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.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Monday, November 28, 2005
Emerge...emerging...emergent... the anatomy of a buzzword
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.
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.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Authentic Voice
"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!
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!
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