Thanksgiving Turkey and Christ the King Sunday

For all those who were wondering, yes, the turkey was fine. Actually, the turkey was dead - but it cooked up fine! It even looked like a Thanksgiving turkey! I was quite proud of myself considering I had never even cooked a chicken before.

This past Sunday was Christ the King Sunday according to the church calendar. The lectionary reading was the account of Jesus before Pilate found in John 18. It seemed a bit strange to be preaching from a text associated more with Holy Week, yet Jesus' comments about his kingdom not being of this world made it appropriate. The passage is a visual picture of two kingdoms coming face to face with each other - one kingdom represented by Pilate and the other by Jesus. I think Jesus gives us a clear picture of how we are to respond to evil people and evil systems. What he taught in Matthew 5 he lived in the closing pages of John.

At least twice the people tried to make Jesus their political messiah or king (John 6 and 12). In both cases it says that Jesus withdrew and hid himself. Apparantly he felt that there was a better way to deal with evil than occupying positions of power. I think that's what he calls the Church to as well. The Church - and only the Church - can confront evil the way Jesus did. He stopped the cycle of evil not by punishing it, but by forgiving it. When we punish we put the consequences of someone's sin back on them. When we forgive we let the consequences of their sin rest on us. This is why it is harder to forgive than to punish.

As I pictured Jesus standing silent before Pilate I was reminded of Paul's words in Ephesians 6:13 -

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

That is what Jesus did. He did not conquer ('My kingdom is not of this world') and he did not resist. He stood. And three days later he demonstrated that the way of mercy, grace and forgiveness is the way of victory. In fact, it is the only way that death and all the related evil could finally be destroyed.

Where is the church that is willing to live by the Sermon on the Mount? Where is the church that has the courage to proactively confront the evil of the world by inviting the world to live under the reign of God? Where is the church that, having done all, will stand?

Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. The reading will be taken from Luke 21 where Jesus' speaks about his future return. I find it facinating that the Christian calendar begins not with the first coming of Jesus, but with his second coming! The call is to watch and pray. More about that next week ...

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wrote a post that got lost in cyberspace, but I'm not going to try to recreate it. However, I can still paste the Dallas Willard quote here:

‘I do not know of a denomination or local church in existence that has as its goal to teach its people to do everything Jesus said. I’m not talking about a whim or a wish, but a plan. I ask you sincerely, is this on your agenda?’

I could honestly tell Dr. Willard that those who just completed the Keystone Project have vision statements and specific strategies to do just this!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in America and so I will be trying to cook a turkey for the first time!

Made it to Ft. Wayne

Arrived in Ft. Wayne Saturday night from Rapid City (via Minneapolis and Detroit). It was great to see my mom, sister, brother and nephew at the airport! Sunday morning spoke in a Sunday School class at First Missionary Church and had a good conversation about persecuation and, of course, discipleship. Then my family all went for Japanese food to celebrate my birthday! Today has been a busy one as I finished shopping for Cyprus and spent the evening with the Hertzog's talking about Cyprus. They should be joining me in Cyprus the beginning of 2007.

Tomorrow will be a slow day of relaxing before I return to Cyprus on Wednesday. Fortunatly, I don't have to preach on Sunday! I can't wait to see my kids ...

Graduation!

Today we celebrated the completion of the Keystone Project - Fall 2006. 23 leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America have completed the training and prepared strategies to facilitate disciple-making movements in their home countries. It's been a great month and the visions that God has birthed in the hearts of these men and women are incredible. Now the fun starts as we go back to places like Uganda, India, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Egypt, Togo and Texas to start making disciples.

It's hard to say goodbye after spending a whole month living in a multicultural community of men and women passionate about the Great Commission, but we are eager to get back to our families and ministries. I'll be stopping off in Fort Wayne to say hello to family and friends before heading back to Cyprus next Wednesday.

You can see a picture of the team I coached further down on the blog (focusing on England, Cyprus and the Middle East), but here are pictures of all the coaches and me with the president of the Four Square churches of the Ivory Coast and the Bishop of the Methodist Church of Togo.

Thanks for your prayers!

Something's wrong ... Part 3

Here are some interesting quotes from 'The Politics of Jesus,' chapter 8 - Christ and Power, that relate to the whole issue of how the church confronts evil. This is a timely message for the church in an age where we feel increasingly marginalized and powerless to do things about moral evil in the world. I believe Yoder provides us with a positive and powerful alternative to the individualism and quest for power and influence that currently dominates North American Christianity. When Yoder refers to 'Powers' in the following quotes, he means structural powers created to control or influence. These can be political, economic, religious or cultural structures or systems. While the Bible credits God as the creator of these powers (and therefore they are good), they are currently fallen and under the influence of the Evil One.

'The creature and the world are fallen, and in this the powers have their own share. They are no longer active only as mediators of the saving creative purpose of God; now we find them seeking to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38). These structures which were supposed to be our servants have become our masters and guardians.'

'To what are we subject? Precisely to those values and structures which are necessary to life and society, but which have claimed the status of idols and have succeeded in making us serve them as if they were of absolute value.'

Quoting Berkhof, 'All resistence and every attack against the gods of this age will be unfruitful, unless the church itself is resistance and attack, unless it demonstrates in its own life and fellowship how believers can live freed from the Powers. We can only preach the manifold wisdom of God to Mammon if our life displays that we are joyfully freed from his clutches. To reject nationalism we must begin by no longer recognizing in our own bosoms any difference between peoples. '

'The church does not attack the powers; this Christ has done. The church concentrates upon not being seduced by them. By existing the church demonstrates that their rebellion has been vanquished.'

And quoting Oldham, 'If our diagnosis is true, the world cannot be set right from the top but only from the bottom upwards.'

'The primary structure through which the gospel works to change other structures is that of the Christian community.'

To sum up Yoder, the Church confronts the powers of the world by standing as a community that refuses to be seduced by them. The cross of Christ stands in judgment of the powers and structures of the world, and the Church - the community of people shaped by the cross - stand as living testimony and witness to the victory and reign of Christ. This is why ultimately the contribution that Christians make is not by being culturally relevant or politically strong. It is by living a life of discipleship - as apprentices of Jesus, allowing Him to create a new community by his grace, Spirit and call to follow Him. Once again, it is practical discipleship that makes the Church a unique and divine institution in the world, and this is why Jesus commands us to go into all the world and make disciples.

Bonfire of the Vanities - for Ted Haggard

Sherman McCoy, the leading character in Tom Wolf’s bestselling novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, is a prisoner of the Wall Street world where he makes millions of dollars as a high profile bonds broker. His ‘lifestyle of the rich and famous’ collides with the life of the sleazy and desperate in the New York City justice system when he accidentally runs over a young, black youth while returning from the airport with his mistress. As the story unfolds, multiple characters find their lives dictated by the larger stories in which they live: journalists sell their souls for a headline, real estate brokers for a sale, attorneys for a fee or favor, and drug dealers for a reduced sentence. For nearly 700 pages we are exposed to the lives of people who are trying to navigate systems that appear out to destroy them, all the while seeking to stimulate (or medicate) their lives by having affairs, making obscene amounts of money, displaying their male machismo or female sensuality, climbing the power structures, or flaunting their fame. It doesn’t seem to matter whether one is at the top of the social circle or low-life street scum. Everyone is a prisoner of their environment. Everyone is hiding who they really are.

McCoy thinks he is losing control of his life as a local tabloid exploits his misery by publishing details of his affairs, his wealth, and his negligence at leaving the scene of an accident in an impoverished neighborhood of the Bronx. Local politicians seem less concerned with justice than they are with placating the racial tensions in order to protect their political ambitions. McCoy himself is desperate to keep his income, his image, and his family in tact. As everything around him collapses, he discovers that he had been a prisoner to all these forces. After a year of navigating the judicial system, reporters questioned McCoy about the contrast between his Park Avenue life and surviving the political and legal nightmare of the Bronx. McCoy responds, ‘I have nothing to do with Wall Street or Park Avenue.’ Ironically, as the world he knew collapsed around him, he found liberation and his true self. The old Sherman McCoy died, and a new one – not a nice, pretty McCoy, but a McCoy who could live with himself – was born. Though he is the one most likely going to jail, he also becomes the one most at peace with his life. At some level, McCoy rose above the controlling narratives of his social obligations, business demands, and the complex political and judicial systems of New York City. He was freed.

In similar fashion, the evangelical church in America is facing a crisis of identity. As we seek to defend our way of life, our cultural values and our influence in society we are finding things fall apart around us. 500 billion dollars has been spent on domestic ministries over the past decade, yet less people are involved in the institutional church than before. Political and religious leaders attempt to rally the troops be scaring us with threats of moral decay, liberal legislation and dying churches. But Jesus said, ‘I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.’ We are commanded to make disciples. He will build the church. I believe that crisis in the western church is that we have the roles reversed. We are trying to build big, strong, relevant churches and hoping that people will somehow get discipled in the process. I suggest that if we focused on planting churches by making disciples rather than planting churches in order to make disciples we might discover once again what it means to live with God and to be the people of God.

Leading with the Word of God ... Part 2

It's a beautiful day in Keystone, South Dakota. Most of the people have gone to the state park to look at buffalo, but I stayed back to get some rest and do some reading. While reviewing 'The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World' I came across the following quote concerning the type of leadership the author's believe is necessary to navigate our rapidly changing world. Notice the return to the traditional roles of spiritual leadership ...

Beginning with a quote from Stanley Haeurwas (After Christendom?) they write,

'" We are not Christians because of what we believe, but because we have been
called to be disciples of Jesus. To become a disciple is not a matter of a
new or changed self-understanding, but rather to become part of a different
community with a different set of practices ...' Such formation calls for
leaders who themselves have been apprenteiced in the art of formation in the
alternative society of God. These leaders are in short supply within
Protestant North America. Instead, we see a rising demand for the leader as
entrepreneur (to make things happen and drive for success), diagnostician of
health (the church as doctor or therapist), or grower of homogenious gatherings
(forming gated communities in anxious suburban worlds). There is a dearth
of those schooled in the practices of catechesis, confession, hospitality to the
stanger, forgiveness and shaping life as a Eucharistic community.' (page
123)

PS - The picture was taken of a coaching session. Pray for this team as we finish ministry strategies this week for Cyprus, England and the Middle East.

Pictures

For some reason I couldn't post this with the other entry.

This is me with Dr. Dobson. He's the one standing at the podium. :-)

Of course, I had to take the 'tourist' picture as well!

In the last picture you can see that the National Parks Service kindly reminded us that they had nothing to do with this rally!

Something's wrong ... Part 2

Chris and I just walked back from Mt. Rushmore where we had lunch and watched the rally in preparation for the important vote next week. Let me first say that I am very, very pro-life, that I believe marriage is a life-long covenant relationship between a man and a woman, and that I believe that legalized gambling perpetuates poverty. These are three of the issues that are being voted on in South Dakota next week, and the issues of most concern to evangelicals. I also believe that Christians should exercise responsibility in voting on these issues with a goal to protect unborn lives, uphold the biblical concept of marriage, and oppose laws that facilitate the cycle of poverty.

But there were still some troubling things about the rally.

First, it was repeated in various ways and forms that America will lose its privileged status with God if we don't legislate righteousness. It was righteousness for the sake of prosperity rather than righteousness because we follow Jesus.

Second, there was a lot of mingling of nationalism with generic teaching about God. Many Old Testament verses about God's covenant with Israel were repeated in the American context. We were regularly urged to 'conquer the land' (complete with verses from the book of Joshua).

Third, there was a lot of fear-mongering of what would happen if we don't get involved politically.

Of all the speakers, Dr. Dobson was the most responsible. He spoke reasonably, presented the facts, outlined a clear course of action and refrained from linking white, middle class, American culture with the kingdom of God. However, at one point he read through a list of issues facing Americans. When he mentioned being pro-life there was applause. Good. When he mentioned biblical marriage covenants there was applause. Good. When he mentioned support for the American troops in Iraq there was a standing ovation. Huh?

I'm not debating the rightness or wrongness of America's involvement in Iraq (I'll leave that for another day!). But the fact that this issue would generate a standing ovation revealed to me what this is all about. It's a culture war. It's about defending a concept of what the American way of life should be like. And we believe God is on our side. I agree with the moral positions of those who gathered at Mt. Rushmore, but I don't share their motivation.

I'm not afraid of what will happen to America. I'm not afraid losing economic, political or military power. 'Some trust in horses and chariots, but we trust in the Name of the Lord our God.' God's work will continue. He can even use exile (marginalization) and persecution to accomplish his means. I'm not afraid that the church will be destroyed. Jesus promised to build his church and if the gates of hell will not prevail against it, why do we fear the Democrats? These rallies trouble me because the fear tactics weaken faith in God and encourage us to trust in man. They trouble me because linking the success of a particular political agenda with experiencing the continued blessing of God is not only the message of certain Christians, it is the message of Hezballah as well.

If you are voting in South Dakota, vote for life. But do it as a disciple of Jesus and not to 'take back the land' or usher in the kindgom of God. Do what the speakers this morning encouraged you to do, but don't do it for the reasons they gave.

On Fire

They tell you where you need to go
They tell you when to leave
They tell you what you need to know
They tell you who you need to be

But everything inside you
Knows there's more than what you've heard
There's so much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words

When everything inside me
Looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I'll take

And I'm on fire when you're near me
I'm on fire when you speak
I'm on fire burning at these mysteries

I'm standing on the edge of me
I'm standing on the edge of everything I've been
And I'm standing at the edge of me, at the edge of me

- 'On Fire' (Switchfoot)

I will stand my watch
And set myself on the rampart,
And watch to see what [God] will say to me,
And what I will answer when i am corrected.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

'Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time:
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it:
Because it will surely come. It will not tarry.'

The prophet Habakkuk (2:1-3)

Just some things I've been hearing this morning.

Something's wrong ... Part 1

I feel a bit weird tonight. Last week I had a 'chance' lunch with someone close to the situation with Ted Haggard. The day before the story broke I read this article in Harpers: http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html . It had been forwarded to me by a friend. Since the story came out this link is plastered on blogs all over cypberspace. Tomorrow is a big political/religious rally at Mt. Rushmore to influence voters concerning the upcoming vote on abortion and same-sex marriage (among other things). Even James Dobson will be there. It's not the sin that's making me feel weird. It's the use of power and trust in power that is uncomfortable. There's something within me that says if Jesus were still walking the earth he would be avoiding Mt. Rushmore tomorrow.

While in a convenience store today the clerk showed me the back page of the local newspaper. A full page add called people to gather at Rushmore to listen to Dobson and show support for pro-life, traditional marriage legislation. Under the faces of the presidents carved in stone was Luke 19:40 - 'I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.' A quote was given from each president - Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln - about the sanctity of life. Clever, though a gross misuse of Scripture. I'll try to walk up to the rally tomorrow to take some pictures.

As the culture wars get hotter and hotter (and this is really about culture more than faith or morality), I keep thinking back to my time living in the Middle East. Anyone who thinks we can legislate morality needs to visit Saudi Arabia. Sharia' law demands a morality far more strict than the Religious Right, yet even it can't change the human heart. As the title to one bloggers entry reads, 'Haggard, Foley and the GOP Preaching Against the Very Vices They Can't Shake' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/haggard-foley-and-gop-pr_b_33179.html There's some truth in the headline. We can't shake sin off. All we can do is ask for forgiveness and continue to take our own discipleship seriously. Maybe it's time to start paying more attention to the heart and less to the ballot box, folks.

Recently I heard someone pray, 'Lord, help us make this world into the place you created it to be.' That sounds a bit Islamic to me as well. It's time to get back to the Great Commission, which means we have to help people follow Jesus and love like Jesus. It means helping people become students of Jesus. We need to get beyond Sunday School classes that have endless cycles of 'How to have a better marriage,' 'How to raise happy kids' and 'How to manage your finances.' Instead of asking how we win the culture/political wars or how we can defend a way of life for our families, we need to start asking how we become disciples of Jesus and how we can help others disciples as well. I need to ask it, and you need to ask it. This needs to be the question that drives us.

For my birthday, my roommate bought me a copy of 'The Politics of Jesus' by John Howard Yoder. Yoder says (and I'm trying to quote from memory), 'We need be a transformed society more than we need to transform society.' Our mission is to be an alternative community - a community of discipleship. Are we?

Anyway, I'm starting to rant now, so I'd better stop ... I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

Who is St. George?

Some have asked who St. George is? The legend of St. George exists in many parts of the world. As the story goes, he entered a village in North Africa only to discover that the villagers were in bondage to a dragon. Every year they had to sacrifice a virgin to appease the dragon, but when George showed up he killed the dragon and the entire village converted to Christianity. That's the short version ...

Additions, corrections and generational curses

Ok, once again I have to make sure a post is not taken to an extreme. When I talk about leading with the word of God, I don't mean that management and organizational skills have no place in the church, but leading by the word of God will be helpful in fulfilling kingdom purposes. Just imagine church leadership that diligently studies the Scriptures to understand what it means to be followers of Jesus in this age, and then leads the church based on their findings. Do pastors even have the time for this kind of Bible study? Imagine if top level leadership in the church was true spiritual leadership, where time was spent in Bible study, prayer, teaching, casting a biblical vision for the Great Commission, making disciples and equipping others to make disciples?

Today at Keystone we continued to discuss spiritual warfare. Too often we - at least in the West - neglect the spiritual powers at work around us. We had some teaching on generational curses. During the coaching session afterwords, my roommate Chris made the insightful comment, 'If I don't deal with my issues now I'll pass them on to my kids.'

How true!

Leading With the Word of God

Leading with the word of God is one of the positive things the Keystone participants are learning to do. Due to my seminary studies, I've had to read a lot of books on leadership and organizational development over the past few years. I can't remember a single book that addressed this. It seems that much of Christian leadership development attempts to sanctify conventional management and leadership theory, but doesn't equip church leaders to use the Scriptures in making decisions, determining values and priorities, reaching out to the community or managing conflict. We often trust in organizational theory to help our churches grow rather than cultivating leadership teams that walk in the Spirit and 'correctly handle the word of truth.' This isn't just about biblical preaching, but learning to live individually and as the people of God with the Bible as the primary resource to guide our spiritual and organizational formation.

When planning our programs, are we consulting the word of God? Do our values reflect the biblical mandate to make disciples of all nations? Are we really living according to our values? I've written further about this in the articles that were published in the Missionary Church Today ('The Secular Church') and on the Missionary Church website ('Inerrancy and the Authority of the Scripture'). Both articles can be found in the archives of this blog.

As long as we trust in management or church growth theory for healthy churches we will become increasingly irrelevant from the world we have been called to reach and increasingly disconnected from the God we have been called to serve.

'Send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God.' (Psalm 43:3-4)

PS - Keystone is surrounded by beautiful wildlife such as these wild mountain goats.

Freedom of the Press Report

According to an article in the Cyprus Mail, a newly published report by Reporters Without Borders ranks the United States 53rd out of 168 countries in regards to freedom of the press. When the report first began (2002) the US was 17th. The reason cited was that US federal courts are increasingly requiring reporters to reveal their sources. Cyprus currently ranks 30th.