Archive for the ‘Faith’ Category

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Make Rules or Make Disciples

September 23, 2013
Division like fractals

Mandelbrot fractal image. From Wikipedia.org

We took a vacation last week. My wife’s family gathering. We worshiped in a church of a different denomination than the one we attend. It’s a southern-based, conservative off-shoot of another denomination.

Reminded me of the years I taught a course on American Baptist history. How there was Roger Williams, then Northern Baptists (now American Baptists) and Southern Baptists. And then they split like fractals.

Sometimes these divisions are based on worship style. Some like the solemnity and mystery of high Mass. Others prefer jeans and T-shirts, guitars and drums, hands waving in the air celebration. As for me, I like almost any of the styles.

Most of the divisions are created by rules. We created organizations called churches or denominations. They had to have rules. Then someone said, “I don’t like your rules. I want to make up my own rules.” And off they went. We still do that today.

It is as if Jesus said, “All power in heaven and earth has been granted to me. Go, therefore, and make organizations with individual rule sets around the world so that you can worship God with those with whom you agree.”

But, wait, Jesus didn’t say that. He never spoke about organizations other than to point out the problems with the one religious organization he knew–the Temple worship cult. And he didn’t like it.

What he said was, “Go…and make disciples. Teaching them what I have taught you.” Making disciples–that’s a one-to-one thing. Not a political thing. You model Jesus so that others can model Jesus by modeling you. It’ not rocket science. But, it requires intentional living.

And the organization thing–that’s a human condition. How many divisions of Judaism are there? Islam? Buddhism? Hinduism?

It’s time to focus on the Lord who showed the way. Not on divisions. Divisions detract us from placing our entire attention on God.

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Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

September 13, 2013

I almost always meet the nicest people. This week I have been traveling to conferences. Two days in San Antonio and then two in New Orleans. I’m at the Courtyard by Marriott by the convention center in New Orleans right now. The woman who runs the restaurant is a jewel of a person. Just like everyone I’ve met at Courtyards.

Wednesday evening I arrived in town with enough time to check in and then get over to the conference I’m attending. Got back to the Courtyard not having had dinner. She had just closed up the restaurant. But she could get me a glass of wine and rustled up some pita chips and hummus. Just what I needed. I sat in the lounge area yesterday from about 4 pm until almost 9 working. Had dinner and a little wine. She was just the nicest person with everyone.

I’ve met the greatest gate agents in airports, sales clerks, people I do business with. The guy I sat beside on the way from SAT to MSY (San Antonio to New Orleans for those who don’t speak “airline.” Great conversation.

There is a story that I’m told came through Carl Sandburg about a farmer who was asked by a couple of strangers about the type of people who lived around there. He asked them what sort of people there were where they were from. One person replied negatively, the other positively. He told them each, “I suppose you’ll find the same sort of people here.” It’s all in your thinking.

This blog post from Leo about changing your thinking started me thinking. I have had a lot of challenges and changes this summer. Quit a job that paid well in order to gain peace of mind and in order to be creative again. Started a new business. Wound up joining another business to turn it around. Took on a new ministry at church. Then my doctor thought I had some major heart problems, but after 6 weeks of some uncertainty and testing, discovered not much was going on that we didn’t already know about. (I feel great, by the way. Thanks for asking.)

What Leo said in his blog post about being grateful resonated. I found that I intentionally connected with God more often than the preceding few months. I found that in pausing daily to remember all the things I’m grateful for, I gained perspective. I found that by encouraging my natural attitude to believe the best of people, greet people with a smile, be kind all contributed to meeting the nicest people–and finding great joy and peace.

My advice–pause, look at all the things for which you should be grateful, check your thinking and change as necessary.

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Spirit and Action, Can’t Have One Without the Other

September 6, 2013

I’ve been reading and contemplating Isaiah 58. Past posts have quoted extensively. One concept has been made clear with this reading–God directly links the spiritual pursuit of Him with ethical actions toward others.

If we think clearly, we remember that Jesus did the same thing. Almost all the time he linked spirit and action.

I devoted years to spiritual pursuit through meditation and contemplation. The goal was to find God. Experience God. And I did. And the experience is fantastic. But all the while I remembered two of my spiritual heroes–St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. They left us with some supreme spiritual writing and advice. They also worked hard at reforming their religious orders at a time when people began to notice the corruption within the organization of the Catholic Church.

Spirit plus Action.

Last night I was catching up on my podcast queue while driving home from the Chicago area. Caught this TED Talk by Kelly McGonigal. She is a psychologist who studied stress. Once she believed that all stress was bad for you. Then she discovered some research that suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. She urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.

Turns out that by helping others a hormone is released that not only affects the brain to increase your awareness, but also there are receptors in the heart for this hormone (oxytocin) where the hormone actually helps rebuild the heart.

And you can use the two meanings of heart in English–the actual organ and compassion. The effect of oxytocin in the brain is to cause you to want to reach out to others in times of stress–either yours or theirs. When you do that it impacts your own heart positively.

I know that there are many Christians (and people from other religious traditions) who are skeptical of science. But the more I study science and the intricacies of the relationships of all the components of life, the more I am in awe of the God who created everything.

Use your heart to help your heart.

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True Worship

August 30, 2013

My wife and I were discussing church doctrines last night over dinner. Well, not in depth. But someone asked her about the doctrine of a certain denomination of Christian church. She was at a bit of a loss to explain it.

I thought a little, and the many variations of denominations flashed through my mind. Mention Baptist–but there are more than 57 varieties of Baptist. There are at least three variations of Lutheran of which I’m aware–and two Presbyterian. The Disciples of Christ broke away from the American Baptists a long time ago because someone thought the Bible taught to have communion every week.

It struck me how each of these took a bunch of verses from the Bible, seemingly at random, and strung them together into a doctrine. To me, many of those are misreadings often caused by lifting verses out of context or not understanding the reference.

Then I thought (sometimes maybe I do too much of that) about how these denominations and the people in them fight all the time. People get mad and leave, only to go to another denomination and begin the process again.

Then I returned to my study of Isaiah 58.

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,

and oppress all your workers.

Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

and to strike with a wicked fist.

How often that’s what we do today! And not just Christians. Check out the other two religions that grew from Abraham’s worship of the one true God–Judaism and Islam. We all gather to serve our own interests. We seem to gather to quarrel and fight.

That’s not what God said in the Old Testament 2,800 years ago. That’s not what Jesus taught 2,000 years  ago. Again from Isaiah 58,

Is such the fast I choose,

a day to humble oneself?

And,

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

Humble means to think of others before yourself. And think of God first. Leaders, take the lesson. All of us, let’s remember the source of life. “You shall love the Lord your God…, and your neighbor as yourself.”

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Why don’t you hear us, O God?

August 28, 2013

Why don’t you hear us, O God?

A teacher was speaking. I made a hurried note, because I was driving across rural northern Indiana at the time. “Read Isaiah 58” was all I noted.

So I returned home late last week, opened to Isaiah 58 in the Kindle app on my iPad and began reading. What a great passage. A preacher could easily develop a sermon series from this passage.

I’m going to contemplate this for a while. So, pull out that old Bible and read it to prepare for a few meditations.

Isaiah, speaking God’s words to his people, answers the question I began with. But, to start at the beginning…

“Shout out, do not hold back!

Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Announce to my people their rebellion,

to the house of Jacob their sins.”

This is God talking to Isaiah. He’s encouraging his prophet to speak. In fact, not just to speak, but to do so dramatically. What is it he is to speak? It’s about how the people have stopped doing the Lord’s will–what the Lord wants.

Before we condemn those people of 2,800 years ago when Isaiah preached, we can think of ourselves.

“Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers” (if you followed “Car Talk” on National Public Radio) talk of the famous “dope slap.” That’s when you’re acting like a dope or said something stupid and somebody (maybe even yourself) slaps you on the side of the face. You dope.

That’s a little crude, but it’s what Isaiah is doing to the people of his nation. He’s saying something like, “Wake up people. You think you are so good, but you’re not. Oh, and here’s why.”

Probably all of us need one of those “dope slaps” every once in a while. Usually just when we think we’re so smart, or so good, or so wise, or so beautiful.

Has someone tried to give you a verbal dope slap recently? Did it wake you up? Or did it miss the mark?

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To Let The Oppressed Go Free

August 26, 2013

Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking out for freedom.“Is this not the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?”

I’m studying Isaiah 58 right now. These are the words of the Lord spoken through his prophet. (That’s what prophets do, you know.)

This week is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr., caught up in the Spirit, deviated somewhat from his prepared text and spoke about his dream. A dream where people were judged on character, not on skin color.

I was only a kid, living in a small village where everyone was either of German or Irish descent (read “white”)–well, except for one “hillbilly” family that moved in, and they were white. I never knew a black person until I was in college.

But for some reason, I was haunted by images of Ku Klux Klan cross burnings and murders. I can still remember nightmares that there was a local branch (don’t think there ever was–we didn’t have black people, but we did have a secret society of which my dad was a member called the Masons). I feared that they found out that I was pro civil rights and surrounded our house.

Later while I was in college, I endured much teasing about my civil rights stance (I still lived in town and drove 40 miles each way to college to save money since I was now mostly paying my own way). I remember driving through Mississippi to Louisiana in 1970 when I entered graduate school at LSU. Had an equal rights decal on my car. Arrived and then had the thought, what if my car had stopped in the piney woods? Still, I’m white. Not as bad as if I were not.

Progress toward freedom

There has been a lot of progress over the last 50 years. Like all human social change, there were cycles of success and cycles of regress. Many things are better for people of different colors, ethnicities, even gender. Many people have been set free. The leadership of Christians was an example to me that maybe the Christian church wasn’t all bad.

But we still have far to go.

Jesus understood. As have many spiritual people throughout human history. That passage from Isaiah is probably 2,800 years old. Yet, until we all change our hearts and begin to truly worship the one God, then we will not have the justice God demanded so long ago.

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Passionate Pursuit

August 20, 2013

A young relative is in love. How do I know? He writes with great passion about his beloved. He thinks about her constantly. Her well-being is on his mind.

Jesus said, “Whoever will come after me, must deny himself…”

The phrase come after in the social context of the time usually refers to a romantic passion. The phrase must have been one of those that Jesus was famous for–using words in new ways to point to a relationship with God and totally confusing his audience to the point of making them think about what he said.

What have been the passions of your life? Remember pursuing a boy/girl or woman/man? Can you recapture that passion in your mind? Better yet, maybe you still have it. I wrote last week about what happens when that feeling dissipates.

Let’s think about this in terms of denying yourself. If you are pursuing someone so passionately, you don’t care so much about yourself (if you are, then you’d better check your emotional maturity index). You deny yourself such that your beloved is honored.

Paul tried valiantly, if confusingly, to describe this in his description of marriage–a picture of mutually denying yourself in order to honor your spouse. It seems confusing to read it. Paul would have been better served in getting his point across by telling a story about a husband and wife and how they act toward each other.

The world would have been spared much grief had translators understood denying oneself and become a servant (some translations slave) of Jesus. Perhaps a story rather than intellectual discourse would have helped. Nineteenth Century philosophers hated that word slave and the picture of Christians as sheep and wrote philosophies that ended up enslaving millions and murdering hundreds of thousands or maybe also millions.

How about a story about loving Jesus so much that your every thought is about him. All you want in life is to serve God passionately. You’re a servant. But an empowered servant, because the more passionately you love God, the more you will deny your own will to serve him and conversely the more God will make you stronger and stronger. They forgot that last part in the Nineteenth Century.

We need to remember it. The more passionately we follow Jesus, the more we try to please, honor and serve Him. But, Jesus then gives us great power.

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Forming Community

August 5, 2013

We were at a hotel in suburban Chicago. 17 students, 5 instructors/observers/evaluators, a few other observers. I devoted last weekend to improving my skills as a soccer referee instructor. It was intense. We gave three presentations before a small group. At each presentation were one or two top instructors who gave us advice but were also grading us. Our peers gave us feedback on our presentations. We tried to apply new techniques immediately.

There were three small groups. Friday night was learning. Up early Saturday, we started the round of presentations at 8. Had lunch time (maybe 2.5 hours) to prepare second presentation. Back at 2 pm for the second presentation cycle. Third presentation was Sunday morning. Really intense.

An interesting thing happens in that environment. Our small group of 6 almost immediately formed a little community. We were rooting for each other. Helping each other.

Reflecting on the experience this morning during my quiet meditation time, I wondered if the early Christian communities were something like this–although not passionate about a sport, they were passionate about a new way of life. They met in small groups. They taught each other. They “rooted” for each other. They helped each other–even financially for those who lost everything to follow this new Master called Jesus.

Then I started to think about the churches we attend today. How much is only attendance? How much is like a group where we all help each other out? Where, instead of gossiping about who’s doing what to whom, we reach out to each other?

I recently heard someone tell a personal story of struggle. Someone from the congregation approached and said, “You know, you can’t really participate anymore in this church because you are struggling.” What a terrible, heartless thing to say. Better would be, “I hear that you are hurting. What can I do to help you? And, by the way, you are always welcome here in our small group as we all struggle to live the way Jesus taught.”

What are you doing to promote community?

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My Security Lies in Jesus

July 22, 2013

I’m still thinking about fears, worries. Although I try to capture a personal theme from the mascot of Mad magazine (I have not read it for years, but it was one of my favorites as an adolescent), Alfred E. Neuman, who said, “What!? Me worry?”

As an aside, we think American politics are bad now–good ol’ Alfred garnered several votes for President in 1968.

It is oh, so, predictable that race is part of the discussion of the whole Zimmerman affair. Conservatives seem to try to downplay race. Liberals seem to play it up. I keep returning to the words of Martin Luther King and wish we could move beyond race.

Unfortunately, we cannot. I think that this is not only an American problem.

Race remains an underlying tension. Many black men have told me about hearing car door locks being activated as they cross the street. I recently heard about a conversation at a gathering of “respectable, white, Christian” ladies where they quite frankly ascribed bad qualities to black people as an entity all the while disclaiming “I am not a racist.” Sorry, they are.

For black people, then, the issue becomes personal. Many have experienced the slights and innuendos. For most of us “white” people, the issue is theoretical. I wish it would go away, but it lingers.

Fear for your life had to be prevalent in Jesus’ time. He took as subjects for his stories things that people would readily understand. When he told the story of the Good Samaritan, there did not seem to be a reaction about the violence of the robbers. They all traveled from city to city in groups for protection. At the end of the Gospels, we learn that Peter carried a sword. Nothing is made of that simple fact–only in his use of it. I guess they needed some protection at times.

Jesus taught us that security really comes through Him and life in the Spirit.

For some reason in all our discussions in public life and private devotions, we keep losing our focus on the real source of life and security. Paul writing in Galatians further told us that if we are free in Jesus’ grace, why slip back into the old life of rules and worry.

Indeed.

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Worry is a form of useless fear

July 19, 2013

Had a conversation yesterday that send my mind on a time trip remembering my mother. She was a worrier. I think she worried herself to death.

The guy who “styled” my hair back in the 70s told me, “I’m a worrier. All of us German immigrants are. It’s part of the genes.”

Worry is the fear of what might happen.

Most things that might happen, never do. Some things that happen, you have no control over. Rationally, there is little reason for worry.

But most of us do.

This goes along with yesterday’s meditation on fear.

We fear so many things. We worry about much.

Jesus said, why worry?

I was a child of my mother. But I changed. I seldom worry now. Just like I’ve conquered about 98% of my fearfulness.

How?

  • Deliberately choose something else to think about
  • Start to work on a project
  • If in the middle of the night, either set imagination on another topic–or–get up and read the Bible, a good novel, your Mandarin Chinese lesson
  • Work though the one think among your worries that you can control and develop a project list of tasks to cover it.

Viktor Frankl, psychologist, developer of Logotherapy, survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, discovered it for himself, “The ultimate freedom is the freedom to choose my attitude in the face of uncertain circumstances.”

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