"Once moral knowledge disappears, political correctness takes over. Moral direction without knowledge becomes political correctness. The reason why political correctness became so important in recent years was because moral correctness disappeared.
Political correctness does not require knowledge, it only requires advocacy. That's one reason why in this country you will hear over and over people will be urged to vote regardless of whether they know anything about the issues. Knowledge is not required to vote...
And that's what it means to speak merely of political correctness."
-Dallas Willard
Showing posts with label other people's talk highlights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label other people's talk highlights. Show all posts
Friday, December 03, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Don't Keep On Being Anxious
After a week of hearing me preach, I thought I'd wrap up by letting you hear someone else. Whit Trumbull is a local counselor and a regular commenter on the Facebook notes version of these here posts.
This fall she's opening her Christian counseling practice, Spreading Shalom Counseling Services. Right now you can contact her through her church, Hillsong Church (www.hillsongchurch.org) if you're looking for a good Christian counselor in the Chapel Hill-Durham area.
She passed this sermon along that she wrote a number of years ago and I found the "anxiety as a moocher" image really helpful. Thought I'd pass a little piece of her wisdom along to you. Enjoy!
Philippians 4:6-7:
The first one is “Don’t keep on being anxious about anything.” That’s a little different from translations that read, “Be anxious for nothing” and here’s why.
Biblical Greek has two ways of giving a command. It’s the difference between ordering a continuous action and a completed action. Let’s imagine that anxiety is trying to steal your peace. Anxiety can be a mugger or a moocher. Anxiety could be like a mugger who says “Give me your peace!” As soon as you hand it over, the mugger’s going to leave.
But in this verse, the verb form is the one anxiety would use to move into your house and steal from you every day. “Keep on giving me your peace, because I am not leaving.”
Paul is not saying “Never at any time be anxious” but “Don’t keep on being anxious about anything.” He’s not telling us not to have feelings; he’s telling us not to get stuck in them. We’re not supposed to let anxiety move in with us and drain us every day.
This fall she's opening her Christian counseling practice, Spreading Shalom Counseling Services. Right now you can contact her through her church, Hillsong Church (www.hillsongchurch.org) if you're looking for a good Christian counselor in the Chapel Hill-Durham area.
She passed this sermon along that she wrote a number of years ago and I found the "anxiety as a moocher" image really helpful. Thought I'd pass a little piece of her wisdom along to you. Enjoy!
Philippians 4:6-7:
6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.As far as I have been able to determine, living without problems is not an option in this world. But this passage says that the peace of God is. So how do we go after it? There are four directions in this passage.
The first one is “Don’t keep on being anxious about anything.” That’s a little different from translations that read, “Be anxious for nothing” and here’s why.
Biblical Greek has two ways of giving a command. It’s the difference between ordering a continuous action and a completed action. Let’s imagine that anxiety is trying to steal your peace. Anxiety can be a mugger or a moocher. Anxiety could be like a mugger who says “Give me your peace!” As soon as you hand it over, the mugger’s going to leave.
But in this verse, the verb form is the one anxiety would use to move into your house and steal from you every day. “Keep on giving me your peace, because I am not leaving.”
Paul is not saying “Never at any time be anxious” but “Don’t keep on being anxious about anything.” He’s not telling us not to have feelings; he’s telling us not to get stuck in them. We’re not supposed to let anxiety move in with us and drain us every day.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Keller Geeking Me Out on the Point of History
Given the fact that I'm a big nerd, summer time is when I kick my brain into high-gear. I read more books and listen to more podcasts over the summer because the demands on my time aren't quite so great.
This summer, I'm recreationally listening to a week-long intensive seminary course from Reformed Theological Seminary on Itunes U featuring Tim Keller and the late Ed Clowney. It must be at least ten years old--at one point Keller talks about the Lord of the Rings movies being in production.
But it's an excellent class on preaching and teaching with Christ as the center and goal of the sermon.
At one point Keller picks up on something extremely insightful that he had heard Clowney say years before that I'll try to summarize as best as I can.
When Adam and Eve sinned, God could have ended all of the creation experiment right there. Just wiped everyone out, hit the reset button and start over.
But he didn't. And the reason why he didn't was because of Jesus Christ. Jesus was going to come and redeem all the brokenness at one point in history and at a further point he would come and make it all new.
The point is this: Jesus Christ is the point of all of history.
Therefore, he's the point of all the Biblical texts, even and especially in the Old Testament. Jesus is the true David, the true Jonah, the true Abraham, the true Prophet who gathers up the lives of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekial in his life.
Thus, he should be "the point" of all teaching and preaching. Otherwise we're just slipping into vague moralism (try-harder religion) rather than speaking the fullness of the gospel.
Jesus Christ has come not just so that we have more rules (or even, alas, a new "model") to follow but that we might have new hearts. Those new hearts are given to us and we are empowered towards new life as we see Jesus, understand his grace and love for us, embrace him as the source of our lives, and follow him with gladness--even when that costs us everything else that we have.
I'm still making my way through the 30-plus sessions of the class. But my inner-nerd is delighting in some pretty rich fare as I travel in the car these days and take in some excellent teaching.
If you're at all interested in joining me in my nerdiness but aren't sure how it all works, the Itunes player is free (click here) and Itunes U has all kinds of free classes--you can just search through the Itunes library for Tim Keller.
This summer, I'm recreationally listening to a week-long intensive seminary course from Reformed Theological Seminary on Itunes U featuring Tim Keller and the late Ed Clowney. It must be at least ten years old--at one point Keller talks about the Lord of the Rings movies being in production.
But it's an excellent class on preaching and teaching with Christ as the center and goal of the sermon.
At one point Keller picks up on something extremely insightful that he had heard Clowney say years before that I'll try to summarize as best as I can.
When Adam and Eve sinned, God could have ended all of the creation experiment right there. Just wiped everyone out, hit the reset button and start over.
But he didn't. And the reason why he didn't was because of Jesus Christ. Jesus was going to come and redeem all the brokenness at one point in history and at a further point he would come and make it all new.
The point is this: Jesus Christ is the point of all of history.
Therefore, he's the point of all the Biblical texts, even and especially in the Old Testament. Jesus is the true David, the true Jonah, the true Abraham, the true Prophet who gathers up the lives of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekial in his life.
Thus, he should be "the point" of all teaching and preaching. Otherwise we're just slipping into vague moralism (try-harder religion) rather than speaking the fullness of the gospel.
Jesus Christ has come not just so that we have more rules (or even, alas, a new "model") to follow but that we might have new hearts. Those new hearts are given to us and we are empowered towards new life as we see Jesus, understand his grace and love for us, embrace him as the source of our lives, and follow him with gladness--even when that costs us everything else that we have.
I'm still making my way through the 30-plus sessions of the class. But my inner-nerd is delighting in some pretty rich fare as I travel in the car these days and take in some excellent teaching.
If you're at all interested in joining me in my nerdiness but aren't sure how it all works, the Itunes player is free (click here) and Itunes U has all kinds of free classes--you can just search through the Itunes library for Tim Keller.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Marriage Helps: When Hopes Turn Into Expectations...And What To Do About It
We come into our wedding day full of hopes and wishes and dreams and desires. And then something on the way back down the aisle happens that transfers those desires and hopes and dreams (which are good and fine) into expectations.
And expectations kill a marriage. We begin to enter into a debt-debtor relationship. He owes me, she owes me, all of this stuff that we put on one another and it robs us of genuine relating, intimacy and real community.
And so, argues Andy Stanley in his sermon series iMarriage, we have to learn three crucial things:
1. Your spouse owes you zip, nada, nothing. As long as expectation drives our marriage, it will destroy intimacy and genuine community.
2. The Scriptures call us to submit to one another not because he or she is so great, but out of reverence for Christ. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we submit to one another.
3. The solution to our desires turned expectations is not to pretend that we don't have desires. It's to keep those desires in the "desires category" and not allow them to turn into expectations...or to return them to the desires category once we realize that we've made the unfortunate transfer.
Stanley sometimes drives me crazy with his inexact-ness, particularly theologically. He's sometimes more of a life-coach than a teacher from the Scriptures.
But this series has some serious wisdom for anyone who's married or on the road to marriage or who thinks that they might get married some day. It's available for free on Itunes.
If you're old you might not know that you can download the Itunes player for free and listen on your computer sans Ipod. Once you've downloaded the Itunes player, go to the Itunes store and search North Point Ministries and you can download the 3-part series called "iMarriage." It's all free. Enjoy!
And expectations kill a marriage. We begin to enter into a debt-debtor relationship. He owes me, she owes me, all of this stuff that we put on one another and it robs us of genuine relating, intimacy and real community.
And so, argues Andy Stanley in his sermon series iMarriage, we have to learn three crucial things:
1. Your spouse owes you zip, nada, nothing. As long as expectation drives our marriage, it will destroy intimacy and genuine community.
2. The Scriptures call us to submit to one another not because he or she is so great, but out of reverence for Christ. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we submit to one another.
3. The solution to our desires turned expectations is not to pretend that we don't have desires. It's to keep those desires in the "desires category" and not allow them to turn into expectations...or to return them to the desires category once we realize that we've made the unfortunate transfer.
Stanley sometimes drives me crazy with his inexact-ness, particularly theologically. He's sometimes more of a life-coach than a teacher from the Scriptures.
But this series has some serious wisdom for anyone who's married or on the road to marriage or who thinks that they might get married some day. It's available for free on Itunes.
If you're old you might not know that you can download the Itunes player for free and listen on your computer sans Ipod. Once you've downloaded the Itunes player, go to the Itunes store and search North Point Ministries and you can download the 3-part series called "iMarriage." It's all free. Enjoy!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Rocky Balboa, Tim Keller & "Righteousness" For Parents, Students, Cube-Worlders & Plumbers
I've been listening to some sermons by Tim Keller (aka the only pastor in the world who should ever have 40 points in his sermon--young speakers enjoy the content but ignore the delivery, you can't pull it off like he can).
Last week I was listening to a sermon where he talked about the biblical concept of 'righteousness.' In our culture this word has only negative connotations--i.e. "self-righteous."
But Keller points out that in both the Old and New Testaments, the word "righteousness" has at it's root the idea of being validated or approved of by God. And this deep longing for validation and approval is at work in all of us.
In the first Rocky movie, Rocky says that he fights and he trains not for the love of boxing but 'to know that I'm not a bum.' Rocky can't just work for the joy of the work. He has to work in order to get something else. He seeks validation and justification for his very existence through the medium of his 'work.'
This is how many of us live our lives. We can't rest. We have to justify our existence. And in the West we do this largely through our work.
But what would it mean to have already been 'validated?' What would it mean to be righteous already, apart from having to seek that righteousness or validation through what we do but through what God has freely given to us?
This would free us parents to parent without our very identity on the line as to how our kids "turn out." It would free students to learn and study and excel not out of driven-ness and anxiety but out of a deep confidence and rootedness in who they are because of what God has spoken into and over them.
And it would free all of us in the working world, whether that's ministry or plumbing or cube-world or teaching or yes, even boxing or acting, to do those things for the joy of those things.
We're not grasping/clawing/wishing for our identity to be discovered through success in anything. We have already been given our new names: righteous.
We are free to work and to rest because who we are is not decided by what we do or how well we do. Who we are has already been decided and declared. We have been accepted by our good Father. It is finished and it is very good.
In Christ, we are righteous. That is, we are already validated, approved of, and our existence is justified through nothing other than the good will of our Father who loves us and who gives us work to do not as a false prop and crutch for our souls but as a joy to enter alongside his Spirit.
That's one point (out of the 40) that's worth drilling down into.
Last week I was listening to a sermon where he talked about the biblical concept of 'righteousness.' In our culture this word has only negative connotations--i.e. "self-righteous."
But Keller points out that in both the Old and New Testaments, the word "righteousness" has at it's root the idea of being validated or approved of by God. And this deep longing for validation and approval is at work in all of us.
In the first Rocky movie, Rocky says that he fights and he trains not for the love of boxing but 'to know that I'm not a bum.' Rocky can't just work for the joy of the work. He has to work in order to get something else. He seeks validation and justification for his very existence through the medium of his 'work.'
This is how many of us live our lives. We can't rest. We have to justify our existence. And in the West we do this largely through our work.
But what would it mean to have already been 'validated?' What would it mean to be righteous already, apart from having to seek that righteousness or validation through what we do but through what God has freely given to us?
This would free us parents to parent without our very identity on the line as to how our kids "turn out." It would free students to learn and study and excel not out of driven-ness and anxiety but out of a deep confidence and rootedness in who they are because of what God has spoken into and over them.
And it would free all of us in the working world, whether that's ministry or plumbing or cube-world or teaching or yes, even boxing or acting, to do those things for the joy of those things.
We're not grasping/clawing/wishing for our identity to be discovered through success in anything. We have already been given our new names: righteous.
We are free to work and to rest because who we are is not decided by what we do or how well we do. Who we are has already been decided and declared. We have been accepted by our good Father. It is finished and it is very good.
In Christ, we are righteous. That is, we are already validated, approved of, and our existence is justified through nothing other than the good will of our Father who loves us and who gives us work to do not as a false prop and crutch for our souls but as a joy to enter alongside his Spirit.
That's one point (out of the 40) that's worth drilling down into.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Richmond Re-Visited: Brittney Spears, Pastor Steve, and Leviticus
Over the weekend the whole fam returned from whence we came: a blitz through some friends, a wedding, and our old life back in Richmond. One of the many highlights from the trip was returning to the church that was our home for nine years, West End Pres.
During my nine years under the pastor, Steve Shelby, he taught me to apply the gospel in real-time. He also taught me much about how to speak and teach--honest confession of sin, hilarious stories, bringing it back to Jesus. He was a tremendous preacher before, and he's just gotten better since I've left.
Sunday he was vintage Steve--and I'm not just saying this because he told me afterwards that he reads my blog (it felt like Ansel Adams saying that he liked my photos or Brittany Spears saying I could write a mean pop-song or how Luke felt when Yoda told him, "no more training do you require").
He talked about the biblical command to honor (in Leviticus "revere") our parents. A couple of highlights here, some more thoughts tomorrow:
1. The word for "revere" used in the Leviticus passage is only used in two contexts: God and our parents. Think about this.
2. Our culture generally paints parents (particularly dads) as unhelpful or simply idiots. We are smarter than them, so of course we don't owe them anything.
3. But the biblical command does not leave it contingent on whether or not our parents are 'worthy' of reverence. There's no conditional clause here. We are commanded to revere, honor our parents, whether they deserve it or not.
That doesn't mean we jump every time they say to or that we put ourselves in harms way, but it's not about whether or not they deserve or have earned our reverence.
4. And that's because God has ordered the universe so that we can never experience true life apart from learning submission. If we will not submit our lives to God, we cannot know life.
So God has ordained the family unit to teach us submission. He has put us in our family for our good and his glory. How we respond to the place where he has put us is about our parents, but it is also about us. The family is our training ground for walking in submission to God.
During my nine years under the pastor, Steve Shelby, he taught me to apply the gospel in real-time. He also taught me much about how to speak and teach--honest confession of sin, hilarious stories, bringing it back to Jesus. He was a tremendous preacher before, and he's just gotten better since I've left.
Sunday he was vintage Steve--and I'm not just saying this because he told me afterwards that he reads my blog (it felt like Ansel Adams saying that he liked my photos or Brittany Spears saying I could write a mean pop-song or how Luke felt when Yoda told him, "no more training do you require").
He talked about the biblical command to honor (in Leviticus "revere") our parents. A couple of highlights here, some more thoughts tomorrow:
1. The word for "revere" used in the Leviticus passage is only used in two contexts: God and our parents. Think about this.
2. Our culture generally paints parents (particularly dads) as unhelpful or simply idiots. We are smarter than them, so of course we don't owe them anything.
3. But the biblical command does not leave it contingent on whether or not our parents are 'worthy' of reverence. There's no conditional clause here. We are commanded to revere, honor our parents, whether they deserve it or not.
That doesn't mean we jump every time they say to or that we put ourselves in harms way, but it's not about whether or not they deserve or have earned our reverence.
4. And that's because God has ordered the universe so that we can never experience true life apart from learning submission. If we will not submit our lives to God, we cannot know life.
So God has ordained the family unit to teach us submission. He has put us in our family for our good and his glory. How we respond to the place where he has put us is about our parents, but it is also about us. The family is our training ground for walking in submission to God.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Part 3: Wrapping Up: Abiding Over Oil Fields in the Ruins
All of this brought me back to this sweet illustration by my pastor, Steve Breedlove, as he kicked off our series in Ephesians this past Sunday by opening up Ephesians 1.
We're going to put roots down somewhere, into something. Lent (which kicked off yesterday) is a time to search our hearts and examine where our roots are sunk down. It's an invitation to re-direct our roots into Life.
Most of us are scurrying around, trying to find safe places--a safe place to put our money, a safe place to put our hearts, a safe place to work where the job will still be there tomorrow, a safe place to live, a safe place to send our kids to school.
But the point is that after the fall, here in the Land of the Ruins, there are no safe places. And besides all that, since our desires are corrupted by the ruins, what we call "safe" and the motives with which we pursue "safety" are all jacked up anyway.
To borrow from C.S. Lewis: even Jesus is not safe. But he is good. Infinitely good.
"Abide in me, here in the Land of the Ruins. And your life will be fruitful. My joy in you, and your joy complete. Apart from me you can do nothing that lasts, because here in this place death and sin are still at work to corrode and destroy everything. But it shall not always be so. It is not so where I am, and where my Father is--there, it is all glory. Let that life be at work in you. This is what you were made for."
Growing up in Texas, it was my boyhood dream that one day we'd discover oil in our backyard. The idea that we might be sitting on something that would catapult us into riches and we didn't even know it was a possibility too wonderful to ignore.And so this invitation to abide, to drill down into Christ, is the invitation to riches unfathomable. To put our roots down into a deep and glorious place where all the treasures of wisdom and peace and power and beauty and purpose are stored.
What Paul is telling us in Ephesians 1 is that most of us as Christians are sitting on riches unfathomable without even knowing it.
We're going to put roots down somewhere, into something. Lent (which kicked off yesterday) is a time to search our hearts and examine where our roots are sunk down. It's an invitation to re-direct our roots into Life.
Most of us are scurrying around, trying to find safe places--a safe place to put our money, a safe place to put our hearts, a safe place to work where the job will still be there tomorrow, a safe place to live, a safe place to send our kids to school.
But the point is that after the fall, here in the Land of the Ruins, there are no safe places. And besides all that, since our desires are corrupted by the ruins, what we call "safe" and the motives with which we pursue "safety" are all jacked up anyway.
To borrow from C.S. Lewis: even Jesus is not safe. But he is good. Infinitely good.
"Abide in me, here in the Land of the Ruins. And your life will be fruitful. My joy in you, and your joy complete. Apart from me you can do nothing that lasts, because here in this place death and sin are still at work to corrode and destroy everything. But it shall not always be so. It is not so where I am, and where my Father is--there, it is all glory. Let that life be at work in you. This is what you were made for."
Monday, February 09, 2009
Anger EqualsYou Owe Me
Last week I was listening to Andy Stanley's sermon series "It Came from Within." I like Stanley because he does a great job talking to southerners (his church is in Atlanta) who are considering coming back to a faith they have put on the shelf for a while.
He was talking about anger. He proposed that the basic premise behind anger is that someone (in our mind) owes us something: your dad owed it to be in your life, your professor owed you a fair test, your friend owed it to you to be loyal, etc.
This has been rolling around in my head for the past couple of days and I find it to be really helpful in deflating my anger. If I'm angry, who do I think owes me? What do I think that they owe me? Often what I find is that my anger is really just my over-inflated sense of entitlement. Sometimes it's legit: there's promises that have been broken, reasonable expectations that have not been met, etc.
Stanley argues that it doesn't matter whether your anger is justifiable or not. To carry anger with you from one stage or area of your life into the next is poisonous to our souls. We then mis-place our anger onto our dog or friends or family when the real source is work or a parent issue that we never dealt with.
This "open account" of anger, this sense that we were owed something, will ruin all of our relationships if we let it. This is particularly true if we carry it over from one life stage to another (from adolescence into adulthood, or from one marriage to the next, for example). And the trick is that the debt in most cases can never be fully paid. Even the one who hurt you can't make it up to you. Nothing can be done by anyone to make up the debt.
So the work that we must do, of course, is the same gift-work done for us. We must forgive. We must forgive the full debt. That's not letting anyone off the hook, it's freeing us from the hooks that anger has in our soul. It's freeing us from being a freight train of anger, destroying all the things that we really value most.
Stanley poses the question: "No matter what's been done to you, and I know there's some of you with awful stories, the question remains: how long are you going to give this thing power?"
Test drive that for a while, see if it doesn't ring true for you.
He was talking about anger. He proposed that the basic premise behind anger is that someone (in our mind) owes us something: your dad owed it to be in your life, your professor owed you a fair test, your friend owed it to you to be loyal, etc.
This has been rolling around in my head for the past couple of days and I find it to be really helpful in deflating my anger. If I'm angry, who do I think owes me? What do I think that they owe me? Often what I find is that my anger is really just my over-inflated sense of entitlement. Sometimes it's legit: there's promises that have been broken, reasonable expectations that have not been met, etc.
Stanley argues that it doesn't matter whether your anger is justifiable or not. To carry anger with you from one stage or area of your life into the next is poisonous to our souls. We then mis-place our anger onto our dog or friends or family when the real source is work or a parent issue that we never dealt with.
This "open account" of anger, this sense that we were owed something, will ruin all of our relationships if we let it. This is particularly true if we carry it over from one life stage to another (from adolescence into adulthood, or from one marriage to the next, for example). And the trick is that the debt in most cases can never be fully paid. Even the one who hurt you can't make it up to you. Nothing can be done by anyone to make up the debt.
So the work that we must do, of course, is the same gift-work done for us. We must forgive. We must forgive the full debt. That's not letting anyone off the hook, it's freeing us from the hooks that anger has in our soul. It's freeing us from being a freight train of anger, destroying all the things that we really value most.
Stanley poses the question: "No matter what's been done to you, and I know there's some of you with awful stories, the question remains: how long are you going to give this thing power?"
Test drive that for a while, see if it doesn't ring true for you.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Amnesia of the Now
This past weekend we took around 45 UNC-IV students to join a hundred and fifty students from Eastern Carolinas at our annual Emmaus conference. This year the theme was (as you might surmise from my posts this past week) "Knowing God's Will."
Willis and Amy Weber, two of my faves on IV staff at the College of Charleston, gave a fantastic team-talk on Saturday night. We wanted to call students on Saturday night away from focusing solely on God's will for their future to being fully present to what God has for them in the now--right where they are, on campus, on purpose. Here's a little piece that Amy gave (that I'll paraphrase from memory) that has really stuck with me this week:
We're in a place in our marriage where we have several long-term, ongoing conversations that have serious implications for our future. One thing that I wrestle with as I face major life decisions is a sickness that I affectionately refer to as "The Amnesia of the Now."
Amnesia of the now sounds something like this:
"I'm only going to be here for a few more months. Why should I bother to invest in my relationship with my neighbors?"
"I'm probably only going to live in Charleston for maybe five more years, why should I bother to really invest in the community here?"
In college for me it sounded something like this:
"I can't wait to move in with my real friends next semester in the apartment. Why should I bother to care for these people here in my suite when I'm probably not going to hang out with them after this anyway?"
"I'm only in this class because I have to be and it's just one semester. Why should I bother to get to know the people sitting around me?"
This amnesia of the now robs me of any ability to live fully present to the present. It keeps me from entering into God's work as it unfolds all around me. I am always looking ahead to the mythological future rather than being fully invested in the places God actually has me right now.
This is no way to live.
Willis and Amy Weber, two of my faves on IV staff at the College of Charleston, gave a fantastic team-talk on Saturday night. We wanted to call students on Saturday night away from focusing solely on God's will for their future to being fully present to what God has for them in the now--right where they are, on campus, on purpose. Here's a little piece that Amy gave (that I'll paraphrase from memory) that has really stuck with me this week:
We're in a place in our marriage where we have several long-term, ongoing conversations that have serious implications for our future. One thing that I wrestle with as I face major life decisions is a sickness that I affectionately refer to as "The Amnesia of the Now."
Amnesia of the now sounds something like this:
"I'm only going to be here for a few more months. Why should I bother to invest in my relationship with my neighbors?"
"I'm probably only going to live in Charleston for maybe five more years, why should I bother to really invest in the community here?"
In college for me it sounded something like this:
"I can't wait to move in with my real friends next semester in the apartment. Why should I bother to care for these people here in my suite when I'm probably not going to hang out with them after this anyway?"
"I'm only in this class because I have to be and it's just one semester. Why should I bother to get to know the people sitting around me?"
This amnesia of the now robs me of any ability to live fully present to the present. It keeps me from entering into God's work as it unfolds all around me. I am always looking ahead to the mythological future rather than being fully invested in the places God actually has me right now.
This is no way to live.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Bookending
Last night at our first campus large group meeting Mark Acuff, pastor of the Chapel Hill Bible Church, called us to mission in and as a community. He spoke from the theme verse for the semester from John 13: " 34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Mark talked about how striking it was that here in Jesus' last hours, with the clock ticking and much to say, Jesus is passionate about both the men in the room with him AND the people who are not there.
There is much to be said about the fruit born out of loving one another. When we love one another we grow in character. When we love one another we discover more of God's character. When we love one another it helps our communities to grow spiritually.
But Jesus takes this command to love one another and he points it outward: love one another so that everyone will know that you are my disciples. Here at the end, Jesus has an eye towards who's not yet in the room. He is passionate about those who are outside coming inside.
Mark emphasized that this should not have surprised the disciples. Their adventure with Jesus began for some of them with a very similar theme: "Follow me and I will make you fish for people!" Jesus begins the calling of his disciples with a missional theme and he finishes it with a variation on the exact same thing.
The firm bookends of mission propels the disciples to go and change the world after Jesus is gone. And so it should for us.
Mark talked about how striking it was that here in Jesus' last hours, with the clock ticking and much to say, Jesus is passionate about both the men in the room with him AND the people who are not there.
There is much to be said about the fruit born out of loving one another. When we love one another we grow in character. When we love one another we discover more of God's character. When we love one another it helps our communities to grow spiritually.
But Jesus takes this command to love one another and he points it outward: love one another so that everyone will know that you are my disciples. Here at the end, Jesus has an eye towards who's not yet in the room. He is passionate about those who are outside coming inside.
Mark emphasized that this should not have surprised the disciples. Their adventure with Jesus began for some of them with a very similar theme: "Follow me and I will make you fish for people!" Jesus begins the calling of his disciples with a missional theme and he finishes it with a variation on the exact same thing.
The firm bookends of mission propels the disciples to go and change the world after Jesus is gone. And so it should for us.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Staff Conference Sound Byte Highlights
After spending yesterday looking back over my notes from IV's national staff conference, here are the things that are still resonating in my soul this morning:
Our theme for the conference was "I am not ashamed of the gospel." We had several different speakers walk us through the first 12 chapters of Romans.
-The speaker the first morning had this to say about shame: "When shame covers us we think that the gospel is weak and so we must somehow make up for it with our great skills and strategies."
-Humility is our silent friend in leadership. Apart from humility we cannot lead in power...when we're humble we hear God's saving voice and not our own voice. In so doing we can be bold with God's boldness and say 'Behold, the power of God!' Humility is the laboratory of God's power.
-What if we challenged our students to use Facebook as an instrument for God's kingdom rather than a tool for self-advancement?
-Romans 8 is perhaps the single most significant chapter of Scripture in Paul's writings, perhaps of all the Bible. And it is all about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is referenced 22 times in 39 verses. It is the Holy Spirit at work in us that makes this gospel thing take root and work in us.
-Our slavery for many of us in ministry is a slavery to fear of failure. And so we live in our own power and become enslaved to our own ideas and plans and strategies. We straddle life in Adam and life in Christ and so we become imprisoned by our own stuff when we've been invited to new life and freedom.
-The call in Romans 12 to present our bodies as a living sacrifice of worship is profound. Bodies matter.
-The call in Romans 12 to worship after all that Paul has talked about in the first eleven chapters of Romans is simply reasonable. It is no great thing to worship a God who has done so much for us. It is our reasonable service. It is what we do because we live here. I do laundry and help clean around the house because it is a reasonable service as a member of this family, this house. In light of the life we've been offered and the place where we live, we worship.
Our theme for the conference was "I am not ashamed of the gospel." We had several different speakers walk us through the first 12 chapters of Romans.
-The speaker the first morning had this to say about shame: "When shame covers us we think that the gospel is weak and so we must somehow make up for it with our great skills and strategies."
-Humility is our silent friend in leadership. Apart from humility we cannot lead in power...when we're humble we hear God's saving voice and not our own voice. In so doing we can be bold with God's boldness and say 'Behold, the power of God!' Humility is the laboratory of God's power.
-What if we challenged our students to use Facebook as an instrument for God's kingdom rather than a tool for self-advancement?
-Romans 8 is perhaps the single most significant chapter of Scripture in Paul's writings, perhaps of all the Bible. And it is all about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is referenced 22 times in 39 verses. It is the Holy Spirit at work in us that makes this gospel thing take root and work in us.
-Our slavery for many of us in ministry is a slavery to fear of failure. And so we live in our own power and become enslaved to our own ideas and plans and strategies. We straddle life in Adam and life in Christ and so we become imprisoned by our own stuff when we've been invited to new life and freedom.
-The call in Romans 12 to present our bodies as a living sacrifice of worship is profound. Bodies matter.
-The call in Romans 12 to worship after all that Paul has talked about in the first eleven chapters of Romans is simply reasonable. It is no great thing to worship a God who has done so much for us. It is our reasonable service. It is what we do because we live here. I do laundry and help clean around the house because it is a reasonable service as a member of this family, this house. In light of the life we've been offered and the place where we live, we worship.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The 99%
Each morning at Rockbridge we gathered together the two leadership tracks (small group leader's training track and the Coordinating Team track--these are the core group of 4-8 leaders that sets vision and goals for each year) for teaching on Biblical leadership.
This year's "Leadership Summit" we walked through the Biblical identity of a leader: Leader as Child, Leader as Disciple, Leader as Servant.
The first morning, however, Joe Ho, IV Area Director for Shenandoah in western Virginia set up the week, exhorting us to consider seriously that understanding our identity is critical to genuine Biblical leadership. Here's a snippet of his excellent talk:
"In our culture we under-value the concept of identity and character because we vastly over-value decision-making. We think that leadership is all about decision-making. It's not. 99% of what we do every day is not about conscious decision making. We simply act. And we act out of who we are, out of character and identity. And so if we truly want to be women and men of impact who lead others with integrity, courage, and faithfulness, we have to be different types of people, not just better decision makers."
We got a little push-back from some folks in small groups who thought this was over-stated, but is it?
This year's "Leadership Summit" we walked through the Biblical identity of a leader: Leader as Child, Leader as Disciple, Leader as Servant.
The first morning, however, Joe Ho, IV Area Director for Shenandoah in western Virginia set up the week, exhorting us to consider seriously that understanding our identity is critical to genuine Biblical leadership. Here's a snippet of his excellent talk:
"In our culture we under-value the concept of identity and character because we vastly over-value decision-making. We think that leadership is all about decision-making. It's not. 99% of what we do every day is not about conscious decision making. We simply act. And we act out of who we are, out of character and identity. And so if we truly want to be women and men of impact who lead others with integrity, courage, and faithfulness, we have to be different types of people, not just better decision makers."
We got a little push-back from some folks in small groups who thought this was over-stated, but is it?
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