“Dear Yada, I am sending you my resume to see if yada, yada, yada… I am looking to transition to a church where there is as high a value on relationships as there is on accomplishing tasks and objectives, a church where people are not seen as fodder to accomplish corporate mission statements, a church where people are enjoyed as precious in God’s sight… I’m at a point in my life where my goal is not to find a job, but to find a community that loves God and each other and loves so naturally and so well that others are caught up in that love to want to know Jesus and to be more like Him… It just seems like it’s time to stop counting success by butts in seats and bucks in baskets. What about love and joy and peace and self control and grace and patience and gentleness and kindness? I don’t mind measuring effectiveness (I actually like good qualitative data on church ministry), but my question is “What would Jesus measure?”

I may have lost out on getting some interviews with churches, but it sure felt good to lay it on the line. At some point we need to wrestle with how committed we are to transformational ministry versus settling for transactional ministry. Are those butts in the seats becoming more like Jesus? Or are they just more like the culture around us? Are we simply making church goers or are we making disciples? And how do we assess this?

The data is in (if there has been any doubt about other studies, just look at the results from the Willow Creek Reveal study). Church going does not correlate to greater love for God and others. Church activity does not correlate to more joyful lives. And as painful as it is to acknowledge, church going doesn’t seem to correlate to growing the fruit of the Spirit of God in the people of God. Doesn’t it seem like it is time to think about doing church differently.

When we want to be like someone, eventually we will need to do the kinds of things that person does. If we want to be a great swimmer like Michael Phelps eventually we will need to stop watching him and reading about him and start to jump into some swimming pools. If we want to like Tiger Woods, we will need to swing some golf clubs eventually. If we want to be like Yo Yo Ma, eventually we will have to do the kinds of things he does with the bow. If we want to be more like Jesus, eventually don’t we need to do what Jesus did? And do you remember anything about Jesus proposing that church going was his central strategy for transformation?

If you are reading this article, you’re probably already committed to the place of community and group life for transforming discipleship. But have you considered the kind of group life to which Jesus was dedicated? If we want to be like Him and if we want our ministries to produce disciples like Him, perhaps it is time to assess the role of community in his transforming disciple-making. When I look Jesus’ life, I see he was committed to at least 6 concentric circles of friendships. Is this perhaps a model of disciple-making for today?

What were the circles of friendship in the life of Jesus?

Many of us have become more and more convinced we cannot grow like Jesus apart from committed interdependent community in a way that we share our lives together (koinonia). Jesus modeled and the Scriptures teach that we belong to one another as family in the Body of Christ (Philippians 2:3-5). We are invited to meet together and to encourage each other daily (Hebrews 10:24-25). If we want to model our disciple-making on the practices of Jesus, it seems clear that commitment to community is essential to growth in the Christian life!

Healthy growing followers of Christ can be intentional about nurturing each of the “circles of friendship” Jesus nurtured. And the reason to do so is because we see each one uniquely contributes to Christ-likeness. To miss any of these circles of friendship impoverishes a dimension of the Christ-like life. And each circle of friendship is a unique gift to the believer from the Lord.

The Circle of Communion (you and the Trinity)

This is Jesus in harmony with the Father and the Spirit. Here we meet our triune God at the very center of who we are in His presence. Commitment to friendship within the Trinity has been and will go on forever. When we came to Christ, the Trinity actually invited us to enter their circle of friendship. This is a moment by moment daily abiding commitment in the life of a Christ-follower.

The Core Circle (2-4 people)

The core friends for Jesus were Peter, James, and John. Our core circle consists of our closest spiritual friends with whom we partner for support, nurture, and accountability. Hopefully it includes our spouse and family! But it should also include prayer and accountability partners who love us enough and are bold enough to ask us anything about our lives. Where two or three gather in His name Christ is there. Core friendships experience Christ together in unique ways. I encourage every Christ follower to intentionally and prayerfully develop devoted core spiritual friendships.

The Cell Circle (5-15 people)

Jesus’ cell was his 12 disciples. Here we meet in small groups, usually in each other’s homes, for prayer and deep, profound life change. The small group circle will be the friends you will turn to in times of need, sadness, and joy. They will know your children’s names and will be the ones your children will come to see as extended “aunts” and “uncles.” They will be your friends for the rest of your life. This circle is about fun and deep friendship. And when it is healthy, it intentionally touches lives beyond itself – just like Jesus did with his disciples’ small group.

The Congregation Circle (25-75 people)

Jesus’ ‘congregation’ (mid-size) circle consisted of the 70 disciples he sent out two by two on ministry trips. In many churches this is Adult Bible Fellowships, generation groups (20 Somethings, Seniors, etc.), and sometimes men’s and women’s ministries. It also consists of seminar and ongoing teaching settings that include the element of authentic community together. This circle is about learning together the truths of our faith in ordered and sequential ways, it is about serving one another in love, it is about the ‘one anothers’ in Scripture and it is about reaching into and serving a needy world.

The Celebration Circle (usually 75+ people)

Here we gather to hear God’s Word preached, to pray, to worship, and to be inspired to be Christ-like change agents in the world. This was where Jesus gathered in the temple and synagogues. This circle is about being awed by God greatness, surrendering to Him, and being inspired to live worthy of our calling in Christ Jesus. This circle reminds us that we are part of something far bigger than us – we are part of the Kingdom of God as it marches across cultures and across centuries.

The Crowds (the unconverted)

The Scriptures also invite us to be authentic living witnesses to those who don’t yet trust Christ. We are to be models of integrity, faith, hope and love before a watching world. Jesus ministered to the unconverted crowds. To be like Him, every Christian is also invited to intentionally form redemptive relationships with those who don’t know Christ as the Forgiver and Leader of their lives. This circle is about having a Kingdom of God mindset for the unsaved across the street and around the world.

What might our lives, our disciples. and our ministries look like if we encouraged intentional devotion to not just one or two of Jesus’ circles of friendship, but to all six? And how do we do that well?

This is what we will explore in the series of sermons over the next month and a half at Park Street Church.

This particular cause has been one that I’ve received a lot lately.  Maybe because I’m a Youth Pastor and the sender of such cause invites assumes that I believe in their petition.  The cause: Put prayer back in school.

Put prayer back in school!

The heart of the sender is good and they deeply believe in the cause.  But, I sometimes fear that we expect too much out of government institutions (such as public schools).  In a public school, in one classroom, you can range from born-again Christians to Muslims, atheists to agnostics.  Do we really want to impose our prayer time on them?

But really, this only scratches the surface of the issue.  This issue is intrinsically tied to the Ten Commandments debacle and the call to bring God back into the public sectors of our nation.  We fear that “In God We Trust” has been removed from coins.  Politicians aren’t getting sworn in on a Bible.

The madness stems from this misunderstanding that somehow the United States is a Christian nation.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The U.S. wasn’t even founded as a Christian nation.  Our founding documents show great influence of the Enlightenment and seek to separate, as much as possible, the state from the Church.  We live in a highly secular, skeptical society.  Plain and simple folks, our culture is open to spirituality but it is not ideologically Christian.

But really, the issue even goes deeper than that.  We followers of Jesus have failed to recognize the most basic principle of theology.  Upon acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment to Him as our Lord and Savior, we were indwelt with the Holy Spirit.  Think how crazy that is for a moment…God lives in us!

So, when a student goes to school, the following Scriptures are lived out:

⁹You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. ¹¹And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:9-11, NIV)

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19)

We do not need the government to sanction out a space for God to be present in schools.  Governments are of this world.  This world will continue to be the fallen mess that it is.  Our job is to be the light of hope, love and grace.  We are to bring renaissance and renewal to public sectors like schools.  We do not wait around for a law or an amendment to put back up our sacred items or carve out sacred space for us.

When students walk into schools, this is what should be happening

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV)

These fruits should be exemplified in all our lives.  As the Holy Spirit takes dominion, judgmental attitudes, meanness, bitterness, narcissism, anger, hatred, gossip, demanding things to be my way…all of these things should be purged out of us.  As the old self flakes away, what is born is a life of love, a spirit of joy, a presence of peace, an attitude of patience, an outlook of kindness, a modeling of goodness, a call to faithfulness, a reputation of gentleness, and a commitment to self-control.

Attention Christians in America: the difficulties we face are not because prayer is out of school.  It’s not because Barack Obama is president.  It’s not because of our secular culture even.  Our world is programmed into sin…it knows no difference.  We cannot keep expecting the world to act like the Church.  Furthermore, the Church needs to stop acting like the world!

What this world needs to know is what we, as Christians, are for and not always what we’re against.  Prayer in school should be happening because the people of God are there.  God’s presence in school should be evident because the followers of Jesus there are shaped by Him and model Him to those around them.

It is time to allow this hope of Christendom to die.  We need to stop propping up these relics of putting prayer in school and hanging the Ten Commandments.  We need to stop hiding behind statements, government wish lists, bullying, and being sin detectives in the world around us.  We need to instead pick up our role laid out in Romans 8:

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:18-25, NIV)

If we want prayer back in school, maybe we should begin developing a life of prayer becoming more and more aware of His presence.  If you want the Ten Commandments in public places, maybe we need to live lives shaped by their virtues.  If we want God back in schools, maybe we need to A) exhibit the fruits of His Spirit in the schools and B) grab hold of His purposes outlined above each and every school day!

Remember: God is in school when His people show up!

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (18-20, NIV).

Right now, you may be asking, where is he going with this post?  The reality is that this message is foundational to the life of many churches, especially evangelical churches, and rightfully so I would argue!

I just feel that many times the church is not fully obedient to the words of Jesus.  We read the “go” and announce that people need to get out of their spiritual laziness and hit the streets sharing the good news.  But, if you’re like me, you may have felt like the messengers of this glorious news need a little work?

This little slice of Matthew’s Gospel has a lot to teach us about what it truly means to be a missional follower (read disciple) of Jesus, one whose life is captured by the mission of God.

1. Jesus messianic authority. The verb translated “given” is understood as divine action in which God placed authority over all existence into the hands of Christ.  Jesus is the King and we are His subjects.  It’s not about what can the church do for me or whiny attitudes about whether the church is feeding me.  It is about the Kingship of Jesus and announcing that to the world!

2. The charge to make disciples. The controlling imperative of the Great Commission is the simple charge to make disciples.  This is the only verb in the entire commission that is actually a command.  The central motif of this commission is disciplemaking.  In fact, the rest is merely three participles that explain how the making of disciples is to be carried out – going, baptizing, and teaching.  What do I mean?  Where we read “go”, the Greek is actually saying, “while going“.  While we are going we are to make disciples.  Large numbers at a church service does not equate with discipleship.  Disciplemaking takes time, a commodity that is in scarce resource in our culture.

3. The charge to go.  The word apostle implies one who is sent or commissioned to go on behalf of the sender.  The tendency for a Jew during this period would be to stay in Jerusalem where it is safe.  That tendency still resonates with us today.  But apostleship transforms one’s identity.  These disciples were no longer just living life for themselves.  The radical call of the Messiah mandated that they go to all nations.  Just because followers of Jesus don’t like something doesn’t mean that they must stay away.  We may not like drug addicts, crack moms, drunkards, porn lookers, etc, but God does and we’re called to show His love to even “the least of these”.

4. The charge to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Disciples become disciples by being united with Jesus.  In the Christian community, we join, are united to, Jesus through baptism.  Baptism is the public declaration of our allegiance to the kingdom of God.  Baptism has been trivialized to simply become a membership development issue in some churches and denominations; I join the church through being baptized.  In the ancient world, and much of the world today, baptism could, and does, mean physical death.  When a believer is baptized they announce to the gathering that they have truly counted the cost of their discipleship with Jesus.  Do the waters of baptism signify to us to count the cost of our allegiance to Christ?

5. The charge to teach them to observe all that Jesus had commanded. Disciples need to be taught what the life of a disciple is all about: the character of the disciple, the ministry of the disciple, the meaning of kingdom membership, how to live as disciples in a Christian community, and where to fix their hope.  This teaching and training are ongoing and unending.  There are always new challenges for disciples.  In the context of Matthew’s Gospel, the expression translated “all that I have commanded you” refers to the teaching/training Jesus did with His group of disciples.  My fear for Christianity in America is that it has become a head game. Theology, Bible, and faith have all become things to study. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy have been forced to stand alone in separate corners while denominations bicker about why the other is wrong for their choice.

6. “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (28:20). This mission is ongoing.  Even with high times and low times, tragedy and triumph, event or no event…the mission of God moves on.  The hope through it all is that the rabbi, Jesus Himself, journeys with us every step along the way.

In the end, I’m left with a question, how am I, how are we, doing in this mission of disciplemaking?  Are we picking and choosing which parts of the Great Commission we desire to follow?

We’re not called to effectiveness, we’re called to obedience.  Paul declares that we’re not even called to win the race but to finish it.  My fear is that we’ve learned to associate big numbers, events, worship services, and buildings with how we live out the life of a disciple.  We wait for the church to create a program or event so we can plug and play into whatever we want.  This week the church is having a community outreach project, I’ll plug into that and check community service off my list.

The life of a disciple is more involved than that.  It’s more beautiful and more heart-wrenching, all at the same time.  In the delicate tension of already and not yet, Spirit and flesh, Word and Spirit, sacred and secular, big and small, deep and wide, in the world and not of the world, we find the pathway to which God has called His disciples.

We can bring the gospel to the world!  I hope that we never lose this missional impulse in the Body of Christ.  But, as we encounter people and as we examine the churches in which we find ourselves, are we also bringing people to the gospel.  Simultaneous to our evangelistic stream should be one of sanctification.  As people are reached for the gospel of Christ, are people meeting the gospel in a transformative way?  As the good news goes forth is it also going within and manifesting lives of purity and holiness.  As we follow the Rabbi are we getting some of the dust kicked up by His sandals on our face?

“I say, your faith must govern your politics, or you can’t really call yourself a “Christian”. If your politics cause you to do something that Christ would not do…you have violated those limits.”

This is the perfect lead-in to the next leg of this conversation. The rub with mixing faith and politics is not in the idea that a person’s faith should determine political positions. I don’t think any person of faith has a beef with that. The rub is that people who share the same Savior can differ drastically on how to apply their faith to societal issues as Jesus might. For instance, in November, 2008, I had many passionately committed Christian friends who were sincerely trying to discern how to vote in the presidential election. Although they all would agree, almost categorically, on important spiritual issues, they came out on both sides of the vote. I think it’s a good assumption that we could translate this reality across the entire country: followers of Jesus agree that their their faith should determine their political stance, but they can’t agree on what is good and what is bad when it comes to our country’s approach to governing. If government policy was left totally in the hands of Jesus’ followers, we would still have conflict and disagreement.

This tension goes way back, but it didn’t always exist.  Originally, in the Garden of Eden, humans were content to know God and to allow Him to determine what was good for them. It was a paradise where, as far as our first ancestors knew, it was “all good.” They didn’t even have a definition of good because they had no knowledge of it or its opposite. They were just immersed in God’s goodness like a goldfish in water. But Adam and Eve were coaxed into believing that life would be better if their eyes could be opened, making them like God, knowing good and evil. With the first bite of that tempting fruit, mankind went on a compulsive binge to place everything into one of two categories: good or evil. It made us binary thinkers. Since that moment, the power of discerning good from evil has given us the sensation of being God-like and has made our individual interpretations of good and evil sacred and superior in our own eyes. Now, when I, with great conviction, determine something is evil, and you, with equally great conviction, determine it as good, there is a great crash of wills that often results in conflict. That conflict has a tendency to lead us to being judgmental toward those who don’t see it our way. And judgment can lead to all kinds of evil. That is the essence of the Fall of Man, and that is the tension we feel deeply in every aspect of life.

If you read the Story laid out in the scriptures, it doesn’t take long to get the idea that God was frustrated and challenged by our inability to avoid this tension.  One of the first accounts of a human relationship sees Cain killing his brother, Abel, over conflict resulting from Cain misinterpreting what was right. And it seems to go downhill from there. Later in Genesis, God, in his disappointment over Man’s tendency to see evil as good, destroys everyone but Noah and his family, hoping for a pure re-do. Then He reaches out to Abraham to offer a new promise of life where relationship-with-God once again is to override Man’s obsession with good and bad.

Man still doesn’t get it, but now that God made a promise, He is determined to keep it. So He helps Moses deliver His people from slavery in Egypt and sends them packing for the Promised Land. One of His first orders of business is to give in to His people’s lust for definition of good-and-bad in a way that still maintains His plan and will. Laws are born! Through the Ten Commandments, God shares with Man a glimpse of good and bad from His perspective. He also provides a constant reminder, through the Law, that we can’t earn Heavenly royalty and relationship through the Law. The Law becomes (and continues to be) a guide to inject Godly good into society, and soon godly judges are called to help people responsibly live out the law in the way God intended. The Judicial System is born! It was meant to direct Man toward good as God conceived it.

And then, because God’s people still don’t get it, they demand that the judges, by way of Samuel, give them a king (1 Sam 10:19). I have a feeling that God is seeing a trend here, again, and gives the people their way while still trying to use the situation to steer them toward His view of what is good. When Samuel sees Saul for the first time, God tells him “This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people.” And the first example of the Executive Branch of government is born! Saul is anointed with the task of representing God’s character in the ongoing tension of right and wrong that will inevitably bring conflict among God’s people.

All of that history points out that, while He preferred a different existence for us, God has establish different elements of government in order to lead us to awareness and expression of His goodness in our world.  Scripture speaks to this many times. Government is not inherently an enemy, but is meant as one way through which God can be revealed to many people who have different ideas on good, and evil. Government mediates the conflict that was brought on by The Fall.

In this framework we see why politics is inevitable and vital. As long as massive groups of people are setting up governments and determining good and bad for themselves and others, balance is needed. Politics is the societal process of finding the proper balance within the governments God has allowed to exist. While there are many interpretations of good and bad, the idea that we can pursue a proper balance assumes that the picture of God’s brand of goodness is the goal for society. This is where our heavenly Kingdom and our nation overlap.  Followers of Jesus are called to influence the American framework of government to reflect the goodness that God intended for all people and for all of His creation. We are to be agents of balance, where balance reflects Kingdom values.

In a pluralistic government such as ours, the government wasn’t established to force a particular balance. It was crafted so that anyone is free to influence that balance. Followers of Jesus, followers of L. Ron Hubbard and followers of No One are equally invited to participate in the process of finding balance within government at all levels. Our country is beautifully open to the influence of its citizens, no matter what their background or philosophy of life is. Christians are part of this equation, but are not given any more weight or authority than any other group in the mix. It is up to us to create that weight and authority by actively engaging in the process. We can bring the proper balance by representing the goodness of God and His Kingdom and by refusing to resort to any actions or means that do not reflect God’s goodness.

In order to be a influence for the common good, as God sees it, we first of all need to know God and His character. We need to have a good feel for citizenship in His Kingdom and a sense for how to respond when the borders of His Kingdom and this fallen one don’t line up. God’s goodness has to be such a part of us that we act out of it, and lean toward it, no matter what else opposes us or tempts us.

We also need to know the difference between bad and evil.  An outcome of the Fall is that even we Jesus-followers disagree on which political policies and approaches are good ones and which are bad ones.  We have been given the freedom to interpret a political philosophy or method as bad, but too often we judge those who embrace the “bad” political stances to be evil. When it comes to politics, bad does not always equal evil, yet we are quick to villainize those who disagree with us politically, even if they share citizenship in the Kingdom. A Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Because of The Fall we followers of Jesus may choose different approaches to influence our world for the common good, but we cannot fall to the temptation to judge as evil those believers who don’t share our political approach.

A more useful way for Christians to influence our nation will come out of a better understanding of rights and liberty, as God sees them. Just as government attempts to mediate differing views of good and evil, an understanding of true freedom and rights should mediate poitical differences among those who are called to represent Jesus in this nation. We will get to that in the next two posts.  Stay tuned. In the meantime I invite your comments and conversations.

The prayer is very simple in its more common, extended form:

“Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, the late Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate’s diocese for Great Britain and Ireland said the Jesus Prayer, “more than any other,” helps us to be able to “stand in God’s presence.” This means that it helps us to focus our mind exclusively on God with “no other thought” occupying our mind but the thought of God. At this moment when our mind is totally concentrated on God, we discover a very personal and direct relationship with Him.  One Eastern Orthodox theologian has said, “It also serves as perhaps the most succinct Gospel message available.”

The Jesus Prayer is one of the oldest of Christian prayers, dating in its original form to the words the two blind men cried out to Jesus in Matthew 20:31. It was formalized by the Orthodox Churches in the 5th century.  Contained in the prayer is a uniquely clear summation of the Christian faith:

Jesus the man is declared by name to be the Christ, the annointed one of God, as well as being the Lord of our lives; he is declared to be the Son of God, and therefore divine; he is declared to be in the position of judgment and mercy, and we confess to be sinners requiring His grace.

The practice of the Eastern Orthodox Churches calls for the Jesus Prayer to remind them of  constant prayer that the Apostle Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, where the prayer is kept on the lips and in the hearts of believers at all times.  In its ultimate form, this prayer method is called Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχάζω, hesychazo, “to keep stillness”).

A spectacular jewel from Eastern Orthodox theology is their view of repentance.  In the West, we take a very juridical understanding of sin and repentance; a wrong has been committed, somebody needs to pay, Jesus paid, we come to Jesus and make a transaction, we take His righteousness and He takes our sins, we are blameless before God, the Father.

This age old understanding of justification is not wrong by any means.  Nor is it complete.  Eastern Orthodoxy takes a different approach to repentance.  John Chryssavgis, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, wrote the following in his essay, “Repentance and Confession”:

Repentance (Greek: μετάνοια, metanoia, “changing one’s mind”) isn’t remorse, justification, or punishment, but a continual enactment of one’s freedom, deriving from renewed choice and leading to restoration (the return to man’s original state).

The Jesus Prayer stands at the center of this journey.  It is merely two statements and a petition.  The first statement is the declaration of Jesus Christ as Lord.  The second statement is the acknowledgment of one’s own sinfulness.  Flowing out of the meeting of the two is a petition for mercy as holiness meets sinfulness, divinity meets humanity, strength meets weakness, love meets scorn.

As the pray-er recites the words of the prayer, the hope is that an inward journey takes place.  At first it is an oral prayer as we encounter for the first time the words and recite them allowed.  The second is the prayer of the mind as we analyze and explore the meaning of the prayer we are reciting.  The final movement is the prayer of the heart where we begin to become the prayer.

My friend, Jerry Flora, often tells a story of a prayer retreat that he attended many years ago.  He was struck at how the prayer gathering began.  The woman leading closed here eyes, paused for a few minutes of silence, and then proclaimed, “We are sinking into prayer.”  Prayer wasn’t so much a formality to begin a meeting as it was likened to a giant, overly-stuffed chair that enveloped him that day.

Brennan Manning in his latest book, The Furious Longing of God, writes:

When the night is bad and my nerves are shattered and the waves break over the sides, Infinity speaks. God Almighty shares through His Son the depth of His feelings for me, His love flashes into my soul, and I am overtaken by mystery. These are moments of kairos — the decisive in-break of God’s fury into my personal life’s story.

It is then I face a momentous decision. Shivering in the rags of my seventy-four years, I have two choices. I can escape below into skepticism and intellectualism, hanging on for dear life. Or, with radical amazement, I can stay on deck and boldly stand in surrendered faith to the truth of my belovedness, caught up in the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God. And learn to pray. (pp. 130-131)

His words bring tears to my eyes.  It seems that I have been misunderstanding this prayer thing all along.  I should not come to prayer because I should but because I must.  Prayer is not encountering an omnipresent, narcissistic deity.  Instead, prayer is crawling into the lap of my Dad.  I may ramble, I may fall asleep…but my Dad just loves when I come to Him.

The Jesus Prayer just might be the great reminder to the church through the centuries that prayer is more than a transaction of sins for righteousness.  It’s not a rags to riches story.  It’s not a laundry list of demands and requests.

Prayer is a becoming.  Prayer is a belonging.

The Jesus Prayer reminds me that I am becoming more and more like Him with every day that I surrender my life and will to Him.  With every decision of every second, I look at my dear friend, Jesus, and decide whether my decision will honor our friendship, will promote His Lordship, and will allow me to experience the deepest of intimacies from God’s parenthood over my life.

The Jesus Prayer reminds me that I belong.  I belong to a passionate, wild, reckless, extravagant, hilarious, steadfast, committed, stay-at-home, out-on-the-street, head-over-heels in love Daddy who would love nothing more than to woo His children back into His arms.  Oh that I could hear His heartbeat and feel the warmth of His embrace!  The tears that would be shed as Abba/Daddy whispers to me, “I’m proud of you, little guy…I will always love you.”

The Jesus Prayer reminds me how simple it really is.  The Gospel is not in need of vast textbooks or great exposition.  It is more than a relationship…it is two lovers meeting and upon their encounter find it unable to take their eyes off of one another.  As close as my next breath is the desire for God to meet with me.  As close as your next breath is the desire for God to meet you.  Are you meeting Him?  Can you feel Him?  Does He bring life to your weary soul?  Does He provide moisture and sustenance to your dry, and brittle bones?

Take the next week and practice the Jesus Prayer as you live each day.

INHALE: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…”

EXHALE: “…have mercy on me a sinner.”

Inhale His goodness, completeness, love, mercy, renewal, and passion.  Exhale your failures, doubts, insecurities, trivial lusts, pains, sorrows, wrongs, hurts.  May each breath be a reminder of the Gospel, the good news for everyone.  May the good news begin transforming you!

Bloggers note: The opinions in this blog do not represent an official position of Park St. Brethren Church. They are correct, but they are my opinions, not necessarily the church’s.   Also, when I refer to “Church” from now on, I am referring to the whole community of Jesus-followers, not a particular congregation or organization of believers.

Over the past year, ever since the Presidential Primaries, I have become more and more frustrated and disappointed with the political landscape in America. Along with that comes a similar frustration with the Christian Community and its general confusion about the roles of government and Church.  Last night I was listening to both sides of the debate on the “Cap and Trade” bill and my frustration came to a hard boil as I realized how badly we’re missing the point of government in America. I feel like the beauty of the Constitution, and its foundations, are slipping away and that we will never be able to restore it. I also feel like the beauty of the Gospel, and its power that is independent of national boundaries, is being misrepresented and placed in a cage. Both of these prospects bring great sadness and discouragement to my heart.

As I’ve listened to Christian young adults’ views on government, as they relate to faith and life in America, it has occurred to me that most of you are sincere in wanting to live out your faith in a Godly way in all areas of life and there is a new “passive activism” among you. The activist part shows a heart-felt interest in areas of justice, compassion and renewal in society. The passive part is that you haven’t always invested yourselves in seeking out an understanding of the foundations of Christianity and American government to grasp the complexities and hard work that go along with becoming Christian-Americans with influence. In my opinion, this passive activism is resulting in a handing-over of our God-given role to others whose motives aren’t the same.

There are many people who lack the nerve to mix politics and religion. Some think that Jesus’ lack of direct teaching on the mix sets an example for us to be silent as well. I am compelled to believe that much of his silence was not a signal to keep silent on the mix, but more a sign that He saw all parts of life as related to all other parts. Too many specifics from Him defining separate roles of politics and spirituality would make them seem too disconnected.  I believe that His silence gives us a chance to freely represent him within the messy stew of politics and religion that changes with each age and form of government.

Others are too eager to directly link American political patriotism to Jesus.  Because America has been known as a culturally Christian nation, Americanism and Christianity have become interchangeable for some. Some preachers and authors confuse the two and make Jesus out to be an American.  Other editorialists and politicians use Jesus as the poster child for their programs and positions without really embracing the heart of His message.

Over the next two weeks I need to seek some balance and bedrock in this mess. I want to invite you along in the process as I think aloud.  I believe that there are a few areas where politics and our faith have t0 coexist.  I believe that we spiritual people are called to be political as well when it comes to some very key ideals. I want to put it out there right now that the two, politics and Christianity, come together in a place called liberty (a.k.a freedom). If we understand the spiritual source of this ideal, we will understand our political role in the world. A shared understanding of liberty should unite the Church in its political sense of direction and should make activism not only social but spiritual…and never passive. If young adults can begin to grasp the idea of liberty from God’s perspective, mission and activism will go hand in hand.

Here are some themes I’m going to dice up in the next two weeks:

Good vs. Bad vs. Evil - Before the Fall it was “all good.” The Fall opened a tendency in us to categorize everything into two basic groups: good and bad.  As each of us is decides for ourselves what is good and bad, it creates conflict between us when we don’t agree. When this conflict is left to its own, it’s the seed of all kinds of evil. Laws and governments exist to mediate these conflicts. Politics is about bringing balance to these laws and governments for the common good. Politics is unavoidable.

Rights vs. Privileges – Rights come from God. They define the things in life that He has provided for all people everywhere. They remain the same no matter how a government interprets them or ignores them.  They are not subject to people’s preferences. Privileges are the things in life that we are permitted to enjoy. They can change based on circumstances. They can be given and taken away. We become disappointed when we confuse rights and privileges.

Freedom and Liberty - Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Freedom and liberty are the states of being 100% able to pursue what is good in life.  Since the Fall has created conflict between people and groups as to what is “good,” God’s brand of freedom calls on us to look out for other people’s rights, not our own. When we reverse the Fall and act on behalf of others’ freedom, our motives are redeemed and good emerges.  The problem is that those that aren’t playing by the same rules create conflict for those who are selflessly looking out for others. While those people can take away our privileges, they can’t kill our freedom. This kind of freedom changes worlds. This is the ideal upon which the Gospel is based and our country was founded.

I hope you’ll be patient and process these ideals with me. I look forward to tons of conversation!

For me, Alan Hirsch remains credible because he presents good data and because what he says makes sense. He’s not just a bunch of bluster and unsubstatiated opinion. He also has been an observer of trends in England and Down Under that seem to be pre-cursors to what is happening in America. He can predict what will happen in America by explaining what happened in those parts of the world.

So, here’s the the tough part of putting Hirsh’s wisdom to work in the Church. We like to contain things and then measure them. As long as we are using an attractional or extractional model of church, we can put our arms around those who respond and we can count them, survey them, monitor them, etc.  Since we measure success in the church by numbers and dollars (c’mon, you know I’m right) we replicate those things that look like successful outcomes.  Bringing people into the church environment, and assimilating them into our culture, look like success as we do it on greater scales, so we keep doing it.  What we can measure we can manage, and the conventional attractional/extractional church environment allows us to measure and manage people and behaviors. And so we keep doing it. If Hirsh’s ideas of missionality are correct, which I believe they are, then we are going to HAVE to divorce ourselves from the old measurements of success. Not mask them. Not rename them. Not rewarm them. We need to detox from them and send them as far as East is from West.

How in the heck do we do that?  Some people say they have made the switch from measuring numbers of people in their programs to measuring stories. Huh? What? I don’t know what that means really.  I think it sounds really good, but we’re still qualifying and quantifying to measure success. I’ve heard others say that they measure inputs instead of outputs. Like, Statistical Process Control, if  the theology, training, message, experience, commitment of the Christian community is strong, then the outcomes will be strong. What outcomes? How do you measure how well a mom loves her kids or how effectively a boss relates to his employees or how purely a missionary serves his field? My instinct says that a true missional model has to be a total clean break from dependence on metrics as measures of success. We’ll always have metrics but our confidence in their integrity is indirectly proportional to our freedom to be missional. There will be much argument on this point, but no one can ever win, because we have no way to prove the answer metrically. Some things “work” in some places. The same things “fail” other places. There’s something really important about the Fall of Man and that has to do with categorizing everything as good or bad, but that is another conversation for another time.

So…if we are to be missional, the Church has to cease conforming to the patterns of this world.  The clergy system that depends on butts and bucks is in jeopardy. The facilities system that we’ve adopted to contain the Christian community is on the chopping block. The programs that we use to direct people in tracks of proper behavior might have to go. The worship-centered experience of the faith may have to fall into equal proportion with other less pleasant components. AND…when we become missional, the very metrics that Hirsh uses to show that we’re currently failing as a church will say that we have failed miserably, because to measure how non-missional we are, we are using non-missional metrics!!!

So, on to more important things… The first night there, we ate at a place called the Hickory Street Bar & Grill. It was good in spite of all the buckets scattered around to catch water leaking through the ceiling from the recent rains. It has sort of an indoor outdoor format and a hippish, grungish vibe.

Here is what I ate… Grilled Portobello with corn-salsa, rice and black beans. It was really tasty with its zingy seasoning and freshness. Pretty guilt-free too!

Jason Barnhart, my friend and partner-in-ministry is blogging about the different presentations we experienced at the Q Conference in Austin in late April. I am jumping in the conversation by adding a second generation of thoughts and responses as he goes through the different topics. Think of this as the missing scenes or producer’s commentary on a DVD. Consider these the liner notes to Jason’s “music” about Q.

This first post is a bit more about Q and its context…

The Q Conference is organized by Fermi Project. Fermi is “a broad collective of innovators, artists, social entrepreneurs, church and societal leaders experimenting with ways to advance the common good in culture. The focus of this project is strategically placed on Christians and leaders throughout the Church. Multiple mediums are leveraged to push forward the essence of this project, including events, research, essays, films, books and culture shaping projects.” By clicking here, and coughing up your email address, you can download an essay, Influencing Culture: An Opportunity for the Church, developed by Gabe Lyons, Founder of Fermi Project.

The annual Q conference is a convergence of these innovators, artists, social entrepreneurs, church and societal leaders, who share a large scale brain-dump of ideas, dreams and methods for influencing culture.  The trademark of Q Conferences is their 18 minute time limit on almost all presentations.  This makes each session concise and limits the distracting sermonizing and self-aggrandizing that often accompanies conferences.  Other unique characteristics of Q are the relatively small group of attenders (350 -400?), the absolute resistance to Christian celebrity status for presenters, and the very low key, minimalist attention to worship (this year, David Crowder spoke, but didn’t sing. David Hodges, former  member of Evanescence, led worship from the side of the stage, plunking on a keyboard and singing softly. No one was asked to stand or sing louder…).

The Q Conference has convened for three years. Q organizers try to select venues that represent cultural significance in the cities that are culturally significant.  The first was in Atlanta, last year we attended the conference in New York City, this year we descended on Austin.

Q organizer, Gabe Lyons, explains why they chose Austin this year:

“There are just so many reasons. For starters, how about the music scene? Over 200 live music venues that bustle every night with jazz, folk, country, or rock make Austin the Live Music Capital of the World. And the food? It’s hard to top the mouth-watering beef brisket or authentic Tex-Mex you can find on almost any corner. The reasons for choosing Austin could go on: the largest university in the U.S. (go Longhorns!), flourishing arts and film industry, significant high-tech culture, influential political arena, and world-class environmental awareness. All in all, Austin is the perfect city for Q.

It’s also a city that hasn’t gotten too big. In fact, Austin is probably more like the place you live than L.A., Chicago, or New York City ever will be. It boasts no professional sports team and lives in the shadow of the much bigger Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio areas. Moreover, Austinites are trying to figure out how to grow a city well, how to maintain creative culture, and how to make suburban life feel, well, not so suburban. Perhaps the slogan of the city says it all: “Keep Austin Weird.” It’s against that backdrop – a city seeking to maintain and re-express the heart of its identity – that Q 2009 comes to Austin. It’s our prayer that as we gather there, new ideas and fresh expressions of the gospel will be born and cultivated among us.”

So, we arrived in Austin, and as we pulled up to the Paramount Theater, Q’s meeting place in Austin, I was smacked by maybe the most profound moment of the conference.  In front of the theater was a bench. On one end of the bench were two Q participants, drinking Starbucks and going through their participant’s gift bags which were stuffed with books, coffee, a water bottle and other hip booty.  Sitting on the other end of the bench was a lonesome looking homeless man half-shielded from the morning chill by a blue sleeping bag and hoodie.  Seperating Homeless Man from Q Men on the bench was a plastic bag with all of Homeless Man’s possessions in it, along with a gulf of difference and indifference that prevented even a shred of interaction to occur. The ends of the bench could have been ends of the world.  It was a sight symbolic of the church’s struggle to be influential in a world that has drastically lowered its expectations for us to be of any good. It was an irony that seemed lost on too many people at the conference.

This is the context that we gathered in and in which we live in this place and time. Hopefully these scattered points of interest will help bring the test-tube world of Q to the streets where you live.

In the 1950s the paradigm for society was very friendly towards the life of the church.  People found their social networking through the operations of the local church.  Close friendships and bonds were formed and held through a community’s involvement with the local church.

Fast forward now to the present time.  People do not seem to find their closest friendships and relationships through the life of the church.  The church is experiencing a push to the margins of society.  Our soceity has gotten increasingly pluralized, increasingly secularized, and increasingly individualized.  What should be the church’s response in the 21st century?  Do we roll over and play dead?  Do we continue to operate via old strategies from a paradigm, or two paradigms ago?  How will the church in the West respond?

Alan Hirsch is an interesting presenter.  He comes from Australia.  The significance of this in global Christianity is stunning.  Europe is basically dead.  Large cathedrals and monasteries now stand as tourist attractions.  A spiritual malaise has fallen over the face of the continent.  In one word, Europe has become incredibly secularized.  What I mean by secular is a culture that is consumed with worldly rather than spiritual things; one that sees religion as an archaic system of rules and regulations.

Australia and New Zealand stand in between Europe and the United States.  Hirsch’s prophetic claim is that this secularization has infiltrated areas like Australia and New Zealand.  His warning to America, do not think your fate is any different if you continue to do things the way you’ve always done them.  An awakening of sanctified imaginations needs to happen quickly in our contexts.

Think of with this graph:

(simple)       m0     m1     m2      m3      m4        (complex)

[m= significant barrier to effective communication of the gospel]

The church, Hirsch contends, operates within a sphere around m0.  We are continuing to become incredibly isolated.  In a sense, the church exists within its own orbit around m0.  Thus, many churches operate out of an attractional paradigm.  People will come to us when they reach our orbit.

A difficulty arises.  Culture is moving more and more to the more complex end of the spectrum.  More and more people are being missed because they fail to reach our orbit.  And, when people do reach our orbit, we institutionalize them.  The same people that had tons of non-Christian friends at the bars and workplace, now fall into a Christian bubble.  We speak our own language, listen to our own music, wear different clothing with jokes/phrases/sayings that are confusing at best to the larger culture.

We draw people in through an attractional model (if they come into our orbit) and send them out through an extractional model.  These institutional clones cause culture to move further and further away.  The church becomes its own worst enemy.

Hisrch polled a group of people about four large components of religion.  He first asked participants of the survey about God, 100% said they believed.  He then asked how they viewed Jesus, most believed.  He then asked them about spirituality, all regarded it as important.  When he asked about the church, he found no positive reactions.  Keep in mind, he comes from more secularized contexts than small town Ohio.

The reality is that what is happening in the cities trickles out to the suburbs, trickles out to the small towns, and trickles down even to the countrysides.  What is happening in large cities is a moving trend that will soon afflict small town churches.  I already see it in my own context.  We need to stop arguing about whether the city is right or wrong and start realizing the catclysmic cultural shifts occuring in our country.  America is always moving more towards the secularized level.

What should be our response?  Our response should not be to run or hide or to step out and condemn.  We need to discover, once again, the sacredness of sentness.  We in the church have lost the reality that we are called to go, not to stay or come.  Thus, in a culture that is increasingly alienated from Christ, we respond with organizational insanity.  We think if we keep doing the same thing we’ll get different results.

Hirsch describes it this way.  Imagine two holes are being dug.  One is being dug by culture at large and the other is being dug by the church.  The church’s response to recent trends is likened to us saying, “If we only dig this same hole deeper we’ll tap into that hole over there.”  The illustration is ridiculous but so are some of the ways we’ve attempted to change/shape/influence our culture.

Leverage in the missional movement is found not in changing culture but in changing churches.  Churches need to step into the marketplace and point people to the healing of their deepest doubts, wounds, and confusion.  I love the church…it is God’s vessel of restoration and renewal.

We must remember that it is God’s vessel…not our soapbox or place of judgment, not our building of escape, not our list of rules, and not a religious system.  Hirsch identifies the problem as a “death of the imagination.”  We fail to think differently and fail to have the courage to let certain things die and bring to life new things that people may resist at first but so desperately need.  We cannot violate our incarnational impulses.  Jesus came and took on our flesh.  How will we live incarnationally in the flesh of culture?

Right now, 90+% of churches are seeking to become contemporary, attractional growth churches.  In a culture like our own, this is a strategic problem.  Why?  Studies show that almost 60% of people are alienated by this model because they never come into its orbit.  That is a missional problem.  May the people of God reclaim their missionary imagination and live incarnationally, missionally, and relationally in this world that God so deeply loves!