Loving Each Other With Our Real Selves

I'm excited about a new year and some of the things God has been teaching me.   A new year always brings in a sense of starting over and beginning new habits and dreaming new dreams.  As a church I think we have some great opportunities in the new year to do all of that.

I really love where we are as a church right now.   It's great to be debt free and to be unencumbered financially for the first time in a long time- especially in the tough economic times we are in.  Our missions offering this year has also greatly exceeded our expectations!  I believe with all my heart we are postured to accomplish some incredible things for His glory in the days ahead.   We will be stepping up our ministries to the poor and marginalized in our community this year and  gearing up for more intentional missions objectives overseas as well.   I sense real enthusiasm in all levels of our various ministries right now.  Our budget giving fell a little short in the last couple of weeks of the year so we need to transfer the excitement we felt toward paying off the CUBE into giving toward our budget- which is the primary ministry resource for all of our ministry objectives.

Last Sunday I taught the first in a series of sermons about our mission as a church and focused on our calling into covenant community.  Though we couldn't have anticipated it, I thought it was a striking and somewhat providential topic given the tragic news from this week.

We were all shocked by the horrible murders and attempted assassination of U.S. Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.  The man who attempted her assassination is said to be disturbed and emotionally unstable by friends and classmates who know him.   The one characteristic that stood out to me in the many offered about Jared Loughner was that he was "increasingly isolated".  it is a description we hear a lot for someone who is suffering from mental illness.  In fact most of what we characterize as mental illness begins with isolation and aloneness.  In truth isolation is extremely destabilizing to the human condition.

"It is not good for man to be alone" God said in the creation account in Genesis.  It is a reminder to all of us that God has designed us for life together.  We were created for relationship and when we live in aloneness we become less of what God has created us to be.

In one of the first articles that came out about the Loughner family  a neighbor who lived across the street from them said he didn't know the last name of the family until the news story broke out.  They had been neighbors for 17 years and yet he didn't really know them.  I couldn't help but think of how an internet driven society often depersonalizes relationships.  Many people in our culture are living shockingly isolated lives within close proximity of other people.   Have you noticed that people seem to be more into  virtual relationships today than they are real relationships?

And yet virtual relationships are not contemplated in scripture.

One of the central tenants of our theology is that God came to us.  The essential point of the incarnation is that God came to us in the flesh.  God came to man and looked him in the eye and touched him and felt what man felt and saw life from man's perspective.  He took on human flesh so that He could relate to us in this way.   The implications are many but one of the most important for moderns like us who are challenged by the values of a media culture  is that we are called to each other in physical presence as well.

One of our lead pastors tells a story about his daughter that makes this point.  He came home from a long day at work and plopped in his favorite chair and stuck his head into a newspaper as if to hide from the world around him.   She danced  around the living room in front of him imploring him to look at her new dress and dance moves.  He mumbled his approval from behind his newspaper- not paying much attention.

Finally she crawled in his lap.  He saw her little fingers grab the top of the paper and then pulling it down in front of him she stuck her little face into his and said, "Daddy, I want you to listen to me with your face."

I think that's an awesome picture of the kind of community we need to value in an increasingly virtual world.  We need to listen to each other with our real faces and love each other with our real hearts.

The Incarnation is not Moderately Important

In these weeks of Christmas we are studying together the doctrine of incarnation and it's implications on how we live and how we see life.  I can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is for us to nail this.  It is important for us to have it clearly in our hearts and as parents to get this right with our kids.  In the face of so much cultural pressure to secularize the holiday, it is left to us, the church and parents, to bring to bear the most important elements of the season.  We could look at it as some do as a big negative and rail about the "santaizing" of Jesus' birth.  But I choose to see it as a positive and a fantastic opportunity.  But we have to get it right.

So for the Sundays of advent we will be all over this doctrine.  This coming Sunday I will deal with the aspect of the incarnation that has to do with the assault of Jesus on a world that finds it hard to receive Him.  Jesus birth was surrounded in controversy and trouble.  I think this is emblematic of how Christianity comes into the world.   C.S. Lewis has said that the one thing Christianity cannot be is moderately important.  People did not have a casual view of Jesus.  They either ran from Him, wanted to kill Him or bowed down before Him.  People who truly knew who He was did not think of Him in a casual way.  This was true of His birth and it is just as true of those who honestly analyze their views of Him.   In other words, the fact of His incarnation will inevitably evoke a passionate response.  People who think of this doctrine in a casual, cavalier way just flat out don't get it.

The word "incarnation" means "embodied in the flesh".  It is the teaching that Jesus is the embodiment of God Himself.  This is one of the most controversial, hardest to swallow teachings in the Christian faith.  It is also one of the most crucial to embrace.   It is why the most important image our children should get at Christmas is not Rudolf or Santa but that the tiny baby in the manger is God Himself.  God in the flesh.

I remember years ago a lively discussion I had with an Imam in a Middle Eastern village over this very issue.   For him this was the most important stumbling block for Christianity- the belief that God Himself could become a man.  I asked him the question, "Do you believe God can do anything?  That God is all powerful and nothing is beyond His ability?"  Of course his answer was yes.  I said "That's exactly what we Christians believe and therefore we believe that not only could God do this, but that it is the most important truth of our existence and the central fact of scripture."

I was struck not just by his disagreement with this but how he was insulted by it.  It was another reminder to me that when we truly embrace the doctrines, they are not just subtle truths we live with as we go on our merry way,  they are truths that evoke controversy and resistance and inevitably radically impact the meaning of our lives.  They are not moderately important- they are of ultimate importance!

The One Whom Jesus Loves

This morning in my quiet time I was reading the familiar passage in John 13 in which Jesus reveals to his disciples at the Last Supper that one of them will betray Him.  I've read the passage thousands of times but today these words affected me like never before,

"... one of them, the one whom Jesus loved..."

Of course this was the way John identified himself in the story without actually saying his own name.   But what struck me today as I meditated on this passage was that John's habit of identifying himself this way was more than just literary subtlety, it also displays a kind of profound spiritual discipline.  One of the most important lessons of the gospel is that Christ's love for us profoundly changes the way we live and even the way we see ourselves.  So John's identifier was much more than literary style, it was a kind of self awareness that all of us as Christ followers should possess.  Having embraced the gospel, we should all write ourselves into the story as "the one whom Jesus loved".  

When I look into my own heart I can see that the biggest issues I struggle with are the result of not seeing and understanding His love properly.  When I embrace the reality of His grace I no longer have to prove myself.  When I see His love in this way all of my worry and despair becomes unreasonable.  It is the awareness of His love that answers all my insecurities.   When I see that the God of the universe was willing to die for me I am made aware of my worth in ways that affect me profoundly.  He is the treasure I look for in all other treasure.  He is the joy I seek in all other joys.  He is the love the heart longs for in all other loves.  So when I am able to see myself in the story as "the one whom Jesus loves" it doesn't matter what else is written in the script- whether it be suffering, sadness, frustration or betrayal- because ultimately I know I am loved with an eternal love.  I am the one whom Jesus loves.

Called Out

This week I've been at our IMB meeting in Greensboro NC and wanted to share some thoughts I've had in reflecting on the call to missions:

1.  We say it so much it's become a cliche- but we are all called.  The longer I'm a Christian the more I'm convinced the call of God goes out to all of us- and the closer we are to the heart of God the more we are impacted by that incessant, persistent infinitely important call.  In my 5 years on the IMB board I've heard hundreds of testimonies from young men and women who have responded to the call to missions.   What they all have in common it seems to  me is that the bigger God became to their hearts, the more they believe Him for big things.   God's call is on all of us, and the closer we get to His purposes, the more we feel the weight of that call, no matter where it might lead.

2.  To be at the center of His will is not necessarily the safest place to be.  I hear people say it all the time- "the safest place you can be is at the center of His will." Where does one find that in scripture?  Was that true of Moses?  Of Abraham?  Of David?  Of Peter?  Of Paul?  Of Steven?  Of Jesus?   God hasn't called us to live safe lives, He has called us to live obedient lives.  Sometimes to obey Him is to go to places and serve in ways that are way outside our comfort zones.  When our trustees at the IMB meet with our new missionaries before they are sent out on the field, we ask them how we can pray.  Inevitably some of the biggest prayer needs revolve around parents and family members who are struggling with their decision to go on the field.  It isn't just the fact that so many of these young families are going out of the country away from families and friends, it is more often where they are going and the fact that they are in many cases living in places that are breathtakingly unstable and even dangerous.

3.  In my experience the people who are fully engaged with the call of God on their lives are the most joyful and fulfilled in spite of whatever perceived hardship they experience along the way.   I'm not saying there are no unhappy missionaries- as there are many who are miserable.  I am not saying that God's work is always happy work and God's servants are always happy people.  I'm saying that in my years of experience in ministry I have noticed that the people who give their lives away are the happiest people I know.   Don't misunderstand what I'm saying.  I'm not saying all Christians are living the dream.  Admittedly there are many pretenders who are miserable.  There are many people who are living unsustainably incongruent and unhappy lives within the Christian orbit.   But the people I know who are truly committed to His will and are letting go of their idols and are focused on His grace and goodness are on the whole much happier people.  It is not that they don't suffer or are not living in hardship- but I agree with John Piper who says that the missionary is the ultimate Christian hedonist.    There are many more happy givers than there are happy getters.

4.  The call is manifested differently on people's lives.  To some it means they will give their lives to go to a place where the gospel has not yet penetrated.  Yesterday I met a guy in his 20s who has spent the past few years on the mission field in South America.  He asked the board to reassign him some place else because he thought there were already too many Christians where he was serving.  He wanted to go some place where there was more darkness.  So the board is sending him to a place that is beyond the ends of the earth.  He is going to a place where once you get to the ends of the earth you have to keep going!  He sees his call as hard core trail blazing kingdom building.   There are many who are called to that kind of Kingdom work.  But others are called to serve where they are in compelling ways for the gospel.   Like the business guy in our church who has a vision for sending people into the field with the profits from his business.  Like the CEO in our church whose company has a vision for distributing Bibles around the world.  Like the couple in our church that is starting a ministry to troubled teens.  Like the retired school principle in our church who has started a homeless ministry.   They are all called.   The calling looks different for each of us but the closer we get to the heart of God the more we are compelled to do big things for His glory!

The Breath of God

Last Sunday in both of our worship services archaeologist Scott Carroll gave us a glimpse of some of  the most significant artifacts found within in the Green Collection, arguably the largest private collection of biblical artifacts in the world.

What an incredible blessing to be able to see up close and personal such significant biblical history.  Not many people in the world will ever have an opportunity to come face to face with seven thousand years of history including one of the oldest biblical manuscripts as we had last Sunday.  What a gift the Green Collection is to the Christian community.  I am praying that God will bless the efforts of Scott Carroll and Steve Green beyond measure as they move forward with their plans to make these artifacts available in a biblical museum some day.

While  I was listening to Scott's exposition of 2 Timothy and his explanation of the words "God breathed" I remembered a story I heard recently at one of our IMB board meetings.

In many Muslim dominated countries in North Africa it is against the law to give someone a Bible.   But there is a crossing from Europe into North Africa in the south of Spain that provides a great opportunity for Christians to get the Word of God into these countries legally.   There is a narrow passage in the straight of Gibraltar in which ferries operate all day long taking cars from Europe across a twelve mile stretch into Morocco.   It is at these docking stations that thousands of Christians have gathered over the past few years to walk from car to car handing out New Testaments to people who are waiting in their cars to get onto the ferries to cross over into Muslim dominated North Africa.  It may be illegal to distribute Bibles in Morocco, but it is perfectly legal in Spain.

The story my missionary friend told me was of a young man who accepted one of those New Testaments as he was waiting for a ferry in Gibraltar Spain.  His car was packed full of European goods to bring back to his large family in a small village in Algiers.   What he did not know was that back home in that village one of his young cousins had been praying that God would show her the truth.   A few nights earlier she had a dream in which God said to her that one day soon He would reveal Himself to her and she would finally know the truth about God.

She had the same dream every night until the day her older cousin arrived in her village with his car packed full of European goodies.

When he came into the village honking his horn the entire family excitedly ran to the car and helped him unpack.  Every bit of space inside and outside and on top of the car was packed full of things he had purchased.  It took the family a long time to unload his car.

When all the unpacking was finally done and all the gifts distributed, the young man reached into his car and pulled out the Bible he had been given at the border and said, "Oh yeah, and there's this that some fanatic at the border gave to me!"  He took the Bible and threw it over his head as far as he could as if to throw away a piece of trash.   

The package flew like a missile hundreds of feet behind the car bounced a few times and literally landed in the lap of his young cousin who was sitting in front of her house minding her own business.  The girl was amazed that the book had just miraculously landed in her lap.  And to think that this was a book about the revelation of God!  The girl knew in an instant that this was the answer to her prayers and fulfillment of her dreams.   The New Testament was written in her native Arabic language and easy to understand.  She carried it into her house, went into her room by herself and began reading.  Several weeks later that girl came to Christ and is today one of the key leaders within the underground house church movement in Algiers.  

What we all saw at the front of our church last Sunday was a physical demonstration of the miracle of how God's word has been passed down through the generations.  What we also need to all understand is that the miracle is not just in the formation of the Bible, but also in what happens every time someone reads it.

It is the very breath of God! 

This Is What Biblical Community Looks Like

Occasionally I receive an email that I think our entire church family should read.  Last week I got one of those emails from a member who reflected on her experience of biblical community.  When I finished reading it, I thought to myself, "that's what it's suppose to look like!"  It is stories like this one that make the point for me how incredibly important it is for all of us to be in life with each other- in the kind of fellowship and biblical community Christ calls us into.  The New Testament uses the words "one another" about 52 different times- one for each week of the year!  That's a subtle reminder to all of us that we should continually make the effort to develop friendships within the context of church community:

As you taught about biblical community last Sunday it brought to mind how blessed my husband and I have been since moving to Oklahoma and attending Council Road.  Last year I had to undergo a rigid chemo treatment for the Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma  that the doctors had discovered right after moving to OK in Dec.,2006.   For my treatments I had to be in the hospital for about 5 days at a time.  And because my immune system was so weak I hardly ventured away from home between hospital stays.   

After four times in the hospital I went into remission due to much prayer because my oncologist thought it would take six times !  At this point in the treatment my oncologist sent me to OU Medical Center for another round of intense chemo followed by a stem cell transplant.  This consisted of a 3 week hospital stay.    

During these months our connection class and our small study group were incredible.  They stayed in constant prayer for me.  They visited me in the hospital and at home.  They brought food when a son & daughter in law came so we wouldn't have to bother with fixing food.  They mowed our lawn---because in the middle of my treatments my husband had to have a hip replacement.  They sent many cards of encouragement, and they called. 

One night they rushed me to ICU because I was throwing up blood.  Unbeknownst to me a group of ten showed up, went into a room and started praying.  The bleeding stopped! 

 When the doctors could not find out where or what caused the bleeding we told the oncologist about our friends & family praying and that he had just witnessed a miracle. 

Health issues were not the reason we felt God was moving us to Oklahoma in 2006 but we have not only been surprised by the quality of medical care available here but most of all the support we have received from our connection class and small group.  And we are continuing to keep them on their knees as my husband is now going through treatment for cancer.  I can not even put into words how blessed we feel because of the love and care these groups have shown us.     

Who Is My Neighbor?

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" 

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself. 

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."   

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"  (Matthew 10:25-28)

I"ve been thinking lately about how easy it is for us to go about our lives without really paying much attention to the substantive needs around us.  Jesus famously told the story of the Good Samaritan to press this point.  We all like to think of ourselves as good Samaritans, but occasionally may be shocked to see that we are as guilty as the Levite who callously walked past.

That happened to me recently.

Last week News 9 did a story about hunger at Putnam City West High School.   Not just about poverty or declining enrollment or diminishing parent participation, but HUNGER.

P.C. West is my alma mater.  It is a school in the shadow of our church.  It is the school that many of our students attend and many of our church members either attended, had children who attended or are currently teaching or coaching there.  Many of us would say that PC West is OUR school.  

And according to the News 9 report, there are young people who come to class and go to after school activities every day who have gone without food and are seriously malnourished.  The problem is so bad that several players on the football team suffered broken bones last year not because of hard hitting, but because their under nourished bodies couldn't take the contact.

How could I have walked past this?

It's hard for me to describe the emotion I've felt since watching this news report.  It is somewhere between sadness and shame and then finally determination.   I am sad that this kind of thing is happening in our community.  I am ashamed it is so close to us and I've not paid enough attention.  I am determined that we do something about it.

Apparently many of you feel the same way.  Since the report aired hundreds of people from around the community have responded.  Many of our church members have been networking and calling and working together.  Alumni have formed facebook groups and have organized and are beginning to mobilize.    Connection Classes are responding.

We have church members who are already heavily involved, like Coach John and Tammy Jensen and Corey Tennell who were highlighted in the news story.  There is also our Bridge Ministry leadership including Corey, Amy Milner, Chris Allen and Beth Dempsey and our High School and Middle School pastors Michael Butler and Micah White.  We have people in place who can make a difference and who are making a difference.  The challenge for us is to determine what can be done and how it can be done most effectively.  We are working as a staff to find solutions (some examples here).  We are asking the administration at West what we can do to help.  We will bring many of those answers to the congregation in the weeks ahead.  Our intention is to work toward long term solutions, not just the quick fixes we may be tempted to gravitate toward when our emotions are running high.

But the first step for all of us is to see the situation in our community in the way Christ sees it and the way the Bible teaches.  When Jesus used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate the meaning of "our neighbor",  He raised the bar on the conventional understanding of community responsibility.  He was saying in affect, "the desperate needs of the least of these in the community are the responsibility of everyone who is a part of me."  (Matthew 25:40)

In his book Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning told a compelling story about the famous former mayor of New York City Forello La Guardia that I think illustrates this point in an unforgettable way.  La Guardia is a legendary giant of New York City history who is now memorialized by the international airport.  Back during the depression La Guardia would barge into municipal courts and take the gavel from the presiding judge and hold court in order to make examples of petty criminals.  It was his way of keeping the order and sending a message during the desperate, dark days of the depression.

He was such a force of personality that simple courtroom rulings would often turn into front page news.  According to Manning, on a cold night in 1935 a grandmother was brought before La Guardias makeshift court in one of New York City's poorest districts.  She was charged with stealing bread.  The desperate elderly woman pled with Mayor La Guardia that she had no other way of feeding her grandchildren than to steal the bread.   The grocery store owner was not willing to drop the charges, explaining to the Mayor that it was a very rough neighborhood and he couldn't afford to back down.

La Guardia looked at the woman and said, "I have no other choice, the law must be upheld, ten dollars or ten days in jail." But even as he was saying it he reached into his pocket and extracted a ten dollar bill and threw it in his famous black derby hat and then called out to the courtroom, "Here is the ten dollar fine I now remit; and furthermore I fine everyone in this courtroom 10 cents for living in a city where a woman has to steal bread in order to feed her grandchildren!"

We should not forget that the pertinent question answered by the parable of The Good Samaritan is "Who is my neighbor?'    It was as if Jesus were saying, "Your neighbor is that person in need. The one over there on the side of the road you have been ignoring.  The one you wish you hadn't seen.  The one you have chosen not to look at- the one who desperately needs your attention! Yes, that one, the one who is going hungry- that is your neighbor.  And loving him is what I mean by loving your neighbor as you love yourself."

In many ways I think this News 9 report was for us church family.  It was God's way of saying to us, "Look over there, on the other side of the road, look at your neighbor."