praxis nexus

So sorry, gang, to be slow on the draw here. Last week I was in Charleston SC for a National Vineyard Leaders gathering, flew home and then turned around and flew down to Orlando for an informational/planning meeting for Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit this August. I’ll get home Friday, but feel behind on everything.

Joe did a fabulous job last weekend with the wrap-up of our Ragtag Rebellion series. Those kind of Patton-type messages are actually difficult to do in our context…and even more so for “the new guy”; it requires a fair amount of equity and authentic personal buy-in from the communicator to the vision of a particular church. I was more than thrilled.

Equity and trust in a pastor take a long time, mostly because we want to see if “believability” is warranted. People want to discover integrity. Because of our hyper-information-age cynicism (especially in a vocal and polarized culture), we are thoroughly jaded. But we want to believe there are integrous people out there; trouble is, that process takes time. The question in the Church is: Are the pastor/priest/reverend’s message and actions congruent? When theory (science) or belief (religion) synthesize in real practice, we have praxis. Each feeds the other. I think we’re starved for praxis in the Church.

I’ll leave you with an interesting recent blog from Seth Godin. Godin is an author, entrepreneur and marketing guru. I thought his post succinctly captured the New World we live in. The need for philosophy and practice to be in alignment is critical. There’s an obvious truth to James urging his readers to be “slow to speak” in the New Testament. But whether thoughts tumble out fast or slow, we can be undone by what’s really in our hearts; and whatever is in our hearts will eventually leak out. At least that’s what Jesus said.

There’s a lot between-the-lines in Godin’s blog. I’m sure it’s not his intent, but in our YouTubed world we may have the closest thing yet to God’s omnipresence. Or at least, as the proverb says, “Character is what you are when no one’s looking”…and we are quickly arriving at the place where someone’s looking all the time.

Christians call that accountability. Libertarians call it Big Brother. I call it creepy. But it may not be a bad thing when you seriously think about it.

Politics aside, read the following with trepidation. Hopefully we all become circumspect for the right reason: we want to please God with all that is within us. Not just for approval ratings, but to honor the God who loves us wildly.

Expose us, God.

Seth Godin’s post: Why George Allen isn't running for President

It was a great Web moment. George Allen was the Republican Party's next star, anointed as a potential candidate for president in 2008. But first he had to win the Senate race in Virginia, considered by many to be a layup for him.

The traditional way to run a political campaign is to control your message. Control what you say and when you say it. Control who hears it.

Tell one story to your raving fans, and a more moderate story to people in the center.

As voters have seen again and again, politicians are good at this. Some people call it lying. But in general, politicians have gotten away with it.

The top-down, control-the-message strategy worked in the past for a few reasons:

--Media companies were complicit in not embarrassing the people they counted on to appear on their shows and authorize their licenses.
--Politicians could decide where and when to show up and could choose whether or not they wanted to engage.
--Bad news didn't spread far unless it was exceptionally juicy.

But George Allen discovered that the rules have fundamentally changed. Allen's challenger asked S.R. Sidarth, a senior at the University of Virginia, to trail Allen with a video camera. The idea was to document Allen's travels and speeches. During a speech in Breaks, Virginia, Allen turned to Sidarth and said, "Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia," said Allen. As I write this, YouTube reports that Allen's slur has been watched on YouTube more than 318,000 times. Add to that the pickup from the broadcast media (which picked it up because it was popular, not because it was "important"), and you see why George Allen lost the election.

The ironic part of the appearance is that the first words out of Allen's mouth on the tape are, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we're going to run positive campaign." The story didn't match the facts, and the facts showed up on YouTube.

For non-politicians: You can't tell two stories at the same time. Not for long.

Amen, brother. That goes for pastors, too. And Christians in general.

energy, trust and einstein

There is so much energy in the room at VCC on the weekends. I feel buzzed most Saturdays & Sundays.

I know, I know. That sounds corny. But as a communicator, please believe me, you can tell the difference from year to year. And I’ve been at VCC for twenty-four years. That’s a long time and a lot of peaks and troughs. Longer than some of you are old.

Big group energy seems to primarily come from two sources: First, the critical mass of people coalescing around a common mission; there’s some mysterious tipping point that occurs. I’ll leave that to Gladwell and his higher thinking.

The second is obvious: God. And that’s even more mysterious. Maybe that’s e=mc2 at a spiritual level. Mass times the velocity of Light squared.

I would like to think that maybe God finds us trustworthy of His energy.

One day a friend of mine at the Vineyard who was deeply involved in the prophetic/intercessory prayer stream and somewhat suspicious of the “seeker sensitive” movement unloaded an honest confession on me.

Digression: although I would not label us a “seeker sensitive” church, I certainly see why others would. After all, we see the weekend celebrations as more than a gathering of believers to get inspired and/or challenged to do something for God; there’s an attraction/inviting element that is promoted and hopefully created that makes it ideal to bring not-yet-believers. The evangelism/grace-slant that we have is evident, both in the weekly challenge and the atmosphere itself. That’s intentional.

Anyway, my friend—who had been a part of an unsuccessful churchplant—confessed that they stood in the back of the auditorium one Sunday during a packed out celebration, felt troubled and cried out to God, “Why them, God? Why this place?” I can totally relate. There have been times that I’ve wondered why God would use a particular person when there seemed to be so many troubling aspects of their personality.

My friend’s frustration was all about not seeing more obvious charismatic signs manifested. I understand; that’s my background, my roots as well. My difficulties have been around the typical Pentecostal-church-subculture expressions; my theology and experience is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. But I just haven’t been convinced that all the conventional corporate expressions are expedient, or to contextually stretch Paul a bit: “We are allowed to do all things,” but not all things help others grow stronger. (1 Cor. 10:23b).

Anyway, my friend said God suddenly broke through and answered sharply, “Because I can trust them.”

I was stunned. First that my friend told me, because we typically tell stories that make us look good or that support our ministry style.

Then I was honestly humbled that God would trust us at all. I’m not sure I trust me.

Which leads me to another thing that probably taps into the melancholic side of my personality: To whom much is given, much is required. Trust is nothing to squander. Especially when it comes to God.

These are good times. Certainly for me personally. More fun. More challenging in peculiar ways. But somehow more confidently dependent on God. Yeah, that feels weirdly risky…but way more fun than internal politics and five-year plans.

Maybe even oddly rebellious. And certainly ragtag.

to nigeria and beyond...

Good to be back and orbiting the blogosphere again. When you’re gone for ten days, work feels hopelessly behind plus it’s time to get ready for the weekend. We’re launching a new series called “The Ragtag Rebellion” based on our vision statement. It’s a call to get everyone at VCC to exercise their innate abilities and Spirit-empowered gifts in some serving role.

I kept a family-journal on the trip. This is probably the boring equivalent of a slideshow, but some of you who wanted more info on our trip to Nigeria might find it interesting. I said, might. This is long…just warning you; don’t let your boss catch you.

If you only want to see a cool four-and-a-half minute video of the trip, check this out on Youtube.

Day 1: Friday

Leave Cincy airport at 6:40pm for Detroit-Amsterdam-Abuja, Nigeria. The team consists of seventeen people including my buddy Emmanuel Itapson, our original connection with Nigeria. We're off to be part of the first official borehole/well drilled by our Nigerian team...the first-fruits of the Luke 4 Challenge.

Day 2: Saturday

More flying. It will take about twenty-two hours total to get there. The flight to Amsterdam was oddly on a smaller plane…and jammed. From Amsterdam to Abuja I was in the very last row, next to the bathroom.; at least you get to meet most everyone in coach at some point during the flight. Emmanuel came back and laughed: “What sin in your life has caused this?” We got into Abuja at night; the team stayed at a Methodist mission; Emmanuel and I went to Patrick Dakum’s house; Patrick’s wife Sarah and Emmanuel’s wife Lydia are sisters.

Day 3: Sunday

Spoke at a church in Abuja…about 800 to 1000 people total in two services: one in English at 8am and one in Hausa at 10:30am. The English one went great, the Hausa was awkward; having a translator slows things down terrifically and I was constantly contextually editing and rephrasing internally. The services were long and somewhat traditional in an “old-style American” sense: long announcements and the reading of finances by one of the elders. There was a marked difference socioeconomically between the services; the Hausa seemed more spirited, happier and poorer. Interesting.

The whole team came to the Hausa service and then back to Patrick and Sarah’s for a late lunch; met lots more people. We left in the afternoon for Jos…about a three hour drive. We’re staying at the Self-Sustaining Enterprises compound. Nice and simple with bunk beds; the team will stay together here. Jason and Emilee Munafo live there year-round; they are establishing a base with an organization called Back2Back.

Jos is a mid-sized city (under a million). There is little infrastructure; electricity can be out for days. There seems to be a zero-maintenance culture (typical for a third-world country), probably a carry-over from subsistence farming and the instability of the government. People from northern Nigeria are flooding in because of oppressive state governments (Sharia law). It takes a few days to get used to the dust (constant in the dry season), the heavy smell of exhaust, the abundance of motorbikes (the local taxis), and men simply standing by the side of the road urinating. To me, the poverty in the city feels more debilitating than the poverty in the rural areas.

Day 4: Monday

We went to where our first borehole is drilled; the “commissioning ceremony” happens on Wednesday. Chief Adamu Adiwu will be there with the district chiefs and village chiefs as well as the village pastors. It’s really an interesting cultural experience; they are very serious about the commissioning. He will give a speech, then others will speak, and me as well. I met with some of the pastors today and had a lot of fun with them; once we started kidding around with them, they loosened up. They are very warm, respectful, and expressive with gratitude. This water supply will serve literally hundreds of people. The team of five Nigerians here who make up the Self-Sustaining Enterprises drilling team are pumped about being hired to drill wells; they are all believers and can articulate the vision beautifully; very smart college-degree guys (hydrologist, engineer, etc.). I was kidding around with them and asked them which one was the hardest worker and they all laughed and said, “We’re a team”. Very impressive…and they didn’t know each other until this team was formed. They thought they could eventually drill fifteen wells a month. Wow—a little overly ambitious, but cool.

The road to get to this place is rough. A car can make it, but tricky, though I saw a guy riding a motorbike with a twin bed mattress on his head. The rest of the team got to go to an orphanage and had an heart-rending visit—they delivered fourteen beds for the kids…some we’re sleeping on tiny bare piece of thin foam—several on the same piece. They said they got so excited to see the beds. They also built shelves, picked up trash, but mostly played with the kids. The poverty is overwhelming; the spirit of the people is amazing.

Day 5: Tuesday

Today Emmanuel, Kande and I traveled to Bauche and met with a group of thirty pastors. The area they live in is under Sharia (Islamic law). Emmanuel told me we would just be hanging out with them and dialoguing; when we got there, it was advertised as a seminar! The pastors were so warm; several of them spoke no English so it was very slow. I talked about three main things we talk to our churchplanters about: mission, values and practices. Then I described our values: servant community, outward-focused, worship, empowered transformation and relevance. Then we talked about being outward-focused in our culture.

Then they talked…

One of the pastors told about how Muslim extremists rioted after a rival Muslim sect tore down a mosque that was being built—only about three concrete blocks high. They blamed the Christians and burned down 23 of their homes. One pastor had two elders lose their homes and belongings (which are barely anything). I told them we needed to learn from them. It was an eye-opening experience. I promised them that the Vineyard in Cincinnati would pray for them. I cried later that night thinking about it. We were busy all day and never stopped for lunch or dinner.

Day 6: Wednesday

Today the commissioning of the borehole was held. This was a big deal to the people involved; the paramount chief (His Royal Highness Chief Adamu Adiwu) and the district chiefs were there. When the people approach him they bow to the ground; westerners bow their heads and women curtsey. He is a believer…and very outspoken. The culture is such a mind-blowing thing; the chief has a man who follows him brandishing a whip. It went on forever; two different women’s choirs sang (from the area Women’s Fellowship). It was totally a Christian thing…lots of songs of praise with percussion instruments. Most of the speeches were in Hausa, the tribal language. My new name is something like Daude Maiaike. Brian Hitchcock (director of Self-Sustaining Enterprises—who’s been here since January 1, God bless him…), gave a beautiful speech; extremely heartfelt. The sound system kept cutting out and they had a little band there with old equipment; it was sweet. We thanked God for the well and prayed for the drilling team. Then we opened the tap on the tank from the well and water came shooting out. We brought about five-hundred buckets for people; a glass was poured and the chief, myself, Brian, Kande, and the director of SSE Nigeria drank it. Big gulps; it was important for the people to see that. Then there was almost a riot as the women pushed and shoved to fill their buckets (they’re the ones who have to fetch the water every morning). The need was so great; some of the team was unnerved and got upset, but we were reminded how Americans will stay up all night to be the first one to buy an Xbox…and fight over them.

After it settled down, the Chief stood and scolded the people and said they shamed themselves in front of their guests and told them to return all the buckets. They did and then buckets were handed out to the oldest women first. But it was wild, to say the least. It was a microcosm of how complex the issues are here. Anyway, we were thanked graciously at least a thousand times. The location of the borehole was historically strategic for the tribe; it’s on a school ground that’s run by ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) founded in 1921 by a woman missionary from America. The chief was practically raised by her. It was the beginning of Christianity here and has a lot of significance for the people. How she ever found this place just amazes me, especially as remote as it would have been then. It’s interesting: there’s a lot of respect for Americans here…but they think everyone in the U.S. is a Christian. We met a gazillion people; lots of remarkable pastors. They were so proud to offer everyone on the team a Coke.

It’s all simply mindboggling. Emmanuel told me when he gets home it takes weeks for him to process it and tell his wife what happened. They continue to inform us that we have no idea how significant this was. I told them the only reason we’re here is because God loves them and heard someone’s prayer in the tribe.

Day 7: Thursday

The weather was very cool today. Most of the group worked here at the SSE compound to prepare the place for rainy season (digging trenches), some went to see a similar drilling rig to what we’ve purchased in operation, while Emmanuel, Kande and I went to meet with a group of pastors here in Jos. I have fallen in love with the pastors here; they have so little to work with. There were about fifty pastors there and they had been waiting for a while (Emmanuel had a previous meeting back up). Emmanuel introduced Kande and me so we gave some VCC history, spent some time on mission, values and practices, and the talked about our core values. Even though the cultures are so different, there is always a difference between “church subcultures” and the particular broad culture of non-Christians in any city. You could see light bulbs going off with these guys. Then we did Q&A; it was totally fascinating. The questions were more about mechanics in an outward-focused church. Very cool. They were, of course, so appreciative and grateful. I think we actually stirred up a little trouble because of some of the systems/processes in the ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) denomination, but they laughed about it themselves.

Afterwards we stopped to see a friend of Emmanuel’s who is a surgeon at the local ECWA hospital. Unbelievable conditions, but very good for Nigeria. He is actually an American who’s been here for seventeen years. What a model of sacrifice.

We left there and went to the ECWA seminary. We barged into a missions class and the professor invited us to talk about what we’re doing…after Emmanuel told him he had to since he had been his mentor years ago! There were fifteen students in the class in old wooden desks with a worn-out blackboard and open windows. The prof was talking about a shift in missions strategies from rural areas (traditional approach in Africa) to cities which are now overloaded and diverse. It’s an obvious mission field but a paradigm shift in missional thinking here—less about geography and more about where cultures are being relocated. It was a clear fit with what we’re doing (as in: Greater Cincinnati is our mission field), so it was a great segue. This turned out to be a total God-moment. As a matter of fact, during Q&A one of the students (who looked a lot like a young Spike Lee) spent about five minutes thanking us and remarking that the past thirty minutes had completely changed his view of ministry and was worth all his time in seminary. No kidding. The students were all nodding their heads…and all we were doing was talking about our mission and values and spending time describing an outward-focused, relevant approach in whatever culture you’re in. I’ve never been in a classroom setting that was so much like a giant sponge. This was way worth the stop. We ended up being there for a good while.

It was a full day; we again skipped lunch but we did have dinner tonight at a Nigerian pizza place(!) with a Coke and, get this: ice. Beautiful.

The team is resting tonight, playing Scrabble, laughing, and sending emails home. It’s been a good trip.

Day 8: Friday

This was our last whole day here. Tomorrow morning we drive back to Abuja, meet with another pastor, and then fly out around 9:50pm. It’s about a seven hour flight to Amsterdam, then a six hour layover, then the longer flight home to Detroit, then Cincy. Whoohoo!

Today we took the kids from the children’s home to a park to play. There was even grass there—scrappy, but almost green. The kids are simply beautiful. Some have lost parents to AIDS, or a mom or dad simply abandoned them, or were turned over here because conditions are better than home. Our team got them all beds and new sheets the first day; you’d think it was Christmas. Some didn’t even have beds. Anyway, it was a day at the park with some old swings and slides. They played soccer and had a blast. We were even able to rent a bouncy trampoline-thing. It was hilarious. They called me (and all the guys) “uncle”, but sometime would call me “daddy”…I think because of my gray hair. All the women are called “auntie”. They are learning to speak English as well.

What a night! Big ending party at the SSE house with the SSE/Nigeria board, the drilling team, our folks and others. They roasted a whole goat and everything, I mean everything, is eaten. Brad Wise (our creative director) and I probably laughed more than humanly possible. He asked what one piece on the grill was and the cook replied in broken English: “That’s the tube that goes to the butt.” Mmmm. I said to Brad, “Can you imagine being at a party and saying, ‘Please…I can’t eat another bite of tube-that-goes-to-the-butt. I’m stuffed!”

Chickens are cooked whole. They leave the head on it, cut the feet off, and then jam the feet into the beak and cook it all. This ain’t no freakin’ KFC.

I ate everything (intestines aren’t bad), but in the dark. Tribal musicians were hired and did their particular tribal dances while playing wooden flutes (like recorders) with three guys on drums. It was absolutely the strangest music I’ve ever heard. At first it made no sense, then I began to realize how complicated it was—with polyrhythms and melody lines mixed that sounded crazy and cacophonous. Only problem: every song really sounded the same and they played forever.

It was fabulous hanging out with all our Nigerian friends. Real Christians anywhere in the world are really special people; there is a level of sacrifice that is amazing. When I invited a pastor to come and stay with me, he smiled and said, “The ticket is about a year’s salary…”. We are terrifically spoiled in the U.S.

The electricity was out today…that meant no showers (because they use an electric pump), but tonight it came back on. Everyone is really tired. A few are playing “speed scrabble”, talking, packing, chilling out. It’s been a good team; everyone has gotten along well; I’m so proud of our folks…they are true servants.

Day 9: Saturday

The three-hour drive from Jos to Abuja was eventful for the team. Kande, Emmanuel and his brother Brian and I left early and drove down. The flight left at 9:50pm, but the airport gates close at 7:30…no matter what. But the bus driving the rest of the team broke down in Jos. They crammed everyone(!) into a 1992 Toyota minivan and a truck and left at 5pm. They made it to Abuja…but then the van broke down before they got to the airport. Emmanuel and Patrick were calling airport officials and government friends to get the gate to stay open another hour while Patrick took his car to transport people. Incredibly, everyone made it—with luggage—and got through customs by 9:30pm. Close.

Day 10: Sunday

Arrived in Cincy at 4:30pm. Anita picked us up and drove Emmanuel and Brad to VCC to get their cars. It’s really cold. Went home and took a shower for a long time. Water. Felt spoiled.

Now comes the task of processing everything…and determining what to communicate to VCC. I love this church.

h2o nigeria...

Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land. (Proverbs 25:25)

Hey blogaholics...I'll be gone for the next couple of weeks. Off to drill wells with our trained-and-ready-to-go Self-Sustaining Enterprises team in Nigeria and a gang from the Vineyard. We'll be hooking up with our friends at Back2Back as well. We'll be meeting with church leaders in several cities and who knows where we'll speak. Looking forward to seeing what God does. Pray for us; there are sixteen on the team from VCC. Hey, it takes a church to raise a village.

And I'm sure we'll come back with a high-tech slide projector show.

But while I'm gone, Joe Boyd will be a force to contend with in the Chuck series, fearlessly challenging us with Ruth and Gideon. Be sure to check out his comments at Rebel Pilgrim...always personal and thought-provoking.

And don't go easy on him...treat him just like you treat me.

Peace.

retraction

Maybe this should be called: What I Shouldn’t Have Said.

I’m a bit of a stickler for details. I really don’t like to tell a story unless it’s verified (and I don’t like embellishments). And I don’t like to use quotes if I don’t know a bit about the source. And I try hard to get dates right. Etcetera etcetera...

So some of you can check out at this point if you’re not into, er, details. But two weekends ago I made a point about Moses that got me researching a little more, and much to my chagrin, it’s not exactly what I had taught.

I mentioned that after Moses got mad at the Israelites for partying and screwing around with other gods while he had spent forty days without food or water in the presence of God, he threw down the tablets with the Ten Commandments on them...and they broke into pieces. These were written by God Himself.

Then I said that the next time he received the Ten Commandments, Moses had to write them himself on the stone. At least, that’s what I gathered from this particular passage in Exodus:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:27-28).

God tells Moses to “write down these words”. Then it says, “And he wrote on the tablets…the Ten Commandments.” So what’s the problem? The pronoun “he” appears to refer to Moses, not God, in each translation. And even though in the first verse of that chapter God says He will write the words, it seems explicit that Moses is then instructed to write…and not just the preceding ceremonial and judicial laws.

But in Deuteronomy it records:

At that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden chest. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the chest.” So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. Deuteronomy 10:1-4 (New International Version).

I have to go with that. It’s Moses’ own words recollecting the whole event. He’s the eyewitness here. I don’t think there’s a major theological breakdown, but there could be a mishandling of an application if one (like me) pushed the idea that Moses had to carve this one himself. It could lead to a performance emphasis that doesn’t handle grace properly.

So there you have it. And if you made it this far, you might think: “What’s the big deal, Dave? I’d rather talk philosophically than exegetically in this blog. Get over it. Let’s talk about Joshua.”

Uh, I’m out of time now. Talk amongst yourselves…

holy mo

The Fearless series launched with a hefty bang. I didn’t feel like I was particularly engaging/funny (believe it or not, there’s a degree of playfulness that feels critical to me as a communicator) and perhaps a little heavy, but I believe God showed up to make sense of it all. It’s a subject for another time, but it’s really easy for pastors to slip into cranky preaching; it’s hard to describe how weirdly natural it is to preach to the choir. For you church-neophytes, that means telling Rambo-xtians what they think others should hear…and it’s usually about performing better. But I digress.

I would love to do a whole series on Moses. It’s absolutely discombobulating for me how the writer of Hebrews (chapter 11) and Stephen (the Church’s first martyr in Acts 7) describe Moses compared with the Exodus account.

The writer of Hebrews characterizes Moses this way: “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.” (Hebrews 11:27). But Exodus reports: “The man said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘What I did must have become known.’” (Exodus 2:14). It reads as though the fear factor was higher than the faith factor.

Then Stephen says, “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.” (Acts 7:22). But Moses' response in Exodus at the burning bush was: “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” (Exodus 4:10). Perhaps Stephen wanted us to know Moses was really ducking in Exodus.

I’m no theologian. I gave up on that years ago; nothing as smarmy as a pastor who tries to be smarter than he/she is (“…but the Greek actually says…”). Still, it seems to me that the New Testament writers may have a little different view of faith (not simply a belief system) and more about motivations expressed in actions. The question is: did Moses do that by running from Egypt? It makes me wonder how we define faith in our current church culture. It could be that comparatives are critical: was the desire to go after the “invisible” larger than the fear of being discovered as a defender of the Hebrews? Maybe. Jesus used a hyperbolic-comparative when he described how we are to love him: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26).

Anyway, the two accounts have a unique distinctiveness…and one that should be explored. But you can do that on your own. Next week I’m tackling Joshua. Stepping into someone else’s bigger shoes: I’m familiar with that story.

happy new year

What a year 2007 was. Wow.
Who would have thought that God would speak to each of us and we’d end up sacrificially giving over 12.8 million dollars toward the creation of The Healing Center, a Student Ministry expansion and internship program and launch a well-drilling micro-business/ministry with Self-Sustaining Enterprises in Nigeria? It was a love for our city, our future and our world.

It was a good year at so many other levels. This weekend I talked about The Top 3 Cool Things That Happened at VCC in 2007…and then The Top 3 Things I Screwed Up. There were more things than that (obviously), but I just didn’t have time to unpack them all.

So, as promised, here is my complete Top 10 List. Anton, drumroll please…

The Top 10 Cool Things:

1. We listened to God and threw the net on the other side of the boat. (You’ll have to listen to the message for this one, but it’s based on John 21:6. The Healing Center is just another net…for people who would never step into a church for help.)

2. We learned a little about sacrifice. (People gave sacrificially toward the Luke 4 Challenge in ways that made me cry. No kidding.)

3. We worked hard behind-the-scenes on our integrity. (Yeah, you’ll have to listen to the weekend. Sorry. Too much to unload here…but here’s the graphic for the “integrity strength triangle”. Critical for wholeness.)

4. Waited to hire the right teaching pastor. (We had a stack of resumes a couple inches thick. But it had to be the right combination of a heart for lost people and yet a hunger for the power of the Holy Spirit, a creative communicator with an edge, good and broken, leadership gifting, a certain amount of life experience, etcetera etcetera. We waited and waited. And then waited some more. We were close on some, but it just didn’t seem right. And then we met Joe in Anaheim…)

5. Landed on our five core DNA values. (The 4WARD series was a bigger deal than you think. Remember the mnemonic?—Servant community, Outward focused, Worship, Empowered transformation, and Relevant: SOWER. This shapes everything for us seedflingers…)

6. Integrated “power prayer” into more ministries. (This was subtle but critical. More and more risky prayers were incorporated into various ministries, from MercyWorks to Celebrations to wherever. Karin’s prayer training is sneaking into everything. Like cranberries, as Brian Regan says. Awesome. How cool is it that one of our blind homeless friends at Washington Park was healed at a Good Sam Run? It’s the Kingdom in action.)

7. Saw a real turn in student ministries effectiveness. (What can I say? Pete Bryant and the gang have made unbelievable strides in the last two years. After two-and-a-half years of a turn-around strategic plan, Pete said at his strategic plan presentation a year ago that if this didn’t work, we should fire him. I love that kind of confidence [risk-taking?] in God-sought planning.)

8. The development of a strong, healthy board of trustees. (We have been on a board development track that has really paid off. I’m so proud of these high-powered volunteers who give unbelievable numbers of hours to bring accountability to VCC at the highest levels. I love this gang.)

9. Getting into the Victory of Light Psychic Fair at the Convention Center. (I’m crazy about seeing Evangelism and Prayer Ministries working together and thinking out-of-the-box when it comes to spiritual power. We offered healing and dream interpretation. Get real: who else but the Vineyard would do this…and give away fortune cookies with specially printed fortunes at the booth?)

10. Turkeyfest. (Wow. Kande and the gang came up with a simple idea: instead of VCC buying the turkeys and canned goods each year and then meeting to distribute them—typically about 400 dinners—this year we simply set out boxes with packing instructions. Families then bought the goodies, including the turkeys, and even decorated the boxes and threw in extra treats…and then distributed them as well all over Greater Cincinnati. We ran out of boxes at 800. People were trying to buy boxes from others who grabbed them. Next year: 1600 boxes?)

Now for all us “glass half-empty” personality-types, here are The Top 10 Things I Screwed Up:

1. I didn’t communicate enough. (Yeah, listen to the message for these first three. My introversion/assumption is a drawback…and as Andy says, vision leaks…quickly. I’ve got to communicate more about what we’re doing and why.)

2. I didn’t ask God to move miraculously among us enough…and then take the risk. (Getting too comfortable with my/our spiritual status quo. ‘Nuff said.)

3. I didn’t teach the Vineyard how to feed itself. (We’ve suspected it. Confirmed with the Reveal survey. I own this one.)

4. Didn’t talk to God enough. (This is an embarrassing thing for a pastor to admit, but I find prayer more than difficult. Once again, relying way too much on natural gifts. Not good. The best things that happened this year have been in desperate moments of brokenness/prayer.)

5. I was too cheap. (I think some of this is simply family-of-origin-stuff from coming from a poor background. It’s one thing to be cheap with yourself, but awful when that spills out with others).

6. I cocooned too much. (The dark side of introversion. But even worse is when TV becomes the “veg factor” for down time. For introverts thrown into extroverted contexts, this can feel like an entitlement for us. That kind of thinking sucks.)

7. Didn’t worship enough privately and publicly. (Worship is definitely one of my pathways to connecting with God. Some of my most intense moments have been in the car on some of my Friday morning prayer/drives with a mix CD of favorite worship songs. But life has a way of crowding out those times. Or is that one more excuse? And why?)

8. I didn’t have enough one-on-one meetings with the greatest staff in the world. (We have an incredibly hardworking, dedicated staff that takes the tithe dollars that support them seriously. I need to spend more one-on-one time with them and express my appreciation and respect. We now have about 120 people on staff.)

9. Didn’t exercise. (Yeah, I know…my body is a temple. A big one. Does cutting the grass count?)

10. Forgot my admin assistant’s birthday. (Donna saves my life on a regular basis. What was I thinking? Or not thinking? I’ll have her put it on my calendar…)

There you have it. Now come on…what’s yours?

christmas + peace

Then a very large group of angels from heaven joined the first angel, praising God and saying: “Give glory to God in heaven, and on earth let there be peace among the people who please God.” Luke 2:13-14 (New Century Version)

I find it interesting that God would say peace to all men and women on earth at the incarnation of the Son of God, the ultimate delivery in human history. No wonder there was a huge angelic party worshiping God; God has slipped into the human race, fulfilling millenium-sized prophecies. Fully human, yet divine. And so the angel army shouts peace. Think about how significant that is. They said peace, not happiness, to all men. Not hope. Not faith. Not healthy self-esteem. But peace to all who would seek to please God, rather than themselves. The peace-gift doesn’t come to those who have it together, to those who are successful, to the clever, to the fastest, or the most significant. It comes to those who turn from being self-focused and decide that pleasing God is the highest vocation on the planet.

Let me tell you a true story.

Once upon a December there was a young musician living with a group of players all struggling to be something/somebody. He had dropped out of college, confused, sharply lonely, all the stuff that supposedly fuels the creative tortured soul. It’s the stuff of artistry, right? But a tortured soul is still a tortured soul. With no more than a few dollars in his pocket, he went out that night and stole a Christmas tree, put it up in his room, and sat on the edge of the bed staring at it for hours while he got hammered alone on cheap wine. What’s worse than a lonely drunk? But his problems weren’t circumstantial. His problem was that he didn’t have a big enough reason to exist. As Franklin succinctly put it, “A man wrapped up in himself is a small bundle.” Here is a simple truth: there is nothing more significant than personally knowing the Creator of the universe. Now that's a name to drop. In less than four months after that Christmas, the Prince of Peace, as Isaiah called Jesus, would come crashing into this young man’s life, forever changing the way he lived.

It’s been thirty-three years and I haven’t been the same since.

I made a soul journey from believing that God might possibly exist…to God may have some interaction with the universe…to God might actually interface with human beings…to God might actually know me…to God knows my name and wants to personally rescue me from my own private hell. All of a sudden, it became real when it became personal. God didn’t send His Son into the world for some faceless herd of humanity—He slipped into this world to find me. Christmas is all about a specific search-and-rescue mission. For you and me.

The significance of God coming as a helpless baby lying in a feeding trough for barn animals for me supremely affects the way I treat others and myself. Peace comes to all men and women who come alive with a desire to please God.

The word we translate peace usually comes from the Greek word eirene. It shows up in about every book in the New Testament, and in most cases it refers to relationships. It’s rooted in the Greek verb eiro, which means to join. In other words, peace has more to do with the integrity and the joining of our relationships than anything else. How much of your stress and anxiety in life is caused by relationships? Like, uh, practically all of it?

Our relationships are as healthy as we are healthy. And the primal relationship is with God. When the wall comes down between us and God and we are joined, then we become one. And peace comes. Out of a peaceful heart come relationships that are healthy inasmuch as it falls upon us, as in: Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy... Hebrews 12:12-14a (New International Version). I like that the writer happens to talk about becoming healthy ourselves first before having peace with all men.

I wish peace could be waved over the Third Rock from the Sun with some magic wand and everyone could suddenly be happy, like the proverbial Miss America line. I fear it doesn’t work like that; my trust in God is such that I’m fairly sure He would have tried if it were that simple. Besides, it seems there’s a world of difference between happiness and peace.

Instead, joining each heart to Himself seems to be the peace-plan. And it started with a baby wrapped in Jewish skin.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Romans 5:1 (New Living Translation)

Merry Christmas, friends. And peace to all.

what i don't want to say

The message was pretty straightforward this weekend, with a bit of an inside look at why God kept dropping bread crumbs in a little village called Bethlehem to see if we’d get the hint. Like David being anointed king there. Or like a “kinsmen-redeemer” rescuing both Naomi and Ruth—a Jew and a Gentile—in Bethlehem and a prophetic reference to Paul’s letter to the Galatians that God has made the two (Jew and Gentile) into one and tore down the wall between us. Or the Jewish prophet Micah dropping the big bombshell: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times".

But I don’t want to blog about that.

After noticing a number of churches in my neck of the woods advertising a “live nativity” (as opposed to a “dead nativity”), I started wondering why we do some of the things we do in churches at Christmas. Have you ever heard of people having a “crisis of faith”? One year I had a “crisis of production”.

One September day in 2000 I was sitting in Chipotles with my wife Anita and said: “I just can’t do another Christmas Eve program again. I’m sick of them. I’m going to cancel it this year.”

She choked on her burrito and said, “You can’t do that!” She looked at me like I had said, “Let’s put the “x” back in xmas.”

I reminded her, “Are you sure? I think I’m the pastor.” I was just tired of The Big Production. And then Anita reminded me of something that changed my life. Over twenty years ago we did our first outreach as a brand new little church of twenty-five people. We gave away a few bags of groceries and Christmas trees in the projects. We were so naïve that we would knock on the doors and ask if there were any poor people there. There were several dynamics happening: it wasn’t just a need being met, but a shift in the way people—mostly estranged from church—saw Christians. Even better yet, not just saw Christians, but saw the Kingdom of God crashing into their world. We were hooked.

Suddenly my wife said, “Why don’t we return to our roots and do an outreach on Christmas Eve?”

I mulled it around for a few minutes, sucking on a Diet Coke. And then I said, “Hey, I’ve got a great idea: why don’t we do an outreach on Christmas Eve?”

She just rolled her eyes, smiled and took another bite of her burrito.

It’s become a tradition for us. Instead of The Big Production on Christmas Eve night, we bought thousands of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and passed them out to people who have to work on Christmas Eve—policemen, firemen, video stores, hospitals, and so on. Even restaurants. Turns out waiters and waitresses in your average Applebee’s love Krispy Kremes.

Last year my family went to an IHOP restaurant where an obviously harried young hostess ringing out a family in front of us said tersely without looking at us, “Sorry. We’re not serving anymore…we’re closing.”

We said, “Good for you! We don’t want your food. We’re actually bringing you some.” We handed her a box with a dozen Krispy Kremes in it and she was stunned. She looked at the box with the little card on it from the Vineyard and then looked up at us and—I’m not making this up—said, “You all are going to make me cry!” and teared up.

I’ll never forget this email: “Last Christmas Eve was a really stressful night at the Starbucks where I work because there were a lot of customers and they wanted their coffee fast—we were really frustrated. In the evening a guy from the Vineyard came in and handed a box of doughnuts to my coworker. She started crying and saying, “You people are so nice!” Several months later in March, she and I stayed for hours at Starbucks after closing just talking about God, and that’s when she decided to give her life to Christ. She started going to the Vineyard with me and she’s been thinking about getting baptized.”

But let’s be honest: it’s not all as simple as saying we’re not going to do a Big Production.

Our Outreach team, Celebration team and Facilities team might not agree with me that it’s not The Big Production. Those folks work a gazillion hours leading up to this night. It looks simple: we do a few Christmas carols, light our candles, sing “Silent Night” and then head into the gym to pick up our mostly pre-scouted locations with maps on each box of dozen (over two thousand of them…and the smell is spectacular). I guess that classifies as a Big Production. D’oh!

And we still put on a full-blown production of a free play (hey, it’s an outreach…) for three nights before all that (only four days after the previous weekend stuff). And pull off the celebrations on the weekend. And then The No Big Production Christmas Eve 8th Annual Doughnut Outreach. And then collapse on Christmas day.

Come to think of it, maybe I’m living in La La Land with my sarcastic jab at the dead nativity.

Would someone do an intervention?

colorado church shootings

The news from New Life Church and the Youth With A Mission center in Colorado is stunning. Four innocent people shot to death. It elicits the response: what in the world is going on? At this point in the stream of news, it appears they were linked: the shooter was a 24-year old psychopath who “hated Christians” and had allegedly been asked to leave YWAM five years earlier.

Google “church shootings” and you’ll find numbers of incidents; schools and malls are not the only public spaces where anyone can enter and create havoc. Churches provide an open venue with lots of people, creating opportunities for deranged people to get their “fifteen minutes”. And if you’re a believer, the evil factor feels all the more obvious. It’s morbidly curious how many of the shooters had an anti-Christian bent.

Though I’ve never really spoken much about it, we’ve had a few run-ins with disturbed people. The Vineyard has certainly been the target of vitriolic hate mail in the past. Some of it we have passed on to the authorities because of the violent and/or aggressive sexual nature of it. Frankly, my wife and I have had anonymous angry letters show up in our mailbox at home.

Some years ago a guy came up on the stage while I was talking with people between celebrations. He was pacing behind me then suddenly pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall, started swinging it and hit me with it. I wrapped my arms around him to hold him steady until a couple of guys from the prayer team came up and we pulled him to a back room, while praying for him and calling the police.

One Saturday night in the atrium a woman climbed up on a table and started preaching at people. When I asked her to step down, she hit me and said it was because she was a woman. After asking her several times to get down, we had to call the police to avoid any accusation of what we did or didn’t do. The police took her out while she screamed threats.

We’ve had a couple of people stand up during the celebration and rudely challenge us on something inconsequential in the message. We’ve had emails and letters that said unspeakable things. We’ve had people who were mad for one reason or another sit and glare during the message. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there have been some celebrations where I’ve wondered if someone might show up and do something irrational. I’ve met with angry people in public places simply because if anything happened I wanted to be in a place where it could be witnessed. We’ve had to ban some people from coming because of things that were threatened. And let’s not mention lawsuits. There are behind-the-scenes reasons we hire security police to roam the building on weekends. Any public place has a responsibility to do what’s necessary to provide a safe environment. And we do.

But it’s just a different world today. None of us can afford to get paranoid; it takes too much energy.

The early disciples had some terrifically harsh things happen to them. Paul had to escape a city over a wall in a basket by a rope. There was the time the leadership told him not to go to a particular meeting because of its riotous, dangerous potential. He still ended up getting beaten, stoned, arrested and imprisoned at different times. Paul said he was often in danger not only from the Gentiles, but people from his own religious heritage. Religious people.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not comparing the experiences of the early disciples with our minimal travails in megachurches with padded seats and air conditioning. But the point is: angry, emotionally disturbed and, dare I say it, demonized individuals exist. And they’re sometimes hyper-religious. I think we have a hard time admitting there are people with evil intent. Jesus didn’t seem to have a hard time with it: he plainly called some people evil and at one point told one of His closest friends: “Get behind me, Satan…your agenda is your own, not God’s.” That’s pretty strong.

We have to have God’s agenda at the top of our to-do list. And that’s simply to bring the Kingdom with words and actions...and to pray for the will of God to come to this crazed place the way it always is in His dimension. Apparently that’s not always the case here on the Blue Planet. We must be willing to be the carrier and messenger of His power and grace.

Is there a cost? Is there resistance?

You’ve got to be kidding. Jesus said plainly, “I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves.”

There’s a reason why Hollywood movies, books and fireside stories from the dawn of humanity have villains and classic clashes between good and evil: it’s because it’s an intuitive reflection of the real universe.

Welcome to the world of spiritual warfare.

répondez s'il-vous-plaît

This week Adam launched us into the Christmas series called “rsvp”. God invades the planet as a Jewish baby in a feeding trough for livestock and the invitation to the kingdom party is sent out. Please rsvp.

We happen to believe the initial reaction to the touch of God is worship. Or think of it like this:

Q: What is the first response to God from a ransomed soul?
A: Outrageous gratitude.

And isn’t that the foundation for worship? Worship begins with the Big Thank You. I'd like to think that we are such noble critters that our first approach to God is awe and worship simply for Who He Is, but I don’t think that’s reality. We are in such a deep hole that the natural first response to the rope thrown in is: thanks. Plus, God is far more personal and in love with us than we realize...until we surrender.

And that’s the thing. I mentioned at our shareholders meeting Friday night that though this “surrender” is nuanced and multilayered, I believe there is a linear process: a surrender to live, a surrender to serve and a surrender to die.

The first surrender is a surrender to live. Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” In this surrender, we want help. We’re dying inside, our lives are out of control, and we’re depressingly aware of our brokenness and distance from God. It's numero uno on the twelve steps. Life has become a 500-pound gorilla on our back. We are beaten down...we are tired...we want a savior.

The surrender to live is the doorway into interaction with Jesus. Jesus always responds to a cry for help.

Next comes a surrender to serve. It is here that we let God know we want to do something for Him. We have many people who come to VCC who haven’t hit this part yet. Jesus said that self-aware people who understand what they’ve been rescued from respond in this manner as a “thank you”. He put it like this: the one who has been forgiven much, loves much. We want to express our gratitude in a tangible way; we have a utilitarian reaction. We begin to understand (slowly) that our response is not to earn anything from God, but a gracious reply to the gift of Life.

I remember reading an article in Time about a woman who survived the collapse all the way from the 50th floor in the Trade Center attacks on 911. Although some people suffer from survivor guilt, she became immersed in gratitude and purpose for God: “I was spared for a reason—I want to serve God with all that is in me—I want to make a difference.”

But last comes the surrender to die. Jesus says to us “Pick up you cross and follow me.” In other words, "Choose your form of execution and model your life after Mine." It becomes not “if I die for you”, or “if I am martyred for you”, but rather “I die daily”. This is a death to self-will, to self-ambition, to recognition, to preference, to natural gifting, to everything in you that says there is a part of me that has to be comfortable.

This is radical.

It moves beyond every healthy self-help process to something hidden deep inside. It’s the part that people won’t understand…and is the part that you can’t really talk about because it’s humility on steroids. When a person is being crucified, they don’t have a five-year plan. They don’t have a five minute plan. They aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The message of the Church to the world is: the cross of Jesus brings life. The message of Jesus to the Church is: come and die; go find your cross.

A final note: in different areas of our lives—interpersonal and inner issues that we’re struggling with—those three surrenders will cycle through on a regular basis. But in general, the process for salvation for our whole life appears to follow that order.

And if true worship is marked by sacrifice, then surrender and worship are synonymous.

i smell a lawsuit...

“What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.” When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. (Acts 5:4-5a)

What a neuron-bending story.

Can you imagine if that happened today in First Baptist Church of Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico? Lawyers of family members would be swooping in for the kill. The media would stumble all over itself in a paparazzipalooza. Google would have a million search hits by midnight. Michael Moore would be cueing camera shots. And Pat Robertson would be strangely silent.

I’m pretty sure there would be big money involved. Can you imagine if two people died in your church within three hours after they put serious jack in the offering? It doesn’t even tell us who the “young men” were who came forward and dragged the dead husband out and buried him. And without his wife even knowing. Were they Super-ushers? The Deacons of Doom? Elders of Expiration? Or just a really different job description for the young adult ministry?

What vastly different cultures we live in. When people ask me why we can’t be more like the New Testament church, I have to sigh: is it even possible…and would you really like it? We are light-year cultures removed in so many ways. I’m not saying that’s why it wouldn’t/couldn’t happen now; God transcends cultures. But remember: He did pick a certain one and a certain time to become flesh, or as the Bible puts it, “when the right time came, God sent his Son…” And it wasn’t just to fulfill prophecies; that’s silly—He could have had the prophecies written for any year.

Though people are essentially the same through the centuries, that is, sinners,—(I just had a long discussion with someone who believes the world is progressively becoming more moral; how did he miss Auschwitz, the Communist Gulags, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Darfur, 911, or even Abu Ghraib? And that’s just the last seventy years. Yeah, we don’t draw-and-quarter anymore; we’re just more subtle…)—cultures radically shift.

It just makes you think.

There are so many facets to this story. And Big Questions I would have loved to gotten into: why does that apparently not happen today? Or does it, but we’re not intuitive enough to pick it up and too afraid to touch the judgment question for fear of being, uh, judgmental? And how does grace enter into that equation? Or was that an initial necessity in the launch of this fledgling movement? My theory is that it was critically important to God that the authority and power of the Church not be compromised at the start. Plus, there was just a huge open window to heaven and serious power was being released, just based on the next few verses in the story.

I joked about how I would have taken a second offering then, but that bordered on sacrilege. It’s amazing to me that people can get upset about a guy in an elephant suit getting kicked in the crotch in a humorous video, but no one screamed at that lo-fi quip from me. If you ever been around a serious move of the Holy Spirit in a dramatic way—a deliverance, a real prophetic word, or had God convict you on the spot—there is a reverential awe that shatters cynicism and sarcasm in a nanosecond. It was a cheap attempt at humor. And not very smart. When people start laying sick folks on the sidewalk in hopes that my shadow will cross them, maybe then I can spare some humor about power.

I’m starting to ramble here so I better stop; I’ll get in more trouble. But I love wrestling contextually with challenging scriptures; it’s good for the soul.

Maybe this is the bottom line: money and spirituality is way more connected than we think. Err on the side of grace and generosity every time. If Jesus said it was better to enter into the Kingdom with one eye than hell with two, I’d suggest it’s better to enter with an empty wallet as well.

the ron & denver road show

About half-a-year ago I got a book in the mail called Same Kind of Different As Me. I read a fair amount of books but am not really crazy about contemporary testimonial-type stories; sometimes I feel they’re not written well. This one caught me by surprise…three-quarters of the way through I was crying like a baby. Not sure if I was just in a vulnerable place (it usually takes a sound track to make that happen), but I suspect it was touching the usual button for me: racism.

But then there was the part about Ron’s wife, Deborah. That didn’t help either.

Anyway, it was good to have these guys here. Denver is quite a character and no wonder; he had endured so much pain from early childhood in a racist/economic system that sucked the life out of him. As an illiterate homeless drifter, he spent ten years in Angola prison in Louisiana and then twenty-two years on the streets of Fort Worth. Then he ran headlong into the relentless love of God expressed through the wife of a wealthy art dealer who regularly volunteered in an inner-city soup kitchen. She had seen his face in a dream and heard an obscure scripture: Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom... (Ecclesiastes 9:15a). Their story is unforgettable and reads like a movie script. Which, by the way, was recently optioned by Mark Clayman, executive producer of Will Smith’s The Pursuit of Happyness.

Ron was as gracious and warm as one would hope; all his proceeds from the book go directly to the Union Gospel Mission where his wife volunteered. Denver is seventy-one and just learned to read four years ago. He's simply remarkable. It’s an amazing story of redemption experienced by two men who were worlds apart culturally, but as Denver says in the book, “After I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we wadn’t ever gon’ have no kind a’ future. But I found out everybody’s different – the same kind of different as me: we’re all just regular folks walkin’ down the road God done set in front of us.”

Hope you all enjoyed the weekend. It was different. That’s good. But even more, I hope it continues to open our hearts to the poor.

Whatever it takes.

irish ayes

Things went well on the Sunday morning here at Dungannon Vineyard; the people are so warm and hospitable. I talked about personal learnings we’ve experienced at VCC regarding generosity and the poor. Also showed the Luke 4 Recap video in which we announced our pledge amount following The Luke 4 Challenge: Our City, Our Future, Our World. It still makes me cry. I think believers all over the world want to be challenged with big dreams and vision; people respond to vision before they respond to needs. Anyway, we’ve been treated royally here.

Met Ed Gungor and his wife yesterday in Dublin through Jason Scott. Ed's pastors Peoples Church in Tulsa and is the author of several books including a new one called There's More to the Secret, a kind of rebuttal to the massive bestseller that Oprah pushed called The Secret. We had breakfast with him, our team and Jason. The credit card machine was broken and Ed was the only one with euros (the currency of Northern Ireland is the British pound, as opposed to the Republic of Ireland where Dublin is located), so he picked up the tab for the whole party. Nice guy...otherwise I'd still be washing dishes in the back of some pub saying “Pardon?” after every other sentence.

We fly out on Friday and will be home in time to catch Joe on part two of Tackling the Elephant. I love the tithing experiment...it’s so simple and just. Remember when we had Ron Sider speak at VCC? In an interview in Christianity Today sometime back he said:

“Materialism continues to be an incredible scandal. The average church member [from across the denominations] today gives about 2.6 percent of his or her income—a quarter of a tithe—to the church. Evangelicals used to be quite a lot better [in giving] than mainline denominations. But their giving has declined every year for several decades, and they're now getting very close to the norm. The average evangelical giving is about 4.2 percent—about two-fifths of a tithe. Six percent of the "born-again" people tithe; nine percent of evangelicals do. Our income has gone up fabulously over the last 30-plus years. The average household income now in the U.S. is $42,000-plus. If the average American Christian tithed, we'd have another $143 billion.”

Just think what $143 billion could do toward the homeless? Toward reaching lost people? Toward poverty in America alone? And we’re not really talking about sacrificial giving, but what is simply due God. Fascinating. I think that’s why I like this experiment so much. We’re asking everyone not to give a “special” offering, but just practice giving ten percent of our incomes for three weeks and then we’re done. And then we’ll give away everything above our normal operating expenses.

It could be revealing.

Often in evangelical circles is talk about revival—lost people saved, worship breaking out, signs and wonders coming. But interestingly enough, in Hezekiah’s great revival in Israel—which followed tearing down their idols—the most powerful thing was that people tithed.

…They gave freely of the first portion of their grain, new wine, oil, honey, and everything they grew in their fields. They brought a large amount, one-tenth of everything. The people of Israel and Judah who lived in Judah also brought one-tenth of their cattle and sheep and one-tenth of the holy things that were given to the Lord their God, and they put all of them in piles. 2 Chronicles 31:5-6 (New Century Version)

I hate to admit it, but the way we think about disciplined percentage giving probably reveals more about us than we like. And tearing down our idols precedes it.

good crack

On our first night here in Northern Ireland our friends took us to a pub for “some good crack”. Okay, I got a little nervous. Turns out crack is just a slang term for fun. Now you can understand how complicated Bible translation is; words can mean very different things in different cultures. But I’m excited to tell our church back home we had some good crack (craic).

We just finished the Outward Focused Conference in Vineyard Church Dungannon, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has had its share of trouble, even a time that was actually called The Troubles…a religious/class war rooted in a long sad history. A number of people in Dungannon lost family members during that time. There has been a remarkable turnaround since the peace agreement was signed on Good Friday in 1998. The economy is now booming and life has normalized.

About eighty pastors/leaders and spouses were present. Dungannon is a mid-size town of about 12,000 people. The Vineyard here is vibrant; super worship and a warm vibe. The room seats
about

120 people with large glass windows that overlook the city. Very cool. My friends Jason and Michelle Scott pastor the church…they’re funny, hip and totally outward-focused in approach. The church was planted about three years ago; the believers here are incredibly hospitable, kind and full of life.

The conference went well. Churches from Scotland, Ireland and England were represented. Mark Lutz spoke with me as well and we did five one-hour sessions. Oddly, I got choked up at the end of the first night (as did Mark, mind you)…it really isn’t normal for me. Not sure what God was doing, but I think it was simply communicating God’s heart for the lost that sneaked up on me. We showed videos as well: baptisms, stories, fun stuff. Prayer for people at the end was good; it had a “commissioning”-feel to it. Tomorrow morning I’ll speak at the church; Jason asked me to talk about the poor. Can do. For the next few days we’ll be meeting with leaders in churches in Belfast, Dublin and elsewhere. Thanks for all your prayers; God has been showing up. Good craic.

Tonight Joe launches a great new series at VCC called Tackling the Elephant. You’ve got to check out the teaser videos at http://www.tacklingtheelephant.com/…this is going to be an amazing experiment—don’t miss this. Once again, the Vineyard’s generosity is going to be stretched. But not only us…as you’ll see at the site; anyone from any church is welcome to sign the Declaration.

Let’s tackle the elephant, gang.

the relevant in the room

Okay, I admit it: relevance is slippery and somewhat subjective.

Back in the nineties we had a student ministry that connected well with a specific segment of the youth culture: the goth/punk crowd. I remember walking down to the basement of our building on a Sunday night where students met and finding the room extremely dark. I’m pretty sure a couple of kids were making out in the back and most were wearing black. It was a small group…and very relevant to a particular subset. But nearly every other student avoided it like the plague.

Hence, the challenge of cultural relevancy.

Our society is hyper-niched. When I was a kid there was only one radio program to hear music from Jimi Hendrix or the Doors or the Mothers of Invention or Buffalo Springfield or the Fugs: Jelly Pudding, a two-hour Saturday late-night program on the classical music FM music station WEBN here in Cincinnati. No kidding. Every other music station was AM radio playing pop-and-roll. Hard to imagine, eh? These were pre-talk radio days. There wasn’t a lot to choose from. Today Sirius and XM offer 300 stations that include niched channels from Hair Nation (hair bands from the `80’s) to XMU (indie and unsigned bands) and old-school hip hop to Canadian-only groups. And that’s not even considering internet radio…or myspace to hear bands that only your friends like.

So whose culture do you want to be relevant to? In culturally-aware churches, this gets tricky when each culture (or subculture) expects the same level of quality as the hyper-specialized media…or even the large weekend celebrations. That gets challenging to pull off without staffing against it; and who can afford that in a myriad of subcultures? When you throw in racial/ethnic issues, socioeconomic factors, age demographics, personal tastes, etcetera, it gets even more difficult.

So you want to be relevant to the culture? Uh, who’s culture?

And so for a church our size at that time in the mid-nineties—about two thousand people—that wasn’t going to work. I asked our student pastor to turn on all the lights next week. I’m sure he was bummed. But for us it was a matter of painting with a broader brushstroke. We had to reach a wider swath of students and watch out for the dog in the manger; the kids in acid-washed jeans and polo shirts were on a trajectory for hell just as much as the kid in Doc Martens back then.

Did that de-legitimize their ministry or the need? Of course not. It’s simply part of the difficult decisions leaders make in balancing the larger mission against resourcing.

Does that get you wondering? Welcome to my world…


One final note: I’ll be in Northern Ireland this week leading an Outward Focused Church Conference. I’ve struck up a friendship with Jason Scott, pastor of Vineyard Church Dungannon http://www.vineyarddungannon.co.uk/. We’ll be bringing a number of churches together to talk about becoming more outward-focused in philosophy and practice. Mark Lutz will be speaking with me as well. Would you pray for us? And pray for Jason…I sent him a pair of boxer shorts with Guinness on the butt. Just being relevant.

Oh yeah…make your own hip cassette at http://www.says-it.com/cassette/mixtape.php

uncomfortable worship

This one officially takes the warandpeace.com longest blog award. Put your feet up…

Here’s the question I’ve wondered about: in heaven, would I feel any of the restrained feelings I have here about expressing worship? Even when some of us say that worship is not our primary pathway to connecting with God, I wonder: is that an option? And if I make the case that a particular style of worship (pop band, four chord songs, repeating lyric lines, etc.) is not the particular method that floats my boat, then what is it that would make me throw my hands up, sing at the top of my lungs, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” and then fall on my face? Apparently that’s what’s happening there according to John the Revelator. And is it really that I struggle with what my pre-Christian neighbor would think if they stumbled into a setting like that with me, or am I afraid to admit my self-consciousness…or even my lack of faith, because Jesus is here now and I rarely do that even at home alone?

The topic of worship forces a lot of dross to the surface. And there just isn’t enough time on the weekends to tackle not only the theology of worship but the internal emotional and spiritual wrestling that takes place.

In Vineyard seminars on this topic, we used to teach that there were three primary words used for describing worth to God: worship, praise and rejoice. As I understand it, each has three to five different expressive Greek or Hebrew words. We can create a continuum, perhaps somewhat arbitrarily, of the full spectrum of expression that God gives us to use.

At one end, the word we translate worship may have more to do with quietness or stillness. There may be bowing involved. The most commonly used Greek word in the New Testament is proskuneo—it literally means to kiss or to come close or come toward and kiss. It’s a submissive expression of intimacy.

Along the arrow we come to the expression praise. In the Old Testament alone, there are at least three different Hebrew words each with different meanings that we simply translate as praise. There is the word halal, the root word of hallelujah. It means to brag, or to boast. Another word is yadah, meaning to worship with your hands extended. The psalmist talks about lifting our hands in His name as an act of worship. As I mentioned this weekend, in the New Testament, Paul said he wanted people everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer. My friend Dan Cox brought a coworker to the Vineyard who asked, “Why do some people raise their hands?” Dan told him they have to go to the bathroom.

Still another Hebrew word translated as praise is zamar. That literally means to strike a stringed instrument with your fingers. If that’s not a case for a Les Paul in church, I don’t know what is. It obviously suggests we’re to have music involved with our worship.

Lastly, we have the expression rejoice. There are lots of Hebrew and Greek words translated as rejoice, but they mostly mean to shout, jump or dance. It means to take full expressive pleasure in God. My oldest daughter was in Rome when Italy won the World Cup: imagine that scene. I saw a game show where a struggling single mom and her six kids won an all-expense paid vacation and a new car. They went crazy and started crying and jumping and screaming and hugging each other. The weekend we announced the total pledged for the Luke 4 Challenge was like that: jumping-and-shouting excitement. Rejoicing is electric, unrestrained joy.

Now if we were honest, we could write on either end of the graphic: “I’m comfortable with this” and “I’m not so sure about this…this borders on weirdness.”
Tell the truth: where are you on that spectrum?

When Jesus quoted Isaiah and said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,” that can go either way. And I get nervous.

gates of hell

I thought Joe did a super job.

Loved the reinforcement of “the gates of hell” being defensive…and that we were to be on the offensive. There is such a forcefulness in Jesus’ words at so many levels in that passage in Matthew 16:13-19:

…how He pushes His disciples to make a decision regarding who He was…
…the willful strength behind “I will build My church”…
…He confers power to the Church: “I will give you the keys”…
…His passing of authority to us: “whatever you bind”…

What’s just as interesting is that Matthew says “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Matthew 16:21). From that time on…

Jesus follows up those commanding, knockout statements with descriptions of how He would suffer and die a humiliating death, appearing powerless and pathetically helpless at the hands of jealous, phony religious leaders.

Real power and servanthood are inextricably linked in scripture.

not my feet

I mentioned this weekend about a group of people at the Vineyard who go downtown every Saturday and feed several hundred people lunch. It’s called The Good Sam Run. Two weeks ago during a routine lunch, our friends in the homeless community had arranged a surprise for the people who have been serving them for years. One of the people on the team journaled their experience:

“When we were through we packed up as usual. But then the team was asked to stop over across the street for a minute. As we walked over there, someone directed us to sit on the cement wall at Washington Park. There were the people we had just served. As we sat down, we noticed they each had a bowl and a cloth, and we thought ‘what’s going on?’

“They each began to read from a note in their hands. ‘Silver and gold have we none, but what we have we give to you.’ Yes, these were people that didn’t have silver and gold – these were the ‘poor and homeless’ and they had nothing. But ‘what we have we give to you’…what did they mean by that? Then they began to read some scriptures about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and how we should do the same. They were going to wash our feet! All of a sudden my mind began racing. I was used to serving them, but here they were, turning things upside down. They were going to do this for us! I never expected anything like this.

“A maze of emotions hit me. A cloud of bewilderment and humility fell on me. I was not used to this – I wanted to say ‘No, not my feet!’ but then they read the scripture where Peter tried to say that to Jesus. So I obediently took off my sandals. Standing in front of me was a tall, muscular black man with a gentle smile on his face. His gold tooth sparkled as he continued to smile while kneeling down at my feet. He gently lifted my ankle over the basin, dipped the cloth in the water, and lovingly washed my feet as if they were a precious gem he was handling. Then he poured some oil over them, looked at me and said ‘May you always walk with Jesus.’ At this point I could no longer hold back the tears.

“He stood up and leaned over and gave me a hug. Then he gave me a card that said ‘______ is praying for you today.’ He had forgotten to write in his name so I’d know who was praying for me. But I know I will never forget his face as long as I live. The love, joy and humility I felt will always remain with me. And I thank God that I was chosen to be one of those receiving such a precious gift, that ‘all they had, they gave to me.’”

Powerful, eh?

There are still a few churches that have made foot-washing part of their practices. It’s lost its meaning in our culture; centuries ago it was the job of the house-slave to do that for guests with dusty sandaled feet. And in modern “user-friendly” churches, that would be a practice that would freak everyone out. So we attempt to find the jobs that are the “lowest on the food chain” to do…and then do them for others. So if you’ve ever worked a summer at a car wash…or had the gig of cleaning the bathroom at your place of employment…you might understand what a shock that is to have someone offer that for free.

But one final note: once I was speaking to the volunteer leaders of our prayer team ministry and after I had prayed for them, they asked me to sit down and remove my shoes. I got very, very nervous and uncomfortable. Then they brought a basin out and washed my feet and poured oil over them. I can’t express how humbled I was by this. It made me speechless…and I wept on the way home. It brought our feelings I didn’t even know were below the surface. As out-of-place and awkward “foot-washing” is in our world, I had never experienced anything quite like that. And believe me, I’ve experienced a lot in my fifty-four years.

An act of humility on their part triggered a flood of humility in me. I felt unworthy but strangely loved at the same time. I really can’t explain it.

Can you imagine what the disciples felt when the King of the Universe washed theirs?


Because of this, God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11 New Living Translation)