CS Lewis telling it like it is.

God works on us in all sorts of ways. But above all, he works on us through each other. People are mirrors, or carriers of Christ to other people. Ususally it is those who know Him that bring Him to others. That is why the church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important. It is so easy to think that the church has a lot of different objects - education, buildings, missions, holding services … the Church exists for no other purpose but to draw people to Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.  - C.S. Lewis

One sentence from this quote really grips me: the idea that everything we have and all that we do is simply a waste of time if we are not living out our core purpose of drawing people to Christ.  Let me say that I am starting with a core assumption: that core purpose of drawing people to Christ has as its focus those who are not connected to Christ.  In other words - what I think Lewis is describing is a church that exists primarily for those who are not yet a part of the church.


As a pastor, it's awfully easy for me to get caught up in all the "church" activity - to the point that I don't even have the opportunity to live out this purpose Lewis is describing.  It's not hard to tell when I'm in that church-centric place.  It's when I call our church to reach out and draw people to Christ - and I don't have my own personal story about trying to do that.


Here's the irony.  Lewis points out that God usually works on us through other Christ followers.  We need to be in community with one another.  BUT sometimes, the activity of the church can actually prevent us from doing the work of the church.  See, our life together isn't our core purpose.  It is only an instrument to equip us for our core purpose.


Sometimes, we need to do less church in order to more of the work of the church.  Make sense?


I understand that as a pastor, it is partly my responsibility to be available to the community of Christ followers that I serve.  But I ask their forgiveness if sometimes I make myself less available so that I can be more available for that work of Christ to which I believe we are called.  Forgive me if I sometimes put myself in places where God can use me to connect with people who are NOT a part of our faith community.  Forgive me if I resist adding more church programming - it is only because I don't want it to get in the way of getting on with the church MISSION.  I hope that doesn't make me less of a pastor in your eyes.  Because I really believe it makes me a better Christ follower.

A different kind of death spiral

From an NPR story today:  There is a species of army ant that is completely blind.  They get about by sniffing trails left by the ants in front of them. They, in turn, leave chemical trails of their own. The system works smoothly when everybody's going in a straight line in one direction...

But when the lead ants start to loop, bad things can happen. If the ant-in-front loops and intersects with its old trail, the whole crowd then turns in on itself and everybody gets caught in the endless circle.  There are some amazing videos of this phenomenon on Youtube.  Here's a computer simulation:






Apparently, these ants will continue following the leader in an endless circle until they literally starve to death.

So maybe you've realized this about me.  I'm always looking for ways that stories like this can help us see ourselves (and specifically the church) in a new light.  I watch this video and think instantly of our patterns of passing on the faith through the centuries in the church.  Someone ahead of us went a certain direction and so we just keep right on following, forever circling.

Frequently, it seems to me, this happens in the form of tradition.  We've always done it that way.  Never mind that it might not be actually getting us anywhere.  That's just how we do it.  The ants in the death circle would be "freed" almost instantly if just one or two ants could see what was happening and just decided to turn right.  But they can't.  They are too focused on keeping in step with the one who went before them.

Other times, I think, this happens for the exact opposite reason.  We can see plainly that the way we've always done it is leading us in a slow death spiral.  We are desperate to find another way.  We notice someone going off in a new direction and we jump in line and follow.  Even if they are going off in the completely wrong direction, at least they are going somewhere - so we follow.  If you watch a few times, you may notice that the "lead ant" seems to realize that he doesn't know exactly where to go.  He very briefly hesitates, then turns right and circles back until he falls back into his own steps.  Which wouldn't be a big problem except that eventually every other ant ends up following his lead.

Here's the thing.  I don't believe that "creation" was a one time event for God.  I think God is in the business of bringing new things into being.  Breathing life into old dead bones.  Taking things that are broken and making something whole, something new.  Tradition can be a rich and meaningful way to belong, but it without the ability to change and adapt, we will almost certainly find ourselves in a death spiral.  Innovation is absolutely essential, but change for change sake (or simply following the lead of somebody else who charted a new course) can be equally deadly.

The hardest thing of all, but the truest and most important, is to identify the path that God sets before us.  That path will ALWAYS be consistent with the way of Jesus, but it seems equally true to me that it will also always be experiencing newness (new creation, new life, and yes...new direction) based on our particular contexts.

Those ants have me thinking...
I'll probably come back to this soon.

Quit feeding the birds...

I don't know if robins fly south for the winter or not.  But I sure don't see them during the winter.  The last week or so, I've started to see them again in our yard.  Spring's coming!!!

Seeing the robins reminded me a moment last summer behind Aroma coffee shop.  As I sat at one of the outdoor tables reading, I noticed several small birds hopping around on the ground, getting surprisingly close to my chair.  I've got the focus of a hyperactive 8 year old so soon I was just watching the birds.

Pretty soon, I realized that one of the birds was slightly larger.  Then I noticed that even though all the birds were hopping around, the only one that was actually pecking on the ground was this one slightly larger bird.  Finally I noticed that she was actually feeding the other birds.  She was the mother bird and these were her nearly grown, almost ready to fly away, baby birds.

These baby birds looked like they were fully grown.  It took me several minutes of watching to realize they weren't.  They could fly - at least well enough to scoot off to the nearest bush if someone walked by.  But the one thing they couldn't seem to do was feed themselves.

The birds just hopped around, following the mother bird, waiting for her to deposit dropped pieces of bagel into their open mouths.  The mother bird was picking up the crumbs of food from the ground right in front of the baby birds.  On one occasion, a baby bird dropped the morsel her mother put in her mouth.  It fell right at her little feet.  But the baby just sat there and looked at it, until the mother came over, picked up the crumb, and re-deposited it in the baby's mouth.  Even though the food was right in front of them, the baby birds just sat and waited to be fed.

Then I had a startling realization.  (really - I don't have "aha" moments like this often - but this one almost knocked me out of my chair)....

That's exactly how we approach discipleship in the church.

We more or less sit (in the pews perhaps) and wait for someone to deposit the truth in our mouths.  Even though the Bibles are right there in front of us, we don't often open them.  We just wait for it to be fed to us.  And let me be clear, I'm implicating myself here.  I've got this great big fancy Bible sitting here on my desk beside me, right now.  And I'll open it a couple of times a week as I prepare a sermon.  I rarely open it just for the sake of growing in my relationship with Jesus.  

Here's a couple of hard questions:

How much responsibility do you take for your own spiritual growth?

What steps do you take personally (beyond going to a worship service) to grow as a disciple?

All that said, I know there are a bunch of folks in my church who take their journey of discipleship VERY seriously.  They challenge and encourage me.  And I am so grateful for them.  Grateful for YOU!  I think what I most want to say is that I apologize for the times I've simply been an enabler instead of challenging you to run on ahead.  

I'm energized by the idea of being part of a community of people who are giving the term "Empty Nesters" a whole new meaning.

We're folks who aren't sitting in the nest anymore just waiting to be fed.  We've moved out and are chasing after Jesus with as much energy and passion as we can!

Familiarity breeds apathy

I’ve started using the New Zealand Prayer Book in the mornings as a devotional guide.  These prayers and readings are from a very liturgical church tradition.  Somehow these readings feel as if they pull me into a sacred space.  They are proving to be a great way to get started when I sit down at my desk in the morning.

This mornings reading started with one sentence from the Lord’s Prayer:

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

How many times have you spoken those words aloud in worship without giving any thought to what they mean?  These are loaded words.  So full of implication and challenge. They are dangerous.  Well, only if we actually mean what we are praying.

As I thought about those words this morning, it reminded me of the story in Luke when Jesus sent out the 72 ahead of him.  His instructions to them were, whenever they came to a house they were to say, “The Kingdom of heaven is near.”  The Kingdom of Heaven - that’s talking about where God’s will is done on earth.  When Jesus came and lived among us, that was the initiation of the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is no longer just near.  It is here.  We followers of Christ are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.  We live in and as a part of this invisible Kingdom that exists right here in the midst of the the earthly place we live.  The church is intended to be an outpost of the Kingdom.  A mission outpost if you will.

What’s the mission?  God’s will done on Earth as it is in Heaven.  It’s God’s Kingdom expanding and increasing and blessing Earth.  

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God (the church) is like yeast; a woman takes it and mixes it with flour until the dough (the world) is risen.”  

Here’s the biggest implication: We aren’t just here to exist among those around us.  We are called to bless and enrich and invite and embrace those around us. 

We don’t just pray for God’s Kingdom to come.  We work for God’s Kingdom to come.  

We don’t just pray that God’s will be done.  We strive to always do God’s will. 

What might happen if we prayed it....and meant it?

The biggest day in sports...

Well, at least for a huge chunk of crazy college football fans.  Today is National Signing Day - it's the day that high school seniors sign on the dotted line for the school for whom they will play college football.  Really, this is much more than just a one day event.  There are subscription based websites that give fans year round info on prospective athletes.  Otherwise normal adults spend countless hours debating the football potential of teenage guys.

OK, if you're a big football fan, your thinking, what's the big deal.  I'll admit I spend at least an hour today checking on who signed with the University of Georgia (we got two 5 star players and a really good class, overall). 

But I also have to admit, I get a sneaking feeling that there's something not quite right with this whole picture.  What worries me is that we are building a culture in which these kids are valued only for what they can do on the football field.  They are graded and valued on every single aspect of their physical ability.  It all comes down to the fact that your worth only based on what you can do.

You are only as good as what you do.

If I had the chance to speak to these kids, I think I might tell them that I am sorry.  I'm sorry because I know that this ability based sense of value is so fleeting and superficial.  I'm sorry because someday they won't be able to do what they can do.  Some of them won't even "live up to their potential" - they won't be able to cut it on the college football field.  Do they then cease to be valuable?  

At the end of the day, I think this whole Signing Day drama makes me think of my own sense of worth. If I'm honest, I often base my own sense of worth on what I can accomplish.  And when the accomplishment is less than the hope or the expectation, how do you not associate that with your own sense of worth?  

Maybe most important of all is the fact that this performance based sense of value is starkly at odds with what the Bible says.  How's this for a contrast:  before we ever did anything that would even potentially qualify us as deserving of love, God chose us.  God loved us when we were completely unlovable.  Our value comes from the fact that God made us valuable.  And that's the end of the story. 

Dear football recruit.  If you never play another down of football, you are precious in the eyes of God.