Listen up, it's important

This week, I quoted A.W. Tozer with a statement that may be familiar to many of you:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

Tozer's idea is that our conception of God defines who we are as individuals, establishes our values and priorities, and locates our meaning. Therefore, Tozer posits, we'd better have very clear and accurate ideas about who God is - it's essential for us to enjoy the human experience to the fullest.

Whether someone believes that God exists or not, one could agree with Tozer on this point. An atheist who is quite convinced there is no god could concur - that what comes into my mind when I think about God is that he doesn't exist is the most important thing about me. An agnostic, a Muslim, a Catholic, a Protestant, a polytheist, a social gospel adherent, a liberation theologian, or an evangelical - all could conceivably concur.

If Tozer has a point, then it becomes imperative for me to listen to you (the "I and thou" of Buber's existentialism). Reflexively, it is imperative for you to listen to me. If the most important thing about you is what comes into your mind when you think about God, then in order for me to know what's most important about you, I need to listen to what you say about God. I need to hear what comes into your mind on this topic. I cannot learn what is most important about you if I don't listen to what's in your mind about the divine.

Even if you don't believe any god exists, I must listen. Even if you think he's vastly different than I do, I need to listen. Even if you think he's horrible, mean, unfair, uncaring, uninvolved, I need to listen in order to know what's most important about you. But not merely listening in order to effectively shoot down your points - really listening.

If I jump right in and disagree (to "set you straight"), I don't listen. And then I don't learn the most important part of you. If I argue, get defensive, get offensive, or otherwise shut down what you have to say on this, I won't know you. No, I must listen, whether I think you're right or wrong or somewhere in between. It's the only way to value the You that you are. I would hope that you would listen, too, in order to know the Me that is me.

I want to know you. Specificallly, I want to know what's most important about you. Shutting up and listening is not my natural bent, but it is imperative for me to do so, if Tozer's got it right.

I also want you to know the God I know. I do think He's awesome. But I know that if I don't value you and learn what's most important about you, I'd be conveying to you something about God that isn't true - that He's not a listener.

Watching My Not-Dadd

A lot of you know that my father has been in the hospital and then in residential physical rehab for more than a week. I have appreciated the well-wishes, prayers, and questions on Dadd's behalf. Yup ... "Dadd." We call him "Dadd" and my mother "Momm." It comes from the way he insists on spelling his nickname, "Budd."

His anesthesia is taking a long time to leave his system, while he is also being given some strong pain meds. The combination of the two means that he has not been able to be himself cognitively. It looked like him, but it wasn't him - not the man we know. The foreign substances in his system caused him to manifest in a completely different way than the man who insists on two d's in his nickname.

While he has been in this state, I could have chosen to treat him according to how he manifest himself to be. Or, I could treat him according to who I know him to be - I could just be patient and wait for him to "show up" again.

His body, like his mind, has had it's struggles. As we age, we just don't bounce back from major surgery as quickly. So, I also watched Dadd struggle physically. But my Dadd's body is not my Dadd. When his body is weak or broken, that doesn't mean he is weak or broken as a person. When his fingers aren't as nimble as normal, that doesn't mean he's less of a person. These are just how his body manifests itself under the circumstances.

I could choose to treat him according to how his body is doing, so that when his body betrays him, I treat him as less of a person. Or I can choose to treat him as who I know him to be. I could just be patient and wait for his body to heal (but even then, I know that age hounds each of our bodies).

In any given week, I see several people say and do things that are not according to who I know them to be. They are bright, decent people with high moral standards, but manifested themselves in ways that were not rational, good, right, clear, or moral. No one is always good and kind, but we can also tell when someone's behavior is worse than their character, when they are not being themselves.

I could choose to treat them according to their behavior as if that's who they are. Or I can treat them according to who they really are - imperfect but decent people. I can be patient to wait for them to "show up."

We are fallen. Because of our refusal to completely be and do as God desires, we are fallen. We have fallen minds, fallen bodies, and even fallen situations. Fallenness affects our behavior, thoughts, and words - how we manifest ourselves. We are still responsible for our actions, but our fallenness means that we can't even behave as good as our fallen selves are, let alone perfection. Just like my Dadd's mind and body during his recovery.

I believe that only in Christ will we ever be transformed into our full capacities as human beings, but I also think many would agree that we all have sinned and fall short of the full capacity of man, not to mention short of the glory of God. Even our best behavior is fallen, and our best behavior is rare.

I can choose to treat people only by how they manifest themselves. Certainly, we do respond to people according to how they are presently behaving - liars should not be trusted, thieves should be jailed, and gossips should be quieted. But I can choose to limit myself to treating them according to only how they manifest. Or I can choose to treat people according to their full capacity ... even though they never reach it. I can treat people more according to who God can make them to be. How I treat them is my choice to make.

I chose not to treat my Dadd according to his hampered capacities (although I did have to accommodate them), but for who I know him to be. I chose the path of patience. I want to consistently choose the same for others.

The Greatest Commandment and Worship

It's a little big change - or a big little change. I'm not sure which.

The worship service will be a bit different on Sunday, although not radically so. And yet, the concept behind it is something I've not seen anyone do before. We will structure the service based on Mark 12:30, where Jesus tells a scribe that the greatest commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." We will structure our worship around this statement as a way to live it out together in worship.

With all of our heart: We will worship together in music as the worship team leads us through songs and prayer all related to the theme of the week. The worship leaders work hard to consider the passage and theme in order to select music that draws our attention to the same truths, so that we are teaching the same things, whether by music or by the message.

With all our soul: Dan will lead us in corporate prayer for one another. This is also a time for us to worship through the offering. We often think of the offering as the practical necessity of running a church, but it can truly be another act of worship. The word offering itself suggests the spiritual act of giving of ourselves for the ministry of the church.

With all our mind: We will have our normal short message for the kids, and then send them off to Children's Church and Junior Church. Then we will open up the Word together to worship God with our minds (and hearts, souls, and strength, but moreso the mind).

With all our strength: The last part will include sharing events plus ministry opportunities and needs with the family business of a few announcements. The worship team will send us off with a final song, and then rather than a normal benediction, we will have more of a commissioning to send us all into the week with our mission to the world firmly in mind.

So, the worship service won't be radically different than we're used to, but a few things have been moved around from our norm, plus we want to better reinforce the various aspects of worship as Jesus describes in the Great Commandment, with our final thought being on the Great Commission.

We'll give this a spin for a few weeks and see what we think. Again, it's not a huge change, but I do want you to be aware of the thoughts that have gone into how the worship service will be put together.