“Early this morning the sweetest grandmother of the world returned to our Lord. She had 97 wonderful years on this earth. All my love Grandma Leona. You have been treasured & you will be missed.”

My mother left that status update yesterday afternoon the day my Great Grandmother passed away.  Her final days were filled by family, prayers, memories, and quiet.  Her caretakers offered her comfort and dignity as they selflessly served.  As we watched Grandma Leona fade into the hereafter a slice of reality was drawn into the limelight of our awareness.  Normally death and mortality are afterthoughts in our business.  Normally our headlights are fixed on our daily duties, responsibilities, and obligations.  But these final days have shifted our gaze onto the brutal truth that we will all some day meet the same destiny.  We were reminded that saying goodbye is part of life.  That we are in fact not invincible.  Our death avoiding culture can only fight off the inevitable for so long before, before death.

I’m thankful that Great Grandma Leona had so many years with us.  My faith encourages me to trust in the sovereignty of the Almighty for what happens next.

The final face of death falls on her, its cold
Fragile, frail, and free there she lay, lonesome
The family stands waiting for a sign, of life
Remembering the time, wrestling with fate
cause we’re all fading

Where can we find peace
In this life there’s only grief
If we try to hold on to tightly, and forget

So we pray our faith it gives us hope, and strength
Our Father in heaven hallowed be, your name
Find us in this hour of our fear, and loss
Forever fastened to what we have, in you
cause we’re all fleeting

There were days before your love carried us
When we were lost in darkest space fighting for
Breath to fill our lungs, nurse our wounds, you found us there
We are just a day in this story, of your love

My job is to direct a Middle School Ministry at a non-denominational Evangelical church.  I love it, but it comes with a unique set of challenges.  I’m in charge of caring for, teaching, and leading students and leaders in an increasingly challenging era for 10-14 year olds.  They are bombarded by more messages and struggles than most of us know.  Over half of their parents are divorced, often because of infidelity – often bringing them into the tension, between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 girls have been sexually abused in some way, and countless numbers of middle school students struggle with thoughts of suicide and feelings of worthlessness and depression.  They are in many ways a forgotten age and looked over age group.

We recently had a team meeting with our volunteers in which we sought to burden ourselves with the issues facing middle school students today.  We looked into six windows of what student’s in our group are experiencing.  These brief stories are all based on real life students – identities changed of course.  I think all of us should routinely remember what other people in our community and world are experiencing on a daily basis for two reasons.  First, we should always be grateful for what we’ve been given and remember that in light of what others may be going through we’ll be ok.  Second, we mustn’t forget about plight of middle school students as they represent the future, our future.

Six Windows:

My name is Kayla. My parents are divorced but that’s ok because I get to see them both a lot.  My mom has a new boyfriend and my dad is remarried.  My dad works a lot and I think he makes a lot of money.  One of my favorite things to do with my friends is go to the mall, and my dad is always cool giving me money to spend on new clothes and stuff.  I think I’ve got pretty good friends because we love to hang out, make each other laugh, and talk about boys.  At school I guess you could say I’m popular.  I’ve always had boyfriends but recently some of my friends have been having sex.  Hearing about this has kind of scared me, is that ok?  Am I old enough to be doing sexual things with boys?

My name is Cara. I’m 12 years old and go to Harvest Park Middle School in Pleasanton.  I love soccer and I love having sleepovers with my friends.  For the most part my life is pretty good, except one thing.  When I was 5 years old my uncle molested me.  I’ve never told anyone.  I live with deep shame and often times a sense of guilt.  My parents don’t know and my friends don’t know either.  At school I often feel terrible and that if anyone found out about who I really am, I’d be made fun of and thought of as disgusting.  For some reason I wish I could tell some one, but I can’t.

My name is Chad.  I’ve always hated the way I looked.   Whenever I walk around school and see my friends I get really insecure.  Why did they hit puberty while I still feel like a little kid?  Why won’t girls think I’m cool or want to date me?  The worst part of my day is P.E. when I have to change in front of my peers.  Almost every day other kids make fun of me.  Why do I feel so different or out of place?  Why did God make me this way?  Why do other people get to people popular and well liked?  Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be me.

My name is Brian. I’m a 7^th grader at Wells Middle School.   Both my parents go to church every week and I’ve always gone with them.  I never really believed in God that much, but I’ve always thought He seemed really interesting.  Sometimes I wish I could ask more questions about who God is but I always felt bad because my parents think I’m a really good Christian.  Recently I decided to take the advice of the people at church and raise money for a charity.  With a few friends from youth group we raised over $2,000 dollars.  I’m pretty excited about this but it doesn’t answer any of my questions about God.  I wish some one would take the time to talk to me more about God.

My name is Mila. I’m 13 years old and an 8^th grader at PMS.  I’ve got a little sister and we fight a lot.  Sometimes she makes me feel bad because she’s really pretty and boys always give her lots of attention.  Even though that’s sometimes hard to deal with, the hardest thing I’m going through is my Mom’s addiction.  She fights with my dad all the time and even though I act cool sometimes I’m really sad inside.  I get really sad whenever they fight.  I also get scared that my mom will hurt herself or do something stupid.  When she’s using, she acts like a totally different person.  I just wish she knew how much it hurt me when she’s on drugs.

My name is Brad. My friend brought me to STUFF.  At first I just liked going because my friends were there and the games were fun.  At the end of the night they would often talk about God.  I always thought believing in God was something of a joke, but after hearing some of the leaders say they believed in God, I started thinking about it more. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.  Does God exist?  Where am I going when I die?  Do those leaders at STUFF really have a relationship with God?

Streams of Living Water

Richard Foster

Pastoral Licensing Book Review

With great care and detail Richard Foster’s Streams of Living Water outlines six major streams of Christianity.   Foster contends that these streams are the contemplative, holiness, charismatic, social justice, evangelical, and the incarnational, with each stream having Jesus at its center and source.  Foster describes how history has been shaped by each unique brand of Christianity and by various influential figures and movements prospectively. Practically speaking, Foster attempts to gave a summation, though by his own admission not comprehensive, of Church history by selecting specific “steams”, highlighting one historical, contemporary, and Biblical figure, and offering his insight into various strengths and weaknesses of each stream.  In so doing, Foster is able to paint with broad strokes a somewhat detailed picture of Christian history.  I found this reading to be most enriching, challenging, and engaging as I realized some shortcomings of my “stream” of Christianity and was encouraged to tap into the larger Christian family.

The strongest challenge I left this reading with was the challenge to grow in my understanding and communion with Church history and the larger Body of Christ.  Coming from a “Seeker-Sensitive”, contemporary, Evangelical background, I relished the historical perspective Foster wrote about.  Often it feels like my specific “stream” of Christianity is totally disconnected from the rest of Christendom both historically, and practically.  It seems that my “stream” of Christianity is focused largely on making Jesus understandable to the modern world.  Our goal is to remain constantly in-touch with the non-church world and culture so as to not seem outdated. We speak about cultural trends, read books from the latest Christian gurus, attend the hippest Christian conferences, apply current business practices, utilize the most modern technology, and attempt to be the most relevant as we can.   Sometimes it feels like we’re trying so hard to be relevant that we loose touch with our identity, both ancient and recent.  A guy I look up to once called church’s like ours “amnesic” because they are so unaware of who they are and where they’ve been.  The focus is more frequently on where we’re going.    One of my favorite lessons from this reading was that as a Christ follower in 2010, I am part of movement much larger than I was originally aware of, full of tradition, stories, heroes, and a plethora of human experience.

Personally, I found myself most encouraged by the unique stories of specific significant Christian figures.  I loved learning about their humanness, their brokenness, their drive, their faith, and how God used them in the midst of improbable circumstances.  Reading the accounts of people like Augustine, Dag Hammarskjorld, Laubach, Pheobe Palmer, Billy Graham, and the likes gave me an appreciation for those who came before me I just didn’t have earlier.  As I read their stories and the plight of their endeavors for the Gospel, I sensed a deep longing to know more.  It was as if hunger was awoken within my spirit, a deep hunger to absorb as many lessons and adventures from my predecessors as possible.  As I briefly surveyed a few significant stories I realized how much I have been missing out on.  In a way, I felt deprived.  Deprived of an ongoing conversation I could have been having with theologians, apostles, martyrs, pastors, saints, mothers, fathers, and others who have given their life to know God and make him known.  In this way I realized more and more that the lessons we sometimes feel as if we are just now learning are in actuality, age old lessons, that hundreds or thousands have weathered and persevered before us.  When church leadership issues arise, division surfaces, or finances diminish – we would be wise to learn from Church history.  In addition to reading about contemporary church issues in the modern magazines, journals, and self help books we should take advantage Church history and humbly glean from those who have come before us.  Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the circumstances we find ourselves in; an increasingly secular and hostile culture, an apathetic and consumer driven Christian community, budget crisis’, morale failures of leaders and the likes – these are no stranger to our church fathers, mothers, and reformers whose lessons are aptly available to our study, if we so choose.

Another significant lesson I gained from this book with was the commonality of different Christian streams and their apparent underlying unity.  In our community there are dozens and dozens of churches all preaching their own particular theological bent, each isolated from one another in what at times feels like a market driven competition to win over the most congregants to their particular brand of church.  While I understand the need for specific church communities and the intrinsic necessity for Christians to belong to a singular home church, I’ve often wrestled with the vast disconnect Christian leaders have from one another.  On the block where our church meets each week another church meets as well.  My church is largely crafted to meet the needs of white, suburban baby boomers, while the church down the street is more urban, “soul-full”, and African.  My critique is not with the existence of each of these unique expressions or “streams” of church, my visceral repulsion comes from the total obliviousness of each church community from the other.  Church volunteers, congregants, and leaders are for the most part void of any sort of fellowship with our Christian family down the street, even though in truth, we are on the same team.  Part of me feels like we do a great disservice to the world by and the Body by not celebrating in some way, the common source of our prospective Stream.  In an increasingly pluralistic world it seems reasonable for the church to shift or grow into a more co-operative perspective.  What if we could in some way band together – how much more could we do ecumenically than in isolation?  As Foster described each “stream” and then detailed their strengths and weaknesses I realized more and more that we have so much to learn not just from the past, but from each other.

Lastly, Streams of Living Water brought be to a new appreciation for my own personal self growth in the contemplative stream, through persistent, intentional, quite, prayer-filled connection to God.  I’ve realized more and more that the pace of ministry in the context I am currently employed/called could be potentially devastating without constant refreshment, replenishment, and regeneration of intimacy with God.  Like the Desert Father Anthony, I desperately need monastic living to be an integral, integrated part of my spiritual journey.  Not just for my own sanity and well being, but so that I can be the best me possible for those I get to minister to.

In contrast to other writings I’ve read as part of my Pastoral Licensing Process, I found myself mostly in agreement with the premise of the book.  Rather than trying to offer a new spiritual insight or leadership lesson, Foster highlighted history and challenged my view and experience of the Church itself.  I’m deeply grateful that I was privileged to read his work and am excited to read it again later in life.   Through this reading I felt more deeply called and committed to Church, to my calling, and to foster my own intimacy with

Continuing my reviews of some books I’m reading for work…

A.W. Tozers’ insightful offering into the character of God is full of impacting imagery and humble reverence towards the spiritual realm.  His heart towards the Father and his description in both confidence and uncertainty urges the reader to uproot their preconceived religion and replant their hope in a soil filled awe towards the holy.  With the words, “Whatever comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us”, Tozer challenges the reader to foundationally reform a perception of God that is deserving of the Almighty, casting aside attempts at articulation of the divine that do not do justice to His nature, and thus allow this truth to become the framework from which we live our lives.

There wasn’t much I didn’t like about Knowledge of the Holy. Recently, it seems like many Christian books are feel-good, self-help type writings from the latest Christian gurus.  Refreshingly, Tozer was different.  His style and tone felt both mystical and pragmatic at the same time.  He left God remaining beyond his futile words, yet brought him into the English language with heartfelt sincerity.  For me the most constructive aspect of the reading was the developed deep longing I felt to understand and experience God the way Tozer described.  When he wrote about God’s self existence, Omniscience, Transcendence, Faithfulness, Sovereignty, etc, I was reminded how I often paint God in my own mind the way I want, not the way He is.  The reminder of how incomprehensible and vast God actually is, is a lesson immeasurably pertinent to any Christian, but maybe even more urgent to one engaged in ministry.  As I develop programs, lead meetings, and organize events, I am often stressed or discouraged by how well I perform, how the numbers pan out, and how productive the activity was for those who came.  While those worries are significant and important, in this reading I was again reminded that I am not God, and that our faith compels me to surrender my worries to Him.

Essentially, The Knowledge of the Holy is a list of God’s attributes, and meditations on these characteristics. Tozer describes how our perception of God’s attributes can spur a deeper understanding God himself, his other attributes, and our humble place in his creation. In his chapter about the love of God he writes: “From God’s other attributes we may learn much about his love. We can know, for instance, that because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.”

Maybe the most compelling dynamic of the book was Tozers writing about the transcendence of God.  The title of the book, The Knowledge of the Holy, is itself an attempt to answer the question, what is God like?  As he describes God in various terms he is quick to add that God cannot be defined.  His reality goes beyond the limits of our language and symbols.  Paradoxically, God is like many things, but He is unlike anything.  He is both fierce and tender, just and compassionate, omniscient and specific.  He is holy, sovereign, and self-existent.  The paradox and tension of being able to describe God, and yet God remaining indescribable is the foundation on which the book was written.  The goal of Tozer, I believe, was to create a vast sense of awe, mystery, appreciation, and humility towards God.  To be both intensely attracted to Him, and struck with fear by him at the same moment.  Tozer’s heart towards God reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ metaphor of God as a Lion in The Chronicles of Narnia.  In one scene some of the children talked about Aslan, the Lion God.  They describe him as both scary but good.  The children love Aslan enough to nuzzle up in his warm fur, while at the same time understand that he could devour them at any moment if he so chose.  The more I begin to ponder and learn of God the more I come to realize that he exists in this type of tension.  He is intimating but soft, immeasurably powerful yet borne in a manger, and all-knowing yet personal and present.

One of the things I left feeling most challenged about was Tozer’s concern for the church.  He argues that the church has lost its sense of who God is, “the idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions.”  When I survey the spiritual landscape of American Christianity, it seems to me that we have largely described God in anthropomorphic terms, making Him like us.  Church structures seem comfort prioritized, consumer driven, numbers focused, model emphasized, business minded, and money dependant.  When I read Tozer, I am reminded that God is none of those things.  Often it feels like we (church staff), are selling a product to the world, constantly trying to define the Christian life and God in terms that will be the most attractive to the surrounding culture while we grow further and farther from the God who started it all.  Please don’t misunderstand me, I believe we should make our faith understandable to the world in relevant ways, I just think that sometimes we go too far.  I think if Tozer came to a modern Evangelical American church, he would ask; Where is the reverence for God?, Why does God feel like a genie in a lamp?,  Why are you so afraid of challenging people?  To me, those seem like important questions we should always be wrestling with.

One of the lasting lessons of this book will be the reminder that God is bigger than me, bigger than my family, bigger than my career, bigger than my church, bigger than my nation, and bigger than my world and universe. “But the truth is that God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist.” While all of those things I listed above are existent in a broken world, God reigns sovereign and perfect over all of our humble attempts at church.  If CrossWinds Church died off, God would not be less.  If I were to contract a serious illness and my life cut short, God would still be.  If five hundred students come to STUFF, or if ten students come to STUFF, God will still know them all.  This posture towards my role in ministry and my hope in God and not our accomplishments is both freeing and terrifying.  Overall, I was deeply challenged and encouraged by this book.  It is my hope and prayer that God will shape our church to grow in our “Knowledge of the Holy”.

I stand staring with affection
At what I see in the mirror
I drink of my perfection
Avoiding the hole that I am

In love with programs and progress
The people are just in the way
All of my fortune I horde
And keep the children at bay

All of our works are fading
Along with the temples we’ve made
Displays of our successes
Were never meant to stay

I only care when I get a return
I only see when it’s my reflection
I am lust, I am greed, I am selfish
My only hope to live is to die

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Whoa.

There is something so epic and counter worldly within those words.

Are these the words of a Pastor, Politician, Monk, or Iman?

No.

Is it a section in the mission statement of a homeless ministry, Church,  or recovery program?

No.

This is the quote engraved on the New York’s Statue of Liberty, the very image that graced the eyes of countless millions of immigrants searching for a better life.  Those words drip with poetically beautiful and significant perspective.  They cry out to the lowest of lows and offer sanctuary and safety to those lost at sea.  I believe these words, meant to depict the accepting nature of our nation actually strike a nerve that goes far deeper.   When it comes to loving people in our world – we have so many conditions.   I’m convinced that this is the heart  and posture of the God of the Bible, and I’m saddened that Lady Liberty speaks it more freely than the Church.

Do we as people, church-goers, and Christians love without condition, or have we created filters and gauges with which to justify our hierarchy of acceptance?

Do we only go after the good looking, easy to love, pleasant people?

Am I even familiar with the people who are “tired…poor…huddled masses yearning to breathe free…wretched refuse…the homeless, tempest-tost?

Just a question….

Between friends, College Group, and Jr. High STUFF the topic of sex has been coming up a lot lately.  Mostly how or if Biblical guidelines can compare to cultural standards.  Since I work with kids I’m hypersensitive to the messages communicated to the next generation and the implications of their content.  In my perspective we live in an overly sexualized culture of which consequences on kids are still yet to be determined.  The statistics about how many children engage in sexual behavior, consume sexual content, and are enslaved to sexual ideologies are heart-wrenching to say the least.  Kids growing up looking at porn, watching TV, sleeping around, and developing self worth based on sexual standards are sure to become wounded and confused adults, wrought with depression, addiction, disease, and disorder.  I’m afraid many of us just sit back and watch from the sidelines as the future of relationships, families, and children is exploited and abused by our culture.  We’ve chosen to live in gray a realm of life that needs clearer black and white boundaries.  We feel entitled to sex when we should feel burdened by its gravity and significance.  Let’s remember that sex is not just a moment of pleasure, but the very act that brings new life into being.  Sex was never supposed to be a game, media device, song lyric, or flirtation mechanism, but rather an miraculous expression of love and commitment.  I’m worried that in our pluralistic society we’ve chosen personal freedom over privileged responsibility and in doing so, fatally wounded our soul.  I’m reminded of a line from Spiderman when the Peter Parkers’ uncle reminds Peter that, “With great power comes great responsibility”.  I wonder if sexual expression the same, if maybe we’ve taken something great, selfishly cheapened it down, and will soon reap what we’ve sown.  Maybe we need some clear direction, maybe we need a “cultural reset”.  I truly hope and pray that my friends, family, and students will be spared the devastation that will surely come if we buy into our culture’s expression of sex.

Here’s a good starting point for what the Bible says about Sex.  It’s from a Q & A of a Church in Seattle called Mars Hill.  Thanks Mark for the content!

How can Christians decide what they should and should not do sexually?

Answer:

In 1 Corinthians 6:12, Paul lays out three criteria for Christians to consider when making sexual decisions, All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be enslaved by anything.

Is it lawful?

In Genesis we see that our Trinitarian God made everything good. The only thing that is called not good is that our first father, Adam, was alone. So, God made a woman, our first mother, Eve, to be Adam’s helper and bride. God then essentially walked her down the aisle and officiated the first wedding between the first man and first woman. Thus, God set the precedent that, though different, men and women are equal as his image-bearers, and that marriage is a gift for one man and one woman to enjoy, and as a result called all of this very good.

Furthermore, God created their bodies for sexual pleasure to be enjoyed in marriage without shame, saying in Genesis 2:24-25, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Therefore, God’s intent is that men and women would marry and enjoy sexual pleasure without shame.

Simply, according to God, marriage and sex are related, connected, and exclusive. Sex as God intends it is for one man and one woman in marriage with the overarching purpose of oneness. Subsequently, by definition anything that contradicts God’s intent is sinful. Thus, sinful acts include homosexuality, bestiality, bisexuality, fornication, friends with benefits, adultery, swinging, prostitution, masturbating a person who is not your spouse, oral sex with anyone other than your spouse, anal sex with anyone other than your spouse, heavy petting outside of marriage, dry humping outside of marriage, rape, polygamy, sinful lust, pornography, phone sex with someone other than your spouse, sexual chatting online with someone other than your spouse, prostitution, pedophilia, incest, and anything else invented next to try and escape the clear teachings of Scripture.

In the New Testament, porneia (from which we get the word pornography) is translated as sexual immorality and encompasses all sorts of sexual sins; it is frequently used as a junk drawer in which every sort of perversion is thrown. This is because God in his wisdom knew that if he only listed certain sexual sins as off-limits, someone would find a loophole by which to keep the letter of the law while denying the spirit, and write yet another book explaining how to sin against God in a way that is biblical.

Lastly, it is vital to remember that your standard for beauty is your spouse. God did not give Adam and Eve a standard of beauty, but rather a spouse. This is because our spouse is to be our standard of beauty. Great trouble comes to a marriage when this principle is violated.

Is it helpful for me and others?

To determine whether or not to engage in a sexual act that is lawful or permissible (meaning that Scripture does not forbid it), we must also consider whether or not it is helpful. To do that we must ask what the Bible says about the functions, and freedoms of sex.

Regarding the functions of sex, the Bible gives the following purposes for marital sex, and each is beneficial to the marriage:

1. Pleasure (Song of Songs)
2. Children (Gen. 1:28)
3. Oneness (Gen. 2:24)
4. Knowledge (Gen. 4:1)
5. Protection (1 Cor. 7:2-5)
6. Comfort (2 Sam. 12:24)

Great problems occur when any one of these purposes is elevated as the sole or primary purpose of sex. When that occurs, couples will love sex and hate children, for example. Or, love children but only have sex when the woman is fertile, which biblically is not frequent enough.

Will I become enslaved by it as a false god?

In Romans 1:24-25, Paul says that people either worship God our Creator and enjoy his creation-including our bodies-or people worship creation as God, and in sexual sin offer their bodies in worship. Paul goes on to explain that those who worship creation invariably worship the human body because it is the apex of God’s creation. In this upending of rightful worship, sex becomes a religion and the sex act a perverse sacrament.

Paul flatly states in Romans 12:1 (NIV) that worship is offering our bodies. Therefore, in a very real sense all sexual sin is idolatry. (Idolatry is the worship of someone or something other than the one true God.) Paul makes this connection between sexual sin and idolatry in 1 Corinthians 10:7-8: Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.

In the end, it must be accepted that sexual sin is idolatry and the worship of someone or something other than God as a god. Since the first two of the commandments tell us that there is only one God and we are to worship him alone, nothing could be bigger than this issue because sexual sin is ultimately a worship disorder.

Like My last post, I read and reviewed this book as part of a licensing process at my work.  It’s been fun to read and critique some different authors and be enriched by their ideas.

What’s the last book you read?

How often do you disagree with teaching/writing?  How do you respond?

Got any good book recommendations?

I’m putting this review up before I turn it in to my supervisors.  If you happen to see a typo, or some huge error please let me know, it would be a huge help!

Over the past decade or so, author Brian McLaren has developed into a key figure in the development of what is becoming known as the “emergent church”.  His writings are filled with fresh vision for the church of tomorrow as he paints a picture of a new Christianity.  His books with titles like “A New Kind of Christian”, “A Generous Orthodoxy”, and “The Church in Emerging Culture”, have catapulted to the forefront of conversation how church is evolving and what will emerge in the next generations.  As a result, Brian’s questions, curiosities, and concerns have been seen as both encouraging and controversial to the larger Christian institutions.  While I am increasingly passionate about the need for the collective Church to progress, innovate, and change, I’m also weary of where the discussion might lead.  Brian McLaren’s book The Story We Find Ourselves In is a fictional story with a cast of some interesting characters finding their way through life, relationships, faith, and theology.  It offers a different technique at teaching pragmatic doctrines through conversation, story, and metaphor as opposed to bullet-points, creeds, and essays.  Even though I enjoyed reading the novel tremendously I found myself disagreeing with some of Brian’s underlying conclusions about God and the Church.

The title of the book draws its meaning from the idea that existence, reality, and life as we know it are in actuality a story of God’s heart, an unraveling towards an ultimate destination of hope and everlasting peace.  The main characters of the book revolve around the narrator, Dan, a pastor on the verge of some serious theological shifts.  The primary plotline focuses on Dan, Dan’s friend NEO – a Jamaican scholar / theologian / tour guide / mystic /pastor, and NEO’s friend Kerry who is terminally ill with cancer.  The story follows the cast as they experience love, relationships, faith, and death together.  Some of the significant turns in the narrative involve Kerry, a woman who has a calloused heart towards God, her rekindling faith, and inevitable death.  Through conversations with NEO in the Galapagos Islands, a place they met doing biological research, NEO explains the Christian gospel and worldview in a new, fresh way to Kerry, softening her heart to the possibility of God being real.  It’s through this conversation that the primary theological elements of the book are communicated.  NEO describes the story of God and humanity in chapters like creation, crisis, calling, conversation, and Christ.  Each of these chapters attempts to summarize, in NEO’s perspective, periods of Biblical history and ultimately the Christian gospel message.  This style of explanation through story is refreshing and overdue, however caution should be taken when speaking in absolutes about personal interpretations of scripture.

Personally, I resonate with the approach of sharing the grand story of the Bible, the metanarrative in theological terms, in a relevant and broad way.  This approach gets the main points across and communicates a deeper ideology and worldview.  In The Story We find Ourselves In, the primary points are that God created man, man walked away causing the world to persist in a broken state, God remained faithful through chosen people and eventually through incarnation in Jesus, and finally final restoration of the way God had originally intended reality, reconciled to Him.  Around these “main points” is drawn the foundation for the Christian worldview.

In current Christian culture I see this “main points approach” gaining in popularity. While on one hand it is good to re-tell the Gospel message in modern vernacular, I have two hesitations about leaning too much on just the metanarritive / story theology and where this approach may lead.  I specifically chose the word hesitation because when I think of hesitating I imagine some one moving forward with caution after some serious contemplation, and that is what I think Brian Mclarens take on theology sparked in me the most, hesitation.  If you were to jump off a cliff into a deep lake, you would probably hesitate and consider the depths, dangers, and consequences of the leap.  In the same way I think we need to hesitate with some of Brian’s addendums to Christianity.   I don’t think he’s wrong, but I don’t think his theology is complete either.  Let me explain:

Hesitation #1 View of scriptures

When the scriptures are viewed as metaphor and not taken literally people tend to hold Bible teachings more loosely.  Everything becomes open-ended and literal truths can be brushed aside for popularist cultural trends.  A potential example of this is the current gay marriage debate.  On one side Christians can rationalize the legitimacy of gay marriage by explaining that the moral rules and precepts of the Bible are not literal or relevant to today’s world.  On the other hand Christians who take the scriptures at face value would argue that homosexuality is a sin, negating the reality of gay marriage.  This is a complex struggle in that if we are too liberal with our theology we may slide down the slippery slope and fall for any cultural trap of sin and destruction, but if we are too conservative we risk being judgmental and legalistic.  When it comes to how we hold the scriptures I believe we have to live somewhere in the middle, be both black and white as well as grey.  I believe this is the most honest way to approach the Bible, which is made up of both stories and documentaries.

In the book more favor is given to the open-ended view of scriptures.  NEO explains how the Bible is just one big story, overlooking whole sections of law and legality, which however ancient, still have practical basis and should be considered.  He also overlooks New Testament teachings about moral issues.  While I understand that the Bible IS in truth a story of God’s love for us, I also think that part of that story includes God giving us some specific hopes for how we live our life in the form of rules.  The truth is that both aspects are present in the Bible and to lean too far on story or legality could be an inaccurate interpretation

Hesitation #2 Rebellion

Much of NEO’s and Dan’s conversations about mainstream church were filled with frustration and complaining.  Indirectly Dan and NEO portrayed themselves as “enlightened individuals” leading a movement of awakening.  NEO spoke often of a “new way” implying that the old way was inherently wrong.  Overall their attitude towards the Church seemed arrogant, self righteous, and grandiose.  Their “authentic” experiences by default nullified the experiences of the larger Christian community who hadn’t yet “woken up” to this “new way”.  While I certainly don’t disregard their experience as significant and real I don’t think it’s new and I definitely don’t think it’s unique. The emergent perspective described above encourages Christians to look down at the Church’s that currently don’t experience God the way they do.   Again, I would argue that the emergent experience is not new, and not different than the experience of other Christians.  An in depth look at Christian history will see the “main points approach” and its implications as frequently discussed by theologians, pastors, and writers for centuries.  To me, it feels arrogant to suggest that they have discovered some new form of Christianity, when the truth is Christianity exists in a vast spectrum of doctrines, traditions, and beliefs.  This history should not be rebelled against but celebrated and utilized as a guiding force helping us understand the gravity of God.  The danger I see with labeling the emergents as new or unique is that it implies a level of throwing out the current establishment instead of understanding it and embracing all that it has to offer in order for us to bring the Gospel to this generation.  To completely rebel against our forefathers feels prideful and arrogant.  I am in no way suggestion that Brian has it all wrong, I just think his approach to the established church, that gave birth to our faith, should be one of gratitude and humility.  I fear books like these stoke the flame of rebellion in a culture already skeptical of “the man” in all his forms.

In simple terms I think the tension lies between being reformers or revolutionaries.  Some might think that the current times call for us to revolutionize the church while others may believe we need to reform it from the inside out.  As with hesitation #1, I think the real answer is both.  We need to revitalize static, plateaued Christians and churches and pioneer new expressions of Christianity in revolutionary fashion.  The danger lies in our heart, where we must always err on the side of gratitude and humility rather than arrogance and self-righteousness.

Overall I found the reading insightful and refreshing.  I enjoyed Brian’s storytelling and would even recommend the book to foster a basic understanding of Biblical timelines and how God works the lives of people through relationships and experience.  I found myself at times getting excited, encouraged, and proud to believe and have a role in The Story We find Ourselves in. One of the recurring themes that surfaced in my thoughts was the need for balance in theology.  Both of my hesitations to some of Brian’s idea’s were sparked by the reminder of how necessary balance and perspective are when discussing the truths of the Bible.  As a teacher / pastor to students and a young leader in a church, I have a feeling that this lesson will prove immensely valuable.

I recently finished thebook, Spiritual Leadership, for work and have been thinking about what leadership is in context of ministry.  I read it as part of a process of study/training for my work.  Reading it brought up some interesting questions about what a true leader is.  So what do you think?  I’d love to hear from some people what leadership means to them.

Does Spiritual leadership differ from “non-spiritual”?
Have you experienced good/bad leaders – what makes the difference?
In your mind what makes a good leader?
Is leadership something to be esteemed, or a burden to carry?

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Here’s my brief “book report”:

Henry and Richard Blackaby’s encouraging offering provides many and practical insights, Biblically backed guidelines, and numerous historical examples of true “Spiritual Leadership” for the current or future leader who is seeking the help of God to direct that which they have influence over.    My time marinating in this text was overwhelmingly uplifting and challenging, and even led me to wrestle with the concept of leadership as a whole.  As a Jr. High Director I was tremendously encouraged by the book’s broad application to all aspects of leadership.  Through my reading I was able to glean many lessons and immediately call to mind genuine experiences of what the authors were writing about.  As an excited learner of history, I loved the glimpses into the lives of political, corporate, and spiritual leaders that the authors used in order bring life to the principles being communicated.  I also appreciated the Biblical basis for leadership guidelines and direction that were discussed as a foundation for Biblical leadership.  What I struggled with, minimally as it may have been, was the very essence of a book a written on leadership and what the motives of those who read it (myself first and foremost) should be.  I questioned whether leadership should be something to be esteemed, looked up to, used as status, or reasons for feeling superior.  I wondered what my motives should be while reading a book on Leadership, to be a more respected or looked up to leader, to be a better servant, or to just help me direct the organizations I oversee.  More than anything I found this book hugely beneficial and sincerely encouraging.

I began leading Jr. High STUFF at the age of 20.  This meant directing a volunteer team of 10-20 adults, speaking to 40-100 students twice a week, conducting discipleship programs, balancing a budget, corresponding with parents, planning and developing trips, camps, and events, strengthening the Middle School ministry’s connection to the larger church, and a plethora of other often overlooked responsibilities all while balancing a full load at college and a passion for Myanmar.  Needless to say I was privileged to have a crash-course in leadership that proved to offer both crashes and success.  This experience provided me the depth to relate to the authors of this book on many levels.  Specifically, the chapters on Vision and Communication encouraged me to be clearer in my communication of the “big picture” to our volunteers.  I was also challenged to “Lead people on God’s agenda” even if it may not match up to my, or the church’s’ vision statement.  My ultimate allegiance lay with Jesus, not just with STUFF.  This reminder was both frightening and freeing.

I absolutely soaked up every story about Winston Churchill, Abe Lincoln, Mother Theresa, Charles Spurgeon, and others as they not only were fascinating but also allowed for common ground between myself and supposed “legends” of history.  In the beginning Henry and Richard wrote of leaders insecurities.  They described Abraham Lincoln’s disdain for his personal appearance, Churchill’s deficit of not quite making his father proud, and others.  These examples made huge history makers more relatable as I too struggle with feelings of inadequacy, self doubt, and fear.  It was convicting to be reminded that God is able and that he uses normal people to accomplish the impossible.

The struggle I found myself in early in my readings was how to approach a Christian book on leadership.  Personally, I’ve experienced men and women who seek roles of leadership because of pride, vanity, and desire to be respected, who see leadership as a role in which they are entitled to and qualified for.  To be honest I’ve seen this in my own heart as well.  It is with this in mind that as I began reading I found myself harboring resentment directed at the idea of a book on leadership. I imagined who might pick it up off a shelf; maybe some one who wants to be up-front, in-charge, and in-control.  While this is not what the book was about by any means, I wonder if our culture has misconstrued the gospel and its call to be humble servants (Phil 2), and instead provided offices and outposts of respectability and authority within the church as jobs to give those who have “arrived” in Christ.  Maybe we are asking the wrong question when we ask “how can I be a better leader?”.  Maybe we should be asking “how can I lose more of my self, strive for humility, and serve others more?”.  I once saw a poster about leadership hanging in the office of a well respected Christian leader; a picture of a lion roaring on top of a large rock.  Underneath the picture read some verse on leadership.  The image and the haughty-ness of the Lion caused within me a visceral reaction of being grossed out because it would seem to me like a Biblical leader would be striving to relinquish any and all self glory, instead, they would be doing all they could to hold the rock up so that others may pass over and experience the life they were meant to live.  Part of me thinks we have leadership backwards.  It should not be glamorous, it should not be respectable but instead should be filled with humble sacrifice and service.  C.S. Lewis described this as the Christian “Lower-archy”.

Once the dust settled in my mind I was left with the idea that leadership exists in tension between being both strong and gentle, and this both refined and grew my heart for people and the burden of leadership. Spiritual Leadership is a book I would strongly recommend to my fellow up-and-coming leaders as well as one I plan to re-read later on in my walk to see how God has grown me as a Christian, leader, man, and follower.

This is a post that I wrote a while back.  I thought it would be fun to remember how different I used to be, wow.

When I was younger I was involved in the local punk scene. I love reminiscing about it now because my behavior, logic, and rationale at the time were so warped. And it was so fun.  We drank, smoked, and engaged in lots of other rabble rousing activities expected from teenagers with too much free time, lots of questions about the world, and an upstart-idealistic outlook on life.  We even had our own band that played some pretty famous punk venues.  Those were fun, good times.  Fun, but empty. What started as youth striving to gain a voice in the vast mundane confusion of suburbia quickly evolved into reckless destructive behavior.   In the beginning of my immersion into  the punk way of life I was concerned with things like injustice in the world, bringing down capitalist greed, lashing out against prejudices and racism, and challenging pretty much everything about the way the world works.  By the end of my punk experience my passions shifted to things like getting drunk/high, having the right punk style (hair, pins, clothes, and taste in bands), and being more punk than the hot-topic kids.  It was the meaninglessness of these aspirations that were the catalyst for me to drop the leather jackets, charged hair, and F-you attitude.  My heart longed for something truly revolutionary, some sort of counter-world explanation of why the world sucks so bad.  It was this longing that drew me into the punk ethos, and eventually away from it.

Presently I work with kids at a church and for some reason we tend to attract youth with a similar disposition as I had when I was younger.  The disposition I’m talking about is the desire to change the world as we know it, to give the middle-finger to the system and all of its oppressive depravity, to rebel against our societies’ injustice.  When I come across students with this rebellious inkling part of my heart gets really excited.   And I just realized why.

Punk students get me excited because I believe God is punk.  I believe when God looks at our world and his church and how we his children are exploiting, raping, murdering, and oppressing one another he gets pissed off.  I believe that the idealism and punk spirit that questions our world and its institutions, including the church, is a perspective that resonates closely with Gods heart.  Jesus himself has often been called a revolutionary.  He up-rooted the very institution of established religion, He spoke out for the poor and marginalized,  and He gave his very life for his cause.

When I encounter students who are pissed at the world part of me gets excited because I think God is pissed about many of the same things, and its these thing that sucked me into punk, and later attracted me to Jesus.   Jesus’ upstart heart was passionate and boldly obsessed about bringing healing to the broken, turning greedy hearts into giving hearts, breaking the chains that hold down the oppressed and enslaved, deploying justice to those trapped in exploitation, and the downfall of pretty much everything else evil. To join in a movement like the one Jesus started a requires a certain boldness and courage.  This is boldness and courage I see in punk kids who can’t wait to change the world.  And its this why I love punk kids, because they have the heart that can really shake things up.  If these students realized that they share the same punk heart as God and joined in the counter-culture movement Jesus started they would be an unstoppable force for peace, justice, and love.

Do you agree/disagree?  Is this an example of taking shaping Jesus in light of our culture?  Aren’t you glad that our mistakes don’t own us and that we don’t have to be the people we once were?  Are there people you used to be, who?

BTW – I am in no way condoning some of the behavior I engaged in in that phase.  I feel lucky that I was spared from more significant damaging consequences from my decisions.  If you’re a student reading this – this is by no means an excuse to do dumb stuff, on the contrary, take it from me, the lifestyle glamorized by musicians and the media is empty, selfish, and can destroy you.  I consider myself so blessed that Jesus saved me when he did.