...And Bring Your Bible

One of my heroes in Christian teaching is John Ortberg, pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California. I admire him and his teaching so much that once Brad Gartman sent me a Valentine card "from John" and pasted it on my office door. I just went back and read that last sentence, and realized I probably shouldn't put things like that in print on the internet. Oh well.

I attended a conference where John Ortberg was teaching about teaching. He remarked that all great Christian teaching, in addition to conveying biblical truth, has the side effect of drawing people into the the Bible to read it and study it themselves. By that definition, most Christian teaching is not great. I wonder how many sermons spark an appetite to go and read the Bible? How many people walk out of church believing more strongly that the Bible is dull, irrelevant, unhelpful or inaccessible? How often do people listen to a "trained professional" (pardon my gag reflex) and walk away thinking, "wow, I never could have figured that out on my own"? Perhaps worst of all, how many times do people not connect the authority of the Bible to the point of the message? If John Ortberg is right--and I think he is--all those results are the wrong ones.

Biblical literacy, both in and out of the church, is at an all-time low in America. The most quoted "Bible verse" in America is, "God helps those who help themselves." The Barna research organization found that 82% of Americans believe this quote from Thomas Jefferson is actually a direct quote from the Bible, even though it directly contradicts the biblical view. The King James Version of the Bible (translated into English in the year 1611) is still the most widely used version of the Bible in our country, even though few can understand the archaic language. Added to this is a curious practice of the contemporary church: in an effort, I suppose, not to stigmatize guests who don't have a Bible, it has become normal for there to be very few Bibles brought to church services or meetings. Instead, texts are printed in a program and/or projected on video screens.

I want to encourage Springs of all ages to start bringing a Bible to church on Sunday as a matter of habit. We will still project texts on the screens for those who don't have a Bible and as a visual aid for all of us--nothing wrong with that. But actually having a Bible in-hand has some distinct benefits. First, it communicates something to all of us collectively; it's a visual statement of the Bible's value at our church. Second, it's a habit-builder. Just opening it and reading it at church is a starting place for opening it and reading it elsewhere, like at home. Third, it will actually help to have the text in front of you throughout the message.

Some people have the Bible on their PDAs or their smart phones--Great! In fact I recommend it. I probably read the Bible online more often than I do on paper these days. Honestly, it's easier for me to print the texts in my message notes than to have a Bible on the platform, but I'll be reading from a Bible on Sunday.

I'll be using the TNIV translation most of the time (Today's New International Version). You're certainly not required to use this one, but if you want to follow along word-for-word with me, that's what I'll be reading. It's available at most bookstores (Mardel has it, but Lifeway does not carry it). The NIV translation is very close to this one and more prevalent. We'll pick up the subject of translations another time, but feel free to shoot any questions my way if you have them.

I'm looking forward to jumping into the Bible with you on Sunday...and if I do my job, throughout the week!

Finding Your Niche

I had a great conversation yesterday with Kris McLendon, our awesome children's ministry director. She attended a children's ministry workshop in Dallas last week, and I wanted to hear all about it. While I hoped the workshop would be helpful and informative, I was just impressed that Kris had taken the initiative to sign up for it and attend. When a person is that proactive about something, you know they're passionate about it. I was struck by that passion, listening to Kris talk about what she learned, the people she met, the encouragements and the challenges she sees in our ministry to kids and families.

Each of us is in one of two camps right now. Neither camp is bad, and both have great people in them. One camp includes Kris; people who are really passionate about what they're doing and identify with it as a calling. The other camp is populated with people who are helping to establish the church and desire to minister to people, but they don't necessarily identify personally with what they're doing. Their motives are right, they're doing a great job, and they're very much needed, especially now when the church is in its infancy. But my prayer is that everyone will find their way to the camp where Kris now finds herself. When you identify with what you're doing as a calling, and are passionate and excited about it, it's a whole lot more fun and, frankly, you're much more effective. I believe God wants both of those things for us: excitement and effectiveness. So how do you get there? Here are some of the major ingredients:

• Kingdom Vision. It's not all about finding your niche. Before that, it's what you think life is all about. If you catch a vision for what God is wanting to do in your community, you can clean fish in that effort and be more fulfilled than most people. Conversely, if it's still all about you, nothing you do in the Kingdom will be fulfilling. You may already be in the right place, doing the right thing, but a change God works in your heart will be the spark that changes everything.
• The Obvious. Whatever your role is in the kingdom, it's already there, right in front of you. You've probably been passionate about it for a long time. Maybe you think there's no place for it in the kingdom (my wife, for instance, was an actress for years before she knew there was any ministry value in it).
• Trial and Error. Sometimes you just have to try things out until you find the right fit. Nothing wrong with that. So throw some stuff on the wall and see what sticks!
• Confirmation. Don't miss this one. This is the church's job. Your Christian community plays an important role in your calling. They will confirm or deny it, and unless there is some moral reason not to, you better listen to them. Confirmation from the church is our protection against embarrassing ourselves (think American Idol tryouts--there's nothing more pitiful than someone running out there to do something when people around them can plainly see they're about to humiliate themselves; I often wonder, where are their friends and family?).

A couple of pitfalls to avoid:

• It's not all about Sunday morning. For just as many people, it may be about an aspect of neighborhood life, serving people in need, praying, providing hospitality--making the lives of others better in any number of ways. Churches often make it seem like joining a ministry team in the church's infrastructure is the only way to really serve God. The early church hardly even had any infrastructure--certainly had no committees--and they seemed to get along just fine in the 'impacting the world' category. Your niche might be with kids, like Kris's, or teaching and leadership, like mine. And it might be something completely different, which is more than okay.
• Don't go it alone. Nobody serves in the kingdom alone. Never have, never will, never should. Serve in your Christian community. Serve in and with your neighborhood group. Serve at your table. Serve your family and your friends, and serve with your family and friends. None of our gifts or callings are that great by themselves, but there is amazing Kingdom synergy when our various gifts are employed together. When Paul said, "You are the body of Christ," he meant all of us together, not any one of us individually.

"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." 1 Peter 4:10

If you've found your calling, leave a comment and tell us about it--it might help someone else in their discovery process. If you're still looking, ask a question and see what come back.

First Cancellation

This weekend, I did something I hadn't done since we started the Springs: I cancelled our table gathering. It was a big week too. We had new folks coming for the first time. Our neighbors were planning to be there. We were actually concerned about there being too many people in the house at one time, and were talking all week about how we were going to start new groups. Then Elizabeth got strep throat, and our house became off-limits to anyone who didn't want an infectious disease. The other couple in our group who have hosted before weren't available either, and in the end I decided to cancel it. Don't know if I made the right decision, but here are some of the thoughts that have run through my head.

First, I realized how desperately I want my friends and neighbors to experience real community. That hasn't always been the case, and the feelings I had marked real change in my life. I got really uptight about people missing the opportunity that the gathering at our house represented. Experiencing real community has elevated its value in my life without me realizing it.

Also, it became clear that our table is still a meeting. That's not all bad, and I think our table will always be partly a meeting, but I know it can be--and is becoming--more than that. One day I won't be able to cancel it. One day the table will be able to move across the street or into the yard on a moment's notice. One day the interaction between members of the group will be daily instead of weekly, and the weekly meeting will be only a small expression of much deeper and more important connections between people. There is already evidence of that deepening. Most of us now see each other or talk by phone or email multiple times each week. We have real relationships, we're not just a group of people who meet once a week or so. We do favors and ask favors of each other. Talk at the table now spontaneously goes to things that are important to us, not just small talk, which is possible because we're at least somewhat aware of each other's lives. We're also aware of each other's quirks...and no one is bailing out on anybody.

Third, I became keenly aware of the importance of proximity and connection to biblical community. I may have been most reluctant to try a last-minute reschedule because I didn't want to ask my neighbors to drive out of the neighborhood for their first table experience. From their perspective, it would be a quantum leap to drive to a stranger's house in another neighborhood instead of walking across the street to our house. One is a meeting, the other is dinner with friends. It's amazing how much difference that makes.

Hunks vs. Punks

Is there any way for BOTH teams in the Super Bowl to lose? Just asking, 'cause I can't stand either one of these teams and I can't find any reason to cheer for either of them. Maybe it's for the best. Since I don't really care about the game, I'll spend more time focusing on people. We'll be spending the afternoon with our neighbors, and the festivities will be highlighted by the Hunks vs. Punks football game. The Hunks are us dads and other old men, and the Punks are the kids, ranging from grade school through high school. Both the Hunks and the Punks are already talking smack, so it should be a real throwdown. After all, this is for a whole year's worth of bragging rights on our block.

Super Bowl Sunday is a great opportunity for neighborhood relationships. There are only a few days a year that are national excuses for neighborhood parties, and this is one of them. Take advantage of it and get together with your neighbors! The game is almost irrelevant. Good food, fun and games, and the commercials are just as much fun.

Important relationships always start somewhere, like "we met at a Super Bowl party several years ago." A couple in our table group were talking just last night about their desire to help some friends who are going through a difficult time. They have that opportunity because they've invested in the relationship for several years, and it probably started with some informal gathering where they met. It doesn't happen overnight (so don't rush it), but it does happen IF you decide to engage.

The only problem is that we Hunks keep getting older, and the Punks keep getting bigger and stronger...

God-wrestling

My oldest son's name is Jacob, which means in Hebrew, "he grasps the heel." Jacob was the son of Isaac in the Old Testament, the brother of Esau, who wrestled with God in Genesis 32, at which point God changed his name to Israel, which means "he struggles with God." It's interesting to me that Israel's namesake is famous for having it out with God in an all-night wrestling match. The Bible is full of these kinds of stories, of people presumably loved and favored by God who fight with him: Job is a notable example; many of David's psalms are poetic wrestling matches; Jeremiah decides to quit on God at one point, and finds himself caught between his anger at God and the drive he feels within him to do God's will; not to mention the "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" question from Jesus himself (which, by the way, is Jesus quoting from Psalm 22).

Even though this is common in the Bible, I don't think many people today feel that it is appropriate to fight with God. As in other dysfunctional relationships, our tendency is to stuff it. We're angry at our circumstances, we perceive that God is late to the rescue, we're convinced that God blew it here or there. Yet our Sunday worship is typically rosy...and typically dishonest. Or we avoid God altogether. Somehow we've come to believe that this is how God prefers to be honored, or perhaps we're just too afraid of him to say what we really think.

I'm convinced that one of the best things some of us could do is have a big fight with God. I feel quite sure God can take it. One of my favorite God fights on film is from Forrest Gump, in which Captain Dan climbs the mast of his boat during a storm and yells at God through the wind and rain. Like Captain Dan, we somehow find on the other side of the fight that God isn't as against us as we thought, and we find God's benevolence after--perhaps only after--we've gotten a few things off our chest.

Passive-aggressive relationships with God don't work. Shake your fist in the air and get it over with. Fights with God tend to be win-win.

God's Benevolence, Poverty and Wealth

That's me on the right, in Romania in December 1992. Some friends and I went there shortly after it was opened to the West. We were partnering with some local missionaries and Romanian believers, performing concerts in places they were trying to start new churches. I knew it would be cold, so I went prepared and, being a Texan, most of my warm clothing was recreational: ski clothing. In the photo I'm wearing a black ski jacket with bright blue and hot pink accents--give me a break, it was in style then! What I didn't know was that Romania, particularly in the winter, is a world of gray. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I felt like I was walking through a black-and-white movie and I was the only thing in color. By Romanian standards, I might as well have been wearing a suit that lit up like Robert Redford's in The Electric Horseman. And my clothes were just the beginning. I drank sodas as a matter of habit--several each day--and realized after about a week that the Romanians were talking about it; a soda was a luxury to them, something they saved up for. I watched them line up when a store actually had toilet paper or apples, and eat parts of pigs that we throw away. They left every faucet on with buckets beneath them to catch water during the unpredictable 15 minutes a day that water would actually come out. It wasn't unusual for them to travel via medieval horse-drawn carts, or go on foot for long distances. Nothing came easy for them. There was very little infrastructure, few supply lines. If you needed something, you did your best to get it, but there was no guarantee that your best was good enough. I noticed they prayed a lot, and about everything. They lived in a place where supernatural intervention was necessary for survival. Each night of the tour, we would gather and share stories of what we called "God sightings," and not one night passed without several stories of how things that don't just "work out" in Romania worked out in answer to prayer.

My first inclination was to feel sorry for them, but that was difficult because they didn't feel sorry for themselves. They were thankful. They were thankful for everything they got; they were thankful for us; they were thankful when they had food for their families and a roof over their heads, and when the military police left them alone. They were thankful for a God who loved them, for a savior who died for them and rose again and who walked with them through their days. They lived in a third-world country, in the midst of political turmoil, with few opportunities and an oppressive government, and they were certain of God's benevolence.

It's a paradox I've encountered many times: people who have less, more convinced of God's benevolence than people who have more. This, of course, is a generality. It's not that there is anything noble about being poor or anything inherently evil about being rich. But my Romanian friends were able to draw such a direct line between God and provision. Whatever they had was theirs only because God had intervened to provide for them. I had lost that, slowly, over time, if I ever had it at all. I lived in a world where resources and infrastructure virtually ensured that I never did without, and the connection between those things and God's provision was subtly erased. My best was always good enough to get what I needed and most of what I wanted. Desire + Effort = Reward in my world, but it was an equation propped up by a thousand invisible supports, and God played no part in it. Suddenly my math was breaking down; in Romania, God = Reward, sometimes with my effort and sometimes without it. And sometimes God = Reward due to someone else's effort which, as it turned out, made God even more endearing.

We drove into Romania with jerry cans on the back of our van, and didn't have enough gas to get home. The government was rationing gas and would not allow us to fill up, so a Romanian Christian spent an entire day going through the gas line, filling up his little car, siphoning it from his tank to ours, then repeating the process. He arrived with our van on our last night, all tanks full, sick to his stomach from ingesting gas from the multiple siphoning sessions, but smiling. And God was sighted once again, amid tears and hugs and thoughts of how you can never repay someone for something like that.

It's a sad irony that God's material blessing tends to blind us to His benevolence. In the blinded state, we tell ourselves that we would feel better about God if we had more: more money, more ease, more security, more respect from our peers. For me, the opposite turned out to be true: only when I was more desperate for God's help did I recognize His goodness in my life.

The Can Opener

Jerome Bettis is the Bus. Karl Malone is the Mailman. Frank Thomas is the Big Hurt. And I think I may have found my nickname this weekend: the Can Opener.

I suppose you could misinterpret that. It sounds like some kind of macho thing, like a guy who's had too many Bud Lights and is threatening to "open up a can" on some unsuspecting guy in a gravel parking lot. That would not be me. But yesterday I talked about our image of God at church, and it became obvious that I opened up a big can of worms. I can't say what I intended to do exactly, but that's what happened. It was a good thing. Today I'm thinking that one of the best things I could do on Sunday is open up cans.

If you weren't there, let me catch you up. A Baylor University/Gallup poll last year studied people's perceptions of God, and found that Americans have four predominate views, determined by God's relative levels of anger and engagement in the world; they are:

• Distant - God is uninvolved and unfeeling about the world
• Critical - God is angry, but doesn't tend to be involved in the world or people's lives
• Authoritarian - God is actively involved, and is ready to open up a can on someone
• Benevolent - God is involved and is not angry

Biblically, God is both benevolent and at least somewhat authoritarian (comments?). But Christians, as it turns out, are all over the map in how they view God, and it really affects people's ability to see God as loving (note that love only characterizes the Benevolent God). We had a lively discussion at our table last night about how we view God--functionally, not philosophically. Our kids' views on God's nature were even surprising to us. There was a lot of discussion about struggles to overcome views of God that are often deeply ingrained and become major obstacles to loving or trusting God.

The biggest can of worms, it seems to me, is this: many of us have a nagging question somewhere in the back of our minds. It goes something like this: "I think God loves me, I want to believe that God loves me, but ___________." Different things go in that blank, but they have a similar ring. "...but wouldn't things go better in my life, or wouldn't they have gone better in the past, if God really cared?"

So let's just leave this can open for a while. What about you? What is your functional view of God, and how does it affect your relationship with him? Why do you think you view God the way you do? What goes in the blank for you?

PS: the other discovery from yesterday was that the benefit of having been at our church service was dramatically reduced if you didn't talk about it or have anyone to talk about it with after the service was over. The table made the service; the service without the table was...fine, but not necessarily life-changing. I can't say it too often or too emphatically--community is where life change happens. Don't miss it!

Take in some Intake

We have debuted a new site this week, dedicated to providing "lead-in discussions" for our Sunday services; in other words, you can prepare with us, study with us, and comment on the topic leading up to our next Sunday service. It will definitely make the message more meaningful to you, but it's more than that. We are a community pursuing God together, not a community waiting for a "shot in the arm" from a pastor on Sunday. It will provide a platform for family discussion, table group discussion, Sunday discussion, and personal one-on-one time with God.

Like many things at the Springs, there is a vision for the future and there is current reality. Most of what we're doing is in its infancy, and Intake is certainly one of those things. We envision resourcing for daily spiritual development of families, groups, and individuals. It will take time and additional resources to grow this area of our ministry, but it will come. And since you know this is our beta version of Intake, be sure to let us know what you think: what works, what doesn't, what would be helpful to you that we haven't included.

Please note that our goal is not merely to develop an online community. Intake is meant to be a tool that enhances neighborhood life and community life at the Springs. High tech should meet high touch: online resourcing should lead to great face-to-face conversations between friends and family members; it should also be accompanied by (and even promote) serving, helping, challenging...loving God and loving your neighbor.

The Intake web address is listed among my links in the right hand column, so check it out!

Fundamentals

I'm a big football fan. I love to watch a well-coached football team functioning like a precision machine on the field: an offense that picks a defense apart, or a defense that shuts down the other team's offense. I've been a fan since I was a kid, and the game has certainly evolved over the years, especially on offense: from the run-oriented offenses like the wishbone and power I formations to the run-and-shoot, west coast and spread offenses of today. But some things never change, and they're summed up in a coach's favorite word: FUNDAMENTALS. It doesn't matter how many fancy plays you have if you can't block, and all the speed in the world won't compensate for not being able to hold on to the football. Whenever things go wrong in football, one of the first things you hear coaches say is, "we're going back to the fundamentals." I love those classic coach speeches where the coach goes back to the very beginning: "this, gentlemen, is a football." It seems almost comical, but there is an important lesson in it. You can build on fundamentals, but you can never move on without them.

This truth is universal. There are fundamentals in every part of life, and they are ignored at our own peril. I think it's especially true in spiritual life, and spiritual fundamentals may be the most ignored of all. They're buried under hundreds--even thousands--of years of secondary stuff, piled on by generation after generation, each more removed from the fundamentals than the last. Eventually the secondary stuff is equated with fundamentals, and the foundational layer beneath them is lost. Jesus spoke into this inevitable drift away from the core when he established the Great Commandment. Love God and love your neighbor. Whenever spiritual life looks like a labyrinth, go back to this. Whenever you feel like you have to have a seminary degree to understand Christianity or 25 hours in a day to live life the right way, go back to this. Whatever else you're doing with your life has to be based on this to matter. You can build on it, but you can never move on without it.

Q: What one activity defines Christian living in our culture more than any other?
A: Attendance at church services.

Can you hear me screaming? Why not loving God and loving our neighbor? What is that you say? Not enough time? We have 200 plays in the playbook and no time left to work on the fundamentals.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a football: it's called the Great Commandment. We're going to live with this football for the next 60 days, or until we get it right. No flash, no glitz. No spotlights, no video, no buildings, no committees, no institution. Just love God and love your neighbor, which is actually harder than attending a lot of meetings but a lot more meaningful and fulfilling. We're going to eat, sleep, drink, and breathe the Great Commandment. We're going to learn to walk before we run. Fundamentals, people. FUNDAMENTALS!

2008 Begins

I went to three different New Year's parties last night. I joked last night about "party hopping," which I didn't even do when I was younger and thought I was cool. I can't remember how long it's been since we were invited to more than one party on the same night--any night, not just December 31. Two of the parties were on our block, and the third was not far from our neighborhood. Today, as we're preparing for our table group to come over for lunch and football games on TV, I've been reflecting on how far we've come since last March. I easily had half a dozen different conversations with friends and neighbors about the church and/or their spiritual lives last night. I walked into a neighbor's house without knocking for the first time, a small but significant milestone in neighborhood life. At midnight, I was hugging neighbors and telling them Happy New Year; some of our neighbors even told us they loved us, which meant a great deal to me. I can't say that our neighborhood or community has undergone spiritual transformation this year, but I recognize it happening in my own life, and I see the seeds of greater movement in the lives of friends around me. I had a seminary professor who was fond of telling us that Christianity was "for plow horses, not race horses." He was in his eighties when he said it, and he knew what he was talking about. I don't know how long it will take, but after 10 months of life-building and church-building, spiritual life is beginning to percolate. I look forward to what we'll see in 2008.

On a darker note, 2008 is not off to a good start in Kenya. I'm receiving daily updates from Starfish Kenya and the House of Hope orphanage that we help support there. Political unrest has led to violence and there is a lot of fear. Ironically, people in the community around House of Hope are now seeking refuge inside the security wall Starfish Kenya has been able to build around the orphanage. Once these children were outcasts in Kenya, and today their home is a refuge for Kenyans. God moves in mysterious ways. Take a moment today to pray for Margaret and the children at House of Hope, and for the violence and volatility in their country today. www.starfishkenya.com