Amazed: OIL 2010

It has been about three weeks since OIL (One in Love) 2010. Personally, it was probably the best one for me . Not sure why, but it felt different than in previous years. There were a couple good things that have stuck with me, but overall I think the lesson that has stuck with me most pointedly throughout the retreat and into this semester has been the personal rebuke that I live my life so absolutely UNamazed by God.

How long has it been since we’ve been amazed by anything? This day and age, most are jaded by even the most unusual or strange things.

Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. -Hab 1:5

Every one of the speakers at OIL had something to share that really reminded me just how amazing our God is! From Dr. Norris’ pointed expositions about grace from Galatians to George Verwer’s passionate sharing, every word was spoken out of a life that was deeply immersed in a passionate amazement at the character and person of Jesus. It was a rich blessing and a timely reminder. In every time of sharing, hearing testimony after testimony of God’s grace at work in the lives of so many people- amazed.  During prayer, discerning the Spirit’s move- amazed.

And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!” – Mark 2:12

To be passionately amazed by God, we need to know Him and to know Him, we need to spend time with Him- in His Word and in prayer- but also in silent acknowledgment of all the things He’s done for us, remembering how much deeper His blessing is in our lives than even we can imagine. Oh that I would never lose the wonder and amazement that come with knowing intimately the God of the universe who loves me and died so violently for me!

And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” – Luke 4:36

Batter my heart, three personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captivated and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
-”Batter My Heart” by John Donne

Musings on Ministry

What do you think about when people say ‘ministry’?

As a 11  year old, my first impression of ministry was simple: pastor.  That was my definition of ministry.  My thinking was that, though everybody was supposed to serve God with their lives, only “the full-timers” were doing real ministry because they were the ones whose whole lives and jobs were devoted to the church. There are a lot of opinions out there. Some people think of pastoral collared middle aged white men preaching from pulpits, some think of native missionaries teaching the Gospel to their tribe, still more think of somebody leaving everything to care for and feed the poor, oppressed and downtrodden (today’s modern day monk movement). Reflecting on scripture, the definition of ‘ministry’ is much less about a title or a job role, and much more about the heart and attitude of the minister.

I recently read an article by Francis Chan entitled “Public Passion vs. Private Devotion.” In it, he challenges Christians (but especially leaders in ministry) to take a hard look at the disparity between their private devotion to God and their public expressions of passion. He challenges us to look at ministry differently- the way it’s supposed to be.  He writes:

Leaders make the greatest hypocrites because of their ability to persuade and deceive. Rarely is there a pastor whose character exceeds his reputation. If I were to ask those closest to you about your relationship with God, what would they say? If I were to ask God the same question, what would He say? If your family, friends, and congregation have better things to say about you than God, it’s because you give them that impression. We do this because we can. God gifted us with an ability to communicate. Too often we use this ability not to convey who we are, but who we want others to think we are.

And I think he hits in the nail on the head. Too often, my “ministry” is an overflow of what others think of me rather than an overflow of my love and personal passion for God. Too often, “ministry” becomes what we do so God (or others) will love us, rather than the result of God’s love actively living in us.  We become blinded by our own success or failure, deeds or misdeeds that we lose sight of the relationship from which ministry should flow.  We lose the Gospel and become hypocrites!

I’ll admit I’m the first one to be guilty of this.  I too often let my pride or my judgmental thinking take me to the place where what I do for God becomes more important than my relationship with Him. I want this to change. I want all that I do, whether in work, at church or at home, to be a pleasing expression of the love given to me by God through Christ. This is a challenge to all people who want to pursue any ministry.

I ache when I consider how we are missing out. Remember, being obsessed with Jesus is a good thing. Trading the truth for a lie doesn’t benefit you or any person you are leading. This isn’t coming from a writer saying, “You must repent.” It’s coming from a fellow sinful leader saying, “We’re so stupid if we don’t.” You can have genuine intimacy with Almighty God today. Why not?

Father, may the Words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to You.
And may the work of my hands and all I do FOR You
come from the love and conviction I receive FROM You.
I don’t want my ministry to be about people, programs or success, but simply about Jesus.
Amen.

Coming Home

It’s very seldom I get to come home. Sadly, I only get to return once, maybe twice a year, if that. The responsibilities that come with serving at work and church, not to mention living 900 miles away, make it difficult to make a return trip back. But when I do come back, I think most times spent at home are about the same for everyone. We sleep in, eat a ton of food (usually because our moms make so much for us- i’ve probably gained at least 5 lbs.) and spend a lot of time with friends catching up or just hanging out. I’m no different really. This is how I’ve spent most everyday of my vacation so far.

But this year has been different for me. In many ways, coming home wasn’t so merry as it had been in the past. Growing older and being caught up in the midst of family issues, as well as seeing old friends growing up and moving on, bring to mind a passage in Mark I read recently. I hadn’t really noticed it too much (it’s a common Sunday school passage) until I looked back on it today.

“And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.” Mark 2:1

This is the first verse of the passage in Mark where Jesus heals the cripple brought down through the ceiling. I don’t know if it was His home or not, but whoever’s home it was must have been pretty ticked off or at least a little annoyed. In any case, Jesus responds to the faith of this man and his friends by forgiving the man’s sins and healing him. In the process, He rebukes the scribes whose judgmental thoughts and attitudes towards His preaching and ministry kept them from hearing the truth.

But it’s this first verse that comes to mind as I think about my time at home. When I come home, everything else pretty much stops for me. If I want to hangout, I hangout. If I want to sleep in, I sleep in. If I want to eat more, I eat more. To be honest, vacation time is pretty selfish. Sure, I help out at church, help out my family and maybe even go to a retreat (or two or three), but when I pray “Lord, may this day be a day used for Your glory,” do I really mean it?

Jesus comes home, and no sooner than He can take His shoes off, He’s back to work again. And this isn’t just a couple of fanboys wanting autographs or groupies just hanging out, this is literally a houseful of people that are clamoring to hear him speak. All sorts of folks came from all over town- and the man just got back from days, maybe even weeks of preaching to thousands! Yet, through it all Jesus continues to faithfully preach the Good News and even deals patiently (nay, gracefully) with somebody literally dropping in on His message.

This is the ultimate example of a servant. Always prepared to serve when called with a right attitude and a passionate heart. Jesus’ desire is that God would be glorified wherever He was. His passion was God’s glory in every circumstance.

So does this jive with my (or our) view and attitude during our times at home? Does “What do I WANT to do today?” line up with “How can God be most glorified in my day?” I think if we took a hard look at the way we use our time at home- the time we spend with family and friends and even by ourselves- we would see a grave mismatch in attitude, motivation and action. As much as we SAY we want to live for God in our times at home, are we really prepared and ready to serve when God calls us to? At the very least, do we even spend personal time with God when we are at home?

It’s not wrong to spend time enjoying family, friends and community- Jesus did plenty of this. But more important that simply resting and relaxing, does our time at home reflect a zeal to reflect more of Jesus in our hearts and lives? Are we as ready to serve at home as we are away from home? I’m convicted that, most of the time, I’m not.

God grant me the grace and strength to live as You desire me to live in all places
-but especially at home. If I cannot be faithful here, where else can I be faithful?

Reboot

Back into it with new resolve… =)

Tullian Tchividjian: Learning through Opposition

Just read this article from Christianity Today off of Justin Taylor’s site. It interviews Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Recently, there has been a lot of turmoil in the church, leading to a congregational vote on whether he should remain pastor there after being formally hired in March of this year.

He gives a few good insights on retaining a good attitude through it all. I really think his sharing about how to deal with those that don’t agree with you is rebuking to me personally.

Freeing Up Free Time

I have a love-hate relationship with my free time.

After getting home from work and putting things in order, it is so easy to get into the “me-time” mode and just stay there. Granted, every person needs some time to rest and recharge, but I’m talking about more than just a restful hour- I’m talking wasted nights.

Earlier in the year, I made it a point not to use my computer much when I got home from work. I use it (and the internet) throughout the work day and so, I thought, it would be nice to just put it away for awhile. I’d found that most of the free hours I spent at home after work were spent aimlessly surfing random websites, trolling Facebook or watching video after video on Hulu. My grand experiment lasted all but a month, but it was a refreshing month- I read more, wrote more, prayed more and got to bed earlier (which equals more sleep- another love-hate relationship there).

So here I am again. Now serving in small group again, with my schedule becoming ever more packed, the  free hours I have are a precious few. The Bible tells us to redeem all the time we have – including our free time. It’s all God’s anyway.

So I am setting my free time free- for real. Gonna put the computer away, open up a window and learn to really enjoy and recharge well with the open hours I have.  What does this mean? It means taking the time to refocus, not wholly for the sake of my own worldly comfort, but to find the deeper rest and comfort in Christ during the free times because they are the times when character and fortitude is built up.

And for a broader view on this and the how technology has affected our lives as a whole, a video I found on Justin Taylor’s site

We’ll see how this goes again. Looking forward to not reading these after work

Parachute Circles

I remember some of my first days in school- Kindergarten in Ms. Weisman’s KB1 class. There was that uneasy queasiness about it all. Feeling like  a stranger amidst a whole group of strangers, yet at the same time wildly excited to meet new people. Inevitably, we’d be told to sit down for story time and things would get a bit more interesting, less awkward. My favorite times, though, were the times we would have gym. More than the running around, I absolutely LOVED playing with the parachute. Our teacher would tell us to circle up, grab the edge of that parachute and shake it. I think I loved these times the most because it was the one time nobody felt uncomfortable- we were all shaking that parachute up together as a team, a family even. Nobody was judging, competing or besting- we were just doing it together. I grinned from ear to ear during those times. All the cares and assignments of the day melted away.

Today after large group, and after a great meal at Courier Cafe, we stood in a circle. We chatted about small stuff- ball, movies, missions training and Mini-Os. But, for a moment, I recaptured a little bit of that “parachute” feeling.  It was wonderful. Praise God for those small moments and little graces. I’m thankful for the people in my life.

God, how could You be so good?

Relationship Talk

“Life is about living out the questions — not necessarily coming up with the answers,” she replied. “I would hope that you would find yourself moving to a deeper level of questions, insights, spiritual growth, and with that a yearning for the Presence of the Divine. Prayer would naturally be a part of the process — and we would work out a way for you to pray that would fit your style of life and your unique spiritual journey.”

The NY Times Magazine had an article this week entitled ” The Right Way to Pray?” I thought it was an interesting exploration by a non-believer into the lives of people from different faith backgrounds (here Christianity- both Catholic and Evangelical- as well as Judaism).

For me the most startling thing was the way prayer was portrayed by these people. I could understand the inquisitive and skeptical sentiment of the writer, but it was hard to see the people of faith (notably Christians) waif in their talk of prayer.  It wasn’t so much the differing methods of prayer that people had, but that they totally left out the aspect that prayer is supposed to be a relational exchange with a personal God.

Too often, for me, prayer becomes just what the article is speaking to- a method, a task, an experience. I pray to feel better about myself or about my situation, I pray to get what I want, I pray because something that matters to me is not all in sorts. But when we look at the Bible, when we see the example of Moses and Jesus, prayer is much deeper than mere “Gimme! Thanks! Oops! and Wow!” (how a rabbi in the article categorizes prayers).

On the surface, these may be true, but truth be told, prayer is so much more. It is the means of interaction we have with a person, who happens to be God! We could, in theory, throw all our conversations with friends and loved ones into those categories, but that’s not what we remember. What we remember was that, at that very moment, we were present with people we care for and who, usually, care for us and that we were sharing in each others’ lives.

This is where prayer should find its basis. In Christ, God reached out to us, desiring to bring us back into a deeper relationship with Him.  It’s in this relationship, and the way we are changed through it, that brings God great joy.  He wants to hear from us.  He wants us to talk to Him. He longs to  hear about how our days went.  He wants us to let him carry our worries and concerns. He wants us to see the bigger picture and understand what is best for our lives.  He wants us to confess our wrong doing and ask Him to help us do right.

And when prayer becomes as natural and awesome as your talking with your best friend, it becomes a sweet and lovely thing, something you cannot wait to do!

So more than the right WAY to pray, we should be thinking about WHO we pray to- a loving God who sought us out first and opened up a direct line to Himself through Christ so that we could become the people we were meant to be.

Preserving the Gospel

John Piper writes a great short article on missions and how we preserve the meaning of the Gospel in our lives and our world.

Link is here.

The Normal Normal Life

I go to a small Bible study group out here where I am (the cornfields of Midamerica) where we are studying the book of Ecclesiastes. Interestingly enough, we took this book over an epistle or major prophet, so people were definitely excited for what we would learn.

To sum it up, we leave every Bible study a little bit more confused than when we first got there, but with this particular book, that’s ok!

One particular thing that has been challenging me out of the confusion that is Ecclesiastes is that my life is really normal and, to a degree, full of meaninglessness.

“Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.” – Ecc. 4:4

I mean, how meaningful can my work day be? I do pretty much the same tasks everyday, for most of the same people, and we all work in the same building doing the same thing we always do. It doesn’t change much and, to be honest, there isn’t much actually accomplished in the long run. My times outside of work are spent puttering around running errands, shopping for food or clothes, or doing church things. It all seems kinda…bland and tasteless on the outset.

Yet, at the same time, God has given us grace enough to enjoy even the trivial, meaningless things in life- “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” I can relish in walking through the park in spring, playing with little babies or reminiscing on when I was a kid. Then I see that my exceedingly normal life is full of moments of beauty, joy, love, pain, and growth that, while not eternally lasting, enrich us to such a degree as to be a full on blessing of God on our tiny lives.

So how to apply this? How does this change the way I live my life? Personally, I need to cherish the people in my life more. Even if they’re not the closest friends, they are still a person whom God has placed in my way for our mutual good (Rom 8:28). Whether in small group, the office or at home, I really need to stop taking people for granted and care for them and enjoy being with them at the moment.

Also, I need to learn to stop worrying so much. Not only does it betray a lack of faith, but it steals the little joys in life that God gives to man to show us how much He loves us and to make our lives on this miserable planet a little brighter.

God, how could you be so good to me? Not only did you save my soul, but you gave me the capability to enjoy both the deep and shallow things of life. Father, what more can I do but to live gratefully and consciously act to please and honor You?