It was in kindergarden, or maybe earlier, when I was first schooled in the ways of fair gameplay. You round up a bunch of kids on the playground, tell everyone the game of the day, and select captains. The captains use some mature method of figuring out who will choose first–rock, paper, scissors, picking a number, or just whoever is more physically intimidating. From there the process is pretty simple–I pick one, you pick one, I pick one, you whine about it, then you pick another one.
Now imagine it happening another way, maybe you’ve even been in a setting where this happened. One of the bullies says, “Hey, Jimmy, Butch, Goliath, and the Hulk are on my team, go get four other people for your team.” Of course those four are by far the best players in the school, but if you want to play you have to go along with it because there’s no way the bully is going to do “I pick one, you pick one.”
And in a nutshell that is Major League Baseball. The Yankees pick whoever they want and everyone else gets to fight over the leftovers. It’s amazing they don’t win the World Series every year.
I know it sounds like I’m blaming the Yankees, and I do cheer against them with passion, but really it’s not their problem. The teacher (MLB) tells them it’s okay to be the bully. It should be up to the leaders of the league to make sure it is fair competition, not the teams.
Last night we had an “indoor trick or treating” event at the church. It highlighted for me how far I have to go in trusting God and believing that he will answer prayer. For years Michelle and I have held the beginning of Psalm 5 as a passage that is something we both long for. There David says, “in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” I think in my life this would more often read, “in the morning I lay my requests before you and then don’t expect anything.” I think the root of this is that I don’t want to put God on the spot. I don’t want to expect something and then see nothing happen (oh me of little faith). The thing is that the witness of Scripture is really clear that as long as we’re praying in the Spirit and along with the will of God he wants to answer.
So Michelle and I, along with a number of others, prayed all week that God would allow us to bless our community with a good time and some dinner on Halloween. It wasn’t about “getting them to church,” but just trying to do something good for people. I went into the night praying (yes, praying) that God would bring two or three families from the neighborhood who we could love and bless. By the end of the night we had about 100 people come through (we had to go buy more hot dogs and still were one short in the end) and the majority of those were people from the neighborhood. Beyond the numbers, I had numerous people just say thank you for providing that safe place for the kids to enjoy themselves–the very thing I wanted people to experience.
My faith is clearly a work in progress–it always will be. But this morning I praise God for answering our prayers far beyond what I hoped. And I hope he uses that to grow my expectations of what he can and will do.
This past Saturday I had the priveledge of participating in a retreat with six other men. Ryan Taylor facilitated it and has a great summary of our discussion and purpose on his blog. My next few blog posts may come from a few things that especially struck me during our time together, but one of the things that impressed me most had nothing to do with what we talked about–it was the way this group approached dialogue.
To Ryan’s credit, at the beginning he encouraged us to really listen to each other and not be too quick to respond. That is truly what happened. That day together really made me think about how to create group interaction that is respectful, thoughtful, and productive. Here are a few of the things I’m taking away from Saturday in regard to group interaction.
It is rare to find a group that can listen to each other well. On Saturday there were very seldom times where someone talked over someone else or even jumped in as soon as someone finished to head off in a different direction. I admit there were many times I wanted to fill the silence with whatever was in my head, but I’m so glad that thanks to Ryan’s encouragement not to and the Holy Spirit telling me to be silent that I didn’t. Our conversation was so much deeper because we took the time to really hear each other.
In a group like that the conversation develops internal rhythms. Many times during the day there was a specific direction the conversation went where two or three people were doing most of the talking. But invariably those would be followed by times where those who had been talking didn’t say much and others took their turn to really dive in. It wasn’t forced and I don’t think anyone planned for it, but it was great.
A group like this leads quickly to trust and vulnerability. I only knew Ryan heading into this retreat, but a couple hours in I already felt very comfortable with the other and willing to open up to deeper things about myself. It felt safe to risk a little bit. How often do we spend months and years around others without feeling we could trust them and get into the deeper, more difficult parts of life? This reminded me that posture toward others and the way we listen are as important as amount of time spent together.
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on why groups you’ve been in have or haven’t worked.
From the annals of things that make me not want to be a Christian…
I heard a true story (I know because it was firsthand) today of a women’s small group where they were discussing their lives in the past week. One of the women was looking for someone to do some work on her house. A potential workman came by with his daughter and she had her son there to talk with him. They asked him a couple questions and then she noticed he didn’t have a wedding ring on.
“Where’s your ring?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m not married,” he replied.
She went on to proudly tell how she and her son decided they wouldn’t hire him because they “had to draw the line somewhere.” She was asked if they told the man why they didn’t hire him.
“Oh yes,” she responded. “My son told him we’re Christians and we can’t hire someone who is divorced or has children out of wedlock.”
I really have no words to describe the disgust I feel over this. I can’t imagine Jesus would either. Just a bit different than the man who let a “woman of sin” cry on his feet and then kiss them repeatedly. I’m sure he wouldn’t have let her work on his house though.
My confidence has always been significantly impacted by the acceptance or lack of it I’ve received from others. Natural–I suppose, but I think it’s gone beyond what’s natural in my life for some reason. In junior high my happiness was determined by whether or not the popular crowd talked to me on a given day. In high school and college I made a hobby of over-analyzing my interaction with Michelle to see if I was still good enough for her or not. In seminary I felt like a failure when I wasn’t selected to be one of the students to preach in chapel. In ministry I have always been sheepish about leading confidently in case someone thinks my ideas are stupid. In short–I have been addicted to acceptance.
I know this isn’t all bad–I certainly wouldn’t want to be someone who went around doing whatever they wanted without any regard for how difficult and horrible of a person they were. At the same time, I have often hesitated to be comfortable in my own skin, to accept with joy the person God has made me to be and the gifts he’s given me (and the ones he hasn’t) because I didn’t know how others would view me then.
In the last month this has changed some. I have no explanation other than that I believe God graciously helps us to grow into the best versions of ourselves as we rely on him for that. It’s not that I think I’m great, well, actually in a way it is–but only in the sense that God has made all of us to be great in different ways. One of the things he’s really helped me with is to compare myself to others less (a work in progress, but still…). He’s helping me to be more concerned with becoming the person I can and should be than how “good” I am compared to someone else. He’s also helping me to be confident in following his leading, and leading others to do the same. It feels good. I imagine like most struggles in my life this one will be up and down, but getting a taste of living confidently in who he’s leading me to be instead of acquiescing to my tendency to find my worth in others’ acceptance is good.
I participated in my first “webinar” today (that word makes me want to vomit, I don’t know why but I just hate it). It was an interview Christianity Today did with sociologist Christian Anderson. He has been doing research about the characteristics of certain age groups and the way they relate to faith and religion. This particular interview was about his research with what he calls Emerging Adults (18-29). Here’s the highlights.
This age group used to be “settling down,” but that is no longer true in our culture. College, grad school, the transience of our world, and the willingness of parents to support kids into their twenties are combining to make it a very unsettled time.
EA value freedom and exploration, which makes them unlikely to engage traditional religious expression (this is associated with “settling down.”)
The teens who keep their faith into EA usually have parents who practice and model faith, read Scripture and participate in spiritual disciplines, and have a congregation that cares about and relates to them.
The most prevalent religion is “Moralistic-therapeutic deism.” In other words, God wants what’s best for me and wants me to have lots of stuff. This begins to fall apart as EA encounter more of life’s difficulties.
1 in 10 EAs are actively hostile to Christian faith.
The best way for the church to engage EA is through relationships and community, not programs. This needs to be done outside the church building in places like coffee shops and at parties.
EAs are highly impacted by society’s self-esteem overkill (everyone gets a trophy). They expect to get everything they want out of life.
Most of my football watching career has had one constant–Brett Favre as the quarterback of the Packers. More often than not he destroyed the hopes and dreams of my beloved Vikings. He just seemed to be one of those players who was lucky. Sure, he was great, talented, and put in the effort it took to be prepared, but he also got the bounces to go his way more often than now.
Well, if one week tells us anything he brought that luck with him to the Twin Cities this year. I haven’t been a big fan of his acquisition, and I’m still not thrilled he’s a Viking, but I have to acknowledge that the last play this week was one of the few times when I’ve been on the fun end of an amazing (and lucky?) play. The Vikings are notorious for blowing it (see going 15-1 in the regular season and then losing before the Super Bowl thanks to bad clock management and missed kicks), but this week we got one. No matter my feelings for the situation I’m thankful to be on this end of some Favre magic.
When I was in seminary I was usually a little on the “liberal” side in my views on theology and social issues. Back then it was things like believing women should be afforded the same opportunities in ministry as men, thinking we had some choice in our salvation, and that justice was as much a part of God’s plan as the salvation of individuals. I never fell outside what would be considered by most to be Evangelicalism, but I was a bit of a deviant compared to the mainstream.
Fast-forward four or five years and I find myself in a completely different situation. I am a pastor in what is commonly referred to as a “mainline” denomination. These are denominations that have been largely written off by Evangelicals (and mainline denominations have returned the favor) due to their liberal stances on theology and practice. I now find myself in the position of being one of the conservatives in the denominational milieu. My life has flipped in a matter of a few years. It’s odd to find yourself in the position of being written off by the stream of faith you used to swim in (not that people do this personally, but that most of those from my past wouldn’t give much credence to a mainline pastor).
There are a couple lessons I’ve learned along the way that are proving very helpful in my current situation.
Getting in arguments doesn’t get you anywhere. In my current position I see the immense value in holding deep conviction while engaging others in a grace-filled and dialogical manner. My goal is to love all people, no matter what our disagreements, in the hope that this builds the foundation of meaningful engagement.
You have to be sure of who you’re serving. Paul’s words in Galatians 1:10 are a compass for me, “Am I now trying to win the approval of people, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people I would not be a servant of Christ.” My call is to serve and follow Christ. At the point my concern about how others from any perspective might view me supersedes this call I have rejected my calling.
Stereotypes suck. I know they can be helpful in generalizing at times, but a significant part of the people in mainline churches don’t fit Evangelical stereotypes and a significant number of people in Evangelical churches don’t fit mainline stereotypes. If we’d get to know each other instead of labeling each other it would be great.
Let no one ever say that giving your life to Christ is boring. Holy crap I feel like my life has been an insane roller coaster over the past 8 years–and I love roller coasters. Here’s to the fun of God’s life flipping!
It struck me today that many times in debates about the direction of an organization or movement one of keys is the extent to which people see continuity with the founder or founders. This comes up frequently in a myriad of debates about the direction of our nation. Some are devoted to the direction set by our founders while others believe that changes in the world require alterations in the original intent of the founders. On top of that, different people interpret the initial direction in different ways.
I am seeing this more and more in the Disciples of Christ denomination. Some are devoted to the vision of the founders of the movement while others respect their initiative but believe the denomination has made and continues to make necessary adjustments as culture changes. People choose the things the founders said that they resonate with most and highlight them while downplaying things that may not fit as well with their perspective.
Christianity is no exception to this conundrum. Jesus is the founder of the movement now called Christianity, but as you look at the wide array of things that call themselves Christian you can see the varied ongoing responses to the direction he set for his movement. Alan Hirsch said, “As the founder of Christianity Jesus has the right to shape it.” I agree with him, but I’m not sure we can assume that is a statement all would accept. Some may respect the contribution of the founder but believe changing times require tweaks in direction. However, there is one massive difference between the first two examples I cited and the last–only Christianity has a living founder. Jesus is present through the Holy Spirit to continue to direct and shape his movement. With Christianity you cannot debate the wisdom of the founders’ direction for a movement or organization like you can with other things. You can take Christian principles and go a different direction than the one set by Christ (and that continues to be set by him) but then you necessarily have something other than Christianity. You may have some sort of religion, but it is not his.
