Faith Venture

Detective Chief Inspector Morse solves murder mysteries. Eventually. The hero of a series of novels by Colin Dexter, Morse leaps from one fantastic explanation of the murder to another, often completely different, like a wife who continually rearranges the living room furniture (not that I have any experience with the latter).

He will either ignore or overlook facts as he thinks through possible scenarios.

Eventually he will arrive at the correct answer. Sometimes he is too late to the party, though.

How many teachers of the Bible have you run across who have the same type of intelligence?

They have a quick mind, but they tend to overlook inconvenient facts in their rush to espouse a complex and grand theory or theology.

Reflect on the New Testament. Who thought through things and devised long, complex systems? And who boiled things down to a couple of statements that anyone could understand?

The first would be the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law. 

The second would be Jesus.

Even Paul, former Pharisee that he was, sometimes fell into the overthinking trap.

When Jesus was asked which of the 618 laws was most important, he replied love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and also to love your neighbor. That’s all you need to do, he said.

When your mind starts racing from one thought to the next, each ever more complex or fantastical than its predecessor, it’s time to pause and take a deep breath. Then return to the basics.

They were worried that Jesus was becoming too popular among the people!

I’m reading through the middle section of John’s gospel. It struck me. I never thought of the Pharisees and priests in a popularity contest with Jesus. But there it was. “The world has gone after him.”

But in our democracies we have some of those people—and they even get elected sometimes. Those humorless, intense people who know The Truth and seek power to impose it on others. That would be the Pharisees of the time. The priests seemed to be more political. They knew they had to work with Rome in order to minimize Rome’s interference in their private Temple affairs.

I can’t think of a time when Jesus tried to elect new synagogue leaders or push out the ruling priestly class.

He poked at their foibles—a lot.

I think he was less interested in winning a popularity contest. Obviously (think back to his temptations) he was not interested in political power.

He was trying to change lives. Even the lives of the Pharisees and ruling class. And some he did.

As his disciples, we should do the same.

What would be left in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles if you removed the Holy Spirit?

I never contemplated that question before.

There would be nothing much left. Certainly nothing of consequence.

I’ve heard for years about “Acts 2 churches.” These are churches that are filled with the spirit (not necessarily in a pentacostal way) and reach out to their neighbors to include them as part of the spiritual family. Much like the churches described in Acts attracted people because they really did live differently.

Willow Creek Community Church was founded as an Acts 2 church 42 years ago. I heard about it some 30 years ago or more and studied its model. I attend there when I’m in the South Barrington, IL area. It is a large church—the auditorium seats 7x the population of the town where I grew up. It now has eight campuses. It has a tremendous ministry.

The founding pastor, Bill Hybels is closing in on retirement. That is a serious point in time for an organization. Hybels has written on leadership, and I’d expect him to tackle the transition intelligently and with the Spirit. I thought about the pending transition for the past year or so (because I think about things like that) and figured the best solution for that church was to promote the Executive Pastor to Senior Pastor and promote the Teaching Pastor to Senior Teaching Pastor—sort of a team leadership where they divide an impossibly large responsibility. It’ll work if neither has a big ego and the board is strong.

So last Sunday that’s exactly what they announced as the new leadership. The senior pastor of one of the largest congregations in the country will be a woman. 

Actually although we’ve never met, I respect Heather Larson. Several years ago I accepted a position leading the missions activity for my church (at the time about 600 Sunday attendance, much fewer now I think). I wrote to a number of missions leaders asking for advice. The person down the road in the same denomination failed to even respond to my request to buy coffee or lunch and learn how they are organized. No one else responded either. 

Except, that is, for Larson. She contacted me, apologized profusely for taking a couple of weeks to respond. It seems she just changed offices and was catching up on correspondence. She sent a wealth of ideas and sources of information. Then I learned that she had been promoted from leader of the missions ministry to Executive Pastor. Of a huge church. I am still impressed. What a lesson in leadership and service.

Back to the Spirit. Another question.

What would be left in our lives if you removed the Holy Spirit?

Schools love to slot people. Give a test, divide students into groups. Slot them into tracks.

They are often wrong when it comes to predicting success.

Even worse is the message they send. “You are this good and no more. You’ll always be…”

And they are wrong.

I’ve developed a passion for reading research into brain physiology and how the brain works. One good book from many years ago now was “Descartes’ Error.” The French philosopher famously said, “Cogito, ergo sum.” If you’ve forgotten your Latin (which I did beginning when I was forced to take it in high school), “I think, therefore I am.”

He was wrong. In reality, it is “I am, therefore I think.”

And what we now know is that the brain can continue to grow and develop throughout your life. You are not slotted to be something (barring abnormal injury or “birth defect”) for the rest of your life.

I’ve recently seen a couple of articles reporting research on the brain that describes how reading “rewires” your brain and keeps it healthy and growing. Especially reading fiction is good for you.

Activities such as crossword puzzles and other brain puzzles, learning a new language, and reading can reduce the occurrence of dementia by 40% or more.

The same works for spiritual formation.

Paul talks to his new converts who surely are adult that they are like infants. They still need milk. But assuredly they will grow and someday will eat adult food. He is speaking metaphorically about spiritual growth there. 

We can continue to develop and grow spiritually until the end of our lives! Never stop learning; never stop growing.

The president of a GE business unit told me about how his manufacturing plant won an award GE calls “Brilliant Factory” by implementing the principles called Lean Manufacturing or sometimes popularized as the Toyota Production System.

The goal of Lean is to eliminate waste. [aside—this is probably something we all need to do in our daily lives and our spiritual formation lives, wasted time, wasted money, wasted energy, wasted food…]

The foundation principle of Lean is respect for people. [aside—also something we need to do in our daily lives…]

I asked the president how his plant did it.

First, the plant manager took extensive training and a team was also sent for training.

Second, they had to change the culture in the plant.

I asked, how did they do that.

Well, the first time they took a Gemba walk—take a team through a part of the manufacturing process—the worker on the line led the walk. When the worker pointed out a problem area, the team immediately took corrective actions.

And then repeat.

In my now 20 years of researching, interviewing, and writing about things like this, I’ve run across many who know a lot about Lean. Doing is tough. What did the members of this team do? Built trust. They actually did what their training told them to do.

Is this something new to modern people?

Let’s look at a short letter written by James, the brother of Jesus. He pointed out 2,000 years ago (probably calling forth his memory of the Proverbs) that if all you are is what you know, then you have fallen short. Be doers of the Word, not hearers only.

Are you like me? You know too many people, and maybe me in an early stage of my life, who know way too much and do way too little?

Chair time with the Word is a great 15 minutes every day. But what about those other 900 minutes? What are we doing?

Driving home from the airport about midnight last night, an 80s pop song came on. I don’t know the group or the song, but the title struck me.

“When the Heart Rules the Mind”

We’ve probably all been there.

When we’re adolescent and the hormones are coursing through our systems.

When we’re middle aged and thinking we’ve missed out on life.

When we let politics and news capture our hearts (emotions).

We get caught in a spiral. It starts innocently. Then goes deeper. 

We lose those fruit of the spirit—love, joy, peace. We’re never contented. We are a pain to live with.

That is why so much was written by early Christ followers about the psychology of the spirit. How to overcome the chain of emotions and move ourselves into a spiritual life with God.

Life is so much better there.

Didn’t get to my hotel room until 1 am last night. My meetings begin at 8. But yes, I still enjoy what I do. I’m going to meet some really smart people today, ask some questions, make sense of what I hear, and write about it.

The past weekend, I refereed three soccer games among 9 and 10 year old players.

They played with such unbounded joy. Chasing the ball, kicking it to teammates or into the goal. But I noticed the joy of the play.

For some reason I thought of the churches described in Acts 2.

When is the last time you worshipped and gathered in such joy about Jesus?

It’s in the Gospel of John. Jesus had brought Lazarus back to life after he had been dead for four days. No chance it had been of of those fluke “not dead, but appeared dead” phenomena.

This act had caught the attention of “the people.”

It also caught the attention of the leaders of the Jewish religion. The priests and the Pharisees.

John must have been tapped in with that group. Maybe relatives? He quotes them often. In this case, he gets the scoop on another of their committee meetings.

“What are we going to do with this guy?” they ask among themselves. “The people are starting to turn toward him. He could become their leader.”

The spoken fear—that Jesus will start an armed insurrection and draw the anger of the Romans. These trained, professional, and vicious fighters would march in, destroy the Temple, kill them all, and disperse the nation.

The unspoken fear—that Jesus will replace them as leaders and then how would they live with no power, no income, no prestige.

Wait a minute? The Pharisees as leaders????

I have always imagined them as a group of sour-faced, unpleasant, party killers. The roam the land in packs looking for people having fun and telling them how bad they are. “If only you were like us,” they would say, “then everything would be right in the world.”

But I thought some more. They probably were leaders. 

And we have them still today!

How many of our churches are overrun with Pharisees? They make up rules. Often, but not always, with some sort of Biblical base. These are rules they can follow (mostly). Then they can compare others to themselves and declare themselves righteous. And they attract followers in their own mold. 

And the rules go marching on.

And Jesus—after they figured out the only solution was to kill him, he went and surprised them by returning to life and leading the insurrection anyways. And the Romans came in, not because of Jesus, and leveled the Temple and destroyed the Jewish Temple cult scattering the people. 

“It is better that one man should die rather than the whole people,” said the high priest. Irony. And more ironies.

Have you found that freedom from the Pharisees with Jesus? It’s there for the taking.

Today is National Manufacturing Day. It is a day set aside to recognize and celebrate those who make “things” for us.

Jobs in manufacturing have change dramatically over the past 20 years. They are no longer dirty, smelly, dangerous, physically debilitating torture chambers. Environments for the most part are clean and safe. People must be willing to be trained for technical aspects of the job or in Lean principles.

In like manner, jobs in churches (primarily in America and Europe and maybe Latin America) have changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Only we recognize it in manufacturing. I’m not so sure that church leaders recognize that.

When everyone in your town or city neighborhood went to (the same) church, the role of the priest/pastor was shepherding the flock. Pastors. They organized services, officiated at weddings and funerals, visited the ill.

Today our small towns and city neighborhoods are most likely not so homogeneous. Pastors must become leaders. Motivators. Organizers. They need to set people (metaphorically) on fire to work according to their spiritual gifts. They must teach a new generation of seekers. Maybe more like those Wesleyan evangelists who went out to the people who were in need.

What about us? The “members” or “attenders”? 

We need to be more than people who just show up. Just like they described the early church in Acts 2, we need to so live our lives filled with the Spirit and developing our spiritual gifts that other people say, “Wow, I want some of that.”

It’s amazing. Sometimes we change by returning to the source and modeling those who came before us.