I don't think, but that I am over-committed to too many things at once. And there is no easy end in sight, I'm afraid.

I know where my priorities should lie. I need to be home. But part of my duty as husband and father is to be diligent in providing for the family, and that involves being responsible at work. When I try to be responsible in both areas, I neglect others, like my extended family and my church.

I learned some time ago that a workaholic is not a super-diligent person, as I used to think. To be called a workaholic was almost a compliment to me, like saying I am so responsible and disciplined that I have gone above and beyond the call, and am somehow worthy because of it. No, a workaholic is not a SUPER-diligent person, but a SELECTIVELY-diligent person. I am responsible when I am at school 60 hours a week, but that means I'm not somewhere else during those hours. When I select being diligent as a musician, I select being irresponsible as a homeowner. When I am generous with someone, it means I have nothing for someone else.

And so, I am a failure. A failure in not being more than one place at a time. A failure at not fulfilling all of my implied promises. A failure at saying no at the right time. A failure at not saying yes at the right time. I stop living with a thankful heart and start living with a guilt-ridden heart. Or maybe that's how I got out of balance in the first place.

I think that more than once the apostle Paul reached this point. He felt like a failure, despaired even of life itself, begged the Lord to remove a thorn from his flesh. Yet his answer was that God is made perfect in his weakness. So tonight, like Paul, I will rejoice in my weaknesses, boast of my faults, confess my sins, and live with nothing in my hand. And when I do, strangely I find God, faithfully, gently rebuilding me from the inside out. For when I recognize that I have failed, that is the first step to letting Jesus succeed through me.

"LORD, I have nothing but Jesus. And He is enough. Take my weakness and use it for Your glory. That's all I have, but I sacrifice even that on this altar, in the name of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Amen."

2006-04-16T21:50:00.000-05:00

WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THE ALLISONS

Being in Cincinnati taught us more than we would have ever imagined. We learned what real community is and how it can be lived in everyday life. We saw what hospitality can really look like and that its not just about hosting a dinner here and there, but about making your home and resources available whenever and where ever it is needed, beyond what this society would teach us to provide. Family goes beyond
blood lines, and that was reinforced to us here. We have come to feel comfort in the phrase "we're doing things a little different today" and the things that you can learn when that happens. This is a special group of people that we were blessed to be a part of for a short time The things we have learned from seeing your examples will stay with us always. We are so sad to be leaving you, but so happy just to have had the chance to be a part of this at all. I feel like there will always be a place in Cincinnati for us to come back to, so expect to see us for visits! We will miss you and we love you all.
The Allisons

2006-04-09T23:01:00.000-05:00

WOW...what a challenge issued this morning by Ken. To spend an entire week speaking nothing but blessings on people instead of curses. But, if we try it, it will become, as everything else, a habit! I was raised with a particularly sharp tongue, and although the Lord has delivered me from all of the anger and bitterness in my life, this one will be a special challenge. I tend to speak very frankly...even at the cost of someone elses' feelings. The Lord has been working on me in that area too. I am going to pray and try very hard to remember to bless instead of curse. "Lord, restore my heart and renew my mind to give me the mind of Christ"! mark scherer

2006-03-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

DOING MINISTRY AS A FAMILY
Sunday morning i spoke at cciph and talked about using family as a model for effective ministry. here are a few of the quotes:

I believe that using family as our model will be the most effective means of doing the work of the church. Being family is the best way of taking care of the needy. Being family is the best way to make disciples. Being family is the best way to build community. And being family is the best way to build permanently.

How often do we share meals together? How often did they share meals together in Jerusalem? What can we learn from this?

I believe that family is the standard by which we measure our generosity. When we are family, we don’t give for the tax deduction, we don’t stop to measure and count, we simply give.

If we commit to being family, we will need to know fewer people far deeper, and spend much more time living with them. Elevate a few people—maybe up to 12—to family level, and pour yourself into them. You will be more effective as a disciple maker, and you will avoid your own burnout, when you take a few people deep.

I’m talking about something far more radical that small group ministry here. If we see people only in a group study meeting, we will cover a studied topic for that hour that we log together every week. Sometimes that study hits a home run. But even if it does, we only have one at bat per week. Know what I’m saying?

In contrast, Jesus was with his disciples all day, every day, for three years. They watched what made Jesus angry, when He got up to pray, what He did for entertainment, how He treated irritating people and answered difficult questions, how He took time for children, what He ate and when He chose not to eat. They saw his work ethic, his compassion, how he responded when he was exhausted, how he treated those caught and trapped in sin, and how he talked to the religiously empowered. They saw him on the mountaintop and they saw him in the garden. They also heard the Sermon on the Mount, probably many times in various forms. They knew what was important to Jesus, and they absorbed his character.

Think of the implication of this truth: the Gospels are mostly filled with the actions of Jesus, not with his sermons. What does that say to us about the best way to make disciples of the nations?

It might not feel like as much ministry is taking place, because you are pouring yourself out for only twelve people or fewer. Compared to that ministry that reaches hundreds of people who are touched for an hour once a week, a family-kind of ministry seems small and ineffective, doesn’t it? But I guess Jesus was more than a little effective when he concentrated on a few men, rather than the masses, don’t you think?

Think in your own life about who has been the biggest influence on you. We often say that more is caught than taught in life. The same is true in the faith. We catch the most important lessons in those teachable moments, which are seldom the ones in which someone has a prepared lesson. In my mentor's life, I can't remember one lesson that he taught, but I could tell you everything he did.

No gift was more honored in the early church than that of hospitality. Our culture has created nursing homes, hospitals, orphanages, hotels and restaurants, which make hospitality an industry. Strangers make a living doing things that used to be done voluntarily for free.

Is hospitality difficult? Yes. A hospital (which is related to the word “hospitality”) has sick people who are in a “taking” mode, and those who help them must sacrifice on behalf of the needy. Is it dangerous? Yes, there is risk. Is it tempting to quit? Yes, otherwise Peter would not have had to remind us to “practice hospitality without grumbling.” But is hospitality worth the difficulty, the risk and the temptations? Definitely.

Almost every program that has been devised could be done better in the home. If one home out of every ten would adopt a fatherless child, there would be no more orphans. If every Christian family would minister radically to just one other family each year, then in a decade the entire world would be turned upside down!

If our relationships are built on commitments like, “I am committed as long as their doctrine is correct on every point,” or “I submit as long as I am comfortable with the direction of the church,” then I would say that we are not truly submitting, and we are not really committed. Family is family, and we stay and we work it out.

May the church today remember and return to a radical commitment to being family. Through being a family, we will experience the benefits of generosity, the effectiveness of discipleship, the belonging of community and the safety of permanency. Family. I like that word, don’t you?

2006-02-23T15:10:00.000-05:00

hey, this is christopher green. i'm loving living in portland, or and have found myself "born again", or whatever. basically, and more importantly essentially, i have fallen in love with life. which might a result,or the cause, of me falling in love with a girl. i am graduating from ccu this may, which is exciting to finally finish my studies there and move on.
i suppose i have too much to say. yet i don't know what to say. kind of weird that i'm even writing here and i wonder if anyone even wants to read it. maybe i'm writing more for me than i am for anyone else. i don't know. i kind of just slipped out of cciph when i slipped out of a marriage. was my marriage holding me to cciph or vice versa? who knows. and i don't want to figure it out. i'm where i'm suppose to be, where i don't have to question who is my friend or if i'm thinking the right things anymore. i miss people in cincinnati, but i don't miss cincinnati.
i'm really healthy these days. i don't say that arrogantly, but honestly.
i still have issues, which i like. i don't feel comfortable being around gods.
perhaps i'm over stepping my bounds by writing here. understandable, i suppose. i just wanted to say hi to ken, really that's what i wanted most.

2006-02-09T09:18:00.000-05:00

THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH
What is the future of the local church?

Compared to high-quality, high-budget, high-risk, high-hype events, a local assembly of less-then-celebrities rather pales. God seems to show up at the big events, but almost never locally. It is no wonder that we drift from loyalty to the local band of amateurs in favor of the famous gifted ones. It’s like a mom-and-pop shop trying to compete with Wal-Mart and Bigg’s. The high-quality, high-budget, high-risk, high-hype franchises can out-compete Mom and Pop on every level, except personally knowing you for years and building your loyalty through friendship. And with how many people can Mom and Pop sustain such a relationship? Sorry, but I am in a hurry today and need to save a buck and a minute by betraying our friendship and going to the Big Guys. And then it becomes habit.

At the same time, we have a deeply-felt longing for community, and the local church does not stack up so well there, either. My friends are the ones with whom I have much in common—same age, same station in life, same job or neighborhood, our kids play together, we are reading the same books and watching the same shows and enjoying our conversations. But at church, relationships are friendly-but-shallow with people with whom I share faith but little else. So increasingly, people are drifting away from the small groups and programs of the organized local church. Sunday night services were the first to go. Sunday Schools attendance has been in a freefall for some years now. Wednesday night Bible studies have been all but replaced with various elective classes and specialty small group ministries, but that is only the local church’s way of trying to keep the faithful, faithful. In the long run, people do not and will not continue to do things because they "ought" to do them.

There are dangers to the lone ranger, renegade, independent individuals who mix and match their own spiritual meals. There is no solid accountability structure to keep Revolutionaries in line. But there were and are dangers in the local church, too, aren't there? Power-hungry pastors who abscound with church funds, backbiting and infighting among members, unloving and incomplete systematic theologies. The accountability structures for Revolutionaries is like a bunch of sticks intertwined and laying across a pit; it may not have a solid frame, but if the sticks are plentiful enough and intertwined enough, perhaps it will hold your weight, after all. Since each individual must be the one to stand before God, I guess it is up to each individual to be sure they have found enough of a support system to prepare them for judgment.

2005-12-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

THE BIG PICTURE

This morning, I saw it more clearly than I ever have before. It’s like the puzzle started to come together for me. The big picture of church, you, me, ministry, God, purpose, end times, Jerusalem, Price Hill, it all began to come clear. Let me explain.

We are starting a new house church with the Wigles. So if you were starting a new church (or wanting to see God start a revival in an already-existing church), what would you do? For many years, I have thought the best thing would be to study the book of Acts. I love that book, because the history of the beginning church is so powerful and such an example. I long to teach that book. But that is not the place to start. If I build on that foundation, then I build a church based on polity and actions. There is a far better foundation.

Also, in starting a church, how should the group be structured? No leadership? Appoint a small group pastor from the beginning? Team ministry? Church planter? I have tried to use a team approach and yet be the facilitator, and that is healthy, but it is not the best way to plant a church. There is a far better way.

Here is what is clearer to me: a church planter (better yet, a team of two) come and determine to know nothing except Christ, and him crucified. Tell the story of Jesus. Tell of the life of Jesus. Focus on the death, and especially the resurrection of Jesus. Tell of what he is doing today, in my life and the lives of those around me. Let Jesus do miraculous things to confirm my words. Worship and glorify Jesus. It is all about the glory of Christ.

Why leader-centered ministry? Because that leader is the one who knows the story, who has the experience, and who models the life. A church planter must have these credentials: years of experience of life in a house church, a first-hand knowledge of The Story and of the workings of God, a maturity and unquestioned reputation with those who are outside of Christ and those in the church.

So a house church is planted by leader-centered work. He is there all the time, leading, teaching, guiding, training, praying, warning, and discipling. But then, catch this: He must leave. And when he leaves, he very likely does NOT put someone else “in charge,” as the house church pastor. No, he simply leaves and lets the church FUNCTION. When the church functions, some will come to more of a leadership position, but it is not for the church planter to set up a church with ANY structure of power and authority. No, ALL members have equal authority in the ecclesia.

And what is that all-important message that the church planter must tell? In brief, it begins before the beginning, and it is a Love Story. When there was just God, who had complete fellowship with himself. Yet he wanted, or at least chose, something more, something beautiful, something so precious that we cannot imagine its attraction to God. He wanted a bride. And so he created all there is, and put in the center a man, and took from the man a woman, and joined them together, so that they would fill the earth and be a picture of what he had in mind. Then he went through many steps along the way to show what kind of relationship he was looking for, ways to be in fellowship with one another and with God. At last, after speaking in various ways, God spoke through his own Self in the form of a human. And that Son, born as a baby, lived as one of us to show us his glory, to teach us his ways, and at last, to die in our place. He lost it all, with the hope of gaining the one thing he wanted most. And then he rose again, and completed the covenant. Now we can become a people who belong to God. And at the end of our lives, and at the end of time, the marriage feast will begin, and we will see the Big Picture like we were never able to see it in the midst of our earthly distractions.

That’s the story for the church planter to tell. And then, when persecution drives him away, or when the Lord calls him to the next project, he leaves. And the church, the earthly bride of Christ, begins to function and to become the heavenly bride of the Lamb.

2005-12-16T01:49:00.000-05:00

BAPTISTRY FUND

It is time for us to add a baptistry to our building. We believe that we can get a usable one for as little as $2000, or we can have a permanent installation done with plumbing for around $6000. Think of the advantages of having a baptistry right here in the building! So we are announcing that on January 22, 2006 we will have a special offering to get a baptistry.

Chip Vater passed from this life on December 15 two years ago. At that time, we realized his special evangelistic calling, and we felt called to continue his ministry. So in Chip’s honor, we want to dedicate this baptistry project.

Jesus said about himself, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it is alone. But if it falls into the ground a dies, it will bear much fruit. Two years ago, we handed out envelopes containing seed, and many of us planted those seeds to help remember and honor Chip.

After his death, folks gave about $400 to a memorial fund toward a baptistry. We would like to use that money as “seed money” for the baptistry fund. On Christmas Eve and after, we are going to give away that money to anyone who would like to make that money “grow” and give it back again on January 22.

Remember the parable Jesus told of the talents and the stewards? The master gave out money to his servants, and the faithful ones doubled the money and presented it back to their master. That is our challenge. Perhaps you will use the money to buy ingredients and do some baking, and then sell those goods and give the proceeds to the fund. Or make some crafts. Or print some flyers and go door to door raising money. Pray about how you could turn $10 into $20, or into $100!

2005-12-15T11:25:00.000-05:00

IMPROVING OUR ASSEMBLIES

What is the state of our equipping assemblies? While we purposely don’t count attendance, it is apparent that fewer people are coming on Sunday mornings, and so evidently there is discontent with our gatherings. I think it comes from several directions:
1. Most of us don’t feel “fed” on a regular weekly basis. There are occasional great mornings when we sense God’s presence, or the teaching is just what we needed to hear, but too often there just isn’t anything that seemed to be for me.
2. There is a fine line between creative novelty and unpredictable confusion. We don’t mind things being different on Sundays, as long as God is in the different thing that happens. Quality is what makes the difference. But too often our assembly has been an amateur hour with an open microphone. So we don’t invite a friend to come with us, because we fear this might be a “dud” week, and we can’t predict that it will be wonderful.
3. Many of us have either lost the vision for why we are gathered on Sundays, or we have never clearly heard what the purpose is. So we keep expecting things to be like all the other churches we have seen, and it keeps not conforming to our expectations. We are polite and accepting for a while, but eventually you have to do what you need.
4. While one of our values is to be multi-ethnic and without a single systematic theology, it is impossible to maintain those relationships (in the flesh). Everything about our culture reinforces narrow demographics, and those are the people who are easiest for us to love. When another group is leading, we are not motivated to join them in their adventure.

I am hopeful, because these are all fixable. So, what do we need? Part of it is that we need to see the vision again, and part of it is that we need to change our current direction.
1. CCiPH has been a grand experiment in a different way of doing ministry. Rather than top-down programmed ministry, it is grassroots discipleship. Our goal is to release people to do ministry. Not to start programs, necessarily (that’s what always comes to mind for Americans), but to make disciples through natural relationships. I have failed to keep that ministry model in front of the church. And at the same time, I think we have gone too far in avoiding any semblance of leadership. However, I see that much more ministry is taking place than we even imagine. Practically every one of us is involved in something significant with others; we just need to see it more clearly.
2. We don’t “feel” fed. That’s not the same as not being equipped for ministry. The overwhelming balance of the New Testament shows us that the times when we grow are the times when we are tested, not the times when a sermon feeds us. So we are best fed when we are in the throes of a ministry over our head. Then we seek out individual tutoring more than group lectures. Again, our model for ministry is designed to provide time for that to happen. The only way for this model of growth to work is to have clear guidance in the process, and that has not happened in an organized fashion. I have been preoccupied with family, which has been the right balance for a season, but I must be back in the ministry of purposeful discipling and training people.
3. It’s all about relationships, and ultimately that’s all we have. That’s true for the program-centered megachurch, as well. So, how does a church grow? By making new relationships, and we have not done that well. Outreach opportunities are all around us, and yet we are mostly not making new friends with neighborhood kids or Guatemalan brothers and sisters or Price Hill citizens, or perhaps with our own next-door neighbors. Maybe that’s because each of our plates is already full. Maybe it’s because we are lazy, or faithless. We have needed to pray for those outside the building, and we have needed to have a Sunday environment more conducive to new people coming in. So we are going to go back to a slightly more visitor-centered environment in our assemblies.
4. We seem to be capable of loving people who fit our narrow demographics, or even people who live halfway around the world. But maybe we are incapable of loving each other supernaturally. Maybe. And maybe we all need to learn the far-more important lesson of loving people who are different than us. Love is the mark of maturity. What do we need to help make this happen? More equipping, more group ministry, a circle of preaching training and of worship training (partly so that the quality of instruction and music will be stronger, and partly so that more people will share in the knowledge of what we are doing.)

On a purely personal basis, here’s where I am: We started this church with a leadership team, with a base of financial support (to hire staff and pay for building), and with my youngest child being 8 years old. We lost much of our team and immediately lost our financial base, and my family added two more babies. Two years ago I was trying to keep going, not having organizational gifts and being drained to the breaking point. I needed to pull back, which I did. It has been a year and a half now, and I have been so careful to stay out of leadership that I have harmed the church. I think we are lacking in clarification of vision, which is my gift. So, here at the end of my sabbatical, I am taking steps to be back in the saddle, working with Tom Powell to help guide us into what we will look like as a grown-up church.

I believe that good days are ahead for cciph if we can get through this current re-evaluation period and make the right adjustments for the future. These are my thoughts. What do YOU think?

2005-12-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

THE BRUISE GIVES THE AROMA

The Bible says that everywhere we spread the aroma of God. Since God is invisible, we become the hands and feet, the healers and teachers, the face and aroma of God. We are how the world can know what God is like.

Of course, to some, we are the fragrance of life. They are drawn to the scent and want to possess more of it. To others we are the stench of death. They are repulsed by the odor and want to get as far from it as possible. But really, our responsibility is not to choose our scent. That is the unmistakable smell of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and it is not of our doing.

And does God spread his aroma from us to those who might notice? Simple. He bruises us. He breaks the neck of the Alabaster jar. That's right. He injures us. And from the injury pours out the aromatic scent of Holy Spirit in our lives.

If the perfume stays in the jar, it has trade value, and yet it is worthless as perfume. For perfume is intended to be spilled out, not to be safely contained. When we are broken and spilled out, we become a fragrant offering, extravagantly wasted and used up on Jesus. The offering fills the room, pours out on Jesus, and then it is gone.

If you want a plant to really give up its fragrance, do you know what to do? Bruise the plant. Rub it with your fingers and ruin the plant, and out will come the scents of the liquids in the leaves or the petals.

Maybe it seems like a waste to break a bottle or injure and plant just for the sake of a fragrance. But that's the nature of worship, isn't it? We give our best years, our best efforts, our full being, and we place it on an altar and give it up for One who is greater. That is the nature of a sacrifice, and its extravagant beauty is not missed on the object of the offering.

Pam has been broken, so that out of her God may send the fragrance of his presence to all who are in the room. From Mark emanates the fragrance of what the Holy Spirit has placed within him, and it rises as incense to the Chief Perfumer.

2005-12-07T00:50:00.000-05:00

JUST BE.

Pardon me for being morose and blunt. The question came to mind for obvious reasons.

If it were up to me, would I rather be dead, or be paralyzed for life? I think that I would tend to say I'm more comfortable with death. I do not fear death, but I don't want to be a burden to other people every day for decades to come. I want to be able to do my share, be worthy of the space I take up, give more than I take, and I fear that I couldn't do that without my limbs.

But if I were to ask Mark Scherer, "Would you rather have Pam as an invalid here on earth, or have her go to heaven now?" his answer would be swift and easy: "I'll take my Pammy in any form I can get her." He wants her here with him while he completes his own sojourn on this planet.

I would feel the same way about Ellen, though I know it would be very, very hard for Ellen to not be able to "do" for herself and others. But I would gladly give up the rest of my life to serve her for the joy of her company. I love Ellen's soul, not her deeds.

And so I realize from yet another angle how often I fall prey into thinking that my value as a person is based on how much I "do" for others. Do I give more than I take? Do I justify my existence by good works?

Of course, where I'm going with this is here: God just wants to be with me. I can't "do" enough to merit his favor. I can never give more than I take. If I just love Him and spend time with Him, He is happy. And He serves me, because He loves me. He just does. That's what He does.

In the words of Tarzan: Him, do. Me, be.

2005-12-03T00:24:00.000-05:00

WHAT RAT HOLE?

The young people in this neighborhood are incredibly frustrating. No respect for authority or for personal property. They seem to flaunt calling your bluff, daring you to resort to touch them so they can have an excuse for the anger inside to explode.

Inside, I feel like I am still a young adult, one of them. But the truth is, like it or not, I am The Man. I became The Man by getting older, having a job, paying taxes, driving a car, and taking leadership in something. And you know what happens to The Man: they stick it to The Man.

Consider: Most have been in this neighborhood less than six months, and they will be gone in less than six more. Virtually all of them live without a father in the home. Of those 40 or so young people at the building last Friday night, more than half of the boys will be in jail in 8 years or less (or dead). They will be members of a gang in even less time. Drugs drive the economy, power structure and culture of this neighborhood, and without a moral bearing, what keeps them from it?

Shall I give up on this rascals? Shall I hand them over to Satan? Is there no hope? Shall I give up and serve people who are easier to love?

Let's see. What would Jesus do? . . .

2005-11-29T23:13:00.000-05:00

CHRISTMAS GIVING

When my mom was a little girl in Chicago, she remembers that her dad always left on Christmas Eve to go downtown. She never really thought much about it, being pretty small at the time. But when she was a bit older, she asked her dad where he went on Christmas Eve.

His answer was that he went downtown to the soup kitchen and served the homeless (they were called bums and hobos back then). That's a nice gesture, thought my mom. But why on Christmas Eve? The answer had become a favorite family story.

Back in the early days of the Great Depression, my grandfather was unemployed. He rode the rails to follow where migrant work might come up, picking apples in Washington, harvesting beets in Wyoming and corn in Illinois. It turns out he was in Chicago on Christmas Eve in 1929 or 1930, pretty down in every way.

He was sitting in a diner nursing a cup of coffee when a man came in, exchanged some pleasantries with him, and then bought him dinner. Then the man left.

Grampa asked the cook, "Who was that guy?"

"Oh, don't you know him? That's Al Capone. He does this every year on Christmas Eve. See, when he was a young man and down on his luck, someone fed him a meal on Christmas Eve, and this is his way of paying it back."

And so, some years later, my grandfather still continued the tradition of the hobos. Pay it back, and help the next guy the way you were helped when you needed it. It's the code of the hobos.

This is an almost unbelievable story, but it became one of my mom's favorite remembrances of her father. After all, I might not be here had it not been for that little gesture of kindness from that infamous man.

This year on Christmas Eve, the Hallelujah Trailblazers are going to have a community dinner for those who could use a meal. Maybe this will be the year for me to continue my grandfather's great tradition and pay back what Someone had done for me. After all, I'm just a hobo who was given something for nothing way back when.
-ker

2005-11-26T23:39:00.000-05:00

ARE WE THERE YET?

We have reached the point of reappraisal as a church. Church planters say that the four-year mark is crucial. After three years, the original core begins to realize that the church will never become what they had envisioned, and an exodus of the original members takes place. If that exodus outnumbers the number of newcomers, then a negative mindset begins to settle in, and the church reaches a crisis. During the crisis, the church will most likely reassess their goals, their methods, and their approaches.

It looks like cciph is right on schedule for this reassessment. The elders have been talking, praying and considering where we are and where we are going since the summer, and we are beginning to see more clearly where we should be headed. We have given ourselves a season to relax and realign, and for all of our members to focus our attention to areas of our giftedness. As we emerge from this season, what will the "new" cciph look like?

To begin with, we know that our Sunday mornings will be more focused on allowing the leaders to equip the saints. We will have shorter worship sets and shorter assemblies, and more series of messages. We will have more intergenerational activities to equip the children. Then we will have extended worship about once a month or so, to give more time to prayer and expressive worship.

All this begins on January 1. The elders, under the leadership of Tom Powell, will be crafting the upcoming teaching plans. Then a worship programming team, led by Ken, will craft some creative elements to enhance the teaching.

Good days are ahead! Praise the Lord for guiding us to this point!

2005-11-17T01:21:00.000-05:00

PEACE IN THE FAMILY

Jesus came to give us peace with God, and peace with one another. Yet, surprisingly, peace is not the absence of conflict, but the resolution of it. I think sometimes I am afraid of conflict, and I avoid confrontation, thinking I am keeping the peace. But Jesus said that peacemakers will be called sons of God, not peacekeepers.

It is right to immediately forgive, choose love and mercy over judgment, and treat others with loving kindness. When someone strikes me on the cheek, I simply turn the other cheek. However, there is a time to stand, and I must not be afraid of that hour.

Jesus cleared the Temple, and was sometimes indignant with his disciples, and especially with the religious hypocrites of His day. Jesus talked about conflict management often. In fact, almost half of the verses of what Jesus says as recorded in Matthew 3-7 contain a negative message. He says, “Go away, Satan!” and “Repent!” He refers to people as “your enemy,” “an evil person,” “false prophets” and “hypocrites,” and tells how to deal with them. He talks about forgiving “those who have sinned against us,” and tells us to “stop judging others.” He says that he himself will someday say to some people, “I never knew you” and tells us that his Father “will not forgive your sins” if you do not forgive. And what about those letters to the churches in Revelation? If Jesus was not afraid to confront sin or to speak of conflict, neither should I.

There is a difference between constructive conflict and quarreling. The Bible says that “the servant must not quarrel.” (2 Tim 2:24) But I am to rebuke or correct others when necessary. How can I know the difference between conflict and quarreling? Probably mostly it is my motive. In a quarrel, the desire is to win (while someone else loses), to divide (any kingdom divided against itself will fall), to exaggerate and have hidden agendas (not technically lie, perhaps, but emphasize my perspective), and to pursue selfish ends (scheming to get what I want). Instead, I must seek the good of others, seek to reconcile, speak the truth in love, be completely above board, and desire to edify and build up the other person. When my motive is right, I will be working toward reconciliation rather than division.

I believe God is calling me to be a peacemaker, and that sometimes I have chosen the coward's way out and tried to be a peacekeeper instead. But history has taught me that a peacekeeper does not win anything, including a friend.

"LORD, make me wise to know when to speak and when to be silent. Let me clearly see who the enemy is, and do no damage to Your work on earth. In the name of my example, Jesus. Amen."
-ker

2005-11-13T00:37:00.000-05:00

UNITY THROUGH DIFFERENCES

Most churches teach that the healthiest way to build a church is through encouraging homogeneous affinity groups of common interest.

There is truth in this myth. Homogeneous groups of people with common backgrounds and common interests grow more quickly, and the people in them naturally “hit it off.” We naturally find ways to create time and energy for one another, because we do similar work, or we have similar backgrounds, or we have similar family relationships. Besides that, in the New Testament we find a Synagogue of the Freedmen, which apparently was a synagogue started by men who were freed slaves. Since the early church was structured similarly to synagogues, maybe the New Testament churches similarly shared common interests or backgrounds. However . . .

TRUTH: The healthiest way to build a church is by learning to love each other through our differences.

No doubt the fastest or easiest way to build a church is through affinity groups. But I believe the Lord purposely places people who are very different into the same Body in order to demonstrate long-term, supernatural love. Jesus said that even the pagans love those who love them. But God loved us when we were His enemies. His church should be a place where there is better love than the world can find; supernatural love, not love that is natural because everyone shares common interests.

And as for that matter of the Synagogue of the Freedmen: They were an unregenerate group who opposed the Gospel, not a New Testament church! A better biblical example would be the leadership team in Antioch. They had prophets and teachers from different ethnic groups and educations. Or, look at the background of the disciples. They were all from Galilee, so they had geographic and ethnic commonality, but one was a government employee and another was an anti-government zealot. One was nicknamed “Bighearted,” while two brothers were “Sons of Thunder.”

Perhaps the greatest commandment in Scripture is for us to love one another. Whatever our relationship with each other, it should be colored with love.
-ker

2005-11-04T10:23:00.000-05:00

MY BIRTHDAY

Today is my birthday. I love birthdays, because they give me a chance to be totally selfish, but without the guilt. I wake up when I want, do the personal projects I want to do, eat what I want, and have everyone tell me how great I am. I wish I had a birthday every day.

Actually, my self-centered lifestyle on my birthday is the way I live most of the time. Especially when I am on sabbatical. With few exceptions, compared to others (my wife, mostly), I pretty much just do my own little thing all day. I think my little thoughts, do my little projects, and my entire universe extends to about six inches beyond my little nose. It used to be closer, but my eyes can't focus that close anymore.

I wonder how Jesus spent his birthdays.

I think I know the answer. I think he had some vague personal agenda, but it was interrupted, because there is this guy by the name of Ken, and he loves that old guy . . .

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Heb 12:2)

2005-11-04T00:17:00.000-05:00

IT'S ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS

We have said many times that it's all about relationships. I see it more true every day.

I went into the ministry because I wanted to help people prepare for heaven. I imagined being in my office every morning, reading and praying, writing and organizing. Every afternoon and evening, in my mind, I would go out to homes and share the Gospel with people. Every Sunday, I would lead the faithful in worship and baptize the converted. It was, and is, a wonderful calling.

I have found, however, that most of my time is spent on relationship problems. I don’t know why that surprised me; my own life is filled with scars from past hurts, and every conversation holds the potential of a new wound, either inflicted by me or on me. All of my friends, at least the ones who are honest, are also still digging through damage done by past relational problems.

Every organization or program I have ever been a part of has had occasional burps and setbacks, usually due to someone being hurt or misunderstood. Why would the ministry be any different? Life itself is made up of relationships, and conflict is unavoidable on this fallen planet.

My ministry is not only helping others manage conflict. I’m sorry to say that I have caused as many conflicts as I have helped to resolve. Proverbs says that where there are many words, sin is not absent. So if I am in a communication field, sooner or later I will sin. I have been the center of conflict both with church members and with church leaders.

I often tell students there are two ways to learn something: You can read the instructions or you can make a mistake. Either way, you learn, but one of the ways is less painful. In the school of my life, most of my lessons are learned the hard way. But maybe if we work on our relationships together, we can learn from Jesus the less painful way.

2005-10-30T22:28:00.000-05:00

THE MOST IMPORTANT MEETING IN CINCINNATI'S HISTORY?

This morning we experienced what in my opinion was one of the most important meetings in the history of our city. For the first time that anyone knew, churches across denominational lines cancelled their morning services to participate in a united meeting of prayer and repentance. I would guess that about 4000 believers gathered together in Jesus' name and worshiped him as one.

I think that the right things happened in that meeting, too. While there was celebration of our unity in Christ, there was also confession and repentance, shared leadership, and a spirit of cooperation rather than competition. The leadership confessed first, which is right, because I think that the leadership of churches has been where the greatest sin has occured over the years. It was beautiful.

The Bengals were playing at home this afternoon before a packed stadium, and it made the news all week long. (Have you noticed how weather reports are geared toward, "If you are going to the game..."?) But if all Christians in Greater Cincinnati gathered in one place, it would be a far bigger crowd. Maybe it would even make the news on a Sunday! In any case, I would guess that in our region at least 100,000 people gather every weekend. Our unity would be demonstrated clearly if we all had but one gathering.

Then I realize that we have a long, long way to go before we truly have a unity movement of transforming proportions in Cincinnati. Only about 4% of the believers were there today. Here's my perspective on who was there and who wasn't.

As we have noted before at cciph, there are three majors worship traditions, or theological camps: liberal, liturgical ecumenical churches; conservative evangelical churches; and independent charismatic churches.

The liberal liturgical churches that are part of the ecumenical movement is almost exclusively the group that is involved with Price Hill Will church community action team, and those are the churches that cooperate with our food panty, Manna. That is the group that will be involved in our community Thanksgiving service, held at our building on Nov 20. They have a high degree of interest in unity, but in practice, their unity is only among churches who are liberal and liturgical; it's almost as if the other churches didn't exist. They have different publishers, different communication lines, use vocabulary differently, and never cross paths with one another. I'm guessing that the majority of those pastors never even knew (or cared) that such a meeting was happening this morning. In any case, they were not there.

The conservative evangelical churches (including Christian churches, Baptists and the like) also have little interaction with the other two groups. They do not get involved with Price Hill Will, do not trust anyone else's doctrine, and speak of unity in terms of "if only everyone else will come to the truth, then we can become one." Again, it's almost as if the other traditions did not exist at all, for as little cooperation as they display. (They MIGHT cooperate with a Billy Graham Mission, but it is still pretty controversial among the more conservatives). So a very few of them might have come, but virtually none would cancel a morning service for such a brazen show of unity with those who do not take the Lord's Supper the same way, or baptize for the same reason, or use the same translation as they do, or whatever their distinctive. Very few of these churches are doing any urban or ethnic work.

The charismatics also focus on unity, but the cynical side of me says that their unity is more based on experience than on Jesus. I don't see this group as excluding the other two, but there is still a different vocabulary and goal among charismatics that makes the others feel like they are on the outside. (For example, this morning, the charismatics knew what to do with the chorus of "How Great is Our God" when it was sung 25 times in a row; most of those in either of the other groups would have sat down and crossed their arms after 4 or 5 times and said, "I already got it. What more do you want me to say here?") This is the group that came this morning, and was pretty well represented.

I'm so blessed that as a church I feel like we have a stake in all three traditions. We participate with Manna and the Price Hill Will churches. We belong to the fellowship of Christian churches and reach out to all evangelicals as fellow conservatives. We are charismatic and experiential in our worship and our style, having accepted prophecy as valid for today. My longing is that one day the unity movement in our city will cross over all three boundaries, and all who name the name of Jesus will truly be one.

2005-10-28T22:08:00.000-05:00

WHERE WOULD I BE?

Pardon me for revisiting this question, but I am still wrestling with it.

If I were a nonconformist in England in the early 1600s, would I have been a pilgrim who traveled to the New World? Would I have prayed earnestly for my friends on pilgrimage? And would I have generously supported them financially? Or would I have stayed behind, too secure in my world, in spite of persecution at home, to travel? What difference would it make whether I stayed, prayed, sent or went?

If I were living in the Tristate in the 1850s, would I have put myself in harm's way as a worker in the Underground Railroad, because I was living out my firm beliefs in racial equality, or at least of racial justice? Would I at least have prayed, written editorials or books or songs about freedom? Or would I have been with the majority who secretly believed that slavery was wrong, but lived as if my own convenience was more important than that brave-but-illegal work? What difference would it make whether I stare, am in prayer, help in words, or in deeds?

Maybe I can answer by seeing my own involvement in the abortion issue. Am I silently neutral about the disposal of thousands of American citizens every day? Do I at least pray fervently for justice in our legal system and for mercy on the individual innocents? Do I vote and talk and write on the subject? Or do I perhaps take action, though perhaps illegal, for the sake of righteousness? What difference does it make whether I am silent, in prayer, voting with my words, or voting with my feet?

One more piece to this puzzle: What about injustice in Price Hill? There are many significant issues, from housing to gangs, from racial reconciliation to welfare reform, from elections to street cleanup, or simply telling my neighbors about Jesus. What I am doing here? Do I think about the issues? Do I pray for justice? Do I give and vote and talk? Or do I do? What difference does it make whether I think, pray, talk or do?

In Matthew 25, Jesus did not commend the sheep or condemn the goats based on their beliefs, or on their prayers, or on their words. The only criteria that our Lord had was their action: did they feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, house the homeless, and heal the sick?

History honors as heroes those pilgrims who went and those conductors who risked. We are not so sure about today's freedom fighters. That's probably partially because history is written by the winners, and stories of today's yet-to-be-resolved issues are written from both sides. It's probably also because we are less sure of what we believe in anymore.

In any case, my life's goal is to be among those to whom Jesus says, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter the joy of your Master." I'm not talking about legalism, oughts or shoulds here. But I am talking about obedience.
-ker

2005-10-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

FULFILLING OUR PROPHETIC DESTINY

This is meant to be an interactive collaboration as we collectively try to get our spirits around some of the teachings of Tsuchina on Tuesday night. My way of dealing with things is to write and see how it looks to me. For those of you who weren't there, that's okay; let's wrestle with this.

First, what is Cincinnati's prophetic heritage and destiny?

Losantiville stands at the intersection of two rivers. On the north side of the Ohio River was Shawnee and Miami tribe land. On the south side was Kentucky, a sacred hunting ground where no natives lived, but they crossed over to hunt. When European settlers came, it was with broken promises, biological and tactical warfare, and using wealth as leverage. Europeans won, but through sinful wrongdoing.

Into this dangerous area the white settlers founded a town, which grew quickly and became the largest and most influential city west of the Alleghenies for most of the 19th century. Settled by German immigrants, the city was sometimes called Porkopolis for its meat packing plants, brewed a lot of beer, was a center for publishing and of culture (such as symphony), a center of the Christian Stone-Campbell Movement, and the Queen City of the West. And don't forget the Reds!

In my mind, the most significant thing about the region in that century was Cincinnati's role in the Underground Railroad. This was the stop of freedom. Kentucky was "neutral," meaning that the Chistians of northern Kentucky stood by while runaway slaves were captured and brought back to their "owners" in the south, without taking a moral stand. But a few bold-faced believers were among the final conductors of the railroad to freedom.

What is our prophetic destiny, knowing all this? Freedom for runaway slaves? Racial reconciliation? Spiritual/musical center?

Second, what is Price Hill's prophetic heritage and destiny?

The hill was first called Boldface Hill (there is still Boldface Park at the bottom of the hill by River Road), named after a European hunter who killed chief Boldface here. Then it was named after Edgar Price, the man who owned a mansion on the edge of the hill and helped to develop the area. In the late 19th century, it was the wealthy suburb of the growing city, a place of mansions and vineyards, out of the path of the air pollution of the city below, somewhat cut off from the city by Mill Creek and the steep hill, made more accessible by bridges and an incline. Our eco-district is called Seminary Square, after Mt. St. Mary Seminary and Cincinnati Bible Seminary, both located in its borders.

The hill was especially inhabited by southern German immigrants, who settled mostly on the west side of the city. I heard that the west side of Cincinnati had more Germans per capita than anywhere in the world outside of Germany. I also heard that it was the second highest percentage of Roman Catholics outside of the Vatican. So, what is the prophetic heritage and destiny of people of Germany? Our speaker tonight suggested "order" and "precision." I would like to suggest that their calling is to bless the world through their "nation" (in German, Reich). There have been three regimes in the last few centuries, and many theologians, scholars, philosophers, and musicians have blessed the world through their excellent craftsmanship. But the German calling was abused by mistaking excellence for superiority, and Germany has sought to master the world rather than serve it in Jesus' name, all in pursuit of a strong nation, culminating in genecide against Jews and blacks and other non-Arian peoples.

Since those days, Price Hill has seen an ethnic change, with a large influx of Appalachians, and then more recently of African-Americans, and most recently of Guatemalan immigrants. The community has moved from suburban wealthy to populous lower middle class to eventually becoming one of the largest communities of lower class subsidized housing in the city. Children outnumber adults in our neighborhood. The crime rate and gang activity are noticeably high.

What is Price Hill's prophetic destiny, given that heritage? To be a light on the hill? To bring healing to the nations? Racial reconciliation? To be bold-faced?

Third, what is Christ Community's prophetic heritage and destiny?

CCiPH was begun from a church in northern Kentucky. We were a REACH group that became a house church that became a network of house churches. There was a desire to reach the people of Price Hill with the gospel, and to bring about reconciliation of ethnic groups and socioeconomic levels in Christ Jesus. "For the healing of the nations" was an early watchword. We were born in freedom and emphasized grace, bathed in prayer and intercessory worship.

What is our destiny? Catholic reconciliation? Freedom for ex-Catholics? Freedom for runaway slaves (from institutionalized religion?)? Worship and intercession? To be a pocket of beauty in the city?

Fourth, what is my family's prophetic heritage and destiny?

Ellen and I both grew up in white, upper-middle class suburban homes. We have four birth children and a Germanic (and other) background; my middle name is Eugene (if you know about the eugenics movement of the early 20th century in Germany, you know that's a significant name). We added Jenny, who grew up in Price Hill in one of those broken homes. Now we have added three African-Americans boys with special needs, and we are called to live in this city, in this neighborhood, and to belong to this church.

Ellen and I are both musical, as are our birth children. She loves languages and diversity and welcoming people from other countries; I have loved ethnic music for some years now, and plan to start a World Music Worship Ensemble this spring. Why do I feel such a tug toward embracing ethnicity and welcoming all nations to worship? All three of our girls have had at least moderate, if not passionate, pulls toward cross-cultural missions work. After tonight, I'm starting to see why God has called Ellen and I so strongly to reverse Babel in this neighborhood.

With our adoptive boys, we are immersed in racial reconciliation and have a personal stake in it. Anthony He was prophesied to become a gentle giant, and I have felt that his destiny is reconciliation, even before he was the catalyst of a landmark lawsuit to help bring about less of a barrier between white and black families in the county and across the country. I have had the impression that AJ has been given a pastor's heart. And we named our last son Isaac Kenneth, partly because I have a precious promise from God that he is to be a source of joy to me as I learn to serve him.

What is my family's calling? Racial reconciliation? (Maybe you see my leanings here) Worship and intercession? To be a quiet witness? Something else?

LORD, teach us to know our heritage that we might understand our destiny. In Jesus' name. Amen.

2005-09-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

Well...here i go again. As i listened to New Life Live today (i really listen to see if others struggle with the same things i do!), a man called in who has a problem with depression, and anxiousness, and he wondered if he should have these symptoms, given his circumstances. It seems that the United Church of Christ 'senate' has approved same-sex marriage. This man was in a quandry as to whether he should leave the 'church'. I guess that i agreed with the hosts answers...that if he felt he couldn't live with that decision, yes, he should leave. If he was able to accept it, then, no. I think that he will be leaving that particular 'church' soon. He was really upset. I went home and read 1 Cor.5 again. "It is reported that there is sexual immorality among you....a man has his father's wife............deliver such a one to satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus".

Paul continues that he wrote to them not to keep company with the sexually immoral (not those OF the world, but those who are called brothers). Then...the 'biggie'....
"Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." And yet, the 'church' not only turns away from all of the Scriptures that address this, but decides to SANCTION it!

I have always had a hard time with 'denominations' of any kind. I have thought that being a 'denomination' seems to give 'churches' the 'right' to have their own rules, regulations, by-laws, and, in effect, their own 'scripture'. Not that so-called non-denominational churches cannot have theirs, but the reason that many have left the denominations is because of these man-made scriptures.

We CANNOT call ourselves Christians if we decide to throw out the true Word of God, and insert the things that we either desire, or do not want to deal with that will offend or make waves. The UCC is not the first 'church' to go this direction. Many have already gone there. And many more will bow to pressure in the future. On the day of judgement, all the pagans in Hell will have to make room for all of the 'good church-going people'. We as pastors, priests, and ministers will be guilty of leading the hoardes down the path of destruction.

How can we read, study, memorize the entire Bible, go to seminary, become ordained, counsel people, have them put their trust in us, then lead them straight to Hell?! Yes, we are all sinners saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, but is that a reason to teach sin as proper doctrine? There is a great difference between BEING a sinner, and TEACHING it!!
"Lord Jesus, save us from ourselves, and save Your Church". mark

2005-09-15T08:45:00.000-05:00

THE QUEST FOR HOLINESS, INSTALLMENT 4: THE STRAIN

I keep turning this matter of holiness over in my spirit, and then stumbling across passages that address the subject. Today it was Philippians 3 and John 17. Maybe they are related. And maybe I’m just tired. We’ll see.

Early in the chapter, Paul comes down hard on legalism, especially circumcision. So whatever else he says in the rest of the chapter, he is not talking about getting there by means of the Law! We worship by the Spirit, not by the flesh, because righteousness that comes by means of the law amounts to absolutely nothing.

Then Paul says that he has not already obtained “this” (knowing Christ, and attaining the resurrection from the dead), or have already been made perfect. But “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” This he says he does one thing: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

In practical terms, I ask myself, “What is the strain that Paul embraces here?” It is not to keep the law better. It could be to endure persecution and finish strong in his missional calling. But in fulfilling his calling, Paul denies himself and takes on a more heavenly mindset until at last he gets a body like Christ’s glorious body.

Jesus prayed for his disciples that they would not be of the world (the temporal, the prevailing culture), though they must not be removed from it. To be in the world, but not be of the world, that is the goal. In other words, I am called to live in this world, to be aware of my culture, and yet not be “of” that culture.

Then Jesus throws in his words about holiness (“Sanctify” and “make holy” are the same word in Greek, meaning “set apart”): “Make them holy by the truth; your word is truth. . . . I make myself holy, that they too may be truly holy.” So I am made holy by the truth, while living in the world, but not of the world, by means of the truth, which is God’s word. Got it?

In my pre-postmodern days, I knew what God’s word was. Now I only know what it isn’t.
But here’s what I am getting today from this passage: I am aware of my culture, but I am not driven by it. Rather, I am set apart, as a man on a mission, temporarily passing through. All that I see and experience is being filtered by truth as defined by God, not by this world.

So, I strain to keep a heavenly perspective on all that is around me. I am not enamored by the glitter of the world, knowing that it will all burn. But souls, both my own and those of other people, will live forever, so I strain to make use of my sojourn here on this planet to better prepare for eternity.

2005-09-02T20:25:00.000-05:00

Ken, this is Dan. I had written something pertaining to recent events already and thought I might post it. I hope I am not out of order

All of us experience events that shape our lives and affect us deeply. Sometimes we live through significant events that make a mark on us and leave their indelible imprint. Growing up, I heard many adults recount their memories of the first moon landing. They remembered every moment in great detail, down to what they were wearing. In a similar fashion, almost everyone who lived through John F. Kennedy’s assassination can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I used to snicker at such reminiscence until I experienced a similar day. My moment is September 11th, 2001. Even as I say it aloud, I am recalling that morning with my bride of ten days in a small apartment back in western Pennsylvania, about 40 miles from the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. I suspect that almost all of you are also going back to your respective places as well. Personally, I can still recollect the fear and anger that I felt that day with ease.

Many turned to God that day for answers. How could this happen? How could a loving God let this happen to so many innocent people? Countless Christians and non-believers alike sought advice from religious leaders. As many of you can recall, Sunday the 16th saw one of the most packed days in church history in recent years. The media also looked to the prominent figures in religion to get their perspective. As I recall, this is where Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts came under fire. They had the audacity to suggest that this was a punishment delivered by God on a corrupt nation. This was the deserved sentence for permitting abortion, pornography, homosexuality, and the like to run rampant in a land that once held God’s law as its own.

Well, this kind of rhetoric sounded almost like blasphemy. How could we deserve such a treatment? What did we do to warrant the death and destruction on such a level by the hands of such a horrendously evil group of people? There did not seem to be any logical explanation for God using MUSLIM TERRORISTS to strike against God’s “chosen people.” After all, “this land is your land, this land is my land, from the Redwood forests,…, this land was made for you and me.” At least, manifest destiny says so. All cynicism aside, how could God use such a wicked and unrighteous people to correct US? Well, the political incorrectness of these televangelists’ statements forced them to retract their original stances and take a more accepted view.

In my scrambling on that terrible morning, I admit that I searched my Bible for answers and for peace, but I never thought to look anywhere before the book of Matthew. I was used to sticking with the New Testament until I was more mature. I do not doubt the sincere intentions behind that suggestion; however, if I had looked in the Old Testament, I would have found countless examples of that day lived over and over again by a people in a far off land in a not so far off time.

Imagine having the foreknowledge of such a day! How terrible could that be? What other questions might appear? If your are the typical red-blooded American that equates patriotism with religion, then you stand with the majority of Americans who took offense to Mr. Robertson and Mr. Roberts. You might even take steps to prevent this occurrence. But what if you are one of these two Christian men? How do you respond? You see, the punishment was justified in their minds. Would you try to prevent the judgment that you yourself had asked God to bring upon a nation as a means to bring about repentance? Would you agree with God’s selection for bringing about change? I think this last question is one that we would wrestle over a great deal. We might try to bargain with God on what would be appropriate. It turns out that Habakkuk had the same dilemma that is presented here.

This prophet’s oracle begins with a petition for God to take action against his own sinful countrymen. His cry is for vengeance against those who have perverted the law and for vindication of the righteous. Sound familiar? I believe this is the cry of most preachers on Sunday mornings across this nation. There is the universal message that the world is going to Hell and something must be done. It turns out that God is about to do something very soon to influence Habakkuk’s neighbors, something very big.

This is where we arrive at the afore-mentioned dilemma. Our prophet becomes worried at the prospect of the impending judgment. God is about to send the Babylonian army against Judah to punish them for their wickedness. In their time, they were one of the most devastating forces of military might in Palestine. There was no fortification that could keep them from going over, under, or through. They had large numbers on their side in conjunction with the skills of combat. They struck terror into the hearts of anyone in their path. Now Habakkuk had that same terror interfering with his own acknowledgment of Judah’s sins.

In 1:13 we can see Habakkuk beginning to have reservations about Yahweh’s option for delivering punishment after hearing of the plan: “Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” This is a familiar refrain throughout several Old Testament books. Job too believed that he did not deserve his condition because he did nothing to merit such a fate. The writer of Ecclesiastes also questions the fairness of the wicked prospering and the righteous suffering. Our prophet takes a slightly different approach and focuses on the malice of the Babylonians and the appropriateness of such a terrible force being used to inflict punishment.

I have to wonder what reprimand Habakkuk would have thought fit the sins of Judah. Perhaps a plague of locusts would have done the trick. Maybe, but that seems a little weak. What about a severe drought? No, that had already been done before to little effect. It needs to be big, but not too big. Given enough time, I am sure that Habakkuk could have come up with something that he considered effective yet still showed restraint in comparison to Yahweh’s decision.

Sometimes it seems to us like God isn’t operating on our level of understanding. We don’t see his picture of the problem and we start making judgments based on our level of information. In short, we think we know better than God, The Almighty Creator of the Universe. But, and I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, we don’t. This is the lesson that Job learns after Yahweh responds to his petitions. It’s kind of humorous to see Job rant for more than a third of the book on our same subject only to give a two-verse retort when God puts him in his place.

Habakkuk experiences a similar reply. Yahweh responds by telling him the terrific force will indeed be punished for their heinous actions. He pronounces judgment on their practices of prosperity through “evil gain,” such as extortion, violence, drunkenness, sexual sin, and idolatry. This seems to satiate the prophet’s need for clarity.

It is interesting to note that God does not answer the question our prophet put forth. Similarly, God didn’t answer Job’s query of equity either. How could this be? Could it be that the question posed is the wrong question? It seems that our level of comprehension is too small to grasp God’s design. We lack the God’s-eye-view of the situation and will always have to operate on faith. We may never understand why 9-11 happened or why a tsunami took so many, many more in a single day, or why so many are suffering in squalor after Katrina. All we are asked to do is trust God through whatever occurs. This is the premise behind Paul’s statement of hope in Romans 8:28. And as one might guess, this is the realization upon which our prophet lands. Upon hearing the Lord’s response, he offers a prayer that reflects his innermost feelings and expresses a deepened trust in God’s sovereignty: “LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy” (3.2) “I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (3.16-18).

Jesus said it just about as much with a few less words. In Luke’s 13th chapter, some approach Jesus with some “news” about some people who received horrible treatment. He responds to their insinuations by telling them that their judgment of these people’s sin is unfounded. In much the same way, he tells them that the tower that fell and killed several (sounds remarkably familiar) has nothing to do with their sin. Instead, he tells them to let it serve as a sign that they should repent.

It’s hard not to judge. We’re brought up in a western society that privileges intellect and reason. We feel that we are the best and brightest in the world. As a result, we might try to put two and two together and decide that God smote New Orleans because of sex, drinking and gambling. But we are just not equipped to handle the kind of “logic” that makes sense of what we call chaos.

2005-09-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

KATRINA

The worst hurricane disaster in modern American history has deluged one of our greatest cities. Mark predicted on Sunday that many people there would conclude that God is bad through this. It seems that here on Thursday night, at the very least they have concluded that rescue workers are bad, that they have been forgotten, and that their desperate need must be met immediately.

I have a tendency not to step forward when other pushy people seem to voice a stronger need than I have. That tendency is usually positive, but there have been several times when it has hurt my family, because I haven't stood up for them or been assertive when necessary. After four days in stench and heat, living with all my family gathered around, with my little ones teetering on dehydration, with dead bodies just a few feet away, waiting for a few buses to come and take 42 people at a time away, would I reach the point of desperation? What if I were a poor Black man (Ellen noticed that almost all of the images are of Blacks)? Would I add this to my long list of sleights and conclude that someone out there was getting help, but that nobody cared about me? They say we all have a breaking point. What would mine be?

So from my comfortable home, with no immediate need for gas and no shortages affecting me, what does God call me to do? We sent money electronically. I am praying some generic prayers for mercy and help. What else is there? There should be no needy people among us believers, and we are called to heal and bless the nations. Sacrifice is called for. But what would be of practical help? LORD, give me ideas and give us all ways to help from here.

2005-08-30T08:43:00.000-05:00

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

I have spent much time trying to figure out how to do relationships well. But I realize it is worthless to come up with a list of right and wrong behavior toward one another. It’s not really about our outward behavior, but our hearts. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.

Let me be more personal. If I do not love God with all of my heart, then I will spend my time focused on the honors that I think I deserve, and the natural fruit that will result in my life is jealousy, competitiveness, and hurt feelings (either in myself or in someone I offend). If I do not love my neighbor as myself, I will not be protecting him behind his back, and what is in my heart will come out of my mouth. If I have not forgiven my sister from the heart, bitterness, backstabbing, bursts of anger and arguments will result. So the heart of the matter is the matter of my heart, and not just the tongue.

The church in the city of Corinth was a poster child for bad relationships in a church. Though they were not lacking in any spiritual gift, and were therefore a “Spirit-filled church,” they were deeply dysfunctional in their relationships. There were divisions in the church from the beginning, as some were converted through the influence of different apostles. They tolerated open sin in their midst and did not confront when they should have. When they came together for the so-called love feast, further divisions came to the surface, as people were not sharing their food or waiting for one another before they started. The church seemed to be marked by division. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:20, “For I am afraid that when I come to visit you I won't like what I find, and then you won't like my response. I am afraid that I will find quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfishness, backstabbing, gossip, conceit, and disorderly behavior.” (NLT) That’s quite a list of shame! And it comes from a heart-sickness of self-interest. To borrow from his advice to the Galatians, “If you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out or you will be destroyed by one another.”

Those eight negative qualities are the opposite of what Jesus said were marks of a “blessed” life. Those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are pure in heart, who are peacemakers, and who are persecuted and lied about (without striking back) are the ones who are blessed. They are blessed because their hearts are right.

If I were making a choice, I would rather be “blessed” than to be eaten up. It all starts in the heart fully submitted to God, dying to myself and living only for His glory. Then my relationships are right, even when I am being lied about, or when I am confronting sin, or living in the midst of enemies of the gospel.

Take courage! Life is made up of relationships, and relationships are messy. But relationships are all we have. God has invested heavily in order to have a relationship with us, and He has often been burned, holding out his hands all day long to a stubborn and obstinate people. He has been sorry that he ever created humankind, and He has been ready to wipe out an entire nation when they have rejected Him. All of history is filled with the story of God’s attempt to be in relationship with people, and people’s selfish rebellion against His love. And yet . . .

And yet, God chose the risk. Love is risk. And love is worth any cost to God.

2005-08-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

HE IS GOOD

God is good. He is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.

But He didn’t have to be good, you know. He could have created a cruel and unfair world. He could step on us or torture us like some celestial schoolboy with common ants. He could make a promise and then change.

Yet, if He wasn’t good, He would still be worthy of praise, because He is Creator. As Creator, He sets the rules. And the rules of the Creator must be right, even if they are not what we would see as morally or ethically fair. We, as His creation, would glorify Him because He is the all-powerful Creator.

We claim that God is good. Is there any objective evidence to suggest that God is, in fact, good? Does creation support the claim that God is good?

Psalm 19 says that the heavens are telling the glory of God. For example, the psalmist describes how the sun is faithful and powerful.
Romans 1:18-20 says that God’s eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen through what he has made.

Many have concluded that God is bad, based on their personal experience or observation. Personal grief and loss perhaps makes God seem unfair. Perhaps they have observed the harshness of so-called “acts of God,” such as a tsunami, tornado or drought. Maybe they have seen the injustice of humans toward one another, and see no intervention from heaven, and they conclude that God is either not loving or not powerful. Like the servant who buried his talent in the ground, they say to God, “I know that you are a hard man.”

But perhaps it is we who are not good. Perhaps God had established a truly perfect world, which itself is now fallen due to sin. Perhaps the Great Flood, for example, came because every thought and action of mankind, not of God, was evil.

So perhaps what creation proclaims loud and clear is the grace and mercy of God. Perfect. Fallen. Restored. Paradise made. Paradise lost. Paradise found. Jesus Christ came into the mess of this world to restore, to heal, and most importantly to join us in our state.

Praise God. He is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good.

2005-08-16T03:19:00.000-05:00

LETTING GO

Dear Father in heaven,
My youngest girl, Cora, is on a plane right now,
Flying halfway around the world
To serve You for the next three months.
Lord, I am missing her as she goes,
And I don’t know if she is missing me the same,
But in case she is having a hard time falling asleep on the flight,
Could You put her to bed for me?
You will be her only Father for the next ninety days,
And I know she’s not five years old anymore,
But if You don’t mind, I need to pass our old routine off to You, for my sake.
After you pray with her, it goes like this:

Good night, Cora.
Sleep tight.
Don’t let the bed bugs bite.
And if they do,
Take a shoe,
And beat em till they’re black and blue.
I love you.
Here’s a kiss.
Eskimo kiss. (giggle)
Butterfly kisses. (giggle)
Mickey Mouse kiss. (giggle)
Fish kiss. (giggle)
Giraffe kiss. (giggle)
Elephant kiss. (giggle)
I be wuvin you, Coawa Bee.
See you in the morning.
Yes, I’ll leave the door open a crack. How’s that?
Good night.
I love you.

Is what I’m feeling tonight what it felt like for You
To give up Your Son
For the sake of risk
(such is love)?
It must have been wonderfully terrible.
Beautifully painful.
Painfully beautiful and bittersweet.

Of course, You had no regrets of
Conversations You had passed up
Due to distractions or neglect.
But You did forsake Your Son, didn’t You?
I guess Jesus was not the only One who wept
During the years of His sojourn on earth.

So wrap Cora in Your arms of love tonight,
And squeeze her extra tight for me,
Since my arms are so much shorter than Yours.

Good night, Daddy.
Good night, Cora.

2005-08-13T01:23:00.000-05:00

Well...the Great Adventure is just about over...well...this 3 weeks of it anyway! What a happenin' thing to get to do! Ken and Daniel have done so much more than spend some 'quality time' together. They have done something that, i suppose, millions of dads and sons would love to have done at some time in their lives together, but for millions of reasons, never did. Even more sad is the fact that there are as many that would never WANT to do that with their dad or son. With his job at CCU, Ken has always, as so many of us do, battled between his committment to his job, and spending more time with the family. And, as with many of us, the family didn't always come out on top. But that has changed in recent times. And this sabbatical until the first of the year is a reflection of that. And "The Trip' is something that neither of them will ever forget.

i have followed closely each day, the antics of Ken, Daniel, and Moo! And what a great adventure it has been! i almost feel as if i had been there with them! The ball games, the strange looks and comments, doing things on the spur of the moment just because....well...because why not! The hot dog judging, and...being on the field when ya weren't supposed to be....DANIEL! That musta been rich, man! And the end-of-the-day insights were also great. Commenting on 'life elsewhere' as they saw it. A trip of worship....INDEED!

i wanted to keep up with them by e-mail as they went, but felt that it would've been...well...an invasion of privacy, i guess! They certainly had enough to do keeping the AWESOME web page full! And just bein' with each other. After all...relationships are the only things that really matter....everything else is gonna burn anyway! Relationships....what a great gift from God!! mark s.

2005-07-26T23:57:00.000-05:00

THE QUEST FOR HOLINESS, INSTALLMENT THREE: INTEGRITY

Perhaps another important ingredient to true holiness could be found in the pursuit of integrity.

Integrity is being consistent, being a person of my word, letting my “yes” be “yes” and my “no” be “no.” James says that anything less is of the devil, Jesus said that being a person of integrity in this way means that I don’t need to swear in order for someone to take me seriously. Paul said that a worldly way of making plans is to say “yes” and “no” at the same time. Anything less than this is called hypocrisy, and is not dealt with sympathetically by the Bible or the early church leaders.

I say “pursuit of integrity” because I’m not sure that anyone ever truly achieves that kind of consistent integrity.

I have many times made a commitment to do something I didn’t actually feel led to do, simply because I wanted to be liked by the person who was asking something of me. I said “yes” with my mouth while my heart was saying “no.” I was a manfearer and fell into a trap.

Worse yet, I have committed to doing something, but haven’t followed through on my promise (which is what my “yes” should always be). I swore to my own hurt, and then changed. According to the psalmist, I will not stand on the hill of the Lord or abide in His dwelling place because of my inconsistency.

Integrity is also saying difficult things to someone’s face, and not behind his or her back. Too often, it is the other way around. An enemy multiplies kisses, but the wounds of a friend can be trusted. I fear that almost every church and business and friendship, and even extended families, function this way. We don’t think of any of this as a lack of integrity, in danger of condemning our souls to hell for eternity.

So, why is it so common to lack integrity? Why did Solomon say that he could only find one righteous man in a thousand, but not even one righteous woman? Because he had only seen maybe one man of integrity in his life. I submit that perhaps that man was Jonathan, who pledged himself in friendship to Solomon’s father, David. He had been true. On the other hand, Solomon had a thousand wives, and he had not seen any of them with the loyalty of his father’s lifelong friend.

“LORD, let me be a man of my word, a man for all seasons. Let me be someone that people and You can bank on. This is my sincere goal. Guide me to it by Your Spirit of Holiness, who will guide me in all truth. Amen.”
-ker

2005-07-20T10:07:00.000-05:00

THE QUEST FOR HOLINESS, INSTALLMENT TWO: SELF-CONTROL.

What does it mean to be holy? And what is the path for getting there? As I further reflect on the matter, I realize that a major key could be found in the concept of self-control.

I discovered the word sophroneo (in Greek) and did a word study on it as a young man. It is the word used to describe the Gadarene demoniac who had had a legion of demons cast out of him by Jesus. He was sitting, fully clothed and in his right mind, or self-controlled. It is also the word used for what Paul told Titus to teach older men, older women, younger women and young men in Titus chapter 2. In fact, self-controlled is the ONLY thing that Titus was to encourage the young men to be.

What does it mean to be self-controlled? On a practical level, it means to be soberminded, to be morally straight, to hold one's temper, to avoid wildness, to be focused and disciplined. Practically speaking, it means to say "no" to your flesh and to those natural desires that you know lead to self-destructive or wrong behavior.

But on a deeper and even more practical level, to be self-controlled means something beyond myself. I might say that being self-controlled means to be Spirit-controlled. I don't just say "no" to my flesh, but I focus on saying "yes" to the Spirit. And the Holy Spirit (the spirit of holiness) will, without exception, lead me to make holy choices by a simple "yes" to His promptings.

If I only focus on saying "no" to myself, I quickly wind up in legalism and restrictions. If I focus on saying "yes" to Him, I walk in freedom and yet am set apart for the things of God. After all, I am not my own. I belong to Him. I live for Him. I die for Him. I give to Him. I serve Him only.

"LORD, I choose self-control to lead me to a holy life. I will deny myself, and I will say 'yes' to Your Spirit. I choose to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit. And when He speaks, my answer will be 'Amen.'"
-ker

2005-07-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

THE QUEST FOR HOLINESS, INSTALLMENT ONE: LOVE

What does it mean to be holy? On a practical level, talking about living a holy life seems to lead immediately to legalism. We talk about what to stay away from, what not to do. But Michael Wilson read from a book last Sunday, and it has led me to see that perhaps the primary key to holiness is love.

When I love myself, I choose what is good for myself, rather than what is destructive. When I love God, I choose what honors Him and brings Him glory. When I love my neighbor, I choose to do what is best for him or her. So walking in love leads to walking in holiness. Maybe they are synonymous. But then love is synonymous with anything good, I suppose.

What is deceitful in my simple love formula is that, though I love myself a great deal, I often do actions that are self-destructive and immature. I eat poorly, live an out-of-balance schedule, and don't discipline myself. I often trade long-term effectiveness for short-term pleasure, and it's not because I don't love myself, but because I am not making wise choices.

Most of the time, however, the love formula is perfect. So if I keep my eyes on pursuing love, I will find myself living a life of holiness, because all of my choices will be made with purity of motives.

"LORD, I choose to love You will all of my heart, with all of my soul, with all of my mind, and with all of my strength. And I choose to love my neighbor as I love myself. Let me honor You by the way I walk in love, and I will be set apart for Your purposes. In the holy name of Jesus I ask it. Amen."
-ker

2005-07-13T00:08:00.000-05:00

WHERE DOES ANGER COME FROM?

For the second time in just two days, I have heard my voice yelling at my son Anthony. I am shocked that such strong feelings overwhelm me from time to time, and even more so that I should have two attacks of screaming in such close order.

I like to think that any time I get angry, it is with righteous indignation. Acts of evil and rebellion, injustice and cruelty, these are the things that should make me angry because I see the world through God's eyes. Jesus cleared the temple; I yell at my son, right? No, I'm ashamed to say that my fits are due to seeing actions through my eyes only.

Anthony has the heart of an adult, but the maturity of a little boy. He wants so badly to be responsible, and, sure enough, he is so badly responsible. He wants to help with his little brothers, but he makes wrong choices, treats them roughly, does not follow through. Sometimes he acts like, well, a little kid. Oh, yeah, he is one. A hundred-pound gentle giant in the making. And rather than seeing his good heart and helping him learn how to channel those good intentions, I exhibit the very thing I never want to see in him.

When I want him to be a grown-up helper and he instead behaves like a little boy, it makes me angry. I'm angry at Anthony, I suppose. Impatient at his impatience. Maybe I'm angry at God. I don't know.

James asked this question about the source of anger. He said it comes from wanting something for selfish reasons. For my own selfish ends, I want my home to be a place of maturity and peace. Ironically, when it is not, I have made it worse. So much for getting my own way.

"LORD, let me want what You want, rather than insisting on my own timetable. Let me show Anthony the same patience and consistent love that You have shown me. I have felt Your conviction before, but it is always gentle and loving, affirming and compassionate. Forgive me once again through Jesus, and let me be the father that Antho-Bud needs and deserves, while there is still hope. Amen."
-ker

2005-07-12T10:30:00.000-05:00

GET UP AND GO

This morning we read from Acts 8, and for various reasons that I will explain some little details jumped out at me. Here are the words: Walk over . . . He got up and went . . . on his way . . . had gone to Jerusalem . . . on his way home . . . Go to that chariot and stay near it . . . as they traveled . . . went down into the water . . . came up out of the water . . . went on his way . . . traveled about.

Jesus told his disciples "Go." The angel told Peter and John, "Go, stand and tell." God told Abraham, "Go to the place I will show you." He sent Elijah on a long journey before He said something important to him in a still, small voice. Jesus left heaven to come to earth. Maybe it is not coincidence that the Gospel begins with "Go." So does "God." Okay, maybe not. But maybe His calling often begins with a hearty "Go."

So the Spirit is whispering to me my own, very personal, "Go." In my case, it is to leave my office, to get some exercise, and to be more active. Maybe God is telling Daniel and me to "Go" on a roadtrip to experience something that will shape us both for a lifetime.

The truth is, I have been so tired lately. My get up and go has gotten up and gone. Neither Ellen nor I have slept for eight straight hours more than once or twice a year in the past two years, and we are both constantly exhausted. So my tendency is to want to be sedentary, passive and inactive during the day. Let them come to me. Let someone else initiate an idea, or stand up to get that diaper, or initiate a needed conversation, or volunteer to help that neighbor, or run down to that other place to pick up something.

So, I am sitting in Panera Bread instead of my office, doing a blog by wireless internet for the first time, experiencing life outside the office. And I am running some errands to prepare for the roadtrip rather than sitting and making a list. And maybe tomorrow morning, Ellen and I will start taking some walks at the beginning of the day. And maybe I will be a little less reluctant to stand up or to leave the house or the office in order to be out in public.

You know, where the people are.

2005-07-09T16:35:00.000-05:00

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HOLY?

Our elders are entering a season of wrestling with a major topic on behalf of the church. Maybe the center of the topic is the practical definition of holiness. God is holy; what does that mean? He tells us to be holy as He is holy; what does that look like?

In the "good ol' days," conservative evangelicals knew what holiness looked like. Good boys and girls didn't do certain things, and the list was pretty much universally understood: don't smoke or drink, don't cuss or steal, no sex outside of marriage, be sure to go to church and tithe, that sort of thing. Furthermore, don't do anything that LOOKS bad, like playing cards, going to movies or going to bars. (Sometimes the Scripture, "Avoid every appearance of evil" was mistranslated for this principle.)

Using these legalistic standards, we could tell you what sin was, and consequently could feel pretty comfortable with our holiness. Holiness was avoiding anything on the Top Ten Sins list. In fact, those who did the best at appearing to keep away from the Top Ten would be elevated to positions of leadership, such as deacon and elder, where they could help watch over the flock to be sure no one else backslid into a sinful lifestyle. It was all pretty tidy.

Of course, Jesus often upset our comfortable system by talking about hating our brother or lusting after women. But those kinds of things were so hard to measure that we mostly ignored them. After all, how could you tell if someone lusted? But you could tell if someone was divorced, so that became the practical standard.

We all know what happened to our idyllic system of measurable holiness. It fell prey to the skeptical scrutiny of postmodernism. We discovered that many of the people who seemed pure on the outside were really full of pride, selfishness, greed and lust, while others who did not fit the old system were really quite balanced and healthy in their spiritual lives. And none of us was pure, after all.

So now we stand at a crossroad. If we can't measure holiness by the old standards, how do we know whether we are being holy?

I think that most postmoderns today focus so much on running away from the old legalistic measurements of holy living that they no longer consider the command to be holy. We so much emphasize grace and mercy that we have almost completely ignored the call to be godly. We no longer use the "s" word (sin) or the "r" word (repent), because those only alienate people and block them from hearing the Good News. Resultantly, the individual conscience has become the ultimate, and maybe the only, measurement of right and wrong. Freedom without holiness is idolatry, and grace without zeal is antichrist, just as faith without works is dead.

Where do we go from here? The elders are hoping to schedule a retreat late this summer to wrestle with this subject together, seeking the Lord and fasting and studying so that we can help to shepherd our flock.

"LORD, we want to please you as a people. We want to want what You want, and we want to hate what You hate. Give us Your eyes and Your heart, and lead us in paths of righteousness for Your name's sake. We ask this of You, Father God, in the name of Your Son through the will shown to us by Your Spirit. Amen."

2005-07-04T00:05:00.000-05:00

WORSHIP IS LOVE

Here is the essence of what I shared in the assembly yesterday morning:

In a very real sense, it is fair to say that worship is nothing more or less than loving God and being loved by God. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. And John 3:16 says that God so loved the world. We love God and God loved us. John tells us that we love because God first loved us. So worship is the give and take of love.

In fact, the traditional wording of the wedding ceremony includes the words, "With all that I am and all that I have I worship thee." More recently we say, "I honor you." The early English word for worship meant to ascribe worth or honor, and the love and commitment between a husband and wife is truly worship.

Now, every word picture has its limitations, but we are described as the bride of Christ in the New Testament. The Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) provides an intimate, pasisonate description of love between a bride and groom. Many through the years have considered the book to be a metaphorical description of Christ and the church.

Now, two warnings before we proceed:

First, sexual or romantic love is not necessarily the highest love. That's often what we think of between husband and wife. But remember what Jesus said was the highest love? Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for a friend. So the highest expression of love is self-sacrifice, not romance.

Second, I just noticed that WE are the Bride of Christ, not ME. I am a part of that body, but I am not the whole. Our expressions of intimacy are strangely collective expressions, for each of us is part of the whole, the Bride that Jesus loved and gave Himself up for.

2005-07-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

BASEBALL 101: A LESSON IN LEADERSHIP

This is the first installment of spiritual insights and life lessons generated from baseball. We'll see where the whole thing ends up in a few weeks!

Paul Daugherty from the Cincinnati Enquirer prompted these thoughts with a column on being a major league manager. There are some lessons in leadership that I have been mulling over since reading his column.

PD says: "Some managers win the respect of their players. They demand a few essentials: hustle and brains, basically. Play hard and smart. Those are the managers who keep their jobs. Others do not have the respect of their players. They ask for hard and smart. Without respect, they don't always get it. What they get is fired."

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa put it this way: "Your first responsibility is getting effort from your club. Play nine hard innings. You hire a manager to provide leadership, not be a caretaker. If you don't set forth a philosophy of how your team is going to play - and back it up whenever your team doesn't play that way - you're leaving a void. Sooner or later, someone will fill it."

What the column says that you need two things in order to win respect from major league players: "The Reds need someone who can get up in their faces and flash a World Series ring at the same time. One without the other presents a credibility gap that can't be bridged."

Kent Mercker said this about Bobby Cox: "One set of rules. It's fear, in a good way. It's respect. I've seen (Cox) pull superstars out of games for not running hard to first base."

La Russa again: "You have to come in and say, 'This is how we're going to play, this is how we're going to conduct ourselves. We have a plan. Every day, we follow it.' Do that, follow through, and players believe you know what you're talking about."

Managers all want the same two things: play smart and play hard. But they don't all get it. Those who get smart and hard from their players have two things: a ring and an attitude. That's the column in a nutshell.

What does this have to do with me? If I want an effective music program at school, or an effective worship team at church, I need two things: a credibility and character (I'm replacing Daugherty's words here). I must model what I want in students by being an example in my own worship leading and musicianship, and I must consistently call for the musicians I work with to be the best that they can be. What that says to me is to set up my musicians to succeed, with the materials and advance notice that they need and the communication that they deserve. Have consistent standards, keep good records, and call students higher.

Then, I don't need to fret over the quality of musicians, because eventually I will get quality drawn to the team that produces great stuff.

2005-07-02T13:12:00.000-05:00

DEPENDENCE DAY

We have only one holiday in America that is most commonly known only by its date. Almost exclusively I find myself calling it The Fourth of July rather than Independence Day. Even when the Monday falls on something other than the fourth, the holiday is still referred to as The Fourth Weekend.

I am glad that for the most part we still call most holidays by their names: Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, National Day of Prayer, and (dare I say it) Christmas and Easter (or Winter and Spring Break). The names help to remind us of what it is we are to Remember, or to whom and for what we are Thankful. But I wonder if we have forgotten the meaning of Independence Day, as we have forgotten the name?

Any advanced civilization is highly interdependent. My family, for example, does not grow a single bite of our own food, do not supply our own heat or power, and are not self-sufficient by any means. As a nation, too, we are extremely dependent on the Middle East for oil, on the Far East for cheap labor, and on technology for, well, everything.

Our dependence on technology is, let it be known, our greatest strength and also our Achilles' heel as a nation. If an enemy were to devise a way to remove all of our digital equipment in a single moment, we would be crippled. All computers would no longer work (no more daily blog!), including those in our vehicles, at our power plants and water works, in our telephones, ATM machines and every other means of transferring money, and in virtually every store and gizmo made in the last twenty years. In fact, our army is well outnumbered by several others. Our only advantage over other military forces is our technology, which is supported by our strong economy.

Do you think that an enemy would dare to attack our technology, our military and our economy if it were in their power to do so? Of course they would. It would be better than flying planes into the World Trade Center, and far more symbolic. Perhaps most symbolic of all would be to do this nefarious act on the day in which we celebrate our self-claimed independence. Perhaps this year? Perhaps as late as next year?

What will our city be like with no electricity, no water, and no TV or radio communication? We would instantly discover just how Dependent we are. Maybe we are not so Independent, after all.

Am I ready? I cannot get ready in a physical sense. Not living where I do. But am I ready for the chaos and the panic and the violence of my culture when the day arrives? Will I prove my faith by my reaction to my hardship? Will I find hope beyond this life?

"LORD, today I declare my absolute Dependence upon You. I remember that I am but dust, and that You alone are my Maker and Sustainer. Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Amen."
-ker

2005-06-23T01:00:00.000-05:00

MAINTAINING MY FIVE CIRCLES

I have five circles of relationship in my life, which pretty well determine the priorities of my schedule. The concentric circles emanate outward from the center, closest to farthest. The problem is, I am having a hard time trying to maintain all of them these days.

In the center circle are rightfully only three beings: Jesus, Ellen and me. These are the relationships that must be maintained, no matter what else is going on around me. If I am not in good communication with the Lord (whose I am) and with my wife (with whom I am one flesh), then all else must be cut away in order to re-establish proper unity. And if I am not at peace with myself, then I am only an empty shell of a man who has nothing to give anyone else.

The next circle out contains my immediate family: Becky, Katie and Gregg, Daniel, Cora, Anthony, AJ, Isaac, Jenny and Brad. In my opinion, no friends belong in this circle, and not even my parents. I must carefully protect time with each individual in my nuclear family, so that there are no secrets, no unhealed wounds, no bitterness. After all, if a man does not maintain his own family well, how can he care for a larger circle of friends? Of course, there are enough people in this circle to keep me quite occupied, especially with the challenge of having adult children and also having babies in the house. Ellen and I can pretty easily expend all the energy we have just to keep these relationships healthy, and in times of limited emotional resources (which we seem to be in these days), pulling back from other circles of relationships in order to keep the family strong is appropriate.

The third circle outward is my closest friends: my small group (the house church, to whom I am committed as to family), my parents (if I do not honor them and take care of them, I am worse than an unbeliever), my extended family (my sister, my in-laws, sometimes other family members in need) and the elders (who are my circle of accountability and confidential prayer partners). While there weren't many in my innermost circle, and I can name all of the members of my second circle, this circle contains enough people that I can lose count and can have people move in and out of it.

Circle four is my circle of ministry: my community of faith (CCiPH), my current students, former students with whom I keep in touch, and other friendships that I want to maintain (such as sports parents, friends of my children, community groups, other faculty and staff at school, neighbors, and others whom I can predict seeing repeatedly). Not only do I lose count of the people in this circle, but I realize that it is far too large and flexible to keep up with all of those relationships, or sometimes to even remember everyone's name and life situation.

The fifth circle comes last and is the circle of outreach: people who are strangers to me, or at least only acquaintances, whom I serve in Jesus' name. These people include the people I see at the store or the restaurant, other drivers on the road, new student prospects, people who come in the door of the church, people who receive help from Manna or whom I meet doing servant evangelism or at the community meal, and a thousand other points of entry. If I am healthy, I will continually be meeting new people and establishing new relationships, some of which will, in turn, filter down into the next circle or two.

Here comes my challenge: my family has recently expanded, at the same time that my church circle has expanded. In the meantime, the circle of students and alumni is continually growing, and our parents are in need of more help from us as they get older. So circle two grew by two people even while circle three and four grew substantially with the planting of a new church and a growing program at school. And any church needs to be concerned with outreach, so circle five should also be growing right now. (This actually is a major concern of mine, that we as a church are not meeting as many new people as we might).

As I get older, I find that I have less energy, not more, and there's the rub. For a season at least, I must be pulling back from my commitment to circles five and four, and even to circle three, in order to have enough for circles two and one. I have consciously been doing just that, but it is not easy.

As I look around at others in our church family, I realize that most of us are also experiencing growing circles of relationships around us. Some are struggling as I am to keep up with their inner circles, trying to find health and proper balance. Others may be experiencing a cut-back in some relationships, due to recently moving or to family members moving away or a change in jobs.

This circle illustration is helping me to see my priorities (which I define as decisions I make prior to the crisis that tempts me to abandon them). Jesus kept these priorities: He had His relationship with His Father (they are one), His inner three and His chosen twelve, His friends and extended family whom He loved (Mary, Martha and Lazarus among them), the group that followed Him (which was in flux, some abandoning Him on that Friday) and the multitudes to whom He preached and healed.

I have some work to do. And it is the most enjoyable work of all: loving God with all of me and loving my neighbor as I love myself. As we often say around here: It's all about relationships. And it is.

"LORD, every day I need Your guidance to talk with those whom You place in my path. Make me wise, make me diligent, and make me like Jesus. Amen."
-ker

2005-06-20T00:22:00.000-05:00

THE FORGOTTEN FIRST SIGN OF REVIVAL

Today on Father's Day I am reflecting on the joys and rewards of fatherhood. I begin to glimpse on several levels just how crucial the concept of fatherhood is to the heart of God.

In fact, the first mark of the work of God is in the heart of fathers. The ministry of Elijah became the ministry of John the Baptist and, by extension, of Jesus, and that ministry was this: To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and of children to their fathers, or else I will strike the land with a curse. (Mal. 4:6, Luke 1:17)

The first fruit of revival, then, is not a richer prayer life or a deeper spiritual walk with Jesus. The sign that God's work has begun is not evangelistic zeal and increasing numbers at church. Rather, the surprising first mark of response to the Spirit is a change in the heart of fathers! Their hearts are turned to invest at home, to love their children, to serve and discipline their own families. It begins at home, and spreads from there.

The converse then also begins: the hearts of children are turned to their fathers. They obey rather than rebel, they love rather than resist, they follow in wisdom and maturity rather than fall into dissipation and foolishness. In other words, fathers begin to reap what they have sown.

Fatherhood begins with absolute giving, when a child is a helpless infant, and ends in absolute receiving, when a father is infirmed in old age. The father who invests well in changing diapers and in reading and play, and especially in discipline (according to Proverbs) and encouragement, will earn a richer reward when the child grows to maturity. Slow discipleship focused first on the home will reap a greater and deeper harvest when the next generation does even greater works in Jesus' name.

I am not sure why God does not mention mothers in these passages, except to speculate that mothers tend to already have their hearts turned to their children. In any case, current statistics bear out the important the role of fathers in the lives of their children. I don't have those statistics here, but the correlation is astonishing of how few of the inmates currently held have fathers active in their lives. Indeed, as the Scripture says, "or else I will strike the land with a curse." Price Hill is struck with a curse, and it began with fatherlessness!

This Father's Day, I am most blessed to see that my children are walking in the truth, (2 John 4) and that is true for many others in our congregation. That's why I was so blessed to realize that our worship team this morning averaged under 21 years of age. And it is why we are doubly blessed by father/son teams preaching this month. The church of cciph is reaping the benefit of fathers who began sowing two decades ago into the lives of their children.

"LORD, turn my heart again today and every day to my children. Let me love and serve them. And thank You for the glimpse today of the wonderful, inestimable reward that comes when serving days are done at last. I will be faithful, as You give me strength to do so, by Your Holy Spirit, in the name of Your Son. Amen."
-ker

2005-06-17T01:33:00.000-05:00

POWER CORRUPTS

Pardon me for continuing on this topic, but I have more reflections on the corrupting power of church planters and senior pastors.

Years ago, an influential man in the early American Christian churches named Alexander Campbell was opposed to having a paid minister in a church. He called them "hirelings," and saw that they demonstrated a conflict of interests to make a church grow in order to provide their own pay, and that when trouble came to the church they would seek a ministry elsewhere, abandoning the sheep for yet another worker. The solution, he thought, was a plurality of elders who served as long-term, life-long shepherds. Campbell's thinking has become very rare today.

In fact, just today I read these concepts from someone who was opposed to the idea of a church hiring a "resident theologian" to help shape the doctrinal teaching of a congregation. Here are his telling comments:

The idea of a “theologian in residence” requires the senior minister/pastor to surrender or share a tremendous amount of power. . . . The second problem I see is that if “knowledge is power,” and if “power tends to corrupt,” then whoever is engaged in such a pursuit needs to be cautious.

Perhaps this brother does not notice the very serious flaw in his assumptions. He seems blind to the fact that the senior minister even has "a tremendous amount of power" to surrender, and that perhaps churches should have been cautious before hiring a senior minister.

Is there a biblical justification for the position of a senior minister? I see practical advantages to using the one-man leadership model, but other than a few obscure references (such as the concept that the "angels" of each of the churches in Revelation might have been the pastors), I don't see it in the Bible. It seems to me that if a church would start to truly function in community, it would change things tremendously. Instead of one man going up on the mountain to hear from God and deliver "the" message to the people week by week (what we might call the Mosaic model for ministry), maybe churches (or at least their leaders in plural) could together seek God's direction and leading.

Most church planters and senior ministers talk about doing ministry as a team. But what they mean is "You guys help me." Many senior pastors are badly egocentric, with an unrecognized desire to control. He keeps the saints dependent upon himself, rather than serving others and inviting those who will to join him in humble ministry. One reason he doesn't recognize that he is out of balance is because the single-pastor model is the only one he has ever seen.

Though they would not use the term, most senior pastors view themselves as benevolent dictators. They dictate the programs, the teaching, and the direction for the church, but their motives are benevolent. What makes them different from a tyrannical despot is their internal motive, but not their style of leadership.

So I recommend that every church have a worship team, not just a worship minister. Also a preaching/teaching team, not just a preaching minister. Or perhaps I am recommending that those worship or preaching ministers, after being hired, live out a different model for ministry and share the "power" that was given to them.

Clearly, I am still working these thoughts out in my head. It is so personal to me, because I see all of these temptations before me both in our church and at my school. And my own path has been to see my lust for power and to back off. Only eternity will measure whether I did so from false motives or true. I want to have Jesus say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

"LORD, let me see the church the way Jesus sees her. Let me serve, give away, die to self, and let You control, rather than me. I want to be a steward of what authority You grant to me, without denying it, yet I am convinced every day that I must run from the power of organized religion, in Jesus' name. Amen."
-ker

2005-06-14T00:22:00.000-05:00

CHOOSING REAL POWER

Rob Fleenor led our small group in a lesson about Peter and John from Acts 4 this week, and here are some insights generated from that study:

First, Peter was led by the Spirit on his way to prayer. Being a Jewish believer, he was going to the temple at the hour of prayer, to participate in the daily synagogue liturgy. There, he saw a beggar who had been there for years. This crippled man had probably seen Peter walk past him every day before, likely without Peter talking to him or giving him alms. In fact, he had probably even see Jesus go by on the Lord's way to the temple. Yet, here he was, still dependent and weak.

But today was different. For whatever reason, today the Spirit nudged Peter to heal this man. Peter said, "Look at us!" The man expected a gift, but he was expecting mere money. "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give to you: in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, get up and walk." And he did.

I think it was Martin Luther who said of the pope in his day, "No longer can he say, 'Silver and gold have I none,' but likewise neither can he say, 'Get up and walk.'" Yes. Perhaps organized religion wars against and grieves the Holy Spirit, so that no longer do we have spiritual power, since we have so much earthly power. Peter uses the opportunity to preach to the curious crowd about Jesus.

Later that afternoon, Peter is brought before the council to defend his actions. The religious leaders of his generation ask by what authority or in whose name Peter had done this healing. Seems silly, doesn't it? How could they miss the point of a generous and loving act of mercy? But that's what organized religion will do. It creates power, and power corrupts.

Notice that in his reply it says that Peter was filled with the Spirit. I don't know what that felt like, or how Peter knew that for this answer he was especially filled with the Spirit, but it must have been an especially noteworthy moment in the apostle's life. Filled with the Spirit, Peter gives an answer:

"If you are asking how and why a miraculous good deed took place, then let me be clear: It is in the name of Jesus." If I were asked why we give out food at Manna, or why we help people financially, or why we offer counseling services or music lessons, I wonder how clearly I would reply. It is a temptation when, for example, the government offers money to support "faith-based charities," so long as those charities comply with certain restrictions. Money is power, and power corrupts.

After Peter's bold defense, the council noted that he and John were unschooled men, but that they had "been with Jesus." They knew from experience what spiritual power was like, and Peter sounded just like his Lord in his answer.

In my professional world, we care about academic credentials, which mostly means secular credentials. You might say, no longer can we say that we are unschooled. But then perhaps no longer is it clear that we have been with Jesus. Rather, it is clear that we have education, which often substitutes for and mimicks spiritual power.

Organized religion can turn good guys into bad guys in any generation, because it gives power to some and rewards certain behaviors. Then those who have power (authority, respect, money) work to keep themselves in that place, and they will, in the name of serving God, oppose His very work in the next generation because it threatens their position. In Peter's generation, the Pharisees and Saducees were the ones in power, and they opposed Peter. In the middle ages, the pope had the power, and though he claimed to wear the mantle of Peter, his ministry was nothing like Peter's. Today, perhaps one might say, professional pastors and professors are part of the educated elite, and they oppose the work of God in our generation.

In the words of the songwriter, I would rather have Jesus than silver or gold, riches untold, worldwide fame, or anything this world affords. Our little study of Acts 4 reminds me of some potential blindspots that the tastes of power in the evangelical world might tempt me with.

Jesus was tempted with worldly power and wealth. It was at least one of the three most significant temptations to him. When the temptation came, Jesus stopped quoting Scripture and arguing with the devil and told him to be gone. I wonder if I have responded more to rather like the pay and the respect and prestige that organized religion will give me.

"LORD, I would choose to be with Jesus more than I would to study about Him. I would rather talk five words to Jesus than to write a book about the contemporary quest for Him. I would rather walk in discerning, spiritual power than to fall prey to the temptation for temporal worldly power. Let me see through the wiles of the enemy today, and choose You. Amen."
-ker

2005-06-11T00:33:00.000-05:00

LIFE IS RELATIONAL

Some years ago I remember reading an article by Fred Smith about parenting. He was devastated to learn from his grown son that he had been a terrible model as a father. His son told him that he consciously wanted to do the opposite of what Fred Smith had done. Now, in most ways, Fred was an ideal Christian father. But his son said there was one thing his dad had never learned: "Life is relational, not productive."

Being a naturally task-oriented person, I noticed that comment. Life does not consist of how much I accomplish in the days I am here, but rather in how I treated the people who matter to me.

I have tried to parent consciously based on that insight. Being a father is about biology and law; being a dad is about relationships and love. I have tried, when I am aware of it, to remember to have a good relationship with my wife and children rather than getting chores done or perfunctorily doing my duty.

In fact, my relationship with God is like that, too. I can't earn salvation. We often say that Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. It's more about abiding in Christ than accomplishing for Him. It's a matter of Who I know, not what I do. I am saved, not because I have worked hard, but because I have abided in Christ.

There is a natural corrolary to this insight, of course: Church is relational, too. Unity is job one, commision is job two. We don't count or publish attendance figures on Sundays because those numbers are misleading. God is more concerned that we be one than that we be a hundred or a thousand.

All of this relational talk doesn't mean that there is no task to do. Jesus said that he was called to do the work of his Father. On the cross he said, "It is finished." The church is under a great commission, and there is a labor prompted by love before us as a congregation. Likewise, stuff of life must be done by me and by the family members. We can't sit around talking to each other all day and consider ourselves to be a well-balanced family.

That's what I'm talking about: balance. Finding it is like a fiddler on the roof. As for me, I guess I have come to an uneasy balance by being inwardly very driven and task-oriented, yet outwardly being amiable and relationship-focused. I am a type-A person with a type-B mask.

My sabbatical is bringing all of this strife for balance to the forefront. Am I healthy? Is my facade wise? Is my inner drivenness right? I am not convinced. In fact, I am convinced that largely I am missing it. More of me needs to surrender, that I might have deep and abiding peace while people distract me from my projects and goals.

Am I driven because God wired me that way, so I should embrace my ambitions? Or am I driven from a very deep-seated need for love? And do I focus on the needs of those around me because Jesus calls me to sacrifice for them? Or am I simply unable to say no out of a fear of men and a desire for acceptance? Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to Christ my Lord!

"LORD, You alone know what You have for me to do in any given day. Let me surrender fully and completely to Your will each day, without worrying about tomorrow and the overarching goals of my life. I will obey You, Father, who convey Your will through the example of the Son and the guidance of the Counselor, one God without end. Amen."
-ker

2005-06-09T09:14:00.000-05:00

FERVENT PRAYER

James says that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (in the old KJV). I wonder how much the token reflections of a postmodern man accomplish?

In recent years, my times of intense prayer, seeking the Lord on my knees and with tears, have been few indeed. I have been so caught up in the daily affairs of my life, so busy with the responsibilities of ministry, that I have neglected the very thing that brings them power.

What's more, I think that I have lacked boldness in prayer, not being so sure of God's will, because I haven't taken the time to go deeply into pursuing the mind of Christ.

I wonder if we as a church have the same problem. We have had once-a-month times for united prayer as a church. The first month, nine people came. Then six. Last night, it was two. Similarly, our times of intercessory worship have been attended by as many as nine, but most months lately it has been about three or four people. There are lots of good reasons for low attendance, but I suspect that at least part of the problem here is a lack of motivation.

The most important work of elders is prayer, just as the most important work of a worship team is worship. If the leaders are not willing to go somewhere, how can we lead others to go there?

Prayer is work. I never really want to pray fervently. But I have never regretted doing so after I have gone into the secret place to see the heart of God. I feel the same way about exercise. Who wants to get started in an activity that will make them sweat and hurt? But afterward come the benefits, when I feel strong, I feel energized, and I am ready for more activity.

On a related note, I wonder if we have been lacking in intensity in prayer because we are lacking in faith? This whole postmodern mindset has people calling on some sort of god, but without a clear, unwavering faith in the blood of Jesus. When we don't know whom we are addressing, then how can we know what to ask? And if we are in a state like that, why pray?

If the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, how much do the token reflections of a postmodern man accomplish?

"LORD, I repent of my prayerless, faithless fear of men. Let me climb the mountain and enter in and go deeper and farther in with You, that I may know Your heart and agree with Your will on earth. In the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen."
-ker

2005-06-07T23:22:00.000-05:00

THE ROADTRIP

Note: for the latest news on the roadtrip, go to www.themoomobile.com

Here are notes from the message of Daniel and Ken on Sunday. These are insights we expect to have from our trip. You might say these are our spiritual hypotheses.

Value of fathers and sons bonding while there is still time. Years go by so quickly and then they are gone. Often as boys become teens relationships change and independence enters a boy’s (*ahem* teen’s) heart. Suddenly it is too late. Even with a great relationship, a boy’s job is to grow to be a man and to find his place in the world and move away. So buy up today.
I’m thinking that we’ll probably bring a trip-log and we’ll be comparing a lot of things with the way that we, in the mid-west, are used to seeing them: gas prices, cities, street signs, speed limits, rest stops (this will be an important one), food, rich suburbs, city slums, as well as the people themselves.

I believe that we will also note that not many people, whether they live on the east coast or west, have ever seen a cow-truck. I’m going to assume that we will have a lot of pictures taken of us as we travel, and that we’ll take a lot of pictures.

God’s majesty is revealed in nature. This is a big country with lots of open spaces and awe-inspiring scenes. Large cities are also amazing, but pale in comparison. This is a trip of worship.

Baseball is a great illustration of life, and contains many metaphors for living the Christian life.

In the BigInning God created the heavens and the earth…..and that’s how baseball came to be.

It’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out. On a practical human level, if you abuse the grace that someone offers you, or you draw too often from the well of favors from someone, you will eventually run out of grace.

It does no good to argue with the Umpire; the decision is never reversed, and you only get kicked out of the game (frankly, if the umpire doesn’t know the rule, then he’ll make one up just to prove you wrong….but let’s not go into that here).

The object of the game is to score more runs than your opponent. It takes both an offense and a defense to do that. With the defense you keep your opponent from scoring, but even if your defense is perfect you can’t win, because you must score runs to win. Defense is fellowship, community and maturing discipleship. Offense is outreach and evangelism. You do the math.

There is no clock in baseball, which is how we should live; it ain’t over til the fat lady sings (which is technically at the beginning of the game) (there is always hope, even when you are down 6 runs in the bottom of the ninth).

Only a few make it to the major leagues, and very few really look good once they get there (literally less than one in a million) (The Straight and narrow).

If you strike out three times for every home run you hit, but you hit 50 home runs in a season, you will still start every game.

Many teams can string together a good run, but that’s why they play 162.

The Yankees are the best team money can buy, and that’s why we hate them.

There’s no crying in baseball; walk it off and get back in there (and don’t rub it!).

Baseball is a game of numbers, and if you don’t like stats don’t bother watching (lucky thing for us is: God doesn’t keep track of numbers).

It takes a team to win or to lose (if you have no team there at the beginning, the other team wins by default).

Play by the rules. You have to respect the game; shortcuts in life, like steroids, do not work in your favor in the long run. 2 Tim 2:5

Of course baseball is slow-paced; like chess or fishing, your imagination fills in the gaps with strategy, statistics and conversation—it’s how men have conversations.

It is unforgivable not to hustle; make mistakes if you must (and you must), but make them with all your effort. As Martin Luther said, “If you are going to sin, sin boldly.” (But because you are neither hot nor cold but lukewarm, I will spit you from my mouth).

Baseball builds character when you win, when you lose, and when you go into extra innings, when you play hurt, when you are praised, when you are criticized. 1 Tim. Prov. ?:??

You gotta have the talent; you gotta have the discipline; you gotta have the love. 1 Cor. 9:27; 1 Cor. 13:1-3

Baseball has been very, very good to me (and so has God. Need we say anything more?).

2005-06-04T08:21:00.000-05:00

FINDING BALANCE

We all talk about the need for balance, and agree that a life out of balance is a bad thing. But I find it a real challenge to nail down a proper balance in my life. Balancing work and family, outreach and edification, self and others, each require balance. Even the Bible says this shocking need for balance:

16 Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself?
17 Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?
18 It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes .

But there is no objectively-measured standard for where to put the fulcrum. Can I ever be sure that I have found the perfect balance? And if I find it today, will it be in the same place a year from now? Probably not.

I am on sabbatical this summer and fall, and trying to find where the new point of the fulcrum should be for me. Every day so far I am wrestling with trying to hear God's gentle voice as He guides me in finding balance, trying to learn to ignore the voice of guilt and shame, or the voice of other people, and live in this new obedience of creative work and continued responsibility.

"LORD, teach me to follow You, ever, always, all for Thee."
-ker

2005-06-01T08:19:00.000-05:00

EVANGELISTS SWIMMING UPSTREAM

As David Wilkerson said in the article I quoted yesterday, and as Henri Nouwen said in his book, I believe that Christians are called to be counter-cultural. Many churches are begun with a primary goal being relevance. Of course we have to be culturally relevant and speak in the heart language of the people we are reaching. But if I need to adopt "the look" and "the sound" in order to be accepted and admired (my generation called that "cool"), and I call that "relevance," then I think I am missing something very important.

Was Jesus "cool?" Did he dress to impress, adopt the pose and the attitude of the younger generation in order to win their affection and admiration? Or did Jesus speak truth in a radical way, swim against the establishment, love authentically, and make himself winsome in ways other than being culturally cutting edge?

Here is what God said in our morning reading in Deuteronomy 7: "When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them, and don't let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters. They will lead your young people away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and he will destroy you. Instead, you must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols. For you are a holy people, who belong to the LORD your God. Of all the people on earth, the LORD your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure."

Later, he repeats himself. "You must destroy all the nations the LORD your God hands over to you. Show them no mercy and do not worship their gods. If you do, they will trap you."

I think about reaching young people in our neighborhood, and I realize that some approach youth ministry by joining the gangs, and some by intimidating the gangs to move to another street. But I believe that if instead we help gang members to die to themselves and find life in Jesus, then true transformation will take place. It may be slower change on the surface, but will result in long-term revival.

Idols and local gods all promised instant health or fertility and bountiful crops, and it would be a strong temptation to the Israelites to follow those charms and superstitions of the local people. But God promised a better life if they lived counter to the culture. How do we avoid poverty, AIDS, alcoholism and all of the wasting deseases that plague our city?

"If you listen to these regulations and obey them faithfully, the LORD your God will keep his covenant of unfailing love with you, as he solemnly promised your ancestors. He will love you and bless you and make you into a great nation. He will give you many children and give fertility to your lang and your animals. . . . You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. None of your men or women will be childless, and all your livestock will bear young. And the LORD will protect you from all sickness."

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7 something that we also read this morning: "Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete purity because we fear God."

I want to focus outward. But I must not compromise truth in order to make it seem somehow more tasty. LORD, give me wisdom. Change my world!
-ker

2005-05-31T15:49:00.000-05:00

PREPARING FOR THE HARVEST

David Wilkerson wrote about the coming harvest in his newsletter this week. Here is some of what he said: He says the 1980s were called the Decade of Harvest as culturally-relevant churches repackaged the Gospel and grew to become megachurches numbering thousands in attendance. It looked as if the great harvest was underway, but it proved to be building on the wrong foundation.

When the decade was over, there was no overall growth among evangelical churches; instead, the net result was that megachurches had catered to Baby Boomers, who had left their traditional churches and gone to join the big ones. In fact, fewer among the boomer age group attend church than before the decade of harvest began. Apparently, it was not a harvest time of biblical proportions.

Then Wilkerson writes, "There is one statistic that startles me more than any other. That is, only a minute number of Christians has ever won a soul to Christ. . . . Pastors ask me how to build a strong, growing church. As I look around their city, I see poor neighborhoods, teeming with downtrodden people bound by sin. . . . You can build a great church with those poor and weak who are being set free from Satan's bondage."

"As laborers, we are the harvest instruments in the Lord's hand. . . . God is forging laborers. He isn't just pounding away at sin. And this forging process explains why the laborers are few. The majority of churchgoers are like the thousands who volunteereed to go with Gideon in the Old Testament. God saw fear in many of them, knowing they wouldn't endure the fire, the pounding, the hard times. And out of the thousands who followed Gideon, only three hundred were chosen."

"Where did the disciples start their ministry? . . . Jesus sent them to the distressed, the poor, those who were bowed down with sin, bondages and life-controlling habits." Sound like our neighbors in Price Hill?

"Dear saint, Jesus knew what we were going to face in these last days: a generation steeped in sin far more than any other . . . stress and loneliness such as has never been experienced by man . . . financial disasters, rampant divorce, militant homosexuality, immorality that would bring a blush to even the worst sinners just thirty years ago. This is why Christ seeks laborers who have submitted to the fires and forgings. He wants a people who'll stand before the world and proclaim: 'God is with me! Satan can't stop me. Just look at my life. I've been through fire after fire, pounded agin and again. But I've come through it all more than a conqueror through Christ, who lives in me. What I have preached has worked for me. I am living proof Jesus is all-sufficient!'"

Amen.

2005-05-31T06:33:00.000-05:00

THE SABBATICAL "CRISIS"

I am on sabbatical until the first of January! On one level, I am very excited to have the time to do those projects that I have been putting off for a decade of life. But on another level, this sabbatical is raising surprising questions to me about how I am spending my earthly days. And so I have found myself intrigued that a certain depression has crept over me as my official sabbatical date of June 1 arrives.

The big questions of how to spend my temporal moments can be put off indefinitely by the immediate demands of a job and the endless string of chores in a family. Yes, before I die I want to get around to this or that, but not today; my to-do list today is already dictated to me.

So almost a panic arises from seemingly nowhere. I'm like a kid in a candy shop; I want me one of them, and a bunch of that, and gimme some of everything. And if I'm going to get to it all, then I have to offload those responsibilities that are still around my neck. I still have administrative things to take care of at the school, still have relationships with alumni, still have concerts and programs to organize, still have course plans to write and teaching staff to hire and invitations to teach courses and lead retreats, and suddenly I realize that I could be busy for these seven months and still never get around to what I want to do.

Which leads me to a deeper crisis. I know what I want to do, what I long to do, what God has even called me to do, but I have a hard time finding balance in life. I question, deep down, whether I am worthy of being able to pursue my little quests. Do I somehow "owe" everyone something, such that I cannot have a day each week, or seven months twice in a lifetime, to do my "own" projects? I work from a very deeply-seated shame base, and it seems to shape my self-image and my priorities.

On one level, my shame base keeps me in line. It keeps me from running after selfish ambition and wordly pursuits. But on another level, it cripples me from discerning God's call from the "oughts" and "shoulds" of my life, and leaves me wound so tight that eventually my main spring breaks.

"LORD, deliver me from selfishness, from false guilt, and from shame. Let me walk in the freedom of Your Spirit, hearing Your voice, discerning between the good and the best, and learning the art of living with myself in Your world. Let me count my days, so that I can please You, one God without beginning or end. Amen."
-ker

2005-05-18T22:04:00.000-05:00

WHO CAN STAND BEFORE JEALOUSY?

Anger is cruel, and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? Prov. 27:4

And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Eccl. 4:4

It is at least a little astonishing that the same man wrote both of these truisms.

The least-confessed sin is to break the tenth commandment: you shall not covet. But it may be the most-often broken and unrecognized sin of all.

Add the comments of James to the mix, and we have a further insight into the destructive nature of jealousy:

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
"You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?"

Since reflecting on enemies, I have come to realize that jealousy is a major cause of broken fellowship between Christians. Once I feel that someone has been unfairly blessed by God, I make the same mistake that the wicked, lazy servant made who was given "only" one talent (about 75 pounds!) of silver. He saw his master as unfair, for he took what wasn't his and gave to those who had not worked hard. How many times I have secretly thought the same thing about a good friend.

And then when I have let my thoughts come out of my mouth, I doubly curse myself. What dainty morsels gossip can be! It feels so good to dishonor my friend (and therefore my God) behind his back. I bring him down just a notch or two by saying, "You know, he's not really all that worthy of respect. I know this about him. Let's pray for him." And when I bring him down a notch or two, I feel like I have brought myself up a notch or two. Of course, just the opposite happens for me in the spiritual realm.

I admit it: I cannot stand before jealousy. It eats me up. I remember being nine years old and so competitive that I would cheat and lie to win, whatever the competition. My competitive zeal has been somewhat masked as an adult, but it doesn't take much for it to surface again. Maybe competitiveness is healthy in a ballplayer or a soldier, and maybe it is inborn in males, especially. But so is rebellion. And self-will. And sin. So, in my flesh I cannot beat my envious side. But thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord! He has already won the victory over jealousy, envy, covetousness and every other sin in my life! And when I join Him in His death, He provides me with a new heart--free from every sin! Praise the Lord!
-ken

2005-05-18T10:40:00.000-05:00

This summer will be quite different than any in the past eight years for my family and myself. Through much LISTENING to the Lord, i have made the decision to stay behind during the annual MP trip to Ukraine. i was supposed to lead a team of 6 people into the area of Belagorsk, our first trip there with a team. Initially, i was excited....new place, new people, new evangelistic opportunities. i was excited about the larger Muslim population there and the opportunity to witness to them. But, as time went on, my excitement waned. i kept 'working it up', but something was wrong. And it was then that the Lord spoke.

By the time He was finished, i had learned a few things. First, that my excitement was not so much for the purpose of the trip as much as it was for the NEW location we would be going to. And evangelism is about Jesus....not placement. Second, that this year was more about TRADITION than the work at hand. It HAS been a tradition for me to go to Ukraine every summer with the team. And it has been a good tradition, and the work got done. But this year was about my perception. It was more like....well....i go because...well...that's what i DO each summer! i GO to Ukraine. And third, i have not been home for our anniversary since 1996, since i have been on every trip since we started the team trips in 1997. And the dates always included June 25th. Wow...that's one i hadn't even given that much concern to. After all....i was 'working for the Lord'! So, it will be nice to spend time with Pam for a change on the 25th instead of with people she doesn't even know.

Well, that's the long and short of it. I am going to be home and be a pray-er for those who ARE going, and will look forward to hearing the stories about what the Lord has done with the people of Belagorsk, and with the team members. WHEW!!...NOW i'm excited about the trip!!! mark

2005-05-17T11:43:00.000-05:00

Is injustice inherent in reinterpreting the constitution?