Letter To The President

Dear Mr President,

Today you will be chosen to lead what many call the most powerful position in the world.  With this comes responsibility to lead.  I can only assume that in your running for President you have chosen to accept responsibilities for leadership. So with that I would like to ask you to consider the following possibilities for leading in this brave, new, wired world:

Lead With Love: As President the world will be watching you.  In ever move you make, ask the very simple clarifying question, “How would I want to be treated?” Leadership begins with love.  It means providing an example for the world to follow.  And love, which is begins with seeing and holding the other person’s dignity, is the highest ideal.

Ask Us To Be Responsible And Then Give Us Responsibility: The world is waiting for the most powerful leader to give away power. Help us see a vision for a better America, one that includes lifting our neighbors up, having faith in each other, and being the creative individuals we are.  Invite us to participate in our own growth and maturity.  Invite us to take responsibilities for our neighborhoods, children and schools.  Show us the value of turning our backs on greed as a mechanism for growth.

Live In The Moment: Don’t pretend you are a savior so you can get elected.  This could be the most important four, or even eight years, of your life.  You have the chance to lead with a sense of abandon.  If you act in the moment with wisdom, not worrying about what will happen in 2012, we will almost assuredly vote for you again.  But if you pretend to be the our savior, you’ll just be like every politician who sold out.

Give Us A Vision: You have the opportunity to think like a visionary.  Give us HUGE problems to dream about and solve and then let us solve them.  What would it look like to solve issues like Aids, clean water, and third world poverty.  We are the nation of entrepreneurs. We have the creativity and the resources.  Will you give us the initiative?

Be Honest: Shoot us straight.  We can handle the truth.  We may not like it but it’s easier to handle in the long run once we’re over the initial shock.  The truth just works better.  The truth is we can tell when you’re lying anyway.  And when we can’t John Stewart will eventually find out and you’ll look silly.

Don’t Forget The Impoverished: Will you be the President who restores compassion to the Presidency?  One of the best ways to do that is to begin with the poor.  Show the world what it would look like to think about the least of these in a way that is not patriarchal but restorative.  Help our brothers in poverty rise above the muck and mire and restore their dignity.  We need you to take a stand against those who oppress the poor, the sick and the widow.  Fight for the dignity of those who can’t fight for themselves.

Show Us How To Sacrifice: Ask us to think beyond ourselves but also show the world how.  This country was built on sacrifice and it has always been what made us great, not just as Americans, but also as human beings.  To sacrifice is to love and become the best of who we were designed to be.

Cross Lines: Show the world what it means to come over the traditional lines of “us” and “them” so we can discover “we the people”.  It’s just too easy to focus on what separates us.  Help us see and participate in what brings us together and a people.  Invite us to cross lines so we can become a more whole people who rise above our own self interests.

Mentor Other Leaders: Spend time with the Fortune 500 leaders of America asking them not just how they can create new jobs here but also how they can use their power in ways that create a better future.  Call them to move beyond greed and selfish abandon and to a more meaningful future of love and sacrifice.

Lead With Courage: Take courageous risks that will both succeed and fail.  But at least try.  Think outside the box and reveal to the world once again why we are the nation that once led the world.

Please consider these requests as you begin looking towards the next four years.

Much love to you.

Jonathan

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This post is part of a Synchroblog on Leadership.  The following blogs took part in the experiment:

Jonathan Brink – Letter To The President

Adam Gonnerman – Aspiring to the Episcopate

Kai – Leadership – Is Servant Leadership a Broken Model?

Sally Coleman – In the world but not of it- servant leadership for the 21st Century Church

Alan Knox – Submission is given not taken

Joe Miller – Elders Lead a Healthy Family: The Future

Cobus van Wyngaard – Empowering leadership

Steve Hayes – Servant leadership

Geoff Matheson – Leadership

John Smulo – Australian Leadership Lessons

Helen Mildenhall – Leadership

Tyler Savage – Moral Leadership – Is it what we need?

Bryan Riley – Leading is to Listen and Obey

Susan Barnes – Give someone else a turn!

Liz Dyer – A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Polls…

Lionel Woods – Why Diverse Leadership is Good for America

Julie Clawson – Leadership Expectations

Ellen Haroutunian – A New Kind Of Leadership

Matt Stone – Converting Leadership

Steve Bradley – Lording or Leading?

Adam Myers – Two types of Leadership

Bethany Stedman – A Leadership Mosaic

Kathy Escobar – I’m Pretty Sure This Book Won’t Make It On The Bestseller List

Fuzzy Orthodoxy – Self Leadership

Sonja Andrews – Leadership In An Age of Cholera

Tara Hull – Leadership & Being A Single Mom

Glen Hager – Election Day Ponderings On Leadership

Beth Patterson – Leadership:Being The River

Bill Ellis – Spiritual Leadership And The Rehumanizing Of Our World

Liz Dyer – A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Polls

Joe Speranzella – Leadership: This Election and Social Justice

Andries Louw – South Africa’s leadership crisis

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Leadership Synchroblog

This November 4th marks a profound opportunity in American history regardless of who takes office to the Presidency. And this focus on leadership got me thinking.  What if we got together and had a Synchroblog on leadership. There’s already a group on board but I wanted to open this up and ask if anyone else wanted to participate.  If you are interested let me know.

The focus is not on the Presidency but on leadership.  This is your opportunity to speak to those who leads and let them know what you are looking for.  The context can be in politics, family, the church or to any leader you want.

Please join us.  Leave your name in the comments and I’ll add you to the list.  The post will be due on November 4th and will include a list of those participating.

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I Won’t Sin

“And I, I won’t lie. I won’t sin.” – Letters To God, Box Car Racer

I resonate with that line.  It was in many ways an anthem of my childhood life.  When I was young I grew up in a church that told me that growing up meant, “not sinning”.  This mantra had a surprising affect of placing the dominant interest of my life on myself.  I was always worried that I was sinning.  And as wounded as I was from stuff in my life, I was deriving much of my love from others by being the “good” kid.  I truly didn’t want to sin.  I wanted goodness in my life.

“I won’t sin,” has a surprising way of destroying relationships.  It creates a strange paranoia that drove me to wonder if I had done something I shouldn’t.  I was always wondering had I said something or done something when someone gave me a look.  I was in reality a co-dependent, attempting to draw my identity and validation from those around me.  I was needy.

But as I grew older in age something didn’t jibe with what I had been told as a child.  Was life really about not sinning?  Or, could it be something else?  For about ten years I simply walked away from that statement.  Not sinning, simply didn’t work.  And truth be told, I sucked at it. In fact, the harder “I” tried, the worse I became, and the more I proved it out.  I couldn’t.

As I grew older I began to read the research of people like Piaget, Kohlberg and Erikson who suggested a far different interpretation of what maturity is.  Maturity is the ability to think outside the self and recognize the world around us.  It means to grow out of dependence to an interdependence.  Maturity was, in essence, love.  It startled me that scientists from Harvard could come to such a simple conclusion.

But what this means is that the primary assumption actually drove me to the exact opposite of what was intended.  Focusing on the sin created a myopic approach on the problem and not the solution.  I was destined to fail before I ever began.

And so I began to ask, “Is there something to this invitation to love?”  Could my own restoration be wrapped up in beginning to look outside myself?  Love calls us to maturity.  It calls us to the very essence of our humanity, which is to reflect the very nature of God: to love.  And at that moment, I began to see everything different.  The law, which always led to love was not about “not sinning”, but about embracing love as the defining act of my life.

Jesus’ command to love wasn’t just something I had to do, but something I got to do.  And if I followed, my own restoration was at hand.  But to get to love I had to surrender to the reality that I couldn’t.  At 37 that wasn’t hard to do.  I had enough evidence to convict me of my inabilities.  I was a fraud when it came to “not sinning”.

Much of my fear was always derived from the idea that God could not love me unless I was good enough.  But what I now realize is that God’s love is not defined by what I do but by who he is.  And that love was validated by the undeniable evidence of the cross.  This was incredibly good news.  He has never stopped loving me, even when I break myself.  And that left me with the question of whether or not I would accept his love.  Would I allow him to love me?

And when I surrendered to being loved, I realized a startling truth.  Love would change me from the inside.  And the more I received His love the more I could reflect that love to the world around me.  And the cool thing was there was no law against love.  It was extraordinarily perfect.  By loving, I could accomplish the very thing I had attempted to do my whole life.  And this love became my pathway to maturity.

Love called me to step over my obstacles and fight my way through chaos.  It called me to restore my broken heart and broken relationships.  It called me to the best of myself by finding those God was calling me to love.  It called me to be the Good News.

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This post is part of a Synchroblog on maturity.  Below is a list of participants.

Phil Wyman asks Is Maturity Really What I Want?
Lainie Petersen at Headspace with “Watching Daddy Die”
Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head with “what’s inside the bunny?”
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith with “Long-Wearing Nail Polish and Other Stories”
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse with “the future is ours to see: crumbling like a mountain”
Bryan Riley at Charis Shalom
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church with “Maturity and Education”
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Bethany Stedman at Coffee Klatch with “Moving Towards True Being: The Long Process of Maturity”
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill with “Old Enough to Follow Christ?”
Joe Miller at More Than Cake with “Intentional Relationships for Maturity”
Susan Barnes at A Booklook with “Growing Up”
Tracy Simmons at The Best Parts with “Knowing Him Who is From the Beginning”
Joseph Speranzella at A Tic in the Mind’s Eye with “Spiritual Maturity And The Examination of Conscience”
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules with “What I Wish The Church Knew About Spiritual Maturity”
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations with “post-enlightenment Christians in an unenlightened South Africa”
Steve Hayes at Khanya with “Adult Content”
Ryan Peter at Ryan Peter Blogs and Stuff with “The Foundation For Ministry and Leading”
Susan Barnes talks about Growing Up
Sound and Silence considers Inclusion and Maturity
Kaiblogy with Mature Virtue

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Spiritual Poverty

What would you say is your most valuable possession, the one thing you wouldn’t trade for the world?

When I was in college I didn’t have any money and I remember the feeling of wanting a car, any car.  At one point I remember thinking I’d trade anything for it.  But when I got that car, I no longer wanted it because honestly it was a piece of crap. So what changed?

My perception.

When I was five, twenty-five cents was a lot of money.  When I was fifteen, twenty-five dollars was a lot of money.  When I was twenty-five, twenty-five thousand dollars was a lot of money.  When I was thirty-five, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money. Again what changed was my perception.  And what surprised me was that the more money I had, the more money I wanted.  What I had was never really enough.  Consumption is what we’re taught to do, right?  But I noticed the older I got the more it began to fail me.  Money didn’t really satisfy me.  It simply allowed me to choose my problems.

Did I want a high mortgage?  Did I want a larger car payment?  Did I want to keep up with the Jones’?

When I made the choice to follow Jesus, I began to recognize how much He simply wasn’t as consumed with money as I was.  In fact he was likely to ask me to give more and more of it away.  Kind of backwards from what I have thought all a long.  Instead he placed a premium value on my soul.  This was interesting to me.  I began to ask why.  And then I read verses like this:

Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for? (Matthew 16:24-26)

And I began to ask if I had traded my own soul.  And to be honest, I had.  Money meant security, but that very security seemed to cut me off from those around me.  With money I could build bigger fences.  I could avoid the distinct truth of how I had cut myself off from relationships. My own stuff had blinded me to the reality of my own brokenness.  Wealth allowed me to refuse to see what had been imprisoning me.  If I needed a pick-me-up to feel good I just went and bought something.

Jesus began to teach me to give generously, which seems really stupid at first.  What could possibly be served by giving the money away and typically to people I didn’t know.  But what surprised me is that giving generously and even blindly had its way of putting me in touch with who I really am.  I am designed in His image.  I am designed to love.  And money has a distinct way of taking care of people’s needs in a very real way.  It’s very pragmatic that way.  And when I began to give, I began to connect to something deeper. In the giving I began to receive a very different gift, my own soul.

And if I have a soul…that means everyone has a soul.  And if mine is valuable…then everyone’s is valuable.

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This post is part of a Synchroblog on poverty.  A list of participants is below:

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Adam Gonnerman: Echoes of Judas
Cobus van Wyngaard: Luke: The Gospel for the Rich
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Steve Hayes: Holy Poverty
Jonathan Brink: Spiritual Poverty
Dan Stone at The Tense Before
Jeremiah: Blessed are the poor… churches…
Alan Knox: Boasting in Humiliation
Miss Eagle: Poverty and the Hospitable Heart
Jimmie: Feeding the Poor

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What Is Missional?

In April, I hosted a similar synchroblog that asked a very similar question, “What does missional living look like to me?”  My answer was very simple.  It means, “Meeting God Where He’s Already Working.”  And this answer begs the question, “What then is God doing?”  The foundations of this can be found in Missio Dei, or God’s mission of restoration and reconciliation.  The mission was voiced in the words of both Isaiah and Jesus, when they said,

“The Spirit of the lord God is upon me. For he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Jesus came to restore and to reconcile.  He came to bring people back into relationship with their Creator, their Father.  He came to reveal the Imago Dei, or what humanity and the Father looked like.

The question is then, “Will we participate?” Will we engage the inward journey to restore our own soul, to participate in our own healing?  Will we take the risk to discover how much God really, really does love us?  Will we cast off the lies that hold us captive so that we can become the new humanity?  Will we learn how to surrender, to follow, to let go of our isolation and loneliness?

And will we take the risk to discover trust and love, to begin embracing our own maturity and wholeness?  Will we practice meeting God in the moments that need love, so that the world may discover what we have discovered, that we are worth it?

To do so is discipleship, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus into His mission.  It is to bring participate by following the lead of the Holy Spirit into the restoring the world around us. It doesn’t require a license or ordination.  It doesn’t require 10,000 people or a mega-church.  It requires love, which is a fruit of His Spirit.

And it usually does not begin on the other side of the world, or in some famous fashion.  It usually begins right where we live, with our families, and with our neighbors.  It means tearing down the walls that separate us as human beings.  It means taking the risk to let go of the victim role, or the anger that perpetuates the role of perpetrator.  And once we do we “get to” participate in our own humanity, in our own restoration…and the restoration of the world around us.  We get to see what is good, what is right, what is true, what is Jesus.

As a side note:

There is always backlash when something new comes around.  The word missional is apparently now reaching “chic” proportions.  Several people have expressed that this the word missional is being overused.  Why are we suddenly concerned that we’re overusing the word?  I would offer that just the fact that we’re using the word is almost an entirely new thought process in the Christian culture.  Twenty years ago, it meant you were someone who went to Africa on a missions trip.  It was limited to the specific group of people who went over “there”, the people we framed and hung on the wall in the foyer or lobby.

Will some people get it wrong? Sure.  But I would rather people use the word than not.  I trust in the conversation, as we are doing now to inform those who get it mixed up. And just because we used the word “the” every ten to twelve words doesn’t mean its overused.  It’s means its useful.  Missional is useful in our postmodern context.

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This post is part of a missional synchroblog put on by the Blind Beggar.  Here are the participants:

Alan Hirsch Alan Knox Andrew Jones Barb Peters Bill Kinnon Brad Brisco Brad Grinnen Brad Sargent Brother Maynard Bryan Riley Chad Brooks Chris Wignall Cobus Van Wyngaard Dave DeVries David Best David Fitch David Wierzbicki DoSi Doug Jones Duncan McFadzean Erika Haub Grace Jeff McQuilkin John Smulo Jonathan Brink JR Rozko Kathy Escobar Len Hjalmarson Makeesha Fisher Malcolm Lanham Mark Berry Mark Petersen Mark Priddy Michael Crane Michael Stewart Nick Loyd Patrick Oden Peggy Brown Phil Wyman Richard Pool Rick Meigs Rob Robinson Ron Cole Scott Marshall Sonja Andrews Stephen Shields Steve Hayes Tim Thompson Thom Turner

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Missional Synchroblog 3

Because I am on vacation, I realized that I didn’t get time to organize this month’s Missional Synchroblog.  Rick Meigs is organizing an alternative that we can participate.

We’ll continue next month.

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Missional Synchroblog 2

If you would like to participate in this months Missional Synchroblog, let me know below. This months question is: Why Am I Missional?

Feel free to explore this question in your own way. One of the things I loved about the previous responses was the diversity. There is no right answer…just the real answer.

Updated Posting Date: May 19th

This is a four month project. You are welcome to participate as you can. The first round of posts was awesome. You can see the list here.

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Re-Emerging Church

I love the church. Not the building, mind you, but the beautiful reflection of Jesus that occurs when I see love within the local body of believers. A dignity restored, a life transformed from oppression to hope, these are the expressions that move me. She is beautiful and always leaves me with a realization of why I choose to gather in the fellowship of believers in the first place. We have the capacity to transform and restore the world around us in such a unique way. And this desire for restoration is why I find myself drawn to the emerging expression of the church.

But it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I was just frustrated at what I saw within the church.

The Dissonance

If you read enough blog posts on the emerging church, it is highly likely that you’ll get a distinct impression of the dissonance that exists within those who identify with the emerging church. We’re always deconstructing something, asking questions and wondering what is wrong within the body that we are part of. But we do so because there are so few alternatives. You see most people don’t go to an emerging church. We go to a traditional church because this is all that is around us. And so we engage the community, hoping to discover something deeper, something we hope the church can be.

At some point in the process, if we’re looking to follow Jesus in an active, missional way, we encounter a dissonance in the process that is striking. We encounter what Willow Creek recently found in their Reveal campaign. The church we are part of is not really structured to develop us in a deeper way. Discipleship is something most church organizations just haven’t figured out. The deeper restoration Jesus engaged in seems distant and removed.

Church is primarily structured to bring people into a building and participate in church related activities. Our primary activity resembles an entertainment medium. We all arrive at the same time, sing a few songs and sit in the same direction while listening to someone speak for an hour. If we’re entertained, we leave a little something to say thank you. We learn primarily what to believe, how to live right, and receive a challenge each week to believe it.

We learn that mission is for people on the other side of the world. We even give them money so we don’t have to go. Rarely do we encounter any kind of mentorship, or process for restoring our hearts, for learning forgiveness and reconciliation, or for restoring the world around us. Without mission, we learn to serve as an usher and in the nursery because this is where the needs are.

As Willow found, those who have been there for a while are the one’s most likely to leave. We don’t really want to leave but at some point we begin to recognize that there has to be more to what we’re doing. We begin to ask our self if this is what Jesus really meant when we said, “Come follow me.”

The Question Of Leaving

The idea of leaving the church is actually a dramatic and even life altering decision. We ask ourselves what it would mean to leave the local community we have been part of for how ever long? What would it mean to separate our selves from the relationships we have established? Because it is likely not the people we relate to, but the structure of the community that creates the dissonance in the first place. At some point we realize we are no longer growing.

It is easy to some extent to just blame the pastor for the problem. He is, after all, the leader. He is the one who stands at the front and supposedly leads the charge. But to blame the pastor is to miss the bigger picture. The pastor is likely following what he has learned over the years, at seminary, at conferences and from his fellow pastors. This is the way its been done forever, hasn’t it?

And as we sit in the pew and contemplate the questions our minds will not forget, we often realize there is a deeper question to leaving. Am I saying the church is broken? Am I saying something is not quite right? What does it all mean? These questions haunt us because we know in our souls that God is real and what we currently are experiencing is not the fullest expression of what is possible.

Permission

To leave requires permission. We have to come to a place where the dissonance outweighs the fruit of what we are experiencing. This moment of coming to a place where we give ourselves permission is often a long enduring process. We hold out hope amidst the questions, and yet the problem proves it will not resolve it self. And so we wake up one morning and realize that we must give our selves permission to say no.

Just saying the word is weird and wonderful. It feels strangely empowering, as if we’re taking part in our own restoration. We need more for our own hearts. We need to know that the many hours spent enduring the dissonance were not for naught. We need to know that the there has to be more. We just can’t settle anymore.

The first morning we wake up and it feels strange. The patterns that we have lived for most of our life have, and the stories that have gone with it, are now left behind. And we almost don’t know what to do with ourselves. By nine AM we should be showered and sitting down for breakfast, yet we’re still in our pajamas. At ten AM we should be walking down the aisle to our traditional seat, yet were walking to the frig for another glass of juice. By ten-thirty we should be singing a worship song, yet we’re wondering if it’s okay to turn on the television set and watch something. These are the emotions and they don’t sit well at first. By noon the feelings pass as we recognize we can now settle back into our traditional patterns. By the fourth week, we’re sitting on our porch reading the Sunday paper and enjoying our favorite Arabica bean coffee.

Over the weeks and months that follow, we feel like a long lost family member that has chosen to miss Christmas dinner. We wonder what it would be like but have grown accustomed to our alternative choice. This emotional journey, like a peculiar treadmill that starts and stops, fades over time.

A New Responsibility

This strange sense of wilderness has a way of clarifying the entire process. Not having to endure the dissonance feels good in a “just got off a long, bad flight” kind of way. With our feet on the ground we can now begin to listen to God on our own, without a denominational, transactional filter. We can listen to His voice. But this freedom also comes with a responsibility to stand on our own two feet. We must chart our own course and get real in our faith. We read new books and listen to new voices, ones that challenge and push us to think outside the box we’ve left.

We learn the words discipleship and authentic community, journey and trust. And it all feels so ridiculously good. We have three hour conversations with people we run into at the bookstore about seeing God in the simplest of things. Our faith isn’t manufacturing on stand up, sit down pew dances but real intimate encounters with Jesus in the margins.

We begin to realize that our conversations between our next door neighbor are just as empowering as the ones we had at church. We now know his name because we’re not at a church functional three nights a week and twice on Sunday. This new chunk of time allows us to be present to those around us. These new meetings, which are more about loving our neighbor, feel quite stirring. And then it hits us. We’re not called to be part of the local church. We’re called to be part of His church. And the pastor isn’t our leader. The Holy Spirit is.

Coming Back

And as we begin to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit, we begin to listen to where He’s calling us. We begin to connect to a mission, instead of a program. We begin to see that within the four walls of our traditional church are individuals who are just like us, struggling with the same questions we had a long the way. And that’s when we realize that God is likely calling us to be love within the body of Christ.

Yet how could we return? Will it be much the same? Maybe. But we won’t be the same people.

The idea of returning takes about as long as it did to leave. But we’re not returning to solve any problem, but to be a different solution: to love. The moment we do enter, it is into His church. It’s a broken, beautiful, messy, amazing, sloppy, hope for the world. Our expectations are different. Our hopes are different, because now we realize that it is not us who will transform the world, but God himself through us. We’re no longer expecting the church to be everything for us. All we’re looking for is to meet God where He’s already working.

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This post is part of the Revolutionary’s Synchroblog.  List of participants:

Alan Knox: A Revolutionary? Who? Me?

Barb: My Response

Erin Word: Are We There Yet, Papa Smurf?

Jane: Onward Christian Soldier

Jeff Greathouse: So, You Want To Change

Jeff McQuilken: The Great Shift–and My Unwitting Part In It

Jeromy Johnson: A Safe Place To Experiment

Jonathan Brink: Re-Emerging Church

Kathy Escobar: Surviving Spiritual Vertigo

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Missional Synchroblog

I’m looking for a group of people who would like to participate in a four month Synchroblog on what it means to live missionally in today’s world. Here’s the schedule.

April: What is missional living look like to me?

May: What attracts me to missional?

June: Where is God calling me into mission?

July: My best missional story.

This is a four month project with one post per month. If it has traction, we’ll continue it. If not, then we’ll end it. If you would like to participate with me on this, please leave a comment and I’ll put you on the list. I’m also not wedded to the questions. If you have one you’d like to submit, please do.

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The Power of Three

About two years ago a friend of mine introduced me to a word that radically reshaped my faith and understanding of God. It’s the word Elohim. It’s God’s first expression of himself in Scripture. What is unique about this word is that its plural. God’s first expression to humanity in the story is of someone in community.

A little later in the story, humanity is created in His image. We carry the Imago Dei. And as I began to connect to the reality that I am created in his image, I began to see that I am designed for community. And much of life is working out the relationship with community.

In community we have the power of three. We’re not alone. We’re not without help. We’re not lonely. In community we have a voice that reminds us of where we are breaking ourselves, where we’re losing what it means to be created in the image of God. In community we have the wonderful smile that reflects our Father’s image back to us. We can see love. But community requires that we reciprocate and move beyond our own selfish interests. To live in community we have to let go of what we want to discover a much larger picture, one of community that is interdependent. It requires that we be love to those around us, to give back what we have received.

As I was writing this I even thought about the fact that Jesus didn’t die alone. He died in a community of three.

This desire for community has led my wife and I to explore community in our home. We’re asking what it would look like to live in a community setting on a full time basis. This desire began a long time ago when my wife went to L’Abri in Switzerland. L’Abri was started by Francis Schaeffer as almost a precursor to New Monasticism. He asked how we create places of refuge, a place to come and experience community that feeds the soul.

My wife and I are exploring the idea of a wholistic retreat center that would focus on generative family living. How do we create a space where families can explore community, spiritual formation, wholistic living practices, organic eating and reflection. We’ve actually spent time exploring land in and around the area of Sacramento. This idea will take time and God opening some significant doors. But we’re willing to wait.

The tension in a new monastic community is that we have to give up our lifestyle. We have to give up our safe space that allows us to hide. And the longer I follow Jesus the more I realize that I don’t want a place to hide. I don’t want a lifestyle that will keep me from missing community. I need a space that will keep me connected to community in ways that are not always fun but good for me.

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This post is part of a synchroblog on New Monasticism. You can find more insights in the posts below.

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Beth at Until Translucent
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Brian Riley at at Charis Shalom
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations
Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings
David Fisher at Cosmic Collisions
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian

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WWJD…WTC – The Dream

This is a post for the WWJD…WTC Synchroblog. I have to say that I have been surprised by the simple journey so far. It made me ask some interesting questions. Some of my own critique was not new but informed by important research. Another was informed by the ironic wisdom of my own child. But it was a late night in bed, lying wide awake with an idea that forms the last of my posts.

The other night I couldn’t sleep. I went downstairs and wrote the following post. This is my dream of the church that I would like to help build.

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Tribe – An Emerging Community

Tribe is a new community committed to exploring Missio Dei. We do this by actively engaging what it means to follow Jesus in today’s world. We are committed to restoration and reconciliation through love. This includes:

• Weekly Missional Discipleship Tribes – The primary focus of the church is the discipleship group, not the Sunday meeting. I’ve been working on this part for the last five years.
  Everyone who is part of the community engages a missional discipleship tribe. This is actively participating in Missio Dei and following Jesus in today’s world. Everything else flows from this experience.
  The tribes are primarily gender groups of 11-12 people, mainly because we have found gender works so well. The tribe is the primary contact point for people. Each tribe takes a 3 years inward journey of restoring the heart and an outward journey of restoration and reconciliation to those in the group and those in the community. We would use the Thrive materials we’ve been developing. All groups meet for four quarters a year (11 weeks on, 2 weeks off). Once a quarter the group meets over a meal.
  When the tribe has ended it’s journey, it splits up into smaller groups and begins the process of developing new groups. This is the primary leadership development model.
• Monthly Celebrations – Once a month everyone in the larger community gathers for a meal and tells stories about what is happening in the smaller communities. These are feasting celebrations of what God is doing in the lives of the people in the groups.
• Monthly Gatherings – Once a month everyone in the community is invited to a corporate response through worship, drama, graphic arts and contemplation.
• Monthly Leadership Gathering – Once a month, the leaders of the communities gather for breakfast and dialog on Missio Dei and the health of the tribes.
• Monthly Coaching Evenings – Once a month everyone is invited to engage a coaching session on Missio Dei and love. These are the primary entry point for people to ask questions about joining a new group.
• Restorative Projects – Tribes are encouraged to actively seek out ways to restore the community around them through restorative projects. Anyone in the community can participate as needed.
• All Community Retreat – Once a year the entire community gathers at a retreat center together to engage dialog, worship, reflection, feasting, and community.

Some other thoughts

• Children: I’ve been thinking about this part for a long time. My primary thoughts are placing the role of nurturing the children back in the hands of the parents. I think they would love to participate in the celebrations, restorative projects, and the gatherings. Children follow their parents. If the parents are following Jesus, then they most likely will.
• Buildings: Most of the significant meetings will take place in homes during the discipleship groups. This essentially means the church only has three significant monthly corporate gatherings. These can take place in rented spaces and grow as needed. These can even be broken up into different groups if size ever becomes an issue.
• Office: I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life and worked from home in a significant collaborative settings. Technology can help overcome this.
• Technology: I would like to use technology to our advantage to reduce unnecessary waste of paper.
• Missions: I’ve thought a lot about this and I would like our mission to be primarily in the spaces we live in, although I am completely open to how the Spirit leads.

Would love any further thoughts.

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The Promise of Transformation

This is update number two of WWJD…WTC Synchroblog.

I’m a marketing guy. I spent some of my younger years working at my own agency with some of the best companies in the world. I lived the dotcom bubble. I was in the middle of it all. Good companies with good products would come into my office asking me to help tell the world about how their product would transform people’s life. I learned many superlatives and hyperboles in the process.  And to a certain extent, part of my role was to temper the language of the plan.  Everybody wanted to be the “leading this” or “best of class at that”.  Most of the companies had glorious views of their capacity to transform the marketplace.

The very nature of marketing is to communicate an idea in some way. But anyone who has ever stepped foot in a marketing conversation, cubicle, wing, or department knows that there is always the promise, and then there is the delivery. Marketing gets the easy job. We get to make the promise. It’s up to someone else to deliver. Thus the nature of marketing requires considering the limits of the promise. This was my job for seven interesting years in Silicon Valley.

Jesus promised abundant life, which is an astounding thought when you think about it. To some extent it has the potential to sound like a marketing scheme. Over promise and let someone else deliver. But the truth is, Jesus delivered. And He did so by employing a simple strategy of discipleship. Come follow me was the mantra. Three simple yet incredibly powerful words. Which for me is kind of cool. I like that simplicity of it. Follow Jesus. Follow Jesus. Oh, I get it…love and be loved. Engage His mission.

And what was more interesting is that Jesus didn’t stick around to run the show. He gave us His Spirit and said, “Now you go change the world.” He put it into our hands, which alludes to the idea that He believed we could do it. All we had to do was follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and engage His mission of restoration with love.  We didn’t have a building.  We didn’t have pastors to do it for us.  We didn’t even have a great marketing plan. In fact, some might suggest Jesus was crazy for doing it this way.  But He did.

But at the same time, I can imagine some crafty tax collector or market seller standing from afar wondering how he could profit off of Jesus. In fact Simon the Sorcerer even tried. “This transformation business could be huge.  I could make some serious bank off of this”  Steve Martin made a movie about this. Elmer Gantry was another.  Holding this type of power, even the illusion of this power, can be intoxicating.

And this is the allure of the promise of transformation. Just the idea holds so much potential for compromise and fudging with its intent. See here for further example. The very same principles apply. Someone promises and someone else delivers. As long as you buy that transformation is possible, I only have to produce limited transformation, or enough to convince you that it is possible.

But there is enough evidence to posit that we are no longer delivering. Willow Creek’s study suggested that what we are doing is actually driving away those who are trying . We get the pulling in part. We just haven’t mastered the follow part. And worse, when we buy in to the old structures that pull us in and then don’t see experience what Jesus was talking about, we’re likely to become embittered about the whole process.

And to a certain extent, this is one of the things that I would change about the church. I would stop placing so much emphasis on pulling people in.  Because if my interest is in pulling people in and keeping them there I am not likely to engage people in something that would make them leave.  And the allure is to create an organization that serves itself, not the Gospel.  But Jesus turned up the heat all the time.  In fact, He let people leave.

Instead, I would focus on the the follow part. I would immediately tell people what it means to follow Jesus. And to a great extent I think people are wanting this.  We’re craving honesty.  Tell me its hard.  Tell me its going to change my life in ways that are not comfortable, but that are really worth it.  Lead me into what actually will do what Jesus was promising.  Help me connect with my Father like Jesus did so that I can gain His Spirit.  Help me learn what it means to trust so that I can stay intimately connected to love.  Help me learn how to tear down the walls I’ve created that keep me from relationships.  Help me learn how to forgive so that I can help restore the world around me.  Help me learn stewardship so that I can give when the Spirit is calling me to.

I want to know the fullest extent of what Jesus means when He says, “Come follow me.”  Let’s create a structure that supports that.

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Other WWJD…WTC Updates

Erin Word

Gary Means
Update 1

Alan Knox
Update 1

The Refuge

Nate Peres

Sally Coleman

Barb
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3

Rick Stillwell
Update 1

Jeff Greathouse
Update 1

Dan
Update 1

Barbara Legere

Jonathan Brink
Update 1

Jason Ellis

Rainer
Update 1

Cynthia Clack

Glenn Hager
Update 1
Update 2

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Consumerism and The Heart

This is somewhat of an update to the Synchroblog WWJD…WTC.

This weekend I went home to Silicon Valley (San Jose to be exact). In the Mercury News this morning the paper highlighted the fact that we still lead the U.S. in venture capital investment (about 20%). I grew up here and saw the valley transform from a medium sized peach orchard to a mini version of Los Angeles. San Jose, in particular used to be the epitome of traditional family and average income provided by IBM and HP. The venture world changed all of that. Now we have some of the most influential companies in the world right in our own backyard.

As I was grabbing my Peet’s coffee and bagels this morning in downtown Willow Glen (my old neighborhood), I noticed the tremendous amount of wealth that was present in so much of the world around me. People dress up to go to coffee here. It is entirely likely to see the perfect family (husband, wife, two kids and a chocolate lab) six times over. I say this as an observation not a judgment.

As I left Peet’s I began to wonder, what it is that drives us to consume? What is it that compels us to want “the good life,” which is so prevalent in Willow Glen, and other places in the valley? And in my wonder my mind immediately fell on the olds answers. Our brokenness produces something of a drive within us that is almost insatiable. And as I passed the boutiques I was left with a feeling that it wasn’t that simple. Was it deeper than that? What is it that wealth reminds us of?

For some reason my mind wandered to the year I lived on USC’s fraternity row with some of the world’s riches kids. The row was something of an anomaly in the area. In five minutes time, I could walk three blocks to what anyone would consider poverty. Police helicopters were the norm almost every night. Every once in a while some kids from those areas would walk down fraternity row and stare at the big frat houses. But they would likely be picked up half way down by school police and “escorted” to the Blvd. I could see the longing in their eyes. The comparison was always striking and I never forgot it.

It was during this time that I used way too many mind bending substances and one thing always stood out to me about being “high”. It was as much a reminder of what I wanted to be as much as it was an escape from what I didn’t want to be, It was a temporary transcendence from my broken state, from what I was not meant to live. Coming down from the high was like being escorted to the end of the row.

And as I passed the many boutique stores that lined Lincoln Avenue I realized that we were designed for blessing. Wealth was a constant reminder of that blessing, the state we were designed to live in. Wealth provides a sense of security and safety to an extent. We don’t have to worry about food and shelter, our basic needs. In the beginning God took provided this for us.

But the allure of wealth is never ending. Behind every dollar is a reminder that we aren’t safe and secure. At any moments notice it can be taken away. And so we consume beyond what we need hoping that it will be enough, which it never is.

And as I engage God’s mission to restore the world around me, I am beginning to see that my Father is calling me into a life of trust with what He has given me. He is providing me with resources for the mission. If I horde them for my own sake, I am going to be missing out on the beauty of what my stuff was created for. I will miss the moment of transformation each item was meant to produce. If I hold on I will miss my own restoration in that process of letting go. I will miss becoming who I was designed to be, which is love. I will miss how my stuff was meant to restore my own heart by giving it away.  And I don’t want to miss that.

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My Stuff – WWJD…WTC Syncroblog Update 1

I first want to say that when I chose to participate in this synchroblog I did not anticipate nor expect what it would do to me. And yet today, a mere three days into it I have begun to ask some serious questions about some things in my life. It’s called “my stuff”. Part of this I’m assuming is a mishmash of everything I’ve been reading and thinking about over the last couple of years, and the image is just starting to get clearer, like puzzle that is beginning to take shape. My original question was essentially to ask how everything I did was affected by God’s mission. Was it in line with what God was calling me into?

I’m reading a very interesting book by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite called Deadly Viper Character Assassins, and there is a very interesting chapter on the “Bling Bling Assassin”. It deals with the nature of our stuff and how we often seek our validation through it. I plan to post a review of the book tomorrow. But what got me was a deeper question. In a consumeristic society, we often wrestle with how much is too much. Jason Clark is doing his PhD on it. It’s a great question. What role does the consumer culture play in our lives. Is the BMW (or anything really) a need for validation? Or deeper still, is a BMW, even when it’s not validating us, okay to buy? I’m not a bling bling kind of guy, but what role does what we use our money on play in the mission?

My initial thought was to jump to the common conclusion that I’ve heard most of my life, that material items are bad. But it’s never quite felt right to me. There is a consistent theme of stewardship and responsibility of material wealth throughout Scripture that leaves me wanting a deeper, more holistic approach to my motives. I want to find a wholeness in my stewardship that allows me to enjoy what God has given me but hold onto it very lightly and with an open hand. I want to find a place in life where I can give at not just any moment, but the right moment that what He had given me was meant for.

And these desires and questions suddenly made me think of one of my favorite movies, Schindler’s List. I love this story because it is for me one of the greatest stories of what the Gospel looks like in life. It’s about fighting for people’s dignity and against oppression. It’s about taking a great risk with stuff and putting it all on the line.  It is a great example of mission in action.

One of my favorite scenes of all time is near the end of the movie. Oscar Schindler has a profound moment of redemption when those he has rescued honor him for what he did. But immediately following this scene, he walks with the Jews and has a second profound awakening. For what feels like the first time, he realizes the holistic nature of what he has done. He has saved a life and it is good. But just as the yin shows up, so does the yang. He also recognizes that he could have done more and the awareness is terrifying to him. I believe the quote was,

“With thing ring I could have bought one more life.”

As I began to really sit with this quote I thought about my stuff. I don’t want to feel that regret in my life. I don’t want to unpack all of the rarely used items (Items I had assumed would fulfill me but had found their way into a box in the garage, collecting dust) for an unsuspecting crowd at a garage sale. I don’t want to look at that one thing that cost so much and wonder what glorious purpose it could have been used for. I want to know the value of restoring a life. I want to know the profound nature of His mission and how I was meant to live.  I want to know the deeper purpose in what my Father has given me.

And the only way I know how to know which stuff to buy is to put it all on the altar and ask my Father. I have to listen to him as His son. I don’t really like this idea right now. Maybe tomorrow, when I’ve slept on it I’ll get used to it. But right now it sucks. This is my trust. I’ve held onto it so long, that it feels good in my hands. The choice is a part of me.

And the voice inside my heart is asking, “Am I really losing something or am I gaining freedom?”

Am I really losing when my stuff keeps me from hearing His invitation to wholeness. Am I really losing when I begin to shed the items that keep me from the one that truly loves me for who I am. It means a deeper level of maturity and stewardship that I know he is inviting me into, one that is more holistic and good for me as well as his kingdom. It means letting go of my want, so he can give me what I need.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

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WWJD…WTC Synchroblog

This synchroblog is about asking what would Jesus do with the church. The question was meant to stimulate our thinking about what we could do bring life to the church, instead of just complaining about it. And as I was thinking about it I kept wondering what Jesus would actually say to us if He were here. And the more I thought about the idea, the more I thought that he probably wouldn’t give us the answers. He’d ask really good questions that would require us to think and engage.

So this is a non-exhaustive list of what I think Jesus would ask if he were here today. This is assuming that we would be listening.

Do you know My Father’s mission?

Jesus understood that God had always been on a mission of restoring all of His creation. And without an understanding of this, everything gets muddled.

Is the church structured in a way to accomplish this mission?

So much of what we think when we say “church” does not exist in Jesus’ ideology. He took ordinary people created an organization that changed the world. Yet so much of our focus is on the outward process. I get this. Getting people into heaven and then turning them into ushers or pew sitters is the easy part, because there will always be people who are looking for this part.

Are you personally taking part in His mission for your own life?

Jesus was always interested in the restoration of the person, the individual. Are we taking part in what it means to follow Jesus so our own hearts can be restored? If we’re not then what’s the point?

What denomination was I?

This is a serious question and I wrestled with it before but it needs to be addressed. If His mission is about reconciliation, we don’t look very good when we are the ones who can’t reconcile.

Are we following the Holy Spirit’s lead?

Jesus provided us complete access to the Father, which gave us His Spirit. This gave us the potential to live as Jesus did. Are we listening and following?

Do you know you are worth it?

The cross was the ultimate evidence of God’s willingness to go to the ends for us. Are we seeing what Jesus saw when He looks in the eyes of everyone He restored.

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I’ve wrestled with these issues in my own life for ages. And yet I recognize that answering them is not easy. Part of the synchroblog was to put these ideas into practice. I’ve been working on these issues for a long time but my work this month is to listen to each question in my own life.

(This post is part of a synchroblog called “What Would Jesus Do… With the Church”. See this post or this post for details.)

WWJDWTC Participants:
Glenn Hager
Gary Means
Alan Knox
The Refuge
Nate Peres
Sally Coleman
Barb
Rick Stillwell
Jeff Greathouse
Dan
Barbara Legere
Jason Ellis
Rainer
Cynthia

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My Friend the Pagan

For the September Syncroblog.

I have a friend who is a Pagan. It’s not something you really hear about much, at least in Sacramento, although it is growing. I really wouldn’t know he was pagan unless he told me, and that he has Wiccan book in his briefcase. To be honest I really am not an expert on paganism and how it plays out in his life. I know enough to be dangerously misrepresentative of it. So I don’t say much. If I were to say anything about my friend, it is that he is remarkably like me about ten years ago. He’s in wonder about the future, very broken in relationships, and desperately wondering if he can make anything out of this life.

And on the days we have met, as with any day, I am not reminded of what he believes but what I believe. And sitting across from him I want to see him the way Jesus would see him. I want to show him that he is worth it to God and that the cross was equally meant for him as well as me. Am I being love to him across the table. Am I speaking to his dignity or am I shaming him? And I’m asking myself questions in these conversations. Have I earned the right to be heard? Have I given him an experience with the Gospel, not just what is in it? Have I shows him he is worth it to God, not just told him so?

I have often sat across from the table and have been tempted to think that I can change his life. I have the answer to his problem. And something inside of me reminds me that what this is really saying is, “Look at me. See what I know.” I don’t want that anymore. Only my Father’s Spirit can change a life. And he gets that through Jesus. But I do want to be love. I want to be part of God’s process to restore his life, if this is what my friend wants. I recognize that in love, God is not interested in controlling my friend, indoctrinating him with a belief system that is reminiscent of religion. What he’s interested in is restoring my friend’s heart, so that he may be love to the world around him.

Others in the conversation

Matthew Stone at Journeys in Between
Christianity, Paganism, and Literature at Notes from the Underground
Heathens and Pagans and Witches … oh my! at Calacirian
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith
Chasing the Wild Goose at Eternal Echoes
Visigoths Ahoy! at Mike’s Musings
Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
Undefined Desire at Igneous Quill
A Walk on the Wild Side at Out of the Cocoon
Observations on Magic in Western Religion at My Contemplations
Tim Abbott at Tim Abbott
Spirituality and the Zodiac: Stories in the Cosmos at Be the Revolution
Rejection, Redemption, and Roots at One Hand Clapping

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