Family Math

Last night was “math night” at the Wayenberg house. Our neighbor, who is more like our second daughter, came over for some Algebra help while my daughter toiled through her Geometry with a little of my assistance. Actually to say it was all about math would be misleading, it was math in between making bean dip, demonstrating hurdling techniques over the laundry basket, and random conversations about track, school, food, and some things that just didn’t make any sense. Sandy and I had planned on taking some time to talk about our Multiply study, but the half hour of homework with the girls found a way of turning into two hours, so the study just didn’t happen. But what did happen was better anyway.

I was reminded last night about why I am here. Not just me here, in Deer Park, but why I am here as part of God’s family and what a blessing that is. I have this surrogate family that makes life here better and gives me purpose. I am not always good at living that out and I wish nights like last night occurred more often. Some think they are bothering me when they send their kids to me for math help, but in a way they are really helping me. They are reminding me each time that I have something to offer and that when we are a part of the church family, their kids are also my kids. 

As I read through, When the Church Was a Family, I am being forced to think hard about how I view the church. It is forcing me to grapple with the language we use when we describe the church as a family - if they are mere words or if they really have substance. We talk about our “brothers and sisters” in Christ, but too often the phrase lacks meaning. It has the same meaning as talking about my “neighbor”, it is merely a way of identifying someone and their positional relationship to me, but with spiritual sounding twist.  

But those that I truly consider family, my brothers and sisters and children, interact differently with me and I with them. My family feels comfortable coming to my home unannounced and enters without knocking (or maybe a quick knock just to announce they are coming in). My family helps themselves to the food in the fridge (even when we are not home) and when they think I can help, they ask or they come over. And when I think they can help me, I call them. We don’t barter and keep balance sheets and we all think that each other is getting the better deal. That is family, the surrogate family who has God as our Father. 

Last night was a reminder of how much I love being a part of this family, but, as I think about the relative infrequency of those kinds of evenings, it made me think that maybe my family is too small. 

What If Church Was Hard? (Part 2)

So, what if church was hard? What if some people stopped coming or never came to begin with because the church didn’t have padded seats, or good temperature control, or didn’t make coffee and treats, or because the fellowship hall was to small, or too loud, or too dark or too whatever? What if people didn’t come because the parking was inadequate and they would have to walk too far? What if people stopped coming because the worship service was too long or didn’t start at the right times and the music was too slow or to soft or too loud or too “different?” 

What if those things of comfort simply were not a priority because living and teaching the gospel was so overwhelmingly more important? What if those things weren’t done because the church didn’t have enough money leftover after taking care of the poor, feeding the homeless, supporting missions, and loving people with its resources? 

Would that make the church less appealing? 

Would that hinder our outreach to the community? 

Would that attract the “wrong kind” of people? 

What if the church dwindle from 500 to 100 because those people who wanted more physical comforts  left? What if the church only grew to 50 instead of 200 because those people never came? How would the church look then? Would the church be worse off without them? Would the world start to call us a cult? Would they think we had lost our minds? Would they think we were too radical? Would our lives be out of balance? Would those who were left be unable to “relate” to others? 

Would the church look more or less like the church of Acts? 

Would we be better with less and with fewer?

And whose to say that they church wouldn’t grow bigger? Maybe there would be a crazy irony that when we do things we think will deter people, it might actually attract people and keep people. Maybe they would find that there is more substance to transformation. Maybe they would see that “radically different” is more intriguing than “just a barely different.” Maybe when people came to a church like this, they would know from the very beginning that change is expected when you encounter Jesus and instead of expecting God to make everything better in their lives, maybe they would expect that God will show them a totally different kind of joy that the rest of the world doesn’t understand. 

Maybe we would encourage people to be followers instead of fans. 

Maybe we would have fewer goats, but many more sheep.

What If Church Was Hard?

I had a friend who once told me that he had two churches - his regular church and his summer church. When he saw the puzzled look on my face, he explained that his regular church did not have air conditioning, so when it started getting hot in the summer, he attended a church that did.

Comfort and convenience is very important to us. And it seems like we work hard at making our churches comfortable and convenient. Long gone are the days of wooden pews. Now we have deep padded pews or, even better, chairs in climate controlled buildings with central heat and air conditioning. We provide treats and have espresso bars with all your favorite flavors. We limit the length of our services so they don’t go to long and make sure they begin and end at convenient times. We upgrade the microphones, the amps, the speakers, the mixing board, the instruments, and the acoustics so the music will be at its best. We even project the words on a screen so you don’t have to fumble around with a clumsy book. Even with that we are always looking for more - a upgraded kitchen, an expanded fellowship hall, an improved parking lot, newer carpet, more entertaining multi-media, and a service that ends before the Seahawks begin. And that is just what we do for Sundays.

But is it working?

Church attendance in America is on the decline. And the most common response is to try to figure out new ways to draw people in by appealing to their interests and their comforts and to make things even more convenient. We try to draw in men by starting small groups around cars, and hunting, and sports, and “manly” things. Women start knitting groups, and coffee clubs, and have shopping sprees. And these are often the “hooks” to draw “unbelievers” in to show them transformed lives through Christ...

What if we stopped worrying about the interests of the world? What if we stopped worrying about comfort and convenience? What if we stooped trying to cater to the wants and desires of attenders and potential attenders?

What if church was hard?

What if we had no chairs or pews? What if we didn’t care about acoustics? What if provided paper cups for water and forgot about treats and coffee? What if we let the pastor preach as long as he felt he needed to? What if we opened doors and windows in the summer and started services early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day? What if we minimized our heat and wore coats and brought blankets? What if we didn’t have a big enough parking lot and people had to walk a block or two or a mile or two to get to church? What if we didn’t have a kitchen? Or a fellowship hall? Or carpet? Or a computer and projector? I wonder if we could still manage to worship? I wonder if people would come?

There is a strange phenomenon that where the church is most severely persecuted, it tends to grow. Sometimes growth is explosive when persecution is at its worst. And the most stagnant of churches are often those who have it best. We have seen it repeated time and time again, and yet... We strive for comfort. We strive for convenience. We strive for the same things the rest of the world strives for and then we wonder why God does not seem alive to our attenders.

What if we had no conveniences to offer, but all we offered was the gospel - the real gospel. The gospel that says not to love the things of the world. The gospel that says to love your enemy. The gospel that says you will be persecuted for your faith. The gospel that says to give away your money. The gospel that says to care for the poor, the orphaned and the widowed. The gospel that says to lay down your life for your brother. The gospel that says that there is nothing on this earth worth anything apart from Jesus Christ. The gospel that says Jesus Christ gave his life for ours and asks us to give our life to him in return.

What if that was all we had to offer? Would people still come? Would you still come?

Sometimes The Truth Hurts

I had just finished reading a terrific blog post - 10 Reasons Our Kids Leave Church - when I saw a Facebook post from a former youth (who has not left church):

“I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.”

Muhammad Ali

One of the points in the blog is that we, the church, have often failed to teach our youth the basic principles of our Christian faith. We too often “dumb down” the gospel message to make it cool, or make it more palatable. In an effort to get numbers, we make the gospel out to be a feel-good message, filled with emotions, self-fulfillment and good deeds. But that is not the gospel message and to our discredit, too many youth walk away from church never understanding the basic truths of the gospel message, or even where to turn (i.e. the Bible) for truth.

Muhammed Ali was a great boxer, but he was also a Muslim. He did not know the truth. The truth of the gospel is not freedom for me to be who I want to be, it is freedom to be who God has created me to me. It is a paradox of submission to God bringing freedom. It is giving up all that I am and all that I want for the sake of who God wants me to become. It is well and good to not be who others want me to be, but it is no better for me to be who I want to be. The only one that matters is God. Hope is only found in surrendering myself to Him and denying self. It is only then that I will experience genuine freedom - a freedom that is completely alien to the rest of the world.

This is the gospel that is found in scripture. It is the same gospel that claims that eternal life comes only through Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, the Messiah, the one and only Son of God. It is the gospel message that few read in the lines of the New Testament simply because few read the New Testament, apart from isolated passages preached on Sunday morning. In the case of youth it may be even less. For far too many the Bible is only read when it is read to them, and even then few are paying attention. And very few, youth and adults alike, are taking the time to digest the truth, to contemplate what it means and how it must affect their own lives. Very few wrestle with difficult truths of scripture and agonize over the application. And almost no one is willing to take risks, to live radically different when they are confronted with those truths.

Our disservice, as leaders in the church, is that we have allowed that to be okay. We have sold a gospel message that emphasizes a momentary event for getting a ticket to heaven. We have allowed people to believe that minuscule changes are enough, both in how we teach and in how we live. We have allowed people to believe that they can still love much of the world as long as they don’t love it all. We have reduced discipleship to warm, fuzzy, feel-good, relationship drivel. We have allowed passivity, apathy, and laziness, for fear of offense or driving some to leave. But many have left anyway because what we have to offer is not so much different from what they can find in the philosophy of Muhammed Ali. 

Eternal Life

"Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."

-- John 17:1-5

We make much of eternal life - it is, perhaps the most enticing benefit of the Christian faith. But I wonder, sometimes, if we make much of a misunderstanding of what eternal life is. Jesus says that, “This is eternal life, that they may know You (God the Father), the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” When we think of eternal life we most often think of heaven, living forever in some form of resurrected bodies, free from pain and suffering. But that is not how Jesus describes eternal life. Eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ our savior. 

In that sense, eternal life is not something that happens at some point in the future, eternal life is something that we should have now. If I know the Father and I know the Son, then I have eternal life. Jesus does not say, “this will be eternal life,” he says, “this is eternal life.” 

If we understand this, we might also look at 1 John a little differently. In 1 John we are told that if we claim to know God, but live in darkness, than we really don’t know him. If we don’t know him, we don’t have eternal life, not now, not ever. John explains further in his letter that someone who does not obey the commands of God and the teachings of Jesus, does not know the Father or the Son. Even more specifically, someone who does not love his brother, does not know God. 

We should be careful to understand that 1 John is not laying out requirements for us to inherit eternal life, he is simply stating how the evidence of eternal life, already inherited, should look in our lives. Living in the light is evidence that you have eternal life. Obeying the commands of Christ is evidence of eternal life. Love for your brother, is evidence of eternal life. If you are banking on eternal life as a future event, than you have missed one of the most amazing points of the gospel message. If you think that you will inherit eternal life in the future without showing evidence that you have already inherited it, than you are thinking quite wrongly and you will be sorely disappointed when Christ is separating the sheep and the goats. 

Fan Into Flame Our Faith

There is an interesting theme in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, if we are willing to see it, but too often we only see how it starts and construct the rest of the message to fit what we want to hear. Hear is how Paul starts in 2 Timothy 1:5-6

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”

This is a great reminder for Timothy and as we read we can be reminded to fan into flame our own gift of faith. But look at how Paul expects this to happen and ask if you are willing to take Paul’s instructions further than 2 Timothy 1:6.

2 Timothy 1:8

“So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.”

2 Timothy 2:1 & 3

“ You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus... Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”

2 Timothy 2:8-10

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.”

2 Timothy 3:10-12, 14

“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings - what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted... But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of...”

2 Timothy 4:5

“But you, keep your head in all situations, endue hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”

It is odd how we will read Paul’s initial charge to “fan into flame” our faith and be encouraged, but be perfectly willing to ignore the rest of his instructions to Timothy. But I don’t think Paul thought it was possible to have faith increase and have it expressed passionately without enduring hardship and suffering. And I don’t think Paul was merely talking about enduring the standard hardships that just come with life, he was talking, specifically, about suffering for the sake of the gospel. He was talking about persecution for the sake of his faith, targeted persecution from people who hated the messages he was spreading. 

How willing are we to embrace all of Paul’s message to Timothy? Do we only want to read 2 Timothy 1:6 and pretend that we can develop a passionate faith without persecution? How eager are we for our faith to be fanned into a flame?

Do We Know Him?

“We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”

-- I John 2:3-6

If we have truly studied the teachings of Jesus, without the conservative, patriotic, American filter, then this passage should make us very troubled, but it is amazing to me how many can read and/or listen to this passage and feel so comfortable and be so unfazed. I was wondering about this while listening to the sermon on this passage today, and it occurred to me that people feel most comfortable when they are ignorant of the truth. Most people feel comfortable with this passage because they believe that they are already doing what God has commanded of them. They believe that they are, in fact, following the teachings of Christ.

But are we...?

Are we willing to sell all we have (or anything at all) and give it to the poor? Are we willing to give up everything we own for the sake of following Christ? Will we lay down our lives for our faith? Would we really follow Jesus to the most depraved ends of the earth to spread the gospel? Can we love our enemies, even when they are Hamas, or Al Qaida or a brutal dictator or a communist or anyone else who would gladly kill someone who believes that Jesus is the Christ? Are we showing by the way we live that we are willing to make costly sacrifices for the sake of our brothers and sisters? Do we embrace suffering and “taking up our cross” for the sake of Christ? Can we love the unloveable?

The list goes on and on and the more I write the more a squirm. We have been duped into believing that Christian faith is all about going to church, being nice, singing fuzzy, feel-good songs, living morally and voting republican. We believe we are doing what God has commanded simply because of a single symbolic act of surrender and faithful or semi-faithful attendance at religious events. But many Christians don’t realize the depth of God’s commands because they have never truly studied his commands. Most Christians do not fully appreciate how costly and difficult (and how joyous and fulfilling) it is to follow the teachings of Jesus, because they have never taken the time to read, or study or try to understand the full scope of his teachings.  And even if they do read his most difficult commands they ignore the depths of the implications or they rationalize easier ways to fulfill what they consider the “intent” of the teaching. Or they believe that the teachings do not apply to them specifically because they haven’t felt the “calling” to do them. Too often our faith is shallow because we never even look for depth, we are perfectly content in our shallow ignorance. Why should I be threatened by I John if I believe all that matters is weekly attendance at church. If that is what God commands, I’m doing it and all is good. 

But all is not good. Most of us do little in the way of continuing to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Seldom does our gratitude to God compel us to live radically different lives that Jesus demonstrated for us. And the problem is not that we are not doing enough, the problem is that we do not know God like we should. Because, if we did, we would do so much more. Our obedience is an indicator of faith in the one who has given us life and our ignorance and/or disregard for how to be obedient speaks volumes about how distant we are from God.

Encourage One Another

As part of a more comprehensive discipline system at our school, an ideal, discovered through research somewhere no doubt, has been tossed around. The ideal says that a teacher should deliver 4 positive comments to a student for every negative comment. This has caused some teachers to contemplate how that might look in practice, especially with those students who tend to be a bit more challenging to keep a positive attitude towards. Since we are a cynical group, the wondering out loud has turned into some tongue in cheek practice. 

“Billy, your hair looks really nice today.”

“Hey, I like the daring way you wear shorts in the middle of winter.”

“Thank you for not insulting me this morning, that was really kind.”

“The way you avoided using profanity just now, showed great restraint.”

“That was great use of a period at the end of that one-sentence paragraph.”

Of course we understand the benefits of praising our students rather than putting them down, and the teachers joking about it are generally teachers that already have positive relationships with students. But sometimes reducing behaviors to data diminishes the intended result. If I try to stay mindful of the ratio, simply for the sake of maintaining the ratio, I begin making “positive” comments that are meaningless. Compliments become empty, especially if I don’t mean them and don’t believe them to be true. Words can be powerful, but they can also be nothing more than puffs of air.

I used to have a principal who believed in the power of positive comments. Each time he would visit a classroom, he would follow it with a “special note” in our box designed to encourage us as teachers. Generally he would praise our work and tell us how valuable we were to the school. At first I thought it was kind of cool, but over time the sentences and phrases appeared to be recycled and every note started to sound the same. One day I was in another teacher’s room and on the desk was a “special note” from the principal. It was almost identical, word-for-word, to the “special note” I had just received. It didn’t take long before the “special notes” became just more clutter in my box. Their frequency and seeming lack of genuineness, diluted their impact - they seemed forced and contrived. I’m sure he maintained the 4 to 1 ratio, but the positive words became meaningless.

Much is made of encouragement and I understand that I have a great deal of room for improvement in this area of my life, but I wonder if we often see encouragement too narrowly. We often try to reduce encouragement to words of praise. In 2 Timothy Paul combines encouragement with the words “correct” and “rebuke.” He pairs it with “rebuke” again in Titus and tells Titus to “encourage the young men to be self-controlled.” In Hebrews we are told to be encouraged that we will be disciplined by God like a father disciplines his son. And frequently Paul says that he is encouraged by those that he is writing, not because they praised him, but because they are simply living out what he taught them - living godly lives.

Words of praise are great, but they are also quick and easy and only one aspect of encouragement. Words of praise may not “encourage young men to be self-controlled,” that might also take some other words, spoken firmly, but in love. Discipline is not always fun, sometimes it is downright painful, but it encourages us to do what is right. Even a rebuke can be encouraging if it is done in love and by someone we respect. It may not seem encouraging at first, but I know from experience, as time passes, I am encouraged that another cared enough to say the hard thing that no one else would. Jesus did not always “encourage” his disciples with lofty words of praise. In fact, if he wasn’t Jesus, we might say he was, at times, rather insulting to them. How many times did he say, in effect, “why are you so dense that you still don’t get it?” 

I tend to not think of myself as an encourager because I tend to be rather negative. I seem to have a gift (or curse) for seeing what is wrong. Some would call me a “glass is half empty” kind of guy. I guess I would see myself much the same, but I don’t think of that as entirely bad. If I only focus on the fact that the glass is half empty, then certainly that can be discouraging, but if I see the empty half of the glass as a problem and work to fill it, that can be encouraging. People who are not content with a half full glass are the people who are the entrepreneurs, risk takers and innovators of our world. They are incredibly encouraging to be around, but they are not often filled with praises for others who are content with the status quo of a half full glass. The trick is to move from obsession with the emptiness of the glass to action that will fill it up - it is only then that it becomes encouraging. But it is then that encouragement might also be paired with rebuke and discipline and firm words, rather than words of praise. There might be temporary pain and anguish, but if done right (especially with passion tempered with love and compassion) there can be long term encouragement that far exceeds shallow words of praise.

Thomas

I’m sitting here, holed-up in my office wanting to write. There are things on my mind and struggles in my heart. I missed a meeting tonight that I have been anticipating all week and I suddenly feel like a loser. I had things to say - things to bring to the table that I thought were important. Maybe they weren’t as important as I thought they were and God was saving me from embarrassment or from offending people I shouldn’t. Maybe he was saving me from myself.

So instead I am sitting here reading, pondering and reminiscing - thinking about writing.

As much as the idea of community has been on my mind lately, I still find myself closest to God when I am by myself. As I was reading my book I was reminded that I am not really by myself, which, I suppose, is why I feel the way I do. Sometimes the distractions of other people, even those I love dearly, prevent me from remembering that God is present, and my time alone is like a filter that allows me to focus on his presence.

But I still wish God would pull up a chair and reveal himself to me and have a chat with me. I wish I could see him face to face, hear him speak some great words of encouragement (like, “hey you should quit your day job and I’ll work out a way for you to earn a living writing and preaching!”). I want to see his expressions when I tell him about another goofy idea that I have. I want to see that first reaction that you get from close friends who tell you by the look on their face that you are teetering on the edge of lunacy. I know all that stuff, like if I saw God’s face it would kill me. Intellectually I understand that. But emotionally I yearn for more, just a glimpse that lets me know that I’m not as crazy as my non-Christian friends think I am. 

Of course he is looking over my shoulder while I write, probably shaking his head, maybe even giving a little spiritual snicker of exasperation. He is here, I know he is. He is reading as I write. Well, maybe he is reading before I write, I’m not really sure how that works for him. Technically, I guess, he already knows my concluding thoughts. Nonetheless, he is here - in this room, beside me, in front of me, in me. He is waiting for me to speak - to speak the words he already knows - and even more he is waiting for me to listen. But sometimes he is so hard to hear and so hard to see. 

I’m more like Thomas than I want to believe. Despite all my religious posturing I am still full of doubts. And yet... God is here. I know he is. And despite my doubts I sense his comfort and his patience. My doubts do not drive him away, in fact there are times, like tonight, when they seem to draw me closer to him. 

I think that was the ending he had in mind from the beginning.

Event Addiction

Big events do not produce greater faith - small daily events do. Big events may stir passion, but momentary passion seldom equates to faithful, consistent, spiritual growth. Big events sometimes cause an addiction to big events because we confuse the passion stirred during a big event for an increase in faith. When daily life hits and the passion fades, we look for another big event to boost our faith. But if the passion stirred at a big event does not lead to change in the, seemingly insignificant daily events of life, then the "growth" produced at the big event was nothing more than an illusion. If our faith needs the next big event to sustain itself, perhaps we are addicted to something other than Jesus Christ.

True change happens when we surrender daily, not just at a passionate event that stirs us to move to the front of a stage. Faith grows when we surrender every day even when we do not feel like surrendering. Faith does not grow simply because the emotion of a climatic moment at a rally or retreat compels us to fall on our knees with dozens or hundreds of others doing the same.

Faith grows when we work through trials, when we persevere and endure, when we sacrifice, when we serve, and when choose to rejoice when we feel like doing anything but. Faith grows when we study, when we pray, when we wait, and when we open ourselves to others who are doing the same, even when it is awkward and uncomfortable. Faith even grows when we are alone with the word and in the closet on our knees.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed - not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in  you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
          Philippians 12:12-13

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer... Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
          Acts 2:42, 46-47