Is the Church Supposed to Be a Safe Place?

We're starting up our Transform (Confirmation) class this next weekend, so I was finding some ideas from other youth groups around the world for ways that teenagers can experience learning the Bible.  Of course each denomination is different and, certainly, churches have different priorities for what is important in their congregations.

But I was taken aback by one video of a Youth Pastor of a large church somewhere in the United States who was decked out in his youth polo shirt, khaki pants and cooler than cool wavy hair (this is envy rearing its head, mind you) and as he stared into the camera introducing his church and youth group his first words were these (I'm paraphrasing):

"Everyone who is watching this, I want you to know, if you are intending to bring your young people to our church, or even if you are watching this video from a different church, the number one priority that we want to tell our parents and kids is this:

We are a safe place."

At first when I heard it, I nodded and thought, Yes, this is the twenty-first century.  We have to make people feel comfortable in church, make sure that all of their stress and distress is completely wiped away, knock off the corners of the tables, don't run with scissors and make sure all risk assessments are done for any activity including the risk of consuming pizza beforehand.

But then there was something about that statement that started to bug me:  When did the church become a place devoid of risk?  Of course, there will be an assortment of people that will immediately think - 'You have to avoid circumstances where kids will be hurt.  We've seen enough trauma in that area from certain denominations which have destroyed the credibility of the Universal Church throughout the last hundred years.'

Correct.  As families come to the building known as 'the church' we should create an environment that doesn't jeopardise the physical well-being of the attendees, but if I'm thinking back to the time when I was a kid, a sterile environment, free of risk-taking would be the last place I would want to go to.  Would I really have wanted to play on a playground that had six inches of foam underneath and the tallest slide was made of plastic and reached a soaring altitude of five feet (and the greatest risk to my safety was the static shock from wearing a sweatshirt and touching the sides when I hit the bottom)?

I liken it to going to the bowling alley and putting up the bumper guardrails so that nobody misses any pins and never fails.  I mean really, what's the point?

What I liked about going to church when I was a kid was climbing to the third storey of the Sunday school rooms and then sliding down three storeys of railings.  I liked it when Mike Jordahl, during our crafting mural activity, stuck a piece of corn up his nose and they had to go to the hospital to tweezer it out.  I liked it when we played a game called Red Rover, running across the open field into a waiting group of kids holding hands and trying desperately not to dislocate someone's shoulder or give myself a concussion.

Some of this sounds like old people when they say, I remember when I was a kid - I get that, but in our physical safe age (which is important and we have to do it) perhaps we've gone too far in protecting adults and kids from actually struggling inside the church, especially spiritually.  We tell everyone who enters, 'This is a safe place, feel free to simply soak in the love of Jesus and then go home.  If you start to feel anxious, don't worry, we'll help you forget about it."

What's wrong with feeling anxious?  What's wrong with persevering through the difficult passages of the Bible (or better yet persevering with difficult people)? What's wrong with letting people take theological risks and working through them (maybe with difficult people)?  Why not a spiritual version of Red Rover where we take a step back and run as fast as we can at the connected hands of someone who holds an opposing view and see what happens if their argument holds true?  Can I join their team then?

That's part of the question as we seek longevity for the church: how can we have the church be a safe place to take risks?

When the early church was in its infancy as told in the book of Acts, there was no disciple standing at the front of the throng of people, with his church polo shirt and khaki pants, lovely styled hair, standing up and saying, "Please, come join The Way.  When you do, you'll find a safe place free of any danger, physical, emotional or otherwise.  You will fee a perpetual sense of peace and you won't have to do a single thing which will push you outside your comfort zone."  With a smile on his face, Peter finishes, "That's our main priority.  That you feel safe."

No Way.

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.  But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.  (Acts 8:1-3)

There was a real threat for real people to believe in a man who was not safe.  Jesus did not necessarily make people feel good about themselves (His first words were about repentance, remember?), but helped them see that they needed God.  As they believed in this revolutionary human who happened to be God incarnate, they recognised, in some way, that being part of the Church was going to hurt a little.  Jesus said it: take up your cross and follow me, not sit in your pew and escape.  Paul, the changed man who nearly destroyed the church in its beginnings, repeated it.  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  (Romans 6:4)

I think the mere fact that there was a sense of danger was a real cause for the early church to recognise the legitimacy of the message.  When the people experienced the persecution and when they experienced the risk for their faith, it tempered and hardened them spiritually to do battle against the evil of the world, while at the same time hearing and knowing the love of Jesus that sustained them.  If they simply had to sit in a safe building for one hour each week, remaining unchanged and unchallenged, would the early church have survived and spread?

My hope is that during our own Transform classes, during our worship, during our Bible studies, during our service projects that we can risk the pain of encountering new experiences that challenge us.  My hope is that we can allow the risk of talking about topics like gun violence, domestic abuse, gender fluidity, sexuality, speaking in tongues, the call to overcome greed, etc. so that we can be a strong light in the world for the next generations to see.  And when those who are seeking see that we haven't sanitised or sterilised the Law and the Gospel, and they see that this Church is not a well-cushioned playground or a bump-proof basketball court, maybe they will want to engage in the struggle of God's story here with us right now.

I hope you find that risk in your church this week.

Finding Longevity in (and for) the Church

I was scraping through my Facebook news the other day when I unearthed the story of a reporter who was investigating a curious phenomena on the Italian island of Sardinia.  (No, the residents are called 'Sardinians' not 'Sardines', in case you were wondering.)  Sardinia is home to the largest percentage of centenarians (those who live past 100 years of age) in the world.

The oldest man in the world lives in Japan and is 114 years old, but seven out of the next ten live in Italy.  So, the obvious ensuing question is: Why is this?  How is it that Sardinia can have seven times per capita more centenarians than almost all of the rest of Western society?

If you were to ask the Melis siblings, all nine of them who live on Sardinia and have an average age of 90 - the oldest is 105 and the 'youngest' is 78 - they would chalk up the ability to survive and thrive to an assortment of things: clean living, a glass of red wine and goats cheese at night, working outdoors and staying healthy by walking, but another factor was brought up.  These siblings, along with many other Sardinians, feel that because they are in close connection as family units, constant interaction with the younger generations, often revered for (not revolted by) their age, they are connected and have a will to live and enjoy life.

This story got me thinking:  How can the contemporary Church continue to enjoy a long age but also new growth in it's 21st century and beyond?

In thinking about these things and speaking with some other people, here are four things that are not programs and cost no money whatsoever, but hopefully can sustain Church life and growth.

1.  Find Unity

When Jesus proclaims that he is going to prepare a place for us - His Father's house which has many rooms, but one house, he's giving us a model.  So it is here on earth - one Church with many rooms.  Unfortunately, much of contemporary Christianity still has a mindset of Many Churches and One God.  I may alienate myself with this, but planting churches, although good, seems to be somewhat short-sighted.  When Jesus speaks of making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:20) he doesn't specify that a building is included (or even needed).  His command is 'Go!'

I think as members of the body of Christ and members of local congregations, we can, and should, feel free to worship in any room (church building) that is nearby.  Unified in Christ, we connect with others, made holy through God's power, and find unity in movement.  Church membership seems to almost inhibit the mobility of the Great Commission.  As a member of a local congregation, all of my energy and resources generally are about the one Room, but as we move and support each other, we find that we evangelise along the way.

We are connected by love, not location.  (Jesus' prayer before his arrest is unsurprisingly not about planting churches.)

 John 17:20-23  

'My prayer is not for (the disciples) alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me - so that they may be brought to complete unity.  Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you love me.'

2.  Find the 'We'

One of my favourite passages of scripture comes from Romans 5:1-11, 6:1-14.  In these two passages, the word 'We' is used thirty times.  We encounter the plural, a soldering of 'you' and 'I' into the 'we' and 'us', to our great benefit.  No greater is this spelled out than 6:4,5; 

'We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.'

Here are the ultimate ideals of the Church - new life, long life, productive life.  But it comes through baptism and the drowning of the 'I'.

In Greek, the word for 'I' is ego.  Of course we see this in psychological circles everywhere, the ego is the centre of who we are in our own personal universe.  From a worldly perspective it regulates all that we think and do.  The ego controls what I find most important in life and who I find most important in life.

But Paul draws the line and says that the Ego,  the I, must be drowned in baptism - killed - and in the subsequent explosion from the Waters of Life, we find new life in the We.  In essence, the Ego  is shed and the 'We-go' arises.

How do we do this?

Maybe it begins in the core of our spiritual practices?  Perhaps we begin in worship where the songs that we sing are much more about Christ and including the We, than it is about making sure I am shoring up my own shortcomings and making sure that 'Me and Jesus are okay.'  Corporately, we find unity; individually we may encounter the loneliness of solely a personal relationship with Jesus.  In our prayers, can we look to the outer rather than inner?  As much as I want God to 'Jabez' me (from Bruce Wilkinson's Book The Prayer of Jabez, where the author postulates that if you pray like Jabez - 1 Chronicles 4:9,10 - you will get whatever you desire, blessing, territory, no harm and free from pain), I know that in the broad scope of things, the desperate prayer of the faithful is to be unified in the territory that we are given, in the difficulties of life and the associate pain of being connected as parts of One Body.

Tomorrow (hopefully) we'll look at the last two ideas and then, perhaps, we can start discussing in our local chat-rooms (congregations) how to start moving together.

A Great Exaggeration

The other night, as the sun was going down, I, with another pastor, was looking over the football field surveying a group of thirty-odd young people running around on the grass playing a game of Capture the Flag.  I looked over at Greg, who, with arms crossed and smile stretched across his face, caught my eye and spoke.

'Reports of the death of the church are greatly exaggerated, I would say.'

Bemusedly, we watched the vibrancy and vitality of the youth as they strained and pressed forward towards the goal that had been clearly marked for them - the pink flag on the end of a stick poking up between the goal posts; unfortunately, the sun was getting quite low in the sky and not only were the flags more difficult to see, it was also humorous to watch the youth try to remember who was on their team and who was not.  Eventually, they gave up trying to decipher whose team they were on and simply tagged everyone.  Laughter and shouts of joy echoed in the stillness of the twilight.  And I nodded.

Indeed, reports of the church's death are not only exaggerated, but quite clearly fake news.  This is not a head-in-the-sand mentality, but a true to life hope in the immense power of God as He reimagines the future of the Body of Christ for us in a tremendously powerful secular age.

Mark Twain penned those words about his supposed demise in 1897 (according to This Day in Quotes), but it was not the original sentence.  Supposedly, Twain, while in London, was aware that some newspapers in the United States were writing him off because of an illness, and his response was this:

 “I can understand perfectly how the report of my illness got about, I have even heard on good authority that I was dead. James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness. 
     The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Illness, especially in our contemporary phobic society, can be misconstrued easily as the next footstep onto the threshold of death's door.  We seek to find any solution for illness on WebMD, or any other website that may seem to lump symptoms together, and then we point our fingers at the screen while our heart thumps steadily in our chest, There, see that!  These symptoms seem to say that in just a little while the gravediggers will be shovelling the last fill of dirt into the hole.  I suppose I'd better write up my will again.  With fear tightening in our guts, we close the laptop in front of us and resign ourselves to fatalism that no matter what, there's nothing we can do about the demise that seems to be just across the doorstep...  Why even try?

Which is why, as Greg and I surveyed the scene last Friday night, captured by the surround sound of young people enjoying life together, I think to myself - This is why we try.

The contemporary church has an illness - there are no denying the symptoms:

According the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the latest Census in 2016, fifty-one percent of Australians still claim Christianity, but...

The largest growing demographic for the Millennial group is 'no religion' or 'other religion.'  Young people are absconding with their religious (or non-religious) lives intact to somewhere way beyond the denominational church walls.

Of those who claim Christianity (whether or not they claim Christ is a different issue), only a small minority would attend worship weekly.

Biblical literacy seems to be at it's lowest level since the Protestant Reformation.

Prayer, for the most part, has that sense of soft drink machine mentality - I put in my time, pray earnestly (for a good three minutes) and then, when I'm good and ready, I expect that God will eject a positive answer to my prayer.  Quite a bit different to C. S. Lewis' thoughts of prayer: 'Prayer is a request.  The essence of a request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.'  (But that doesn't make the granter unfaithful.  Maybe the granter is simply more patient?)

When prayer isn't answered within seconds, like the nervous Facebook poster who receives no instantaneous thumbs up or smiley faces, we believe that either there is no God, or that He doesn't care about us.

This illness seems entirely depressing, and the immediate reaction by most church leaders is to turn to the internet for some kind of panacea that will fix the malady (but more likely just ease the symptoms) of the contemporary church - a new program, a bigger building, some fog machines during worship, a better sermon and especially a more charismatic pastor - but the incredible cure for what ails the church is (unsurprisingly) found in the scriptures and some of our youngest are intuitively reconnecting with what Paul writes about to the Ephesians:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:1-6

To be bound by peace.

To be one.

To find unity.

To see, beyond a doubt, that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers  of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  (Ephesians 6:12)

In the new life of the church, we recognise that those who profess Christ stand with those who are at a different stage on the path of faith, not against them, and certainly not above them.

In the next instalment of the new life in the church that is coming, we'll look at four ways that churches can continue to release, not harness, the excitement and joy of our people, young and old alike, in mutual partnership of walking this pathway of life together.  I recognise the ultimate irony of writing a blog on the internet on how to help the church, but these four ways are images of new opportunities of sharing the Gospel without 'programming' them.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his classic book, Life Together,  “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”

Let's find the new life together in the 21st century community that is our Church.

A Church Without Walls

Imagine, if you will, a father wakes his children in the morning with a light rap on the door.  It's barely light; the sun has only begun to yawn, the clouds are still rosy and the children, rapt with Sugar Plum Fairies, are grumbling about the early start to the day.  The father, full of anxious expectation, throws open the curtains, eyes aglow and announces to the kids, "Today is the day we begin something new!"

The children, still adjusting to the hour, groggily wipe the sleep from their eyes.  "What are we doing today, Dad?"

"Well," he says rubbing his hands together as if a meal has been placed on the table in front of him, "We're going to build something new, something different, something immense!"  This statement grabs the children's attention, and with new energy, they throw their legs over the side of the bed, put their slippers on, and bound to their father who has already exited the room.  As they pass down the hallway, the children, a brother and sister, whisper excitedly about what kind of construction could be taking place.  A doll house?  New cabinets for the pantry?  A shed?  Maybe even a new play room!  As they reach the living room, their father is standing beside the front bay window.  His smile is wide and his hands are already reaching for the curtains.

"What is it!" The children shout excitedly.

The father throws open the curtains and they see the immense oak tree in the front yard which stands sentinel over their house.  It has been their constant shade, their toy and their protection for all of their years.  "Yes?" they ask again.

"Imagine this," the father says as he begins by waving his arms in the air painting ideas like images on a canvas, "that instead of having just the old oak tree in the front, we actually have..." he calls for a drum roll which they supply, "A tree house!"

The children are ecstatic.  They begin jumping around the room hugging each other like they haven't in years.  A tree house!  Think of all the things that they could do!  Immediately, after their brief explosion of joy, they settle themselves at the coffee table, grab a notebook and begin to sketch their plans for their new creation.  The one that will produce and protect their joy until they become disillusioned adults.

"Here is where we'll have the living area," the boy says as he draws a large central space between the boughs.

"And here," the sister points to a branch farther out, "Is where the ladder will go - way up high!"  Their excitement is only barely contained by their imagination, and as they continue to draw, their own plans for the tree house grow bigger than the actual tree itself.  The father, watching bemusedly, crosses his arms and then pulls a piece of paper from his pocket.  As he sits down, he pulls the plans of the children from in front of them and lays them aside.

"Actually," the father says to the children as he puts his own paper in front of them, "these are the plans we'll be using.  I drew these up with the help of a great architect."  He begins showing them the plans - they are somewhat confused by the architectural language, but they are intrigued by the size and scope, but as they look between the father's blueprint and their own imagination, they feel a pang of disappointment that they weren't involved in the planning.

"And," the father continues, "I know that because you two are young and inexperienced, you'll need quite a bit of help so..." he points back to the window where some people have already arrived, "I've called in some of the neighbours to build it.  Now, the children are confused.  What had started out as a thrilling morning of shared vision and building, was now a project to be completed independently of the children.

"What do you think?" the father asks with great joy.

What would you think?

This story is an image of a biblical story from I Chronicles.  At the end of his life, David is about to die and return to his Father, but he wants to pass on what he believes is his ultimate representation of his life's work.  When the idea first came to David for a temple, David wanted to build a house for God, but, as I wrote in the last blog, the Temple of Jerusalem, would not be a place where God is contained, but where his name would rest - like all places of worship.  Solomon knew this already, and even after it was built, in his message to Hiram he explains the purpose of the Temple:

(2 Chron. 2:5,6)

 'The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods.  But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him?  Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before him?'

But in proposing the Temple to Solomon, it's interesting how David passed on his ideas:

(1 Chronicles 28:10-12a)

Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary.  Be strong and do the work.  Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement.  He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord...

To me, it doesn't read as if Solomon was consulted on the plans for the temple, only that David was passing over what was in his mind that the Spirit had placed there.  Now of course, I'm not putting down the plans of the Spirit - not by any means - but is it not possible that the Spirit could have spoken to, and through, Solomon also about his own reflection of what the Temple would look like?  Could Solomon, the representative of the next generation of leadership, have been invited into the discussion for the House of God's Name?

To top it all off, after David had given his plans to Solomon with a stern encouragement to be faithful, David gathers the entire assembly, the entire Ecclesia (or Church) and says to them, "My son, Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced... (1 Chron. 29:1a). It can be inferred, as David tells the assembly that because of Solomon's youth and inexperience, Solomon cannot do this task, so they must do it for him.

Now, I'm all for sharing the labour and allowing the church to use their gifts, but why not let Solomon lead this part?  So what if he is young and inexperienced?  Maybe he might bring some new perspective, or some new energy to the old ways of doing things?

And so it happens in our contemporary churches.  When it comes to building and sustaining the new Church, we often engage the youth and young adults in the excitement of constructing something new, perhaps even a new understanding of community where God's name will be perpetually present, but then we hand over our own plans to them. Even though the Spirit has worked diligently in our own generation, can the Spirit work just as (or even more) powerfully in the next generation - a mobile generation that sees relatively little import in membership to a specific location or building, but belonging in a community?  This current generation seems to value connections much more than denominational fences.  While Baby Boomers and Gen Xers get distracted by worship style, Powerpoints and the colour of the carpeting, the next generations are focussing on how we can live a life worthy of the calling of the Gospel of Christ and be faithful to Law while rejoicing in the Gospel.

As the next wave of generational humanity sweeps across the earth, it's my great hope and prayer that we sit with them in the building process, give them the crayons and the stories of the past, and allow them to draw a picture of the future of the Church.  We, as this current generation in leadership, have our own patterns of what seemed to work in evangelism and teaching (and many things that did not - especially for Gen Y, Millenials and beyond), but allowing these next generations to take ownership of their architectural blue prints for A Church Without Walls - that is exciting for me.

Take a read through the last chapters of 1 Chronicles and reimagine how we might be passing on the leadership without our own strings.

Building Something New

Recently (well actually for a long time) I've been wondering what the future Church will look like.  I suppose this has happened since time immemorial; the generation that holds onto the vision of the future attempts to cast that vision onto the successive generation, drawing plans for what worked for them, preparing them for the difficulties and issues of the present rather than looking into the future of what might be necessary for the younger ones.  Unfortunately, the unpredictability of the future creates fission, not vision, and most of the plans blow up in our faces with mushroom clouds of incredulity that what we thought was inspired by the Spirit for (and of) our present is not what the Spirit had for the next generation.

But the issue remains:

Does the inspiration of the present generation trump the aspirations of the next?  Does our own need for control supersede the omni-mobility of God?  Does the 'growth model' of erecting buildings from the Middle Ages onwards actually work anymore?  Is adding onto our current church buildings actually an attempt to capture God and his power and, at the same time, isolate ourselves from a frequently fear-full world?

For instance, take the story of David.  As he victoriously enters Jerusalem he, much to the disgust of his wife, Michal, dances naked through the streets with slave girls.  Imagine that - the king of the country mixing it up with the lowest of the low.  David is aglow with the thrill of victory; the surge of adrenaline that accompanies success and in the midst of it he wants to capture the feeling, to hold onto it as long as possible before it slips through his fingers into the next trough of difficulties of leadership.

So, he settles into his palace and Nathan, the prophet, enters his presence.  The dialogue is fascinating.

He said to Nathan the prophet, 'Here I am living in a house of cedar while the ark of God remains in a tent.'  Nathan replied to the king 'Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.'  (2 Sam. 7:2,3)

Awash with the accompanying joy of conquering foes, David looks around and notices his resplendent lodgings and wonders if it isn't too ostentatious when the very article of their victory, God's power in the ark, sits in a tent.  It has led them through their battles, fought for them in their darkest trials and given courage to the fearful.  Most likely with altruistic intent, David wants to house the ark in a grand temple of his own design.  It will be the largest building in existence to promote the power of Yahweh, the God of the Israelites.  The wealth of the temple will overshadow that of any other country.  Here is where David will build the house where God will remain.

But that's the problem.  The earth, and all that is in it, is God's house - a mere four-sided structure is simply unnecessary.  Perhaps seeing through the altruistic intent, the LORD enters the conversation and speaks to Nathan:

Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the Lord says: are you the one to build me a house to dwell in?  I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought you up out of Egypt to this day.  I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.  Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, 'Why have you not built me a house of cedar?'  (2 Sam. 7:3-7)

God seems to be putting David in the rightful line of importance:  1.  God calls him 'my servant.'  It is not David's responsibility to be the master of the future.  2.  In the long centuries of Israelite leadership, David is the most recent, and as he sits on the throne, has God ever complained about being mobile to Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Deborah, or even Saul or Samuel?  Why should David believe that his role as leader/servant is any more important than these?  3.  Is David's vision for the temple about building a house for God's name, or building a name and a house for himself?

God's response sets the record straight.

Now then tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel.  I have been with you wherever you have gone and I have cut off all your enemies from before you.  Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth.  And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.  (2 Sam. 8-10a)

David is set straight as to who will be building 'houses' around here.  God will build the name and the house of David; God will make the sanctuary for the Israelites so that they can live and not be disturbed.  And if David wants to have a place for the ark, that's fine - but God will not be held captive by human need for control.  God's name will reside there (vs. 13) but God's will will not be contained in four walls of cedar and stone.  From the beginning, God is only contained within the people in which he resides - I have been with you wherever you have gone.  (vs. 9). He lives in the body of his son Jesus; he lives in the community of believers on earth right here and right now in the midst of the living stones of the faithful.  (2 Peter 2:4-6). And in this is great hope and power.

We cannot construct buildings that contain the power of God to harness (or harass) his Spirit to enable our will.  No matter if we place a stage at the front, an incredible band at the side or a coffee shop at the back, God's power cannot be caged like a Spiritual Bruce Banner.  The plans that we have been given for the future are only due to the vision of the Creator of the universe and they may be completely different from what we imagined for this present hour.

In part II, we'll look at David's influence over the blueprint of the temple and how that translates to today's theological understanding of the future of the Church.

An Amazing Man

In 1934, a man named Michael King went to Germany to visit various historical and religious sites.  A God-fearing man by nature and part of the Baptist church in the south, Michael was none the less enraptured by the work of Luther, the amazing German reformer, who spoke of a freedom that Michael, and his wife Alberta, rarely witnessed.  So, moved by Luther's witness to the world, Michael King legally changed his name to the reformers and became Martin Luther King, Sr.

His son, Michael, Jr., his namesake, would also change his name to Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are many facts that I've come across this week as I peered into a life that seemed to have been touched by Elisha's bones; the skeleton encased by a cave where the dead, after coming into contact with the bones, came to life.

King attended Booker T. High School, where he was said to be a precocious student. He skipped both the ninth and eleventh grades, and entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at age 15, in 1944. He was a popular student, especially with his female classmates, but an unmotivated student who floated though his first two years. Although his family was deeply involved in the church and worship, young Martin questioned religion in general and felt uncomfortable with overly emotional displays of religious worship. This discomfort continued through much of his adolescence, initially leading him to decide against entering the ministry, much to his father's dismay. But in his junior year, Martin took a Bible class, renewed his faith and began to envision a career in the ministry. In the fall of his senior year, he told his father of his decision.  (From Biography.com)

Most people do not know that Martin Luther King, Jr. had, in the beginning, deep questions about faith and religion.  His search for God and spirituality was a true quest; the grail of his father's faith seemed to be out of reach and strangely, his father did not want him to enter the ministry.  Perhaps this was due to the fact that those who are questioning faith don't necessarily find it in the day to day grind of taking care of the spiritual lives of others - sometimes it is quite the opposite.  But young Martin encountered his faith in the place where the Living Word becomes living faith.  In the Bible.

In the book Finding God, a Treasury of Conversion Stories, the editor relates the impact that the Word of God had on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and in its use and reflection, his last public words ring with tremendous praise and prophecy:

I don't know what will happen now.  We've got some difficult days ahead.  But it doesn't matter now, because I've seen the mountaintop.  And I don't mind.  Like anybody, I would like to live a long life.  Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now.  I just want to do God's will and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain.  And I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land.  I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land and I'm happy, tonight.  I'm not worried about anything.  I'm not fearing any man.  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

Hours later, he was felled by the assassin's bullet.

How do the scriptures turn us?  How do they make a difference and convert us from disbelief to belief?  How do we find the words, like the desperate father who can't find his faith, 'Help my unbelief?'  

This world is desperate for a new spirit of peace and patience, joy and encouragement, hope and faith.  To see beyond the mountain of the world's discontent and view the Promised Land of which God assures us, is of utmost importance.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. sensed a convergence of faith and life through his own conversion to faith in the Way, Truth and Life, so we too can read through the scriptures, alone, but especially with believers, to see how a life a freedom is incredibly transformative for a community and individual.  

Read through the Gospel of Mark this week, or the book of Philippians.  Ask some questions about faith and life and I pray that God gives you eyes to see.

Dem Bones

In my morning devotions last week, I came across a section of 2 Kings that I don't remember reading before.  Granted, as I read through the Bible again, the wilderness that begins in Number and continues through Chronicles is difficult for me, but how did I miss this?

Elisha received the mantle of prophecy from Elijah when he, Elijah, was drawn by chariots of fire to be with God in heaven.  In his journeys to this point, he's already done some interesting things including calling bears from the forest to attack a group of precocious youths who had found great humor in Elisha's shiny dome of baldness.

Nearing the end of his life, Elisha is suffering from a sickness which will eventually take his life and Jehoash, the king of Israel at the time who 'did evil in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn away from (sin)...' (2 Kings 13:11) comes to visit him and weep over him because, it seems, that if Elisha leaves, the nation will be overrun with Arameans.  He fears for his rule, his control and his power over the people - perhaps even losing Elisha's buffering to God's wrath.

So, on his deathbed, Elisha tells Jehoash to strike the ground with some arrows.  Jehoash strikes it three times and Elisha, even in his weakened state, becomes apoplectic with the king's own weakness.  "You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it.  But now you will defeat it only three times." (2 Kings 13:19)

I read this passage and I kind of think to myself, "How was Jehoash supposed to know that he was to strike the ground multiple times.  Even the invitation to whack the ground once seems odd, but five or six?  Come on, Elisha."

But Elisha's last words are full of anger and bitterness.  He is frustrated, as I read it, that this king under his watch has continued in sin just like the last kings (except for his grandfather Joash.)  Perhaps Elisha felt that his life's work was a failure, that somehow these thick-headed kings couldn't trust and depend on God like they ought.  Perhaps he was frustrated that even in the midst of being able to see the mighty hand of God over the people, the nation kept turning back to idols because of their power-addicted kings.

The next verse after his anger is released against Jehoash?  Elisha died and was buried.  (2 Kings 13:20)

What a way to die, with bitterness and anger.

But then there is this strange story juxtaposed into the narrative.  It has nothing to do with the line of broken kings, only a convenient way to salvage the character of the Prophet Elijah and his place in the line of prophets of Israel.

Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring.  Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elijah's tomb.  When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.  (2 Kings 13:20b, 21)

If I understand this correctly, some Israelites were going to bury a dead man, I don't know why they didn't have a plot picked out already, and because of the raiders (not of the Lost Ark), they unceremoniously dumped his body in a preoccupied tomb - Elisha's - and when this dead man came into contact with the long-dead prophet's bones, he was given new life!

This makes me ask the question: if Elisha's bones could bring people back to life, why wasn't this tomb the most popular in all of Israel?  Shouldn't there have been a long line of mourners carrying their loved ones preparing to grab a femur and bring joy back to the house?

I don't know the answer to that one, but miraculous things happen when we encounter people who are driven by God in faith.  The bones of the saints seem to radiate life and hope to all the people they encounter.

What are the dark places in your life that seem to a place of death?  Who are the people in your life that seem to be dropping you off in caves of the dead?  Who are the people in your proximity that bring new life to you? 

This week, seek out the people who you appreciate and in connecting with them, thank them for their faithfulness.  Alternatively, think about the people the bring you down and drop you off alone.  How can you either talk to them about this or find ways of allowing them to find paths apart from you.  (Is that a nice way of putting it?)

Have an excellent day of finding dem bones.

In the next couple of days, I want to tell you a story about a faithful prophet from the 21st century who brought life to many people.

Unbelievable

John 9:35-41

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out (the blind man) and when he found him, he said, 'Do you believe in the Son of Man?'

36 'Who is he, sir?' the man asked.  'Tell me so that I may believe in him.'

37 Jesus said, 'You have no seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.'

38 Then, the man said, 'Lord, I believe,' and he worshipped him.

39 Jesus said, 'For judgment I have come into the this world (or cosmos, in Greek - universe), so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.'

40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, 'What? Are we blind too?'

41 Jesus said, 'If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.'

I came across this episode in my devotions this morning, and I wondered if there are any more difficult passages in John.  Here are the difficulties:

1.  Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath, which was a great difficulty for the Pharisees who would preach to Jesus not heeding 'God's word.'  There is a tasty irony with this.

2.  The blind man has been thrown out of the presence of the religiocracy for presuming to 'lecture' the Pharisees about theology.  (9:30-33)  His new found 'sight' has given him courage.

3.  Vs. 38 is not in some early manuscripts.

4.  Vs. 39 is very confusing from the original language, and beautiful at the same time.  A better way of translating (in my opinion) would be ... 'so that those who can't understand will understand, and those that think they understand will become blind to understanding.'

5.  What are the Pharisees blind to?

6.  This is a great twist of phrasing by Jesus: If you were physically blind, you would not be guilty because you wouldn't have seen me.  But because you claim that you understand, your sin sticks with you.

Let's give these difficulties a shot.  I am no master at Greek, but the text speaks so well to us when we use it in this passage.

Much of the difficulty that comes from understanding the Pharisees is that we don't have a Christian group like them in the 21st century.  Or do we?  The Pharisees believe in rigid, fundamentalist reading of scriptures and of course their own interpretations.  In order to be in a right relationship with God, every jot and tittle must be followed.  There were so many idiosyncrasies, that no one in their right (or wrong) mind would be able to memorize and follow them unless they simply ceased to live.  Because Jesus healed this person on the Sabbath, one of the most pre-scripted commandments given, he was considered guilty of breaking the commandment.  Unbeknownst to the unbelievers, the Word of God was accused of not fulfilling the written word.  At the end of the previous chapter, Jesus, after claiming to be part of the creation process before Abraham, is given a death sentence and stones are picked up.  Pharisees are always trying to kill Jesus.

There are certain groups of 21st century Christian Pharisees who are so incredibly bent on following the rules, they actually miss the point of their own religion.  You've probably heard these before:  "Make sure you stay 'pure' before marriage, because if not..."  "Make sure that you tithe to the church, because if you do not, you are making an idol out of money, and then..."  "Make sure that you respect your elders, go to church on Sunday, don't kill unless you are in the blessed-by-God military; no stealing, lying, coveting - because if you do, you'll go to..."

Heaven's sakes.  It's no wonder Jesus gets frustrated with most of religiocracy and offends them time and time again for their spiritual blindness.  It's not as if the commandments are a bad thing - quite the opposite actually, they are the perfect tool for understanding life in relationship with God and community - but they have no use in truly seeing (understanding) what God is all about.  When Jesus heals the blind man on the Sabbath, it is in response to the blindness of the disciples who still believe that physical ailments are punishments by God on an unbelieving world.  "No," Jesus responds, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him!'  (John 9:3)

The blindness, our true lack of vision in life for God, is only removed by an encounter with Jesus, not an interview with the Law.  The love and mercy of God in Christ Jesus stands in stark contrast with the unforgiveness and dis-grace that the Law can bring, and when the man who was once blind asks the truth to be revealed, Jesus responds, 'That day is here.  You have seen him and recognize him - right here, right now in front of you - before your eyes!"

How difficult that is for Pharisees.  To have their whole world of power, privilege and prestige crumble before them by the words of the visible Son of Man! Is it not the same for us? Inside all believers is an inner Do-It-Yourself-Christian that sits like a tiny gold idol in the shape of ourselves near the throne of our hearts.  It is painful to give all power and dominion to God - to believe and worship, right then and there.  When we encounter Jesus and his word, we are released from our spiritual blindness!  And we see and understand!

This scripture is so much less about the man-who-was-once-blind (especially if you read it in some of the early manuscripts where vs. 38 is not there) and so much more about the walking Word of God standing in the midst and confronting all of our unbelief that keeps us blind.  And we still hold desperately to that blindness because it seems so much easier to try to keep the Law than to hand the Law back to God.

Now that we have understood, it's time to give up our spiritual blindness.  In the midst of spiritual sight, new, hesitant steps can be made going forward.  It's almost like learning to walk again. Once you have your sight, everything changes.

God bless you as you believe and worship the one who brings sight back to the world!

Put That Away

As parents, we've all been there.  As children, we've all done that.  As humans...

I guess there's a part of us that always likes to be distracted.  The present moment in which we live can, at times, seem droll, or routine - dull enough to want to be somewhere else.  When Gen Xers were entering our 'boring years' (simply the years when all teenagers exclaim 'I'm bored...' when they haven't been stimulated for eleven seconds) we turned to video games like Atari or Nintendo with various games like Pong and Asteroids.  Amazingly, we'd play for a little while and then turn it off because, frankly, shooting spinning rocks in dual color on an old Zenith TV was not really that much different than being bored in real life.

Each successive generation of teens has their own escape from the tedium of life.  I won't expound on the ways we deviate from the real to the unreal, but in the last ten years or so, the obvious method of escape is through handheld devices.  Some people, teenagers and older people included, are incapable of being without this digital security blanket.  So much so that putting them down for even a few moments might cause an existential crisis of life.  We've learned to live somewhere else.  Our energy has been focused not on being present but being distant.  When we ride public transportation, silence reigns because wifi has filled our ears as the headphones go in.

After dutifully neglecting the chores at hand, it's almost like my mom used to shout down the basement steps, "Put that thing away!"  Enough blasting away at two dimensional spinning rocks and enter the real world where people are waiting to be part of your life AND where your chores need to get done.

If you are anything like me, I get snared by the stories and the actions of Jesus and neglect the narratives of his heritage.  For instance, this story came through in our staff Bible study they other day.  In 2 Samuel 4-6, Israel's comeuppance occurs when their arrogance precedes them in battle.  Because they'd been losing to the Philistines, they decided to bring the ark out because they know that God's glory rests within.  Thus their thinking:  we'll just 'use God' to show those filthy Philistines a thing or two about our God.  Unfortunately, we find out that the Israelites haven't been exactly faithful to their God - they've got their own false gods in their tents, Baals and Ashtoreths, household gods (foreign gods) of power and sexuality.  The people are really in no position to expect anything from the true God because they have turned away.

And the unthinkable happens.  Unlike Indiana Jones' assessment of the Lost Ark of the Covenant, the army which carries the ark is not invincible, and the Israelites find that out first hand.  The Philistines capture the ark.

As the story goes, the ark is taken back to Ashdod (Philistine city) and placed in their own temple at the foot of their god, Dagon, who, during the night, falls over because the power of God rests in the ark.  It's as if the false god is bowing down to the real God.  Anyway, various maladies occur to the Philistines and they eventually send it back to the Israelites who are quite thankful that God's power in the ark has returned.

Samuel, Israel's prophet and leader, had to speak to his people about their distraction - turning away from the God of the past, the future and especially the present.

Then all the people of Israel turned back to the Lord.  So Samuel said to all the Israelites, 'If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.  So the Israelites put away their Baals and their Ashtoreths and served the Lord only.

Notice the wording.  Samuel told the Israelites to 'get rid of'' their foreign gods of power and sexuality (fertility) but the people 'put them away.'

There's a big difference.  As humans, we seem to always want to have the 'what if' power.  What if I really need that later?  What if that particular object seems to give me power over my insufficiencies?
Here's the other side: what if the distractions of life pull us so far away from reality, that we don't actually experience the true majesty of who God is?  Maybe this is the moment when we return to the Lord with all of our hearts and serve him.

I'm not suggesting that we throw away our Smartphones, or get rid of all technology; that's just plain stupid, but their is moment in every day where we can certainly pull our noses back to the present and live the life that God gives us, here and now; this time and place.

Good luck with getting rid of distraction!

It's Time

Winter, in Australia, should usually be written about in the context of quotation marks.  It's not as if I am a stronger person for surviving particularly difficult winters in the Midwest of the United States, but I hold back smirks when some of my neighbors complain about the 'freezing cold' of the South Australian 'winter' season.  Take today, for instance, the twenty-first of July - in essence, the very middle of 'winter.'  The sun is shining; it's a beautiful 18 degrees C. which is the equivalent of 64.4 degrees F. according to my online temperature translator.  I translate that as an amazingly gorgeous day.

And yet, I sit in my office typing with cold fingers, stocking cap affixed tightly to my head, sweatshirt and coat warming my body.  I can't seem to warm up and even the body fat that I've accumulated in the 'winter' seems to have no insulation properties.  Thus, I suffer from both the cold and being seasonably overweight.  I'm not going to find the ideal height to body fat translator for that one.

A few days ago, my eldest daughter, Elsa, after returning home from a trip to Cambodia with a team called Grow Ministries, wondered how cold I was.  Recently, our furnace had gone out in the house (we'd been without heat for a week) and I had stooped to using Greta's hot water bottle in the shape of a fuzzy blue bear, filling it with boiling water and placing it on the inside of my pocketed sweatshirt.  This is how the conversation went.

Elsa:  Dad, are you really that cold?
Me:  Yes, Elsa.  You've had the benefit of spending ten days in the tropics.  I, on the other hand, am freezing my hands off.
Elsa:  Getting weak in your old age?
Me:  So much better to hear from someone who shares the name of the Ice Queen.
Elsa:  (rolls her eyes.)  So what are you doing?
Me:  I'm warming my hands up.  (holding up the hot water bottle between my hands)
Elsa:  Oh, I see, did you fill the other one up and put it in your sweatshirt?
Me:  (looking down)  Uh, no, Elsa.  That's not a hot water bottle.  That's my stomach.  Thanks for noticing.
Elsa:  I didn't mean that... um...what I meant to say was...

It's time.

Time to once again go through the pain of hand to hand mortal combat with my shrinking metabolism which has withered with age.  The tire gaining tread around my middle needs wearing, but I know that with the tending comes effort and sweat and finding extra time in 'winter' when I'd rather be sitting on the sofa reading books and munching on tortilla chips.

As I reflect on the weight I've gained and the extra pressure I'm putting on joints, not to mention that I'm significantly slower running around the track, I also see the metaphor approaching me rapidly.

It's time to shed the extra weight of comfort that I have in my faith life.  It's time to start exercising my faith and putting it through the spiritual paces.  I've been trying to think of any biblical person who had a comfortable faith.  Moses. No.  David.  Not so much.  Esther.  Talk about a crisis of faith.  Prophets?  Give me a break.  And yet my own fallback position in life is to pray for comfort and ease.  Thus, both the breastplate of righteousness and the belt of truth need to be adjusted.

Last week, I was having coffee with a friend, and as we sat in the foyer of the shop ruminating about faith, life and other matters, the question of spiritual growth came up and in the midst of conversation, I tried to think back about the last time I did my devotions that did not involve preparing a sermon.  When was the last time I read the Bible with the lenses of spiritual training?  What has the Bible come to mean to me?

This week, in our fourth week on the Luther's Solas (Grace alone, faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, scripture alone and glory of God alone), I tried to think of the perfect metaphor for what the written word of God is.  So often, we look at the Bible and have been trained to see it as a map, or a guidebook or at its worst, a self-help tome.  But the written word, which contains the living Word - Jesus Christ - is...

A forge.

It is the consuming fire which burns us alive and burns within us with purifying force the power for living a life worthy of Christ's name.  With all forges, the heat is increased by the bellows which push more and more air into the flame stoking it to consume and melt the hardest of substances.  But this forge needs more than one person, someone to pump the bellows, which is why we must continue to be in dialogue with others with regards to how we read and see the scriptures, or we will fall into the trap of, what William Willimon, Bishop of the Methodist Church says is, 'a dangerous, individualistic, personal reading of scriptures that uses only personal experience and ideas to validate their own opinions and ideas.'

This week, find another person to discuss with you this Bible verse from Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is alive and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Answer these questions together:

1.  Why does the author of Hebrews worry more about the sharpness of the word, rather than a description of the tool?

2.  What is the difference between soul and spirit?  Why does the word need to separate them/

3.  What are the thoughts and attitudes that are judged by the word of truth in the written scriptures.

Put yourselves through some spiritual training.

It's time.

Seeing the Future

Sunday morning worship was exciting.

When I was growing up, I don't think I would have ever written that sentence out loud.  It's not as if I didn't appreciate the congregation; they were completely amazing people, but there were times when Sunday mornings seemed tedious, like going to a necessary teeth cleaning at the dentist.  I already knew what was going to happen: we would chant the liturgy, the pastor would give a twelve-and-a-half minute sermon which would go through the same pattern of every other sermon ending with Jesus miraculously being raised from the dead to give us new life... Alleluia.  Someone old would read the scriptures.  We would sing a few hymns played gustily by an organist who had been there as long as anyone could remember, her white shoes sitting beside the organ, stocking feet rushing around the foot pedals.

And then my parents would talk for what seemed hours, while my brother and sisters and I would moan noisily like zombies wanting to go home to eat.

That is not the definition of Sunday morning excitement.

I loved that congregation - still do - but something happened this last weekend that I'll treasure for quite a while.  I think we can call it...

Seeing the future.

A lot has been said about the demise of Christianity in the West, and although Australia is one of the most secularized cultures in the world, I saw a glimpse of how God is moving us forward, out of the doldrums of strict traditionalism (but with theological steadiness) to a place where God meets us in a new way in worship.

On Sunday, the 10:30 service started in its normal procession; a crowd of people speaking before the service and an entire mass of humanity showing up fifteen minutes later after the announcements have gone by, but then I introduced our worship leaders for the day:

The de Wit family. 

Wynand and Marilene and their four children: Wian, Divan, Miane and Anmare, had prepared to lead all parts of the service.  I had met with them at their house twice to go through the service and they were ready, especially Wian and Divan who are about eight and six years old, and their sisters who are three and two.  The de Wit's are originally from South Africa and speak Afrikaans fluently.  As we visited their house, the two youngest girls would flit back and forth between Afrikaans and English.  It was fascinating to listen to, like being on the other end of an intercontinental telephone conversation.

With great aplomb, Marilene and Wynand spoke the call to worship, the confession and blessing; the boys read the lessons - Divan reading from his children's Bible.  Miane helped with the offering and it was a true blessing to the congregations for a three year old girl to lift the offering bowl up onto the altar, not as entertainment, but as a look into the disciples in our midst no matter their age.  Her small legs walked next to me to the altar and with a great big toothy grin, she pushed the heavy bowl up onto the edge.  Excitedly, she walked back down the steps to the congregation who was preparing for the Lord's Supper next.

The boys, Wian and Divan, were Communion attendants.  Each of them held onto the brass tray containing the wafers which I, and another member then distributed. 

Wian looked up to me between settings and through gapped teeth smiled at me and said, "Pastor Reid, I just have to let you know, I'm not that mad that my brother's plate is bigger than mine."  I almost started laughing out loud.

But then, as Wian served me the wafer from his own eight year old hand, he said, "This is the body of Christ given for you Pastor Reid."  He paused and added:  "I've never been this proud in my whole life...

I'm never going to stop sharing my faith."

The congregation didn't hear these words, but they have been tattooed onto my heart.  If only every young person in every congregation could feel valued enough by being engaged in all worship services to pronounce that their faith is an outflowing of their lives.  If only we, as church leaders, could see the small disciples in our midst who are desperate and longing to share whatever gifts they have to practice the faith.  Should we not be doing things like this every Sunday?

I have opened up the calendar for families to put their hands up on Sundays to lead worship - families of all flavours, one, two or three generations taking part in bringing Jesus to all of us. I'm already into September with volunteers.

What a vision for the future!