sacred cows

The JAM (Jesus and Me) core team met last night. We spent most of the meeting talking about how to handle all of our children's/family programming without Sarah on board (her family ministries internship ended yesterday). There were a lot of agenda items we didn't get to simply because we don't know who will take the lead on several programs, some of which have become Grace Community hallmarks. So we had a lively discussion about the merits of certain programs and events and who might be able to lead them.

Two things stand out to me. First, we need to develop leaders and JAM staff. For example, there aren't many people who can tackle the oversight of the Family Easter Celebration. It requires vision to motivate and skill to coordinate an army of volunteers. So maybe we'll have to kill some sacred cows to get our to-do list down to a manageable size.

The second is that we need to find our ministry sweet spot. Killing sacred cows is messy business and there better be a good reason for it. What is it that the people of Grace Community have expertise in and really enjoy doing? How does that fit with God's love for our neighbors and their need to know Him? If God has put together our church community and placed us in this particular space, there must be a reason for it. It's up to us to listen carefully to God and to our neighbors and to develop our gifts and abilities to do whatever it is that will put us in the center of God's purposes.

Of course, we may not be killing a sacred cow. Not having a Family Easter Celebration this year may just be a relief to some people. So the cow may be slowly dying anyway. But I pray that it's not an indication that our heart for God and for our neighbors is also dying.

blaming the church

“We can blame the church for many things, I suppose. But if we are faithful to give to it as much as we receive from it, we’ll find this communion of saints to be a source of astonishing beauty.”

This is the ending paragraph of an article in the latest Christianity Today by a woman who recounts how her church community helped her through a time when she was both needy and pushing people away. She was withdrawing into isolation when she most needed the comfort and help of the body of Christ: after being raped in her own home by an intruder. But her community continued to reach out to her: "The overpowering emotions I experienced that awful night did not go away the next day - or the one after that. But neither did the people of the church." They stayed with her by offering "small acts of service" (casseroles, lawn mowing, babysitting) that acted to "comfort the soul better than Band-Aids on skinned knees."

The horror of such an event leaves me aching and horrified for her experiencing a pain that I cannot comprehend. But the wonder of her healing experience (which is still taking place after 10 years) also leaves me in awe of the privilege that we all have of participating in God’s purposes for the Church. We are all both hurting people and sources of healing help, called on alternately to give and to receive.

Which begs the question: am I blaming the church for many things, or am I faithful to give to my sisters and brothers?

autograph hound

I’m still grieving the fact that I missed a chance to have a book signed by a famous author.

One of the reasons I went to this year’s Midwinter Conference (for Covenant church leaders: I’ve only missed one in nine years) is that I wanted to hear Miroslav Volf. I’m in the middle of his book “Exclusion and embrace.” I am impressed with his scholarship and touched by his humanity as he reflects on his experiences in the Balkan War (he is Croatian). At first I thought I’d pass up the chance to have him sign my copy of his book, then I thought better of it and decided to get the book signed. But after he spoke, it was announced that he had to leave very shortly so would we all please not try to stop him as the conference director escorted him out of the auditorium.

So I missed my chance. I should’ve asked him to sign the book the first morning or before the second morning session.

Yet why did I want him to sign the book? I’m not sure. Because he’s famous? (OK, semi-famous: he’s not exactly a household word outside of seminary circles)? Does that make me more significant if he gives me his signature? Or because he’s a very significant contemporary theologian? But his signature can’t be an affirmation of my theological abilities (which are pretty meager: hanging out with my friends who are seminary professors makes me realize I’m out of practice at theologizing). He doesn’t know me at all (even though I rode the shuttle with him from the airport to the hotel).

What would getting his signature prove? Not much I guess. So it’s back to wading through his deeply profound thinking (I have to read each paragraph at least twice). If I really want to get something out of his book, I’d be a lot better off practicing what he’s preaching: knowing myself as God’s beloved and participating in the community of those who are making God’s love known in this world.

faith

I just read 2 newsletters from friends that are missionaries in China. One works in Beijing, the other in a remote part of western China. But both had a similar theme: they're committed to something they can't see.

One friend recounted how a person he is working with quoted Rom. 1:17 to him: "The righteous will live by faith." This from a person who's given up job, status, material possessions and even his freedom (he's been thrown in prison) so that he can spread the Good News that Jesus offers freedom and abundant life.

I was talking with Larry yesterday and he gave me a term: "recreational Christian". It really challenged me: am I a Christian because it's a fun thing to do with my time? Or am I committed to something that I can't see completely right now but that I know is real because of the revelation of God in His Word, because of the testimony of God's Spirit within me, and because of the glimpses of the Kingdom that break through in so many different ways around me if I'd just open my eyes? Those are the evidences that Christians in China are staking their lives on. And God is asking the same of me.

confession

My doctor had a copy of Catholic Digest in her waiting room. I noticed an article titled, "My hardest Lent."

Yeah, Lent is approaching fast. Easter is early this year, March 23. So Lent starts in a couple weeks on February 6. It's barely giving me time to catch my breath from Advent and Christmas.

The world loves Christmas, picturing the Nativity scene as a cute baby Jesus surrounded by cute animals in an idyllic stable (the real thing was far from idyllic and I'm sure the cuteness quotient was minimized by the smell). But Lent and Easter celebrate the reason for the Nativity: God became man to identify with our human existence, to suffer and die for our sins, and then conquer sin and death in the Resurrection. We Christians identify with Jesus by remembering his 40 day fast in the 40 days (minus Sundays) of Lent. Fasting is a part of Lent for many, a way of focusing attention on our inner life and relationship to God by trying to remove something that distracts us from God or that hinders our spiritual formation.

So the writer of the article describes her hardest Lenten exercise. It wasn't giving up chocolate or caffeine, but carrying around a coffee can into which she placed a quarter every time she uttered an unkind word to someone. The painful part wasn't the $47 she ended up giving to a favorite charity, but having to carry a heavy (and noisy) can full of quarters that announced to the world, "Here comes an unkind woman."

I know that I would rather not wear my flaws outwardly. When asked what my shortcomings are, I'm like the Democratic candidates who answered in the recent debate, "I'm too impatient for change," or some other back-handed compliment. It's hard to own up to my sin.

Not that we should make a habit of announcing our flaws to the world as if we were on a Dr. Phil set. But we won't find healing and forgiveness until we put James 5:16 into practice with a small group or prayer partner or spiritual friend: "Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

I haven't yet decided what my Lenten exercise will be this year. But that article challenged me to have a hard but good Lent.

unanswerable questions

I'm continually stumped by the question of why God allows evil in the world and why bad things happen to good people. I was just reminded of this when I read an email from our group in China working with special needs kids telling us that a baby is not expected to live through the night and that one of the toddlers had died last night. And it reminded me of praying with someone last Sunday who was deeply troubled by the plight of the Hmong in Laos who are right now the target of genocide. I watched a couple of videos about this on YouTube and then couldn't watch any more. It was too painful.

I suppose these are questions that plagued Mother Teresa during her many years of doubt, experiencing "the dark night of the soul." Surrounded by suffering, trying to bring a little grace into a dismal world, she told her sisters to do "small acts of love with great kindness." But it must have seemed like trying to shout down a hurricane.

Yet that's how God is. Elijah was reminded of this when he didn't find God in the wind storm or the earthquake or the fire. God spoke to him in stillness. Jesus was a paradox of divine power clothed in human frailty, so much so that the powerful people of his day felt free to execute him. Rodney Stark has chronicled "The rise of Christianity", showing how Christians eventually took over the Roman Empire by doing small acts of kindness such as staying to take care of those stricken with the plagues that often ravaged Roman cities, while those with means fled to the safety of their outlying villas. In spite of the risks and the apparent futility of it all, the Christians did it because it was what Jesus taught them to do.

So I don't know the answer to the question of evil in the world, other than to say that Jesus cares about people and that I should, too. And it is by doing what I can to love those in the small part of the world that God's entrusted to me that his Kingdom will eventually triumph.

skiing lesson

I went skiing with my kids on Jan. 2. I wasn't sure how much my 5 year old would enjoy it, since he didn't seem to like it much when he was 4. I had gone down the bunny slope with him once and he ended up whining until I let him take off his skis and walk back so he could play in the snow.

He had lessons in the morning. After lunch he and I and the 2 girls took our first run together. We weren't very successful getting off the chair lift. The girls took off together. I had to keep picking him up every 50 yards or so. It's funny how going really slowly is a lot more tiring than going fast, especially when you have to bend over repeatedly to pick up 50 pounds of kid.

To my surprise, at the bottom he said, "Let's do it again!" I wasn't looking forward to it, but I did my fatherly duty and said, "Sure!" This time he only fell once and he picked himself up. Needless to say, I was very proud (and relieved). And I commended him with the words of Prov. 24:16: "For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again." We did the run a few more times and each time he only fell twice at most. He really seemed to be getting the hang of it.

Life is a lot like skiing.