Have you ever felt pressured by others to share your faith? I'm not talking about the positive pressure of encouragement, like two teammates spurring each other on to run faster, jump higher, or hit harder. I'm talking about harsh pressure, like you're being forced to eat your vegetables, and if you don't, you're a bad person. Have you ever felt that? (And I am fully aware that there may have been times when I have unintentionally been the one to apply that pressure.)
Those negative, even guilt, feelings we have about this are compounded when we remember that we actually have something wonderful to share. Now, I feel twice as bad - not only am I not doing what I ought, but it's not like I'm withholding bad news. Good news should be easy to share, right? If I really believed this was wonderful news, then why am I such the horrible person who doesn't share it?
Why do we feel this pressure? Surprisingly, this pressure most often does not come from the encouragement to share our faith. That's not the real issue in most cases, I believe. But because we think it's the issue, then we suffer the twin devils of pressure and guilt.
The actual issue, in my opinion, is that we feel pressured to share our faith in a particular way - a way that's foreign, unnatural, mysterious, awkward, uncomfortable, manipulative, or completely contrary to our personal makeup. We (mistakenly) think, or have been (mistakenly) told, that not only should we share our faith, but that it must be done in a particular way - that sharing your faith is synonymous with a particular method. And if that way doesn't match your personality, then your personality is deficient, stubborn, or even sinful. Pressure applied, thank you very much.
The underlying error is worse: a mentality that has reduced the Gospel to something like "Three Steps to Avoid Hell." We take the fullness of the Gospel, squeeze it down into "fire insurance," and then are left with nothing but pressured-filled ways that it must be shared.
Search the Gospels - you'll never find Jesus reducing the Gospel like that. Rather, He consistently speaks of the nearness, the nature, and the accessibility of the Kingdom of God. He never reduces the Gospel to getting your ticket punched. There's far too little space in the blog to fully discuss the significance of this observation.
Instead of saying, "Share your faith in a prescribed way or else you're a bad Christian," let me offer a different kind of encouragement: Leave Kingdom fingerprints everywhere. As you live, as you work, as you play, as you have family time, leave "evidence" of the Kingdom of God. Demonstrate the nearness of the Kingdom by living as a representative in the midst of others. Bring the nature of the Kingdom into your work and activities by infusing its attributes into everything you do, attributes such as integrity, compassion, and justice. Make the accessibility of the Kingdom obvious by being authentic and transparent, and as appropriate, but letting others know how accessible it is. How can I exit every scene of the story of my life with some evidence of the Kingdom left behind?
Sharing how someone can become a member of God's Kingdom (the redux of the rich Gospel) still has a prominent place, but is now set in the larger frame of seeing our life's task as leaving Kingdom fingerprints everywhere. My "job" is to leave as much evidence as possible. That doesn't seem very pressure-filled to me.
No formula. No recipe. Just a lifestyle of leaving evidence of the Kingdom everywhere you go, from the gym to the grocery store to neighborhood association meeting. Some of the evidence is the example you give, some of the evidence is by adding Kingdom values to a situation that needs it, some of the evidence is verbal testimony. I don't want to limit your imagination on ways to do this. Acts of mercy and compassion, being there with someone in sorrow, offering truth without necessarily quoting chapter and verse, all kinds of ways to leave Kingdom fingerprints. Artists and bridge builders can leave evidence; teachers and truck drivers can leave evidence; students and retirees can leave evidence. Everywhere.
By the word "fingerprints," I don't necessarily mean something subtle, hard to detect, and insignificant. I mean evidence that can be obvious and traceable - evidence that any observer would easily trace back to the Kingdom of God, and in fact make it hard to ignore the Kingdom of God. Leave enough evidence to be convicted of being a citizen of God's Kingdom.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Mettle Count
I'm a sucker for the Olympics. I tell myself I'm not going to watch much of it, which is like telling myself I'm not going to eat breakfast. I don't watch every minute (especially since we've cut cable), but I do like having it on while I can. I root for the underdogs, I root for the hardest-working, greatest-sacrificing athletes, I root for the Americans and the Italians (and the Jamaicans). And I'm bugged.
From one angle, I'm just fascinated by the results of hard work, endless training, determination, fighting through injuries, and physical accomplishments. We are watching the utmost in human accomplishments in specific skills - the endurance of cross country, the artistry of skating, the control of the biathlon, the mad sweeping skills of curling (you knew that was coming), and on down the line. The best in the world in this age achieving as close to the maximum as anyone on earth. Many of them make it look effortless, even though most people couldn't even accomplish even a fraction of what they're doing. Truly, man is fearfully and wonderfully made.
From another angle, I'm bothered by grown people spending years of their lives just to win at a sporting event. For many, a gold medal will never lead to a career, endorsements, or a regular income. For most, they won't even medal. I think especially of those who are eliminated in the very first round. You travel halfway around the world, and in two minutes, your Olympic participation is over. Even for the medalists who end up with long-term benefits, how important is it really to win sliding on the ice and snow?
I know I can't have one without the other - approaching the human potential requires the years of dedication, which is my conundrum.
From yet another angle, and perhaps more this year than ever, I see some athletes who are good enough to be in the running, but it all seems to be a personal playscape for them. They have the potential to be great (my first observation), but don't take it seriously (the opposite of my second observation).
I'm not saying that any Olympian is wasting their time or just being worldly. Even the two-minute wonders are impressive to me. Rather, they can prove to be good examples for us. I compare the magnitude of our prizes and our dedication. Our prize in Christ is the Kingdom; the prize of even the purest-motivated Olympian is a medal, perhaps an income, and even less likely, a career. Our dedication in Christ should be greater than the dedication of the hardest-working Olympian ... but frankly, too many of us aren't as committed for the Kingdom as they are for a medal. We have the greater prize and too often the lesser commitment. Let the Olympians inspire us not just as wannabe athletes, but as a people dedicated to the greatest prize. Call it our "mettle count."
Paul also drew encouragement from the Olympians of his day:
From one angle, I'm just fascinated by the results of hard work, endless training, determination, fighting through injuries, and physical accomplishments. We are watching the utmost in human accomplishments in specific skills - the endurance of cross country, the artistry of skating, the control of the biathlon, the mad sweeping skills of curling (you knew that was coming), and on down the line. The best in the world in this age achieving as close to the maximum as anyone on earth. Many of them make it look effortless, even though most people couldn't even accomplish even a fraction of what they're doing. Truly, man is fearfully and wonderfully made.
From another angle, I'm bothered by grown people spending years of their lives just to win at a sporting event. For many, a gold medal will never lead to a career, endorsements, or a regular income. For most, they won't even medal. I think especially of those who are eliminated in the very first round. You travel halfway around the world, and in two minutes, your Olympic participation is over. Even for the medalists who end up with long-term benefits, how important is it really to win sliding on the ice and snow?
I know I can't have one without the other - approaching the human potential requires the years of dedication, which is my conundrum.
From yet another angle, and perhaps more this year than ever, I see some athletes who are good enough to be in the running, but it all seems to be a personal playscape for them. They have the potential to be great (my first observation), but don't take it seriously (the opposite of my second observation).
I'm not saying that any Olympian is wasting their time or just being worldly. Even the two-minute wonders are impressive to me. Rather, they can prove to be good examples for us. I compare the magnitude of our prizes and our dedication. Our prize in Christ is the Kingdom; the prize of even the purest-motivated Olympian is a medal, perhaps an income, and even less likely, a career. Our dedication in Christ should be greater than the dedication of the hardest-working Olympian ... but frankly, too many of us aren't as committed for the Kingdom as they are for a medal. We have the greater prize and too often the lesser commitment. Let the Olympians inspire us not just as wannabe athletes, but as a people dedicated to the greatest prize. Call it our "mettle count."
Paul also drew encouragement from the Olympians of his day:
1 Cor 9:24 Do you not know that all the runners in a stadium compete, but only one receives the prize? So run to win. 9:25 Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. 9:26 So I do not run uncertainly or box like one who hits only air. 9:27 Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.
Php 3:12 Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected—but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. 3:13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, 3:14 with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The Church in the Book of Acts - Descriptive or Prescriptive?
How does the Book of Acts inform us on what a modern church should be like?
View 1: The Church in the Book of Acts is merely descriptive. Luke (the author of Acts) was not intending to record what other churches must do, or even should do, but just what the First Century Church did do. Clearly, there were incidents of bad behavior, confusion, mistakes, arguments, and changing structures. In fact, it's impossible to replicate the "First Century Church," because it was a moving target. This view is favored by a majority of the modern Church, especially highly institutionalized churches.
View 2: The Church in the book of Acts is prescriptive - Luke is informing us how we should do things. We must return to the ways of the First Century Church, because that's the way the Apostles did it. The modern Church has become too enamored with the methods of the world, too corporate, too institutionalized, too dedicated to its own infrastructure to be effective. And that failure is precisely because we have fallen away from the organic, grassroots example in the Book of Acts. We must replicate the First Century Church and her ways. This view is favored by the house church movement and the "emergent church" advocates.
In all fairness, these two views as described are oversimplified. Each view is far more nuanced and accommodating than described here, but the differences are clearly illustrated in this condensed form.
The question is an important one, because it affects how we position our church gatherings, priorities, and activities. It affects how leaders lead, how goals are set, how groups meet, where meetings happen, and how success is measured - virtually everything about church life can be defined by whether a local church favors one view of the other.
Let me introduce two more views, based on the first two:
View 3: This is more of a salad bar approach. Pick and choose which aspects of the First Century Church you think are applicable, and forget the rest. "We like the deacon idea, but not the house church location. We like the idea of feeding widows, but we really don't like the idea of everyone bringing their possessions in to be shared with the rest." This hybrid approach can be either justified through careful study, or it can be a lazy attachment of only those verses that appear to reinforce foregone conclusions.
View 4: Copy what the First Century Church focused on, but have freedom on how it should get done in a given context. Replicate their goals and priorities, and even take notice of their techniques and strategies, but be fixed on the former and flexible on the latter.
View 4 is where I want to spend my time. Having deacons or not, how money is collected and used, where you meet - those are all how questions, not what questions. The "what" of the First Century Church was to proclaim and demonstrate that the Kingdom of God is present and available through Christ. They were focused on making disciples and were seeing people's lives radically changed as they began to follow Christ, forsaking their loyalty to the world's system. This must be replicated, but the methods change with the context.
So much of the church literature is focused on the how question - how to grow a church, how to lead Bible studies, how to run a children's ministry. These are not bad things to consider. But there is a growing set of literature that focuses on the what question, sometimes even refusing to address the how (which can frustrate readers who just want a "how-to" manual). The first kind of literature compares your church to other modern churches. The second kind of literature compares your church to the First Century Church, but not in technique - just in priorities and commitments.
The question is really this: How well does your church stick to proclaiming and demonstrating the reign of Christ by focusing on personal disciplemaking? Are you seeing the kinds of activities (not necessarily methods) in your church that are written about in the Book of Acts? Are lives being radically changed, or are people merely being pleased with well-run programs?
It's those places where we see a disconnect between our church and the First Century Church's priorities that tell us where to put our energy. Rather than be discouraged by the differences and how we "come up short," be encouraged by seeing clearly how to best improve your church in the most important ways! It doesn't matter if your church is different than the bigger, slicker, better funded church that's serving a totally different context. It does matter if what happened in the First Century Church is rarely happening in your own.
If you're a church leader, it's a simple as "you really do already know what you should do" but as complex as "there's a ton of reading and dialoging you need to do with those further down the road than you."
If you're not a church leader and you don't have leadership pull in your church, the next step is actually pretty simple. Within the church structure you already have, work with likeminded folks to create a pocket of intentional disciplemaking. Start as yeast - you don't need to start a new program, get a logo, design a website, or have a slogan. Just clear your calendar and start making disciples in a small context. Don't worry about big - let big happen.
If you don't know where to start, I'd be happy to talk and suggest some ideas.
View 1: The Church in the Book of Acts is merely descriptive. Luke (the author of Acts) was not intending to record what other churches must do, or even should do, but just what the First Century Church did do. Clearly, there were incidents of bad behavior, confusion, mistakes, arguments, and changing structures. In fact, it's impossible to replicate the "First Century Church," because it was a moving target. This view is favored by a majority of the modern Church, especially highly institutionalized churches.
View 2: The Church in the book of Acts is prescriptive - Luke is informing us how we should do things. We must return to the ways of the First Century Church, because that's the way the Apostles did it. The modern Church has become too enamored with the methods of the world, too corporate, too institutionalized, too dedicated to its own infrastructure to be effective. And that failure is precisely because we have fallen away from the organic, grassroots example in the Book of Acts. We must replicate the First Century Church and her ways. This view is favored by the house church movement and the "emergent church" advocates.
In all fairness, these two views as described are oversimplified. Each view is far more nuanced and accommodating than described here, but the differences are clearly illustrated in this condensed form.
The question is an important one, because it affects how we position our church gatherings, priorities, and activities. It affects how leaders lead, how goals are set, how groups meet, where meetings happen, and how success is measured - virtually everything about church life can be defined by whether a local church favors one view of the other.
Let me introduce two more views, based on the first two:
View 3: This is more of a salad bar approach. Pick and choose which aspects of the First Century Church you think are applicable, and forget the rest. "We like the deacon idea, but not the house church location. We like the idea of feeding widows, but we really don't like the idea of everyone bringing their possessions in to be shared with the rest." This hybrid approach can be either justified through careful study, or it can be a lazy attachment of only those verses that appear to reinforce foregone conclusions.
View 4: Copy what the First Century Church focused on, but have freedom on how it should get done in a given context. Replicate their goals and priorities, and even take notice of their techniques and strategies, but be fixed on the former and flexible on the latter.
View 4 is where I want to spend my time. Having deacons or not, how money is collected and used, where you meet - those are all how questions, not what questions. The "what" of the First Century Church was to proclaim and demonstrate that the Kingdom of God is present and available through Christ. They were focused on making disciples and were seeing people's lives radically changed as they began to follow Christ, forsaking their loyalty to the world's system. This must be replicated, but the methods change with the context.
So much of the church literature is focused on the how question - how to grow a church, how to lead Bible studies, how to run a children's ministry. These are not bad things to consider. But there is a growing set of literature that focuses on the what question, sometimes even refusing to address the how (which can frustrate readers who just want a "how-to" manual). The first kind of literature compares your church to other modern churches. The second kind of literature compares your church to the First Century Church, but not in technique - just in priorities and commitments.
The question is really this: How well does your church stick to proclaiming and demonstrating the reign of Christ by focusing on personal disciplemaking? Are you seeing the kinds of activities (not necessarily methods) in your church that are written about in the Book of Acts? Are lives being radically changed, or are people merely being pleased with well-run programs?
It's those places where we see a disconnect between our church and the First Century Church's priorities that tell us where to put our energy. Rather than be discouraged by the differences and how we "come up short," be encouraged by seeing clearly how to best improve your church in the most important ways! It doesn't matter if your church is different than the bigger, slicker, better funded church that's serving a totally different context. It does matter if what happened in the First Century Church is rarely happening in your own.
If you're a church leader, it's a simple as "you really do already know what you should do" but as complex as "there's a ton of reading and dialoging you need to do with those further down the road than you."
If you're not a church leader and you don't have leadership pull in your church, the next step is actually pretty simple. Within the church structure you already have, work with likeminded folks to create a pocket of intentional disciplemaking. Start as yeast - you don't need to start a new program, get a logo, design a website, or have a slogan. Just clear your calendar and start making disciples in a small context. Don't worry about big - let big happen.
If you don't know where to start, I'd be happy to talk and suggest some ideas.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
The Crazy Things You Learn When Teaching Others
Well, God showed up in a big way.
Last weekend, I was in Central Texas to reprise a set of talks for a youth retreat based on The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, which I wrote about in last week's Grace Notes. I know that a number of you were praying specifically for a good weekend.
It's a role I had done for this church three times before - the first time was 20 years ago (before any of the students attending this year were born!). I have also done these talks in two or three other venues. I change and tweak it every time, but a lot of the material has remained the same, including the ending - although I've never been pleased with the ending.
This year, the youth pastor of the church in Austin asked if I wanted to work in a Wormwood character (read the book!), which we had never done before. I thought it was a good idea, but I didn't really do anything with the idea until the week of the retreat. So it was a completely new element added late. I wrote in the character to ask occasional questions to open up a few topics for further discussion.
The day before the retreat, I also wrote down a vague note that perhaps Wormwood should lead a rebellion against my character (Screwtape, in essence) after the last session Saturday night. No details, just that much of an idea. Another completely new element to the script, and possibly a whole new ending.
I had never met the guy (John) who would play Wormwood until 1/2 hour before the first talk. We went over some last minute questions, and just ran with it. John did a great job Friday night being the confused nephew and I had fun putting him down (as part of the character). Saturday morning's sessions also went well, with Wormwood beginning to ask better questions, but also starting to challenge Screwtape more.
That afternoon, we finally started to plan the actual rebellion, well after we're in this thing knee-deep. We talked to the other leaders and a couple of seniors so that they were ready to join in the rebellion. What we didn't know is how the youth would react. How many would join in? What would they say? Would those who had already been confused the first night by being on Screwtape's side break allegiance so soon after finally settling into the idea?
And still, the rebellion was not scripted - just sketched out rather roughly. It would turn out to be the most important moment of the entire weekend. (How could we have not had this ending all the other times I've presented this?)
At the end of the first Saturday evening session, Wormwood got a little mouthy, but cowered when Screwtape dressed him down. Then after the last session, his question was a direct challenge. Screwtape exploded on him (I ended up completely destroying one of the props throwing it to the ground in "anger"). With Wormwood licking his wounds, Screwtape then turned his attention to the youth. Suddenly, Wormwood finally tears off his emblem of belonging to Screwtape and stands up to him, armed with pertinent passages of Scripture, and begins the rebellion.
The entire group of youth instantly joined in the rebellion! It gave me chills! They were adding their own passages and cheering on Wormwood. The "plants" in the audience could barely be heard over the noise. Screwtape was infuriated by the rebellion, but increasingly weakened by every passage. I had some prat falls, turned over chairs, picked up a boom stand to crack Wormwood on the head, but fell short. It was bedlam! At the passage, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7), I fled out the door and the room erupted in cheers.
It was an incredible scene, only partly planned and very unscripted. It was added at the last minute, and no one person put it all together to be able to take credit. During group time, most, if not all, of the groups were connecting dots and drawing incredible conclusions. Although the planned, scripted talks generated good cabin time discussions, none of them were able to spark what happened that night.
The capper for me was that after all this happened, the youth pastor (Jeremiah) realized in the middle of the campfire talk that the two main takeaways that they had planned for the youth (being in Scripture and having accountability partners) were fully demonstrated in this unplanned rebellion scene. Screwtape was run out of the room by Scripture and by the collection of people banding together in support of one another against the enemy. Scripture, and the power of accountability partners.
Jeremiah thought we had planned to work in those two elements, and that he was so clever to have figured that out. When he drew those conclusions for the youth, it clicked for all of us that God had certainly showed up, putting together a beautiful, coordinated lesson that no one person planned.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Forge KC Cohort
Last week I joined a "cohort." Forge KC and KCSentral have combined efforts to create a cohort for pastors and other church leaders in the KC Metro area to collaborate on the twin tasks of learning and doing, specifically for the goal of leading our churches to live life "on mission." The leaders of the cohort, Brad Brisco and Lance Ford, are also the authors of the workbook a few groups at Grace have been studying, Missional Essentials.
The cohort will read a stack of books and articles together, wrestle with the ideas, work on implementation personally and in our churches, and participate in one-on-one mentoring. We will meet as a group once a month for nine months, but I'm sure friendships and working relationships will last for years to come.
The first meeting was simply introductions - we each had a turn at telling a bit of our stories, especially as they relate to how we got to the point of joining the cohort and what we hoped to gain from it. The stories were rich and the night went quite a bit longer than we had scheduled, just because we didn't want to miss anything about anyone's story.
We also had an assignment that night - to bring some artifacts that represent our contexts. Since we're coming from different parts of the area, from outlying to the 'burbs to the city, we will have different challenges, opportunities, and approaches. I brought two items, which I also used in last Sunday's message. Our context is primarily the 'burbs (although we do have some closer in toward the city and some further out in the open spaces), and the 'burb life provides unique challenges to living missionally. I brought a garage door opener (because we drive into our garages, close the garage, and never have to interact with our neighbors), and a slat from a wooden privacy fence (a guardian of privacy, creator of personal space, and barrier to casual interaction with our neighbors). I didn't have to say what I said - they all knew what I was going to say as soon as I showed those two artifacts.
Most of the members of the cohort had the same kind of story. They had been in church ministry for a while, and by the church culture metrics, they were "successful." But they looked at the New Testament and what was happening in those churches, and then looked at their own "successful" churches, and realized that they weren't making disciples like they read about in Scripture. They were doing good things, but they weren't truly making disciples, and they weren't seeing God move in the lives of their people like we should expect.
And so, one by one, they began a journey that had lead them eventually to this cohort, where we are all asking the question, "How do we best make disciples? And how do we build our churches around this idea?" Some are church planters who want to craft their churches as disciplemakers from the ground up, and others are in present church contexts trying to figure out how to guide a living, moving organism with its own strong momentum more and more towards disciplemaking.
And every single one said something like, "Once I latched onto the idea that our churches should major in disciplemaking, I can never go back."
I don't know where our journey will take us. But I'm excited and enthused, perhaps like never before. I pray that little by little, our focus on disciplemaking will grow in intensity and clarity. No one is going to flip a switch and suddenly change everything we know. But we pray that everything we do will orient with ever-growing fidelity toward making disciples who make disciples.
The cohort will read a stack of books and articles together, wrestle with the ideas, work on implementation personally and in our churches, and participate in one-on-one mentoring. We will meet as a group once a month for nine months, but I'm sure friendships and working relationships will last for years to come.
The first meeting was simply introductions - we each had a turn at telling a bit of our stories, especially as they relate to how we got to the point of joining the cohort and what we hoped to gain from it. The stories were rich and the night went quite a bit longer than we had scheduled, just because we didn't want to miss anything about anyone's story.
We also had an assignment that night - to bring some artifacts that represent our contexts. Since we're coming from different parts of the area, from outlying to the 'burbs to the city, we will have different challenges, opportunities, and approaches. I brought two items, which I also used in last Sunday's message. Our context is primarily the 'burbs (although we do have some closer in toward the city and some further out in the open spaces), and the 'burb life provides unique challenges to living missionally. I brought a garage door opener (because we drive into our garages, close the garage, and never have to interact with our neighbors), and a slat from a wooden privacy fence (a guardian of privacy, creator of personal space, and barrier to casual interaction with our neighbors). I didn't have to say what I said - they all knew what I was going to say as soon as I showed those two artifacts.
Most of the members of the cohort had the same kind of story. They had been in church ministry for a while, and by the church culture metrics, they were "successful." But they looked at the New Testament and what was happening in those churches, and then looked at their own "successful" churches, and realized that they weren't making disciples like they read about in Scripture. They were doing good things, but they weren't truly making disciples, and they weren't seeing God move in the lives of their people like we should expect.
And so, one by one, they began a journey that had lead them eventually to this cohort, where we are all asking the question, "How do we best make disciples? And how do we build our churches around this idea?" Some are church planters who want to craft their churches as disciplemakers from the ground up, and others are in present church contexts trying to figure out how to guide a living, moving organism with its own strong momentum more and more towards disciplemaking.
And every single one said something like, "Once I latched onto the idea that our churches should major in disciplemaking, I can never go back."
I don't know where our journey will take us. But I'm excited and enthused, perhaps like never before. I pray that little by little, our focus on disciplemaking will grow in intensity and clarity. No one is going to flip a switch and suddenly change everything we know. But we pray that everything we do will orient with ever-growing fidelity toward making disciples who make disciples.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Devoted vs. Devotion
Consider the following passages:
What does it mean to be devoted to prayer? If I am, how do I know it? If I'm not, how to I become devoted? What did the disciples model for us and what does Paul want us to do, exactly?
There are a few quick observations about these passages as a collection:
Acts 2:42 And they were devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers.
Acts 6:4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
Rom 12:12 ... rejoicing in hope, enduring in affliction, being devoted to prayer,
1 Cor 7:5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement, for a time, in order that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and then you should be together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack…
Col 4:2 Be devoted to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving...Five passages talking about being devoted to prayer. In Acts 2, the first believers made it a habit. In Acts 6, the elders of the church commissioned deacons so that they could do it. Paul instructs the church in Romans 12 and Colossians 4 to do it, and he instructs husband and wife to make special time in order to be devoted to prayer. In other words, it is modeled for us and we are instructed to make this a part of our lives.
What does it mean to be devoted to prayer? If I am, how do I know it? If I'm not, how to I become devoted? What did the disciples model for us and what does Paul want us to do, exactly?
There are a few quick observations about these passages as a collection:
- Paul doesn't really spell out what he means, so we can assume that he expected all three of his very different audiences to know what he meant. Therefore, it's likely not something esoteric, bizarre, rare, complicated, or subtly nuanced. Without explanation, it seems like Paul is talking about something ordinary and easy to understand.
- Being devoted to prayer in every case is part of a larger set of behaviors. For example, being devoted to prayer and to the teaching of the apostles; being devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word; rejoicing, enduring, and being devoted to prayer; being devoted to prayer as part of your marriage; being devoted to prayer while keeping alert with thanksgiving. Being devoted to prayer is not the only thing, and it's part of a larger picture of being a follower of Jesus.
- We are told to do it. Therefore, we should be able to choose to do it. It makes no sense to command you to do something you have no ability to choose to do. "Be French!"
- One devotes himself to prayer. Paul doesn't tell us to make prayer a vital part of our lives. He doesn't tell us to devote a block of time every day to prayer. He tells us to devote ourselves to prayer. The Greek word means to apply yourself to something exclusively and tirelessly. We are to apply ourselves to prayer exclusively and tirelessly.
It's easy to understand tirelessly. If someone is devoted to prayer, he prays continually. He doesn't stop praying because he's tired, or especially because he's tired of praying. He's never too exhausted to pray. When God is not giving him some good thing he's asking for, the only reason he stops praying is because he believes the answer is, "No." When someone says, "Let's pray about that first," he doesn't roll his eyes and sigh, and consent to pray just because it's "unspiritual" not to. Tiredness is a non-factor for his praying.
The idea of exclusively is a little tricky, though. At first, it seems obvious. But exclusive of what? And didn't we just observe that being devoted to prayer is part of a larger picture (be devoted to prayer and ...)?
Remember that we're not devoting prayer to something, but devoting ourselves to prayer. We are applying ourselves exclusively to prayer. Not a part of our day. Not the first part of a meeting. Ourselves. "Devote yourselves to prayer."
Being devoted to prayer means that there is no other strategy on par with prayer. Our own effort, even though necessary, is not on par with prayer. Following a set of rules or human strategies, though useful, is not on par with prayer. Other strategies don't compete with prayer, don't replace prayer, don't precede prayer in importance. Prayer is the one thing we make sure we do, and then we work the other things in, rather than relying on our own strategies and praying if there's time. It means not doing some things until after you've prayed. Every strategy is optional except prayer.
Being a consistent pray-er requires an impressive dedication. But being devoted to prayer requires sacrificing other strategies enough for prayer to be the first and pre-eminent strategy for approaching life and all its challenges. Prayer is how we can most help others.
Given this understanding of prayer, I realize that I know only a few people who exemplify what I see in these passages. But I also know that I want to be one of those people one day. This goal will require the death of some long-held priorities that "fit" prayer instead of requiring prayer as the sole necessary ingredient. I would love to one day be able to humbly say that I am devoted to prayer.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
A New Diet and Exercise
You know that Christmas has given way to New Year's when the Santa commercials are replaced by Jenny Craig commercials. Now approaching the second week of January, all those diet and exercise resolutions are facing their first real challenges. In this season focused on diet and exercise, I'd like to recommend a different kind of diet and exercise.
We've been talking recently about BLESS, a convenient acronym for investing in our neighbors:
- Begin with prayer - pray for your neighbors and for your relationships with them.
- Listen - spend time listening to first the Spirit, who guides us on the mission God has for us; and also to listen to your neighbors, to really hear their stories, thoughts, concerns, and beliefs.
- Eat - share meals with your neighbors, because eating together is one of the best ways to cultivate relationships.
- Serve - with the heart of a servant, find ways to meet the needs or to just bless your neighbors in a way that adds value to their lives.
- Share - if they are open to talking about the things of God, share your story, your concerns, your beliefs, and what God is doing in your life, not as an expert, but as a fellow traveler.
Within this is a new diet and exercise. The diet is sharing meals with your neighbors. I'm all for being good stewards of our bodies by watching what we eat, but if we look at sharing meals regularly with our neighbors as part of our diet, we look at food, meal planning, and the rhythm of life in a different way. Our diet includes the meals we intentionally share with others to deepen our relationships with them.
The exercise can come with the "Serve" idea. For example, we have started in our neighborhood a list of people who need their driveways shoveled when it snows, and a list of guys who are willing to shovel. This last weekend, we helped two families - both were fighting illnesses, one mom had just given birth to premie twins, and the other mom is nine months pregnant. And I got some exercise shoveling someone else's driveway and sidewalk. (I found myself trying to do a better job for them than I do for our own house.)
Now, if I can look at these two kinds of activities as part of my diet and exercise routine, I'm much more likely to keep at it regularly. More importantly, my perspective changes. I'm not looking at diet and exercise as merely self-help, doing things for my own benefit - it is part of loving my neighbor as myself. Now, being involved with my neighbors is less of a project added to my busy life, but rather is integrated into the rhythms of my busy life. Serving them is part of being a healthy person - diet, exercise, an externally focused view, and integrating their good with our good.
I don't write this as a wildly successful veteran, whose missional life is worth emulating. Rather, I write this as a learner, discovering new ways to think about several different aspects of my life which used to be separate and programmatic, but now are becoming blended together and more natural to the normal rhythms of life.
How's your diet and exercise?
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