bob.blog

Solitude

“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.” -Nikolai Tesla

Golden Calf Country

An amazing passage from Under The Unpredictable Plant by Eugene Peterson...

"I learned, gradually but surely, how embarrassingly naive I was in matters of religion. I don’t blame myself too much now, for I find that it is a naivete pretty common among pastors. We assume that because people want more religion, they want more of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We assume that when they gather in our congregations and ask us to lead them in prayer, they want us to lead them before the throne of a Holy God. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

The people in our congregations are, in fact, out shopping for idols. They enter our churches with the same mind-set in which they go to the shopping mall, to get something that will please them or satisfy an appetite or need. John Calvin saw the human heart as a relentlessly efficient factory for producing idols. Congregations commonly see the pastor as the quality-control engineer in the factory. The moment we accept the position, though, we defect from our vocation. The people who gather in our congregations want help through a difficult time; they want meaning and significance in their ventures. They want God, in a way, but certainly not a “jealous God,” not the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Mostly they want to be their own god and stay in control but have ancillary idol assistance for the hard parts, which the pastor can show them how to get. With the development of assembly-line mass production, we are putting these idols out in great quantities and in a variety of colors and shapes to suit every taste. John Calvin’s insight plus Henry Ford’s technology equals North American Religion. Living in golden calf country as we do, it is both easy and attractive to become a successful pastor like Aaron. 

All our theological texts teach this, but somehow we manage to obliterate the memory of them in actual pastoral practice. They teach us that it is characteristic of post-Eden human beings to try to be or get their own gods and that this characteristic is persistent, subtle, and relentless. But when everyone around us is self-defined as Christian, listens to us tell the gospel story regularly, and smiles in appreciation when we pray in the name of Jesus, we drop our guard, supposing that all that idol business is behind us, ancient history on the hills of Samaria. We assume that we are now free to concentrate on getting rid of the conspicuous trespasses of morality written in the second tablet of the law and no longer need to be vigilant regarding the so easily camouflaged spiritual sins in the first tablet."

wisdom...

"Without the regular experience of being received and loved by God in solitude and silence, we are vulnerable to a kind of leadership that is driven by profound emptiness that we are seeking to fill through performance and achievement. This unconscious striving is very dangerous for us and for those around us; it will eventually burn us out (since there is no amount of achievement that will ultimately satisfy the emptiness of the human soul), and the people we work with will eventually notice that they are mere cogs in the wheel of our own ego-driven plans."

-Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership

Pastoral Complaints

"The happy result of a theological understanding of people as sinners is that the pastor is saved from continual surprise that they are in fact sinners. It enables us to heed Bonhoeffer's admonition: 'A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men." 

- Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

Wisdom...

“In answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

-General William Booth, Salvation Army

The Personal Firewall

More and more I'm discovering- the more connected you are, the more distracted you are. And the less you can get done. 

There's zero doubt- Facebook, Twitter, cell phones and Wi-fi- they all serve us in various ways (even if just connecting to lost friends or allowing us to work out of the office). 

The problem is that the more we connect to social media, the more obligated we feel to feed them, keep up with them, check in on short micro-breaks... and so completely derail any momentum we may have gained in getting things done. The same goes for both the benefits and the hazards of constant connection through cell phones and internet. Most of us no longer have an admin that safeguards us from phonecalls and other drop-in distractions. 

It's up to us to set up our own safeguards. 

Thus, the "personal firewall." 

No- it's not always on. But when I need to get things done, I also need to recognize that checking my email, answering a phone call, dropping a twitter update may feel like a small distraction- but in reality, it's a derailment that it will take valuable time to recover from. 

Here are some ideas or your personal firewall-

1. Email- If you haven't disabled the "ding", do so now. That thing is evil. A little sound that demands your attention, that grabs your consciousness, that expects you in true Pavlovian tradition to interrupt whatever you are doing for the latest FYI, forward from your friend with too much time or spam email. Just say no. 

In fact, when you are working, consider turning off email completely. If you need think of an email you need to send, rather than interrupt what you are doing, just make a to-do for when you eventually do open up the email again for batch reading and writing. Why risk the distraction that will inevitably be lurking in your inbox just to get a message to someone 30 minutes sooner?

2. Internet- consider a second browser, one dedicated to fun, and one to work. Trying to get things done on a browser that has a LOT of fun stuff bookmarked on it is tough.

COnsider even switching off the wi-fi a few times a day. Think about how much time you lose every day to misc. surfing, reading news that won't matter tomorrow, following links that lead nowhere... save yourself the time by just shutting it down or working with a distraction-proofed browser. 

3. Phone. Silent might be good enough- but "off" is even better. I know, I know- what if there's an emergency? I just want you to remember that 10 years ago, you probably didn't have a cell phone, and ten years ago you didn't spend every minute studying or working in a coffee shop or library in utter panic that your family would drive off a cliff and no one would be able to reach you. 

It's okay to turn off your phone for an hour or two. And if you can't bring yourself to do that, at least switch off the ringer and refuse to answer for anyone but your spouse. Seriously- if it's an emergency, they'll call back. 

No one will make your firewall for you. You can't buy one, have one installed and these days- you just can't get by without it. 

Being connected is wonderful. Disconnecting occasionally is necessary. 

Agree or disagree? Other ideas for your personal firewall?

Wisdom...

"You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of good literature."

-Gandhi

(ht: Thomas Ward)

wisdom...

"Cowardice keeps us double minded- hesitating between the world and God. In this hesitation, there is no true faith- faith remains an opinion. We are never certain, because we never quite give in to the authority of an invisible God. This hesitation is the death of hope. We never let go of those visible supports which, we well know, must one day surely fail us. And this hesitation makes true prayer impossible- it never quite dares to ask for anything, or if it asks, it is so uncertain of being heard that in the very act of asking, it surreptitiously seeks by human prudence to construct a make-shift answer."

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Chesterton on Miracles

"Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them."

-G.K. Chesterton

one mistake we dare not make...

"If we learn anything from the Psalms, it's that God isn't afraid of our emotions, our struggles, and our questions. The one mistake we dare not make, Philip Yancey reminds us, is to confuse God (who is good) with life (which is hard). God feels the same way we do- and is taking the most radical steps possible (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and more to come) to redeem the present situation."

-David Sanford, If God Disappears

If the Bible seems too hard...

"We come to a biblical text, raising questions about its relevance to our present daily lives, only to find that the text questions us about our relevance to the way of Christ.

...The thick impenetrable nature of these texts may be by conscious design. A difficult to understand text catches our attention, begs for attention, and engages our natural inclination to figure things out. On the other hand, the texts may be difficult, obscure, and distant simply because they are talking about what is true, whereas most of what we live is false."

-Will Willimon, Pastor 

Wisdom

"Think of people you consider fanatical. They’re overbearing, self-righteous, opinionated, insensitive, and harsh. Why? It’s not because they are too Christian, but because they are not Christian enough. They are fanatically zealous and courageous, but they are not fanatically humble, sensitive, loving, empathic, forgiving, or understanding-as Christ was. … What strikes us as overly fanatical is actually a failure to be fully committed to Christ and his gospel...

What is the answer, then, to the very fair and devastating critique of the record of the Christian church? The answer is not to abandon the Christian faith, because that would leave us with neither the standards nor the resources to make correction. Instead we should move to a fuller and deeper grasp of what Christianity is. The Bible itself has taught us to expect the abuses of religion and it has also told us what to do about them."

Tim Keller: The Reason For God

Jesus vs the Church...

“When we say, ‘I love Jesus, but I hate the Church,’ we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness.”
-Henri Nouwen

wisdom...

"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all our lives- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections- that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.

Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see it in the guiding hand of a loving God."

-Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Wisdom...

"Of what avail is our life of prayer, our study of Scripture, theology, and spirituality, if we do not trust the insights that we have received? Waffling back and forth between a decisive yes and a discouraging no keeps us in a state of terminal procrastination. Likewise, an exclusive emphasis on the burning theological issues of the day (many of which are neither burning nor theological)  or a one-sided emphasis on the pressing issues of social justice can temporarily or even permanently postpone a decision to trust in the love of God, thus keeping us in a state of spiritual limbo."
-Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

"For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you."
- Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

Wallowing...

"Wallowing in shame, remorse, self-hatred, and guilt over real or imagined failings in our past lives betrays a distrust in the love of God. It shows that we have not accepted the acceptance of Jesus Christ and thus have rejected the total sufficiency of His redeeming work. Preoccupation with our past sins, present weaknesses, and character defects gets our emotions churning in self-destructive ways, closes us within the mighty citadel of self, preempts the presence of a compassionate God."

-Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

wisdom

"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age. Yet each generation seeks its saint by instinct; and he is not what the people want, but rather what the people need. . . . Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most."

-GK Chesterton

Wisdom for we bloggers

yup... me too.

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." Anton Ego- Ratatouille

Wisdom...

"Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan, "sobbed Lucy. "At last."
The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all around her. She gazed up into his large wise face."
"Welcome, child." He said.
"Aslan, " said Lucy, "You're bigger."
"This is because you are older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

-CS Lewis, Prince Caspian

wisdom for bloggers...

"Don't sin by letting anger control you.
Think about it overnight and remain silent."

-Psalm 4:4

wisdom...

"My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered the interruptions were my work."

-Henri Nouwen

wisdom for bloggers

"Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him."
-Prov 29:20

wisdom

"The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second disastrous."
-Margot Fonteyn

Digital time...

"We live in digital time. Our rhythms are rushed, rapid fire and relentless, our days carved up into bits and bytes. We celebrate breadth rather than depth, quick reaction more than considered reflection. We skim across the surface, alighting for brief moments at dozens of destinations but rarely remaining for long at any one. We race through our lives without pausing to consider who we really want to be or where we really want to go. We're wired up but we're melting down.

Most of us are just trying to do the best that we can. When demand exceeds our capacity, we begin to make expedient choices that get us through our days and nights, but take a toll over time. We survive on too little sleep, wolf down fast foods on the run, fuel up with coffee and cool down with alcohol and sleeping pills. Faced with relentless demands at work, we become short-tempered and easily distracted. We return home from long days at work feeling exhausted and often experience our families not as a source of joy and renewal, but as one more demand in an already overburdened life.

We walk around with day planners and to-do lists, Palm Pilots and BlackBerries, instant pagers and pop-up reminders on our computers -- all designed to help us manage our time better. We take pride in our ability to multitask, and we wear our willingness to put in long hours as a badge of honor. The term 24/7 describes a world in which work never ends. We use words like obsessed, crazed and overwhelmed not to describe insanity, but instead to characterize our everyday lives. Feeling forever starved for time, we assume that we have no choice but to cram as much as possible into every day."

-Jim Loehr/Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

wisdom...

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."
-Henry David Thoreau

wisdom...

"We fought so hard against the small things that we became small ourselves."- Eugene O'Neill

Sacred Rhythms...

"One of the new challenges for our generation is the impact of technology on our spirituality. This warrants serious consideration. If we are not careful, technology has a way of compromising our ability to be present to ourselves, to God and to each other- all of which are fundamental elements of the spiritual life. I don't know about you, but I am sad when I have set aside time to be with friends and, because a cell phone is left on, we are at the mercy of all manner of intrusion. We think nothing of taking phone calls in the middle of meetings, restaurants and family gatherings. I am disturbed by my own compulsion to check email late at night and first thing in the morning. When left unchecked, this lack of discipline imperceptibly robs me of rest in the evening and silent presence to God in the morning. I can become exhausted by the intrusion of the media and technology into every corner of my life, resulting in constant overstimulation of body, mind and emotions. All of this convenience wears me out!
Exhaustion sets in when we are accessible too much of the time. A soul-numbing sadness comes when we realize that a certain quality of life and quality of presence is slipping away as a result of too much "convenience." Breaks in the day that used to be small windows of replenishment for body and soul- like driving in a car, going for a walk, having lunch with a friend- are now filled with noise, interruption and multi-tasking. What feels like being available and accessible is really a boundaryless existence that offers no protection for those things that are most precious to us.

...No wonder we feel disconnected from God: we are rarely able to give Him our full attention in solitude and silence. Thoughtful reflection is constantly sabotaged by the intrusion of cell phones, pagers and e-mail messages. No wonder our human relationships are so unsatisfying as they get reduced to snippets of interrupted, disembodied phone conversation. What feels like convenience is actually robbing us of those things we value most. We are left with bits and pieces of everything rather than experiencing the full substance of anything."

- Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms

life...

"This was the great coming together for me. What was life about? What was it for? Why do I exist? Why am I here? To be happy? Or to glorify God? Unspoken for years, there was in me the feeling that these two were at odds. Either you glorify God or you pursue happiness. One seemed absolutely right; the other seemed absolutely inevitable. And that is why I was confused and frustrated for so long.

Compounding the problem was that many who seemed to emphasize the glory of God in their thinking did not seem to enjoy Him much. And many who seemed to enjoy God most were defective in their thinking about His glory. But now here was the greatest mind of early America, Jonathan Edwards, saying that God's purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God's glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion.

When I saw this, I knew, at last, what a wasted life would be and how to avoid it..."

John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

Wisdom for bloggers, pt 12

"Fools vent their anger,
      but the wise quietly hold it back."

Prov 29:11

more wisdom for we bloggers...

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
  - Carl Jung

More wisdom for we bloggers...

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters." 

  - Margaret Halsey

Words of wisdom for...

For church planters
For pastors
For everyone young...

From Rudyard Kipling:

His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo's pride –
Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.

If ye find that the Bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed Sambhur can gore;
Ye need not stop work to inform us; we knew it ten seasons before.

Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.

"There is none like to me!" says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still

wisdom

it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that what I need in this new church thing is wisdom. When you throw out the programmatic philosophy, there ceases to be a 40 Days handbook to rely on. How do you handle things when you as a leader believe that God has made the role of elders open to men only and many of the people you attract with your iconoclastic ethos believe differently? And to top it off, you are really trying to allow things to be lay driven and decided... to give the community the ability to form itself and to a large extent, steer...

wisdom. I'm accutely aware of my responsibilities as shepherd as well as me resposibility to empower people. God give me the wisdom to know how to do that in a way that preserves His desires for our community...