Messy Church

“What do a Buddhist, a biker couple, a gay-rights activist, a transient, a high-tech engineer, a Muslim, a twenty-something single mom, a Jew, a couple living together, and an atheist all have in common? They are all the future church in America” (John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed, p. 15)

All of the people above need Jesus. I know that because we all do, myself included. The traditional church has found itself in a position though of being unable to reach many groups and cultures. This is not the fault of the message, the message is the same today as it has always been. Part of the issue is that churches have developed a “come and see” mentality as opposed to a “go and tell” mind set. “If you build it, they will come” seems to have been the mantra for the past few decades. Whether the “it” was an actual building or a program.

We would still like to see everyone receive the gospel and experience the love of God but we would prefer to share that message from a distance. What we really hope is that some individuals would come to Christ before they come to the church. We would really prefer that by the time they choose to come to our church that they already, look, think, talk, and act like us. This is like doctors and nurses at a hospital expecting that all the people that make appointments are already taking the right medicine and treatments before they walk in the door. The thinking would be something like “If you are really very sick we would prefer that you stay home until you are better. We can have you spreading germs around our hospital”.

What would our churches look like though if all of these individuals just decided to just show up just as they are with one thing in common; they would like to learn more about Jesus. They may not be ready to swallow everything or any of what is said or taught, but something keeps bringing them back. John Burke says that this kind of church would look like a mess but that it would be a beautiful mess. 

The truth is most of these individuals aren’t just going to “show up”. We need to leave behind the “come and see” philosophy. We need to be a “living letter” that others can read and we need to spend time with others in stores, at work, in our own home getting to know them and their story if we ever expect them to listen to the story we have to share.

This can’t happen when we take a “better than you” attitude. Building relationships is key. It’s definitely a long haul approach but worth it. You are also going to still begin to see these individuals coming to your church perhaps long before they are ready to make any kind of change. This may change the look of things. It might look like “a mess” to some, but people coming to hear about, see, experience and eventually receive the love of God looks beautiful. 

Playing Favorites

 

As much as we try not to we all have our favorites. We can't always explain why this person or that seems to stand above the rest or why we fight just that much harder someone when maybe we wouldn't for someone else. What is it about certain people that makes us want to see them succeed? I have had and continue to have the opportunity to work alongside amazing youth. Picking an actual favorite would be impossible, although there are some who are sure they know or others who are convinced they take the top spot.

 

I have had the unique privilege to help people see in themselves the potential to do great things. Not everyone is a straight A student and not all of them are exceptional speakers or presenters. In fact, how they have been gifted and the difference they are able to make is different for each one of them. Often it comes down to putting the right opportunity in front of the right person. Something I'm sure I don't always get right by the way.

 

There have been many people in my life who for whatever reason felt led to open door after door for me growing up and even as an adult. I've often wondered why. What did they see that made them want to step up and give me a chance. The more I work with youth I come to understand that they may not even have known why. They were the kind of people who always looked for ways to put the right person in front of the right opportunity. It is because of people like them that I desire to see each of the youth in my church and LAUNCH (a youth leadership program of Jackson County) get the opportunity to see their potential.

 

So many of you have no idea just how much you inspire those around you. You are the fiercest kind of friend. You are able to look into a situation and say that one thing that takes our mind off our pain for a moment. You are brave and you are beautiful. You use your hurt to help dozens of others experience healing. You made a change. You succeeded. You flopped and got right back up a tried again until you got it right. You learned to accept others who were different. You learned to accept yourself. You refused to be defined by just one thing. It is for one, some, or all of these reasons you touch our hearts and make us want to fight for you.

 

Don't get so caught up in comparing and looking at someone else wondering why you didn't get what they did. If you could just see what I do, you'd realize just how unstoppable you are.

A Chance

*This entry is dedicated to the youth who have stepped beyond the everyday. Those who have created their own events to make change and who have taken on their own cause to stand for. As each of you has found a way to rise about your own hardships I'm amazed that the first thing you choose to do is reach back down to help someone else.

I've been thinking today about the importance of giving someone a real chance to succeed. Not just offering opportunities to "do something", but creating real opportunities and then providing the support and guidance to accomplish something. When you give people the chance to succeed and support them you will see confidence grow and often you will find that they want to do more. I've seen many people who didn't feel like they had much of a chance to make a difference, change how they see themselves. Once they saw that they did have to potential to do something positive. There is a big difference between saying "Here you go" and going an extra step to help make sure the outcome is a postivie one. We are going to influence and impact those around us. Often we complain that no one else is doing anything. What I have found though is that I don't let others help. I get so caught up in doing I forget that equipping is part of the job. In the short run is usually easier to just do. Equipping others to help in whatever work you are doing can be difficult but when you do take the time to equip others you not only save energy and time in the long run and get more accomplished you have done something amazing in the life of another individual. You have helped them see their own value in a new way. Its amazing how once we see that we can succeed how much our desrie to do more is increased. And for many all that's needed to spark that fire is "A Chance".

You Don't Know Me

I don't know you. I don't know what you've been through or how much it hurt. I don't know all the people who have come in and walked out of your life. I don't know what you've held onto or let go. I think it's so obvious that in any friendship or relationship no matter how well or how much we think we know about someone, regardless of how long we've known them, there will always be volumes that we don't know. Have you ever tried to help someone, give them advice about a situation, or talk to them about a difficult situation. There are some times when the best thing to do is just listen. No advice, no direction, no problem solving just listen and let the person know you heard them. I know you want to help. I know because I've been in that place where you just want to say the right thing. The words ring hollow, why, because "You don't know me". We don't realize that what might be easy for us is infinitely harder for them. The situation might be similar but how we experienced it, how it felt when we went through it, how deep the hurt went for us could be very different. The next time someone doesn't seem to think your advice is such a good idea remember, you may not know as much as you think you know. Whether they take the advice or not isn't the important thing. The important thing is for them to know they can count on you to listen

Held Accountable

 

Probably one of the most common conversations I have is with people who are struggling with how their past is effecting their present. Some of the things we've done, been through or had happen to us can reach far into the future and stay with us long after they happen.

"Don't let your past effect your effect your present."

"You don't have to let where you've been determine where you go from here."

"Who you were doesn't have to tell the story of who you are or who you'll be."

These are the kinds of things we hope to hear and they're true. We all have the opportunity to make new choices, different choices than we made in our past, different than even yesterday. Why is it though that when we are talking to that person who is hoping they can change we are so quick to remind them of this but when we are talking about someone who had made some bad choices we have that mindset that they may never change?

If I was talking to someone who said that they were tired of being judged by their past I would encourage them to just keep making better decisions and not to let what happened or who they were before limit where they hope to go or who they hope to be. However when talking to someone who is involved with a person with a "history" of sorts, we automatically carry that person past right into the present.

  or                    

 

I know I'm guilty of this.

So where or how do you draw the line between wanting to protect people from someone with a past and not holding someone else accountable in the present for what they did in the past.

I really do believe that we all have the potential to be better today than we were yesterday. I guess that's just harder to see in some than others.

I am nothing

I think we've all gotten to this place at one point or another. It is what happens when we stare down the spiral staircase of comparison. Why do we take those things about ourselves that we are most insecure about and focus on them? Why do we begin looking to all those people who excel where we fall short and compare ourselves with them? We take a magnifying glass or even a microscope and look at how we measure us. But no matter who you are...no one looks good that close.

I was talking this week with a young person who shared their experience as a child when their parents told them to "Just do your best and we'll be proud". They continued to share that mostly they got A's and B's in school. Logic told them, "This is my best". However when they got to a class where they were getting C's, logic told them, "Your best is an A or a B. You must not be doing your best. They aren't proud anymore". Even when others (their parents) took the burden off, they loaded back on themselves.

So how do we get to this place where we feel like we're nothing? Granted some of us don't spend as much time in this mindset as others but I've seen it more and more.

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1. No one cares.
2. I'm not important.
3. I don't matter.
4. I just don't understand why anyone would love me anyway.
5. I'm broken - failed - used - imperfect - different - not normal
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1. Let me just say if we spend anytime together - I care
2 and 3. Even the smallest drop of water raises the ocean a little - You ARE important and you do matter.
4. You don't need to understand why just know...you are loved.
5. We are all broken in some way, have failed at something, felt used. No one is perfect. We are all different which is what makes meeting new people such an adventure. I have yet to meet a normal person.





Strong Rationalism - An Unreasonable Approach to Reasonable Belief?

I posted earlier this week the importance faith plays in religious belief. That post and the one I am writing today stem from my reading for my Philosophy of Religion class that I am currently finishing.

Strong Rationalism states that "in order for a religious belief-system to be properly and rationally accepted, it must be possible to prove that the belief-system is true"
(Peterson, Hasker, Reichenbach, and Basinger, Reason & Religious Belief, 3rd edition)

Prove - To define prove here we are looking to say that the arguments that support the belief system should be convincing to any reasonable person. This is not 100% undeniable evidence but a reasonable argument that comes to a reasonable conclusion, which the conclusion would be accepted by any reasonable person.

On the surface this doesn't seem to hard to accomplish. We are, after all, each one of us reasonable people right? But even the most widely accepted arguments face considerable opposition from a good number of "reasonable" people.

Strong Rationalism appears to be asking that even if we disagree with the conclusion of the argument, we as reasonable individuals would accept the argument and its conclusion as a possibility. The rub lies here. How might someone who fundamentally disagrees with the conclusion accept it as a possibility?

If it is a reasonable argument with a reasonable conclusion and yet I still disagree, wouldn't the conclusion be that either I am being unreasonable in my unbelief or that the argument and/or its conclusion are flawed at some point?

My question here for this post is whether or not you agree with the above statement or do you see a third answer? Is Strong Rationalism being unreasonable to ask for such a consensus that all reasonable people would have to accept the argument and its conclusion?

All In - Why Belief in God Requires a Leap of Faith

"All In - Why Belief in God Requires a 'Jump' start' or a 'leap of faith'"

Most people would say, in speaking of religious experiences, that when it comes down to proving the existence of God you either approach the answer by faith or through reason. This is a bit ironic though when you stop and think about it. To approach by faith one is essentially making a jump to belief. I say a jump because faith alone will not get you to a proof of truth. There may be experiences that will lead you in one direction, either closer to or further away from belief in God, but even religious experiences fall short of getting you all the way to proof. So at some point one must either refuse to go any further, turn away from the pursuit, or make a leap of faith and jump to a conclusion. Reason falls short as well. Reason falls short because it merely tells us whether or not a belief in God is "reasonable" to hold. Again reason will lead you in a direction, depending on the argument or train of thought you might be considering, but it fails to prove a conclusion beyond what one might reasonably believe; again it "proves" nothing.

So when you hear a Christian say that they know God or they know God exists the question the rest of the unbelieving world has is, "How do you know". Is it more proper for them to say that they "know" God exists or that they are absolutely convinced that He does? For those standing on the outside looking in the answer would most likely be the latter. For them, while the argument might be convincing and the experience compelling, they realize that not every witness in the trial has been called and not all the evidence has been fully scrutinized. For them there still exists the possibility that some new piece of information could leave the whole house of cards lying scattered on the table. This new piece of information could be anything from a new science that explains or allows us to interpret differently events that previously only had explanation by way of the supernatural to a better more convincing argument against the existence of God.

Each side may make the claim that they "know" something but the reality is that their conclusions are an extrapolation. While they may indeed come to the right conclusion they do not know it in the way that philosophers of religion define knowing. They perceive the truth and reality of their experiences and they have reasonable arguments that gird up and support their conclusions but, we, won't know the answer unless we meet God face to face, which is the hope that Christians hold on to.

Christians and others should not take the conclusion of this essay as a loss though or even as a sign that those who wish to share their experiences or who wish to continue to show that reason provides us with a leg to stand on when we talk about our belief in God. This essay only shows in what I hope is a thoughtful way that scripture is true. We do come to God by faith. Experience and reason may help lead the way but faith is what connects them to our conclusion.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God", Ephesians 2:8

Two illustrations came to mind as I was working through my thoughts on this, a courtroom and a good game of Texas Hold Em'. A jury in a courtroom may be convinced enough to deliver a unanimous verdict and still find themselves to be wrong. This is the danger some fear when deciding whether or not to make the leap. Those who have made the leap however are more like the person who has made it to the last round in a poker tournament and is looking at what he is convinced is the best hand on the table. There are others with good hands and some trying to bluff a bad hand off as a winner but they look at their hand and with conviction have went "all in". They've had similar experiences where a hand like theirs was a sure winner and all the reason tells them that based on what's been played its reasonable to believe they've got a winner, so, they go all in. Yes the river card is yet to hit the table and you really don't know what two cards are laying face down on the other end of the table but by faith and with confidence they put it all in the center of the pot hoping and believing that the risk will be worth it.

A Servant Leader

"Real training for service asks for a hard and often painful process of self-emptying. The main problem of service is to be the way without being 'in the way'. And if there are any tools, techniques and skills to be learned they are primarily to plow the field, to cut the weeds and to clip the branches, that is, to take away the obstacles for real growth and development. Training for service is not a training to become rich but to become voluntarily poor; not to fulfill ourselves but to empty ourselves; not to conquer God but to surrender to his saving power. All this is very hard to accept in our contemporary world, which tells us about the importance of power and influence. But it is important that in this world there remain a few voices crying out that if there is anything to boast of, we should boast of our weakness. Our fulfillment is in offering emptiness, our usefulness in becoming useless, our power in becoming powerless."

From "Reaching Out" by Henri J. M. Nouwen

I haven't posted anything here for a while now but sitting here at the end of our first day at the National Youth Leadership Initiative I found it appropriate to take a step back to consider the type of leadership that God calls us to.