awaiting rain

God, Country, and Redemption

I've been worried about our country for quite some time now.  The new day of infamy, 911, awakened my concern for our nation in the face of the external threats from those who desire to see America fall.  But I've been equally (if not more) concerned about the future of our civilization because of internal threats to our way of life.  Anyone who is paying attention can see the shift away from government by the people toward government over the people.  Socialism is emerging here, even after it has dramatically fallen around the world.  I worry about the threat of a failing economy as we see, almost daily, the fruit of a greed-driven, debt-financed way of life.  And it seems that the morality and ethics that once set America apart as a shining city on a hill have given way to a neo-barbarian impulse.

I've been doing a great deal of reading about the history of our nation, the founding principles, and the men and women who gave birth to America.  I've been writing a great deal about this on my blog Keep Us Free and in columns and editorials at the newspaper where I serve on the editorial board.  I've been calling for a reeducation about who we have been as a people, a determination to reclaim our liberty, and the activism necessary to do so.  But in the back of my mind I find myself continually asking, "Can we as a people really ever become great again?"

And then I'm reminded by the words of George Washington (echoed at different times and in different ways by others among the founders), that the only way that a free society can survive is if it is a society of virtue that grows out of faith in God.  Without Godliness, righteousness, and virtue, all of the writing, the speeches, and the activism in an attempt to restore American exceptionalism are meaningless.  Before we can reclaim our manifest destiny as a nation, we must reclaim our recognition of, worship of, and dependence upon God.

I've often thought about what kind of person I would be if I had been born in different eras.  If I had been born in the 1700's, I would be among the rebellion, eager to sign the Declaration of Independence and take up arms for the cause of freedom.  If I had been born in the 1800's I probably would have been someone on the frontier, continually pushing westward to discover new lands.  If I had been an adult during the 1960's I would probably be a long-haired, anti-establishment, social activist. 

But here I am, 40 years old, in 2008, watching what I believe to be the final chapter of our nation being written.  Though I think it's important for me, and all Americans, to be active in our political system, calling for a return to our principles of freedom, there is something more necessary for me to give my heart and mind to.   If I am serious about the future of the country wherein I will grow old and my children will grow up, I must give myself to the purposes of the greater Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, and do all that I can to call people back to a recognition of, worship of, and dependency upon the only King who truly matters and holds all things together, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Apart from the righteousness found in such a dependency, there is no hope for this or any other nation.

Soul Friends and Spiritual Wellness

For many years now I've had a deep appreciation for the ancient Celtic people of the British Islands who emerged from Druidism to become followers of Jesus Christ.  What was unique about the Celts was that their Christian spirituality emerged and flourished without being impacted by the institutional Roman church (until the devastating 7th-century Synod of Whitby.)  They were distinctly not Catholic or protestant.  They were simply followers of Jesus.  As such, they enjoyed rich, meaningful components of their faith that have since been lost to us in the Catholic or protestant systems.

One such component of their faith was the nurturing of relationships with what they called, "soul friends."  The Christian world around them at the time proclaimed that the most important relationship one could have was their relationship with the church, her doctrines, and the priest who would administer to them the sacraments.  Outside of this, there could be no relationship with God.  The Celts, on the other hand, understood that their relationship with God did not depend upon any institution or clerical middle-man.  But they did find that their relationship with God was deeply nourished through their relationship with a soul friend.

A soul friend was somebody who was as close to you as a brother or sister.  He was a person who you spent time with, a substantial amount of time, working, playing, eating together, talking, laughing, crying.  The relationship between soul friends was one of such trust that either person could freely share the deepest, darkest secrets of their life without fear of judgment or violation of that trust.  In such a relationship the heart could be laid bare for transformation to occur.  Because there were no secrets between soul friends, neither person could hide within an illusion that they were keeping something hidden from God. 

Soul friends are hard to find in our culture.  We Americans are so individualistic, so busy, and so religious that when we do try to find such relationships we end up with something we like to call "accountability partners."  Our attempt at this is a pitiful caricature of what they enjoyed.  Unlike the relationship with a "soul friend," our "accountability" relationships lead to bondage, guilt, deception, deterioration of friendships and a retreat to isolation.  In the Celtic practice, authentic relationship came first, with trust, vulnerability, honesty, and restoration being a natural fruit of that relationship.

As difficult as it is to cultivate in our culture, it is a component of spiritual wellness that I think we need to work hard to resurrect.  I'm interested to know if any readers are enjoying vital "soul friend" relationships, how you found your soul friend, and how that relationship is lived out from day-to-day.

Twenty Years From Now

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." —Mark Twain

As I read through the scriptures and take note of the men and women who lived the most meaningful lives, I find that they were restrained only by their righteous character and their ability to listen to the voice of God.  May it be that we never settle for less worthy restraints in the pursuit of our divine destiny.

 

Pages of the Odyssey

It was during the final summer of my time as pastor of a church plant in Illinois.  I preached a message one Sunday in which I reflected on the Christian life being akin to the journey taken by Homer's Odysseus.  All along the way he encountered different characters, various villains, tests, and trials which all helped to do two things:  Reveal his character, and refine his character.

Though I preached that sermon as a message to all of us, it was especially ringing true to me as I had spent the previous few months feeling strongly that I was being drawn into an odyssey that I had not anticipated.  And my own odyssey would serve the same purposes.  A couple of months later I preached my final sermon and within days was surrounded by strangers living in a strange city ten hours away.

It's been about three years since I preached that message.  It has indeed been quite an odyssey.  All of the weaknesses of my character have been revealed.  About a year and a half into the odyssey I left the strange city and came into what I anticipated to be a familiar port.  I had sailed this way before and it had been a five-year port-of-call before leaving to plant our church.  I anticipated all of the familiar faces of friends.  And I had hoped that my arrival back in this familiar place would end the strangeness of my odyssey and allow me to settle back into a normal, pleasant, predictable way of life.

The odyssey continued.

I found this place to be much different from when I left it.  Or, perhaps, it was I who was much different.  I believe it was both.  The faces were familiar, but the voices seemed to have changed.  The relationships I once enjoyed and looked forward to resuming had become strangely disfigured.  And the role I thought I would play in the lives of those around me, in the highways and byways of the city, turned out to be the thing of unfulfilled dreams.

This blog became a chronicle of my odyssey in this place.  If you dig back through the pages you'll find the writings of a man lost in a familiar place.  You'll hear the frustration of a man waking up to find all of the furniture had been rearranged in the night.  You'll read the words of a man who had forgotten his own identity.  Most of all you'll read the thoughts of a man longing for the kindness of God in a strangely foreign, dry and thirsty land where springs of cool, clear water used to abound.

A few months ago I laid down the pen.  I had finally given up on my pursuit of the kindness of God, settled for exile, and turned my attention elsewhere.  Today I am taking the pen back in my hand.  In the last few weeks I have come to see that this odyssey has been God's pursuit of me more than my pursuit of God.  And it is through the revealing and refining of my character that God has shouted his love and kindness to me.

To those of you who have remained as subscribers to this blog, I hope you'll rejoin me as important characters in my odyssey.  Perhaps I can serve as an important character in yours.  In taking up the pen again, I considered going back and deleting many of the posts that reveal the darker facets of my character that have been most in need of refining.  But I quickly realized that there would be no integrity in doing so.  They are important pages of the odyssey and the story is incomplete and incoherent without them.

I look forward to resuming with you the journey forward into the kindness of God.

Could Noah Build His Ark Today?

In the year 2008 the Lord came unto Noah and said, "Once again the earth has become wicked and over-populated, and I see the end of all flesh before me.  Build another ark and save two of every living thing along with a few good humans."

He gave Noah the CAD drawing, saying, "You have 6 months to build this ark before I will start the rain for 40 days and 40 nights."

Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his yard, but no ark.

"Noah!" He roared, "I'm about to start the rain.  Where is the ark?"

"Forgive me Lord," begged Noah.  "But things have changed.  I needed building regulations approval and I've been arguing with the fire department about the need for a sprinkler system.  My neighbors claim that I should have obtained planning permission for building the ark in my garden because it is considered development of the site, even though in my view it is a temporary structure.  We then had to go to appeal to the Secretary of state for a decision.

Then the Department of Transportation demanded a bond be posted for the future costs of moving power lines and other overhead obstruction to clear the passage for the ark's move to the sea.  I told them that the sea woulod be coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.

Getting the wood was another problem.  All of the decent trees have Tree Preservation Orders on them and we live in a Site of Special Scientific Interest set up in order to protect the spotted owl.  I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls, but no go.

When I started planning to gather the animals, the S.P.C.A. sued me.  They insisted that I would be confining wild animals against their will.  They argued the accommodation would be too restrictive, and it was cruel and inhumane to put so many animals in a confined space.

Then the County Council, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Rivers Authority ruled that I couldn't  build the ark until they conducted an environmental impact study on your proposed flood.

I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Equal Opportunities Commission on how many disabled carpenters I'm supposed to hire for my building team.  The trade unions say I can't use my sons.  They insist I have to hire only accredited workers with ark-building experience.

To make matters worse, Customs seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to leave the country illegally with endangered species.

So, forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least 10 years for me to finish this ark."

Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow stretched across the sky.

Noah looked up in wonder and asked, "You mean you're not going to destroy the world?"

"No," said the Lord.  "The government beat me to it."

~Author Unknown

Holy Mazola! Silly Things Christians Do

Perhaps you have experienced this.  You're in a church service or a prayer meeting and the time has come for the preacher or the elders to pray for the sick.  Individuals with diverse ailments will make their way to the front of the church to experience the laying on of hands, prayer, and the anointing with oil.  The person leading the prayer will retrieve from the secret, hidden shelf inside the pulpit a glass bottle of yellow oil. He'll approach the afflicted, put some oil on his finger, and make the sign of the cross on their forehead as he begins his prayer.

I began following Christ in earnest while attending a church known for their hyper-charismatic outbursts, utterances, and skillfully choreographed "falling out."  The bottle of yellow oil made it's appearance at every service as the same people with the same ailments went forward each week for the same prayers offered by the same people.  Every week they would receive the dousing of oil, dance the same little jig, fall backward in exactly the same manner (skillfully dodging the pew behind them on the way down), and eventually rise to their feet declaring their healing...until next week.

I've even been present at a couple different meetings where the oil bottle would be empty.  After a brief moment of panic (because prayer apparently won't work without the magic oil-slick) someone would say, "Run to the kitchen.  There's some cooking oil in the pantry!"

I always found this to be a strange little practice.

If you ask one of these ecclesiastical oilmen why they perform this greasy little exercise, they will undoubtedly tell you that the Bible instructs them to do so in James 5:14&15.

"Are any of you sick?  You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.  Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick and the Lord will make you well."

Is this really what that passage is instructing?  Or could James be offering instruction that is a little less magical and a little more down-to-earth and practical?  To decide, I suppose we need to have an understanding of the use of oil in Bible times.

The oil most often referenced in scripture is olive oil.  And it was used for a variety of purposes, most of them having nothing to do with anything "spiritual."  Olive oil was used in the ceremony of anointing a king.  But most often you find olive oil being used as fuel for lamps, to cook with, for cleansing and refreshing the body, and for medicinal purposes.

Let's look at a couple of other New Testament passages to better understand the common uses of oil and hopefully put the James passage into a more common-sense context.

16When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  ~Matthew 6:16-18

7"Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.  9" 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'  ~Matthew 25:7-9

45You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet.  46You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.  47“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” ~Luke 7:45-47

33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins^[a] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'  ~Luke 10:33-35

12They went out and preached that people should repent. 13They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.  ~Mark 6:12-14

Nowhere in scripture do we find that oil is used as some magical potion to accompany and empower prayer.  But we find plenty of scriptures explaining the very practical uses of oil in every day life, including use as a cleansing, refreshing, and medicinal compound.

Remember when you were a child and you had one of those golden opportunities to stay home from school because you were too sick to get out of bed?  And do you remember how good it felt to have mom come in and rub some Vicks Vapo-Rub on your chest and throat?  Could it be that what James was suggesting in verse 14 of chapter 5 was the simple, kind, and thoughtful act of using oil to soothe, comfort, and relieve the symptoms of illness while prayers were being offered for their healing?  And if so, then could it be that we have, in our religious fervor, perverted the simplicity of prayer with silly superstition?

Anointed One or Empowered Many?

I recently had lunch with a full-time pastor for whom I have the utmost respect.  We eventually began discussing my struggle with whether or not to remain an "ordained" elder in our denomination.  That led to a deeper discussion about my struggle with the separation of clergy and laity into two distinct classes of Christians:  Those who are permitted to do ministry and those to whom the ministry is done.

We covered all the bases around the field of ministry leadership.  And finally he said something that, on face value, made sense.

"Bill, if you look at the Old Testament and the great leaders God put into place, you'll find that most of the times when things went wrong, it came out of the masses, not out of the leaders."

After lunch I found myself thinking about this throughout the afternoon.  It seemed to make sense.  God raised up Moses as the anointed One to lead the masses out of captivity.  God raised up Joshua as the anointed One to capture the Promised Land.  God raised up David as the anointed One to lead Israel as a man after God's own heart.  God raised up the prophets as anointed Ones to speak truth to the wayward masses.  On the other hand, it was the masses that caused Israel to wander in the wilderness for forty years.  It was the masses who made the gold calf.  It was the masses who decided to leave the Godless nations in place as a snare to Israel.  It was the masses who decided that Israel needed a human king like the other nations and got Saul as their king.

I see clearly that this principle of the anointed One leading the needy masses is present in the Old Testament.  But...

Enter Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I see a fundamental change in the order of things with the coming of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit.  As soon as Jesus came on the scene and began his ministry, he began to overturn the old order and put a new order in place.  Jesus certainly was the anointed One to atone for humanity.  But he seemed to be saying with his life and teaching that the focus will move away from the anointed-One mentality toward the empowered many.

He immediately began raising up twelve men to do what he did and promised that they would even do more than he did.  Those empowered twelve became an empowered 120 on Pentecost.  On the same day the empowered 120 became the empowered 3,120.  Shortly thereafter, the empowered 3,120 had grown to the empowered 5,000. 

The church grew exponentially with thousands and thousands of believers being filled with the Holy Spirit.  But it wasn't long before they began trying to reverse the order that Jesus had inaugurated.  The Corinthians began to shift the focus away from the empowered many back to the anointed One.  They began exalting certain people with certain gifts, and they began dividing and grouping themselves around the "celebrity" ministers.  Paul finally had to write a letter to instruct them to knock it off, function as a body, and recognize only Christ himself as the head of the church.

Fast-forward to the fourth century.  By the end of the century you find a complete shift away from the empowered many to the anointed One in the form of Popes, bishops, and priests.  And throughout the church age, nearly every heretical movement or act of treachery (crusades, inquisitions, indulgences) came not out of the masses but out of the elite community of the anointed Ones.

Isn't it time that we returned to the revelation that Christ alone is the head of the church, and the church is a body of many parts - a temple of living stones - with every member being empowered by the Holy Spirit to live lives of holiness as participants in the redemptive mission of God to a wayward humanity?   

Have You Joined the Blogrush?

Several months ago I was invited by a fellow blogger to join Blogrush, which is a syndication network resembling a multi-level-marketing program.  I was skeptical at first, but after working some of the bugs out of the system, the creators have come up with a great blog-sharing tool that has sent a lot of traffic my way.

Check the link here to pay them a visit and watch their short introductory video.

Books and Bandwagons

A "bandwagon" is a wagon that carries a band in a parade, circus, or other entertainment.  The phrase 'jump on the bandwagon' was first used in American politics in 1848 as a result of Dan Rice, President Lincoln's court jester. Campaigning for Zachary Taylor, Dan Rice, a professional circus clown, used his bandwagon for Taylor's appearances, gaining attention by way of the music. As Taylor's campaign became more successful, more politicians strove for a seat on the bandwagon, hoping to be associated with the success. Later, during the time of William Jennings Bryan's 1900 presidential campaign, bandwagons had become a standard fixture of campaigns,and 'jump on the bandwagon' was used as a derogatory term, implying that people were associating themselves with the success without considering what they associated themselves with.  (wikipedia)

I've shared with you, in several posts, excerpts from, thoughts about, and reactions to the book, Pagan Christianity, by George Barna and Frank Viola.  The danger that lies in books of the confrontational and provocational genre is that there are those who will simply "jump on the bandwagon" without thinking critically about that which is written.  These are books that tug at the emotions.  They tap into an existing, latent conviction.  They dig deeply into an already festering wound.

I'll say right here that after reading the book and reflecting back on my previous studies of church history and experience as a pastor, I find very little in this book with which to disagree.  These gentlemen have done their homework.  And they have presented their findings (findings that shake the ecclesiastical world to its foundations) with boldness, humility and grace.

When you reach the end of the book, and find yourself agreeing with what you've read, the natural response is to ask, "Now what?  Where do I go from here?"  Here is where the "bandwagon effect" finds its potential as a negative and harmful response.  There are some who will finish reading this book and immediately go on the offensive against the church.  They'll immediately pull themselves and their families out of church.  They'll begin a propaganda campaign against churches, denominations, pastors, and anyone else who chooses to continue going to a Sunday morning service.  And rather than recapturing the spirit, essence, and power of the early church, they will become just as toxic as the institutional issues they now crusade against.

I'll admit that I have to carefully guard against the "bandwagon effect."  I am most stirred to action by talk of "revolutions" and "movements."  Confrontation and provocation comes easily to me.  I know that there are times when confrontation and provocation are necessary.  But I also know that confrontation and provocation in the spiritual sense should, if it is of God, reflect His holy nature and point hearts and minds toward His Kingdom and not away.

So how should we respond upon reading the final page of Pagan Christianity?  Prayer.  Dialog.   Prayer.  Parallel  action.

We should immediately enter into a season of prayer in which we ask the Spirit of God to lead us into all truth.  We have to talk through our convictions, even if it appears that those with whom we are talking aren't getting it.  Out of this I believe God will lead us into parallel action.  What I mean here is that we should be open to God using us to create a preferred church future without attacking and tearing down the current system. 

I'm thinking about the parable of the wheat and the tares.  There's no doubt that the enemy has sown tares among the ecclesiastical wheat over two-thousand years of history.  We must speak out loud and clear against clear heresy.  But I think there are also times when we should focus on nurturing the wheat rather than ripping up the tares.  The issues raised in this book are examples of this.  God is present and working in the conventional church.  The church I am presently a part of is an example of this.  Instead of attacking the conventional, we should spend our time tilling soil, planting seed, watering, and nurturing that which is unconventional yet wholly Biblical.  I once shared with a friend whom I though was doing more harm than good in his crusade that we don't have to tear something down to prove ourselves right.  Instead we should simply create what is right and let our fruitfulness speak for us.

I am about to launch a new writing project called Church Detox.  Your first response may be to think that I'll use this project to convince people to detox themselves from the church.  You would be mistaken.  My goal with this project is to recognize that the "church" is the people of God, to identify toxins within us that diminish our Christ-likeness and fruitfulness, and to think forward about how to till the soil, plant the seed, and nurture the growth of a new way of life as the Priesthood of Believers, light of the world, salt of the earth, and participants in God's redemptive mission to humanity.

Americans Spurn Church

Richard Luscombe, writing in Scotsman.com, declares that "the land of Evangelicals" is losing it's Christian faith as Americans spurn "church" in an alarming exodus from mainstream denominations.  In his February 26th article he states,

"Americans are turning away from the Church at a rate never seen before, according to the surprising results of a major study of the country's religious landscape. And many of those who remain are switching between faiths as freely as flicking television channels."

I have mixed reactions to this article, primarily because it hints at something very real that is occuring on the religious landscape of America, but is poorly written by someone who seems to be gazing in from across the sea and interpreting the events through a misunderstanding of what the "church" is.

On the one hand, he is reporting on something very real.  There is a massive exodus underway as people are leaving the institutional church in droves.  Here Luscombe quotes Roger Finke, a sociology professor at Penn State:

"Right now there's a dropping confidence in organised religion, especially in the traditional religious forms."

I agree with his statement as the evidence for what he is saying is indisputable.  The cracks in the foundation of the institutional church are finally giving way and the structure is collapsing under its own weight of faulty architecture and poor workmanship.  In the words of Thom Rainer, people are leaving the institution not because they are losing their faith, but to save their faith.

And this is where my difficulty with Luscombe's article arises.  He seems to be using the words "denomination" and "faith" interchangeably.  To read his article, without thinking deeply, would give the impression that the exodus from institutional church is evidence of an exodus from the belief in and worship of Jesus Christ.  This simply isn't the case.  The exodus is not comprised of people leaving institutional church to follow Islam or Bhuddism, or any of the other religions.  Though there are, undoubtedly, some who are, the overwhelming majority of those in the exodus are people who are believers in and followers of Christ, but are simply trading the institution for a more organic way of Christian faith.  Consider this portion of his article, referring to the results of the recent Pew study:

"Although the Pew Forum found that more that 78 per cent of Americans describe themselves as having some kind of Christian affiliation, the rate of those with no ties to any church or faith [here he means denomination] was rising quickly, and older churchgoers are dying off far faster than new converts can be recruited."

Throughout his entire article I see so clearly the toxic misunderstanding that the "church" is the institution or organization and to separate yourself from the institution is to separate yourself from the "church."  How can we make this clear?  The "church" is not a particular organization.  The "church" is the global, collective body of people who worship and follow Christ.  To leave a particular institutional framework is not to leave the "church."

The institutional church is crumbling.  I believe it is God Himself who is doing the shaking.  And as the pillars, steeples, belltowers, and clergy elite fall away, the Way of Jesus Christ is being reborn as the unstoppable movement He promised it would be.