The Need for More Community

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Community is something that evades most Calvary Chapels, mine included. We emphasize teaching the Scripture verse by verse and that is usually left to one man and a few assistants. Part of our challenge is that we are a portable church. I think I am one of the few, if not the only portable church pastor on this blog. Being portable brings with it several challenges that churches with permanent facilities dont’t have. First is that we only have our main meeting space between the hours of 7 AM and 1PM on Sunday mornings and second, we don’t have space to do church wide fellowships. Just recently a Baptist church in town started letting us use their facility.

This has left us with a dilemma on how to connect our people to each other. When we first started we were serious about small groups, in fact they were one of our core values. The problem was that even though we had a lot of mature Christians as part of our plant we didn’t have the breadth to do more than one or two groups at a time. That is fine when your church is small starting out but we didn’t have that luxury. We simply didn’t have enough leaders or host homes to have a viable small group ministry. After several years of starting and stopping we finally stopped them altogether and I started teaching a mid-week study through Revelation. It was great and the group was committed but we only had 25-30 people each week. That wasn’t even ten percent of our adult congregation.

Then this January I had to take an intensive class for my MDiv at Liberty University. It was taught by Dr Dave Earley. The title of the class was “Leading a Healthy Church.” The purpose of the class was to get churches that were stuck in a rut out of it. Out of the sixty people in the class I was the only non-Baptist pastor there, but to be honest my church was just as stuck as some of these hundred year old, dye in the wool Baptist churches. Dr. Earley has written several books but two books changed my outlook and process for how we do community at The Village Chapel. The first book is “The Small Group Leaders Toolkit.” Don’t let the title fool you, this is a book for any leader in your church. Great, very practical, knowledge on how to do ministry. The next book was “8 Habits of Effective Small Groups.” This is a nuts and bolts book on how to have a growing surviving small group ministry. It rocked my world and has revolutionized our small groups.

At the end of January we put out a call for people who wanted to lead a small group. We wanted to start out small and perfect the process but we had ten small group leaders step forward. We trained them on a Saturday morning and let them choose what they wanted to teach through. Some chose inductive studies through a book of the Bible and other chose, myself included, a DVD series to go through. We had an amazing response to the signups. Most groups were full before they started and remain that way. We went from 25 people on a Thursday night to over 100 adults in ten groups and that doesn’t include our women’s study which has been meeting for years.

It also energized our Sunday mornings in several ways. First was through fellowship. We have a brief greeting time between worship and the teaching. It has been increasingly difficult to quiet this group down to start teaching. Second our volunteers have shot through the roof. Our Children’s director attends our Parenting small group. She was initiating a new check in method and needed volunteers and it ended up being completely staffed by the women of our small group! Finally, more people are being ministered to. I am amazed each week of the reports of the small groups loving on someone in their group who is hurting. That is coverage I could never do.

My church was desperate for community and I have to think that other churches are too. We can’t forget the power that comes when people are connected on a deeper level. I know a lot of Calvary Chapel Pastors do the two services a week model and it works well, some even do three. The difficulty this presents is that we spend all of our time studying and teaching and run the risk of restricting our community of believers. Furthermore we lose an arena that is perfect for training future leaders. All of this adds to and strengthens the community of your church. By further developing the community of your church you will increase the ministry and decrease your workload while at the same time breathing fresh life into your people. If the community of your church is lagging I challenge you to take in a new direction.

Busy…

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Having small children, as I do, ensures that I have a steady diet of Veggie Tales.  If you’ve never seen a Veggie Tales episode you are definitely missing out.  Bob and Larry are something of a staple in our home, which means that I regularly hear, and often cannot get out of my head, the little veggie ditties (i.e. songs; many of which are actually quite funny).  One of the songs that I recently heard (for the millionth time) says at one point…

We’re busy, busy, dreadfully busy
You’ve no idea what we have to do.
Busy, busy, shockingly busy
Much, much too busy for you.

It is an interesting thing when a song written for 3-6 year-olds challenges you to think and question whether or not you’re doing what you should be doing.

We live in an dizzyingly busy society, and I find myself so often caught up in the busyness of it all.  Words like “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) and “Come aside… and rest a while” (Mark 6:31) are challenges that I often fail at.  It is staggering just how fast days and weeks fly by.  With seemingly endless things to “get done” I frequently find myself flying from one task to the next.  Sadly, with my mind on the 3, 4, 5 or 10 other things I “must” get done, I just mechanically process the tasks.  It’s like when you’re driving somewhere, with your mind elsewhere, and when you get to your destination you realize that you don’t remember any of the drive and wonder how you made it without an accident.

A few of months ago, while thinking on the story of Jesus at Lazarus’ house as Martha served and Mary sat at Jesus’ feet I was struck by Jesus’ word to Martha…

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled  about many things: but one thing is needful.”

Luke 10:41-42

There are a number of different ways to apply the passage, but as I meditated upon it I found myself confronted with the reality that I am often so absorbed with the “many things” that I need to do that I miss the opportunity to worship the Lord in the “one thing” that I’m doing at that moment.  The Apostle Paul said, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31) And “whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord” (Colossians 3:23).  I’ve been challenged since that meditation to seek to worship the Lord with whatever “one thing” I am doing from moment to moment.  Whether it’s writing an email, answering a phone call, reading a Psalm or driving to an appointment; whatever I do, even eating and drinking, can be done as worship for the glory of God.

Trust me, it’s hard.  Especially since I keep finding myself distracted by the 12 other things I need to do when this post is done… 😉

 

For further consideration I recommend a post from my friend Mickey Stonier at The Rock Church, San Diego, Pastor’s Blog

 

Intentionally Limiting…

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I love living in the day and age in which we live. We have immediate access to information and I love information! Let’s be honest, I am an information junkie. Growing up in a heavily technological age and then with the internet coming onto the scene, I feel that I have lived my entire life on information overload.

God has been doing much in my heart and life lately. Things like quietness, solitude and simplicity have been at the fore of my heart and mind. I find God is continually simplifying and refining my life. But as God has been stirring my heart for simplicity, I have begun to realize something about all of this information. When you have access to everything, you end up being an inch deep and mile wide. Let me explain it to you. Back in times before there was unlimited access to information, people got to go down deep with just a few things. Instead of scavenging everywhere in unlimited fields, people knew one field very well. Today it is not so. For most people (including myself), we have such access to information that we rarely ever connect to the ethos of few things. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not making a moral judgment about this. Instead I am trying to articulate that the sword cuts both ways, in some ways amazing and in other ways limiting.

Let me give you some personal examples. When I first got into listening to jazz, I owned 3 jazz albums (Miles Davis – Kind of Blue, John Coltrane – A Love Supreme & Bill Evans – Sunday at the Village Vanguard). I listened to those albums over and over and over again for the better part of a year. Even to this day, I can sing many of the solos on every one of these albums. I soaked myself in them and they became part of who I am. But then the world of unlimited music kicked in. Before I knew it, I owned thousands of albums. I grazed in each field but never truly got to know any of those fields nor internalized the music.

Fast forward to my conversion. I had a Bible and I devoured it. Someone gave me a copy of JI Packer’s Knowing God and Andrew Murray’s Humility (I think they were trying to tell me something ;-). I devoured those books. Read them over and over and over again. But in the same way, ultimately the world of Christian books opened to me. Now thousands of titles later (in print, e-book, and on various computer programs), I find myself an inch deep and a mile wide with everything. I imagine that many of you are like me. You get a new book (or album), you read a bit of it and then you never finish it. You get going, you get distracted reading something else and then you put it down.

So I decided to take action and intentionally limit my reading. I decided that I was going to focus on a few authors for the entire year. I decided that I was going to spend an entire year with Eugene Peterson, Abraham Heschel, Henri Nouwen and John Stott. I have to be honest, it has been a total blast! I feel like I am soaking in these men’s writings in a much more special way than just grazing. By making an intentional decision to soak rather than graze, I find myself being shaped in new and different ways.

So my question would be this, “If you were to chose four authors to focus on this year, who would they be and why?” I’m not saying your ‘Desert Island Authors’. But those who would be nourishing your soul specifically right now and why. I am also assuming that you would be reading the Word of God.

Blessings

Secular Prophets

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One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true.  Titus 1:12-13

Even as there were secular prophets in Paul’s day who had their finger on the pulse of a generation, whose testimony was true, so we have secular prophets today to whom we should pay attention.  Much secular prophecy today is put to music.  The three greatest rock songs of the 20th century give us prophetic insight into the desires and the discouragements of overlapping generations.  I was listening to a countdown of the 100 greatest rock songs of the 20th century and the top three songs have a very interesting story to tell.

The greatest rock song of the 20th century is “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.  The lyrics are telling.  The singer is on a quest for satisfaction, fulfillment, contentment – but this proves to be an illusive goal.  It doesn’t matter if he’s driving in his car, trying to pick up girls, or what – he can’t get no satisfaction.  He tries and he tries and he tries and he tries, but he can’t get no.  That great British theologian, Mick Jagger, has captured the frustration of overlapping generations in three stanzas and a chorus.  And surprisingly, what comes through is a thoroughly Biblical doctrine – the flesh does not, cannot, will not satisfy – no matter how hard you try (and try and try).

The song in the #2 slot is Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.”  All Aretha is looking for is a little respect when she gets home – just a little bit will do.  She’s giving her man kisses and money and all she wants in return is a little respect when she gets home.  There is an ache in her heart that pleasure and money can’t fill.  She wants to be more than a sex object and a money maker – she desires to be seen as a person, in her home, by her man.  Is that too much to ask?  He can even sock-it-to-her.   The lyrics go on to say that she gets tired, but she’s going to keep on trying.

Mick desires a satisfaction that he’s not finding and Aretha is asking for a respect that’s being withheld from her.  What’s a person to do?  I know – escape this stingy world and buy a “Stairway to Heaven.”

And that’s exactly what Led Zeppelin did in the #3 rock song of all time.  Read the opening lyrics:

There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold

And she’s buying a stairway to heaven

When she gets there she knows if the stores are all closed

With a word she can get what she came for

The reality is that there is no satisfaction or real respect to be found here in this life and so let’s escape to a place where even if the stores are closed and the doors are locked and no one is opening to us, we can, with a word, get what we came for.  Let’s travel to a place where we don’t have to depend upon the good will of others to experience satisfaction and feel respect.  It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that LSD was the stairway to heaven where everything became possible and available – at least for a while.

Mick is frustrated, Aretha is rejected, and so thoughts turn heavenward.  And why not?  Isn’t this, too, a Biblical theme?  We weren’t created for this life, but for the life to come.  We are pilgrims, not settlers.  I just learned this last week that the full title of Bunyan’s book, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” is actually “Pilgrim’s Progress From This World to That Which is to Come.”  These secular prophets unwittingly reveal they are on the same journey, albeit, taking a much different path that will not lead them where their hearts yearn to be.  We know that Christ is the path which leads from this world to that which is to come.

These ‘three greatest rock songs of the 20th century’ are not so just because of their musicality – their rhythm and beat.  Lyrically, they resonate with the thoughts, dreams, and desires of overlapping generations.  In these songs we find a backhanded recognition of Biblical truth – we are created for a different world and this world cannot scratch our deepest itches, this world cannot reach our deepest places.  Secular prophecy has much to teach us about the desires and doubts of this generation, while at the same time it has much to teach those who author it about their own hearts.  May this generation listen to their hearts, because if they really do, they will be in a place to hear the voice of God.

 

Pastoral Busyness as Idolatry

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Most pastors that I know, including myself, struggle with being excessively busy. We see how many things we can pile on our ministerial plates. We know that ministering within a local congregation itself is more than a full time job. Most people, who have never walked in the shoes of a pastor, imagine the pastor sitting all day with his feet up, sipping coffee, reading the Bible and generally basking in the Shekinah. For many of us, we expected this when we sensed the Spirit’s call for us into ministry. But in reality, for most of us, it is long days of counseling. Sure there is coffee, but normally accompanied by the tears and struggles of the person sitting across the table from you. There are continual issues, emails, phone calls, meetings and preparation. Whether it be physical (like a broken sound system, coffee pot or a balky back), emotional (us on the top of that list), relational (no there are never any interpersonal conflicts in church), societal (some real world happening that is dramatically impacting) or spiritual (growing in Christ is a messy business), it really never ends. For most of us, instead of basking in the Shekinah, we drag ourselves into the pulpit with broken prayers for the Spirit to speak despite ourselves. And that leaves out budgeting, family time and the most important reality of a prayer life and relationship with God Himself. Please don’t feel that I am complaining or lamenting. I am not. I am just trying to set the stage.

You see all of that is more than a full time job (and for many of us, we also work a day job). But yet, for so many of us, there are a million and one other things that we find ourselves doing in God’s name. Chaplaincy, disaster response, blogging (like I am doing right now), countless hours doing innumerable good things. Oftentimes, pastors have a ton of additional things that they are involved in. For many of us, if we are not busy, then we are not pastoring. If we are pastoring and also busy, then we have value in the ministry. If we can say that our calendar is full then we justify our existence. When we get to the end of our day and we are exhausted, we can say to ourselves, “You are God’s man, well done, good and faithful servant!”.

But we are valuing ourselves not by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His love and grace. Instead we are valuing ourselves by our busyness. I have often asked myself, “Would I be bored in my Christian walk if there wasn’t so much ministry to do?” I struggle with my own heart’s response. I would be restless and bored. That makes me nervous. Should I be restless or bored with Jesus alone? We all know the answer to that!

INEXPERIENCED AND ALL-KNOWING

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When I Knew Everything

I had been a Christian for two years.  I was sitting in a service at a church I’d recently started attending.  As I listened to the pastor preach his sermon I found myself asking hosts of critical and, I thought, righteous questions.

“What is this guy even talking about?  Why doesn’t he preach expository sermons?  Why doesn’t he emphasize this or that doctrine more?  Why does he use that method to invite people to trust in the gospel?  Is this series ever going to end?  Why doesn’t he just hire someone else to take his spot and move into a subordinate role?  Why can’t he come up with a vision and mission I can get on board with?  Does our church even have a mission and vision?”  Blah, blah, blah.

 The funny thing (perhaps sad thing) is that when I was in my season of offering church leaders my hardest and most continuous criticisms over these kinds of issues thinking I was all-knowing about everything to do with church/ministry, I was totally inexperienced.  I’d never spent a single day in the shoes of a pastor, delivered or prepared a single sermon, led a Bible study, crafted any kind of mission or vision statement, trained teams, planted a church, or anything else.  And yet, I thought I had all the answers about how to solve everything those above me were doing wrong.

I describe myself during those days as suffering from what I now call “New-believer syndrome.”  This isn’t to be a knock on new followers of Jesus at all!  Not all new Christians go through what I did.  But the truth is that its very common for new Christians to go through a season after only being saved for a short time in which they get really critical and arrogant.  That was me.  My mindset was like, “Well of course I know everything about Christianity and the church!  I’ve been a Christian for six months, haven’t I! “

Getting Educated

Fast forward.  Now I’ve been in vocational ministry for over seven years.  And what God has slowly showed me through granting the education of actual street-level experience beyond the education of books I’d read and messages I’d heard early on about ministry is that I really knew far less than I thought I did!  I think back to those days of criticizing and challenging my leaders with embarrassment and shame.  I praise God that He was gracious and didn’t give me the cosmic knee-capping I deserved in my arrogance and ignorance.  As I got opportunities to lead I began to discover why leaders do things at times that I used to scoff at.  I learned that there are many things about ministry that you just can’t understand unless you actually are in the positions and go through the experiences.

 Meeting Others Who Know Everything

Now that I’ve been in vocational ministry, served as a pastor and planted churches, and have done lots of leadership training I’ve had the wonderful experience of meeting people who currently have the critical mentality from which I used to suffer.  The saddest and most heart-breaking thing I sometimes see is when people are stuck in this mentality five, ten, or even twenty or more years after meeting Jesus.  As I look back at my own experience and journey and observe others who are stuck in a spirit of criticism there seem to be some common contributing factors to developing this mindset:

1. Pride has always been a struggle

If you have a history of being arrogant, self-important, and a know-it-all in general before becoming a Christian, pride becomes an area of temptation the enemy really hammers you on in your new relationship with Jesus.  Much of those critical thoughts come from your own sinful flesh, and the rest of them come from demonic temptation at work in your mind.

2. They read far more books about the Bible than the Bible itself

For about the first two years of my relationship with Jesus the only times I’d actually crack my Bible open was when I was looking for a proof text to support a doctrine I’d learned from another book, or when I was at church.  What this led to was me using other books as my lens through which I filtered the Bible rather than me using the Bible as the lens through which I filtered the other books I read.  Because of this, when I got into debates about the criticisms I was voicing I would inevitably quote human authors instead of God’s word to prove my point.  That’s a dangerous place to dwell.

 3. They do most of their studying in isolation

Many people who come to Jesus today don’t get involved in local churches.  There is a huge disconnect here.  In the book of Acts no one who got saved refrained from getting involved in the life of the local church.  That isn’t to say you’re not saved if you aren’t in consistent community with other believers who make up a local church.  Its simply to point out that your willful practice of not being in community with a local church is way out of step with the biblical example.  God isn’t merely saving disconnected individuals scattered throughout the world; He is saving a people, a called-out assembly, and an interconnected, interdependent body.[1]

 The biblical example shows us that studying is to be done in community under experienced and equipped, spiritually gifted leaders.[2]  Personal Bible study is so valuable and necessary.  But so is study in community. Without others who are more spiritually mature and biblically educated challenging our conclusions and criticisms we develop unhealthy perspectives and unhelpful attitudes.

If pride has always been an issue for you, you read more books about the Bible than the Bible itself, and you do most of your study in isolation, you are a prime candidate to become today’s Inexperienced and All-knowing!

 Exhortations

Maybe you are one of today’s Inexperienced and All-knowing in the church. Or maybe you’re dealing with one of them right now.  If you’re dealing with one, chances are that you played the part of the Inexperienced and All-knowing of yesteryear.  But let me wrap this post up with encouragement for you both.

To today’s Inexperienced and All-knowing, please stop!  You don’t know as much as you think.  You’re hurting your leaders, not helping them.  And Jesus really is quite able to take care of His people without your arrogance and methods.  He’s chosen the leaders who are over you and you need to submit to Him by submitting to them, even though they are weak.  Have you considered that their weaknesses might be the precise reasons God chose them?  Read 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 and ask God for illumination.

To yesterday’s Inexperienced and All-knowing the message is simple- Don’t kill anyone!  Humble yourself and remember your own journey. First, repent to God for your former attitudes.  Next you may need to repent to the person you used to criticize.  After being a lead pastor for two months that is exactly what I had to do and it was healthy for me and the other pastor.  Lastly, deal with this mentality in those who come your way with grace and boldness.

“And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient…” 2 Timothy 2:24 NKJV

 “Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season.  Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” 2 Timothy 4:2 NKJV

Peace

[1] Eph. 4:11-17; 1 Cor. 12; Acts 2:41-47; Ephesians as a whole.

[2] Acts 2:42; Titus 1:9

Our view of our church members: People, Machinery, or Scenery?

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From what I’ve been told, (which I haven’t been able to verify personally), a study was done many years ago by a student at a University in the North Western part of the United States.  As I understand it, the study was undertaken in order to discover how the people that live in that part of the country view other people.  The study was conducted by interviewing a variety of people and asking them to express their views about their family members, friends, acquaintances, and also those people that they observe but don’t interact with.

The conclusion of the study was that these “average” Americans basically placed people into one of the following 3 categories:  People, Machinery, or Scenery.

PEOPLE:  were those people that the interviewees had “real” realtionships with.  This included immediate family members, close friends, and a few others.  They knew the “stories” of those they considered PEOPLE, shared their own story with them, and were genuinely concerned about what was going on in their lives.

MACHINERY:  were those people that they interacted with as part of just living day to day life and who usually were fulfilling some kind of function that the interviewee needed in order to live life, (like the teller at the bank, the gas station attendant, the waitress, the lady behind the counter at the DMV, and so forth).  The MACHINERY were the people that they interacted with out of necessity, not out of choice.   The service or utility or function these people provided and that was needed by the interviewee was all the interviewee was interested in.  There was no interest in getting to know them, making themselves known to them, or showing care for them in any way.  What mattered was whether this person accomplished the task that the interviewee was deriving a benefit from.  And if that task wasn’t accomplished to the satisfaction of the interviewee, then even less thought was given to that person as a person and a mental note was made to discover someone else who was more competent at completing the function.

SCENERY: were those people, usually culturally or socio-enomically different than the interviewee, who were visible to them at different times, but usually at a distance.  In other words the interviewee knew they were out there and that they occupied space in the same little part of the world that they lived life in, but they didn’t have reason to interact with or engage them.  In many cases, they said that the distinction between these people and the actual scenery that surrounds day to day life such as trees, stop-lights, billboards, fences, etc., had been blurred to them.  Every now and then something would trigger a thought in them that forced them to recognize that these people really were people and not scenery, but that didn’t happen that often.

In my own travels and my ministry to Americans and those of other cultures both here in America and in other countries, I’ve come to the conclusion that placing other people into one of these categories is pretty much an expression of our self-knowledge that we are limited and can’t know at a real level all of the people that make up our day to day lives.  It’s beyond our capacity.  But because of our sin nature, we are generally content to leave people in those categories and never make an effort to personalize them.  We’re content to leave them in one of those two non-person categories.  This is universal, it exists in all cultures.

This really isn’t surprising to me.

What is surprising is that this universal, sin-influenced cultural trait, hasn’t been abandoned by those who are new creations in Christ.  And because this cultural trait either hasn’t been thought about or examined and compared to what God has to say about the person hood and value of each person created in His image and likeness, local churches inadvertently end up interacting with and then treating their own attendees the same way those in the world do.

As pastors and leaders, do we view the majority of those people sitting in the sanctuary at each of our church services as really nothing more than beautiful SCENERY that we enjoy with our eyes alone?  SCENERY that we love to view as a beautiful forest each week, but a forest whose trees we really don’t care about considering individually?

As pastors and leaders, do we view those that make the service run, (ushers, the audio & visual guys, parking lot attendants, even Children’s ministry servants and so forth), as just MACHINERY that is essential for the functioning of the service and really nothing more?

As pastors and leaders, do we only view our families and fellow staff as PEOPLE?  Are we content with viewing everyone else as either MACHINERY or SCENERY and then being satisfied with the minimal level of interaction that is required for relating to MACHINERY or SCENERY?

Even though there are those who attend our services and are content being viewed as SCENERY for a while–content to be viewed as part of the overall forest, they eventually will desire to be viewed and interacted with as an individual tree that is not only a significant member of the forest, but also significant to those they consider Godly.

Even though our faithful members who perform functions for the good of the whole operation know they are a part of the MACHINERY of the service, they probably also believe that they are viewed by their church leaders as PEOPLE.

Do we as leaders stop treating them as PEOPLE if they no longer perform the function that is necessary for the operation of the church service?  If we stop interacting with them as PEOPLE because they no longer serve as a part of the MACHINERY, maybe we never viewed them as PEOPLE in the first place?

And if that is what we communicate to them, either intentionally or unintentionally, we shouldn’t be surprised if they move on, wounded as they depart.

Even though our capacity for personally interacting with others as PEOPLE is limited by our finiteness, we should regularly question ourselves as to whether we have inadvertently been expressing to others in any way, shape, or form, that viewing other people as MACHINERY or SCENERY is acceptable to us, to our fellow leaders, and or to God.  We definitely don’t want to go there.  But has that been where we’ve been?

 

 

And one last thought.  How about asking 4 or 5 PEOPLE that we do interact with as PEOPLE, (and not just paid staff, but others who serve in some capacity in the church), on a regular basis whether in their opinion, we have been treating others as something other than people?  And then…..humbly accept their perspective of us as valid and respond appropriately.

 

 

 

A Conundrum for Calvinists

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I am reading Roger Olson’s “Against Calvinism.” It is a well researched and well reasoned exposition of the Biblical and logical flaws of that doctrine.  It reminded me of a few ‘conundrums for Calvinists’ I wrote up a few years ago.  Please allow me to present one of them to you.  Implicit within the story is why I, too, reject Calvinism.

I have been invited to your home for a visit.  Upon arrival, I hear noise in the back yard and note that the side gate is open.  Walking around the house and into the back yard I discover that the noise is being made by your two year old little girl in the swimming pool.  It takes but a second to realize that the sound isn’t the joyful glee of play, but the frantic effort to keep from drowning.  And drown she will if I don’t intervene.  But I have chosen not to intervene and allow that event to unfold into the eventuality of her death.  I stand and watch as your daughter thrashes wildly around, takes her last breath, and closes her eyes forever.

After a moment you emerge from the back door of the home calling the name of your daughter.  Your eyes are drawn to my figure and are surprised to see me there and say so.  My gazing into the pool pulls your eyes down and you see her lying silent and still.  Jumping into the pool you grab her and immediately, instinctively know that she is dead.  The realization overwhelms you.  You yell for your wife to call 911 and begin the attempt to resuscitate her, but all to no avail.  The emergency personnel arrive and their attempts also prove futile.  She is lifted into the ambulance and transported to the morgue.

In an attempt to understand the tragedy that has taken place and how it came about, you question me.  To your utter horror, you discover that I was a witness to the final moments of your daughter’s life.  I recount how I came around the house through the side gate and saw your daughter in a life and death struggle in the pool.  “Why didn’t you jump in and save her?”  Your question is asked through a veil of tears and in rising anger.  “Yes, I could have, but I chose otherwise.  I was under no obligation to save her.  It wasn’t me who left the back door of your house open.  It wasn’t me who forgot to close the gate to the pool.  It wasn’t me who lost track of the where-a-bouts of your daughter.  And though I could have intervened and saved your daughter, I am in no way responsible for the course of events that led to her drowning death.”  I defend myself from your unjust charge that somehow my failure to rescue your daughter reflects poorly upon me and throws my character into an unfavorable light.

Regardless of what I say, no matter how vigorously I defend myself, in spite of how logically I shift all the blame to you, you will think me the most despicable, most damnable person who ever walked the face of this planet.  I could have saved her, but I didn’t – that’s all you see, that’s all you know, and that’s how you will judge me the rest of your life.  “But”, I protest, “I loved your daughter so much that I would have done anything to save her from this fate.”  Your anger towards me turns to confusion as you think through the hypocrisy of my actions as measured against the illogic my words.  I say that I loved your daughter so much that I exhausted all my efforts to save her – except jumping in and saving her.  From that day on, you will want nothing to do with me and my bizarre way of thinking and nonsensical notions.

The Calvinist has a problem.  Within the Calvinist position, God has the power to save all, but not the will to save all.  God has done everything in Christ to secure the salvation of sinners, except to savingly elect them.  He can, but He chooses not to.  God can save all from the unceasing terrors of hell, yet He chooses otherwise.  Why?  To the praise of His glory (or so we’re told).  I could jump in and save your daughter, but I have made a choice to let her drown.  You have considered me (rightly) the most despicable, damnable person on the planet.  God can save all, but chooses to save some.  My choice to allow your daughter to die a cruel death makes me damnable in your sight.  God’s choice to do nothing while sinners go to the eternal horrors of hell makes Calvinists praise Him all the more.  What you find despicable in me you find laudable in God though His decisions affect billions for eternity.  I do nothing and your daughter has a few moments of pain and terror.  God does nothing and billions suffer the agonizing torments of hell for all eternity.  I am to be damned and God is to be praised.  My refusal to make a choice for life reveals my utter depravity.  God’s refusal to make a choice for life reveals His holiness.  Here is a moral disconnect.  I, too, reject Calvinism.

Calvinists give theological priority to the will of God, not the nature of God.  Yet the nature of God is more basic to Him than His will.

The fundamental error of Calvinism is giving theological priority to the will of God.  Nature is more basic than will.

Will is the expression of nature.  God’s nature isn’t arbitrary – God is love.  The sovereignty of God expresses the nature of God – His love.  Sovereignty doesn’t mean that God is arbitrary.  It doesn’t mean that He can do anything He wants to.  It means that He can pursue whatever course He desires that is in keeping with His nature.  The Bible says, “God is love.”

The Bible doesn’t say, “God is will.”  God has a will, but He is love.  What you are is more basic than what you possess.  God cannot will to be what He is not.

Calvinism desires to maintain the freedom of God, but freedom is not something God is too terribly afraid of losing.  The nature of God is love.  Love binds you to people.  I am in glorious bondage to my wife, children, grandchildren, friends, and church.  I am not free to do as I will in an arbitrary manner.  I am free to love; I am not free not to love.  Not to love is sin to one whose nature is love.  Again, I believe the error is giving priority to the sovereignty of God rather than the love of God.  Calvinists bend God’s love to His sovereignty.  God’s will bends to His nature; sovereignty bends to love.

 

Seeking that Still Small Voice

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I have to admit that I am in a transitional season in my life. Newly transplanted in the Pacific Northwest, transitioning into the Senior Pastor position at Crossroads Community Church, changes are everywhere. I have moved from young, small churches to a very large and established church. New surroundings and experiences. New challenges and events. But truly the biggest change that is happening is in my own heart. God is doing something in me.

I have realized in a new and profound way how loud our world has gotten. I have always been a fan of technology. I have always been an early adopter. But whether it is the Twittesphere, the blogosphere, the new Facebook crazes, viral YouTube videos, so much of it is just straight up noise. For some time I have been noticing how most of the internet chatter is just a regurgitation of a few profoundly gifted people. I find myself waking up and checking the phone first off, Twitter, Facebook, email, texts. All noise I tell you. I have no less than three noise devises on my person at any given time. How many of us find ourselves staring at our devises while people, true and living images of God, are right in front of us being ignored? How many of us hide behind our emails or computers while there is a vast and lost world needing to be connected with in Jesus’ name?

Deep within my heart there is a longing for the simplicity of the still small voice of God. The voice that doesn’t pander to celebrity or the winds of culture. The voice that speaks of love, community, hope and redemption. It’s that voice that doesn’t live in our superficial divides over theology or ministry style. It’s the voice that is deeply Biblical without being legalistic or superficial. It has nothing to do with the proclivities of modern evangelicals and the various camps. That voice has everything to do with love and truth. The voice that wants to help us help others see God’s grace at work in their lives and circumstances.

I have also realized that that still small voice is terrifying renegade. We come seeking one thing and we get another thing. We have wants/desires/hopes/dreams and we get God’s alternative and deeply perplexing agenda. We want to do and God says don’t do. We want reward when God says decrease. We want American dreams spiritually fulfilled and instead we get our status quo called into question and new and terrifying horizon energized.

I cannot speak for you. But for me, I am seeking that still small voice.

The Real Saint Patrick: His Life and Mission

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SAINT PATRICK: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY

Saint Patrick, the great fifth century Christian missionary to Ireland, has historically been a most intriguing and obscure figure to the Christian church, as well as the entire world. Countless myths and legends have been told about this man. Many poems and stories have been written about him. Many theologians and missiologists have debated extensively on his religious allegiance and missionary philosophy. The question is can anything be agreed upon about Saint Patrick? In all of the hype and interest generated by his life and mission, is there anything that can be known for sure about him in the twenty-first century?

This writing is an to attempt to give an account of the facts generally agreed upon by students of this intriguing man with the goal of painting as accurate a picture of his true life and mission as possible. The life and mission of Saint Patrick are a most fascinating and edifying study, and I’m excited to share some of what can be known about them.

WHEN PATRICK WAS A WEE LADD

Patrick was born sometime in the late fourth century between the years 385-390 A.D. in the area known today as northeast England. His people were called Britons. They were a Celtic people that had been Romanized under the Christian Roman Empire which in part encompassed modern-day England. Thus, Patrick was culturally very Roman and disconnected from his Celtic roots. The Britons spoke mainly Latin and an early form of Welsh. Patrick was born into an aristocratic, wealthy, and religious family. His father, Calpurnius, was a deacon in the Roman Church and owned at least two estates. Not much is known about his mother.

Patrick seems to have been a fairly average boy in his early childhood. He went to school where he learned Latin (the common language at the time due to the influence of Rome) and Welsh, which was the more native and peasant tongue of the British Isles. Though his parents were actively involved in church and Patrick had grown up going to Mass, Patrick was at best a very lukewarm Christian in his younger days. Through a series of tragic events set in motion when he was a young man, his life, and especially the state of his lax Christian devotion, would change forever.

FROM RICHES TO SLAVERY

When Patrick was just sixteen years old he was taken captive along with many of his family’s servants when Irish pirates raided one of his father’s estates near the west coast of Britain at a town called Bannavem Taberniae. Patrick was forced onto a ship which sailed away to Ireland where he was sold in the slave market to a tribal chief and Druid named Miliuc Moccu Boin. The chief put Patrick to work tending his cattle herds in the Irish countryside.

Patrick remained enslaved for six years. It was during this time that he came to know the truth of Romans 8:28— “And we know that God causes all things work together for good to those that love God, to those that are called according to His purpose…” in experience. In his book, The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West Again, George G. Hunter writes about the three key changes that Patrick went through during his time in captivity:

“During his years of enslavement, Patrick experienced three profound changes. First, the periods when Patrick was isolated in the wilderness herding cattle connected him with what theologians call the ‘natural revelation’ of God. He sensed with the winds, the seasons, the creatures, and the nights under the stars the presence of God; he identified this presence with the Triune God he had learned about in the Catechism. In his more or less autobiographical ‘Declaration’ Patrick tells us, ‘After I had arrived in Ireland I found myself pasturing flocks daily, and I prayed a number of times each day. More and more the love and fear of God came to me and my faith grew and my spirit was exercised, until I was praying up to a hundred times every day and in the night nearly as often.’ Patrick became a devout Christian and the change was obvious to his captors.  Second, Patrick changed in another way during the periods he spent with his captors in their settlement. He came to understand the Irish Celtic people and their language and culture…Third Patrick came to love his captors, to identify with them, and to hope for their reconciliation to God. One day, he would feel they were his people.”

MIRACLES IN SUCCESSION

Thus, Patrick was converted, and now God had plans for him. In the sixth year of Patrick’s captivity he received a vision from God in which he was told that he was to escape his slavery and that a ship was waiting to take him home to Briton. A voice told him, “You are going home! Look! Your ship is ready!” Patrick rose from his sleep and fled from his captors to find a ship waiting for him. He attempted to acquire permission to sail home on the ship but the captain refused him. Patrick began praying and he tells us in his aforementioned Declaration that before his prayer was even completed God had changed the captain’s heart and he began calling for Patrick to come aboard. So Patrick made the 200 mile trip back to his homeland and people in Briton as the Holy Spirit had prophesied to him.

Once back home Patrick had hardly settled in when he would receive another word from God, this time functioning as his call to be the first missionary Bishop to Ireland, his place of captivity. John Holmes documents the extraordinary event:

“One night he had a vision in which he saw a man named Victoricus coming to him with a great number of letters. He read the title of one which said, ‘THE CRY OF THE IRISH’ and at that moment he seemed to hear the voice of the people who lived by the Wood of Volcut which is by the western sea. Unitedly they said, ‘Holy youth we are asking you to come and walk among us again.’ Patrick was so moved that he could read no more…It would seem that from that moment there was born in his heart a burden to bring the Gospel to that nation from which he says, pointedly, ‘I was only just able to escape.’”

TRAINING FOR THE MISSION FIELD

Upon receiving this divine commissioning Patrick determined to prepare himself for his destiny as a missionary to Ireland. He began studying the Celtic people and Irish language intently as his heart flamed for them. He also began to be very active in his local church. He became a Deacon and in a short time was elevated to the office of Bishop. Shortly after receiving his bishopric he left his homeland again for Ireland; this time not as a captive of pirates, but as the slave of Christ for the Gospel to the Irish. It was the year 432 A.D.

NEW CULTURES AND NEW METHODS

The Irish people that Patrick would serve were, in Roman terms, very much uncivilized. They had no organized cities, no real road systems, and they had no unified form of government. They moved in small nomadic groups through the rough countryside and forests of Ireland living off the land. The people lived in tribes (clans) that consisted mainly of extended family. Patrick knew that he would have to be innovative when it came to ministering to them. He would not be able to simply plant parish churches in the traditional sense near a populated city as the Church had done everywhere else. There were no such cities. He had to find new methods to reach a different culture.

So what did he do? Patrick’s method of reaching these tribal nomadic people was what we would call “contextualization” in missiological terms today. It seems that his practice was to seek out the leaders of the tribal settlement he went into in hopes of either converting them or at least getting permission to serve amongst them for strategic purposes. Next, he would engage people in conversation and service ministry for relationship building while looking for receptive individuals within the clan. He would pray for physically impaired and demon possessed people as well as assist in mediating conflicts between tribesmen. He would engage in open air preaching.

In all of this he did a great deal of contextualizing. For example, the Irish people were very musical and poetic, so Patrick employed the use of these art forms which made sense to them culturally in an attempt to communicate the truth of the Bible in ways they would understand. He wrote worshipful lyrics set to Celtic tunes for them to sing and portrayed biblical images for them in Celtic forms of visual arts. This enhanced his ability to communicate the message of Jesus to them effectively.

As groups of people began to be born-again through Patrick’s gospel teaching, instead of forcing them to become culturally Roman he would allow and encourage them to express the essence of real Christianity in Celtic forms. The most fascinating way he did this was by creating what Hunter calls “monastic communities” instead of Roman cathedrals. These were essentially the native Irish version of a church-plant. The monastic community lived the Christian life together in a circularly built fort. They would meet multiple times a day for worship and prayer, and in the evening for a biblical message every night. They lived together, worked together, ate together, and worshiped together. It was an extremely tightly knit body of believers that lived all of the Christian life in vibrant spiritual community. In his book Church History in Plain Language,Bruce Shelley said of these communities that, “…the monastic community, maintaining itself on the land, fitted the agricultural communities of the Celts better than the parish-church system so common in the Roman Empire.”

A NEW COMMUNITY

The main method of outreach from within the monastic community was that of hospitality. They had a guest house in a sectioned off portion of the community that was by far more comfortable than any other dwelling used by the believers themselves. They would love and serve every visitor that came to them and live the life of Christ out before them. Patrick considered himself and the believers in these communities accountable to God to serve this way because of his biblical conviction that believers are each a “letter of Christ.” He wanted the message of the love of Jesus to be communicated without words to unbelievers through their lifestyles of love and grace. They wanted to influence the lost into the faith by extending the love and Person of Christ to them in behavior and community.

IMPACT OF THE WORK

Patrick’s method of contextualizing the gospel in presentation and the essence of Christian community in Celtic cultural expression proved very successful in the conversion of massive amounts of Irish people. Though much of Ireland is said to have remained unconverted upon his death in 460 A.D. there is thought to have been thousands of Christian converts in Ireland due to his ministry. Some estimate that there may have been as many as one-thousand believers in some of the individual larger monastic communities.

PAIN IN THE JOURNEY

However, in spite of Patrick’s success in Ireland, his missionary years spent there were not all easy. In his Declaration Patrick writes of being persecuted, slandered, and even enslaved as many as three more times during his ministry. Things weren’t always easy for his converts either. In fact, one of the two original writings of Saint Patrick (unanimously held as authentic by scholars) which the world has access to today is a letter in which he rebukes a local ruler for allowing his men to brutally murder and pillage a group of freshly baptized believers and to sell their young women.

Clearly the most cutting opposition Patrick endured during his ministry was that of the disapproval of his tactics later expressed by the very church and people who had once affirmed and sent him out to serve Ireland. The traditional minds of the people in his hometown did not accept Patrick’s replacing of the culturally Roman aspects of Christianity with culturally Celtic expressions. Patrick clearly wrote from a distressed heart in addressing this issue in his Declaration.

The far-reaching missional impact of Saint Patrick’s ministry is impressive. Historians point to Ireland as becoming a mission work launching pad for years to come after the death of Patrick. It served as the home-base for missionary endeavors for the eventual evangelization of Britain, Germany, and Switzerland to name a few. An example of the great Irish missionaries that are said to have been products of Patrick’s work years earlier were men like Columbanus. A century after Patrick, Columbanus led the missionary charge into the above mentioned countries and established them as centers for evangelistic efforts.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON ANYWAY?

Another thing that has been perpetuated throughout history ever since Patrick’s death is what seems to be a never ending debate between Catholics and Protestants over whether or not Patrick was what people today would consider a good Catholic or more of today’s evangelical theological persuasion. Patrick seems to be an interesting mix of both camps. While he was certainly an ordained Bishop in the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Roman Empire (which certainly means he had practices and beliefs in common with today’s Catholicism), even a quick reading of his Declaration makes clear that his single most emphasized teaching was that of the simple gospel of grace. That fact shows that he was very evangelical even though the term was not yet used. It seems he was Roman Catholic by tradition, but evangelical in the essence of his gospel faith. This is abundantly clear from this quote taken from his Declaration in which he wrote of his purpose and success, “For I am very much God’s debtor who gave me such great grace that many people were reborn in God through me and afterwards confirmed, and that clerics were ordained for them everywhere, for a people just coming to the faith, whom the Lord took from the utmost parts of the earth as he once had promised through his prophets.” The words “grace…reborn…and faith” in this quotation say it all.

SEEING GOD AND HOPE IN THE EXPERIENCES OF SAINT PATRICK

Patrick’s life serves as a reminder to us that our circumstances are never out of the plan or control of God. Patrick was taken prisoner when he was just sixteen and was in captivity until he was twenty-two. I think Patrick must have been confused and lonely and wondered at times (even after his conversion) if God could or would help him. Yet, by the end of Patrick’s life it is absolutely clear that his time in captivity is exactly what he needed to go through to become the missionary warrior God wanted him to be. God was there the whole time working things out for His glory and Patrick’s good, no matter how bleak things probably seemed.

I have certainly never experienced anything like being taken captive for six years, but I have been through things like family divorce, physical affliction, and more. So in terms of application, I believe God would remind us through the life of Saint Patrick that our past is not an accident, and our present and future are not out of God’s control. God has allowed or caused everything we come into contact with because he wants to use it now or in the future to prepare us to effectively serve others for His glory. This is the truth in our hardships.
Bibliography

Holmes, J. M. The Real Saint Patrick. Belfast, N. Ireland: Ambassador Productions, 1997.

Hunter, George G. III. The Celtic Way of Evangelism. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2000.

Shelley, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language 2nd Edition. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995.