Category: Christian Living

  • Finding Amen

    Our posture as Christians is Amen.

    While I may disagree with friends in Christ. While I may not understand their culture, their gender, their sexual preference, their politics, or what it is like to walk in their skin… I can choose to stand with a Christian friend and say Amen.

    I can even look at someone I have nothing in common except a common Amen compelled by Jesus and honestly called them, friend. We may disagree in everything, but Amen gives us the power to look truthfully in one another’s eyes and say, “In Christ– I stand in agreement with you.”

    You want to know how to change your block, your community, or even the world? Stand with people in Amen.

    • If life seems too contentious– find Amen
    • If the world seems too big– find Amen
    • If your identity is in what divides instead of what unites– find Amen
    • If your worship is one dimensional– find Amen
    • If you are lonely on your block– find Amen
    • If you aren’t making a difference in your community– find Amen
    • If things just don’t make sense anymore– find Amen
    • If the church you are a part of zaps the life out of you– find Amen

    Is your faith malnourished?  Feed your soul on Amen.

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  • Hold On, Dreamer!

    Reject the sleepers gravitational pull! His mediocrity and compromise feels so easy but brings such torment. (Eph 5:14)

    While the old, learned, and supposedly wise stare down their noses at your youthful spirit– lead them by chasing your unfalteringly impossible dreams. (1 Timothy 4:12) 

    Yet don’t be deceived. Those temple-loving Christians want you dead. Your dreams are dangerous to them. Your dream soaked actions threaten their man-made puffed-up power. (Mark 11:15-18)

    Their positions of power are a well-intentioned den of vipers. They’d rather be popular hypocrites than simple servants to the poor, the lost, the widows, and orphans. (Matthew 23) 

    But not you. O, your life itself is shalom. You don’t just study God’s Word— you’re wild enough to live it. (James 3:13-16)

    You spend time with the wrong people. You’re more comfortable eating dinner with a pimp or pimply-faced punk as the self-righteous. For you dream that theirs too is the Kingdom of God. (Matthew 9:10-13)

    Your faith is untamed. It’s a raging inferno of purpose. It’s more driven than any model. It’s wide-eyed and beautiful recklessness. Strategy and planning take a back seat when you’re at your best. For the Spirit both comforts and guides. (John 14:16-17)

    You see earthly success as wasteful failure while embracing Kingdom dreams of another way. (Matthew 4:19)

    Christ shines not on your sweet sleep dreams, but on the vivid realities of your waking walking wonderful dreams. (Ephesians 5:14)

    These dreams aren’t just for you, they are you. 

    The Gospel isn’t just for your eternal destiny, it lives through you to renew your neighborhood. (John 1:14)

    Hold on, Dreamer!

    Hold on. 

    Photo credit: Climbing Hands by bhmkim via Flickr (Creative Commons)

  • The Prize

    “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 9:24

    Ah, the prize! I am wired to win the prize. Well, sometimes I am.

    Can I be honest? I’m better at running really hard than I am at knowing what the prize even is! Paul continues, “No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” Yeah, I’m certainly not beating my body about anything. (In the literal sense.)

    I’ve never met anyone who is truly up to that challenge. Sorry Paul.

    This passage, as familiar as it is, confuses me. It’s really clear what Paul’s prize is– winning souls. (v. 19) But that passage isn’t prescriptive and the language isn’t inclusive to assume that the prize/goal for every Christian is to preach to win lost souls.

    It’s confusing because it is so direct yet so ambiguous.

    Yet for the rest of us. For those who aren’t apostles. For those of us who aren’t hard-wired as preachers or evangelists… we want a prize, too!?! 

    Get Your Prize!

    I’ve learned to love Paul’s ambiguity. While 1 Corinthians describes this prize, Paul life had times where other prizes were his muse. The point wasn’t that his prize was THE prize it’s that God gave him a pursuit and he went after it with his all.

    Let’s us cast off the silliness of prescriptive, exacting prizes and recklessly chase the prize God has laid on our hearts for today.

    Don’t chase Paul’s prize. Chase yours.

    Photo credit: Daniel Coomber via Flickr (Creative Commons)
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  • Skin in the Game

    There’s only so far a good heart and good intentions will take you. If you’re going to work towards significant and lasting change in a community you need to have some skin in the game. 

    Ministers are so… transient. We move from ministry to ministry and in many cases we move from community to community. The people in our churches know it and our fellow staff people know it.

    I think this is one of the reasons why associate staff people get fired so easily. Because churches can. Rather than wrestle with the tension of putting up with you, like churches have to do with people who live in the community and voluntarily come to the church, if you are a staff person who is out to change things it’s relatively easy to get you to move away.

    If that church lets you go your house will be on the market in a matter of months. Take that, sucker!

    Skin in the game? Pfft. Not if its tied to your job.

    Of course, it’s not just ministers who infamously don’t have skin in the game. Here are some things that surprise me.

    • School teachers who don’t live in the neighborhood their students come from.
    • Church leaders who don’t live in the neighborhood immediately around their church.
    • Locals who complain about a lack of local businesses yet buy from big box stores or Amazon.
    • Community leaders who say they are all about school yet send their kids to private school or homeschool. (I once knew a principal who homeschooled, er.. what?!?)
    • Police and city employees who don’t live in the city they work in.

    Ultimately, when you don’t have skin in the game what you are doing is either just a job… or you are depending on good intentions and your heart to be right.

    But everyone else, whether they verbalize it or not, knows you’re not fully invested. And it’s a big reason you can get anything lasting done. Until you put your skin in the game you’re just a short-timer.

    Here’s how you get skin in the game:

    • Invest locally. Did you know you can use money from an IRA to invest in a local small business? Yeah, talk to your tax person. If you can’t buy a home where you live, get some skin in the game by investing in a small business you like. Don’t know how to have that conversation? Get to know the owner of your favorite local spot… and ask them. “If I were to want to invest $20,000 in this business, how could you improve it?” It’s that easy.
    • Buy locally. Look, here’s Economics 101. If you don’t spend your money in your neighborhood that money is going somewhere else. Want great places to eat? Eat locally. Want a great grocery store? Shop at the local guy. On and on. Every time you buy something from Amazon or go to a big box store you are sucking money out of the local economy and sending it somewhere else.
    • Live locally. Get over the excuses. (They are just obstacles) Until you live with the community you want to impact you’re just kidding yourself about making a lasting impact. You’re going to care about where you live more than where your work is, bottom line. So if you want some skin in the game your zip code is going to need to match where you want to impact.
    • Educate locally. If I hear one more person talk about loving his neighborhood but sends his kids to a Christian or parochial school, I’ll scream. If you want to make your local schools better the ONLY way you’re going to make lasting changes is if your kids are there. Yup, our kids go to a charter school. But it’s also a charter school that saved a neighborhood school from getting shut down. Almost all of the kids come from within walking distance.
    • Get involved locally. Start attending a board which directly oversees the stuff you care about. Into community gardening? You better be at that planning committee meeting. Care about schools? Get your butt to the school board meetings. Love your neighborhood? Find a local neighborhood board and be a part of it.
    Photo credit: The Carpetbagger by Mirror Image Gallery via Flickr (Creative Commons)

  • What does engaging the neighborhood look like, practically?

    That’s a question I get a lot. And I’ve got a couple friends here in San Diego that know a lot more about that than I do.

    Here’s a little intro they are doing… if you’re interested in figuring out, practically, what it looks like to literally make your life Good News in the Neighborhood, this would be a great place to start.

    Question: If God asked you to radically reorient your life, would you do it?

  • Beyond Proclaiming Christ

    Where We’ve Been

    In the 1940s Billy Graham became one of Youth for Christ’s first full-time evangelists. In post-World War II America, he took to the airwaves and spoke at rallies around the world. Thousands responded. And, in some ways, modern-day evangelicalism was born.

    Back then the Bible was taught in schools. It was a regular part of the curriculum for high school students to memorize John 3 or Romans 8 as part of their Bible classes. Church attendance was way up, too. Culturally, America was much more Christian than it is today.

    The roots of most of what we call “evangelism” today are tied to this heritage. It’s all built on the premise that most Americans have a working knowledge of the Bible, that they believe in God. and look at the world through a somewhat Christian worldview. I’ve never attended a evangelistic rally, youth event or church service where the Gospel was presented, or anything in between that didn’t have these as working assumptions.

    In proclamation evangelism the role of the speaker is to connect the dots in people’s heads. They’ve heard of God. They know who He is. They have read parts of the Bible. They’ve attended church in the past so are comfortable with the format. The speaker and evangelistic rally really puts it all together and creates an emotional, religious experience, and then calls them home.

    I’m not going to say that the proclamational evangelistic rally doesn’t work anymore. But if you attend one today you’ll see that most of the people who go aren’t regular Joe’s– they are Christians who came to see a Christian band but are willing to hang out to hear the speaker. And for some of those perhaps the proclamational-style is what they need so they respond?

    But take someone completely unchurched? Say, a neighbor whose parents didn’t take them to church and they think Christianity is a crock? Or, like the Average Joe in America believes that if they are a good person they’ll be OK in the end. It’s too weird for them. I know because I’ve done it. A bunch. And I’ve had to go back and apologize one-too-many-times to the point where I’d never invite another friend.

    It’s not that I don’t believe, as an evangelical, that I need to share my faith. It’s that I think that for the people in my life the proclamational gospel message should be replaced with a methodology that reflects today’s culture– one that is three generations removed from the Bible being taught in schools and 50% of Americans attending church each Sunday morning.

    Here’s what I’ve learned

    We live in a post-Christian world. We live in a pluralistic society where Christianity is one of several religions on every block. (Go ahead, walk down your block and ask all of your neighbors what religion they’d ascribe to. I dare you.)

    And every day another person, claiming to be a Christian, is deemed newsworthy because they have defrauded people, or gotten away with child molestation, or supported some right-wing cause in the name of God. For skeptics or self-proclaimed agnostics or leavers or  even members of other faiths… each of these reinforces a stereotype or an idea that Christians are ____.

    They simply don’t know any Christians who are legit, like you.

    The Age of Living the Gospel

    In a post-Christian world you are going to have to live the Gospel before your friends, family, and neighbors to the point where you are asked, “What is it about the way you live that I can have?” Or “I don’t know any other Christians like you. What makes you different than what I see on TV?”

    Within pluralism, experience trumps information. Experiencing the Gospel through a neighbor’s goodness, kindness, grace, and love cuts through the stereotypes and defies logic’s last stand. It’s not that information isn’t important. It’s that information isn’t trusted until the source is trust and that trust is validated through experience.

    You see, it’s not that I don’t proclaim Christ. It’s that I let my very life do the talking.

    In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. ~ Jesus said this in Matthew 5:16

    We now live in a world where the person with the microphone and the big crowd is less trusted than the guy who mows his lawn every Saturday morning. You are legit while the person on the platform is a potential suspect.

    In a post-Christian world, people will hear Good News only after they’ve experienced Good News from you.

    The challenge for you is this: Do you have the guts to live a life that reflects Christ? 

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    Photo credits: Billy Graham in the 1940s Youth for Christ Peoria, Jack Ryan mowing lawns by Liam Ryan via Flickr (Creative Commons)

  • The thread

    “It’s like I’m hanging onto my faith by a thread. I just don’t know what to do anymore.” 

    It’s a powerful image, isn’t it? A hand desperately clinging to a tiny thread connecting him to the Eternal. A weary hand outstretched, tearful eyes, and a gravitational pull towards a threadless life.

    When someone says that to me I wonder if their soul is literally dangling over a faithless abyss separating them from the faithful life they know? Are they really thinking that the afterlife in hell, separated from God, would be better than the hell they are living in the present? Maybe. Sometimes. Yes.

    Most often, pain or frustration brings them to this place. Maybe they suddenly lost a loved one? Or maybe their vocational dreams just evaporated? Or maybe their marriage is over? Or maybe they just can’t stand their church anymore?

    The circumstances, there are always circumstances, are what has pushed them to this place.

    Whatever it is– it brings them to the edge of their faith. A person says that phrase, “I’m hanging on by a thread” as a warning. They are really saying… “I’m thinking of letting go of my faith.”

    I know that because I’ve been there. Too many sorrows, too much crap, too much annoyance has pushed me dangling over that abyss more times than I’d care to admit. Hanging there by a thread the most honest thought in my mind is– “I just don’t need this anymore.”

    Want to know a secret? 

    In my experience, it takes letting go of that last stupid thread of faith to find faith.

    That’s my sympathetic advice to friends who say that to me. Let go of the thread. To paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, let’s see where this rabbit trail goes.

    It’s positively illogical, isn’t it? Sometimes in order to find faith you need to let go of faith. But that’s exactly how it works.

    When you let go, when you fall down the abyss and land at the bottom. There a new reality emerges for you. Your journey might reveal that the thread you were holding onto wasn’t even faith in God at all. Maybe it was faith in your job? (Or your faith WAS your job) Maybe that thread was tied to an abusive organization or person? Maybe that thread was tied to your family history? Or your child-like dreams? Or you never really asked yourself what your faith was because you just got so busy being a faithful person you never took the time to discover who you actually had faith in?

    And the crazy thing is that in that abyss of letting go– God is still there. He is still faithful. He is still good. He will find you. And you might just find a brand new faith.

    So that’s my advice. Just let go. 

    Discover just how omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God really is. I’m not saying put Him to the test. I’m saying put you to the test. 

    My experience has shown me time and time again: When I let go of the thread of faith I’m holding onto, I discover newfound freedom in faith I never knew existed.

    Photo credit: Stephen Montgomery via Flickr (Creative Commons)

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  • The Sacred Act of Pulling Weeds

    If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

    1 John 1:9

    Sometimes in the movies the bad guy goes into a church confession booth. He sits down heavily in the chair and the priest says, “Son, how long has it been since your last confession?” A cold, violent voice answers back, “Father, it’s…. it’s been a long time.” And then the bad guy takes a deep breath and slowly confesses his sins– murder, rape, deception, adultery, etc.

    The unspoken narrative is that he’d come a long way from the nervous boy making his first confession as a boy. He hadn’t been to confession enough.

    Confessing Sins is Like Pulling Weeds

    I love my garden. There is something wholesome and beautiful about growing your own food. When you tend a garden your falls into a sacred rhythm. You become more aware of heat and season and wildlife because each plays a role in your garden. Each day you do a little bit of work and every day you enjoy a little bit of harvest.

    Watering, fertilizing, pruning, preparing the soil… And pulling weeds. Every day you have to pulls some weeds.

    If I pull weeds for 5-10 minutes every day I can keep it in control. The weeds aren’t a big deal. They are easy to pull and haven’t done much damage.

    But if I take a few days off from pulling weeds it becomes a bigger deal. Weeds reproduce fast so there are more of them to pull and they are harder to kill because they have taken root in the soil. Not only have they begun leaching nutrients away from my vegetables, but their roots may have begun to intertwine with the roots of my vegetables, which means I’ll do damage to the good roots in the process of pulling the bad roots out.

    If I take a week or two off from pulling weeds I’ll have a major problem. Weeds grow fast and tall and begin to choke out the good stuff. Fixing it becomes a major chore and it’s probably already too late.

    I’ve found this to be exactly like confessing sins  to another believer. When I regularly check in with someone, confessing sins in a sacred life rhythm keeps the sin in check.

    It’s when I fall out of the habit, when I go weeks or months or even years without truly sharing with someone what’s really going on– those little sins take root and mature. They grow big and begin to choke out the good stuff.

    And it’s a lot of work and a lot of pain to get them out of my life. 

    HT to Brian and Kevin and our high school small group. This post came directly from our discussion on 1 John last Wednesday. 

    p.s. Yes, I know I’m blogging about weeds on 4/20. Not that kind of weed, stoner.

    Photo credit: Dreamcatcher-stock via Deviant Art

  • The unstoppable force of amen

    The word amen declares affirmation. I agree.

    Amen is not simple.

    It’s an ancient posture we’ve lost sight of. Amen is something we experience when we stand together in agreement. Living in amen isn’t the forebearance of ones own opinion so much as it’s setting ones own opinion in submission of the amen of community.

    We stand in agreement. Amen. We rest in amen. We dwell in amen. The Spirit manifests Himself in amen.

    You can’t actually have amen alone. It’s impossible — you cannot declare affirmation to yourself!

    To reside in amen is a state of communion with Jesus and one another. Communion isn’t merely an act of taking some bread and wine and remembering Jesus life, death, and resurrection for us. Communion invites us to live in a radical, different kind of community with one another. It sets aside ourselves in the embrace of another, en masse self. The amen.

    When our zip code is amen we are a different people, an unstoppable selfless force.

    Morning prayer

    Lord, make us a people who don’t just say amen but live amen. Amen. 

  • A Rapture Box. Really?

    The sign reads, “”In case of the disappearance of True Christians, there are instructions located in the above box to help those who are left behind.”

    Kristen sent me the link to this from a blog she reads. It was spotted in a small baptist church which hosted a piano recital.

    A few thoughts…

    • This could be a reason why there are fewer and fewer True Christians out there. I’m just saying if I saw this at the back of my church, I’d go home and Google a Rapture Box-free place to worship.
    • I’m actually curious to know how many people really believe in a pre-tribulational rapture, like the one of Left Behind and Harold Camping fame. Or are we, collectively as evangelical leaders, just kind of giving it a wink and a nod and I’m breaking some sort of honor code by mentioning it?
    • As a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, a place that has hung it’s hat on this but somehow turned down the publication of the Left Behind series, I can pass the test of all the Bible verses which create the concept of a pre-tribulational rapture. Let me tell you, it’s pretty thin from a hermeneutics perspective. But I passed the test.
    • The Sunday after the rapture, is the pastor going to take an offering and/or do an altar call?
    • Let’s say that all the True Christians suddenly disappeared from the planet. What are the chances people are going to read Left Behind, slap their heads, and say… “Oh, we missed it. This is why this happened!?“
    • I looked, you can’t buy this on Kirk Cameron’s website for $149.99. But he should totally sell it.

    If you’re offended– I’m not mocking you. I’m poking fun at something we, as conservative evangelicals, have hung our hats on. I’m one of us. This is part of our heritage as much as big hair and jean skirts. Every theological twist/turn has things like this. These are part of our identity. We laugh because we know.