GraceBlog

TWO VOICES TO THE ORIGINAL...

   James Martin fits the description of the mind Robert Coles has called "secular"--the secular mind.  It's the mind that goes at the great human and eternal predicaments as if "the whole game" is in its hands (that was Bonhoeffer, really).  Martin doesn't think much of religion; he kind of thinks of it on the level of the aesthetic--as enrichment, as accent. Religion, hmmm, religion...when a small number of men were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war "the great forces of morality had nothing to say about it."  Science and scientific sense promise solutions (if only "politicians would listen to the scientists").  So his book is a book of "solutions."   Addressed to a generation of young people he calls the 21C Transition generation, Martin thinks this generation can, if it will, leverage "small, politically achievable actions" that can have powerful corrective results.  He describes how the planet is 1) on an unsustainable and catastrophic course, what is 2) most likely going to happen (intensify) if we do not 3) do the right things (what to do). 

   You don't have to, and I'm not asking you to, agree with his analysis and solutions to these "high momentum trends" that are like huge deep "ocean currents" (not mere surface waves)--trends that threaten the human future.  But if you're a Christian believer, as I am, why not give a listen to the voice you hear in this book?  Let Martin challenge you as a Christian servant living on this same complex "isolated blue planet" suspended in "endless black emptiness."  Give a listen without being put off by this man's go-it-alone "secularity."  Give a listen because you know this is a "visited planet,"  we are not hung in "emptiness," and because you know you are called to trusteeship of a "green beautiful sphere" which has had a Word delivered to it from the outside.  Human destiny is much more interesting than either beyond our reach or in our hands alone.  We have been given hands to do what we're made to do in a world loved and created by a God who acts like Jesus Christ to set the world to rights.   

   This "interesting" place to be is where some of you will recall Dr. N.T. Wright's recent apology for our day, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense.  Simply Christian is much more than apology, it's a stirring, sensible call to exuberant missional and evangelical life amid the threatening global momentums (if Martin is right).  Christian believers can be confident (if you were not already confident) in our message and mission. 

   Here are two very different contemporary voices to stir in us again the Original Voice that long ago excited us to "go"--to get on with bringing light to the nations and to the world.

                                                                                          --Larry

The Painted Jesus...

   Michael Frost , in his disturbingly hopeful book Exiles, tells about the 17th century Spanish painter Bartolome Esteban Murillo.  Murillo was the youngest of fourteen children.  His parents died and he was adopted into his aunt's home in Seville.  His adoptive home was a rigidly religious household compared to the warm spirituality of his parents'.  A centerpiece of that rigidity was a large picture in the sitting room entitled, Jesus the Shepherd Boy.  The painting was in a gold frame, verticle and tall (Frost describes), the shepherd's crook was like a sentinel's bayonet.  Around the head was the "obligatory" halo.  His eyes were lifeless, averted.  His cheeks were rosy, and his complexion unsullied.  But to Murillo nothing could be further from his vision of Jesus.  That's when Murillo, in the absence of his adopted family, took out his paint set and went to work on the venerated painting in the sitting room.  The stern unflinching face was given a lively grin.  The eyes were enlivened with mischief.  The halo was transformed into a battered straw hat, and the plastered-downhair was now tousled and unruly.  Jesus' crook was turned into a gnarled walking stick, and the limp lamb was altered into a troublesome dog.

   When the aunt and her physician husband returned to see the sacrilege to their painting Murillo was put out of the house.  Homeless again, he was forced through the streets of Seville with the painting held above his head so as to shame him.  But far from humiliating him, it was his liberation from that adoptive household.  A local artist, seeing Murillo and his adaptation, listened to his story, took him in, and gave him art lessons.

   Any of you who have known my ministry over the years know how starched, buttoned-down, orthodox, and Nicean I am about Jesus.  But you also know how I have urged you to keep from taming him into a nice, safe, and comfortable Lord.  Sometimes our cherished "paintings" of Jesus need to be painted again, or painted over.   He is our Lord, Savior, and Friend.  He cannot be safely held in a gilted frame in our sitting rooms.  Jesus is a much more interesting and (if I could use the word--I will) dangerous Savior, Lord, and Friend.  He is good dangerous.  He springs to life despite our dead and dull paintings of him.  He is not, as the authorities assumed so long ago, safely dead in a tomb.

                                                                            --Larry

                           

Pediatric Parable...

  We make disciples...we release them to follow Christ's call...

  Here’s a real-life parable.

 

   B.J. and I just sent our fourth son off to college.  Yes, we dropped Daniel off at Covenant College on Lookout Mountain, Georgia.  “Sent” is putting it too strongly, however.  You could say he “went.”  The time came for him to get out, move on, go off to college, and pursue his dreams.  Maybe he sensed it was time to go before we did.  And his going wasn’t like we shot him like an arrow to a destination of our choosing.  Rather, we negotiated that with him (as with our other three: Rog, Drew, Bill). After the negotiations, off they went, we got out of the way, we released them. 

 

   The mission of the church has this pediatric sense about it. 

 

   A thriving church is not about programs or tactics or events that "work."  This programmatic way of thinking believes certain programs and tactics are the elixir of a healthy, strong, and growing church. Instead, a thriving church has a focus and an attitude—call it a "spirit" that works, or call it an "atmosphere" that works.  It works because everyone knows—from leadership, to pastor, to member, to staff—what we are about, namely, this "pediatric thing" to grow disciples of Jesus Christ and to release them to whatever Christ calls them to do.

 

   United to Christ by faith in him, members of the church are invited to transformation, to discover their gifts, to discern Christ’s call upon their lives, to be equipped, and then to be released to do what the Spirit of Christ wants them to do.

 

   This simple process is the way an ordinary home rears children: to wake up to life, discover their gifts, discern their calling in life, equip themselves for that calling, and be set loose to do it.  Does all this sound too simple to say?  Maybe, but how often the simple things are forgotten…in the home and in the church. 

                    --Larry

Marked Up...

  You have heard me say often enough that the main business of the church is to produce Christian grown ups whom we let go into God’s world to do whatever Christ calls them to in his mission.  If we do not do that, we will not have people who want to be with Jesus, doing what Jesus said he would be with us to do.  Good, loving, and wise parents want their children out of the house, eventually. But parents want to dispatch grown up children into the world, children who are pursuing a passion, a vision, a heartbeat, a call.

 

  It’s the same way in the church.  We want to produce spiritual grown ups, who want to be with Jesus Christ, doing what Jesus is doing in the world.  Robert Wuthnow has called the church a “community of character.”  We want to produce adult characters and align all our resources for that purpose.  So what do these grown up Christians look like?  Think about it.  Picture it.

 

   Glenn McDonald in Zionsville, Indiana put the matter simply without dumbing the matter down.  Growing disciples have a heart for Christ alone, a mind furnished with the Scriptures, knees for prayer and worship, a voice for sharing the good news, loving arms for service, and a spirit of servanthood and self-giving.  If you sift through the Scripture and rattle our own Christian tradition, you can shake loose 10, 12, or even 24 marks of a Christian grown up.  But every one of us can grasp these half-dozen memorable marks of a mature and maturing Christian anatomy.  All our resources need to go into producing people like this; from “rattle to rocker”--people like this.  These are the marks of a mature disciple we want to carve into every life. 

 

   But add a seventh mark. I love the number seven with its signal of completeness and fullness. A growing disciple has hands joined to others in the fellowship of growing disciples.  We can join our hands together right now, for this great purpose. 

                    --Larry

T.A.G. Someone...

     Wednesday evening (Aug. 8) BJ and I shared dinner with the P.a.L.S. Group that Doug Evans led this summer.  This group did the study on WORSHIP in the Experiencing Christ Together series. The dinner was their end of summer gathering.  We had a fabulous meal at Faye's; everyone turned out. Once filled up with food, the conversation turned to Grace Church and what God is doing with us.  We talked about what to do next with our small groups (P.a.L.S. Groups--sometime I'll explain the acronym).  We grinned with joy about those who were coming to Christ and growing in their faith.  It was all good and not gossipy at all.  Then...we talked about the "mechanics" of Grace Church (I guess you would call it that)--the mechanics of who sets up the chairs, how are the Wednesday dinners planned, who teaches/leads and where, the need for coordinator people, how it all get done at Grace, etc.  "Mechanics."  Then, for a few sentences at least, we got onto the leadership theme of learning to T.A.G. one another at Grace.

     It's simple, really.  It's part of the culture of multiplication, of empowerment, of every-member participation, of leadership development, of mentoring and modeling, of the spiritual gift development we want to encourage at Grace and have everyone participate in. 

     At Grace we T.A.G. one another--Train, Advise, Get out of the way...  (You could use other words for it, but they wouldn't make for a fun acronym like T.A.G.)  So...say my "thing" at Grace is to set up chairs, or lead a Sunday group, or make the coffee, or do one of the Scripture readings, or fold bulletins, or hang up the banner, or set up an information kiosk,  or put up display stands, or prepare the Communion, or lead children's worship, or make sure the bathrooms are looking and smelling good, or...  Imagine God is moving me take on a different form of service or I just have to be away for a few Sundays (hey stuff comes up...). If so, I T.A.G. someone to take my place.  I T.A.G. someone to take my task, to minister (serve) while I'm away or as I prepare to move on to God's new ministry for me.  Maybe my ministry is something outside the inner "mechanics" of Grace Church.  Maybe my ministry is at the Help Center, or with Habitat of the Shoals, or with the CASA program or...  I T.A.G. someone when I have to be away or when it's time for me to move on, then the mission will keep on. 

                            --Larry

SING UNTIL MORNING...

     Awake, my soul, and with the sun

     Thy daily stage of duty run;

     Shake off dull, sloth, and joyful rise

     To pay thy morning sacrifice.

                          *****

     Lord, I my vows to Thee renew:

     Disperse my sins as morning dew,

     Guard my first springs 

                  of thought and will,

     And with Thyself my spirit fill.

   Most days for over a decade, these lyrics from a hymn by the English schoolmaster Thomas Ken get me up in the morning and get me going.  That’s the way it is with some songs, they get you up and get you going.  Sometimes the song gets you through.  Then sometimes the struggle of life itself becomes the song, where the depth of sorrow or confusion takes you to a place where you can really feel things; the best songs take you to the Source of strength and wisdom.  The Psalms aren't afraid to take you to hard places.

     As the deer longs for flowing streams

     so my soul longs for you, O God.

     My soul thirsts for God,

     for the living God.

     When shall I come and behold

     the face of God?

   This opening line of Psalm 42 was born of sorrow and hope.  The Book of Psalms takes us to such places in life, where we are dry as bone and dead as dust.  Then we discover the LORD is present with us in the midst of the struggle; joy breaks in--the exquisite emotion of the Spirit, joy.  The sorrows are as real as night and drought, but so is the joy when God's Morning comes.

                    --Larry

THE PSALMS...DARING PRAYER...

  “The Psalms teach us how to pray,” says Eugene H. Peterson, pastor, author, and translator of a popular version of the Bible, The Message.  Peterson has also written a daily devotional entitled, Living The Message.  My inclination is to go straight to the Bible in private worship—especially to the Psalms.  The Psalms are raw, gutsy, and daring in their approach to God, life, and circumstance.  I resonate with the brassy Martin Luther about the “the juice, the strength, the passion, the fire” of the Psalms compared to other devotional fare. Peterson’s devotional is different and deep. Lend an ear to his word on the Word:

 

    Language, by its very nature, is not monologue but dialogue.  God does not impose his plot of salvation on the people in his story.  He speaks in order to be answered.  The character of each person in the story (and we are all in it) is allowed to form from the inside, in the give and take of dialogue, each with its own rhythms, at its own pace.  We are in a world of salvation in which God is speaking to us.  How do we answer?  We are not good at this language.  The Psalms instruct, train, immerse us in the answering speech which is our part in the exchange of words by which our being in the image of God and redemption by the blood of Christ is formed internally into maturity. 

Listen, God!  Please pay attention!

   Can you make sense of these      

       ramblings, my groans and cries?

       King-God, I need your help.

  Every morning

       you’ll hear me at it again.

  Every morning

      I lay out the pieces of my life

      on your  altar

      and watch for  fire to descend.

                                      --Psalm 5:1-3

The Psalms give us words for prayer--daring words. 

The Psalms are full of  “juice, strength, passion, and fire.” 

                                                                              --Larry

MEET ME IN THE AIR...

   In the 60's the hang out for students at John Glenn High School in Norwalk, California was Taco Joe’s. I graduated from John Glenn thirty-some-odd years ago, but I hear the students still gather there and sometimes there are class mini-reunions at Taco Joe’s.  If you went to “Glenn” and wanted to connect with students, the “where” was Taco Joe’s.

   Today the “where” is in the “air.”  The “where” is anywhere and everywhere.  Kids are not connecting at Taco Joe’s any more.  They meet by cell phone in the air.  Then, like a herd, they’re off somewhere. I sometimes hear the arrangements in the making: “…Peking at seven,” or “We’ll be at Matt’s, c’mon over!”  “The game’s at six not seven!?  Where are you? Can you pick me up?”  Cell phones all over town light up and sing out.  Kids are meeting in the air.

   What does it mean for ministry?  It means that ministry with our youth is intensely and spontaneously interpersonal— so much more spontaneous than in those Taco Joe’s days.  We’ve always known this, but now technology has intensified the interpersonality of life.  That’s not what we thought would happen.

   Remember our angst about being reduced to a “number”?  Pop singer Johnny Rivers lamented in a familiar line, “They’re giving you a number and takin ‘way your name.”  Not so.  I have four sons with cell phones. I don’t know any of their numbers. I punch in a name; the cell phone connects the number. Numbers have been reduced to names.  Technology has intensified the interpersonality of life.

   Ministry is intensely interpersonal.  It’s word becoming flesh (i.e. real) all the time and anywhere.  Of course it’s only a potential enhancement of community; you have to make it work.  One of the things I try to do each year is get to some of the nearby campuses where our youth have gone off to college. Ten years ago it was impossibly hard to do this.  You mailed invitations, but you could not be sure letters were received; kids didn’t write back or return phone calls--no RSVPs.  No one was ever in a dorm room to answer a phone.  But now we meet in the air.  It's so easy.  I once surprised one of our college students with a cell phone call; he was on his way to class at Ole Miss.  I shocked another at  UAB in a biology lab.  I interrupted my own son Drew in Tuscaloosa (“Dad,” he whispered with a snap, “I can’t talk now I’m in Spanish!”)  Maybe there’s a downside to cell phone technology.  But I see it as a means for ministry—to stay close, be in touch.  Meet me in the air.  Are you "in the air"?  I’m up there at 256-627-1625.  We can make plans to do lunch.

                            --Larry