Pastorates manuscript #4

Pentecost

Just before he ascended into the heavens, Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they had received the promise of the Father.  So in Acts 1, they wait in a very active way, studying the scriptures, praying, and dealing with some leadership issues.  Then in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit comes on them with power, just as Jesus had promised.  Eventually -- after six more chapters of hanging around Jerusalem -- the disciples move out into Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).  It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit and under the authority of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ that they can do this.  Every time these Jesus-followers opt for their own agendas, they fail.  Every time they choose to operate in their own strength, the movement falters.

The Church of Jesus Christ can only be the Church of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.  If we are operating by any other power, we are not operating as the Church that Jesus intended.

Look back through Christian history with this lens and you see a fascinating landscape.  Movements rise and fall by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Individuals arise at just the right time in history and wield amazing power because they trust in the Spirit.  

Modern students of history are often tempted to secularize history -- to view it as a purely human chain of causes and effects.  Jesus’ followers must never give in to this temptation.  We need to remember (as Paul boldly proclaims in Acts 17) that the events of human history are Spirit-driven events.  

I am not saying that all events are caused by God.  The debate between strict predestination and open theism is far beyond me, though I believe Scripture tends to favor those who give God more credit, not less.  However, it is important to recognize that God is active in history, moving his followers to build his kingdom, to speak truth to power, and to proclaim Jesus in all ages and all places.

In the early 1900’s a group of Christians experienced a supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit complete with miraculous healings and gifts of “glossalalia” or speaking in tongues.  Since that time, the word “Pentecostal” has usually referred to these Christian sects that expect the miraculous gifts and intervention of the Holy Spirit.

However, Mark Noll has described “Pentecostal” in a deeper and wider sense.  I quote him at length from a lecture at Roanoke College in 2006.

The simple demography of the world situation today forces -- or should force -- Christian believers in the West to reexamine questions that they may not have thought of for quite some time.  

I'm a Presbyterian.  Presbyterians are defined by:

A. Resistance to change,

B. A desire to have lots of committees, and

3. [sic] An inability to move past a mile or two an hour on any kind of conceptual issue. 

The world -- the Christian world we live in today is not a world made for Presbyterians.  It is a world changing fast, that's demanding Christian and theological reconsideration.

For example, how close is the world of spirits to the world in which we live?  In other words, what is to be made practically of the traditional Christian belief in the supernatural?  All Christians in one variety or another believe in forces beyond nature, in a God who acts for his own purposes when he wishes.  In most of the Christian world today, however the abstract belief in God's ability to act supernaturally is connected to a strong belief that God acts supernaturally, practically, in the world almost all the time ...  

[Noll describes a work by a Canadian author on images and experiences of Jesus in West Africa, and the sophisticated theological reflection that grows out of these images and experiences.]  

What I was impressed by was how standard, how ordinary, the expectation that God would normally, often, in the regular course of things, act for his own purposes, to bring about physical healing ...  

[Noll next describes a friend of his who leads seminars in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world on Bible reading.]  I asked John, "Now, how many of the people who come to your seminars -- and they would be Baptists, they would be Presbyterians, they would be Nazarenes, they would be Catholics, as well as many from independent churches -- how many of these people would be Pentecostal and charismatic?" He shakes his head and he says, "Every single one."  

They all are.  They all are expecting God to act immediately. 

Well, I don't.  I'm an academic Christian who thinks through things, and I want the Lord to kind of take his time.  But on such questions, it actually might not mean a whole lot what I think, very very soon.

Mark Noll has his finger squarely on one of the most important divides in Christianity today.  Christianity is not divided so much between Catholic and Protestant, or rich and poor, or Arminian or Calvinist.  Those divisions are real, but less important than this simple question:  Does God act freely, commonly, often, even daily, by his Spirit, to intervene for his own causes in the created world?  Those Noll labels "Pentecostals" would say a firm "yes!" to this question.  The rationalist protestantism I grew up with might more likely say a cautious, "Maybe."

Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds across the globe.  Much of this growth is happening in Africa and in China.  The growth that is happening, whatever denominational label it has, is a "Pentecostal" kind of Christianity in this specific sense: It is a Christianity that expects God to act immediately, supernaturally, in tangible ways.  It is a Christianity that is filtered more through the book of Acts than the book of Romans.

In 2011 Pastor Paul Johansson from Central spent some time in Ethiopia and Tanzania as part of his sabbatical.  One of the conversations he had during that time included observations about the Lutheran churches in Kenya and Tanzania.  In the 1960's, a charismatic revival broke out across the globe, including East Africa.  The Lutherans in Kenya discussed the revival and said, "This is not what our Lutheran churches are about."  They rejected this revival, and the Lutheran church in Kenya today has a few hundred thousand members, much the same size today as it was in the 1960's.  Next door in Tanzania, the Lutherans -- about the same size in the '60's as the church in Kenya -- embraced this charismatic revival as a legitimate work of the Holy Spirit.  The church began to grow by leaps and bounds, and today there are more than five million Lutheran Christians in Tanzania.  The Lutheran church in Tanzania continues to be Pentecostal in its expectation that God will act in a daily, supernatural way.  It continues to grow like mad.

Those who are doing cutting edge work in theology today have to speak about the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the church and in the world.  We cannot cling to a rationalistic, Enlightenment-based distortion of Christianity that we think somehow reflects the Protestant Reformation, but that loses the heart of the New Testament.  Theology today must find a way to speak with clarity about this kind of expectation, this kind of Pentecostal expectation that God will act.  This is pneumatology, the study of the ways of God's Spirit and the difference that this Spirit makes in the life of the believer and of the church.  If Noll is right -- and I believe he is -- then this expectation cuts across every denomination, every tradition.  Expectant Lutherans have far more in common with expectant Catholics than they do with more rationalistic Lutherans.  This Pentecostal expectation has not exactly undone the Protestant Reformation, but it has certainly created a new watershed within Christianity.  On one side of the divide, the church is growing deeper and wider.  On the other side it is shrinking.

What does this have to do with pastorates?  Everything.  If pastorates are a program initiated by humans in response to a need within our churches, they will fail.  But I believe that the Spirit of God is moving through churches in the world today.  Not surprisingly the Spirit has started with churches where human beings hold the least power -- churches among indigenous peoples in the global south, churches in the secularized cities of western Europe, churches in the chic, agnostic populations of the Pacific Northwest in the United States.  Among these power-poor churches the Spirit has started to create Jesus-centered communities that exist in the Spirit’s power.  These communities are thriving for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that they actually work.  In a short time this book will examine the why, what, and how of pastorates.  First we need to take one more historical detour into the Protestant Reformation.

Pastorates manuscript, #3

Christian churches throughout the world proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Why, then, are so many churches -- especially in the developed world, in the West -- decaying, declining, and dying?

I love movie versions of the life of Jesus.  Jesus’ story makes such great cinema!  Nearly every story of Jesus ends with his resurrection.  Often when we proclaim Jesus in the Christian church, our proclamation ends with his resurrection.  When we consider our own identity as his 21^st century followers, we think of his death and resurrection.  But the New Testament story does not stop with Jesus’ resurrection.  

In the first verses of Acts, Luke writes that in the first book (the gospel of Luke) he wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until his ascension.  The implication is that after his ascension, Jesus continued to act and to teach.  We should not be surprised by this!  Before his crucifixion, Jesus himself told his disciples, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.  But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).  If we are to understand God’s intention for the Christian church, we need to better understand both Jesus’ ascension and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.

Jesus’ Ascension

Sometimes well-meaning teachers talk about Jesus’ ascension as if the problem is just to get Jesus’ physical body out of the way so that his spiritual presence (via the Holy Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost) can empower believers simultaneously all over the globe.  This is not the Bible’s teaching!  No, Jesus ascends to the heavens physically, but more importantly he ascends in authority.  The ascension of Jesus (see Acts 1) points to the fact that Jesus is now exalted as Lord of all creation.  It is in the ascension that Jesus takes up his rightful place “at the right hand of the Father” as the creeds put it.  During his earthly ministry, Jesus’ most common title for himself was “son of man,” an allusion to Daniel 7:13-14.  Daniel sees one “like a son of man” who comes before the Almighty and is given authority to judge the nations.  Jesus alludes to these verses during his trial before Caiaphas, and the song of all creation in Revelation 5 echoes these ideas.  Paul certainly understands Jesus in these same terms in Philippians 2 and Colossians 1.  Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.  It is in Jesus’ ascension that he takes up this mantle of authority.

To be the church, we must rightly understand the sovereignty of Jesus.  As someone has put it, if Jesus isn’t Lord of all, he isn’t Lord at all.  Jesus is Lord over all creation, over all nations, over all people, and -- don’t miss this -- over the church.

What does this mean?  It means that the church doesn’t belong to us.  When Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God, Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18, emphasis added).  Jesus is Lord of the church.  So all our positions of authority, whether as pastors, as teachers, as members or tithers or committee members or volunteers, are under the authority of Jesus.

This is obvious, right? If it is so obvious, why do we strive to control the church?  Why do we battle to the death over the worship schedule, the stewardship program, or the color of the new carpet?  Why is it so hard for people who have received some position in the church to share that authority?  Why do so many Christians have a complex about trying to control things?  If we strive to get our own way, to have our own control, we are not living in the ascension of Jesus Christ.

The ascension means Lordship for Jesus, and it means freedom for us.  It means that there are very few hard and fast ironclad rules for the church.  What ironclad rules there are have to do with the Lordship of Jesus, not with the structures or traditions of the church.

In the ascension Jesus takes up his authority, his sovereignty over all time and all space.  When we face a decision, it is Jesus’ word alone that matters.  When our circumstances seem difficult, we can trust that Jesus is working to shape and lead his church.  When the work of the church is too difficult for us, we can confidently ask Jesus to raise up workers -- and then we can confidently share the load without trying to control the outcome.

While it may seem that this is all obvious, the church has too often been held captive by human desires for control.  We must do more than pay lip service to the Lordship of Jesus.  We must learn to trust him to be Lord in fact, not just in name.  How does this work in practice?  It has to do with Acts 2, with the Father’s gift to the church -- the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Pastorates manuscript, #2

Let’s be clear about something from the start.  The New Testament knows nothing of church buildings, of pews and hymnals and committees changing the altar cloths or debating the color of the new carpet.  The movement Jesus started is about people, not about property.  The idea that a person can “go to church” and sit in a building for an hour, then go back to an unchanged life for the rest of the week, has little or nothing to do with New Testament Christianity.  

The Bible envisions a church -- an ekklesia -- of people who gathered together, most often in someone’s home (see Romans 16:3-5, for example).  They read scripture, worshipped, and prayed together (see 1 Corinthians 14:26).  They shared in a mission to impact the world in the name of Jesus.  In fact, non-Christians accused these Jesus-followers of “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).  By following Jesus’ example, living in community with other Jesus-followers, and loving the world around them, they changed the Roman Empire and eventually the whole world!

What does the task of “making disciples” (meaning, making followers of Jesus) look like today?  In the early years of the 21^st century it’s not hard to see that many churches have failed in this task.  We may baptize scores of people, our Sunday Schools may (or may not) be bustling, our youth programs crowded, our worship services pleasantly full.  But how many lives are changed in a lasting way?  

It’s been said that many of our churches are like football games.  A football game is 22,000 people who are desperately in need of exercise watching a game played by 22 men who desperately need rest.  Sadly, many people come to church to observe.  We relate to Jesus not so much to follow him or even to admire him, but to use him for our own ends.  In order to be blessed in this life and avoid hell in the next life, we are encouraged to pray a prayer inviting Jesus into our hearts.  At its worst, it’s cheap fire insurance.  Sadly, in most of our churches, few people experience the “abundant life” (see John 10:10) Jesus longs to give his followers. 

Yet people inside and outside the church today are hungry for exactly what Jesus’ first disciples found as followers of the Way.  We are hungry for meaning, for community, and for a mission that is worthy of our sacrifice.  Not knowing where to find what we really need, we flock to Facebook and Twitter to find community.  We let advertisers, smart phones, and sports teams tell us who we are and what we need.  We clutter our schedules so that we don’t have to face the disturbing questions that confront us in quiet moments.

This book is about a community life, abundant life, centered in Jesus.  As much as possible, the goal of the pastorate movement is to live as followers of the Way in the 21^st century following the example of those early Jesus-followers.  This is not an idealized effort to deny our history and somehow return to the cultures of the New Testament.  Rather, it is an effort to take seriously what Jesus taught about the church he came to create.  In short, the purpose of this book is to help set a group of people on the road to living as disciples and making disciples.  I believe with all my heart that the abundant life Jesus desires for his followers begins in the context of Christ-centered communities where Jesus’ followers love God, love one another, and serve the world.  As we live together in this way, the New Testament comes alive and we come to know Jesus in a new, powerful, personal way.  Across the world, churches -- gatherings of people who know Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life -- are experiencing what Jesus himself called “abundant life” (John 10).  Pastorates are one good way to be the church, to follow Jesus in the mission he gave us.

Pastorates series

I've spent a lot of time and mental energy this summer working on a manuscript to sum up pastorates -- the mid-sized groups we've been implementing at Central for the last couple years.  I'd like to share portions of that manuscript on this blog, starting below. 

My hope is that people who read this will chew on the ideas, whether you have any firsthand experience with pastorates or not.  If you have feedback, or if ideas are unclear, I would love to hear about your thoughts here via comments, or via email at wrdhuntr@yahoo.com.  

The manuscript I've written starts out with the "why" of pastorates, and appropriately enough we begin with the resurrection of Jesus.  Have fun reading, and feel free to offer any feedback!  I will post a new section of this manuscript every 2-3 days. 


Pastorates


After Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, the Bible tells us that he talked with his disciples for about forty days before he ascended into the heavens and sent his Spirit to give his followers direction and power.  During those forty days, Jesus gave clear directions to his followers.  They were to take up the task Jesus had started.  They were to be sent out to the world, even as he had been sent to Israel.  They had received training from him over a three-year period, and now they were to go out and invite others into this Jesus-following movement.  Nearly all of the New Testament writers include some version of Jesus commissioning his followers for this task.  

We are probably most familiar with Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus tells his disciples, 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). 

In John, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21).  In Acts, Jesus tells his followers, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  Paul certainly embodied this call in his whole life of traveling around the Mediterranean, telling people about Jesus and starting fledgling churches everywhere he went.

Jesus’ followers called themselves “followers of the Way” (Acts 9:2, 19:9 & 23, for example).  Only later were they labeled Christians, and that term came from their enemies as an insult.  Early on, these people saw themselves as followers of Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  This new relationship with Jesus redefined everything in their lives.  They experienced a new power and a new sense of relationship with God that came from the resurrected Jesus. 

They gathered together in groups with others who knew Jesus, who knew this new power and new life.  They referred to these gatherings as “churches,” which brings to our minds pictures of buildings and steeples, pews and hymnals, but for these early Jesus-followers, the word referred to groups of people.  The Greek word was “ekklesia” (from which we get our word “ecclesiastical”, meaning something that refers to the church).  Ekklesia means literally, “those who are called out.”  Jesus used the term himself a couple of times (see Matthew 16:18 and 18:17), and in the book of Acts ekklesia becomes the standard term for a group of Jesus-followers.  These are the ones who have been called out of the world and its ways, called to follow a different Way, called to be like Jesus and to be part of his movement in the world.  

Beating the drum

I have been saying these things for years.  Parents protect their children too much.  Kids need to take risks, and they need to get hurt when they make mistakes -- both physically and emotionally.  Parents shouldn't inflict pain on their kids, but they should let the kids take chances, fall and skin their knees, and deal with the consequences.

This article does a great job of laying these facts out in a very persuasive way.  I highly recommend this for any parent or anyone who has influence on a parent.

Getting things done, one way or another

I've been thinking a lot lately about something subtle in the book of Acts.

Actually it's not very subtle, it's just not the kind of thing we like to think about.

Here's the deal.  In Acts 1:4, Jesus tells his disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they're clothed with power from on high -- until they receive what the Father has promised.  He's obviously referring to the Holy Spirit.  In 1:8 he elaborates a bit about what will happen when the Holy Spirit comes -- his followers will be empowered to be witnesses "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

So in Acts chapter 1, the disciples faithfully wait in the city.  They pray, read scripture, deal with some leadership issues, all in obedience to Jesus.

In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit shows up in great power.  Tongues of fire, different languages, thousands of people converted, new community created.  It's pretty amazing.

In Acts chapter 3, the disciples remain in Jerusalem.

In Acts chapter 4, the disciples remain in Jerusalem.

In Acts chapter 5, the disciples remain in Jerusalem.

In Acts chapter 6, the disciples remain in Jerusalem.

In Acts chapter 7, the disciples remain in Jerusalem.

See a problem here?  Jesus told them to remain until the Holy Spirit came, then to be witnesses in an ever-increasing area.  But they've received the Holy Spirit and stayed parked in Jerusalem.

In Acts 8, a persecution breaks out against the church and everyone except the Twelve are scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.  They preach about Jesus as they go.  In other words, when the disciples were not obedient, God was able to back them into obedience through indirect means.  I think it's safe to say that from the disciples' perspective, this persecution was a great tragedy, even a great evil.  But it's so clear in the text that Jesus laid out the agenda in Acts 1:8 and God is getting it accomplished through this persecution in 8:1.

(By the way, read through Acts 7 and notice how prominent in Stephen's speech is the idea of "place." To Jews who believed God favored Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and Israel above all others, Stephen's speech must have been infuriating.  Stephen points out over and over how God has worked his best work in places other than Jerusalem.  Maddening.)

So here's the question.  When you experience things that, from your perspective, look like a great evil, is it possible -- just possible -- that sometimes what God is doing is calling you back to a command he gave you earlier, but that you failed to obey?

God doesn't bring tragedies into our lives to punish us or to beat us down.  Every action he takes toward us is loving, absolutely loving, for our good.  And sometimes we suffer at the hands of others who are responsible for the evil they create.  But in the midst of tragedy, of great evil, God will still work to bring about greater good.  It's worth doing a little self-examination and checking to see if there's something in the past God called us to do that we have failed to follow through on.

Three decades later ...

Julie and I spent the weekend at the farm for my 30^th class reunion.  I have to admit, I was a little tense going into it.  I don’t normally get tied up in knots; it just isn’t my style.  But for some reason this reunion weighed heavy on my mind.  I planned to go for months, but couldn’t bring myself to RSVP until just a couple weeks ago.  A week ago I spent a few hours on the lawn mower, and all the while I was remembering classmates, pondering what it would be like to see them again, and more than anything trying to remember what life was really like back when.

The remembering part is a little counterproductive, of course.  Memory is not an accurate representation of the facts at the best of times, and thirty years later it’s so distorted and filtered and re-cast that it bears little resemblance to anything that might actually have happened.  But you have to do it, all the same.  So I mowed around and around the lawn, thinking about individuals and personalities and pondering who I was then and who I am now.  That’s the scary part.  I see how much I have changed and (hopefully) matured in the last thirty years and I realize that this will be a gathering of people who with a couple exceptions are strangers to me.  

I have not kept up, you see.  There were not quite sixty of us in my graduating class and nearly all of us had been together since elementary school.  Whether I talked directly to any of these people during school or not, I had been in the same classroom with them, listened to their conversations, watched their interactions, graded their papers, seen their struggles.  Some were close friends.  Others were acquaintances, neighbors.  They were classmates, but long-term classmates.  I had watched them grow from early childhood through almost-adulthood back in school.  I knew these people.

Then I bolted.  Like so many teenagers I had a terrible fear of being pigeonholed.  The idea that I would stay in my hometown for life, never allowed to grow, never allowed to change, terrified me.  So that fall of 1983 I boarded the Greyhound bus for Seattle.  I spent the next two years in a little Bible college in Seattle, then moved back as close as Fargo, seventy miles from home.  But I rarely went back to that little community.  The summers of 1984 and 1987 I lived back there.  My attitude was horrible.  I was not ready to be home.  

There’s a phase that healthy adolescents need to go through when they run away from home.  Not literally hitchhiking to Los Angeles, hopefully, but escaping in some way.  They need to get away.  I think this is one of the many reasons why Jesus’ story about the prodigal son is so enduringly popular.  We identify with the son’s need to run away, to risk being foolish, to spend himself in a far country.  Until we grow up a bit it is perilous for us to return home because we might well be trapped.

In the 1980’s I was in danger of being trapped, but I misunderstood the danger.  I thought the opinions of other people might keep me from changing, might keep me from growing and developing and stretching my wings and my imaginations.  In reality the danger was my own fear.  In fact it was very possible that if I moved back in those days I would have given in to my own fears and never grown past myself, never confronted my ignorance or my arrogance, never been broken, never learned to hope for things far beyond my reach, never learned to take real risks.  I had to be away.  

For some people, this time away is relatively short.  For me it has been three decades.  After college in Fargo I moved to Seattle and spent seven years there.  Then Saint Paul, then western North Dakota, then back to the Twin Cities.  During the early years I felt absolutely torn in two when I went home.  I missed the people, the smells, the sameness, the very landscape in a physically painful way.  Yet the thought of staying there was still too much for me to bear, and I went home only rarely.  Only in the last few years I have begun to spend a little more time there, to venture not only to the farm where I grew up but back into the community just a little bit.  

So I have not kept in touch.  I have seen my classmates so, so rarely.  Some I have never seen since graduation, because they have run like me to various corners of the world.  

There was another fear at work for me.  Ten years after graduation, most of us had hit our stride.  We were establishing homes and jobs, gaining competence and confidence. I shunned my ten-year reunion for fear of watching people try to prove themselves to each other, for fear that I would get caught up in the game of saying “I can handle life.”  At twenty years, some of us were building empires, and others were trying to pick up the pieces of dreadful misfortunes and miscalculations.  Some of us were struggling against a world that seemed mercilessly determined to prevent anything good in our lives.  I toyed with the idea of attending my 20^th, but ended up having supper with a good friend and skipping the reunion.

Thirty years out I decided it was worth the risk.  In our forties, I reasoned, most of us will have gotten past the need to prove ourselves worthy.  We won’t need to talk so much about the empires we’re building.  Maybe we can have some honest conversation about who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.  We are now the people of gray hair and bifocals.  We are people who have grieved.  We have experienced darkness and clawed our way back to the light.  We have found faith, and lost it, and maybe found it again.  

So this weekend I went to my 30-year class reunion, and it was delightful.  Twenty-two of us gathered, some with spouses in tow, many texting throughout the evening to keep tabs on our kids.  We sat outside swatting a few mosquitoes on a gorgeous Minnesota summer evening and caught up.  I talked in depth with people I have always known, but with whom I’ve never had a real conversation.  

Of course, someone brought out old pictures.  I could proudly point to my shining face and slicked back hair in the front row of Mrs. Webster’s 3^rd grade class picture, sporting the fancy stitching on my cowboy shirt and the purple and red striped pants that I’m sure I thought were all the rage.  Oh, yes, that’s me.  And of course, all my classmates already knew it was me, because they were there when I was that kid.  

We shared stories of moves and marriages, deaths and jobs and transitions.  Here and there in the corners, quiet apologies took place and daring souls asked probing questions about “how are you doing, really?”  We talked about medical tests and hard lessons learned.  And without a doubt, we laughed more than we have laughed in a very long time.

Suddenly it was midnight.  Like Cinderella at the ball, we turned for the door.  There was indeed something magical about it, something absolutely life-giving in seeing those people again, finding friends I’d forgotten I had, experiencing connections and common bonds that were nothing less than a gift.  I had returned home and found that things and people had changed, changed dramatically, but that things are very, very good.  

But I don’t live there.  Even if I moved back to that town, to those people, I am not the same seventeen year old kid I was in those days.  I’ve changed, too.  Thank God.  I have scars and insights I never dreamed of then, and today I know joy and satisfaction that are deeper than anything I ever thought possible.  So maybe I could live in that community, but the heady wine of reconnecting with old classmates is best drunk only occasionally.  

By the way, Julie deserves great praise for this weekend.  She was absolutely amazing in going where I wanted to go, being flexible and willing to stay as long as I needed to stay in order to make connections and have conversations and reconnect in whatever ways I needed to.  She made conversation and went out of her way to be gracious and talkative when I know many times she just needed to have what Teya calls “introvert time.”  But she was amazing.

I’m glad we went.

Want your kids to stay committed to Jesus?

As a parent, I want more than anything for my kids to know Jesus.  My greatest hope is that they will know him and grow in relationship with him through their lives and be totally sold out for his agendas, living under his rule.  My greatest fear is that this will not be the case.  So when I think about what it means to "make disciples" the first context I think of is my role as a father.

It's the final command Jesus gives.  The most familiar version, probably, is in Matthew's gospel.  Translating the Greek verbs carefully, you come up with something like this:

"As you are going, make disciples of all peoples by means of baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

The command is to "make disciples."  It's the only imperative verb (command) in the whole sentence.  

Central's mission statement is "Making disciples of Jesus."  How do we do this?  In churches, in families, how do we do this?  Look around you -- bringing kids to worship is obviously not an adequate response, though it's certainly important.  

I recently read an article about why kids growing up in the church choose to remain Christian.  It was a mildly interesting article and I forwarded it to a few friends and coworkers.  I also forwarded it to a couple former kids of my acquaintance and asked for their comments.

The article lists three main reasons why kids remain committed to Christ: 

1. They have been truly converted by the power of the Holy Spirit.
2. They have been equipped through their church, not entertained.
3. Their parents have "preached the gospel" to them.

I think these three are good answers, for what they're worth.  But I don't think they go quite deep enough.  So, like I said, I asked for some expert opinions from those who up until recently have been kids, who are committed to Christ.  Here are Eric's comments:

For me, this article doesn't particularly hit home; it feels a little like swinging a ping pong paddle while trying to hit a home run.
While I certainly won't argue AGAINST what the author included, I also don't think those three traits are the most important (other than, of course, being a 'truly converted Christian,' although such language makes me wary).
If I were to list the three most important factors in my own life for having 'survived' my college years as a Christian, I'd emphasize the following:
-I was introduced to a faith that was more than an idea; a faith with power for personal and societal change, based upon a solid historical basis, the testimony of others throughout the ages, and my own personal experience.
-I learned from with those who wrestle deeply with facts, theories, and experiences that (appear to) cause many others to lose their faith - while remaining active Christians who neither dismiss these challenges nor crumble in their presence. I have seen robust, informed, and active faith.
-I was and am surrounded by a community of others who testify to God's love and faithfulness, who seek truth wherever it may be found, who press on to know the Lord, who walk with integrity, and who love as Christ loved. I know them and they know me; we support each other; they know my doubts and failings, my testimonies and triumphs. Without these people, I would not be who I am and I would perhaps not be a Christian anymore.

 The themes of "authentic relationships" and "honest struggles" and "transparency" are huge here.  Parents, take note.  It's not enough to tell your kids what to do -- you have to live faith in front of them, share your struggles with them, and don't be afraid to wrestle with the hard issues.

Some of Erica's comments take us farther down this road:

Seeing more mature Christians live out a rough and bumpy faith while still holding onto (and learning to apply) God's promises of beauty and purpose has been more encouraging to me than any youth program curriculum or week-long-mission-trip experience.

 Parents, do you have a "rough and bumpy faith"?  Do you have a sense of God's promise of beauty in your life? (This phrase intrigues me and I want to think and write more about it.  I think it's vitally connected to what Jesus called "the kingdom of God" which was the whole theme of his ministry.)  Do you have a sense of God's promise of purpose in your own life?  

If you have a sense of beauty and purpose rooted in God's promises to you, I can just about guarantee that you have struggled with this.  How can you hold to a sense of beauty in the face of sex trafficking or famine or chemical weapons?  How can you hold to a sense of purpose in the face of a mid-life crisis or a cancer diagnosis or chronic depression?  Can you wrestle, as Eric says above, with the hard questions and doubts?  

If you can fight through these battles (notice I said "fight" and not "conquer") in a way that appropriately lets your kids into your real relationship -- the good and the bad and the ugly -- with Jesus, you are beginning to fulfill your role as a parent.

To put it differently, if you want your kids to stay committed to Jesus through thick and thin, let them into the ways you stay committed to Jesus through thick and thin.  Keep growing in your own journey as a disciple -- in the intellectual challenges of Christianity's history, into the meat of apologetics, into the hard-edged compassion it takes to make a real difference in the world, into the gritty reality of dying to yourself and giving your life away for the sake of someone else.  

That's how we make disciples of all peoples, including our kids. 

Family Camp and much more!

The last couple weeks have been remarkable.  Here's just a taste of some of the stuff I've gotten to experience:

June 13 -- Julie and I picked up Tim Matthews at the airport.  He was flying in from London, where he serves as a pastor at Holy Trinity Brompton, the church that is best known for starting the Alpha course.  We got to take Tim out for supper and enjoyed a delightful couple hours with him.  For the last five years, Tim has been overseeing pastorates at HTB.

June 14-15 -- The "CultureShift" conference on leading change in churches, with Jim Anderson from The Harbor in Hastings and Dave Huizenga from Bridgewood Church in Savage speaking Friday, then Friday evening and Saturday Tim shared about pastorates.  Powerful stuff and lots to chew on, if I can ever get time to chew!  During these two days I had the privilege of shuttling Tim back and forth from his hotel to the conference, so got to know him better.  What a great guy!  We share a passion for good coffee, so Starbucks was a regular stop.

June 16 -- Picked Tim up early and brought him to Central where he spoke at our morning services.  Powerful sermon on what it means to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.  You can listen to it here.  (Click on the link and it will take you to Central's sermons page -- you can scroll down and listen to any of the three services that morning.  Each was great and each was slightly different from the others.)

After worship on June 16th, Tim had lunch with quite a few pastorate leaders from Central.  He shared many insights into pastorate leadership and what it means to be a mid-sized group rather than a small group.  Many of us realized our pastorates have been waffling back and forth between mid-sized and small group tactics.  If I have time soon I will post more about this because it's a great growth edge for our pastorates right now!

Sunday afternoon Julie and I drove up to my brother's place (the farm where I grew up) and dropped our dogs off.  Then Monday morning we drove down to Alexandria, to Mt. Carmel Bible Camp for Central's Family Camp!

June 17-20 Family Camp at Mt. Carmel Bible Camp.  What a great four days!  I want to share a few pictures (click on the images to see them larger) and some thoughts about our time there:

This looks like summer, doesn't it?  Ross and Doug handing out Freezies to the kids at the beach.  And, after the photo was taken, to the adults.  (Grape is my favorite.)

A couple dads enjoying their kids on the deck at night.  Lots of good relational time, lots of family connection time.  Good stuff.

During the talent show, Ross and Anita demonstrate the Chicken Dance.  Oh, my.

Late night spoons game in our cabin while the parents sat out on the deck and talked.  One of the coolest things about this photo is that you see Colter and Adam on the recliner looking at a Bible.  They found in the front of the Gideons Bible where the publisher had printed John 3:16 in a dozen different languages, and they were quite fascinated by it.  

Worship on Wednesday evening at the firepit was a special time.  Each person was encouraged to bring a verse, a thought, a song, or something (in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 14:26) to share.  Here's Patrick sharing a scripture.  Many of the kids came prepared with a Bible verse (or verses) that was meaningful to them, and many (not just kids) talked about why that verse was important.  Powerful!

Janet sharing her scripture at worship.

Of course, it was a Lutheran worship service so there had to be a couple people sitting in the back row not really paying attention.  Bennett and I had a good time, though.

Sharing communion together at that worship time on the beach.

During the mornings, we had significant teaching time.  Here Sonja is teaching about Aquila and Priscilla.  She has a real gift for opening the Bible to those who hear her teach, and she is certainly passionate about her material!

After teaching, she deserved a break.  One of the great things about Mt. Carmel is the restful environment and many places like this where you can just sit and relax.

Here's the whole motley crew of us at our ridiculous best!

If you want to see more photos, you can access all of Julie's pics at this site. 

We went back to my brother's place on Thursday after camp ended and spent Thursday night and Friday morning there.  Helped him clean out his gutters so the thunderstorms wouldn't flood him out.  Loaded up the dogs and got on the road, stopping at Faaberg Lutheran Church to take a couple pictures I wanted to use for my sermon on Sunday, including one of Mom and Dad's headstone:

Driving home went well, and we had a couple days to decompress before I preached on Sunday, we went out for lunch with Julie's dad and sister and family, and now we're back to a more "normal" schedule.  As you can probably understand, I'm still trying to process all the amazing input!

By far the dominant impression from all that intensity, though, is the amazing time we had at Mt. Carmel.  The quality of relationships and the bonds between people and the way the Holy Spirit was working in all of it were truly amazing.  Over sixty people from Central were there, and we had such a great time together.  I think part of that quality happened because of the pastorates and D4D groups that have been meeting together before this time, so when we all came to camp we were used to living in Christian community, and many of us had close relationships prior to camp.  But the Spirit was moving, moving powerfully, during those few days.  

Next year Family Camp is June 15-20.  Set aside the dates now, beef up your vacation fund so you can pay for camp (it is truly one of the best vacations you'll ever have) and if you haven't done it already, plug into a Jesus-centered community of people so the Spirit can be working in your life in the meantime!

Why atheist?

This is an incredibly thought-provoking article for Jesus-followers, especially those who care about young people or who have any kind of responsibility within a church.  Read it.