I had the privilege today of hearing Os Guinness speak, a prominent evangelical Christian social critic and author. During his talk (on how the Church can maintain integrity while engaging our modern society) he related how a young person had said to him, “Why didn’t God just wait for the internet?” The topic was how to best communicate the Gospel, the Good News that is at the core of the Christian message, that God offers a relationship to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
This brought up an interesting comparison between the internet and the Incarnation. To modern thinking, the Incarnation was terribly inefficient. The internet is much better at spreading information. But the Incarnation was not just about information. That’s why God used a human being to communicate with us. God is interested in relationship not just information. So he became a human being. That action has said so much that the full meaning of it will take eternity to unpack. You can’t boil the Gospel down to a few bullet points.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
temporarily abled
“All of us are only temporarily abled.” Al Hsu, an editor for InverVarsity Press and author of “Suburban Christianity” made this statement in the latest issue of Christianity Today. He was reflecting on the experience of having a son with Down syndrome.
As my fiftieth birthday approaches the phrase “temporarily abled” really hit me. For most of my life I’ve been trying to become more abled. When I was in grade school I was a runt, smallest in my class, last one chosen for sports teams, getting by on my meager charm because of a lack of physical prowess. I barely survived my junior high years at one of the roughest schools in the City, next door to a high school that had been the scene of race riots only a couple years before. Ironically I finally started to get some height when my parents (at great sacrifice) put me into a private Christian school for high school (possibly for my own survival).
But now the temporal nature of my physical abilities is catching up to me (and a lot of my friends: you know who you are!). It gets harder and harder to maintain, let alone increase, my “abled-ness”. Not that I’m giving away my elliptical trainer! We shouldn’t disregard the physical abilities that God gives us. These are gifts, and gifts are meant to be enjoyed and used well in gratitude to the Giver. But they are temporary.
We all long for the day when “this mortal shall put on immortality” and there will be no more pain or tears or sucking wind in the middle of a fast-paced basketball game. But that’s a hope that’s not yet realized and will be realized only in God’s time. While we’re stuck with the bodies we have now, let’s allow them to be a reminder of what Joan Mahler of L’Arche USA told Al Hsu: “All of us are abled in some ways and disabled in others.” One way that the world will know the love of God is by how I treat the disabled around me while I remember that I am only temporarily abled.
On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. 1 Corinthians 12:22-23
As my fiftieth birthday approaches the phrase “temporarily abled” really hit me. For most of my life I’ve been trying to become more abled. When I was in grade school I was a runt, smallest in my class, last one chosen for sports teams, getting by on my meager charm because of a lack of physical prowess. I barely survived my junior high years at one of the roughest schools in the City, next door to a high school that had been the scene of race riots only a couple years before. Ironically I finally started to get some height when my parents (at great sacrifice) put me into a private Christian school for high school (possibly for my own survival).
But now the temporal nature of my physical abilities is catching up to me (and a lot of my friends: you know who you are!). It gets harder and harder to maintain, let alone increase, my “abled-ness”. Not that I’m giving away my elliptical trainer! We shouldn’t disregard the physical abilities that God gives us. These are gifts, and gifts are meant to be enjoyed and used well in gratitude to the Giver. But they are temporary.
We all long for the day when “this mortal shall put on immortality” and there will be no more pain or tears or sucking wind in the middle of a fast-paced basketball game. But that’s a hope that’s not yet realized and will be realized only in God’s time. While we’re stuck with the bodies we have now, let’s allow them to be a reminder of what Joan Mahler of L’Arche USA told Al Hsu: “All of us are abled in some ways and disabled in others.” One way that the world will know the love of God is by how I treat the disabled around me while I remember that I am only temporarily abled.
On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. 1 Corinthians 12:22-23
Monday, September 29, 2008
physical spirituality
Last week, I was privileged to participate in a retreat for those in occupational ministry. It was run by 5 spiritual directors and was the kick-off for a 9-month program called SoulCARE that includes monthly spiritual direction coupled with monthly mini-retreats and longer retreats at the beginning, middle and end. It was great to be taken care of for a couple days, instead of trying to take care of myself. They put together spiritual exercises, times of solitude and times of worship and celebration together that were hugely refreshing.
One thing we did was to have communion individually. At the end of the first evening together we were given a chalice of white grape juice (in case we spilled!) and a small loaf of crusty sourdough to take back to our rooms. We were also under a discipline of silence until after breakfast the next day (it was liberating to not have to make conversation at breakfast and it leveled the playing field between natural talkers and the more introverted). So I went back to my room and prayed and journaled while munching sourdough and sipping juice. The tactile-ness of having to rip the crusty bread, tasting the tang of the sourdough, and smelling the fruitiness of the juice focused me on the physicality of Jesus’ presence with me and his love for me. In spite of the fact that Jesus used unleavened bread at the Last Supper and not the wonderfully substantial San Francisco sourdough we were given, it was still a very spiritual experience. In fact it was spiritual in large part because of its physicality.
One thing we did was to have communion individually. At the end of the first evening together we were given a chalice of white grape juice (in case we spilled!) and a small loaf of crusty sourdough to take back to our rooms. We were also under a discipline of silence until after breakfast the next day (it was liberating to not have to make conversation at breakfast and it leveled the playing field between natural talkers and the more introverted). So I went back to my room and prayed and journaled while munching sourdough and sipping juice. The tactile-ness of having to rip the crusty bread, tasting the tang of the sourdough, and smelling the fruitiness of the juice focused me on the physicality of Jesus’ presence with me and his love for me. In spite of the fact that Jesus used unleavened bread at the Last Supper and not the wonderfully substantial San Francisco sourdough we were given, it was still a very spiritual experience. In fact it was spiritual in large part because of its physicality.
like a child
After the 10th anniversary celebration I was in the sanctuary putting things away and noticed that the kids were drawn to the leftover Hawaiian bread we’d used for communion. They were hungry and the bread was tasty. So they shamelessly followed Jesus’ words to “take, eat”. And they enjoyed it immensely. It made me think: do I have such a hunger for the Bread of Life that I eagerly put aside any inner voices of social propriety and just eat, relishing the taste of that which sustains me?
P.S. Our 10th anniversary celebration has been a front page article on PSWC.org since 9/16/08.
P.S. Our 10th anniversary celebration has been a front page article on PSWC.org since 9/16/08.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
now comes the hard part
Have you ever heard of a “silent rave”? Someone starts a Facebook group and invites other people to join him/her at an appointed place at an appointed time. To the innocent bystander it looks very odd. As many as a couple thousand young people converge for no apparent reason on a public space. There might be a countdown, and then they all put in their earbuds, turn on their mp3 players and start dancing. The problem is that everyone is dancing to whatever music s/he chooses, so there’s no common beat. And there’s no loudspeakers, no thumping bass or flashing lights. People step on each others’ toes a lot because everyone’s listening to different song. And it’s not really “silent” because there’s a lot of apologizing and laughing going on.
I heard a radio news reporter giving an account of a silent rave. She commented that it seemed that people at the rave were somewhat isolated, even though they were all in the same space. But then after she left the rave she started getting a lot of greetings on her Facebook account, people who wanted to get to know her, who had been at the silent rave and were using that common experience as a way of expanding their social network. So there was the initial happening that may have seemed a little strange and awkward, and then the real networking began afterward.
As I was driving to the second meeting with Peter Kumar a phrase kept coming to my mind: “Now comes the hard part.” Peter is obviously someone who loves God and is gifted by God in a way that draws a lot of people. His teaching and prayer provided a lot of encouragement and motivation for people to explore serving God in ways they hadn’t considered before. That wasn’t true for everyone. I talked to some people who felt that what Peter said didn’t resonate with them at all and they just felt awkward about it all. But for others the meetings caused a stirring, an awakening for more of God in their lives. That’s the easy part, the part that’s attractive and exciting.
Now comes the hard part. What are we going to do with this? I’m not talking about just those that felt touched in some way. I’m talking about all of us. Our vision is to become like Jesus together. Our relationship with God is personal but it’s not private. We should be speaking truth into each others’ lives. And that takes time and diligence. Growth groups are where this should happen.
One of the guys in my men’s group emailed me to ask if we could talk about what Peter had prayed over him. That’s exactly what should be happening. If Peter said something that resonated with you, share it and get feedback on it and have people pray with you about what God wants you to do. If you went and felt awkward, then share that too because that can also be a way of exploring what God is doing in your life. Even if you avoided the meeting, if you share about why you did it can be a way for people to speak truth into your life.
“The journey is the destination.” Don’t worry if you don’t have the right answers or aren’t doing the right thing or don’t even know what the right thing to do is. Engage in the process. And don’t assume that you have the right answers when someone’s asking questions or sharing experiences. Seek God together. And trust that God will honor that process: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
I heard a radio news reporter giving an account of a silent rave. She commented that it seemed that people at the rave were somewhat isolated, even though they were all in the same space. But then after she left the rave she started getting a lot of greetings on her Facebook account, people who wanted to get to know her, who had been at the silent rave and were using that common experience as a way of expanding their social network. So there was the initial happening that may have seemed a little strange and awkward, and then the real networking began afterward.
As I was driving to the second meeting with Peter Kumar a phrase kept coming to my mind: “Now comes the hard part.” Peter is obviously someone who loves God and is gifted by God in a way that draws a lot of people. His teaching and prayer provided a lot of encouragement and motivation for people to explore serving God in ways they hadn’t considered before. That wasn’t true for everyone. I talked to some people who felt that what Peter said didn’t resonate with them at all and they just felt awkward about it all. But for others the meetings caused a stirring, an awakening for more of God in their lives. That’s the easy part, the part that’s attractive and exciting.
Now comes the hard part. What are we going to do with this? I’m not talking about just those that felt touched in some way. I’m talking about all of us. Our vision is to become like Jesus together. Our relationship with God is personal but it’s not private. We should be speaking truth into each others’ lives. And that takes time and diligence. Growth groups are where this should happen.
One of the guys in my men’s group emailed me to ask if we could talk about what Peter had prayed over him. That’s exactly what should be happening. If Peter said something that resonated with you, share it and get feedback on it and have people pray with you about what God wants you to do. If you went and felt awkward, then share that too because that can also be a way of exploring what God is doing in your life. Even if you avoided the meeting, if you share about why you did it can be a way for people to speak truth into your life.
“The journey is the destination.” Don’t worry if you don’t have the right answers or aren’t doing the right thing or don’t even know what the right thing to do is. Engage in the process. And don’t assume that you have the right answers when someone’s asking questions or sharing experiences. Seek God together. And trust that God will honor that process: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
small things
I came away from the ministries tour on Saturday with the realization that God uses small things. Each of the places we visited were places where people from Grace had done some kind of volunteer work. Over and over we heard how much of a difference that work had made. In Zechariah 4:10 God encourages Zerubbabel to finish the re-building of the temple. Some had thought that the project wasn’t worth pursuing. But God says, “Who despises the day of small things?” Certainly God doesn’t. The small things that you and I do are the very things that God will use for the building of his kingdom.
catching my breath
Whew! The tenth anniversary celebration is over. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks preparing for a crazy weekend. I MC’d the ministries tour and then led worship and MC’d the anniversary worship service while overseeing all the attending festivities.
The CIT did a great job putting on the ministries tour: Hensen, Fidelia, Robin, Andrew and Marie, plus guest presenters Johann & June, and our bus nanny Marie M. But when it came to all the other stuff, I realized about three weeks ago that I couldn’t do it all myself (doh!). So I’m tremendously grateful for all the people who stepped up to help, even though it took me such a long time to ask.
Uncle Bob made sure we had an abundance of tasty food. Terry helped him pick up the food. Kenny organized the food service so that it moved faster than I thought possible. Brenda, Jason, Jusson, Liz, Dean, Yumi, and Angela did the actual serving. Liz organized the potluck desserts (thanks to everyone who added to the dessert table). Brenda, Angela, Bich and Brian also helped with cutting and serving anniversary cake.
Steve Y organized the set up of the lawn and carried it out with help from Karen, Rick, Dale and Patrick. And then Michael, Andrew, Kenny, Terry and Steve helped put it all away, along with numerous volunteers who pitched in ad hoc.
Marie got a bunch of older kids to help her give away and sell stuff (sorry kids, but I’m not sure who all was helping: thanks to all of you who did). Marie’s friend Erin scanned 200 photos from our early years, which Alan put together into a captivating slide show made more captivating by the great interviews produced by our Visual Grace team, David, Larry and Brian. The DVDs were then copied by Kenny, Brad, Ed, Randy and Terry.
The worship band was a bunch of people who responded to my pleas for help and did an amazing job: Gina, Rob, Eric, Russ and Jocelin. Ed made a worship band that had never worked together before sound smooth and polished. Jackson made sure all my songs and prayers got into the projection database. And Dean handled all kinds of last-minute changes in the projection run smoothly.
Of course, Wendy (and her clan) did all kinds of things behind the scenes, including ordering and picking up the cake. And there were many people who were
Just as we’ve seen over the last ten years, the body of Christ can accomplish wonderful things when we’re working together. Each part may be doing something that seems small, but the whole is becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
The CIT did a great job putting on the ministries tour: Hensen, Fidelia, Robin, Andrew and Marie, plus guest presenters Johann & June, and our bus nanny Marie M. But when it came to all the other stuff, I realized about three weeks ago that I couldn’t do it all myself (doh!). So I’m tremendously grateful for all the people who stepped up to help, even though it took me such a long time to ask.
Uncle Bob made sure we had an abundance of tasty food. Terry helped him pick up the food. Kenny organized the food service so that it moved faster than I thought possible. Brenda, Jason, Jusson, Liz, Dean, Yumi, and Angela did the actual serving. Liz organized the potluck desserts (thanks to everyone who added to the dessert table). Brenda, Angela, Bich and Brian also helped with cutting and serving anniversary cake.
Steve Y organized the set up of the lawn and carried it out with help from Karen, Rick, Dale and Patrick. And then Michael, Andrew, Kenny, Terry and Steve helped put it all away, along with numerous volunteers who pitched in ad hoc.
Marie got a bunch of older kids to help her give away and sell stuff (sorry kids, but I’m not sure who all was helping: thanks to all of you who did). Marie’s friend Erin scanned 200 photos from our early years, which Alan put together into a captivating slide show made more captivating by the great interviews produced by our Visual Grace team, David, Larry and Brian. The DVDs were then copied by Kenny, Brad, Ed, Randy and Terry.
The worship band was a bunch of people who responded to my pleas for help and did an amazing job: Gina, Rob, Eric, Russ and Jocelin. Ed made a worship band that had never worked together before sound smooth and polished. Jackson made sure all my songs and prayers got into the projection database. And Dean handled all kinds of last-minute changes in the projection run smoothly.
Of course, Wendy (and her clan) did all kinds of things behind the scenes, including ordering and picking up the cake. And there were many people who were
Just as we’ve seen over the last ten years, the body of Christ can accomplish wonderful things when we’re working together. Each part may be doing something that seems small, but the whole is becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
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