There’s Something About…
…seeing a 15 year old boy stand up, eyes closed, and raise his hands to the sky to worship his Savior.
…listening to a boatload (literally) of kids sing to the Lord “I’m so unworthy, but still you love me. Forever my heart will sing of how great you are.”
…hearing a group of teenage girls befriend a girl who doesn’t fit in and invite her to play cards with them in their cabin.
…watching a man pray fervently for God to move…and then seeing God answer.
…seeing “grown-ups” be wild and crazy, and teenagers be worshipful and authentic.
…seeing hand after hand after hand lift up in praise, and knowing it reflects heart after heart after heart.
…watching a young boy stand, find his friends, gather them together and lead them in communion.
…seeing the joy on the face of someone who has just emerged from the water after being baptized.
…watching the countenance change on the face of a boy who has just found his Savior.
There is something about all of these things that brings tears to my eyes and makes my heart want to burst. Our God is so good.
Sometimes
Sometimes I wish I had things together. Sometimes I wish I knew useful information I could share with the world. Sometimes I wish I could think positively about ANYTHING. Sometimes I want to be wise or informative or encouraging.
I like to read blogs. I learn so much about motherhood, natural living, cooking, gardening and how to follow the Lord more faithfully and passionately. I really, really enjoy reading blogs. And there are a few women I truly learn from daily. I treasure what I learn from them, and I want to be able to do the same for others.
Then I look at my life, my blog or my journal and I see a mess. I see a neurotic, cynical and sometimes shallow worrier. I see a mom who is hanging on by the skin of her teeth (and teeth don’t have skin). I see a homemaker who doesn’t clean the bathroom (I don’t know who does, but it’s not me). I see someone who has more questions than answers, more problems than solutions, more issues than encouragement. I even thought about pulling the plug on my blog this week because I can’t imagine someone wanting to read what I have to say. And if you are sitting there getting ready to comment and say “No, you’re great! Wonderful mom! Clean house! Great person!”, you can save it. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. We just need to be honest here. I am a mess. It’s the truth, plain and simple.
So why would someone want to read my blog? I have no idea. I read blogs to become who I want to be. But this blog is who I am.
Sometimes I want to be perfect. But this is who I am. Sometimes I want to be wise. But this is who I am. Sometimes I want to be patient, thankful, prayerful, natural and have wonderful information flowing from my lips. But this is who I am. I am cynical, hopeful, busy, lazy, sarcastic, genuine, ordinary, artistic and uniquely myself.
Hope you still want to read.
Say You’re Sorry
Teaching a child to say they are sorry is somewhat easy. Teaching a child to be sorry is very difficult. Teaching my daughter either of these things seems downright impossible.
Miss E, my spirited little 4 year old, has begun to refuse to apoligize. Even when she knows she did something wrong. Even when it’s clearly making her sad. Even when I can see that she knows she needs to. She won’t say it. Won’t even look the person in the eye. Won’t, won’t, won’t. She looks at her shoes. She askes you to read her a book. She covers her ears. But she won’t apologize.
And now she won’t even pray to ask God’s forgiveness.
What do I do? I feel like I’ve tried everything, but I’m sure I haven’t. I have had her repeat after me. I have explained the importance of saying we are sorry in every way I know how. Why won’t she just do it??? I can see that she is sorry. I can see that she is embarassed. I can see that she understands. And I get so frustrated at her stubbornness! Or is it stubbornness at all? What could be happening in that little mind of hers? Really…I am asking. I don’t know where to go from here.
Living Missional – Part Three What’s The Next Step…
It’s taken me a long time to start this post. I’ve actually completey avoided it. I think it’s because I’m learning something. A huge lesson God is working in me right now is that there are things I am called to and things others are called to – and they don’t have to be the same. It’s ok if I’m called to something crazy and “out there” and my church is not. It’s ok to be drawn to the city while friends have a heart for rural folks. It’s ok.
And maybe my church really isn’t called to what they think they are called to. Maybe they aren’t supposed to be about business and system and rules and structure. Maybe they have too many events and don’t equip people for leadership or service. Maybe they worry too much about money and not being “taken advantage of”. Maybe they miss the gray in their world of black and white. Maybe God does want to change them. Maybe.
But God has made it clear that, for now, I need to ignore that. Nobody’s perfect. Least of all me. So, he’s working in me that there are things he has to work in me. I’m not saying I don’t believe all those things I wrote about living missionally. I do. But I have heard quite clearly that God is teaching ME these things, and I need not worry whether or not my organized church is learning it too. I think he’s saying “Learn and Do – and I’ll take care of the rest”.
So as I think about what the next step is, I have a hard time writing it. Mostly because I only know what the next steps for me are, and the general gist of where I think church needs to go next. But I guess I could start there.
Next comes…
…sharing life with people that are not my family DAILY. And when I say life I mean my house, my schedule, my time, my food, my LIFE. I want to live where people can come over, bring their family and hang out. Where I can just throw more food on the table and welcome them. Where they can drop their kids off and run to the store alone without even calling first. Where they can come over at 10am because they ran out of coffee and know I always have a pot ready. I want to trust people to care for my kids and love theirs enough to care for them also. I want to share life. We experienced a taste of this when our best friends lived here – and we want it again. More of it.
…sharing a common mission, focus or passion with the people I am sharing life with daily. I want to be encouraged by those I commune with to serve God and love people. Whether it is a passion to serve high school kids, teen moms, the homeless, drop-outs, the unloved and unwanted, orphans, or our neighbors – I want to passionately live to serve people together as a community of faith. I want to share a purpose. I want to share a mission.
…living as if my comfort means nothing.
…seeing need around me.
…taking ownership for my part of the oppression and sadness that surrounds me. “We’ve gotta hold up the mirror and share in the blame.” (that’s Caedmon’s Call, by the way).
…BEING the incarnational church (the body of Christ incarnate in this world) to those around us. There are millions of people who are hopeless, downcast and oppressed. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. If someone treated me the way I see others being treated, I would not keep silent. So, I must speak on their behalf anytime I can.
…seeing what God has given me and figuring out how to use it to bless others. From my used clothing to my cans of beans to my photography skills to the love my family has – it’s not just for us. It is to share.
…being willing to sell my plot of land, bring the money in and put it in a pot for anyone who needs it. I want to live where I can give as easily as I can take – but where I feel the freedom to do both. We are too proud most of the time, and are not good at taking when we need to take. I’d love open pot living, where money is given freely for whoever needs it, and those who need it feel the safety to come and take without fear of judgment or second glances.
…not caring what music is played, what color the chairs are or who shakes my hand. I am way too consumeristic. I need to lay down my ideas that things need to be pleasing to me and instead, actively search for God in everything. I get too caught up in my own opinions and comfort.
…realizing that church happens more outside of Sunday service than inside. Sermons are great, as is gathering and fellowship and communal worship – but the vast majority of our lives happens outside of Sunday morning. God doesn’t stop working after the closing prayer. On the contrary, most of what he’s doing is in the streets, houses, schools, soccer fields, swim meets, office buildings, gyms and coffee shops. We need to remember that Jesus CAME TO US. And we are called to do the same. Sometime I think most of the work that we do on a Sunday morning falls under the category of Modern Day Pharisee. “And it feels like the church isn’t anything more than the second coming of the Pharisees. Scrubbing each other ’til their tombs are white, they chisel epitaphs of piety…” (that’s Andrew Peterson).
…remembering the greatest commandment – Love God, Love others. And, to quote DC Talk (gotta love that old school christian rap!) “Love is a verb”. We have to go. We have to do. We have to reach. We have to give. Not because we have to. But because we love, and loving is doing. You can do without loving, but you can’t love without doing. Talk is cheap, right? We’ve got to BE the church – Jesus body in motion as an outpouring of His love for all that He created and died for.
This is vague and somewhat abstract, I know. It’s because I want you to jump in and add detail. Where is God calling you to live with mission? How do you share life with people? What do you think needs to be changed? What is He changing in you? Who has He called you to love? How is God calling you to live more communally, more missionally, more intentionally, more uncomfortably, more freely? What’s next for you? I know things are changing and I am listening intently for you to tell me how. God’s expression of church, body, mission and love are different everywhere (though He is unchanging). How do these things express themselves where you are?
Don’t go away…
I promise I’m here. I really am. I’ve just been consumed (in a good way) with other things lately. Our dear friends are in the process of adopting a little girl from Ethiopia and friends and family got together to host a surprise benefit auction to help raise funds. It was an amazing experience and God provided for everything at every twist and turn along the way. In the end, we raised just about exactly what they needed to pay for the rest of the process – including travel expenses for when they go get their little angel. For more on that, you can hop on over to http://5byfaith.blogspot.com. And if you’d still like to donate to them, you can go to http://bringlucyhome.blogspot.com. If you scroll down there is a widget on the right side called “Chip In”. You can donate there. All donations that go above and beyond their adoption expenses will be given to Ethiopian relief agencies.
So, I am back. I’ve just been resting and enjoying doing nothing but play with my kids in the sun. My mind and my heart are churning to continue the exploration into missional living, though. So there should be more on that soon.
Intermission
I have been looking for a time to sit down and write the next missional installment, but life is going at 100 miles per hour and I haven’t had the time to breathe, let alone think. So I will wait for that post until I can do it justice. I just didn’t want anyone to think I had dropped the subject or forgotten about it. It’s coming. Soon. In the mean time, here are some things I am looking forward to after this unbelievably busy season is over:
- Seeing good friends this summer that I miss terribly
- Finishing the aprons I started weeks ago
- The release of Derek Webb’s new album (if it ever happens)
- Being camp photographer at Great Escape – though I’m not looking forward to the boats (I can’t swim and am totally afraid of water)
- Finishing the book I started reading in December (A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren)
- Getting my boys back for the summer
- Camping with my family
- Finishing a conversation with two very wise friends that we started last Sunday over ice water and garage sale items
Here’s to taking a break from “busy”.
Living Missional – Part Two Where We Are Headed…
Oh, how things are changing. I am changing. The world is changing. You are changing, even if you don’t notice it. For hundreds of years we have lived in the same mode of modern culture. It’s really best seen in education, wherein students were sat in rows, information was written on the board, and the students were expected to copy down the information and memorize it. But in the last two decades or so we have learned more about how people learn, and that has changed everything (educationally speaking). It has been documented how students need a variety of learning methods, such as movement, conversation, cooperation, trial & error and experience. It has revolutionized the way our classrooms are run, and in doing so it has revolutionized us as thinkers about everything – academics, life, God, people, relationships.
At the risk of scaring people with theoretical terminology, we are moving from the modern era into the post modern era. And let me clarify. Post modern does not mean liberal. Post modern does not mean realitivist. Post modern does not mean democrat. Post modern does not mean athiest or New Age or “e-van-jellyfish” (as some pastors have taken to calling evangelicals who don’t see things in complete black and white). Post modern means the era after the modern era. It means we’ve moved past modern. We’ve moved past thinking we are right and others are wrong and they need our message in our way from our denomination with our style of worship. It means something different is happening.
Some are very afraid of what is new. Some run for the hills when a new song is played on a Sunday morning, or when the sanctuary chairs are in a different pattern, or when (gasp) a new person delivers the Sunday morning message. But when it is culture that is changing perception and this changes how we relate, it is inescapable. So, what is it that we are changing into? Let me dive right into that…
The church is entering into an era in which people are realizing that the church is not the leadership, it is not the building, it is not the doctrine and it is not the slant from which you see the bible. It is the people. The church is me. It is you. It is whoever lives the incarnational message of Christ. For the last 400 years we’ve lived under the rigid structure of Church. Service times, Sunday Schools, worship styles, elder boards, event after event after event. Take any of those things on their own and examine them and they are in their nature good things. But we have used them to define us. We have used them to give us identity, purpose and satisfaction. And we have also used them to show how we are right and others who do things differently are wrong.
Instead, we are walking down a path, like it or not, that is deconstructive in nature. It is not about inviting people in to our building or to our events. It is about going out. It is not about telling someone four steps that will lead them to the magic prayer of repentance. It is about showing someone that God reaches to them right where they are. It is not about boosting our numbers at our events. It is about making our neighbors welcome in our home. It is not about fourmula. It is about love.
As I read through the gospels I have noticed something. There is no where (that I can find) where Jesus lays out the Four Spiritual Laws to anyone. He does not even usually admit outright that he is the Christ, coming to save them. What he does is love and serve. He talks to people who are used to being treated like garbage. He cares for the sick. He eats meals with people – usually people seen as unfit to eat with. He visits people’s homes. He loves on children. He goes fishing. And we look at these things through our glasses of modern thinking and say “How can we plan events that model these things so we can reach the maximum amount of people?”. Now that is a decent goal, but we are looking at it incompletely because no matter what event we host, few people come from the outside community. Most people attending our events are US. However, if we look at what Jesus did through the glasses of postmodernity, we will see a different picture. We will be asking “How can each one of us be loving people in the way Jesus did?”
Do you see the difference? Instead of hosting a men’s breakfast where men are free to invite their friends and neighbors – and maybe 5 visitors come, we teach our men how to reach out to their neighbors and have men from their neighborhood (or work or t-ball dads) over to their house for breakfast on a Saturday morning. Instead of hosting a giant Easter Egg Hunt on the church lawn as a community outreach, we pass out eggs to families who host Easter Egg Hunts in their front yard for the neighborhood. Instead of the leadership and elders trying to scheme to get people in the front door, we teach our congregations how to be equipped to go out the front door and do the ministry of the church in their daily lives of work, sports, school, neighborhoods, and friends. And then we give them the freedom to do the ministry of loving people outside of church events without guilt, expectations, rules or formulas.
This is a hard change to make, but it is so necessary for the church (as in the people who follow Christ) to live relationally (valuing the development of relationships), conversationally (always being willing to talk, listen and interact) and incarnationally (as a bit of Jesus walking around in this world loving and serving as He would). This is how the secular culture already functions – willing to delve into relationships to seek or to give love, willing talk about ideas and pursue them as if solving a mystery not pounding a point, and waiting with baited breath for someone to reach out and touch them as Jesus did the leper. Jesus always went, always talked, always loved, always gave. After all, people don’t want to know they are welcome in our building or at our events. They want to know their neighbor loves them. I’d rather have one person really love me than 500 simply tolerate my presence. It’s not about welcoming people into our church buildings, it’s about welcoming them into our lives, our homes and our families.
Next up: Living Missional – Part Three What’s The Next Step…
Living Missional – Part One
There has been a question floating around me lately than I am very interested in. It is shaping my life, in fact. People want to know what it means to live missionally. I know in the Christian culture words are thrown around, catch on and are overused. They are twisted, morphed and changed to mean something they are not (gospel, ministry, community, authentic, “share your faith”, outreach, worship…just to name a few). Missional living is a very popular idea in some circles right now and I want to explore what it really means before the church twists it into something else. And just as a disclaimer, I am not an expert on this so please feel free to engage in this conversation with me. I am still learning and in no way want to be one that misunderstands being missional. By the way, if I use the words I listed earlier in their morphed and twisted way, I’ll put them in quotes. Later I’ll explain what I believe their true definitions may be.
In my experience, living missionally is a very difficult thing. Not because it is hard in itself, but because it is completely the opposite of how most of us were raised and taught. In order to effectively be mission minded we must reverse our thinking of what the church is, what ministry is, what the body of Christ is and what it means to serve.
In the last 400 years or so christendom has been a part of the modern movement. It begun as scientists discovered new laws governing the way the world works. Things became clear and concrete. Everything was run by rules that were very black and white. This took Christ from being the God of the affluent to being available to everyone (a good thing). After all, rules are rules and the truth does not change because you are rich or poor, farmer or banker, sinner or saint. “The gospel” became a clear cut list of facts you either believed in or you didn’t. Missionaries and preachers went out sharing the “Good News” with lost people, showing them their sins and letting them know the steps to repentance and forgiveness. All of this was a good thing. The message of Christ reached far and wide and, in most cases, was very clearly preached. There were also many negatives of this movement. Preachers who “knew the truth” often became arrogant, fake and mocking. They preached the message but did not care about each person they were preaching it to. They became more interested in winning converts and increasing the numbers in their “saved” book than caring about the desperate state (financially, emotionally, physically) of the people that they were trying to save. Saving them spiritually was enough for them – they didn’t need to worry about saving them in any other way, because in the eternal perspective those other ways didn’t matter. Now, not every preacher was or is like this. This is a generalization of what could happen to modern style preachers.
Most of us were raised in this style of church. There is a lot of difference on the modern spectrum, but a generalization would state that the modern church of the 1960’s and beyond focused on preaching “the gospel”- which was telling people 1. They are sinners, 2. Christ died on the cross, 3. He bridged the gap to offer us forgiveness and make a way to heaven, 4. We can live in forgiveness if we accept his offer and pray a little prayer. You were encouraged to bring your “unchurched” friends to events so they could hear the message. You were instructed to pray for the lost, support missionaries traveling across the world to save the lost in other countries and help organize events at your local church building so people could be invited in.
Now, those things I just wrote about are very good things. But they are incomplete. They basically state “I have what you need. Come here, to my turf to get it. Join me in the right way of doing things.” As you can see, this can leave many people out. What if I am seen as an outcast by those on your turf? What if I am covered in tatoos ans peircings with a bright pink mohawk? Will you welcome me in your building for events without staring and judging? What if I am housebound? What if I am so hungry that I don’t want your events, I just want food? What if I have been burned by the arrogance and judgement of a fellow Christian of yours and I don’t want a God like that? What if I don’t want to be accepted and welcomed into your building for an event – I just want to know that someone loves me right where I am at (at the bar, the nightclub, the little league diamond, the PTA meeting, the grocery store)? What if I don’t need to be convinced that I am a sinner (for that is all to clear to me) and I have no faith in anyone who says they love me because I have never known unselfish love (or any love at all)? What if I am tired of people trying to convince me that I need God when they don’t even take the time to know me?
As you can see, there are a lot of things that prevent people from responding to this kind of ministry. And even more so, the way people think about truth is changing. The way people think about everything is changing. The way people communicate, receive love, and view God is changing. The modern ways of doing things and seeing things is changing. And no matter how many events we hold at our churches, we cannot push the tidal wave of culture back in the other direction. As Bob Dylan says, “The times, they are a-changin…”
Next up: Living Missional – Part Two Where We Are Headed…
By the way, please comment with your thoughts, questions, input. I intend for this to be a conversation, not a lecture or sermon. There are many things I have questions on and need to learn as well, and as I write I am not saying I know it all or even fully understand anything. I am just trying to put words to what I think is happening, as best as I can in my very limited way. Please, add to the dialogue.
Light Green
So, if you read my recent post you’ll know that I’m going green. Simple, homemade, local, fresh, GREEN. But it’s harder than it sounds. Without knowing it my life became very un-green. What would that be called? What is the opposite of green? I think technically, according to the color wheel, it’s red, but we’ll just call it “American”. My life was very American. It still is, actually. I drive everywhere. I own harsh chemical cleaners. I live in the suburbs. I shop at the grocery store and buy things already processed, cooked, dried and packaged. I consume clothing, shoes, gasoline, food, packaging, energy, water, and tons of other things. I am a consumer to the core. I didn’t think I was, until I wanted to change.
When I decided I wanted to simplify our life I thought I’d start simple (that’s the whole point anyway, isn’t it?). I bought reusable grocery bags. I started buying bulk items. I turned off our computer at night. Then I realized I didn’t really know what I was doing so I began blog hopping. There are a lot of simple living, granola, eco-conscious blogs out there. I read them daily. Literally, I cannot go to sleep at night until I read them. I love them. Women who love God and want to do better for their families – that’s right up my alley. But it is overwhelming.
My life is consumed by consuming. My attitudes. My expectations. My ways of conversing and interacting. They are all dredged in the thick tar of comsumerism. I want everything to be about me, for me and because of me. I want, want, want. And my brain turns those wants into “I need, need, need”. It is hard to separate what is convenient from what is necessary. I am finding myself wondering what I could give up, and feeling ashamed and embarassed over what is difficult to let go of. I know it is a process and I am taking it slowly. And, surprisingly, this transition is free of guilt. I run on guilt, and I have not felt depressed, guilty or crushed because of the sorry state of my consumeristic heart and it’s inability to turn on a dime and let go of the life I have become so used to. I think that’s how I know it’s the right thing to do for my family. Each step in the process of lining up our life with our beliefs has been great, and I feel no guilt for what I have yet to conquer. I desire to be very green – but for now, I am at peace with light green.
I am not going to get into specifics right now of what I have been doing, what I want to do or why I believe this is right for us. I want to do those subjects justice, and my mind is swimming a little after a very difficult bedtime with my kids. So I’ll save those things for my next blogs. Plus, I have been reading so many things my mind is filled with information. So much so that it is difficult to put into words. Do you ever find that the more you feel, the more passionate you are about something, the more you think and learn and discover – the harder it is to slow down and put it all into words? That’s where I’m at. So even though I want to talk and blog endlessly about all the great things the Lord is teaching me (with greening my family, becoming more missional and many other things), I sit to write and cannot get the words out. I think this will pass soon, as the things I am learning sink in past my mind to heart level. Until then, I have listed the blogs I have found most inspiring and useful in the “Blogs I Read” section in my sidebar.
By the way, April is Genocide Prevention Month. See what you can do to help or be an advocate by visiting Save Darfur, Invisible Children or the Genocide Prevention Month website.
Solids…kind of
I have officially started Shiloh on solid food. Sort of. He’s not a big fan. I shove the food into his mouth. He starts to talk with food flying everywhere. He’s never talked quite as much as when I decide to feed him. All of a sudden, when that spoonful of rice cereal & pumpkin enters his mouth, he’s got something to say. Somehow the tiny bowl of food empties, but I’ve never seen him actually swallow. Maybe it soaks in through the skin on his face. Or maybe he is stashing it away somewhere in his cheeks just waiting to spit it all over my shirt right before we need to leave the house. Or maybe it’s all splattered in my hair and I don’t notice it. Whatever happens to make it disappear, he’s trying his best to make sure it goes anywhere but his stomach.
I have found a great site with all kinds of recipes and info on making your own babyfood at home. Last year I got the Magic Bullet for Christmas and it’s AMAZING for making baby food. I can’t wait until he’s a bit older and I can just throw our dinner in and whip him up some healthy and tasty food in seconds. And it comes apart in only two pieces so it’s easy to toss in the dishwasher to clean. I used to think people that made their own baby food were crazy or obsessive or had way too much time on their hands. But now that I’ve been trying to simplify and reduce our waste, it just makes sense. Maybe I’ve gone crazy too. But I’m really excited to not have hundreds of those little jars and containers to reuse or recycle (reducing waste is always the best option). And I hope I’ll be able to add foods to Shiloh’s diet that he would not normally get – like beets, cucumber and red peppers. Maybe this one will be less of a picky eater. Maybe.
