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.

I can't drive....55

I wonder if there’s anyone out there as compulsive as I am about this.  I have this driving desire to find the most efficient route possible for my morning commute.  I’ve been working on this for over 3 years now and I think I finally maximized my route for efficiency.  It took an incredible amount of thought and experimentation to figure this out.  It starts at Barkstall where I drop of Kobe.  Turns out it is .8 miles shorter to go through Cherry Hills, instead of backtracking to Curtis.  Then I turn East on Windsor.  I turn left on Mattis if I’ve got the light (otherwise I take Prospect).  Then I turn right on Springfield (because the speed limit is higher than University and there are 2 fewer lights to contend with).  Then left on McKinley (because that avoids the delay at Prospect intersection AND it gets you beyond the school traffic on University).  Next turn right on University and pray you catch the light on Prospect.  Stay on University past Central High and then left on Elm St.  The last time saver is to take the alley between Church and Hill and take it all the way to the church parking lot. It saves about 50 yards and bypasses 2 stop signs.  That’s maximum efficiency.

Compulsive?  Extreme?  Maybe so.  But I don’t think I’m that different from most folks.  Truth be told, our whole culture is driven by a desire for maximizing efficiency.  We want everything to happen as quickly as possible and as smoothly as possible.  Anything that causes us to have to slow down or have to wait, we consider a hassle and a problem.  It becomes something to conquer.  Like my commute.  

But here’s my question this morning: What if quicker isn’t actually better?  What if efficiency isn’t actually the highest value?  What if we are living our lives with some misguided priorities?  What if the drive is as important as the destination?

When I step away from my compulsive desire for an efficient commute, I realize something: God just doesn’t seem to work that way.  

When God was leading the Israelites out of Egypt (a journey that could have been done in a fraction of the time it actually took), God led them around for 40 years.  Another example, in the Psalms, we hear the constant refrain “God how long must we wait?”  David, it seems, was in a hurry too.  But God wasn’t.  

As I thought about all this, it called to mind Jesus journeying with his disciples.  He was never, it seems, in a hurry to get to a destination.  In fact, when a man came and asked Jesus to hurry home with him because the man’s daughter was sick, Jesus was in no hurry whatsoever.  And the girl died before he got there.  Of course, Jesus then raised the girl from the dead.  But, had Jesus been focused on maximum efficiency, that miracle wouldn’t have happened.

I think the point is one that has been made by many before me.  God is in the journey every bit as much as in the destination.  When we are so focused on getting where we are going, we miss seeing God at work in the “in between”.  Maybe we need to slow down and look for what God is up to all around us right now.  Even as we are on the way to somewhere else.  

Sorry if this sounds familiar...

I was reading back through some of our old conversations at the Launch.  This quote continues to feel like it is deeply applicable.  Thoughts?

Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think.

by Tim Keller in The Prodigal God, 14-15.

Who do you think we attract?
Who maybe SHOULD we be attracting?
Why don't we?

Giving Credit to God

We've all seen a pro athlete make a great play and point skyward or take a knee in prayer, presumably giving a little credit or thanks to God. There's alot to be said about this habit. Some good, some bad.

But this weekend, an NFL player took this whole thing to a whole new level. Steve Johnson is a wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. He also has a Twitter account. Last week, Johnson caught 3 touchdown passes and was quick to give God some credit for his success. This was his tweet after the game:

"Jus Goes To Sho God Is Good N Real! Keep Faith Thru Good N Bad."

This weekend was a different story. In overtime, Johnson has a pass thrown his way in the endzone. If he catches it, the game is over and the Bills win. He drops it. Pittsburgh goes on to win. After the game, Johnson's "tweet" takes on a very different tone:

"I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME !!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO..."

Sorry to break this to you Steve, but God didn't drop that pass. You did. The truth is we all drop a pass from time to time. We mess up. We just don't do the thing we really should do. If you're a human being, it just goes with the territory.

So what do we do when we "drop a pass?" It's easy to blame somebody else. This is something else we've all done. We justify our dropping the ball by pointing out how somebody else dropped their own pass. But just like Steve Johnson, it isn't someone else who dropped the ball thrown my way.

The hard thing, which usually goes hand in hand with it being the right thing, is to just own it ourselves. Yep, I screwed up. My fault. I dropped the ball, let you down, didn't do the right thing. I'll own it.

You know what I'd love to see? I'd love to see a QB who gets pounded into the ground for a sack and then stands up and points to heaven and thanks God for that. "God thanks for being with me even when it's not going well." Or the running back who fumbles just before he crosses the end zone who kneels in prayer, thanking God for the chance to learn humility.

That would be giving God credit in a powerful way.

Totally unexpected

You've probably seen this video by now. I love this trick play. Kudos to the coach that dreamed this one up. I think my favorite part is the reaction of the defensive linemen when the QB just casually walks right between them. You can just about hear them thinking out loud: "What in the world are you doing?"



I can't help but think that this QB should instantly become a role model for Christians. Here's what I mean: It seems like most of us Jesus followers really prefer our faith to just make us comfortable. Unfortunately, this means that when it comes right down to it, there is very little difference between our lives and the lives of the non-Christians around us. We just blend right in. We go with the flow.

Let me put it this way: When was the last time that your faith led you to do something unexpected? Have you ever found yourself making a choice that left those around you thinking, "What in the world are you doing?"

As we head towards Advent and as the Christmas ads start to ramp up, I'm already finding myself wondering how we are going to respond. Will we just go with the flow and do what's expected? Or will I take the chance to do something totally unexpected? I'm actually quite excited to try to "pull a trick play" this year by exchanging consumption with compassion. Instead of just going with the flow, what if we make it our highest priority to genuinely honor Jesus with every decision we make this Advent? If we really found a way to do that, wouldn't it be a little bit like the QB in this video? What would it look like for us to just walk through, leaving those around us asking, "What the heck just happened?"

The Middle Class Church

Alan Hirsch (pastor & teacher) offers some profound challenges for the church in North America.

His general assessment is that the average church in America is thoroughly middle class. This includes the general demographic, but so much more than that, it also means the church has come to share the general values and behaviors of middle class America.

And in many ways, Hirsch says, you can summarize those values with these words:
Safety
Security
Comfort
Convenience

While these values are totally understandable, and not wrong in and of themselves, when they come to define and shape the church, perhaps we've missed something. It's frankly impossible to read the words of Jesus in the Bible and conclude that the above values are the values of the Kingdom of God.

Hirsch offers this assessment: the pursuit of safety and security will be the death of the church.

Here's the full interview:Alan Hirsch on Community

What do you think?