Promises

Priorities & the call of God

The turmoil our country is in right now has put me at odds with many of my mentors, and many of those I love who self identify as part of the Christian Right. First, it was immigration; now it is the violence of our police and a lack of accountability for those who are in power; indeed the systemic racism that so many are blind to differentiates me these days from friends, family and former teachers and mentors. 

Unlike some of my other friends on the Christian left who are angry with the Christian right, I am simply sad; heartbroken that Jesus has gone through a synchretistic morphing with capitalism into the protector of the powerful and the rich. Somewhere, this Advent -- a season of waiting for His return -- we've lost something near and dear to His heart. We've lost the fact that He came for the oppressed and marginalized and was killed by the out of control powers of a Roman State hell bent on protecting the status quo; fearful of Jews who they looked at in similar ways to the way we look at our African- American brothers and sisters -- as threats to their way of life and security.

In 351 AD things changed for the Church when Constantine made Christianity the State religion and Christians went from being outlaws, on the margins of society, to being in charge. It was Satan's biggest coup. Christ never wanted his followers to be in charge. He even said, "Do not look at authority the way the Gentiles do when they Lord it over one another." And yet that is precisely what we have done. And since such power is blessed by the church, it was easy for republic -- a government by the people for the people -- to morph into government by the corporate powers for the wealthy and privileged (most of whom are white).

The problem didn't stop with Constantine. Indeed, violence has been a part of our nation from birth to our adolescent Civil War, to genocide of Native Americans, and the inslavery of Africans. It has carried on into the present with our economic raping of Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and many, if not all of our neighbours to our south. We have taken that which we havce coveted, and trodden on any and all that get in our way. And we have done it all in the name of freedom and God, which is no freedom at all, but actual slavery to mammon. Who in these instances, has proven to be our god, for we cannot serve two masters.

At some point those of us that follow Christ have to drop what we are doing (what He has called us to do) and pay attention to the abominations our government and corporations and, indeed, even our own choices that support them. At some point we need to shift our focus from our primary callings because those abominations are too horrific to be ignored any longer.

I don't know when that time will come. Perhaps it is already here. Up to this point, my primary concern, my life work, has centered around issues of spiritual abuse; loving the abused and the broken so that the cycle of abuse, which is so prevalent in Christ's Church will stop. However, if things keep going the way they are going, I will have no choice but to join the throngs of those who are marching and protesting because the physical violence must stop. Triage will require I step into something I don't want to step into, because if I don't my son will have to step into it later on at much greater cost.

America must repent, for "we the people" are greedy, consumptionistic,fearful of anything that threatens those things, and violent toward those we see as threats. We need to turn from our sin and cry out for mercy or go the way of every other Empire that has gone before us. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Revisiting the Creation & Evolution Debate

I had a conversation with a pastor in Christmas Valley in May that I have not forgotten, Evolution is a more important issue than we place on it. Sometime circa 1990 I spent a week at Michigan Technological University. One of my favourite couples was on staff there – Chris and Barb Anible. When I got home after the week Chris mailed me a letter to the editor of the MTU paper. The title said, “Speaker knew nothing,” referring to me. I kept that letter for a long time. I only wish the author of the letter had stayed to hear my talk because he argued the same things I argued in my talk, we just ended at different places.

If I remember that talk correctly (Dan Allender informed us that all memory is fiction), I tried to provoke everyone. I had nothing good to say about any position on the creation/evolution spectrum. I pointed out each position’s strengths and weaknesses, and argued that every “scientific origins theory” was “post-dictive.” We can only know what we see in the present and formulate ideas about the past, which we even call “pre-historic” (before history). The creationists weren’t happy because I pointed out that Genesis 1 was not about “how God created,” The gap theorists weren’t happy because I argued philosophically against the idea of macro-evolution. The naturalists weren’t happy because I pointed out that their position simply makes no sense whatsoever.

I’m revisiting this issue in 2014 some 25 years later because the pastor in Christmas Valley pointed out that nearly all the other debates we are having in the political spectrum stem back to how we view this one issue. I had not considered that. There is a lot of truth in what he says. If one holds an evolutionary view of the world, one believes that our view of everything from the Constitution of the USA to our view of sexuality is improving and, hence, we need to do away with our old way of thinking. This is a dangerous position to cling to, and, I believe is incorrect.

I end up a seven day creationist. There, I said it. I am not sure what it means to say it, and I don’t hold it tightly or theologically but rather philosophically (and that includes my epistomology) by faith because I see no other helpful or possibly true (small ‘t”) options.

Like I did so many years ago while I spoke at Michigan Technological Univeristy, I hold that evolution paved the way for Nietzsche and then subsequently Hitler and Stalin.  Once we accept it, either as a Theist or a Naturalist, our epistemology goes sideways. The theist becomes a Deist or a Baptist (whichever comes first) not allowing God to work in his world; its trajectory is set. The naturalist becomes tribalistic and a fundamentalist of his own secular theology. Some of my friends land here, and are unable to see their own naturalistic fundamentalism.

I don’t know how it all went down. I wasn’t there. I do know though, that if God made Adam, he did not make a freshly minted fetus. No, he made a full grown human. If God made a human who looked old, it follows that he would make the earth the same you’re Science’s carbon dating is not convincing to me. Neither is their study of rocks and fossils. If God created the way that creationists say he did. Creation would fool our science by taking on the appearance of age.  To my theistic (or even biblical) evolutionary friends, if there wasn’t a historical Adam, then we have a bunch of theological issues we have to address, because Paul’s ideas about Jesus being the new Adam can’t be correct. Some of us are already trying to do away with the idea of Trinity or gender roles because we want to disregard the text and read it with our new lenses. In so doing we are creating a greater harm long term. I can’t buy in. And I will love you, and break bread with you anyway. We don’t have to agree from my perspective.

I am a creationist. I don’t know how old the earth is. I’d venture a guess that you don’t either. I do know that if we think that everything is evolving we are in trouble. I am not interested in “Creation science” or scientific debates. I think nearly all of that from both sides is bullshit. See my thoughts above.

Lots of people smarter than me will disagree. And I could be wrong. As I said I don’t hold my position tightly. I voice it, because it does seem as if this one issue affects may others: war, sexuality, human freedom, human privacy, care for the poor and the outcast, stewardship of creation, justice issues, and the list goes on. So I stand where I stand. What about you?

“Covenant,” in the words of Indigo Montoya, “I do not think that word means what you think that word means.”

 

It is such a badly misused and misunderstood word. I’ve watched it be used to ostracize and abuse people. This is not what God intended

Dan Allender threw out an idea in his Marriage and Family Class offered at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He talked about covenantal marriage, and headship hitting upon something most people miss. He challenged us to take fifteen minutes to look up Sumerian covenants. So I did.

Covenants were created by conquering kings as tools to help them rule. The conquering kings would severe animals in half and make the conquered king walk between them. Then the conquering king would say to the conquered king something along the lines of, “If your people cause me trouble you will be the first to be severed as these animals have been severed.” It was a sign of the conquered kings allegiance, and of his promise to the conquering king to be loyal.

God turned that idea on its head for he says to his creation, if you mess up, I will be the first to die. And then he followed through on his promise. He died for us. The old covenant is completely rebuilt around a new idea of the powerful (filled with the Spirit of the Living God, and given previously unknown freedom) giving up their freedom and, indeed, their lives for the powerless and the oppressed, even as Jesus did.

What it means for us as the church is that we too are called to be the first to die for the one that violates the covenant and sins. Doesn’t the apostle say, “Love covers a multitude of sins?” And aren’t we commanded by Paul to “carry one another’s burdens” without respect for whether they have let us down or not? We’ve missed it. We live under the old Sumerian system. If the parishioner (or member) screws up, we say, “They violated the covenant. Kick them out.” And when we do, we break the heart of the one who died for us, because we missed the point of his being the first to die.

According to Allender, and I think I agree, "headship means being willing to be the first to die." So,what would it look like for the church to walk as Jesus did, being willing to be the first to die? To come down to eat at the pig trough, to live with people and meet people in the place of brokenness and despair? What would it look like for us, the Church to carry the cost of the broken covenant for the covenant breaker, so they don’t have to? I’d like to find out.

You Remember that time?

So you know that moment when you are totally drenched from rain that is hitting you like a thousand needles being driven into your face as you keep telling yourself, “If I ride a little faster, I can dodge the raindrops that aren’t supposed to be falling at all? Yeah that moment earlier tonight on my way home from Seattle to Portland…

God and I had a conversation as the rain came down and my body temperature dropped. I was not equipped for rain today. And I was asking him a couple of things:

1. That I would find a way to be grateful for my soaking. I ended up deciding that I was grateful for it because it was teaching me how to be grateful for the damndest things.
2. For the person I was trying to blame for my getting caught to find peace and love today. They were not the reason I was caught in the down pour. My own thoughtlessness was the reason I was caught in the down pour and I didn’t want to hold myself accountable. It felt easier to blame someone else. I had to give that up and so I prayed for them to have what I wanted. I prayed for them until I meant the words I prayed. This one wasn’t so difficult
3. And I apologized for trying to manipulate him by my choices to pray and, “surrender.” I realized I started my prayers not so much because I was trying to connect with God as much as I thought that maybe if I paid attention to Him, He’d turn off the faucet. I am grateful that I am aware of my attempts to manipulate God. I don’t think it really fazes him one way or the other. It is more a testimony of how I am, and want to be no longer… “I am now ready that you should have all of me, good and bad…”

And in the midst of these prayers I became incredibly grateful for the man who taught  me to pray in such a way; who called me to be the kind of man that could finish a year at The Seattle School; who taught me how to live in spite of my best efforts toward destruction. He and I don’t walk the same path any longer and I am sad about that, and I am eternally grateful that God would place this non-Trinitarian /non-Christian in my life to teach me about Jesus and what it means to follow Him. I still remember telling him, “David, I find it remarkable that God has chosen to use you to teach me more about Jesus than I ever learned in Sunday School or seminary; but then again, if He can use an ass to speak to the Israelites, I’m sure he can use you to speak to me.” I’m here in large part because David listened to God and then gave me what he had been given by another who went before him.

For too much of my life I limited God. He could only speak through approved channels: The Bible and/or a Bible believing (and by that someone that believes the Bible the way I do) pastor or friend. God was small and I was scared. I’m still learning that He is bigger than I can possibly imagine. (Kant was at least right about that.) He can speak through whatever means He chooses. He can even speak through a Unitarian/Universalist or King JAmes only fundamentalist. The trouble is not that He isn’t speaking, but that I don't listen because I don’t believe he speaks that way or through that medium. And so I miss out.

The rain didn’t stop, and God gave me one of the most glorious sunsets I have ever seen, complete with a rainbow on the other side of the freeway. I laughed so hard at His glory that I had to bring my speeding bike back under control. I have a strong feeling that He was laughing with me.

Remember the day between

There is a day in between, between Good Friday and Easter I mean. We often forget it and yet it is the day that most closely resembles the age in which we live. It is the day of death; and none of us want to spend much time there. We'd much rather race from the cross to the empty grave. And yet Jesus, went to Sheol when he died, like every man who died before him. He carried our sins there and waited in the dark, separated from his Dad by the wall of sin that he took with him, not knowing what would become of him. Death embraced him. He felt the loneliness and the isolation that those who don't choose God choose for themselves, and he had no way of knowing how long the torment of complete abandonment would last.

It sounds familiar, doesn't it? When we are honest, we admit that our stories are couched in the fear of abandonment and being cut off from any real connection with others. We cry out to be truly known and yet we are not. We live in a broken world, feeling like no one really knows us and we don't really know them either; and still we trust that God will redeem us and put it right. And he does. However, many don't know the freedom and hope the Spirit gives, still others choose to ignore Him and His gifts; choosing to stay in the dark -- alone -- where they feel safe.

And me? I'm called to hang with them the way Jesus hung with me. And really, it is not hyperbole -- my darkness was black. I don't want to revisit it, and yet revisiting the blackness; hanging out in the dark is what my Lord has asked me, and those of you that call him Lord, to do. We don't like His command, "As Dad sent me, I am sending you..." and so we spiritualize it, taking its sting away. The reality is, that Jesus wants us to live in the reality of death with all those who don't know life; the same way he came to live with us.

He wants us to embrace the coldness and the darkness that is Holy Saturday* and trust him to bring resurrection to the world that is still dead. We, like Jesus undoubtedly felt before us, want to escape the grave and skip ahead to Easter. We can't rush. The world needs us, and is counting on us to hang out and love, even as he loved us. He doesn't want us to condemn wrong choices. He doesn't want us to share four laws or the bridge diagram, or even the Romans Road. He wants to incarnationally come alongside and carry our friends' and neighbours' burdens. He wants us to walk with them and cry with them and help them up when they fall down. He wants us to love like he did. That means we live in the death, bringing life and light to the darkness.

This takes boldness that is beyond us. That is OK. Jesus' ministry was beyond him too. The Spirit empowered him to love the way he loved and do some of the wild and wonderful things he did. We have that Spirit too. It is only by His power that we can endure death while remaining alive. And this is the wonder of the gospel. We are to live in the midst of death. We are to embrace Holy Saturday.

*I owe a debt to Dr. Chelle Stearns who asked me to read Shelly Rambo's book, The Spirit & Trauma. Rambo opens doors for her readers in her wonderfully accessible book. It is not, nor does it intend to be, the final word on Holy Saturday,(For more on Holy Saturday investigate Balthasar) and yet it opens up new possibilities for readers who are thinking about what to do with God and the trauma this world offers its inhabitants.

The calling to the work I do now

Listen to me, you coastlands!
Pay attention, you people who live far away!
The Lord summoned me from birth;
he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
he hid me in the hollow of his hand;
he made me like a sharpened arrow,
he hid me in his quiver.
He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, through whom I will reveal my splendor.”
But I thought, “I have worked in vain;
I have expended my energy for absolutely nothing.”
But the Lord will vindicate me;
my God will reward me.
So now the Lord says,
the one who formed me from birth to be his servant—
he did this to restore Jacob to himself,
so that Israel might be gathered to him;
and I will be honored in the Lord’s sight,
for my God is my source of strength—
he says, “Is it too insignificant a task for you to be my servant,
to reestablish the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the remnant of Israel?
I will make you a light to the nations,
so you can bring my deliverance to the remote regions of the earth.” Is 49.1-6 NET

Leighton gave these words from Isaiah to a few of us over twenty years ago. He keyed on the words which in the NIV read, “It is too small a thing…” asking us, pleading with us not to be about "too small a thing". I like the way the NET translates it, “It is too insignificant a task…” They are remarkable words. Think about the task he labeled "too insignificant..." it was bigger than him. It was bigger than he capabilities and perhaps even his wildest dreams – to restore Israel to its place, bringing back the exiles and giving them their promised glory. And that wild dream, was too small, or too insignificant a thing.

Those words stay with us. We pass them on often. And I know that they came to the forefront of my thinking recently. Dan called us to something simliar in our class entitled, "Faith, Hope and Love" last term. "If we can achieve it ourselves, it is not truly hope."

I received an email from the Dean of Students last term at a point where things were starting to get a bit dicey emotionally, financially, etc… He asked to get together. Because I commute from Portland, it didn’t happen until a couple of weeks ago.

Now, at The Seattle School, the Dean of students, who looks like the fifth member of Nirvana, is the student body's friend. He is our pastor, and he not only epitomizes love, he epitomizes Pacific Northwest cool. Did I mention he has a huge capacity to love?

After I left his office, running to get to my theology course (well walking quickly down the stairs), I began the process of unpacking our conversation which had been a conversation about my place and calling in the world, and my place and calling at The Seattle School.

I pastor pastors. It is what I do because God called me to it. He called me to it because of where I have been, what I've done, and what has been doone to me. The further I get into my course of study the more amazed I become at how God set me up for this. Not manipulated into it, but created for it. He allowed me to make all the mistakes I needed to make, and experience all the pain that I needed to experience in order to be the person I am supposed to be in this moment I find myself.

For the time being my job at Clergy Recovery Network is to get my support in, to support Dale Woolery– the Founder -- to the best of my ability, and take on a very light load of pastors in crisis, to help them through at least until they can see some glimmers of light. It is also to do the work of a good student.

For, you see, helping pastors and their families through crisis is a noble and wonderful thing, but it is also too small a thing. The church is broken in so many ways, and as a result, it often hurts people it wants to love. It often turns people away from the One it wants to call them to. And it has become a corporation that more often than not, views authority as James and John (see Mark 10) rather than the views of Jesus whom they were following.

In my current situation, the church that I am more often than not likely to call home, is living out its own sin now.The sin has always been there it is in DNA that I passed onto them, and another pastor grew in them. Now it is simply killing my friends’ souls. In the midst of there slow, unknowing dying I am called to love them even as they continue in their sinful ways, because that is what Jesus does for me.

That leads me to my work now which preimarily resides at the Seattle School: first, to learn the craft of the counselor (I can deal with addicts and anons in the realm of recovery, and I need to move beyond those simple borders); second, I am reading and preparing to write on ecclesiology in light of the capaciousness of the Triune Godhead and His splendiferous Spirit; and third to piece together some thoughts about pastors, addiction and spiritual abuse. That is my current work at The Seattle School. I can think of no better place to do this work.

In addition, I am already meeting with a former pastor struggling with demons. (Those meetings are off book.) And am looking to start meeting with more as finances allow. If you aren't already, I'd love you to be a part of this. Join me. Join us, and lets change the Church together.

Peter Grieg's book Disappoints Me

Occasionally I will write something for school that I think is worthy of further dissemination. I will adapt those papers for the blog and post them. Here is my response to Peter Grieg's book, God on Mute (Eastbourne, Sussex, England, David C Cook, 2007)

Often one goes to a movie with such high expectations that even though it’s a good movie, it disappoints because expectations were not met, having been set too high to begin with. This
is what happened to me with Grieg’s book, God on Mute. Having read the forward, by Brian McClaren, my expectations were too high. I wanted something new coming from a post-foundationalist author who would provide new ways of talking about prayer in an ultra-subjective and skeptical age. Grieg did not accomplish this. Occasionally he would tease me with what it could be but never get there.

He formed his book around the rhythms of Holy Week. It was not until chapter twelve that I understood why. In chapter 12 he touches on the reality that we still inhabit the Kingdom of the “already / not yet.” We have not reached Easter morning in our own lives. Our resurrection and the final answers to our prayers will not be realized until that day. True and complete resurrection
still awaits us and so to expect that we should not inhabit a world of death somehow misses the point.[1] I need to be continually to be reminded of this truth and Grieg did so beautifully. This alone probably makes the book worth reading. I only wish all of it was as engaging.

In his chapter entitled, “God’s War,” Grieg retells the story of Jesus’ conversation with Peter.
It was in this conversation that Jesus informs Peter that he is going to deny him. Grieg gets so close to a truth about prayer but never gets there in this chapter. He states, “…sometimes instead of delivering you immediately from evil, Jesus will intercede for you in the midst of your trials.”[2]
I so wanted him to flesh this thought out and wanted to scream that he didn’t do so. For this small prayer seems to be the model of His prayers for his people --  not to take them out of the world but to help them live well and love well in the world which they inhabit.[3] Grieg is clear. God will not override his creation’s free will but he will strengthen those who live in this broken world.[4]
I wanted him to finish the thought but he didn’t.

Nowhere does Grieg challenge the types of prayers I pray, asking God to change my circumstances. Nowhere does he challenge me to pray to trust and be changed by the one who is in control and who will not bring me only so far and then drop me.

Grieg missed an opportunity to help me see that maybe God is silent because I want to use Him as a giant, cosmic “fix-all.” (Though he kind of gets there in his final chapters) I wanted him to re-direct me to see that God wants me to pray so he can change me – rather than all the things that I want him to change in the world. The problem isn’t out there in the big, bad world. The problem is inside of me. He wants to change me. He wants to help shape me into His image and likeness.

God wants me to pour out my heart and desires to him without me demanding that He act in ways I think are best. He wants me to humbly ask Him to give me the faith, the sight, and the courage to receive whatever my world is giving me as a gift so that He can change and mold me to join the resurrection throng.

Having been so dismissive of Grieg, I am grateful for his final stories of God’s love and his suffering with us: hanging with a boy, executed by his Nazi captors,[5] or despairing with a grieving husband who lost his wife, after a life full of loss,[6] or hurting alongside an old woman suffering with migraines for the majority of her life.[7] For although these stories may not provide the hope I demand; they provide solace, and in that solace there is peace in the midst of the suffering.

I wanted Grieg to realize that the eschatological hope he points us all to – a real,tangible, bodily hope [8]– can begin now, but he didn’t. I wanted him to call us to ask God to help us see things His way. But he didn’t. I wanted him to let us know that through prayer, and prayer alone, eternal life really and truly can begin now, as we trust The Spirit to work things out His way and to bring us through the fires that will undoubtedly last until our final breaths, so that we will be transformed into His likeness.

I talked to a skeptic that also read the book. Their perspective was that it only gave, “Sunday school answers to hard questions.” I wanted more than that because McClaren promised more than that.[9]
I didn’t get it. I wanted more than He gave. I hoped this book would be as helpful as Bingham Hunter’s The God Who Hears,[10] but it was not. And in that I am disappointed.

 

 

---

[1]
Peter Grieg, God on Mute,  300-315

[2] Ibid.,
p.  209

[3]
See John 15-17, Jesus’ prayer for us.

[4] Grieg,
192-193

[5] Ibid.,
p. 253

[6] Ibid.,
p. 256

[7] Ibid,.
p, 259

[8] Ibid.,
p. 305-307

[9] Grieg,
p. 12

[10]
Bingham Hunter, The God Who Hears.

Why On Earth Are You Going There: A Conversation About the Seattle School

People seem to be scratching their heads over my choice to commute to The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology to complete my MACP degree. It is, afterall, over a 325 mile round trip. Why spend Monday to Wednesday in that dreaded city to the north when we have a fantastic school here in the metro area -- George Fox University, and other options at Multnomah University and Western Seminary as well.

I can't give a clear linear and logical answer. I do know that, in my spirit I became convinced of the rightness of the decision yesterday in our all day orientation. I know there are times I will hate the place, but for now, I really dig the school's ethos.

The first reason I chose the school was Dan Allender. I first met Dr Allender in the early 80's when he was tooling around the country with Dr. Larry Crabb. I attended the Institute for Biblical Counseling somewhere in Michigan and then spent a week in Colorado Springs at the Advanced Institute. I found him to be brilliant, if not a bit reserved and distant. His books, Wounded Heart and Bold Love, written with Tremper Longman were well-used and much appreciated. He and Dr Crabb were formative in my early ministry years.

In 1993 I was a hair breadth away from studying with Dr. Crabb in Colorado. Instead I choose to come home to Oregon, got married and divorced. Started a ministry; and then blew up in a splendid display of narcissistic fireworks.

I needed the journey I've taken to prepare me for this. In an email, my brother called me a white washed sepulchre. He was being too kind. I'm not white washed at all. I needed my journey to figure that out. Dr Allender and The Seattle School welcome broken travellers. If they didn't, I wouldn't be there. I only tend to hang with the broken these days.

Another reason I chose The Seattle School is its tag phrase, "Come study at the intersection of text, soul, and culture."  If I am forced to label myself, I call myself a "post-evangelical." The Seattle School doesn't seem to mind. It seems to welcome confused sojourners like me.

Foundationalism was great for the modern age butI find it to be wholly insufficient an epistomology for the digital age. Though in no way am I a dyed-in-the-wool post-modern, I believe in a relational, and therefore undefinable, epistomology.

The Seattle school roots itself in a narrative/relational theology. It is a safer place for me to explore and expand what I am already learning.

My friend, Mike Munk, told me a long time ago that I wasn't allowed anymore paradigm shifts. They do seem to come at me in bunches. I moved from Fundamental Baptist, to reformed Baptist, to charismatic/reformed baptist, to charismatic house church/reformed/bapistic pastor, to Episcopalian, to semi-Barthian/neo-reformed/sacramental/charismatic/baptistic house church guy...

...Or to put it another way,  I am simply confused...

It is funny that the older I get -- and going back to school with a bunch of twenty somethings has a way of making me feel old -- the less I really know. I'm hoping that my time at the Seattle School will help me learn even less -- because really, when it comes down to it, all that really matters is loving Jesus with everything I've got, and being so loved by Him that I am able to, in the power of the Spirit, love the Father's world as a part of His body. I have a feeling my time at the Seattle School will help me do just that.

I'm looking foward to this journey with some strangers that undoubtedly will become friends. Let the paradigm shifts commence. I Start class next Wednesday.

What Does it Mean for Me to Follow Jesus

This past weekend a church gathered and heard testimony of "What it means to follow Jesus." Individuals shared how they were going to to approach their lifes' of discipleship. I thought I'd add my voice to the chorus of the four who testified.

Following Jesus means that I come to the end of myself and realize I can't do it. Even the good in my life is affected by selfishness. My best attempts to follow will always fail. The first step in my journey is realizing that I am incapable of following Him at all.

I slowly realize (it is a daily discovery) that God wants to help me (often times drag me) along the way, and sends His Spirit to empower and enable the impossible. He helps me to the extent that I give up.

I give up my will, my attempts at holiness, my attempts at righteousness, and my worries that I'll never get it right and trust, the Spirit to do what I can't (even when I don't see it.)

I prayerfully, thoughtfully, and carefully inspect all I have done (both good and bad) with and without the Spirit, and then acknowledge to God, myself and another human exactle how I've screwed up and how I've succeeded. I reveal myself. With loving and gentle help I discover my faults and my strengths -- the good and the bad. I trust that God is in who I am, as well as in who I have been, and who I will be.

Once discovered, I have to acknowledge my powerlessness yet again, and I ask the Spirit's help to remove all my sin, even the sin that occasionally works for me.

With the help of my fellow travelers,I make a list, similar to the tax men that followed Jesus, of all the people that I have wronged (even if they have wronged me) and I start asking that same Spirit to empower me to want to make amends to them, cleaning my side of the street to the best of my ability. Then I take action, making those amends doing the cleaning work that needs to be done, taking responsibility for my selfishness, freeing myself from the chains of guilt which hold me down.

Having taken these steps, I find a new freedom in the Spirit that I never dreamt was possible. Life takes on a new dimension. My relationship to Jesus, and my fellows changes. Though not perfect, my trust levels go up. I become willing to make more immediate amends when I screw up in the daily ins and outs of life. I find that I am less fearful of taking ongoing inventories of my life, knowing that the Spirit is in all of it. He doesn't make mistakes. I can trust Him in everything.

I find that I seek His face on everything. My prayer life changes and instead of telling Him how He should behave or how He should arrange things, I seek rather to understand and accept what He has for me in the time that He has it for me. I Become willing to meditate and trust His quiet leading. Things that used to baffle me don't any longer, and I find joy in the trial and the journey.

Having met Jesus in such a way, I'm finding that I want others to know Him too. I want others to be freed from the chains that bind them -- the obsessions, the resentments, the hurts, anger and hatred, and so I a become willing to offer hope in the power of the Spirit and the communion of the Saints.

We really do follow a wonderful Lord!

A Special Letter to TL & Me

Thomas,

Sometime, when you were about four, a mentor of mine told me to watch how I parented you because undoubtedly what I was saying to you was what God wanted to say to me... Since then I try to do exactly that.

You know -- well maybe you don't --  that the thing that breaks my heart more than anything on this planet is the judgment you reserve for your sister. It appears to me that far as you are concerned, there isn't much she can do right. This judgment of yours seems to be a function of a couple of things: 1. You are concerned that her actions will make you look bad. 2. You can't give up your need to be God.

Lets break those down. Again, I do this because I know what I write, though written to you regarding your sister, is also God speaking to me about stuff going on in my life. So below is a letter to us.

1. We need to overcome the idea that someone makes you look good or bad. Remember my chair? One of the legs is: What other people think about me is none of my business. I'll start there. The need to be liked will kill us. We become consumed with what others think about us and are unable to love them because of fear that they may not like us. John in his Epistle addresses this. He writes, "Perfect love casts out fear." True love is not concerned with self at all. It doesn't give a damn what other people think about It

Can you imagine Jesus, being concerned with what people thought about him? Do you think he'd of allowed himself to be stripped naked and hung on a cross? Do you think he'd of allowed all the lies to be told about him? Do you think he'd of allowed the justive system to be twisted until it was no longer recognizeable if he'd cared what others thought of him? Do you think he'd of called the disciples he did? Would He of hung out with the people he chose to spend his time?

No, the thing about Jesus, was he didn't care what others thought about him so he was free to truly love everyone. On top of that, His embodiment of Love was so attractive people couldn't stay away from Him. The same is true for us. The more we don't care what others think. Please note I am not saying that the, "'Fuck it!' scream of resignation," is the same as not caring what people think about us. I am not saying we are not to care about people. I am saying that what others think is none of our business.

When you are in goal this year. If you are worried about screwing up, you will. If you are concentrating on the positive, "Taking control of your box, communicating to your defenders, talking trash to the strikers, etc..." you will rule. You may make mistakes but you won't be controled by your fear.

That is true in life too. We are called to little in this life. We are called to love no matter what. A subset of that is that we are called to love even those we are scared make us look bad.

A long time ago in a State far far away, when I was not fat, had hair, and was dating a stunning beauty at Pensacola Christian College, we chose to hang out with one of the school's outcasts. Monica and I intentionally took him under our wing. He was a few cards short of a full deck, socially awkward, rejected by the rank and file,and  included by us. We pulled him up. He didn't drag us down. We were seen as one of the "power couples on campus" known by all,  and under close scrutiny. Because of that truth we didn't care what anyone thought about us. Our position was secure and we were freed to love, even the unloveable and unliekeable. It was a very cool thing.

You have a friend you do that with now. He is brilliant and socially awkward. He is a poor athlete, and he cries a lot over strange shit, and you like him a lot. Do others' opinion of him affect how you love him? Not as much as they affect how you love your sister. Your self-worth is not determined by the social position, beauty, intellect, or charisma of those you hang out with. It is, however determined in part, by the quality of your love for all those God places in your world.

When we look for the things people do to screw up, we will find them. When we look for their beauty, we will find it too.

I can almost hear you murmuring now, "That is great Dad, and I get it, but you said I wanted to be God?" Or you completely forgot about the second point (which is more likely), but I didn't. So let me clarify for you...

2. Whenever we judge another person, we are attempting a coup de etat against God. Whether is is us judging the Flounders'or Cowboys fan, the Subaru driver, or the Frenchman, we are, in essence taking on the role of God to attach value or devalue someone based upon our own values and judgments. Whenever we think anyone is "less than" or "greater than" we are assuming God's role in the universe and it is a dangerous position to take. Why do you think the New Testament is so clear, "Don't judge, unless you want to be judged." We cannot value or devalue anyone God has created. If you only remember one thing from me, please let it be this. The illegal alien is no less valuable than the white anglo saxon. The angry Muslim growing up on a rock with nothing at all has no less value than the afluent Christian university student majoring in bio-physics.

This one, simple truth is the reason I am a pacifist, am for immigration reform, and stand for Libertarian economic principles. People -- each one -- and all of us together are a creation of God; made in His image, for His glory and greater purpose. We need to love each one as if this is true. That is the radical call of the Kingdom of God. That is what I want to be remembered for living for.

I pray for you and Maggie that you will join me in this Kingdom life. There is no life more agonizing. There is no other life worth living.