Disruptive Grace

If You Challenge Your Church's Code, You Will Lose

2011-09-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

When I went to the conference in Florida on New Church Development, one resource I came back with was called "Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Get to Great," by Kevin Ford. I highly recommend you get it and read it, but if you can't or don't have the time to read, here's a summary of the pieces that have been helpful to me:

Kevin Ford and his company, TAG Consulting, have created a Transforming Church Index to measure the health of a church. The index has 5 key indicators:
1.) How church members relate to one another. Unhealthy churches are a collection of people acting individually, while healthy churches relate as a community. We call this consumerism vs. community.

2.) The church's "genetic code." Unhealthy churches lack a clear a identity, while healthy churches have a clear sense of their DNA and take steps to align their ministries and culture with their code. We refer to this as incongruence vs. code.

3.) The church's leadership. Unhealthy churches tend to be overly autocratic or bureaucratic, while healthy churches view leadership as a shared function and as a ministry. The term we use for this is autocracy vs. shared leadership.

4.) How the church relates to the local community. Unhealthy churches disengage from the world around them, while healthy churches are focused on their mission and have an outward orientation that starts with their own locale. We call this cloister vs missional.

5.) How church members think about the future. Unhealthy churches resist change and fear or deny the future, while healthy churches embrace change, even when it is painful. Our term for this is inertia vs. reinvention.

Ford makes the point that the unhealthy side of each of these 5 indicators correlates directly to a dysfunction in modern Western culture. American culture "is all too often characterized as a collection of individuals disconnected from one another, drifting without an overarching story or unifying values, expecting someone else to solve our problems, largely self-serving, and resistant to change. The parallels between these symptoms and the problem sides of unhealthy churches were striking to ignore. The church desires to change the surrounding culture. The truth, however, is that the church has been infected by the very culture it seeks to transform" (33).

However, as the title of this post suggests, the most important issue I think we have before us is one of code (although we've talked about all five in some capacity).

The following are the highlights of what Ford says in his chapter on "code."

What is a church's "code"? It is tricky to define, often unnamed. It is the essence or soul of a church. It can't be nailed down. It shapes the face of how a church displays itself to the world. It shapes a church's tradition, values, and mission. It is usually not rational, but more emotional. Most often, it reveals itself indirectly and symbolically, through the myths, heroes, and stories that give a church its texture and flavor. Code, in fact, is most easily understood when things are out of alignment, when something isn't right. When code functions, it is almost invisible, like the air we breathe.

A church incongruent with its code is the single greatest cause of conflict that Ford sees in his consulting firm. It creates more damage than clashes over personal differences, worship styles, or even theology. Churches fail to change because they don't know who they are. Or they ddeny who they are and try to live in a way that is inconsistent with their code.

Good leaders are good detectives. A church discovers its code in much the same fashion as a team of crime-scene investigators breaks a case. Start with the obvious clues, and often through intuitive leaps, you can work yourself into deeper levels of defining motive.

The code is the core of identity, at the center of a church's life.
The next four inner levels - values, vision, mission and strategy - represent conscious intentions to define and unleash code through action.
The outermost levels - myths, rituals, heroes, decor, and architecture, are symbolic expressions of code residing and expressed mostly beyond conscious awareness.

At any level the possibility exists for corruption of the code. These are the places where dysfunctions will take up residence.

There are some straightforward ways of asking questions of a church related to code, like:
1.) Do you feel the church has a clear statement of faith?
2.) Does the church have a clearly defined vision of the future?
3.) Has the church clearly differentiated itself from other churches?

These questions, however, are geared more at the left brain - the conscious perceptions of church members. They are helpful in identifying symptoms of disease or signs of health; varying responses point to deeper issues. But never tell us what the code is.

The best way to crack the mode of the church is to tap into the right brain, to ask a set of questions that explore the code's expression in the most outward and symbolic manifestations. So questions like this:
1.) What is your most meaningful memory of this church?
2.) What first attracted you to Emmanuel?
3.) How is this church different or the same from the one you went to as a child?
4.) What is most noticeably different about your life since you began coming to this church?
5.) What is the best decision this church ever made?

Answers will occur like:
1.) This church doesn't waste money on buildings.
2.) This is the first place where I felt I could really be myself.
3.) I feel loved here.
4.) They care more about people than programs.
5. The leaders don't ask us to do anything they aren't doing themselves.
6. No one cares who gets the credit here; we are all in this together.
7. Everyone is treated equally here, whether you are a bank president or a janitor.
8. It's the first time I thought I could make a difference in the lives of others.
9. The church believes I should be involved in ministry. It's not just the pastor's job.
10. Most churches are interested in following rules and putting on a smile. This church let's me be real.

These are the fodder that create descriptive and unique core values, such as "meeting God in unexpected ways," "innovative excellence," and "chasing truth together" and "serving on the edge." Those core values give their people a greater sense of the personality and style of the church.

Core values are not aspired values (what we want to be in the future). Core values are not core beliefs (doctrines). Core values are positive and present within the current environment. They are enduring. There should be no more than five.

Do you see any themes generally expressed across a majority of members? If so, you've got your core values.

Mission
The mission (purpose) of a church flows form its values. It is the church's collective reason for existing within a specific context. A mission serves as a set of guardrails to keep the church focused and on course. It is like the bank that defines the course of a river. But mission is not quite as enduring as core values. Mission is defined by context. Why does your church exist at this time in history and at this location? An effective mission statement should be congruent with the church's code and core values. A good mission statement tells a church what it does and what it doesn't do. Normally it hsould be short and concise, capturing the church's reason for existence, an intended outcome, and a primary beneficiary.

For example, the mission of Southwest Church in Springboro, Ohio is "sharing Jesus with unchurched people in southwest Ohio and leading them to be wholehearted, devoted followers of Christ."
Their purpose is clear: to reach out. Their intended outcome is clear: so the unchurched become passionate followers of Christ. And their primary beneficiary is clear: unchurched people in southwest Ohio. A clear mission does not mean your church won't love and serve people outside the scope of the statement, but it allows leaders to make tough priority decisions.

When ministry flows from a church's code, the church is healthy. It experiences growth, both in its inner life and in its outward service to the world.

Check-up:
1.) Do members of your church overreact to decisions?
2.) Have you tried new things that should have been successful but ended up failing?
3.) Has the leadership of your church made decisions they later came to regret?
4.) Is your church out of sync with its neighborhood and community?
5.) Do people give lip service to certain values without any real commitment?

Travel tips:
1.) You must know your church's code before you can introduce successful change.
2.) Your church's code will never change.
3.) Your church's code is neither good nor bad. it just is.
4.) if you challenge the code, you will lose.
5.) The best way to discover code is through your church's symbols (stories, activities, rituals, and programs that generate enthusiasm, as well as facilities and decor that seem to attract people.
6.) Just as you help children discover and leverage their unique talents and passions, your church's code becomes a launching pad for transformation.

CruciFAIL: The Good News For Those Who Are Afraid to Fail

2011-08-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

Those who know me best know that one of my greatest fears has always been a fear of failure. This leads to perfectionism (needing to get it right the first time), which then leads to procrastination (why not blame imperfection on lack of proper time to get it right?) and an insecure pride (“I’m really better than everyone, they just don't know it yet"), which is at once terrified of exposure and yet yearns for a chance to show its stuff.

I brought this baggage with me into the conference. I imagine it will follow me back to Nashville. However, my new friend and coach during this conference, Dan Steigerwald, helped to make the theology of the cross a very concrete reality in my situation. He helped me understand that my fear of failure is just one aspect of the suffering that Christ took on for us and for our salvation. Fear of failure troubled his mind in Gethsemane, and it is what he carried in his cross. It is one of the many weapons of severe evil that kills him. And most importantly, it is this fear of failure that we see in the scars on his resurrected body, which he shows to his disciples when they are afraid, to remind them of who he is.

Jesus does not promise that we will no longer experience this suffering, and so we should expect to be plagued with a fear of failure. Failure, in some sense, is guaranteed. To take up the cross is to truly live into a life of failure. This is a necessary component of discipleship. We are not promised a rosy life that escapes from pain, but one that ventures into pain, to die and rise again with the scars to show for it. Our imitation of Christ will leave us looking like him. He is alive, and yet he bears our wounds. We must bear them too.
But there is a promise made: because Christ has not failed, you cannot fail either. This is the essence of the good news proclaimed in Romans 8:38-39:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What Paul lays before us is the ultimate safety net: the love of God. Though your life might be a high wire act, you will fall, but you will not be destroyed, because God has secured your life. This is the present reality set before us. God has constructed the safety net. The love of God is indestructible – it has overcome the power of death. It simply becomes a matter of trusting this indestructible safety net – one that tells us that while we will suffer in this life, and will finally close our eyes in death, we will wake up to new life here and now, until it's all we know.

At root, the fear of failure is the fear of being separated from God for all eternity. It does not trust that God has a safety net for us. It does not trust that God will catch us when we fall. And so we choose the save ourselves. Some build their own safety nets instead. Some spend much time practicing so that falling itself becomes seemingly impossible. But those of us who are afraid understand that falling is all too possible in spite of all our training, and that our safety nets are not perfectly constructed. And so we do not dare to attempt the climb. We stay on the ground to protect ourselves, and we are at once inspired and confused by those who still dare. We hate them for their reckless abandon, because they leave us behind to wallow in our monotony. We secretly hope they will fall, only to prove us right. A life that does not have faith and trust is a boring life – one that grieves God because it ultimately fails to live into the freedom that Christ has given us. It is shackled and weighed down. It is heavy, and self-sabotaging. It knows that something is wrong, and yet it blames itself and shames itself for lack of clarity. It is a life that can be filled with praise for its potential, and yet this praise only brings a painful reminder of its failure, because the potential is rarely ever actualized. When it is actualized, the success is received cynically, as a once-off, as luck, as good but not really that great, and all with a shrug. But we put on a smile so as not to offend those who love on us.

There is only one hope for this person. It is not to teach them to believe in themselves, for they already view themselves as a void, as without hope. But if they will believe in the God of love, the God who had done everything to secure their life so that they cannot ultimately fail, then they will be set free from fear. Just as a climber is set free to climb by trusting the quality of her harness, so the Christian is set free in trusting God. Really, what is the worst that can happen, when the worst has been dealt with?

But this is a promise for the future, and this is why it is so difficult to trust in the present. The safety net is not easily seen – the best we have as evidence are those who choose to live into the freedom and the joy they exhibit. Rather than hating these true and faith-filled people, we decide to imitate them as they imitate Christ. They have made their peace with God, and so they have learned to trust.

If God has conquered all enemies to secure your life, what do you have left to lose?

There’s a series of lectures online called TEDTalks, which brings in innovative people from the world of technology, entertainment and design, to share what they’re working on. These are entrepreneurs, people who come up with risky ideas and then try them out. Jane McGonigal spoke about how people who play videogames can be so resilient in the midst of failure. Videogame players fail more than half of the levels that they try before they beat the level, or “level up.” We certainly don't experience that same resilience in real life in the midst of failure. Now the point of games is not to fail, and gamers don't enjoy failure. But it also doesn't deter them from trying again. In fact, everytime they fail, they learn something new about the level that they’re playing. “I guess I won’t go through that door next time,” after getting eaten by a gargoyle. “Okay, I guess I can’t beat all those poisonous frogs with my fire-sword, so I’ll have to go some other way, or gain some more experience points or a stronger weapon.” I love videogames, because when I play them, I’m not afraid to fail. I’m in a virtual world in which I’m allowed to fail because even though I may die in the game, I get to come back and try again. I don’t really die. And nobody else dies because of what I do. There are no real consequences for my actions.

But there comes a point when the video game must be turned off, and we return to real life – a life where we may fail only 10% of what we do in a given day, and yet how heavily that 10% can weigh on us. We know that our virtual life had no real consequences. Our gaming time is, at best, entertainment, at worst a distraction. And it’s no wonder that videogame addicts tend to let their bodies go to waste. All their risk is virtual, it is not real, because they do not trust that life will be as good to them as their video game is. They don’t think they’ll get another shot. They may defeat the boss at the end of the level, but they cannot seem to defeat the bully at school. They may get the highest score, but they cannot seem to win friends who would care about them or their score. They can beat the game, and yet life itself seems rigged for failure.

Now this may all seem like a rather long-winded way of saying “Those who never fail never try,” and some other wisdom you’d find on bumper stickers. But this is for those who have a particular problem: they will not dare to trust themselves. This is as it should be. But the good news is that your life in Christ must take on the form of failure, and this failure is only temporary. You cannot ultimately fail. You cannot ultimately die. Your life belongs to God, and He is excited to watch you fail, get up, and try again. He wants you to succeed.

To succeed at all costs? Absolutely not. There are rules for the game, and the game is no longer fun when there are cheaters and sore losers and cocky winners. The best games are ones that serve to create community, to share in each other’s joys and successes, as well as disappointments and losses. Church is the community of Jesus Christ, and it is also called into a life of mutual risk and enjoyment. It is only through relationships of trust and healing that those who fear to fail are unleashed by God to fail like Jesus in order to succeed like Jesus for the sake of God’s redemptive purposes.

There is nothing that can separate you from God. You can fail because God has not.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever - Psalm 73:26

I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:32

So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!”- Acts 5:38-39

Self-Learnings from Uncontained 2011

2011-08-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

PCUSA National New Church Development Conference: UnContained 2011

So the conference is wrapping up, and I’m ready to unload some thoughts after letting them stir all week. I’d like to share what’s been important to my own life, although there was quite a lot of wisdom offered.

The first thing I’d like to say is a huge thanks to Linda Badger Becker, our interim executive presbyter, who gave me a huge push to come to this conference. She recognized the fact that God has placed me in a church that is still an NCD, even though it has been chartered and has its own building and land. What I’ve recognized now is that New Church Development is an inherently entrepreneurial/risky place, but if we’re honest, any church should be ready and willing to go into this place because we follow an inherently risky God.

I admit that being in this conference, so surrounded by risk, made me very uncomfortable. While I ascribe to much of the same missional paradigms and patterns for what the church should be, I realized that many of the pastors, elders, and laypeople at this church were actually putting hands and feet on these paradigms. That was intimidating to be around, and I felt small and rather insignificant. What risks had I really taken? How had I shown a passion to give the people in my church and in my community a new vision for faith, hope and love in Jesus?

Thankfully, God didn’t allow this self-berating to last the entire conference. I had signed up for the Missional Leadership Assessment track with Craig Williams (PCUSA and Dan and Ann Steigerwald (from Christian Associates International), and I’m very glad I did.

The first component of this track was to do an Meyers-Briggs test, and a Strengthsfinder 2.0 test as well. Most folks will be familiar with Meyers-Briggs (I came out as Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving). Strengthsfinder is a test put together by Tom Rath and Gallup to help ascertain what our strengths are. Out of a certain number of natural talents, we have honed these talents as our strengths. Gallup has identified about 34 possibilities. The test helps to narrow down your top 5.

So here are my top 5:

1.) Ideation: Fascinated by ideas. Finding connections between disparate phenomena

2.) Empathy: Sense the feelings of others by imagining myself in others’ lives

3.) Input: a craving to know more. Collect and archive all kinds of information.

4.) Connectedness: faith in the links between all things.

5.) Adaptability: “go with the flow, and “in the moment.”

Basically these are 5 talents that I have honed (intentionally or unintentionally) over my life into strengths. Of course, the saying goes that your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness. Certain natural talents can be use for good and for harm. This is perhaps most obvious with empathy. Empathy, combined with being a Feeler and Perceiver, means that I have extremely high radar, which is helpful for noticing the elephant in the room. (Ideation helps me name the elephant in the room). But Empathy can be not only emotionally draining when I’m around people with high drama - it can also put me out of sync and make me bored when I don’t detect anything on the radar. Strengths that never get a chance to be used can lead to boredom, and forcing their use in inappropriate situations can make them harmful.

Needless to say, there are a number of benefits to self-awareness via personality tests such as these. As human beings, we are all selves in the midst of different systems: family, school, work, hobby-group, friends, or church. These tests are tools, however. They don't do full justice to who you are as a person, but more often than not, they provide accurate descriptions of our behavior. It's good to be able to recognize why your type might mesh or not mesh well with other types.

Obviously the role I’m in the midst of trying to figure out right now is church, and my place in it as pastor. Every pastor has a different personality, and it is often said that churches will naturally adopt the personality of their pastor if the pastor stays long enough (scary, if you think about it). But in my first year of adaptation as a new pastor, I’m more cognizant of the dissonance than I am of the congruence, and this has led me to be anxious about my call at times. It is, however, perfectly natural to feel this way in anything new. We question, we doubt, we test, and over a few years we adapt and get connected.

The problem is that pastors, like myself, tend to want to adapt to the needs of the church, and all churches have as many needs as the diverse people in them. And so the key to sanity is naming and claiming one’s own strengths and passions, and leading out of who we are. When this happens, doing tasks that may just need doing no longer feels draining or useless. We can adapt our strengths to meet the needs of our congregation, but we do not compromise. The gift of Presbyterian leadership is that is inherently team-oriented, so that God calls forth a diversity of strengths (gifts) to serve the body of Christ.

There are four quadrants of themes that all 34 possible strengths fall into: Striving (Working Harder), Thinking (Working Smarter), Impacting (Influencing People), and Relating (Assisting People). Ideation, Input and Connectedness all fall under Thinking. Empathy falls under Relating. Adaptability falls under Striving.

In creating any team, the idea is to make sure that you don’t put people on a team that are all in one or two quadrants, but to get all 4 quadrants represented.

So that was enlightening. One more piece on personality tests, and then I’ll conclude this section.

One common difference between pastors and their elders and parishioners is that pastors tend to be Intuitive, whereas others tend to be Sensing on the Meyers-Briggs. This is certainly true in my case. Here’s a breakdown of the difference:

Sensing Characteristics

Mentally live in the Now, attending to present opportunities
Using common sense and creating practical solutions is automatic-instinctual
Memory recall is rich in detail of facts and past events
Best improvise from past experience
Like clear and concrete information; dislike guessing when facts are "fuzzy"

Intuitive Characteristics

Mentally live in the Future, attending to future possibilities
Using imagination and creating/inventing new possibilities is automatic-instinctual
Memory recall emphasizes patterns, contexts, and connections
Best improvise from theoretical understanding
Comfortable with ambiguous, fuzzy data and with guessing its meaning.

You can see why illustrations and stories and action plans are so important for me to provide, when my congregation is full of Sensors. Unfortunately, I've been assuming that everyone is built like me as an Intuitive. I’ve learned that as an Intuitive pastor I need to find concrete ways of connecting with my Sensing people. For instance, at the children's ministry meeting I ended it with this simple question: “What actions need to be taken?” Sometimes it’s best to ask the right questions, and in this case, many people in church have better answers than I do. That, in and of itself, its a gift.

Buy a copy of Strengthsfinders 2.0 and to take the test online (there's a code with each book).

Church As Homecoming and Homemaking

2011-06-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

The following was my first column for the newsletter of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church.

“So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”
- 1 Thessalonians 2:8

It’s amazing to think that it’s been nine months since the TerryNelsons landed in Nashville. We came in on a whirlwind from Kabul to New Wilmington, PA to here in the span of two weeks. In some sense, the whirlwind has continued as I have been getting to know beautiful faces, names, faces, and stories. It is a blessing to see God weaving our story as a family together. A new story began with the birth of our son Ezra, and it was a joy to share that milestone with you as our church community.

This word, “community,” is worth pondering over the coming years. Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of moving is trying to find community. We don’t realize how our identity can be so dependent on the constancy of others. When people move away, or when we move, there is a loss, and there is grief. Depending on the intimacy of the relationship, we may feel like we are on unstable ground for weeks, months, even years. It’s been interesting to come into Nashville only to find that the population of this great city is comprised of so many “transplants” just like me! It turns out we live in not only a largely transient area, but in a transient nation, to the point where it is expected that one will be on the move. In such an anxious time as this, one of the greatest needs of our culture is stability.

All this change is coming at an accelerated pace. Unfortunately, our coping mechanisms for change don’t accelerate at the same pace, and this leaves us feeling always a few steps behind, reacting, stressed. One of the most important ways we cope with such change is in community – a stable group of people grounded in a common identity. There is only one community besides family that offers the possibility of constancy and stability needed to keep us grounded in the midst of change – the religious community. It’s no wonder that church is often referred to as a family – the place where people know your name, and where you have a seat at the table to receive the nourishment you need. You will frequently hear me welcome you to worship by reminding you that you have a seat at the dinner table of Emmanuel, so that you can be nourished and thus be able to nourish others. I say this because of what I learned in my class at Vanderbilt this last semester, “God, Poverty, and the Economy.” Prof. Douglass Meeks showed that when people lack a home, they lack more than shelter from the elements. In fact, what they are lacking is a stable place, and a recognizable identity among others.

When I first came to Emmanuel and heard the different testimonies, Lissa Lamb echoed the many testimonies of our members by saying that when you come to this place, “you feel as if your are home.” What does it mean to be home, and can one have a home in a church? What kind of home are we offering to those within our doors, and those who are on the outside? Do we know yet? I admit that I don’t know the answer, but I have experienced a homecoming with you, and with time I will be able to articulate how and why that is.

As Christians, we worship a God who is in community: One God, Three Persons, in loving communion. Emmanuel means “God With Us,” and if God is with us it means that God teaches us what real community is through the triune nature of God’s being.

We get a clue of what this divine community looks like when it spills over into the human community of the church when we overhear Paul’s words to one of his first churches in 1 Thessalonians 2:8. “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.” In his attempt to share the Good News of who God is, Paul gives himself over to the Thessalonian church, sharing his very self with these people because they have become very dear to him. In other words, Paul could not help but imitate God in God’s own self-giving. How did this church become dear to him? Did they prove themselves to be the perfect community, or the perfect church family? No – it wasn’t about them. They became dear to Paul (and arguably all the churches became dear to Paul) because Paul caught a vision for the home that exists within God’s own being. It knocked him off his horse, changed his path, and led him to be the friend of the community of Jesus rather than its adversary. He was welcomed home by God, and it kept him steady.

And so it is with me as your pastor. So deeply do I care for you that I am determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but my very self, because you have become very dear to me, because I have caught a vision for God’s home with you. May we be homemakers together, for the sake of those who have no home as of yet.

All strength,
Rev. Chris TerryNelson

Why Turning 30 Wasn't So Bad Today

2011-04-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful birthday today. My wife cooked up a storm, including this:

Hara Dhania Ki Chutney- Coriander Coconut Chutney

Coming Home From Exile: A Sermon on Ezekiel 37:1-14

2011-04-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ezekiel 37:1-14 (NRSV)

Ezekiel 37:1
The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”

Ezekiel 37:7
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Ezekiel 37:11
Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD.

Sermon:

Try and remember for a moment, what it was like when you visited the graveyard of someone you loved. Why did you go there? Who were you visiting? What happened, or did not happen? What did you remember about them? A graveyard is where we go to remember the flesh that once clung to the bones of our loved ones who have died. Sometimes I think it’s easy for us to read a passage like this and think that this valley is just a valley of dry bones. But you have to understand that these bones had names, faces. They were once dynamic, joyful loving people, the fellows that Ezekiel had known and grown up with. One of them was Ezekiel’s own wife, as we read in chapter 24. Ezekiel had to face the death of his own career as a priest. His temple is laid to waste. What is a priest supposed to do in a foreign land when he’s taken into exile?

More importantly, there was great trauma that accompanied this exile. The Babylonians tortured the inhabitants of Jerusalem with siege warfare that lasted almost two years, leading to famine, disease, and despair. They destroyed the city of Jerusalem, razed the temple to the ground, killed many of its inhabitants, and forced the rest to migrate to Babylon.

So, looking at these bones, with this history, how would you answer God when he asked you: “Can these bones live?” We would stammer, and we would punt the question. “Oh Lord, y-y-y-you know.”

This morning, I want to talk about hope for our church in America today. But to do that, we need to come to terms with the experience of death and exile of the church, with the valley of dry bones. And just like God brings Ezekiel to a graveyard, so we must visit our own graveyards with God.

So what does our exile look like as the Christian church in North America today? Before we talk about how churches are dying in North America, let me tell you a story about one church I met last year, a church of dry bones.

Last year, when I was in the interviewing process looking for a call as a minister, before I met you lovely folks, I was very interested in a church in a bustling area of Pittsburgh, with lots of young families and college students moving in for cheaper more affordable housing. I decided to pay them a visit and interview with their Pastoral Nominating Committee. I arrive at their building. First off, their building is HUMONGOUS! 4 floors! Anneli and I walk in, only to discover that it’s all mostly empty and unused except for a few classrooms. The church sanctuary was built in 1902, but they had loads of people coming in and so they added what looks like a large school facility for classrooms. The committee gave us a tour, and it was very similar to visiting a graveyard. It was like death had visited them, but no one had a funeral yet. One room had an 8-foot high pile of chairs in a corner. One room had a class that was like 1950’s Andy Warhol – it was called the “yellow room.” It had pink slipcovers on plastic chairs, and it was indeed yellow – like a dark urine-soaked yellow. I was just waiting for the interview to be over at this point. But I sat down with the Pastoral Nominating Committee, and explained a bit about who I was. Then a man on the committee wanted to show me what the church used to be like. He showed me a picture from a 1960 Memorial Booklet for the church (no one had written anything since then, since there wasn’t anything to remember after 1960), and it showed the sanctuary filled with people. You could tell that these were they days that they longed for. Membership had gone from 2500+ to under 100 in the span of 50 years.

Then, one woman said to me: “You saw how small my Sunday school class was. As my pastor, how are you going to help me fill that room? How are you going to go about fill our church with programs again?” Hear the anxiety?

Now, obviously I didn’t end up there, but I share that story to remind you what’s happening in the majority of churches in our country. They are anxious, they are scared, they are in despair over the loss of membership, their loss of influence in society and in their communities especially among young people, a loss of any guiding sense of mission or purpose beyond survival, and a sense that God has given up on them. If 1950 were to return, these churches would be ready. And this is precisely the issue. Most of these churches did nothing wrong. The problem is that they did nothing. The church I interviewed had not adapted to a changing world. They don’t know what to do with our current culture, which Peter Steinke helps elucidate for us in his book, A Door Set Open. So allow some cultural observations for a moment:

Our culture now supports:
- a postmodern philosophical viewpoint where diversity is celebrated, but no story or truth is held in common;
- a dogmatic atheism where religion is portrayed as inherently violent and barbaric, a barrier to rational thought, and God is portrayed as unnecessary.
- A supermodernity, in which we are surrounded by nonplaces and superabundance. Let me explain this one, because it’s important for us who live in the growing suburban sprawl in our neighborhood, and we take non-places for granted without realizing what values we hold when we use them. Non-places are spaces designed for remaining anonymous, passing through, nonengagement. Non-places are supermarkets, malls, highways, outlets, large hotels, airports, cineplexes, condo complexes, ATM cash machines and fast food joints. Some churches have succeeded in accommodating themselves to being a non-place, where little human association happens. They are controlled environments intended to meet the instrumental needs of private individuals. Churches have historically been inherently relational, but this is a threat to people who want to remain anonymous. Few places remain where people can find community, meaning and hope. Yet we are surrounded by a superbundance of places like this which provide us a superabundance of things to consume, of what Terry Appenzeller wonderfully captures with his word “stuff.” There’s not just an abundance that fills up our space, but our time too. New events bombard us in the news and in our own schedules (especially with children) to the point where we have no time to process what has happened to us. There is no time for deliberating or musing when time is accelerated, and everything becomes impermanent, fleeting and unexamined. If you want to see how out of whack your life is, come on the all-church retreat at NaCoMe.
- Finally, the guiding religious question of American culture is not “Can I be saved?” but “Does it feel right?” We have no need for a God who gives grace to sinners. Instead, we need a god who will act like a giant Prozac pill or a candy-machine to sweeten life and steady our nerves in the midst of pain and suffering. There is an inability to come to grips with darkness, with delays in gratification, with frustration and failure, with dry bones. Instead of hope, we are offered immediate pleasure and distraction from what ails us.

Friends, these cultural trends did not exist in 1950. But our churches since then have not adapted or been able to even notice these changes.

So why am I talking about this? I think we as a church need to recognize the bones that are around us. Even as we are boasting a gain in membership, we have to recognize the fact that we are an anomaly, and realize that we no longer have home-court advantage as Christians in America.

So how do we respond to this situation? What do we do?

Here are three things we may be tempted to do.

First, there’s denial. We may be tempted to deny the picture I’ve just described. We may deny that there are bones. When God asks us “Can these bones live?” we might reply “What bones?” Denial is a powerful defensive measure against unpleasant facts and negative realities. People automatically block what is emotionally disturbing. It is a buffer against shocking news. As a church we may be lured into denial, thinking that, because our membership is currently growing, that we need not pay attention to this bigger picture. Or we may think that the Nashville area, being the buckle of the Bible Belt, has too much at stake in the Christian religion and thus these cultural trends will never hit our door. But let me assure you that denial will not make the problem go away – we will need to face reality.

Second, there’s despair. Despair believes in limits only. It is hopelessness, a form of self-imprisonment. Rather than denying reality, despair looks at reality and says that what we see is all there is, and there’s no hope of change. Some people who went into exile in Babylon gave up and compromised their Jewish culture and heritage out of despair, deciding to become Babylonian in order to fit in with their new surroundings. In our current situation, it is tempting to despair the situation of churches to the point of leaving them behind, and many have chosen this path. If denial is the reluctance to see any changes at all and the refusal to respond, despair is responding by giving in.

Third, there’s magic. Sorcerers have a habit of showing up in down times. They come with promises for quick fixes. In his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap – and Other’s Don’t, James Collins says that stage three of failure is the denial of problems, but stage four is grasping for saviors out of desperation. Magic is not hard, it’s not messy, it’s not challenging. But it’s also a solution that does not last. Jesus told a story about magic. A rich farmer develops what appears to be a logical business plan: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do, I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones and there I will store all my grain and goods and say to myself ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’” Kosuke Koyama, a Japanese theologian, says of this passage: “The farmer is successful. But he is anxious.” I wonder, even in all our success, if we are anxious as a congregation. It would be tempting for us to turn to magic. One of the reasons I did not pursue the church in Pittsburgh is because it was clear to me that I would have to spend my first years of ministry with them having to persuade them that I was not a magician, and that I could not turn the clock back to 1950 or magically put butts in their pews.

So I’ve spent most of our time talking about exile and death. What about homecoming and life? What about hope?

Ezekiel 37:11
Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.

We might think that Ezekiel began to hope once he came home. But the truth of the matter is that hope with Ezekiel’s encounter with the living God, and with the promise of coming home to God. But the beginning of hope for Ezekiel was this discovery: that even though the Babylonians destroyed the city, the temple, and the land, God was not destroyed. God was not tied to any of those places. Even more surprising was the fact that God met up with his people in Babylon. God is in Babylon. God is in exile with us, speaking a promise to us. The Babylonians didn’t bank on this, because their gods were all thought to be tied to their institutions, and Israel didn’t bank on it either. But God graciously disrupts our despair sometimes.

Did you know that what looks like sheer destruction is also sheer opportunity for God to do something new? Our hope lies not in ourselves but in the God who can put flesh on dry bones, who can stir imaginations that have forgotten all possibility, who can give us the gift of waiting when we are restless and apathetic, who can set us free from thinking that we are the only ones responsible for the solution to our problems. May God find you in your exile and in your valley of dry bones, and may God find us, His people, gathered and waiting to come home. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

When God Profanes His Sanctuary

2011-04-09T20:09:00.000-07:00

I'm preaching on Ezekiel 37 tomorrow, and I came across this passage (right after God tells Ezekiel that his wife will die but that he must not mourn her, as Israel must not mourn the loss of its temple), and it provoked me.

Ezekiel 24:19-24
19 Then the people said to me, “Will you not tell us what these things mean for us, that you are acting this way?” 20 Then I said to them: The word of the LORD came to me: 21 Say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and your heart’s desire; and your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword. 22 And you shall do as I have done; you shall not cover your upper lip or eat the bread of mourners. 23 Your turbans shall be on your heads and your sandals on your feet; you shall not mourn or weep, but you shall pine away in your iniquities and groan to one another. 24 Thus Ezekiel shall be a sign to you; you shall do just as he has done. When this comes, then you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

Of course we read of many times in Scripture where Israel has profaned God's temple with its cultic acts, but here God is the agent of profanity against that which is profane. The temple has become for Israel "the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and your heart's desire." What a statement regarding the ways in which our houses of worship can replace God, and the extent to which God will go to bring us back through their death.

The Surprise of Reconciliation: A Sermon on Acts 10

2011-04-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

The Surprise of Reconciliation

Last week, I introduced 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 as my favorite passage because it succinctly tells us what the Gospel is: God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our trespasses against us, and giving us the ministry of reconciliation, so that we no longer seeing anyone from a human point of view because the old has gone, the new has come. And so we have a message of reconciliation to deliver to the world. Because God has dealt with us this way, it completely changes the ways in which we deal with each other as human beings. This story from Acts 10 gives us a vision of how God’s work of reconciliation is a game-changer when it comes to our relationships. As we will see, when God reconciles people, it often takes them both by surprise.
Peter has been faithfully preaching the Gospel among the Jewish people, and we find that the circle of Christianity has widened to include the Samaritans and an Ethiopian eunuch. God was converting many to Christianity through the work of the apostles. But God was going to do something new and exciting through Peter, something that he did not expect to happen.

You see, the day before God had spoken to Peter in his vision, God also spoke to this Roman citizen and soldier named Cornelius. Cornelius lived in a seaport city called Caesarea, 40 miles north of Joppa where we find Peter. Most importantly, Cornelius was a Gentile. It was common practice for Gentiles to eat meat. For a Jew like Peter, however, such meat was ceremonially unclean, and it was forbidden for any Jew to eat it.
And so when God speaks to Peter, he shows him a vision of unclean animals and commands him to get up, kill and eat. Peter knows this is contrary to everything he has learned as a Jew, and so he protests: “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” And then God responds: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

How could God have made it clean? Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the entire world was reconciled to God, and thus made new, even made clean. Because it’s the place where we are all made clean and righteous in God’s eyes. Peter was really puzzled by all of this, so much so that the vision is repeated 3 times just for him to “get it.” The messengers of Cornelius arrive, and the Holy Spirit tells Peter to go with them.

It’s not clear whether we should call Cornelius a Christian or not at this point. Yet Peter isn’t really interested in this question of whether he’s a Christian. What’s most important is that he is a Gentile. Peter does something incredible: He invites these Gentile messengers into his home and gives them lodging. He shows them hospitality. He accepts them.

But if that wasn’t enough, the next day Peter goes with them to their home in Caesarea to meet with Cornelius. Cornelius meets Peter with all his friends and family present, and when he sees Peter, he bows down to him and starts to worship him. Peter makes him get up, saying “Stand up; I am only a mortal.” He finds all these people gathered around him and says “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”

Cornelius explains his vision to Peter, and that all of them are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded him to say. Peter then starts to preach the good news, and he introduces it with this: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” While he’s preaching, the Spirit falls upon the crowd. And, in the ultimate sign of acceptance, Peter invites them all to be baptized into the Christian community.
On the one hand, this story seems to be about the conversion of Cornelius and his family. But when you look deeper, you realize that it’s a story about Peter’s conversion too. Even as an apostle, Peter was still in the process of conversion. It really wasn’t in his own power to do any of the things he did. If left to his understanding alone, he would not have offered the Gospel to the Gentiles, and you and I wouldn’t be here today. You see, the question of Acts was not “Will the Jews be saved?” but “Will the gentiles be saved?”
Peter’s obedience to the moral purity laws written in the Torah were actually keeping him from following this new commandment by God. The vision that Peter has of eating unclean meat is where God challenges him with this new commandment, but he finds it difficult to give up the old ways. Peter thought he knew what the church was supposed to look like, and it was supposed to be Jewish. But God challenges this notion. For Peter to go and preach in the house of Cornelius was a great risk. It was an even greater risk to baptize them! In fact, in Acts 11, once Peter reports back to the church in Jerusalem, the Jewish Christians start criticizing him because he baptized non-Jews into the faith!

I want us to put ourselves in Peter’s shoes. What do we expect Emmanuel Presbyterian Church to look like? How far should our community extend? Do we only live and serve in this building? I think most of us would say “No.” This is indeed a very welcoming congregation. But I want to challenge you to think about who is being left out, intentionally and unintentionally. Now, being new to this area, I can’t speak to what town or neighborhood or people-group suffers from neglect, so I need you to do that work. But I can tell you that I’ve worked in churches where there was always an obvious place that you should stay away from.
When I was a pastoral intern at a church in New Jersey during my Princeton Seminary days, Lakewood was the name of the place that you needed to stay away from. What comes to mind when I say the name of this town? Every time I heard the name “Lakewood,” the picture that gets painted is one of a place that is constantly filled with racial and ethnic conflict. It is indeed a town only for minorities it seems. We would find mostly Orthodox Hassidic Jews, African-Americans, and Hispanics living there. It is a town that is obviously struggling to reconcile its differences. There are racial tensions there that will not go away over night.
Last week, Paul told us in 2 Corinthians that God has “given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ.” If this is true, that we are made Christ’s ambassadors and messengers just like Peter was, then I think we need to begin listening to how God might free us from our own laws, our own ways of thinking that keep us from taking the message outside of our corner here in Nashville, to a place like Lakewood.

Or, maybe our challenge isn’t a place, but a particular people. I challenge us to be honest with ourselves: Who do we call impure? You see, we have all inherited purity laws in some form from our context. Whether we are just afraid of difference itself, of the unknown that lies beyond my house, my church, my town, etc., or we think we know all there is to know, there are just some places we’re not willing to go, some people that we’re not willing to be with. It’s that place, that person that I want you to pray about today, to call to mind, to open your heart and ask God whether you’re being sent there. It is a dangerous and risky prayer, but it is one that will ultimately bless us.

God is continually converting his church, just like he did to Peter, and so if we are to truly be the church, then we must be continually changed. We must not close our doors to those outside. No, we must open them. In fact, we will not only open our doors, but hopefully one day we will be invited to go and be God’s witnesses of love and mercy to those outside our comfort zones. How do we do this? I think the most important thing for us to start doing is to begin talking with and establishing connections with people, and to discern how God is already moving in the world, in places like Lakewood, just as he was with Cornelius in Caesarea before Peter arrived.

Our God is big. Jesus Christ is Lord over all things, not just sacred things. Let us not call any person or place profane which he has made clean – for God has cleansed us all through Christ. Let us not show partiality anymore. Let us be like Peter, and invite the strangers in for meals. But let us go a step further, and journey with them to see their homes and display the love of God in their midst. Then we will encounter the joyous surprise of reconciliation. Then we will meet Jesus face to face, because it turns out He is already there. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"Nevah felt like dis bafore," or What Makes A Top Ten Pop Hit Today

2011-04-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

A necessary (but not sufficient) ingredient to your top ten pop hit will be a lyric like the following:

"Never felt like this before."

I suggest you try listening to pop radio for an hour and see how many times you hear this lyric. Be prepared, 'cause "I'm gonna blow your mind tonight" (Britney Spears, "Till the World Ends.")

Karl Barth on Why Jesus Wept

2011-04-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

Quoting Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2, pp. 227-228:

Above all we are reminded of the scene which precedes the raising of Lazarus in John 11:

When Jesus therefore saw her (Mary) weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. (John 9:33)

"What troubled Him in the first instance was this display of weeping, this tribute, as it were, to His opponent, death, this desire of men to grovel in their wounds, this tacit magnifying of the omnipotence of death which is really a murmuring against God But His vexation extended beyond this to His opponent, the prince of this world, who had succeeded in reducing to such abject slavery the man who was called to bruise his head" (F. Zundel, Jesus, new ed , 1922, p 236).

The short statement follows very oddly in v 35 : Jesus wept. He too? Yes, He too. We may perhaps recall at this point the Pauline : "Weep with them that weep " (Rom 12:15). Jesus is not fighting sad and sorrowing men. He stands in solidarity with them," sympathetically bearing the burden of the whole age." But His weeping with them means that He is fighting for them It is therefore misunderstood by those who rather finely said: "Behold how he loved him," as well as by those who more maliciously suggested "Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?" (v 36 )

For on the way to the grave of Lazarus, weeping with those who wept in face of the unequivocally revealed reality of death, the "participation" of Jesus is not a compromise. His weeping itself is a strict repudiation of the cause of their and His weeping. It is itself a resolute No to this reality. Looking this death and its terror more soberly in the face than anyone else, He is already on the way to banish it from the world. That is why it continues in v 38 : " Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it." Just as David had faced Goliath, or anyone an enemy whom he himself as well as everyone else self-evidently recognised to be superior, but whom he is resolutely determined to destroy, and equipped to do so, and therefore confident; so Jesus confronted the closed grave, the corruption which had already set in, the sealed finality of death. What is meant by His promise : "Thy brother shall rise again" (v 23)? Just the orthodox belief : "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day " (v 24). No, " I am "-not merely life, but because life, because its presence and power in a world given up to death, "the resurrection and the life," the life which asserts and maintains itself in face of death and overcomes it. "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die " (v 25).

This is the Word which Jesus flings even into the sphere of death ; and the tense is both present and future, and the saying itself both an indicative and an imperative. It is His Word as His act, for He speaks it right into the opened grave of Lazarus, crying "with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth " (v 43) This is the battle of Jesus for the cause of man as God's creature ordained by God for life and not for death. And when Lazarus hears it, and does as he is commanded, it is the victory of Jesus in this battle. And we have to remember, of course, that what is unfolded in this dramatic and almost breathtaking way in John 11 is the secret which the New Testament tradition thought it saw in all His acts and primarily in the Word which found concrete form in His acts.

Some Figures on Minimum Wage

2011-04-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

These are from my lecture notes from Melissa Snarr.

Minimum wages have gradually been rolled back due to neglect as inflation occurs.

The federal minimum wage in 2009 is 17% lower than it was in 1968 in terms of purchasing power.

4.5 million people received a wage increase (63% women) in 2007. This brought it to its 1972 level in terms of inflation.

Wage Theft:
15% of wages of low-wage workers are stolen.
26% are paid less than minimum wage.
76% are not paid over-time.
70% have off-the-clock violation.
1.1 million workers received 56 million dollars of wage theft.
This is 1 billion dollars in wages are stolen from workers every year.

The minimum wage declined 40% in value while worker-productivity grew by 30% in the last decade.

In 1968, a minimum wage earner lived 20% over the poverty threshold. Today, he/she lives 30% under the poverty threshold.

A Very Conservative Living Wage Calculation for Davidson County, 2010

2011-04-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

I heard a great lecture at Vanderbilt today by Melissa Snarr. Here was the math on a living wage for Davidson County in Tennessee:

For a family of 2 adults and 2 children:

Monthly Expenses:
Food (FDA low-cost plan, no eating out) = $733
Child Care (1 pre-school, 1 school-age, from TN Dept of Human Services = $805
Healthcare (Metro Gov coverage + National Avg for out of pocket) = $380
Housing and Utilities (HUD Fair Market Rent/Telephone) = $740
Transportation (Natl Trans Household Survey - no social trips) = $488
Other (clothing, personal hygiene, etc.) = $323
Monthly After-Tax Income that's Required = $3469
Annual After-Tax Income that's Required = $41,698
Annual Taxes (payroll and federal income tax) = $2500
Annual Before Tax Income That's Required = $44,155

Living Wage (2080 hours = full-time work) = $10.61
Minimum Wage for Davidson County = $7.25

Here are the figures for Davidson and Williamson County according to Penn State:
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/counties/47037
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/counties/47187

Is Life Unfair? Milton Friedman and John Rawls

2011-03-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

I am currently burning through a fantastic book called Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael Sandel, philosophy professor at Harvard University. These chapters are reworkings of his introductory ethics classes, and they are filled with the great philosophical quandaries that make such classes (at least the good ones) so memorable.

I found this particular section, entitled "Is Life Unfair?" extremely helpful in articulating two streams of thought that have reared their heads in recent discussion over politics and economics:

"In 1980, as Ronald Regan ran for president, the economist Milton Friedman published a bestselling book, co-authored with his wife, Rose, called Free to Choose. It was a spirited, unapologetic defense of the free-market economy, and it became a textbook - even an anthem - for the Reagan years. In defending laissez-faire principles against egalitarian objections, Friedman made a surprising concession. He acknowledged that those who grow up in wealthy families and attend elite schools have an unfair advantage over those from less privileged backgrounds. He also conceded that those who, through no doing of their own, inherit talents and gifts have an unfair advantage over others. Unlike Rawls, however, Friedman insisted that we should not try to remedy this unfairness. Instead, we should learn to live with it, and enjoy the benefits it brings:

Life is not fair. It is tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned. But it is also important to recognize how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore. there's nothing fair . . . about Muhammad Ali's having been born with the skill that made him a great fighter . . . It is certainly not fair that Muhammad Ali should be able to earn millions of dollars in one night. But wouldn't it have been even more unfair to the people who enjoyed watching him if, in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, Muhammad Ali had not been permitted to earn more for one night's fight . . . than the lowest man on the totem pole could get for a day's unskilled work on the docks? (Friedman, Free to Choose, 136-7)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls rejects the counsel of complacence that Friedman's view reflects. In a stirring passage, Rawls states a familiar truth that we often forget: The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be.

We should reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular positions. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. (Rawls, A Theory of Justice, sec. 17)

Rawls proposes that we deal with these facts by agreeing "to share one another's fate, and to avail ourselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit" (ibid.). Whether or not his theory of justice ultimately succeeds, it represents the most compelling case for a more equal society that American political philosophy has yet produced." [Sandel, Justice, 165-6].

Welcome, Ezra Daniel TerryNelson

2011-03-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Ezra Daniel TerryNelson, our second child, was born on Monday, March 7th, 2011 at 1:37am at Centennial Hospital in Nashville. He weighed 8 lbs., 1 ounce and was 21.5 inches long. We praise God that he came to us in good health. Nora is very excited to be a big sister.

There was a strange moment a few months ago when I shifted from talking about "the baby" to "my son," and those words shook me in a kind of holy way. In many respects I am still trying to catch up with the significance of Nora as "my daughter," so perhaps putting the two of them together in our family will solidify my role as a parent. There's no turning back now! :-)

With the second, I already feel myself much more present to what is happening. I still remember trying to finish eating my cereal and then being warned that "the baby is coming!" And so I juggled cereal and a camcorder while cheering Anneli to push Nora out.

I took a much simpler approach this time, without cereal or camcorder (apparent you're not allowed to videotape deliveries at Centennial - a good idea). It was good to be present, and I was proud that I watched the whole thing without any intermediary. Apparently I have good tolerance for blood, and a good memory of medical history and analysis. Perhaps I could double as a Pastor/Parish Nurse. :-)

I'm also less scared this time around, because, lo and behold, I know how things work! I never realized how much the first one is a never-ending mystery, a constant flood of experiences and untrodden TerryTory. This would partially explain the anxiety that has marked my life over the past 2.75 years of Nora's life. I'm looking forward to being less anxious parent with this one, with God's help.

Parenthood, as it turns out, can not only be a major challenge to one's marriage, but a blessing as well. Sure, you lose the time you could be spending together on a hot date, but you gain the intimacy of collaboration - arguably a stronger form of intimacy than any steak dinner could create. There's something beautiful about the mutual cluelessness that we enter into as parents, and how we find our way to a few clues together. God's gift of marriage and family is not that we are perfect now, but that we are perfected through the time and space he gives to us.

Holy God, thank you for your divine patience. May I offer that patience to the world, through the love for my new son Ezra, whom you have blessed this day in order to be a blessing to others. May he be your Helper, and may he recognize you as his judge, as his names proclaims. Amen.

Sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

2011-01-17T12:26:00.000-08:00

2 Corinthians 5:14-21 (NRSV)

14 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Sermon:

If you were to ask me, “Chris, what is your favorite passage of Scripture?” I would have to say the one I just read. Of all passages, this one encapsulates the heart of the Gospel and the Christian life the best for me. So, as we get to know each other over the coming weeks, months and years, I felt it would be best to begin at the beginning – to state why I’m here, and why I believe you’re here too.

You see, I came to Emmanuel Presbyterian Church because I believe in its name. “Emmanuel” – which, as you know, means “God with us.” This name is an even more succinct telling of the Good News, the name given to our Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s good news, but shocking and incredible because the bad news in our lives would suggest to us that God is not with us. “God with us” is the only God we know, and there is no other God. But what would life have been like had God chosen to be God without us? Pretty hard to imagine, isn’t it? Unfortunately, we know all too well what life is like when we choose to be ourselves without God.

Reconciliation entails the coming together of two parties in order to make right what went wrong in the relationship. Who did the wrong? Sometimes one party; sometimes both. Now I want you to take a moment and think about a relationship with a friend or a family member where things went really sour. Maybe you said the wrong thing, and you haven’t talked to that person since. Maybe they did the wrong thing, and you’re still angry. Do you recall that anger, that disappointment, that frustration?

Our relationship with God, if I can speak on a very general level, was threatened, but not because God said the wrong thing, or did the wrong thing. We said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, failed to say and do the right thing. And we’re still saying the wrong things, doing the wrong things, failing to say and do the right things. And we’re all suffering for it. We did not ask for life, or for love, but we received them as gifts! All God asked was that we love both God and neighbor, and even these commands were a gift, because they are what make us human. In our decisions to neglect and even hate God and our neighbor, we ended up hating ourselves, and became inhumane. We are both the victims and the oppressors of our own pseudo-humanity.

As our passage indicates, we live for ourselves. You can call it selfishness, but I like Luther’s way of talking about it, in Latin. Not because I understand Latin, but because it just sounds cool! Sin, Luther says, is INCURVATUS IN SE, which means to be curved in upon the self. The rupture in our relationship with God occurs when we decide that we are independent, autonomous individuals who are quite capable of living life on our own, thank you very much. And so all of life is curved in upon us, such that we are holding up our own little world like little Atlases. And it’s getting very heavy, because it’s too much for us to bear.

Now the bleakness of this situation may seem all too real to some of you, and all too depressing or unhelpful to others of you. Why ponder such sad things? But I want to get in touch with the reality of the pain of our world, lest we become too comfortable with things as they are, because the sick thing about this rupture in our relationship with God is that there are plenty of ways we can distract ourselves from this rupture. Of course, not everyone has the luxury of Facebook and other pseudo-friend aggregators.

But as Christians, we have received not a new distraction, but a piece of news. It completely changes the bleakness of the picture. We must live no longer for ourselves. Why? Because he died for all. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, as the supreme act of love, did not deal with us according to our sin, but dealt with himself according to our sin, exhausting all judgment and wrath on himself rather than letting it fall on us. The death of Christ was God’s revelation that God loves us so much that nothing will separate us from Him, even our hatred, or worse, our indifference.

God did this while we were his enemies. God is Emmanuel, and that’s why He chose the cross. Because that’s who he is. And he did this for ALL, NOT SOME! God’s reconciliation was with all people for all time. I love how matter-of-fact Paul makes this: “We are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.” The language of death in Paul gets a little tricky, but I think what he means here is that we have all died in the sense that the death we deserved has been executed, so that we would not die as people separate from God. We did not get what we so badly want, because we don’t really know what we want. Whenever we die, we die with in Jesus Christ. When our life comes to an end, we can know that we are protected and secure. And when life in the present seems to fall apart, and death comes close to home, we know we are protected and secure.

Because of God’s reconciliation, we regard no one from a human point of view. That means ourselves and others. We cannot regard ourselves from a human point of view. We cannot regard ourselves as the center of our universe. We are not God, but neither are we scum. I am no longer my own worst enemy, because I am not my own judge.

We do not regard others from a human point of view either. Because no one is God’s enemy, no one can be my enemy either. They may hate me, but I cannot hate them, because God does not hate them. So all I can do is show love. What does that look like? It looks like Dan Terry, who faced countless enemies in his life by refusing to look at them from a human point of view. For Dan Terry, everyone was reconciled with God, and so why should we not reconcile with one another?

Dan believed that if everyone is in Christ (and everyone is in Christ!) then there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! Notice that Paul isn’t using future tense here. He’s talking about something that’s already true. But you cannot see it from a human point of view. What is new is this: God has reconciled us to himself through Christ. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us

I want to be clear about something: when someone does something wrong to us, that’s a trespass. And when they do it, who does it count against? It counts against THEM! Right? That’s life, that’s fair. But it’s only fair according to our standards. God does not count the trespasses of those who have trespassed against him. We hear this from Jesus on the cross when he says “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They don’t KNOW any better – they think they’re operating under fair and righteous principles, but quite the contrary. An eye for an eye is not fair, as it turns out, because as Gandhi says, the whole world goes blind. But God reconciles these murderers anyways! God reconciles not just us, not just his friends, but the whole world of his enemies.

And as Christians, as a reconciled people who are convinced that this is true for us and for the whole world, we have been given a ministry. We have been entrusted with a message. You see, God makes things new in our world when we make a decision not just to be convinced that its true, but to speak this truth to the world. God is at peace with the world, but will the world be at peace with God? Will the world wake up and know that reconciliation is not only possible, but already real? That is our new burden to bear.

God is making his appeal through us to tell the world: “We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In other words, stop putting yourself and others to death with your words and your actions because you resent all that’s wrong with the world! God has made things right, and no one has to be tortured to placate this nameless demonic darkness.

God has already declared peace. The war is over, but our world is still fighting. And so, as Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, we have to make a choice. Are we going to join the world in its war with itself, or are we going to declare the end of the war and the beginning of peace in Jesus Christ?

I’m here this morning because I think you want to do the latter. I’m excited to be your pastor not because I want to grow your budget or your building or your worship experience or your love and respect for me. That would be a pastor who is INCURVATUS IN SE. And if you wanted to be a church that is centered on these things, then you would be INCURVATUS IN SE. But I’m here because I’m pretty sure that we’re all tired of being curved in upon ourselves!

No, I’m excited to be your pastor because I am convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died, so that we who gather here today might live not for ourselves but for him who died and was raised. If we want to be true to our name as a church family, and true to our God who has given us this ministry of reconciliation, then we have no choice but to entreat the people of the world that they are reconciled to God because God already reconciled with them in Jesus Christ. How will we do that? Where will we do that? Those are questions that we will answer together in the coming years through prayer, through Scripture, through conversation, and through service. I can tell you now that Anneli, Nora, and I all very much look forward to the journey.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen.

Why Do I Do What I Do?

2011-01-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

On the same day I had two first-time conversations with people here in Nashville (one who cuts my hair, the other a mother at Barnes and Noble). Both asked what brought me here and I said I was a pastor. They then asked why I became a pastor, with a look of great interest. And on both occasions, I reverted to telling them about my youth pastor who influenced me at a young age. But as I gave this answer, I felt their interest wane, and frankly I felt mine wane too.

Now there could be a variety of things going on here, but what I've found myself contemplating is: What were they REALLY asking? These folks were not on my CPM. This was not an interview with the COM, or an examination with any other Presbyterian body. I wasn't filling out an application. The answer has become too automatic, and my "faith journey" has become as important if not more important than the Gospel itself.

Why didn't I tell them that I believed that the good news of Jesus Christ must be proclaimed for the liberation of the world from the powers of sin and death, and that I'm passionate about equipping and leading a church to do just that? I had, after all, just preached a sermon at Emmanuel about how we fail to trust the message we've been given as Christians.

Perhaps its my trepidation about living in the Nashville area - the Buck of the Bible Belt, the Christian Mecca of the U.S., and possibly the world - and not wanting to appear "preachy" to folks for fear that they've already heard enough of that.

A Prayer of Lament

2010-12-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following prayer while drawing inspiration from Nicholas Wolterstorff's Lament for a Son. It was used at our Blue Christmas Service last night at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church.

Prayer of Lament

Holy and Merciful God,

Your scriptures tell us that weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Yet how long is this night, O Lord? How long will this dark night of the soul be? We have no explanation for what brings us here tonight. We can do nothing else than endure in this deepest and most painful of mysteries. We believe in you, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and resurrecter of Jesus Christ. We also believe, with equal and perhaps even greater conviction, that we have experienced some things that have been truly traumatic and disturbing.

We are at a loss. We cannot explain nor justify why you would allow these things to happen to us, and when we hear these justifications they do not solve the mystery, or take away the pain. They say that a true friend is one who is willing to tell you the truth. Our truth is a question, God, to which we do not know the answer. Our question is this: why God? Why?

Why would you allow such a thing to happen?

And why would you allow us to be wounded?

Like Job, we can find no fault in ourselves for this suffering, though many voices inside and outside want to blame us. Like Israel, we cannot simply put our tragedy behind us, but we have to tell the story of when it happened, where it happened, how it happened. Like you … You know this darkness, Lord, for you allowed it to have its way with you on the cross. You prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that it might not be so. And yet you faced it, for our sake. You not only died, but descended into hell.

Lord Christ, you know our suffering deeper than we know it. You rose from the dead, but you still carried your wounds. You asked Thomas to come and touch them, so that he might believe. Can you teach us how to bear our wounds to you? We do not want our pain to close us off from you or from others any longer.

Your presence is the only thing that sustains us, and so allow us to be present to you in our pain. Your strength was shown in weakness, and so we come to you in our weakness. And so our weeping tarries for this night, but may joy come in the morning. Death and destruction come for us all, we cannot deny them or the wounds they have left. But we shall not let them have the last word, because you did not let them have the last word.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

Building or No Building?

2010-11-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently emailed me this question:

"I know its your profession- but what do you think about raising money to keep a building open and keep the coffee and weak lemonade flowing... Do you think if Christ was here today he would open a church? I've been wrestling with this as my church has a capital campaign I'm supposed to help lead."

Here is my response:

I think you're raising an important issue. The question "If Christ were here today would he open a church." I think it depends on where "here" is. That is, does our building with its coffee and weak lemonade really serve the mission of Christ in our particular location, or is it a hindrance?

Ultimately, I think we need to be clear what our mission is, which I think is summarized on a broad level by 2 Cor. 5:14-21:

14 The love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

So the question constantly before us is: does our building help or hinder in this mission to be ambassadors for Christ in our little corner of the world that God has placed us in together? Where does a building fit in this scheme, if at all? Do we hide within our building because of fear, or do we go out from it ready to serve? The issue of whether to have a building or not is a contextual question, but as disciples we need to be willing to lose our life and our building in order to find it, so to speak. Theologically, I think too many churches have equated their existence with their building, as if that gives them legitimacy. And that's where the NT paints a stark contrast, because not only did the early church meet in homes, but also it never once equated itself with its building. There are building images and metaphors used all the time, but they are describing a people, not a building. The images of the church in the NT don't fit well with our pre-existing ideas of institution: people of God, the new creation, the fellowship in faith, the body of Christ, or "exiles" in 1 Peter. A building is always a metaphor for the people of the church (1 Cor. 3:19). None of these metaphors necessitate a building to be what they already are, because their foundation is in Christ, not in their own power to build a structure.

Like the rest of our lives, God can make use of our building for the Kingdom, but we must ask ourselves whether we're using our building toward God's end or towards our own end. In an age where churches are closing their doors and giving is down, the temptation will be to build in order to survive. The church isn't called to survive, but to be crucified in order that it might live. If this means losing a building, then so be it. But I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water and suggest that churches must sell their buildings and meet in homes instead. Churches should meet wherever is most conducive to their upbuilding as a community, so that they can minister to the world.

Obituary for David Bailey

2010-10-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

David Mark Bailey, 44, of Earlysville, died of brain cancer on
October 2, 2010 in Charlottesville, VA and was welcomed into everlasting
life at his place at the Table with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Born February 26, 1966, David was the son of Kenneth and Ethel
Bailey, missionaries to the Middle East. For the first 22 years of his
life, his home was Beirut, Lebanon, including the first ten years of the
Lebanese civil war. Because of war, the family was obliged to evacuate
first to Switzerland (1967), and later to Cyprus (1982). David's two
final years of high school were completed in a private school in Germany
because he was, as a young man, especially vulnerable on the streets of
Beirut.

David attended Grove City College in western Pennsylvania, where
he met and married his soul mate, Leslie McGarvey, of Emlenton, PA.
During his college years he was active as a performing songwriter,
playing evening and weekend gigs with a music partner. He also enjoyed
choir, frat life, acting, and organizing an underground newspaper.
David graduated with majors in English and Communication Arts. In the
late 80's, David and Leslie relocated to the Washington, D.C. area where
David worked for the U.S. government in satellite imagery analysis. His
career evolved to training and then program management with numerous
software subcontractors, ending with employment with Eastman Software in
Massachusetts. Their daughter, Kelcey, was born in 1992 and son,
Cameron, in 1994.
The day prior to moving to the Boston area, in July of 1996,
David was diagnosed with brain cancer - Glioblastoma Multiforme IV
(GBM). He was expected to have fewer than two years to live. Eager to
have his life make a difference in the lives of others, he gave up his
career in the software industry and, with a great leap of faith,
launched a third career as a performing songwriter - a "troubadour of
hope." Following two surgeries, radiation, experimental chemotherapy
and nuclear therapy, David criss-crossed America (and Europe) singing in
coffee houses and churches, for cancer conferences and cancer survivor
groups for 12 years. David wrote all of his own songs, which grew out
of his experiences of war and of battling a deadly cancer. He sang of
faith, hope, love and of living life to its fullest each day. He
experienced a recurrence of brain cancer in late 2008, recovering enough
to tour in 2009 and early 2010. Enduring numerous additional surgeries
and difficult treatments, David made a final tour in July of this year.
David is survived by Leslie, his wife of 23 years; his children,
Kelcey and Cameron; his parents, Kenneth and Ethel Bailey; a sister,
Sara Makari and her husband, Victor; numerous sisters- and
brothers-in-law and eight nieces and nephews. To quote a line from one
of David's songs, "The tears of the angels form a river where you can
wash your pain, and even in the middle of the thunder, don't forget the
love inside the rain." His theme was "There may be years of tears
behind you, but right now you've got One More Day." He leaves behind
him a musical legacy of 23 professionally-recorded CDs. His music and
his personal testimony have affected the lives of countless thousands in
this country and around the world.
The family offers deep gratitude to Drs. Henry Friedman, Allan
Friedman and David Reardon at Duke and Dr. David Schiff at UVa and their
caring staffs. We also offer loving thanks to our family of caregivers
at the Hospice House, Hospice of the Piedmont, Charlottesville.
Memorial gifts are welcome and may be made to Blue Ridge Presbyterian
Church, 6566 Spring Hill Road, Ruckersville, VA 22968. Half of those
gifts will be equally divided between the following brain tumor
organizations: The American Brain Tumor Association, the Preston Robert
Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke, Gray Matters Foundation, the Florida
Brain Tumor Association and T.H.E. Brain Trust.
David was a charter member and Elder at Blue Ridge Presbyterian
Church in Ruckersville, VA, where he co-chaired the Evangelism
Committee. Baptized into the Covenant, he was a lifelong Christian and
we will have a Celebration of his life and of the Resurrection at a
Memorial Service on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 2:00 pm at Meadows
Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, VA. His daughter suggests an
attire of tie-dye, if you like. David would be wearing jeans and ask
you to check out his website, www.davidmbailey.com .

You Will Be My Witnesses: Sermon on Acts 1:1-11

2010-05-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

Scripture Reading: Acts 1:1-11 (NRSV)

1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Sermon:

Last week we began a series on the Holy Spirit, and this morning I want to focus us on a question: What is the purpose of receiving the power of the Holy Spirit? Now, I think many of us typically ask the question: “How will I know that I have the Spirit?” I’m going to help answer that very excellent question this morning, because I think that if we know what the Spirit’s purpose is, we will be able to know what to look for in ourselves as individual Christians and as a church.

In verse 1-2, we read:

1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

This author references an earlier work. This earlier work, as it turns out, is the Gospel of Luke. Luke is writing a second volume, which will focus on the Acts of the Apostles. Acts is a book that will tell the grand narrative of the beginning of the church. And so what we are reading is an important introduction. Luke tells us that his Gospel focused on what Jesus said and did from the beginning, and ended with him being taken up to heaven (what we Christians celebrate as the “Ascension.”), after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Already, we have the Holy Spirit introduced as the means through which Jesus is able to instruct the apostles. This Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, which empowers him. This forty-day period of instruction comes after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and is focused on the Kingdom of God.

Towards the end of this waiting period, Jesus gives a very concrete commandment to the apostles: Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And so the promise of Pentecost lies in Jerusalem and the apostles are told to wait for it. Can you imagine the apostles, being eager to get out there and do amazing things for Jesus, just like they had done before? Now that he’s resurrected, there’s nothing that can stop them! But it turns out their zeal is directed toward a particular goal, when they ask Jesus: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Friends, that’s a loaded question, and one that Jesus had to deal with many times. There was so much expectation that as the Messiah Jesus was going to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem and restore power to Israel. To be sure, Jesus is interested in Israel, but not exclusively. And he is interested in Israel in a way that takes Israel beyond itself to all the nations of the world. It’s not just the Kingdom of Israel that concerns him, but the Kingdom of God. We might imagine Jesus having face-palm moment, frustrated that they still don’t understand the nature of the Kingdom even after resurrection and a 40-day seminar. But Jesus responds to the power question with this: 7 “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”

It’s not for you to know the times. Their speculation about time reveals a misunderstanding of the proper goal. Jesus is saying, “It’s none of your business. Stop worrying, stop trying to make a timetable and micromanage.” They desire to take power through their knowledge, and through their nation. But Jesus will give them a very different power: 8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” This Holy Spirit will come upon them and give them power. It is a power that is not in their possession. It is not a power that they can give themselves. Instead, it will be given to them if they will just wait in Jerusalem…

But what is this power for? What is the power and purpose of the Holy Spirit? And here we come to the crux of the issue: 8 “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The purpose of being empowered with the Holy Spirit is to be a witness of Jesus Christ. I want to go back to the question: how do I know if I have the Spirit? Now ask yourself this question: am I a witness of Jesus Christ? Now I just said, “ask yourself if you’re a witness of Jesus Christ.” And you may be thinking, “I’m not an apostle.” Stop thinking that. Okay, okay, fine, you’re a different person than Peter was. Duh. But you’re actually not that different, as it turns out. If you’re here this morning, chances are that you are a Christian. Well, as it turns out, the people who are in this text are also Christians. In fact, their stories are the ones upon which we base our definition of what a Christian should look like. We have nothing else to go on.

So when Jesus says to them, “you’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses,” Jesus is defining what the Christian life will be about, both then and now. You want to know if you have the Holy Spirit? You want to know if you’re really a Christian? Are you a witness of Jesus Christ?
Now, what is a witness? If you think of a courtroom, a witness is summoned for two reasons. First, the witness knows something that is important. He or she has seen or heard something that is vital to the court in order to determine what really happened. Second, the witness must be willing to speak about what he or she knows – to testify. And so a witness experiences something, and then shares that experience.

And so, are you here today because you have witnessed God’s work in your life? Has God found you and loved you in a way that you could not love yourself? Have you received the forgiveness of your sins? Have you become more thankful for life than you were before? Have you been transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you somehow exhibit the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Friends, wake up, and remember what has happened to you. See what is happening to you even now as God transforms you. Conversion is a continual process. If we have not experienced this transformation of our life because of Jesus Christ, then we have nothing to talk about. All of us have plenty of other experiences that we might really want to talk about, but if Jesus Christ is not the center of our experience then we are witnessing to something else – probably ourselves.

On the other hand, if you have witnessed the living Christ, then you must be wiling to bear witness to the living Christ. You must be willing to speak of Christ with your whole life. You must be willing to act for Christ with your life. Have you served those who are poorer than you? Have you shared the Good News that Jesus provides truly a new way of life with someone who is enslaved to the old way that perhaps you used to live – the way of money, sex, power? Or have you shown the mercy of God with someone who thinks they’re unforgiveable? Have you loved your enemy even as that enemy continues to hate you?

Do not think that your job as a Christian is simply to enjoy having the power of the Holy Spirit. That is a Christianity that goes nowhere. The biblical witnesses did not just sit back and say, “I’m so glad I’m saved. I’ll just get through this horrid life by going to church, and then heaven here we come!” You were empowered for something beyond having a sense of assurance of your own salvation. That’s necessary, but it is not sufficient. You were saved in order to do good works that witness to the love of Jesus Christ. Friends, wake up, and remember what you are called to do – to be servants of the living God with the gifts you have been given. See what is happening to you now as God transforms the world through you.

There are specific geographical locations of witness that Jesus names: 8 and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” In our context, we could think about Jerusalem as New Wilmington, Judea as Western PA, Samaria as New Castle, and the ends of the earth as … well, how far are you willing to commute? We will be able to be witnesses in multiple ways depending on our context. If it’s New Wilmington, you should ask God: “How can I witness to you in my school? With my friends? With my family? At work? In my neighborhood?” In Western PA, we recently caught a glimpse of the poverty and homelessness that surrounds us. Perhaps God is prodding you to meet the needs of this area in a way that witnesses to the love of God in Christ. This town, like every town, needs witnesses of Jesus to do their work. There is no such thing as a nice Christian town, not even in New Wilmington.

Let me explain Samaria very quickly, because I think it’s the most important and the most challenging. Samaritans were despised by the Jewish people, and so you would never ever think about going to Samaria, let alone talking to a Samaritan or helping a Samaritan. These people were enemies. Well, as we know, Jesus wasn’t okay to let that slide. He commanded us to love our enemies. Now, you and I, all of us have at least one enemy. It may be someone very close to you who has hurt you in some way, or it could be some group of people that you do not know personally but are pretty convinced they’re not as cool as you are. Whether it’s a family member or a stranger, we are also witnesses to these people. God has no enemies, but all are children whom were worth dying for. Grudges, slander and prejudice do not constitute a faithful witness. The reason I say New Castle is that this is probably the place I’ve heard the most warnings about: “It’s dangerous. Don’t go there. I would never raise my kids there.” Well, gosh darnit, there’s a whole of a people raising their kids there! Look, if things are so bad there, are you and I just going to sit back and let that happen?

Last of all, “the ends of the earth” also constitute a strong legacy hear at New Wilmington Presbyterian Church. Through the presence and support of missionaries in this congregation, as well as the mission conference, we get a good glimpse of what witness looks like beyond our own culture. But the fact is that you can find a world of difference simply by going to a place like Pittsburgh. The ends of the earth have come to us in ways that are within driving distance. We will need to be willing to witness to Christ’s love by learning the languages and customs of people who are completely unfamiliar to us, as they become our neighbors.

I want to close with two stories about two students whom I served with at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Jackson, New Jersey. I think they give us examples of the different forms that witness can take. First, I want to tell you about a great guy named Nick. Nick is a hard worker, and he started waiting tables at a local restaurant while he was finishing up high school. One day, his boss came in, and impressed with Nick’s performance he gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse: “If you come in Sundays, I’ll give you time and a half.” Now, no doubt Nick could’ve used that money to buy some videogames, or fix his car, etc. Instead, Nick told his boss that he couldn’t do that, because Sundays are his Sabbath days when he worships God with his church community. If being a Christian entails being in the world but not of it, then Nick’s story emphasizes how we are not of this world by refusing to bow to the temptation to give ourselves over to the power of money. At the risk of possibly alienating his boss a bit, and possibly getting fired, Nick was a faithful witness.

The second student, Emily, was a visionary. I had started a coffeehouse ministry at a local coffee shop that had opened down the road from the church. My thought was that the church should think about how it can be a gift to its community, and Jackson was in real need of facilitating community, especially for its youth who drink heavily out of sheer boredom. So by bringing in some Christian bands that I knew from out of town for free, I was able to help this coffee shop do good business and allow about 50 folks of all ages to come and have a good time. Well, Emily caught the vision for this and decided that she wanted to take it to the next level. She would invite secular bands that she knew locally from surrounding high schools to come and play, encourage them to invite all their friends as well. She would also require an entry fee of five dollars that would go toward a cause that she was passionate about: Save Darfur. Well, as you can imagine, droves of people came in and out of the coffee shop, and everyone had a great time. We were able to provide some good fun and hospitality for people who otherwise might not ever walk into our church building. If being a Christian entails being in the world but not of it, she emphasized our need to be in the world, loving it. And I want to add that there were plenty of Samaritans that showed up: people who probably smoked things other than cigarettes, people who danced in ways some of us might consider rude, people who Emily probably knew at school but did not like. Yet they were welcome, because Jesus hangs out with sinners and tax collectors. Emily was a faithful witness.

I lift these examples up to you so that you may better imagine your own calling in the power of the Spirit. The last example to be lifted up is Jesus Christ, who was the Great Witness. For he knows the Father, and the Father knows him. He is a witness who has experienced the love of God because he is the love of God. And he has revealed the Father perfectly to us as a witness by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this Spirit he has given to us now. Our witness does not depend on us as much as it depends on Him who is with us.

To whom is God sending you as a faithful witness? And what will you do once you arrive to that place? It may be a close place, or a far place. It may seem to be a very simple and mundane task, or it may seem very crazy and foolish. Whatever it is, seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all those how questions will be answered unto you. May we gather continually in prayer, waiting for the Spirit to empower us, so that we may be faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ in New Wilmington, in Western PA, in New Castle, and beyond. Amen.

"Do Not Hold Onto Me": Resurrection As the Urgent Start of Mission

2010-04-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

John 20:17-18
Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

The resurrection of Jesus is an event of God's self-declaration to the world that reconciliation has been accomplished in world-history, and thus it is good news. Mary recognizes that her Lord is not dead but alive when he calls her by name: "Mary!" Do they run towards one another, embracing and enjoying this new easter reality? No. Jesus gives her a warning: "Do not hold on to me." Jesus still has work to do, but so does Mary. "Go to my brothers, say to them." So she "went and announced." She "told them." The Spirit hasn't even been breathed on the disciples yet (that's the next chapter). The warning not to hold on to Jesus is one that we have to hear today. Jesus Christ is on the move, at work, active, and warns us not simply to hear resurrection and enjoy the benefits of good news. Surely it goes without saying that Mary did indeed enjoy this news, and perhaps was confused and confounded by it. But she, the first missionary, is sent immediately. I would suggest that those of us who continue to see the Lord and witness that Christ is alive should redefine our piety and our practices in accordance with the obedience to this command to go and tell. Otherwise, if our piety holds onto Jesus in stagnant living, then the identity of this Jesus is called into question. It may be a spirit of another kind. Jesus will not be held onto. Jesus will not be domesticated. Neither should the Church.

Barth Conference 2010: “The Church Is As Such A Missionary Church”: Barth as a ‘Missional’ Theologian

2010-04-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

I will be attending the Karl Barth Conference in Princeton, New Jersey. The title of the conference is “The Church Is As Such A Missionary Church”: Barth as a ‘Missional’ Theologian. The conference will take place in Princeton, NJ from June 20 to June 23, 2010. Registration is $100, $50 for students, and $200 if you register after May 31st. So register now!

Here are the plenary speakers:

Eberhard Busch, Professor of Reformed Theology, Emeritus, Universität Göttingen
Christina Busman, Assistant Professor of Theology, Bethel University
Paul Chung, Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity, Luther Seminary
John Flett, Habilitant, Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal-Barmen
Darrell Guder, Dean of Academic Affairs and Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary
Nate Kerr, Assistant Professor of Religion, Trevecca Nazarene University
Mark R. Lindsay, Director of Research, Melbourne College of Divinity

Schedule:
Sunday, June 20:
2:00 p.m. Registration Erdman Center
6:00 p.m. Opening Dinner Main Lounge, Mackay Campus Center
7:30 p.m. Conference Overview and Introductions
Darrell Guder (Princeton Theological Seminary)
BBC Documentary on Karl Barth

Monday, June 21:
8:00 a.m. Breakfast Mackay Campus Center
9:00 a.m. Lecture: “The Sending of the Whole Christian Community: The Renewal of the Christian Churches at the ‘End of the Christian Occident.’” Eberhard Busch (Universität Göttingen)
10:30 a.m. Break
11:00 a.m. Lecture: “Reflections in Contextuality: Reading Barth in History to Enrich the Significance of His Work for Today.” Christina Busman (Bethel University)
12:30 p.m. Lunch Mackay Campus Center
2:00 p.m. Lecture: “Das Ereignis der Sendung: The Word of God, Apocalyptic Transfiguration, and the ‘Special Visibility of the Church’” Nate Kerr (Trevecca Nazarene University)
3:30 p.m. Break
4:00 p.m. Group Discussions
5:30 p.m. Evening Prayers Miller Chapel
6:00 p.m. Dinner Mackay Campus Center
7:00 p.m. After Dinner Talk: “What Has Basel to Do with Red Bank? How Barth’s Church Dogmatics Shapes One Congregation” Main Lounge. Christian Andrews (Outreach Redbank Church)

Tuesday, June 22:
8:00 p.m. Breakfast Mackay Campus Center
9:00 a.m. Lecture: “The Abandonment of Inauthentic Humanity: Barth’s Theology of Baptism as the Ground and Goal of Mission." Mark R. Lindsay (Melbourne College of Divinity)
10:30 a.m. Break
11:00 a.m. Lecture: “I Am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25): The Resurrection from the Dead as the
Declaration of God’s Eternal Being and the Christian Community’s Eschatological Reality.” John Flett (Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal-Barmen)
12:30 p.m. Lunch Mackay Campus Center
2:00 p.m. Lecture: “Engaging Karl Barth’s Missional Church and Hermeneutics: Evangelization, Reconciliation, and Diakonia.” Paul Chung (Luther Theological Seminary)
3:30 p.m. Break
4:00 p.m. Group Discussions
5:30 p.m. Evening Prayers Miller Chapel
6:00 p.m. Dinner Mackay Campus Center
7:00 p.m. After Dinner Talk: “Reminiscences of Barth.” Eberhard Busch (Universität Göttingen)

Wednesday, June 23:
8:00 a.m. Breakfast Mackay Campus Center
9:00 a.m. Lecture: “Gathering, Upbuilding, Sending: Barth’s Formation of the Missional Church.” Darrell Guder (Princeton Theological Seminary)
10:30 a.m. Break
11:00 a.m. Closing Panel: All Presenters
12:30 p.m. Lunch Mackay Campus Center

Prayer in Gethsemane: Opening Our Lives to God through Petition

2010-03-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Matthew 26:36-46
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. 38 Then he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” 39 And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” 40 Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? 41 Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again he went away for the second time and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”

If you were to suddenly ask me, “Chris, if you could have anything in the world, what would it be?” I would say “sleep.” I crave sleep. I am sleep-deprived. Many of you heard me complain about this when I first arrived, and I haven’t changed much. Let me ask you this: Have you ever lie awake at night worrying that you’re not getting enough sleep? The monologue in my head usually runs this way: “Oh man, I’m going to be such a wreck tomorrow. I’ll probably say something stupid. I can’t afford to be sleep-deprived! I’ve got to preach. I’ve got an interview. I need to be my best self. What if Nora decides to have a bad night again? Maybe Anneli will get up when Nora wakes up so I can sleep in. Wait, no, I already slept in this morning, which means it’s my turn tonight. Oh great, now I’m even more awake!” … Then, there’s silence. “You know, I should probably pray about this. But I don’t want to pray. Why do we pray? I don’t feel God’s presence. I’m not a very good pray-er. And I don’t want to say something then just get silence, because that’s what God’s going to do. God doesn’t say anything. I feel so bad saying this. But it’s how I feel. God? Are you there? … whatever.” And, as time consolidates into the abyss of night, I fall asleep.

All that’s to say is, when I see sleepy disciples, I feel for them. And when I see them failing to stay awake and pray, I feel for them. They’ve been through a lot. They’re tired. There are all kinds of valid excuses. However, and this is what I want to talk about today, this passage is not about how they feel, nor is it about how similar we feel to them. Misery loves company, but stick around miserable company long enough, and it can be…well, miserable. There’s more to the Gospel then that.

It’s a completely different matter when we see Jesus entering into our misery, and into our miserable company. Never have we seen him like this. At first, I’m tempted to say that I feel for Jesus. I think about my own depressing moments, the times where I’ve been crippled by sadness, so much so that I feel like I could die just to end it all. But what is more the case is this: Jesus feels for us. I’m not talking sympathy, as if he feels sorry for us. That’s true too. But I’m talking empathy. God knows intimately what it means to suffer, to be lonely, to be abandoned by friends. What makes him unique is that he has experienced the abandonment of God. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and lived among us.” God came and dwelt in the midst of misery. But how did he deal with misery, with agony? What gave him power to stay the course?

Only one thing could do so, and that was prayer. Prayer makes all the difference in this story. Let’s look at the story.

“Sit here while I go over there and pray,” Jesus says to the disciples. Then he takes the cream of the crop with him: Peter, James and John. The last time these three were with Jesus, they had the privilege of witnessing Jesus’ transfiguration and fell down in fear when God announced “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” It was the epitome of a spiritual high. But here we are in the ultimate spiritual low, you might say, where the three disciples being asked not to be witnesses of glory, but of suffering. They are invited to be companions, to be co-sufferers with Jesus, to hold vigil with him.
Now, there’s something else we need to know about these three men that Jesus chose. Right before this scene, Jesus predicts that the disciples will abandon him, but they object. James and John think they are able to drink the cup. Peter says that while everyone else abandons Jesus, he will follow him to the end. And so say all the disciples. Of course, we know how the story goes - that they all will indeed desert Jesus.
But what’s amazing is that, despite their inevitable failure, despite his own prediction, Jesus does not say “You know, I can’t trust you guys. I think I better go this one alone.” He does not want to pray alone, not this time. He invites them deep into this garden in Gethsemane, making himself vulnerable to them: “I am deeply grieved, even to death. Remain here, stay with awake with me.”

The first thing we learn about prayer is that you and I will always fail at prayer, but, we are invited, indeed, we are commanded to pray nonetheless. God does not will to be without us, but for us to be with Him. God is with us. God will not break the promise of the covenant. The question for the disciples, and for us is this: will we break it?

The inevitable answer is, yes. Even before the crisis comes, their inability to stay awake makes them ineffective even in the role of providing moral support. Jesus finds them sleeping, and he acts a little surprised, despite his prediction, at the relatively short time it takes for Peter to fail: “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?” Then he gives them a stern warning: “Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Notice that this time, he tells them not only to stay awake or alert, but also to pray for themselves. Jesus is encouraging them to use a petition from the Lord’s Prayer: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Jesus knows this temptation firsthand from his journey into the wilderness at the commencement of his ministry. Prayer is what sustained him then, it is what sustains him now as he meets the forces of evil in the darkness of the garden. These forces are a real threat, not only to Jesus, but to the disciples, and to us as the church.

“The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak,” which is another way of saying that the initial enthusiasm and professions of loyalty inevitably succumb to fear of following Jesus. Here, Jesus is speaking to Peter, who once again is willing, but cannot carry out what he wills because of fear. And what does he lack at such a critical time? He and the disciples refuse to pray. Instead they sleep. They have given up.

This is the second principle of prayer: only through prayer can we have the moral stamina to face up to the costs of discipleship. We cannot follow Jesus if we do not pray, because we inevitably will come to the time of trial, where the evil principalities and powers of this world will threaten and intimidate us into questioning and doubting whether God really does have a covenant relationship with us and with the world. Now, let’s move away from the disciples and look at how Jesus handles the time of trial:

Jesus prays three times. The first time: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” The second time: “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” The third time, he said these same words. Now, again, Jesus had been predicting that this day would come. He knew this was his mission. So this prayer is not a sudden lack of faith on the part of Jesus, or a flirtation with disobedience. He is human. He realizes that he is about to be abandoned not only by the disciples, but by the Father, and that all the forces of evil are about to have their way with him. When Jesus prays, “if it is possible,” it’s a genuine prayer, a genuine request. Jesus is being completely honest with the Father: “I do not want to drink this cup. But if there is no other way, then your will be done.” Notice that there’s no answer from God. God is absent – it is not a “conversation.” Yet, what we know is that Jesus realizes there is no other way. Despite no explicit answer, he is encouraged for his mission.
Here, we see Jesus practicing what he preached. The Lord’s Prayer is evoked: “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” Not what I want, but what you want. Jesus gives over his feelings on the matter to the Father, and as he prays he is given courage. Despite the agony and the distress, He is resolute. However, he did not shy away from making a request.

Now, why did Jesus make a request when he already knew the answer? Or, another question which often lurks in our minds is: if Jesus taught that God already knows our requests before we ask, then what’s the point of asking?

Here’s the third principle of prayer, which is really what I want to focus on: To pray is to ask God, to petition God for what we need. That’s it, in a nutshell. All you have to do is ask.

Jesus asks the Father because it is commanded that he do so, just as he taught in Matthew 7: “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” God commands us to ask, to petition Him. It’s not an option. God does not say, “If you feel like it, and you realize you’re not doing so well, come to me and maybe we can work something out.” No, our asking has nothing to do with the concrete needs we think we have or don’t have. And it doesn’t matter if you get what you want, because ultimately the beauty of prayer is that it changes our desires, because by asking we are already saying something of ourselves in relation to God: God is God, and we are not. God provides, and we receive. God is rich, and we are poor. But even more importantly, God desires to become poor in order that we might be rich.

Prayer is about asking. It’s what the Lord’s Prayer is all about. When we ask, we are saying that we are not in control, that we are not God, that we are in need, and that God is generous, and that God hears us. When you ask, you declare the truth. You are obedient to the Father.

If you tell the Father what you want, your relationship with God will be strengthened simply by that. Jesus prayed: not what I want, but what you want. See, that’s the beauty of prayer. If you do ask God, you are assuming a relationship. You are defining yourself as someone who is in need, who is subservient before a generous and loving God who hears your request. This is the proper relationship before God. This is why we pray.

And so, to recap, we are commanded to pray. Prayer is what gives us stamina in the midst of difficulty. And our prayers need to take the form of asking.

Now, look at the difference in how Jesus and the disciples handle the situation. Jesus announces “the hour.” The time of trial has begun. One stands firm and resolved, alert to the hour because of obedient prayer, and decides not to resist arrest or to give a defense at his trial. The others, who had earlier professed their loyalty, have fallen asleep. They now have limited evolutionary options: fight or flight. One disciple chooses the former, attempting to avoid arrest through a pre-emptive strike, pulling out a sword and lopping the ear off of one of slaves of the high priest. Jesus rebukes him, and reminds him that he can call legions of angels to come to his defense, but that he must stay the course to fulfill the promises of God. Then, it says, all the disciples chose the latter option, and turned and fled. Thus, they abandoned Jesus.

I can say, without a doubt, that this is how I react when times get tough, when I do not prepare myself in prayer, when I do not open my life to God, when I do not ask God for what I need. I prefer to sleep, to daydream of better options, to fight, to flee, to worry about my life and seek to control it by all means possible, and to lose sleep over it. The truth is, when I decide not to bother God with my requests, what I’m really doing is saying: “God, I have no needs. I’m just fine without you.” It’s an issue of human pride.
I want to point out a note of grace at the end of this story. Remember how I said Jesus was willing to invite these disciples into the garden despite the fact that he knew they would fail. Well look at how he addresses them after they have failed: He says “Let us be going.” He refers to the disciples as “us,” because Jesus has not abandoned them. He is still their Lord and Savior, and it is because of this relationship that their failure will not ultimately undo them.

Jesus prays on our behalf, even as we fail. Indeed, hear the good news in Luke 22, when he tells Peter: “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

While we can take for granted that God loves us from God’s side in Jesus Christ, we cannot take for granted that we will love God and remember the covenant. Think of it like marriage. Those of us who went on the marriage retreat spent a lot of time hearing about the need for communication in relationships. My wife and I made wedding vows almost 5 years ago, and we are married. That is our relationship, as husband and wife. But if I fail to communicate both my love for her and my need for love from her, then I fail to make good on my vows. I stop investing in the relationship, and it becomes simply a nominal reality. It’s not the wearing of the ring, but the daily communicative acts of love that protect the covenant. It’s not attending church or reading theology about God that protects the covenant. Rather, prayer keeps us invested in this covenant. Thus, it is commanded for our benefit by the God who can and will keep the promise to love us and be our God, to give us what we need when we ask.

The living God takes whatever we give and makes use of it, but He has no time for those who seek other help to the exclusion of prayer. It is better to ask poorly than to not ask at all. Whether times are good or bad, or just neutrally busy, we will be tempted to stop praying. Even when we have all things at our disposal and think we have no need at all, we must pray and be grateful

May we come as empty vessels, seeking to be filled. This is our posture before God as He decided it should be in the covenant. For God to be our God means that we are constantly in need, and God is constantly generous. Therefore, let us be bold to petition the Lord for what we need.

Opening Our Lives to Others

2010-03-10T03:51:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following article for the February edition of the New Wilmington Presbyterian Church Newsletter: What's UP?

“So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”
(1 Thessalonians 2:8)

The ministry of the Gospel is a profoundly human enterprise. This verse, from one of Paul’s earliest letters to one of his churches, has become very dear to me, because it reminds me that to care deeply requires that I share Jesus with my whole person. Paul made his ministry inherently relational and personal, and did more than relay the Gospel as a piece of helpful information - he threw his body into it. No doubt this relationship was just as fulfilling for him as it was for the Thessalonians.

In my ministry with adolescents, I have noticed that they have a newly developed relational awareness, which at times can overpower their sense of self. Relationships with peers take up most of their time and energy, because teenagers attempt to secure their own identities by sharing in the identities of others. Because of their situation, it has been well-known fact that ministry to youth requires building relationships. This is coupled with the myth that youth are difficult for adults to relate to, which is one reason churches feel the need to hire youth ministers. These “specialists” are thought to do what others apparently cannot do – i.e., relate to youth in a way that cuts through relational awkwardness and magically fosters faith-development (or at least keeps them in the building until they graduate).

The fact is that youth ministry professionals largely exist because congregations have bought into a lie about why we have relationships in the first place. Andrew Root, in his book Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, argues that we need to move from a “strategy of influence” to a “theology of incarnation.” What does a strategy of influence look like in youth ministry? It looks like a youth worker anxiously “carpet-bombing” students with questions about their lives: “How’s school? Are you playing any sports? Are you dating anyone?” The idea is that if the youth worker can help them open up their lives, then he or she can pour the Gospel in. If I can get the kids to think I’m interested in them, then they will feel valued as a person and will keep coming to church or youth group or Sunday school (maybe even get saved along the way!). Relationships, and people, thus serve a function, but they are not valued in themselves. Can you see why youth don’t want to come (back) to church? Can you see why adults refuse to participate in youth ministry? And more importantly, can you see how this attitude can creep into other areas of church life besides youth ministry?

Root invites us to think through this strategy of influence theologically: Did God become incarnate in Jesus Christ in order to influence us toward some other end (salvation)? Or think of it in terms of marriage: Did I marry my wife so that I could influence her for some other end? (Substitute “fix” for “influence”). Just as relationship is the end goal with Jesus Christ (He is our salvation), so it is the end goal with one another. Relationships are not a means to an end – they are the end. Our attempts to fix and influence our relationships to God and others for other goals (however well-intended) are idolatrous, because they are ways in which we attempt to take control, and keep our distance.

A peaceful relationship is one in which persons can simply enjoy being together. But how is such a relationship possible? If we place ourselves in the grace of God, knowing that true relationship has already been achieved and secured through death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then we must make ourselves available and open to one another. This is what youth crave, as we all do: an honest two-way relationship between people who can be themselves. Any context that creates opportunities for relationships like this is rich soil for the Kingdom. When we are humble and open, we can afford to place ourselves alongside one another not only in times of joy, but especially in the midst of suffering. If we say we follow Jesus, then we will have to follow him into the darkness and suffering of our neighbor, where He is our only true source of light. Here we will share our own selves, even our own darkness and suffering, so that we are co-sufferers in Christ. May we open our lives to God and others in order that we can "rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15).

Yours in Christ,
Chris TerryNelson

Some Reading Suggestions for Ministers

2010-03-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

A current book I'm reading and using for our church small group is John Indermark's "Parables and Passion: Jesus' Stories For the Days of Lent." It has nice short sections on the parables that would come in handy for sermons or reflections, as well as for small groups (it provides leadership discussion questions and activities in the back).

Another book I've really come to enjoy, which would be great for students in transition, is Jerry Sittser's "The Will of God as a Way of Life." Through an exploration of Scripture, church tradition, and his own life experience, Sittser helps to ground the discernment of God's will in the mundane practices and little decisions of daily discipleship, so that when it comes time to make big decisions about marriage and family, school or work, etc., we are already equipped to make good decisions as faithful followers. He helped articulate the problem with a typical evangelical teaching on the issue, which tends to make us future-focused about big decision so that we're not present to God or others but truly self-centered. It also tends make us think that God takes some pleasure in a hide-and-seek game, and that there can only be one decision that is right, and we have to figure out which one it is (can you say stressful?!). Basically, "if you seek God's kingdom and His Righteousness, all these things will be added unto you" is the center verse of this book.

While I haven't done enough with the Old Testament to be well-read in commentaries, my closest companion for a Sunday School class on Genesis was Walter Brueggemann's fine volume. I say fine because it's a well-rounded commentary for preaching and teaching, not an exhaustive tomb (although Brueggemann is an OT scholar). It thus takes short-cuts that might land theologically to the left without much explanation or evidence. That said, it's the only one I can recommend from extensive personal use.

Finally, I would suggest the following books to get plugged into the missional conversation in a theologically rigorous but accessible way (not all literature with the word "missional" in the title meets this criteria!):

The Mission of God by Christopher J.H. Wright

Transforming Mission by David Bosch

The Continuing Conversion of the Church by Darrell Guder

Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World by Richard Bauckham

Andrew Marin on The Church and the Gay Community

2010-02-19T08:51:00.001-08:00

Lumen 1.31 - Andrew Marin from mariners church on Vimeo.

God's Plan For Your Life: An Exercise In Expanding Biblical Context

2010-02-12T10:46:00.001-08:00

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope." (Jeremiah 29:11, NRSV)

Response: "So God knows what's up, and everything will work out just fine. Thank you God, I needed this nugget for the day."

"11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope; 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you; 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the LORD." (Jeremiah 29:11-14a)

Response: "Okay God, things aren't working out quite as I planned, but I realize that I bear some responsibility in this plan. So I'm going to search for you in prayer, in the hopes that I'll end up where you want me to be by the end, so that I do indeed find you. I really don't like this game of hide and seek, but I'm sure it's all part of the plan, right?"

"10 For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." (Jeremiah 29:10-14)

Response: "... This passage isn't about me... Or is it?"

Calvin on the Meaning of Penitence and Fasting

2010-02-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

To put in one word, I say that penitence is a spiritual regeneration which has the goal of restoring the image of God which was obscured and practically wiped out of us by Adam’s transgression. So that is what the apostle calls it when he says that, “Having the veil taken away, we reflect God’s glory, being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by God’s Spirit.” And: “Be renewed in your soul and put on the new person who is created like God in righteousness and true holiness” (2 Cor. 3[18]). And in another passage: “Having put on the new person, who is renewed in the knowledge and image of the One who created him” (Eph. 4[23-24]; Col. 3[10]). So by this regeneration we are restored by Christ’s grace into God’s righteousness from which we were excluded by Adam, as it pleases God to restore in their integrity and wholeness all those whom He adopts into the inheritance of eternal life.

So now it can be understood what the fruits of penitence are. But because the prophets remind the people to repent with tears and fasting, clad in sackcloth, with ashes on the head (which is chiefly shown in Joel, 2[12-13]), some writers think that the principal thing in penitence is to fast and weep, and so we must oppose their error. In that passage of Joel, what is said about the entire conversion of our heart to the Lord and rending our hearts and not our garments, is completely proper to penitence. The tears and fasts are put there not as permanent inferences but as circumstances which were particularly fitting at that time. For since he had pronounced God’s terrifying vengeance on the Jews, he exhorts them to ward it off not only by amending their life but also by humbling themselves and showing signs of sadness. For as formerly someone accused of a crime let his beard grow and did not comb his hair and clad himself in mourning in order to obtain the judge’s mercy, so it was also fitting for this people who were indicted before God’s throne to testify by external signs that they asked for pardon only by His mercy.

Now although the way of dressing in sackcloth and putting ashes on the head was the custom of that time and does not at all pertain to us today, nevertheless the tears and fasts are not out of place for us today, whenever the Lord shows us signs of some calamity. For when He makes some danger appear to us He is announcing that He is ready to do vengeance and already armed for it. The prophet then speaks very well in exhorting to tears and fasts (testimonies of their sadness) those to whom he had foretold that God’s judgment was ready to destroy them. It would be good if the ecclesiastical pastors today acted in such a way, i.e., if whenever they might see some calamity approaching, whether of war or famine or plague, they would exhort their people that it would be good to pray to the Lord with tears and fasting, provided they are fixed on the chief thing which is rending their hearts and not their garments. It is certain that fasting was not always joined together with repentance, but it is particularly fitting for those who want to testify that they know they have deserved God’s wrath and yet ask pardon of His mercy. For this reason Jesus Christ puts fasting with suffering and affliction. For He excused His apostles for not fasting in the time when He was with them because it was the time of joy, saying that they would have a suitable occasion to fast in the time of sadness when they were deprived of His company (Matt. 9[15-16]). I speak of the solemn and public fast. For the life of the Christian should be moderated in such soberness that it might appear to be a kind of continual fast from beginning to end.

- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition, trans. Elsie Anne McKee, pp. 276-7

Patience

2010-01-27T07:31:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following article for the January edition of the New Wilmington Presbyterian Church Newsletter: What's UP?

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning;
the patient in spirit are better than the proud in spirit (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near (James 5:7-8).

After New Year’s Day, I made a resolution to find a job. After combing the PCUSA’s Church Leadership Connection website, I ended up sending my PIF (Personal Information Form - a Presbyterian resume, so to speak) to thirty-five churches scattered throughout the country. As I entered my data, experience, skills, and gifts into this document, I felt like I had been reduced. Will they see the real me in this document? Actually, the scarier question was: if they do see the real me, what will they do with me? I pushed through the process. As a final form of retribution against my ego, I clicked that “send” button like a sniper – inhale, hold breath for two seconds, fire, exhale. Finally, the process was out of my hands. I expected relaxation, but I was actually more anxious. I found myself missing the busyness of filling out forms more than the empty silence. It wasn’t total silence, of course. I’ve received a lot of replies, just not the kind that gives me what I’m looking for: “Dear Mr. TerryNelson, we have received your PIF and will review it at the upcoming meeting. We appreciate your patience as we are early in the process.” What?! No job offer?!

Patience. Paul calls it a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Now, as someone who enjoys fruit, you’d think I’d enjoy patience. The problem is that Paul’s intended meaning of “fruit” relied on an assumed cultural understanding and appreciation for the long, hard and patient work of growing food. Today, this work remains largely outside our field of vision. If we want apples, we have to make that long, arduous journey to Apple Castle. Unfortunately, they don’t carry patience.

In The Will of God as a Way of Life, Jerry Sittser points out that, despite our good intentions, obsessing about the future and trying to figure out “God’s will” for our future easily makes us self-absorbed, numb to our present company and surroundings. We make good decisions about our future not when we devote ourselves to those decisions, but to being lovers of God and neighbor today. When we are good stewards of the present moment, the big decisions of tomorrow lose all of their idolatrous power over us. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:8).