It's OK to Have More Than One Ingredient on Your Pizza.

I had lunch a few weeks ago with a friend of mine, Ryan Ashley, who is the Worship Pastor at Life Church Reno. He was “fortunate” enough to have a 4-hour layover in Chicago. I ran up to the airport and took him to have his first Chicago-style pizza experience at Giordano’s. The look on his face after the first bite was worth the journey.

However, as we got to talking about worship, I realized that our conversation had drifted into equating music as worship. We are both musicians, so this is a natural tendency, but it made the conversation feel frustrating and incomplete. Worship has to be more than just singing a song? Right?

I freely admit that I hate to sing songs when I am not leading worship in a service. As I sit in the pew/chair/couch, singing along with the choir or band is the least worshipful activity I can think of…for me. I love the atmosphere/intent of the room as beautiful musical worship surrounds me, but I am a contemplative individual by temperament. For me, stillness, centering, and prayer are the ways I best move beyond my own petty ways and learn to give of myself to God in worship.

My friend, Steve Wallace, uses the term “trip points” to describe adding additional activities designed to expand the number of avenues available for worship beyond music. We are all unique creations of God, each with our own God-given gifts and talents. A trip point is simply an activity that God uses to catch your attention. It serves to draw you away from focusing upon yourself and into God’s presence and rhythm.

I am drawn to contemplative activities in order to fall deeply into a worshipful attitude. Others do so by creating poetry or journaling. Some use painting or other forms of art. Still others achieve deeper communion through guided prayer or other ancient practices.

The point is to realize that you have an incredibly diverse group of people in your community. Each has a special gift or ability that God can use to speak deeply into their lives. Yes, you CAN have multiple activities occurring at the same time in your church service. It does not cause unruliness or distraction. One person can draw in a corner, while someone else journals, and the majority of the body continues to sing. Sometimes it is good to add onions and mushrooms to your peperoni only pizza. It can make the experience even richer. 

This blog is full of ideas and ways to better include all of God’s children in worship. I promise you won’t regret it. 

Rob Bell on Working Together

This an excerpt from an interview of Rob Bell by the Burnside Writers Collective that I really enjoyed. This portion of the interview was a bit of fresh air for me. Hope you enjoy.

BWC: Turning an eye to social politics, how do you feel about news like that of Maine’s repealing of LGBT marriage rights? Granted, everyone’s got an opinion, and I’m not asking you to answer the “Is homosexuality a sin?” question. But in general, how do you feel we should respond to this news, and that of other minority groups? How should our faiths inform our behavior?

Bell: You can simply take a side, which a lot of churches do. If you’re a leader, you say, “This is where we stand” and if you’re part of it, just go along with it. The problem with that nice, neat view of reality is that in a church like Mars Hill, we have members across the full spectrum. So we have war protestors and we have parents of soldiers currently fighting in Iraq.

There are people who say, “Well, you need to talk to the half of the church that’s wrong, and get them right.” But then that’s where your energies go. That’s all you do. Convincing all those on one side to come over to the other. The next week, though, the issue will be something different. And you spend most energy on yourself.

What we say is, “What are the things that 10 years ago, this year, and 10 years from now that we could address?” For instance, we’ve been building a micro-finance bank in Burundi for those trying to get loans. We send accountants over to see if things are sharp, filmmakers to capture it and spread the word, and show others what our money is doing…what’s actually happening. We’re also working at a local school. There are about 150 kids being mentored, and the school is asking the church, “Please send more!” The goal is to have a mentor for each child.

We pour our energies into something together. “You and you are at odds on a certain issue? Could you work on THIS together?”

We talk about being aggressively non-partisan, while acknowledging that what we’re doing will have political edges. So if we talk about the environment, for instance, it’s not because we’ve been co-opted by a particular political party. It’s because this is something pretty close to God’s heart. We talk about widows and orphans. We talk about empowering people. It’s not because we’ve been co-opted by another side. It’s because it’s helpful.

The Tithe

During our first year of marriage, my wife worked for a large non-profit that dealt with issues surrounding homelessness. As she was visiting various homeless shelters that Fall, she heard a common plea from fellow staffers: winter coats. Their clients were cold and coats were in short supply. We longed to do something to help out, but the only money available to us that month was (gasp!) our tithe…

We sought advice from various ordained minister types on whether or not this was a legit use of our tithe (this was back in my litmus test Christianity days). The answer? The tithe belonged to the church, umm, I mean God and we would have to sacrifice in other ways to help the homeless. Needless to say we were disturbed by this universal lack of response to individuals who were suffering (no mission committees offered to help either).

So after seeking this advice we promptly went and filled our little Civic full of brightly colored winter coats from Steve and Barry’s and dropped them off with the staff at the shelters. It was quite a kick seeing bright yellow and red coats all over the streets of Baton Rouge that winter.

Sometimes we in the church can’t see the forest for the trees. We get so caught up in the structures, rules, and minutia of being an institution that we lose sight of who Christ calls us to be on occasion. I am certainly as guilty of this as the next person. The “what I am supposed to do” often overwhelms the “who I am supposed to be”.

I Feel Like Esau

I have been unhappy with my last post for it does not express well what I am trying to communicate about exploring my future. I led worship this morning at Belle Meade United Methodist and Mike, the pastor, preached on Jacob and Esau and helped me realize a better way of communicating what I am feeling.

Jacob and Esau are twins at odds with each other. Jacob first tricks Esau, the older of the two, out of his birthright and then, by way of outright deception, tricks their dad into giving Jacob his blessing which rightfully belonged to Esau. This blessing was from God and was supposed to be passed on to the eldest son. As you can imagine, Esau was in anguish over learning what had been stolen from him. He cried out to his father asking if there was even one blessing left for him. His father answered no, that Jacob had received everything.

I realize that over the years in my struggles with the church, I often feel more like Esau than Jacob. I also know well that there are huge people groups out there whose encounter with the church has left them living more deeply in Esau’s story rather than in Jacob’s story of blessing. That’s who consumes my heart these days and where I want to serve next; with those who have experienced this lesser truth of a God who withholds his love and blessing from his children.

Our time in Nashville introduced us firsthand to the struggles and deep frustrations within the GLBT community concerning their relationship with the church. Many of our friends have been told repeatedly that they are somehow lesser beings in God’s eyes and are undeserving of His love and grace. This is a lie for God takes great pleasure and delight in all of his children.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan brings a broken and bleeding Jewish man to an innkeeper and charges him with doing whatever is necessary to bring the Jewish man back to health and wholeness. The church often interprets the Samaritan as being Jesus which means that we in the church are the innkeepers, charged by Christ to restore all who are broken and bleeding to wholeness with God and each other.

Our story, all of our stories, is one of God taking great delight in each of us. I want to help people discover or rediscover this delight.

Patrick Swayze Was My Role Model

Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise taught me everything I know about being a husband and how to treat my wife. It is sad but true. After Lindsey and I got married we weren’t quite sure how a husband and wife were supposed to act. After all, neither of us had ever been married before and we weren’t quite sure how to treat each other, talk to each other, or think about each other. So, we turned to what we knew: Pretty Woman, Top Gun, and Dirty Dancing.

Our individualistic/isolated/short cut lifestyle made it impossible to invest the kind of time and stillness necessary to understand the covenant we had just entered into. After some frustrating and confusing struggles of trying to figure out why marriage on the big screen didn’t help our marriage in real life, we finally received the wisdom we sought.  We set our eyes upon and imitated couples around us whom we admired greatly.

I am realizing that my faith often falters in the same way. I find myself frequently imitating Evangelical pop culture instead of Christ. I substitute cheap and easy behaviors for the life Christ has called me to imitate.  I bury myself in silly things like speaking Christian-eze or listening to the right radio station or  being seen at the appropriate church function and call that being faithful.

I long to keep my eyes focused on the author of my faith who so clearly demonstrated a life of service and care for others while mired in the everydayness of life. I look forward to getting my hands dirty as soon as I finish putting my new icthus on the back of my car. 

The Rabbit

As most of you know, I now work fulltime and attend Belmont University fulltime. So, blogging has taken a backseat to the insanity of my new life. However, I still think about blogging all the time and suddenly find myself with an extra few minutes and a thought.

I found this Dallas Willard quote on Bob Buford’s website, ACTIVEenergy.net. “One of my favorite stories,” Dallas continued, “is about the dog races down in Florida. You know, they train these dogs to chase an electric rabbit, and one night the rabbit broke down and the dogs caught it. But they didn’t know what to do with it. They were just leaping around, yelping and biting one another, totally confused about what was happening. Well, I think that’s a picture of what happens to all sorts of people who catch the rabbit in their life. Whether it’s wealth or fame or beauty or a bigger house, or whatever, the prize isn’t what they thought it would be. And when they finally get it, they don’t know what to do with their lives. This is a huge factor in finishing badly: people need a rabbit that won’t break down. But that’s not something the superficial values of this world can really give them.”

I don’t know about you, but I greatly fear finishing badly. I fear becoming distracted by physical things or issues that in the end don’t really matter. I fear catching the wrong rabbit and then realizing that what I chased and fought for was for naught. I want to finish well.
This is an issue on the forefront of my mind these days as I contemplate life after school. On one hand, I understand chasing the rabbit of the big picture; the faith rabbit. I desire to serve the Kingdom of God for all of my days and specifically to be a follower in the way of Jesus. That rabbit I get. It’s the smaller sized rabbits that confound and distract me. They tend to be flashier and more immediate.

In this Lindsey and I pray that we can live in community one day with a group of people willing to be open about these issues. A community that interprets each other’s lives in the light of the Holy Spirit. A community that helps keep the right rabbit locked in our sights.

Fastfood Christianity

A Lifetime of attending church, Sunday School classes, and weekly bible studies; and yet I learned more about living as a Christian in three encounters at McDonald's than in all those church activities combined.

OK, maybe there's more than a little hyperbole there, but check this out. One day I'm eating lunch and this homeless guy abruptly plops himself down at my table. His story/sales pitch was good. He had me hooked from the first sentence with just the right blend of hard luck mixed with pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. I really enjoyed talking to the guy and gave him the cash in my wallet to help out.

Fast forward three days and I am eating dinner after a long day at work at the same McDonald's ( I know, my wife rags me about eating there too). Suddenly the same homeless guy walked in and sat down at my table. He launched into the exact same spiel as before. I finally got a word in edgewise and dismissively told him that I'd heard the pitch before and that he'd already hit me up for cash once that week.

When I said that, he jumped up and stormed across the lobby mad as heck. Over his shoulder he yelled, "Maybe you heard it before, but it don't change the fact that I still need help and that I'm still hungry!" I felt awful.

Encounter Two: One month later I was ordering breakfast at different McD's drive through on my way to church. I was the worship leader that morning and running really, really late. The woman taking my order wouldn't pay attention. I had wait forever to be acknowledged and then I had to repeat my order three times (a sausage biscuit) before she got it. I was mad and got super sarcastic with her. I did my best to put that woman in her place. As she handed me my food, she simply said, "Why you so dressed up? You belong to a church? I can tell." Ouch. I really advanced the Kingdom that morning.

Encounter Three: A few weeks later at yet another fine McD's lunch I was interrupted again. This time it was a well dressed middle class guy. Let's call him evangelism guy. He had been lying in wait watching me eat and sensed the Lord telling him that he should come sit with me, tell me about Jesus, and pray for my lost soul. Obviously he'd just graduated from the Wednesday night evangelism class at his church. He was visibly relieved when I let him off the hook and he made a quick exit out the side door. I guess he'd fulfilled what ever requirement he needed in order to pass the class. But my encounter with him got me to thinking about how he was just following a script/program and not really concerned with me as a person.

Intellectually I understand Jesus' incredible love for the people he met during his lifetime. He modeled the importance of relationships, community, and loving your neighbor. But I fear that as much as I disdain what the evangelism guy did, I'm not much different. I'm guilty of reducing evangelism to some type of program: three sure fire steps to winning the lost, free bottled water or the speech that conquers all objections.

The McD's encounters have given me a real sense of freedom. I am realizing that the "structured evangelism" I learned over the years caused me to miss the point most of the time. Instead of winning souls or conquering the lost I need to slow down and just love people in the small moments of my day. Maybe as I love in the little things doors might open for bigger encounters down the road. Or maybe not. Either way, it's in these little moments that the imprint that Christ has on our hearts has a chance to become visible

The Aging Rock Star

There's a band that I have been following for a few years. They are a Christian act who've done a handful of albums and had pretty good success. The front man is great about giving his testimony at each concert. He lived hard, did a lot of drugs, and then came face to face with Jesus who then rescued this singer from the misery that was his life before Christ. It's a great story. Each and every time I hear it. And there in lies the rub.

This band has a cool ministry that touches many lives. However, the singer's testimony stays the same night after night, tour after tour, album after album, year after year. It is a powerful story, but the events that transpired in the testimony happened long, long ago. The singer is way past his twenty's now with a wife, kids, and a house. Though his life has changed significantly over the years, the way he chooses to define himself hasn't. There's is mostly silence from the stage about all that God has done in his life since the bad old days.

Don't we often do the same thing as a church? Don't we go through periods of being stuck in a testimony from the past? Don't we sometimes define ourselves by who we used to be instead of who God has led us to become? I'm not saying that the past is bad. Remembering your past and letting it inform your present is a good thing. Yet, constantly re-living and getting stuck in your past as the world morphs and changes around you is not such a good thing.

What a different landscape the church would be if she had the courage to be fully present here in today's world. Imagine the lives that would be transformed by a church flexible enough to embrace people for who they are today instead of forcing them to fit into what we used to be.

Either...Or

Several years ago, I met a preacher at a conference in San Diego. We were discussing the creation stories of Genesis when he made a few lights pop on inside my head. We were talking about God declaring pleasure at the goodness of all that had been created. I was thinking pretty one dimensionally about what had been created. Stuff like light, land, lakes, and Llamas were on my creation list. My new friend helped me think through God also creating and being pleased with laughter, art, music, joy, mystery, beer, mullets, etc. We decided that God was pleased with all that had been created. That prior to being sullied by sin, everything was at its essence good.

Chew on that for a few days and you'll start to get a headache. I began to see people and things around me in a new an unexpected light. Before this I lived with the Christian subcultural view of "either..or." Either something was good (sacred) or it was bad (secular). Music, movies, books, aerobics classes, t-shirts, greeting cards, etc. were either good (Christian) or bad (worldly). I realized we treated outsiders in the same way; a person was either for us (Christian) or against us (pagan). So for an outsider to join us, she or he had to admit that we Christians (along with our structures and subcultures) were 100% right and that he/she was 100% wrong .

What if at the core of every one's being there is still some of that goodness left over from creation? I am not advocating a universalist view of salvation, but what if we dropped the either...or worldview and instead searched for common ground as a starting point?

It changes the conversation doesn't it? It changes the conversation radically. Instead of, "We're right and you're going hell", we now are able to search for this common goodness, this common longing for God implanted within each of us. We then can help people see what Jesus is already doing in their lives and that Jesus is the best way to finish the journey that they have already begun.

So Mad

I am an angry man today. I lost interest in Christian radio long ago, but I decided to give it a whirl again this week and see what's changed. This morning I stumbled onto a new station I've not listened to before. The music was what you'd expect, no surprise there. Some of it was pretty creative, some of it was pretty tired. The station promos though...Arrrrgggghhhh! Every half second they promoted themselves using the words safe and positive (safe alternative, safe for the family, positive music, positive force...). Extreme nausea.

One of the songs they played this morning kind of summed up the problem. The line in the song declared that this world isn't our home. It explained that we don't belong here and that we're just waiting for heaven. The implications of these kinds of thoughts and theologies cause me to mourn for the church. Since when did Jesus tell us to save people and then stash them in a Christian subculture/ghetto so that they won't get sullied by the "real world". It's a theology that says people are saved so that they can go to heaven.

I thought Jesus declared that the Kingdom of God had arrived HERE (not some ethereal future elsewhere). I thought Jesus was teaching us to live a Kingdom lifestyle HERE. I thought Paul was fleshing out how to live this Kingdom lifestyle HERE. I even thought Isaiah was describing how beautiful the Kingdom could be HERE.

So much for thinking.

Bad Food

There’s this guy I used to know that was very vocal about the restaurants he liked around town. He would find a place he liked and brag about it for hours on end. He also did the same for places he didn’t like to eat.

At first I followed his recommendations and would try each place excited about the new gastric adventures that awaited me. It never went very well though. I quickly found that what he liked I didn’t and what he didn’t like I absolutely loved.

What it came down to was that he’d simply grown up eating in a certain way. The food he loved was what he knew best and felt the most comfortable… even, umm, if it wasn’t very good.

Isn’t that true of all of us? We express church or worship or structure in the way that we know best or are most comfortable with. We do what we know.

The great blessing of living in this time of denominational unraveling is that we get to sample the hidden treasures of others. It’s a chance to break out of simply doing what we know and taste the goodness of what our brothers and sisters and Christ have been doing alongside us all these years.

Sometimes we love new food from the first bite. Sometimes it takes some adjusting before we really begin to enjoy it. Sometimes we spit it out never to try it again. But unless we taste it, we’ll never know.

Define Chair

I was talking to my wife the other night and she was explaining about the word manna or man hu in the Old Testament (Exodus 16). I thought it meant bread or bread from heaven. I didn't realize that man hu means, "What is that?" What a strange name for such a beautiful gift. Yet it sort of makes sense. Put yourself in the Israelites shoes. How do you give name to something that you have no experience with?

Define chair. It's easy right? Of course it is. You've seen one, touched many, used hundreds, and probably even misused several on occasion. In other words, because you've physically interacted with a chair, you understand what a chair is. How would you describe a chair to someone who'd never interacted with one? There would be no context for understanding chair.

Isn't this true for the emerging church right now? We're trying on new theologies, structures, activities, relationships, but there aren't really names or contexts for these new experiences yet. We're trying to express this God given longing in our hearts, but the language we've inherited seems so inadequate to the task.

I'm sure it took more than a few tries around the campfire before the Israelites got the hang of transforming manna into something tasty and then developed community wide recipes and traditions. We too must dive in and get our hands dirty experimenting with this cultural man hu we find ourselves within. Some days will be better than others, but it is the only way we'll discover the names God has waiting for what the Spirit is doing in our midst.

The Big Four-0hhh

I just turned 40 and I decided to hold the big birthday bash down at McDougal's Village Chicken Coop (My friends' mid-life crisis involve fast cars and new guitars. Mine involves an insatiable need for chicken fingers). We sat around after dinner swapping stories over beer and cookie cake.

My Godmother came and joined us for the party. I was teasing her and trying to find out what she'd done for her 40th birthday. She got to laughing because that was 56 years ago and she had no idea what she did.

Wow, 56 years ago she turned 40. Kind of gave me a new perspective on time. I get so impatient with my perceived the lack of progress in the emerging church. Yet in reality, only a handful of people were even in the early stages of this post-modern-culture-meets-church conversation just 7 years ago.

When I was 7, I was still reading Dick and Jane books. Maybe things are going better than my tv sitcom attention span comprehends. So now maybe I should look forward to the emerging church's growth spurt at 12....our sweet 16 when we get our licence and gain a little freedom...our 21st birthday when we become legal and full members of society...and maybe even our 40th birthday when we can sit around over beer and cookie cake reliving the glory days of our youth.

Breakfast In Bed

Now my wife loves breakfast. There're no two ways about it and I used to make breakfast for her every Saturday. We'd sleep in and then make a big production out of this ritual and drag it out all morning. However, if I woke up before her, she didn't just get breakfast, she got breakfast in bed. Week after week she'd eat it up and smile dreamily all morning.

I on the other hand, can't stand breakfast. I'd sit around drinking Diet Coke all morning while counting down the seconds until I could eat lunch.

One Saturday, I woke to an empty house. As I stumbled groggily through the house looking for her I heard the front door open. She peaked around the edge and ordered me to get back in bed. Though full of curiosity, I obeyed right away. I heard her rummaging around the kitchen for a minute and then she appeared in the bedroom wearing an impish grin on her face.

She was carrying the tray I used to serve her breakfast each week and it had this huge white takeout Styrofoam box sitting on it. What was in it? IT WAS BBQ!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH! She'd brought me a huge heaping mound of BBQ beans and sausage for breakfast. Oh, the ecstasy. I slurped Diet Coke and smeared sauce all over everything as I ingested this forbidden delight.

Breakfast...yummy for the first time. For one beautiful morning, I got to be me and break all the breakfast rules, customs, and traditions.

Sometimes I wish the church would take a lesson from my wife. God has called beautiful communities of faith together in every corner of your town or city and filled each congregation with people who have all of these amazing gifts, abilities, experiences, and passions.

So what happens when we hit rough spots or loose our relevance to the community God has placed us within? We latch onto the latest church growth book...curriculum...trend-OR-we entrench...do it like we used to...or hold tightly to structure and traditions.

In and of themselves, none of these reactions are bad. However, we often forget to look inward at the most important tool we have...the Holy Spirit working through the incredible people that already make up our communities.

When we imitate other churches in our search for answers, we chance missing out on discovering what God is doing in our midst. When we forget to look inward at the incredible community God has already called together, we often become weak reflections of what God is doing somewhere else.

It is hard to trust that who you are called to be as a church may already be expressed in who God has called to be in your church. Your special place in the kingdom may best be found by giving voice to the folks who are already a a part of your community.

In other words, we may have to eat BBQ instead of eggs for breakfast when we listen to the heart beat of the Holy Spirit within our congregations. Who knows where giving voice to our memebers could lead.