The Inner Sanctum

Times Square Moment

2012-01-26T05:34:00.000-08:00

Years ago, when I read George Harrison’s description of India, it connected to something I felt deeply about God. He said, “India is an assault on the senses.” God Himself is that to me—and then some—but definitely in a good way! I had often (and pardon me John Denver fans) lamented that the love song “You Fill Up My Senses” was so mellow and sweet because it actually expresses this for me—minus a few million watts of power! To be filled with God is to have a window open inside (in the software metaphor, not the house one) that is continually taking in the grandeur and beauty of the simple, daily processes of life and living with worshipping wonderment. From childhood, I have carried that sense of awe regarding the created world—molecule to mountain—and it has never left me. I suppose that is why, in my own creative endeavors, it is that kind of sense-assaulting moment that I seem to be going for! For instance, even the simple act of placing a group of art objects on a wall, for me becomes the creation of a mini-panorama which will richly drip inspiration for its viewers! (OK, at least some viewer…) After I have hung them all according to my inner vision, I walk away with my back turned, placing a good distance between myself and the wall, and then suddenly spin around as if to take it in visually for the first time. If the beauty of the arrangement does not meet some inner threshold value, I’m back tweaking until the effect has passed from a good idea into an inspired one! (My friend, Ben Hodgson describes this personality as “helplessly creative.”)
One day before our recent (and first) New York City adventure, in which we had only 48 hours to take in the capital of the world, a college professor we met at Jack and Trish Groblewski’s church in Pennsylvania said to us, “I’m not a big fan of the hubbub of the city, but I do recommend that you sit on the lighted steps in Times Square at night—it is a must see.” I filed the comment and thanked him, with a disclaimer flagging it as coming from someone who did NOT want to imbibe New York City through their very pores like I did! Besides that, Jack, who was giving us a ride to our NYC hotel, also gave us a very generous orientation session to the city, complete with inspirational AND realistic advice for our impossible 48-hour task! We needed nothing more but a spirit of adventure and a large supply of cash! However, when we got to Times Square, we did remember the professor’s advice and I laugh now to think that his understated endorsement for the lighted steps turned out not just to make a memory, but create a living metaphor.
We arrived in NYC mid afternoon and did a very classic thing first, seeing that our upscale air-miles-paid-for upper west side hotel was just a block away from it: we strolled through Central Park! I had dreamed about it as a little girl and even wrote a song about at the age of 8. It fully delivered! Then, after dinner at a pub on Amsterdam Avenue, where we were partaking and purchasing as much of the “vibe” as the actual food, we embarked, following Jack’s tutelage, on our first New York taxi ride. Proudly sporting our Texan naiveté, we hailed a cab, plopped in the back seat and stated, “Times Square, please!” The driver spoke back some clarifying words about our choices of intersection for drop off, but failing to understand him, we just said, “Yes.” The route he chose that provided me my Times Square first view turned out to mimic my wall arranging technique. He must have driven past Times Square on the street we were already on which was a few blocks away and then turned and approached it from the side, so that when we came upon it and I turned my head, the view would register on my senses all at once, just as if I had had my back to it and suddenly spun around! I was fully unprepared for what followed as tears began to roll down my cheeks in response. I held Paul’s hand as if I were personally being given all that I saw to be my own—without any questioning or analysis of the emotion I felt! (I think Paul may have felt it too, but I was taking up all the oxygen in the cab and there was none left for him to express his response!)
I cannot explain what this man-made festival of power, commerce and technological expression made me feel in that moment. It both overwhelmed me and called me into it. I wanted to both run away and run into the very middle! And I really thought there were probably no lumens available back home in Texas at that moment, as it seemed that all the light energy of the very planet had been pulled by the sheer force of corporate desire right into midtown New York! (And all the while, in the deep space of my heart, I was marveling at a Creator who had made such power available to man—a Creator whose generosity in sharing Himself, even unacknowledged, with those made in his image was the only thing that had facilitated this display!) I was pretty sure that I had just challenged the cab driver’s affinity for Texans if he had any, but I could not help myself nor did I care!
We exited the taxi and began to walk, taking in the Letterman theatre and stopping to post evidences of our presence there on Facebook, to which our very clever friend, Matt Summers, promptly replied, “Is this anything?” We then rounded a corner and found Times Square church and stood outside and read the poster that outlined its history: In the 60’s, David Wilkerson had walked around the Times Square area, crying out to God about the gangs, drugs and prostitution, declaring that someone must do something about it. God responded, as He often does to the person feeling the need, “How about you? You know the city!” And the rest is history. That theatre-like church, like a Mars Hill sermon declaring the altar to the unknown God, now stands amidst a place radically different—radically cleaned up—from the one that first troubled David Wilkerson! The Gospel—the one proceeding from the Creator of the lumens and the ability to harness them—had changed the place—whether or not the place knew it! Though Times Square Church is not ancient or even pretty at least from the outside, it felt as if we were honoring a beautiful holy place of the past.
After that “selah” moment, we made our way back to the center of Times Square and followed the professor’s instructions. We came upon the lighted steps from behind and at first couldn’t see the red layers inviting everyone upward. Once in front, we turned and climbed them almost the top and, though the steps were full, found a little clearing just for the two of us—and we sat! (It seems you have to sit.) And in that moment, the full force of the first viewing of Times Square began all over again. I could have sat for hours and, though I am never in want of dialogue with my husband, there was no need to speak. In all the hubbub, noise, color, and crowd, the lighted steps were an amazing island of peace—just as Central Park had been earlier in the day. I began to realize that I was sitting in a place I had only seen images of all my life: in movies, on New Year’s eve, and outside the morning shows’ studios where people from all over the world gathered with signs in an effort to get on camera. All my life, I had viewed Times Square second hand, but now I was sitting there taking it in with my own eyes and letting it be a DIRECT assault to MY senses—and it was filling them up. The distance was removed and I sat emotionally naked before a greater view of man’s mixed bag of dreams, desires and even some debauchery, than I had ever been before. Ironically, I looked to my left and one of the HD message boards—a huge one, but weren’t they all—was sporting a ticker tape of poignant inspirational quotes about facing fear and overcoming the hesitance that keeps us from really living!
Only later, on a Sunday morning, did the lighted steps moment come fully home to me, providing a “story” for my journey (and perhaps yours) that I will never forget. My husband was proclaiming, as he is gifted to do, the huge scope of redemption that Jesus purchased for us. It is, Jesus said, the Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom! This is not a one-day promise reserved for the other dimension of existence we call heaven, but rather a promise for all times, for the Kingdom comes in appropriate form on both sides of that life and death line! Because He gave us the Kingdom through Jesus and the redemption He provided for us, the Kingdom is ours to interact with right now! It is ours in every time and every space! With that thought, suddenly I was back in Times Square on the lighted steps, only it was not the glaring lights of man’s arranging that I was taking in, but rather, I was realizing that there are some lighted steps for each one of us to sit on that have nothing to do with NYC!
Inside our hearts, God is guiding us to a place where he wants to simply sit us down and assault our senses with all that the Kingdom is—all that was provided for us through redemption. He wants to unroll in high definition grandeur a panorama so vast and blinding that it will take many, many sessions to take in! He wants to focus so much of his heavenly illumination energy upon our spirits that we can’t accommodate the view standing up! And in that moment, peace will inform the chaos and we too will see inspirational words scrolling through our inner world—words telling us we can be free from fear—or any other limitation that threatens to dull our zeal or sharpness! There are lighted steps in our hearts and God wants to give us sessions that assault our senses with the panorama of redemption and perhaps bring us to tears!
I realized that, related to the Gospel, so many are like I was before I visited Times Square—they are living through someone else’s ability to record or report the experience! They’ve heard from a pulpit, perhaps even on television, that they are “supposed” to be impressed with God and amazed by what He did in Christ. They have accepted and yearned—and maybe even dreamed about visiting in person. But God wants to remove that distance and give them a face-to-face exposure –filling up their senses in some way—or multiple ways--with Himself. The gentle advice of the professor who didn’t even love NYC was so prophetic. You MUST go to the lighted steps, he had said. Our heavenly Father promises the same fulfillment on a level a million times more intense!
Franz Kafka said, “You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” I believed Kafka’s words years ago when I first heard them because I know the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus proclaimed as the One who would be a tour-guide into, not just the world, but ALL truth! I believe them today because I have lived them. You don’t have to go to Times Square to find lighted steps with a view—just go to your room and expect God to do by His Spirit what he promised to do. If you feel that your experience of God’s power and greatness and your view of redemption have been somewhat second hand, know that change is available. If the spiritual realm for you has been more a performance than a panorama, it is time for an assault on your senses. You will never be the same. A window of awe will open inside you and inform the rest of your living. Your seat awaits. Let me be the professor who not-so-calmly gives you the important travel tip!

Giving it Away

2011-12-17T06:01:00.000-08:00

My computer just crashed (first time in 10 years of having a laptop!) and I went in search of the only piece of writing that I knew I hadn't backed up (thankfully I had e-mailed to a few people). When I found it, I was freshly struck by the truth that the only things you really have are the things you give away....think about it.....

So, pasted in here below are a new devotional format that I created for Tabitha Summers while she was in England making her first CD. They are each based on a very short youtube video and each limited to one page. Maybe you too find yourself in the place she was in during that week: excited about destiny, but challenged by the demands living toward that destiny daily makes! If so, take a week to breathe and walk this devotional journey, as I once again GIVE AWAY what I feared I had lost!

DAY ONE:
http://youtu.be/47LCLoidJh4
Awareness Test (55 seconds)

In labeling the right brain as the “creative” hemisphere, people might wrongly assume that one of the things it creates is disorder (like some artists they might have known)! But in fact, it is the right side of the brain that orchestrates and organizes left-brain data into a seamless and beautiful whole. Take a golf swing: It is impossible to swing a golf club well when you are consciously working on each component of the swing. The golfer must step up to the ball and clear his mind of the analysis—no matter how helpful it has been or how accurate--and instead hit the ball for the joy of doing it and love of the game! When this happens, there is actually a right-brain burst of alpha waves that calm all the activity in the left, creating a feeling of peace. (This happens in many other sports as well. All the details of training are set aside as the athlete in the starting gate releases them and reaches from a deeper and more intuitive place to actually run the race!)

Life is no different than sport in this respect. The left side of the brain definitely has a role, but when it is taking us over, we need a right brain burst---something has to orchestrate the data and remind us of the joy of living. The left side of the brain can enslave us, but God can bring a right-brain burst to set us free. When Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest,” he was speaking to a nation who had become so focused on the rules of religion that they had lost the joy of knowing God. He was calling them, in a sense, to have a spiritual “right-brain burst” that would calm the nagging considerations of pleasing and performing and return them to the freedom of just relating! (Matthew 11:28-29)

The Message Bible completes those words of Jesus by saying, “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” There is nothing wrong with drive and determination, but it is not a very good drummer—its rhythms will mess you up and ultimately cut off the creative flow that is necessary for efficiency! Life loses its orchestration and you bog down in halting, fragmented and frustrated motion. It is then that you need to return to God and lay it all down again. Trust that if a golfer can swing, knowing that everything he’s worked on so hard will pay off--without him consciously forcing it--surely you can also rest in the big processes of God.

These devotionals are meant to bring a right-brain burst from heaven. They are meant to help you run the race from a deep place—a place where God’s reality is not just theory in the mind, but actual efficient orchestration of all things such that they WORK TOGETHER FOR GOD.

The video you watched (if you hadn’t seen it before) gave you a little right-brain burst! When you laughed at yourself for not seeing the man in the bear suit the first time, your mind was also experiencing a moment of wonder: Could it be that the world is parading before your eyes many notable things that you are missing because of your focused expectations in rehearsed directions? You were trying to count the basketball passes—you had a job to do!

Don’t let the job you have to do today obscure your vision. Don’t let focus become a blinder. Let the “moon-walking bears” sent by God be noticed and BREATHE. You’ll get the job done—MORE efficiently!

DAY TWO:
http://youtu.be/BW4LseJp728
YouTube: “Even stars and galaxies show God’s greatness” (1:47)

In December of 2010, a study by Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum proposed that the estimated number of stars in the universe—100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 100 sextillion—needed to be tripled. Whether or not this astronomer is correct, that’s a lot of stars! With that in mind, read Isaiah 40:26 with a heart of wonder and pause to stand amazed:

Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an
army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.

What is even more amazing is that, if we truly have the Spirit of God inside us, each of our creative endeavors is simply a retelling of the ancient story! The God who hung the stars in the sky with has chosen to dwell inside his people. Surely, surely, he knows how to bring out of them the “good works” he has already deposited inside us—each focused point of energy shall come forth in perfect placement. He knows exactly how to decorate, orchestrate, order, energize, strategize, adapt, release, mix, engineer, oversee...and the list goes on. (AND, he even knows how to do it all for an audience: consider the constellations decorating the sky!)

The universe has never stopped expanding because creation is an open-ended process. The energies of God flow through his people and take shape and form, translating themselves into the outflow of men and women’s hearts.

Lose yourself in God’s vast orchestration and take joy in the fact that this current initiative is being summoned forth BY HIM. You—and the relationships that have rallied around you—are a part of an intricately beautiful wisdom that has been at work from time immemorial. Your life and projects are a part of a display of power that is God showing off who HE is! You are proclaiming the Creator by participating in the creative release that He began!

Take a deep breath and revisit the last sentence of the Scripture, now applying it in the here and now, since you now know that you are personally cooperating with the expansion the universe(!): BECAUSE OF HIS GREAT POWER AND INCOMPARABLE STRENGTH, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THE MELODIES, MEANINGS OR EVEN SUBTLETIES OF THE “STARS” YOU ARE BIRTHING WILL BE MISSING! He has already called each one of them by name!

DAY THREE:
http://youtu.be/AFVac_XzxZA
YouTube: The incredible beauty in the life of cells (3:07)

Isn’t it amazing that even the work of researchers studying what happens when cells “go wrong” cannot help but create a display of intense beauty—the beauty that is present in everything that bears the fingerprint of God! Cells (and you have 50 to 100 trillion of them in your body) are little “storehouses” of the essence of YOU! Each one contains approximately SIX FEET of DNA that is unique to you, coiled up in extraordinarily tight fashion. Every cell is a literal treasure chest of “you-ness”, waiting to be summoned forth for service!

In Matthew 13:52, Jesus was explained the Kingdom by saying:

"That is why every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings both new and old things out of his treasure chest."

God (the same One who summons forth the stars on a large scale) knows how to summon forth every bit of potential that is in each one of us. He has created each compartment of our spirits to house the very things that are needed for us to fulfill our destiny. Though at moments we might feel empty, nothing could be farther from the truth. We are packed with tightly wound spiritual DNA—full of living information about who we are meant to be! It will actually require all of eternity to fully express our individual identities. In a real sense, the odyssey of discovery through which we unravel the spiritual “code” inside us IS the fulfillment of our destiny!

You are a treasure chest of things both old and new. In you (each one of you), all experiences are processed as preparation, according to the information in your spiritual DNA! In the grand scheme of things, every single challenge encountered only serves to summon forth strengths and skills from the storehouse of heaven’s resources inside of us! We were built to activate and release a host of Kingdom traits!

How do we know when the Kingdom DNA has been expressed? Because the end result is always and forever BEAUTY—subtle tones and colors and shadings and contrasting splashes of blinding light, but always and forever, BEAUTY. When Watson and Crick were attempting to construct the first-ever model of DNA, they ruled out several proposals because they simply weren’t BEAUTIFUL and they just knew—even though they weren’t believers—that this amazing molecule of life HAD to be BEAUTIFUL! They were right!

Beauty is in your DNA—reject what isn’t beautiful because it just can’t be God’s fingerprint! Wait for the beauty to fully manifest. Even amidst dysfunction, beauty shines through untainted—it has to: it’s in our genes!

DAY FOUR:
http://youtu.be/IcevP5tkWH0
YouTube: Cell Journey Deep Inside (1:44)

Each of the 50 trillion cells in your body is carrying on life constantly! This video shows the constant activity in just one cell, and it actually happens at this rapid rate. Whenever we feel that “nothing is happening” for us, we should remember that even on a cellular level (much more so on an invisible spiritual level), a whole host of processes are literally working for our good!

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” Though most people focus on the command in the first part of the verse, “watch over your heart,” the second part of the verse actually carries the energy of grace to fulfill the command! Out of your heart are flowing springs of life! There are constant processes at work inside you, facilitating life and destiny! The life of God inside you is not stagnant or lacking movement EVER! God in you—every part of you—is dynamic and full of energy. Things are happening, even when you are at rest! Springs of life are on the move and they are available in every moment!

Notice that the word “springs” is plural. Imagine the variety of springs on earth. Some are high in the mountains and some are surprises in the desert. Some are in a well-tended garden and others are waiting to be discovered in wilderness. There are many kinds of springs in you and they flow with different strengths and at different times. They blend their waters into one glorious mixture but still retain the characteristics they took on from their various sources. The rushing water of the springs inside you carries dissolved minerals from its subterranean journey, giving a unique flavor to your particular flow! Every rocky place you have experienced has only served to add texture to your life.

Springs imply energy from another place. Fatigue is not a factor when the springs of life flow. Some springs come from a whole different geography, travelling hundreds of miles to contribute their stream. Heaven’s springs are in you, flowing forth, each carrying its own energy and climate. WATCH as they simply erupt and flow forth from your heart!

DAY FIVE:
http://youtu.be/DQus4je7Jw4
YouTube: Tabernacle _Animated (1:10)

Exodus 30:18 Make a bronze basin, with its bronze stand, for washing. Place it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it.
Exodus 38:8 They made the bronze basin and its bronze stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

Every part of the Moses’ tabernacle in the wilderness portrayed Christ in some way. And now the reality that the symbolism pointed to lives in us, since we have become his dwelling place. The basin for washing was a picture of the grace that not only removes sin, but also cleanses the identity from the desires and memories association with human dysfunction. As the priests entering the tabernacle paused to wash at the basin, they were looking ahead in time to the continual cleansing of being that would freely flow from Christ.

It was no accident that the basin was made of the brass mirrors donated by the women who served. Christ is not just an addition to our identity: He engulfs that very identity with Himself, rendering it unrecognizable apart from him, blending it into the very grace that he gives. And all of this happens as we experience him through living worship. The cleansing of our sin is only the beginning; the REDEMPTION of our very IDENTITY is the real goal of the presence of God!

Our identity thrives on a continual washing in the realities of heaven. I can’t help but think that Bono’s faith along these lines must have informed his lyric writing when he wrote the bridge to the song Walk On. After singing, “You’ve got to leave it behind,” he lists the categories of things that can be left behind:

All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress-up
All that you scheme...

We need to see our identity--both the “good” and even the self-perceived “bad” of it—lost in the basin of grace. In the place of worship, we can let the notion of our separateness from Him be just a distant memory. Turning in our mirrors to become a basin for others’ cleansing is MINISTRY…..

DAY SIX:
http://youtu.be/R_w4HYXuo9M
YouTube: How to Turn a Sphere Inside Out (1:38)

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind….”

The word “transform” in Romans 12:2 is a door into a huge room of truth. It does imply metamorphosis like the butterfly, but there is so much more! The Greek roots of the word “transform” mean literally to CHANGE FORM IN KEEPING WITH AN INNER REALITY, AS AN AFTER-EFFECT OF BEING IN SOME ENVIRONMENT! The verb comes from a noun that means AN OUTWARD EXPRESSION THAT EMBODIES AN ESSENTIAL INNER SUBSTANCE SO THAT THE FORM TAKEN IS IN COMPLETE HARMONY WITH THE INNER ESSENCE! It is not just finally changing into something useful or worthy! True transformation from God is about manifesting the real YOU (which is in every way beautiful).

God is clearly up to just one thing in all our lives: INSIDE-OUTING us so that our inner essence—the expression of HIS creativity—is on display! But, like the mathematicians that know how to inside-out a sphere, he does not cheat! He doesn’t abuse us or break us or force us in any way. Moment by moment, he leads us in a deeper understanding of who we really are so that what we end up giving to the world is an authentic expression of Him in us! The process may stretch us, but will never break us, and if we know that the goal at the end of the road is the giving away of ourselves in complete freedom, then we can endure the intricate twistings and turnings and rejoice in the beauty of his realm of ultimate order!

Death Cab for Cutie’s song Soul Meets Body contains the amazing line, “I still believe it’s true that there are roads left in both of our shoes…” What makes that line so amazing is this: In God’s view of things the paths of our lives aren’t really inanimate things stretching out before us, beckoning us to embark. Instead, the roads of our journey are actually inside of us, waiting to come out! Isaiah 26:12 says, “LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.” Our future is waiting to emerge from within! As we are inside-outed by God’s Spirit, our destiny unfolds. The Kingdom of heaven is within….

(You might want to watch the video again with this all in mind. The sphere is you and, by the way, the process of inside-outing you will change the world—but that’s just a glorious side-effect!)

DAY SEVEN:
http://youtu.be/GtiSCBXbHAg
YouTube: Cymatic experiement (2:05)

Cymatics is the study of “visible sound”. The beautiful wave patterns displayed by the sand in this video are generated solely by the frequency of the sound being emitted. The sand is self-organizing according to the standing waves patterns created by the vibrations. You are watching sound energy literally organize matter! The information in the pitch (the wavelength of the frequency) is being translated into a visual form!

This simple experiment provides a great metaphor for our relationship with God. There are really only two “requirements” for flowing with Him:
1. Don’t resist the organizing force of His orchestration! (Release the desire to set up patterns of our own or to take charge of the other pieces involved: imagine a grain of sand in the experiment nervously running around trying to help the patterns emerge!)
2. Hear the frequency of heaven and welcome its energy! (This is just living a life of responsive worship.)

God’s universe is one of both extreme order and beauty and our lives will ultimately reflect that when we rest in Him and simply tune in. The chaos with which we are all too familiar is simply a perception we experience in the moments in which we are temporarily unable to see the pattern, and the lack of a pattern is just evidence that the frequency (energy) is increasing!

In Genesis, we read that God created the universe with his WORDS! In a sense, the world around us is just “visible sound”, still vibrating to the patterns that God generated with His voice! He SAID, “Let there be light….” And there WAS light. And there still is, because when God speaks, the vibrations continue throughout the ages.

In Psalm 51 in the Message Bible, David prays, “Shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.” The voice of the Lord is inside you today saying, “Let there be light” and calling for that light to be divided from the darkness. The sound of heaven is organizing your energies and even your thoughts (which are just biochemical events, really) according to his patterns of beauty! You cannot fail and you cannot fall. You are simply responding to the creative sound of His voice. And you are becoming “visible sound” for others who have never heard Him! He is acting on you in unseen ways in every moment.

"How Was Your Trip?" (An Answer)

2011-11-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

The journey to Wellspring on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda is a long one. For us starting from Texas, it meant 18 hours of flight time via London, navigating the netherworld that is immigration in Entebbe, and a two-hour car ride from the airport ending in a session of midnight honking outside the ministry center gate as we waited for it to be opened for us! Herbert and Eve and all the Wellspring staff are the most amazing hosts, but they must share along with the rest of their nation the frustrations of frequent and unpredictable power outages. By candlelight we found our room and fell into our beds.

Wellspring is not remote in location—certainly there are places in the African bush that are far more remote in terms of being cut off from civilization—but it is remote in terms of ease of accessibility. We in the west who like to talk about being “intentional” need only take a car ride of any kind through the streets of Entebbe and Kampala to sample a new level of intentionality displayed by each and every driver! The amount of focused determination necessary to get somewhere through the traffic would be enough to accomplish a dozen goals in our lives and churches which offered a “normal” amount of resistance! (It was no surprise that even in Heathrow airport on the way home, conversations could be overheard between several nationalities, the topic of which was the Kampala traffic!)

Once at the Wellspring complex, however, perched as it is with a view of life in the valley below (a valley that only a few decades ago was bush), one finds an oasis of peace—a little city of Kingdom development, fully functioning and moving in the opposite spirit of the chaos outside. There is a small hospital, a not-so-small primary school, a fully-functioning cafeteria and dormitories, conference center, offices to support micro-enterprise and housing developments, and also a church which is bustling with activity. In my life, I don’t know that I have ever seen such a footprint of the Kingdom—and I live with my eyes searching for such things! (I declared upon our return to our church which we very purposely named, “The Abbey,” that I had just come from an African Abbey: so much more than a Sunday morning!)

We had come to Wellspring to speak at their annual pastors’ conference—their 7th such event. Having learned through experience that God delights in joining his people across cultures, we knew that the relationships formed with the African pastors and leaders on the trip would be rich—and it certainly was. (I feel I carry them in my heart now.) What we did not realize, however, was that God was doing something that would transcend our bonds with Africa. The six members of the ministry team that had been assembled by Herbert and Eve (directors of Wellspring) were appointed for a purpose beyond the ones we could have imagined.

The web of relationships among the team included so many “coincidences”. Phil Moore from England was one of the first people that we had connected with 15 years ago when we first travelled to the U.K. He and his church had taken us in and loved and cared for us, but we had lost touch with him as the years had gone on. Our good friend, Andy Read, had completed a year as C.E.O. of Links International and it was a joy to travel with him doing Links business, moving our relationship beyond just visiting each other’s houses and churches. And then there were Mike and Beryl Godward, the founders of Wellspring (and doers of many other exploits) who now lead Links International in South Africa. We had only run across them briefly over the years, but had always longed to hear their stories and know them better—amazingly in them we discovered a mutual desire towards us!

We ministered all day (literally—many sessions) at the Pastor’s conference. Unlike an ordinary conference where you simply come with a message and deliver it, we all noticed that we were, like bike racers on the same team, drafting off of each other’s wind! I fled to my room more than once to alter my prepared message, having caught fresh inspiration from someone else on the team in the previous session! Though we came from diverse starting points, never has a conference been so thoroughly “whole”—it was one big teachable moment with several players involved—an epic unfolding that consumed our individuality!

At the end of the day—when everything shuts down because there may or may not be power—we found a way each night to be together for fellowship, joined the second part of the week by our son Joe and Billy Wells from San Marcos—two of the next generation who have begun to work with Links USA. Whether it was gathered with all the African leaders at the home of Herbert and Eve for a meal, dancing, singing, including the national anthems of every nation represented (and the University of Texas fight song—sorry—Billy kept saying that Texas was once its own nation!), or just the team hanging out together at the home of Holly who oversees the Wellspring educational initiatives, we couldn’t get enough time together.

The Kingdom is both present as well as “waiting to emerge” at all times, but there are those moments when the invisible reality of Kingdom just SHOWS UP like a STORM! We seem to live for those moments. On the last night of the conference, in our fellowship at Holly’s house, we had one. What began as just sharing turned into revelation and we realized God Himself had joined in the chat-time with a loud voice and a mighty hand! Suddenly we knew we were sitting in a miracle: Through all it took to get there, God had assembled us in Holly’s living room to testify once again to us that this Kingdom is built through relationships and that it will never be any stronger on earth than the relationships that carry it! From diverse places, backgrounds and experiences, we sat as one sensing the reality of God’s strategies and networking for the nations. IT WAS SO REAL! Words couldn’t express it and yet we all tried. Tears flowed. Hearts merged.

We realized as we sat there in the “remote” safe harbor that is the Wellspring zone, that each of us had every reason not to have been together and yet God had drawn us! And we realized that for some of us, there was a destiny to be together than had taken years upon years to emerge! It was as if the camera zoomed out and we could see the big picture in which God had been constantly working and shaping, nurturing seeds that to us had gone dormant during the years that had brought us to this point—during our lifetimes. Those of us connected with the journey of Links International (and it was all of us in the room) have experienced highs and lows, loves and losses, victories and questions, and yet we still believe there is a cause and we are more than ever devoted to each other!

Links International was founded on relationships and it is that relational mindset—which is the Kingdom mindset—that is the revolution waiting to fully engulf the face of missions as we know it. Here we sat experiencing the very essence of what Links is all about: we sat declaring with tears the value of each relationship in that room, thankful that through doubts, challenges, or simply “busy-ness”, we had managed to have enough sensitivity to heed the call and come and partake! In a real Kingdom way, we “fell in love with each other” all over again—not for any natural reason but for the burning sense that God had ordained that TOGETHER we would walk! There, in a place that that seemed inaccessible, and in an assembly that seemed on some level impossible, heaven found complete ACCESS to earth via a few gathered hearts with no veil or defensiveness. As we wept, we began to feel the right-brain burst that is Jesus echoing his words, “With me, all things are POSSIBLE!”

I told someone before I left for the trip that Africa has always had the wonderful effect of stripping me down to basics, showing me the things that I have let become far too complicated. It dulls my delusions of grandeur and grounds ambition in a sense of what is really vital. I suppose you call this perspective, but it is way more exciting than that word tends to sound. I feel I’ve been re-calibrated—like the best of all inner chiropractic adjustments—a realignment that will generate health throughout the rest of the body in time to come! All things really ARE possible, but not because I strive to do all things right! All things are possible because we live in a Kingdom of relationships, chief of which is the one with the glorious God-head, but beyond that includes strategically placed networking of people in real-time dynamic situations!

Lest you think that this is all theory, however, or even all just for the good of the far-away nations, let me share one last very personal thing. In God’s great economy, what helps the nations in the macro is the same thing that revolutionizes the individual in the very deep-hearted “micro”. There is always an individual application.

You see, I’m that girl who always says too much, shares too much, tells it all and lets it out—there is an unexplainable drive in me to express. (My dear husband is often praised as the “saint of saneness” at my side.) But inside, I am also a constant student of human behavior and I have made it my life’s project to decode the effect I seem to have on the world, so as to finally come up with a rule of thumb of when to speak and when to keep silent. I still have not found one but I keep doing the research!

On one evening of our international relational festival of fellowship, over a lovely meal, I began to talk about my childhood and personal life prior to Christianity. I seldom do this. However, I had lost myself in the enjoyment of a Kingdom moment and a sense of temporary but very real “family” had been created in the dinner conversation. Suddenly, Andy Read said, “You should put this on a podcast,” and to my surprise, everyone at the table agreed. I am being honest when I admit that never in my life had I experienced anything but embarrassment about my checkered and unusual bohemian past. I tell people with shame that I was simply “raised by my culture” and I tell it only to justify my passion FOR culture! But I NEVER thought any of it was interesting, or even remotely acceptable! And I don’t think I ever consciously realized I felt such shame until that moment!

Something changed in me in that very moment when a group of friends listened with fascinated interest AND ACCEPTANCE to my little life story—not just the story of who I am in Christ in theory, but the story of the somewhat ridiculous set of circumstances on earth into which the seeds of redemption fell! I had a real and genuine moment of honest ACCEPTANCE at that table that ranks up there with the most extreme “Toronto” or “carpet times” ever experienced. God used these relationships to be family for me, supplying a missing piece, and I will never be the same. I saw myself in the mirror of the group in a way I had never seen myself before—I wasn’t “strange”: I was “interesting”—and that made all the difference in a deep place inside—a place that had formerly been untouched! As He did with the geography of Wellspring, God was again showing me how able He is to ACCESS THE INACCESSIBLE!! It didn’t take hours and counseling, just a moment of complete transparency when I had lost my filters combined with an environment of GRACE that was tangible (not just theological).

All my posturing, packaging and careful self-presentation is unnecessary when I know that God has POSITIONED me where he wants me. God took me to Uganda to remind me of that. There is hope for us all: God has a relational positioning for every one of us—one which will demonstrate the health of family where it has not been known before. As the church comes to more and more look like the Kingdom (less and less like a corporate business model), the grace of acceptance will become tangible more than theological just as it did for me. And if God can orchestrate the details to assemble us as He did in a postmodern African Abbey, then certainly He can move all the pieces necessary to re-calibrate anything else in all our lives that stands in need of adjustment. Many people have asked me in the 48 hours since I have been back, “How was your trip?” See….it’s a big Kingdom answer…..Let’s just say that along with Toto, I really must say, “I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA…..”! (http://www.lyrics007.com/Toto%20Lyrics/Africa%20Lyrics.html)

Of Sunrises and Dualism (A Poem)

2011-09-07T04:45:00.001-07:00

Morning breaks slowly over the murky water
And I give this day to You.
I could be standing a thousand exotic places
Taking in fresh inspiration
From the sights and sounds You created
But I’m right here in this familiar spot
This place where no one finds escape
This hum-drum drudgery of life and time
That incessantly beckons
Our local lake, dirty from the free usage
Is a far cry from the sunrises around the world I long to see
And yet here in the dusk it seems
That the colors in the sky are just as bright.
Here as I pause to breathe before the day fully attacks
I realize that the sky show above this lake
Is no less dazzling than that of a thousand different horizons
The mystery of pink invasion is the same worldwide
And the glow of hope as the darkness gives way
Points to the same truth about newness and awakening
And I laugh as I realize that though I seem to have a thousand things
Anchoring my schedule in time,
I carry within me always the prospects of a new morn
And a far away hope.
The odyssey is within me
And the sun always rises with a thousand more possibilities there
And then I drive away and begin another day
Of sojourning
Two realms or just one? That seems to be the question.

Grace Lived Out...Even in Leadership

2011-03-12T12:47:00.001-08:00

Here at the Abbey Church in Azle, Texas, we just finished four days of meetings with our new (but quickly gone deep) friend, Dr. Lynn Hiles. Dr. Hiles preaches grace--and by “grace”, he means the finished work of Christ, not a sweet but weak sentimental acceptance—in a way I have never experienced. My long held dream of erasing the Western demarcation between the “word” and the Spirit” comes true when I listen to Dr. Hiles preach—and by “preach”, I mean dispense a lifetime’s study of blazing truth from an inner spiritual assembly mechanism that seems to function somewhat like a catapult hurling blazing missiles at a fortress!

The universality of the Gospel—the sheer enormity of what Jesus did for us—was splashed across the canvas of my inner world while I listened to such a degree that I wanted to lay flat on the floor in complete surrender to the panorama of truth. I felt like the Queen of Sheba as she was described in the Bible when she saw the wealth and excellence of Solomon’s empire: it took her breath away. Simultaneously, however, I wanted to rise up stronger than ever in hot pursuit of my own particular flavor of Ephesians 2:10 “good works”—you know the kind, not the dreams of our own born out of our need to bolster insecurities, but the big dreams of God birthed in us—the ones that are finished in Him before they are even begun on earth!

So, I’m just saying….it was a great few days and my inner world is still reverberating. Sometimes we know the blazing truth, but have allowed it to be dosed with a fair measure of “reasonableness” and we don’t even realize that we are being lulled into less real living than is our portion! It sounds like this, “Well, of course, Jesus is everything, but, let’s be real…” In our hearts, we don’t reassess the absolute nature of salvation, but our experiences tend to sink down into the level of a distant hope of that salvation showing up, rather than a real-time reality!

I know that there are a thousand expressions of “church” showing up all over the planet and I fully believe in a God who is just as real and ready to speak and demonstrate at a Starbucks as He is from a pulpit, BUT, I have just been refreshed in the amazing effect of what the Bible calls “the foolishness of preaching”. Church is relational and it is NOT (never has been and never will be) just about sitting behinds on chairs while they listen to one man, BUT, GOD DOES USE THAT FORMAT TOO! When the man is actually emblazoned with revelation that he has interacted with for years such that even his communication of it has become pregnant with all the creativity that is God, then we’ve got something! Preaching is about washing the psyche with the truth so much so that our consciousness can’t for a little while come up for air and we are swimming in heaven—experientially reminded of the amazing potential for Kingdom that we carry every minute of every day!

There is a particular variety of “settling” I have discovered, however, that seems to require large doses of heaven to drown! It hides in the crevices of our ideas about church and is aided by the church’s tendency to forget that it is only a subset, a manifestation, an outcropping of the broader picture of reality: the Kingdom. (As Dr. Hiles points out the relationship, the rainbow around the throne declares for all to remember that the New Covenant is the constitution of the Kingdom of God.) The particular compromise I here seek to expose hides under the banner of words like “leadership” and “responsibility” and it looks like this: Church leaders who well know that all function in the Christian life must flow from a place of REST, end up creating for themselves only a parallel universe where striving is allowed! When it comes to salvation, they preach and believe that Jesus did it all and that the life he gives he maintains, but when it comes to building a church or leading a ministry or “getting results” in the corporate sense—beyond individual growth—they somehow subtly permission a reversion to the energies of the flesh. Christ plus nothing for righteousness, but Christ plus…..John Maxwell, marketing strategies, political promotion, hype, or the latest fad…when it comes to being a leader. Please understand me, I am NOT against all of these things (some of them I am against—I’ll let you guess which). What I am against is the dual system that implies that Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection on our behalf is big enough to reverse the entire polarity of our existence, extending to every area of life we encounter EXCEPT the areas that deal with leading people.

When we replace the rainbow around the throne with a list of considerations that don’t flow from rest and create for ourselves a modern-day litany of leadership requirements, our journey is headed toward resentment. We begin to feel the least able to access the grace that we preach. We are unable to offer to ourselves fully the freedom that we proclaim (or hopefully continue to proclaim) so freely! We are, to put it biblically, double-minded. And we ultimately go about like nervous little scavengers, vulnerably feeling that we must find the “key” or the “door” that will unlock our ministry, rather than trusting the One who holds the keys and said most plainly, “I am the door”. If He could unlock our eternal mess, certainly, he can unlock doors of opportunity—it’s that simple. There is only one operating system in the Kingdom—the finished work of Christ. Out of that place, not only our own personal and ever-emergent salvation appears, but also our CORPORATE EXPERIENCE OF MINISTRY OR CHURCH!

It is Western dualism once again seizing the opportunity presented by our “unrenewed” mind. But, I now have a new definition of the unrenewed mind. I have decided that an unrenewed mind is not so much a mind that thinks bad thoughts or doesn’t have Scripture at the ready, but rather the unrenewed mind is one that draws boundaries on the finished work of Christ, declaring that perhaps there are just places it might not extend and inspiring the creation of several “plan B’s” in people who would never offer any other plan for their eternal salvation! Am I making sense to you? If I am…..you might be a church leader! Appealing to our common sense, traces of law-based fear seduce us into creating systems of flesh, even while we are fully aware that the product we want to dispense is spirit, and the grandest of all ironies swirls within us!

Obviously, I could go on and on about this—it is a big topic, maybe even a best-selling book (smile)! But, the purpose of a blog is to get personal, and so now I will share with you what you may have already surmised. How am I able to describe this particular affliction common to church leaders with such passion? Is this the culmination of years of research, note-taking, interviews and case studies? Yes and no. Though I have seen it everywhere in the church, my deep understanding of the dysfunction was as close as my mirror and the case study was me! Years ago, the passage in I Samuel 13 where Saul “forced himself” to offer the sacrifice, rather than waiting on Samuel (a type of the Holy Spirit) to do the job on his behalf, was carved deep into my constitution. And one of my “life Scriptures” was, “And HE will make your righteousness be seen like the light AND….YOUR CAUSE like the shining of the sun!” (Psalm 37:6, combined translations, Emphasis on: YOU don’t have to produce it.)

The most difficult journey of my “hot responder” personality has been the journey of TRUST related to my own destiny. I have never breathed a moment without the biggest of dreams: I want to be the Christian answer to both Oprah and Chopra. I want to shout from the housetops to the chart-topping musicians all over the world as well as the wannabes alone in apartments, “I know what you’re singing about—I hear your cry!” I want to stand up in the middle of an Eat, Pray, Love generation and declare a God who could blow every Eastern mind in a second with spiritual reality so blinding it would make every knee bow to the One who both fulfills and transcends both East and West! I see all this potential but I don’t know how to produce it myself and I have heard the wise man say that the richest place on the planet is the graveyard, due of course to all that buried potential! That just can’t be me, so I must act! Right? Only partly….I must ACT from that place of REST, realizing that I am not posturing myself, but being positioned by Him. I do not have to be a slave of destiny at the expense of Kingdom provision! Destiny is simply my little corner of the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is HIM! How could I take my dreams to my grave if my life is enveloped in Him?

Recently, my friend April had a prophetic vision about my “ministry”. She said she saw me lying flat on the floor and people were digging around inside of me and taking what they needed—like an autopsy, she even said. What followed was a long, tearful, God-visited discussion with April and her husband, Jason, about my disappointment over being compared to a corpse and the reasons behind it. (The vision had aroused my greatest fear: that I would be “used” by others to build their “ministries” and left for dead in terms of my course to run! Don’t judge me: it was deeper than a conscious drive. ) Now, after a week of intense focus on the finished work of Christ, I see it differently. What people were taking from me was not my vitality, but my produce! I am a garden (as we all are) and the amazing economy of God is designed such that the things that grow in me to actually provide nutrients that other people need!

And that growth is not a strain, but rather a natural process of relationship that I share with all sojourners. Lying there flat need not be interpreted as corpse-like, but maybe instead as just RESTING. As I rest in the fact that He has a plan, not just for my spiritual growth but even for my MINISTRY, then the garden blooms and is ripe for picking. If the soil is rich, the produce might be varied—books, preaches, sure, but also conversation over dinner or coffee, Facebook status updates, or….blogs—but it is all just the fruit of the fact that I am connected to heaven. If my strong desire turned to straining can’t add a millimeter of stature to my natural height, it certainly can’t stretch the bounds of my reach, either, no matter how many leadership books I read or clever strategies I adopt. But conversely, if I just consider the lilies, how they grow and continue to do the same, then I believe by the working of the Holy Spirit, my energies will be funneled into creative channels that will feed a landscape the size of my Kingdom dreams!

What's Really in a Name?

2011-03-07T14:37:00.001-08:00

Unless they are given a traditional family name, every child wonders about their parents’ choice for the word that will seem synonymous with all that they are. With the name, “Perrianne,” I was certainly no exception, especially given my extremely “identity-driven” personality. Because my dad’s middle name was “Perry,” I initially surmised that I was named for him--a happy thought to me. When I presented the findings of my research to him (at age 5, I believe), I was immediately told that this was not the case. It even seemed as if the connection had never occurred to him! Instead, he told me that I was named after a contestant on a game show that he and my mother watched while they were expecting me. This woman signed in on What’s My Line,”, the classic show where celebrities guess the profession of uniquely employed contestants. The woman who was the source of my name was, my dad said, a sports reporter. And that was that: I grew up with that minimally resourced consciousness regarding what seemed to me to be a very impersonal heritage connected to my name.

Having a unique name has drawbacks. I could never get a personalized keychain or bicycle license plate like the other kids—they just don’t make them with “Perrianne”. And, later, when Western pop culture discovered the joy of name-meaning plaques, “Perrianne” was a sure one to stump the band! I remember years ago in the local Walmart, a kiosk was set up to print and sell plaques with name meanings, and when we typed in Perrianne, I noticed that the description it spit out for me was vaguely similar to an example that was hanging there for display—an example which sounded nothing like “Perrianne”! I strained through the adolescent desire for conformity to develop an appreciation for being unique (because believe me, I am), but still there were times, I must admit, I wished for a different name. (At around 14, I must have thrilled my parents when I embarked upon a short-lived campaign to legally change my name to “Donna”—I now am not sure why I picked that one—perhaps because there were plenty of key chains and bike tags pre-printed with that moniker.)

Then came my college days, during which I felt like an unlikely invader into the world of scientific research….I had the skills to thrive academically (having been “diagnosed” with a 170 IQ early on), but I was so different from the typical chemistry major and there was also still a noticeable edge of stigma about being a woman, even in those “liberated” days of the late 70’s and early 80’s. When a new semester would begin, any professor whom I hadn’t had before would call the roll on the first day of class, reading off names and looking up after each one to see which face corresponded. Every time he stopped his rhythm and stared at the page, I knew he had arrived at my name and what would follow would be a halting attempt at pronunciation (really? how hard is it?) or the words, “how do you pronounce this?” at which time I would supply him with the correct pronunciation, still with a tinge of doubted identity in my hesitant voice.

So, being named Perrianne came to symbolize several things for me: First of all, my ambivalent relationship with attention. When I have a speaking gig or when I am just telling a story, I access a part of me that has NO problem being the center of attention—believe me! However, I am convinced that every extrovert has a large corresponding introvert somewhere inside and I have definitely navigated that mysterious artistic balance all my life. I did, in fact, as I matured, realize that this woman for whom I was named must have been a real trail-blazer. Now we see females reporting fairly frequently on sports—and not just women’s! But in the late 50’s and early 60’s, it must have been the case that this woman was a true pioneer! Though the main cause of my life is not gender-related, I do believe with all my heart that barriers made by human ideas with little or no grounding in truth are ALL meant to be broken! However, this only built my curiosity about the original Perrianne.

Then, at age 50, everything about my naming would change. Having written two books, I decided, at the urgings of media-savvy friends, to create an “author page” for myself on Facebook. A dear friend in England who had showered me with encouragement after reading both my books in one weekend had called his little session, “Perrianne-stock” and I loved the comparison it evoked to a “festival” (without all the trash and irresponsible behavior, of course). So at the beginning of this year, Perrianne-stock was launched and I am proud to report that it has rocketed to—wait for it—100 Facebook “likes”! Because the number is so low, I still notice every new addition and two weeks ago, someone named Perrianne “liked” my page to my amazement—spelled just like me and living in New York. Interested, I “friended” her and then fired off a quick message explaining briefly the random origin of my name and asking her the origin of hers. And then I went to the gym—no big deal.

An hour later, workout done, I clicked on my profile and discovered probably the most amazing FB reply in history! Perrianne in New York told me, “I was named after the same person as you were. Her name is Perian Conerly and she was married to Charlie Conerly, the most famous pro quarterback of his day, and…” (and here’s the real mind-blower) “…here is the video of the TV show your parents watched to name you…” In one click of a link to youtube, I saw for the first time ever this woman who was the source of my parents’ choice! I wept as I realized that I had probably—due to the low self-esteem from which we humans so often suffer—misjudged the whole situation. I had made negative judgments about my parents’ choice of a name, assuming that this 1959 TV show just tossed a novel idea into their empty well, rather than realizing this was an amazing woman who probably actually INSPIRED them about what their daughter could be! I am pleased to announce that for about 50 years, I got it a little wrong!

I am a passionate Christian and a truly spiritual one and my afore-mentioned identity-driven personality has found ample fulfillment in the legacy and destiny that I believe was intended in the divine plan. BUT, somehow through this experience, God had managed to fill a big gap in my inner world by restoring to me a missing sense of legacy and destiny that extended even to the farthest circumstances of my life! I already believed that there was purpose for me—and for every human being—but this experience drove it home so uniquely. There is so much purpose that NOTHING is accidental, marginal or useless. I believe more than ever in the orchestration of God.

Perrianne in NY also sent me a biographical article on Perian Conerly (and we found it ironic that both of our dads changed the spelling to the same one we share) and the hope I found only grew. I may share more in the future, especially after I read Perian Conerly’s book, which I have now ordered on Amazon, about exactly what she is coming to represent to me (especially as a writer), but that is not what I am aiming for right now. Right now, I want to shout from the housetops how good it feels to have been wrong! I owe my parents an apology for my judgment of them as uncreative! I owe myself an apology for failing to believe that my uniqueness was anything less than a gift! I experienced a true spiritual “retro-fit” at age 50. It happened to be related to my name, but it set me off wondering how many other subtle little judgments that limited my thinking might be lurking in the shadows…..?

I wish my daddy had sat me on his lap and explained to me, “Honey, we saw a wonderful woman on What’s My Line who captured our imaginations and we felt that you would be a trail-blazer and history-maker like her. Even more than that, we felt that you would be the kind of person who held her head high with dignity and brightened the world of everyone you came in contact with. And, we do even feel that there is some voice for you to have to your generation and we want to launch you on that journey with a name that will remind you of that every moment.” I wish he had said all those things, rather than leaving me to my own darker interpretation, but men of the great generation didn’t effuse emotion, nor did they require it. At the end of the day, maybe I didn’t need him to say it: I’m saying it for myself now quite well! I now feel, through “meeting” Perian Conerly via youtube, this is what my daddy meant to say to me and I am strengthened. He has said it to me now through a thousand Facebook “coincidences” and I am “gobsmacked” as the Brits say—overwhelmed with amazement at the divine orchestration.

Seekers of mere self-esteem cannot begin to understand the exceeding worth one feels when he finds his place in the Plan! What is most amazing is that I have lived so much of the legacy that my mom and dad reached out to, even without knowing it. I have now met a little army of Perrianne’s all over Facebook, some of whom knew of their legacy, some of whom did not and I am beginning to suspect that many of them will say the same! But, whether you are named Perrianne or Donna or Mary Jane, I guarantee you that there is more buzz surrounding your existence than you ever dreamed. And no matter your age, there is something wonderful to discover about who you really are. There are whole new worlds of perception that will completely erase dark clouds that you didn’t even know where there. There are a thousand horizons of meaning and purpose and all of them have your NAME on them.

Religion's NO versus the Father's YES

2011-02-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

I have been spending my three snow days here in Texas re-writing our church (The Abbey) membership class and have managed to inspire myself and now have more energy wanting to burst out of this house. Below is an unpolished excerpt that goes with my current Facebook status....I haven't added a FB "note" (or blog entry) in such a long time that I thought I would share the fruits of my labor here in cyberspace! Warning: INTENSE AUTHENTIC OPTIMISM demonstrated below!

Experiencing the Father’s YES:

You will no doubt hear the word “religion” used in a negative context often here at the Abbey. Because religion can also be used in a positive vein, it is good to clarify what we mean by the term. Of course, we do not mean the kind of “pure religion” that James 1:27 commends, where acts of service are the fruit. The religion that actually keeps people from getting to the marvelous realities of God is the same thing that Jesus spent a good portion of his ministry dismissing. Throughout the Gospels, we hear Jesus saying, “The scribes and Pharisees say…., but I tell you instead…..” and his contrasting declaration was always a statement of a loving God, rather than a harsh and legalistic judge. Perhaps it was Bono (yes, the U2 rock star) who recently said it best: “Religion can be the enemy of God. It`s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship.”

Considering that sense of the word religion—what men make up about God when he is not allowed to speak for Himself, for whatever reason—religion does keep people from the real GOD and we have no apologies for pointing out the contrast! Religion is a system based on law, sin, guilt and fear, but Jesus died on the cross to change the system. Our new system is one of SPIRIT which functions BY GRACE! Man has always been seeking his source, but religion hands out “NO” answers (or sometimes, “Yes, but….only if you jump through hoops of conformity” answers). God however, sent from heaven in the form of Jesus, one all-encompassing divine YES!

What is it you desire in your deepest heart? What is the quest at the deepest part of your being? In Christ, the answer is YES—perhaps not a magic, instant yes, or a yes that is an exact fit for your sometimes convoluted expectations, but a broad over-arching YES to your destiny, your prosperity and all God’s best for your life! Can I have…..? (fill in the blank with anything that is a genuine desire in the spirit) YES! It is not just our wish--it IS Scripture: “For all God's promises are "Yes" in him. And so through him we can say "Amen," to the glory of God.” II Corinthians 1:20

And that kind of bold confidence makes “religious” people angry. They want you to work for it like they think they have to do! They want to monitor your behavior and use guilt as a motivator. They want to sprinkle caution signs everywhere, just so you keep an element of fear in your relationship with God for protective purposes. But that is the issue at the crux of it all: FEAR! When people have only heard about the Father’s YES, and have not EXPERIENCED it, they still retain an edge of fear in their lives. You cannot mentally assent to the goodness of God—you have to give your heart to the experience. The only way to know the Father’s YES is to experience his goodness spirit to Spirit—to experience the perfect love that absolutely casts out that performance-based fear! (I John 4:18) That is what the spirit of God pours out every time.

When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God answered by allowing his GOODNESS to pass before him! God is the supreme ruler of the universe, the ultimate unchallenged power, but the most amazing thing that we notice when we experience Him (which we sense first in our spirits, but it readily spills out into our emotions and even our physicality) is that His power is never separate from his intense and overwhelming love and desire to share Himself with us! As the best of Fathers, His love is the motivating factor for all he does and He gives Himself away. He IS love—a love that says YES to the deepest desires because He actually is the source of those desires. (And be assured that silly or harmful “desires” are not the deep ones—they actually arise as poor substitutes when the deep ones are unmet).

The word “abbey” comes from the word abba which means “father.” You might remember it from Romans 8:15-16 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba,Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
So, an abbey is meant to be a place of God’s Fatherhood demonstrated. In this world of dysfunction where fatherhood has so often been absent or undependable, God is pouring out a healing grace that affects all aspects of life. We are not just experiencing the meeting of needs, but we are experiencing being “re-Fathered” from above! It is not just a place of YES, but a place of the FATHER’S YES, where all fulfillments are attached to His good heart! His blessing is not just material—it is much more! As God said to Abraham in a vision, so today we hear the same from the heart of the Father God, “I AM your shield and your exceedingly great reward.”

Structures versus Systems (Ode to a Drummer)

2010-07-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

I write books about chaos, freedom and right-brain bursts, so it is probably no surprise that the church worship group I lead is not exactly run like a “tight ship”. Our team is full of young musicians who passionately love God and his Kingdom but also refuse to be confined to the oppressive prevailing winds of polished church perfection. While it’s a no-brainer to want excellence and skill, we get off the boat when anyone tries to guide us into becoming more produced or slick, fearing that the end of that road is something utterly sterile and unreal. Each Sunday morning as we leaf through our pages of Chris Tomlin, Tim Hughes, Delirious and now Jesus Culture songs, we are clearly far more intent on following our hearts than we are the current version of the rules of engagement between worship teams and audiences. The only requirement we universally honor is that of having our hearts on board to serve the people by helping them rise up on wings of fresh, raw, real worship each week.
And, may I say that it is working? Each one of us almost every Sunday stand amazed at the synergistic thing that comes forth from our platform. Musical bridges regularly become prophetic moments in which an instrument or a voice brings out something unplanned bearing the now word from heaven for the morning. We all seem to be discovering the Holy Spirit as the primary member of our team and we honestly (and I don’t say this proudly, but rather full of humble gratitude…) seem to have left the days of dry worship so far behind that we honestly can’t even remember them. No one gives big speeches or pep talks and we hardly ever even pray together before the service (I know I just severely shocked some readers), but we have created a culture in which God is primary and both freedom and servanthood are balanced in support of each other. Something is just going quite right. People are finding a safe harbor in our worship and lives are being effected—both Christian and pre-Christian! Our ground rule has been: always, like God, look at the heart of every person or situation.
Because of this momentum, we are generating a buzz and now many people who are new to our team are coming on board this loosely run ship of freedom. And so, we are facing for the first time a new challenge: defining who we are and what we are doing to people new to our worship team culture so as to make room for them and yet preserve the precious thing that has emerged among us. And that need is what landed a few leaders around my dining room table late last evening for a discussion we have never needed to have before. One leader in particular had particularly been asking himself the important questions before he came to the discussion. He had been thinking back over his formative years as a musician, especially remembering the years he suffered through endless requirements for conformity and tense interpretations of “submitting to worship team authority” (it was another era then). He realized that he had no desire to return to such a performance-oriented and creativity-squelching culture, but he also feared a future that looked like a free-for-all. If you truly say, “Come one, come all…be free and worship…” and there is no cohesive vision AND no hearts wrapped around it through relational connections, then disintegration could quickly ensue. This leader stood at the crossroads that all honest leaders eventually discover: the desire for freedom balanced by the honest—and holy—fear of anarchy.
As we talked, even though we are all intelligent people and I especially have volumes of words to say about the subject of leadership and culture (emergence as a scientific reality always informs me in every issue), words didn’t come easy and there was a sense that we were dealing with one of those age-old paradoxes. Without verbalizing it, we all agreed that “only in God is the coincidence of opposites.” Every time we are faced with a paradox, we are driven back to the Spirit realm and the need for a God who can actually lean into two “opposing” truths at once. Freedom and conservatism….acceptance of each other just as we are but acknowledging we are being summoned to a higher level….complete openness to people but complete impenetrability to their “extra” ideas…constant change coexisting with the eternal unchanging absolutes….all of these things that I can’t reconcile especially when I try with my limited mind….all of these things are at peace in Him. All I really need is a look at God in the real-time moment to know how to proceed, trusting Him that in the next moment if the situation changes, he will communicate then, too.
The word “structure” had been thrown around throughout the discussion, as if the most notable characteristic of our worship team had been the lack thereof. So, it was an obvious thought that perhaps the missing element was just some structure--a loose one, but still a structure—rules, guidelines and procedures—anything on paper that would protect the DNA as we grew. Suddenly, the same leader I described above said, “The word structure is not really right…” And when he said it, I heard myself answer: “No—we need SYSTEMS! What we need are workable SYSTEMS for helping new people fit into the flow.” The corporate air seemed to clear as we together realized that the times of greatest success in our history were not when we followed what little rules we do have to a “t”, but rather when we succeeded relationally at connecting with new people and imparting to them who we are. We didn’t need to create a structure when none existed. We needed instead to define the SYSTEMS that were already working, often unconsciously.
This may sound like semantics to some, but I assure you the implications of it are very real. Structure is scaffolding in the hopes of life-flow while systems are the paths that life-flow has already taken. Our structures can exist without God while systems are the very tracings of where He has walked among us. Structures give us confidence in the flesh (I am the leader—you obey the rules) while systems give us confidence in the unseen realm and the incredible orchestration employed by a God who owns it all. Structures hope for effectiveness while systems generate it. It’s a big deal. What are the rules and requirements for being on a worship team? If those are heart issues more than outward conformity, how can those be anything but systems?
In a structure, I can demand that your physical body be at a certain number of practices but I have no jurisdiction over your heart. In a system, I can expect you to be in relationship with a team leader throughout the week, communicating your status, good or bad and being loved no matter what. If you don’t show up for practice, you will be contacted by someone who wants to call you back to worship rather than someone who wants to exclude you because you didn’t follow the rules. For a living organism—like the church—systems are a higher level of function than structure. A child needs structure—an adult needs systems. Children can only comply with a simple command, but an adult can hear the subtleties of intention and give a whole-life response.
So, our mission is clear. It is not to put a structure on an amazing dynamic life-flow of worship and by doing so risk lessening its energy. Our mission is instead to learn to articulate and communicate the systems of God’s hidden order that lie just underneath the surface of our successful function. We know some of the hallmarks of those systems already: relationship; authenticity; being more impressed with heart than natural abilities; being completely unimpressed with position or political clout; humility; honesty; preferring one another; whole-life worship; finding God in the unexpected moments; being open always to His prophetic whisperings; treating every meeting like a clean slate….In the end, I think we now realize that SYSTEMS of life will both demand more trust AS WELL AS provide more rewards than comforting structures that generate immediate data and direction and give us the illusion we’ve got it all figured out.
So, I’ll let you know how it goes. It’s an emergent phenomenon. As Michael Buble sings like Frank Sinatra before him, “The best is yet to come….” We are simply participating with what wants to manifest and it’s great to be along for the ride.

Only Blog-Like

2010-01-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

The following is "not really a blog"--only "blog-like". Funny how this genre of writing so appeals to me. A friend asked for my notes from a recent talk I did and I wanted to type them up for her, since what I put on paper is a map of my thoughts that might not be traceable by anyone outside my brain. I began typing notes and every now and then a bit of blogging crept in. Rather than converting the whole thing, I present it here in it's raw form. It's a talk called "Sit, UBU, Sit--Or Not" (the point being: We must stop telling people in church to be themselves (UBU!) and then telling them to "sit"--our mixed message of "you're accepted as long as you do what we approve of" must stop and we really must become intoxicated with the God who uniquely wired each one of us to express Him! We have all been misunderstood when we tried to "be ourselves" as we were encouraged to do by other Christians, but on those very ruins of pain, God wants to build a new confidence.") There's a little summary...here are the contents...

Jeremiah 30:18: Jerusalem (place of worship) will be rebuilt on its own ruins.
Place of worship in your life is not just you singing songs in church, but your whole life, being who you are and expressing God through the uniqueness that he put in you—That worship will be established in your life upon the very things that seem crumbled, failing and disastrous. This is a pattern with God, who is better than any earthly “recycler”…
Ruins is also translated “mounds”—visual image: in the U.K. there are literally so many ancient sites worthy of excavation by the National Trust that sometimes when they discover a new one, they dig a while and then literally “re-bury” them to preserve them until their teams can get to them. For years, some ruins of ancient churches, etc. are only visible as little “mounds” all over a field that evidence life long absent. Sometimes our lives look like that: “mounds” that are the only memories of life that once flowed through us. Upon THAT utter desolation, God wants to stand and build. We are so sure he has forgotten and that we have fallen into oblivion, but he never forgets and is always working on a plan of redemption—personalized for our own brand of “ruins”.

GOD WILL SURPRISE YOU WITH HIS CREATIVITY IN BOTH LAYING OUT AND REDEEMING THE PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you…. Plans here literally means “cunning” and is also translated: plots, inventions, schemes ways, intentions, designs
Comes from a root word that means to “weave, plait (as in braid) or interpenetrate”. Imagine the most creative of textiles with threads of various size, color, etc. and think the process of weaving. This and more is what God is doing through all the textures of your life—and he does it with a gleam in his eye. There is a playful edge to his desire to surprise you with good—throughout the bible there is an emphasis on the mind-blowing capacities of God—he is always painted as more than we can take in or mentally understand. Now realize that this aspect of his character is applied to his personal intentions for us and our lives!

Ephesians 2:10 We are his workmanship---Greek is poiema, one of the roots of this word is also related to fabric—we (and our lives) are being woven together according to his magnificently cunning devices—not to trick us but to revolutionize us.

(Why don’t we always see it? Why do bad things seem to go unanswered in our lives, lingering like a dirge over our view of God? Romans 12:1-2 Our minds (the reticular activating systems in our brains, specifically—the part that filters what we notice or ignore) have to be renewed to see the goodness of God---then we begin to see the goodness of his tapestry weaving.

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS YOUR “LIFE-COACH” KNOWING THE REAL YOU AND TEACHING YOU AT EVERY TURN HOW TO EXPRESS THAT.

The root of the word “genius” goes back to ancient Rome. The pagan Romans believed that genius was a guardian spirit that nurtured, educated and basically “brought out” the inner greatness of a person. This concept was so real to them that on a Roman’s birthday, he would actually give gifts to that spirit! That is pagan nonsense, and yet a great picture of what the Holy Spirit has actually committed to in our lives. He is teaching you what is authentically you—the “genius” (your particular brand) that lives inside you being personally coached and coaxed out by the indwelling spirit of the Creator who knows its detailed dimensions! He is an expert at seeing what is in you and bringing it out.

Abraham Maslow, the famous psychologist who developed the “hierarchy of need” as an explanation of what motivates humans, put at the top of that pyramid (see diagram) the need for “self-actualization”—what he was saying to us is that this drive in us to get what is inside of us out for public viewing—to make some contribution from our inner man—to live from the inside out—is not just a good idea, but actually a NEED, hard-wired into us by the Creator who desires to express Himself through the vastness of his creation and the uniqueness of each individual! (Ok, Maslow didn’t add the part about the Creator, but---that is actually what the Holy Spirit wants to do for you: meet that need in you for “self-actualization”. It isn’t “self-ish”—it is the way he works. It is Christ in you showing what a union between earth and heaven can look like—what a free man looks like—what God flowing through uninhibited creation looks like….)

HE IS THE GOD OF ALL POSSIBILITIES AT ALL TIMES. The whole Kingdom responds to choices and changes, continuously manifesting the goodness of God.
Romans 8:28 (all things “synergize” for good…) movie: Sliding Doors: two scenarios—missing the subway vs. making it on---implied fascinating message—the same outcome would have arisen through a different path. If we make a choice that was not the one God intended, there is an instant Kingdom reconfiguring response that realigns the next options to offer us GOOD from heaven once again! There is no scolding time, just a system of Kingdom resources that is input-sensitive, responding to the changes that believers make---always, always, always seeking to bless and comfort and manifest the goodness of God to us.

Matthew 10:29 He knows when even a sparrow falls. Chaos theory: tiny movements are passed through layers and layers of atmospheric relationships so that a butterfly’s wing in China really can be the source of a tornado in Texas….how much more is it true with the human heart and the God who rules heaven! Every tiny movement of our heart sends of disturbances through the heavenlies that somehow register in heaven in the vast mind of God that never overloads with data because he takes in all signal with perfect wisdom and grace-filled response capabilities that never falter! Psalm 139: He knows my “downsitting and my uprising…” He knows not only when we physically sit down or stand up (in some way, again, that must register in the information banks of heaven!), but more importantly, he knows when we “sit down” on the inside—backing off of our hope and adopting a wait-and-see attitude where once we had confident expectation. And he knows when we “rise up” once again—he sees the pain we press through to dare to believe, even just slightly, once again in areas we have experienced disappointment.

“Synchronicity” is not just a new age-y feel good term. Synchronicity is a thing of the spirit: Romans 8:28: All things work together (fit into a pattern) for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose… Purpose is a guiding force in connecting all the details of our lives and weaving them into a pattern for good. Amazing “before you ask” resourcing occurs when we focus on the big Kingdom picture and meaning for our lives. It is a spirit phenomenon. (the opposite: frustrations and setbacks and almost supernatural disjointedness—is how it goes in the flesh—things seem to go from bad to worse—when it rains it pours…NOT how God intended it to be…if you are experiencing that, you may be pushing in the flesh—may need to zoom out and relax and regroup). God has a resourcing orchestration for those who rest in his purposes.

In the biochemistry of the cell, thousands of little reactions fit in to a pattern for good—for life! A starting product supplied by the bloodstream or the external environment is taken through a cycle of changes to produce something needed for the cell to live. All through the process, there are waste products released—bits of molecules clipped off and sent into the cell “soup” because the cycle doesn’t need them anymore…BUT, so amazingly efficient is the cell that every single one of those “waste products” (that we draw on our paper going off with an arrow) actually gets picked up by another cycle in the cell that needs it to make something else vital for life. All over the cell, cycles spin and spin, supplying each other with the substrates needed in a fabulous orchestration that is only possible by the most amazing Master Mind! If he does all this on the micro level of the cell, how much more does he do this on the MACRO level of our inner journeys! What we call waste products from all we go through can all be re-used in the big picture of our life destiny. It might be harder to see, but that is just because we are in it (not “above” it as in the cell situation) and because we “feel” it! Still it is true if we just open our eyes and believe it! Our “waste” fuels something vital in the economy of God!

Little synchronous stories abound in life—how something was there for you just when you needed it. Often little “silly” things! My friend Liz recently desperately needed a napkin at a restaurant. Before she even could get the words out of her mouth, from behind her came a waitress almost running for no apparent reason to shove napkins into her hand. Everyone marveled at the moment and Liz joked, “I need $100,” and looked around to see if it came from somewhere, too! Why is it that these happy coincidences seem to happen on these small levels, while often we feel so desperate when it comes to our “big” “real” needs? I believe it is because we aren’t blocking our view of the resources by WORRY when it comes to the napkins of life! We aren’t stressed and straining and trying to help God bring us a napkin, freeing him up to supernaturally motivate a waitress to speed across the room???? If we desperately needed $1000, we might not be so calm and we might fret and pace and freak and fail to see the provision of God. He comes through anyway, but we are so messed up we missed the moment!

If we combine this concept of SYNCHRONICITY with God’s amazing ability to REDEEM, we get little moments I call “happy ironies”. This was brought home to me recently when I was reading something about Susan B. Anthony, who fought her whole life for equality for women, playing a large role in getting women the vote in this country. When she was 50, she received a critical letter from her brother begging her basically to “get a life”. He said, “You’ve worked tirelessly all your life and you have not even a dollar to show for it!” She ignored him completely because her passion could not be diverted, but HOW FUNNY that long after her death (and her brothers) she literally has a DOLLAR IN her name!!! Hilarious—a happy irony.
Happy ironies are when the place of your worst moments are turned to your greatest victories—the place where you are most misunderstood becomes the place you are celebrated!

Judges 15:15-19 tells the story of Sampson killing 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass and it says that after that he was so thirsty that he basically said to the Lord, “am I going to die of simple thirst after this great exploit?” There’s a play on words happening here because the word for the place “lehi” is also the word for jawbone…so God’s answer to Sampson has two interpretations. The Bible says that God brought a spring of water out of “lehi” which could have meant the ground but many scholars think it came from the actual jawbone—one translator says it sprung from the “tooth socket” on the bone! I could see this latter possibility for two reasons (1) God has an amazing sense of humor and he is not afraid to use it—in the face of Sampson’s complaint about God not taking care of him, I think it would be hilariously glorious if the water sprung out of the thing right in his hand! And (2) God wants to refresh you right from the middle of the thing that wearied you! Sampson had been grabbing on to that jawbone to do the will of God and it had worn him out—God NEVER fails to water those who swing the weapon for him!

God’s creativity to resource you is so far beyond your imagination. The biggest enemies to it are legalistic ideas and mental limitations. Let your mind be expanded to the glorious, vast, amazing, resourceful, ACCESSIBLE God we serve and sit back and watch the world spin differently for you! The best is yet to come! We are in a big system and the only price for the wild ride is the abandonment of natural reasoning. Go ahead and let go and let spiritual realities become more real to you—this is the “great adventure”!

Trust It to Emerge

2009-12-21T06:52:00.000-08:00

Though decisions are made by group concensus among our church worship team, I am still the "bottom line" regarding song choice every Sunday morning, and I have really made a science out of it! I have learned to navigate the pressures of personal preference and discern the occasions on which an obscure song or even a non-traditional one might be amazingly appropriate, as well as the times that the latest thing from "Jesus Culture" which would be totally expected from us is equally appropriate! I love the rhythm of church life and how the Holy Spirit tends to weave in the unexpected amidst the familiar and I really do believe that "song choice" can be summed up with a phrase from the book of Acts: "It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit..." God works with humans in a very intimate way and his purposes STILL wrap themselves in flesh 2000 years since the manger scene.

And that last thought brings me to the topic of Christmas. I'm sure every worship leader on planet earth noticed that yesterday was the last Sunday service before Christmas--you know the one where we contemporary churches with youthful bands who are more familiar with Weezer than the Wesleys attempt to pull off a few carols! Joy to the World is always a favorite due to its upbeat nature (thank you G.F. Handel for your foresight) and Away in a Manger works in Texas because enough "country" covers have been done that it now abides in the collective consciousness with a gentle acoustic strum. However, at least for our worship team, the carol experience is often a painful nod to the holiday--which everyone now knows is not even celebrated in the right month!

Yesterday, I decided to refuse the pressure of expectation. I went to church with a list of songs that had no direct reference to the Christmas story, in full confidence that every bit of worship we do has to do with the fact that Jesus was (and still wants to be) incarnated into the real world. What could be more celebratory of the incarnation of Christ than people gathering to sing, shout and dance around, fueled by the inner confidence of his absolutely transcendent reality? Though I love the carols, I felt suddenly liberated from the need to adapt them to a rock band format! You go girl, right?

If the story ended there, it would have some merit, but God had an infusion of the unexpected. Someone on our team said, "Let's do some Delirious," and I accommdated that request by reaching back a few years to the standard and ever-popular I Could Sing of Your Love Forever which did seem fresh because it had been a long while since we had done it. It was the last song in the set and flowed well with the other songs, general celebrations of God's grace and goodness. As you do, when we reached the end of the song, we went to that "flow-y" place of improvisation that dances in and out of the prophetic--you know how it goes: one minute you are lyrically exhorting the congregation to "go ahead and sing of his love in your own way..." and then suddenly a phrase shows up that is from somewhere beyond the lyrics. You sing it out and you sense the worship has just stepped up to another plateau...suddenly things are spontaneous--vocally and instrumentally you are venturing out into the great unknown of God!

And that's when it began: I heard myself start to sing about...wait for it...Christmas! Out of my mouth came the most amazing streams of words completely unpremeditated. The last line in the Delerious? song says, "I will always sing of when your love came down..." and I suddenly remembered a line from a song my mother used to sing, "Love came down at Christmas...love all lovely, love divine..." and there I departed. For about ten minutes, I sang this spontaneous Christmas medley of sorts that for a while centered on "O Come O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel..." and then focused on the line from O Holy Night that says, "...till he appeared and the soul felt its worth..." It was amazing and rambling and rhythmically flowing with what the musicians were laying down and it just kept coming. Words, like a river popping into my head from all that has been sung through the years about Christmas, but now being incarnated into an utterly contemporary setting. It was like my brain stood in awe of what was coming out of my spirit, and, clearly, (and I don't mean this as disparagingly as it may sound), we all got our "Christmas fix"!

Later, as I pondered, I marvelled at the lesson that I gleaned--the same lesson that all of life seems to be wrapping around me these days--a Kingdom lesson that I wish I could shout from the rooftops! We so often waste time and energy trying to fulfill expectations--especially our own--when in fact there is a fully equipped expectation-exceeding "machine" inside us! The Kingdom of God is swirling inside us Christians, fully resourced with Christmas words and music--or anything else desirable--accessible precisely at the time needed! The Kingdom wants to emerge with more power and force than we could ever muster in our own initiative--we just need to participate in its incarnation! The Scripture in Hebrews that urges us to come boldly to the throne to find grace to help in time of need need not only mean a desperate approach in a desperate situation. That comfort is only a slice of a much broader pattern of living to which God is calling us: there is always empowerment for life and action to be experienced in our contact with God--He is always wanting to demonstrate Himself by showing up in the moments of our lives with surprising displays of Presence. The throne of grace is a throne of participation and partnering between heaven and earth. This God truly wants to live Himself out among us still and gladly does so--much to our enjoyment--when we refuse to nervously overplan his arrival!

And that really is, now that I think of it, the message of Christmas. The obvious answer to the popular Christmas song of a few years ago, Mary, Did You Know? is a resounding NO! Mary did not know that the pivotal Person of all time, eternity and spiritual substance was residing inside her young womb. How could anyone "know" that and bear up under it? She did not know, but she was willing to "let it emerge". She carried the Kingdom of God the way we all should--with the sense that she was participating in a mystery that her mental capacities could never fully master, yet remaining open to all the possibilities. The good news of Christmas is vast, but one very real aspect of it is this: This spiritual Kingdom to which we Christians now belong requires none of the effort, strain and fevered pursuit that we bring to it. This Kingdom, like the Savior that instituted it, wants--more than we know--to emerge. It wants to leap into being and fill every time and space around us, making things whole and right, hopeful and holy.

When we actually resist the pressures of do-it-yourself professional Christianity, we give the Kingdom a chance to show its overwhelming orchestrational ability and take our very breath away. Whether it is one Sunday morning's worship experience, or deliverance in the midst of an impossible situation, or the transformation of the nations--it's really all the same. God help us, as we hurl headlong into 2010, to learn the rhythm of Kingdom participation. Give us the incredible grace to, like Jesus, refuse to run to the dying Lazaurs, because we have already observed the power of resurrection and its ability to EMERGE! I'm looking for--and hoping to be a part of--an army of strangely sane Christians with eyes fixed on another realm. I'm looking to fully lose the religious performance frenzy and march forward with bold confidence minus the need to push or prove. Sign up now and leave the pressure behind...I think the call is clear.

Twelve Hours Later and Still Speechless....

2009-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

There are amazing times in life when we do actually get blindsided by blessing. Last night was one of them. I oversee the entertainment at our church Thanksgiving dinner, but at this year's gathering, a presentation was made that was a complete surprise to me. Jack Warren and his daughter Adria Weaver dressed in nun's habits and sang the following song which they had composed, set to the tune of The Sound of Music's "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" I share it here both to allow anyone who knows me to have a real laugh (though I was really honored--believe me, I take this as a massive complement, a fact which in itself testifies to my noted nonconformity), but also to celebrate the incredible creativity that it demonstrated! I am continually amazed at the vast field of hidden treasure in the hearts of God's people--like gems in every imaginable color, shape and size waiting to be mined and displayed. Would to God that the church would celebrate that journey of discovery and show the world the resulting kaliedescope of beauty! Thanks again, Jack and Adria....I'm still speechless (and I pray sincerely that I do live up to your noble assessment by God's grace!)
Here is the "spoof":

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A QUANDRY LIKE PERRIANNE

She shows us YouTube videos and mingles with the youth.
She waltzes of to England with her Eastern-mindset views.
And even through her humor, she's anointed to her shoes.
I love to hear her singing in the Abbey.

She's really note Bette Middler and Grace Slick she cannot be.
Instead a modern miracle of post-modernity.
I really have to say though it is very plain to see:
Perrianne is such an asset to the Abbey!

(I'd like to say a word on her behalf: Perrianne makes me laugh!)

How do you solve a quandry like Perrianne?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Perrianne?
A flibbety-gibbet, a will-o-the-wisp, a clown?

Many a thing you know she'd like to tell you.
Many a thing she hopes you'll understand.
Like engaging culture and art, with all your "burning heart".
It's quite a quantum leap for man.

How do you solve a quandry like Perrianne?
How does a non-conformist fit the plan?

Inspiring others with her Kingdom passion,
Using the proper side of her brain.
A football mom with rock-star sense of fashion.
A prophetess, a storm of latter rain.

Many a thing you know she'd like to tell you.
Many a thing she hopes you'll understand.
But how do you watch her play and in religion stay?
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?

How do you solve a quandry like Perriane?
How does a non-conformist fit the plan?
(Amen.)

Having the Dialogue

2009-08-14T06:15:00.001-07:00

Note: A treasured friend of mine recently e-mailed this back to me--a "blog entry" I had written months ago and shared with her, but never published. "Synchronistically," (I started to say "ironically," but realized I could coin a better word) I had just had a great "dialogue" that morning with a man in a restaurant that made this all the more poignant. He belongs to the Church of Christ and was discussing with us the maxim of their denomination, "Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent." The conversation had set me off in a world of thought. Do we believe that the Bible draws lines or opens doors? Do we believe the Bible is "final" or transformational? Do we honor the divine nature of the spirit-words more by treating them like ancient writings or by accepting them as living radiative generators of high-energy light? IS THERE A TIME IN WHICH--on any level or in any realm--THE BIBLE IS EVER SILENT???? It all depends on how you view it all... There is much more to be said about this, but for now, here's the previously unpublished blog entry as a beginning towards that dialogue:

In Britain, more than in Texas, they use the word “dialogue” as a verb, and I have come to greatly respect that practice. If a leader is pondering a change in style, schedule or format in the “new churches” in the U.K., he doesn’t go off into a room alone and produce a document (as we Americans might tend to do), but rather he gathers people and—wait for it—begins to “dialogue.” Yes, they “have a curry” (or something else) and they go round the room tossing about the implications of the change or concept they are considering. No one even really takes notes—there seems to be little being done but engaging hearts, mouths and brains in various combinations. It seems that the overall agenda of “results” is subordinated to the process of interaction and there is a bedrock conviction under it all that if we don’t get there together, we haven’t really “gotten there!”

I am aware that this may be a cultural difference. The broad tendency in the British culture leans toward such extreme respect that our friend Clive Price says that his people have a national obsession with the word, “sorry”. (You accidentally bump into them at the airport, but THEY say, “oh, sorry,” as if they were guilty of choosing to stand on a piece of earth which was destined to be part of your path to the ticket counter.) It would make sense that British leaders would genuinely value their comrades’ opinions, given this deferential climate. (In America, especially in Texas, so often this contrast is stark: We are often clearly and solidly NOT sorry, even when the collision of whatever kind might be our actual fault! We often would indeed think, “You really shouldn’t have been standing in my way.” Ouch…)

Perhaps the British educational system has fostered this fondness for dialogue. The British psyche with its frequent reminders of Roman occupation as a part of its own history may have an inextricable tie to the classical methods that built the Western world. Greek philosophers reasoning together as they applied the Socratic method of discussion may have looked a bit like church leaders discussing whether or not to rent the local school hall for a youth meeting (except for the togas, probably). Again, the value placed on the collective wisdom would be the common theme. (I’ll speak up here for my British friends as well: At this point a few of them would bring in the other side and say, “Yes, but at least you Americans arrive at a decision and act!” And in fact, there might, dare I say it, be an advantage at times to being a cowboy! There might be a point at which dialogue ends and action is called for, but that’s another blog entry.)

The bottom line is that church leaders will dialogue rather than dictate when they “do church” from a relational grid. We here in Texas have been trying to do that for years—often misunderstood, sometimes even gently corrected by well meaning people who mistake the group-speak for weakness, but nevertheless we press on. We don’t always know how to bridge the gap between the vision we have in our hearts (that exists on a plane which is beyond what we can express) and the common understanding of a group of people trying to make the journey from traditional church and non-spiritual communication. After more than twenty years of perhaps getting in wrong as often as getting it right (the jury’s out on that proportion)—I still say it’s all about the willingness to have the dialogue. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that as a leader, what you really have is NOT the stuff you put on paper as law and hand out—all you really have is the dialogue in which you are willing to engage. We wrongly strain to view the policy documents as comprehensive, when in fact--like the Bible which hopefully inspired them--they are instead meant to be living, breathing starting places for life—opening doors to a thousand applications—coming alive in the hands of living hearts and moving pictures—uncontainable urgings of life wanting to leap into being off the page. It is not the words arrived at that are important, but rather the ongoing dialogue with people that keeps on generating a “chat”! (The best policity documents will leave room for the dialogue.)

How silly to think we can line it all out, figure it all out and prepare for every contingency, when life ongoing will present a thousand different challenges a day that are not foreseeable by our small minds. We need to view all our “documents” (including the Bible) as doors rather than ends. We need to dare to walk through them into the world of experience. This does not lesson their value, but rather enhances it. The Bible is of course the word of God, but how in the world--if it is the Word of the living Creator who Himself is full of fire and light so intense it can blind an Apostle travelling down an opposing road—how in the world can that Word fail to challenge my current understanding of life and relationships at every turn? This thing is so big we must engage—our hearts, our passions, our minds, our time—we must be living the dialogue ongoing! We are dialoguing with heaven when we dialogue with each other!

Of course I have a quantum physics truth to refer to here, because the fact is that you can be absolutely assured that this is the way the universe works. Now that we understand that the universe is far different than classical physics had predicted, we are slowly realizing that systems are indeed much more than the sum of their parts. We used to believe that to understand anything at all, we only need to isolate, define and describe each component. Understand the proton, neutron and electron and you understand the atom…understand the atom and you understand the molecule…understand the molecule and you understand the substance…on up to a complete and unshakeable understanding of the world…right? NO!!! Not at all! It turns out that it is not enough to define and describe the particles. It is not just the particles that make things what they are, but rather it is the INTERACTIONS between all the particles! The universe is defined as we interact—life is ongoing, not preset! The fabric of the universe is woven through RELATIONSHIP and empty space between particles is never really empty. Empty space is filled with INTERACTION of particles upon one another. We all really affect each other. (So much so, that it is a RELATIONSHIP that affects eternal destiny and the very substance--be it life or death--that issues forth from a human heart! The whole Kingdom—and the whole universe run on relationship.)

So…..the dialogue is all important and it makes sense that this would be the case. As a church leader, I am redefining success. My success is not about what I have delivered, defined or documented. My success—and the question of my heart today—is, simply, “Am I still having the dialogue?” Am I still willing to try to bridge the gap between the Kingdom of God as I see it in my heart and the psyches of those with whom I am travelling? Am I still engaging in the interaction or have I, through hurt or pain, decided to live out of my own stockpile, dumping on people what I have rather than discovering with them together?

Recently in our church, we hit a patch of rough waters in a very treasured relationship. (I’m reminded of the lyrics of the Dave Mason song from the 70’s: “There ain’t no good guys. There ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.” How it would help if church people could say this rather than invoking heaven’s endorsement solely on one side or the other.) If you’re still tender at all, you hate these things and in your pain, you are tempted to either look outward or look inward. I look inward. I have been wondering what I could have done or said along the way that could have prevented the problem. I talk and dream and cast vision constantly, but did I err in failing to deal with the current state of things while peering down the road into reformation? Was I, as I am so often accused of, being an impractical dreamer leading people on with my idealism, but unable to translate the conversation into any action?

As I was sharing with my 20 year old son this morning in my introspective funk, he said to me, “Mom, you did the best you could. You’ve just been having the dialogue and the dialogue is your prayer.” Suddenly the cloud cover broke and I recommitted. The dialogue doesn’t always promise a perfect resolution—the dialogue may hit impasses and even break down, but it is still worth having and yes—he’s right—it is my prayer. Stay away—far away—from Perrianne Brownback if you don’t want to talk, dream and create a world where church is set free from the trappings of religion and allowed to flesh itself out authentically in a postmodern culture which is ripe and ready to hear the truth. This IS my prayer…though I bungle it, blunder it and botch it up at times. My heart is pressing for something because in terms of church lived out on earth, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for….” Love me, hate me, receive me, reject me…I might feel the cuddle or the sting, but ultimately I won’t care. It will always come back to this. I can’t help it. I’m a carrier of the dialogue and it must continue. In every form and at every turn, I must (perhaps less aggressively than I’m raging on about here, but still ‘must’) explore the possibilities of the reality of God showing up where we’ve been told he can’t do!!!

I’m finally free to “not have all the answers”, but bless God, I dare you to try to stop me from having the conversation! If you can’t handle it, get out of the way because, though I’m British enough to say, “I’m sorry” when our paths collide, I’m American enough to plough on through towards the thing I see ahead. (Obviously, a balance of the two would approach “Kingdom”.) I may not get there by a predictable path or even a very pretty one, but I will not stop. There is only the cause of Kingdom Come to live for and press for and to shift the local church more and more fully into so that the days of wasted efforts of the flesh and inefficiency fully come to an end. I’m gone, hopeless…but I suspect I’m not gone alone. Who else is up for the dialogue….???

Quantum Grace

2009-04-10T04:31:00.000-07:00

Ezekiel 2:1-2 Then He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!” As He spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet; and I heard Him speaking to me.

I'll make a confession here and risk the judgment that could be incurred! Like millions of Christians, I workout daily, iPod on hip, but in my case, the music that flows to my ears in an effort to distract my brain from the muscular challenge is not often Christian. It's not that singing the high praises of God are not conducive to maximum exertion--it's more that there is so much creativity that has been explored beyond the confines of the Christian industry and it is creativity that motivates me--and it is clearly motivation I need when I am trying to get this late 40-something body to embrace the gym moment! However, on my large iPod I do have many Christian albums that I love (many by friends whom I love), and the other day I was exploring one by a British friend named Dave Middleton. Somehow it was working and fueling my inner fire. On his CD entitled "Songs of Men and Angels," Dave reads out a long portion of the vision of God that Ezekiel had by the river Chebar (described--as best as Ezekiel could describe wheels with eyes and four-faced beings--in Ezekiel 1). When he got to the statement above at the beginning of chapter 2, I had an epiphany. It didn't necessarily translate to an immediate increase in the number of leg curls I could do, but it is the kind that will translate to a greatly empowered inner life!

I think often about the "quantum" world and if that doesn't turn you off, you can be my new friend (as many of my current friends are quite tired of hearing about it). This world of new science is such a model, or better said, a reflection of the nature of a reality that is, in essence, spirit. What we have learned about how infinitesimally small, speed-of-light approaching particles behave has given us great insight about navigating our spiritual lives. It's not the "new age" territory--it's the territory of the Eternal One and therefore should be the home of the Christian. But I'll save that large work of persuasion for another blog (and other books) and share with you this specific quantum observation related to Ezekiel and something very important but never mentioned by Ezekiel: grace.

In a quantum world, the notions of time and distance are erased, superceded by the notion of relationship. If things are related, cause and effect is not really an issue--change in status can occur essentially and simultaneously even through distance of space--and time! It turns out that things can be so related that the experience of one particle is "known" by the other instantly, skipping the stage of education--it's more like impartation! This is a shock because, in the classical physics lab that we experienced in high school, the "cause" was issued and then we turned our eyes towards the observation of the "effect" and it slowly yeilded data for us--measurable and comforting. In the quantum world, it is hard to tell which is cause and which is effect--they are so related that they get actually rolled into one--at least to our slowed-down observational powers.

Ezekiel here was told to "stand on his feet"--which might have been a difficult task for him after seeing the vision of blinding God-demonstration that sent him to the ground! But Ezekiel indicates that even as the command to stand was leaving the mouth of the Lord, the responding standing was being accomplished in Ezekiel by the Spirit of God. In these two verses, we see a microcosm of grace: God commands Ezekiel to stand up and hear while the Spirit of God is simultaneously performing that action in and through Ezekiel. Both the command and the ability to carry it out are married as if quantum particles--God says it and Ezekiel finds it happening to him as he hears God say it! Surely this is grace and it reminds us of every statement Jesus made to people in healing: "Rise up and walk...and immediately the man's ankle bones received strength..." We don't hear Jesus use the word grace often--that really comes later in Paul's writings. And yet, Jesus IS grace, demonstrating it everywhere he goes by empowering people to do what he simultaneously calls for! (I have often thought of the woman caught in adultery to whom Jesus said, "Go and sin no more..." I imagine that those very words spoken by Him into the depths of her being did not set up a law or performance standard, but rather released in her an inner empowering that she had never before known, awakening the strength to turn away from her former lifestyle and live out a newly imparted grace.) For it is God who is producing in you both the desire and the ability to do what pleases him. (Phil. 2:13, ISV).

Through Ezekiel's description of his enoucnter, I appreciated more fully the "quantum" nature of grace. So often, we hear an injuction of Scripture and go off endeavoring to "do" it. More often than we admit, however, we hear a command and sigh a sigh of hopelessness inside, feeling we will never be able to "do it". Especially when it comes to those though relational commands, like "Love those who hurt you...," "Forgive...yet again," we often find ourselves so wounded that we just quit trying. Our hearts want to obey, but we find a Romans 7 "wish I may, wish I might" situation cast across our souls and we inwardly lie down. This is not the way God intended it, however, and it is not the way he left it, thanks to the cross!

What we need to do is realize again that the system that we've fallen into: not one of law, but one of grace. (Ezekiel had to reach ahead to that system which was not yet inaugurated, but it is actually the system by which we entered the Kingdom and is intended to be the one by which we function there!) In the system of grace, the ability accompanies the command and is released by the words spoken to our hearts. What Ezekiel "got right" was being so lost in the moment that his judgment of performance was suspended. He was in flow state--one with the encounter and one with the Spirit of God. Though Galatians 2:20 had not yet been written, he was temporarily experiencing "it is no longer I that live" as the Spirit moved and motivated him. Grace is more amazing than we ever realized and it is not just a general change of heart. It begins there, but it goes on to become a specific empowering for the tasks necessary to fulfill the good works God is calling for. Yes, there are "good works" to be done, but the doing of them is the act of the Holy Spirit in and through us in an involvment so intimate it can only be described by the Apostel Paul as "union". He says "go" and the command finds no resistance in the heart of one given over to the union!

I remember in my word-of-faith cassette tape-listening days, often feeling a hint of apprehension when the concept of James 2:26 was referenced. Someone had found a translation that read, "Faith without corresponding actions is dead..." and I remember the pressure I felt to create enough properly corresponding actions to get any "results" from my faith(oh how very linear, when I think back on it, but it was where we all were living...and it did yield fruit at the time to the degree it was based in a learning relationship with God). Now James 2:26 reveals itself gloriously in the light of quantum grace, however. Faith has contained within it the corrpesponding action, for that is the nature of grace-imparted faith. The life of God deposited inside us is not a ball of potential, but rather a tumult of kinetic energy, bursting forth into action. Check the faith you have: if it is not bursting to get out of you into action, then you need to go back for another relational dose! YOU don't go frantically looking for corrpesponding action--you simply step across the line into the spirit dimension and let those actions form themselves in you. You don't create--you yield. You observe the system implanted inside you and silence the opposition telling you it is illogical.

There really is an unseen reality seeking to manifest and I can feel myself only scratching the surface here as I seek to "explain" it (and now I fall on my face like Ezekiel at the impossibility of that challenge--explaining the infinite, ha!). Grace is far stronger and more basic than we ever realized. Though it can be quiet and still-small-voice like in its influence, we should never think that grace is a sweet little force. Grace runs the universe. God thinks a thought and the universe simultaneously resources His intention. We are a part of that, should we choose to loose our religious rigor and let Him play his symphony through us. Grace will accomplish in us all that we need to "do". He will say "stand up" and we, with no barrier in our flesh needing to perform and get a pat on the back, will find ourselves amazingly on our feet. "Results" will be His doing and "response" will be simply our agreeing to be part of the plan. Human effort will be superceded by the inestimable value of divine coordination.

I have had some encounters with God by the rivers of my life--maybe not as apocoplyptic and multi-dimensional as Ezekiel's, but still very real. There have been times that I knew he met and brought a measure of his glory which was much larger than the limited one in which I had been living. And yet, many times, I have pressured myself almost immediately afterward to sort of "live up to" what just happened. I think it is an overflow of too many Easter altar calls in my past: This is the extreme suffering Jesus underwent for you: now, what are you going to do for him? Out of sincere gratefulness for what God has poured out on me, I found myself leaning back into my own strength to carry on--ridiculous! I needed this QUANTUM GRACE that I am describing: the sense that the "encounter" carries with it the ability to live out the command! God, let us more fully, as Stuart Bell says, "live in the good of" what we have inside us. Deliver us from trying to "pay God back" with our actions and lift us into a realm where we aware of the great power available within us through Him! Heal the sick? Raise the dead? We are conscious that it will take God's grace to do those things through us. But what about our own daily living? Deliver us from the notion that we need to supply our own power for those "smaller" actions! It's all grace, from start to finish--quantum grace!

Leadership and the New Science

2008-12-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

OR, “Who doesn’t own a dish drainer?”

Last night, we arrived at my in-laws’ house in Omaha, Nebraska after driving through bumper-to-bumper traffic in ice and snow for the last very slow half hour. After decompressing for an evening, I am today trying to “get my bearings” and prepare to be a help to my in-laws this week as they continue to cope with Paul’s dad’s ongoing medical issues. The most practical way to help, I am sure, is to generate and execute some sort of feeding plan for the seven people currently lodging here, a seven which includes three food-loving boys of my own. However, there is one obstacle in my way if I am to serve in kitchen duties here at the Brownback’s, and it is the same obstacle I have encountered in coming here for over 25 years. I just can’t decode the kitchen system—I don’t speak the same language and therefore I don’t “get” how to plug in and help. My mother-in-law is a fantastic cook with true gourmet tastes and a real keen eye for the latest trends in healthy eating. A few years ago, she and my father-in-law remodeled their kitchen with state-of-the-art equipment and she owns beautiful dishes, even for boiling water! It’s a far cry from my inherited knife set with which my daddy used to chop a head of iceberg lettuce into huge chunks meant to pass for salad and the sad microwave dishes I just will not throw away back home in Texas. However, it’s not the equipment that slows me down—it’s the clean up process. In all this amazing efficiency and creature comfort, I cannot for the life of me understand their dish cleaning system! Of course they load the dishwasher and I can to some degree do that—although my assessment of what “will go in the dishwasher” is much more inclusive than theirs. But beyond that, they don’t own either a dishpan OR—and here’s the real rub—A DISH-DRAINER. In all these years, that plastic or vinyl-wrapped wire grid in any form or color has never appeared anywhere in their abode—even before the remodel. Instead, when the non-dishwasher dishes are rinsed (in the water collected in the beautiful stainless sink because remember there is no ugly plastic pan), they are turned upside down on dishtowels laid out on the polished marble counters if they are not immediately dried and put away. Again, there is no prepared place for them to safely shed their water residue into the surrounding atmosphere while I do something more important than focus on the kitchen…did I mention there is no dish drainer?

I do realize that I’m straining at a gnat here—I do have that much objectivity. I know that on a very real level, it doesn’t really matter if the dishes are set out on a towel that eventually becomes wetter than the dishes were in the first place--a dish drainer is just my preference. I’m an out-of-the-box person, of course…why should the absence of the molded in China plastic object bother me? Nevertheless, this morning, it bothered me so much so that I heard myself saying, loudly, “WHO DOESN’T OWN A DISH DRAINER?” (And to any of you who do not, please feel free to weigh in later—or not.) As always, my line of thought sent me to a bigger picture, one which I have been captivated by lately. Yes, not surprisingly to those that know me, I made the leap from dish drainers to local church structure—and, to quote Craig Ferguson’s latenight routine, “Let me tell you why.”

In my book I present the “movable grid” concept that I evolved from a 20-year observation of church related to quantum versus classical physics. It is simply this: In the real world (which is a fleeting manifestation of a huge invisible world of truth), it is impossible to build a “GRID” large enough and wise enough to prepare for every possible contingency. We have tried to (and thought we could) do so in modern days gone by—drawing flow charts and creating manuals and policies—structuring for growth, doing the math, planning the work and working the plan. Though Jesus will never be banished from hearts truly seeking Him, we have still managed to build churches that are more institutions built in His honor than they are channels to capture His life! What I propose (and it lines up with the way the universe works), is that we give up the notion that we can figure it all out ahead of time and choose to let our desire for control die as we agree to be happy with a reduced “grid”: shrink our structures and allow them to breathe, realizing that their purpose is to capture and release life-flow, rather than contain it. I call it, simply, the movable grid (and my friend Jason Blue is teaching me that it also happens to be an emergent software design philosophy no less).

For at least five years, I’ve been actively using this concept to lead anything I’m in charge of: First, discern where the life-flow is—ask “Where is the energy, the inspiration, the grass roots excitement in people? Where does the passion want to flow?” THEN, create a small, flexible plan to facilitate the release of that life-flow—a movable grid. Don’t carve it stone and make a manual with a marketing plan, ready to change the church world—rather, humbly agree to participate in the larger Kingdom process trying to emerge by having eyes to see just enough structure to spark a flurry of life! (The good news is it works because this is the way life works and the way “messy” people in groups actually work!) Rather than applying an artificial structure to the process of doing church, we are participating with God, even in our planning—the divine cooperation that the Gospel offers is being lived out, not just in our personal lives, but in our corporate interactions! I’m sold—it’s the way it should be in local church!

At the Abbey Church, for years we have been resisting the notion that we must build a big and impressive grid. Voices from well-meaning people, and at times from our own flesh, have rung out around us, “You’d grow if only you would institute this program….or get organized…you just need someone administrative!” At times the noise was maddening—because sometimes our church landscape looked indeed like random chaos—at least on a practical plane. But we felt like there was an ark of God’s presence we were carrying and we dared not, like Uzzah in the Old Testament, reach up and try to steady it in our own strength (he died, by the way). We just couldn’t borrow a program of management; rather we were birthing a philosophy of leadership. We had to let the “Lazarus” die, rather than heal him, so that God could pull off a resurrection!

I feel, however, as we round the corner into 2009, that we have shifted seasons, and this brings me back to the dish drainer. This new style of leadership that I am advocating is NOT just passivity (as those with a modern mindset have often misunderstood it)—it is NOT THE ABSENCE OF ALL STRUCTURE. It never has been. It is rather, THE PRESENCE OF STRUCTURE THAT MANIFESTS FROM LIFE! THERE ARE STRUCTURES IN VARIOUS AND WONDERFUL FORMS—there really are some grids; there are a few small and unassuming lines to be drawn! Please, by all means, invest in a ten dollar dish drainer!! (Ironically, as I went to refill my coffee cup just now, a sign and a wonder had occurred in this Omaha kitchen: For the first time, someone had placed a plastic serving tray under the dishtowel on which the most recent dishes were draining—thus at least marking off the area to some degree, even if not providing air flow to speed the process of drying. The message is clear: IF WE ALLOW IT, STRUCTURE, TOO, WILL EMERGE ON ITS OWN.) I have spent years coaxing people to dare to let go of their massive attachment to precisely defined comprehensive structures, but I have never done so with a goal of anarchy but rather simply FLOW!

Although I’m not sure, I suspect that the reason Peg and Eldon never bought a dish drainer is two-fold: First, it looks ugly on the counter and second, a dish drainer seems “germ-y,” at least in some people’s minds (although I’d wager that the dishtowels are no better on either count, but there I go again…). In other words, there is a purist mentality that just doesn’t consider that the dirty work of clean-up needs to be prolonged or immortalized as a kitchen fixture. The kitchen should only have two modes: cooking and totally clean, with no in-between. On the other side of the divide from the people holding on to structures as if they are God Himself, is the potential of developing a new breed of Christian purists who are so afraid of structure that they allow nothing at all to manifest. If it even smacks of organization, they will be tempted to strike it down as “religious”. (Let’s be gentle on them, though: they are reacting to the old system where structure is god. Many of them have had their best dreams and visions choked to death by self-absorbed participants in the hierarchy that is not the real church). They are, in a word, as afraid of ANY GRID, as the modern hold-outs are of NO GRID! The culprit, on both sides, is simply fear—in insidious combination with its cousin, “flesh”! AND, the further newsflash is: If you want to do this church thing, you don’t get to remain a purist. People in groups are messy—always—messy like a manger in Bethlehem.

Last Sunday, we had an amazing service in which just enough of a grid was present to release God’s life-flow in amazing ways to people. We came with a plan to celebrate Christmas, but God came to the party and wanted to participate, and, as He does, he brought so much of Himself that the whole picture that emerged looked nothing like we planned. He refocused us on the amazing thing that Christmas is: the beginning of a full-scale invasion from heaven during which the Creator instituted a plan to completely recapture His errant creation! The “service” (or “meeting” if you are British or non-religious)—was amazing: it was the Kingdom of God manifesting in time and space—enough of a movable grid present to let it do so (thank God)! In the middle of all that, Kyle Parks felt He heard God say that there are those who are afraid of moving into the things God has ahead because they are afraid to leave their place of safety, but God wants to tell them that the place ahead is an even safer place—true safety is being right in the middle of the thing God is doing, rather than retreating in fear! Well done (hearing from God), Kyle. I believe it.

I want to proclaim that the best days of the Abbey are just around the corner. I’ve seen the future and it is good. Perhaps we have been weaned enough from the “church as usual” institutional format that we can now discover the corporate intention that the God of true order had for us all along. Perhaps God finally has the right relational ingredients at the right stages of maturity added to the colorful fabric that is the Abbey such that an undeniably clear picture is about to emerge. Perhaps it is just time—time in the earth, time in the heavenlies—kairos invading chronos TIME! Whatever the reason(s), I’m ready to proudly display our dish drainers, thrilled to say to the world that the church is not a pristine place of perfection and tidiness, but rather a WORKING ENVIRONMENT (in the physics, not the religious, sense of the word “work,” of course). We are alive, active and on the move, seeing a thousand horizons towards which to march armed with the truth! There are kingdoms of this world WAITING to become the Kingdoms of our God, but it is each and every one of us who will be the transformation-agents! There is much to be done; therefore, we are going to have to put some dish drainers out on the counters! It’s okay to have a grid when LIFE, MOVEMENT and PASSION necessitate it, but ultimately, we must never (and who would) fall in love with the dish drainer. It’s just a grid, designed to prevent frustration and facilitate freedom! It might even be ugly and “germ-y” but I’m truly thankful for the work it does!

God works in hearts, not primarily structures; therefore, structures that arise without the interaction of hearts have little validity. However, God has gifted leaders to actually lead, not just to wait, respond and live frustrated! LEADERSHIP IS BEING REDEFINED in the age we live in and the result of this redefinition is looking a lot more like Jesus. We are beginning to understand that leadership is about knowing where to lean and when to do so. It is “inspired focus at the time of need,” “wisdom to direct resources as they emerge,” and a thousand other things all more related to seeing than organizing as it is traditionally understood. AND, there is a call going out to rally around this vision TOGETHER. God is raising up a company of people who will help each other see—journey-mates discovering Kingdom leadership as an experience, live and on-line with God! (Beyond Maxwell and into Heissenberg!) It is the TRUE SAFE PLACE of church as God intended, rather than as man has tried to understand it. And it’s coming…and it’s here. I’ll close by simply quoting our friends from the rock band Delirious, and asking, “Are you ready?”

Party Quirks and More...

2008-12-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

While pushing on for years towards the serious goal of expressing local church in ways that are both accurate and accessible, we have increasingly discovered the value of humor. Most of our gatherings have an edge of humor these days, but our Thanksgiving dinner has become our night at the improv. (I suppose the whole American evolution of a holiday on which we stuff ourselves with food and football in solemn commemoration of a harsh year’s bare survival starts us out on a foot of irony. Plus, we usually have several Brits present with us, due to the timing of a November conference we all attend, which makes for even more possibilities of tea and tax jokes along with some friendly national rivalry!) Modeling our games after the popular British-then-American show, Whose Line is it Anyway?, we have learned how to capitalize on our collective need to laugh at ourselves. This year’s Thanksgiving dinner was no exception.

Though I usually master-mind the festivities, this year I got to sit back and enjoy as the legendary mind of Tabitha Summers went to work. Releasing the next generation is a fulfilling experience, especially in this case. She went wild with the game they call "Party Quirks" and planned five rounds, each with participants that couldn’t have been selected more perfectly. If you are not familiar with the Whose Line is it? version, four guests with unusual character descriptions (quirks) assigned to them attend a party and the pretend host has to guess what each one of them has going on. The audience knows through subtitles so the fun is in watching the guests try to act out the situation and watching the host try to guess. In our case, Tab made a PowerPoint that told us the guests’ “agendas” without letting the host see. So, picture it: one by one the host answers the pretend doorbell ring only to have people enter who range from a “broadway star wannabe” to an “overdramatic detective finding ridiculous clues to a murder,” a “kindergartner posing for a class picture,” a “football player tackling in slow motion,” a “blind bird mistaking closed windows for exits,” or “random animals crossing the road.” As the person playing the host continues to ask the attendees, “Are you a….” they walk around, four at a time, squawking, banging, poking, bobbing and generally doing their own assigned things. Of particular mention was our British friend Alistair Beattie whose impression of a mouse running through a maze to get cheese will not be soon forgotten, as well as Reese Bailey who did a great job being “angry at the neighbors in the apartment downstairs.”

Eventually, with or without some help, the party hosts guessed the agendas of the quirky guests while we all laughed. I really wasn’t looking for a lesson or a poignant moment—just enjoying with the abandonment of someone who is not in charge! BUT, here we were in church and I couldn’t help but marvel at the metaphor. As I sat there watching, the “host” seemed to me like a church leader, trying to do something: throw a party beginning with that all-important step of welcoming guests properly, but the poor soul was completely at the mercy of the ridiculous agendas that each guest carried in. Whether it was an animal’s fear of becoming roadkill or the neediness of a Broadway wannabe, these guys did not show up to offer greetings like proper guests! Instead they wandered around the pretend party responsive only to the inner script they carried in the door. Some of them “did” their thing “to” the party host: tackled him, poked him, posed in front of him, pulled a hair from him for DNA testing…while others (the blind bird in particular) ignored the party host all together flying, running, banging all on their own in an effort to meet their “inner need”. Reese—angry at the folks down stairs—yelled and stomped on the stage, right in front of the baffled party host.

As I laughed (and I did really, really laugh), it actually seemed to be touching me. I realized that as a church leader I feel like I am (at least metaphorically) standing there trying to do something—organize something, host something, inspire something or just stir something—and often it just doesn’t work because the people in attendance have arrived with unmet needs inside of them, needs that are spinning off agendas and making them either oblivious or at least competitive with my “agenda”! “THIS is church,” I thought. People come as they are and fly, squawk, analyze, resent, chase, tackle, relive the past, and pursue a brighter personal future right through the call to change the world! Until you get a grip on what’s going on inside of the non-cooperators, it can be downright frustrating. And yet…I didn’t feel frustrated as I watched the Party Quirks fiasco! I felt strong appreciation and love for the strange and wonderful place we call church! I realized, in fact, that that’s exactly why I love the church so much! It is in this environment of unlikely synergy that God does His best work. God knows how to throw the party! He specializes in orchestrating the inner programming of His people such that by meeting their needs, He also builds the Kingdom. We as human hosts might at times feel mystified, but He is never caught off guard. (Somehow I seem to remember a band of distressed, in debt and discontented and a captain named David…hmmm…and these were called his "mighty men...")

Church is NOT like a business. At work you are expected to stuff your quirks (as best you can) and get your job done. You are not paid to relate but to perform (unless your business has a spiritual understanding of the workplace, that is—but that’s another blog entry). Church, however, when practiced as heaven intended, is not about performing at all. There may be jobs to do, but expectation and pushing on in spite of faulty inner programming is not the goal. Church is about coming as you are, broken but hopeful, gifted but challenged, and planting yourself in a network of Kingdom focus. So, your mixed inner bag cannot be hidden and should not be resented. Church is that strange and wonderful place where blind birds can stop flying into walls, but they need permission to hit a few now and then while they are healing. It is a safe place for people who have a larger goal in life than just being good “party guests” and not making a stir. And, though at times I’ll admit that I have felt like no one at this party is listening, I still wouldn’t trade my experience of being hooked relationally to God’s wonderful menagerie for anything!

Church really is holy chaos—even without any exotic “tangible manifestations” of the Spirit of God. This colorful array of people assembled for Kingdom purposes, is wildly wonderful in all their strengths and weaknesses—and how little they know it. They are God’s big tapestry spanning the ages—accomplishing His purposes via the most unlikely routes and candidates—a group of messy messengers with enough wisdom to come to the party but no idea what to do with themselves once they’ve arrived. God in heaven laughs with joy and I should, too, as their leader.

Why wouldn’t I laugh? Why would I instead resent wounded church people for their lack of cooperation? In those moments, I am afraid I have fallen back on the false but easily revived notion that it all depends on me. A sense of responsibility is good, but heaven’s measurements of success are often quite different than earth’s and if I have accidentally replaced some of my gold shields with brass ones, I will forget that the only One who can orchestrate this shindig is the Creator of the world and the Author and Finisher of our faith, who by the way, has also proclaimed himself the builder of the church! Even amidst corrupted inner agendas, God himself will show up, guiding people to assemble not just as bodies but as spirits joined for a purpose and truly meeting one another’s needs. It’s God’s party—God’s festival—God’s show, not mine. I am really just the host!

Joseph Campbell (Hero of a Thousand Faces) says there are two major pitfalls in every hero’s life—the first is thinking it all depends on me and the second is thinking it all depends on “them”. God give us leaders in church who are real heroes—those who have met both of these obstacles and reached beyond them. They are the ones who will no longer be angry over the party quirks or frustrated at their inability to wrestle control of the dysfunction! With a gaze fixed on heaven’s agenda, they will also look continually to God for the enabling of that agenda (rather than further “enabling” people’s quirks!). With all my heart, I believe that God is raising up these kind of leaders—hosts—ready to answer the door and receive the seeking masses. Our best days in church are yet to come! I’ve seen the future and I’ve laughed with joy! I'm not afraid of our "party quirks"!

Stripped Down

2008-09-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

Decyfer Down is a Christian hard rock band that has won great popular acclaim in the past few years. If you are into that scene at all, you have heard of them. They are on the road more than they are home in North Carolina, often playing very large gigs or mainstream clubs and have already travelled overseas sharing their melodic anthems with other nations. A week ago, we found out they had a night open while in our area and through a mutual connection who set it up, they were willing to come to our Wedsnesday night youth meeting. Since is was a bit unofficial and we knew we didn't have the time to plan and promote or space to permit a large concert, we came up with the idea of an "unplugged" format with less music and more sharing, relaxed and intimate in style to fit the setting. The band readily agreed to this refreshing idea, even though we actually had to round up acoustic guitars for them since theirs had a while back been stolen out of their trailer (the joys of life on the road). In other words, this was a thing this band doesn't often do. If they had a comfort zone, this would have been out of it.

When the concert time rolled around, Decyfer Down sat on stools in the middle of a stage full of candles and throw pillows and begin to do acoustic renditions of a few of their metal masterpieces. They had been alone in our church building all day preparing so no one had heard a rehearsal. From the first strum, we were all transfixed. Stripped down, it turns out that what lies beneath all those hard rock compositions is a whole lot of musicianship and vocals that are amazingly clear and powerful. With two guitars, a djimbe and Caleb Oliver's voice, these four guys covered their own songs and created a world of sound that came alive from our little stage. It was mesmerizing and the air was thick with the tender passion of artists expressing their hearts with nothing to hide behind. I found myself so appreciative to have been a witness to it and I know that the crowd that gathered felt the same way. There are just some evenings you walk away from knowing that heaven not only smiled, but also applauded. The band enjoyed it too it seemed. It turns out that these four guys truly believe what many people try to preach: that it doesn't matter the size of the crowd or the "sexiness" of the gig--what matters is the power of the music to express a real experience with the living God.

While I sat listening and being amazed (I mean, for me musically it was comparable to a few of my most inspiring Dave Matthews moments--and this accolade I don't hand out lightly), I thought about the metaphor the whole thing presented. Sometimes, life hands you the opportunity to just strip it down and see what's actually underneath the complicated driving music that you have evolved. You may have been singing your song loud and strong and thrilling the crowds, confident that you are on the road to success when suddenly, like the guys of Decyfer Down, you find yourself alone on a stage with a bare minimum of accommodation (and even borrowed instruments!). It is then that you find out what's underneath--it then that you get to strip it down and hear the essence of your true voice once again. This joyous test can be a reminder of what it is all about, a recalibration and a celebration of the simplicity of grace that underlies our busy Christian pursuits.

We make ministry and life so complicated and my own world is no exception. The talks I give are full of visuals, whether they are slides from my electronic library of power points or the latest YouTube video I have downloaded in an effort to bypass boredom and sail my point into the right side of the brain. I work hard at the craft God has given me and I take seriously the challenge to change the world (and the church--a harder gig), setting it on fire with the flame that lights me. However, I have walked with God long enough to know that He always knows just when I need to pause and, for one night at least, STRIP IT DOWN.... Think of it: I have the rare and exciting privelege of helping people see how quantum physics lines up with the ancient truth of the Christian faith, but I also have the brilliant opportunity to demonstrate that faith in simple kindness to a child who could care less what photons do! I love to help people get free from old left-brained wineskins that hinder Kingdom expression, but there are times when people simply need to taste the actual wine and not be bothered!

My husband calls me an "orthodox revolutionary" who will challenge the church to change using--not something new--but rather what they actually already technically believe! That is my "rock and roll" and people are beginning to expect it from me when they attend my "concerts". BUT, the other day when I found myself sharing with a waitress who had just left her husband after the humpteenth time he had beaten her, I knew it was time to "take the stage" stripped down. She didn't care if the church was engaging postmodern culture--she just needed to know Jesus could lift the oppressive weight of shame that was polluting the culture in her immediate vicinity. Yeah, we all have to strip it down sometimes.

It occured to me while listening to Decyfer Down that their willingness to be "stripped down"--not just musically but spiritually as well--was the very thing that would qualify them for larger and larger platforms. In a world where identity is too often tied into success and stardom, (even in the Christian arena), these guys have an opportunity to make a difference and "keep it real" and I think they will do it. The evening reminded me of being in Littlehampton England at the church where Delirious? are members on a Sunday when they just happened to be on the rotation for worship leading responsibilities. There we watched the band that has played to capacity crowds around the world deal with gliches in the sound systems and unexpected turns in the order of service just like thousands of unheralded worship leaders do around the world every Sunday. They were stripped down! And...they didn't mind. Their roots were the local church and they had never allowed their scope to exceed their depth. They knew that being stripped down from time to time was a healthy part of the process of growth in the Kingdom.

In a world of insecurities, God, not Tony Robbins, is the expert confidence builder. And, in His usual way, God creatively plans experiences to reintroduce us to our own authentic voice in Him. When we are stripped down, we remember who we are. Rather than being "all about me," after those times we seem to finally be able to get out of the way and let it be "all about Him". Confidence comes from remembering your roots and having a good laugh once again at the impossibility of all the things you are doing, except by Grace. When you are stripped down, the thought that you could have pulled any of this off on your own becomes ridiculous and you relax back into the huge cradling arms of a Savior's complete redemption. By stripping off the trappings, you are actually empowered. When you find yourself happy to sing strong and pure alone on the stage and exposed by simplicity, you just might be ready for the stadiums and the lights. Follow Decyfer Down's example and refuse to miss the joy of ocassionally stripping it down.

As for my fan status, I literally "bought the t-shirt" (the babydoll shaped one, pink on black...cool) as well as the CD which I will be loading onto my iPod and taking to the gym, but the merchandise I will treasure more is the glimpse of redeemed hearts that I caught. Real church has happened when we have presented a real Jesus wrapped in our own skin and THAT is the "deciphering" for which the world is waiting. Let them see your hearts--not your status or accomplishment--and people will be changed.

I made some new friends that night because of the unity of purpose that we all felt. I wonder however how many Christians long for this same connection, not really sure it is possible. If the army of the authentic could begin to coalesce beyond the trappings of religion, what a noise they would make. Here's to everyone with that desire!

WISH YOU WERE HERE

2008-07-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

I think that in 1960 when I drew my first breath I also took on the search for my life's purpose. I am probably the ultimate seeker (so it means alot when I say I've FOUND Jesus...). I cannot remember a time that I wasn't trying to hone in on what was "my one true chance of greatness" (a line from "Chariots of Fire"). Writing a personal mission statement wasn't an exercise in a seminar to me: it was my life's work, everyday and every minute. Intense? Yes. Bored? Never.

Many years ago, however, in a relational context, I accidentally formulated much of what I'm about in a very refreshing way. I was writing a letter to a German journalist who I had met on a trip to visit my cousin in Belgium. He was as agnostic as they come and yet open to spirituality in a general (pantheistic) sense. I represented his first-ever encounter with a Christian who seemed to attach his spiritual interests to the Gospel, rather than barage him with a litany of his errors. Caught up in my passion for writing to him, brain for the moment servant to heart, I wrote these words: "My mission is to cause non-Christians to think about Christianity--and to cause Christians to think--about anything!" I realized as soon as the words presented themselves before me, I had opened up a door that I would be walking through for the rest of my life.

And so it began: my efforts to interpret culture, create postmodern apologetics and present the Gospel free from all the religious trappings that keep people away. I feel as strongly as ever the call to both awaken the spiritual mind in the body of Christ and to redeem the awakening spiritual mind that is "out there" in the culture. (I'd rather connect with Oprah and lead her back into the God she has shunned rather than criticize her constantly for searching beyond religion...)

Considering the terrain I'm taking on, it is no surprise that being misunderstood is a frequent landform. Most of the opposition I encounter doesn't merit description. (I pour my heart out making Acts 17-based comparisons between the poets of the Apostle Paul's day and the lyricists of ours only to have someone rejoice afterwards with the gross oversimplification: "I'm so glad I can listen to secular music at this church.") The other day, however, in yet another one of my forays into living my mission, I had an encounter so poignant that it begs description here.

Ever since I rediscovered, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," (see the blog entry with that name) the tragic story of Syd Barrett has pulled at my heart. Much like the death of Kurt Cobain, Barrett's story and the music Pink Floyd produced in tribute to him seems to represent the cry of a generation who was desperate for more reality than the church was able to produce (for the most part--that too is a gross oversimplification, but give it to me for now). Recently, as I stood staring down a whole aisle of "new age" books in a Barnes & Noble, I heard the beginnings of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" on the store sound system. I knew ahead of time I was about to be broken:

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

The words at that moment were alive. The whole first section spoke so strongly about the knowledge of good and evil--the desperate search for meaning doomed to futility by the limits of the human brain--insanity is the only logical outcome when the Eternal is not in the system. And the line, "and did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage..." seemed to cut through me as sharply as the best preaching has ever done. At that moment I wasn't feeling for Syd Barrett any more. Rather I was thinking of the pathetic taming that seems to happen in Christians as they watch a few dreams take on the appearance of disappointment. I was asking myself to what degree I had exchanged, for whatever reasons--none of which were good enough--my strategic assignments in the Kingdom for something that appealed more to my needy self-image...only to realize down the road I was in a cage. Yes, I wept that day as I stood there, blown away by the fact that the God I know as the Father the Lord Jesus, breather of Holy Scriptures, worker of signs and wonders by his ever-powerful Spirit, was somehow speaking to me through seemingly godless rock stars.

I deemed that moment worthy of sharing and did so in the next scheduled time I had to give a "church talk". I described the encounter and what it meant to me. I talked about the army of "when pigs fly" t-shirted people who had listened to those words a thousand times. I knew that they were lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year--always and only running over the same old ground and bumping into the same old fears. I described my desperate passion to introduce them to the Jesus who could change that situation. At the same time I admitted my extreme grief caused by the thought that the church itself was so similarly disposed! If we are brutally honest--and we so seldom are--many of us feel a bit like that describes the secret wilderness we hide from even Jesus because we think we should be "doing better". I expressed the pain I felt for the world and the church simultaneously. After all, the thing they have in common is simply their humanity and no human condition is glorious when unsubmitted to the big picture of Kingdom life. So, I cast restraint aside and poured out my passion before my hearers, certain that God was igniting a call.

When I had finished, we had a lively discussion and many people affirmed, suggested and had words from heaven to add to the emergent message. However, one lady who had come, raised her hand and said, "I don't get it at all. Those words sound just made up to me--like gibberish. They don't make any sense to me and I haven't understood a thing you have said." I stopped short of suggesting to her the acquisition of "a life" and instead pulled from some training somewhere in my past about how to affirm divergent opinions in group dynamics. I hated every second of it however.

Today, as I sit musing, it occurs to me why I hated it. The lady who said these things was not a complete novice. She has been a Christian for years and hears words from God, prays them out, and many times has blessed many people. She has a heart for God and the Kingdom and does not just deserve to be filed as "too religious". She didn't object based on the fact that it was (blush when you say it) Pink Floyd drug era rock lyrics. She just honestly didn't get a thing out of those lyrics or my discussion of them! Why? Because she honestly did not know how to THINK about things outside the scope of the Christian experience. It all went back to my mission...I had asked her to do something that she wasn't accustomed to church asking her to do: put some previously disconnected thoughts together into a new perspective; see a new view; experience a concept beyond its surface value...LET HER RIGHT BRAIN INFORM HER LEFT...and she immediately felt the disorientation.

It's not her fault: WE the church have conditioned her. Like a lost skill or atrophied muscle, there is an area of our brains that we have abandoned through our fear of ending up in "reasoning" that would hinder the Spirit of God. I get it! I have fought and conquered that kind of reasoning (strongholds in thinking that oppose the Gospel) all my Christian life. BUT, I want to say that there is a positive action to that negative. The Christian life is not just about "UNDOING" the negative thoughts and rejoicing that we are purged! There is a thinking to be done! There is a "waking up" of the mind that represents another level of Kingdom effectiveness--an ability to not just have ears, but HEAR!

The mind can serve the Spirit and do great exploits for God. WHEN WE SO SEPARATE THE TWO THAT WE THINK WHAT GOD DESIRES IS SOMETHING LIKE A LOBOTOMY, WE ARE STILL BEING A VICTIM OF THE GREEK DUALISM THAT PRODUCED THE REASONINGS OF WHICH WE ARE SO AFRAID. Let us fully escape the aritificiality of compartmentalization and embrace the joy of being a whole, united for God. It is helpful and desirable to realize that we are triune beings and that the spirit and the mind are not one and the same. God redeems the Spirit instantly and the mind is being renewed as a process. But being renewed to what??? Just to be sumbissive or to learn to THINK FROM A NEW REALM???

Here's the real rub: There are some seekers out there who will be pulled into Christianity by their attempts at spiritual thinking. If they honestly approach the spirit dimension--whether it be through the motions of quarks and Schrodinger's cat, or through lyrics that reflect the devastation of spirtual emptiness--at some point they will poke through the mist and strike something solid. And when they grope towards that Rock that they have stumbled upon, they will find out it is not just a body of ideas, but a living Being capable of not only providing shade and substance, but also pouring out living waters of refreshment. True seekers will find. My question is simply: where will the church be standing when they do? Will they be anywhere nearby, or will they be safely locked away in the cloister? Will they have been able to "think" far enough outside of their own inner world to see the panorama of God-possibilities that has played out?

Maybe the lady I described to you here is just "not my tribe". Maybe she's fine the way she is and I have a different calling and audience. Or maybe she represents a general need in the body of Christ to have some splashes of water land upon our sleeping brains. Perhaps we could summon them (our brains), not just to "get out of the way and stop hindering" but rather to participate with the swirling realities that are the Kingdom of God and put on a uniform and go to war!

I have only scratched the surface in this quickly-written blog. This subject is deep and wide and clearly, "the rest is still unwritten..." However, if just one person has been inspired in the least to Kingdom open-mindedness, I have lived my mission here in print.

There Ought to be Clowns

2008-05-09T06:24:00.001-07:00

It was a lovely community Easter service here in Azle, Texas this year. For the music portion, rather than the worship band we had originally planned (composed of pastors from several churches--a good idea except for the fact that there was only one brief practice scheduled for that unlikely group), we received a call from a friend of ours who has a 25-piece orchestra that does hymns and Christian standards in jazz and swing style. They had had a cancellation for that night and were all ready to play but needing a venue. We gladly obliged. They opened the program with several amazing inspirational renditions of songs like "His Eye is On the Sparrow," and then turned it over to us. Because we wanted to do things with both excellence and inclusiveness, we had worked out an order of service that included all the board members popping up and taking the mic, one with announcements, one with prayer, and yet another to receive the offering--all of this strategically placed around a 20 minute preach. As the best laid plans often do, this one got mixed up and ended up with someone on the mic closing with prayer before the assigned offering person had done her thing. Laughingly, the president of the board interrupted and made the correction and all was well. When the plates were passed, the orchestra began the final song they had planned for the evening. As the mellow tones lilted through the host church's lovely building, I kept thinking, "Could this be?....No, certainly not. Surely, they wouldn't play..." And yet it was, unmistakably revealing itself by its chorus, the song "SEND IN THE CLOWNS." (And you may, like me, remember clearly the refrain, "Where are the clowns; There ought to be clowns...Send in the clowns...Don't bother they're here...")

I was overwhelmed with intrigued amusement as I looked around to see if any of the other attendees "got the joke". Later, I would find out that the orchestra leader had requested permission to include that song simply because of the beauty of its melody, but, at the time, the words that the melody brought to mind were all I could hear, poignantly commenting on our little exercise in group dynamics! As I looked around, I realized that I was alone in my mirth, for few people besides me dared to see the ministerial alliance leaders as "clowns"! I realized then that I was extrapolating the experience to a bigger picture that reaches far beyond that community service.

So many times in church leadership, we fall into the pseudo-messianic complex that manifests itself as over-planning. While any leader worth his salt will put the required time in ahead of an event, we often launch into desperate efforts to administrate, calculate, predict and capture a Kingdom that, by its own Founder's declaration, is clearly not of this world! We don't want to appear unprepared or uninformed...we don't want to be like the guy who rode into the old western town on his horse and said, "Which way did they go? I must find them for I am their leader!" We may end up with a product that looks polished and precise when we "plan the work and work the plan," but I am afraid heaven might at times have another view, one which includes clowns.

This is why business leaders often have struggled in church leadership. They look around them and see what appears to be chaos and feel called to institute the same order that they are accustomed to in the marketplace. More manuals, guidelines and procedures, more ducks in a row...they are sure they have the answers for the church. And, quite admittedly, God does use them to right the undisciplined wrongs when the disorganization is a product of neglect. In that respect we do need what they have to offer, of course. But still, church built by men's efforts alone will always be a comedy of errors (and actually, the same could be said for businesses, though that's another blog about the marketplace).

What you might need to know to keep from feeling bruised at this point is that I wholeheartedly include myself in the ranks of the clowns! Though I am passionately "all about" discerning the hidden order in the holy chaos, I am still a human with a drive that can at any time veer back into command and control. With all my heart, I believe that church leadership is about cooperating with the Kingdom of God as it is emerging from each and every participant, at times I still think I know better what that process should look like. I am a curious mix of overwhelming abandonment to the big picture and administrative want-to that gets in the way of my own vision! I am, unapologetically, one of the clowns. I am laughing at myself!

But here's the kicker: Even though it's so--even though church leaders stumble over their own efforts and performance-orientation so frequently that their walk often "becomes a crawl" (to quote DC Talk), God still says, "SEND THEM IN...THERE OUGHT TO BE CLOWNS!" God, though we wonder at it, has one resource from which to choose leaders, and that is PEOPLE--broken, breakable and sometimes in-the-middle-of-breaking PEOPLE! Leaders are clowns because they are just PEOPLE! We too often fail to realize the extent to which grace has already made up for our human shortcomings and therefore qualified us to lead, serve and minister. It's all by the very grace we preach, though we often refuse to dispense that quantity to our own hearts, especially in matters related to the church.

So, you might breathe a sigh of relief today and join the fraternity (non-gender limited, that is) of the clowns. Have a laugh at your failed efforts and misguided dreams knowing that God smiles upon you like a child trying to cook a meal for a parent. And then, in the midst of that reality, hear God's vote of affirmation strongly in you. He's not saying, "Send in the professionals, send in the experts, send in the strong and polished and perfect..." He is saying, for all those who can receive it, to every situation where the KINGDOM needs to come...SEND IN THE CLOWNS. Just as Isaiah said, "Here am I, send me," when confronted with the life-changing experience of God's glory, you can respond to the call with a completely transparent yeildedness to God as you look up to Him and say, "Don't bother, they're right here..."

Of Dreams and Tunes

2008-03-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

I finally got one--a "giant" iPod like my sons have. I had maxed out the thousand-song capacity of my smaller iPod months ago and just stopped adding new music at all, because to earn the space to add, I had to choose something to remove. I had already axed so many lesser tracks from albums that the choices were becoming impossible. Who can choose between losing a Dylan classic or one of the latest Delirious? tunes? I had bumped up against my tune carrying capacity and only the upgrade could save me.

But, once I got the upgrade, I immediately plugged in the ridiculously long number on the back of the $25 iTunes card I had been holding onto for months and I was suddenly set free in the world of spending and space to store! I thought it would be a great moment for me (it was certainly an anticipated one), but instead, my zeal turned to inertia as I sat overwhelmed. Every genre of music called to me--things I had heard on satellite radio and thought again and again, "I must get that..."--obscure things from my teenage years that, now that I reflect, may have meant more to me than I realized...it was all too much. Rational thought told me that this was only the beginning and I could load songs to my heart's content, but at that moment, I didn't know where to begin. What did I really want?

Then the strangest thing happened. Out of the milleau of David Crowder band, folk rock and 70's possibilities (I already have all Dave Matthews and U2), a memory arose. One of my most pleasant memories is taxi-ing on a British Airways-owned vehicle, whether it be a plane going to or from the gate, or the tram between terminals at Gatwick. In those moments, I am treated to the ethereal voices of women singing opera in soft, lilting harmony. Yes, I bonded with the British Airways music. Something about it made me feel like I was living my dream of world travel and even if my overnight flight had bumped and bounced through stomach-churning turbulence in economy class, those ladies' voices made me feel like I was a first-class passenger. I had made a mental note: must get that music. But how to find such a song? I had no idea.

So, I typed in the only two key words that I could come up with: "British" and "classical". Due to the wonder of information systems, within seconds, I had downloaded the Flower Duet from the opera Lakme much to my amazement. (There was actually an album of classical music from television that included the British Airways designation in the title!) That successful acquisition instantly brought another musical desire to my mind: the thing that is playing when they show the video of the queen's coronation--and that useful designation is all the information I seemed to have on that. So, back to the keyword search I went and typed in "coronation". Lo and behold, there are albums of, wait for it, "coronation music" on iTunes! And once I was presented with the titles, I recognized Handel's Zadok the Priest and presto!

So, this morning at the gym, rather than using my usual work-out accompaniment, I did my cardio to The Flower Duet and Zadok the Priest from my new, expanded iPod collection. It was memorable and surreal.

What is the point? I'm not sure there needs to be one, for it would be enough to celebrate my eccentricity related to this topic, however, a point does strike me. We speak often in the church of buried dreams and desires that God wants to unearth. I wonder how often we believe it. Hope deferred, as the Bible says, really does make the heart sick. We have given our hearts to so many things that haven't worked out. Our sick hearts, when presented with clean slates and asked "What do you want?" often do what my mind did before the endless possibilities of iTunes...they just freeze up.

But, I think God has surprises in store for us in terms of buried dreams. If we would simply dare to intitiate the search--grabbing on to the few key words we seem to have, God--who is even more vast, capable and informed than iTunes--would supernaturally put us in touch with some of the things we have longed for for years. Matt Redman in his song Believer says, "I am a dreamer with some old dreams...let them now come."

We toss away old dreams that haven't manifested, not realizing that God (to whom "manifestation" is not such a big deal) hasn't tossed them. If you have lived through some highs and lows in your Christian life and you still love God, your capacity to hold dreams may have been upgraded like my iPod! Years of trusting God when you couldn't trace him may have expanded you and God may be wanting to download some things into you that will connect with the depths of your being! Go ahead, do the search and let the soundtrack of your life be changed. He's waiting for you in your dreams....

And for me...so what if many of my dreams have a British accent like my song choices? I have long since ceased trying to explain that. Stranger callings and drawings have been experienced in the Kingdom. I continue to feel that across-the-pond connection, though I feel more tied in than ever to my own city, state and nation, satisfied that God knows where we all live!

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

2008-03-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Several events in my life recently layered themselves to direct my attention to Pink Floyd (I'm sure that happens to all redeemed retro's from time to time, right?). My son's 5th grade science fair project in which we constructed a light box and attempted to view the spectrums created by various prisms (purchased at moderate expense on e-bay) was heavy on inspiration but light on actual results, so I went in search of a way to add a little pizzazz to his presentation. Two days before the event, my only hope of finding a prism with color spectrum on a t-shirt was--of course--finding a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt at the local Target. (I admit I enjoyed imagining the quizzical looks at the sight of a 10 year old pastor's kid wearing the shirt, but that's another blog entry...)

Our good friend, Norman Barnes, happened to be staying with us when Noel first put on his t-shirt. You must know Norman to imagine his response, so I will attempt to succinctly describe him. One part quintessential British gentleman, one part rock and roller and one more part fiery preacher, he is unforgettable indeed. And he LOVES Pink Floyd. When he saw Noel in the shirt, Norman interrupted whatever conversation may have been going on at the time with his impromtu rendition of Shine on You Crazy Diamond, reminding us all how much he loved that song. We all chuckled (and later when we caught him not listening to a discussion, accused him of actually having Pink Floyd piped into his hearing aid), but the song stuck with me days after he had returned to his flat on the English coast.

The phrase intrigued me. I had been meditating on the gifts described in Romans chapter 12, gifts we who like to name things often call, "the motivational gifts" because they seem to describe a person's gestalt or innate inner agenda. What had occurred to me when reading these gift descriptions (Romans 12:6-8) was that rather than cautioning us about the possible excesses of our natural bents, God seems to be handing out hearty endorsements. In other words, rather than saying, "Now you administrative types, you be careful that you don't become too bossy and alienate those around you...," God rather says, "If you are going to administrate, do it with diligence!" Everything in me thinks, "But God, people (including myself) will go wild--you'll have a free for all on your hands! Are you really advocating the unbridled release of whatever is inside us??? Wouldn't that give free reign to the flesh?" Once I ceased from the ever-useless argument with the Creator, I realized that I still didn't understand "the flesh".

God endorses, encourages and even sponsors the release of the gifts he put inside us. HE is not the inner governor that tells us, "be careful and don't overdo." THAT, once finally unmasked, is actually the voice of the flesh powered by that irritatingly persistant force: the fear of man (the fear of what people would think if I dared to "shine"). God created us with inner circuitry intended to receive the flow of his divine energy--each of us is a laser light show that declares, "there is a God," in our own unique way. Ultimately, I became so passionate about this facet of the goodness of God that I summarized it, in "Maxwellian" leadership form, as something I called, "The Law of Endsorsement," stating it in this way: "You enter a new zone of power when you realize that God, who created the essence of your being not only wants to release you to be yourself but further wants to display himself through your uniqueness."

My Law of Endorsement, however, seemed to have already found expression (minus the inclusion of God) in Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Thanks to YouTube, I was able to quickly access a version of the song and thanks to Wikipedia, I was able to fill in the gaps in my knowledge about it and about Pink Floyd. It turns out that the song was written as a tribute to Syd Barrett, the member of the group whose head was ravaged by the drugs and fame so much so that he had to leave the group. The words call out to him to somehow keep on shining--adding his own important hues to the color spectrum of humanity. They are a moving call to anyone who has fallen from the mainstream and is edging into oblivion--a call to life, even when life doesn't make sense.

If Pink Floyd could see that every diamond needs to shine on, no matter how "crazy" they may appear to others...that every person was created with a beauty meant to be displayed and not hidden, surely the body of Christ can see that truth! If they can issue a beautiful and haunting call to shake off the shame of personal tragedy and commit to letting our inner light shine, surely Christians whose light is fused with God's can actually answer that call!

The diamond metaphor infers that the pressures and heat of our lives only serve, in the grand scheme of things, to compress boring carbon into stunning gemstone. And it further implies that our gifts, like diamonds in the ground, may be buried deep under a whole lot of earth that masks their value. But still, in spite of it all, I hear Norman Barnes singing loudly in my head, Shine On You Crazy Diamond...more than that, I think I hear echoes of Jesus in that song. Because the fact is, HE is glorified when I remove the inauthenticicty and just dare to shine...and he is NOT glorified when through false humility, I fail to...

2007-12-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

I've been nurtuing a radical thought in my brain (and what's new about that?). It floated into my mind recently like a breeze and seemed to answer so many questions, and yet, the more I pondered it, the more I realized that the gentle breeze might be the beginnings of a hurricane! The thought was this: Church is relative; the Kingdom is absolute. Now let me rush to the disclaimer, so some of you won't abandon me. I believe in the local church--it is the place I have invested my life and energies. My extensive study of postmodernism has, unlike some others, convinced me that this time and season can be the best days of the church EVER! This church versus Kingdom distinction that I am seeing is NOT about usefulness or purpose, but rather about EXPECTATION and PERSPECTIVE.

Let me backtrack a bit. A few years ago, in Brighton, England, I was praying for someone in a church there, when I heard myself say, "What was hurt in church will be healed in the Kingdom." I now think that neither I nor the prayee had a clue what I meant. It was one of those statements that is so spirit-borne that the mind doesn't take it in. But I did remember it. Over the ensueing months, when I thought about it, I reasoned that the pain sometimes caused in relationships in a local church often does find healing by Kingdom relationships beyond the local church. This is especially true for leaders who desperately need another set of eyes that have not grown myopic with the local responsibilities and logjams. To be the best we can be in the local church, we need translocal relationships and that is a benefit of belonging to a broader Kingdom. But, still, I knew that what I was seeing went deeper than that.

More recently, when someone in our own local church who seemed to be on the upswing succumbed to an old struggle, blindsiding many of us, it saddened me greatly and left me wondering how our local landscape could be such a mixed bag of resounding victories mixed with surprising defeats. And then those words came floating back to me: Church is relative; the Kingdom is absolute.... My distress and attempts to process the disappointment were opening new vistas of understanding to me. Church versus Kingdom is not a geographical difference. It is not just referring to local versus translocal. Rather, it is a qualitative difference...one that really does need to be considered for maximum damage control!

The Kingdom of God is heaven invading earth. It its redemption spread across humanity in panormaic proportions. When the Kingdom has come near us, God's reign has manifested on earth and wrongs are righted, bent things are straightened and all things flourish as they were originally intended to. The Kingdom of God is what Jesus described as the remedy for all that had fallen. He who brought redemption to earth through the cross seemed to indicate that his own goal was God's Kingdom taking over the wayward ways of man! The Kingdom of God is where everything purchased for mankind on the cross is in full manifestation. It is a spiritual reality--no wonder we are told to seek it first!

The church (yes, the church universal, but specifically gathered in geographical clusters that we call "local") is the only agent for the release of that dynamic Kingdom. The church's function is to more and more reflect the invisible Kingdom. All our structures, governments, programs, gatherings and improvements should be leaning us more and more into incarnation of the vast array of Kingdom realities. (If you really know what I mean and you are called to church leadership, that sentence should inspire at least a whispered "wow", for it is a lifelong, breathtaking challenge...). The church--through individual people and through local cohesive congregations--is the broker of heaven on earth, working with the Holy Spirit, of course. (But the Holy Spirit rarely breaks in on those who aren't already attempting to pursue...)

BUT, this is where the distinction comes. Some of us who are idealists still have trouble shifting our eyes back and forth from the perfection of Kingdom truth to the flesh-wrapped spirits that are endeavoring to connect with that truth. In other words, the CHURCH is on earth and therefore exists in people--messy people who are mixtures of revelation and retrospection; grace-filled and yet at times guilt-hounded; worshippers who forget to worship; believers crying out, "help my unbelief." The Kingdom is absolute--because of the incarnation of that Kingdom, the church is relative! Sometimes in church we must shift methods to accommodate people's journey, but we never shift our conviction that the shining perfection represented by Jesus' rule and reign is available to us in its entirety! We may not see it played out in actuality as we saw it when our spirits came alive to the possibilities, but it DOES NOT MEAN THE KINGDOM IS DIMINISHED.

The Facebook status line is a great thing when people use it. Wouldn't life be more interesting if we all answered the proverbial "how are you?" with something like a Facebook status response. "Needing a curry," or "pondering the event horizon" would be so much more interesting than "fine". But, even if we don't say it, every time we come together for any type of church gathering, we all carry status lines. Sure, we, the redeemed are all truly, in the Spirit ALREADY more than conquerors (yes, that is our status), but our consciousness of that conquering status may or may not be in full manifestation on any given Sunday! So, though the Kingdom has come within us already, what would it look like as we gather for the Kingdom to come AMONG us? It looks like our individual conditions changing to more approximate that conquering status! The church becomes the Kingdom when the Spirit of God shows up and heaven manifests among all our circumstances. The Kingdom is the absolute victory--each individual in the church is on a relative journey.

How does this distinction help? When I get disillusioned with behaviors, ignorance or stubborness in the church, I pray with new understanding, "Your Kingdom come..." I no longer just send that prayer "out there" into places where Jesus is unknown. I now pray it also over those who mean the most to me--my local church. I call for the local body of believers to "look like" the Kingdom, not just like a lot of people raising their hands, listening to a preach, and then living their lives by their own wits the rest of the time. I am no longer disillusioned when someone's flesh "gets the best of them," rather, as the Foo Fighters sing later in that same song, I will patiently point them back to "the hope that starts the broken hearts"--the Kingdom breaking through, reminding them that God cares. ("Has someone taken your faith? It's real the pain you feel...your trust, you must, confess..." more Foo)

It all has to do with expectations: If I expected the local church to be at all times all that the Kingdom is, I would live frustrated. As a leader, I would grow either pushy and driving or bitter and resigned. It was never supposed to be anything but messy. Just as the Old Testament manifestations of the eternal Kingdom involved the blood and ripping of the animal sacrifices, and the death of Jesus that birthed the church was gross and disfiguring, so the process by which a local congregation actually demonstrates heaven can at times be disorienting to life. BUT, if we keep our eyes on the Kingdom, not on church size, status or structure, and not on the personal success of each and every attendee, all things will in the big picture ultimately be added to us. The church is God's prized possession, but the Kingdom--in all its forms--is the compass, goal and sustenance of the church.

More reflections on culture...through the looking glass

2007-11-03T08:37:00.000-07:00

I sometimes switch the XM Satellite radio in my car to “Audio Visions.” Yes, it is the “new age” channel, but don’t judge me. Usually, I find nothing to offend my Christian sensibilities in the instrumentals and even I need a break from the classic rock stations (and certainly from my less frequent attempts to find something that connects with me on XM’s interpretation of a Christian station, which seems at times to me less worship than sanitized teen pop, sadly). Plus, it is a very surreal experience to drive through crowds, traffic and chaos listening to the same music you heard in the massage therapy office. Especially as I navigate the phenomenon we have in the states known as the “school pick-up line,” the contrast between the inside and outside of my car is fascinating—outside flustered teachers try to control both the cars and the kids and inside water flows, birds sing while pan pipes sound…makes me smile and laugh and reminds me metaphorically that whatever is playing in my real inner world is indeed portable!

XM graciously reminds you which station you have chosen every quarter hour or so. For Audio Visions, this exercise is conducted by someone with an East Indian accent who also adds a tagline intended to further inspire. The last time I was listening to Audio Visions was October 31st--one of those days that I was trying to be calm in the midst of chaos. I was doing last minute things to prepare for a never-before attempted “Enter Narnia” night for children in which our church was conducting a walk-through wardrobe experience, complete with a crowning ceremony, for each participant, as well as something we called Aslan’s warrior training course, which I will leave to your imagination. We also had several other ambitious attempts to capitalize on the movie-generated buzz surrounding the timeless classic. We had mailed out 800 fliers and since our new property is highly visible, and so-called “Halloween alternatives” are well attended in the states, we were assured a crowd and excited about the possibilities.

Because I don’t believe in doing an event that we don’t first experience, I had been teaching our youth (who were the prime movers in terms of actual work) about the real Narnia—the spirit dimension. We had been talking about what it means to go through the wardrobe, so to speak, every day, choosing again and again to live from the realm where love has conquered death and where we already reign as kings and queens through the victory won for us. A Savior on the move to erase winter and restore the flesh of those turned to stone is, after all, the essence of the Christian message. What’s not to experience?

These were the precipitous circumstances on Oct 31st that would cause me to react with surprise to an XM station identification that I know I must have heard before. When my Indian-sounding friend said, “Audio Visions: Follow me through the looking glass…” I was captivated! For the rest of the day, I was gone down a path of comparison between the Lewis Carroll classic and the C.S. Lewis one and the vast rays of understanding shed by their difference!

I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as a young child and discovered simultaneously the power of literature and the impressionability of my own psyche. No one knew—because I didn’t express all my thoughts then as I do now—what havoc it wreaked upon me. But I clearly remember journeying in my imagination with Alice down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. In my childlike struggle to sort out the visible world, Alice’s “other” world left a mark of fear upon me—much like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon journey into madness. I cannot remember a time in my life when I was for one second a materialist: I have always sensed that there is more to life than meets the eye. Lewis Carroll’s (perhaps opiate-induced) visions may have been intended as harmless fantasy, but they actually filled me with the fear that the invisible world was distorted and mad, chaotic and eerie—always a note out of tune and a few degrees off center, cycling on and on without hope of correction. (And all those around me just thought I was reading a children’s classic.)

Sadly, I missed out on Narnia until I was an adult. By that time, I had already discovered the truth about the invisible realm. My insatiable seeking had been answered by the true King. Yes, there are dark forces and strange happenings to be fought through, but the heart--the essence--the overwhelming tone and tenor of the universe is the immeasurably good heart of a Creator God who welcomes his children both to intimacy and information about all that He intends. I knew the story before I read the metaphor and it only made me love the metaphor all the more. C.S. Lewis expressed through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the invisible world that is absolutely true, totally available and unexplainably healing to those who have been frightened by bizarre facsimiles.

Here are two children’s classics that made indelible marks on popular culture. One produced feelings of meaninglessness (at least in me) and would later become a sort of literary mascot for the drug culture in the 60’s—a permission slip to go so far beyond the looking glass that many would not return! Ironically, Lewis Carroll (real name, Charles Dodgson) was trained to be an Anglican priest although he never accepted the position. There is evidence that he was interested in theosophy and alternative forms of spiritual searching. Clive Staples Lewis, however, did all his searching before he entered the faith and did not enter until he was fully convinced. His conversion may not have been loud or celebrated, but it was complete, and the art he produced could not fail to be lit up by it. Lewis produced a classic children’s tale which bore like seed in the wind the sum total of all meaning. Narnia grounds us far more than the looking glass could ever disturb us.

As I continued to ponder the divergent worldviews of the two men with “Lewis” in their names—I realized, however, that it was symbolic of much more. Why did XM choose an Indian voice for their soothing ID? Because Audio Visions, and New Age in general, is but evidence of a huge philosophical swing in the west which is causing us, after many years of asserting our superiority, to finally humble ourselves and accept the wise men from the mysterious “EAST”.

Our rational medicine alone can’t save us—now we are open to acupuncture and massage. Our attempts to organize our lives and businesses have fallen short of being able to handle the organisms we call “humans”—Skinner and Pavlov were wrong: we are not all predictable machines! Now, we resource ourselves with touchy-feely spiritual seminars that are designed to connect, lead and motivate on levels much deeper than behavior. And our understanding of the universe has betrayed us. Quantum physics has lead the most left-brained experts into a world that sounds more like Narnia than the one that many churches describe! East is everywhere meeting West and the XM marketers know that. (In parts of America such as the one I live, this is an even bigger deal, since this mindset is not being brought by any actual emigrants, but by the pop culture alone. You haven’t lived until you get to watch, as I have, a big, tough redneck Texas cowboy get a Chinese medicine staple inserted in his ear for appetite control from a local chiropractor…I rest my case…)

In the body of Christ, we have been taught to shun the east, but it needs to be pointed out that there is a huge difference between “eastern thought patterns” and “eastern religion” (perhaps as large a difference as there is between Christianity itself and religion!!!). Eastern religion is the enemy camping out on the right side of the brain and filling the flesh with imaginative ideas upon which demons can entrench themselves. But eastern thought: that is a different story. Eastern thought is simply stepping through the boundary and admitting that there is another side of the equation. If you are Lewis Carroll, it will be a looking glass and madness, but you need not give up the quest. If you are C.S. Lewis, it will be a wardrobe and a wonderful world of deep magic that heals the soul forever. It is the observers call whether that barrier through which we “break on through to the other side” turns out to be a looking glass or a wardrobe!

Let’s not shun the collective quest in society for a bigger picture of reality. If the church (as it must have done in Lewis Carroll’s day) fails to paint the vistas of invisible landscape clearly with the words of Scripture, then many voices will describe the bizarre apparitions of randomness, because the spiritual nature of man will not give up the search. Scripture itself declares and centers upon the fact that there is an alternate--or more accurately, supplemental—reality beyond the one the physical senses take in.

The mere fact that God is declared by the Bible to be “invisible” tells us everything about how to live: the real meaning of anything will not be found without factoring in that dimension. (I Timothy 1:17) The same Scripture describes God as “immortal”; therefore, any analysis of life is incomplete if limited to one moment. It is only the eternal perspective that will yield the truth. In other words, the complete picture of any situation is found not in the facts as they have presented themselves alone, but also in the invisible potential of the Kingdom of God to manifest through those facts! We need to see the scenes in our lives not as photos, but holograms!

When Phillip (Acts 8) was told to leave the revival in Samaria and go down a lonely road, he found a traveler from the court of the Queen of Ethiopia who was struggling to understand the book of Isaiah. Rather than trying the latest evangelism technique, Phillip simply connected with the search the Ethiopian was already on by asking, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian’s reply is a challenge we cannot ignore: “How can I if there is no guide?” New age paganism advertises “spirit guides” as a means of enlightenment and any real Christian reels in horror at the potential danger. BUT, if Christians have not offered ourselves to guide them through the invisible world—that is, if all we do is warn them about the dangers of the dark side, but never open up a wardrobe leading to the vibrancies of the one true INVISIBLE God--can we blame them for going through the looking glass?

The pantheistic tendencies in Western culture need not be feared, but rather rerouted to the invisible Truth. I now realize that I am dangerously close to gross overuse of a metaphor, but my passion will now make me cross that line, almost proudly. We can either offer the world an entrance into Narnia where they will discover redemption, or we can leave them to search for their momentary and ultimately unfulfilling escapes from life “through the looking glass.” If all they find is soothing music and a massage, they will not be changed. What if we said yes to the challenge (as many are) and refuse to fear the eastern thought swing since the God we serve is Lord of the whole compass and the whole brain? What might emerge from our courage and what Kingdom possibilities might actualize? What is the invisible side of the picture of the philosophical timeline of Western culture? I think the ice just might be melting…

Tommy the Rock Opera

2007-09-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

I am finally reviving my blog and I want anyone reading to know that the absence of posts for a while now has not occurred because I ran out of things to say! I have had some significant opportunities to "say" things to some live groups recently and have spent alot of time with other forms of communication beyond blogging! But, it is nice to get back to the "coracle" that is this blog--where I just spill out my inner world into the vast cyber-ocean and wonder whose shoreline I will hit...the chaos of it all is intoxicating.

We were just in Lincoln, England at the Grapevine Celebration/Conference specifically in the large tent they call "Glory." As always, I passionately fired out my inspiration about the redemptive potential in the world around us and sought to bring--not just bring, but display, animate and set free, my Kingdom message. I am intoxicated with the call to present true Christianity to this generation and I happen to hear that call not just from heaven, but from the voices of postmodern poets and thinkers themselves!!! (They don't know that it is to Jesus they are calling, because they don't yet have an accurate image of Him! That is where you and I come in!)

What I LOVE about my own journey is that God never lets it get boring! Just when I think I know the boundaries of what I have to say, God seems to step right past them and ask me (metaphorically speaking) "can you see me now?"! This time it was Tommy the Rock Opera by the Who. I had, a couple of months ago, become interested in re-discovering the "See me, touch me, feel me..." song from Tommy, but since Tommy was one of the few classic albums I did not myself own, I didn't know which song title to download to my iPod. After a few tries, I found "We're Not Gonna Take It" at the conclusion of the album. When I first was able to listen to it, I was on the treadmill at the gym. Halfway through, Roger Daltrey began the raspy see me, feel me, touch me, heal me... and then...oh then....the music shifted and there came the rapturous moment I was looking for:

Listening to you, I hear the music; Gazing at you, I get the heat
Following you, I climb the mountain; I get excitement at your feet
Right behind you, I see the millions; On you, I see the glory
From you, I get opinions; from you, I get the story....

And, as you know, it repeats again and again in what may be the only rock approximation of the number of times we charismatics repeat a worship chorus.

As I was brought back into contact with these words after so many years, I was broken. Here in the lyrics of an album written by a guitar smashing rebel--an album which was banned in both the U.S. and the U.K. for its explicit contents--was what to me the most poignant cry for a real Messiah imaginable! It is as if Pete Townshend shifted accidentally from writing about his pinball wizard hero to tapping the universal longing for a Savior that is buried in all mankind!! I thought as I heard it: "That's Jesus--the real Jesus! That is a perfect description of what Jesus is to me...." I wiped tears from my eyes as I still tried to navigate treading the mill...

It was one thing to feel that at the gym, but quite another to present it in public, however. I take time constraints seriously and the morning talks in the Glory venue were to be an hour--I have so much to say that it was too large a risk to launch out into what might be a private epiphany rabbit trail that would not necessarily bless all the Grapevine attendees! And yet, I couldn't get away from it and I felt God smiling inside me at the prospect. On the second morning of the event, I heard myself, as I talked about Paul at Athens, say, "Let me give you an example of today's poets..." and I read out the lyrics above.

I've been thinking about it ever since--and treasuring the original LP of Tommy that one of my friends presented to me the next day (my youngest child asked to hold the vinyl disc in his hand, never having seen anything but a CD). The more I think about it, the more I am amazed at this altar to the unknown (by The Who at least) God! The last two lines, especially, are the things I want to shout from the rooftops.

"From you, I get opinions..." My greatest fear of Christianity was the false notion that it would rob me of my color, life and spice and somehow turn me into a chapter and verse quoting clone who processed life through an emotionless grid. Nothing could be farther from the truth: Rather than depriving me of a personality, God through Christ in my life has caused a personality to blossom that amazes even me, its owner! I am honestly always surprising myself as I discover the swirls and splotches in my inner world! From HIM, I got, not a deprival of individuality, but the right to have "opinions" and "passions" and, for the milder among us "interests".

Though it's a chick flick and a lightweight one at that, Runaway Bride has a scene that moves me. Richard Gere challenges Julia Roberts to quit codependently adapting to every guy she dates. He notices that, out of her need to be accepted, she adapts to every like or disklike her current fiance has, right down to how they like their eggs cooked. His point blank question to her is "How do YOU like your eggs?" After she runs (yet again) and finds herself alone, she finally decides to face her inner demons. The camera shows her cooking every form of eggs imaginable from baked to Benedict and then sampling them one by one carefully until from within her finally a preference of her own emerges. She dared to have AN OPINION, rather than just losing herself into the safe territory of other people's strong prescriptions! THAT'S what Jesus did for me--he made me know that I am a unique individual who bears the brushstrokes of the Creator! If I am a Pollock or a Kandinsky, it's no use trying to look like a Rembrandt! From YOU I get OPINIONS...From YOU, Jesus, I find my own distinctive as well as the grace to add that to the community in which you have placed me! I don't have to fight for my opinions because IT'S YOU who gave them to me! I can rest in who I am....

But, even bigger than that, Townshend wrote, "From you, I get the story." What a great word for a postmodern world that has already realized that everyone has a story. Sometimes the story of our own lives is not one that we enjoy or want to tell. But, if that is the case, we simply have yet to see THE story! God has an over-arching story that always ends in glory for those who keep their eyes on Him. I can refuse earthly interpretations of my life and circumstances and wait for the story that comes from heaven to my heart. I can refuse judgments and prejudices towards other people--even when they hurt me--and tune in closer to God to get the story from Him. I only want HIS story--the redemptive one--the one that ends in resurrection even when the night of death has been so dark! From YOU I get THE story...and once I get it, everything makes sense. (It's worth waiting at his feet for as long as it takes...)

Back home in Azle, I shared these Tommy words with my youth group this week (and showed them the oddity of a 33 1/3 LP). I don't know if they were nearly as passionate as my British friends, but my own passion remained unflagged. (It's my opinion and has become my story...) I looked at their faces and thought about how the world is trying to mold them into people without authentic opinion and the enemy is trying to sell them a counterfeit story...and then I waxed exceedingly passionate about how we have a Savior that answers the cry of true rock and roll. Maybe they aren't music historians, and maybe the true cry of rock and roll is just far too "out there" to mention in Bible belt church (but watch me). Still, the song remains the same through all walks of life. Whatever mountain man is attempting to climb--whatever the quest of heart--Jesus is standing at the top offering the only real fulfillment. THAT is what a Savior does. No one can imagine a hero that Jesus doesn't meet and, by light years, exceed. Go ahead,: hear the music, feel the heat, climb the mountain, see the glroy... and then let the camera pan back from your Savior and you, too, will the millions waiting for what you have found. Your worship will be your sending and your life will be full.

The Power of Darkness...but not what you think

2007-01-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend past, we had the honor of hosting Chris Bowater and Matt Key from "the north of England" here with us in Azle. Chris spoke to our church (in a Sunday morning meeting that took place while freezing rain fell outside) and left a real deposit of truth, but it was not only that message, but the stream of conversation that flowed between all of us, that has left me fascinated. You see, Chris seems to be carrying a deep understanding of one of the most amazing and unexplored concepts in the Kingdom: the power of obscurity. Not only does he understand it from a Biblical perspective--as he speaks of God coming in thick darkness and cloud, and showing up in unnoticed places like Bethlehem, as well as the many times Jesus told someone, "Go and tell no one..."(we never understood that in our testimonial fervor, did we now?)...but, beyond that Chris lives it. Chris' words and worship have affected not only his own nation, but places and people reaching all around the globe. He has spoken encouragement to gifted but mystified musicians countless times in private. He has dared to enter into their particular darkness, bringing a flashlight to identify the ways that God might reveal himself there. Though he has produced more worship songs, teams, schools, events and CD's than anyone I know personally, there remains a Melchezidek factor to his life and ministry--a sense in which he is known more by his Kingdom impact than his human profile. But more imporantly than that, he carries with him the ability to make you want to take refuge in God's hiddenness, rather than fight it.

I desperately needed the pill. I have lived the life of an artist with its accompanying (and exhausting) need "to be heard". Though I have found the joy of doing all I do for that holy audience of One, my culture seems to scream at me that my worship and ministry is not complete until I have some respectable sales figures and the bells and whistles that accompany such! (And by culture I mean the American church scene...) The confusion in my psyche was justifiable: I believed in the process of simply being myself and catching and processing the winds of the Holy Spirit that came my way (and turning them into words...) while leaving the results to Kingdom processes already in motion. Yet, I had succumbed a bit to judging myself by different standards. I had began to wonder if God's hiddenness as displayed through my life and our church signaled a deficiency in me/us--a wonderment which I could not afford given the mid-life nature of my personal chronology! A distinctly painful feeling reminiscent of being the last one chosen for a sports team had begun to tug often at the edges of my soul!

I now know--because of Chris' life message--that what I was missing was NOT an outlet or a vindicating breakthrough in recognition (for myself or my church)!!!Revealing may come, but THAT is not my greatest need. My greatest need is probably shared by many, especially here in America: We have unknowingly limited God to only bright light and full manifestation! We have declared unidimensionally that God is on the scene only when his blinding glory is shining for all to see, touch and perceive. We have forgotten that he comes in seasons and waves and a series of hidings and revealings, rhythms of mercy that flow with our lives...We have underestimated the huge portion of the Bible that recognizes God equally in darkness as in light. Forgetting that he is Lord of it all, we used all our human effort to push and pull on things until something--anything--showed up!!! Desperate to compete with the "signs" and "wonders" of others, we have often missed completely the tiny, precious seedlike beginnings of "signs" and "wonders" that surrounded us in hiddenness.

God's darkness is nothing like the darkness of evil. Communing with God in a place that defies sensory explanation is nothing like the despair of being alone. Rather, the thick cloud of God is dense truth so holy and so compact that it is almost tangible. It is God's awesome wisdom--line upon line upon line--paradox, mystery, contrast, dynamic tensions--all held in perfect balance by the force of unquenchable love that finds perfection only in Him. When we are that close to God, rather than filling our minds with more knowledge, he fills our hearts with Himself.

So, I am only beginning to explore the thick cloud, and lay aside the frenzy for fulfillment that only understands bright light. I know that the light is a part of God's plan, too; God of course IS light, but there's something about John 1 that seems to ring true about the context and setting of that light..."The light shines on in the darkness and the darkness is not able to extinguish it..."

The English physicist Stephen Hawking, astrophysical genius, has theorized with his typical humor that perhaps "Black holes ain't so black". It seems that black holes--giant vacuums in the universe that hold matter so tightly that nothing escapes--may actually emit traces of light and energy! If so, even the place of thickest darkness in the cosmos is not devoid of light, giving physical expression (as the heavens always do) to the Scripture:

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. Psalm 139:11-12

God help me--and all of us--carry the Melchezidek factor when we need to, SO THAT when God does set us as a city on a hill or a light out from under that bushel, we won't be moved by the change!

Poetry in motion...

2006-10-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

This poem represents my response to "where is my life going?" questions--you know, the ones you don't always share with your fellow sojourners, who are like you, "pursuing their destinies in God," and pretending to know where it is all headed! Though it hasn't received any rave reviews from my immediate acquaintances, I still feel it has something to say--enough so that I post it here bravely! It is a prayer with a celebration at the end...which is, now that I think about it, what all of our lives should be...

Collide-a-scopic

All I see is broken glass—
Tangled, mangled shards of broken dreams,
Each one destined for greatness,
But now each one
Lying mockingly at my feet,
Declaring loss.

The red bits cry the loudest:
They were proudly forged in the heat of ambition:
Days when teachers and professors said,
“You could really make it if you try…”

The blue bits echo back a lament of loftier imaginings:
Of arts and expressions of the “inner life.”
Like ocean waves they speak
Of a vast unknown that is reachable
Only by me…

The green fragments—they seem the sharpest—accuse me unashamed.
“Humility is the way,” they say,
“Be small, be quiet, content with obscurity
And stop wanting what you can’t have in life.
The best you can hope for is no trauma, no drama and no frills.”
(I really hate those bits.)

I do see gold sparkling pebbles strewn throughout the wreckage,
Moments of real transcendent glory, but not exactly my own;
Heaven kissed me then and I was alive.
But they aren’t even proper shapes.
No one could build with them.

No, I don’t see a pattern when I look around me.
I only see what once was and what I wanted it to be—sadly.

And you—you dare me to come “as I am”?
I want to shout, “WAIT A MINUTE!!!”
This glass, these shreds, these nothings that wanted to be something—
These are me!
How can I come without them?
So you’ll have to wait until I figure out how to pick them up and bring them:
It’s a slow process because I keep getting cut…

But you won’t wait—why are you like that—insistent and intense?

Do you know something that I don’t know, being above me as you are?
What’s that? It’s not the glass but the ground you are pointing to?
Could it be that I am standing, living, dancing on a stage
That in your hands and under light brighter than my own
On purpose turns yielding patterns that make the broken glass dance—
Mirrors reflecting images that make pieces whole and reinterpret the world—
Chaos producing order and this moment,
This arrangement,
This turn of the circle
Producing a vision never seen before?

Then I realize the joke is on me (but how many others still don’t see it).
All anyone gets is the bits—
No one gets whole vases or goblets or prisms;
No perfect globes or spherical wonders, no crystal figurines.
The pieces unite to amplify the light
And the vision formed is the whole point—
Not second best, not salvaged because it’s all that is left of a once-bright future.

I dance then on the broken glass stage and realize I don’t have to bring it to you—
You’re all around it.
When I heard you say, “Come,” and did my bloody effort-filled exercise in futility,
(That has gone on now for years)
All you really meant was, “Relax,”
And all you really wanted was to dance.

--by Perrianne Brownback

Hands Across the Water

2006-09-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking I could start to call this blog "Hands Across the Water". Believe me the "an American thinks about England" slant is purely unintentional on my part--at least in its frequency. And yet, a strange mix of circumstance has yet again converged upon me and pointed my heart towards the joy of seeing the Kingdom emerge in the U.K.

It has been an incredible ride the past several weeks. My mother passed away and even though she was ready, the mix of feelings and reflection that one processes after such an event is both sweet and strange. Then, on Monday of this week, suddenly a man of 58 in our church died of a heart attack and we are all walking through that one together. As of now, my husband is meeting with the extended family (who are not in our church) and I find myself with an hour or so to pull away and try to gain a bit of helpful perspective after much time with the family myself.

As I was moving things around my desk, I came across one of my "ocassional" CD cases (no, I don't have an iPod yet, just CD cases for various moods and seasons.) In this particular case was my copy of the greatest hits of Emerson, Lake and Palmer which I bought for the sake of the song, "From the Beginning." Longing to hear the clear guitar and reassuring words of that song (which have spoken to me before in times of struggle in a way that I'm sure neither Emerson, Lake nor Palmer would even understand), I popped it in the CD player and went about the task of dressing. The song finished, I teared up and sighed a prayer, and the second track began. It was ELP's version of "Jerusalem," the poem turned hymn by William Blake. I had heard it in the seventies when the CD had first come out, but discovered it anew from--you guessed it--the end of the movie Chariots of Fire.

Just as I was applying the hot flatiron to my hair in a somewhat doomed attempt to be stylish, from the CD player, I heard these words:

'Bring me my bow of burning gold,
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

It was the first time I had realized that this song's connection to England was more than speculation about the legend that Jesus might have somehow visited the isle. ("And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England's mountains green?", the first line) Perhaps partly because I needed a big picture to refocus upon, but I think mostly because I glimpsed a view of God's heart, I broke. I knew it was true: God wants to establish not a physical Jerusalem, but its antitype in the earth--that is, an outpost for the Kingdom of God so real it takes on physical coordinates! God wants to "build Jerusalem" on earth through our worship and expression of Him and he wants to do it such a manner that people can touch, taste, sense and smell God's presence right where they live. He wants the Kingdom to come near people today! With all due respects and prayers for the historical Jerusalem, there are more pilgrimages to be made than the one to the middle east! God wants to raise up attractive sanctuaries in many places in the earth and demonstrate the complee transcendence of His holy purpose! And the U.K. is certainly mighty among those places.

William Blake had an extreme spiritual fascination, but on this one he seems to have got it right. There is a call to stand up and contend for your land! There is a call to the church to again let arrows of desire fly from the bow, that is, from the spirits of "just men made perfect" as Hebrews says! There is a call to unashamedly declare the dreams of the God dwelling among his people and all the forms that might take--inroads into society, territory and culture. And there is a call to commitment that says, "I will not rest until the Kingdom is established..." (Knowing that God sends the most amazing of "rests" to those who have reached that place of total commitment.)

I wept aloud as I realized the call was as strong as ever to the British church. I wondered how many of my British friends (like myself) had a clamoring of life's voices of challenging banging around them: concerns about their church, their circumstances, their children, the future--many of them quite valid. As I cried, I called out to God as if by my voice I could pierce the veil that keeps us from seeing God's big purpose. I tried to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of all of us--bringing the Kingdom to earth.

But I felt one misgiving about the poem's words that were moving me: "I will not cease from mental fight..." were the words that William Blake used to express commitment. Perhaps they were also the reason for much darkness and introspecition in his own soul. For anyone with any mental ambition to build Jerusalem on earth quickly learns that this is not a fight for the mind to take on. II Corinthians 10:4-5 "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty..." The Kingdom is not established by minds rising against minds, but rather spirit overtaking minds! Though our minds must be engaged in the battle, they can never become field marshalls! We must always be led by the spirit, remembering that God, from His post in heaven, is the only one who really knows which sorties to send out (really waxing military here, but don't worry: I will quickly exhaust my military knowledge useful for metaphor... in fact, may have done so already!)

I wonder if the British church, like all churches, might profit from a re-evaluatory moment spent with this truth. Many of what we have called "spiritual failures" might actually be failures to acatually get into the spirit for the fight! Much of what has disappointed us probably has as its origin mental, rather than spiritual, stategizing and assumption. (In Bible language, we "leaned on our own understanding" rather than trusting "the Lord with all of our hearts"Proverbs 3:4-5). We do it becuase we want to avoid what we call super-spirituality, but we fail to realize that REAL spirituality does not neglect this realm, but rather envelopes it and finally makes sense of it. We really are in no danger of becoming ridiculous if we are truly spiritual. God is NOT ridiculous and Jesus defines him as "A SPIRIT" (John 4:24)

So, today, out of some very painful circumstances, I hear the call of God to recommit to the fight. I look across the land (both Britain and Azle, Texas) and see invisible things wanting to arise. I do not deny the pain around me at the moment, but I cannot deny the bigger picture that gives me a reason to go on. BUT, I lay aside more than ever the mental aspects of the fight and pick up the sword of the Spirit. God, I pray that you would unite us across the pond, not as great thinkers (and you know I love that--so I'm saying alot), BUT AS GREAT BUILDERS OF THE KINGDOM!!!!...Till we have built Jerusalem (the city of peace) in England's green and pleasant land...and in every land...

2006-08-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

The following are the words I spoke last Thursday (8/24) at my mother's memorial service, published here to further honor her and perhaps inspire someone else:

It has been said that there are two things a parent should give their child: one is roots and the other is wings. I consider myself to have been blessed with both of those things. My daddy, whom so many of you knew, definitely gave me roots—roots that went deep into the soil of human love and honesty. But it was my mother who taught me about wings. She did her best to facilitate activities in my life that reached beyond the mundane and transcended the norm. Daddy taught me cautious wisdom and “real life” while my mother taught me, as the poet said, to “slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God.”

A couple of weeks ago, on the night when I realized that we were nearing the end of my mother’s time on the earth, I was too upset to cook anything for my family full of males, so we found ourselves in the local Long John Silver restaurant in Azle trying to decide which version of fine battered fish products to order. While I waited for my sons to bring me whatever it was I had decided upon, a song came on the in-store music system. The well of tears inside that I thought I had exhausted, at least for that day, suddenly sprung up again forcefully. The words washed over me like water, and gave me that strange sense of hope that only a song in the hands of God can do in a turbulent time. I thought then, sitting at that fast food table, that when this day came, I would share these words with you so that you, too, can experience them.

Before I share them, however, let me say, that I believe that every life has a prophetic message, a legacy. Every life makes a statement from heaven to those who have ears to hear it, for every person is created in the image of God and bears a unique package of his unfathomable character. We feel great loss since my mother is no longer with us, but it behooves us to hear the message her life is speaking and heed it. To truly honor her legacy, there must be a recommitment to the ideals she embraced, a recommitment that is waiting for each of us to embrace beyond the shadows of tears and grief—a commission that will also comfort us.
I found both comfort and a commission from heaven in the words of a pop song. If Paul in the New Testament can preach the gospel using the words of pagan poets in Athens, certainly I can draw inspiration from the pens and guitars of the Eagles in the year 2006. The words I “heard” not just with my ears, but with my heart in Long John Silver that night are these:

There's a hole in the world tonight.There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.There's a hole in the world tonight….Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

We who loved Chloe Clark feel the hold in the world—we couldn’t help but feel it. But Chloe was a person who spent her life stopping up the holes in the world. She taught students in the public schools who were victims of broken homes and broken dreams and one by one, and with more patience than I will ever have, she stopped up the holes in their world. We live in a day when we at times hear of teachers who physically hurt their students, but I remember my mother being the actual recipient of kicks and physical actions of anger from the students she taught in the special ed classes which were her specialty. Still, she worked to stop up the holes in their worlds.

She gave to her church and her family and befriended many people throughout her life. She was like a bridge over troubled water to so many and I am truly thankful for the many ways she laid her life down for me, ways which are too numerous to recount here today. I even remember that many of my high school friends would come over to my house, I thought, to hang out with me, but ended up in long conversations with my mother, where she was helping to stop some of the holes in their world.

I remember one instance—now the details are fuzzy because I was pretty young—when she was summoned to the Hearn household to help stop up a small hole. I wasn’t allowed into the garage where the talks occurred, but it seemed that a certain older Hearn boy did not want to comply with the shorter hair requirement that was being enforced upon him. I don’t know what my mother said, but she seemed to find a way to plug the hole of teenage angst that was draining his motivation. (My apologies to Jon if I have remembered that incorrectly—the truth is she loved your long hair anyway.)

In Acts chapter 1, we read the account of the amazed disciples who had just seen Jesus taken up into heaven. Apparently, they were standing, transfixed and perplexed and perhaps feeling some déjà vu. Can you imagine it: They had grieved over the loss of the Master on the cross, only to discover that he was not dead, but still living. They had celebrated the resurrection and reveled in his presence. But now, just as they were settling into comfort, he was leaving them again—this time in a cloud of glory. Perhaps they felt the hole in their world reopening.

At that moment, an angel was dispatched to them and arrived to say, “Why do you stand here gazing?” Seems like a silly question: they are gazing at the point of their loss. But the angel, having diverted their eyes from their loss, redirects them to the future, promising that this is not the end of their contact with Jesus. In so doing, he infers that it is time for each of them to get on with the business that Jesus left behind: the business of bringing the Kingdom of God to earth! In other words, empowered by Jesus’ Spirit, which had not left the earth, it was time for the disciples to live out the legacy Jesus had left with them. “Don’t stand and gaze at heaven: God has that bit totally under control—it is earth that need you now!” the angel seemed to be saying. On earth, there are holes to be plugged and Jesus will fill the emptiness inside you with the intimacy of his presence and empower you to go forth and be a change-agent.
Jesus plugged ALL the holes in the world, but he sends us forth to live that out. Only because of his action on the cross can we, like those disciples, live a life that stops up the holes in the world. But, because of the cross, we can be certain that every hole has its plug!

My mother’s life commissions us to go forth and plug the holes in the world that we encounter. This is how we honor her legacy. This is how we receive her as a gift from heaven. Let your grief be turned to empowerment and after you have stood and looked to heaven a while, turn and find someone to help on earth and live your life to see the Kingdom of God manifested. There is nothing better to live for and no comfort like being a part of the invisible Kingdom and being at complete peace with the Creator and his good purposes for every life.

Again I say boldly, in honor of my mother: There’s a hole in the world tonight…don’t let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

Wait and see...

2006-06-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

After hosting Rich Lush from Arun Community Church (Littlehampton, England) for two weeks here with us in Azle, Texas, I find myself once again thinking about the complementary nature of the British and American psyches, especially when it comes to the Kingdom of God. If you know Rich and you read his blog, you will no doubt have read the ridiculously clueless comments that he logged from young Americans during his visit. ("You play the same guitar chords we do!"spoken with amazement, and, "Do you have sandwiches in England?" Other comments were too painful for me to type.) I ache over our American self-referencing world-view, but still it makes my point stronger: We need to link up with our fellow English-speakers (okay the original English-speakers) for the sake of gaining a broader view of the Kingdom mindset, which I believe is composed of the redemptive "bests"of every national consciousness! While the American psyche is all about (and pardon this Blue Collar Comedy tour phrase), "Gettin' 'er done," Britain seems timelessly patient, refusing to rush headlong into a mess.

In America, we know how to throw a party and raise our voice. We jump in, get wet, promote and proclaim what we feel God is doing, usually failing to check any manual on cultural relevance to the rest of the world. There are advantages to this approach, for many a dream from heaven has been sacrificed on the altar of over-analysis. It is a good thing to run with the vision and obey the command without a "plan B" and yet...perhaps this is just one part of the Kingdom picture! Perhaps the British church has a complementary strength that would supply the balancing value: the left brain to our right; the stability to our movement; the yin to our yang (oops--eastern metaphor disallowed...!)!

Recently a British friend of mine had a "big idea" involving something in his nation, which he ran by me. When it didn't seem to work out, I felt impressed to tell him to pursue the relationships involved anyway, and I said to him, "You never know what will emerge." At that moment, I realized that Britishness would help him do the Kingdom thing! As I continued to wax philosophical to my friend (unsolicited, but sincere), I wrote to him in an e-mail: "In the British church, things often arise and emerge slowly through the web of caution and hesitance, but when they do emerge, they are as strong and lasting as Stonehenge... Seeds get planted deeply and seem completely dormant, but no one seems to forget them, and they are nurtured by the patience that stems from a national consciousness that has endured invaders, wars, gain and losses, and survived--all from a tiny island that should never have been (when tallying its dimensions) a world power!"

Britain reminds me of Gamaliel in Acts 5, who basically infused into the Sanhedrin a "wait and see" attitude, saying, "If this is not God, it will die out and if it is God, we cannot stop it." That is admirable, especially as we Americans seem to dive into every spiritual pool without checking the temperature first, quite often making quite a mess. That is also vital in a day when watching to see what is emerging is probably the primary need for spiritual leadership! More than ever before, those of us who have a tendency to drive the boat without permission must learn to wait on the energies and strategies of the Kingdom. We must "let things arise" and form in our vision, rather than rushing out and simply implementing a plan engineered by human reason!

I learned this truth about Britain where every truth should be learned: in the context of relationships. More than once in my early interactions with British church leaders, I thought I had failed to make a connection. I would share in glowing terms with unbridled passion my overwhelming enthusiasm for the great heights we could rise to together, only to receive cordial e-mails in return! I would feel Kingdom destiny forming between our church and British churches and propose that we together do mighty exploits for God, sure that I was seeing the plan from heaven, only to be told we could discuss some of it on our next visit over a curry! And my friend Andy Au was the most memorable of these lessons. When I declared, "You must come to America," he basically said, "I'll think about it if you demonstrate your seriousness by following up on this in the months to come, but I will not pursue it myself."

What Andy and the curry-eaters and the polite e-mailers knew (and I was beginning to learn)was that relationships for the Kingdom's sake must emerge rather than be engineered. They must be truly powered by the energies of heaven, not mere human (American or British) enthusiasm! My British friends knew that the purposes of God, like their island and its people, would ulimately survive and thrive through soul-possessing patience and confidence in the Desire of Nations, who works all things after the counsel of his will!

We American Christians are quite proud (and I mean that in the best sense) of the seeds of Christianity in our nation. But how deeply are Kingdom seeds buried in the British consciousness! Christianity has been a shaping factor in every stage of development of Britain's long history. Where there were abuses and diversions from the true faith, a correcting voice always arose to purge the message and refuel the fires of holiness. Where is Christianity today in Britain? Is it in crisis? I believe not: I believe Christianity is buried in the ground of Britain deeper than any iron age ruin. Britain's great strength of iron-willed patience will pay off as the seeds of ancient faith begin to germinate throughout the land, as I believe they are about to do.

My friend Noel Richards illustrates my point. This July 15th, he will gather the youth of the nations in Olympic Stadium in Berlin for an unprecedented day of worship and prayer. It will be a history-making event involving worshippers from literally all over the globe. It will be unforgettable and impossible to ignore. But the story that Noel will tell in years to come will include the patient pursuit of a dream that seemed easier to abandon than carry full-term. The vision for the stadiums of the world (Wembley first, now Berlin) was planted in him decades ago and he has endured roadblocks and postponements with the confidence of one who believes in actualizing emergent realities! God help us all take a lesson from Noel and carry all of our God-dreams full-term!

Whatever you might have thought was "over"...be a bit British about it and wait and see....This Kingdom is always on the move and you never know what might emerge tomorrow!!! I'll stop now before I veer off into a full salute to the motherland, but I won't apologize for the passion about the bridge across the pond!

Make the world stretch...

2006-02-18T14:52:00.000-08:00

The small group I lead on Wednesday nights was straggling in slowly to our little room at the church and something in my leadership rhythm just won't let me start until there is a "quorum". My hesistance to delve into our topic ("What is True Spritiuality?") only to end up repeating a personalized version of my oh-so-powerful introduction for each new arrival forced me to do that thing I am really supposed to do anyway as a small group leader: begin by letting the members each share what is on their heart. Monica, my long-time friend who has just gone back to nursing school after years of intense homemaking and motherhood, had had a particulary challenging day. As she shared her story, she struck a chord in me that is still reverberating. I'll be going on about this one for a while, I'm sure!

Monica's nursing instructor had assigned a typical group project regarding the care of a patient. Now Monica is a conscientious, bright and diligent woman and it seems that the group of younger classmates to which she was assigned had not pondered their life options or commitment to education--and particularly their tasks in this project--with the same degree of seriousness Monica had. After sitting through the less than stellar performance by her group mates, it was Monica's turn to present. She was so overwhelmed with the need to compensate, explain gaps and fill in holes (years of motherhood may have entered into this) that she, rather than focusing on the patient in question, began every sentence with "I felt..." or "I thought..." As she finished her words, she said that she realized that she had used the words, "I, me or my," probably 25 times in a presenation that should have been done in clinical third-person! She had a momentary opportunity to fall into despair, but instead, she said she drew a breath as she sat down and said to herself, "Oh well, the world with just have to stretch to accommodate me today!"

When Monica shared her coping mechanism, I knew I was hearing greatness. If Joseph Campbell had been in my small group, I felt certain he would have recorded Monica's words for a list entitled: "Things All Heroes Must Learn to Say," for, at one strategic point or another, every hero must be willing to make the world stretch to fit them! I have no idea what grade Monica received on the presenation, but I believe the grading scale of life stretched for her at the moment she made that inner determination! Monica had realized that, though it is futile to demand that the world stretch, or even force the world to stretch, there is still merit in singing along with Tom Petty: she could quietly "stand her ground," refusing to "back down" in terms of how she viewed herself.

God makes us the way we are and we, so often, spend so much time trying to re-shape ourselves to accommodate the spaces left for us by people trying to find room for themselves! Rather than dare ask someone to adjust their position, we bend ourselves into unrecognizable forms. We think we are being flexible, and sometimes this is required, but what happens after a while is that accommodating other people becomes a habit and we wonder where the Eric Liddle Chariots of Fire stuff ("When I run I feel His pleasure...") went! When the joy of presenting yourself to God in living worship has waned, it might be time to decide that the world needs to stretch to fit you! You might need to use some "I, me, and my" once again, rather than the clincial third person expression that seem less self-centered!

Like a fine mist, expectations, opinions and scruples settle in on us, dampening the joy of expression. Especially in the church world, Josephs don't hold on easily to their amazing technicolor dreamcoats! There are plenty of self-referenced brothers ready to rip the garments of individuality straight off of us. But if anyone ever made the world stretch to fit him, it was Joseph. He ultimately stood his inner ground and made all Egypt--and the known world as well as the future who would read about him--stretch to fit him!

It is easy, even for the fieriest of temperaments (and I count myself in that group), to feel stretched. Life, circumstances and even God's challenges to us often make us feel that if grace doesn't reinforce us, we will certainly meet the fate of an overtaxed rubber band! Let us not, however, become so addicted to the feelings of powerlessness that fail to remember that this is a two-way street. In God's economy, all things are reciprocal. We are stretched by relationships and requirements, but sometimes we are the stretching force on others as well.

We live in a time when God is wanting to stretch his church. We actually live in a reformation. More power to you who need to pioneer new ways to express your worship, both in and outside the church doors and both with and without the overt identification of your craft as worship! You--you army of Joseph's out there who sometimes feel more like you have landed in Egypt than home--you are the ones who will declare, "I feel...; I think...; and I see..." and the world will be a better place for it. God asked Jeremiah more than once, "What do you see?" and Jeremiah's answers played right into God's plan to make Israel stretch.

When I was a teenage hippie (back in the day), we all had posters of the cult credo Desiderata which began, "Go placidly amid the noise and haste..."hanging next to our black light posters. I remember the words of that poem as an island of peace in the midst of my existential turmoil--long before my heart found the real peace that is Jesus. Looking back now, I can see that in many ways the Desiderata (Latin for "things desired") painted a landscape--much like the one the Moody Blues sang about in "Question"(between the silence of morning and the crashing of the sea, was it?), which was frequently playing on the stereo just under the poster. It was a spiritual landscape where one could simply "be" without anxiety over performance or worry over what is "acceptable". It was a vista of grace and freedom--a freedom so secure it need not prove itself in the energies of rebellion. I now know that the promised land lies only behind the Savior who calls Himself "the Door". It is the Narnia of the Kingdom where "I" "me" and "my" exist without selfishness, and express without frowns of disapproval. I realize now that only in Christ do I have access to my "right to be here" and the knowledge that "the universe is unfolding as it should" for me. But even so, what I hear the Desiderata saying is "When faced with the pressure to mold yourself around someone else's laws or needs, decide instead to simply make the world stretch to fit you." Jesus will make room for you as you do, for that's what easy yokes and light burdens are all about...Make your world stretch to fit you.

Emerge...emerging...emergent... the anatomy of a buzzword

2005-11-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

THE FOLLOWING is an excerpt from my soon-to-be-published little book, Engaging the Culture:

Recently, while sharing with a group of young leaders from another church, I put up a slide with containing a diagram that, with two simple lines, showed how the church engages (or fails to engage) culture. As I introduced it, I referred to it as a “model”. The word had barely left my mouth when my listeners all began to moan with one accord and one of them burst out: “That’s not very postmodern!” I was baffled. What I was about to describe to them was a whole new view of church and culture which I had captured in some simple lines. How could that not be postmodern? They only laughed as I tried to defend myself, red-faced and mumbling words like “deconstruct” and “meta-narrative.” I finally just went on, careful not to use the word “model” again.

Later in my time with them, however, as we discussed the implications of quantum physics as I have done here in this book, I had an insight. Their context for the word “model” originated in the church world. They had started their own church (which would be described by some as alternative but, to them, was simply authentic) and they had been asked by many skeptical voices, “Well, which model are you using?” They heard the word “model” as the modern tendency to plan it all, institute it all and force it all into manifestation (or simply to copy someone else’s success rather than letting God grow up in your context). I use the word model in a scientific sense: an approximation that simplifies a complicated reality; a view of the systems in place that allows us to interact with them. Yes, I meant model in the quantum sense, and that brings me to the buzzword “emerging”.

The word “emerging” (or “emergent”) has been creeping onto the covers of Christian periodicals for a couple of years now in America (and longer in the U.K.). Most people probably associate it with an age group of leaders and followers who are just now coming into their own in the church—emerging from obscurity. This group will tend to have a different style and different preferences and therefore generate controversy and require magazine article-length explanations! But there is so much more to understanding “emerging” than simply making room for something that isn’t your style or stepping aside for the young guys to have a chance.

God’s truth, by nature, always waits at the next horizon of church life. Just as soon as we think we have finished the manual on how to do church, God allows everything to change and then waits until we again start running after Him. The nature of the invisible plan of God—whether you invoke quantum physics to explain it or simply read the Bible—is that it wants to manifest! Truth is not just an idea; it has within it a drive toward incarnation. Every bit of God’s huge plan for his church waits invisibly to be discovered, cooperated with, and to emerge!

What I call a model is a fleeting glimpse of the way things are, not yet manifest, and the way God wants them to be on earth. That is so much more than a plan or blueprint. In fact, the myriad workbooks and seminars that the church has generated containing steps and programs for growth in the Christian life are, at best, just models of the emergent! Having seen something of the invisible potential of the Kingdom, we are desperate to cooperate and find ways to actualize its possibilities. We must have some kind of tools to do so because the spirit is a world that operates quite differently than the natural one and we tend to lose our bearings easily without some type of construct in our mind. In the spirit, you give to receive; die to live; humble yourself to be exalted. Let’s face it: the Kingdom is counter-intuitive! We need a model when we are in the middle of the deep sacrifice, death of the flesh, or otherwise humbling experience, so that we can remember to cooperate! We need a few steps; a couple of arrows and just a few alliterative catchphrases. (I’m not being sarcastic: we really do. But we can keep it to a few.)

If we understand that, like the models we have of the atom, these constructs are just helpful tools at understanding emergent realities, we will not abuse them and camp out on them. We will allow them to breathe, flex and flow. We will not worship the models instead of the invisible God who can be contained in nothing, but who does bless us with all the handles we need to cooperate with Him! The “cheesy” and superficial only show up when we have forgotten the big invisible picture (or, when we have never seen it to begin with, God forbid!) Things only get trite and stale when we have begun worshipping the creation, in this case the model, instead of being blinded again and again by the light of the all-encompassing Creator!

Our local church does have a model. It is a diagram with circles and arrows and flow and explanation. The criticism might be raised by someone that it is not “emergent” because we are planning it. I say nothing could be farther from the truth. Too many people are claiming to be the emerging church simply because they have thrown away the plan! The emerging church, however, is one who has seen the invisible and is doing their best to help it manifest. They have seen truth beckoning on the next horizon and made the commitment to pursue. The models God gives us may flow and flux as all living things do, but as long as our eyes are fixed on the invisible (I am reminded of Abraham, Moses and all the Hebrews 11 endurance laureates), we will be allowing God’s next move to “emerge” into manifestation through us! We are all a part of the emerging church—for there is no other kind.

Authentic Voice

2005-10-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

"Where I've been" is trying to edit and self-publish a book! (I had no idea...the elitism that sems to pervade the publishing industry may just be well-deserved...this is so hard, that is, if you want to do it right and I am certainly plagued with that disease!) I have plunged deep into the mysterious and terrifying world of copyright permissioning. I have been tracking down and e-mailing authors and publishing houses, seeking their written permission to reference their intellectual property in my little 100 copy book run! For the most part, especially among the smaller publishing houses, I have met with good will and generosity. However, some of the larger firms have scared me enough to change my mind about quoting and, let me just say, there will be NO song lyrics quoted in my book, even though I am a passionate babbler about the spiritual meanings behind "secular" pop lyrics!

I never dreamed there could be this much legal minutia and red tape in the simple exercise of writing down one's free speech! What a strange world it seems where people own ideas and words as possessions, and the value placed on honest thought is determined by the market. In my deepest, and least useful, moments of wonderment, I have questioned whether ANY thought is ever purely original! Do we just, in thermodynamic accuracy, pass around the same energy of thought, expressing it through different lips, eyes, paintbrushes and laptops? Is there just one ocean of swirling truth that passes between us all, nothing being created or destroyed, just changing forms? (Told you it was deep--and useless...)

In my more practical moments (and I don't do those well or often), I have wished for a long talk with God about the reasons in his grand design that I didn't just "get published". Why couldn't I have been the one in my half a million people that someone discovered in obscurity and took on as a project? In addition to wearing that badge of validation ("published author"), I would have been able to use in conversation the important sounding phrase, "my editor", referring to the person assigned to help take my pages of messy potential from manuscript to marketable copy! And presumably, "my editor" would have helped me convince the world that I didn't want to exploit their intellectual property!

Until today I had no answer to satisfy me regarding the necessity of this "indie" journey, only a couple of dozen folks who kept reassuring me that self-publishing was the way to go, few of whom had actually done it! But today, as I was changing yet another wording in my little book, sanity suddenly erupted from within and I had, yes, wait for it---another epiphany. I realized, seriously, that in my promised land of publishing, I had allowed myself to adopt the mentality of the ten unbelieving spies, rather than the faith of Joshua and Caleb. I was saying, basically, "There are giants in the land and I'm just a grasshopper in their eyes," as if they held the key to my future. This as opposed to the more God-pleasing Joshua and Caleb who viewed the same giants, but simply said, "Let's do it!"

In that moment of clarity, I realized my independence! I am not dependent on who else I point to for validation. Strip away every reference in my writing to those whom I respect (already "published" authors) and even my wonderful references to current trends (so often made via song lyrics), and I still have something to say! Deny me permission to quote and confine me to what I am absolutely sure came only from my private musings, and I still have a message. I am not an echo; rather, I am making my own sound! The opposition and the obscurity and the feeling that a thousand gates into the market had been barred were worth it all! To take the "promised land" metaphor forward into complete overkill: In the fearful dance I was doing to avoid treading on others' intellectual property, I had somehow discovered that the territory on which I stood really was my own! Admidst the clamor, I had heard my own voice.

In my favorite book by C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces, (which is also one of his most unknown), the main character, after years of stoic and noble endurance, finally pours out a long and resentful complaint about her lot in life to the supernatural powers-that-be. Like a geyser of venom, all her confused resentment erupts without warning. In the shock of hearing herself, she finds an amazing thing. She realizes that, for the first time, she has really heard her own voice.

I have been writing for years, giving it my all, nobly enduring rejection and obscurity and, even recently, trying to live in positive anticipation on this new route of "self-publishing". But, like C.S. Lewis' Orual, my life's journey has finally pushed me into a corner that has caused me to dig deep. I almost gave up, thinking it was too much trouble. But, today, staring at my computer screen while editing my book, I believe that I have really heard my own voice. From the place within that is accessed only by real-time struggle, I realized that I really do have something to say! Giants in the publishing land (or church land, or educational land, or legal land) notwithstanding, I refuse to declare myself a grasshopper any longer, for I have heard my own authentic voice. Something on paper is just a matter of time.

Kingdom interdependence is real and I desperately need (and always will need) my friends and journeymates. But the Kingdom is scored by authentic sounds, created by those who lean on no one else and worry about nothing else. So, here's to all you Kingdom dreamers who have been tempted to resign yourselves to being an echo--don't give up. The world is changed by authentic voices, but they, like diamond, are formed only by underground pressure. Your struggle is worth it. (Perhaps, like me, you have felt desperate to get your voice heard, when in fact, you might have been in the process of actually hearing it yourself! We seem to all run ahead of God's train unknowingly.)

When Jesus interrupted the persecution efforts of Saul of Tarsus, he told him, "I will make you a minister and witness..." (Acts 26:16) In the most dramatic conversion in history, Saul became Paul. But what followed was not immediate public ministry. Paul spent 14 or so years in the wilderness of Arabia being, as Jesus had promised, "made"! The apostle who emerged from the desert was no echo, but an authentic voice--one that is still speaking to literal millions today.

It's all an "indie" journey, really. We are all really self-publishing something with this life that has been given us. We are all recording from the studio in our own basement. Even if we find a way to mass produce the message, the quality all goes back to the work that has been done (and is being done) in our own hearts. So...walk on...and trust...and discover the joy that God takes in bringing forth your authentic voice!

Why not?

2005-09-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's been a while since I posted. More about why later...

For now, I just want to humble myself and admit something. My starry-eyed dreamer tendency lives on amidst the skepticism that would try to silence it! And sometimes that dreamer thing makes me simply gullible! Just when I thought I had grown up, I came across a poetry contest e-mail that looked really good! I actually believed that they wanted to publish profound poetry, rather than sell me something which appealed to my need for recognition and flattery! I wanted with all my heart to provide them with profound poetry! I thought this could be destiny!!! I admit it: I fell in!

Funny thing, however, I really liked the poem that I composed on the spot as my entry. So, I am publishing it here in cyberspace for free, rather than in a global treasury which sells for $49.95 or something... Perhaps it will add a bit of inspiration to your day, and having you read it will certainly redeem the time I wased on filling out my entry form! Here it is, just what I was feeling on a gullible day: "Why not?"

Why not?

Why not,
When days morph into waking dreams
And nights go deep like blackened screams
Why not give up?

Why not,
As hope begins to wane
And passion pales but pain's the same
Why not grow cold?

Why not,
When data drains the soul
And chaos orders the banishment of control,
Why not fly away?

But why not
If love is anywhere ablaze
And sand still drops in hourglass haze
Why not try again?

Perhaps we find the signs and times
Lost along the grueling climb
When sparks of love are allowed to shine...
Why not?

That's it...and now that I think about it, maybe there are more poetry contests to enter for dreamers...? I'd probably enter one again... Hope is a valuable commodity in this age of cycnicism...Why not?

What we are all about...

2005-07-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

I can't get it out of my mind, this "context" thing... Even while we travelled up from Texas to Nebraska to celebrate my husband's parents' 50th wedding anniversary, amidst the golden decorations and reunions with family and friends, the theme kept running through me like an undercurrent.

I've been thinking of the Joseph of amazing technicolor dreamcoat fame. If ever a man dreamed beyond the confines of his current "context", it was Joseph the Hebrew. His brothers had absoltely no grid in which to cast his dreams--dreams which, to their mind, violated cultural sensibilities and identified Joseph as a selfish aggrandizer. Joseph's faher, Jacob, had the heart to provide his favored son a context, but couldn't wrap his head around the dream's implication that he would bow down to his own son! Amazingly, Joseph, the man given dreams by God, found NO context in God's earthly expression, the nation of Israel, the offspring of Abraham. Abraham had looked for a city that was not of this earth, but Jacob and his sons couldn't see past their own camels.

So, Joseph, through no choice of his own, was forced to find context in a foreign land! He was forced outside the covenant of promise into Egypt, a land large enough to accommodate a vision from eternity and a gifted heart. In Egypt, the reaction to Joseph's abilities (and yes, Joseph may have been more hesitant to show them off after his pit experience), was not a threatened one, but rather one of appreciation. First in Potiphar's house, then in prison and ultimately in the palace of Pharaoh, Joseph found context for his visionary giftedness. In fact, it was the pharaoh himself who provided Joseph with the ultimate context for the fulfillment of his youthful dreams! Look at Pharaoh's reaction when he sees the gift in the Hebrew slave whose vision exceeds all his own magicians'. He does not react with intimidation, as did the brothers and even the father. Rather, he is secure enough in his position (as pharaoh's generally were) to follow a John Maxwell leadership principle and put the guy with influence in his cabinet!!!!

It amazes me that the "world" provided more context for Joseph than the "church" of his day, but then again it is vaguely familiar (I refer you back to the previous blog entry where U2 was discussed...). What is more amazing is the reason that this was the case. Was it that Pharaoh--all-powerful in government--feared no challenge to his authority, or was it instead that the Egyptian culture had more appreciation for the value of the supernatural and the prophetic than the nation of Israel? Either way, we should feel challenged.

Someone once said that while the release of the prophetic in the church presents a challenge to religion, the apostolic presents a challenge to politics! In other words, a true apostolic church is one who understands how to create context, that is, to release and make room for ministry, rather than nervously hold on to title and position (And believe me, I know what fear that strikes into even the purest of hearts...making room can be messy!) But, if a pagan pharaoh can believe it is his destiny to rule a land, how much more can Christian leaders relax in the notion that their own place is secure!! Pharaoh had no real connection to God, only a sense of the eternal! We have the confidence of relationship with the living God--the administrator of the whole big picture! We do not have to fear his misplacing our resume!

Old Testament Egypt has always been an allegory for the world and rightly so. But more than ever we live in a world that is open to the supernatural. We live in a world that is more ready to accept dreamers and seers than perhaps ever before. We live in a world that is open to the art and expression that comes from the furnaces of true spirituality. Wouldn't it be sad--no tragic--if only Egypt celebrated the Christian art we criticized? Wouldn't it be sad if the word "grace" became more understood in Pharaoh's palace than at the altar??? It doesn't have to be this way.

I mentioned the 50th anniversary reunion for my husbands' parents. Because Peg and Eldon Brownback are rare individuals who have spent a lifetime creating a haven for the hurting while asking nothing in return, all kinds of relatives turned out to honor them. Many of them had not been to a family event of this kind in years and there was a real sense of joy about getting together. One nephew cooked a huge celebratory meal complete with french names for the hors d'oeuvres and everything. A true artist, Charlie was in the kitchen all day, entertaining us with humor and educating us to the joys of food properly prepared--demonstrating all the while that, like food, life itself should be savored! At the end of the day, someone started a conversation about church and Charlie explained the reasons why he did not attend, even though he believed in God quite strongly. I couldn't help myself--I went there! "Charlie," I said, "What if there were a church that allowed you to be you--wild man that you are? What if there were a place that did it without the pretense and the rank and formality and what if you could experience church as true fellowship--heart-to-heart--as you have here with us?" I went on to say, "You are the kind of person who gives their whole heart to everything--I can tell that easily--and you are the first kind of person who gets hurt in many churches who don't know how to handle your zeal and candor. But, I believe God is doing a new thing and helping the church become truly a place where you no longer have to pretend and where you can be youself and know a God who only wants to pour out his life upon you, rather than conform you to a mold of religiosity!"

Poor Charlie--he had pushed my context button! He was ready to exit my presence after my little preaching stint (and who could blame him), but as he turned to go, he said, "You show me a place like that and I'll be there!" As he walked away, I said, partly to him and partly to the heavens, "That's what we're all about, Charlie...that's what we're all about..."

Please God, let the Jacobs and the brothers take a lesson from Pharaoh and value the dreamers among us. Let the church rise to the challenge and let the apostolic--God's wisdom for heavenly government--replace competition and political heirarchies. Let it be what all of us are all about...

Read again the story of Joseph in Genesis, chapters 37-45.

"Let there be 'context'..."

2005-06-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

Having just watched Bono give an amazing interview about Live 8 on the Sunday morning news show, "Meet the Press," I'm off thinking again about the issue of "context". It was a few years ago that Pete Atkins first introduced me to the term as related to people with dreams of ministry. After listening to me express in desperate tones the passion and possibilities for new expressions of local church that were bursting forth from inside me only to swirl around in the atmosphere, he patiently offered his diagnosis: "The only thing you need is the right context." I knew what he meant. A dictionary does not finish its serivce when it has supplied simply the definition and origin of a certain word. It must go on to demonstrate that word in context--use it in a sentence--bring it to life by putting it to work in relationship to strings of other words working at the same thought! I, a single word, needed to find sentences in which I belonged!

On the most basic level, "context" is provided for individual Christian by the local church and it is here that the Bono thought pattern kicks back in. It is generally agreed by progressive thinkers that the "word" in Bono--the vision he had to change the world, make a statement, get outside the cloister--found no context at the time in the local church, so Bono creted his own. He and U2 crafted a "sentence" of their own when the church refused to surround them with their meaning. By inhabiting the priveleges that the West awards rock stars, U2 has made room for their messages, whether they be related to the AIDS or the poor, Martin Luther King, Sept. 11 or the Kingdom itself and the search for God. They went outside the church to find context, and now, ironically, they are speaking back into the church their "word", influencing many.

Throughout the past decade, as I have explored the relationship of the church to postmodern culture, my local church has indeed patiently provided me with context. They discussed, questioned, tempered, adjusted and added their words to every new spiritual discovery I made. Like a base camp for a mountain climber, they patiently waited for me to come in from the extreme and report on my most recent excursion to the summits. They have been a wonderful family to me and I thought that was as good it it could get. Though I still didn't feel I understood my position fully, I tried to be satisfied. But, I now realize, that there is another Kingdom level--beyond the local church--through which "context" must and can be provided.

Through a visit to our church by a man named Stuart Bell, my understanding of context took a quantum leap into a Kingdom dimension. One morning of having him speak into our local setting explained so much to me. And through the conversation that followed, I felt, for what seemed like the first time in my Christian life, someone really understood what to do with my "energy" (and the turbulent storm that comes as part of the package)! Stuart Bell's world of meaning was the sentence my single word needed. His view of the Kingdom calmed me down as I realized there was plenty of room for me within it! Soon, I began to notice this same phenomenon in other places. I heard Terry Virgo speak and there it was again--a sense of context--knowing how to assemble dreams and visions into a cohesive Kingdom whole. Again, the view through his eyes settled my restlessness and eased my striving. I looked back to my past and remembered hearing John Noble and Normans Barnes make statements that had the same effect. I thought of David Thatcher and Arun Community Church--a place able to cope with the incredibly huge buzz surrounding their own rock band Delirious? without losing sight of either sanity or the local church. All of these were context-providers for Kingdom dreamers who were wise enough and/or blessed enough to receive them.

And then I realized what you theologians may have already realized. What I'm really talking about is the "apostolic". CONTEXT for the artists, preachers, dreamers, and all those desperate to help break the church out of its staid ghetto rhythms will come as the voice of the apostles (whether or not they own the title) is heard. If you are a "word" without a sentence--even a strange word, an action word, a hard-to-say word--don't lose heart. God is setting up context in the earth for the things that need to be expressed. There are leaders who carry within them enough meaning to house the big picture. They are a new breed who would rather do the work than wear the title, though they will wear the title if it helps do the work. They have lived a few years and seen a few things and they are tougher than they look and wiser than you had realized. And one day they just might point to you and say, "I know where you fit."

So, here's to the context providers...long may they live and well may they see... Read Luke 5:37-39...

"Almost cut my hair..."

2005-06-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

(And yes, that title is a quote from the David Crosby song on the C,S &N Deja Vu album.)

I pity the hair stylists who land me in their chair. I place upon them so much responsibility as I describe my vision for a "look" that communicates both, "I refuse to fulfill your expectations of an American Charismatic pastor's wife," and "I refuse simply to follow the latest trend." Usually, I have compiled from three or more glimpses of haircuts gained while riding the London underground a vision that I attempt to communicate to Texas hairstylists with wild hand-gestures and words like "messy," "a bit uneven," "unique but not weird," and the ever-popular "edgy". Even the best stylists have resorted to presenting me with large books of pictures and saying, "Just point to what you mean," attempting to hide their frustration that I am trying to channel my huge inner need to make a statement through their tiny scissors!

Recently I left a local Azle stylist with a decent haircut. We had communicated as well as could be expected and I looked fairly "uncategorizable," which made me happy. I should have been fine for at least a month. I wasn't. Whether it was the intense Texas summer heat or the fast pace life had taken recently, I just wanted even less hair on my head than the geometric edges left to me. Ridiculous thoughts I had never had before came and would not leave: "I could probably cut hair--I do calligraphy." So, on Memorial Day when it was really hot and all the shops were closed, I picked up the scissors and proceeded to do my own version of Annie Lennox.

I'll spare the details, but a few days later, I sat in another stylist's chair again using words like edgy, messy and unique, but now asking her to "fix" what I had butchered. To fix it, she had to make it really short, since I had already taken it to short. When she finished, I felt a great degree of resolution. I assumed that that the satisfaction was simply a hair crisis averted, but for the last few days, I've been thinking it was more. Indulge me while I make sense of it. (And though this blog entry may have seemed gender-specific until now, here's where it goes universal...)

I have spent years studying God, the world, the culture, and the Scriptures because I could not help but do it. It was my worship, suggested to me by no one but the forces of my own heart. If I found a moment's down time between all the activities of suburban church and family life, I ran to a pile of waiting books, journals and a computer and continued to build my stock of revelatory observations about this amazing Kingdom journey that God inspires. Everywhere there was treasure and I was the explorer. In the arts, the sciences and even the business world (where I had formerly counted myself a real outsider), I found both evidences of, and potential for, God's touch! And I looked at it, thought about it, and attempted to record it much like Monet recorded the light that flashed upon a landscape in a single impression.

Recently, it became apparent to me through the wise counsel of others, that my little aresenal of collected thought could indeed find a welcome outside my own brain. It was time to take my inner world on the road, so to speak, and let it inspire and affect others! What followed is well known to any artist who attempts to connect natural passion to necessary promotion: a lot of work, planning and packaging that some days feels right and other days feels like embarassingly disorienting self-agrandizement and finds us saying, "What am I doing?" I am used to unearthing revelation that makes people stop and wonder, not trying to compete with all the trendy Christian things "out there"! My friends were right in nudging me outward, but there were things to process.

I honestly believe the haircutting fit was somehow related. I was hating the sense that I needed to add extra "grooming" to myself to "look good" in a world where appearances were everything. Wasn't the spiritual information I had enough? The haircuts I found myself longing for reminded me of the way medieval nuns are portrayed in movies--shorn messily close to their heads, with no regard to appearance. In some way, I think I was longing for just the simple life of devotion I had before I thought anyone might be watching. I wanted the extra weight of not just "being myself" but now "packaging myself" to be whacked off, no matter how it left me looking. I wanted to be free from the temptation to preen and posture. I didn't want to succumb to the performance-orientation and competitiveness that smacks of religion rather than Christianity and ultimately chokes true worship.

Of course, it's only hair. It doesn't really matter either way. But just as I begin to aplogize for choosing this topic for a blog entry, I think of prophets like Jeremiah and Hosea and I think perhaps I don't owe an apology. Jeremiah's physical appearance was often metaphorical and Hosea's metaphor even extended even to his marriage. It seemed God used all aspects of the prophets' lives to "make a statement"! Who could have thought that the torture I put the stylists through could be related to a Bible story? (I don't think I'll tell them that.)

Funny, I have made a statement this time with my hair--not to society, but rather to God. To Him, I am crying out, "Help me believe NOW--as I emerge slowly from the sanctum of obscurity-- what I have always believed: that you are the Master Artist not just of my inner world, but also of my destiny and the path I am to take. Help me look past all the politics and competition that dances around the fringe of the Kingdom--stop me somehow from being intimidated by it and refocus me on You! I don't want to play the game or sing the song that marketing demands. I only want to continue to share my inner world of worship with those who need to be warmed by it. I am willing to work hard, but I am not willing to lose my life of worship. Deliver me from the 'strife of men' and teach me to live in a secret place with you, even in the midst of a crowd--or Christian feeding frenzy."

I really did cut my hair... I may never need to physically "shake it off" in the same way again, but I am sure I will continue to apply the lesson learned. If I am not enough, just as I am, to be thrown like seed to the wind in the hands of the Harvest-Lord, I will never become enough by adding the polish, scheming and technique that I pick up from scanning the market horizon.

To read what I'm really saying in fewer words and without any cosmetology mentioned, go to Micah 6:8 and Psalm 131

Rivers of reformers...

2005-06-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

The other day at "worship practice" (I'll speak about the oxymoron in that phrase another time), the sound in the monitors was "messed up" (a highly technical term used only in amateur musician circles). After an extensive search for the electronic or human culprits, it was discovered that someone had removed the small stack of hymnbooks that were used to prop up the floor monitor that feeds sound to the platform. Once the hymnbook stack was replaced, the monitor again gave to us (rather than to the ceiling) our sense of "how we were sounding" and all was again well (on an amateur level!). Evidently, someone new had come along and cleaned the platform and thought a stack of old hymnbooks did not belong under a monitor, but oh, how they did!

The obvious admission from the above report is that the hymnbooks, which were a gift to us when we started the church years ago, don't get used for their originally intended purpose. Every now and again when a Vineyard-type acoustic recording of a hymn comes out, we glady grab it and give it a whirl, but even then, we type the words into the power-point and electrically project them large for all to see! We don't say, "Now turn to page 313..." As I glanced down at the hymnbooks supporting the monitor, it occured to me, however, that nothing was actually wrong with that picture!

New expressions really always rest upon what has preceeded them. Nothing arises from a vacuum. We are all a part of the river through time that is the church of Jesus Christ. We actually are singing the new hymns of the day (I'm sure Charles Wesley would enjoy Tim Hughes and maybe even Bono???) and every true hymn-writer that I have encountered seems to feel a true respect for those who have gone before, serving their generation.

Recently in an interview on "Inside the Actor's Studio," Russell Crowe referred to his acting as a manifestation of the gypsy blood within him. He said that gypsies are storytellers and if he had been born in medieval times, he would have been a storyteller still. He would have done from the back of a travelling wagon what he gets to do now on film. In those comments, he revealed a great respect and understanding for the craft in which he participates--AND for its heritage. The form may change, but even Led Zepellin knew, "the song remains the same."

If you want to take the metaphor too far (and I always do), if there was a lack of respect in my little hymnbook incident, it was not in the propping of the monitor with the books, but the removal of them! Someone thought they didn't belong in the current scene. But I say, they belonged just where they were. We could have propped that monitor with a block of wood, but now every time I look at it, I am conscious of the reformers that have gone before, writing hymns of challenge and change, like,

"Rise up O men of God...have done with lesser things...give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the King of Kings..."

Now, Martin Smith, resting on that heritage can write, "I want be a history-maker in this land...I want to be a speaker of truth to all mankind...I want to stand...I want to run into your arms..."

I don't de-value the hymnal because I stick it under a monitor. I honor it by singing words worthy of the warriors who have gone before.

Again I direct you to Matthew 13:52

Unexpected paths in familiar fields...

2005-05-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Pete Atkins is the reason we have developed a personal relationship with the customs agents at Dallas/Ft. Worth International airport. Rare combination of church leader, historian, thinker and physician, Pete welcomes us into his Lincolnshire world by including us on his rural prayer walks (hence necessitating the admission upon returning to the U.S. that, yes, we have indeed "walked in a pasture"--leading to the treatment of our guilty shoes with an obnoxious antimicrobial agent guarenteed to keep the U.K. bugs separate from the U.S. ones!) But, Pete's walks are worth it, and many times, Pete and Kath and Paul and I have had some real God-moments while side stepping the sheep "presence" in the fields.

On our last visit, Pete took us to a field in which he had newly discovered a narrow path that had not been there in his previous visits. The "path" was little more than a wide line drawn in the dirt that terminated at the ruins of an old abbey. It would only allow single file passage and, as the four of us began walking it, I noticed how utterly dependent we were on Pete as the leader since anyone behind him could see nothing ahead but the next person! Afterwards, back in the car, the four of us discussed how following that path felt like the search for how to better express the values of the local church in the mind-bending world that is postmodernity. Leaders who are honestly seeking a church that connects with culture seem to be walking toward something one person at a time, trusting that there is indeed, as Pete says, "an unexpected path" to follow. It would be easier if God paved the way to reformation and posted yellow signs along it. "Postmodern Christianity without Complete Deconstruction: 5 miles ahead" would be a nice one. Or how about, "Creativity in Church that Actually Has Some Power: just around the curve"? Yeah, a few reassurances would feel better than just following by trusting the leader!

Later, back home in Texas and walking in my local park alone, I decided to take an unexpected path in honor of Pete! In true Texan form, I thought, "If Pete can have mighty prayer walks, so can I!" Off I veered from the safe, paved walking trails into a dirt clearing into the woods, not sure exactly where it would come out. My prayer walk turned out completely different than Pete's meditative strolls through the English countryside, however. The dirt was rocky and the ground was jagged and half-way through, I began to wonder what Texas creatures might be lurking in the rarely disturbed underbrush nearby. Visions of snakes came to mind and I quickened my step, now tripping over rocks and pushed aside the vines, hoping none of them were poison oak or poison ivy. Finally, I burst out of the woods (back onto pavement) unharmed, but the unexpected path analogy had expanded in my mind. When you take a new trail alone (and in Texas?), danger does seem to lurk. It was much better walking the unknown with friends than striking out as a cowboy(girl) on my own. There is safety and peace in numbers.

A week ago, a man who had visited our church a few times told us that he would not be back because, "the music is worldly and the art is in the flesh." In my early years as a Christian "reformer", I would have seized upon this poor man with passionate and voluminous verbiage about how the "old" music was worldly in its earlier days and there is no one style of music more holy than another--don't you know God plans for every tribe, tongue, sound and style to fill heaven with praise??? I would have landed upon him like Boadicea resisting the Romans, asking him to compare the painting being done during our services "in the flesh" to his favorite preacher preparing for a sermon? Wouldn't he expect that preacher to study, research and prepare using the instruments of his flesh, hoping and praying for the Spirit of God to--as he so graciously does--come and interact with the earthen efforts infusing them with spiritual life? How was the painting of a Christian artist during a service any different? Ah, yes, quite powerful I would have been in my argument--I can see it now--I would have weilded the sword mightily (God, help us). But, instead (have the years actually matured me?? I pause to hope...) I just sighed and thought, "Bless him: he couldn't see the path!" He had accidentally joined a Pete Atkins walk for which he was not ready, and he did not have enough history with us to trust that we were actually going somewhere! He thought we were just wandering in a field and he grew afraid (slang: "freaked"). He had heard stories about snakes and calamities that occur off the paved road of safe church territory and did not want to become a statistic." I said nothing, felt compassion for the man, and sincerely hoped he would find the safety he needed. Nobody deserves to have their comfort zone BOMBED--only shaken! And I continue my walk, still thinking a sign now and then would be nice, but trusting the leaders in front of me and happy to be in motion!

Read Isaiah 42:16

Lost in the shadow of the cathedral...

2005-05-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of the Lincoln Cathedral. If you drive from any direction into the Lincoln, England area, you will be greeted by the sight of the massive building as it presides over the Lincolnshire countryside. It is clearly visible for miles around and I have often thought that if I lived there, I would never tire of the view. The cathedral seems to speak in its silence: It just keeps on standing there in all its beauty, as the centuries--yes, centuries--come and go, as if to declare the age-abiding nature of the God's love. The sun strikes it by day, the clouds shadow it, man-made lights illumine it at night, the elements beat at it...and still it reigns, reminds and renews vision of heaven-to-earth contact potential.

On our first trip to Lincoln, however, my husband and I, having been properly awed by the sight as we drove into town, became a bit tortured by it as time went on. It seems we were staying at a hotel just a block or so away from the Cathedral and that knowledge plus the name of the hotel were all the direction we had. "Easy," we thought like Americans, "just head toward the cathedral and we'll find the hotel." What followed were, as I remember it, several loops around the cathedral, taking different turns when we could, the same turns when we were forced to, never seeing the hotel to which we were headed. (I don't mean "loops" like highway loops--these were like fractals, like wound threads, like the English coastline.) We passed amazing Roman wall ruins and quaint old shoppes but still were only circling the cathedral (now in evening traffic) and never being able to come in for a landing. Finally, we dug out our antiquated U.K. mobile (which only worked sometimes) and were able to phone a Lincoln friend and say, "Help...we're circling the cathedral." He "talked us in" to the back entrance of what turned out to be a lovely hotel, just in the shadow of the cathedral. And we were quite glad to WALK to the cathedral to view it up close!

Only later did the parable strike me. Western culture is wandering in the shadow of the cathedral! They can see the idea of church rising over the landscape, casting historical spiritual images across the countryside, but they so often can't find their way in. The church might even be beckoning to them, but the roads they are travelling just don't seem to provide an entrance! How many people may be circling in the shadows, sampling spirituality now and then, perhaps even wishing to understand our gospel, but prevented by the traffic and one-way signs (there were some of those, too.) Our grand history and amazing beauty is not enough! We must help people GET THERE!

As I thought more about the metaphor, I seized upon the reason for the difficulty. The cathedral was built to be visited by people, but at a time when the people travelled on foot! The roads were established to accommadate pilgrims walking, not driving gasoline-powered vehicles! As in so many English cities with rich history, the curious mix of old and new was in play. For the ancient cathedral to be visited by a non-pedestrian culture, extra pavement needed to be added!

So it is with church! The church--when it is really being the church (and that is a big subject)--IS desirable, grand and inspiring. No one needs to dress it up with modern trappings or trendy additions. (How silly the Lincoln Cathedral would look with a Frank Lloyd Wright wing...or a Millineum Dome on the lawn.) No, what the church needs to revamp is simply its road system--the approaches and entrances! What we have is highly relevant--how people access it is our challenge! The culture has changed and we must realized they are not winding their way in on foot: they have more to navigate and they are moving faster, and they are circling in shadows of spirituality cast by our history without ever finding parking nearby to check us out today!

When we were lost in Lincoln, in the shadow of the cathedral, I am glad that our friend answered his phone. I believe postmodern seekers are calling. Like Americans with an old half-working U.K. mobile, they may be a bit rusty on the procedure, but they are asking for direction! "Talk me into that safe place near the door," they are saying. They may say it in song or film or in "spiritual" conversation, but they are saying it. In Britain, where old church buildings tower like rulers across the countryside, or in the Bible belt of America where steel and chrome megachurches seem to leap out of the ground, there are many circling in the shadows, waiting for us to pick up the phone.

For more food for thought, see: Matthew 13:52

Hit the ball with what's left...

2005-05-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

I don't love the "doing" of golf, but I do love the idea of golf. I love the fact that no matter how much a player works on his physical game, it is his inner game that ultimately determines his destiny on the links. Golf--combination of finesse and focus as well as strength and power--provides a metaphor for life's journey that is too great to be ignored. In the book, The Legend of Bagger Vance (known to many only in motion picture form), Steven Pressfield presses the metaphor into full service. Like so many spiritual ideas coursing through society, the eastern thought expressed in the book bears no specific religious label, leading most Christians to suspicion and distrust. But, I have never seen honest eastern thought as a threat to a way of life founded by an eastern Savior and conceived by the God of the univserse in whom both east and west find their origin. The book inspired me, and I am a Bible-type Christian!

I especially like the part where Bagger, caddying for the shattered war veteran, Rannulph Junah in the most stressful match of his life, is hammering him with the question, "Who are you?" Bagger, ignoring the mounting score due to Junnah's self-destructive play, just keeps asking, "Who are you?...Are you your name?...Are you your roles...Are you your virtues...your sins?" Junah, simply trying to survive the humiliation, has no answers and grows increasingly frustrated. Finally, Bagger Vance explains that who we really are is what is left when all the "selves" of our mind's making have been stripped away. The roles we play, our own estimations of our performance, feedback from all the significant (or non-significant) others in our lives, false religious ideas that deny the value God places on us--when all these things are stripped away, we are finally left with who we really are. (I've gone beyond Bagger: this is me talking now.)

The problem with having all the "selves" stripped away is that we feel naked without our scorecard! We are accustomed to bolstering ourselves against inadequacy with thoughts like, "Well, at least I'm..." or "At least I'm not..." Let's face it, we are addicted to performance and no matter how many messages we hear about having our identity rooted in God, it is so much easier to nod than kneel! But, life finds us, and if we let Him, God finds us in the midst of life. I believe if we have truly committed ourselves to knowing Him, He does strip us of all the "selves" that hinder authentic relationship and cloud the issue of our life-worship. He wants his question, "Who are you?" to us to be followed by expectant listening, rather than frantic rationalization.

After Bagger tells Junah that he has been stripped of all the "selves" that could have been, he says (and I like to imagine with authority), "Now hit the ball with what is left." Junah protests, "But there's nothing left." And Bagger says, "Exactly." Junah hits the ball and, you guessed it, he found his swing.

I have noticed that God often calls us to strike the ball just at those moments when we think there is nothing left! ("Why couldn't some of these doors opened when our confidence was in tact?" we often feel.) God just might be saying, "Exactly. Hit the ball now and see what happens. You might just be about to discover what is beyond your own strength!" I can just see God, smiling at us in our desperation with understanding love, and saying, "Swing now with all you've got left--take a shot at your dreams now!" He would be smiling because he knew that our feelings of inadequacy are only artifacts of our shattered performance addiction. As we step up to strike the ball with our false securities toppled, He would know that we were about to find the joy of our authentic swing--the joy of simply expressing who we really are, as created by God, with no disclaimers. No, we're not talking about golf...this is worship...this is life...the metaphor works. Let it.

John 4:24--True worship is in spirit and transparency...authenticity...

You are the art..

2005-05-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Recently, while preparing to speak at a conference, I had a small brain-burn. I had grown quite at ease with the questioning looks among the Christian audiences to which I had been speaking for a couple of years, but I was heading to the U.K. to unload my passion for "Engaging the Culture" on the other side of "the pond." Would I have enough information in my arsenal to help the church there smile at postmodernity in the way that Paul connected with the Mars Hill altar? Had I really grasped the concepts enough to dance through them with ease while a few hundred eyes watched? Was I sure my information was vital enough to take up an hour of precious conference time, and more than that, did I have it prepared well enough so that the listeners would not zone into the boredom-induced oblivion (or depression) that so easily attends Christians dissertations on postmodernism?

Brain-burns can be good, however. It was only when I reached detail overload that the balancing force of my passion went to work for me. Fed up with self-induced pressure to perform, I remembered an encounter from a week before. At a building dedication in our town, I had run into an artist friend of mine whom I had not seen in a long time. As we greeted each other, I had heard myself say to her, "Juliana, look at you: YOU ARE the art!" On that day, she had gathered together a combination of clothing and accessories that had never before collided on a human body, but it worked--and she looked outwardly like an expression of the worlds of creativity swirling inside her! In that moment, it occurred to both of us that I had said more than I had realized: It is not what comes out of our hands that is the "art" of our lives, but what comes out of our essence. We--not what we produce--really are the art! What we create has meaning because it comes from our hearts, our vision, our Kingdom journey...

So, I breathed deeply and felt the inspiration return. I might not be the consummate expert on all postmodern doctrine (now there's a double oxymoron--combining "postmodern" with both "expert" and "doctrine"!), BUT I do have a gleam in my eye when I discuss it! I might not wow the crowd with historical and sociological detail, but I do have a grasp of the anthropology of the spirit! I might not understand all the impending theological pitfalls, BUT I am absolutely in love with the challenge of connecting the divine life inside me with the postmodern party around me and convinced that the truth is both more powerful AND more FUN than anyone ever dared dream! In other words, I realized that, even as a conference speaker, I AM THE ART! And whether I am in Britain, Boston, or Bolivia, all I can do is hang my heart on the gallery wall and let the crowds decide! And there is peace and freedom in that, because no one hangs in a gallery without referencing the Artist! It's really His "gig"!

I believe my own epiphany can be universally applied. Every Christian is the expression of the Artist--every Christian really is the art! Why do we spend so much time and thought-energy trying to change ourselves when our Creator has painted (and redeemed) the masterpiece inside each of us? I went to the U.K. and enjoyed myself immensely as I gave my talk to the most receptive group of listeners ever. They "got it" because I came to them as "art", NOT just information. Whatever you do, whatever challenges you must face, you, too, are the art... Let the brain-burn reveal the brushstrokes of the Creator and laugh as the performance pressure falls away...

For more inspiration, go to Ephesians 2:10 and Psalm 139:13-16