Leaning Forward

Passive Resistance

Baptists are perhaps the magnates of passive resistance. Long through our illustrious history we've mastered the fine political arts of doing nothing without uttering a negative word or casting a contrary vote. Using a combination of stalling tactics, slight of hand, occasionally smoke and mirrors, we've sidelined many a good idea by simple diversion. Oh yes, it must have been our noted forebears who came up with the committee strategy to put something undesired on hold through endless months of deliberation and straining at gnats. It's really brilliant, the ability for gatekeepers to frustrate progress without ever taking a stand against the leadership.

Trouble is, a score of very good ministers get eaten alive by this particular ecclesiastical dysfunction every day. OK, Google passive resistance and you get a political definition, a non-violent approach to government rule and legal restrictions. Examples include Mahatma Gandhi, and perhaps Jesus Christ, when viewed in contrast to the oppressive Roman rule of the first century. Well and good. In a spiritual environment, however, direction is determined in a more conclusive way, Jesus the Head guiding the leaders of the church, and all yea's and nay's being communicated in clear, unmistakable ways so the leader can lead. Passive aggressive people often go on record publically, or perhaps avoid the showdown of sides by becoming invisible on vote day. Then they obstruct by means of using an under the table or off the table play book. Boo!

Two things are wrong here. Not that it matters all that much to most property barons in the church, but, this kind of polity violates the body of Christ image in the New Testament. Read it, study it, develop a strategy around it, then subvert it with this kind of glad handed misdirection. One or two people can shift the wishes of an entire group. Not only that, the leader in such an organization never knows where things are going. The group decides one thing, the passive resistors throw up a detour or canceled sign and the leader gets blamed for not moving forward. It's chaotic. No wonder so many churches are declining.

Biblical values applaud yes and no. Double-mindedness isn't the deal. That person is unstable in all his ways (see James 1:7-8). Sadly, theological education doesn't always teach much psychology or how to deal with people listed in the DSM IV (look that one up please). But, I wish some good mentor would have prayer meeting with our younger ministers to advise them how to handle the mind games visible in so many congregations.

Jesus was the master at exposing these cowards. He defused their underhanded attacks in a variety of ways---re-phrasing their questions, shifting their diversions to a deeper level, and sometimes, out and out confrontation. What inspires me most, is that he stayed on course, and finished the work the Father had given him.

What is the answer? I'm not sure. These characters will always be around. But, maybe having a wise ministry mentor is one way to encourage these wonderful peers whose lunch is being eaten everyday by these passive resistors.

Living the scripted life

Obsessive compulsives, control freaks, and a few command types prefer the scripted life, all the columns filled, the totals correctly added, with an annotated  time table attached if possible. Conditioned by the precision of media and the exactness of a fiber optic world, the pop culture playbook is pre-set, digitally punctual, and clear. Can you hear me now? Want to know what's on channel 358 on April 15? Check the Comcast schedule on-line or in the detailed listing they send in to your home every month. It's already scheduled. Micro-management down to the second. The joys of the scripted life.

Busy people! That's the deal now. Not necessarily deranged people or impatient to a fault, just people who appreciate time and want value with their investment. So, much of life is lined out, managed moment by moment, hyper-scheduled for maximum impact, lulls and pregnant pauses deleted to keep people from wandering. It's an action packed world where people live hard, work hard, play hard, relax in a frenzy, and even worship on the meter. The clock is ticking people. Better jump on for the ride.

Leonard Sweet predicted this shift in Carpe Manana, his naturalization primer for immigrants to this brave new world, now characterized as fast, not vast. Natives in this new world are ready for Life @ the Speed of Thought, Bill Gates book title, and all the peripheral plug-ins to that life. Things better be timed---ten minute eggs, forty-five minute sermons, coffee @ Starbucks, the commute in, the dinner reservation, and moments of personal devotion. This is the new world when truly the night is coming and something better happen in the meantime. This is the generation that wants real, and I mean right now.

Many of us are trying to re-calibrate church and the message of faith to the new urgency that grips much of the younger population. Often, to reach the millennials congregations go to unnecessary extremes---de-fang the gospel of offensive terms and concepts, de-gender God to make Him palpable to these more tolerant Christ followers, make Jesus into a pop character who is relevant.

Come on church, Jesus is and has been and will be relevant. Throughout history he has changed lives in every generation on every continent to every tribe and nation around this globe. And, to boot, this younger tribe responds to truth and doesn't want to hear a white-washed gospel devoid of meaning. No, in this fast-paced world tweeking is the answer, fine-tuning things to a more in-tune pace, making it count, being excellent stewards of the most valuable currency today---time!

There is a keen awareness of time in the New Testament. Jesus told his followers more than once that his hour had not come, that he was living on the Father's time table, that his life was scripted by the Father who had sent him. On the cross he announced "It is finished". The assignment was complete.

Velocity defines our times. We are tempted to scream "Slow down" to the ones zooming past us. Instead, let us also know the urgency of the times, and learn the grace of making the most of it.

Be very careful then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5: 15-16

Reverse, again---

God continually places reverse people in my path. Hold on. By reverse people I don't mean people who are backward, the least bit socially dysfunctional, or living in any of our nations whack fringes. By reverse people, I mean people whose lives God has completely turned around. Each one is a vivid demonstration of God's desire to chart a new course in the lives of those who open their hearts to him. All too often the Christ following community let's the idea of reversal slip to the back corners of our faith experience, we often forget that at some point in life we were all headed off in the wrong direction, some more glamorously so than others. Still, when God touches us, he throws the reverse card onto the stack and everything turns around. Or, it should.

OK, we don't like to glorify our old life or honor the adversary too much by talking about how we lived  back there. The emphasis of our testimony is on the right now part, what He is doing in our lives now, and how He is working in a through us now. Still, on occasion we need to look in the rear-view mirror to see where we've been, to jot down a Post-It note reminder of what He has done in our lives.

Friday night our new band, Reclaimed Goods had practice, and in a weird sort of way, we all celebrated this kind of backward glance. It was really funny. We were rehearsing a new song and i said something to the effect of, "We need to do eight bars of this." Everybody stopped. They all looked around, caught each others eyes, then broke out into laughter. Chip Green said, "I remember when I used to do eight bars every Friday night." What a choice moment. A humorous reminder that God has dropped the reverse card on each of us and turned things around.

Today I'm doing a second message in the REVERSE series leading us up to Easter. I'm praying that each one of us will reflect on what God has done in our lives, and the new life He has made possible through His work of redemption. More than that, I"m praying that we'll be knocked down by it.

More than that, I'm praying that God will drop the REVERSE card on somebody's life while we are worshiping, and that this person will stand in awe of the one who turns everything around.

On Saturday, guzzle the Drank---

People are energy crazed these days. Power Bar for breakfast, a pot or two of high octane strong brew throughout the day, couple of cans of Monster or Rockstar for the late afternoon buzz, Snickers bar right before the big presentation, forty lbs. of eyeballs all night. By and large this is the a nation of caffeine maniacs, people wired for action, needing @ times a supplemental boost for game time, legal steroids or OTC pharmaceuticals for high velocity living.

Now, you can "Slow Your Roll", you know, disarm the buzz by pouring down a can or two of Drank when you're in afib and need a little defib. Drank is the new beverage product of the Innovative Beverage Group designed to calm us down, mellow out the high-strung movers and shakers among us.  The Drank packaging concept includes a warning box on the can: Warning: this product may be extremely calming and relaxing. Check it out @ http://www.drankbeverage.com/

OK, so we go through these phases, the fads that promise to remedy our human fallibilities---vitamins and supplements to make us more alert, think better, expand our memory, give us added stamina---anti-depressants, stimulants, uppers, downers, and mind altering drugs. After the rush we're in love with those magic little pills that take the edge off. At night it's Ambien or Lunesta to reverse the pulse of all the other stuff. Some fellow insomniacs top it off with a cup of Chamomile Sleepy Time tea and perhaps a PM tab as insurance against being multi-phasic allnight. Now we can add a can of Drank to the brew. Then, set the alarm to roll us out of bed in a couple of hours, just in case all this stuff works and we sleep through our mid-night potty break. Oooops!

Now, today is Saturday. For more and more of us this is just another day in the salt mines. So,  we'll need to IV the Starbucks, keep the Monster cooled, chomp on some Milk Duds, and  pinch ourselves to keep the blood pumping and the mind cranking.

Everyone else, rest, relax, recreate, veg, chill, clear the mind, pamper the body, and shut 'er down for a spell. Read the Bible, reflect on the joys of life, get off the clock for a while. You could quaff some Drank to idle the engines a little. Better yet, spend some quality time with the Father who loves and understands you, and gives you this promise---fabulous promise---"I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint" (Jeremiah 31:25).

Jesus understood the leadership thing---

One of the most touching portrayals of Jesus' heart is found in Matthew 9:36. He and his Kingdom cohorts were ministering in the Galilee, teaching and preaching the Good News, touching the diseased and sick, observing the people. "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36).

Compassion in the language of Scripture is really a strong concept. More than sympathy or sadness, this term depicts brutal gut-wrenching agony, deriving from root nouns descriptive of intestinal organs. In short, Jesus was moved deeply by what he saw in the crowds. You see, they were like sheep without a shepherd---think aimless, directionless, unprotected, easy prey. They had no shepherd to guide them, no leader. 

Sheep and shepherds. Two of the more common images of Scripture---sheep being sent out to the slaughter, sheep being devoured by wolves, sometimes ravenous wolves dressed up like sheep. Jesus was deeply affected because these people---and there is no indication that they are believers---had no leader to guide them, no one to point their way. It is a pitiful site, people without leadership. Look around, America, you see it everywhere. More, look around church, it's there too.

Of course, Jesus is the Good Shepherd and that is the essential direction of his emotion in Matthew 9:36. Ultimately he is the one to guide and protect and shepherd his flock. In the Matthean account he told his disciples to pray for workers to go into the harvest. It was plentiful and the workers were few. Of course, Jesus wanted the workers to go out in to the harvest fields to tell them about the Good Shepherd, himself. That would be a fair and accurate interpretation of this passage.

At the same time, it is no accident that the shepherd motif is also the prime model for pastoral leadership---the poimen who leads God's people, the local shepherd that is called to provide leadership in the flesh to Christ's flock. Jesus had compassion on the people because they were leaderless in both applications. Truly, they did not belong to the flock of the Good Shepherd. Just as factually, they had no human leader to guide them as well. no poimen. 

Move over shepherd, the techno world of modern faith needs Mr. Corporate America to sit at the head of the board room table, wisely delegate, think strategically, and execute the business plan of the pop church. More to the point, appearing as a shepherd today is somewhat of a bummer, a pastoral throw back who is disconnected from the fast paced world, living in the backwoods of faith, gentle and mild, an awe shucks good old boy from the turnip patch. Or, a worn relic from another time. As a result, many congregations are plain out leaderless. You know, like sheep without a shepherd. 

A sad commentary of our time is the number of leaderless congregations left in the lurch by pastors who don't understand this simple leadership principle: a flock needs a shepherd, someone to lead them. Often, unqualified, uncalled, and untrained church members try to fill this void in the absence of a shepherd to guide, feed, and care for the flock. It is simply essential in any gathering that someone assume the leadership role. In the New Testament, the pastor, or shepherd is the one. 

They were like sheep without a shepherd. A pitiful sight. A lamentable condition. It touched Jesus in a special way. And, that touches me.

OK, do the vision thing---right this time!

We've misused the vision passage in Proverbs long enough! Let's get it right for a change. You know the verse, the proof text of every organization or institution mired down in the predictable and incremental, folks in need of someone to step up and be a leader. Everybody and his sister, board  members to bored members, plays this trump card when their managers and/or leaders cannot see beyond the end of their nose. Listen up troops---people, gang, team, workers, comrades, compatriots, brethren, peers, groupies, hangers-on, students, fellow myopics, inmates, clients, whatever--- Hear the Word of the Lord: "Without vision the people perish"  (Proverbs 29:18, KJV).

Trouble is, pop religion has pulled the teeth right out of spiritual vision. The concept doesn't have the bite it used to. As a result, few people know what it is, and, sadly, may not know it even if they saw it. You see, vision in a secular world is think tank stuff, the wishes of ideologues, focus groups projecting into the future, super-achievers trying to out brain-storm each other. Armies of corporate sophisticates have morphed vision into an almost unrecognizable hybrid of the Biblical ideal, a cool imagineering process, dreaming on steroids, ramped up living on the fast-forward button.

Balderdash. The word translated "vision" so often in the Proverbs selection works better, much more accurately,when it is rendered "revelation" (see the NIV). Ahhh, sooo! Here's the rub. Now the deal is clearly spiritual, revelation being something revealed, presupposed, revealed by God. The Proverbs verse isn't speaking about creativity, jazzed people, innovation, or advanced critical thinking. This is not about any of the out-of-the-box stuff. It is describing what God shows people. Without revelation, the people have no boundaries, no restraints, no limits. Dig a little deeper and you'll find plenty of times in Biblical history when the "word of God was rare" (1 Samuel 3:1), when there was a famine in the land, a drought of revelation (Amos 8:11). It was always a sad time.

Today, counterfeiters try to manufacture vision. Worse, religious people try to do the same, cranking out vision statements and far-thinking ideas to run what should be spiritual organizations. Methinks this may be a problem to our tribe, the Southern Baptists. Congregations, agencies, institutions, long on vision, short on words from God.

Judgmental, huh? Maybe. More to the point, God is doing a new thing. In so many ways we resemble  an old wineskin trying hard to to hold the new wine. This may explain why younger pastors and leaders are taking other routes, trying hard not to get caught in the web of religious entanglements that so define denominational processes. So, where's the disconnect? Maybe God is telling us to miss a whole generation of our population. Perhaps he's guiding us to baptize fewer people every year. Get a life! You see, you can't make it in this Divine enterprise on conjured up corporate vision. Show me the money...where's the beef? Revelation supercharges God's people.

I'm a chronological geezer and wouldn't trade places with anybody. But, I'm praying for some young turks who love our denomination, will operate within its systems, remain theologically strong, and hang around long enough to help us re-shape our corporate experience.  This prayer is for genuine, Biblical vision, and not something cooked up in strategy session or couched in contemporary buzz words.

You see, without revelation, the people cast off restraint.

Poor Charlie Brown---

Charles Schulz was a creative genius. The man could make a point, especially through his hapless but lovable little dude, Charlie Brown, our blood brother and friend. In one newspaper strip poor Charlie Brown was getting another tongue lashing from Lucy, something like this---

LUCY: Charlie Brown, life is like taking a trip on an ocean liner. Some people set their deck chair on the back of the boat so they can see where they've been; others set up their deck chair at mid-ship so they can see where they are; and others at the front of the ship so they can see where they are going.

CB: I'm still trying to unfold my deck chair.

Sometimes we Southern Baptists seem to be like poor old Charlie Brown, tangled in a mess trying to unfold our deck chair. Now, hold on a minute. I'm a committed Southern Baptist, have been since nine-months before I was born, am a two time grad of Southeastern Seminary, and am not going anywhere. Our church supports the CP with 10% of our undesignated receipts while sponsoring a local church plant and doing additional church planting work in Central Asia. These are not boasts and are mentioned only to establish this bonafide---I am not a disenfranchised complainer who's running home with the ball because the other guys don't want to play the game my way.

Still, we fumble around a lot. You see, we have the goodies to make ministry happen. Certainly we have the money, a  cash cow called the Cooperative Program, the envy of missionalists all over the world. Yes, we operate in an advanced high-tech culture, train people in six of the best seminaries in the world, have layer after layer of strategists and ministry specialists on the payroll, maintain  infrastructure at state and associational levels, sponsor and attend on-the-edge conferences around the country, and are a spiritual home to some of the leading religious minds in the world. Far too often, however, we're fumbling with the deck chairs, struggling to discover how to use all this stuff and all of these assets to change the world.

What gives? Maybe it's the old leader/manager thing, the inevitable crash and burn result when the wrong things are done the right way, when vision is subsumed in administration, when cruise directors are insuring a grand journey but the vessel is going in the wrong direction. Over and over the futurists and critical thinkers in the new tribe whisper, then shout out loud, then eventually scream the pivotal word---that is, CHANGE. As many prophetic voices speak about the death of the church culture and the coming demise of evangelicalism church people are stuck in the predictable and celebrating incrementalism, when a new thing of seismic proportions is needed.

Some of our managers need a very basic course in elementary Koine Greek. A very simple word study is in order, learning to differentiate between neos and kainos, you know, the two predominate words for "new". OK, scholar, these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. In the main, however, neos describes new in time, while kainos refers to new in type. All too often we like to trot out our new stuff only to discover that it's really the same old same old delivered at a new time or in a new package. The new improved healthy cereal is in a new box, a different picture selling it. Inside it's the same old formula.

The old formula isn't necessarily bad. Buggy whips were made of great stuff and got the job done. But, few people are purchasing them today. They don't do a thing to make a sleek new car faster or more maneuverable. Gasoline additives do that. Buggy whip manufacturers didn't just keep producing them with a new redesigned handle or a noisemaker attached to the end. They moved to something totally different.

This is a function of leadership. Leaders lead. It involves the vision thing. Managers keep cranking out the old product according to specs, keeping the machinery running, often the picture of efficiency and professionalism.  Leaders see the new thing.

We're fumbling around with the deck chairs while the world is going you know where in a handbasket. God is doing a new thing. Fresh, vibrant, new. When are we going to elect and appoint real leaders who will take us there, and not just join the line of poor Charlie Browns?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17

Look it up!

Masters of hyperbole

Journalists and preachers enjoy a little hyperbole. Now, if I've told you once I've told you a million times that hyperbole is really a good verbal device. Some people see it as a nice term for exaggerating, which is an uptown word for stretching the truth. Of course, few people of good breeding want to use such harsh language when describing their expansive friends. So when media types take up the pen, or reverends go to the pulpit, you usually get a wink and a nod, a hall pass on the use of statistics and more than a few additions to Strunk and White's. These are the masters of hyperbole.

In reality hyperbole is a literary device used for emphasis, a means of making a point. From the Greek huperbole, it literally means to throw something too far, to carry an idea to excess, perhaps an overstatement. So, a person close with his money may be said to be as tight as Dick's hatband. Another less fortunate person may be poor as Job's turkey, to use a couple of Harriet's favorites from Wake Forest. To tell you I'm genuinely tired I could say, I could sleep for a year. You get the point.

Someone told me recently I used the word "honestly" fifteen times in one message. If he had been a preacher or journalist I would have accused him of exaggerating, but since he was a normal person I took him at his word. He wanted to know if the rest of that message was a sack of lies, you know, the parts not prefaced by "honestly", or "to tell the truth", or "frankly" , or any of the other swell hyperbolisms we arteests use in the language arts. Hyperbolisms? Sounds like something medical that happens in the Emergency Room.

Once in a verbal eruption I said, from the pulpit, "God's Word is unbelievable." A number of the people in the early service gasped at such heresy. Of course, the Bible is authoritative for me and I wasn't trying to cast doubts on it. No, I was trying to make the point that God's Word is incredible, amazing, stupendous, Divinely inspired---you know, unbelievable. Some people got it!

You can also identify these miscreants by their dependence on terms like "always", "never", "every", and other magnifiers that explode a point. A really observant, nit-picking congregant said, "You never finish a sermon on time." My response, "You always stop listening too soon." Hyperbolic duel, more words than Webster's Dictionary. At least. One dear friend said, "you went into double overtime today". Touche! Yes, and you slept longer than Rip Van Winkle. I mean, let's be sure people get the point, so cover everything with a heavy dose of hyperbole.

In the Bible? You got it. "You blind guides. You strain at a gnat but swallow a camel" (Matthew 23:24). Then there is the camel and the eye of the needle thing, that is, until someone revealed that the eye of the needle may actually be a shrink sized gate into the city. Whatever! I like the hyperbole element myself. And, all the more. The Israelites were promised to be as numerous as the sands on the seashore, as vast as the stars in the heavens. Certainly not lies at the mouth of God. But, making a point very distinct and clear. With the hyperbole you can't miss it! It works. Sin and disobedience are serious to God. Take that disobedient child down to the city gate and stone him to death. If your right hand offends you, by all means put the meat cleaver to it.

So, what's the deal here? Why this lecture about the use of language? This post is already longer than Jacob's ladder and bigger than Eglon the King of Moab. The point is simple. Today people don't get it. More times than I can count people leave worship services scratching their heads and trying to fathom the unfathomable realities of faith. The truth is the truth and we are called on to put it out there for people to hear and understand.  Maybe us master's of hyperbole should make the points a little clearer, you know, as clear as the nose on your face. Instead, at least ten thousand times ten thousand of us make the truth as clear as mud, and could use a hyperbolism or two to spell out the truth as a bird in the bush catches the early worm. Now, about mixed metaphors... 

God-free congregations

The Faith(less) Values section of the Charleston Post and Courier reported Sunday that Greg Epstein, humanist chaplain at Harvard University, and other evangelical humanists, will be planting God-free congregations around the United States in the immediate future. Hoping that such communities will help humanists grow in numbers and influence, Epstein's remarks were given as he promoted his new book, Good Without God, to be released later this year. Can't wait to get that one!

There's so much in the article I don't' know where to begin. Knowing the humanists have a school chaplain at Harvard isn't really shocking, them being the poster-child of PC elitism and all. These liberals cover all the bases and I'm sure they've provided spiritual guidance for other maligned minorities as well---left-handed people, bald individuals, or folks who otherwise live outside the mainstream. No, that tidbit didn't raise an eyebrow. You'd expect Harvard to be out there.

No doubt the news release was timed to coincide with the humanists national holiday, April Fools Day, just around the corner on my religious calendar. Of course, with more than a little tongue in cheek I'm wondering why the humanists need to dedicate so much time, energy, and financial resources planting humanist congregations and getting out the message. I mean, look around Mr. Epstein, our nation is already filled with non-faith communities for humanists---public schools and universities, government offices, public libraries, not to mention thousands of ultra-liberal churches with just enough faith orientation to qualify them for tax exemption and bear the name church or synagogue. 

Some humanists doubt whether people with such shared belief systems can sustain a community. Of a truth, if liberalism has taught us anything, it is that weak and flimsy theology cannot provide a sufficient doctrinal base for genuine fellowship and spiritual growth and the things necessary for cementing people to a cause. This is why we're witnessing the continued decline of the so-called main-line denominations. Their shifting foundations won't support much. So, the question may be, how can humanists expect to discover the heart and soul of genuine community when there are no shared beliefs around which the people may rally? How can such a community exist without worship, encounters with the supernatural God? Around good works alone? Might as well be the Kiwanis Club. Local garden clubs often have more cause than the do-gooders.

Rant on. Or, not. Two things. One, it gives me some comic relief to see the extent to which the Post and Courier people try to find faith and values news apart from what is really happening in the churches around us. Week after week they report the faith and values of organizations with little faith and thin values based on nothing more substantive than good intentions. Don't say it! No wonder so many news agencies are biting the dust. Talk about disconnect.

Two, what will the humanists do next to revive their faulty and generally rejected ideology? They bought their silly billboard on I-26, then couldn't scrape together the cash to keep it running very long. This kind of empty idealism has failed all over the world. What's next?  God-free congregations, indeed!

The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. Psalm 14:1

'Nuff said. God-free congregations! You got to be kidding me.

REVERSE

Today I'm starting a new series of messages, guiding us toward Easter, under the overall heading REVERSE. Lately God has been reminding me that He turns everything around, and I am really the object of his exquisite grace. No, this is not an egotistical turn on the Purpose Driven thing, a white flag to our self-absorbed culture, or a salve for my totally depraved nature. Truly, this entire line of thought is motivated by a renewed awareness of His grace and the re-discovery of where each of us fits in his plan.

Of course, there is a collective dimension in living out our faith. Mission occurs in the multi-gifted community of believers that we call church. We are drawn together in a unique fellowship of living this un-common Christian life together. Ours is a bond that is difficult to describe, the family of God. Our citizenship is in heaven. Life is good, the future better.

Still, it wasn't always so. Once we we far off, aliens to God, citizens of this world. The life, death, resurrection and glory of Christ turns it all around. Then and now meet in the power of his atoning death, changing not only the dynamics of life in the here and now, but the prospects for the future.

Pop culture has to some degree adopted the "it's not about you" philosophy. But, God turns that around. The cross, the empty tomb, the bread and the cup say it is about you.

Rejoice evermore!