Unity in the Spirit

I had an unusual experience this week and it brought me to a greater appreciation for the concept of unity in the Spirit. When I look around and see all the disunity in what's supposed to be the communities of believers I see some managed unity, but nothing like this experience this week.

A God-appointment orchestrated via Facebook brought me back across a former high school mate, Steve Villanueva. While we each knew of each other during our high school years and that we both were involved in church, that was pretty much it as far as being friends.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="260" caption="We Have Been Lied To"][/caption]

We met at a local Macaroni Grill for about two hours. The first 10 minutes was about the formalities... where and what since high school. Then Steve told me he had a book that was published and was being released this month (We Have Been Lied To by Stephen Villanueva which is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target now, and Borders later this month). WOW! How cool is that.

As we continued to talk throughout lunch I was overwhelmed with how two guys, vaguely acquainted for four years over two decades ago could come together after barely knowing each other so long ago and having zero contact since could be so on the same page. I listened intently as he laid out the things God had been teaching and showing him. Recalling the same stories from Scripture with the revolutionary understanding which God had given me over the last couple of years. It was as if we had been hanging around with each other and heard the stories time after time so we were able to speak as one.

Then it hit me. I had always talked about the unity that should exist for believers because the same Spirit was alive in both, but never had I experienced it quite like this. I had even joked that the Spirit was not schizophrenic so when there was disunity one or the other was not led by the Spirit. Story for story, words lining up with words, experiences akin to the others. It was truly amazing.

Then I began to reflect on the work God had done to inspire the writing of the Bible into the amazing book of unity it is today and was further in awe of the moment.

If you are walking in the Spirit, then the Spirit in you should be in full agreement with the Spirit alive in another Christ Follower. Have you experienced a relationship/conversation like this? If not, wonder which Christ Follower is the one not consistently walking in and being led by the Spirit?

There IS truth to be learned from Star Wars (and beyond!)

... watching the final installment in our Star Wars epic watch-a-thon (several evenings through episode 1-6) a thought occurred to me...

(haha, check out this article I found looking for the picture to the right...)

Thinking of our brother Aaron Horton's now famous (with me anyway) quote:

No matter who you are, where you’re from, or what perspective you have in life, all of us can recognize a common theme emerging in the world. We see it in the stories we love, we see it in history, we see it in our own lives. There is beauty and innocence, interrupted by tragedy and sadness, followed by longing for rescue, and hope for a better day. We love the stories best where a hero comes along to set the world right and bring a new day to pass where we return to that place of beauty and innocence again…changed of course…but back home again. That story is older than the middle ages, the roman empire, or even the Bible. It is the story written on the very heart of God…woven into our lives because we were made in His image.

... I began to realize that if I believe what Paul talks about in Romans and understand that we were all created in the image of our father originally, only we've lost touch with it through our sinfulness...

... it becomes apparent that there WILL be hints of the character of God in all the stories even the fallen man tells. In the things we (mankind) hold to as ideals; love, peace, hope, etc., and the things we loathe; hate, lust, jealousy, even from a worldly perspective; we can see and point to God. Because God's image is "in our DNA" the hints of that image will be present in the work done by the creator's creation. WHOA!

That's why so many of the amazing quotes in movie after movie, book after book, song after song, etc. after etc. can point to the essence of real truth! Sometimes even more honest about it than we tend to be in our own religious lives:

Anakin Skywalker
"Mom, you said that the biggest problem in the universe is no one helps each other."

Qui-Gon Jinn
"Your focus determines your reality."

Anakin Skywalker
"Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden."

Qui-Gon Jinn
"Remember, concentrate on the moment. Feel... don't think. Use your instincts."

Luke
"Jedi Masters don't go crazy -- they just get eccentric."

... just a few... many more there are! (sorry, could not resist)

I think the depth of Aaron's insight sunk in to a whole new level last night! All those stories which portray pieces of kingdom truth just askew from our naturalized man point of view.... hints of truth from the wrong foundation/perspective... Wow!

Press on!

Mark 13:31

This was just interesting. Jesus said:

"Sky and earth will wear out..."

So we can't save the planet?

This set off a whole trail of thinking about the dirt we walk on. In college I wrote a paper on the responsibility of Christ Followers to show respect for everything that God created. Respecting something that belongs to someone else is one of those basic lessons which should have been taught to everyone at an early age (that may be a whole new post though...). And, there you go. The key... belongs to someone else. The American culture focuses a great deal on the concept of "ownership". Your house, your car, your land. But in truth, the vineyard still belongs to the true owner and we are all simply the farm hands left to care for the property of the true owner. We buy and sell, which further reinforces the illusion of ownership. Yet ultimately do we really believe the words which come from our mouths... "it all belongs to God"? By "believe" I mean do our actions and attitudes really show that we believe nothing "belongs" to us? What does that look like? How do we as Christ Followers live that reality in an "ownership", "buy and sell" focused society?

Have you ever observed someone clinging to something they deemed of value as the true owner, understanding its lack of value in the grand scheme of things, looked on shaking his or her head sympathetically?

Love God? Love the Church!... but which Church?!

Recently a Facebook friend posted an article on his blog and I posted the following comment. Before approving it, he kindly suggested it might make a great post on my own blog (and I think he preferred I moderate the backlash on my own space than him having to do it on his) so here it is...

Being on my own journey of rediscovery into what Jesus truly intended for the life of a Christ Follower to be like has resulted in some pretty definitive ideas in this area. One patriarch in a church where we were on staff used to always say “Nothing succeeds like success.” He was right. But the question has become "what if you are successful at the wrong thing?" I found a photo last year of a target with two arrows on the outer edge one splitting the middle of the other. It illustrated what was occurring in my journey. What if all those years we’d been aiming at and hitting the wrong thing? What if, like the 2004 Olympic shooting saga of Matt Emmons, we knew we had hit the bullseye of the target but discover we lost the race because we hit the bullseye of the wrong target?

Out of my college and seminary days, and 30 years of church staff and denominational work I would have answered these folks very similar to how you outline above. However, what if the “church” as we know it has drifted decades and degrees from the course Jesus put the early Christ followers upon?

What if all the stuff we hold so near and dear is truly not that important to God and Christ? What if, once again and so often in the cyclic life of the human race, God showed us the path and we set off on part of it yet adding and adjusting along the way until the destination 2000 years later is far from what Jesus intended? Then, what if like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, we fight to protect a religious way of life which was never intended.

Many of my wonderings drove me to a trip through the New Testament attempting to discover exactly and only exactly what Jesus said (and noticing what he did not say) about “church”. I was shocked by many things with this “no filters” approach. One of the amazing things was the fact that just about everyone except the religious leaders thought very highly of Jesus and what he was teaching. People genuinely liked Jesus. But, just like some of the comments we are seeing today, these same lovers of Jesus loathed the religious system which was being promoted by the religious leaders.

What if we were dinging the bullseye every day but the bullseye we were aiming at was totally the wrong target. What if, instead of the sinners being so messed up and unable to recognize the value of the organization we have created (uh oh, those will be fighting words I bet), they actually see the organization without all the religious bindings and have no interest in something so much like the world they already live in and thus want no part of that? What if they see Jesus more clearly than those who are bound by today’s religious teachings and are only in need of someone to guide them into The Way of the Kingdom which Jesus taught about? What if we are adhering to generations of religious stuff heaped back upon the simple and straightforward message of the Kingdom Jesus taught? Spend some time evaluating how much of what you do every week in the name of religion you can actually find record of Jesus teaching about or him physically taking part in while he was walking among us. If what you do is as important to the Kingdom as we tend to make it, would not Jesus have spent his three years walking among us hammering it home to his closest followers? Yet we have no record of him teaching or participating directly in much of what we hold so near and dear. What if God has chosen to raise up a new generation of those who follow The Way of His Kingdom and what if they must live so outside the walls of what we have always known as “church” because they cannot live the Kingdom life taught by Jesus inside the walls that exist today?

Now that you are likely fuming… go back and re-read his whole article page from top to bottom and see how many times “church” is mentioned verses how many times “Jesus” is mentioned. I love the “church” more than ever before, just not the one we created.

Involved in church's ministry = serving God?

Okay, so this just illustrates the point. It amazes me how easily we accept this rhetoric. At the big Shift event going on this week Kara Powell, the executive director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, had the following to say:

If there is one thing that everyone in youth ministry seems to be talking about it’s how to keep students following Christ after high school....

Her data reveals that 50% of high school students who had been deeply involved in a church’s youth ministry will not be serving God 18 months after graduation. And that’s not counting the many other high school students who are only going to church because their parents are forcing them.

She said this standing in front of a mountain of "youth resources" making the point that there are more resources available than ever before and yet students are walking away from God after High School. Then, she poses four critical questions for youth ministry. I'll only highlight one here:

4. How can we train students to feed themselves after graduation?

Doesn't that establish a bit of an oxymoron? On the one hand she laments that teens in alarming rates are not coming to church, then out of the other side of her mouth she prods how those same teens can be trained to feed themselves. If they are feeding themselves and out amongst the unbelievers but fellowshipping intentionally with believers in some manner isn't that awesome!? That is, unless someone has embraced the myth that dragging oneself to the table is synonymous with feeding oneself.

So, here are some questions that come to mind:

1. If the churchites can keep them there, does it really mean they are growing and serving Christ?


2. When exactly was it that attendance replaced personal contact (discipler to disciplee) to determine growth?


3. Isn't it kind of presumptuous to assume that someone participating in a program is engaged personally?


4. If the youth ministries we rabidly defend are doing their jobs maybe the teens are just the first new generation of self-sustaining Christ Followers going out into the world to fulfill the Great Commission. Maybe they get it that the Great Commission cannot be fulfilled hiding away, in-breeding in our super-structures.

Okay, like that was not jarring enough, this will be really unpopular. While it may not be at the forefront of the thinking of these "ministry professionals" I do believe an underlying concern they have is the realization of the lost revenue after the business has spent so many resources to raise up future foundational support. They know if they cannot keep them they cannot sustain the super-structures they built on "new believers" alone. How can I say such a thing? I just reflect on my own meetings applying formulas which divided the total giving (revenue) by the number in attendance to arrive at a per person figure which can be applied to the increase in attendance to get a increase in available funds to "grow the ministry".

Skye Jethani, the author of the article and managing editor of Leadership poses his own questions as he closes out the article:

48 year olds may not be leaving the church the way 18 year olds are, but are they really growing? Are we feeding them a Red Bull gospel? Are we teaching them to be self-feeders?

What is needed is a complete re-evaluation of what serving God truly means; a re-evaluation of what personal growth is; a re-evaluation of what the Church is. One of the most common concerns I've heard among staff members about believers or groups of believers feeding themselves is the issue of "control". Control only becomes an issue when the numbers become so big that personal involvement can no longer be maintained. This is when rules and structure become necessary. It amazes me that in statements like the ones in this articlt the writers look right past the obvious laying in front of them... isn't teaching church-goers to be self-feeders and expecting them to be dependent on the super-structure for food (I know, this is not what we say going to church is about, but really it's part of how the necessity of the institution is protected) a great oxymoron?

Where, O where is the outrage at statements such as this? (truth is, folks will be more outraged that I've said what I've said than they will that these speakers and writers have equalized serving God with going to church activites)

Bursting the Christian Bubble -- The Cart Running Over the Horse

It appears that Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus But Not the Church, speaking live at the Shift conference shared some thoughts on "Bursting the Christian Bubble".

In an increasingly post-Christian culture fewer people have contact with real Christians. We’ve hidden ourselves in a Christian sub-culture bubble.

I would totally agree with the sub-culture bubble concept. We emerged from that bubble last February and ever since folks think we have backslidden (one of those sub-culture terms used to help protect the organization and keep people inside) and "lost our faith". In fact, just the opposite has happened since we purposefully stepped away from that social bubble which demanded way too much time for us to be out impacting the lives of those outside the bubble. In fact, a friend with whom we've become reacquainted with since returning to the Denver area, tells us about the stealth inquisitions she often undergoes from those in the church we formerly served on staff at while here. Yet not one of them has picked up the phone and called us to ask what's going on. Wonder if that means life outside the bubble is way weird to those inside.

In one of my first mywalkblog posts was The New 80/20, I reflected that "my time was so tied up in good things at church and in ministry [that] I spent little time engaging with people outside my church in the community or my even my own neighborhood."

Inevitably the cart gets before the horse and before too long the cart actually begins running the horse over and killing it. Of all the things I reflect back on of value during my years serving the organization it's the relationships with precious people that I am most fond of today. Those don't require the institution itself to exist. In fact, those relationship often thrived and were most founded from any time we spent apart from the bubble.

Now almost two years later I'm going to propose something that will be very unpopular to those inside their bubbles... I don't believe it's possible to have the organized institution which is called church without that bubble inevitably becoming a dominating reality. I'll concede that in some smaller communities in secluded areas where the "churches" themselves are small, I believe the bubble-syndrome is less likely to be as crippling to true Christ Followers. But that's where it stops. Even as those institutions increase in size it will require more resources to keep them going and ultimately there won't be enough time to serve Christ and their church any longer. (ouch... I can't believe I just said that) The very nature of the organizations we've created and called "church" (given, Christ established His Church as the global body of all who profess a faith in Him but I'm less inclined to say the establishments find ourselves slaves to today and call church are what He had in mind at all) will inevitably turn inward in focus and create a sub-culture of isolationism because of what they strive to be. Maybe that's why the disciples were scolded when they asked Jesus about having a position in His future organization.

Nature Illustrates True Life

Today I came across an article about a recent study at Exeter University citing how a significant majority of captive-bred carnivores reintroduced to the wild are unable to adapt and die. (Most Reintroduced Carnivores Die in the Wild.) It was very interesting and timely given one of this week's observations and revelations as I was reading Mark.

As my two readers (probably my mom and some obscure person who has nothing interesting to do) will know, last year I set out on my first "through the New Testament with filters of what I'd been told removed" to see what Jesus really did say and not say about "church". It was an amazing journey.

The turn from Acts to Romans was very interesting. To date the record which had been recorded was of the Apostles and Jesus' closest (Jewish) followers using the Law and Prophets in the attempt to convince other Jewish individuals who had also been raised from day one to expect a Messiah that Jesus whom they crucified was the Messiah they had spent their whole life expecting. Then, in Romans we see the clash of cultures. Paul obviously begins to wrestle with how to communicate with this new audience who was not raised with those expectations of a Messiah and truly have very little background in things which were givens in the Jewish culture. I was astonished as Paul began to explain that the evidence of our Creator was evident in everything around everyone which left those who had not heard without excuse. That reality began to grip me. For so many years I had been using things of nature to illustrate things of the Kingdom. As if the Kingdom should be grateful for how nature lent itself to help it's cause. But what I began to understand was that you can see God and His ways in the things of nature because that which is created is always a reflection of the one who did the creating. It prompted me to begin looking at things all around me a little differently.

The other day I was reading in Mark, I don't exactly remember where while I'm sitting here now, and read something that made me think about how cautious those who handle wild animal rescues are about creating too much dependence in those whom they are caring for because too much human contact will limit the chances for re-introduction back into the habitat to which they belong. In fact, it could cause their death. Suddenly it hit me. The institutions most "Christians" grew up in need to learn this lesson from nature. Most of those who claim to be Christians are not capable of surviving and growing on their own because the "rescuers" have over cared for them. There is little or no hope of the rescued being able to go back into their native environments and feed themselves so they can be interacting as those sent out. And the article was about those who were raised in captivity being so at risk being reintroduced to the wild. Sit back and think about that in relationship to how many children "raised in the church" struggle as they get older and find themselves "in the real world". Think about how ineffective individuals are in their workplace... especially comparing the tsunami of resources leveled every week at equipping them for ministry. I'd wager to say more resources leveraged weekly against "discipleship" than has ever been available in time and yet individuals have less influence on those around them than ever before.

Maybe we've just been bred to be addictively dependent on our care givers and cannot be reintroduced to the very place we are most needed. I know for Julie and I this has been a true struggle. Trying to find a way to thrive in relationships where we can do the most good but were encouraged most of our "Christian lives" to avoid often leaves us dumbfounded.