27cents

we have moved

2009-09-02T14:44:00.004-04:00

Please take note that this blog has moved to www.wkc.org

Look for the email devotional link at the bottom of the page

Thanks for your continued support

chosen

2009-07-30T14:07:00.002-04:00

We continue our summer teaching series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Bible: The Whole Story in Ten Weeks. Over these past four weeks we have considered the themes of creation, promise, covenant and law. If you haven’t heard what has been said to this point, it would be worth your while picking up on past podcasts. You can do that by visiting wkc.org / community / sermon archives. Perhaps this series will be one you would like to keep in your archives.

This weekend we will take a look at the story of David, one of the most important figures in the Biblical story. We will try to show how two prominent Biblical themes intersect in his life, the first “being chosen”, and the second “being conflicted”.

So far, in the Biblical story, we have seen how this theme of God’s choosing has resonated in the lives of Abraham and Jacob, Moses and Samuel. It is a very consistent theme. But what does it mean to be “chosen” and how should we think about that idea? Does being chosen free us from suffering and pain? Does it mean that God’s gift of gracious love absents us from struggle? Does it mean that we are immunized from ourselves and our own human weaknesses? How might the David story reveal the meaning of being “chosen” of God?

What we will see in the course of David’s story is that the grace of God that finds David for purpose and destiny (although he is the forgotten youngest of his brothers), is the same grace that graciously guides him through life (his external conflicts) and reveals those parts of him that need change (his internal conflicts). We will see that being chosen and being conflicted take place within the same life experience. To be chosen means that we are selected by grace and for grace, and this means that all of our conflicts -- both external and internal -- are placed under the watch of compassionate grace. The story of David shows us how this works.

Perhaps my favorite resource to study his life is Eugene Peterson’s masterful exposition on the life of David entitled Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians. You couldn’t go wrong in tracking down a copy and living inside this “chosen and conflicted” life for a while.

See you this Sunday and 9:29 or 11:11. If you are enjoying the summer weather or traveling somewhere, I hope that you are able to continue this Biblical journey with us by accessing the podcast. Have a great weekend.

The Power of Listening

2009-07-22T15:52:00.003-04:00

We have a hard time with listening, do we not? In the constant beeps, bells, and interruptive gurgles of our technology, we live noisily, fragmented and distracted. As I was writing this in my home office, a very quiet place during the day time, a place where if I am quiet enough I can sometimes hear the angels sing, the phone rang. I answered expecting something important – a friend, a colleague, my family – instead, I had won a cruise! It was my lucky day! Wow! What are the chances of that! I don’t know why I would hang up on such an amazing turn of fortune, but I did.

There are many reasons we fail to listen. Daily life is overburdened for most of us, and in such conditions it is only the fog-horn or the jack-hammer that gets our attention. Quieter voices get drowned, voices that are often the most important. I have missed far too many quiet voices in life.

It is vital therefore that we reaffirm listening as essential to living well. Listeners embrace the de-centered life. We learn that our own voice is not most important. Listening demands that we become silent far more often.

Listeners accept that they are in fact servants, not masters. They are responders, not initiators. In antiquity, the servant’s listening obligation was symbolized by the pierced ear. The messianic servant of Isaiah was a listener [Isaiah 50:4-5]:

The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The Sovereign LORD has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back.

This is the way of Jesus, the way of a servant. Before Jesus spoke he listened. Inspired speech emerges organically from the art of sustained listening. What God wants from us first is not frenetic activity. What he wants is for us to listen, to hear him, to respond to him. Whatever active engagement we are called to emerges only as response. The thing God hates most, said Philip Yancey, is being ignored.

Listeners see differently. There is a way of perceiving that comes through the ear that is not duplicated by the eye. The eye moves upon the surface discerning outward shapes and external characteristics. The ear however, perceives that which comes out of interiority. It “sees” the inner nature of someone, hears the person they are inside and not merely how they look. Hearers discern the unseen.

Listeners are lovers. In discussing her novel, The Temple of My Familiar, Alice Walker explained that a woman in the novel falls in love with a man because she saw in him “a giant ear”. She went on to remark that although people think they are falling in love because of sexual attraction or some other force, “really what we are looking for is someone to able to hear us.” It has been long recognized that listening is the single most important ingredient in creating and sustaining love. When there is little listening, there is little loving.

I realize how much further I need to travel in this way. I often fail to listen well. I rush to speak. I want to make my point when I would be much better served in hearing well before responding. Sure, once in a while I stumble on the appropriate thing to say, but I am ashamed of my batting average in this regard

I have come to profoundly believe that our ability to speak well is grounded in our ability to listen well. The story of Samuel is instructive in this matter. His call was first to listen (read 1 Samuel 3), and only then to speak. It is because he practiced this way, Scripture tells us, that none of Samuel’s words “fell to the ground”. What he said consistently mattered. There is a strong link between real listening and meaningful speech. When we listen to God, our voices become qualitatively different.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bible

2009-06-30T17:25:00.006-04:00

This summer we are paying attention to the biggest of blockbusters: the story of God as it winds it way through scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. We think that this story is also woven into the fabric of our own story telling, reflections of which are seen in the stories we live, the stories we tell and the stories we see all around us. This summer we want to tell the biggest story we can tell, and to do it by intersecting Scripture with other complimentary stories.

Over these next 10 weeks, we will attempt to make our way through the length and breadth of Scripture, camping on some of it most significant themes and moments. Your summer school homework will be to consider 10 moments of the Biblical story along with 10 movies. We think that this summer exercise will help us get the story in a way we might not have previously. Sounds fun and interesting at the same time (an irresistable combination).

Here is how the summer will unfold.

July 5: Genesis 1-2
CREATION: before history there was a purpose
MOVIE: Earth

July 12: Genesis 3-4
PROMISE: something has gone wrong and yet there is still hope
MOVIE: Narnia: Prince Caspian

July 19: Genesis 12, 15, 18
COVENANT:history begins to move towards a destiny
MOVIE: Kingdom of Heaven

July 26: Exodus 11-14, 20
LAW: a community forms around a pattern of living
MOVIE: The Ten Commandments

August 2: I Samuel 16-18, 2 Samuel 7
DAVID: imperfect pictures from a God focused life
MOVIE: The Chosen

August 9: Hosea
PROPHETS: the continuing call to take God Seriously
MOVIE: Pride and Prejudice

August 16: Mark 1-8
JESUS: a new reality where what can be unmade is remade
MOVIE: The Kite Runner

August 23: Acts 13-18
CHURCH: the wonder and glory of the local story
MOVIE: Big Fish

August 30: Revelation 20-21
FUTURE: history is heading somewhere
MOVIE: Slumdog Millionaire

September 6: John 15
YOU & ME: the living tradition locally realized
MOVIE: Lord of the Rings

I am one who always looks forward to a few good summer reads, and here are ten stories that tell the big story. So wherever you wander over during these wonderful laid-back weeks, we hope that you are able to catch the podcast and engage the story once again.

embodied grace

2009-06-25T15:43:00.002-04:00

I believe in stories. The Bible comes to us as a story -- the big story of God of course, but also the many smaller stories of people and communities. Within the biblical story, little stories intersect with the big story in a way that is absolutely stunning in beauty and depth and meaning. The Bible teaches us to pay attention, to notice the stories that are everywhere, the little stories that reveal the big story of God and grace in the context of real human life.

Perhaps the biggest reason that I believe in stories is that they show us how ideas can be embodied in real people and situations. And this is extremely important. Ideas on their own float disconnectedly over life, but story helps us see how ideas can be embodied and worked out. For instance, if we at Westside King’s Church want to talk about and deepen our understanding of grace, than I think we need a story of grace. We can believe in grace but we need to see it, feel it. Stories help us do that.

As communicators at Westside, we continually talk about how we need to articulate our Christian faith, how we should “language” it. But even as we converse about such heady matters, we agree that God must be modeled in a way that goes beyond just our words. Or to put it differently, there are words to say about God and there are living models of God, and the second is as important as the first.

Simply put, unless all of our God-talk lives in embodied action, it tends to fall flat. For instance, I could take a big stack of books, give them to my daughters and say, “there you go, everything you need to know about God and grace”. Absurd right? What my daughters really need to know is that I love them and am deeply proud of them. They have a better chance of knowing something about God and grace if their Dad loves them. I can fill in the details as we go.

Paul Vitz has written on what he calls “the psychology of atheism”. He proposes that there is an underlying condition in some minds and hearts which makes them distrust the infinite-personal God. Vitz contends that disbelief in God is not an entirely rational thing, even though atheists often claim that their case is so. His book, The Faith of the Fatherless, is an examination of the stories of some great unbelievers (Voltaire, Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, and many others), as well as some great believers (Pascal, Wilberforce, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and so on). What he notes is the way the stories of those who find faith so hard to commit to had their thoughts shaped by a common theme, what Vitz calls the “deficient father thesis”. He says that the personal stories of famous unbelievers are often attached to an absent, or abusive, or weak father figure. And the biographies of famous believers often reveal an opposite story, the presence of a faithful and loving father.

There are, of course, qualifications and extensions to Vitz’s basic thesis. Our ability to believe is not completely determined by our biological fathers; there can be a “father figures”. There are enough exceptions to Vitz’s theory to show that his thesis cannot be the rule. Nevertheless, Vitz’s study reveals an important insight into the way faith is formed in us. In other words, Christian faith does not develop merely as a process of rationalization, of arguments and ideas. If it develops through thinking at all, it is through that kind of thinking that is enabled to see the world as a loving and secure place, the place where grace has been seen and felt. Perhaps the most important insight is that faith is powerfully helped by living models, especially the model closest to us -- Dad. When a Dad models faith, we tend to find it much easier to believe.

This past Sunday we offered the story of the prodigal son as a story of a living model. At the heart of that story comes the moment when the father runs down the road and “falls on his son’s neck”. I love that phrase because it says so much; and what it says you can see and feel. I would encourage you to read the story again in Luke 15:11-32. And as you do, consider who your living models and examples of faith have been, and to whom you might be a living model of faith.

As you think about these things, remember what Francis was reported to have said, “preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words”.

See you this Sunday and 9:29 or 11:11. This is volunteer appreciation Sunday and the Barbeques will be fired up. Enjoy your weekend.

the power of repetition

2009-06-18T17:07:00.002-04:00

Today I will be brief.

Chris Wiersma often refers to the idea that we have 16 acres, 1000 people, 6+ billion people in the world to serve, and 360 degrees of possibility. I have heard him say that often over this past year, but it was on Sunday that those words got inside me and I said to myself, “that’s right! the possibilities begin locally but expand globally! who knows the impact we can have if we awaken to them”. One could call that positive self-talk, or one could consider such thoughts a premise for a really significant prayer. I think, at least for me at that moment, it was the later. I was inspired, and all because of Chris had repeated something enough times for it to take root in my own consciousness.

My simple thought today is this: what are you repeating in your life? What words, or actions, or habits, or disciplines are you continually rehearsing? Choose well, for repetition will have a way of getting inside of you, and eventually become part of who you are.

I continually talk about the need to say and understand The Lord’s Prayer, both as a daily discipline, but also as a way to understand the heart and essence of prayer. For the past 4 years I have been saying and thinking through this model prayer daily, to the degree that I am learning to enter its wisdom and richness in ways that were not present to me before I began this habit.

Look for something to repeat, something worthwhile and valuable, something that will allow you to sink a deep shaft into the truth and beauty and goodness of the world we live in and the God we serve. Choose wisely (a passage from Scripture is best), and then let it sit with you a long time. If you are mindful of this advice later, I would love to know a year from now how repeating those words or thoughts changed your life over time. There is power in repetition.

This Sunday we continue our series for June, Things I Wish I Could Say. See you on the weekend.

take in the season

2009-06-11T13:53:00.003-04:00

Summer is finally here. I am announcing that it has finally arrived after a very uncertain beginning. This year, here in Calgary at least, it has been one very long wait. I sometimes wonder if anyone loves the warm weather better than we do in the foothills of the Canadian rockies. And because we wait so long, summer seems to be that much more of a joyful thing when it finally does come.

At least we know the meaning of seasonal life. Living in a climate such as ours gives us a certain kind of life experience; we learn to be patient. While we are sometimes stunned by a snowy Saturday in June (June 6, 2009), we are never totally surprised. Instead, such days are kind of a joke. We know that as our days lengthen, summer inevitably follows.

What I want to remind us of today is one of the clichés that I myself love and honor. And that is this: that life comes to us in seasons. Life presents its ups and downs, its ins and outs, its stops and starts. Life has rhythm and pattern. What we experience as we move from season to season is not of the same nature: there is a time for growth and expansion and building, and another time for rest and quietness and healing. We need all the variations and differences in order to live a full and connected life.

So I give you once more the words of “the preacher” (Heb: Kohelet, or preacher), the wise voice who reminds us that “there is a time for everything”. Of course you have heard this famous poem from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, but I hope it reminds you to take in the season we are in, and not to miss a single bit of it.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

So take care to live in the season before you. Be present to God and the particular meaning of these beautiful months of changed pace and freedom from winter’s tyranny. Who knows but that this summer will bring to your life something you previously did not have room for, a friendship you didn’t see coming, or a way of thinking that you didn’t think possible. There has to be a time for everything.

And now, if you will excuse us, we want to fully enjoy the warmth and sun and outdoor activity for a few months.

This Sunday we begin a new series for June, Things I Wish I Could Say. See you at the coffee pot at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

guidance

2009-06-02T17:34:00.004-04:00

This past Sunday we completed our series The Baby, The Bathwater, and the Spiritual Life. Stay tuned for a follow-up conversation in our Deep Dive Digital podcast. That should be out next week. You can learn how to subscribe to “deep dive digital” podcasts as well as to our regular message podcasts at wkc.org/community/sermons.

The message this past weekend was on the subject of guidance. We took Acts 16:6-10 as our text, which almost becomes a lesson in ancient mid-eastern geography. Here is the piece of the story we focused on (have fun with the names):

Paul and his friends went through Phrygia and Galatia, but the Holy Spirit would not let them preach in Asia. After they arrived in Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not let them. So they went on through Mysia until they came to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision of someone from Macedonia who was standing there and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" After Paul had seen the vision, we began looking for a way to go to Macedonia. We were sure that God had called us to preach the good news there.

The story has a simple structure, even if the place names are not familiar. Paul and his traveling companions attempt to continue their work of spreading and consolidating the message of Jesus, but find themselves hindered in getting their good intentions done. We are not told how this happens, just that their attempts to go where they wanted were somehow hindered or frustrated. Finally, however, they come to realize the road forward lead in another direction, which becomes the lesson for why they went through what they did. We find in this elliptical story a few very important ideas about guidance.

First, it is helpful to see that this text is found in the middle of an ongoing story. A lot has already happened, a lot is still to come. This stands as a moment within the lives of active people. By active I do not mean busy (busy-ness can be one form of living out of control; busyness can actually be a waste of precious time). When I say active, I mean that one acts, that one considers the meaning of life and takes steps toward a higher and better meaning. The principle is this: God directs active people, while stationary people are harder to move (wondering what God’s purposes are for your life? how long have you sat and wondered? do something!).

But guidance is probably the thing we need most in the middle of our faith stories. After the ease and joy of a good beginning, it is that season I like to call “the long middle” that creates the greatest challenge. We launch into this Jesus life, we get involved, serve, contribute; but what do we do when our circumstances fail to line up the way we hoped they would? What do we do when certainties wear thin and expectations are unmet?

If you bore down a little deeper into this story, you would find that this moment represents a critical transition. It is right here where, through several misfires, Paul and his fellow travelers are released into a bigger vision and a higher purpose. Paul has been trying to revisit familiar territory but the Holy Spirit was about to demonstrate that he had other plans for him. We too should realize that it is possible to be stuck in a mindset or model that God wants us to move beyond. Sometimes that is revealed to us by frustrations and hindrances. Whatever the case, we have to be wise in discerning the meaning of our circumstances.

So after two frustrating “no’s” (which are not explained to us but only stated that God was somehow in them), the band of travelers waste no more time but hurries along to the port city of Troas. Are they confused? Perhaps. But this new place becomes the gateway into God’s bigger yes.

Paul has a vision, a dream, and the vision has a face attached to a place: a man from Macedonia, just over the Aegean Sea from where he was, calling “come over and help us”. The mystery of why they have been stalling dissipates into it is specific and do-able opportunity. The guidance God gives is remarkable clear and understandable. And so it is that if we are open to guidance, it tends to make itself plain to us. If life is an endless mystery, it is more likely that the cloud of confusion is in our hearts, or between our ears. Mark Twain famously said, “It is not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that trouble me, it is the parts that I do understand”.

This is the first of the so-called “we” passages in Acts and is probably the point at which Luke, the author, joins the group. Here is the exciting conclusion to this brief story of transition: the word translated “conclude” (GK: bibadzo) literally means “to bring together” and suggests several things: that after all of their circumstances and experiences (the frustrations and hindrances, the renewed sense of possibility), they were, at that point, able to “put it all together”. They could see the meaning of what had happened to them, and they could see the road forward. The word also suggests that they were able to consult with each other and in community decide on this new direction; they concluded that “God had called us” through the vision God gave to Paul.

This Sunday is Baptism Sunday, a special celebration of faith and commitment which is meaningful for both the candidates and for the whole church. Join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

the "with" life

2009-05-28T18:13:00.003-04:00

Our current series at Westside King’s Church is called The Baby, The Bathwater, and the Spiritual Life. Through three focused messages, we are attempting to bring some clarity on what is and what is not essential Christian spirituality, especially in those areas where our thinking begins to get clouded and confused.

This past Sunday we talked about the idea of conversion. We noted the story of Paul in Acts 9, perhaps the most famous account of Christian conversion in history. But apart from the meaning of what Paul experienced in that transformative “Damascus road” moment, we also reflected on the larger telling of Paul’s story and how his life reflects to us the on-going importance of transformation and change. We came to see that while conversion is sometimes experienced as an event or moment in time, it is much more accurately an event that becomes a process. The truth is that our life with God is all of the following at the same time: a moment of transition, a life of process, and a hope for the future. Conversion is often the way we talk about how we start this life with God, but conversion also needs to be considered through the lens of the long journey which follows. But we should not miss the point of Paul’s story: that every one of us needs a significant re-orientation to a “with Jesus” life.

The word conversion simply refers to the reality of transformation, of change. We can use the term in ordinary everyday ways, such as converting money from one currency to another, or of converting a power supply from alternating current to direct current. The point is that something is changed into another version of itself. The Scriptures tell us that this is not only possible, it is necessary. You must be “born again”, said Jesus (John 3).

Try this for a thought experiment: the word “conversion” is made of two parts. First, and most obviously, “version” connotes the particular form something takes, especially as it contrasts with other possible forms. For instance, we might talk of two different versions of the same book, which means it is both different and the same at the same time (this is especially true of certain classics that are often reprinted). The thing to note is that we can have the same thing in a different form. Then, when we add the prefix “con” (which simply means “with”), the word takes on an added meaning something like this: the particular form something takes is deeply related to whatever it is in relationship “with”. When we think more deeply about the word “conversion” we begin to see how real change takes place because of the influence of a third force (or person). In other words, something or someone converts (changes, transforms) because of the influence of something or someone else. It is not hard to see that the real essence of spiritual conversion is the possibility of becoming the version of yourself that is only realized by being “with” another. And the idea of Christian spiritual conversion is the idea of what we become when we enter into the “with Jesus” life.

So here might be a definition of sorts: your spiritual conversion to Christ is the version of you that comes into being as you live with and in Jesus -- by his grace, in his power, according to his teaching, embracing the deepest change he calls us to. Becoming a follower of Jesus does not deny the you that is you, but it opens up the possibility of becoming another version of you. And this is simply because you live your life in the company of the One who remakes people by his overflowing life. You become another version of yourself, not because of your own self-effort, but because of the ways life becomes different when it is lived “with” Jesus.

As always, the best way to understand this idea is to see it lived out in real human lives. And if there is anything that is capable of genuine investigation, it is the reality of spiritual conversion in countless human lives. Ask someone to tell you their story. Look around for biographies of change. Take time to think through whether or not Christian spiritual conversion actually happens.

The simple truth is that none of us becomes ourself by ourself. We are made in the company of others -- families, friends, communities, teachers, and so on. We become by being “with”. And the deepest need of every one of us is to be remade by Jesus, remade into a transformed version of ourselves, the version that is born by being “with him” (see Mark 3:14).

We hope to see you this Sunday at 9:29 or 11:11 am. We conclude The Baby, the Bathwater and the Spiritual Life series with a message about guidance. Stay tuned for a Deep Dive Digital Conversation to follow shortly.

Magic?

2009-05-21T11:49:00.004-04:00

This past Sunday we launched our spring series The Baby, The Bathwater, and the Spiritual Life. This is our attempt to bring some clarity to current thinking in Christian spirituality, especially as true practice tends to get immersed in other lesser things. In other words, we are asserting that there is a baby to embrace as well as bathwater to throw away. We are saying that we need to periodically establish which is which.

On Sunday we reviewed the story of Philip and Simon Magus in Acts 8. I would encourage you to read that text and to consider the clear delineation that emerges between a view of spirituality that wants to learn how to control God, and the essential Christian way. What becomes clear is that the message of Jesus which Philip brought to Samaria contrasts distinctly with the deeply magical thinking of Simon. This is seen in how Simon actually attempts to buy the power of the apostles for his own selfish agenda. Simon apparently loves power for its own sake. And as a result, the apostles condemn his thinking in the harshest of terms. Which should get us to thinking -- do we tend towards magical thinking in our life with God? Do we try to make this faith over into a system or technique instead of a deeply trusting relationship?

Magic is a very old thing, maybe one of the oldest things. Of course, there is the silly side of magic, our “Bewitched” fantasy -- that we could wrinkle our nose and clean up the house. But there is a much more serious side to magic, the idea that we can actually learn to control events, people, and objects. The word sorcery literally means the ability to control fate (sors being the old latin word for fate). The idea of magic is connected to one of our most fundamental human temptations, that we can use power to get what we want.

On my daily commute to work, I often hear an add for The Total Transformation System, a kind of coaching resource for parents who can’t get their kids to cooperate. The promises are amazing: “simple step-by-step techniques”, “how to stop any argument with your kid instantly”, “a word-by-word script to use”, “ten words to say”, “the technique that stops back talk”, and so it goes, a seeming sure-fire way to take control of out-of-control relationships. Now, I don’t don’t doubt that there may be pieces of wisdom in what is being offered here (and I may have just helped their business). But the idea that parenting needs a system, or that there is a technique to it (word for word scripts and the like), is deeply resonant with the culture we live in. How many times have you heard a personal change program referred to as a technology? Do we really believe that we can buy a system that will fix our life?

Instances like this are nothing less than magical thinking, that we can shape life through technique. And they reveal how much our culture thinks this way. The need as followers of Jesus, then, is for us to step back and ask ourselves whether or not we are prone to apply the concepts of magic to our concepts of Christian faith. In contrast with magic, an essential Christian spirituality learns the way of non-technique while, at the same time, gravitates towards what is more personal and relational. And all of this is based on what we are presented with in the Scripture: the infinite-personal God, who relates to us as Father, comes among us as the Son, dwells with us as the intimate Spirit, and calls us into the company of his people.

On a practical or formational level, one very good way learn the non-technical and non-magical way of our faith is to immerse ourselves daily in the Lord’s Prayer. This is our primer, the way we learn on a daily basis that God is not a problem to solve, nor a technique to master, nor a system to tweak: God is a Father to love, in the way of his Son, and by the power of his Spirit. Everything is personal here.

I have over-written the Lord’s prayer to show how this works:

God our Father

we honor all you are and don’t want to make you into a thing

we want what you want; educate our wants so that we might become more like you

provide us with what we need to live our normal earthly life as your children

forgive our missteps as we forgive the missteps of others (keep us in this grace life)

keep us from caving in to the unreality and illusion of evil

everything will eventually be seen in the light of your awesome character, Amen

I say the Lord’s prayer daily as part of my morning ritual. What I have been reminded of lately is that there is no consumerism or technique going on there -- it is all pure relational living. And that is good, because we make lousy gods, but we are perfectly fitted to be beloved children.

We continue this Sunday with lessons in authentic Biblical spirituality in our new series The Baby and Bathwater series. We hope to see you this Sunday at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

inside out life

2009-05-13T13:17:00.008-04:00

This past Sunday we were privileged to have George Snyman of Hands at Work Africa as our guest at Westside King’s Church. Instead of trying to capture his talk in my own words, I would rather direct you to the podcast at wkc.org/community/sermons. For those of you not familiar with how to regularly access our weekend messages, you will find an instructional video there on how to subscribe to our podcasts via itunes. But back to George, or as his friends call him in Africa, brother George. To spend time listening to or being with George is to get much more than a download of words and interesting ideas. His words on Sunday were incisive and beautiful to be sure, but they also carried a power to change the way we actually live.

Monday morning I spent an hour with George at a local Starbucks (he likes his coffee black). He is the rarest of persons, both soft and sensitive in his demeanor, yet carrying a determination that challenges you. And then I remembered a metaphor that I think captures who George is: he is an endoskeleton rather than an exoskeleton -- on the outside he is soft and touchable flesh, while on the inside he is hard bones. What I mean is that George is both graciously loving and rigidly principled. And that is how a Jesus follower who is also a true human being should be; we maintain our Christian shape by what is deep inside of us, and not by any protective veneers. Being with George brought me to a moment of self-reflection where I said to myself: “give up on trying to carry the impression of a tough outer shell; choose instead to define your shape by the hard bones of faith in Jesus.” Thanks, George for sharing your life with us (and with me).

Over the past few years we have been traveling through a two-fold transition in our community. Its two-foldness is seen in the fact that our transition is not merely an in-house event (Westside is going through changes) but is also, and at the same time, a cultural event (Westside is part of a culture going through changes). This two-fold transition (inside and out) is about the need to refocus on what is truly valuable, to drive ourselves into deeper and better questions, to follow the one who defines the way into the truest life. It is about the need to radically combine a truly gracious exterior with a truly principled core. It is about a life that comes into being from the inside out. Listen to these words of Jesus from John 12:24:

Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.

How do I bring together endoskeletons and dying seeds? Perhaps in this way: that any spirituality that is worthy of Jesus and his way must be a spirituality that understands the power of an inside-out life. Seeds and endoskeletons both have that in common -- growth and strength come from deep within. The spirituality of Jesus can never be cosmetic, never defined by mere appearance. It is instead the life that grows from our deepest center, in the core of our being when we are touched by the life of God. But if that happens, if the life of God germinates on the inside of who we are, if the life of God creates in us the bones with which we can move purposefully into the world, there comes in time the surprise of a productively loving and engaged life. The spirituality of Jesus is one that is able to push past the tyranny of present appearance and, in the manner of a seed, become more than what it was.

For these next three Sundays we will be rehearsing a few of the lessons of authentic Biblical spirituality in our new series The Baby, The Bathwater and the Spiritual Life. We will be taking a look at what we see to be the essence of this life that Jesus calls us toward -- “the baby”. And at the same time, we will be as clear as we know how on what we think is the “bathwater” we need to discard. It should prove to be an interesting series, intended to help us towards the life that we really are looking for. We hope to see you this Sunday at 9:29 or 11:11 am. The coffee is always hot.

2009-05-07T13:55:00.004-04:00

the city of joy

Our series, The Story of Stuff, concluded this past weekend with a consideration of this question: “what else is there?” Over these past three weeks, we have looked at some of the important questions which emerge from our culture of consumption, and have repeatedly asked whether or not this is, at heart, a deeply spiritual issue. We think it is, and we think that our Biblical faith has plenty to say to us about how we relate to what we make and own. This is not a small or marginal issue.

Let me suggest that the story of stuff will continue to remain our story unless we are able to find a better story, a story with a better and more glorious interpretation of what it means to live a human life. Right now in our culture, the story of stuff seems to be the best story there is. Inundated as we are in the constant messages of acquisition and the joy of new stuff, we find it hard to conceptualize anything different. Perhaps then, the problem is in our imagination. Perhaps the problem is that we are not able to see a different kind of life.

I picked up a little book from the discount shelves at chapters today. It is called The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them. Being a bookish person, this is the kind of title that grabs my attention. I want to know what other people read, especially those whose words I already value. I want to know the source and inspiration that shaped them; the who and what and how of their becoming. There is always a back-story, and it is helpful to know what it is. So with the story of stuff in mind, let me share with you one of the books that has had a lasting impact on me: Dominic Lapierre’s novel, The City of Joy (1985). Read the reviews at amazon.com and then go buy the book. But let me leave you with a small taste of it power to shift your attention away from your stuff.

This is a story of a place, Anand Nagar, a slum in the city of Calcutta, India. It is, in fact, one of the worst imaginable slums in a city quite overwhelmed by crippling poverty. And the irony of Anand Nagar is that its name means “city of joy”. The story follows the intersection of those who come to this place: an Indian peasant farmer who has to leave his land and moves to the city to become a rickshaw driver, a polish priest who lives in the slums in order to fulfil his calling, and an American doctor who comes to bring his healing arts but finds himself transformed in soul. From far away places come the people who crush themselves into the worst of conditions, make their life there, find love there, and ironically -- most startlingly to us who are defined by the story of stuff -- find joy there! For this is Lapierre’s very strange theme (strange to our ears), that in spite of the overwhelming poverty that these people experience, and the most imaginably horrible conditions, human beings are not defined by the things they surround themselves with. It is actually possibly for human beings to find joy in the worst of material conditions.

This theme is captured in the wedding celebration of two lepers, two people whose limbs are eaten away with infection, whose lives are apparently diminished by such a tragedy, but who are not the least diminished in their capacity for love, for celebration, and for the bonds of committed love. In Lapierre’s novel one begins to wake up to a life that is so much the richer when it is defined by such truths. But this does not mean that our entrance into this world as a reader is not one of simultaneous attraction and repulsion. At one point the American doctor can no longer bear his daily experience of Anand Nagar, and decides to escape for a few days into one of the luxurious hotels of that city. He has the financial resources to do so, and he seeks relief. But after a few days he finds himself inevitably drawn back to what he was previously trying to escape, back to the people he has come to deeply respect. He is being changed. In the heart of the novel, the polish priest says, "Bless you, Calcutta, for in your wretchedness you have given birth to saints." And then you hang your head for a moment of repentant prayer: can a culture defined by the story of stuff give birth to saints?

Lapierre’s City of Joy is a disturbing book, graphically filled with the sights and sounds -- and smells -- of some horrible conditions. But it is ultimately an uplifting book, because we realize that what makes us uniquely human is our ability to love, to find grace, and to become more than what we surround ourselves with. Anand Nagar, "The City of Joy", will set before you an alternate vision of possibility.

This Sunday we are privileged to welcome a special guest to Westside, George Snyman of Hands at Work Africa. We partner with the ministry George leads, giving of our money but also giving of our time. Over these past few years, several dozens of volunteers have served our African brothers and sisters in practically transformative ways. We can think of no more powerful way to exit the story of stuff than to spend time listening and being impacted by George Snyman as he shares his vision of African transformation. We hope to see you at 9:29 or 11:11 am. The coffee will be hot.

2009-04-30T12:23:00.004-04:00

Christian Environmentalism

Our current series, The Story of Stuff, continued this past Sunday with a consideration of the question “what does our stuff do to us and to our environment”. This is an important social and political question right now and that is part of the reason we wanted to address it. While we are a community of diverse opinions on the secondary matters, we find it incredibly enriching to at least air out the conversation and search for the relevant Biblical and Christian help. In this way we learn to think together, and hopefully, live differently together. But the story of stuff is also a spiritual question, a question of our most deeply held values. What has been stirring in you over these past few weeks?

The story of stuff carries with it a lot of attendant meanings, all of which we need to consider through the lens of our Biblical faith. We want to ask some deeper questions of ourselves, and instead of asking God to support our lifestyles, see how and where we need to change in order to align with his will and way. The story of stuff should not be a political football. As Christians we should understand that the world we live in is, by definition, a gift to us. This world is the theatre of God’s grace and only ours for a brief time. We receive this world from our fathers and mothers, and pass it on to our children. We are stewards and not owners.

The unfortunate thing right now is that the polarized state of our politics means that we tend to assign issues to the possession of the right and left. And for some reason, even our Christian thinking tends to line up with party politics. But this is a false choice. Don’t we all live on the same planet? Don’t we all share the same limited space and finite resources? Yes we do. The issues of the environment are essentially non-partisan.

But whatever your perspective, I would at least like to nudge you towards an appreciation for the Biblical aspects of earth stewardship. As Biblicists, we see the created order as something God has given us, something we are to care for and manage well. While I would assert unequivocally that it is a category mistake to see the health of the earth as our salvation, or to divinize the earth and make it sacred, I would assert that it is also a mistake to disregard the health of the planet, to use it up and destroy its future liveability. How can either of these choices be right? Biblical Christians ought to be able to discern the differences. Aside from the politics of environmentalism, it is not true to say that this is a non-issue for Christians.

With those thoughts in mind I want to alert you to two current resources which you should take note of: here are the links to The Green Bible ( www.greenletterbible.com ) and to The Evangelical Environmental Network ( www.creationcare.org ). Note especially in the second resource what the Bible has to say about creation care. I will not duplicate here the Biblical case they make, but it is substantial and not to be disregarded.

Finally, it might help some of us to read the poet and farmer Wendell Berry on these questions. Find out who he is and what he has written (you can do this through our friend wikipedia.com). You might find your perspectives changing when you read someone like Berry. He reminds me of my extended family on my mother’s side who embraced many of the same values of Berry, even if they couldn’t articulate them as well as he does. My mother’s family are salt-of-the-earth types, farmers and people of the land. For them, there was no division between a life with the God of the Bible, and our responsibilities to take care of the land he gave us. For them, this was not a left versus right question but a question of responsible living. And that is always the right way to live.

The Story of Stuff concludes this Sunday at 9:29 and 11:11 am. Hope to see you there.

Bob

Over-Consumption

2009-04-23T17:05:00.003-04:00

For those of you who heard our first Deep Dive Digital (DDD) conversation, a second is now available for download. You can get it at wkc.org/community/sermonarchive or by signing up for the podcast feed at itunes (search for Deep Dive Digital). In our latest DDD conversation, we look back to the God Debate series and the Easter series which followed. We add a kind of post script to where we have been over the past 6 weeks. But this past Sunday we began our new series which we are calling The Story of Stuff, one good way (we think) to live out our Easter faith.

The title of this series was borrowed from storyofstuff.com, a site we encourage you to visit. On Sunday we showed a segment of the 20 minute mini-documentary that is available there and we encourage you to view the entire piece. It will help you see that while we are consumers by nature -- we must eat to live, we must use the earth to make a world -- we participate in a system that is not currently sustainable. What is particularly coming to light in our time is the way our disposable/throw-away/planned obsolescence culture is actually working against us rather than improving our lives. The storyofstuff.com will help you with an analysis of this reality; perhaps you will see this issue in some new ways.

Our interest in this topic is two-fold. First, we are citizens, participants in the communal good; we carry a responsibility for the well-being of others. Our biblical tradition continually teaches that we live a tension between our pilgrim identity (our journey through life) and our fully-settled citizen identity (we live here, now). And while the pilgrim aspect of our identity tends to get the most play in Christian conversation, there are many times we need to be reminded of our responsibilities as participants in culture. For instance, the prophet Jeremiah counselled those carried into Babylonian exile to make the best of where they were, to participate and work for the common good:

Make yourselves at home there and work for the country's welfare. Pray for Babylon's well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you. (Jeremiah 29:7)

The idea of citizenship is the idea that we must live cooperatively, with an understanding of how our human integration and interdependence is a reality we cannot avoid. With this is mind, isn’t the stewardship of the earth a Christian ideal? Aren’t all these current matters in our politics -- issues of consumption, ecological health and stewardship of the earth, more equitable and sustainable economic systems -- all matters that sincere Christian citizens should care about? Of course they are.
But our second interest in this subject is a spiritual one, for the story of stuff has very deep spiritual implications. It is not hard to see that, as we try to help each other pursue the Jesus kind of life, the issue of needless and wasteful consumption is a spiritual issue as well as social-political one. The truth is that we all experience how buying and acquiring becomes a spiritual experience in itself. Our interest in stuff -- more stuff, other stuff, new stuff -- is often connected to our sense of self, our emotional needs, our ache for joy, our flight from boredom or lack of meaning. The story of stuff in our time is a spiritual story.

One of the most consistent and enduring Biblical discussions (shot through both testaments) is that of idolatry. To be sure, the very word idolatry seems archaic, even trite, but the idea itself reveals our enduring human struggle. Idolatry could be defined simply as turning lesser things (which can be good in themselves) into ultimate meanings. It works by the power of a corrupted imagination, by the failure to see reality in right proportion. One way to understand idolatry is the tendency we have of worshipping the things we make, of turning to our own creations as some kind of answer to the spiritual ache and void within us. I will conclude my thoughts by quoting the prophet Isaiah at length. In chapter 44 of his prophecy [vs. 12-20, Message Bible] he reveals the folly of this way with some very effective contrasts. See if you don’t see the story of stuff as it was worked out in an ancient culture:

The blacksmith makes his no-god, works it over in his forge, hammering it on his anvil—such hard work! He works away, fatigued with hunger and thirst.

The woodworker draws up plans for his no-god, traces it on a block of wood. He shapes it with chisels and planes into human shape—a beautiful woman, a handsome man, ready to be placed in a chapel. He first cuts down a cedar, or maybe picks out a pine or oak, and lets it grow strong in the forest, nourished by the rain. Then it can serve a double purpose: Part he uses as firewood for keeping warm and baking bread; from the other part he makes a god that he worships—carves it into a god shape and prays before it. With half he makes a fire to warm himself and barbecue his supper. He eats his fill and sits back satisfied with his stomach full and his feet warmed by the fire: "Ah, this is the life." And he still has half left for a god, made to his personal design—a handy, convenient no-god to worship whenever so inclined. Whenever the need strikes him he prays to it, "Save me. You're my god."

Pretty stupid, wouldn't you say? Don't they have eyes in their heads? Are their brains working at all? Doesn't it occur to them to say, "Half of this tree I used for firewood: I baked bread, roasted meat, and enjoyed a good meal. And now I've used the rest to make an abominable no-god. Here I am praying to a stick of wood!"

This lover of emptiness, of nothing, is so out of touch with reality, so far gone, that he can't even look at what he's doing, can't even look at the no-god stick of wood in his hand and say, "This is crazy."

It is time for us to realize two things at once. First, that our over-consumption is bad citizenry, that we are moving through this historical period as over-sized pac-men leaving nothing in our wake. And second, that deeper than the social-political issue, our over-consumption reveals a hunger for life that we are trying to meet, but are not succeeding. As followers of Jesus, there really is a better way to live. The Story of Stuff continues this Sunday at 9:29 and 11:11 am. Hope to see you there.

Bob

Easter Politics

2009-04-16T13:28:00.002-04:00

Through Holy Week we presented a series entitled Change. Happened. Here. And what we signified at each point of the journey (Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter) was the real change the Easter gospel has brought about.

As a conclusion to the Easter season and the Easter message I would like to reflect on one aspect of the real change that has happened because of Jesus. I would like to consider for a moment “the politics of Easter”. For if Easter is a transcendent event, the moment that defines the meaning and hope of the world, then it is no mere religious event. It cannot be contained in such narrow and confining things as religious practices and institutions. Resurrection, by definition, is bigger than religion. It is a material-spiritual event that not only redefines reality but all human enterprise in light of that reality. Resurrection changes all value and meaning, all action and hope. Resurrection is, in other words, also a political event.

It is not hard to see that the first Easter took place in a political environment. Competing groups attempted to use power to advance their agendas. There were the Romans who imposed their empire and the various brands of Jewish terrorism who sought ways to make their stay as uncomfortable as possible. There were the competing Jewish parties, the Pharisees and Sadducees, each proposing solutions for a Jewish state living under Roman domination. And then there was Jesus who was none of the above. While all of these political solutions have either failed or became irrelevant in time, their ideological offspring are still with us.

On Sunday we reflected on this text from Acts 1:6

when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?”

This represents, of course, a set of political questions: who would rule them? what hope could they have for their nation? how could they endure the humiliation and abuse of a dominating empire? And all such questions were pinned to their view of Jesus as Messiah. Wouldn’t he now solve the issues that defined their times?

Indeed, he would. Indeed, he had. But it would not be through politics as usual. While so much of political change works from the top down, or from the outside in, the kingdom of Jesus works in an opposite direction. The politics of Easter works from the bottom up, from the inside out, from the gift of grace that works toward personal and social change over time. Jesus changes everything through self-sacrificial love, through forgiving grace, and through a reversal of power as we usually know it. Jesus brings a kingdom into reality, but a kingdom that subverts our brand of politics. Instead of top-down, we change from the bottom-up. Instead of the outside-in change of policy and law, we embrace the inside-out change of Spirit.

Our pastor Chris sometimes talks about “a more complicated hope”. To call hope complicated does not mean that it is a hope that is less than what we need it to be -- quite the opposite. The hope that Jesus brings is complicated because it doesn’t completely satisfy us when we start with our self-initiated plans and schemes. No, it is more complicated than that -- it is a hope that breaks us out into new territory, bringing to light a reality we never could dream up on our own. It is more complicated because we find ourselves wrestling with what it is that we are looking for, even when we don’t know what it is we are looking for, and even while we wait for that unseen reality yet to come.

The resurrection of Jesus begins something new in the human journey, a reality yet to be fully realized. But it is not merely the answer to a religious question, be sure of that. It introduces a change we might even consider as political, a reality that encompasses every conceivable aspect of human experience.

This Sunday we begin a new series which we hope will address issues of materialism and consumerism in our culture. We are calling the series The Story of Stuff. Join us this Sunday at 9:29 and 11:11 am.

Bob

Change. Happened. Here.

2009-04-09T14:09:00.002-04:00

Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped. The soldiers, having braided a crown from thorns, set it on his head, threw a purple robe over him, and approached him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!" Then they greeted him with slaps in the face.

Pilate went back out again and said to them, "I present him to you, but I want you to know that I do not find him guilty of any crime." Just then Jesus came out wearing the thorn crown and purple robe.

Pilate announced, "Here he is: the Man."

When the high priests and police saw him, they shouted in a frenzy, "Crucify! Crucify!"

Pilate told them, "You take him. You crucify him. I find nothing wrong with him."

The Jews answered, "We have a law, and by that law he must die because he claimed to be the Son of God."

When Pilate heard this, he became even more scared. He went back into the palace and said to Jesus, "Where did you come from?"

Jesus gave no answer.

Pilate said, "You won't talk? Don't you know that I have the authority to pardon you, and the authority to—crucify you?"

Jesus said, "You haven't a shred of authority over me except what has been given you from heaven. That's why the one who betrayed me to you has committed a far greater fault."

At this, Pilate tried his best to pardon him, but the Jews shouted him down: "If you pardon this man, you're no friend of Caesar's. Anyone setting himself up as 'king' defies Caesar."

When Pilate heard those words, he led Jesus outside. He sat down at the judgment seat in the area designated Stone Court (in Hebrew, Gabbatha). It was the preparation day for Passover. The hour was noon. Pilate said to the Jews, "Here is your king."

They shouted back, "Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!"

Pilate said, "I am to crucify your king?"

The high priests answered, "We have no king except Caesar."

Pilate caved in to their demand. He turned him over to be crucified.

They took Jesus away. Carrying his cross, Jesus went out to the place called Skull Hill (the name in Hebrew is Golgotha), where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, Jesus in the middle. Pilate wrote a sign and had it placed on the cross. It read:

jesus the nazarene
the king of the jews.

Many of the Jews read the sign because the place where Jesus was crucified was right next to the city. It was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. The Jewish high priests objected. "Don't write," they said to Pilate, "'The King of the Jews.' Make it, 'This man said, "I am the King of the Jews."'"

Pilate said, "What I've written, I've written."

When they crucified him, the Roman soldiers took his clothes and divided them up four ways, to each soldier a fourth. But his robe was seamless, a single piece of weaving, so they said to each other, "Let's not tear it up. Let's throw dice to see who gets it." This confirmed the Scripture that said, "They divided up my clothes among them and threw dice for my coat." (The soldiers validated the Scriptures!)

While the soldiers were looking after themselves, Jesus' mother, his aunt, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her. He said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that moment the disciple accepted her as his own mother.

Jesus, seeing that everything had been completed so that the Scripture record might also be complete, then said, "I'm thirsty."

A jug of sour wine was standing by. Someone put a sponge soaked with the wine on a javelin and lifted it to his mouth. After he took the wine, Jesus said, "It's done . . . complete." Bowing his head, he offered up his spirit.

Then the Jews, since it was the day of Sabbath preparation, and so the bodies wouldn't stay on the crosses over the Sabbath (it was a high holy day that year), petitioned Pilate that their legs be broken to speed death, and the bodies taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man crucified with Jesus, and then the other. When they got to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn't break his legs. One of the soldiers stabbed him in the side with his spear. Blood and water gushed out.

The eyewitness to these things has presented an accurate report. He saw it himself and is telling the truth so that you, also, will believe.

These things that happened confirmed the Scripture, "Not a bone in his body was broken," and the other Scripture that reads, "They will stare at the one they pierced."

After all this, Joseph of Arimathea (he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, because he was intimidated by the Jews) petitioned Pilate to take the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission. So Joseph came and took the body.

Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, came now in broad daylight carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. They took Jesus' body and, following the Jewish burial custom, wrapped it in linen with the spices. There was a garden near the place he was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been placed. So, because it was Sabbath preparation for the Jews and the tomb was convenient, they placed Jesus in it.

[John 19, The Message Bible]

This Sunday is Easter. Join us at 9:29 and 11:11 am.

Holy Week

2009-04-02T12:26:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday, our God Debate series wrapped up with a dialogue, our first attempt at what we call Deep Dive Live. Every few months we intend to air out some of the conversations and questions that take place “off the stage”. We want to involve our community in the process so we welcome your feedback and participation.

And now we move towards the central story in our Christian faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus. This Sunday is “Palm Sunday”, our entry into Holy Week. We join the many pilgrims and worshippers around the world as we pay attention to what God has done for us in Jesus. This is a good place to for us to journey into after the recent dialogue and conversation about God and his existence. We now enter the season in which conversations and questions can be laid aside for a time, a season to be silent and pay attention.

I personally believe that a healthy faith community will encourage a variety of ways of being: seasons of energetic dialogue (such as we just had), and times like Holy Week in which we are encouraged to stop talking and pay attention in worship. For when God is revealing himself and his way -- which is what we deeply believe is happening in the Easter story -- we are compelled to shift away from conceiving of God as an intellectual puzzle to solve. Instead, we learn to encounter God as the personal presence who reveals himself in the narrative flow of history and in the story of our lives. Easter is a story that requires us to notice all the parts, letting nothing slip by. This is difficult if we are distracted or pre-occupied, or if we are still talking about any and all other things.

I have been thinking about a passage from the prophet Habakkuk, and I think it might be an appropriate lead-in to Holy Week. There is a long history in the Biblical tradition of warnings against idolatry, that is, the problem of making gods to serve us, gods we dream up, gods we understand, gods we can control. The prophet Habbakuk continues this warning, mocking the futility of such an enterprise [Habakkuk 2:18-20]:

"What's the use of a carved god so skillfully carved by its sculptor? What good is a fancy cast god when all it tells is lies? What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker who makes gods that can't even talk? Who do you think you are— saying to a stick of wood, 'Wake up,' Or to a dumb stone, 'Get up'? Can they teach you anything about anything? There's nothing to them but surface. There's nothing on the inside.

What does Habbakuk the prophet say we should do instead? He tells us to redirect our energies and attention; he tells us to look and listen:

"But oh! God is in his holy Temple! Quiet everyone—a holy silence. Listen!"

I am always moved and unsettled at what I see in the Easter story. It reminds me that the God I love and serve cannot be reduced to anything that originates in my concepts or arguments. Easter reminds me that I must stop making a “god” I can understand, and instead, see the God who is there, the God who came into our humanity in Jesus. Easter is the time to be silent and pay attention.
My prayer for you this Easter is that you would be moved to worship, to see the God who reveals himself so surprisingly and beautifully in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

This Sunday we begin our Holy Week journey. Join us this Sunday at 9:29 and 11:11 am. A Special Good Friday service will be held on April 10 at 10:10 am. And then Easter Sunday on April 12. Silence everyone -- listen!

Bob

Going Beyond the Argument

2009-03-26T16:10:00.002-04:00

Last Sunday, our God Debate series presented “Going Beyond the Argument”. The series has attempted to frame the way we would like to address those who espouse the new atheism. We think that much of the dialogue so far has been missing the point.

For instance, take the current hot potato in the interface between religion and science, the issue of origins. For people of Christian faith who have committed themselves to Scriptural authority, the seemingly contrary explanations on origins remains perplexing. On the one hand, a Christian faith position does necessarily rule out any explanation which puts chance as the ruling mechanism of the universe. In place of chance, the Christian faith position asserts that the infinite-personal God is not only the first cause of the universe but its continuing cause, and that He is lovingly and wisely bringing all things towards their intended purpose. Randomness and chance are ruled out.

But on the other side, it is important for us who affirm the authority of Scripture to admit that the “how” of creation -- that is, how God has brought the universe into being -- is a question that we are still in the process of discovering. And science can help us here. It is vital for us who affirm the authority of the Scriptures to understand what we have in the creation accounts of Genesis 1-2; simply put, that these passage are not meant for scientific purpose. It is better to see these passages (we have two different creation stories in Genesis 1-2) as poetic tellings of of a theological perspective. The twin creation stories of Genesis 1-2 are meant to be a statement on God as first cause, on creation as ordered and intended for a purpose beyond itself, and on humanity’s place within the created order as God’s special focus. Genesis 1-2 speaks to the why more than the how.

It would be helpful for us to notice that creation theology is everywhere present in Scripture. I would suggest that Psalm 8 is just such a text:

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? [Psalm 8:3-4, NLT]

The question here is not one of how we arrived as we are, but what our essential identity is, and what our human purpose and destiny might be. The psalm goes on to assert humanity’s special place within the creation order, a statement that leads to further questions of course, but at least asserts that much. In this view, human beings are not merely the top of the food chain, but are instead creatures that are uniquely relatable to God.
Finally, creation should not be thought of in stagnant terms, as in the idea that God set the universe in motion and now stands by to nudge it once in a while. That view would be called a deist position, the idea that while God exists and is creator, he is not involved in the unfolding development of our universe. This is not the Biblical idea of creation.

Instead, the fuller idea of God as creator sees that the material world around is something he has not only called into being, but something he is still inherently present with, especially as he brings the universe forward into it destiny and purpose. Theologians call this the creatio continua, or continuing creation. It is fascinating to consider that in the resurrection of Jesus, we have the first of what the Scriptures call the new creation, the reality beyond what we now experience. While this current cultural moment finds us debating the how questions of the universe we live in, the Scriptures are focused elsewhere, on the new creation of transformed souls and renewed order of things.

Whatever our opinion or perspective on this issue, what we have tried to do through this series is push past the sound bites on either side, and to create the possibility of moving the discussion into a much more dialogical approach. We need a new kind of wisdom to navigate the questions, to humbly admit that we are capable of projecting ideas into the biblical text that are not supported there, and, on the other side, courageously challenge those uses of science that are more philosophical than evidential. Avoiding these two extremes while allowing Scripture and science to talk to each other is a far more positive and helpful approach. And it just may save some people from the needless false dichotomy that currently exists between religion and science.

The God Debate series concludes this weekend with a live discussion between Chris, Jeremy and Bob. We call this new event Deep Dive Live. We welcome your questions which you can submit live or by email to info@wkc.org. The action will take place Sunday at 9:29 and 11:11 am.

Bob

Listening

2009-03-19T16:38:00.002-04:00

Last Sunday, we continued our series, The God Debate, with a talk on Science and Religion. Recent public assertions that the God hypothesis cannot be considered credible is a challenge we would like to engage. But the way we engage the question matters as much as the perspective we bring; we want to move past the sound bites that fly overhead, and present a stance that listens as well as shares our way of understanding.

Science (Latin: scientia) literally means knowledge. There was a time in classical culture when theology (the knowledge of God) was considered the “queen of the sciences” because it was the knowledge that ordered all other kinds of knowledge. In the popular imagination, that time has past it seems. But the question of how various kinds of knowledge relate to each other remains an important question, especially as science and religion seem to be at odds with each other.

Science is commonly understood as a method of gaining knowledge. It begins with observation of the material world, notices patterns and tendencies, makes hypotheses about patterns, and tests those patterns by repeatable experiments. Experiment is “experience”, the way we encounter the repeatable ways the material universe behaves. We then move from the observable and repeatable nature of what we see and propose “scientific” laws. This is a method that has proven immensely helpful for understanding of our material world. The fatal move, we think, is when this methodology asserts that what is sees is all there is, that the eye is capable of complete knowing.

One way to understand the difference between scientific knowing and religious knowing is through the various capacities of our senses. In science, the eye is critical, the principle way to know reality: “seeing is believing”. In religious knowing, especially in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the ear is more important than the eye, not because the eye is distrusted, but because there is a personal reality that the eye cannot see. In the Biblical tradition, the universe we inhabit is not primarily material but personal, populated by persons whose reality is deeper than appearances. The first premise of reality is the infinite-personal God who speaks and listens and invites us into relationship with him. While we can know something about God through what we see, we can know much more about him through what we hear.

Psalm 19 provides an excellent meditation on this Biblical idea and I recommend reading it with the question of science and religion in mind. It begins, “the heavens declare the glory of God” (v.1) and goes on to say that there is a kind of “voice” that creation has: “day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge” (v.2). The perspective here is that creation itself speaks, and however dimly we hear it, there is a kind of speech that it makes to us. We must listen to understand reality.

But then this psalm makes a critical move that focuses our hearing onto a firmer and clearer kind of speech. The statement is definitive for a Biblical faith: “The law [or word] of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul” (v.7). What follows in this psalm are various descriptors of the words of God and the ways his words bring a kind of knowledge to us that our eye could simply not perceive. It is an affirmation of knowing that is personal and morally transformative because this knowledge of God is not dis-engaged observance but meant for personal and connected knowledge.

The psalmist ends this way: “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer” (v.14). Knowledge in the Biblical tradition proposes is one that listens and learns to answer back, and that one becomes changed through the exercise. Again, this kind of knowledge is based on the ear, not the eye.

We want to say to those who put science over religion that while we have no quarrel with what science actually shows us about the material universe, it really has little to say about the mystery of persons who inhabit this universe, especially the personal God who speaks. We want to propose another kind of knowledge that is based in the ear and not in the eye.

This coming Sunday, we continue the God Debate series with a message entitles “Going Beyond the Argument”. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Faith and Reason

2009-03-12T15:33:00.002-04:00

Perhaps you have heard about the recent advertising campaign for the “no God” option. The slogan, There’s probably is no God: now stop worrying and enjoy your life, has been displayed on public transit in the UK and now Canada. People have taken all kinds of positions on these ads, some welcoming the discussion, some wanting these questions to remain private and personal, and others seeing these messages as hateful or disrespectful. What do you think?

Last Sunday, we began our new series, The God Debate, with the intention of talking about this recent ferment in public theological conversation (a rare event to be sure). We want to respond to the assertions of notable atheists like Richard Dawkins who contend that religion has had far too privileged a position in our culture, and that there is a better, healthier, and more enlightened position: the “no God” option, and all that goes with it. In fact, writers like Dawkins see religion as a delusion, a mistaken and dangerous claim on knowledge. The debate really centers here: what counts as real knowledge? And how can anyone claim to know God?

The Biblical and Christian traditions carry within them the resources to enter such dialogue with profound intellectual depth. One of the best responses to the new atheism from a Christian perspective is Dinesh D’Souza’s best seller What’s So Great About Christianity. I highly recommend it for those who want to go deeper into the questions.

But what about faith? Is faith reasonable? Is faith knowledge? I want to suggest that while faith has its reasons, it is ultimately a way of knowing based on a more personal and engaged stance. Faith is the kind of knowing that comes through encounter and participation. God makes this possible in fact; through Jesus, he has immersed himself in our human story, living it from the inside. The invitation to us is to respond, to participate in the life that Jesus invites us to. One way of seeing Christian baptism is a personal immersion in the life of Jesus to the degree that we begin to know it from the inside. Faith, then, is the kind of knowledge that comes through direct involvement; it is the knowledge of personal participation.

So much of our usual way of thinking about knowledge or truth relates to our Greek intellectual tradition: the Greek word alethia suggests the truth is something that must be uncovered, the reality that lies deeper than appearances. While this is a helpful perspective, for the Greek mind truth had more to do with the world of things versus a world of persons. The Hebrews started their search for knowledge in a different place entirely, beginning as they did with the premise of God (Gen 1:1). So the Hebrew word emet (truth) is more like faithfulness, the quality of a dependable person. For the Hebrews, the possibility of human knowing is grounded in the personal creator-God; truth is grounded in the ultimate Someone we can know.

This means simply that our knowledge of God does not arrive through disengaged analysis, but as we respond to the life he offers. Let me give you a Biblical illustration of this. When Jesus first announced himself to Israel he was baptized by John. John had been prepared in a very special way to recognize Jesus as God’s Messiah, and he said gave witness of this understanding to those who were with him. And while all were intrigued with John’s statements, they did not know what John did, not at first. Their understanding of who Jesus was came through ordinary relational means, through the discovery of shared life.

Because of John’s testimony, two of John’s followers began to follow Jesus, as John 1:38-39 tells us:

Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them.
They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
“Come and see,” he said.

This is how we know God in Jesus. We enter into the life he offers us and try it out from the inside. “Come and see” is in invitation, an act of generous hospitality. Jesus says to us, “step into my life and find out who I am.” Millions of Jesus-followers have come to know him in precisely this way. They know God from the inside of the relationship.

This coming Sunday, we continue our God Debate series with a message on Religion and Science. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Different Way of Being

2009-03-05T16:38:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday we concluded our vision series The Method and the Madness. We hope that you have appreciated our “thinking out loud” about what we are focusing on as a community. Airing out the background strategies and concepts at Westside is necessary because of the diversity and breadth of our community. When we take time to go through a process like these past few weeks, we have the chance to draw together in common purpose.

The three elements of this vision series were communication, community and compassion. My thought as we conclude this series is this: how do these three vital components intersect? What is it that acts as the animating core for the various pieces of our vision? After considering this over the past week I want to simply suggest that it is our intention to organize ourselves around the person of Jesus and the opportunity to make Him known in the culture that surrounds us. We want Jesus to be the center of what we say, how we relate, and what we do.

First, communication. Westside thinks through its communication strategy because first, there is something to be said (good news), and second, because there are resistances in our culture to the message we represent. So we try to find a starting point in the common life of our audience before we move towards what we call “the deep voice of Scripture”. We think that there are enough examples in Scripture for us to adopt this as our method of communication, especially in a culture that is post-biblical. This is simply our chosen strategic move, but at the heart of what you will hear us say each week is “take a look at Jesus -- who he is, how he lived, and what he has done for us”.

Second, community. We realize that the very idea of “church” brings with it concepts about religion that people easily trip over. The word religio (Latin) has literally to do with binding something; a religion is an idea that binds us to a worldview and a way of living. While religion can have its benefits, religion can also bind us to fear and dysfunction. We believe that Jesus showed a different way than the way of religion. At Westside, we want to take seriously the idea that we are bound to Jesus as the center and focus of our community, as the one around whom we form friendship and give support. For after all is said and done, we are not so much bound to an idea as to a person, the one who called us together. The great ideas of the Christian faith -- love, forgiveness, and change -- are relational ideas and they call us to be involved with God and with each other in redemptive ways.

And finally, compassion, the natural extension of our communication and community. This past Sunday we remembered the famous hymn from Philippians chapter 2:5-11:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

We have come to believe that Jesus-inspired compassion is the natural result of a message and a community that is focused on him. And this is because we recognize that Jesus is the gift of God’s overflowing and out-going love, a love we want to carry into our homes, work-places, and neighborhoods. But we want to think even further beyond those natural connecting points, consider the world we live in, and begin to move towards the change that can come when we decide to act with compassion.

So here is the essence of what we are saying: Jesus needs to be heard in what we say, how we get along with each other, and in the ways we choose to live in the world – and this ‘different way of being’ is something that needs to be lived out in the culture that surrounds us.

This coming Sunday, we begin a new series we are calling The God Debate, a discussion on the interface between classic Christian belief and what is often called “the new atheism”. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Compassion

2009-02-26T20:53:00.003-05:00

Polaroids cameras, music CDs and the three ring Circus. Three things that once commanded a significant place in the cultural and economic consciousness of our world and yet all three in the course of a relatively short time, have been supplanted, replaced or subverted by new ideas. Polaroid no longer makes film in the face of the digital revolution, music CD sales dropped over 20% last year while online downloads increased over 40% and Cirque Du Soleil has reinvented the definition of what a circus is for most people. The free market is our greatest resource for innovation because it's a constant churn of the best ideas and the most creative applications where the incentives of innovation and the consequences of stagnation are always within sight.

But what happens when it comes to the story of Jesus and our involvement in his imagination for the world, a place where our story is not just about us and not just about what we can get from life? How do we take seriously the challenge of Jesus to step out from a purely incentive driven motivation for life and at the same time remain inspired to create and innovate?

I think Philippians chapter 2 challenges us with the idea that the invitation of Jesus is one into the best of both worlds. Where we can be inspired to be creative with our time, our energy and our resources and at the same time find the freedom to let go of outcomes that only involve ourselves, so that we can put our best creativity and our best ideas and our most significant commitments into the cause of compassion.

See you Sunday

Jeremy Duncan

8 Sentences about Growth and Community

2009-02-18T17:17:00.002-05:00

From The Seeking Heart (by Francois Fenelon): “If you are not careful, you will acquire so much knowledge that you will need another lifetime to put it into practice.”

Ephesians 4 gives us a clue to a personality trait that tends to ‘activate’ our potential perhaps more than any other. I want to suggest that it’s openness: actually a radical openness to 5 kinds of input (an openness to being led, an openness to being challenged, an openness to being taught, and openness to being touched and an openness to be involved in grace for someone else).

I think those two thoughts (paragraphs one and two above) come together at a very important intersection. Being radically open without taking any action means we have all kinds of great information which does nothing. Taking radical action without being open means you might be growing, but only at the ‘snail’s pace’ made possible with one person’s worth of insight (your own).

If you had to pick one problem for your own, which would it be? Why not have a discussion about it this week with someone you trust?

This Sunday, we’ll be taking a fresh look at community and new ways that we can ‘do life’ together.

Have a great day,

Chris

Jesus and Your Fridge

2009-02-12T17:14:00.002-05:00

Each week we review and extend the previous Sunday’s message at Westside King’s Church. As a kind of post-script to our recent thoughts about change, we took time last Sunday to consider the connection between body-image and identity with a one-off message entitled Jesus and Your Fridge. Does Jesus have anything to say to us as we stand gazing into our fridge looking for some comfort? Does Jesus care that we reach our ideal body weight?

Eating is a strangely paradoxical issue of course, for while we eat to live, unhealthy eating can shorten our lives. Common wisdom applies here: we live best when we practice moderation. And while this is understood for the most part, the issue becomes more interesting as we push deeper into the more complex issues of personal identity -- who we are versus what we appear to be. For in our culture at least, personal identity is often attached to body image.

Have you ever noticed how magazine covers (at least the one’s my wife reads) will often feature a diet program along with some sort of decadent desert recipe? This kind of strange juxtaposition makes me wonder whether the realities of over-eating and hyper-fitness are not merely two ends of the same issue. We seem quite empty on the one hand, and use food to fill an emotional and spiritual emptiness; and on the other hand we want to project an image of ourselves that appears ordered and together, typified by the fitness craze. Either way, I think, our spiritual confusion shows. So the intention this past Sunday was to drive down past the idea of healthy eating and fitness as a good (which obviously it is) and ask the deeper question: in what way do these things relate to the deeper core of who we are?

Gerald May has written one of the most insightful books about human nature that I know of, using the angle of addiction to expose the inner dynamics we all wrestle with. His book is called Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions. The truth about us, says May, is that our addictions actually reveal the incompleteness that exists within us, our personal insufficiency, and the hunger we have for life. Addictions are revealing of who and what we are. We attach ourselves to behaviors or ideas in the hope that such will solve the ache, heal the fear, bring us love. But these ways can never provide what they promise, because they never address our deepest soul. We become “lost”. But May says that despite the obvious problem of addictions: “[they do] not make us unacceptable in God’s eyes. Far from it; our incompleteness is the empty side of our longing for God and for love. It is what draws us toward God and one another.” I believe that this insight is one way to ask a better question. As to the tension between over-eating and hyper-fitness (addictions of different sorts), perhaps we should be asking this: just what is it that I am looking for? Who am I and what do I need?

As a Biblical touch-point, we considered how the central section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount addresses the issues of identity and performance. Although Jesus is speaking to different issues than ours (we are far more conscious of the over-weight/fitness idea than practically any other culture in history), he does speak to an enduring human struggle, especially the way we tend to go about manufacturing our identities, ignoring the real truth about ourselves. Why not take time to read Matthew chapter 6? Take note of the many ways Jesus addresses his audience on the question of appearance versus reality. You will find that he shines the spotlight on matters different from what they were used to, and by extension does the same for us. Perhaps, after all, the deeper issue on the weight/fitness question is really identity.

The gospel of Jesus proposes that since we are known to God in all of the various dimensions of our true being (the vast reality of ourselves that lies below the appearance), who we really are is the most important consideration. Body health is a practical question, but body image reaches more towards the spiritual.
The take-away from this discussion should simply be this: by all means, live healthily. Eat right and exercise. But as you work through this practical life issue, realize that the real you is loved by God no matter what image you project, or what emptiness you are trying to fill. And as you work to order your physical life, don’t forget the spiritual life and the question of identity.

This coming Sunday, we begin a series of messages on the vision of Westside King’s Church, a series we are call The Method in the Madness. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Inner Challenges

2009-02-05T15:40:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday our two-week series The Five Things You Cannot Change moved from external to internal challenges. The intent was to consider those aspects of our human inner struggle that are endemic to us all, and perhaps as well, need a fairer consideration in our present culture. We asked: “what is it about our inner nature that we cannot change?”

Let me name something we cannot see but constantly feel the effects of. This past Sunday we wrestled a little with the meaning of the word “sin”. What is sin? An archaic idea no longer worth talking about? Mistakes? Dysfunctions? Is sin simply bad behavior? (provide your list here) Just what are we talking about? While this is a very large subject, requiring a needful clearing of the ground, the idea is vitally important because of its enormous explanatory power. We intuitively know that there is something about us that we have a hard time changing. We know that we should be different than we are. But how do we explain this intuition?

Here is where we realize our need to consider a very powerful idea. And ideas have consequences. Get this idea wrong, and we find ourselves continually disconnected us from our deepest reality. Get this idea right and we are not only illuminated but liberated. So the question should be asked: what idea about us could move us towards life, health and more possibility? And this might surprise you, but acknowledging an important thing about us that we cannot change may actually save us.

Think about this: for a very long time, whole cities and cultures were subject to plagues because of their ignorance of microbiology. When people failed to understand the existence of microorganisms, they also failed to understand that their experience of life was vitally connected to the world they couldn’t see. What we experience (in the case of my example: death and disease) is vitally connected to what we cannot see (in this case: the world of microbiology). Ignorance does not usually serve us well.

That is why we really need to understand that sin is first and foremost a disconnection from God, the author of life. Sin is a condition, an infection, a broken state of the heart. Only secondarily does it reveal itself in behaviors, attitudes, systems etc. But the visible effects of sin, what we often think of as hatred, abuse, deceit, greed, and a myriad of other “uglies” are merely symptoms of what goes on inside us at the root level of our being. When we acknowledge this, we become candidates for grace.

Our culture doesn’t like the word sin, and perhaps that is because the word has had to carry too much excess baggage. But consider this: that the idea we have casually dismissed has the power to open us back to the deepest change. By acknowledging our helpless state, God does what only he can do, unlocking our truest humanity through his amazing grace. Consider these words:

It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. (Ephesians 2:1-10, The Message Bible)

This coming Sunday, we will offer a one-off message entitled Jesus and Your Fridge. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Mortality

2009-01-28T17:37:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday we began a two-week series entitled The Five Things You Cannot Change. After having spent recent weeks considering the pathway of change, and the possibility that real change is possible, we shifted towards those hard realities outside of ourselves, those aspects of life we realize are immovable.

How do we talk about things that cannot be changed, especially in a “can-do” culture like ours? Such a message would appear to be a non-starter, because so much of our cultural conversation is based on the idea that we can bring real solutions to the problems that face us. And we do solve many things, but not everything. In our more honest moments we have to admit that there are hard and unyielding limits to our human possibilities. The truth is that an unrealistic optimism can paradoxically rebound into the deepest kind of despair. But the Christian faith is able to point to hope while squarely facing the most unyielding of all impossibilities – even our own mortality.

Ernest Becker was a Canadian intellectual whose book The Denial of Death (1973) was published only two months after his death. It won a Pulitzer prize that year and is still considered a penetrating look at the psychology of our culture. The basic premise is that we tend to organize ourselves in ways that keep us from thinking too deeply about our mortality. We want to be part of something lasting, something that does not die. We search for a legacy that outlives us through our projects and causes. While Becker did not believe in God, he did not believe that science could solve our problem of meaning either. He only hoped that a more honest look at our limits would help us live more wisely.

As a Christian and believer in the God of all possibilities, there is something I can gain from the wisdom of Becker. While he did not point to hope beyond death, he was not so naive as to postulate a solution to our existence that was grounded merely in the span of our human years. I agree with Becker that the meaning of my existence somehow outlives the frame of my human years. But even more so, my Christian faith helps me to see that the biggest thing I cannot change – my mortality – is at the same time the opportunity for my biggest hope, the hope of resurrection. For in the light of the biggest thing that I cannot change, my largest hope rests.

This coming Sunday, we continue The Five Things You Cannot Change with a look at two inner qualities that remain constant for all of us. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Progress

2009-01-22T17:56:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday the via sacra (sacred road) series concluded. Over the previous two weekends, we have contemplated the pathway of real personal change through the lens of prayer and wise decision making. This past Sunday we considered the idea that change involves a progression that begins on a foundation of faith.

Chris suggested this useful image: when the thing that moves you is broken, you are faced with a choice: push the pedal (try harder) or pop the hood (understand what is broken). The Bible suggests that the only effort that matters is the effort that builds upon a truer view of how things really are. And the way we personally align ourselves with this truer view is through faith. Faith “sees”: it sees the person and character of God, it sees the life that Jesus models and gives to those who fully embrace him. Faith sees that while human effort matters, such effort must be built upon a proper sync with reality. The words which ordered our thoughts were taken from the apostle Peter’s second letter:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. [2 Peter 1:5-7]

The idea of a progressive view of personal change has several implications. First, that change is intimately connected to a view of reality. When we see ourselves as spiritual (not merely material) beings, made by and for God, then we will see how personal transformation must be realized through faith. Faith in the New Testament is simply trust in God, the personal realization that my choices and circumstances can be infused with his ability and help. Faith is ultimately a worldview issue, not a positive mental attitude. Faith is not personal confidence, but God confidence.

Second, a progressive view of personal change understands that we can and should add effort to our faith. This does not mean that grace allows us to “go it alone”. But on the platform of God’s grace, or in the sea of God’s grace, we work out what we have been given. We live and grow and build this life. Faith always embraces a paradox: it rests, even while it works; it trusts even while it tries; it receives, even while it is required to give out. Somehow, through faith, our efforts become more than merely our own.

Third, we learn to put boundaries around the life we are given. We learn to say no to things that hurt us or distract us, and we do this so that the bigger yes of our lives can thrive and be protected. We learn that we need not be pushed around by every agenda, nor corrupted by every cheap substitute. For there is an agenda and a reality that is becoming clearer to us as we walk this way of faith.

And finally, we persevere, or in the words of my old basketball coach, “we keep on keepin’ on”. There is an everyday-ness to this life of faith, a common and unspectacular way in which we progress in life, but with truly wonderful effect. We are becoming.

Purposeful change happens when we are aware of the elements and connections of life, when we have an ecological understanding of things. A plant grows not merely because it has good soil, but because of sunshine and moisture and freedom from disease and pests. Growth is the result of multiple factors working together at the same time. We should see the same conditions for our human transformation: we grow by grace, and relationship, and true ideas, and a myriad of other helping factors. The difference for human transformation is that this doesn’t happen to us without us; we are personally and actively involved in the outcomes. In some mysterious way, we choose to grow while at the same time dependent on gracious conditions which enable our growth and for which we have no real control. For the statement which preceded our text earlier is that God “has given us everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). And we connect to all of these graces through faith.

This coming Sunday, we continue our discussions on the possibilities of change with a two-part series entitled Five Things You Can’t Not Know. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

A Way to Live

2009-01-14T17:29:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday the via sacra (sacred road) series continued with a message entitled “Saying Yes and Saying No”, a meditation on the spiritual path of change. The text which ordered our thoughts was from Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae:

You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. [Colossians 2:20-23]

These words are part of a longer discussion on what constitutes the nature of the Christian gospel. Paul is addressing the commonly understood idea that change comes by way of saying no to what harms us, a usual reference point for religion. We often think that religion serves us by first describing a way to live and then guards that way with a list of forbidden things. We might think of the ten commands of Moses with it’s “do not...” language. And while Moses list is ultimately life-affirming (we are not served well by lying and murdering), what tends to stand in our consciousness is the formula itself, the language of forbiddance. This may be the thing Paul is trying to correct, a sub-par view of what our faith is about, a cheap and infantile form of religion that exists by what it doesn’t do. Of course, in the narrative flow of how these commands come to us, it is important to see how God’s covenant people needed these commands as a way to protect the life given to them; these were rules to protect the relationship that had already been formed. The rules were not there to make the relationship but to protect it.

But let us step back for a moment. The French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.” Pascal was commenting on human nature, that we do what we want. We follow our desires, and it is our desires that tend to determine our actions. Even those things we would say we don’t really enjoy doing – our work, our disciplines – we do for the outcomes that we hope to gain. So we do what we want. But what if what we want is not good for us? What if our very desires are corrupted? This is the point where we come into a more correct focus of what the Christian gospel offers us. The gospel is a clarification of our deepest wants, a discovery of the truest and deepest joys, a celebration of life itself. The gospel is our entrance into the life we always knew we wanted but never quite knew how to describe. “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

John Piper is the author who coined the term “Christian hedonism” for this generation of Jesus followers. It is his contention that joy, and all things that maximize joy, is the sustaining and transformative secret of the Christian life. In other words, we are changed by journeying towards those things epitomize real and true life, and not merely by avoiding those things which hurt us. While commands are useful, they are not life itself, and Jesus calls us into life.

Saying yes to the bigger things must come first and be firmly planted in our orientation before we are able to say no. Whatever we learn to say no to (and plainly we must) is only made possible by the bigger yes of living, the joy and peace and love we want – and find – in Jesus. The gospel teaches us this vital lesson, that without a bigger yes, any list of forbidding “no’s” is bound to crumble under the weight of our desire to live.

Our via sacra series continues this Sunday with a message entitled “Household Economics”. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Via Sacra

2009-01-08T17:22:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday we launched into the New Year with a series entitled via sacra (sacred road). To begin our series, and our annual days of prayer, we took time to consider how the psalms teach us to pray.

When we think of prayer, we think most commonly of an exercise in words. But in what way are the words of our prayers to function? Last week, we considered three different “languages” that we speak.

The first is the language of intimacy. Even before we are able to articulate our first words, we communicate a lot about ourselves. There are squeals of delight, the cries of anguish, and the happy sounds of contentment; all of this is rather an unfiltered and immediate revelation of our souls. In the language of intimacy we are being a real person, exposing what is in us. Intimacy is the language of children and lovers, and pray-ers.

We grow into the language of information. Every thing is named, every idea has a corresponding word. Our developing language categorizes and explains the world and helps us connect to the reality that is there. Information is the language of facts, education, and our day-to-day business. It is vital to be sure – but, to speak only this language may not reveal the real person who speaks. Is this prayer, informing God of what he doesn’t know?

And then there is the language of motivation. As we develop language we discover not only what to say but how to say it; we find that the way words are put together matter, that we can shape outcomes by the tone, force, and inflection of our words. So we learn to use language to get what we want, to motivate and to sell, to manipulate and to intimidate. We find that language is a force. Is this prayer? Trying to motivate God?

The language of the Psalm belongs to the first category of language – intimacy – and that is why we tend to pray as poorly as we do. Our most practiced languages are information and motivation. We often resort to informing God as if he simply did not know what was going on, or motivating God as if he were reluctant. But what we find in the psalms is the language of intimacy, of deep personal-ness. And staying with these psalms over time, paying attention to the way they function, their tone of voice, their intimate way of addressing God, trains us again to speak in the language of intimacy. We learn to be children again, not childish, but dependent and open, wondering and receptive. We learn to be lovers of God.

Our via sacra series continues this Sunday with a message entitled “Saying Yes and Saying No”. We hope that you can join us at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T14:21:00.001-05:00

This Sunday we launch into the new year with a series entitled via sacra (sacred road), a series focused on the wisdom of ancient and common Christian spirituality. We are not looking for something new, but things both old and true. Our theme this weekend is The Psalms as the School of Prayer.

For some years now, the Westside community has made it a tradition to begin each new year with days set aside for prayer. This is a shared and sacred time, an intentional break from the busyness of life, days purposed for quietness and space to be with God. During these days, we desire to listen to what God says, and answer back from our truest selves. We do this because we believe that prayer is both basic and necessary to the life of faith.

Every year we construct a prayer walk. This year we have themed our prayer walk to follow this weekend’s message, learning to pray in the way the psalms teach us.

We invite your participation. Our prayer walk will be available all day this coming Monday and Tuesday, from 9 am to 9 pm. You are welcome to come at anytime, follow the prayer walk at your own pace, and record your experience in the guidebook prepared for you. As well, your may wish to attend the specially focused sessions at 10:10 am and 7:07 pm on those days.

Consider this prayer from Psalm 116:

I love the LORD because he hears my voice
and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath!
Death wrapped its ropes around me;
the terrors of the grave overtook me.
I saw only trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
“Please, LORD, save me!”
How kind the LORD is! How good he is!
So merciful, this God of ours!
The LORD protects those of childlike faith;
I was facing death, and he saved me.
Let my soul be at rest again,
for the LORD has been good to me.
He has saved me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
And so I walk in the LORD’s presence
as I live here on earth!

Bob

The Story

2008-12-24T21:45:00.002-05:00

This is Christmas Eve. For the past weeks we have been rehearsing the whole life of Jesus in a series we called The Story. And now to experience it directly, here is perhaps the most famous telling of all, from Luke’s gospel, chapter 2, versus 1-20, from The Message Bible:

About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.
While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.
There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God's angel stood among them and God's glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you're to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger."
At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God's praises:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. "Let's get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us." They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.
Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!

His Childhood

2008-12-18T14:18:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday marked the third Sunday of Advent and the second message in our Christmas series we have called The Story. This is our attempt to consider the meaning of what is called the incarnation, God’s coming to us in the human life of Jesus. This past Sunday we considered Jesus as The Boy, and took time to reflect on his life between his birth and his full adult manhood, what are often called the silent years of Jesus.

If we consider the Jesus story as a whole, we realize that most of it is hidden from us. Most of what we might like to know about him, even purely for interest sake, is not told us. For instance, we are not told what he looked like. There is, in art history, a kind of common representation of him. But the only thing said in all of Scripture is from Isaiah 53:2, a text which anticipates the coming of the Messiah. It merely says: “There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.” The fact that the gospel writers did not give us a physical description of Jesus might mean that, for them, the way he looked did not in any sense adequately represent the person he really was. That’s something to muse on.

We have only one story about him during these long silent years. The boy Jesus, age twelve, travels to Jerusalem with his family for the Jewish Passover. He surprises his parents by remaining behind, staying in the temple, listening to the teachers of Israel and asking questions. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” he asked them. It was clear that he knew who he was and what his life was about, even at that young age. You can read the story in Luke 2: 41-52. But following this he submitted himself to eighteen more years of silence and ordinariness. We hear nothing from the Son of God until his baptism by John. What can this mean to us?

Whatever these years of silence meant, it was his mother, Mary, who revealed the way. Mary was a contemplative, treasuring all that was happening. Mothers do this; they remember our lives. Mary remembered and saved all the pieces of the story, and then thought about what everything meant. It is very likely that our record of the birth narratives in Luke’s gospel came through Mary’s memory.

The word contemplate is derived from “temple” (the place of divinity); it means to observe things in a special place, especially in the presence of God. To be contemplative means to look at life in the presence of God, or through the eyes of God. It means to pay attention with a God-focused awareness. This is surely the meaning of the hidden years of Jesus. Before he did or said anything public, before his entrance onto the stage of ministry and public teaching, he spent those eighteen long years learning and growing in his knowledge of his Father, the world, and the shape of his mission. Before he acted, he contemplated the meaning of what he would do.

At Christmas, we are drawn to the gospel truth that God became one of us, and one with us. But consider this: that for the larger part of his life, Jesus lived in obscurity and made it sacred. We do not see the hidden life of anyone – just the results. But the life of Jesus reminds us that a hidden life oriented towards God is all-important.

Our Christmas series, The Story, continues this Sunday at Westside King’s Church with a talk entitled “The Man”. See you among the Christmas trees at 9:29 or 11:11 am. And remember that our Christmas Eve services will be held at 3:00, 4:30 and 7:00 pm.

Bob O

A Christmas Thought

2008-12-10T16:36:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday marked the second Sunday of Advent. Christmas trees now line our West Hall (Westside King’s Church primary gathering space) and “jingle bells” were actually rung Sunday morning by the smallest ones in our community. For lovers of sentiment and tradition, this is the best of seasons, and I have to admit that I am one of those people. For me, Christmas represents the simplest of human joys, the way we can make meaning by gathering with those we love, clearing time and space to celebrate life. Of course we know that this season carries only the barest connection to the Biblical story which precipitated it. But I like to think of Christmas as something of a cultural achievement: to take the darkest and coldest time of the year (as we experience it in the northern hemisphere) and find a way to focus our attention on the hope of joy and peace is a good in itself. So cheers! And drink the eggnog.

But if I could break away from the festivity for just for a moment – I promise not for long – I would like to consider the animating center of Christmas. In other words, what’s the big idea?

Our text on Sunday was from John’s gospel, chapter 1, which includes these words:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[John 1:1-5, 14]

This is highly symbolic and poetic language, of course, and it needs to be said that it carries a rich literary background in both Greek philosophy and the Hebrew scriptural tradition. For the Greeks, the logos (translated “word” in this text, but also the root of our “logic”) was the principle of meaning in everything that existed. If someone were to ask why things were meaningful and not absurdly chaotic, the answer would be because there is a logos, a word or reason in the universe. For them, life could have no other explanation. The Greeks would have affirmed that purpose is inherently built in to the universe.

What John does in these opening words to his gospel is unite this classic Greek concept of logos with the biblical language of creation: in the beginning was the logos... through him all things were made. He ties the principle into the Biblical story, and then makes it personal – order and meaning are centered in a person. The logos idea of the Greeks and the creation story of the Hebrews are now met in the story of Jesus. And he is the one from God, who was with God in the beginning, and who is God. We cannot understand the story of Jesus, which John is about to tell, if we miss this. The logos (the meaning and reason of everything) is a person, and that person defines who God is.

The power of these words from John is that, in Jesus, we find a unifying point for the whole human search for meaning. Everything is summed up and focused in him, the logic of the universe, the creator who has made his home with us. To finish my thoughts with a sentimental flourish (I am allowed at this time of year), I want to remind you how the classic carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem says it:

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Our Christmas series, The Story, continues this Sunday at Westside King’s Church with a talk entitled “The Boy”. See you among the Christmas trees at 9:29 or 11:11 am.

Bob

Comfort

2008-12-04T14:40:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday marked the first Sunday of Advent. According to the Christian calendar, we have now moved from ordinary time into holy time. This is a season for heightened spiritual sensitivity, for community, for worship and wonder.

Advent means coming, and in this season we prepare our hearts for the spiritual meaning of God’s coming to us, an event that has already happened in history through the life of Jesus, God in a human body. This coming also remains our future hope, for the second meaning of Advent is our hope in the way God will come to us in the culmination of human history. The story we are part of is a hopeful one.

The truth about Advent is that it is a mixture of glory and suffering. There are those moments when we hope we can see things above and beyond us (angel choirs and heavenly stars), what we might call the wonder of this season. But there are also those moments when we realize the stark incompleteness of our lives, and this despite the amazing gift of God in Jesus. Read the Christmas stories as they are presented in the gospels of Matthew and Luke and see if you can pick out these two seemingly contradictory story lines.

In Luke’s gospel (chapters 1-2), the birth story of Jesus is surrounded by human stories of waiting and fulfillment. Elizabeth and Zechariah (1:5-25) are now granted a child after years of waiting. And the twin stories of Simeon and Anna (2:25-38) show how the deepest heart’s desire can be met, though the wait is long . This thread of “the long wait fulfilled” is woven throughout the way Luke tells the Christmas story.

But the Matthew story is somewhat more complicated. For even though the fulfillment motif is also very prominent, the story ends with the holy family having to flee Herod’s wrath and hide for a time in Egypt. In Mathew’s rendition of the story we see how advent is a “now but not yet” reality: while it is true that the long-promised king has been born, it is also true (for a season) that the evil king continues to rule. Fullness (whatever that means) still awaits a future day. Christmas, the first coming, brings to us what we are waiting for (God’s promised king and kingdom), and yet asks us to live in suspension before God brings these things to completion.

This past weekend at Westside King’s Church we sought to address this “other side of Christmas” by noticing and naming some of the issues that make Christmas less than all we hope for. Loneliness, family dysfunction, and loss were three of the ways we chose to address the struggles of our community. We called this special focus a “comfort service”, and if you participated you will know the emotions that were evoked. But these things, these heartbreaks and losses, are also part of Christmas, the reminder that while God has come to us, there is still more we wait for.

This past week I discovered a Jewish prayer which contains a lot of wisdom I think. It is both hopeful and realistic, and does not diminish the struggle we have in waiting: “O Lord, we know you will help us; but will you help us before you help us?” I think that prayer says a lot. May the joys and comfort of Christmas be yours as we wait for God to complete the story.

Bob-O

Continue

2008-11-27T11:31:00.001-05:00

This past Sunday we wrapped up The Rumor series. We hope that our take of the gospel through Paul’s Ephesian letter has been of help to you. We close the series with a consideration of how we might let these ideas live forward. And that is the key, isn’t it? The talk on Sunday was entitled “Continue”, and it was based on Ephesians 6.

At the heart of Paul’s closing statements are these words:

Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armour of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News... hold up the shield of faith... put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (v. 14-17)

Paul creates a visual image that can be of real use for us. But before we consider its meaning, we should simply remind ourselves that the gospel is not an end point but a beginning, a beginning which calls us to become more than we are. The gospel is a call to grow up (Eph. 4:15), a power in which to realize our possibilities and potential (1:19-20). And, because of Jesus, everything has been put in place for this to happen. To use an agricultural metaphor, the soil is good, there are plenty of nutrients to draw on, there is a sun to reach toward, and deep down moisture to send our roots after. Everything is there for us to grow. To shift the metaphor to an educational one, there is a library of books ready to be read. Or to shift the metaphor once more, there is a place cleared for us to build and all the materials we need to make a beautiful house. Whatever your favourite metaphor, the gospel “has provided all we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).

But the metaphor Paul actually does choose is a military one. Unlike other worthy metaphors, the image of the armour recognizes that this life we are given is a life that meets opposition, even hostility. The image of the armour recognizes that this life we are given needs to be protected.

Paul’s Ephesian letter was written from prison. Some imagine Paul sitting in his jail, meditating on the spiritual life, and looking at the guard attending him; he thinks about how all the pieces of armour fit together, what their function is, and how appropriate armour is to the preservation of spiritual life.

So we could take Paul’s image this way: there are crucial and life-vital aspects of our being that we must protect. Among these are the protection of connecting to the really real (belt of truth), the protection of personal integrity (breastplate of righteousness), the protection of peaceful intention (shoes of gospel peace), the protection of believing in what we cannot see (shield of faith), the protection of a mind focused on God’s purposes (helmet of salvation), and the only weapon we have, the gift of words and ideas that originate in God himself (sword of truth). Such is the armour that allows us to continue.

Although I believe that the New Testament ethic is thoroughly non-violent, the realism of Biblical faith does not view spiritual life as an achievement without struggle. We should not be naive about this. So Paul tells us that truth, faith, peaceful intention, personal integrity, and worthy words, are ways we protect the life that is given to us. And although this life is robust – very robust – we understand that this gospel life we are given is to be protected as we move towards the completion of our spiritual journey.

This coming Sunday we begin our journey towards Christmas. Join us at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Bob Osborne

Re-Order

2008-11-20T12:58:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday our talk at Westside was entitled “Re-order”, the fifth installment in “The Rumour” series. So far we have heard the whisper of significance (Eph 1), seen a glimpse of how the good news of Jesus might translate into a different world (Eph 2), heard the invitation to personally touch what is beyond us (Eph 3), and were encouraged to decide on a way to meaningfully connect to all of this (Eph 4).

Where to next? In an extended passage from Ephesians 4:17 through 6:9, Paul begins to work out (or walk out) the implications of the Jesus story for our ethical and social lives, that is, the implications of the Jesus story for how we live, what we do, how we relate, and the rest of our practical lives.

One of the ways we could think about how Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is constructed is to see it as theology, followed by ethics, or as the big ideas followed by the practical ideas. It is important for us to see how big ideas and practical ideas are intimately related to each other, and how practice is always built on theory. Get the first part wrong (the theory or theology) and you will surely get the second part wrong (the practice or ethic). Paul uses the common image of walking for the ethical life. As we heard this past week, walking suggests that ethical life is not life built in one large or defining moment, but life built through many small and ordinary steps.

Most of us would know ethics as the consideration of right behaviour. They are the large and obvious ethical markers: speaking truthfully (not lying, 4:25), working and not stealing (4:28), sexual propriety (5:3ff). But there are also the smaller, less obvious ethical markers that can carry a very large impact. I would like us to consider the ethics of how we talk.

Consider how important language is to our ethical lives. A quick survey of this passage will show how words are basic to the well-lived life. “Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.” (4:29) “Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, those who follow Jesus have better uses for language than that. Don't talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn't fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.” ( 5:4) Paul continually engages the idea of ethical speech in all of his writings.

Find this difficult? Then bring these two things together: talking and breathing. In 5:18, Paul tells us to resist the degraded life by being filled up with the Spirit, that is, with God himself. We are to breathe in God’s breath (Spirit) so that we can speak out grace (v.19). We have no power to speak gracious words if our lungs are not filled with the power of grace, with God himself.

This is a strong reminder that the ethical life is rooted in and expressed through our ordinary talk. And the life of following Jesus will be evidenced in the transformation of how we conduct ourselves in the most ordinary of human ways, our conversation.

Writing to the Colossian Christians, Paul makes a statement that sums up this point well. He says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt...” (Col 4:6). The word translated “conversation” is logos, which carries rich meaning beyond the idea of simple speech. An educated or aware person in that time would have recognized that logos, commonly understood as “word”, also meant the organizing principle of things, the core logic of life and reality. It seems that the ancients had a greater appreciation for how ethics were related to speech than we do.

So try it this week: monitor your words. And realize that the Spirit of God in us is to be exhaled in gracious and meaningful speech, the center of our ethical life.

This coming Sunday we complete The Rumour series with “Continue”, our take on Ephesians 6. Join us at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Bob-O

Decide

2008-11-13T16:26:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday our talk at Westside was entitled “Decide”, the fourth instalment in “The Rumour” series. Let’s remind ourselves where we have been: Ephesians 1 showed us that our significance begins in God’s good purposes for us (“Whisper”), while Ephesians 2 showed how this purpose took root in the historical events of Jesus and his church (“Glimpse”). Then, in Ephesians 3, we considered the invitation to personally experience all of this (“Touch”).

Now, in Ephesians 4, we are called to move past personal experience and to decide on a way of life that meaningfully connects to the story we are part of. There are three words I would like to highlight: walk, one, mature.

First, what it means to “walk”. Paul begins the second half of this letter by encouraging his listeners to “walk worthy” (4:1). In other words, this is a moment to decide. We could paraphrase Paul this way: don’t live disconnected from the largest of realities (God and purpose), but walk out your life as if you are connected to what is really going on.

A very large value of Westside King’s Church is the desire to push past the cliché assumptions that usually prescribe Christian faith, and to try and hear this good news again, as if for the first time. We try to do this because we admit that a cultural-experiential gap exists from 2000 years of institutional Christianity. We try to do this because we want to recast Christianity as a way of life, a “walk”. To call Jesus “the way” (as he did of himself), is to mean that he is – among other things – the model of the connected life. Paul is reminding us of this.

Second, the idea of “one”. While it is obviously true that this Jesus-way-of-life has many faces, many ways it dresses itself up, many perspectives, instead of accentuating the differences, Paul wants to remind us that we are defined by the perspective of “one”. Some have called this the “logic of monotheism”, that if there is only one God, than all of the human searching and striving can only be directed to one possible resolution. Paul says it this way: “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all.” (v.5-6) Again, will simply have to decide what this one represents: does it represent the narrowest slice of Christian faith (those people who think just like me), or does it represent the largest of groupings possible (all those who orient themselves towards Jesus and put their trust in him)? The best answer is the later.

And finally, what it means to “mature”. A common Biblical motif is the idea that serving is important to the process of maturation. We become by being served (to be sure) but we become more by serving others. In this one faith we belong to, the process of maturation requires us to notice the obvious differences we have, but the obvious ways we compliment each other as well. Consider how it is you can make a difference for others, and how it is that others make a difference to you. Then move forward, believing that God is working all this out. Decide to be part of the largest reality there can be. Live connected to it.

This coming Sunday our talk will be called “Re-order”, our take on Ephesians 5. Join us at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Bob-O

Touch

2008-11-05T18:10:00.004-05:00

Last Sunday our talk at Westside was entitled “Touch”, the third instalment in “The Rumour” series. What began in the eternal mind of God (Ephesians 1, “Whisper”), took root in the historical and tangible events of Jesus and his church (Ephesians 3, “Glimpse”), is now open for us to enter as our way of life and experience (“Touch”). To touch something is to personally experience it for oneself. Let’s consider how Ephesians 3 invites us to do that.

Paul is actually beginning to pray in v. 1, when he decides that he needs to fill in a few more details for his readers. In other words, vs. 2-13 is actually a digression. And, as most of us have come to experience, digressions can be wonderfully illuminating. And so, before Paul prays, he wants his audience to know what they are praying for, and with what hope they can pray.

Paul points out that the gospel has brought together that which was formerly separated, that there is a healing in the world begun through Jesus. Now, says Paul, two groups of people hopelessly at odds with each other – Jews and Gentiles – are now “heirs together”, “members together”, and “sharers together”. And this is a sign that the whole of the cosmos has begun to heal. The first place this takes root is within the community of Jesus (however imperfect). It is Paul’s calling to make this message plain to everyone (v.9), with the hope that as they gain understanding they will also move closer to God.

I sometimes think that greatest enemy of prayer is the smallness of our understanding. Or, to put it differently, when we know little we pray little. One way to understand prayer is that it is our reflex response to a greater understanding of God. So, what could happen if we were given more insight into the mystery of life? What if we got an inside peak on God’s plans? Would we be inspired to pray? That is what this text is seeking to do.

In v. 14, then, Paul actually does get to his prayer. And what is the prayer about? Simply that each one would know for themselves this faith and hope, that each one would touch it for themselves. He says, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:17c-19)

Here is an idea: for the next few days, try carrying this prayer with you and rehearsing quietly in the different places you find yourself. See if you are able to touch something that you never touched before. See if this prayer doesn’t bring you further into this wonderful mystery that is “Christ for us”.

This Sunday our talk will be called “Decide”, our take on Ephesians 4. Join us at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Bob-O

Glimpse

2008-10-30T20:02:00.003-04:00

Last Sunday our talk at Westside was entitled “Glimpse”, the second instalment in “The Rumour” series. This brief devotion will help you follow up on what was said and hopefully begin to show the logic of how the various pieces fit together. We invite you to read Ephesians 2, the Scripture text upon which the talk was based. And even more, we invite you to think about how this ancient text – when read with an engaged mind – can really transform the way we think about life.

What began in the eternal mind of God (Ephesians 1), now takes root in two very historical and tangible events: the event of Jesus (2:1-10) and the event of the community which forms in his name (2:11-22). Our text speaks of how each of these events contain within them both personal and communal meanings to consider.

What does the Jesus event mean for us as individual persons (2:1-10)? The defining idea here is that the promise of human significance is dependent on Jesus, specifically his death and resurrection. We could say that, in Jesus (in all that he is and all that he does), humanity is embraced by God, and that because of him, we move from alienation and estrangement towards meaning and life. Famously Paul said that the best way to see this is that “we are God’s work” (literally, his beautiful work, his poem). Jesus is the one who recaptures our significance and wins it back for us.

In light of these things, what is the meaning of the community formed in his name (2:11-22)? While the church has an admittedly checkered history, it is helpful for us to see that there are radical possibilities for human social life which naturally extend from the Jesus event. If we work from the idea that “Jesus himself is our peace”, it begins to dawn on us that the lines that have been drawn between groups of people are able to be transcended. In the gospel there emerges the beginning of a new kind of humanity. That is a startling idea. Paul says that the people who form their social life around the person of Jesus, actually grow into a place where God lives.

This Sunday brings the third installment in our series, a talk we are calling “Touch”, our take on Ephesians 3.

Join us at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Bob-O

Two for One and Outsourcing Significance

2008-10-23T13:18:00.003-04:00

When something stops changing, it stops living. I’ve asked our Director of Spiritual Formation, Bob Osborne to add a voice to this email devotional. He is one of the best leaders, thinkers and conversationalists I know and I’m really excited about the richness and depth he’ll add. Let me give you a few thoughts about it before you plunge into what he’s put together for this week.

When it comes to almost anything, there is a part that ‘hits you’ off the top and comes for free. You could call that ‘understanding at the surface’. The decision to move past that level of understanding when it comes to the way of Jesus is one of the great adventures of your life.

I chose the word ‘adventure’ carefully, because that’s exactly what it’s meant to be. The absence of true adventure is at the heart of almost every distraction or destructive appetite. Every high-stakes thrill we ever see in a movie is an echo of the real adventure we were made for. Not so much hanging by a partly severed rope out the back of a train taken over by terrorists while bullets fly… But the soul-rocking thrill of playing some small part in another person’s ‘shift in destiny’.

I hope this isn’t trite, but let me take it further. Indiana Jones gives us a wide-screen hint at ‘overseas adventure’. You can step into the real-world version by joining one of our missions teams. Hear me on this, the adventure is not the same – only related. I’d also argue that the challenge of ‘meaning making’ and ‘purpose building’ is a much greater thrill than chasing bad guys in a run away jeep in some foreign destination.

Do you like political thrillers and edge-of-your seat leadership challenges? There are several groups of leaders at Westside or your local church that are pushing themselves to come up with some ‘unanticipated way’ of combining passion and resources and innovation to shift history (or at least shift the history of the organization or the department they are leading – or the personal history they find themselves moving through).

Has the idea of battle always drawn you? There are great opportunities to apply strategy and tactic to the ongoing struggle for attention span and the opportunity for influence. I often challenge our production team that our Sunday presentations are not a matter of ‘filling in the blanks’ each week. Instead, it’s a wide open opportunity to do anything short of committing sin or breaking laws as part of an attempt to surprise people with the life of Christ. For those 75 minutes every Sunday and at other times through the week, we battle against ‘every other thing’ Canadians could be doing and attempt to create a point of consideration about the way of Jesus in some unexpected way.
There are times when friends or acquaintances talk about my career as though it is a ‘sacrifice’ I move through daily. It isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s a daily opportunity to lean into the adventure of creating impact and surprising myself. Deep in the winter of 1991 while at University one Thursday night, I made a choice to follow the thrill of trying to ‘make meaning’ and ‘pursue purpose’. That choice has led to a photo album full of unexpected relationships and opportunities. Trust me – I traded up when I made that choice.

All of that lies behind the decision to ‘go deeper’ when it comes to the ‘way of Jesus’. It’s never about knowledge for the sake of knowledge or just ‘great ideas’. The thoughts and ideas presented here are intended to be the very deep framework onto which you can bolt the beginnings of your own adventure. We may not use the word ‘adventure’ often and we may not be describing ‘scenario’s’ and ‘steps’ that are only 1 or 2 steps removed. This is about an invitation to the deepest parts of where that process begins – with who Jesus is, and how He views the world and what He has to say to us. The adventure is something you must uncover as you ‘think with His mind’. Bob and I are going to work together to make this journal a digital companion to the Sunday teaching and an opportunity to do just that.

As always, we are open to your thoughts and feedback.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Outsourcing Significance

Last Sunday we were introduced to our new series “The Rumour” (spelled the Canadian way), a retelling of the gospel through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This brief devotion will help you follow up on what was said. We invite you to read Ephesians 1, the Scripture text upon which the talk was based, and to do so in a translation that is comfortable for you.

Consider this thought: while Paul usually begins his letters with a point of thanksgiving (see Philippians 1:3 for example), in this letter Paul doesn’t give thanks until v. 15. Instead, right out of the gate, Paul seems to explode with the most exuberant language about what God has done and is doing for us. It is the language of praise and blessing, the language of worship, focusing on what God has purposed quite apart from any of us.

Which perhaps means this: that our truest identity is something we receive and not something we create for ourselves. Paul begins his letter where the most important things about us are really sourced – in God’s purpose for us. We had no hand in this reality. We simply wake up to this reality, to the God-blessed world that we are born into, to the goodness of God that comes before us and remains long after us, to the blessing that we are immersed in and surrounded with. And we realize that there is not one thing we have done to make this so. We could say it another way: before the mass of human troubles, before our own troubles, there was original blessing, and this creates the great hope of return.

Sunday’s talk was about the concept of significance, a vital aspect of Ephesians 1. The scriptures affirm our significance because of God’s choice of us; significance is not ours to achieve but ours to receive. As you read the text for yourself, look for statements of meaning and purpose. Then ask yourself the biggest question there can be: what does all of this mean?

This Sunday brings the second installment in our series, a talk we are calling “Glimpse”, our take on Ephesians 2.

Join us for coffee at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Bob

Living in Beta

2008-10-09T11:30:00.003-04:00

Live in perpetual beta. It’s an idea derived from the same term used by William Taylor and Polly LaBarre in their book Mavericks at Work, and I think it’s a great approach to life in general. Live in perpetual beta. ‘Beta’ is the term used by software companies when one of their programs is in the ‘testing and adapting’ phase. They’ll often make the software available in a kind of ‘limited release’ so it can be used by thousands of people. Feedback and user results are incorporated in the final stages as a product is ‘tweaked’ for delivery. Beta.

‘Sticky thinking’ is a term we could use for feeling like you’re done or ‘finished’. While it can bring us a great sense of relief (feeling like you’re done), it also puts us in a low energy (and low opportunity) mode. After all, in that kind of setting our daily goal is to simply ‘be’ what we already ‘are’: finished. That’s not really the kind of thinking that springs us forward into great passion.

“…Why worry about a speck in the eye of a brother” Jesus said (rather famously) in Matthew 7:3, “when you have a board in your own?” That question seems to carry the same kind of challenge because it seems as though Jesus is hinting that something about the way we see makes ‘specks’ look like ‘planks’ when we’re looking at someone else’s life, and ‘planks’ look like ‘specks’ when we’re looking at our own. So at the end of the day, perhaps the best advice is to live as though we are in perpetual beta.

This Sunday is the final installment in our series, “Unwritten”. Join us for coffee at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great Thanksgiving,

Chris

Feeling the Weather and a Guided Mind

2008-10-01T18:21:00.003-04:00

Here’s a risk: I’m about to describe something I think I’m good at. The risk is that it just doesn’t sound good to do that kind of thing. Maybe the reason it’s worth taking will make itself clear.

Two summers working as a professional canoe guide have left me with a ‘sensitivity’ to changes in the weather. It’s what living outside for prolonged periods of time will do. You gain this sensitivity not just because of the more pronounced consequences (thunder and rain aren’t just ‘atmospheric factoids’ – they are the difference between comfort and danger, and that distance is often travelled in a few minutes or less). You also gain this sensitivity because you just have more opportunity to experience the subtle cues (like a shift in the wind direction or a change in cloud patterns).

The reason all of this came to mind this morning has to do with guidance. It’s something we’re all interested in, whether we’re looking for it in our conversations with trusted friends and mentors, or if we’re looking for it ‘from above’. It’s something we all want to position ourselves ‘to receive’; and we focus almost exclusively on how guidance is sent to us. So when we pray for that kind of thing, we are almost always expressing some version of ‘turn the volume up’. But what about building up our own ability to receive it? Just like you can build a sensitivity to what’s going on in the atmosphere – and learn to read a bunch of subtle cues that are lost on everyone else – could we build an ‘easily guided mind’?

Sailboats lift a great, white ‘wing’ that give them a sensitivity to the wind and the ability to be moved by it. An antenna gives sensitivity to radio waves that can’t be seen. This is all about a ‘triggered awareness’ – we make choices that make changes and those changes allow us to be moved in some new way. I have a couple of friends that ‘triggered’ my awareness to the world of visual and graphic art (something I’m deeply grateful for). How could you and I build an easily guided mind?

I would suspect it has something to do with learning to be more physically present, outward and open. My own ‘weather sensitivity’ came from being immersed in the outside world for extended periods of time. I had to ‘be there’ long enough to experience the subtle shifts over and over again. What sensitivities could be gained by immersing ourselves in other kinds of life-environments like prayer and study, or great conversation, or reflection and introspection? Our Director of Spiritual Formation, Bob Osborne, has created just such an atmosphere on Wednesday nights at 7:07 pm dubbed ‘Suburban Monastery’. If something like that isn’t an option for you, why not look at how you can build some of your personal space to do the same kind of thing?

Join us on Sunday if you can or tune into the podcast through the week. If you’re a part of our digital congregation and are looking for ways to turn this into a more active connection – then let us know who you are (info@wkc.org). Perhaps you have a skill you could volunteer from time to time, or you just want to be connected in some way.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

What Does Help Feel Like?

2008-09-26T01:14:00.001-04:00

I’m hoping you’ll let me write this a bit differently. Arthur C. Clark said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That’s just one way of saying we wouldn’t understand that technology, and so we’d simply just call it love. You can shift that thought a bit and use it to consider the same kind of thing when it comes to love. A significantly advanced love (as in the kind of love that comes from someone who’s perspective is much larger than ours) would be hard to understand to. It might not feel like magic, but I’m sure, at times, it could feel a bit ‘rough’ or at least hard to understand.

So all of that made me wonder: what does help feel like? What does help feel like when you are reaching toward second best and don’t know it? What does help feel like when someone wants to help us become the best version of ourselves? What does help feel like when we don’t see the end from the beginning? Lots to consider.

There is a difference between the kind of nice that ‘feels nice’ and the kind of nice that ‘ends nice’. There is also an arguably larger difference between the kind of kindness that gives us what we want, and the kind of kindness that gives us what we don’t even know to ask for. You could call it a ‘complicated kindness’, and that’s what led me to the question I used for a title.

What does help feel like?

So many people view the question of God through a tangled heap of unexamined expectations. We think we will know God by feel. We think we will know God by the kinds of things we think a God would say or do or give or be. But I have a suspicion it wouldn’t always feel like we expect. It’s something to consider.

I’d like to dig into this a bit more on Sunday as we explore “Unwritten Answers”. If you can’t join us on Sunday, tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

"The Hard Stuff"

2008-09-18T17:11:00.003-04:00

We can’t metabolize cellulose. And that’s too bad, really, because it’s the structural component of plants and that makes it the most common organic compound on earth. We’d have a hard time starving in the woods if it wasn’t for that little ‘detail’. All we’d have to do is munch cedar boughs until someone found us. But as it stands that would do little more than put a bitter taste in your mouth while those bits of foliage ‘passed right through’ without giving you a single calorie’s worth of energy.

Cellulose is the hard stuff. If only we could find a way to metabolize it.

‘Metabolize’ is our word for the process by which our bodies turn food into energy. We eat something, it gets broken down and then we turn it into energy. It’s also a great word to help us visualize a process at work when it comes to the stuff we hear. You receive a group of words that were directed at you, then we ‘break it down’ in our minds as we search for the meaning(s). Then it either becomes a certain kind of ‘energy’ or we turn it into some form of energy ourselves.

As an example – if we receive a compliment, we can break it down and turn it into positive reinforcement. It becomes ‘energy to move forward’ or at least feel positive for a while. But a criticism is harder – and that’s what this post is about.

“If you refuse criticism” it says in Proverbs 13:19, “[The] you will end in poverty and disgrace; [but] if you accept criticism, you are on the road to fame”. Think about that. Criticism is the hard stuff. Finding a way to ‘metabolize’ it could open you up to a whole new source for growth and ‘energy’ and forward movement. If we could learn to ‘metabolize’ cellulose, then there would be almost nothing we couldn’t ‘eat’ in the forest and have it become energy or life. You could say a similar thing when it comes to how we ‘experience’ criticism. If we learn how to receive, digest and benefit from criticism – then there would be almost nothing we couldn’t ‘eat’ when it comes to the ‘forest’ of human conversation.

Sometimes I wonder how much of life is really about learning how to develop a way of thinking which can turn just about anything into a positive conclusion and forward movement. It’s like a kind of ‘mental Judo’. I like that metaphor because Judo is all about finding a way to convert your attacker’s momentum (or energy) into something you can use. In the same way, we can develop a mindset that allows us to turn difficult communication into something we can use for growth.

Can you ‘metabolize’ the hard stuff?

This Sunday we are continuing in our series “Unwritten” about the gaps in our knowledge. As always, we are interested in your feedback and excited about the chance to ‘do life’ together. Join us on Sunday or you can or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

‘Get To’ or ‘Have To’?

2008-09-10T17:17:00.004-04:00

I was in a conversation recently that included the following remark (from them): “I can’t believe it took me until 2 am to get this done.” That seems simple enough at first glance. You have a bit of information (they were working until 2 am) and then some interpretation of how they feel about it (they find it surprising or extreme). Again, that seems simple enough (at first glance). But I think it can also highlight something significant about how we put our ‘stories’ together, because that’s not the only way to ‘experience the same information. You could also look at it this way: “Isn’t it great to have something worth working on until 2 am?” (Of course… Repackaging the same information in that way would actually require that you were doing something you ‘believed in’ or are passionate about).

How do you tell your story? Do you describe it in terms of a purpose that pulls you – or on that you are reaching toward?

There is a similar shift in my own thinking which needs to happen on a periodic basis. I need to shift my focus away from the cost (or the complications) and re-center on any number of ‘up side’s’ which are being taken for granted. There’s a quick way to find out which perspective is more your own: Does your morning alarm signal the point at which you have to do it again or get to do it all, again?
How do you tell your story?

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has done studies on the relationship between how we spend our time and what impact that has on how we feel about it. He discovered that we do about a third of what we do because we want to, a third because we have to, and the final third because we could think of nothing better. Which is incredible, really, when you consider how time strapped we all seem to be.

All of this (thinking about purpose and how we tell our own story) came together in my mind this week because of the date. You’ll be receiving this on September 11, 2008. At this time 7 years ago, we were all gripped, shocked, challenged, changed, moved and disturbed by what we were watching unfold on live television. I’m not sure what it was like for you, but it really made me reflect on my life from a totally different perspective. Was I valuing my time? Was I leaning into purpose? Was I making a difference? Was I just taking up space?

7 years ago, we were suddenly and firmly reminded that we are living in history. It’s happening all around us all the time. We feel it more when there’s a crisis, and that pulls to ask “the big questions”. I want to challenge you to not need the crisis.

How are you telling your story? Do you describe it in terms of some great purpose you’re reaching towards and leaning into?

I’m part of a community that believes we were made for an adventure that does not need to end. We believe we were made on purpose and for a purpose – and for us – all of that is connected to the person of Christ. And for myself, I’ll add ‘rather unexpectedly’ because I continue to be surprised every day at how much this story can look ‘done and over done’ on the surface while still being vibrant, fresh and unexplored in it’s deeper parts.

I hope you can find a few moments to think about purpose and the person of Christ.

Join us on Sunday if you can or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Unwritten Books

2008-09-04T14:56:00.003-04:00

There are some things I am not likely to notice. Ever. (At least – not without some help).

Stay with me for a moment because this needs to get technical before it gets interesting. I was talking to someone recently about a development project in Calgary (this is what they do for a living) and we were talking about how some of the underground services work (water, sewage, electrical, etc). He was explaining that I can get a fairly good idea of what is going on beneath the surface by looking for a few small ‘clues’ along the sidewalks and at the curb (for example, there are small vales marked blue for water so you can know there is a water line underneath – that kind of thing).

It first made me think of James Bond, again (only because I ‘used’ him a bit in my teaching last Sunday). I now feel fully equipped to know exactly how to slip beneath the surface of a city and make my way through it’s secret passageways should I ever need to foil some little bit of ‘international espionage’.

After that, it made me think about how there are some things I would likely never notice otherwise. A developer can drive through our city and see all kinds of underground infrastructure because they’ve learned to look for a few small things on the surface. They see passageways and pipelines where you and I see nothing at all – at least nothing at all out of the ordinary (just sidewalks and curbs and trash cans).

All of that leads me to something about our fall kick off this Sunday. We’ve been thinking about the gaps in our knowledge – things we are not just missing, but things we are perhaps prone to miss. All of that led us to think about bookstores. They represent the kind of things we either want to know or the kind of things we can be interesting to us relatively quickly. But what about other kinds of knowledge? What about the books that aren’t being written and the stories that aren’t being told about the stuff that can’t be made interesting right away or at the very first step?

It’s made us wonder about a whole other kind of bookstore – and then our Arts department found a way to build one. And that’s about all I want to reveal before hand.

As a staff (like I said at the very beginning) we’re excited to begin a whole new season of efforts designed to make possible a whole other kind of community. We’re excited to open up whole new directions for thought and conversation. In short, we’re excited to get underway. It’s our hope that you can re-imagine (all over again) what might be possible if we decided to find a way to complete each other and step deeper into the story of Christ. At the very least, please… Don’t just ‘go to church’ this fall. Let’s become it.

If you can’t join us on Sunday, then we hope you will tune into the podcast through the week. Don’t forget our special BBQ challenge and something special for the kids.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

The Line

2008-08-27T18:55:00.004-04:00

What does and doesn’t belong ‘in church’? And who gets to decide? Those are important questions which are sometimes fought over. And perhaps we kind find some help with an unexpected phrase: King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti.

You may think I accidentally capitalized all of that, but I didn’t. It’s a phrase every high school biology student needs in order to make it through their final exam. Why? Because it’s an acrostic to help remember how ‘naming’ works in biology: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti. Now maybe you’ll be able to remember it decades later like I just did.

As human beings, we have a ‘thing’ about drawing lines. It helps us break down our world into bite-sized chunks we can manage more easily. That’s what we’re doing with ‘kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species’. We draw 7 lines around every organism on our planet to keep track of the differences between it and everything else. What ‘kingdom’ is it – plant or animal – and then we draw the line. Inside that kingdom, what phyla is it – and then we draw that line. I’m sure you get the point.

The problem with all of this is that it’s not always easy to draw these lines even when it comes to material realities. Nobody really knows what to do with gracilarioid Algae, for example, because it seems to cross lines in a few places. How much more difficult is all of this when it comes to non-material realities (like where we draw the line around what does and doesn’t belong in church or where ‘they journey’ may begin for any particular person)?

I say all of this on my way to this acknowledgement: I know there is a difference between the thoughts we think about scripture and the thoughts we think because of scripture (and how it has changed us). There is a difference between talking about Christ and talking as a person that’s found Him. As an example a filmmaker could choose to make a film about Christ (as Mel Gibson did with The Passion of the Christ) or you could choose to make a film about life and you just happen to be a Christian. Perhaps both of these endeavors have great value – and perhaps both of them have their place in what we discuss as a community of Christ followers.

I’ve always been a fan of ‘church for the life you’re already living’ and ‘church for the stuff you’re already facing’. I love being a part of diverse communities where we share a broad range of attention, reflecting on the fact that we’re all at a different place in the journey.

All of this makes me want to challenge people about the person of Christ while I also challenge them about the kind of life He makes possible. It’s building towards the same decision from two different directions. There are conclusions which proceed from a decision about Christ and there are conclusions which draw us to the person of Christ. One starts with scripture, the other starts with life. I think taking about all of it will draw more people into the conversation. Perhaps both of them are on ‘this’ side of the line when it comes to what does and doesn’t belong in church.

Let’s build communities of Jesus-followers that are talking about the conclusions that proceed from a decision about Him as well as the conclusions that lead to Him. Think about it.

Westside’s launch Sunday is coming up on September 7th. It’s something you won’t want to miss.

I hope you can join us on Sunday or tune into the podcast through the week, and I hope you have a great weekend.

Chris

Legendary

2008-08-21T15:26:00.004-04:00

I stepped into church as a teenager just as a ‘legendary’ youth leader was stepping out of it. Yes - I got there just in time to hear about the ‘golden years’: epic stories of really interesting people, legendary pranks on retreat weekends and conversations that lasted all the way through the night. It was neat to hear the stories – but ‘neat’ on a relatively low level because what is hearing a story as opposed to actually living it?

It’s often difficult for us to believe that our most important moment is the one we’re standing in. Sometimes right now just feels too ordinary (right now my ‘right now’ feels too ordinary to become a great Sunday message – so it’s a good thing I don’t yield to that thought).

All of this is as true of good times as it is bad because they trade places on a fairly regular basis. In good times, it’s hard for us to believe that things can ever be that good again. But we need to keep leaning into the next moment because our most important moment is the one were standing in. So we can’t be afraid to let go – really let go and take our next step. In not so good times, it can be hard for us to see our way out of it. But we need to keep leaning into the next moment because we can’t ever really know what the next one may be. It’s true. We can’t. We really can’t.

With all of this in mind as I stepped into that church (just as a legendary youth leader was stepping out of it), I decided to do more than just hear great stories. Then I found an ally willing to make that same decision, and together we found a few more willing people, and we decided to boldly live the story we were in – the best kind of story that we could make from the moments we were in… And within a year, were making our own ‘golden years’ in real time.

The best part of your story is always the part that you’re in right now because it’s where you can make the most meaning.

This Sunday, I’d like to build on all of this with a question: what have you been given?

I hope to see you there or connect through the podcast, and I hope you have a great weekend.

Chris

A Very Small Bit of “No”

2008-08-14T12:09:00.002-04:00

John Carver is famous for describing a way to run organizations that has turned everything upside down. Normally, leaders have to ask for permission to do anything new. Then the idea is filtered painfully through one or more layers of leadership where it is in almost everyone’s interest to say ‘no’. Why? Because change represents a risk – and people don’t like taking those.

Under Carver’s model, however, leaders are given a short list of things they can’t do right from the start and everything else is left to them. It’s like saying to a leader, “Outside this short list of things you must avoid, you can do absolutely anything else that fits with the vision and values of this organization.” It’s a very refined, elegant way of saying, “Go nuts.”

Interestingly, it’s also how God set up His garden in Genesis chapters 1 through 3. He put our ancestors in the center of it and said, “Outside of these two trees which you must not touch, you can have absolutely anything and everything else in sight.” Which is also a more refined and elegant (but slightly qualified) way of saying, “Go nuts.”

Approaches like these are designed to tap our greatest creative potential because you’re not stuck always having to ask permission. Boundaries are set, permission is given and you are left to your possibilities.

It’s also something stunningly true of your whole life. You’ve been given a short list of things to avoid: things like bitterness, selfishness and a lack of self control, but apart from that, you have 7 continents, 6 billion people, 360 degrees and 70 years. And if you train your ears, then you can also pick up a still small voice in the background which is whispering, ‘Go nuts.’

All of this is something I’d like to pursue further on Sunday August 24th with the question, “What have you been given?” Join us for coffee before either of our Sunday celebrations or tune into the podcast through the week.

Chris

Fully Physically Present

2008-08-07T15:39:00.001-04:00

I’m on a quest. I want to find a way to enjoy a moment for it’s own sake as often as I can. You could call it being ‘fully physically present’: fully occupying the moment you’re standing in undistracted, undivided, and undiminished (giving it your full attention).

All of this comes from the realization that my mind has been about a decade away from my body at any given moment over the past many years. It’s been ten years deeper into the life I wished I was living and ten years further away from all the things I fear or regret. That’s one of our tricks: our mind has the ability to stretch far into the past and far into the future and then distract us with what we see. It helps us forecast and plan ahead and it can also become an escape.

Stimulation can be a problem, too. It’s natural for us to want all our moments to be intense in a satisfying way (something great to look at, talk about, participate in or in some way ‘enjoy’). But not all our life’s moments will be intense (nor should they be) and ‘intensity’ is only one kind of life-state (of many). So perhaps the mad scramble to keep the intensity up is a way of ‘self doping’. Perhaps it keeps us from ever fully occupying the moment we’re standing in undistracted, undivided, and undiminished.

I’m on a quest to be fully physically present.

Paul writes about a secret in Philippians 4:11. He says, “for I have learned the secret of how to get along happily whether I have much or little.” It’s something I’ve often been challenged to try to understand and I think it has something (perhaps a lot) to do with being able to accept a moment for it’s own sake… Undistracted, undivided, undiminished.

Are you developing the ability to enter into any of the many kinds of life-moments? Can you enjoy them for their own sake?

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Endangered Thinking

2008-07-31T16:38:00.003-04:00

It’s been calculated that 40% of all organisms on our planet are under threat.

I put that sentence by itself, because we sometimes read a sentence too quickly to have it hit us as deeply as it could. It means 2 out of every 5 things out there are in danger of becoming a memory. It’s staggering.

Now this is not going to become another rant about how horrible we are when it comes to our planet (although we shouldn’t let ourselves off that hook – actually, we can’t afford to let ourselves off that hook). Instead, I want to talk about ‘rareness’ or ‘exclusiveness’ or ‘missing-ness’.

It’s a fact of our history that ‘stuff’ gets ‘dropped’ along the way. It’s not only true of species from the natural world, but it’s also true of the thought-pool you carry with you in your head. Some of what gets lost is anecdotal and has low-significance. On the other hand, some of what gets lost is worth holding on to – and it could lead to a much-improved future. It’s why I journal. I have 20 years worth of ‘research’ on who I am, how life works and what really matters. Every day I go to my bookmark as I re-read these notes so that I can build on the past, push deeper where it matters and side step the need to learn the same lessons over and over. Every day I am surprised at some life-lesson or insight that was ‘under threat’ of disappearing from my daily awareness.

What are the endangered insights in your own thinking? What insights and life-lessons are at risk of sinking into the past only to repeat themselves by accident at some point in the future? Any step which takes us past ‘casual remembering’ or taking our head space for granted is deeply worth taking. It doesn’t matter if it’s a journal or a single page we look at every morning or even just a quote or two.

Our current series, “Thoughts for the Open Road”, takes us all the way to the end of August. Starting with launch week on Sunday September 7th, we’re going to be looking at a series of endangered thoughts and insights which may have ‘gone missing’ somewhere along the way. It’s something you won’t want to miss.

Join us on Sunday or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Why You Can't See the Sun

2008-07-23T12:35:00.002-04:00

It’s impossible for us to see the sun as it is (at least at our present level of development). You can only see it as it was 8 minutes ago. Why? Because that’s how long it takes information in the form of light to travel the distance between us and the sun. I find that really interesting: it’s impossible for us to see the sun as it is.

The problem, of course is that there is no way to know by simply looking up in the sky that what you are seeing is not really there. You are only seeing what used to be there (8 minutes ago). And that’s a big problem because the sun doesn’t ‘look’ 8 minutes old. In fact nothing about how it sits there (as plain as day) gives you any clue to what’s really going on. It’s something you can only figure out if you start asking questions.

Everything that passes through our eyes and into our minds requires interpretation. You have to qualify some of what you see – like when you look at the sun. You have to tell yourself that what you’re seeing is actually 8 minutes old because it doesn’t look 8 minutes old. You even have to learn to ignore some of what you see, like the way heat rising off pavement in the sun can ‘look’ like a pool of water. We call it a ‘mirage’. And again you are seeing something that isn’t really there.

At any rate, I think there’s a powerful lesson in this ‘problem with the look of the sun’. It can be easy for us to think something is obvious when it seems obvious. And what could be more obvious than looking up at the blazing ball of light in the sky and simply seeing what it is? You don’t have to speculate – just look. But it’s not so easy. It took thousands of years for us to figure out all kinds of things that we didn’t know we didn’t know – like ‘things’ about how light works, and how far away the sun is, and what that really means in terms of what we think we are ‘seeing’. And only then did we realize that what we are seeing is not really there.
In other words: because of what we didn’t know we didn’t know, we didn’t know what we were looking at. And what we’ve learned along the way that has changed how we think about what we think we are seeing. It’s not always easy to see what is really there – even when you’re looking right at it.

I often think of all this when it comes to the ‘problem’ of God (as in ‘how could there be a God in a world like this?’). We could say we are only looking around us to ‘see’ what is really there – and what we ‘see’ is a universe that made itself. Perhaps it seems as obvious as simply looking up at the sun. And that’s that problem: it’s not always easy to see what is really there – even when you’re looking right at it.

Last Sunday we poked and prodded the question ‘what makes a great life possible?’. We also touched on issues of identity along the way (‘who am I and what do I need?). This Sunday, I’d like to move into the problem of God (as in ‘who is He?’). Join us for coffee and a live talk on Sunday or tune into the podcast through the week. All summer long we’re providing discussion guides that you can download with the podcast or from our website so that it can become more than just something you listen to.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Getting what you Want

2008-07-16T18:39:00.001-04:00

There is very real power in the things you tell yourself. For example, when I was a kid I used to believe those ‘coin-and-ride’ airplanes at the grocery store could really fly if I could only have one to myself. Can you imagine my disappointment if I ever got exactly what I wanted? Sometimes I wonder how many things in my life are still like that today where I’ve told myself something and I deeply believe it – and long for it – but it simply just isn’t true or isn’t possible or both.

As another example you can tell yourself, “I deserve better” and find a way to believe it so deeply that you resent a life which could be more than good enough if you just didn’t look at it in that way. You can also tell yourself, “I’m fortunate to have this chance, today” and move through your whole day feeling rather glad for it. The real rub is that you can find a way to say either of those things about the very same life. Perhaps happy people have simply just found a way to feel lucky for the same kind of life we all have. Perhaps unhappy people have found another way to look at that same life. There is very real power in the things you tell yourself.

Now I know you know this on some level already. I’m just not convinced we do very much with it. If the stuff in our heads really is like a shrub, then it means we must tend it, nurture it and even prune it – yes – it must be trimmed and contained and reduced in order to grow in healthy directions and ‘hold it’s own weight’. Otherwise it grows wild and then eventually it stops growing at all.

I landed on all of these thoughts this week because I decided to examine some of my ‘longings’ more carefully. What do I desire? Are those things true? Are they possible? Are they helpful? Am I focusing on them in helpful ways? All of this is something I don’t do very often and I think it costs me. My head-space grows wild and untrimmed and I become tangled in it. And I realized I’ve found more than a few ‘grown up’ versions of thinking that ‘coin-and-ride’ airplane could actually fly if I just got one all to myself. Imagine my disappointment if I actually got what I’ve been wanting.

There are people who’ve wrapped their whole lives around an ‘if only’ (as in ‘if only I could be this or that or have this or that’). But that ‘thing’ either never came to pass or it wasn’t possible or it simply didn’t have the desired effect when it did. And in that case their whole life happens to them while they are waiting for something else. Think about it: their whole life happens to them while they are waiting for something else. So I’ve decided to tell myself a different ‘set’ of things: my most important life is the one that is happening to me right now and that means there is no other place and there is no other time.

There is very real power in the things we tell ourselves. What are you telling yourself?

This Sunday is the first of 5 questions I’d like to ask you this summer as you re-think who you are, who you are becoming and the path that you’re on. Join us for more ‘Thoughts for the Open Road’ or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

It's Time

2008-07-11T13:33:00.002-04:00

Research tells us that you really only do three things. The first and largest use of our time (according to researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – I just had to put that name in there) “includes all the things we do to generate energy for survival and comfort.” No surprise there. Work. We spend somewhere between a quarter to half our time doing ‘work’. What did surprise me, however, is that our ‘modern world’ doesn’t have us working less – but more. Anthropologist tell us that those who live under the least technologically developed conditions only spend about 4 hours a day on ‘work’. The rest of the time is spent singing or dancing, resting or chatting. You and I spend (on average) 8. I’m moving to Papua New Guinea. To the jungle.

The second largest use of your time goes to work’s close cousin: maintenance. We spend up to a quarter of our time dealing with all the things we already own (cleaning, fixing, arranging, updating) as well as the many things we need to do each day to keep our body functioning (eating, resting, grooming, exercising).

That leaves only 1 category left: leisure. This takes up the remaining one quarter of our time, and the vast majority of that is taken up by only 3 kinds of leisure: media consumption (books, magazines, TV), conversation and ‘active rest’ (hobbies, sports, restaurants, whatever).

What struck me about all of this is how accurate it was for me. Here I was thinking of myself as a ‘creative person’ living this ‘uniquely different existence’. It’s true that we can express a lot of creativity within these uses of time (as in what kind of exercise and how we execute it) but the truth is that almost all of us spend almost all of our time doing these three things in very similar ways.

As a result, I want to encourage (or challenge) you to do at least two things. The first one has to do with this past Sunday’s message. Rethink the path you’re on, rethink your use of time, rethink the person you are and the one you are becoming. Why not have an adventure. The only other word to describe your life is ‘ordeal’. And trust me: you don’t want that one.

The second thing is a bit counter intuitive (at least I thought so). Challenge yourself to change the way you think about creativity and creative people. Since almost all of us spend almost all of our time doing the same thing… Then it doesn’t take much to be creative. Jesus talked about change in these terms: changes the size of a mustard seed, over time, can amount to the largest features of our lives…

Something to consider…

I hope you’ll make the effort to participate in our summer series, “Thoughts for the Open Road.” It’s about change, discovery, challenge and the chance to reinvent yourself. If you can’t make it on a Sunday, join us in the podcast through the week and use the discussion guides.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Tomorow

2008-07-02T18:46:00.003-04:00

I think one of the things that draws us to movies is that they give us a chance to live vicariously. For 90 minutes or so, we are transported into a story with a different starting point than our own and we get to lose ourselves in it (for a while at least). I think that’s why there are so many movies driven by the idea of power: super human abilities or characters with the reckless wit to say what you and I never could or would. In that way movies are kind of like sucralose. It’s not sugar, it’s just takes the place of it. Sometimes I wonder if my own movie habit is a poor substitute for real adventure.

I need to pause for a moment and insert this directive: This is not a challenge to avoid the movie theater! I’m deeply fatigued with that part of us that wants to conclude all examples of something are bad just because it’s possible for it to become bad when taken to extremes. Hyponatremia is the term we use to describe an ‘electrolyte imbalance that can come from water intoxication’. Yes, you read that correctly, water intoxication. Does that mean we should all stop drinking water just because it’s possible to encounter difficulties if you drank 2 gallons of it?

Anyway, back to the main thought. On some level, watching and adventure is a very poor substitute for living one. Think of this: you have two options when it comes to how you think about your own origins. You were either made on purpose by some intelligence as part of a dream or a scheme. In which case you can safely assume you were made to have an adventure by that intelligent being. Alternatively, you can assume you were made as an accident of particles colliding first in the emptiness of pre-existent space and then as an additional accident of two things colliding in your mother’s womb. In which case you might as well have an adventure because your life is going to happen anyway and then it will end.

So it doesn’t matter (in my mind) how you slice it. You have a cause to get up tomorrow and start making great decisions about great things all over again. I see no reason for any of us to live on repeat (moving from one familiar pattern of choices to another). All this comes to mind because this Sunday is the launch of our summer teaching series: “Thoughts for the Open Road”.

You have this two-month opportunity to ‘fiddle’ a bit in the midst of your lightened obligations over the course of the summer. Why not take it as an opportunity to have an adventure? And more than just an adventure of motorized water equipment (or something like that), why not also have an adventure of personal change as well? Our teaching team has put together 10 things to think about as you rethink yourself this summer. Join us on Sundays when you can (for a BBQ among other things), and tune into the podcast while you’re on ‘the open road’.

Something to think about,

Chris

Seeing It

2008-06-26T15:55:00.004-04:00

Just think of the times when you must be shown.

Bill Bryson writes about how little we know of our ocean – perhaps a millionth or even a billionth of it’s depths. He remarks that we have “better maps of Mars than we do of our own seabeds.” Thought I couldn’t find the exact statistics, each year a disturbing number of previously unknown and disturbing creatures are pulled aboard unsuspecting fishing boats. Creatures so strange they must be seen.

Just think of the time when you must be shown.

All of that leads me to something about the limits of language and the limits of knowledge. There is only so much that words can do and there is only so far that words can take you. Beyond that, true discovery is about touching it, seeing it or in some way being surprised by it. The Psalmist remarks, “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. In many cases and in many ways there is simply just no substitute for stepping into the story and having some part of it surprise you through direct contact.
There are no words and there are no ideas that can convey the power of what is going on in Sub Saharan Africa.

I’d like to take all of this in two directions this Sunday. The first is a challenge to all of you: there is no substitute for stepping into the story of AIDS in Africa for yourself because there are some things that just need to be seen. The second is about an incredible opportunity: you and I can build a kind of compassion that takes our time by surprise. Why? Because there is a whole range of things that only the church can do. You can hear parts of it in Jesus words from John 13:35, “Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” Only when you and I build a kind of compassion that no one around us expects will they be brought to the question about Jesus.

I’d like to challenge you about this whole other kind of compassion. It’s something that truly must be seen.

I hope to see you there, and I hope you bring someone with you,

Chris

Dangerous Compassion

2008-06-19T11:41:00.002-04:00

It was already too difficult by 10 am on the first day. Perhaps it would have been more effective to simply just get back on the plane resolved to do nothing but step into this one story and do a really good job of addressing it. That’s what I thought as our car pulled away from the house and I tried to beat back an almost irresistible urge to be a father where there was none. I’m still conflicted about my choice. Do I get involved in all of ‘Africa’ (so that I deal only with statistics) or do I get involved in just that one 23 year old’s life (so that I’m dealing with the face behind those statistics)?

Compassion can be a terrible thing to try to manage because it is made of such strong forces. At the same time it is both heavy and disturbing (and hard to shake); but at the same time, it also includes something like a thrill (at least when you act on it, anyway). It is something you can experience on a scale of one (as in one person) or on the scale of nations and regions and continents (as in Africa). And in addition to all of this, I believe we will either be shaped by it (and that can be costly – you may never get your safe and comfortable life back) or become immune to it (and that can be even more costly – you become an island of one closed in on yourself). All of this amounts to something which can be a ‘terrible thing’ to try to manage, but manage it we must.

On this latest trip to Africa, I found myself looking for some place in between the full blown ‘mess’ of ‘we’ve got to do something about this crisis!’ and the kind of compassion that is reduced to a monthly automatic withdraw (so we can say ‘hey I’m doing my part!’). Surely there is something in between those two extremes! What I came up with is something that can only be resolved by our presence – actually by your presence. None of the stuff we give could ever take the place of showing up. Would you be willing to stop and really think about that? None of the stuff we give could ever take the place of showing up. Your real gift is your self – not just your stuff.

Anything having to do with compassion usually ‘lands’ on compulsion saying something like “You’ve got to do something”. But I’m not sure that does it justice. Every time I step into someone else’s story I find myself saying, “I can’t believe I get to do this.” Every time I step personally into someone else’s story I find a bit more of myself by accident. Christ’s kingdom hints at this powerful secret. Perhaps God has laid out all your best possibilities like bread crumbs along the path to serving someone else. Maybe you need to give us much as anyone else needs to receive.

I think some of my most important work overseas has been just looking into someone else’s eyes so that they knew they were worth more than food, clothing and shelter. It shows that they were worth showing up for. There are few things closer to the heart of Christ’s own mission than that. After all that’s exactly what He did 2,000 years ago – He showed up.

Hands at Work is developing a program in Africa called “Footprints” and it’s designed to engage people with all kinds of opportunities to do just that (to show up). Giving it some deep consideration may be one of the most powerful (and perhaps dangerous) things you’ve done in a long time. I hope you do it none the less.

I hope to see you Sunday and I hope you bring someone with you.

Chris

3 Sentences on Stopping

2008-06-11T16:07:00.004-04:00

Most weeks I try to write something that has some sort of a ‘lead in’ followed by ‘the point’ and often a ‘so what’ at the end. Every once in a while, however, I feel drawn to just say it. This is one of those weeks.

If you’re anything like me, then you spend a lot of time struggling over time itself. Where does it all go? And if you’re anything like me, then you also struggle to meet your own expectations. Why are they so often out of reach? These two things often mean I’m desperately trying to squeeze more out of a single day than a single day can hold.

This leads me to three sentences from my journal that hit me in a very simple, very ‘matter of fact’ way earlier this morning. It ties in with a presentation I did on the sacredness of rest a few Sundays back and it’s all about ‘stopping’.

-You can’t do more than one day’s worth of work in any given day (even when it’s a great day).

-To try to go further is to take a step where nothing exists to hold your foot.

-It takes as much faith to walk away at the end of a great day’s work (and leave the rest to Him) as it did to get up and start it in the first place.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Job Opening
I’ve been challenging the staff at Westside to participate in at least two ‘big’ things together: to (1) Change the way Canadians think about the Jesus story and (2) To tell a different story of leadership within the church. If that’s something you might be interested in, we have a position available as part of our office administration team. For more details, email us at westsidepeoplesearch@wkc.org.

A Plastic Knife

2008-06-03T17:10:00.005-04:00

I unfolded some napkin-wrapped utensils in a restaurant at an airport recently to find a metal fork coupled with a plastic knife. The combination looked silly and it felt like a mistake. Plastic knife, metal fork. Did someone just not notice? Had the restaurant run out? Were they madly doing dishes trying to catch up?

But of course it wasn’t a mistake. It’s one of those unexpected but poignant reminders that it’s possible for one person to change history. In fact, it’s astounding. 7 years after the fact (9/11), we are still unpacking the effect of one man’s ideas filtered through 19 hijackers one terrible Tuesday morning. How much inconvenience has been created as millions of people on thousands of flights diligently measure their shower gel into 100ml containers sealed in clear plastic bags measuring 6 inches by 6 inches? Multiply that by 365 days times 7 years and counting… It’s astounding. How much sheer effort and inconvenience has been created in the wake of all that?

One person really can change history.

Of course that idea finds about as much traction in me as it does in you. Yes, it’s technically and factually true. It’s as true as the fact that human beings can leave our atmosphere and orbit the earth on spacecraft. But that doesn’t mean it will ever happen to me. One person really can change history. But can you choose to be that person? Can anyone? Perhaps our place in history made Osama as much as he made this place in our history.

I really want to avoid writing some ‘good to hear’ motivational piece that never really finds a hold on decisions we’re making. Instead, let’s practice some tough thinking. The issue isn’t about whether or not we can have an impact. The issue is one of scale and recognition. You can change someone’s world as much as the events of 9/11 have changed ours. In fact you could do it right now through any number of Aid agencies addressing the tragedy of Sub Saharan Africa. It’s compassion on a scale of one. There often isn’t any recognition for it but it is no less powerful – at least not to that one whom you help.

Think about it… You can change someone’s world as much as 9/11 changed ours. It’s a part of the challenge of the Jesus based life and it’s why I’m on my way to Africa right now. The crisis in Sub Saharan Africa is just one of those things in history for which we were made: we can become the missing piece that takes our world by surprise. This isn’t about the duty or the obligation or the tragedy… It’s about the adventure of life as He intended it to be. This is not about what you have to give… It’s about finding yourself in the gift!

Have you found yourself in the gift, yet?

Something to consider.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Updates
One of our top priorities over the past 8 months has been to build a dream team of leaders on staff at Westside King's Church. We’re making a commitment to each other to (1) find great people and (2) take each other’s excuses away. We have a position available as part of our office administration team. If you think you might be interested in something a little more purpose-based and passion directed, let us know. Email us at westsidepeoplesearch@wkc.org.

The Secret Power of Flowerbeds

2008-05-28T15:49:00.004-04:00

It took only 6 months to figure out that our last house was an impulse purchase and I’m the one that fell prey to the impulse. What grabbed me was the landscaping. The house was surrounded by an award-winning, low maintenance design that made you feel like you were living in the garden of Eden or the mysterious hanging gardens of ancient Babylon. So I gleefully surrendered to irrationality and made an offer.

Never mind the awkwardly arranged floor plans cut up into sometimes uselessly small packages of space… Or the dated but firmly glued ceramics… Or the token kitchen with particle board cupboards barely far enough apart that you could stand between them… Or the bowed walls… The list goes on… Never mind all of that stuff, I was blinded by the idea of living in the center of all that beautifully landscaped space. Unfortunately, the offer was accepted!

Now despite the painful lesson I learned about the need to be as excited about the inside of a house as you are about the outside, I also learned an unexpected lesson about the secret power of flowerbeds. You see, I think you and I tend to act as though beauty is an ‘accessory’ to life; especially when compared to the more important ‘practical’ or ‘functional’ things. It’s an ‘add on’ or a ‘luxury’ or a ‘thing you get to when the more important stuff is looked after’. But having sat for more than just a few inspiring moments in a beautiful setting, I passionately disagree..

That garden was a valuable life-resource. It was a retreat, a sanctuary, a distraction and a point of inspiration all at once. It’s almost made me a believer in “Feng Shui” (wikipedia can help you with that). I can remember sitting in that backyard one day thinking that if you want to write a book, first plant a garden. Why? Because it gives you a really great spot to do some really great thinking.

Now all of this is a challenge leading up to the way you think about and plan to ‘use’ your summer. Rest is not just a good idea, it’s a command of scripture. The barest minimum is one day per week, which translates into 14.29% of your time. Which is God’s way of saying that it is toxic to spend any more than 85.71% of your time working in any given week. It was a habit Jesus, Himself practiced (see Mark 6:31).

So I’d like to argue that things like gardens (hobbies, passions, recreation and diversions) are not just the ‘accessories’ of a great life. If you take God and scripture seriously, they are essential and mandatory components that make the other 85% of your life more effective, more sustainable and simply just better. It’s the secret hidden power of flowerbeds and something to consider about how you plan to spend your summer. It’s also something I’d like to challenge you about this Sunday.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

A Thimble Full of Grace

2008-05-21T16:31:00.003-04:00

It’s really had an impact on me to focus on one idea and one piece of scripture for so long. It’s also really had an impact on me to look back on the whole series and try to coax some larger realizations from it. I tried to unpack one such realization this past Sunday as we looked at different ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ of wisdom. It seems that there is a kind of wisdom that leads us to life improvement, and then there is a kind of wisdom that pushes through life improvement (to an improved use of your life) and that the deepest wisdom (perhaps) is that we simply just get out from behind ourselves, period. Rather than get better at life’s spin cycle, we finally just step outside of it all together. It’s something that may be worth turning into a large focus in terms of life change.

However! Another layer of challenge has come to mind over the past few weeks that I would put along side last Sunday’s challenge and even push it further. It’s something which is both (1) deeply meaningful and (2) critically important, and it has to do with the ‘person’ of Christ. We have to take steps to make sure we are not simply just extracting wisdom from the Jesus story and never really connecting with the person of Christ. If all of this ‘stuff’ becomes just another ‘life technology’, then we’ve missed the most powerful part. We haven’t just strained out gnats to swallow camels… We’ve traded a thimble full of grace for the Pacific-ocean sized possibilities of connecting with God on a personal level.

Jesus described Himself as a polarizing figure. He said He would be a dividing point. He said He would be a stumbling block. He said He would be the ‘capstone’ (the most important part) which is overlooked. And Paul writes that His story would seem like utter foolishness from one perspective (outside it) and compellingly powerful from another (within it). (1 Corinthians 1:18-19) Clearly the person of Christ, Himself is the central, defining issue as we consider growth, wisdom and our lives as a whole.

Let’s be sure that the end of all our discussions on wisdom we don’t miss the most important part. All the wisdom in the world is not more important than the one who made it. Perhaps the ‘personal’ side of spirituality has lost it’s appeal to our ‘modern’ or ‘post modern’ sensibilities so that it’s become more about philosophy and life-management… Nevertheless, I find myself longing for a ‘presence’, not just a philosophy. I don’t just want His footprint – I want Him. I don’t just want the effect of knowing Him – I want to live radically in the fact of being deeply connected with Him on a personal level.

It’s Christianity’s great and audacious suggestion: that not only can we hear about His story but we can step inside it and live it with Him.

I almost always end by saying ‘it’s something to consider’. This time I feel compelled to add ‘I really hope you do”…

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Something About Aiming

2008-05-15T14:57:00.003-04:00

I’m hoping you will accept the illustration even though it involves a few of J.K. Rowling’s bizarre-sounding ‘Harry Potter’ concepts. I think it’s worth it because it leads in interesting directions. We find Harry repeatedly distracted by a special mirror during his first adventure (The Philosopher’s Stone). This ‘mirror of Erised’ as it’s called (‘desire’ spelled backwards) shows you the greatest longing of your heart. So Harry, being an orphan, spends long hours gazing at the parents he never knew. His heart’s greatest desire was just to be with them.

All of this seems like a minor plot point until we get to the end of the story where the mirror is used to protect a powerful treasure and keep it from falling into the wrong hands. It’s a very simple but elegant solution. Whoever looks into the mirror and sees the treasure won’t be able to find it, but whoever looks into the mirror and sees something else, will. Think about it: you can only get your hands on the treasure when it isn’t your first priority. The only one’s who will be able to find it are those that did not come there looking for it..

I’m pulled to dig deeper and deeper into that idea because I think there’s a rich truth in it. There are some things which are best experienced as a side effect of aiming at something else. Some of the wealthiest people I know didn’t aim at money – they aimed at creating value, making a difference and serving the people around them. Money ‘happened’ as a side effect and their lives are not consumed by it. It’s just a by-line, a trinket, a detail.

Some of the most successful people I know didn’t just set out to be successful. They aimed instead at practicing integrity, making tough choices and working hard at what was right in front of them. A few of them are not even really conscious of their success. They’re just pursuing their values and success is happening as a side effect.

Even in my own career, I’m surprised at how much has come not from my own creativity or the strength of my ideas or any of the skills I practice, but as a side effect of actually, honestly just loving the people around me along the way. They have become the leaders that have transformed the ministries of which I was only a small part. I thought cleverness would win the day and I loved people as a kind of ‘hobby’ and a ‘passion’. But now as I look at my life mid-journey, I realize that my ‘hobby’ has actually overshadowed every other thing I’ve done in leadership. My hobby has generated Pacific-ocean-sized results. Cleverness has amounted to little more than a thimble full.

So… If you could look into a mirror like the one I described above, what would it show you? Are you wanting the treasure or something more important? What are you aiming at? The Jesus based life is a challenge to see beyond the obvious and find the things of enduring value. Jesus said that your heart will be with your treasure – wherever that is. What things do you treasure?

This Sunday I’ll be wrapping up my part in our two-month journey towards a deeper understanding of wisdom and maturity. I’d like to challenge you about the kinds of things you’re aiming at. If you can’t join us on Sunday, then I hope you’ll connect with us through the podcast.

Have a great weekend,
Chris

Image credits: Chutiporn Chaitachawong

Creativity and the Power of Time

2008-05-08T15:30:00.007-04:00

You've probably experienced it in a bad way more than once. It's something that might have even cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. It's the small drip of water from the bottom of a faucet or a poorly sealed elbow somewhere in your plumbing. Each tiny drop is next to nothing all by itself - but through the sheer power of time, all those drops added together become chunks of soggy drywall, damp carpets and ruined upholstery. It's also a powerful metaphor for something that can happen inside us.

Given enough time even the smallest process will add up to something very large; that's just multiplication. It's true of a slow leak in our plumbing, it's true of our monthly banking fees, it's true of litter, it's true in all kinds of ways. It's also something that can be a source of great hope. One small choice at a time, you and I can transform our character. One small step at a time, you and I can build entirely new habits. One small change at a time, you and I can move into a different kind of life, or a different kind of marriage - I'm sure you get the point.

Toward the end of the message this past Sunday, I included an example about anger and how we can add new choices to the mix, turning that anger into something else one small piece at at time. If you're interested, check out the podcast through itunes or download the file from our website: http://www.wkc.org/community/sermons.asp.

I think all of this is hinted at in Jesus' teaching about the mustard seed. He said His kingdom is like this: it's the smallest seed you can plant in your garden, but the power of time transforms it into the largest feature in it. Our great hope is that somehow a whole other way of doing life can be broken down into choices small enough that we can start making them today, and one piece at a time, we can 'smuggle' this whole new way of life into the deepest parts of who we are. If you can't bring yourself to believe all of that, then you haven't really brought yourself to believe Jesus at all. He has said it is so. If 'it' is wrong, then so is He. Take it one step further and put it together this way: it's either true that this whole new way of life begins with the smallest of our life choices (small enough to make some today) or none of it is true to begin with.

So harness the power of the drip in a good way. Given enough time, one droplet sized choice at a time can become a life you never thought possible.

We're excited to have Wendy Lowe with us for our weekend celebrations. Don't miss this great opportunity to celebrate mother's day with a great challenge. Join us on Sunday or tune into the podcast through the week.

I hope you have a great weekend,

Chris

What You Don't See Coming

2008-04-25T15:07:00.003-04:00

The movie Stranger Than Fiction starts with an unassuming Harold Crick (played by Will Farrell) brushing his 32 teeth 76 times (38 times up and down, 38 times side to side). He then uses a single windsor knot for his neck tie instead of a double (which saves him approximately 43 seconds per day). We know all of this because it's being narrated as he does it - and that leads to something interesting. The very fact that we hear a narrator's voice describing these otherwise ordinary things makes us ask at least two questions: (1) Why is this story being told? and (2) What does he not see coming?, and we assume that something is about to happen which will make us look back on the fact that he started his day counting brush strokes as being somehow ironic.

That's what the voice of a narrator does: it makes us assume that this is a story worth telling because of what the characters don't see coming. I wonder if there is a way you can apply some part of that to your life? How would it change the way you look at your life as it is right now if you carried those two assumptions with you (That (1) you are in a story worth telling because of (2) something you don't see coming)?

Of course a lot of this has to do with who (or what) you've got in your 'God spot'. Do you believe in the kind of God that has made some kinds of people that are in a story worth telling and some kinds of people that are not? Do you believe it's decided largely by chance or circumstance? Do you believe that God even ever made anyone who could afford to have 'days of low possibility' (or days spent counting brush strokes)? Or did God only ever make one kind of person - a person who is living in a story worth telling because of what they don't see coming? Obviously I'd like to suggest the latter to you as something deeply worth considering.

I'd love to challenge you about making decisions from a deeper place this Sunday. Join us at Westside or tune into the podcast through the week.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Stop. Think. Live.

2008-04-17T16:46:00.004-04:00

It’s a trick of consciousness. We somehow manage to live most days with a kind of auto-pilot moving us from one familiar environment to another without much thought at all. But it’s amazing how a tiny bit of news can change all of that. In September of last year, university professor Randy Pausch was given a bit of news like that. What he thought was just a prolonged case of the flu turned out to be terminal pancreatic cancer; and in a flash – just like that – all the things we take for granted become all the things he dreams about: more time for the unscripted, ordinary moments about people, passion and purpose..

One of the things I mentioned this past Sunday has to do with the different ways you can view the same set of circumstances. Even if you’re at the bottom of North America, you’re still better off than 98% of everyone else alive. Which is the long way around saying your hell is someone else’s heaven. Even the worst set of life circumstances, here translates into a stunning upgrade for most of the rest of the human race. Think about it. They could take the same bits and pieces that feel like hell to you and construct something they’d be deeply grateful for. How could that impact you if you let it?

Perhaps the best part of being 5 years old is how you are physically present in a radical way. Today is all you know along with the simple pleasure of a moment for a moment’s sake. You were undistracted by the whole world of ideas which has to do with things we fear, things we want, things we think we are (or aren’t). Radically physically present.

Now can you tie those three threads together? Can I suggest three sentences? (1) Don’t wait until you know you’re dying before you figure out how to really live. (2) From the same life circumstances you can construct a whole world of things to be thankful for or a whole world of things to be grumpy about. (3) The challenge of our adult lives will be to reconstruct all the best parts of what you were at 5 years of age: wide open to wonder, physically present, ready to learn, able to trust.

Randy Pausch (our university professor from the first paragraph) gave a lecture last fall at Carnegie-Mellon University entitled “The Last Lecture” in which he shares some of his reflections on finding out you’re dying and what it means to really live. It’s taking the internet and media by storm right now, and it’s one of the most inspirational and challenging things I’ve seen in a while. If you feel like being challenged, why not find a comfortable chair and let him tell his story to you. Not only will it change the way you look at your circumstances, but it may change the way you spend every single day you’ve got left.

We’re in the midst of a string of Sundays where we’re unpacking the idea of maturity. Join us at Westside or tune into the podcast through the week. Please let us know if you have any feedback. More perspectives only add to the process.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

One Step Further

2008-04-10T12:18:00.009-04:00

When I was a kid we had an electric fence around our vegetable garden to keep the rabbits out. Of course it did a lot more than keep the rabbits out. It also led to a never ending cycle of fascinating experiments designed to uncover the mysteries of electricity (and our personal pain threshold). In retrospect I can’t believe I was raised in a world where my backyard play area also included a fully exposed live wire around the vegetable patch and nothing much was thought of it. It kind of makes today’s concepts of safety seem a bit over the top (or the opposite – that concepts of safety back then bordered on negligence!).

In the many years since then, I’ve found other parts of life that are just like that electric fence. The wire is not visible and the shock feels a bit different but the dynamics are the same: whenever I put my hand past that line I get zapped. These lines a bit trickier, though - like the line between work and rest, or the line between being honest with myself and telling a story, or the line between self control and self indulgence. I’ve been shocked many times, yet it never seems to be enough.

These two ideas collided as I considered something about my journey with God. I was reading a part of Psalms which was detailing a bit of a ‘spin cycle’ in Israel’s history. They would take a few steps away from the life they’d agreed to live with God and get burned. Eventually the ‘burn’ would get bad enough that they’d realize what had happened and take a step back. Then they would heal, a bit of time would pass and their guard would come down and they’d forget. Then they would take a few steps away from the life they’d agreed to live and the cycle starts all over again.

It’s just like that childhood version of my brother and I standing by the rabbit fence endlessly surprised all over again at what it felt like to put our hand on the wire. Shock! Then we’d pull our hand off. A few moments would pass and we’d think, “It wasn’t that bad…”, then Shock! And we’d pull our hand off again…

I guess all of this has led to a hunger. So much of my life has been shaped by shock-avoidance as I stand near the fence and try not to get burned. So much of my life has been shaped by taking only as many steps back as is required to shut the shock off. I’m starting to wonder about getting away from the fence all together. What would it feel like to deal with a different set of signals? Instead of “Shock! there’s a problem so step back…”, what about “Surprise! here’s another surge of strength so move ahead!”

There are at least two ways God can make Himself a reality to you. He can be the bite on the other side of a problem or He can be the surge of freedom on the other side of courage. Have you stepped far enough away from the fence that you not only no longer feel the shock but you are starting to encounter the ‘surprise of another kind’? Do you practice only problem avoidance? Or have you started to practice ‘possibility creation’?

I’m dealing less and less every day with shocks and problems. Every day, more and more I’m switching to ‘bread crumbs along a trail of great possibilities’. Try it. You might like it.

Something to consider – and something to ask questions about.

Join us on Sunday if you can or tune in to the podcast through the week.

Have a great week.

Chris

LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

I've always been glad for the chance to have a purpose-based career and after more than 15 years I'm still saying, "I can't believe I get to do this" (on most days anyway). If it's something you may be interested in, drop us a line. We are still building the staff team at Westside and that means we're on the hunt for people of passion and purpose who want to make a difference. I don't want to post job titles and job descriptions because that's always felt backwards (you carve out a cubby hole and then try to jam someone into it). I'd rather start with great people who are interested in serving and then shape a great job around them.

Adventure doesn't keep appointments and "some day" is really just the part of today we hide from. It may just be the case that you need to say, "It's time". It may be for a year or for 5 or you may really be surprised. Either way, we were made to make purpose. We're building a 'dream team' and a 'brain trust' of great leadership at Westside and there are only a few missing pieces left. If a purpose based adventure is something you're interested in, hit reply and let me know. I promise to take it seriously.

8 Sentences about Growth

2008-04-03T17:11:00.004-04:00

From The Seeking Heart (by Francois Fenelon): “If you are not careful, you will acquire so much knowledge that you will need another lifetime to put it into practice.”

This past Sunday at Westside we talked about the personality traits that tend to ‘activate’ our explosive potential. I suggested there’s really just one: a radical openness to 5 kinds of input (can you be led, can you be challenged, can you be taught, can you be cared for and can you be continually re-engaged in grace for someone else).

I think those two thoughts (paragraphs one and two above) come together at a very important intersection. Being radically open without taking any action means we have all kinds of great information which does nothing. Taking radical action without being open means you might be growing, but only at the ‘snail’s pace’ made possible with one person’s worth of insight (your own).

If you had to pick one problem for your own, which would it be? Why not have a discussion about it this week with someone you trust?

Join us on Sundays at Westside or tune into the podcast through the week (www.wkc.org).

Have a great day,
Chris

A 100% Mortality Rate

2008-03-20T15:30:00.002-04:00

It may be a difficult thing to accept because so many of us are at a place where our mortality is only theoretical, but it would be foolish not to try to understand what it means. One day you will end. In the words of James Fowler, “This body, this mind, this lived and living myth… will cease to be. The tide of life that propels me with such force will cease and I – this “I” taken so much for granted by “me” – will no longer walk this earth.”.

I know we are all somehow vaguely aware on an intellectual level that many of the things we care about on a day to day basis won’t really matter in the bigger picture of our life as a whole. We wouldn’t die to do many of the things we do while we’re dying. Think about that sentence. You wouldn’t die to do most of what you’re doing. But you’re dying while you do it. Shouldn’t we make ourselves more aware of what this might mean?

Most of the people who find out that they only have a fixed amount of time left to live were already dying before they were told this sad news. A process had already begun and had existed for some time. And they only thing they lost was their illusion that they had a lot more time. I remember reading an article in a newspaper about a woman receiving cancer treatment and the reporter asked her, “What’s it like to live every day knowing that you’re dying?” She responded with a question of her own, “What’s it like to live every day thinking that you’re not?”

It’s no secret that it’s purpose that matters most. The secret is to find a way to find a way to feel the need to act on it now. The secret is to find a way to turn down the volume on that deep and pervading sense that we will all, always have “more time”.

So what do you stand for? What do you want your life’s energy converted into? The steps we take to please ourselves turn our life’s energy into something that is within us – a sensation which turns into a memory – and it evaporates with us, leaving no residue in it’s wake. It could be said of many people after they are gone that they, “Lived for a while and pleased themselves…”

Purpose begins at the point where our life’s energy is used to touch someone else. When you touch someone else you’ve made a “noise” outside yourself – you have created something that can outlast you. In a very real way, you transcend your own mortality. As I said this past Sunday, when it comes to us and our so-called needs, maybe the key is not so much how do we meet them – because this is a daunting task and may not even be possible because it seems that they never end. Maybe the issue is how do we forget them, instead, because the effect is the same (to listen in visit our podcast online). A need met and a need forgotten both go to the same place in our minds where we no longer feel them.

It’s a brilliant challenge from an ancient teacher: use what time you have to touch someone else and you may just find that you set yourself free along the way.

Just a thought.

I hope to see you Sunday and I hope you bring someone with you.

I hope to see you there,

CSW

Your Look Has Got to Go

2008-03-13T17:03:00.005-04:00

I think I’ve stumbled on an insight based on the experience of thumbing through a recent copy of Men’s Vogue (I didn’t buy it… I feel it is very important to make this distinction). As you might expect, there are articles in amongst the many glossy advertisements offering products which promise to make you look, smell and feel glamorous. . These articles are about people who have said or done important things and they often begin with a picture. There’s nothing anomalous in all of that (so far). But what I find interesting is that each of these photos contains a small package of text, off by itself, often down by the bottom corner of the picture which describes in great detail what this special person is wearing. Presumably so you could go off and find these clothes for yourself.

Once you train yourself to notice it, it get’s annoying… As though their clothes are an important enough life attribute that it deserves it’s own package of text separate from all the rest… I mean, of all the things we could seek to emulate from the lives of these interesting people, is dressing like them really significant? It’s as if the magazine is saying, “Here’s a person who’s done something special (advanced the cause of AIDS or some such thing). Jacket by Banana Republic, socks by Calvin Klein Sport, shirt by Abercrombie & Fitch, etc…” I don’t know how to put it down to a sentence, but something about it seems a bit ‘off’. Are those two ‘bit’s’ even related? Does the fact of what they’ve done have anything to do with ‘jacket by Banana Republic’?

It’s nothing new to recognize that our culture over-appreciates image. But it’s worth thinking about more deeply when these text-captions have gotten to the place where they not only no longer annoy us, but they blend right into our experience without so much as a thought. Jeans by Seven, sweater by Gap. When it comes to so-called ‘interesting’ people, is it really the case that we’ll settle for the look?

Image creates an impression. Authenticity is the word we use when image is smoothly and directly connected to identity (ie someone does not choose a set of jeans to look interesting, rather, someone is interesting for other reasons and then chooses a set of jeans in order to avoid being naked). What’s the net effect? ‘Image’ and the ‘impression’ are natural appendages of the person you really are. But our culture seems obsessed with completely ignoring identity. It’s cumbersome, time intensive and costly. So we’ll settle for simply creating the ‘effect’ of an interesting identity. That means the real focus of Men’s Vogue is about creating a ‘look’ that creates an ‘impression’. In other words: the magazine says, “Here’s how interesting people look… Do you want to look interesting?... Jacket by Club Monaco, shirt by Guess.

Ancient Christianity is about a whole other kind of story. It’s not about creating an impression by changing your ‘look’, it’s about having a whole new starting point on the inside. In short, it’s about transformation. It’s not about looking interesting, it’s about being transformed. Image over promises and under-delivers (someone can look interesting, but then we find out it’s only a look – pants by Brook’s Brothers). Transformation under-promises and over delivers because it’s all about the part that clothing can’t tell us. Transformation is all about the fact of having made different choices about who you are, not just how you look.

In a world that has been reduced to the 2 dimensions of our ‘look’, perhaps rediscovering that third dimension (substance and identity) will draw people into a whole new kind of living… (Glasses by Dolche & Gabbana not withstanding).

Just a thought…

I hope you have a great weekend,

Chris

Just Because

2008-03-05T14:28:00.010-05:00

Our oldest daughter has arrived at the “why” stage full-blown. For any of you who’ve never been there it must be easy to imagine your way out of it. But what you never expect is the surprising difficulty of the simplest questions.. On one side, you don’t want to shrug it off because you want to honor their curiosity. But on the other hand, all of your answers have to fit into the mind of a 3 year old. It’s tough. As an example, how would you answer the question, “But why is it Thursday?” with anything other than, “Because it just is.” Think about it. Why is it Thursday?

I’m caught by this question all the time as I work to assemble the life experiences I think she needs because I can’t always explain what I’m doing in a way that will ‘fit’ into the mind of a 3 year old. The problem is that I’m not just trying to keep her warm, safe and well fed. I’m also trying to lay down a foundation of character, discipline and integrity. I want her to land at the first step of a fully adult life with every possible advantage. In other words, I’m trying to give her a bigger and better life than what I can explain to her right now.

All of this leads me to a very important question for you and I: How can Christ build a life for us which is bigger and better than we can understand – especially when every time He says, “Just trust me” you say, “But why?” I wonder if He’s caught with that question as much as I have been recently. “Just trust me,” I can imagine Him saying, “Tell the truth, treat people well, trust to what you cannot see and do the right thing as often as you can.” Why? Because it’s building something in us that we can’t always see or understand.

It’s something to consider as you put your thoughts together each day…

Chris

Falling Back Through Ourselves

2008-02-27T14:19:00.007-05:00

Office Space is one of those deeply gratifying stories where the main character lives out all the things you’ve felt but are afraid to act on. He quits his job without leaving it, and makes a whole movie out of breaking all his own rules with reckless abandon. I think it speaks to the frustration we all feel as we not only ‘run to stand still’ but seemingly ‘run to fall behind slowly’. Is there another way?

The words of Jesus echo from the past with his talk of an inside out, upside down and backward way of doing things. The greatest must become the least, the first will be last and you must live to give instead of get. All His teachings in that direction feel poetic but do any of us really think you can climb further up by letting yourself fall backwards?

Pan’s Labrynth is the story of a lost princess who’s only way home is by proving she still is the princess she once was. It’s an interesting statement – that you don’t prove you are a princess by sitting on a throne but by deserving to. She’s given three challenges as a test of her virtue – not so that she can pass the three challenges, but to see if she will choose to fail them for the right reasons. At the climax of the story she’s forced to choose between her way home and the harming of an innocent. Only after she gives up on her only hope for herself does she realize she has passed the true test. Only a princess would rather die than harm an innocent.

I think we face a similar challenge. Born to wealth and privilege (in global terms), we are the princes and princesses of planet earth. We live in palace North America. A whole planet dreams of the opportunities we don’t even notice any more. Just consider all the things you thought you’d do if you suddenly became fabulously wealthy. Now turn around and realize that compared to the vast majority of everyone else alive, you already are. Will you now do what you always thought you would?

Will you do as Pan’s princess did? Will you fall backward through wealth and privilege and give it up for the benefit of someone else? Or will you continue to claw your way forward in the never ending quest for more?

According to Jesus, one of the greatest lifestyle challenges is that you grow to the place where you put a towel around your waist and willingly touch the dirtiest part of someone else’s life in the posture of a servant. It’s what Jesus did when He washed His disciples' feet. Stunning. God washing feet. What a radical view of royalty.

My career has put me in contact with all kinds of market place leaders, thinkers, influencers and those in prominent positions. The most compelling examples are always those who could wrap themselves in privilege but choose not to. The most compelling examples are always those who have status but are not conscious of it. They fall backwards through privilege and land in the place of sacrifice. They’ve given me a more compelling thing to aim at and I aim at it every day.
Before you ever see the throne which awaits you, the God of endless love and wonder wants to give you a chance to deserve some part of it. It’s His hope that your life will tell His story. Not one of sloppy grace where you just ‘got lucky’. But a more difficult grace which allows you to get up and start to make great choices for yourself and discover your true identity through courage and sacrifice. Try it. Lean back a bit – away from the normal direction of privilege, go past the point of balance and let yourself fall through it so that you land on your knees serving someone else. Who knows? It may just surprise you.

I hope you have a great week,
Chris

NASA and You

2008-02-14T15:29:00.004-05:00

When NASA wants to send one of it’s ‘things’ into deep space (and by deep space I mean out past a few other planets or even past the edge of our own solar system), they don’t pick a straight path or even the shortest distance. Instead, they choose a path that sends their little space craft into the strong forces of gravity that surround other planets. The result is a “sling shot” effect as the satellite is pulled into orbit on one side of a planet and then fired out the other side at a much faster rate. All of this allows us to cover much more ground much more quickly because we can’t build rockets that can do the job all by themselves. I think here’s a powerful principle in there somewhere.

I think the same thing is also true of you and I as we move through our own life journey. As you read different parts of Proverbs (11:14, “There is wisdom in the counsel of many”) and Ephesians (4:15, “When we speak the truth in love” it leads to an unshakeable state), there is this sense that by listening to each other, we can create pockets of ‘strong forces’ that ‘fire’ us out the other side at an accelerated rate.

When we listen to each other, we can get pulled into a pocket of deep wisdom by building ideas that are too big for one or a few of us to figure out. When we listen to each other, we can be propelled by more than just one person’s worth of insight and that allows us to travel at an accelerated rate.

These are the ideas behind a project we launched on January 26th. A little more than 100 people came together to tell their story, sift through their collective insight and build a set of ideas about maturity that are deeper and richer than anything that could have come from just one or a few of us. The results are listed below in the form of 20 unique statements about maturity.

There are two ways you can participate in the next step. You can go through each of the 20 statements below and rank them as part of our survey. We will tabulate the results and us them to develop a 12 week teaching series which starts on March 9th. You can also interact with the material posted on our blog (http://www.uneditedspirituality.ca/wisdomlab/) if you’d like to take the process in a whole new direction. It would be great if you could do both. We’re hoping to capture the voice of a thousand people people along the way.

The New Testament is written as though something very special happens when you and I mix stories and do the work of taking each other seriously. It’s my hope that we can end up with 6 pockets of deep wisdom which pull us into an accelerated rate of living. So participate, be heard, and more importantly – be surprised at the outcome.

The following is a synthesis of the unique statements developed around the concept of maturity. From these 20 statements we hope to select 6 that will become the basis for 6 conversations on maturity.

That's where you come in. There are two questions, each containing ten of the Maturity Statements. Please read through the list, rate each statement and post your thoughts.

Click here to complete the survey.

Have a great week,

Chris

The One Thing

2008-02-06T13:19:00.000-05:00

When you play “Mexican Train” you’re always looking for a way to arrange your dominos so that it makes the longest chain possible. It really means you’re looking for the one domino at the start which unpacks the greatest possibilities. The same is true of Scrabble: how do I build words that use as many of my letters as possible. Again, you’re looking for the starting point – which letter do I start with in order to involve as many other letters as possible?

I find myself wondering about the life equivalent of that same challenge: what one life decision do I start with in order to trigger the greatest change throughout the rest of my life. Where’s the ‘trigger’ that starts a chain reaction?

It says in Matthew 6:33 that it starts with Him (Jesus) and His ‘Kingdom’. Great. An infinite good inside an infinite personality as expressed in a Kingdom that never ends. That’s quite a first step. I need something more targeted within just ‘Him’ and His ‘Kingdom’ because either of those are big enough to consume a whole life time of thought. I need the first step toward the first step.

Here’s what I came up with based on an entry in my journal from late January 2005. It’s a single sentence I’ve been using to try to keep my thoughts focused on that first step toward the first step: “I want to find the whisper of His voice in the hurricane of my own selfishness.” Imagine. Before we change, we need to know how and what. With his voice in our ear, there’s nothing we can’t do. Just imagine. Every day, I try to make that my first step toward the first step.

Have a great week,

Chris

A Strange View of the People Around You

2008-01-31T13:25:00.000-05:00

Listening is kind of like lawn bowling. There must be something to it because plenty of people seem to enjoy it. But at the same time (let’s be honest) there’s virtually nothing to the look of it which seems compelling in any way. People just simply don’t line up, drooling over the day when they finally get to breach the excitement of the lawn bowling yard. Neither, it seems, are there people lining up to listen.

Yet, the more I re-imagine what listening really is, the more I’m completely fascinated with all that it can lead to. Listening creates a life-bond which allows us to benefit from experiences we’ve never had. It’s a means of transferring wisdom and insight. It’s allows us to grow at a greater rate than would be possible just with your own thinking and living, alone. It’s also a vehicle of fascination: we could (perhaps) get so taken up in someone else’s story that we are taken out of our own. Who among us couldn’t use a well deserved break from the self-imposed burden of self-fascination?

With all that in mind, what is it that makes listening so banal? Could it be that we’re all addicted to the thrill of showcasing our lives (“Hey everyone – look at me – here’s an interesting thing about me – did I tell you about me, lately?”) There is something inherently gratifying about being the center of attention. But it’s gratifying in a candy-coated, junk-food-esque kind of way, and when are those kinds of thrills ever the path that leads to health and maturity?

I’ve been pounding these lessons deeper and deeper into my own thinking and living because for two reasons. First: I’m kind of young to be doing what I’m doing professionally. So I need to get wisdom and insight beyond my years and life experience. Listening is really handy for that – and I’ve found some great people to listen to.

The second reasons comes from a recent realization: if I were Christ and I wanted to reinforce the importance of relationships, other people, humility and doing life together, then I would embed unexpected successes on the other side of insights which could only be uncovered through honestly and genuinely listening to the people around us. In other words, I would string all our best possibilities like bread crumbs along the path of taking other people seriously. It’s kind of a like a treasure trail to a better life than you knew to ask for.

What if God wants to use the people around you to create unexpected success in you (if you’d only become a highly motivated listener)? What if He buried the insights you need to uncover greater possibilities in compelling conversation? What might happen if we found the courage to take each other that seriously? There’s no telling.

Something to consider…

Chris

Is It Really Impossible?

2008-01-23T10:57:00.000-05:00

The following flows from a few thoughts found in the message from January 13, 2008. It’s available on our website (http://www.wkc.org/) or through itunes.

Sovereignty has been on my mind ever since I first felt a little ‘led down a blind alley’ two years ago. I can remember the frustration that came from feeling like I was (1) Supposedly in relationship with a God of endless love and wonder and who was (2) Watching me from a distance as I stood in the midst of a dead end surrounded on all sides by impossibility.

Circumstances are one of our favorite scapegoats. Our mind so easily thinks in terms of ‘if only’ (‘if only’ things were different). But we do not live in a perfect world and God is not negligent in understanding your circumstances and what they mean. Nor is He amused to see you spinning your wheels against an impossible situation.

All of this leaves you with an opportunity to consider some tough alternatives in your thinking. I’d suggest there are at least two: you can either doubt God or you can doubt yourself. Or, to say it another way: you either doubt your perspective or you doubt His goodness.

Consider: you can either decide you’re right about your circumstances, they are as impossible as they seem and this reflects poorly on God for either not loving you enough to give you a real chance or just simply not knowing how tough your situation really is (in other words, you doubt God). Or as an alternative, you can choose to believe He knows something more about you and your circumstances than you do and you just lack the ability to see it clearly (in other words, you doubt what you see and think).

You can even take all of this a step further and assume that your circumstances are the means for being fully alive. Why? Because He customized them to bring the absolute best out of you.

So here’s what I’m suggesting: why not try on a different set of assumptions about your circumstances? Try telling yourself this: “My circumstances are the ideal means for me to be fully alive and grow to my next step, otherwise God is either not real or not nice or both!”

Just a thought,

Chris

A Very Special Test

2008-01-16T14:39:00.000-05:00

We’ve been focusing on Ancient Wisdom – trying to find the things that are so true they’ve never changed. Last week, we got into this bit about how real God is. Today’s mailing may be starting to look like a podcast promo, but you may want to have a listen. It’s in response to a conversation I find myself having at least once a week.

It goes something like this: if God is the only way to ‘real’ life here or here after, and He’s full of love and mercy, then why is He so hard to find (and sometimes to hold on to). The answer (which I took 40 minutes to pound through) is that God wants to be on the other side of love, not math. He wants to be a choice, not a logical conclusion. And I think He’d like to feel that you were at His side because you chose Him, not because you simply hated the alternative.

At the beginning of 1 Corinthians, Paul is writing about how the story of God can seem like foolishness on one side and powerful on the other. Notice how that contrast is a bit mismatched? Foolishness isn’t contrasted with wisdom or cleverness but simply just ‘power’. Maybe it’s because the challenge of finding God is supposed to be a test anyone can pass. That means it can’t be a test of intelligence or cleverness – but something else.

I firmly believe that’s one of the reasons why God waits for us on the other side of a choice that is not strictly rational. It’s some part mysterious, some part challenging and if you take Paul’s word for it, some part foolish. He’s put Himself on the other side of a test anyone can pass – and that means it’s about having just enough cause to look but maybe not so much that any of us are forced.

Just a thought.

I hope you have a great week.

Chris

Stop Every Day

2007-12-12T12:37:00.000-05:00

I’ve been spending a lot of time feeling like I’m trying to cover a football field-sized pile of ‘stuff needing to be done’ with a nickel-sized spot of resources every week. Which may sound like it’s not fun, but actually, I get bored without a challenge.

At any rate, all of this leaves me in a fray of tough choices about what to do – and what to never do (and how to go about it). There are all kinds of principles you can use to organize how you think about this stuff, but I take it for granted that you know you can’t do everything – and that you can’t even do everything that seems really important. There simply just isn’t enough time.

It’s a rather well known ‘rule of thumb’ that 20% of what you do generates 80% of your life’s results. Which is a friendly way of saying that up to 80% of what you do doesn’t matter very much at all. A sobering thought to be sure. Your whole life can be taken from you in small chunks by the demands of really ‘important sounding’ things. But you’re not here to have your circumstances make your choices for you. A part of the challenge is that you sometimes face into the storm of demands being placed on you – and you just resist it. Why? Because our obligations are not all there is to us!

So here’s a thought I’ve found really helpful, recently: every day, get up and decide what you’ll give; make it courageous, give it intelligently and with passion, and then surrender the rest. You’ll be surprised how little of the universe actually collapses when you choose to give one person’s worth of ‘stuff’ and then a little bit more.

In so doing, I believe you ‘activate’ a set of outcomes that will move you forward – even if it moves you forward through failure. After all, it’s better to crash your career into the ground for the sake of a life than the other way around. Why? Because as long as you have a life, you can always re-start your career. I don’t know what good a career is, however, without a life.

Jesus asked rather famously, “What good is it if a person gains the whole world but loses their soul?”

Have a great week,

Chris

The Magic of Integrity

2007-12-05T12:14:00.000-05:00

Integrity protects you. And not just from accusation, either. It protects you from the unknown and the unknowable. It ensures you are aligned with a hidden order of things which lies just beneath the surface of what our 5 senses can read. Doing the right thing as often as we can is our best way to position ourselves in God’s supply chain of great things. Since we can’t know what any given decision will trigger in terms of it’s outcomes, this is an incredibly valuable thing.

Think of it this way: God’s laid out all your best possibilities like bread crumbs along the path of doing the right thing as often as you can. He’s lodged them there – some seen, some not; some in a way that make sense, others in a way which represents a total surprise. Integrity activates the great things God has had in mind for you from before your very first moment.

Give it some thought this week. What has God placed on the other side of difficult choices just waiting for you to discover?

Chris

One of those Terrifically Short Ones

2007-11-28T11:52:00.000-05:00

I’ve prayed for maturity, and sometimes, as soon as He leads me to the things that will lead me to it, I ask for my illusions back. Why? Because I want to be comfortable. The problem with maturity is that the things that lead to it seldom are (comfortable).

I firmly believe that much of what hurts us is just God giving us what we ask for: to become better people.

Think about it,

Chris

Life Space Accounting

2007-11-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

There. I did it. In the words of Gandalf to king Theoden, “Breathe the free air.” It’s been 16 days of strained concentration – and it was also entirely unavoidable. Because we live in a world which is not directly subject to our wishes, we’ve got to be able to bend and flex. And there will be periods when we are asked to do something which nearly tortures the meaning of those two words.

All that being said, however, we must work hard to never forget the direct and delicate relationship between our personal and professional lives. Your personal life is the thing you lead from and it’s the thing you lead with. So we must take care. Let us not live our personal lives in such a way that our professional lives become impossible. And more importantly, vice versa: let’s not live our professional lives in a way that makes our personal lives impossible. You cannot serve one by ignoring or abusing the other because they are different phases of the same thing.

Proverbs warns against idleness – but at the same time, God’s law also demands a Sabbath. We were made to be in motion on purpose, but all our ‘motion’ requires a matching rest. That word ‘matching’ is particularly important. It’s a simple matter of math and accounting: we all need to find resting behaviors that more than match the intensity of our spending behaviors.

And as I write all this, I’m relishing the first morning of a recharging phase. Do I feel guilty? Absolutely not. In the words of Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne, “Rest is a weapon.”

Have a great week.

Chris

Two Ways of Looking

2007-11-14T09:23:00.000-05:00

Consider the difference between a map and a window. They both represent different ways of looking. The map affords a “God’s eye” perspective on a piece of planet earth. We can easily see the relationships between destinations which are too far to see just with our eyes. The problem with a map, however, is that it requires interpretation, and you have to know where you are on it if it’s to be any use at all.

A window, on the other hand, is a way of seeing which is much more concrete. You see shapes and terrain – you see what’s really there and a window never lies. The problem with the window, however, is that it does not show you how to get from here to anywhere else and it never shows you what’s beyond the next hill.

I find myself too often stuck ‘looking through the window’: dealing with immediate, urgent things which overwhelm my senses. I’m really starting to hate my Blackberry with it’s incessant pinging about problems, apparent ‘crises’ and other things flit past my ‘window’. I’m drawn to them because they are far more real than anything on the map – and far more immediate – but are they more important?

In truth, we’ll get lost looking through that window. It takes discipline – and sometimes courage – to pull back from the assault of urgent things and remember the end from the beginning, see the relationship between all things, re-establish a sense of priority and read the map!

Which do you spend more time looking at or through?

Something to consider.

Have a great weekend.

Chris

Sheer Force of Will

2007-11-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of blind faith in my car. Whenever I stick my key in the ignition I expect it to respond to my wishes without hesitation. On the vast majority of days it does just that. But a car is actually a big lint-ball of technology with many different processes all working together: the fuel delivery system, the combustion chambers, the electrical system, the climate controls and then there is the electronics and power this-and-that’s. All of that to say there is a lot that can (and does) go wrong. In that event it’s not a great strategy to simply go out and believe that by ‘sheer force of will’ I can expect the same outcome from a system that is now broken. First, I need to fix the system.

It continually surprises me how much blind faith we place in our will power. It seems as though, to us, we think we simply just need to ‘make a decision’ and our life will magically comply. We say ‘I need to be more creative’ or ‘I need to be more relational’ or ‘I need to whatever…’ And then we respond with more time, more effort, more wishful thinking and often more disappointment.

Why? Because our life is a complicated system of many processes all working together. You can’t arbitrarily decide to have a different set of outcomes without changing some part of the system to match it. Where is that ‘more creativity’ going to come from? It’s as though we think our mind is like a magic wand. We need only say it and it is so. Nothing could be further from the truth.

How much time do we waste wondering “How can I change the outcome without changing anything about the system that leads to it?” As though you could draw cold water out of a hot tap just by sheer force of will! We can’t just decide to have a different set of outcomes without changing the parts of our life that are related to them.

So instead of just looking at those outcomes in your life (who you are, what your relationships are like, where your health is going, where your career is going…), why not also look at the whole range of other choices that lead to them? And if the system is broke – why not fix that first? And even if that system isn’t ‘broke’, you can at least ask how it could be changed. Every new decision you make will need to be supported by a whole new cluster of habits and changed behavior.

Just a thought,

Chris

1 Sentence, 6 Words Long

2007-10-31T09:17:00.000-04:00

You’d think we’d be versed in the dangers of saying too much by now. But I don’t think so (at least not yet, anyway). I do this all the time in my teaching career. I take 35 minutes to say something which is probably more effectively conveyed in a single sentence left to hang in the air and tell itself further in the silence that follows.

As a simple (but powerful) exercise, try something this week to see what I mean. I challenge you to exercise the power of an uncluttered, un-appendixed, un-qualified ‘no’. It’s best to put a ‘thanks’ on the end so people know you aren’t upset or anything. But try it, just say “no thanks” without worrying about how to ‘doctor it up’ or ‘pad it’ or ‘spin’ it in anyway.

Better yet, try this simple prayer I’ve been mining for a few weeks now: “Help us Christ, for we hurt. Lead us, Christ, or we will lose our way. You are my hope. Amen.” And then stop. Wait a bit. Think about what you just said. Assume that He heard you. Further assume that in the simple fact of saying those few phrases, you’ve reminded yourself all over again that your life is a partnership, and maybe that’s good enough.

All of this has been a three paragraph introduction in front of my desire to give you a single sentence which is just 6 words long. It encompasses a part of our constant challenge to stay focused on building a Jesus-based life which has more than just ornamental value. It’s at the top of my daily briefing right now and it’s been at the front of my mind for more than two months. It’s far from all you need to know about ‘red letter’ Christianity, but it’s one of the things we’ve shown an eagerness to forget. It’s based on a famous bit of scripture found in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”, and here it is:

Simple, honest affection can change history.

Have a great week,

Chris

Untameable Things

2007-10-25T09:55:00.000-04:00

There are tens of thousands of exotic pets in Canada: tigers, cheetahs, raccoons, raptors... All kinds of animals that inspired someone a little too much. It’s what we (people) tend to do. We take a good thing one step too far. We say, “What an incredible animal.” And then we take it a step too far: “If it’s this amazing to look at, how much more amazing would it be to live with!” That’s when it starts to go off the rails.

Often, this arrangement ends very cruelly (at least for the animal). Hundreds of these animals are neglected, abused, lost, discarded or simply set loose once the power of our powerful ideas has worn off. One of the most obvious principles we can pull from all this is that there are some things which are just not going to be ‘habituated’. As the tragic injuries of Roy (as in Sigfried and Roy) attest, there is just simply no way to live safely with a dangerous animal. Sooner or later, someone will get bitten. It’s only a matter of time.

All this came to mind this week rather suddenly as I considered how I’ve tried to make a pet of certain so called ‘sinful’ things. I know that word (‘sinful’) is unpopular. But I refuse to let the abuses of it lead me to pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m talking about sin in it’s least religious sense, not simple do’s and don’ts of polished behavior. I’m talking about inward compromises of values and relationships. I’m talking about true sin.

It’s mostly just “off-center” ideas, habits of thought, slips of vocabulary and lapses in attitude. You may say it’s no big deal, but it is to me. I have a compelling image of a person I’d like to be and the lie I’ve told myself is that I can have both: the outcomes of the person God made me to be plus the little indulgencies I allow myself along the way.

It’s the exact same lie that was whispered to Adam and Even in the garden: “You can have both, you know. The life you have right now plus everything the fruit offers.” In other words: you can get more from your life by going your own way than by following God’s instructions.

Anyway, all this came to mind rather suddenly as I considered how I’ve tried to habituate sin. Clean it up. Teach it to behave. Make deals with it. Mitigate the severity. Make it a comfortable object in my life space which didn’t do unnecessary violence to the whole. It sometimes feels like it’s going to work, too, except for this one unfortunate little part: I always get bitten.

So far, I’ve found no lasting or meaningful way to make a pact with compromise. It never stays contained, never plays fair, never holds to the boundaries I wish for it. It always spills over, always gains strength and always reasserts it’s dangerous side. In short, this stuff just simply won’t be lived with well. It always gets messy.

So I’ve decided all over again to renew my resolve not to try to live with things that simply refused to be lived with well. It reminds me of something Jack Nicholson’s character said in As Good as it Gets, “You make me want to be a better man”. Christ made me want to be that a long time ago.

Have a great week,

Chris

Tough People

2007-10-17T15:14:00.000-04:00

I can easily get quite taken with a wistful series of “what if’s”. Like “what if we all just agreed with each other more” or even just simply talked to each other more openly. Yes, its’ true, I’m distracted by the way I think things could be.

This is most troublesome when it comes to people. The very means by which we can reach our greatest achievements are just as often the largest obstacles along the way: free thinking, born with a mind of their own, seeing the world through their very own knot-hole, and not always cooperating, people.

All too often our ‘resistors’ become the ‘enemy’, but that’s an incredibly debilitating way to think about it. For starters it makes it far too personal to assume that these people are actually pitted against us – not just our ideas. Or, as is often the case, it doesn’t even have to do with anything about us or our ideas at all. It’s really about them, and what they bring to the table and what they carry with them into all situations. In fact, it’s more about what all of us bring to the table, period. Conflict is a fact of being human.

So, just like “throw up” is a fact of having a baby in your life, conflict is a fact of having people in your life. It’s a side effect of human nature. And as we grow up, the throw up never goes away, it just changes. Thankfully, it’s no longer the shirt staining stink of digestive projectile. But perhaps more unfortunately, instead of just stinking, this new kind of throw up actually deeply hurts.

But here’s something which may be a brand new way of thinking about it. Instead of, “This person is doing this because of me” how about “This person is doing this because it’s something we all do.” And then your resistors are no longer ‘the enemy’, now they are simply the means of greater maturity. Conflict becomes a natural part of the landscape. It’s the trees we must walk through in order to be in the forest. And even more than that, it’s the ‘monkey bars’, if you will, that God can use to make you stronger. (If you let it of course).

It fits with that adage: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Or… well… at least it can make you smarter… or… at least… well… well… at least it didn’t kill you.

Something to think about,

Chris

Triggers and Lint Balls

2007-10-05T12:14:00.000-04:00

Have you noticed that life has a cumulative effect? Some of the things that have happened to you in the past are still with you today. In fact, each experience we have changes the way we experience the next thing, and that thing changes the way we experience the things which come after it.

Take hurt as an example. You can never be quite so naïve as you were before the last time you got soundly trounced by someone who took ‘taking advantage of you’ to a whole new level. We can moderate the effect it has on us through effort, but we can’t easily make it go away completely. We carry it with us.

I’ve come to think of all this as something like your own personal ‘lint ball’ of human experience. A lint ball being that slowly growing collection of pet hair, clothing fibers, toast crumbs and far sketchier things which haunt the ½ inch gap beneath kitchen appliances and under the furniture which sits atop hardwood floors. A lint ball is the ‘cumulative effect’ of a bunch of stuff which collects over time and I have one inside me. We alternatively call it ‘baggage’.

At any given moment, I carry with me some part of the shame and fear, hope and willingness, good and bad of all that’s happened to me. I also find that as time goes by, it gets easier and easier to ‘trigger’ some of this ‘stuff’. Whereas it used to take much longer to arouse my suspicions, they can sometimes be triggered almost ready made if someone starts to act out even a small part of something that’s happened to me before.

I’m writing all this because I’ve decided recently that I want to have a larger say in which triggers get triggered most often. Specifically, I want to have a larger say in the one’s that are attached to passion and vision, courage, hope, possibility, creativity and expecting the best of everyone around me. I think a large part of your thought space will be determined by the things you spend the most time celebrating – or the most time ‘turbulating’ (the spell checker drew a blank for that so I’ll say it’s a word I invented based on ‘turbulence’).

I’m guessing all of this is part of the reason Jesus wanted us to stay childlike and live as though we simply hadn’t had enough time to build long triggers attached to large amounts of baggage.

It’s something we’ll be talking more about this Sunday. I hope you find it challenging.

Chris