All posts by Rod White

The Advent pilgrimage — 5 things to try

A life in the Spirit, , ,

This is a good day to start a pilgrimage. It is the second day of Advent, the season that begins the Christian year. An “advent” is the coming of something expected. God is coming in the person of Jesus to be God with us. God’s coming as a baby invites us to begin again, ourselves, and go through our own process of maturation until we move though death into resurrection life with Him.

I take all my vacations as a pilgrimage. If I have my head on straight, I take a trip to Rite-Aid as a pilgrimage. My definition of a pilgrimage includes welcoming the unexpected, even the unwanted as part of my journey with Jesus. A pilgrimage allows me to see God at work in all sorts of new situations that tests my capacity to trust him. I discover, again and again, that beyond my ordinary awareness God is present and leading. So I don’t take vacations anymore; I’d rather inhabit what is happening than vacate. That’s more like God becoming Emmanuel, I think.

Last week many Americans (especially if they were in elementary school) remembered the persecuted separatists from the English Church, called THE Pilgrims, who created a place for themselves in Massachusetts. The kids learned that a pilgrim is a person who goes on a long journey, often with a religious or moral purpose, often a journey to a place that is foreign to them. The Pilgrims who had the famous thanksgiving feast thought of themselves as those kind of pilgrims. Here’s some evidence: After the Mayflower arrived, the first baby born to the Pilgrims who sailed on it was a boy. His parents (William and Susannah White!) named him Peregrine – a word which applies to a person travelling from far away and also means “pilgrim.” When Governor William Bradford wrote about the group’s departure for America he said: “They knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country; and quieted their spirits.”

Everybody in the story of Christ’s coming is something of a pilgrim. The wise men come all the way from Persia looking for what their studies revealed. John the Baptist goes into the wilderness and then out to the Jordan River where people journey to meet him and repent. Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem and then to Egypt and back. The shepherds go to Bethlehem to see the Savior and then go all over the countryside to tell everyone about him. Where are you going? God has come from heaven and Jesus is taking first steps as a human and leading through death into life. Are you a similar pilgrim?

Advent is a season for beginning the journey. Some people reading this are just getting to know Jesus and every step is fresh and maybe unnerving. More people reading this are challenged to begin again, to not stay put, to not let the notables in the well-known “Christmas” story just pass them by.

How do we get started? We have a few weeks to figure that out. I think each of the main players in the story offers a very good example of what to do:

1) Go somewhere.

This whole season will be filled with places to go that are not really spiritual places at all — take Best Buy, for instance — perhaps your office “winter holiday” party. Plan at least one event in your season that is like being a wise man searching for the Savior. Take half a day off and call it “searching for the Savior time.” Walk by the river. Sit in the cathedral. Follow the star like the wise men.

2) Experience wilderness.

The whole season is exquisitely designed, these days, to be absolutely fake. We even disguise trees and put them in our living rooms! But you don’t really need to travel very far from Philly before you can see actual stars. Or just sit down in the park or on your step, and experience the weather. Listen to God in creation like John the Baptist.

3) Fulfill an obligation.

It is true that the obligation to observe Christmas can be oppressive. The “holiday spirit” is so omnipresent that nonbelievers have to get involved! Even Jesus followers end up resenting it and sulk through the season. But taking on the discipline of the spiritual pilgrimage of Advent can be liberating. It does not require tinsel, cooking or forced feelings of warmth.  It does, however, require intention, honor, and determination — like Joseph listening to God and marrying his already-pregnant betrothed, then fleeing with his new family to Egypt. Every act of compassion is like becoming a refugee from your comfort zone. Going to a party to give light instead of looking for feelings you don’t have might be better for you. Listening to God and acting out the best response you can think of would be a good use of the season.

4) Escape.

There is no doubt that this season is filled with escapism that needs to be escaped. How many babies will you see decorated like the one in the picture? Maybe you should deliberately skip doing something that you would not do unless it was expected of you — like making those cookies or going to that thing in New York. The REAL baby Jesus and that baby in you might need some extra protection, some kind of symbolic act that demonstrates they are important. Run for your life like Mary clutching her baby on the way to Egypt.

5) Go tell your story.

Maybe you have no freedom to make a lot of choices or have little money to spend on interesting ways to be a pilgrim. Don’t fret. You can be on a “speaking tour” as you move through your day. Your latest experience with Jesus is worth telling. Move around your own countryside telling about the Savior that is born to everyone, Christ the Lord, just like the shepherds did. It might help to remember that they did not have an idea in their heads about how this was supposed to be done, they just did it like they were themselves, not who they were supposed to be.

Just keep moving. Advent is a pilgrimage. Your inward journey will be greatly benefited if you have outward movement that helps it. If you can manage to not get pushed around by the wacky holiday thing the world does (or manage to not merely resist that wacky thing), maybe you can experience what the people in the true story are experiencing.

That feeling of obligation could be good for you (or bad)

Building community, Leadership

Last week at the Cell Leader training, I only made one comment but I heard a lot about it later. Alison was talking about people who feel obligated and I decided to bring out a long-taught response: “I do not want to travel with people who merely feel obligated. If they don’t have the passion to be a cell leader (or to participate in other ways), they should spare us their begrudging ‘sacrifice.’ No one is obligated to serve the Lord. No one is coerced into receiving from the Lord what they have been given.” It was something like that — only maybe it sounded crabbier or more reactive.

However I communicated it, I still think my point is crucial, and it is often missed in the rush to not be inconvenienced by Jesus. It is not the only point to make when people are talking about their sense of obligation and how unsatisfying and troubling it seems. But it is important.

1) Burned out

Sometimes, people say they are “burned out” on serving and are only doing their duty out of obligation. Ex-cell leaders form an affinity group and have similar stories to tell about why they don’t want to do that again. They seem to be functioning fine otherwise, but when it comes to cell leading (or some other need the church has) they get burned out. We’ve talked about  this quite  bit this year.

Continue reading That feeling of obligation could be good for you (or bad) →

Who knows but that God made Circle of Hope for such a Trump time as this?

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Maybe we have some Esther in us. When plots against the Jews were uncovered in the Persian capital, one of the king’s favorite wives, Esther, was well-placed to do something about it. But there were great risks to face! She was one of the Jews being slandered; she was just one of many wives; she was not sure whether she would not be killed if she appeared unbidden before the king. But her uncle laid out the situation to her again: Terrible things were about to happen and she was in danger, as well as her people. He said, “Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” So she told everyone to fast and pray and said, “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (see Esther 4).

 

Now we will need to “Go to the Trump.” Maybe that has always been inevitable. My twenties began with the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency and ended with the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s We sat on our porch and talked very seriously about how we needed to be ready for the police state to rule us. We told each other we needed to be an alternative community to sustain ourselves in the coming time of troubles, as well as to hold out the light of Christ. There was plenty of trouble, but not the collapse of civilization we expected. And ever since, I have witnessed inspired people fighting hard for the poor, for rights, and for goodness when the government was doing things wrong. There are still a lot of inspired people doing the same thing. But there is also the fruit of this stream of power-mad, self-interested, pure-capitalists that resulted in Donald Trump.

In a perverse way, the president-elect is very good for the radical Christian “business,” since he causes the right kind of disgust and desperation with the world. The Bible writers think those feelings of conviction and repentance should be normative for anyone who has met Jesus. But generally, they are not normative for Christians in the United States. Yet here we are. Just like Esther was dragged out of her perfumed harem and into the necessity of the looming disaster, so are we are dragged out of our denial, or stupor, or relative comfort, or wherever and into the necessity of facing a fearsome future. “Who knows but that God made Circle of Hope for such a time as this?”

If you look at the goals we set last June after a few months of good thinking, they seem rather prophetic to me. We must have been ready then for what is now.

We said “This year we we are going to”

Help thirsty people meet Jesus:

This is the big thing. When they finally admit the government is a big shoving match between the elites, when 25% of the eligible voters elect the president who did not even get the majority of the votes people deigned to cast (if they were not felons or suppressed) then maybe, just maybe, people will realize they need the Savior they have. Our alternativity is the living proof people need that there is another way.

Strengthen our mutuality:

We really do not know what will happen to every despised minority (like radical Christians, too!). What if we have a war, a police state, a financial meltdown, a climate meltdown? We need to take care of each other.

Create jobs and strengthen our finances:

This is also an ambitious response to needing to take care of ourselves when the societal climate won’t. I am not expecting the financial bonanza Trump promises to reach us, do you? We need to find our own way and not be so dependent on the unstable and immoral government.

Open our eyes to the power of technology:

Didn’t the manipulation of the media just result in a predatory slanderer being elected? Didn’t Hillary’s dependence on her data sink her? Didn’t we all buy in for two years? Isn’t the leader of the Breitbart slander machine head of the transition? We need to start thinking more clearly.

Long term, we said we needed to address four big problems that are looming, We don’t know what is going to happen in the world, of course, but we are also not without hope or wisdom.

The Northeast megalopolis is losing contact with Jesus

We are here for a time like this. We were purposefully planted in the middle of the megalopolis to be the light in the darkness.

The “one percent” is effectively enslaving many people

We are here for a time like this. We need a compassionate, creative response to capitalism, especially now, since a man who can sell an empty brand name is president. Our mutuality web is not just for us, it is also for the people who are going to fall off the edge of the disasters first: the undocumented, the gentrified poor, the mentally ill, the broken families, veterans, felons, and anyone who is not considered lawful and orderly.

Large forces are threatening our children

We are here for a time like this. The internet is full of psychological land mines. The schools are run for profit. The scourge of data and legalism is everywhere. We need village parenting more than ever.

Advances in technology are undermining incarnation and blurring the image of God

We are here for a time like this. It always seems like an abstract thing to point out; we are having a hard time getting our minds around it —  but we must not underestimate what technology is doing. It is not only destroying the climate, it is undermining what it means to be human. It is creating a new humanity faster than we are helping Jesus to do. Yes, there are people who are fighting against every bad expression of our escalating powers, but each day increases the data cloud taking various shapes we have never encountered before. We need to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves, unleash our best prophets and stay deeply connected to our place, our community and our Lord.

“Who knows but that God made Circle of Hope for such a time as this?”

I am not even sure what time it is, yet. But we are certainly awakened to the horrible possibilities that have been simmering for decades. Our situation is not new to God’s people, perhaps it just seems new to us. But we have been preparing ourselves and being prepared for a long time to be our own faithful response to this very circumstance that seems so surprising and difficult. May we have Esther’s courage in the face of it.

The Whitelash and This Year’s Thoughts about the Election

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Van Jones said it was a whitelashVan Jones became my favorite CNN commentator during the election. I agree with his summation of what happened yesterday: “This was a rebellion against the elites, true. It was a complete reinvention of politics and polls, it’s true. But it was also something else. This was a whitelash. This was a whitelash against a changing country. It was a whitelash against a black president in part, and that’s the part where the pain comes. And Donald Trump has a responsibility tonight to come out and reassure people that he is going to be the president of all the people who he insulted and offended and brushed aside.”

It was also a whitelash against the thought of woman president. And, unfortunately for any hope I have of evangelism, it was a whitelash against the “godless people who have taken over the government and the Supreme Court that aids and abets them.”

This was my Facebook summation last night: “OK. I voted. To paraphrase Paul on both his prophetic and practical sides: In Christ there is no Republican or Democrat; Jesus is Lord. In the voting booth I voted to bring as much justice as I could with my measly vote. Now back to the everyday transformative work we do…with joy.”

Friends, let’s get back to the reality that Jesus does not need the American government to do His work.  Let’s have confidence in the kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let’s remember how Jesus told us, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Let’s return to the mentality Paul taught us: “The time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not;  those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep;  those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.”

I wrote a lot about the campaign, beginning back in May when Circle of Hope did some theology together about what elections mean to God. In retrospect, some of the basic teaching might be useful today as so many of us are trying to make sense of where we are now and what Jesus calls us to do.

Here are excerpts from seven blog posts. Hit the titles to take the link to each piece.

Oct 18 — The alternative to politics: take hold of that for which Jesus took hold of me

On the other hand, I am appalled that we are paying so much attention to two bonafide members of the one percent duking it out to be king or queen of the elite. Hillary Clinton is so cozy with the world’s domination system it would be surprising if she manages to see outside the bubble. The people at the top really think they own the world and need to take care of it. At least Donald Trump is generally despised among the elite as a brash idiot who can’t help opening the curtain and exposing all the secrets. We all tune in and suck up the illusion that we are not their slaves. Many people believe that one of them is somehow going to represent their interests.

debate vs hillary donald
Still my favorite GIF of the election.

Sep 27 — If someone puts the Geiger counter on you, stand in grace

I admit that Donald Trump made me pull my hair out last night — interrupting, bullying, talking about 400 pound people and other tabloid interests. It was kind of embarrassing.

But I also learned a bit about what people like about him. Here’s what I think: Everyone is becoming a bit sick of what I call “Geiger counter” accountability. What I mean is the feeling that some kind of powerful person or entity is holding a tester over you to pick up some tiny particle of being out of line. We’re always setting off the no-go alarm. We’re always getting the red notice that we have not filled out the inexplicable form properly (like I just experienced with a City of Philadelphia form). The Donald is just so splendidly incorrect, he gives us hope that a real person might be acceptable in reality. Hillary Clinton has somehow mastered so much material that she can actually function well in political unreality.

Sep 20 — I am sick of the campaign…but still alternative.

I get discouraged. But then the Holy Spirit revives my hope again. Sin happens every day – and will keep happening inside us and out. We’re sick. But our work in the Lord is not in vain. My wounds are not permanent. Our sins could not keep Jesus in the grave. I still know we are the alternative, and we need to be: a circle of hope wherever God takes us.

Jul 29 — About Hillary — we can do better

It is tempting to spend another four years hoping things will get better – and the government can and does makes things better, as it should. But we still don’t put our hope “in chariots and horses,” that is, in the capacity to threaten ISIS, the wealth to promise free education, or the exceptionalism of our supposed democracy. So let’s not fall into temptation. Someplace, Jesus needs a platform to speak the truth. Someplace, normal people need to struggle face to face in faith and do what they can do, not dependent on their corporate overlords to allow it. Someplace, the alternative to two years of vying to be the top dog has to be available. The church is the Lord’s people and we are, like it or not, the best hope of giving people real hope in a 46%-43% society. I think our witness has been drowned out by big money, big systems and our own complicity (in general). But Jesus is still making connections and is still using us. I’m with Him.

July 22 — About Trump — we can do better

I live among people who are not happy with Trump. But sometimes I think they are posturing, since they probably have a relative from the South or Middle Pennsylvania (or keeping quiet in Philly, at least) who thinks Trump is great. So they must have some sense of affinity with the guy. Don’t worry if you do or you don’t — It is crazy politics, people, but it is still just politics. And even if the election turns out to be a life and death matter for some people, we are still Jesus followers. Every election serves to remind us why we are glad to have a savior who triumphs over death. I don’t say that in a fatalistic way, just a realistic one. I know Americans think they can control everything so nothing bad will happen or happen again, but how many times does our control system need to be proven faulty until we give up on it?

May 9 — We have no king but Bernie?

I sent in my absentee ballot, but, I have to admit, I did not even pray about it.

That’s mainly because I remember the crowd Pilate drew to his rally during the Passover feast in Jerusalem when the powers that be infiltrated an audience that would normally have gone for Jesus (and had just a week before) and got people to use the system to get Barabbas off and Jesus crucified. When Pilate asked them, “Do you want me to crucify your king?” they shouted, “We have no other king but Caesar.” Sometimes crowds get it right; but I am not trusting the vote to fulfill my hopes. They might not recognize the Son of God if he were standing right in front of them!

We are going to do some theology about elections on May 2 because even radical Christians react to U.S. elections like they are crucial to justice and world peace. Many feel, even if they don’t act, like the president (and whoever those other elected officials are) is even important to their faith. There are a lot of good historical reasons for that attitude, which has almost no relation to anything happening in the Bible, certainly not in the life of Jesus. The feeling of importance is hard to shake off when you live in the most recent preeminent empire, which loves to call itself the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth (see Bernie’s website, linked above). Living in it makes you think, that even if the 1% effectively own the government, your vote is going to start a revolution, you are just that special.

May 5 — Elections: Constantine, Trump, etc.

The Anabaptist’s disgust with Constantinianism is not about the sincerity with which Constantinian Christians use top-down, coercive, worldly power or about the goodness of the ends toward which they wield such power. The shift labeled “Constantinian” is the willingness of God’s people to deform their specific God-given identity by merging with worldly power structures and using top-down, coercive, worldly power to accomplish what God has given his people to do without such power.

John Howard Yoder said: “The most pertinent fact about the new state of things after Constantine and Augustine is not that Christians were no longer persecuted and began to be privileged, nor that emperors built churches and presided over ecumenical deliberations about the Trinity; what matters is that the two visible realities, church and world, were fused.” That is one reason Americans can spend two years electing the president. People think it is VERY important.

We need evangelized: 3 things that show it

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evangelized rodents

Every day, I need evangelized. Like Paul said of Abraham, the faithful friend of God:

“He did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20-21).

I am also not wavering. But I need to be strengthened. I need to be fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he promises. This strengthening and persuasion happens every day.

To be honest, we, as a church, need to keep the spark of evangelism stoked among us and through us or we might “waver through unbelief” like Paul fears the Romans might waver (or why bring up Abraham, right?). If Paul looked over our church, he might be writing a letter to our leaders and to all of us when he saw the kinds of things we do rather than persuading people that God has the power to do what he promises through Jesus Christ.

Here are three things we tend to do these days that show we need evangelized — no judgment, just things to think and talk about.

We manage lovelessness

This week, all sorts of people are going to bring out the four horsemen in their relationships at home, in your cell and with the leaders. We are going to be tempted to manage the symptoms of their lovelessness rather than teach a better way. Rather than reconcile after our teaching causes conflict, we will be tempted to keep things calm by not confronting the life-sucking lack of love and keeping our mouths shut. We try to manage the lovelessness. This managing rarely succeeds and the territory of the loveless expands rather than stays in the boundaries we set. Basically, we spawn a dysfunctional family like that from which many of us came.

The dysfunction is easy to see when we elevate new leaders (and we often do that, don’t we?!). The loveless test them. We have four relatively new pastors, new Cell Leader Coordinators, new Leadership Team members, and new Cell Leaders. Many tell me similar stories about people who are covenant members  and so have already agreed to love their leaders, build the church, give money, follow the Map, etc., etc. and yet cause an argument in every meeting they attend, or refuse to attend the meeting because they are hurt or mad. The temptation is to manage their lovelessness rather than insist on reconciliation in honor of Jesus.

We need evangelized. We can’t love unless we are attached to the mother/father love of Jesus.

Ahem. Beat Pittsburgh and Lancaster (but not Dallas!)

We stick with principled theology without the motivation of the Holy Spirit.

In our case this “principle-based” theology is often a breed of Protestantism that has an “imperial gaze.” What I mean is, almost all of us grew up in a church that was fully a part of Eurocentric/American thinking. [Consider Migrations of the Holy]. A common way we think about what is right, therefore, can be subsumed under the heading “perfecting democracy” or “giving a voice to the voiceless.” Many people think goodness is mainly about distributing the limited “pie” of social power, power we think we have or power we think we need in order to get by. The church is still seen as part of the imperial system and not actually an expression of the alternative to that system, an expression of the “voiceless” Jesus. Basically, our theology can lean into being an accommodated, if idealistic, element of America Inc. [Consider The Economy of Desire]

You can see this theology among us when we try to act in solidarity with people we have stereotyped by singing their music or by appropriating their culture in some way, even when they are not part of our community and not consulted. The imperial gaze roams the earth looking for people to conform to its superiority, looking for experiences it has not yet consumed, and looking for people it has not yet exploited. Solidarity with people we know and love is elemental to the gospel. (We had a Dia de los Muertos observance last week complete with Aztec dancers — the leader of the troupe being part of our church!). But learning someone’s culture for the sake of novelty or faux inclusion is not the gospel. Perfecting democracy and advancing human rights is not the gospel. Speaking up for people who are oppressed is certainly an expression of Jesus followers who love others. But such speaking does not save people, Jesus does that.

We need evangelized. We can’t be free of our self-interest and grasping for power unless we are empowered by the Holy Spirit and humbly submitted to obeying God’s call.

We acclimate to the inflexibilities of an established community.

I know this is all sounding negative, but I suppose some people in Rome thought that what Paul wrote to them was negative, too. Many of us are more committed to nothing being negative than we are to a practical life in Christ — we might even be “devoted” to our anxiety! Thus a great number of us might not be able to take any of the spiritual risks that mark a person who trusts God — or we might theoretically approve of “risk” (see the previous point) but leave the risk-taking to the “risk department.” Thus we have trouble adapting to our changing neighborhoods. We can’t imagine investing in the future of our mission. Some don’t listen to the possibilities of a troubled marriage. We might never invite people to our meetings because we predetermine how difficult that might be for them and never even find out what they really think about us. We end up, basically, living behind the walls of our “settlement” and are no longer an expansive, journeying tribe of pioneers.

We have been able to see this trait among us this year as we have disrupted the homeostasis so much! On the one hand, we have weathered the self-imposed storm well. We added new pastors, new leaders, changed my role around, planted a new congregation and are now contemplating new buildings! Amazing! All these things would cause any organization to stumble around like they just entered the dark living room after shutting off the bathroom light in the middle of the night.  On the other hand, we lost 50 people, we did not meet our financial goal (yet), and we ran into how stuck some of are individually and how slow to change our system can be. And, like I said, every time we tried to do something new, we encountered conflict (see point one). Such problems are to be expected, but they certainly present a challenging way to grow! Change brings out the best and worst in people.

We need evangelized. We can’t evangelize, can’t confront the long-term intricacies of transformation unless we know we are eternal and have a living relationship with God.

Life is hard. Being truly alive in Christ is even harder, it seems. We feel anxious about our lives. We react with avoidance of suffering and frantic acquisition of comfort. We need evangelized! So Jesus says about all the things he told he disciples the night before he went to the cross:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

And Peter, who totally choked on his huge anxiety when Jesus was being tried and executed, wrote:

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

And Paul, who wrote such challenging things to the Romans, ended his letter with:

“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another…”

He did not think they were wavering.

“…Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:14-16).

He knew they needed as much persuasion as they could get because life is hard. And being truly alive in Christ is even harder, it seems.

12 Things spiritually wise people do not do.

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Our character is tested every day. We need wisdom to survive.

Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
    love her, and she will watch over you. — Proverbs 4:6

Wisdom is hard to find. If you talk to social scientists they will tell you it is a combination of IQ, EQ and personality and toss in a description of brain research to verify what they say. That’s all fine, but while we are trying to apply their science, we are being tested. We are dealing with toxic relationships, maybe a dead-end job, or a struggling marriage or family issue. Whatever the challenge, Jesus calls us to see things through a new lens, take confident action and keep moving in the wisdom God provides.

It sounds easy, but it isn’t.

Spiritually wise people find a way to see and act that allows them to go a different way from the self-destructive crowd. Where others see impenetrable barriers, they tend to see opportunities for faith, hope and love or they see challenges to overcome trouble with the strength Jesus provides.

Too many people fall prey to the mistaken belief that inner strength comes from natural, unteachable traits that belong only to a lucky few. It’s a common misconception. In reality, faithful, available and teachable people can grow in spiritual wisdom and grow in effective application of it. Social scientists helpfully label various quadrants of our being and define common experiences and behaviors that we can watch to good effect, but spiritual wisdom goes deeper.

Wise people imitate.

Getting wisdom mystifies a few of us because it is somewhat intangible. But we can learn it from people we know who have it. Like Paul tells the Corinthian church:

“Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. “ — 1 Corinthians 11:1

If you’re up for it, start with these twelve things that spiritually wise people are careful to avoid.  Each of these categories started, for me, with a category an EQ salesman concocted. I quickly realized that his science had led him back to the Bible! So see what you think. Wisdom from social sciences agree with the Bible that we should consciously avoid these behaviors because they lead us to destruction.

  1. They don’t stay in their comfort zone.

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7

Let’s just say spiritually wise people no longer think their comfort zones define reality. They live with God in a comfort zone that does not depend on their circumstances working out according to plan. This makes them brave enough to look into eternity and to look into the depths of themselves – neither being immediately comfortable places. But one does not become wise unless they dare to look at someone and something outside themselves.

  1. They don’t give in to fear.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. – Isaiah 41:30

They say that bravery is being scared to death to do something and doing it anyway. Many times, that’s true, even when it comes to one’s career, or marriage, or spiritual experience. The fear doesn’t have to come from facing something extreme like rushing into a burning building; it can be a fear of public speaking or going out on a limb to try for a promotion or expressing your needs and desires. Spiritually wise people are as afraid as anyone else, probably, they simply trust God, respect their gifts and fight on regardless of the fear.

  1. They don’t stop believing in their potential.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5

Spiritually wise people persevere. They don’t give up in the face of failure, and they don’t give up because they are tired or uncomfortable. They are focused on their goals, not on momentary feelings, and that keeps them going even when things are hard. They don’t take failing to mean that they’re a failure. Likewise, they don’t let the opinions of others keep them from fulfilling their calling. When someone says, “You’ll never be able to do that,” they check that opinion out with God.

  1. They don’t beg for attention.

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. – 1 Corinthians 4:3

People who are always begging for attention are soaking up energy they should be distributing. We are tempted to rely on the attention of others to form an identity – we are what others see in us, or say we are, or allow us to be. Spiritually wise people do not make relationships like that. They do what they want to do and what needs to be done, regardless of whether anyone is protecting their fragile self-image. They find their main source of attention by attending to God and finding God’s love and hope in those who follow Jesus.

5. They don’t act like jerks.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. – Ephesians 4:32

Acting like a “jerk” is a relative term – being mean is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. But you probably have an idea of what I mean, and may have some opinions about when you are acting like a jerk. People act like jerks when they act out of the things that make them unhappy and insecure. They act like jerks because they don’t have the strength to be nice when they don’t feel like it, to forgive as they have been forgiven. Spiritually wise people place high value on their relationships, which means they treat everyone with respect, regardless of the kind of mood they’re in. They love like Jesus.

Ravens hold grudges against cheaters
  1. They don’t hold grudges.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. – Ephesians 4:31

Spiritually wise people know they are not just looking out for themselves when they overcome evil with good. But not doing self-destructive things, like holding a grudge, is actually good for them, too. The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on one’s body and can have negative health consequences over time. Researchers have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Grudges not only wreck the body politic and the body of Christ, they wreck our own bodies.

7. They don’t hang around negative people.

Do not associate with a man given to anger; or go with a hot-tempered man,
or you will learn his ways and find a snare for yourself. – Proverbs 22:24-5

“Negative” is a judgment we need to apply judiciously. Because people act in ways we label “negative” because they can’t solve problems and can’t focus on mutual solutions. They often try to draw people into blaming others for their faults and failures so they can feel better about themselves. We often feel pressure to listen to negative people because we don’t want to be callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear to someone and getting sucked into their downward emotional spiral. Spiritually wise people avoid getting drawn in by setting limits and distancing themselves from negative people when necessary; it is possible to judge a situation without being judgmental.

  1. They don’t feel entitled.

For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? – 1 Corinthians 4:7

Spiritually wise people know that the world is a gift. They soberly assess what they have been given and freely exercise it without competition. They do not worry about their earning power and are not subject to the meritocracy. Yet they are also free to work hard and deserve what they earn.  They live in a world that has love behind it, so they can love it back, not fight over maintaining a locus of control within themselves or be solely responsible for their successes or failures.

  1. They don’t close their minds. 

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. – 1 Corinthians 2:14

When people close their minds to new information or opinions, it’s usually because they find them threatening. They think admitting someone else is right means they’re wrong, and that’s very uncomfortable for people lacking spiritual wisdom. Jesus followers are not threatened by new things; they are open to new information and new ideas, even if it means admitting that they were wrong. Their wisdom is based on following their Guide into what is next, eternally, fearlessly.

  1. They don’t let anyone limit their joy. 

Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. – 2 Corinthians 10:12

WWise people have their joy. Comparisons are odious.hen our sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing ourselves with others, they have become our masters. When spiritually wise people feel good about who they are or what they have done, they don’t let another’s detraction or a comparison with another’s accomplishments steal their joy. Even when they need forgiveness or have failed, they still have a kernel of joy inside that comes from being the beloved of God. We are free to listen to others and learn from them, even when they hurt us or just barely know what they are talking about. But our main interest is how God thinks of us. The Lord’s view is incisively true but overwhelmingly kind.

11. They don’t get eaten up by jealousy and envy.

For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? – 1 Corinthians 3:3

Spiritually wise people understand that the happiness and success of others doesn’t take away from their own, so jealousy and envy aren’t an issue for them. They see grace as being in unlimited supply, so they can celebrate the successes of others. They are not clawing their way to get a piece of a limited pie anymore, so they can share with others and rely on someone else to care for them, as well.

  1. They don’t live in the past.

For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord. – Jeremiah 29:11-14

Failure can erode our self-confidence and make it hard to believe we will have a better outcome in the future. Most of the time, failure results from taking risks and trying to achieve things that aren’t easy. Spiritually wise people know that success lies in their ability to “rise from the dead.” Jesus followers, of all people, know their past is forgiven and their future is bright. So they are free to take risks to be true selves and loving members of humanity because they know that their past failures as a human cannot stop them. When you live in the past, that is exactly what happens—your past becomes your present and prevents you from moving forward.

So what do you think of this recasting of thoughts from the EQ community? Maybe you would like to add further things to the list. What DON’T spiritually wise people do?

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Three radical facts about sharing money

Building community, , , , , ,

We had to start talking about money. We were not meeting the goal we set. Drat.

For a church, organizing people to give money to support their life together and mission can be painful these days. In general, the Church is so into the ways of capitalism (where EVERYTHING is “monetized”) it is hard to tell a megachurch from a big box store, sometimes.

Meanwhile, many people are totally turned off to any mention of money or financial obligations clogging up their personal space — if Jesus is saving them from anything, it MUST be the constant barrage of oppressive advertising that demands a purchase every five seconds. They are totally wrong about this, but if the church is asking for money, it looks suspiciously like everything else trying to rob them.

Joel Osteen and Rick Warren are reportedly worth $40 million and $25 million respectively. So I think people can be forgiven if they think Christians are in it for the money — there is a lot of evidence to support that. I don’t know about Joel and Rick, but that is a lot of wealth, guys!

So our pastors and other leaders are very tempted to just keep their mouths shut. If you just TALK about money, people can get nervous. Not everyone, of course, but certainly those who are not sharing are likely to get agitated. But here I am about to talk. I need to say SOMETHING, since I think people are not respecting themselves and others if they do not share what they have like Jesus shared the life of God with them.

So here are three facts about sharing money I think everyone, especially radicals, should consider.

Sharing centers the focus

We need to know this and tell ourselves and others (like our loved ones!), “My money has a purpose for Jesus.” Like Jesus says, “If one’s eye is whole, the whole body is filled with light.” Sharing generously, with an eye on the security of grace and the promise of eternity, makes a mighty contribution to a life which fearlessly exercises freedom. Not sharing money (and all the other gifts entrusted to us) shifts the focus to fear.

Sharing is about fighting back

Sharing resources to support a common, alternative community is fundamental to undermining the status quo. If we do not share, we are individual sitting ducks for the huge powers that seek to dominate us with every ad on every possible surface, embedded in every possible communication.

Projecting your frustration with the corrosive marketing of the world onto the church is just not right! The church makes a request and you think it is an ad? Are we really going to let the world force us into such constant defensiveness that we will never open up and share? The church of Jesus is not the world, it is the antidote to self-destruction!

Sharing makes us real

“But,” I think people feel, “if I share like that, I am that person” — a committed sharer. “I am adult,” maybe stuck, obligated — everything that makes me unfree. Millennials are kind of cheap, afraid, it is said. They are 9/11 and financial crisis people.  They are afraid of debt, hold their assets in cash, don’t even like to invest. They spend less on dinner and spend less on Jesus. What a reputation!

I think sharing makes a person real. (We’ve all read the Velveteen Rabbit, right?). Sharing in the church’s common fund is sharing in a common life of love. It is a regular reinvestment in not leaving, and instead, being tangibly present right now. I am amazed at how many of us have not shared a penny this whole year, as if the church belonged to someone else and not us! What do we express of Jesus, who shares resurrection life with humanity, when we have no similar love to His, no sacrificial instinct, no trust that we are eternally provided for and so can lose our lives and still expect to save them?

Self-giving love, sacrifice, trust — everyone has something like those hopes and graces at work in them, but it seems radical to express them in a world like ours as a person like me. Sharing money: as friends, as married couples, as a team, and certainly as the church, changes the world and changes me in a very practical way.

The alternative to politics: take hold of that for which Jesus took hold of me

The Mission, ,

This election is killing me. I want to stay away from it, but I am fascinated. I may even watch the final debate tomorrow. Like the proverb says: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.”

On the one hand I am fascinated by Hillary Clinton, the first woman president. What fire it takes to do what she is doing! She was criticized by the pundits after the last debate for not “taking Trump out.” She was criticized for somehow not bullying Donald Trump! Just that one criticism kills me, among the thirty years of investigation she has been under. She was the most admired woman in the world before she decided to run for president, now she gets journalistically groped every day. It takes courage and passion for us all to stand up and do what we need to do. She’s got it.

On the other hand, I am appalled that we are paying so much attention to two bonafide members of the one percent duking it out to be king or queen of the elite. Hillary Clinton is so cozy with the world’s domination system it would be surprising if she manages to see outside the bubble. The people at the top really think they own the world and need to take care of it. At least Donald Trump is generally despised among the elite as a brash idiot who can’t help opening the curtain and exposing all the secrets. We all tune in and suck up the illusion that we are not their slaves. Many people believe that one of them is somehow going to represent their interests.

So I am getting killed. But I am also rising from the dead as a result. The whole spectacle gets me fired up for Jesus, since it is making it so obvious that we need some alternativity around here. We need a Savior and we have one. The whole mess inspires me to burn like Hillary and to take seriously all the opposition a burning person gets. We Jesus followers, we alternative makers need to burn with passion, burn with the Holy Spirit, and burn with industry as the people of God. People who follow Jesus in the next five years have a Hillary-like task ahead of us, complete with bullies stalking us and trying to make us afraid enough to dominate.

It is time to burn. We need to be our true selves and the world needs us to be. If we are fearful in the face of our opposition so be it. We’ll still need to follow Jesus, and see what happens. We need to give what we have been given.

Humble but ambitious

We need to be humble but ambitious like Paul taught the Philippians to be — Not that I have already obtained all this [fullness I am talking about], or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. All the ways to picture our empowering relationship with God are inspiring!

  • I lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of.
  • I embrace it just as I have been embraced.
  • I apprehend that for which also I am apprehended.
  • I win that which Jesus Christ has already won for me.
  • I make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

I want to receive what I have been given. I want to give what I been given. That is burning in the new-life-in-Christ sense.

At some point we just have to do something. We need to give what we have been given. Let ourselves burn with the fire of the Spirit, go with it. We have the capacity to do that built in. We are not just what we’ve derived from the chemicals fermenting inside. We are also what our fiery relationships with God ignite. It has always been time to do something. But now it is just painfully obvious. The candidates are doing us a favor but making it all plain. The disconnected, vain elites are wounding the system they dominate so badly it will be limping for years. As Jesus followers, we embody the alternative as we trust Jesus and one another.

Power struggles and how to get beyond them

Building community, Leadership, Marriage and Family, , , , , , , ,

When a marriage relationship or a church community seems to be stuck or even falling apart, it is probably because we are not listening. We must be having trouble hearing one another.

There are often many reasons  for our lack of hearing. But the biggest reason of all must be not listening to Jesus. He is calling us into a transformation that allows us to listen, hear, and love like He does.

It is a strange problem. Jesus wants to nurture us into our true selves, which sounds great, but we resist going there. We have trouble letting Him get through a sentence without feeling threatened and either butting in with an objection or turning away. We have a power struggle with God and everyone else.

Friend or servant?

I was pondering a few power struggles I had identified last week when Julie reminded me of John 15. I have been thinking about our conversation ever since. In that account, Jesus calls his disciples into an intimate relationship with him, like branches in a vine. He warns that a disconnected branch will wither and die. But He assures the disciples that withering is not the destiny for his friends. He tells them he is no longer going to call them his “servants,” as if they were people who merely fulfilled a master’s bidding. They have matured into His “friends,” someone who knows His business and can bear the fruit of love that comes from a renewed life. Most of us have a hard time hearing what Jesus is saying, just like we have a hard time with our other intimates — there are reasons for this.

The main reason for our muddled hearing is that we should have outgrown the servant/master kind of relating a long time ago. I think many marriages and most church communities are still working out of the “lower” level of relationship Jesus describes in which one person is the master and one the servant. I call it a ten-year-old’s sense of righteousness. Pre-teens spend a lot of effort getting things right and understanding how things work. They can be very black and white, dependent on getting praise or punishment by achieving harmony with whatever is dominating them. In Christian terms, they might spend a lot of time in the Old Testament — organized by laws, mastering the rules. But, as Paul says, that process is just a tutor for following Jesus. If they never get out of that stage, they will have constant power struggles with all their intimates trying to get things “right.”

In a church like ours, dedicated to cells and teams, everyone is called into the Lord’s “friend” category. They are responsible for love that overcomes a multitude of sins; they are given the keys of forgiveness and grace to unlock the restored image of God in everyone. But some people persist in the “master” or “servant” category, demanding that the master be followed or getting by with as little obedience as possible. The “master” could be principles drawn from the Bible or the latest cause that becomes holiness for them. The service they do or resist could be sharing money or showing up to a meeting. You might be more familiar with this in your marriage, when one of you is furious over an injustice that consumes all your feelings and you lash out at or withdraw from your loved one who is making you serve their demand.

The five horsemen

Where the power struggle gets exhausting, in a marriage, a cell or a team meeting, is when the parties bring our what John Gottman names “the four horsemen of the apocalypse” to fight for their “rights.” These behaviors are what destroy marriage relationships and undermine any hope of hearing one another. They also destroy cells, teams and whole congregations. Consider them briefly.

The first horseman of the apocalypse is criticism. This is different than offering a critique or voicing a complaint! The latter two are about specific issues, but the former is an attack on your partner at the core.

  • Complaint: “I was scared when you were running late and didn’t call me. I thought we had agreed that we would do that for each other.” (Note the “I” message).
  • Criticism: “You never think about how your behavior is affecting other people. I don’t believe you are that forgetful, you’re just selfish! You never think of others! You never think of me!” (Note the “you” message).

If you find that you or your partner are critical of each other, don’t assume your relationship is doomed to fail. But do pay attention to the danger. Because criticism, when it becomes pervasive, paves the way for the other, far deadlier horsemen. It makes the victim feel assaulted, rejected, and hurt, and often causes the perpetrator and victim to fall into an escalating pattern where the first horseman reappears with greater and greater frequency and intensity.

The second horseman is contempt. When we communicate in this state, we are truly mean -– treating others with disrespect, mocking them with sarcasm, ridicule, name-calling, mimicking, and using body language such as eye-rolling. We shame them. The target of contempt is made to feel despised and worthless.

“You’re ‘tired?’ Cry me a river. I’ve been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on that sofa like a child and play those idiotic computer games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid –- try to be more pathetic…” 

In his research, Dr. Gottman found that couples that are contemptuous of each other are more likely to suffer from infectious illness (colds, the flu, etc.) than others, as their immune systems weaken! Contempt is fueled by long-simmering negative thoughts about the partner – which come to a head as the perpetrator attacks the accused from a position of relative superiority. Contempt is the single greatest predictor of divorce (and of team failure, church dissolution). It must be eliminated!

It might not be so easy to eliminate contempt (as U.S. political discourse has been demonstrating for years and especially this past week!). We need the Lord involved. We are powerfully motivated to maintain consistency in our thoughts, feelings and actions and to minimize conflict among them. (We don’t like “cognitive dissonance). We even have a place in the brain that researchers have identified as a key mechanism in mediating conflict-reduction. So a marriage partner or team mate may feel a need to control a relationship to satisfy their cognitive dissonance. When they are behaving badly, they might find another way to solve their problem rather than changing. For instance, they might see themselves as a decent, liberal-minded person, and that leads to dissonance between their self-image and their unseemly actions. Since we are all strongly motivated to reduce dissonance, they might unconsciously do so by developing a contempt for their mate or partner which is more in accord with the humiliating way they are treating them.

The third horseman is defensiveness. We’ve all been defensive. This horseman is nearly omnipresent when relationships are on the rocks. When we feel accused unjustly, we fish for excuses so that our partner will back off. Unfortunately, this strategy is almost never successful. Our excuses just tell our partner that we don’t take them seriously, are trying to get them to buy something that they don’t believe, or are blowing them off.

  • She: “Did you call Betty and Ralph to let them know that we’re not coming tonight as you promised this morning?”
  • He: “I was just too darn busy today. You know just how busy my schedule was. Why didn’t you just do it?”

He not only responds defensively, but turns the table and makes it her fault. A non-defensive response would have been:

“Oops, I forgot. I should have asked you this morning to do it because I knew my day would be packed. Let me call them right now.”

Although it is perfectly understandable for the man to defend himself in the example given above, this approach doesn’t create connection or even the safety he would like. The attacking spouse does not back down or apologize. This is because defensiveness is really a way of diverting one’s guilt by blaming one’s partner.

The fourth horseman is stonewalling. Stonewalling occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction. In other words, stonewalling is when one person shuts down and closes himself/herself off from the other. It is a lack of responsiveness to your partner and the interaction between the two of you.  Rather than confronting the issues (which tend to accumulate!), we make evasive maneuvers such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy, or engaging in obsessive behaviors. It takes time for the negativity created by the first three horsemen to become overwhelming enough that stonewalling becomes an understandable “out,” but when it does, it frequently becomes a habit.

I think we need a fifth “horseman”: unfaithfulness. This is not a behavior as much as an incapacity to change. Gottman and other therapists assume we can change our minds and move with new feelings, which is true, to a point. But like Jesus tells his disciples, they will not bear fruit that lasts unless they are faithful to Him. Without Jesus we are desperate, withering branches longing for but despairing of connection. We will always be trying to get something and never quite get it. We won’t have a true self to give. We will be drawn into perpetual power struggles, seeking to preserve ourselves or achieve what we want. We need to relate faithfully to our faithful God in order to be faithful friends, mates and partners.

Being able to identify The five horsemen in conflicted situations is a necessary first step to eliminating them, but this knowledge is not enough. To drive away destructive communication patterns, we must replace them with healthy, productive ones. That’s what Jesus is teaching his disciples. They are going to be a community in mission, threatened from without and way over the capacity of their inner resources. If they are not intimately connected with Him, they will just dissolve into feuding factions like the rest of the world.

Four ways to help defuse a power struggle

Without the healing, comforting friendship of Jesus, whatever is pushing our buttons just keeps pushing them. Our unresolved hurts and beliefs continue to scream for attention and healing. As James teaches: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the desires that battle within you? You want something but you do not get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want” (James 4: 1-3). Our faith may not have matured much beyond the 10-20 year old era. But no matter how distant, angry or closed we may feel right now, we are called into a safe place with Jesus where we can stop reacting and start reflecting on the source of our disconnection.

Here are four suggestions for creating connection in your marriage, friendship, cell or team:

  1. Listen to your partner’s point of view with patience and respect. You might have heard it all before but try to understand why the situation has become so loaded.
  2. Look for the important things that are not being said. A useful prompt is: “Can you explain why you feel so strongly about this?”
  3. Behind nearly every power struggle is fear. Resist the temptation to placate, rationalize or dismiss these fears. Instead acknowledge them out loud. When someone feels truly heard, they will be more likely to listen to your concerns.
  4. With everything out in the open, you have an opportunity to look for a compromise or for next steps and to move with how God is leading someplace beyond what you presently experience.

Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Connected to him we can hope to bear fruit that lasts, the fruit of love given freely and nurtured in mutual relationships of empathy and vision. Julie (and Jerome) can see their newly-formed community coming together as everyone re-forms around Jesus — it is a productive new vineyard! But it is also painfully easy to see where people just cannot bear that fruit yet. There will be power struggles. I’m sure they will keep listening with patience and respect, but also with an honest awareness of what it takes to love like Jesus.

[Gwen White adds some good things to this subject in her speech The Narrow Way]

Laughing out loud

Poetry

The rain feels like the tears of the world today
and it is wobbly and foggy,
like me stumbling into the daylight
still blurry and choked up over Birth of a Nation.

The rain reminds me of people in Haiti
and they are ruined and soggy.
They are stumbling into the morning
traumatized again and asking “What happens next?”

Puddles fill up
with marital woes,
unprocessed fears,
unresolved conflict,
hopeless situations
and broken systems.

Yet I am so at peace in my comfy chair
listening to the rain, feeling the pain
and trusting You, thanking You.

The rain whispers of oceans filled with favor
and it is unfathomable to me.
I keep stumbling into it like a grandson
wobbling around on the walk, arms raised, ready to swing.

And I am so at peace in your loving grasp,
flying in the rain, splattered with pain
and trusting you, laughing out loud.