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How LOST Should Have Ended

It was 7 years ago today...

7 years ago today I woke up in a state of anxiety, sure I had to get a ton of resumés out ASAP. By the end of that day, I went to bed in a state of excitement, sure we were supposed to plant a church. 

I knew my time at the Big Church was coming to an end, but I had no idea of what came next. The relevant data facts were- 1. We had just bought a house 2. We had just gotten pregnant 3. I was pretty sure I wouldn't "fit" in most mainstream churches anymore. 

So when I was told we'd be making a "transition" in terms of my job at the Big Church, I knew something had to happen- I just didn't know what. I had a friend who had a job for me as a children's pastor- No... definitely not me (especially since at the time our child was -7 months old). A lot of churches were "interested"... but none were pulling the trigger, and even if they did, I was highly ambivalent about their style/paradigm of doing church.

God was definitely telling me that He wanted me back in pastoral ministry, but He sure wasn't making it easy. 

So that day, throughout various conversations with friends named Bj, Jim, Stephen, Johnny, Bernard, and Tim, it became clear: Time to put feet to faith and actually DO all the "new" church stuff I'd been talking about for a couple of years. 

They asked: So where are you going to plant this thing? I said, "Well, we live in the Murray Scholls area- maybe there's a school or something there..." 

Tim just shook his head and said, "No. No. No... The Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village." 

I thought about it for 10 seconds or so and said, "Yes. that's it."

And you know the rest of the story. 

Seven years.

Seven years of hoping God will move and seeing Him do just that, of trusting the process and rarely being disappointed, of learning hard lessons about the difference between what I/we think we have figured out and what we actually do. 

This last year has probably been the toughest- I feel like I've made more leadership/strategy mistakes in the last 10 months than in the 6 years previous. But in all of that I am simply reminded of both how much I need Jesus in this church endeavor and how much He shows up and perfects His grace in my weakness. 

Thank you God and thank you Evergreen for seven years of amazing adventure. I'm grateful today for people who love God more than church and so love the church God is building/using more than most other things. I'm thankful for people who say "Whether the car turns right or left, we're staying in it." I'm thankful for people who care enough to disagree without disengaging, for people who love others unselfishly and sacrificially, and for people who work hard to make a welcoming community. I'm especially thankful for those who have found and re-found and are finding and re-finding Jesus in and through our community. What a gift. 

And I'm thankful that it has never gotten easy. 

Because that would be boring, and if there's one thing this deal is not, it's rarely boring.

Happy Monday

You're welcome. 

 

Would God hold us accountable for our BELIEFS?

I had a conversation with someone yesterday that was in every way enjoyable- he and I disagree about much, but don't focus too much on that too much when we talk. 

However, one comment my friend made was something like: "We really don't know why we believe what we believe- our beliefs are really due to influences and factors way beyond our control. Things work on us and take us places and we don't even know that they are doing it... So the idea that anyone would hold us responsible for what we BELIEVE is silly." 

I suspect that at the heart of this comment was a desire to move away from the idea that there's anything I have to believe in order to be made right with God- that God would judge us by what we believe.

My answer was that I'm with him on the influence part- it's very true that our beliefs are more inherited than we would like to think. Sometimes we parrot our parent's politics, sometimes we consciously oppose them- but either way, our politics (in this example) are due largely to someone elses. 

However- we also make very conscious choices about what we'll believe. My example was alcohol. How do I pull myself out of addiction? The reasons (nature or nurture) why I might choose to abuse alcohol aside- I can only move in the opposite direction when I choose to believe that a drink (or a couple) is NOT what I really need. I change my thinking, and so change my actions. 

And there's really the rub of the whole thing for me- actions are nothing more than beliefs acted on. You don't lynch someone without first being a racist in thought and heart or sexually harass someone without harboring sexist and chauvinistic thoughts.  So, if I'm not culpable for my racist or sexist thoughts and beliefs, does that mean I'm not culpable for my racist or sexist actions that are simply those beliefs acted out?

We are born into systems and paradigms and then consciously examine, weigh, test (or fail to do so)... and so choose to believe one thing over another. Otherwise, we're all locked in a universe more deterministic than that of the most ardent hyper-Calvinist.

Further, we have influence on what we allow ourselves to be influenced by. Read certain authors, listen to certain talk shows and over time, your attitudes and feelings WILL move in a certain direction. This is why Scripture urges us to test, examine, and weigh what we hear, read... even what we think. (Favorite t-shirt lately: "Don't believe everything you think.")

Far from God NOT holding us culpable for our beliefs, the biblical picture is that our beliefs are EXACTLY what God will hold us culpable for- do we root our existence and choices in the belief that I am the most important thing in the universe, that I am my own God? Do I make something else (money, sex, my race, my philosophy) my god? Or do I turn my heart and mind towards God Himself, the only thing I can give myself to that will ultimately bring me and this world life? Because at heart- all our actions are just extensions of THAT question. If I'm IT, my heart will find great warrant for all kinds of selfishness, sexism, racism, hatred, theft... But when God and His character become the ground for my beliefs and actions, when His love fills me with a love for all those made in His image, then my actions become very different. 

And the question of which way I turn, which belief I consciously move towards, is very much a choice. A choice I'll be held accountable for. 

"Then they asked him, 'What must we do to do the works God requires?'

Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.'"

Who should plant a church?

"For instance, one middle-aged candidate didn't pass his denomination's assessment process; they thought he was too introverted and couldn't engage unchurched people. (They also rated him as a 'mediocre preacher'.) Upon further prayer and conversation, they revised that decision. He went on to plant a thriving church in the northeast. Today this pastor has launched an entire network of dynamic new church starts. That's the story of the introverted, bookish, 'mediocre preacher' named Tim Keller [pastor of the 5,000+ Redeemer in NYC]."

-Matthew Woodly, "A Calling Confirmed", Leadership Journal 

Does It Matter What We Believe About God?

Does it really matter what we believe about God- don't all conceptions of God just point us towards the same unknowable Somebody? Can't we just say all statements about God are equally valid??

 

"If your conception of God is radically false, then the more devout you are, the worse it will be for you. You are opening your soul to be molded by something else. You had much better be an atheist."

-William Temple

Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey

Let's have a vote. 

Which is more disturbing?

1. That a worship leader, even one with the requisite cool spiky hair,  leather bracelet and untucked plaid would try this

or

2. An ENTIRE CROWD would go along with something this demonstrably goofy?

(Bonus:  you may also vote for the Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey Healing Testimonies)

 

Register your vote below!

Christian Billboards and Gospel Motivations...

Sometimes, we say the opposite of what we mean. Sometimes, we even manage to preach the opposite of what we intend.

Driving down the freeway here in Portland recently, I noticed a local Christian university had updated their billboard that sits just as you enter downtown. While the old message had been something about their academics, the new one was a more personal appeal to prospective students: “Be Known for Inspiring the Next Generation.” 

“Hmm...” I thought. “They’re saying more than they intend.” 

Years ago I heard a pastor exhort our congregation with the statement “I want this church to be known as a church that cares about the community!”

For some reason that sat uneasily with me. I thought and thought about it until I realized: there’s a big difference between wanting to be known for caring about the community... and caring about the community. In the same way, there’s a huge difference between wanting to be known for inspiring the next generation and wanting to inspire the next generation. 

Is this just a semantic difference? No, it’s very much a Gospel difference. 

We all know there’s such a thing as right and wrong, good and bad courses and actions we can choose. Where it begins to get a little more grey, a little less black-and-white is when we begin talking not just about the issue of what we do, but move on to thinking through WHY we do it. 

I’ve recognized that in my own heart, in my own life, even when I’m ostensibly pursuing good, I’m regularly just stoking an idol of pride or building an identity of my own creation. Often I realize I first and foremost want to BE KNOWN for doing good, pastoring well, pointing people to Jesus... as opposed to wanting to simply do the things for the sake of doing them, regardless of how many or how few accolades others lay on me. 

But really- is there THAT much of a problem with the former? Doesn’t good get done either way? Well, yes and no. At least at first it does. But at some point there comes the day when I will have the opportunity to do good, but will realize that there’s a low probability of anyone noticing or knowing. If my motivation all along has been to BE KNOWN as something, what are the chances I’ll follow through if I believe that no one will know? See how just a little shift in language turns what should be about others into something that’s all about ME?

This is the Good News- in Jesus we have what we need. The question of our worth has been answered definitively by a God who pursued us, gave up all for us, even died a horrible death on our behalf. No one, looking at the incarnation and death of Jesus, at the sheer price paid to secure life for us could deny our value and worth in God’s eyes. 

So why then do we constantly feel the need to earn or build that worth? 

Because we... because I, have yet to sufficiently believe the Gospel in ways necessary to answer those particular questions of value and self worth. I have yet to preach the Gospel to myself in such a way that when those inner voices of doubt begin questioning my place in this world, my value to God and others, I can silence them with ease. 

I want to do good in this world, but I want to do it because it makes God happy, because others need what I bring to the table and because it’s a wonderful way of saying thank you to the One who gave His all for me. To get there, to get to that place where I can do all of that and truly not care if others notice or applaud, I need to lean on Jesus more and more- to know that I’m made whole by what He provides, not by the acknowledgment or accolades of others. 

I hope in my preaching (and if I ever put up a billboard), I'm pushing people towards doing what is right in the world for the sake of Jesus, not the sake of being known. It's Him we should point to- not ourselves. 

(related: I've been doing some thinking on pastors and self-promotion... something coming soon)

 

 

The Hiro-Chang Theory

(Honestly: I have NO IDEA why I wrote this blog entry...)

Here's my theory: The character of Señor Chang on the NBC show Community is that show's version of Hiro on the NBC show Heroes. And no, it's not because they are both Asian.

I loved the first season of Heroes. And if you watched it, I'll bet you did too. 

And I'll bet the slow-motion, 4 season-long train wreck that followed broke your heart as it broke mine. Unless of course you were one of the millions of hopeful Heroes watchers who bailed out in disgust somewhere in season 2. Or 3. Or 4. 

The problems with Heroes were many: Too many characters, too many character twists (Wait- is he a good guy now? A bad guy again? What, he's got powers now? He lost them? He got different ones? He lost those?), too many soap-opera like boneheaded plot moves that stretched not just the audience's credulity but their patience  (3 different characters with three different powers played successively by the same actress with the head-scratching explanation of "Twins!"... "Uh, wait, we mean Triplets!"). Randomly switching characters from good to evil and back again, starting major plot lines only to inexplicably abandon them two episodes later, killing off characters just when they started to get interesting...

But the single most egregious error, the one move that in my opinion ultimately sank what promised to be an epic series was this: Losing the plot with Hiro. 

When we met Hiro, he looked like this:

 But before long we got a glimpse of future-Hiro:

Talk about a transformational character arc!

At the beginning of the series, Hiro was one character among many. But the glimpses of future Hiro with his badass sword, soul patch and ponytail (admit it- he works it) and the hope of seeing an awkward, geeky cubicle dweller transformed into a katana-wielding, time-bending Super Samurai pushed him forward from the pack and over that first season, made him the heart and soul of the show. It was, in part, the promise of that transformational arc that propelled Heroes to huge ratings and the betrayal of that promise that left viewers feeling burned and betrayed.

The failure to develop Hiro in the promised direction, and even instead taking him in the very OPPOSITE direction (seriously- make him into a mental ten-year old? And then four episodes later forget that you even did it??? ) left me puzzled and even angry. All the show had to do to become EPIC was show us how Hiro Nakamura turned from zero to hero. That's it.

Never happened. And now the show will go down in TV history as one of the biggest and most-expensive flame-outs ever. 

Why all the Heroes history? 

Because the same thing is happening with what is arguably one of the best shows on today: Community.

The ensemble comedy about a lawyer who is discovered to have faked a college degree and so is forced to return to community college to bang out a degree is one of the funniest shows on right now. And like Heroes one cast member has become a breakout star- Señor Chang. 

 

So what's the problem? In an effort to keep Señor Chang front and center in the lives of the cast, they've demoted him from powerful (and hilariously over-the-top)  teacher of Spanish with occasional flashes of insecurity to whiny student who faked his college degree to get a job as a teacher (wait- haven't we heard that somewhere already??) who, rather than being hilariously braggadocio, now simply wants to be liked. 

In other words, like with Hiro, they're moving in the wrong direction with their break-out character.

Turn back now, Community! Save Señor Chang!