30 Dec 2009

Two Fears that would Resist Change

The Change is coming.  It is upon us already and it is all around us.  The shift in the church culture is world-wide and it is grass roots.  People are trying to understand, and they are trying to respond.  Some are even trying to manage the change.  Have you noticed how difficult it is to “manage” a grassroots global shift?  It happened in American culture in the 60′s and 70′s.  Nobody could really manage it, but certain voices began to rise through the clamor.  Politicians, poets, musicians, and even television all began to feed the thought-stream of the day.

Often change comes as a Reaction.  Things are not working well, and the evidence of this is growing.  Dissatisfaction, like a growing wave begins to rise and the atmosphere for change becomes increasingly ripe.  The dissatisfaction becomes visible among the people and the reasons, the issues, become topics of conversation.  “This isn’t working!”;  “Why do they always…”; “no one ever seems to…”…these conversations stir the awareness, and then movement begins.

Gateway Worship

The movement can be an exodus, a mass shift of people, like we see today.  Mainline denominations are losing people en masse, some are completely splitting over issues.  Some churches are exploding in growth, while others are disappearing and shutting the doors.  The movement can also be change.  Creative thinkers see the atmosphere, recognize the need for change.  They go to their marker-boards and conference rooms.  These movements grow into gatherings and the more distinctive voices gather large conferences.  New thoughts, new ideas, conversations challenging the Status Quo become the medium for this cultural shift.

It is an exciting time.  It is a terrifying time.  The familiar crumbles around us, while the excitement of new and world-changing ideas sends our hearts and collective thoughts soaring.  Embrace change, in fact pursue change.  Living things change, and the church is a living thing.  Part of the change that life propagates is the necessary death of the old, in order to give life to the new.

As the global shift in the church world arises again, many voices are feeding into the stream.  Listen carefully, and listen as if you yourself can actually know the Truth.  In the same way that change often arises as a reaction, change also predictably brings about two types of opposition.  It is these two categories I want to address here.

As the church world shifts, people, particularly established church leaders, tend to fear two different things.  First they fear that we will spin off into a world of unorthodox, or dangerous doctrinal decay.  Second they fear that we will open the door to licentious living, and allow sin and dangerous behavior to enter unchecked into the lives of the flock.

First let me say that we have already done a fine job of allowing both of those dynamics in the last several decades.  Nothing about the current state of things has prevented either dangerous doctrines, or licentious living.  In fact, I find myself regularly frustrated with the inability of our current state to truly help people with “licentious living”.  Again and again I hear the same powerless advice given to those who struggle; advice which boils down to, try harder, and use cognitive strategies.

The Garden of Gesthemane

Let me state the opposition again.  Fear of moving away from right doctrine, and fear of moving into wrong living.  Let me say it one more way.  Fear that we will not maintain our knowledge of good, and fear that we will not resist our knowledge of evil.

Sound familiar?

Real freedom begins with abandoning the Knowledge of Good and Evil as our foundation for life.  We have no other source for real life but the Source Himself.   At first, even the statement, “abandoning the knowledge of good and evil” can sound like a bad thing.  Shouldn’t we guard our doctrines?  Shouldn’t we stand against evil?  We who have lived our lives by the knowledge of good and evil have a difficult time hearing through any other filter.

We should be a conduit for the tangible presence of Goodness, and we should take dominion over creation, thereby banishing all that is dark.  These will be the natural result of maintaining a vital connection to the Tree of Life.  The source, and the power would be God, in and through us.

The difficulty with knowledge as a foundation is that it places the responsibility squarely on humans to both know and empower what only God can accomplish.  The ultimate end of this root looks like this.

Synagogue at Capernaum

The kingdom of darkness contorts and mangles the body of a beloved daughter of the King.  She steps into the synagogue.  The Tree of Life enters the room and moves toward her.  A local expert and keeper of the Knowledge of Good and Evil begins to weigh out the unfolding drama.  It is the Sabbath.  No work should be done on the Sabbath.  Healing might be work.  The knowledge based outcome; life must not flow in this room.  In the House of God, the Son of God, moving in the Power of God, to accomplish the Will of God is rebuked by knowledge for administering Life.

The examples are scattered throughout the Gospels.  The free flow of life would be stifled by those who are experts in the knowledge of good and evil. I pray that those who have become experts or even employees of the knowledge of good and evil would be freed to receive the free flow of Life which is available in abundance, especially in this season of change.

24 Dec 2009

God did the Inconceivable…

God is so committed to fulfilling His plans on Earth through humans, that He became one in order to rescue us all from ourselves.  His Journey from the realm of Heaven to a rough-hewn cross on earth passed through the womb of a fourteen year-old girl who had never known a man.  A few thousand years ago she joined with her new husband and mounted a donkey to travel south from Nazareth towards Bethlehem.

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In 2002 I got off an airplane in Tel Aviv for the first time.  It was like any other airport I had visited, filled with crowds moving en masse through long hallways, echoing loudspeakers and overgrown golf carts.   We stood at the rental car counter like countless other times.  Then we got on the road.  Exiting the airport, the green highway signs were written in three languages, English, the square symbols of Hebrew, and the sharp scrolled letters of Arabic.  Thank goodness for the English. The experience was all pretty commonplace until I saw the next highway sign,

Green, like any sign on any highway anywhere in the world, this one pointed to an exit and said, “Nazareth 20 miles”.  That’s when it hit.  We were in a real place, as modern as any country I had visited.  And 20 miles to the east was the setting of the story I had read, and given my life to, for thirty years.  In that moment it shifted from an ethereal story of the cosmos to a real earth story.  The landscape was dirt and trees, the sun was in the sky.  Cars traveled by us and Nazareth was just around the corner!

God, not just God, but the Aspect of God that had uttered Nazareth into existence, shifted plains, jumped realms and entered this same dirt and tree laden landscape.  Entrusted into the hands of the angel Gabriel, The Word came to the living room of a child, someone’s daughter, and only with her permission (“…be it done to me according to your Word…”) took up long-term residence among the blood vessels and organs of a human He had lovingly crafted.

I wonder if God the Father felt at that moment the way my mom felt when we drove off and left my sister at college.  Jesus was not just visiting.  He was committed. A growing cluster of cells in a completely closed system.  Cut off from His vantage point where He could see all things and rule all things, He surrendered to her care.  His life and God’s plan was in her hands, or at least her uterus.  Now the waiting began and the story took a major step toward the restoration of all things.

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God, the God, had done the inconceivable, and been…conceived. Really, was this the only Way?  We can certainly think of other options, but these options are why God remains God, and we remain…human.  This was the only Way if God was going to be true to His nature, and His plan.  God did not condescend in order to be an example.  He never did anything to be an example.  What He does, He does because they are bold expressions of His True Nature.  While this may serve as an example, He was and always will be, simply true to Himself.  That God is fully committed to Being Himself is very good for all of us.

So she traveled down the dirt path, without the Weather Channel or an iPhone. No ibuprofen, and no air-conditioning.  The seventy five mile Journey could be filled with dangers from the natural realm and the supernatural.  Robbers or rain, demons or darkness, any of these could have tried to thwart her progress.  Where we would prepare from every angle, she substituted trust.  If God was in her, who could be against her? She and Joseph hiked, unnoticed, carrying the hope of the world.  At this moment she was plan A.

This morning friends of mine on Facebook and Twitter got on airplanes and into cars.  They are moving from here to there, and the obstacles are many.  The weather channel says the road is treacherous.  Armed with iPhones and trust, they leave their homes and drive.  It could pass by unnoticed.  If they were not careful, they themselves might not notice.  They carry in their hearts the same Hope of the World.  Pregnant with the Living Word, they could give birth anywhere they land.  Whether we know it or not, We are plan A.

23 Dec 2009

Adam’s Theology

Adam was a theologian in the same way a man falling in love is a girlogian.  He did not study the object of his affection, he was wholly immersed in Him.  When he breathed in, God circulated through his lungs, and when he pondered his condition and situation his thoughts were endued with Godness.

Was Adam a Calvinist, or an Armenian?  Was he a charismatic or a Methodist?  Adam would likely not have fit into any of our nicely defined categories as he had not yet been fooled by the knowledge of good and evil.  Knowledge, especially his own did not color his experience, expectations or self-awareness.  He just knew God, and saw through His eyes.

He knew God in the same way a scuba diver knows the water, He knew God in the way that each of us knows air.   With each breath, the source of life circulates.  His knowledge of oxygen levels, CO2 mixtures, lung capacity and respiratory process interfered not the least with the deep breaths he gulped in every moment, and his ability to benefit from them.

Ironically, other than Jesus, Adam knew God better than any human yet to walk the face of the earth.  He still had not read Systematic Theology.  He just walked in the garden in the cool of the day and drank deeply from the Source of all Life.

I think he might have gazed curiously at our attempt to “get our theology right”.  It is unlikely he would have judged us, because he was quite secure in his own relationship, and therefore in himself.  He was quite like the loving God, in whose image he was created.  So he would not have judged the earnest young theologians who pre-suppose that feeding cognition helps them know God more.

I think he might gaze with a similar amused curiosity at our attempts to figure out how church should look.  Are we missional?  Are we attractional?  Are we seeker friendly?  I think he might have calmly gone about his business establishing God’s rule over the creation.  He might have smiled as he pointed out the natural simplicity of banishing sickness, and broadcasting life in his day-to-day activities.  He might even have invited you to try it yourself.  I suspect he would not criticize you even if you criticized him.

I suspect he would love enough to speak to you directly about the things he saw in you that might be self-destructive or self-promoting.

I shudder to think that we might try to correct him in his theology and approach.  Though I suspect we probably would.  After all, we have knowledge, right?

18 Dec 2009

A Funny Thing happened on the way to Chichicastenango…

13554_201760364486_506609486_2745258_8053666_n“What was your mission?” He asked me last night.  It was a great question, but the answer would not even begin to describe the events of our five day Guatemala extravaganza.  Much of what “happened” on the trip were the events along the way.  I think the phrase in the Bible is, “…and as they went…” So were the beautiful moments in the land of Volcanoes.

Our mission, as he said, was to train a hand-picked group of pastors in the first steps of Freedom, as an approach to ministry.  WE had gone last year, and as my good friend Alan Smith says, “they need to learn to think differently too, but the way they think wrongly about freedom is different than the way North Americans think wrongly about freedom”  Got it? We had a year to figure out and hear God about how to accomplish our mission.  We were close.  I will tell of the two days of “mission” but let’s talk about the road to Chichi first.

Our plane lands in Guatemala City and we are treated to wonderful treatment because our friend Juan Constantino has spent years genuinely loving the men and women in airports and hotels between Dallas and Guatemala City.  They love him back.  He doesn’t schmooze, or “play”them.  He loves them.  He gives them gifts.  He knows their families.  He loves them.  So they treat us the way that loved people respond.  They are kind, they go out of their way to make us comfortable.  We are treated like Ambassadors. Way to go Juan.

The ride up the mountains is three to seventeen hours of winding switchback modern and primitive highway.  Three hours in ideal conditions.  These do not exist.  Anything can happen.  People my age should think “Romancing the Stone”.  Jungle roads and chicken buses, with valleys and volcanoes, stretch out in front of you.  Mothers with babies strapped to their bosoms in colorful cloth wave, as young girls walk by with a variety of packs balanced on their heads.

Juan points out a large pink home up on the mountainside.  It is a retreat center where his wife Anita has been waiting for us.  We are here to pick her up and continue on up the road.  We turn off the highway onto a dirt road, and the vehicles begin to rock and lurch.  We are now on serious dirt roads.  When we finally break through the brush to the compound, the grass is sculpted and the terrain is completely different.  Clearly much work has gone into this place.  An older couple is walking towards us, grinning,  and Anita is right behind them.  We go inside after a brief tour and find fresh squeezed orange juice and homemade pastries.  We should stay right?

As the conversation turns so does the atmosphere.  It is as if a fragrance has washed into the room, but it is not a scent…it is more like a sense.  God has something in mind for this could and He is beginning to let His intentions be known.  An hour and a half later, these seasoned missionaries have jettisoned some things that have weighted them down for years, but more importantly they have heard God speak to them, words of affection and encouragement.  They were miles down the road to freedom.  We prayed for her body as she was still suffering the effects of the Polio she had as a young girl.  We saw no immediate effect of those prayers.  That Day at least…the next day was a different story.

After day one of “The Mission” we were walking through the torn up streets of Chichi, when Juan tells that his foot was healed when we prayed at the missionaries house.  He had broken it on a trip to Egypt, and had been in pain ever since, until the day before.  As we prayed for the woman to be healed Juan’s foot was immediately relieved.  What had not been relieved was his two torn rotator cuffs.  He had been in pain for two years after tearing his rotator cuffs on a previous trip.  He was awaiting surgery and could barely lift his hands to the level of his shoulders.  Taking off his jacket, he winced in pain.  He asked if we could pray “the same prayer we prayed for the lady the day before…” for his shoulders.  None if us could remember exactly what we had prayed, but luckily, God is pretty flexible, He just wanted us to pray.  We did, and immediately Juan lifted both hands straight up.  No pain, with full movement.  Only two minutes before he could not even remove his jacket.

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Our “mission” was successful.  If you do not know what we do yet, central to our approach is to help people genuinely connect to God, and not just live by a system of rules.  In a two day span we watched a room full of pastors (ourselves included) open up their hearts and receive a new view from The Ancient of Days.  One of my favorite moments was when we asked God to show Himself in the way we most needed to know Him.  Anita, who was translating for me, began to choke up, and tear up as she translated for me.  I asked her what was happening, she said that God had shown Himself to her.  Clearly moved, I asked her to share in Spanish what God had shown her.

When she shared clearly she was impacted by what she had seen.  Coming from a past absent a father’s affection, Anita had seen an image of God the Father with His arms wide open, and pulling her in to a full embrace.  Loved!!!

This small room full of Shepherds were being shepherded by God Himself.  God began to express His love to these men as they opened their hearts to receive. Anita had translated far more than words to this room.

It was fantastic to work with Anita.  All of our team had favorite moments as God spoke to them and through them for two days. We grew as men, and as friends.  We grew.  Our team was strengthened as we searched out God’s direction together sometimes at the last minute.

Then we went to the Lake.  Not just any lake.  Ernest Hemingway said Lake Atitlan is the most beautiful lake in the world.  A crater istself, this massive lake is surrounded by volcanoes.  Often the water is a piercing blue, and it’s size is difficult to take in even in person.  No picture could possibly do it justice, and even standing on the edge of the basin, the size is difficult to really comprehend.

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After hearing God all week, we got to SEE Him in action.  This is truly one of the most beautiful places on earth.  The stories will continue to flow, as much more happened than should be written in a single blog.  God loves the people of Guatemala and we got to see Him do it.  I am honored to serve with a great team of genuine men and women who live a lifestyle of merciful, loving, supernatural conduct.  How much more fun could a man have?

9 Dec 2009

We Interrupt this Story

So…I always think it is a little funny when people just talk to their computers, but I did it anyway.  I learned at least two things.

1. You have to speak softly at 6:30 am while everyone else is sleeping.

2.  When you look down at the computer you have extra chins…glad you love me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slrp1dm5YoA[/youtube]

7 Dec 2009

Man!

To make Him alive, He had to put a part of Himself in the man. Amazingly, He lost nothing, even though He gave His life. The stage He had set was a multi-dimensional arena. For the man to really live here and take dominion, He would have to make the man with the nature to interact with the physical reality of the realm, while participating equally with the spiritual atmosphere of the place.

He made a body from the land itself, and filled the center of the man with His own Nature. Somewhere between the two, the man became his own person, but with a connection to the Spiritual arena. He had a body to interact with the planet, and a spirit to interact with…The Spirit.

The man needed breath, he was connected. The man needed life, he was connected. The man needed perspective, health, understanding, power…he was connected. He could easily present again (re-present) on Earth that which was constantly being presented to him from the Spiritual realm. He was connected.

All over this garden there was vegetation which was consistent with the duality of this realm. Physical trees with things growing on the branches like knowledge, and life. The man and the woman could pluck fruit from these trees and eat freely. The life which was everywhere was available to them…in fact it was at arm’s reach. They merely had to reach out and pluck it from the tree, and eat.

There was this one tree though. They could eat from any of the others, but they had been sternly warned. Do not…Do NOT…eat from the fruit of this tree. On the end of it’s branches were a specific kind of fruit. Where one tree connected them to a constant stream of life, this tree would connect them to something else.

Connected to God, they had new thoughts, new life, new power every moment. If they were to take from this tree, they would only have their own thoughts, their own life and their own power to draw from. The source of life would be cut off. They would die.

If this were to happen the only way to rescue them would be to give life to them again.

4 Dec 2009

God’s Job Description

This next part would be tricky for anyone else. If He were not all-knowing and all powerful He might not be able to pull this off. His assignment: to cover the entire scope of His creation with His nature. The strategy: humans. The problem becomes immediately evident doesn’t it? But He did it anyway.

Lake City

Depositing Adam in the center of this stage called creation He said to him, “You are here to bear My Image on earth, to take the reigns of this thing called creation, and then to multiply yourself bearing the fruit of what it is like to be in My Image.” No small assignment. It would be difficult, in fact, it would be impossible for Adam to do this. God made certain that Adam had an uninterrupted flow of this Nature that he was supposed to re-present and multiply. Like the power lines connected to the Source, Adam maintained a flow of this Breath-of-God moving to-him, through-him and from-him everywhere he went. He could daily stop by the Tree of Life and consume more.

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As long as Adam remained a conduit connected to a source, he was filled with alive-ness, and showered it everywhere he went. He presented God, and re-presented God every place he put his feet down. As Adam did this, he maintained this lovely garden as an exact re-presentation of the “place” where God sat when He wrote the story.

He was in-filled, empowered, in-dwelt, by the very force that had brought this whole reality into existence. And he had a whole planet to play in. Moving effortlessly between a material realm filled with mountains and oceans, and living creatures and a spiritual realm, also filled with breath-taking sights, Adam freely showed antelope how to run, and groupers how to swim. He stood on mountain tops and endless beaches and enforced the proper function of the winds, the waves and the living creatures. He could go anywhere , do anything, and it was not difficult to simply be himself. He was not insecure, was not fearful, never had allergies, (in fact allergens obeyed him) he was never sick, never tired, never depressed, and always filled with joy, laughter, love, and passion. This was God’s design….

Just for comparison’s sake, how did we go from the above experience, to the following picture.

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God wants us to fill up ornate buildings with some regularity and sing songs and try really really hard to not misbehave. If we do misbehave we must somehow go through a ritual of cleansing and in so doing we are fulfilling God;s plan. God has a series of checklists He is watching for, and He is watching to see if we screw up. If we do, He has a systematic plan to make our lives miserable, so you better watch out!!! We better sign up, get in line, and live rigid, joy-less lives, otherwise we might be “sinning” and not even know it.

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The answer to the question, how we got from “Free Reign” to “Dogmatic Fear” is all written into the story. You will see as the story unfolds how it happened. Much more importantly though, you will see how God is restoring “Free Reign”…how He has still not given up on the idea that we are here to present and re-present His nature everywhere we put our feet down. You will see that God is not looking for an army of Drones to remain in lock-step rigid formation, but instead is still intent on having a bride for His Son, who will share an eternal honeymoon playing on beaches and mountains, with whales and wallaby’s and spreading aliveness in everywhere square foot of geography they inhabit.

If God’s Job description is to fill all of creation with His Nature, and His strategy is you and I, we must re-connect again to the source and let it begin to overflow….