DownshoreDrift

Wilderness Leadership

The era of the “promised land” is over for the mainline church in America. Because we have not been faithful, we find ourselves again in the wilderness, or perhaps, in exile. In either case, the establishment is collapsing and with it, the predictability, security and comfort that has allowed us to be at ease in Zion for several generations. The model of the “king” is no longer appropriate for leadership in today’s church. We need leadership more akin to the “judges” of ancient Israel, who arose out of the community in crisis to lead by the consent of and in concert with the community. And those judges were selected not by caste or class, but by demonstrating the authenticity and therefore the authority that comes from having attended to the inward journey with God.

Edward A. White from "What Kind of Pastor Will Most Likely Empower Laity."

I think that the idea of the "Church in Exile" was intriguing to me in this quote. If we are really in exile, or the Wilderness in relation to our culture, then what does that mean for how we function? For leadership? For cultural engagement? Yes, it appears that Christendom has crumbled. What will replace it and how will we manage a post-Christian America? It is apparent that spiritual leadership in a post-Christian culture must be more focused on God and our walk with Him, than it is on success, results, power, and influence.

Apparently, the Only People Reading My Blog Right Now Are . . .

. . . people interested in Heath Ledger and the role of the Joker.  Not really, but it seems that way. That post I wrote in January is in Google's top ten when you type in just about anything that reads like, "Did playing the Joker role lead to Heath Ledger's Death?", or "How did the Joker role affect Heath Ledger?"  I have an invisible statcounter on my blog that gives me search engine type information and it is telling me that there are a lot of people who are wondering if Heath Legder got in touch with some type of evil that ended up leading him to his death. You cannot watch the role that he played as the Joker without thinking that it must have affected him. He spent hours and hours meditating on the evil of the Joker until it consumed him and destroyed him. It is not far from accurate to say, "You are what you think."

The Bible tells us to think on things above, not on things of this earth (Colossians 3:2). How much time do we spend worrying about things? How often do we wonder what is going to happen to us? How much do we think about material things, evil things, deadly things? Are we envious? Do we covet? Are we lustful? Are we unforgiving, or do we hold grudges? Are we full of pride? Hate? Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) turns everything upside-down and tells us that it is not enough to just be outwardly righteous - we must be inwardly righteous as well. What we thought about internally was just as important, if not more so, than what we did externally, because out of the heart flows all types of evil things. Romans 12:1-2 tells us that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Ephesians 4:22-24 tells us to put off the old self that is corrupting us, to be made new in the attitude of our minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. We need to think on things above.

The only way that we can really change is through Jesus. We have to admit to Him that we cannot change on our own and we have to ask Him to change us. The other day, I saw a brief moment of a show on MTV called "From G's to Gents." It takes a bunch of 20 something guys who are hoodlums and it is trying to show them how to be gentlemen. If they make the transition from thug to gentelmen, they win $100,000. I thought that it was pretty interesting because they were dealing with guys that had no hope for change and they were trying to help them change and become better people. What caught my attention was the guy who was on the phone with someone from back home crying saying, "I can't change." He was hopeless. Even when $100,000 was on the line, he could not give up the thug-life. It had become who he was because he had spent a lifetime devoted to it. Interesting.

We are all in that boat, though. Whatever we think about is what we become. Because we are born sinful, we are prone to think about sinful things. The only way that true transformation can really happen is if we are born from above and are given a new heart and mind by God. Jesus has to save us. We must look to Him in faith and ask Him to change our lives. When we do this, He cleanses us and gives us a new start. Then, we continue to think about Him and His ways and our minds are changed. Instead of dwelling on the sin and selfishness that destroys us, we dwell on Christ, our source of righteousness. We start thinking about how we can bless people instead of use people. We think about others instead of ourselves. By the power of God that aids us in this, our lives change.

Heath Ledger spent his time dwelling on the dark side. He played an amazing role in an amazing movie, but he took it too far. He could not control it and it consumed him. But, lest we throw stones, how many of us are consumed by money, by greed, by selfishness, pride, anger, lust, anxiety, our appearance, our popularity, our security, or our place in life? How many of us get consumed by religion thinking that we can in some way merit the merit of Christ? We are consumed by a million different things and all of them lead to death apart from Jesus. He is our Source of Life. The sooner that we realize that, the sooner that we find the reason that we were created.

I'm Back

We had a great time on vacation. Lots of sitting, playing, resting, and reflecting. God is good and has blessed me so much. It was good to spend time with the family and just be together.

My birthday was on Sunday. I turned 34. I'm in my mid thirties and it seems weird and it is causing me to think about a lot of things. I used to see guys who were in their 30's as being old. Now, they seem a lot younger. I guess that will keep happening as I get older. Funny how your perspective changes. I'm not as young as I used to be - Profound, I know.

My church called me on Sunday morning and sang "Happy Birthday" to me over the phone. That put a big smile on my face! Thank you guys!

On another note, Steve McCoy and Joe Thorn are blogging together at Subtext: The Gospel in the Suburban Context. They have some interesting insight. I've been looking for thoughts on this issue for some time and have found few. Thanks, guys!

The Glorious Beauty of a Fresh Perspective

I am taking a break for a week or so (also known as vacation).  I plan to sit and basically do nothing. Oh, I'll sit on the beach, float in the Gulf of Mexico, play with my kids, and try not to sunburn. I'll lounge around the pool, throw some meat on the grill, play putt-putt, and sleep - a lot. But, all of that will basically be put under the category of "doing nothing."  I call it that because it sounds so relaxing and non-stressful.

I love vacation. I love the beach because of the wind and the ocean. You stare at it and you can never see the end. It stretches beyond the horizon and its waves wash over you from far off. Are they from Cuba? The Domincan? Did this water come from Africa? As I feel the wind blowing over me, I remember days long gone with my family on these same beaches. The world was full of promise then and everything seemed new and possible.

The promise is being fulfilled as I watch my children play and hold my wife. I can see a bit more clearly now and I know that God is at work all around me. He is more limitless than the ocean and His blessings come from every direction, just like the waves and the wind. With Him, there is no lack - no promise unfulfilled. I come to this place to hear a bit more clearly what He has in store for us in the coming months. I come to have my soul renewed and to lay down all that I have held so tightly. His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

I have begun to step into a new perspective, even before this week. Through prayer and surrender, I have seen God at work in new ways. I look forward to what is to come and I am embracing what He is doing in my life right now. God is good - all the time.

I just wanted to give Him praise. 

If We Want to Follow Jesus . . .

Americans are clustering more and more into cultural, social, economic, religious, and political enclaves according to Bill Bishop in his new book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. Basically, our affluence has led us to the place that most Americans want to live, work, and play with people just like them. The Homogenous Unit Principle that I spoke of a few posts ago, seems to be alive and well in an increasingly multicultural America. But, instead of becoming a melting pot, we look more like a salad bowl of Balkanized special interests. Of course, we have seen this for years with white-flight and the rise of the suburb, but it is now apparently happening across other areas of life and it has profound social, political, and religious implicatoins.

Patriotism Question: What Does It Mean to REALLY Love America?

Tomorrow we celebrate the 4th of July and there will be expressions of patriotism everywhere, as it should be. But as Christians expressing love for our country, do we really love America, or just the idea of America?

I just returned from hanging out with some folks in inner city Montgomery. They are doing ministry in a really bad part of town and I am joining them.  We were talking about the neighborhood and they told me that within a few blocks, there are eight traditional, building-oriented churches, many of them Baptist and conservative theologically. In those few blocks there are also crack houses, gangs, prostitutions, other illegal drugs, family breakdown, school drop outs, joblessness, immorality, prostitution, etc. I asked them what the "churches" were doing and they said, "nothing." They just meet on Sundays and do not interact with the community. The people in bondage to sin think that they know what Christianity is about, but they do not know its power. They have been innoculated against it.

So, when does loving America mean that the Church will truly turn our hearts toward the cities and bring hope and deliverance? Do we think that our God is so anemic that He cannot change our cities and neighborhoods? Is He ineffective, or have we just lost our hope, our courage, and the power of God?  Isaiah 61:1-4 tells us that we will be restored by the Lord and will become oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. Then, it says that those who have been restored will "rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations."  Exactly when are we going to take this seriously and be a part of what God wants to do in our land? When will we stop condemning and running away and start rebuilding and restoring? I know that many people are doing this and I praise God. The Church is awakening, I feel, to it's role as restorer of places long devastated.

True patriots are those who do more than dress up in red, white, and blue and wave the flag. They are those who love America as it is and actually love it enough to see her people in need and do something about it. This is happening in the floods in the Midwest and it happened after Katrina on the Gulf Coast. It happens everytime we give ourselves away for others. I cannot say that I love humanity if I do not love individuals. I cannot say that I love America if I do not weep over her sins and cry out to God to heal her brokenness and be a part of bringing that healing to those in need, whether rich or poor. Loving America does not mean that I love a make-believe version of our country rooted in an idyllic past. Loving America means that I take her as she is and re-introduce her to Jesus, one person, one home, one neighborhood, and one city at a time.  Loving America means that I love her as Jesus would love her - sacrificially, laying down my life for her and her people - not just loving what she provides me. 

Do we really love America?  If we love God then we will love people, and that's where it all starts.

Micah-the-Pastoral-Intern's Book Reviews

We have a brilliant pastoral intern this summer named Micah. He will be a senior in college this year and he is praying about going into vocational ministry. So as a formative experience, we developed a learning internship for him this summer. He has shadowed me to meetings and events and he went with me to the Alan Hirsch conference this past weekend in New Orleans. We've spent a lot of time together, and even though Micah's been a part of our church since he was 13, my respect for his heart for God and intellect has grown exponentially in the few weeks that we have been doing this.

I've given Micah quite a few books to read as the internship has begun and have asked him to write a short reflection on each book. We sit down and talk through it together, exploring different issues that emerge. Initially, we are looking at issues that might frame his perspective on ministry in the 21st Century. Where and how can he most faithfully represent Christ to a dying world?  He has posted his reviews online at http://collegerambling.blogspot.com/ .  You seriously need to check out his reviews from writers like Eugene Peterson, Ron Sider, Bob Roberts, Alan Hirsch, George Grant, Watchmen Nee, and Marty Duren (Micah is going to spend some time at Marty's church in North Georgia this weekend).  Micah will be interning with us through the summer and his experiences and learning have just begun. Keep him in your prayers, especially if you are a part of Gateway and you are reading this.  If you have any advice or encouragement for a young man trying to discern whether or not to enter vocational ministry, I'm sure that it would be appreciated.

Our Culture's Lies About Love: Sex and the City and Other Idolatries

We have been taught by our culture that romantic love is all the salvation that we need. If we just find that special someone, they will make everything in our life okay and we will be completely satisfied. The myth of romantic salvation is all around us. It is the emotional side of the modern belief that we can save ourselves through our own reason and strength - except it finds that salvation in the affirmation of another. This lie is all around us and it shows up in manifestations like Sex and the City. Marian Jordan has written a book about the popular TV show and movie. In a Lifeway interview she says:

"The girls of ‘Sex and the City’ are no different from the rest of us," Jordan writes. "They, too, have a deep thirst that only God can quench. They crave real love. But their thirst can’t be quenched by Cosmos and their cravings can’t be satisfied by cupcakes.

"They long to feel acceptance and to know the security of unconditional love. But what they don’t know is what this real love is and where it is ultimately found," she adds.

Jordan dispels the myths of finding love in all the wrong places; seeking the approval of others instead of God; and achieving fulfillment in a hook-up or during happy hour. Based on personal experience, she tells readers that a search for love and fulfillment of that kind cannot be found apart from Jesus.

"There is a vicious cycle that results from the ‘Sex and the City’ lifestyle," Jordan writes. "When a woman goes looking for the love her soul craves in any source other than God Himself, she finds herself more confused than ever about her real worth as a woman."

"Over and over again, women give themselves away at the altars of approval, sex, relationships, food and fashion. We turn to these substitutes in hopes of finding and receiving the unconditional love our souls are searching for. But in reality, we walk away empty."

Sadly, I don't think that this search for meaning and worth in relationships or material things is limited to only non-Christians. It is obviously also not limited to women. All of us are looking for worth and value in something outside of ourselves. We know that our glory is only a reflected glory, so we bask in whatever light we can find, hoping that it will illuminate our dingy existence. Ultimately, the light that we seek can only be found in Christ, the maker of our souls.  But, oh how we allow lesser lights to satisfy us!

The value system enshrined in the Sex and the City franchise can even have an alternate version in the Church. When Christians look to their husbands or wives to satisfy them or meet their deepest needs, is it not the same idolatry as we find in the world, just in a more moral vein?  Don't get me wrong, I love my wife deeply and I don't know what I would do without her. I thank God for her every day. But, if I look to her to meet my deepest needs, to fully satisfy me, or to make my life happy, then I have misplaced affections. As wonderful as she is, she cannot meet my deepest needs. That place is reserved for God alone. But, how many Christian men and women are miserable in their marriages because they are looking to their spouse to meet needs that only God can satisfy? God gives us our spouses as an amazing gift from Him, but the gift should never take the place of the Giver.

The world tells us that we love someone because of how they make us feel.  According to the standards that we are taught by our culture, I love someone because they make me feel good. I feel some sense of transcendence when I am with them. This can come from their intelligence, their popularity, their beauty, their money, the way they take care of me, etc. In actuality, I love them because they make me feel good about me. When I am with them, I am satisfied and feel complete. Whenever those feelings start to fade(as they will), I fall out of love with the person and I look for someone else that will make me feel the way that I used to. Or, I just become miserable. The search for salvation in love or other things continues. In the Christian world, our divorce rate is just as high as in the secular world, so something dangerous must be going on. And, even if Christians don't divorce, many of them spend a lifetime trying to fix their spouse through "spiritual" means so that they will meet their needs. This remains idolatry.

Biblical love towards another person always flows out of the love that God has for us.  This love is always sacrificial. Biblical love (agape) lays down its life for another. I don't love you because you make me feel good about me (although that is often a wonderful derivative), I love you because God loves you and because He wants to sacrificially love you through me.  We all long for unconditional love. We can only truly find that in God, but it can be passed on through people when we love others sacrificially. God enables us to do this. Of course, physical attraction and how the other person makes us feel is a real thing and it is not always bad in its proper place - it just becomes dangerous when we keep taking our deepest needs to that person instead of to God.

If we take our search for love to God, He will meet our needs and satisfy us. Only Jesus saves. As we live for Him, He will be glorified in us and we will find that our greatest joy is to lay down our life for the Lover of our Soul. We will then turn that overflow of love to others, including our spouses, and we will love them sacrificially as well, not so that we can get something from them, but so we can serve them and bless them with the unending love that God has given us. We do this trusting God to take care of us and meet our needs. Ideally, they return this love to us. If both partners in a marriage do this, how amazing would this be? But, if only one partner does it, God still promises to satisfy us.

Unfortunately, the Sex and the City ethic is in all of us - it just manifests in different ways.  But, we must lay it down and go to God. Receiving love from Him, we must lay our lives down to pass that love on to others. May God help us in this because our popular culture will not. When they see sacrificial love (one laying his life down to save another), they call it heroism and make movies about the person and pass out awards. It is so rare. But, for us, it is the normal Christian life.  Isn't that what Jesus did?

Freedom Riders Return to Montgomery

On May 20, 1961, a bus full of white and black college students left Birmingham, AL under police escort. They had been beaten when they arrived in Birmingham after having their bus fire bombed in Anniston, AL. They were the Freedom Riders and they were attempting to integrate the interstate busses that traveled throughout the South. When they arrived in Montgomery, AL, the police escort peeled away and they were met at the bus station by several hundred white people, instigated by the KKK. The Freedom Riders were beaten mercilessly and barely escaped. The next night, approximately 1200 people cram First Baptist Church, Ripley St. to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others give courage to the Riders. A mob of several thousand whites surround the church, throwing rocks, shouting obscenities, and setting cars on fire. After negotiations between Alabama Gov. Patterson and Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General of the United States, the National Guard came out to disperse the mob and help bring those trapped inside the church to their homes. To my knowledge, it is the only time in the history of the United States that a church full of worshippers was under siege. Saturday, I got to meet some of the Freedom Riders and others who were inside the church that night when the beginnings of a museum were unveiled here in Montgomery.  

Fred Gray - the lawyer who defended Rosa Parks at the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and tried some of the most important cases of the era. Bruce Boynton - the man who initiated the lawsuit that desegrated interstate bus travel in 1960. Catherine Burks and Rip Patten - college students at the time who became Freedom Riders. I got to hear from and speak with these people yesterday. I heard Rip Patten tell how when people asked him if he was afraid, he would answer by reciting the 23rd Psalm. With tears in his voice, he recited it for us. I heard stories of faith, courage, and a fight for freedom. As we gathered in First Baptist Church, the same place that was surrounded by a mob 47 years before, we were reminded of what God did through these courageous people as they sought to remind America that she needed to enforce her own laws that were already on the books. Almost all of those who spoke on Saturday were strong Christians. They saw their movement not just as a ride for their own freedom, but they saw it in a spiritual sense. God was on their side. God was strengthening them and working through them. I believe that they were right.

For some time, I have been interested in this event and in Civil Rights history in general. I moved around throughout the afternoon asking people, "Where was the white church in all of this? Did you ever wonder why white Christians did not more readily come to your aid?"  I believe that it is a legitimate question and it is one that has not been adequately answered. Sure, we know that there was bad theology that said that blacks were inferior to whites that they were meant to live in servitude. But, that theology was a response to an already prevailing mindset. It was not the cause. So, where was the white church? How could they allow a mob of almost 3,000 people to surround a church while people were worshipping on a Sunday night? How could they not see this as wrong? What if your church was surrounded by 3,000 while you were singing hymns to God? How would that affect you?

As I asked these questions, I got blank stares. The Freedom Riders and others that were in that church that night had never thought about white Christians. They either said that they had other things to worry about or that they had not thought about it. Rip Patten, a strong Christian himself, said that some ministers in Jackson brought them some things when they were in Parchman Penitentary after being arrested for "breach of peace." He pointed to their Christian charity as they sat in jail for riding a bus - an act that was legal according to the Supreme Court of the United States. Other than that, there was no thought or awareness of what the white church could have been doing during this time. The white church was completely irrelevant to the thoughts of the leaders of this movement.

I was very surprised by that answer. They had never thought of it. But, what if Southern Baptists in Montgomery had stood up and said that it is wrong to attack people who want to ride busses just because they are black? What if they had said that it is wrong to surround a church and put it under siege? What if white Christians had led the way in bringing justice instead of ignoring what was going on? What if?

I was shaken to my core as I heard the stories of what these heroic people went through. Their attitudes have stayed positive and they have continued to trust God. But, I was struck by the fact that the white church was not on the side of justice. We were on the wrong side of history. Does our current cultural irrelevance have anything to do with the fact that we sided with injustice 50 years ago? Are there ways that we side with injustice now? I wonder.

More on this subject later . . . 

A Haven, Not a Hell

When I lived in San Francisco, I knew this wild, emergent, urban missionary named Mark Scandrette. He was full of crazy ideas about communal living and translating the gospel to a postmodern culture. I only hung out with him a few times, but we had good conversation and I left each meeting thinking deeply about the gospel and culture and how we were going to reach people for Christ. I happened to stumble upon his website today (HT: Andrew Jones) and I ran across a poem that his 11 year old son wrote. It is pretty profound, and with my current thoughts about the Kingdom of God, I thought it was fitting:

Kids crying
Drunkards swaggering
moms yelling
men swapping drugs in dark alleys
cars crashing
people on the street
dogs and cats fighting
in all but forgotten neighborhoods

But… maybe
Just maybe
We can give the kids candy
Help the drunk
Cool down the moms
Take away the drugs from the men
Help people get out of their cars
Invite the homeless into our homes
and separate the cat from the dog
and maybe
Just maybe
We can make a haven and not a hell

–Isaiah Scandrette, Spring 2008

Chew on that for a while.  And yes, I understand that the proclamation of the gospel was not mentioned in this poem, at least not in words. But, if we all got involved in our neighborhoods and brought that kind of reconciliation and peace to the people around us, I think that we would be create an environment where the gospel could be shared and received much more readily. What do you think?